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Barack Obama is the fourth US President to receive the Nobel Peace Prize
US President Barack Obama is coming to Oslo, Norway for 26 hours to become the fourth US President in history to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
He also received the diploma, medal and check for $1.4 million for his outstanding efforts to intensify world diplomacy and people-to-people cooperation.
The White House chief arrives in the Norwegian metropolis tomorrow together with his wife Michelle and will be busy all the time.
First, he pays a visit to the Nobel Institute, where he meets for the first time ever with the five committee members who elected him in October from 172 people and 33 organizations.
The presidential couple then scheduled a meeting with Norway's King Harald V and Queen Sonja.
In the afternoon, the visit reaches its climax with the ceremony at which Obama accepts the prestigious award.
He is the fourth US President to receive this, but only the third to receive the award directly in office.
The White House has already announced that Obama will talk about the Afghan war when accepting the award.
The President doesn't want to shy away from this topic because he knows he's taking the prize as a President who is currently at war in two countries.
A few days ago, he intensified the war effort by sending more troops to Afghanistan, something none of his critics fail to emphasize.
At the ceremony, Obama also received the gold medal, diploma and check for ten million Swedish kronor (approx. 24 million Czech koruna).
He intends to donate the money to charity, but he hasn't decided on a specific charitable cause yet.
The program of events then includes a banquet with the President and his wife, which will be attended by Norway's King and Queen, the Prime Minister and a further 250 invited guests.
Obama was very reticent about the price from the start.
He stated, for example, that he felt he didn't quite deserve the award.
He also repeated several times that the award is not just for him, but for everyone who strives for the same values as him.
Immediately after the announcement, he stated that it was "a call to action" for him.
Conservationist accused of extortion
The Leitmeritz police accused the chairman of the citizens' association "Naturschutzgemeinschaft Leitmeritz" of extortion.
In several cases over the past year he has appealed against some construction procedures, for the withdrawal of his appeals he demanded money in his favor from the investors, said Leitmeritz police spokeswoman Alena Romova.
The chairman of the Leitmeritz Nature Conservation Association is Lubomir Studnicka.
He is now in custody and faces up to three years in prison.
The sorting dumpsters in Brno don't smell good
In Prague people can sort the beverage packaging, in the South Moravian towns you can find sorting dumpsters everywhere.
And in Brno?
There you would have to reserve a few minutes to find the appropriate garbage cans.
I don't want to claim that waste sorting in Brno doesn't work at all.
But it seems to me that the councilors don't pay enough attention to this problem, even though we are the second largest city in the republic.
Brno is in the primeval forest league when it comes to waste separation, not only because we as citizens here are only ever allowed to dispose of paper, glass and plastics in the sorting containers, but above all because of the number of garbage cans for such waste.
Have you tried at some point in the center to dispose of the PET bottles in a collection basket, for example?
That's art, above all it takes time and strong nerves.
The only spot I've found by accident so far is Moravian Square opposite the Goose that was hit.
Mr. Onderka and his colleagues shouldn't get angry, but I don't think that's enough.
Apart from the fact that the waste separation is not a cakewalk in other parts either.
Whole rows of my friends therefore prefer not to sort the waste at all.
Out of laziness.
It's too far for them to get to the garbage cans.
I am not surprised.
I even offered to throw away a few glass and plastic bottles after the party.
But on Konicova Street I didn't see any paint bins in sight.
Luckily I came to the right place while driving the tram.
But the garbage almost overflowed.
It's still the center of Brno, which represents the whole city, isn't it?!
However, ecology and some kind of aesthetics probably leave the Brno socialists cold.
They'd rather buy the city a hockey league that will bring shame to us in the whole republic than buy a few more garbage cans and offer to sort more raw materials for a cleaner Brno.
I'm glad that after searching the internet for a while I was able to confirm my assumption with official statistics as well.
According to EKO-KOM data, Brno is in fact the worst in the whole South Moravian region.
The "Paroubek" budget has withdrawn the money for pensions and sick pay
After the Left Party gave more money to farmers and civil servants, despite the government's view, there is no longer any money in the budget for pensions, sick pay and building society business.
But also not for the national debt interest or for the international court disputes.
That will cause even more problems for those who will be in power in the second half of next year, says Finance Minister Eduard Janota.
When the social democrats and communists pushed through the pay rises for some groups, they expected the government to borrow additional money for sensitive expenses, old-age pensions or sick pay. "It's just postponing the problems for the future, minelaying," says Janota.
The interest that is paid on the loans is always higher, and at some point the money has to be repaid.
Too much to choose from, where to get it, the treasury is empty.
If the social benefits or costs for the state enterprise are not reduced, the tax must be increased.
For all those to whom the Left Party now gave more money: the fire brigade, the teachers, the farmers.
And later also for their children.
People don't have to worry about pensions or sick pay, from whose accounts 1.8 billion have disappeared, they get this money.
But at the cost of the state going into even more debt - next year the treasury will not only be short of 163 billion, but far more.
Despite the efforts of Minister Janota, the debt will continue to grow faster and with it the costs and interest.
The state will need the money for the compensation, then it will no longer be sufficient to increase VAT only slightly or to cut maternity benefit, as the government did in its counter-deficit package.
Because of the shifting of money in favor of some electoral groups, five billion will also be missing next year for the expansion of the motorways and railways.
These are mainly the sections won in the competition, which can no longer be redesigned and possibly made cheaper.
At the very most receive what is also not free.
This means that thirty large buildings will be delayed or stopped, and European money creation is also at risk, warns spokesman for the Ministry of Transport, Karel Hanzelka.
The CSSD has proposed that they solve the outflow of money Solomonically - attacking the CEZ stock dividends, where the state owns the majority, and from which the money is then poured into the transport fund.
The problem is that the dividend amount is never certain, and it's by no means an infinite source.
Last year, 18 billion flowed into the budget from CEZ.
Every year, the environmental damage liquidations are paid from the dividends, the pension account is filled up and this money also serves as a reserve for the planned pension reform.
With this trick, according to EU rules, the actual budget deficit increases to the level of 5.7 percent of GDP.
But the carnival of upheavals does not end there.
The budget for various compensations for victims of communism and crimes or for expenses for court disputes, even for building savings, fell by almost three billion.
Whether the state can manage without this money is not certain.
This is pure gambling.
If we lose an international court case, we'll have to pay for it anyway, Janota clarifies.
The minister then has to save the money within the department or, in the worst case, attack the government budget reserve.
A hundred million are also missing for the already started two-billion project "Treasury", which should make it possible to monitor online what the individual authorities are spending the money on.
The first stage starts in January.
If the finance minister doesn't find the money elsewhere, the project would have to be stopped and sanctions would apply, Janota warned.
Your next smartphone will have two operating systems
In the future, Americans are anticipating a mobile phone on which the user can switch between different operating systems by pressing a single button.
The plans presented look promising.
It is enough to press just one button, and within a few seconds Windows Mobile alternately becomes Android.
The American company VMware, which focuses primarily on the development of virtual software for computers, wants to present exactly this possibility.
We enable you to run two user profiles on the phone at the same time.
You can switch between these, you can separate them into two home and work profiles.
Both will work in parallel, Srinivas Krishnamurti from VMware indicated in an interview for Computerworld magazine.
It was presented in November last year and made its debut a few days ago.
It will be on the market in 2012.
The virtualization of smart phones is not fiction.
VMware has already successfully presented the smartphone test sample with two operating systems to the journalists.
One was a modified Nokia N800 with 128 MB of RAM, which simultaneously ran the aforementioned Windows Mobile and Android systems.
The development of the new technology for the mobile phones is in full swing.
Now the VMware company is working together with European and American operators on smartphone virtualization and the devices should come to the customer in 2012.
Lack of snow on the mountains torments the hotel owners
Snowless slopes are not only a concern for residents of the Giant Mountains.
The lack of snow also discourages people from booking ski stays in hotels and guesthouses.
That's why in the Giant Mountains you can still get free rooms for all winter dates including Christmas and New Year's Eve.
Our pages are frequently visited.
People go through the offers and determine the prices, but now they're afraid to place a binding order.
And when they call us, they immediately ask whether, in our opinion, this year's Christmas celebrations will be on snow or "on mud", stated the operator of the information portal Spindl.Info, Martin Jandura.
If you want your New Year's stay at the Spindelmühle to be exactly how you want it, you shouldn't hesitate to place your order.
Those who prefer to save and for whom the quality of their stay comes second can try to wait a few more days.
The Spindelmühle hotel owners now mostly only offer week-long stays for New Year's Eve.
I think they will try to sell these for a while, but then they too will have to back down and cater to shorter times.
And then the free rooms will quickly disappear, Jandura estimated.
The travel agency Ingtours in Vrchlabi always offers free beds on all winter dates.
Now we are most interested in the Christmas week, which is not yet sold out.
In our offer about half of the places are still free.
That's why we have already prepared a few last-minute, cheaper Christmas stays, said Ingtours travel agency director Petr Schiefert.
The Vrchlabi travel agency can also offer New Year's Eve in the Giant Mountains, but there are fewer free places.
The first fourteen days of February also sell well, while the remaining winter dates are sold on average.
Interest in winter stays is also negatively affected this year by the fact that there is always no snow in the Giant Mountains.
People are waiting for snow to fall.
Nobody wants to spend the end of the year in the mountains without snow.
If the slopes are covered with snow within a week, Christmas will also be sold out, says Schiefert.
On the other hand, and a little better than last year, the rooms in Hotel Horizont in Pecpod Snezkou are occupied.
We are about five percent better than last year.
On New Year's Eve and Christmas we only have a few rooms left.
There is a lot of interest in the Polish holidays in January, and business will also be good in February, said the director of the best Pec hotel, Karel Rada.
Hotel Omnia at the central car park in Janske Lazne is also occupied 80 percent for New Year's stays.
On the other hand, half of the beds in the newest hotel in Janske Lazne remain empty at Christmas.
We were pleasantly surprised by January this year, for which we are already about 60 percent occupied.
February is a bit weaker now, but when the snow comes, interest in staying in the Krkonoše Mountains will certainly increase, said the director of the Hotel Omnia, Erik Sporysch.
The Krkonoše hotel owners are now waiting for more snow.
On Thursday it should cool down and if there is any precipitation it should be snow on the mountains.
But after that, warming should come again, informed Jiri Jakubsky from the Czech Meteorological Office in Hradec Kralove.
USA: Repetition is mother of wisdom
It's almost comical with what schoolboy aspirations Barack Obama, the president with the reputation of being the smartest, repeats the strategy of his predecessor on the Afghanistan question, whom he himself considered the dumbest.
When he finally sweated out his long-awaited Afghanistan Doctrine, it turned out that he copied it over the copy paper from the Bush Iraq scenario three years ago.
Not only does he use the phrase "just like in Iraq" several times in the text himself, he has even used the name of the Bush declaration of January 2007 as the name of his own declaration: "New Way Forward" without hesitation.
Three years ago he himself criticized Bush's idea of sending fresh troops to Iraq, which was plagued by civil war, as an "irresponsible decision with tragic consequences."
However, the months that followed showed that the Bush strategy, based on recommendations from the military, was the only possible strategy and was very successful to the extent that Iraq is no longer in the news at all.
This did not improve Bush's reputation, because objectively he left his successor in a much more fortunate position than was to be expected.
In Afghanistan, Barack Obama hopes that the miracle will repeat itself.
He was again asked by the military to increase the troop contingent, above all by the commander-in-chief of the Afghanistan operation, General Stanley McCristal, who, despite the habits of subordination, harshly criticized the hesitant gunmen in the White House.
He called for 40,000 troops to turn the situation around for the better.
The president hesitated for three months, but couldn't think of a better idea, so he cheated the general out of at least 10,000 soldiers.
From Europe he pressed the commitment for another 5,000, even if he himself originally expected at least 10,000.
Most problematic about the whole Obama strategy is his plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in 18 months and to complete this process within three years. The whole Obama doctrine leaves more questions than answers.
Some doubt that the halved increase will have the same effect as the measure in Iraq.
Despite the fratricidal war of recent years, Iraqi society is relatively well structured, and its leaders honor values.
The Afghan situation is marked by the contraindication - nobody can be counted on and no agreements are kept.
In these conditions, it is difficult to prepare the Afghan security forces, who are used to changing their minds every day.
The political institutions, even if they were formally founded correctly, remain only sham structures, behind which the patriarchal tribal relationships will continue to proliferate.
The balancing of interests between the different ethnic groups is unusually complicated, especially given the complexity of the relationships, which further complicates the Pakistani and Iranian influences.
The establishment of a "capable state", which is the minimalist goal of the whole operation, is also very unrealistic.
Time horizon of Obama's strategy alienated by his voluntarism
Over the past eight years, the situation in Afghanistan has only deteriorated and is now on the brink of explosion.
Only a truly romantic soul, undeterred by facts, can believe that the little soldiers who broke out in the war cry about "early return" are creating a miracle here.
Politically, setting the date for the troop withdrawal is sheer irresponsibility because the Taliban will take it as an indirect admission of American defeat.
The last NATO summit showed that the willingness of Europeans to take part in the fighting in Afghanistan is on the wane.
Europe's politicians cannot and do not want to explain to their voters how the security of Germany or Italy is connected to the war in the Hindu Kush foothills.
Another possible factor that can radically affect the situation is the development of events in Iran.
Should the situation continue to deteriorate and the increased sanctions fail to affect the Iranians, the United States will face a very difficult question as to whether the problem cannot be solved with troops.
This question must be answered in the period in which America proceeds to the post-Obama victorious withdrawal from Afghanistan.
However, any solution will also mean a dramatic turnaround in the Afghan situation.
The only consolation for Barack Obama is the fact that the presidential election is three years away, leaving plenty of time for him to resort to another strategy should it prove to be a total failure.
Goldman Sachs bank executives no longer receive award bonuses in cash
Goldman Sachs senior executives will no longer receive cash bonuses this year.
The company announced this in response to harsh criticism of its wage practices.
A group of 30 top managers receive shares instead of the money, which can only be sold in five years.
In addition, managers may be deprived of shares if they act excessively risky.
Goldman Sachs is spearheading efforts to combine Wall Street's rewards with long-term performance, according to Reuters.
I think Wall Street is aware of the broader direction it needs to go, said former JPMorgan banker Douglas Elliott.
The problem is in the details, he added.
Goldman Sachs became the target of criticism after it set aside almost $17 billion for bonuses for the first three quarters of this year.
According to Reuters agency, the total amount of premium bonuses in the course of this year is likely to exceed 20 billion dollars, even despite the measure announced today.
With the onset of the financial crisis, the high premium bonuses in the banking sector have become the hottest political topic in a number of countries.
Britain reported on Wednesday that it intends to impose a one-off tax of 50 per cent on bankers' bonuses exceeding £25,000.
France is also preparing similar steps.
This year, women won the Nobel Prizes in every discipline except physics.
Five record women have today in Stockholm from the hands of the King of Sweden Carl XVI. Gustaf took over this year's Nobel Prizes in the specialist categories and for literature.
In addition to the four scientists, the German writer of Romanian descent, Herta Müller, was also among them.
Two American biologists, Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider, received the Nobel Prize for Medicine together with their compatriot Jack Szostak for research in the field of chromosomes.
The Israeli Ada Jonath received the prize for chemistry together with the Americans, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz, for elucidating the structure and function of the ribosome.
The last laureate awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics, which the American Elinor Ostrom and her compatriot Oliver Williamson received for their analysis of the economic report.
The only discipline in which no woman received a Nobel Prize this year was physics.
The scientists Charles Kao for research in the field of glass fibers and George Smith together with Willard Boyl for the CCD chip invention, which is the basis of all digital cameras, fax machines or astronomical telescopes, received this award today.
Each of these laureates received a diploma, a Nobel medal and a certificate of receipt of the cash award.
It is ten million Swedish crowns in each category.
If there are multiple prizewinners in each category, the cash prize will be split among them.
As is tradition, the American President, Barak Obama, received the most awaited Nobel Peace Prize this afternoon in Oslo.
In his speech, he acknowledged the controversy surrounding his appointment because he is only at the beginning of his journey, and moreover, he is at the helm of a country that is waging two wars - in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In keeping with his policy, however, he added that wars are necessary in certain situations to achieve world peace, even if the price is high.
Minister Janota is considering resigning. Klaus invited him to the castle
On Friday morning, President Vaclav Klaus receives Finance Minister Eduard Janota, who is considering staying in government because he does not agree with the implementation of the state budget for next year in the form approved by the Assembly of Deputies on Wednesday .
It is believed that the budget and perhaps Janota's retention in the cabinet will be the topics of Friday's meeting.
The budget is also criticized by Klaus.
According to him, the budget deficit is too high, which also deepens the public finance crisis.
Presidential spokesman Radim Ochvat informed about the meeting.
Janota wants to negotiate with Prime Minister Jan Fischer on Monday about staying in his position.
According to the budget law, which Klaus will now have to sign, the Czech Republic should run a deficit of 163 billion crowns.
However, in parliament on Wednesday the Left Party proposals for the circulation of funds were voted on and the money for civil servants' salaries, for the maintenance of social benefits and direct wages for farmers was increased.
The government has countered the Social Democrats' proposals with the fact that they covertly increase the budget deficit.
A sharp internal political dispute has therefore arisen between the Left Party on the one hand and the government, Klaus and Right Party, on the other hand, which is why there is a question mark about the further work of the Fischer civil servants’ cabinet, on the shaping of which the ODS, CSSD and Green party agreed in spring.
Critics claim that the budget, as passed by Parliament, effectively wipes out the package of austerity measures pushed through by the Fisher government last autumn, which they understand is intended to end public debt.
Klaus, who can but is not required to sign the law on the state budget, explained at the breakfast discussion with businessmen today that politicians have long neglected the "serious problem" that constitutes "the unsustainable deficit" in public finances.
In his opinion, there is no longer a good solution today.
Only a strong government that could build on a broader consensus among the political parties could bring about an improvement.
ODS Chairman Mirek Topolanek stated that the budget is terrible and the government should consider its continued existence.
The ODS deputy chairman, Petr Necas, told the CTK that the concept of the cabinet of civil servants with the support of the CSSD, ODS and Green Party obviously no longer works.
Prime Minister Fischer described similar words in the editorial office as "strong sayings".
CSSD chief Jiri Paroubek, responding to Topolanek's words, said the budget deficit that Topolanek's previous government had prepared for this year is horrific, exceeding 200 billion kroner.
As early as Wednesday, the CSSD rated the approval of the state budget for next year as a success.
The People's Party was also satisfied.
Mandela was played by Morgan Freeman in Clint Eastwood's new film
South Africans claim that the new Hollywood film 'Invictus: The Undefeated' will show the world much of the country's struggles and victories, despite some criticism that the lead role has been cast by an American actor.
The story is about sports, race relations and Nelson Mandela.
The life story of American Oscar actor Morgan Freeman portrays the tireless fighter against the racist apartheid system of government in South Africa and its first black president, Nelson Mandela.
Freeman said he was asked by 91-year-old Mandela to play him in the Eastwood film.
Matt Damon takes on another significant role.
I told him, "If I'm going to play you, I have to meet you.
The 72-year-old actor, who received the award for his role in Eastwood's boxing drama 'Million Dollar Baby,' has already portrayed the leader of the abolitionist-turned-slave-owner movement, a fictional USA Presidents, and also God in "Evan Almighty", but rarely anyone who is still alive and is as important to many people as Mandela.
The former South African statesman was imprisoned for 27 years for his active role in ending apartheid in the South African Republic.
He was released in 1990 and became President of the country for four years.
In 1993 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
"Invictus" is Latin for "unbeaten", and is also the name of a poem by English author William Ernest Henley published in 1875.
The requirement was to speak like him
The film tells a true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with South African rugby captain Francois Pienaar to unite the country. The new President Mandela knows that even after apartheid, his people will still remain racially and economically divided.
He believes he can unite his people through sport, so he decides to unite rugby players who are among the underdogs in the world.
Eventually, the South African team climbed up to the 1995 World Cup.
Freeman worked for several years to bring the Mandela story to the big screen.
He had no other goal than to play the role in a way that was as close to reality as possible, Freeman said.
The biggest challenge, of course, was speaking like him.
The actor said that if he and the world leader were in the same country, he would try to meet with Mandela, have dinner with him and be backstage before his speech.
The most important thing for him was to shake hands with Mandela.
I have found that when I shake your hand, I take your energy, it transfers, and I felt like I knew how you were feeling, he said.
It is important for me to have become a different person.
In the film, Matt Damon portrays François Pienaar, captain of the national rugby team in which the white players prevailed.
The actor said he had six months to prepare for the role in the tough rugby world.
It was a great surprise to him when he met Pienaar in his house for the first time.
I remember when I rang the doorbell he answered and the first thing I said to François Pienaar in my life was: 'In the film I look much taller'.
Despite the apparent differences in the actors' physiques compared to their actual counterparts, directed by Eastwood, Invictus: Undefeated has received positive reviews and has been tipped for an Oscar.
The Daily Variety film critic Todd McCarthy summed up his assessment: "It was a very good story, a very well executed film."
In the film reviews on the rottentomatoes.com website, Invictus received 76 percent positive ratings.
Light secret over Norway solved: The Russians have tested a rocket
A special light effect of unknown origin was observed over Norway.
The Russian Defense Ministry admitted just yesterday that an intercontinental ballistic missile was being tested near the Norwegian border.
However, the launch was unsuccessful again and the missile, dubbed the "Bulava" type, which was originally supposed to be the pride of the Russian army, is slowly becoming a nightmare for Russian generals and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Even his repeated presence on site at the rocket tests had no positive effect on the success of the test flights.
Bulava mostly didn't take off at all or was damaged in the air.
The Russian newspapers are already writing about "Bulava" as a "missile that doesn't fly".
A rocket that doesn't fly but glows
This 13th attempt went normally at the beginning.
Technical damage to the rocket only occurred again at the end of the flight.
Presumably, the motor exploded in the third rocket stage.
This time "Bulava" took off from the nuclear submarine Dmitry Donsky, which sailed under the waters of the White Sea.
This type of missile allows launching from the submarine.
Therefore, it is likely that the mysterious light over northern roads caused by an unidentified flying object was actually the damaged "Bulava".
In addition, the Norwegians have not doubted from the first moment that it is a Russian missile.
This time the generals protested and claimed that one cannot clearly speak of a failure.
The first two stages of the rocket did not fail and only the third stage was affected by the accident.
In the previous cases, the engines in the first stage were immediately damaged.
Even if no test launch was without errors, the Department of Defense management considers only six out of thirteen to be unsuccessful.
The almost fifty percent success therefore fills the generals with optimism and so it is further claimed that the "Bulava" will one day fly without problems and will even carry up to ten hypersonic nuclear warheads with a total weight of max. 1.15 tons.
The legendary Fetisov signed a one-year contract with CSKA Moscow at the age of 51
The legendary defender Vjaceslav Fetisov presents himself again at the age of 51 in a professional ice hockey game.
The former World Champion, Olympic Champion and Stanley Cup holder helps his team CSKA Moscow in times of need, and is likely to take on Friday's KHL duel against Petersburg.
Fetisov, who retired at the age of forty in 1998, is currently the President of CSKA.
After Denis Kuljas was injured, we urgently need another defender.
Fetisov has been training regularly and has agreed that he will support the team.
We only need to settle some remaining formalities, the AP agency quoted the coach of Sergei Nemcinov's Moscow club as saying.
Meanwhile, it's not clear if the famous hockey player's comeback will be just one game.
I think that Fetisov is one of those who can boost the morale of other players, listed fellow player Nemcinov.
When Fetisov returns to the rink, he will become the oldest Russian professional ice hockey player after AP.
In the NHL, legendary forward Gordie Howe played a full season for Hartford at fifty-one, recording 15 goals and 26 assists.
The oldest of the famous five, Fetisov, Kasatonov - Makarov, Larionov, Krutov is one of the best and most successful hockey players in history.
In the dress of the Soviet Union he has won two Olympic gold medals, seven world championship titles and he has also triumphed in the Canada Cup and in the junior world championship.
In the second part of his career, he also collected successes in the NHL, where he lifted the Stanley Cup twice in Detroit dress over his head.
He has been a member of the Ice Hockey Star Room since 2001.
Hyundai gave in to the unions. All overtime will be cancelled
The management of the Nosovice car factory Hyundai agreed with the union on the cancellation of all overtime.
Because overtime was often ordered, the union announced its readiness to go on strike on Monday.
This was confirmed by the spokesman for the Hyundai car factory, Petr Vanek.
However, the management wants to agree with the trade unionists on a Saturday shift this week.
We must not give up our production plan, it is a principle, so on Saturday December 19 voluntary overtime was proposed on the grounds that two shifts would be worked, said Vanek.
The Sedmicka.cz website wrote that the company offered a bonus of CZK 400 to employees who would work the Saturday shift.
The employees will also receive it afterwards for the Saturday shift on November 28th.
According to Vanek, the company has decided to change the way employees are motivated to work overtime.
Either they have the overtime surcharge paid or they can take compensatory leave on December 28th and thus extend the Christmas holidays, Vanek stated.
In addition, all employees working the Saturday shift are paid their fare and lunch.
Taking into account that overtime was the most pressing and burning point in terms of demands and complaints from trade unionists who stopped production last week, the management decided yesterday afternoon to cancel all overtime for December with immediate effect, Vaněk said .
Until last week, employees at the car factory were forced to work two hours of overtime practically every day after the eight-hour shift.
Once the agreement is signed, the unions will withdraw their willingness to go on strike.
Further negotiations between the management of the automobile factory and the trade unionists are expected to take place on Friday afternoon.
Union leader Petr Kuchar said on Wednesday that if they can agree on meeting the demands and sign a joint document, they are ready to end the strike.
The situation in the car factory worsened last week, on Wednesday, when around 400 employees spontaneously went on strike because of constant overtime.
They also protested the poor payment terms and alleged harassment.
The management countered that the employees had to work overtime to meet the automobile delivery requirements.
In their Monday readiness to go on strike, the trade unionists also demanded that no sanctions be imposed on the employees who interrupted production last Wednesday.
In the area of overtime, the unions are calling for overtime work to be reduced to a minimum.
In addition, they are demanding payment of 5,000 crowns this year.
The Nosovice Hyundai car factory now employs 2,000 people.
Serial production started at the company in November last year.
Approximately 80,000 vehicles were manufactured here up to this September; the current production capacity is 200,000 vehicles per year.
Czech discovery: a substance that is also effective against 'hardened' HIV viruses
The team of Czech and German scientists is testing new compounds that are supposed to stop the spread of HIV viruses in the body.
The main advantage of the improved substance is that it works even on viruses that are already resistant to drugs.
This fact outweighs the disadvantage that the compound does not act as potently on common virus variants as any of the existing drugs.
The disease AIDS cannot yet be cured.
However, the drug combination can prolong the life of the patient and prevent the HIV virus from multiplying in the body.
However, their intake is accompanied by a whole range of side effects.
Incomplete suppression of virus replication has also caused the development of so-called. Resistant viruses result, against which drugs are no longer effective.
The work of experts from three institutes of the Academy of Sciences CR, from the VSCHT (Chemical-Technological University) in Prague and from the University of Heidelberg opens the way to deal with virus resistance.
They have demonstrated that the substances known as metalocarboranes act on the protein responsible for the multiplication of the HIV virus.
The metalocarboranes are compounds of boron, hydrogen, carbon and cobalt.
These compounds block virus replication in a different way than all drugs used today, so they can overcome the resistance problem.
In their work, the scientists arrive at new 'improved' compounds that have been prepared on the basis of knowledge of the molecular mechanism of their binding to the viral protein.
The metalocarboranes have a unique three-dimensional structure: two multiple cages composed of boron, hydrogen, and carbon atoms coupled by a metal atom, in this case cobalt.
Insidious and persistent virus
HIV protease is a protein in the HIV virus that is essential to the life cycle of the virus.
Without the HIV virus cleavage caused by the HIV protease, mature infection virus particles would not form.
When we turn off the HIV protease, we also turn off the virus replication in the patient's body, the scientists explain in the press release issued by the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Academy of Sciences CR.
In the work, which was published in the scientific journal Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, the scientists describe a series of compounds in which two pairs of cages (see table) are linked by a short organic chain, which is then systematically modified further.
Slightly weaker but more reliable
The effect of this panel of compounds against the HIV protease was tested in vitro, including against its persistent (resistant) variants obtained from HIV-infected patients.
The effect of metalocarboranes on the usual enzyme variant is not as strong as on clinically used drugs, but it does not lose its effect on resistant variants against which the used drugs are often ineffective.
The unique mechanism of action and their other properties, such as biological and chemical stability, low toxicity and the possibility of further chemical configurations, make metalocarboranes interesting compounds for further research aimed at developing effective anti-HIV drugs, says Pavlina Rezacova, head of the Structural Biology Laboratory the Institute for Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Institute for Molecular Genetics of the Academy of Sciences.
Dispute over budget. ODS attacked Fischer, who defended himself
ODS chairman Mirek Topolanek described the approved budget for next year as "horrible" and, in his opinion, the government of Jan Fischer's prime minister should reconsider its continued existence.
The prime minister described the statement by the ODS as "strong statements".
Supposedly it takes time for analysis.
ODS Deputy Chairman Petr Necas said that with the support of the CSSD, ODS and Green Party, the concept of the cabinet of civil servants obviously no longer works.
According to Necas, the prime minister must decide whether he intends to lean on the minority in parliament to fight the rising deficit or whether he intends to remain in office with the help of the parliamentary left.
The approach of the ODS and the Social Democrats to the issue of public deficits is diametrically different, Necas pointed out.
Parliament approved the budget for 2010 on Wednesday, albeit with left party proposals for changes amounting to more than 12 billion crowns.
Parliament has increased money for civil servants' salaries, for the maintenance of welfare payments and for direct payments to farmers.
The government countered the Social Democrats' proposals with the fact that they were secretly increasing the budget deficit.
The Czech Republic should manage with a deficit of 163 billion crowns.
The ODS left the hall before the vote, thus complying with the government's request, because the amended budget is only a less bad version of the provisional budget. Frase not clear
disappointment and frustration
Finance Minister Eduard Janota spoke about his disappointment and sense of futility, while Prime Minister Jan Fischer said the government is still assessing the current situation.
Necas is convinced that if Janota had seriously threatened to resign if the proposed amendments were accepted, the situation would be different.
According to Czech television, Janota has registered with the prime minister for Monday after government business.
He indicated that he was considering staying in office.
The reason for this is his disappointment with the negotiation of the budget.
According to Necas, the nominators of the Social Democrats (CSSD), who pushed through the changes in the budget, have nothing to do with the extent to which Fischer speaks out in favor of continuing to fight the budget deficit.
The prime minister should also make it clear that he will resign if parliament continues to pass deficit-increasing legislation, such as that on sick pay and pensions or the service bill amendment.
Topolanek: The ministers nominated by the ODS were not wrong
That is up to Prime Minister Fischer and the whole government.
The ministers nominated by the ODS made no mistakes, Topolanek stressed in a text message from the United States.
It mentioned that in some ministries there are people in deputy positions who are committed to TOP 09, which voted against the budget.
Necas stressed that if Fischer decides to abandon the fight against the deficit level of public finances, "it is perfectly logical and correct that he relies on the left-wing majority that is currently in parliament".
Then he allegedly cannot count on the support and tolerance of the Citizens' Democrats.
I haven't thought about it, and if it becomes relevant then I'll deal with it, said Defense Minister Martin Bartak, who was nominated by the Citizens' Democrats, to journalists in parliament.
In the afternoon, Prime Minister Fischer flew to the European Council meeting in Brussels.
The ODS resigned at the request of the Prime Minister
At the same time, Necas stressed that the ODS would likely vote against the amended budget in parliament on Wednesday if the prime minister specifically asked the Civic Democrats to allow the budget to be adopted.
We don't feel like orphans, we're not little children, is how he then reacted to the question of whether the ODS was pushed back during the political negotiations on the budget due to the absence of the party leader in parliament and in the Czech Republic.
I didn't realize that my voice would be missing.
Even when I gave up the mandate, I knew that the main focus in the next few months would be to Bolshevist Parliament and destroy everything positive, Topolanek himself reacted.
According to the new CD (Czech Railways) timetable, fewer trains will run for roughly the same fare.
From December 13, Czech Railways will terminate or limit some less busy express and local trains, while other connections will be strengthened.
From the day the new timetable comes into force, the total volume of traffic will be reduced by two percent compared to today.
Most tariffs including base and customer fares will not be changed.
Residents of the Ostrava region, for example, have several connection options to the capital, and the railway uses Pendolino trains for this route.
The express train will no longer go to Bratislava (Pressburg).
Fewer express trains will also run on the Prague - Pisek - České Budějovice route, and direct connections from Prague to Letohrad will be reduced in principle.
The railway is planning the largest reduction in the Hradec Kralove (Königsgraz) district, by a total of eight percent, while Prague and the surrounding area can look forward to an increase.
Two night trains on the Prague - Tabor - České Budějovice route will also be canceled and the operation of some express trains on the Prague - Pisek - České Budějovice route will be reduced to a few days a week.
One of the biggest changes is the introduction of a new direct route from Milovice to Prague, currently residents of Milovice have to change trains in Lysa nad Labem.
This is the fifteenth transport route of the Esko suburban transport system, the opening of which is possible thanks to the railway electrification from Lysa nad Labem to Milovice.
The long-distance routes to the capital will end in the destination station Prague - Main Train Station.
The CD will introduce more connecting lines SC Pendolino between Prague and Ostrava and the trains to Sumperk/Jesenik will run every two hours.
Passengers have not been able to travel to Bratislava with the Pendolino since December 13.
This year's bill for regional railways: increase of 200 million
The express trains have been ordered and paid for by the Ministry of Transport, and the railway will receive a total of four billion crowns next year to compensate for the so-called loss of liquidity, just like this year. The local trains supply the districts, and they will pay a total of eight billion crowns for this in the next year, with the state contributing three billion.
This year regional trains are 200 million Czech crowns more expensive.
For local trains and express trains, the railway has newly concluded a ten-year contract, up to now the contract has only ever been concluded for one year.
The railways praise the system, which may be why they have not resorted to raising the price of the vast majority of tickets.
Only one-day network tickets CD Net and cheap Internet tickets eLiska will be changed.
For passengers without a customer card, the CD Net price will increase from 450 CZK to 600 CZK.
The eLiska price will then depend on the route traveled, until now it was uniform for travel between any district towns and cost 160 crowns.
Filipino millitants arrest more than 50 people, the children have been released.
Millitants abducted 75 people, including some elementary school students and their teachers, in southern Philippines today.
This was cited by the AFP agency, which originally only informed about 65 kidnappers.
All 17 children detained were released after eight hours, including a teacher.
The abduction took place in the province of Agusan del Sur.
About 19 millitants allegedly used the hostages as a living shield while fleeing the police.
The local negotiators are now trying to get the remaining hostages released.
According to the AFP agency, the millitants belong to the New People's Army (NPA), which is the arms faction of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
According to the AP, police were pursuing the kidnappers over the violence, which prompted acts of revenge between the two local family clans.
In the southern Philippines, in Maguindanao province, martial law has been imposed over the recent massacre that killed 57 people.
Thirty journalists were among the victims of the November 23 massacre, which was linked to the gubernatorial election.
The governor of this southern Philippine province and his father Andal Ampatuan, patriarch of the influential Ampatuan clan, have been arrested on suspicion of participation in the massacre.
Muslim separatists are also active on the island of Mindanao.
But they resumed peace negotiations with the Philippine government on Tuesday.
South African history affects everyone, says Morgan Freeman, aka Nelson Mandela
In the next few days Clint Eastwood's new Hollywood film "Invictus: The Undefeated" will be released in American cinemas, which includes part of the life story of the former President of the Republic of South Africa, Nelsona Mandela.
The role of the world-famous fighter against apartheid has been given to Morgan Freeman, who was allegedly chosen by Mandela himself a few years ago.
The supporting role of legendary South African rugby champion Francois Pienaar has been given to Matt Damon.
With the theatrical release of the film, reactions from critics and the public are loud.
Nelson Mandela
His full name is Nelson Rolihlaha Mandela, born on July 18, 1918 in Mvez, South Africa.
In 1988 he received the Sachar Prize, and in 1993, together with de Klerk, the Nobel Peace Prize.
He was elected President of the Republic of South Africa in 1994-1999.
Great expectations are placed on the film because it is coming to the cinemas at a time when preparations for the World Cup are culminating in South Africa, but at the same time the media is presenting the world with alarming news about increasing racial hatred and discrimination against the local population shake black ruling majority.
According to the AP news agency, reactions to the new film in South Africa have been consistently positive for the time being, despite numerous reservations about casting American Hollywood stars in the lead roles.
In his own words, Morgan Freeman is still proud of the new film.
I dreamed of this role for many years and prepared well for it.
I also met Nelson Mandela several times in person, so that I can - as they say - receive his energy, he stated in the interview after the film's festival premiere in Los Angeles.
I think it's good if we can remember Mandela's personality and his message with this film.
It's a South African story, but it affects everyone, he added.
In national rugby team uniform
The film, based on the book by British writer John Carlin, portrays the South African human rights advocate during his first presidential term.
Morgan Freeman strives throughout the film to bring together two racially and historically distinct populations and, like Nelson Mandela in 1995, he steps out in his role in South Africa's national rugby kit, which South Africa won at the time.
Fourteen years ago, Mandela earned a big ovation, mostly from the white audience, for stepping onto the lawn in a dress, which is almost a sacred act in South Africa, and has thus won the recognition of the white population.
The rugby championship may be able to reunite the people as one nation, said rugby player Chester Williams, who was the only "black" national team in 1995.
It remains to be seen whether the tense situation in South Africa will improve.
But white South Africans are skeptical, as revealed in a recent interview for LN by rugby fan Christopher Dawson, who fled the country to Britain.
The championship begins on June 11, 2010.
In the Louny area, transformers burn for several tens of millions of crowns
The fire broke out in the morning at the Ceps transformer in the switchgear near the municipality of Vyskov in the Louny region.
According to the spokesman for the Usti nad Labem district fire brigade, Lukas Marvan, six units intervened in the fire.
Originally, the fire brigade wanted to let the transformers burn out, but later they changed their mind and now the fire is extinguished with a mixture of water - foam and special extinguishing agents.
The cause was a technical defect, an internal short circuit in the transformer.
No one was injured, according to company spokeswoman Pavla Mandatova, the accident did not endanger the safety of the pipeline system.
The damage was estimated at several tens of millions of crowns, the damage can only be quantified more precisely after the fire.
According to Mandatova, the destroyed transformer must be replaced with a new one.
Nothing similar has happened at the Ceps company for more than 10 years, errors of this kind are rare, she added.
According to Sona Holingerova, CEZ spokeswoman for North Bohemia, the power supply was not interrupted, the fire in the transformer station did not affect the functionality of households, authorities and companies.
AG Ceps operates on the Czech territory as the sole operator of the transmission system, 400 kV and 220 kV electrical lines.
It maintains, renovates and develops 39 substations with 67 transformers, with which the electrical energy is transmitted in the distribution system and line route with a length of 4339 kilometers.
Jancura files defamation charges against three CSSD leaders.
Student Agency owner Radim Jancura is today filing criminal charges of defamation against three social democratic leaders.
Against Michal Hasek from the South Moravian Region, Radko Martinek from the Pardubice Region and the head of the Olomouc Region, Martin Tesarik.
Jancura said so in a 20 minute interview in Radio Journal.
The lawsuit relates to the company's effort to operate regional rail services in some counties.
However, all regions finally signed long-term contracts with Czech Railways.
All three leaders attack us and say we're taking out the raisins, when we only made the offer on the scale agreed with them.
They claim that we are more expensive than Czech Railways because we know the prices of Czech Railways that were finalized last week.
So we have no choice but to defend ourselves.
Because of this slander of the Student Agency society, Jancura told Radiojournal.
At the same time, he stated that he has evidence from all districts that they have taken their steps in accordance with European law.
That is why we are preparing an indictment for the European Commission.
Hasek considers the filing of criminal charges to be a continuation of Jancura's media show, which he uses as free advertising for his company and for himself.
I am, of course, willing to defend my good name and the good reputation of my district, and I encourage other leaders to do the same.
I assume that in this matter too it will become clear that it is Jancura who is manipulating the public and using lying and untrue arguments in the matter of regional railway transport, Hasek said.
Jancura reported last week that he had invested several million kroner in advertising that will draw attention to the districts' adverse move.
He told Radio Journal that he will pause the campaign after Christmas and intend to resume it after the New Year.
He specified that he will lead the campaign against corruption as such.
Jancura launched the campaign after the districts, at the instigation of regional rail transport, came to an agreement with Czech Railways and did not put out any tenders for the contract worth around CZK 150 billion.
According to Vancura, such behavior is illegal and contrary to the requirements of the European Court of Justice.
According to Jancura, a member of the CSSD has already threatened him because of the criticism of the train service in the districts.
The only threat was that if we didn't give up, we could also lose the bus licenses.
He introduced himself as a member of the CSSD, I know who it is, I won't say his name, Jancura told Radio Journal today.
Vaccination against pneumococci free and voluntary
Vaccination against pneumococci will change the usual from January.
It should be the first for families to be free and voluntary.
But there are already voices saying that compulsory vaccination would be more effective.
Preparations for the introduction of free pneumococcal vaccination are culminating.
The drug institute is already setting the maximum prices for vaccines that health insurance companies have to pay for.
Those skilled in the art are also aware of the vaccination procedure.
New vaccination
Vaccines free for August children
From January, children born on August 2 last year and later can be vaccinated against pneumococci free of charge.
The condition is that they have not yet received a vaccination dose.
Anyone who started vaccination last year or earlier must also pay for further repeat vaccinations themselves.
The first vaccine dose must be given between the 3rd and 5th month of the child's life.
A quarter of families had their children vaccinated against pneumococci last year.
Parents paid 1600 kroner and more for a dose.
Four doses are required to vaccinate the youngest children.
Overall, experts estimate that health insurance companies spend 300,000 to 450,000 kroner a year on vaccine doses.
However, you save on the treatment that the children would need if they were not vaccinated.
Until now, the state has spent around 500,000 per year on all children's vaccinations.
The mandatory vaccination was introduced with the so-called Janota package.
Pneumococci cause otitis media, but also serious infections including meningitis and blood poisoning.
According to studies in hospitals, up to 28 children aged up to 10 years die in our country every year from pneumococcal infections.
Outside the Czech Republic, compulsory vaccination of children against pneumococci was introduced in about 40 countries.
Will vaccination be mandatory?
At the same time, it is said that this vaccination could be mandatory in the future.
From January this should be paid for by the insurance companies and be voluntary.
For example, the head of the Nahlas civil association, Rudolf Kalovsky, mentioned that compulsory vaccination would be better.
His association has been promoting pneumococcal vaccination for a long time.
The professionals at the international conference our association attended were not very happy that we have voluntary vaccination.
That's not exactly ideal.
On the other hand, we are glad that we managed to achieve at least that.
I think that's the way we have to go now, Kalovsky said.
However, the Ministry of Health does not want to change the vaccination procedure against pneumococci.
At the moment we are not considering it at all, said his spokesman Vlastimil Sesen.
The voluntary vaccination has its disadvantages, the doctors claim.
The head of the professional society of pediatricians Hana Cabrnochova admits that voluntary vaccination has its disadvantages.
If all children were vaccinated, then one could think about reducing the number of revaccinations. "In a situation where the vaccine is so expensive, we understand the political decision that this vaccination was started as a voluntary one," says Dinger Cabrnochova.
Experts expect that more than 80 percent of parents will have their infants vaccinated against pneumococci from next year.
The vaccination against pneumococci is also groundbreaking in that it is the first general vaccination to be paid for by health insurance companies and not by the state.
Insurance companies should spend money on prevention, so they save for further treatment, explains Cabrnochova.
The doctors have to buy the vaccines themselves.
However, this is associated with a concern on the part of the general paediatricians, which concerns the purchase of the vaccines.
According to the original plan, the vaccines would be bought by the insurance companies and the doctors would then receive them in the same way as other vaccines given to them by the state.
However, some MPs feared that the insurance companies "could take the money out of the health insurance".
Therefore, doctors will have to buy the vaccines themselves and wait for the insurance companies to pay for them.
According to estimates, each general practitioner will have to invest 40,000 crowns per month, which is a significant sum.
It won't be easy at all, says Cabrnochova.
US artist's son involved in "museum theft".
The son of famous American fantasy artist Frank Frazetta has been accused of trying to steal $20 million worth of paintings from his father's museum.
According to the Pennsylvania Police Department, Alfonso Frank Frazetta was caught loading 90 paintings into his vehicle and trailer.
Word is that Frank Frazetta Jr. and another man used an excavator to break into the museum in the Pocono Mountains.
81-year-old Frank Frazetta Sr. is famous for his portrayal of characters like Conan the Barbarian and Tarzan.
As the Associated Press news agency reported, the artist was in Florida at the time of the incident.
AP quoted an unnamed police officer as saying Frank Frazetta Junior may have been motivated by a family feud.
The agency reported that, according to a police affidavit, Frazetta Junior claimed he was instructed by his father "that he should enter the museum by any means necessary to put all the paintings in storage."
The agency said Frank Frazetta Sr. denied granting any permission.
Labor defends budget and tax hikes
Ministers have defended the tax hikes and spending freezes announced in the preliminary budget report against criticism from the opposition, business and trade unions.
The Conservatives said Alistair Darling had "missed an opportunity" to show he was serious about reducing the deficit by delaying decisions until after the election.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer also came under fire for targeting low- and middle-income workers.
His main proposals include a 0.5 percent increase in Social Security and a 1 percent cap on public wage settlements for 2011.
Social Security hassles
Unions have protested that low-wage workers are being penalized for a recession they didn't create and warned of "problems" ahead.
The increase in social security - to around £3 billion a year - has angered the private sector, which says it is a tax on jobs, even though the focus should be on economic recovery.
The increase, limited to those earning more than £20,000 a year, will affect around 10 million workers.
KEY POINTS OF THE PRE-BUDGET REPORT
Increase in social insurance by a further 0.5% from April 2011
This year, the economy will shrink by more than the expected 4.75%
New 50% tax on banker bonuses
1 percent increase in corporate income tax for small businesses scrapped
Tax rebates for electric vehicles and wind turbines
Increase in state pensions by 2.5%
The Treasury estimates that someone earning £30,000 a year will be £90 a year poorer and someone earning £40,000 a year will be £190 poorer, while someone earning £10,000 a year will be £110 richer.
Ministers said their target of halving the deficit by 2013 would mean "difficult choices", but they also said that 60% of the burden of the surcharge would fall on the top 5% earners.
Treasury Secretary Stephen Timms denied that the outlined tax hikes and spending freezes would be "a drop in the bucket" compared to the necessary measures.
"These are big numbers. They will bring us the halving of the deficit and this is imperative over the next four years as well," he told the BBC.
Timms said he was confident the economy would return to growth by the end of the year.
Labour's forecasts of future economic growth - affecting the level of borrowing and the speed of deficit reduction - have been called into question after the Chancellor of the Exchequer was forced to revise earlier figures.
He said in his statement the economy is likely to contract by 4.75% this year - far more than the 3.5% contraction forecast in April - while debt would be higher than before at £3bn estimated.
"Missed opportunity"
The Conservatives, who are set to launch a new campaign on Thursday to warn of Labour's "debt crisis", said the proposed £789 billion debt over the next six years was unsustainable.
They added that ministers have failed to come up with a credible plan for how they will repay this and are "cynically" avoiding difficult decisions until after the elections - which must be held by June 2010 at the latest.
"They haven't said anything of substance about what they're going to do," said Shadow Treasury Secretary Philip Hammond. "They had their opportunity to do this and they let it pass".
"The significant announcements will only be made after the election, whoever wins it."
Roger Bootle, Deloitte
Labor insists that schools, hospitals and the police should be protected from future cuts, unlike the Conservatives' proposals, which see deficit cuts coming faster and sooner.
But the Liberal Democrats said the money gained from the tax hikes and spending freezes will be used to cover next year's spending, not to reduce the deficit, arguing that the plans are "built on sand " be.
BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson said that some of the timing of the announcements - such as the above inflation adjustment to some disability pensions next April - would expose the Chancellor of the Exchequer to vote-snapping charges as the money could simply be clawed back next year.
Labor insists it will provide the extra aid when people need it most and that the situation will be reassessed in September 2010.
"hollow budget"
Although ministers have not announced any budget details beyond 2011, economists say the pressure on public spending will only materialize in the medium term.
The respected institute for tax investigations said the Chancellor of the Exchequer's numbers mean sharp cuts in many areas, possibly including transportation, higher education, science and defense in the future.
"It just puts the pain off for later," said its director, Robert Chote.
"The significant announcements will only be made after the election, whoever wins it," added Roger Bootle, economic consultant at accounting firm Deloitte.
"This was just the hollow pre-budget report. Markets are realizing that."
FBI investigates arrests of US citizens in Pakistan
The FBI is investigating the arrest of five reported US citizens on suspicion of extremist links in Pakistan.
The men were arrested in a raid on a house in Sarghoda, in eastern Punjab province, the US Embassy in Pakistan told the BBC.
The FBI said it is investigating whether these are the same men who went missing in the state of Virginia last month.
The US State Department said they are also looking for information about the men.
Three of them are said to be of Pakistani descent, one is of Egyptian origin and the other is of Yemeni background.
"Of course, if you are an American citizen, we are very interested in the charges against you and the circumstances under which you are being held," said spokesman Ian Kelly.
FBI spokeswoman Katherine Schweit said the agency was aware of the arrests and was in touch with the families of the missing students.
"We are working with the Pakistani authorities to establish their identities and the purpose of their stay there if they are indeed the missing students," she said.
The Pakistani embassy in Washington said the men were arrested at a house owned by the uncle of one of the students.
He said local police had previously taken an interest in the house and that no charges had yet been filed against the arrested men.
Reuters news agency reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declined to comment on the arrests, but said the US must "work more closely with Afghanistan and Pakistan to root out the infrastructure of terrorism, which continues to recruit and train people."
The five students were reported missing by their families in Northern Virginia at the end of November.
Amnesty condemns "abuses" in Iran
According to a report by the human rights organization Amnesty International, human rights in Iran are still just as bad as they have been in the past 20 years.
The report details "patterns of abuse" by the regime both before and after the contested presidential election in June.
A man quoted in the report said he was beaten and burned with cigarettes. Another said he was threatened with rape.
Iran has dismissed previous criticism of its human rights record.
Officials said such criticism was politically motivated.
Thousands of people were arrested and dozens killed in Iran after the contested election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sparking the largest street protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Dozens received prison sentences and prosecutors said at least five people were sentenced to death.
BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne, now in London, said that when the protests began, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei acknowledged some of the allegations of abuse and ordered the Kahrizak detention center to be closed.
But since then there has been zero tolerance for criticism on the part of the authorities, our correspondent said.
"False Confession"
Amnesty International cited the report by 26-year-old computer science student Ebrahim Mehtari, who said he was charged with "working with Facebook networks" and protesting the election results.
"They often slapped me in the face," he was quoted as saying.
"I was burned with cigarettes under my eyes, on the back of my neck, on my head... They threatened me with death and they humiliated me".
After five days, he signed a false confession and was released on the street, still bleeding and semi-conscious, Amnesty International said.
Defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi said some protesters arrested after the election were tortured to death in prison in August and others raped.
Iranian authorities denied the rape allegations but admitted abuses did take place.
Amnesty also cited the case of a former detainee who said he had been held with 75 others in a container at a detention center in Kahrizak for more than eight weeks.
Amnesty acknowledged that Iran's parliament and judiciary had set up a committee to investigate the post-election unrest and the government's response to it, but said Amnesty said the mandates and powers of these bodies were unclear and the findings made by the parliamentary committees had been won were not published.
The group said at least 90 people have been arrested in the past three weeks in a bid to prevent further demonstrations.
A ski slope was set up in the city park
More than 100 tonnes of artificial snow were used to transform a Bristol landmark into a competition slope.
This park event's ski slope attracted 16 semi-professional skiers and snowboarders who competed for cash prizes.
At the top of the slope at Brandon Hill Park there was a short ski jump at the start of a 100 meter long slope.
Fourth-year medical student John Hickman said there was a beautiful view from the top of the hill, but it was also pretty intimidating.
It's a great view with all the city lights twinkling below.
He added: "There are some of the best skiers and snowboarders in the country here - some real talent."
Prizes were awarded for the best feat - or trick - performed on the slope.
After Thursday night's event, the snow will be left to melt.
Still her and us
Can Islam be French?
Pluralism and pragmatism in a secular state.
At a time when Swiss voters have voted to ban minaret construction and concerns about the alleged Islamization of Europe are widespread, John Bowen, an American academic, has written an informed and considered account of whether Muslims are living in one of the most avowedly secularized countries in the world Societies of Europe can be integrated — and will be integrated.
Some readers will read this new book out of admiration for the author's latest work, Why the French Don't Like Headscarves (2006), an elegant and thickly argued study of a controversial issue , which divided and occupied the country for a decade and a half and whose effects can still be felt today.
Bowen's latest book offers a broader and bolder spectrum.
As a good anthropologist, he not only wants to know what the politicians and the media are saying about Islam in France, but what is really happening in the field.
He has spent months in mosques, schools and institutes that now offer what Bowen calls "Islamic freedom" for France's 5 to 6 million Muslims.
He is a good listener, reproducing debates between teachers and students on the issues that bother them the most.
Should a Muslim get married in a mosque or in a town hall (or both)?
Should young Muslims be taught about evolution and gay rights?
Can a Muslim woman marry a non-Muslim man?
Is it permissible for a Muslim to use an interest rate banking system to get a mortgage?
It's these seemingly mundane matters, he claims, that make up everyday life, as opposed to the political dramas that preoccupy the media.
The author recognizes a new generation of imams, teachers and intellectuals, none of them with a well-known name, with the possible exception of Tarik Ramadan, a Swiss-born Arab-Muslim scholar and academic.
This new generation is trying to open the debate on how it is possible to be a good Muslim on the one hand and a good citizen on the other in a modern secular society.
They don't have all the arguments on their side.
Conservatives are suspicious of the idea of French or European Islam.
The thinkers and activists Bowen interviewed are mostly at odds with their Salafi counterparts — advocates of the purist Sunni Islam associated with Saudi Arabia — who show a small but influential presence among Europe's Muslims today.
Bowen thinks that Muslim values and French secularism could be compatible.
But an agreement requires a give and take on both sides.
He questions the extent to which French policymakers (and the intellectual elite who so ardently guard the separation of church and state) are genuinely committed to pluralism.
He suggests that Muslims may receive harsher treatment than Catholics, Protestants and Jews, who in turn have had to make their historic compromise with secular republicanism.
He recognizes a "tightening of the value screws" rather than a growing pragmatism.
Can Islam be French? After reading this book one is inclined to say "Yes, but not yet".
The bleakest view in the world
The Arctic is changing faster and more dramatically than any other environmental region on earth.
The ice that marks them is melting at an alarming rate, taking with it life that cannot survive anywhere else.
Oil, gas, shipping and fisheries interests have entered the newly opened waters with diplomats, lawyers and now authors in their wake.
In On Thin Ice, author and illustrator Richard Ellis draws a natural history of the icon of the North, the polar bear.
Well versed in the complicated history and politics of whaling, he describes the long tradition of Arctic explorers who have proved themselves in the hunt for polar bears.
Admiral Nelson's encounter with a polar bear as a brave 14-year-old midshipman fighting with nothing but the butt of his musket is certainly one legend, but others are true.
Young bears caught swimming behind the bodies of their recently killed mothers have been taken to zoos and circuses.
A circus performance in the early 20th century featured 75 polar bears performing.
Even today, zoo facilities still typically have one-millionth the living area of a wild adult. The climate is seldom suitable: the polar bear in Singapore has turned green from the algae growing in the hollow hairs of its pelt.
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Drawing on the accounts of other authors and historians, Ellis often returns to the threat hunters pose to the survival of the species.
Though banned in Norway, America and Russia, the hunt continues in Greenland and Canada, where helicopter-borne hunters and snowmobile-riding Inuit use powerful assault rifles to bring down their prey.
Ironically, it is in the waters to the north of these two hunting nations that the ice will last the longest.
In his new book, After the Ice, Alun Anderson, a former editor of New Scientist magazine, offers a clear and disturbing account of Arctic science and a gripping glimpse of how the future is unfolding could.
Not that scientists have all the answers.
Neither atmospheric scientists nor oceanographers can adequately explain the rate of change.
But this is not due to a lack of explanation attempts.
Fridtjof Nansen's pioneering journeys at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century gave an idea of the turbulence of the pack ice for the first time.
During the Cold War, submarines measured the shifting ridges when underway.
A useful addition is satellite surveys and the widespread deployment of probes on icebergs, but much is still being accomplished by intrepid people camping out in the cold.
Anderson looks into the strange, tiny world of the inflow system within the arctic ice, formed by rivulets of saltwater that are compressed as they freeze.
But from the bear on the ice to the microscopic wonders in the ice, all are at risk when the summer ice melts away, which is expected to happen between 2013 and 2050.
"In a few months... it could be us"
Marines were among the 6,000 who laid wreaths at Arlington
Corporal De'Angello Robinson traveled seven hours by bus to place a single wreath on the grave of a soldier he had never met.
For him and the other Marines who made the journey from Camp Johnson in Jacksonville, North Carolina, to Arlington National Cemetery to decorate graves, the day was a tribute to the men and women in whose footsteps they followed.
In a few months, wherever we're brought back from, that could be us, Robinson said of the fallen soldiers.
If that were us, I wish someone would do the same for me, so I try to show my respect that way.
He was one of more than 6,000 volunteers who gathered Saturday morning to lay wreaths on veterans' graves in several sections of Arlington Cemetery.
Morrill Worcester, owner of the funeral wreath manufacturer Worcester Wreath Company of Harrington, Maine, started this tradition in 1992 when he and several others decided to decorate several hundred graves in Arlington Cemetery.
It's now an 18-year tradition and Morrill and his wife Karen, who make this trip each year, stop in various towns along the way to host events dedicated to people in the military and victims of terrorism.
The Worcesters also started a non-profit organization, Wreaths Across America, which has expanded the event to other states.
This year, volunteers placed more than 16,000 wreaths at graves in Arlington Cemetery, areas at the Pentagon, graves at Fayetteville National Cemetery in Arkansas, Battery Park in New York and the United Airlines Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pa.
The Walmart Foundation donated more than $150,000 to purchase and ship the wreaths for the second time.
Charleen Hunt, 70, from Westminster, said she made the trip to Arlington in memory of her husband, a career soldier who died.
Although her husband's funeral isn't in Arlington, Hunt said it's her way of giving back to those who made sacrifices.
She said it's a small way we civilians can support our soldiers.
It's like visiting a family gravesite.
Wrapped in layers of warm clothing, the volunteers walked across the cemetery's sprawling lawns and hills.
The volunteers were targeting older graves from World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War, as they are not visited as often as the newer graves, organizers say.
The mood was cheerful, with children playing and couples holding hands as they carried the fresh pine boughs to the graying tombstones.
Each circular wreath was dark green with a small red bow attached to the top.
Section 60, which is nearby and where mostly veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried, remained almost silent.
The United Service Organizations donated 1,000 wreaths to decorate this section, but the somber mood of the current wars filled this area.
Individuals wept openly, others prayed, and families and friends held each other in the frigid air.
Some read aloud the names carved in stone, while others bent down to small black-and-white place cards that had been placed in the damp mud for those whose tombstones were not yet finished.
Sandra Lockwood was one of the many mothers who shed bitter tears at her son's grave.
She drove 8 hours from Zanesfield, Ohio to visit the gravesite of Marine Corporal David Shane Spicer, who died in combat in July.
No one should ever forget why we're free... my son paid for it, she said.
"If it's been a long time since I've been gone, I want someone to remember him."
US government contractor arrested by Cuban authorities
The Cuban government has arrested a US government contractor who was selling cellphones and notebook computers in the country, State Department officials said on Saturday.
The contractor, who has not yet been identified, works for Development Alternatives Inc., based in Bethesda.
The company works on projects for clients such as USAID, the US Agency for International Development and for the World Bank.
US Interests Section consular officers in Havana are trying to gain access to the detainee, who was arrested on December 5.
The specific charges have not yet been released, although under Cuban law a Cuban citizen or foreign visitor can be arrested for almost anything on charges of "endangerment".
All so-called counter-revolutionary activities, including light protests and critical writing, carry the risk of arrest.
Anti-government graffiti and statements are considered a serious crime.
Cuba has a growing community of bloggers, led by popular reporter Yoani Sánchez, who often describes how she and her husband are being followed and attacked by government officials.
Sánchez has repeatedly requested permission to leave the country to collect awards, but has always been denied.
The arrest of an American contractor is likely to increase tensions between the Castro brothers' communist government in Cuba and the Obama administration, which has sought "slow" rapprochement to improve relations with the island.
News of the arrest was first reported by the New York Times on Friday night.
The new US policy emphasizes that if the Cuban government takes concrete steps in this direction, such as releasing political prisoners and creating more space for opposition, the United States will reciprocate.
Cell phones and notebooks are legal in Cuba, although they are new and sought-after products in a country where the average wage for a government employee is $15 a month.
The Cuban government only allowed ordinary citizens to buy cell phones this year, and they're used primarily for texting, since a 15-minute call would cost a day's wages.
Internet use is extremely limited on the island.
It is available in expensive hotels and there for foreign visitors and in some government offices such as universities.
Cubans who wish to log in are often required to report their names to the government.
Access to many websites is restricted.
Arresting an American is rare in Cuba.
Most of the few US citizens jailed in Cuba are behind bars for crimes such as drug smuggling, said Gloria Berbena, press secretary for the US Interests Section in Havana.
Berbena said she could not provide any further information about the arrest.
The arrest and detention are clearly false.
An activity that would be legal in any other free society -- giving away free cell phones -- is a crime in Cuba, said Jose Miguel Vivanco, head of the US section of the group Human Rights Watch, which recently published a harsh report on freedom in Cuba Cuba, entitled "New Castro, Same Cuba," a nod to the inauguration of Raul Castro as the country's leader, replacing ailing older brother Fidel.
Vivanco said that very often the accused are arrested, tried and imprisoned within a day.
He said that any solution would likely be political and that the Cuban government often provokes a negative reaction in the United States just as the two countries are moving toward more dialogue.
Pakistani officials uncover plan to send men to Afghanistan
Pakistani authorities on Saturday uncovered an alleged mastermind of a conspiracy aimed at sending five Northern Virginia men to Afghanistan to kill US soldiers and said they hope the case could help establish a widespread network terrorist recruiters scouring the internet for radicalized young men.
Investigators said they were looking for an opaque insurgent known as Saifullah, who invited the men to Pakistan after tracking them down because one of them had made comments supporting terrorist attacks on the Internet video site YouTube.
Saifullah became the leader of these men after arriving in Pakistan, trying to help them reach the remote area in Pakistan's tribal belt that is home to al Qaeda and its terrorist training camps.
But a Pakistani intelligence official briefed on the matter said Saturday Saifullah failed to convince al Qaeda leaders that the men are not part of a CIA plot to infiltrate the terrorist network.
As a result, they have been held for days in the eastern city of Sargodha, far from the inhospitable northwest mountains that have become a terrorist haven.
They were seen as part of a covert operation.
That's why they were denied, said the government official, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter.
The government official said that the men were by no means discouraged and continued trying to get the right referrals to gain access to al-Qaeda camps when they were arrested by Pakistani law enforcement agencies.
The case of the five men - who remain in Pakistan and are being questioned by the FBI - underscores the crucial role recruiters play in identifying future terrorists and, perhaps more importantly, in deciding who can be trusted.
Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, US intelligence has made it a matter of the highest urgency to house human assets within Al Qaeda.
The organization's recruiters act as gatekeepers, not letting in those whose commitment to the Holy War is not serious enough and those who might be spies.
American would-be recruits are subjected to special scrutiny by A Qaeda, analysts said.
However, they are also considered immensely attractive to the group because of their potential access to US targets and their propaganda value.
Evan Kohlmann, senior analyst at the US-based NEFA Foundation, said terrorist groups have also become much more cautious about who they allow access in recent years, as US intelligence agencies have become experts in their recruitment methods.
When trying to insinuate someone into these groups, what better way to go than to follow the recruiting model that so many have followed? Kohlmann said.
The model is now much more internet based.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators in Copenhagen call for climate "action"
Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the streets here on Saturday, demanding bolder action on climate change from negotiators at the city's Bella Convention Center.
Demonstrators said 100,000 people had joined the event, while police estimates were closer to around 25,000.
The event was relatively peaceful, although a handful of masked activists detonated small explosive devices near some downtown government buildings.
On a day when little was happening at the UN-sponsored climate talks, thousands of activists marched through the city carrying banners that read "There is no Planet B" in English and one in Spanish that declared "The Earth Says Enough" .
A few stars joined the protest, including Danish model photographer Helena Christensen, who said traveling to Peru, her mother's country of birth, made her aware of the heartbreaking problems the country is facing due to the already noticeable effects of climate change has to fight.
That's part of the reason I decided to take part in the big demonstration - to pass the word and appeal to world leaders to bring about a fair, ambitious and binding deal, she said.
It is not an easy task, but it must be done now and there is no getting around it.
Police stopped protesters from getting too close to the Bella Center and said they arrested 19 people, mainly based on the fact that they were either masked or carrying pocket knives.
According to Danish law, these actions are prohibited during demonstrations.
According to an onlooker who asked not to be named because he is involved in the climate negotiations, masked protesters dressed in black detonated several explosive devices near Copenhagen's main canal, where several ministries are located.
They threw them near the buildings, he said, adding that they started out as flares but were then followed by "a couple of big explosions."
Inside the convention center, people gathered in front of TV screens to watch the demonstration all afternoon.
But the protest has apparently failed to reach the minds of key officials like Su Wei, China's chief climate negotiator.
When asked if he thought the demonstration would have a constructive effect on international deliberations, he replied in English: "It's something I wasn't even aware of".
He then continued in Mandarin and said, "Because the venue is big, I can't hear what's happening outside".
He noted that whether the demonstration would do harm or help would depend on an individual's perspective.
It shows the focus of the general public and different sectors on the issue of climate change, he said.
On the other hand, "you can also say that they interfere with negotiations or other people's freedom".
Trial data shows persistent racial divide
The math performance reports were welcomed good news for Washington DC public schools last week
Although Washington District is still far behind the nation's top-performing schools, the reports show that fourth- and eighth-graders have progressed faster than cities that include Atlanta, Chicago, and New York over the past two years.
But what is included in the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) figures is the persistent performance gap between African-American and white students, both locally and nationally.
The average score of white Washington DC fourth-graders rose from 262 to 270 (on a scale of 500) over the past two years, but that of their African-American peers rose just three points from 209 to 212.
The performance gap actually widened from 53 to 58 points between 2007 and 2009.
The progression of the African American eighth graders remained basically the same, falling a statistically negligible point from 245 to 244.
The mean score of white students was not included in the assessment data because the sample size was not large enough.
The picture over a six-year period is no more encouraging either.
The gap separating white and black fourth graders in 2003, when the district's first NAEP was recorded, was 60 points (262 to 202).
And although the number of points achieved by children in both groups has increased over this period, the difference has hardly narrowed, now at 58 points.
Some district education advocates last week expressed concern that the results, celebrated by School Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and Democratic Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, were driven in large part by white students, who are already high-achieving kids.
"This suggests that we raised the rating by treating those at the higher end of the scale, which is problematic and difficult," said Jeff Smith, board member of DC Voice, a nonprofit group that advocates for educational equality in Washington DC.
I'm not jumping up and down for a span of two or three points, said Democratic Washington City Councilman Kwame R. Brown, who has a daughter in fourth grade at Eaton Elementary School.
Brown, a frequent critic of Rhee's management style, said the message from the exam scores is that the city's middle schools need urgent attention.
Of course you always want to see the positive signs, I respect that.
But what scares me is that we don't devote nearly the time and energy that we would have to devote to our middle school.
Rhee said the district must continue to find better ways to meet the needs of the underperforming students.
This fall, for example, some teachers will be trained to use a new reading curriculum, the Wilson Reading System, aimed at students in the upper grades of elementary and middle school who did not master basic reading skills early in their school careers and who are significantly behind their peers in their class.
Everyday Math, a curriculum that emphasizes games and real-life experiences from kindergarten through sixth grade, was brought to Washington under former chief school superintendent Clifford Janey, and that curriculum is credited with some of the NAEP advances reported last week .
"I think we need to keep working to ensure that the best policies benefit those students who are under-grading," Rhee said.
Others say the NAEP results highlight the question of whether Rhee can continue to improve the system's overall performance while continuing to provide the additional money and resources needed to close the gap for underperforming schools reduce.
This is a serious dilemma for Michelle Rhee, said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies city exam scores.
The conventional remedy is to focus its resources and managerial reforms on the schools located in the poorest areas of Washington DC.
Targeting could create political repercussions that work against this important agenda item.
The weak point, of course, as with other city school inspectors, is that it seeks to retain the white and black middle class.
Our focus is to make sure we build a great school system.
We must strengthen our neighborhood schools so that all families, no matter where they live, can be assured that their children can receive a quality public school education.
Janey, who is now the school superintendent in Newark, said in an interview this week that one of the most important elements in closing the achievement gap is to extend the traditional public school year, currently 180 days in Washington, to include charter schools to compete.
You have to increase the school year to anywhere near 200 days to have the power to change, said Janey, who reached an agreement with his teachers' union last year for 185 days a year, which he describes as "a milestone" on the way to a bigger one Increase considered in next contract.
Higher education for more people as a future prospect
The coach arrives at Gettysburg College with a loud whistle.
Graciela Rodriguez, 12, gets out and blinks for a moment at the white columns, brick facades and emerald green lawn.
Graciela's parents barely graduated from high school in El Salvador.
Until recently, Graciela, who was born in Silver Spring and now lives in Riverdale, had never set foot on a college campus either.
Her attitude, and that of the other eighth-graders in the group exploring Gettysburg, where tuition costs $38,690 a year, was that of an awed visitor rather than an enthusiastic prospective student.
"Yes! I'll be here soon!" exclaimed Graciela, who would like to study medicine, when the guide announced that they had now entered the science building.
"Wow really?" she said thoughtfully when told about the school's low professor-to-student ratio.
College in Pennsylvania was the 7th the kids visited on their three-day tour, and now they've fully absorbed the intended message: The question isn't whether you go to college.
The question is where.
While there is growing concern about the large number of US-born children of Hispanic immigrants who fail to finish high school or become pregnant in their teens, there are also hundreds of thousands who are getting the college education needed to climb into the middle class .
In fact, one in five of these "second generation" Hispanics graduate from college -- a remarkable achievement given that many of their immigrant parents, mostly from Mexico or Central America, came to the United States without graduating from high school.
Their success stories are important, researchers say, because they point the way forward for a generation that will play a huge role in the country's workforce.
Those who study high-performing children say they often have a natural affinity for school and an inherent drive to succeed.
Many of them also have parents who aim high for their children and find ways to compensate for their unfamiliarity with American schools.
But counseling programs also play a big role in helping Graciela and millions of children like her get through to college, especially if these efforts are sustained over time.
When you look at low-income children whose parents don't have the experience and skills to help them navigate the system, a single action at any given time won't solve the problem either, said Patricia Gándara, a researcher at the University of California at Davis who studied Hispanic students.
We need to think about providing a supportive network for these children from preschool through high school.
The federal program that funded Graciela's college tour is a useful example.
Known as GEAR UP, it provides more than $300 million a year for local school systems to start college preparatory programs that begin when low-income students are in middle school and continue through high school completed.
According to the US Department of Education, the program has helped more than 10 million students since 1999, more than 60% of whom have gone on to college.
Iraqi Oil Ministry signs deals with 10 foreign oil companies
Despite concerns about violence and political instability, the Iraqi government managed to persuade major oil companies to rebuild its damaged infrastructure in two auctions concluded on Saturday.
The Iraqi Oil Ministry's 10 deals signed with foreign oil companies suggest China, Russia and European oil companies are poised to play a major role in renovating Iraq's oil industry, which has been paralyzed by war and economic sanctions for decades.
American companies could only book shares in two of the 10 auctioned fields for themselves.
Seven American companies paid to take part in the second auction, which began on Friday.
The only company that submitted a bid lost out.
Two American companies were able to secure contracts for fields auctioned in June.
The few representatives of American oil multinationals at the opening of the Iraqi oil industry surprised the analysts.
Iraq has finally opened its doors after 6 years of war and instead of US companies, Asian and European companies are leading the way, said Ruba Husari, editor of Iraq Oil Forum, an online news service.
There won't be any more offers in Iraq for a long time.
Security concerns, underscored by Tuesday's massive coordinated bombing campaign, and political instability amid the US military withdrawal have likely discouraged American oil companies from investing more in Iraq, which has the world's third-largest proven crude oil reserves, analysts said.
US companies have been disadvantaged in some cases because competitors, particularly the Chinese and other state-controlled energy companies, have significantly lower labor costs and are more likely to take risks by not being accountable to shareholders.
Exxon-Mobil and Occidental Petroleum Inc. were the only American companies able to sign contracts with the department.
Bigger US companies like Chevron and ConocoPhillips, which have close ties with the Iraqi Oil Ministry and have provided technical advice over the past few years, got nothing.
Russian companies Lukoil and Gazprom were the main players in two of the contracts awarded this weekend.
State-owned China National Petroleum Corporation has bid for more contracts than any other company and went home with large packages of contracts for two major fields.
We all know, said Oil Ministry spokesman Assam Jihad, that China is on its way to becoming one of the world economic powerhouses as well as a tech powerhouse.
We are confident that the Chinese company will be able to compete with its competitors and fulfill its commitments to Iraq.
Companies preselected to bid submitted bids, which were then compared to the per-barrel oil fee the Department was willing to pay to increase each field's output above current levels.
Top Al Qaeda planners reportedly killed in Pakistan
A top al Qaeda dispatcher was reportedly killed in an apparent US missile strike along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan this week, US counterterrorism officials reported Friday.
If confirmed, this would be the second deadly attack on a senior official at the terrorist organization this fall.
Saleh al-Somali was one of two Arabs killed by a number of rockets that struck their vehicle near the town of Miran Shah in North Waziristan province on Tuesday, according to US sources and Pakistani regional officials.
Local authorities said the missiles were fired from a type of drone used by the CIA in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt.
They were driving towards the Afghan border in a white vehicle when the car was hit, a Pakistani civil intelligence agency official from Miran Shah said by phone.
Local residents suspected of being among the militants rushed to the spot and quickly took what was left of the "completely destroyed bodies."
Local authorities could not confirm the identities of the victims, but two US counter-terrorism officials cited indeterminate evidence that Somali were among the dead.
Somali has been described as a senior al Qaeda military planner, directing operations by terrorist groups outside the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
He was involved in conspiracies around the world, noted a senior official who asked to remain anonymous, citing the sensitive nature of US airstrikes on Pakistani soil.
Given its central role, this included planning attacks against the US and Europe.
He took strategic directions from top Al Qaeda leaders and translated them into operational plans for possible terrorist attacks.
The second US official said Somali had risen quickly in the al-Qaeda hierarchy and had excellent ties with other extremist groups in the region.
He may not be known to some Americans, the second official said, but that in no way diminishes the danger he posed to us and our allies.
If his death were confirmed, Somali would be the second senior al Qaeda or Taliban leader to be killed since September, when a similar attack killed Najmuddin Jalolov, the leader of a militant faction in the tribal area, and three other top activists.
The pace of CIA drone attacks has declined from an average of six operations a month to two a month since the summer, according to a summary of the Long War Journal, a website maintained by a nonprofit organization.
The drop may be due to improved tactics by terrorist groups, which have taken steps to reduce their vulnerability while brutally killing suspected informers, the site reported.
Top UN envoy in Kabul to resign
The UN's top envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said Friday he would step down from his post in March, ending a tumultuous tenure marred by allegations of widespread corruption in the UN-backed Afghan presidential election.
Ede's departure comes as the Obama administration decided to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan.
The UN envoy said he supports the troop increase, but he also expressed concern that the US timetable for military withdrawal, which is due to begin in 18 months, could prompt other NATO governments to withdraw their forces.
We must speed up the build-up of Afghan security forces, thereby sending the right signal to Afghans that they can trust the international community, Eide said in a telephone interview from Kabul.
The commitment must be long-term.
The Norwegian diplomat also urged the United States and other military powers to increase the number of international civilian aid workers tasked with helping Afghanistan's political transition.
The troop increase on the military side must match an increase on the civilian side, he said.
Eide said he is not stepping down from office, just fulfilling an agreement he made with his family in March 2008 to stay in Kabul for just two years.
He said he wanted the notification to UNO
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon now to give him time to arrange for a replacement.
What I said is he better start looking for a successor, Eide said.
When I came here, there was a two-month vacuum between my predecessor's departure and my arrival.
Ban has begun searching for a replacement, according to UN officials.
UN officials say he was considering Swedish-Italian-born Staffan di Mistura, who recently headed the UN mission in Baghdad, and Frenchman Jean-Marie Guéhenno, who previously headed UN peacekeeping operations.
Eide's position in Afghanistan was put to the test after his former deputy, Peter W. Galbraith, accused him in September of favoring President Hamid Karzai in the country's presidential election and covering up evidence of massive voter fraud.
Eide has denied all the allegations, but he also said the allegations by Galbraith - who was fired - "certainly damaged the mission because there was already a great deal of skepticism about international interference in the election".
Eide said he recommended the appointment of a senior civilian representative to coordinate relief efforts by US-led forces in Afghanistan.
He also urged the UN leadership to allow his successor to hire more staff from the United States and other Western countries who donate to the Afghan mission, saying it would give them confidence that their money was being used properly .
Eide expressed disappointment at the curtailment of his forces in Afghanistan, saying the cumbersome UN recruitment rules have undermined his ability to bring in capable people.
The UN rules are such that since May, he said, I've only been able to hire one person.
This is catastrophic and must not continue like this.
US Secretary of Defense Gates: Iran must expect additional sanctions
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday that world powers will soon impose "significant additional sanctions" on Iran for failing to participate in talks on its nuclear plans.
Speaking to a group of about 300 US soldiers in northern Iraq during a 7-day tour of war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, Gates downplayed the prospect of military action against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
There aren't good options to choose from in Iran, he said in response to a soldier's question about the likelihood of such a development.
"One of the things on my mind, if we've learned anything from Iraq over the past six years, is the inherent unpredictability of war."
The Obama administration is considering a sanctions package targeting Iran's military and political elite, but Gates has said some sanctions could affect the average Iranian as well.
He said that a "package of positive and negative incentives" is needed "to convince the Iranian government that they are in fact less protected with nuclear weapons" because "their people will suffer tremendously" under the sanctions.
On Friday, in a statement by White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, the US government joined European leaders in warning that Iran could face "plausible" consequences if it failed to comply with UN Security Council demands with its nuclear program and its nuclear watchdog organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran continues to claim that knowledge of nuclear technology should only be gained for peaceful purposes.
At talks in Geneva on Oct. 1, Iran said it would resume talks to curb its nuclear program and give up a significant portion of its stockpile of enriched uranium in exchange for much-needed nuclear fuel for its medical research reactor.
The US government has been pushing for this type of agreement to build trust between the two parties and buy time for negotiations.
But Iran appears to have since walked out of negotiations on the interim accords -- in part, experts say, because Iran's leaders are divided over whether they should commit to the United States.
Frankly, Iran's abandonment of the international community on some proposals they agreed to earlier in October has brought the international community together, including the Russians and Chinese, in a way they did in connection with important additional sanctions on Iran, Gates said.
President Obama has set Dec. 31 as the deadline for Iran to act on these proposals before pursuing other options, including what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton once called "crushing sanctions."
In a statement issued in New York, the Iranian mission to the United Nations has condemned what it called "baseless and unfounded allegations" by some Security Council members about Iran's nuclear activities on Thursday, saying they are ready to open talks with the United States and five other world powers "to achieve a suitable long-term solution".
Gates, who was due to return to Washington last Friday, met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in the morning before flying to Iraq's oil-rich Kurdish region for meetings with soldiers in Kirkuk and Kurdish officials in Irbil.
Tensions between the Kurds and Iraq's Arab majority remain high, particularly over borders, property rights and the sharing of public revenues.
Gates urged both sides to lower the potential for conflict to avoid delays in US plans to reduce American troop strength from 115,000 to 50,000 by the end of August.
Gates also tried to allay Kurdish concerns about the impending troop withdrawal. US officials quoted Gates as saying to Masud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Regional Government: "We will preserve your security, your prosperity and your autonomy within a united Iraq.
We won't leave you."
A change of course in aging China
Wang Weijia and her husband grew up surrounded by propaganda posters lecturing them that "Mother Earth is Too Tired to Support More Children" and "One More Baby Means One More Grave".
They learned those lessons so well that when government officials in Shanghai, amid low birth rates and an aging population, suddenly began changing course this summer and encouraging young couples to have more than one child, their response was immediate and finally was: "Absolutely not".
We have already invested all our time and energy in one child.
There's no room left for a second child, said Wang, 31, a human resources manager with an 8-month-old son.
More than 30 years after the introduction of the one-child policy in China, which has produced two generations of notoriously plump, spoiled only children affectionately dubbed "little emperors," a population crisis is looming in the country.
The average birth rate has fallen to 1.8 children per couple, compared to 6 when the policy went into effect, the UN notes.
Population Division notes that the population age 60 and older is projected to explode in 2020 from 16.7 percent of the population to 31.1 percent by 2050. This is well above the global average of around 20 percent.
The imbalance is greater in wealthy coastal cities with educated populations, such as Shanghai.
Last year, 60-year-olds and older made up almost 22 percent of Shanghai's registered residents, while the birth rate was under one child per couple.
Xie Lingli, head of the Shanghai Urban Population and Family Planning Commission, has said couples of childbearing age must have babies to "help lower the aging population ratio and alleviate future labor shortages."
Shanghai will soon be "as old -- but not as rich -- as developed countries like Japan and Sweden," she said.
A gradual relaxation
Enshrined in the country's constitution in 1978, China's one-child policy is arguably the most controversial injunction introduced by the ruling Communist Party to date.
Couples who break this policy face huge fines -- up to three times their annual salary in some regions -- and discrimination in their workplace.
Chinese officials have credited the policy with avoiding critical strain on the country's natural resources, while human rights advocates have condemned abuses in the policy's enforcement.
In rural areas, some officials have forced pregnant women who already had children to have abortions.
Many couples also had sex-selective abortions, creating an unnaturally high male-to-female ratio.
In recent years, government officials on population have gradually weakened their stance on the one-child policy.
In 2004, they admitted more exceptions to the rule -- including city dwellers, members of ethnic minorities, and cases where both husband and wife were only children -- and in 2007 the tone of many tough slogans was toned down.
Qiao Xiaochun, a professor at Beijing University's Population Research Institute, said government officials have recently been discussing even more radical changes, such as allowing couples to have two children where one partner is an only child.
Shanghai in July became the first Chinese city to launch an aggressive campaign to encourage more births.
Posters admonishing families to have only one child were replaced almost overnight by guidelines detailing who is eligible for a second child and how to apply for permission.
City officials have sent city officials and family planning volunteers to visit couples' homes and slip leaflets under doors.
She also asked that psychological and financial counseling be made available to those who have more than one child.
The response hasn't been exactly encouraging, family planning officials said.
Disappointing reaction
Although officials from a rural town in the outskirts of Shanghai said there has been an uptick in applications from couples wanting a second child after the campaign launch, urban counties are reporting no change.
For example, in Huinan Municipality, which has a population of 115,000, only four to five applications are received each month.
Disappointed Shanghai officials say that despite the campaign, the city's expected number of births in 2010 will still be around 165,000 -- slightly higher than 2009 but lower than 2008.
Feng Juying, head of the family planning committee of Shanghai Caolu Municipality, said financial considerations are probably the main reason many people don't want to have more children.
They want to give their first the best, she said.
Yang Jiawei, 27, and his wife, Liu Juanjuan, 26, said they would like to have two children and that it is legal.
But like many Chinese, they have minimal government health and life insurance.
Without a social safety net, they say, that decision would be irresponsible.
Westerners misinterpret the one-child policy as a human rights issue, said Yang, a civil engineer whose wife is seven months pregnant with their first child.
Yes, we are being robbed of the opportunity to have more than one child.
But the problem is not simply one of politics.
The problem is money.
Other couples give psychological reasons for their hesitation.
Wang, the human resources manager, said she only wants one child because she was also an only child. "We were the center of the family and used to everyone taking care of us.
We're not used to taking care of others, and we don't really want to."
Chen Zijian, a 42-year-old who owns a translation company, said it more bluntly.
For middle-class parents with dual careers that are driving down birth rates, he said, being successful is about being successful and it takes selfishness.
Today's 20-39 year old age group grew up watching their parents struggle during the early days of China's capitalism experiment and they don't want that kind of life for themselves, he said.
Even a single child, he said, places huge demands on a parent's time.
A mother has to give up her social life for at least two years.
Then there's the space issue -- "You have to remodel your home" -- and life planning -- "By the time the kid is 9 months old, you've got to have a resume ready for the best preschools."
Most of his friends are willing to go through this once, Chen said, but not twice.
Our generation is the first to achieve a higher standard of living, he said.
We don't want to make too many sacrifices.
UN group drafts emissions reduction plan
The UN-sponsored climate conference -- which has so far been characterized by wild poses and mutual recriminations -- put the spotlight back on Friday with the release of a document charting ambitious greenhouse gas cuts over the next 40 years, with developed nations have to shoulder the heaviest burdens in the near future.
The text, which could provide the basis for a final political deal to regulate greenhouse gases, has shown both the remaining obstacles and the way forward.
But it was seen as an important advance in a trial that is running out of time, as more than 100 world leaders are due to arrive in Copenhagen next week.
The text, drafted by a specially created UN working group, is silent on the amount of money rich countries should give to poor countries to help them tackle global warming in the short and long term.
It also offers a range of options for the key issues, including how developed and large emerging economies can limit their carbon emissions and what the upper limit of global temperature rise that policymakers would support.
A lot of flexibility is being given to the process, according to John Coequyt, senior representative of the Sierra Club in Washington.
Michael Zammit Cutajar, who drafted the six-page document, has condensed a 180-page negotiation text to focus on what the UN's senior climate advocate, Yvo de Boer, has called "the big picture".
It outlines a possible agreement in which industrialized nations would collectively reduce their emissions by 25 to 45 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 limits, while larger developing countries would reduce their emissions by 15 to 30 percent over the same period.
Together, the countries could cut emissions by 50 to 95 percent by 2050.
The European community also gave the talks a boost on Friday by pledged to provide $3.6 billion a year over the next three years to help poorer countries adapt to the effects of climate change - by tackling the Floods and droughts to avoiding deforestation.
Nevertheless, Friday brought the same verbal fireworks that had dominated the talks for the past week.
US climate envoy Todd Stern has rejected language calling for mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for developed countries, compared to voluntary reductions for larger emerging economies if they are not financed by the developed world.
This move heralded that the Obama administration is taking a harder line with China than the Bush administration did just two years ago.
The United States will not sign an agreement without larger emerging economies stepping up and taking action, according to Stern, who also lamented that the text does not go far enough to ensure the cuts could be corroborated by outsiders.
Stern delivered his comment an hour after Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister He Yafei said that America's top climate negotiator either lacked "reasonableness" or was "highly irresponsible" in saying earlier in the week that the United States would not financially help China tackle global warming.
Because the future economic direction of the major world powers is at stake, fault lines have opened both within the industrialized nations and between the industrialized nations and the emerging economies.
The current struggle is as much about saving individual economies as it is about saving the planet, with China and the United States at odds over their respective obligations, while poorer countries claim that the two dozen most influential countries ignore the scientific need to to take bolder action.
Ricardo Ulate, a delegate from Costa Rica, said that it is not surprising that the major powers are fighting over who should bear the cost of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, as even affected countries have moved to be more aggressive in doing so, countries with very high greenhouse gas tax to account for their actions.
This is clearly a game from which new economic dominance will emerge, according to Ulate, who also serves as Conservation International's regional climate change advisor in Mexico and Central America.
Some of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change said they would continue to fight for a legally binding deal in Copenhagen, although leading participants say the talks will result in a political deal at best.
The 43-member Alliance of Small Island States presented a 24-page draft treaty early Friday morning.
Artur Runge-Metzger, who leads the international climate talks for the European Commission, said the small island nation offensive "puts political pressure on the whole political process," partly because they are now united and action from emerging economies like China and India, are demanding.
The talks took on a new urgency as delegates focused on the fact that most outstanding issues still need to be settled before the leaders arrive in order to reach an agreement.
High-ranking officials such as India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and China's Vice Minister disembarked from their planes and raced through the aisles of the Bella Center to closed-door meetings and press conferences to stake out claims that will be negotiated over the next week.
The sheer scale of the gathering -- 13,000 people are in and out of the convention center daily, guitar-playing activists put on nightly shows poke fun at the countries they think are betraying and selling out, and draft treaties are hand-to-hand instead passed on by e-mail -- is already a challenge.
The intensity is just building: almost all key ministers are here now and as of Wednesday 60 government leaders will be in Copenhagen.
We're coming to the big leagues, said Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, vice president for global policy at Conservation International.
The heavyweights are coming.
Britain's first 225 km/h fast train redefines the Monday feeling
At 5.13am Monday morning a whistle will pierce the darkness to announce a train departure marking a revolution in transport in Britain.
The first high-speed commuter train in the country will make its lightning journey from Ashfort, Kent, to London St Pancras at 225 km/h, covering 93 km in 38 minutes.
Joining Lord Adonis, the Minister for Transport, will be Dame Kelly Holmes aboard the first ever Javelin commuter service from London.
He hopes the new service will eventually connect Britain to an international rail network of fast, reliable trains, linking the major metropolitan areas of the Midlands, the North and Scotland to London.
The neglected province could become vibrant commuter towns, commuting times would be radically reduced, and the shift from planes and cars to rail would reduce national carbon emissions and road congestion.
In theory, the three major parties believe in this vision.
But the many billions of pounds sterling needed to build a new national rail network, the inevitable planning battle and fears of environmental damage could still put the brakes on Britain's high-speed rail network.
High Speed Two (HS2), a company set up in January to submit a feasibility study to the government, will present the report to Lord Adonis on December 30, according to the Times.
This gives him a detailed route map of the next planned stage of the high-speed rail network.
The new railway line, which will link London to the West Midlands, will have a margin of five meters around urban areas and places where the environmental impact is controversial.
In the open field, the plan will show the concept within 25 meters of the final route.
HS2 is also expected to create three options for a larger northbound high-speed rail network.
Lord Adonis will respond in the spring.
The preferred proposed option is a Y-shaped route, where a single high-speed line would enter the West Midlands.
The line would split at or near Birmingham and one branch would run west of the Pennines to Manchester and Scotland and another north-east to Sheffield, Leeds and Newcastle upon Tyne.
A single line would lead to Scotland.
"It appears to be the best-working option," said a railroad insider.
Once complete, travel time between London and Edinburgh would be reduced to 2 hours 40 minutes.
The first leg, which would not open until 2025, would allow travelers to cover the London-Birmingham route in 49 minutes, compared to just over an hour today.
The designs would allow trains to travel at speeds of 400 km/h, making Britain's rail network the fastest in Europe.
The first line was designed to accommodate trains 400 meters long with a maximum capacity of 1,100 people.
Up to 18 trains per hour could operate on the London-Birmingham route.
This in turn would mean that a terminus would be needed in London that could handle 20,000 travelers an hour.
Given the space limitations in the capital, it is expected that an existing train station would be expanded to accommodate the high-speed network.
Rail experts say only St Pancras International or Euston have this potential.
Lord Adonis will announce whether or not he thinks this plan should go ahead, but the lengthy public deliberation and planning process means a final decision will not be made until after the general election.
But even if he sets the wheels in motion, the rail network has to be built in sections.
Trains would first have to switch from the high-speed lines to existing rail routes in north Birmingham, which would keep the travel time between London and Scotland at over three hours.
This is seen as a key sticking point to ensure a switch from air to rail, a benchmark for the rail revolution.
Taxpayers are paying for a Conservative's £75,000 orangery mortgage
Alan Duncan, the leading Conservative MP, has been billing taxpayers thousands of pounds a year for the cost of an orangery he had built at his constituency home.
The party's prison spokesman, who was demoted by David Cameron for complaining that members of the House of Commons were being "living on meager rations", has increased his mortgage by £75,000 to have an oak-timbered extension built on his second home in Rutland .
He was allowed to bill the taxpayer for the extra interest, a sum of hundreds of pounds a month.
House of Commons officials approved the motions at the time and they were not questioned by Sir Thomas Legg, who conducts an inquiry into MPs' spending. Last night, Duncan said the motions "couldn't have been cleaner or clearer."
Duncan, one of the wealthiest Members of the House of Commons, owns a two-storey house in a village in his Rutland and Melton constituency.
Nearby houses have fetched nearly £1m (€1.1m).
The ground floor includes the kitchen, living room and dining room, but the Fees Office, a House of Commons spending control agency, has agreed that Duncan needs more space.
Last year he added a conservatory, which the plans refer to as the "orangery".
Neighbors described it as a "glass house for entertainment".
Duncan was also not asked to comment on the increased borrowing during a recent Committee on Standards and Privileges investigation into his previous mortgage contracts.
The committee acquitted him of breaking the rules last month after an investigation into his spending.
In 2004, Duncan transferred the security for a £271,406 (€300,000) mortgage from his London home to his constituency house, which he bought in 1991, a year before he was elected MP.
Documents released this week show that Duncan was being paid around £1,400 a month in mortgage interest up until March last year.
In April, his claims increased to more than £1,800 (€2,000) a month.
The interest rate on Duncan's RBS mortgage has not changed during this time, suggesting the entire increase was used to fund the £75,000 (€85,000) borrowing.
The RBS normal stepless mortgage rate fell from 7.94 percent in December 2007 to 4 percent in March this year, where it is still.
The latest documents released by the House of Commons show Duncan continued to claim his right to £1,250 (€1,400) a month this May.
Duncan lost his job as opposition leader of the House of Commons in September after an undercover reporter filmed him saying MPs were living "on meager rations" in the wake of the spending scandal.
"Basically, when you work for the state, you have to live on meager rations and be treated like p*****s."
He said: "I have spent my money on my garden and I claim a tiny fraction compared to what is proper.
And I could have asked for the whole damn sum, but I'm not doing it."
The MP, a millionaire from his earlier career as an oil wholesaler, was first attacked over his spending in May when it emerged that he had claimed thousands of pounds for his garden before checking with the Fees Office that it was "as could be considered an excessive demand".
An activist has dug a hole in the shape of a pound sign in Duncan's lawn in protest after it was revealed he had solicited £4,000 (€4,500) over three years.
When questioned about the increased mortgage last night, Duncan said: "This was approved by both the Fees Office and subsequently by Legg for the increase in value."
He added: "There's no debate about dodging and dodging or bending the rules or anything like that.
Everything is perfectly transparent and strictly within the rules, approved and everything.
It couldn't be cleaner or clearer."
Come all you believers to admire Brighton's Beach Hut Advent Calendar
Beach huts in Brighton have found a new purpose in life for the winter months as an interactive advent calendar.
Beyond, an alternative church group that encourages spiritual discovery through creativity, invited 24 owners to decorate their cottages with Christmas carols as the theme for each day of December.
The event kicked off on December 1st and visitors were allowed to view the newest cabin each day from 5:30pm to 6:30pm with free mulled wine and traditional mince pies, pastries filled with dried fruit.
The Christmas carols chosen so far are "I saw three ships", "O come, o come, Emmanuel" and "The first Noël", with the cabin decoration here being the work of Janette Tozer, a local artist.
Martin Poole, 50, a TV marketing assistant from Hove, is a volunteer minister for the Diocese of Chichester and director of Beyond.
He said: "We want to make religion more important for people in a post-Christian society.
As a church, why do we expect people to come into a strange old building? I think the church should go out to the people and have exciting celebrations.
The idea for the beach hut advent calendar started as a conversation with some friends over dinner.
Brighton is such a fantastically creative and vibrant place and we try to express that through our spirituality."
Strong mobilization in Copenhagen and in the world for the climate.
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated around the world and in Copenhagen on Saturday to demand an ambitious and binding deal to fight global warming, where police have made several hundred arrests.
At least thirty thousand people, police say, and organizers say a hundred thousand, have marched in the cold of the Danish capital on the fringes of the United Nations climate change conference, which should lead to a conclusion by Friday that could come into force from 2013.
For Connie Hedegaard, Danish Chair of the Climate Conference, the increasing mobilization in the world for climate is helping, as illustrated by these demonstrations, that the "political price" of failure in Copenhagen would be very high.
The incidents in the Danish capital came shortly after the train passed, when a group of 300 protesters dressed all in black smashed shop windows with cobblestones and hammers, an AFP journalist noted.
Anti-riot cops intervened immediately and ruthlessly.
Police have announced that 600 to 700 people, believed to be mostly members of "the Blacks Blocs", those extremely violent factions that made themselves famous at the NATO summit in Strasbourg, in eastern France, in April, have been arrested.
The Climate Justice Action (CJA) coalition, one of the organizers of the demonstration, has slammed the conditions under which hundreds of militant supporters were arrested "without discrimination", underlining that around a hundred of them "still died on Saturday evening "held in the streets" in handcuffs and in a seated position, despite the extreme cold.
The rather peaceful procession headed from Parliament towards the Bella Center where the negotiations took place.
The protesters stopped about 500 meters from the building without trying to get inside.
A stage was installed to welcome the designated speakers for an evening of candlelight with the participation of former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
The majority of the demonstrators arrived on buses and trains from the major European cities, but many Asians, including some Chinese and Koreans, were also present, as well as some Africans.
About 3,000 people, most of them in sky-blue raincoats, made a first morning's march in Copenhagen as they heeded the call from Friends of the Earth to form 'blue tides' for 'climate justice'.
Today we are taking to the streets to demand ecological redress in favor of the South, said Lidy Nacpil, a Filipino activist with the Jubilee South Coalition in Copenhagen.
We can't go on like this and say to ourselves: we have time, said Angelique Kidjo, a singer from Benin.
There are rivers in Africa that are drying up, streams where you can walk like never before.
For the first time in the history of climate diplomacy, founded in 1992 with the passing of the UNO agreement, the movement of critics of globalization has come closer to environmental organizations.
MEP José Bové, figure of the globalization critics, announced that he came to Copenhagen to combine "climate justice and social justice": "Today there is no difference between fighting against global warming and fighting for a different world."
The Asia-Pacific region, home to many islands particularly vulnerable to warming, has given the go-ahead for the demonstrations.
Around 50,000 people took to the streets in Australia, according to organizers.
In Manila there were a few hundred people, mostly students, who marched in red and hoisted bandanas extolling the power of the sun.
In Hong Kong or Jakarta, but also in Canada, several hundred demonstrators marched to demand vigorous action against climate change.
In France, the demonstrations organized by the "350" network gathered a few hundred people, namely in Paris, in Marseille (south), in Lille (north), in Bordeaux (west) and in Lyon (east).
Some people have gathered in Geneva.
Separatist Abkhazia has elected its president, while Georgia denounces that this is a "prank".
Abkhazia elected its president on Saturday, a little more than a year after Moscow recognized this pro-Russian separatist Georgian region as independent, Tbilisi denounced the "prank".
Some 131,000 people were called to vote in the first elections after the August 2008 Russo-Georgian war for control of South Ossetia, another Georgian secessionist territory recognized by Russia.
Polling stations closed at 5pm GMT.
Turnout was about 58% a few hours before the polls closed, according to the Abkhazian Electoral Commission official.
The first preliminary results should be announced during the night from Saturday to Sunday.
The five candidates, including outgoing President Serguei Bagapch, categorically reject the idea of reunification with Georgia, which condemns the election.
These elections are a farce.
For his part, President of Georgia Mikheil Saakachvili regrets that Abkhazia is now under total Russian occupation, his spokeswoman Manana Manjgaladze said.
Besides Russia, only Nicaragua and Venezuela have recognized the autonomy of this territory of 216,000 people, while the rest of the world perceives it as part of Georgia illegally occupied by Russia.
After seceding from Georgia during the 1992-1993 conflict in which several thousand people died, Abkhazia wants to use this election to show that it is ready to join the international community.
This process is a stage in our new life, a new era, as an independent state, explained Svetlana Kvartchia, a 54-year-old historian who claims to have voted for Mr. Bagapch.
She was one of the voters who went to vote at a polling station located in a school in the capital, Soukhoumi, a beautiful white building with a few palm trees in front of the entrance.
The issue of Russian dominance is at the heart of this presidential election, in a region of beautiful Black Sea landscapes.
Large signs depicting Bagapch alongside Russian President and Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev and Vladimir Putin are dotted around this small area, which has a population of 216,000.
In Gali, located in the east of the country, the district chief, Beslan Archba, prepared a warm welcome to the Russian representatives who came to oversee the conduct of the elections.
We, the people of Abkhazia, are grateful, he said at a small celebration, alluding to Moscow's support, particularly regarding the decision to recognize Abkhazia's independence.
I hope that your country will soon be recognized by the United Nations, replied Alexei Ostrovski, a member of the Russian Parliament, raising a glass of vodka.
For its part, the opposition, represented by the former vice-president and two Russian businessmen, Zaous Ardzinba and Beslan Boutba, has criticized agreements reached with Moscow last year, such as the one under which Abkhazia gave Russia control of the railway for 10 years years.
The fifth candidate, Vitali Banba, claims to support neither the current government nor the opposition.
A majority of 50% plus one vote is required to win the election.
If none of the candidates reach this threshold, a second round of voting must be organized within two weeks.
Climate: Demos worldwide, incidents in Copenhagen
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated across the world on Saturday to demand an ambitious and binding deal from the Copenhagen climate conference, where police, on standby at all times, arrested around 700 people on the fringes of a key demonstration.
Thirty thousand people according to the police, hundreds of thousands according to the organizers, demonstrated in the cold afternoon in the Danish capital, which until December 18 will receive delegates from 193 countries looking for an agreement to come into force on January 1, 2013 , are.
From Parliament, the peaceful procession marched towards the Bella Center where the negotiations are taking place.
The demonstrators stopped about 500 meters from the center and made no attempt to enter.
A stage was set up to welcome the designated speakers for a candlelit evening with the participation of former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
A few moments after the train passed, a group of protesters dressed all in black and armed with bricks and hammers began smashing windows, an AFP journalist noted.
Anti-riot cops immediately surrounded them and intervened recklessly, throwing some of them on the ground.
The police have announced that 600 to 700 people have been arrested and have made it clear that they are mainly members of "the Blacks Blocs", those extremely violent factions that made themselves famous at the NATO summit in Strasbourg, in eastern France, in April .
Towards evening, during the incident in which around twenty people were arrested, according to police, a police officer suffered an injury to his chin from a cobblestone. Four vehicles caught fire near an occupied house.
"We have the extreme groups under control," said police spokesman Henrik Jakobsen as the police helicopters circled in the air.
Most of the demonstrators who traveled by train or in their own vehicles from major German cities, London, Amsterdam or Milan were Europeans.
However, there were also many Asians, including Chinese and Koreans, and Africans.
Almost 3,000 people, mostly in sky-blue raincoats, formed the first group in Copenhagen after the call from the "Friends of the Earth" to represent the "blue seas" for "climate justice".
"Today we take to the streets to demand that the ecological debt be repaid to the people of the South," said activist Lidy Nacpil of the Jubilee South Coalition of the Philippines in Copenhagen.
"We can no longer tell each other: We still have time," says singer Angélique Kidjo from Benin.
"In Africa there are rivers that run dry, there are watercourses that you can walk through, which was never the case before."
For the first time in the history of climate diplomacy, which was launched in 1992 with the adoption of the UN Convention, the anti-globalization movement has come closer to environmental protection organizations.
French MEP and globalization critic José Bové told AFP that he came to Copenhagen to "combine climate justice and social justice." "Today there is no difference between fighting global warming and fighting for a different world."
The organization Oxfam has mobilized several personalities, such as the Danish model Helena Christensen or the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, to address the masses.
The Asia-Pacific region, home to many islands that are particularly vulnerable to global warming, has provided the impetus for the demonstrations.
According to the organizers, around 50,000 people took to the streets in Australia.
In Manila, several hundred people, mostly students, dressed in red and bandanas, lobbied for solar energy in front of the city government of the Philippine capital.
Hundreds of protesters have also gathered in Hong Kong and Jakarta in an action against climate change.
In France, several hundred people joined during the demonstrations organized by the "Network of 350", notably in Paris, Marseille in the south, Lille in the north, Bordeaux in the west and Lyon in the east.
Several people gathered in Geneva.
According to Chatel, the subjects of geography and history will emerge stronger from the Lycéen school reform.
In an interview published in the Sunday newspaper "Journal du dimanche", the national education minister, Luc Chatel, explained that the subjects of geography and history have come out stronger as a result of the school reform in the lycéen, even if they are not taught as compulsory in the terminale (12th school year). .
"The pupils of the Première (year 11) now have all four periods a week and the same programme," confirms Mr. Chatel.
For the minister, "this hypocrisy must be overcome" because, according to him, "the scientific profile is no longer a scientific profile" but, by and large, a concentration of "the best students."
"The economic-social and the literary profile (ES and L) must not become a sub-profile of the scientific one," he continued. He emphasized: "I have not yet heard many historians and intellectuals who were outraged by the lack of historical-geographical education in the terminals at technical lyceums."
On Saturday, an IFOP poll published in Humanité revealed that almost seven out of ten French people (69%) criticize the government's project to abolish compulsory history and geography classes at Terminale S (12th year with a scientific profile). Many teachers and intellectuals also criticized this project, as did the left and some representatives of the right.
The minister replied that there was no question of restricting the philosophy of the Terminale S program.
Luc Chatel also defended the teacher education reform, while 16 organizations (students and unions) called for Tuesday's protest against the project which they say is sacrificing the pedagogical training of future teachers.
The minister explained that in Master 2 (M2) they undergo a subject-related aptitude test at the beginning of the year and an admission test at the end of the year, in which their teaching skills are tested.
They also do internships during the year in M2 and then teach a year before the students as internship teachers.
He went on to say, "If you add all the internships offered before the proficiency test, you get even more hours spent before the students, that is, more than 300 hours."
The minister finally declared that he wanted to offer "the individual right to education" - a "thing that does not exist in popular education."
He confirmed again that he would like to abolish the school card "by 2012".
15 minutes for the climate at the "Ecole Normale Supérieure"
Fifteen minutes to talk about the Copenhagen Summit : that is the challenge that Jean Jouzel, Vice-President of the "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change", set on Saturday morning at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in the Rue d'Ulm in Paris had to deal with.
As a journalist from AFP noted, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Jean Jouzel opened the first of the "Ernest" conferences, at which experts address the audience with fifteen-minute filmed contributions.
You want to do something that reaches people and makes them want to know more, explained Edouard Hannezo, 22 years old and one of the organizers of the day, on the sidelines of the conference. The name of this event comes from the name that the students gave to the fish in the school's tank.
"Around twenty panellists were selected from among the experts, also on the basis of their charisma," he specifies.
"You can talk for hours about global warming. But the core goals can also be presented in a few minutes," said Jean Jouzel of AFP, who spoke freely in front of around 50 people using only slides.
'It's part of our role as scientists,' he stressed, hoping that the audience would conclude that 'the Copenhagen conference is based on an absolutely serious scientific dossier.'
The videos filmed from these conferences will be available online on the school's site from December 15th.
The next "Ernest" day is planned for February and will take place every two months thereafter.
Late payment : angry prison guards, actions planned
Prison officers' unions called a general day of action on Friday to get bonuses and overtime, which budget constraints have delayed until January, to be paid before the Christmas holiday.
The 2nd Union of Correctional Officers ("FO-Pénitentiaire") called on the off-duty staff to demonstrate and blockade outside the penitentiary on Tuesday morning to draw attention to the "theft of what is rightfully theirs". close.
The 3rd Union of Correctional Officers ("CGT-Pénitentiaire") called for "uniting for a strong mobilization in the different prisons" on which the non-payment of overtime in October, night bonuses and the Sunday and public holiday bonuses in December marketed as "disgraceful and unacceptable".
The first prison officials' union, the Autonomous Federal Union of Penitentiaries (UFAP/UNSA), called for "general mobilizations (...) to show dissatisfaction and anger."
The prison administration and the Ministry of Justice stated that overtime hours increased sharply in 2009 and not all were budgeted for. However, they guarantee that the remaining claims will be paid in January.
As the Ministry of Justice announced in the evening, Michèle Alliot-Marie had sent a letter to the prison officers' unions guaranteeing that the payment would be made next month.
"I am very well aware of the efforts made by the staff to keep our prison system functional and to modernize it," said the Minister of Justice in this letter.
"I have instructed the prison management to take immediate action to ensure that such a situation, which has arisen due to a lack of estimation of the overtime hours involved, does not recur in the future," added Ms. Alliot-Marie.
The December wages are therefore meager, except for the management staff, who enjoy high service and target bonuses, explains the UFAP/UNSA, for whom the "budget constraints" have to serve.
"It's an absolute scandal," the interregional FO union in Marseille said, announcing that it would boycott "all meetings and convocations" until new instructions were issued.
"The staff don't go to work on Sundays and public holidays if the hours from October are still not paid in December. This also applies to their overtime," the FO Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne also threatens.
"At a time when we are being saddled with more and more tasks without hiring more staff, trying to take advantage of staff funds is all but inappropriate," said the Bordeaux CGT union.
According to the unions, the situation is not the same in all regions. Some are less affected than others.
In any case, however, it is wrong, states the Secretary General of the UFAP, Jean-François Forget.
Obama thinks he always gives out better gifts than he gets at Christmas.
US President Barack Obama, who will be spending Christmas with his family in the White House for the first time, revealed to TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey that he always gives out better gifts than he gets himself.
In a special broadcast on Channel ABC on Sunday night, the President and his wife Michelle gave a glimpse of how they will spend the holiday season in their illustrious new home.
Even Bo, the family's little four-legged companion, will be there.
"Santa Claus also loves Bo," affirms Michelle Obama, adding that the dog will of course also get a present.
Michelle Obama firmly denied her husband's claims about the quality of the gifts. "I gave you nice presents last year," she teases the president.
"So please," he implored her mischievously, pointing to the First Lady's pearl necklace: "And who gave you that?"
During this casual hour-long broadcast starring the well-known TV host who had so vehemently supported Barack Obama during his campaign, the President and his wife also shared gifts they loved most as a child.
Barack Obama remembered a ten-speed bicycle and also a basketball that his father, whom he rarely saw, brought him from Kenya for Christmas.
"I remember when my father came to visit us for Christmas and brought me a basketball," the president said.
"It wasn't until much later in my life that I realized I had that ball from him."
For her part, the First Lady remembered her dollhouse.
"I didn't know how to arrange the furniture in a house at all, so I put them all against the wall instead of grouping them around the fireplace. But I loved this little dollhouse," said Michelle Obama.
Johnny Hallyday operated again, RTL confirms that he was put in an artificial coma
Johnny Hallyday underwent another operation in Los Angeles for significant "damage" after an operation in France. According to those around him, the situation is "under control", although RTL confirms that the singer was placed in an induced coma to avoid pain and complications.
The 66-year-old rock musician underwent another operation on Wednesday night at the Cedars-Sinaï hospital in Los Angeles after American doctors diagnosed "damage following the operation on a herniated disc" he suffered on November 26 in Paris , according to his production company in Paris, who added that the damage required a repeat operation.
The singer's production company nevertheless wanted to make it clear that the situation was "under control" and announced that a new medical report would be available in 48 hours at the latest.
However, according to RTL, the singer's partner during the singer's last tour, Johnny Hallyday was placed in an induced coma to avoid "pain and complications".
However, it was only after 48 hours that one had a little more certainty about the patient's condition when he opened his eyes, RTL added.
When asked by AFP, there was no confirmation or comment from the production company.
RTL also confirms that "certain sources indicate" that "no drainage whatsoever" was put in after his first operation in Paris.
The rocker had undergone surgery at the Parc Monceau International Clinic for a herniated disc.
The surgery, planned over several days, was performed by neurosurgeon Stéphane Delajoux, a well-known doctor who has treated many stars.
This was not available for comments to RTL on Thursday evening.
Following Johnny Hallyday's surgery, the singer was admitted to the Cedars-Sinaï Hospital in Los Angeles on Monday due to an infection post-operatively.
Singer Eddy Mitchell, who is very close to Johnny Hallyday, told RTL on Thursday that his friend was going through a "deep valley". However, he assured that there is "no need to worry" about the rock musician as he is "a good fighter".
"He had called me before he left for Los Angeles. I told him that it was nonsense to sit on a plane for 12 hours after an operation like that, that's not possible," said Eddy Mitchell.
On Wednesday night, the singer's producer, Jean-Claude Camus, confirmed that Johnny Hallyday "is responding well to the antibiotics" and that "the infection is under control".
Mr. Camus also stated that he had spoken to Laeticia, the singer's wife, and felt no particular concern.
Still, concerns for the singer's health had grown since he spent nine days in hospital in July after falling on his yacht.
Two months later, to everyone's astonishment, it was reported that Johnny Hallyday had "small colon cancer surgery", which resulted in a slight infection.
At the end of September, as planned, the singer recorded his long "Tour 66" as a farewell tour.
Since then, however, every health problem has been extensively commented on. Fans and journalists noticed that the singer struggled to move on stage.
It was not until mid-November that those around him had to deny that he had been admitted to the hospital again.
Euro 2009/Short Course: First place for Bousquet over his favorite distance
Frenchman Frédérick Bousquet, a three-time medalist at the 2009 World Aquatics Championships, clinched an international title in his favorite distance, the 50m freestyle, at the Euro 2009 short course in Istanbul on Thursday.
On the first day of this competition, which marked the last time polyurethane suits were allowed, there were only three world records while a veritable flood of records was expected.
One record was broken by Hungary's Evelyn Verraszto in the men's 4 x 200m individual medley and the other two by Russia in the men's 4 x 50m individual medley.
Too bad for Bousquet, who wanted to grab the world record in the 50m freestyle he holds in the large pool (20.94).
In one of the two longest distances in swimming, the 50m freestyle, the 28-year-old Frenchman asserted himself in 20.53 seconds. in a final with ten swimmers starting (usually eight) - a first at international level.
Bousquet defeated Croatian Duje Draganja (20.70) and Russian Sergey Fesikov (20.84) but failed to break the world record (20.30) as planned.
"You can always believe in bigger things and in this case I said if the world record is within my reach then I will try."
Like Bousquet, almost all swimmers started in polyurethane suits, which are banned from January 1, 2010.
With 238 world records set since February 2008, these combinations end their epic in Istanbul that first began in 1999 at the same competition.
The use of the combination did not pay off in the end this time for the German Paul Biedermann, two-time world champion in the pool this summer in Rome and a world record.
The young swimmer failed to improve on his best time in the 400m freestyle (3:32.77) but still has the second best time of his career (3:34.55), ahead of Russia's Nikita Lobintsev (3:35.75) and the Denmark's Mads Glaesner (3:36.82) prevailed.
"I didn't give it my all this time.
I knew I couldn't break a world record today, but I defended my title and did my job."
"Lobintsev will be a serious opponent in the future," said Biedermann.
USA: Tombstone at Zola estimated at US$1.5 million
A Roman tombstone found in the home of French writer Emile Zola, of all people, was valued at $1.5 million on Thursday, according to art dealer Sotheby's.
This slab is two meters long and 63 cm high. It comes from the III. Century AD and has always been valued at $150,000 to $250,000.
The marble, which depicts "four scenes of Dionysus in a sophisticated architectural setting surrounded by satyrs and figures of Bacchus, is a rare piece. There are only four or five of them in the world," explained Florent Heintz, vice-president of Roman and Egyptian Auctions Antiques at Sotheby's, told AFP on Tuesday.
It was sold among hundreds of pieces.
"Sales are still ongoing but this piece is certainly what buyers have bid the most for so far," Sotheby's spokesman Dan Abernethy told AFP.
The discovery of this acquisition of the marble part by Emile Zola goes way back.
The plate was at home in Rome in the famous collection of the Borghese family for almost 300 years, after which it was resurfaced piece by piece by the French actress Cécile Sorel, who used it in the bathroom of her Paris hotel and by Paul Reynaud, Minister in the III . French Republic and President of the Council before Marshal Pétain came to power.
The next fifty years are in the dark.
Searching the Louvre's database, Florent Heintz discovered that this panel was part of a "legacy of Emile Zola" opened in 1903, a year after the death of the author of the "Thérèse Raquin" and the "Rougon-Macquart" fresco.
Zelaya's attempt to leave Honduras for Mexico has been thwarted
On Thursday, Mexico declared the terms of the transfer of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to home soil no longer compatible after he rejected escorts by the coup government as unacceptable.
According to Mexico's Foreign Affairs Minister, Patricia Espinosa, after a late-night phone call with President Zelaya, everything seems to indicate that there is disagreement over the possibility of completing the transfer.
According to the immigration authorities, the plane provided by the Mexican government, which arrived in Salvador on Wednesday to transfer M. Zelaya, has returned to its place of departure.
The putsch government wanted to force M. Zelaya to "abdicate" and to seek political asylum for him abroad under escort.
However, the ousted president declined, wishing to return to Mexico as the welcomed acting head of state.
The coup regime "has suffered another failure by trying to get me to surrender at my expense (...), they wanted me to resign," M. Zelaya told Radio Globo on Thursday, on which he has been speaking since the beginning of the political crisis that has been going on in the Central American country for five months.
I can stay here for ten years, I have my guitar here, added the deposed president, who took refuge in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa two and a half months ago, strumming a few chords.
The Mexican embassy presented us with a request for escort, which unfortunately we cannot accept because it does not include a request for asylum, Oscar Raul Matute, interior minister of the coup government, told Honduran radio HRN on Wednesday.
I am not asking for asylum in any country, Manuel Zelaya replied in an interview with the Telesur channel, which is based in Caracas.
A possible departure from Honduras, he had emphasized, would only be undertaken as President of the Honduran people.
The rumors that M. Zelaya was leaving the country had mobilized supporters of the ousted president on Wednesday.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim criticized the coup government's stance.
This, he says, reveals the marginal nature of this government in the face of international norms.
Zelaya, who had aligned himself with socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, was overthrown on June 28, on the day of the referendum he organized to prepare for his re-election, against the advice of the Supreme Court, the army and Congress.
He returned unexpectedly from his exile in Costa Rica on September 21 and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy.
If he leaves, he will be jailed for high treason, of which he will be accused by the judiciary, according to the coup government.
The coup leader Roberto Micheletti managed to organize a presidential election on November 29 to replace M. Zelaya.
Porfirio Lobo was recognized by the United States during the controversial election, but rejected by Latin American countries such as Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil.
Three days later, Congress had voted massively against M. Zelaya's return to office until his mandate expired on January 27.
Wall Street on the up, US trade balance fuels optimism
The New York Stock Exchange closed on Thursday with a high, the figures of the American trade balance testify to a recovery of the stocks of the United States and their partners: the Dow Jones rose by 0.67%, the Nasdaq by 0.33%.
According to the numbers at the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up from 68.78 points to 10,405.83 points, while the Nasdaq, which is dominated by technology, is up from 7.13 points to 2,190.06 points.
The extended Standard & Poor's 500 Index was recorded with 0.58% (6.40 points) to 1,102.35 points.
There is good news from various sectors of the economy, judged Lindsey Piegza of FTN Financial.
However, this remains anecdotal on the premise that the market only focuses on "glasses half full", she moderated.
According to Avalon Partners' Peter Cardillo, investors are primarily fixated on the US trade balance figure, "which shows an improvement in activity in the fourth quarter."
The US trade deficit fell 7.6% to $32.9 billion in October compared to September.
In contrast, the analysts had expected an increase in the deficit.
Both imports and exports have increased.
The big news is the increase in the overall volume of trade, particularly exports of goods, which reflects economic growth in the United States' main trading partners, commented Christopher Cornell of corporate research Economy.com.
Conversely, jobless claims in the United States rose against expectations last week and have now reached 474,000.
However, the median number of new job seekers over the past four weeks has "fallen to the lowest point of the year," said Wells Fargo Advisors' Scott Marcouiller.
The bond market has fallen.
The yield on 10-year government bonds rose to 3.482% from 3.432% Tuesday night, while the yield on 30-year bonds rose to 4.492% from 4.408% last night.
Cuba: Hundreds of partisans in power boo "ladies in white".
Hundreds of partisans in power in Cuba booed the wives of political prisoners gathered in Havana to mark World Human Rights Day on Thursday, as well as thwarting another rally that led to the temporary arrests of a dozen or so dissidents.
About forty "Ladies in White", wives or close friends of political prisoners, were booed in the street by partisans of the government under Raul Castro, just as they were on their way to the center of the capital to demand the liberation of the political prisoners. a journalist from AFP confirmed.
Down with the Yankies!, "Mercenaries!", "The streets belong to the revolutionaries!", "Long live Fidel and Raul!" the empowered partisans chanted with raised fists at the dissidents.
The latter were escorted by civilian agents who had appeared to "ensure their protection".
A similar demonstration against the "Ladies in White" took place in Havana the previous evening, but neither injuries nor arrests were made.
Meanwhile, in Havana's Vedado district, a dozen dissidents who were also taking part in Thursday's International Human Rights Day demonstration were temporarily detained by plainclothes police, an AFP reporter confirmed.
According to the journalist, the police used force to force the dissidents who were being booed by government partisans into civilian vehicles.
The temporary detention of dissidents in such circumstances is usually limited to a few hours.
As candidates for the Sakharov Prize awarded by the European Parliament in 2005, the "Ladies in White" organized an unauthorized march for the purpose of "requesting the release of all political prisoners", who according to the list of dissidents number around 200 people, Laura explained Pollan, one of the leaders whose husband Hector Maceda is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
M. Maceda is among the group of 75 Cuban dissidents arrested in March 2003, 53 of whom are currently behind bars.
The Cuban authorities perceive the regime's opponents as "mercenaries" or "agents" in the service of the declared arch-enemy, the United States.
A rarity in itself, Cuban television reported Thursday's demonstration events between pro-government militants and "counter-revolutionaries."
Led by a single party, the Communist Party, Cuba is regularly accused by European or American NGOs of denigrating rights and freedoms, in particular freedom of expression.
Madman kills octogenarian with knife and leaves 5 injured in Clichy-la-Garenne
A maniac armed with two knives killed an octogenarian and injured five others late Friday afternoon during peak business hours in downtown Clichy-la-Garenne (Hauts-de-Seine).
According to initial information from the survey, the 28-year-old attacker had injured the eighty-year-old with two knives in or in front of a pharmacy on Boulevard Jean-Jaures for reasons that are not yet clear, and according to police reports, in the presence of witnesses.
The old man, born in 1929, died in hospital as a result of his injuries, according to an officer of the Alliance police syndicate.
In or in front of the same pharmacy, he has taken on a couple with a pregnant woman.
The man, in his 30s, intervened and was injured.
The first two victims were taken to hospital with serious injuries, where the eighty-year-old died.
The other injured person is in mortal danger because, according to police sources, vital organs were apparently affected.
The pregnant woman has become nauseous as a result of the events and is said to have been hospitalized in "shock" according to a police source.
The armed man, who, according to the police, appeared to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, is said to have escaped immediately onto the street, the same Boulevard Jean Jaures.
He would have injured two other passers-by, apparently by accident: a thirty-year-old and a forty-year-old, the latter of the two seriously.
The scenario remained in the dark in the evening.
He was armed with two butcher knives, which he carried crossed behind his back, explained Arnaud Pressé, an officer in charge of the Syndicate Alliance of the Hauts-de-Seine area.
Several passers-by, including young people, are said to have tried to tame the madman, according to witness reports determined by AFP.
I saw a guy in his 30s with a green vest.
Three youths tried to intervene.
They didn't make it because the guy was well built, reported Alberto, a waiter at a nearby bar.
A mob fell on him, he added, including a city police officer who broke his wrist in the process.
Still on boulevard Jean-Jaures, at number 61, two municipal police officers, including their manager, tried to arrest the gunman and were stabbed, police said.
The action took place in one of the main arteries of Clichy-la-Garenne, where a number of shops are located.
Passers-by came up to me to tell me that there was an injured person outside.
I went out and saw a 70-year-old person lying on the ground, I gave him first aid and noticed a gash in the stomach area, Frédéric Allione, a 35-year-old pharmacist, told AFP.
Five minutes later, a second person, around 30 years old, came with cut injuries.
State police forces finally arrested the man, who was not carrying any identification papers.
The Nanterre Public Prosecutor's Office has entrusted the Hauts-de-Seine District Police Department (SDPJ 92) with investigating the case.
The maniac was hospitalized on Thursday evening.
In view of his condition, he has not yet been heard in court.
A police source does not rule out that he may be committed to a mental institution.
According to another police source, it took six police officers to subdue him at the police station in Clichy, where he was taken.
He was "in a state of hyperarousal" like "all mentally disturbed of this kind, whose forces are released during the course of the crime".
USA: Polanski's lawyer again calls for the prosecution to be dropped
The lawyer for the French-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski has repeatedly called for criminal prosecution against his client, who is currently at his place of residence in Switzerland, for a moral offense committed more than 30 years ago in Los Angeles (California, western United States). stands before the court to drop.
Chad Hummel, attorney for the director of The Pianist, denounced gross procedural errors at the time of the trial in 1977 before three judges of the Court of Appeals in the Second District of California.
I call for pardon now, M. Hummel stated, before adding that the behavior of Judge Laurence Rittenband, who was in charge of the case at the time of the hearing, "sent a chill down my spine."
According to him, before the judge, Rittenband, who has since passed away, had a discussion with a prosecutor who is said to have told him that Roman Polanski deserved a penitentiary -- which constitutes a serious procedural error.
This discussion was raised in the documentary Roman Polanski: wanted and desired, specifically by the prosecutor in question, David Wells.
Finally, at the end of September, M. Wells declared that he had "lied" to the authors of the documentary film.
Should the Court refuse to drop the criminal case, Mr. Hummel is asking for a trial that would enable him to present the evidence for his arguments.
The prosecution, for its part, has repeated the line of evidence already explained in the first instance, ie that a discussion to set aside the facts with which the accused is charged cannot seriously be considered as long as Roman Polanski does not appear in court.
The 76-year-old director fled the United States in 1978 before he was sentenced for "illegal sexual relations" with a 13-year-old minor.
He has not traveled to the United States since that time.
Los Angeles County Assistant Attorney Phyllis Asayama said Roman Polanski "needs to be there to attend the trial."
In this matter, do you want to spread the message, not only to (Roman Polanski) but also to other defendants, that escape is a way out? asks Ms. Asayma.
According to her, "the filmmaker is asking a favor of the Court and in doing so is flouting its authority".
One of the three judges - who now have 90 days to announce their decision - even emphasized "that there are other escape alternatives".
Hummel wasn't the only one who requested that the prosecution be dropped against Roman Polanski.
The lawyer for Samantha Geimer, the victim, once again demanded that the criminal proceedings be set aside.
Recalling that her client could no longer bear to be bothered by any resurgence of the Polanski affair, she added, "Nobody in this room can say that this trial was fair.
Thirty-two years is enough".
Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland on September 26, on the basis of an American arrest warrant.
After spending two months behind bars, he was then sentenced to house arrest in his chalet in Gstaad, pending extradition.
Wall Street is slowed by the rise in the dollar and closes flat.
The New York Stock Exchange ended Friday flat in a market torn between better than US forecast indicators and a rise in the dollar: the Dow Jones gained 0.63% while the Nasdaq lost 0 .03%.
As of the final numbers available at close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 65.67 points to 10,471.50 points, while the tech-dominated Nasdaq is down 0.55 points to 2,190.31 points.
The extended Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.37% (4.06 points) to 1,106.41 points.
"To be honest, the market is pretty quiet," noted Marblehead Asset Management's Mace Blicksilver.
"It remains tightly constrained, trading volume has become very low and I think it will remain so through the end of the year."
The trend was helped by the release of better-than-planned economic indicators, which "helped improve the market's view of the solidity of the economy's recovery," summarized Charles Schwab's analysts.
In the US, retail sales increased by 1.3% in November, two months in a row and well above forecast.
Also, US consumer confidence improved significantly in December, to 73.4 from 67.4 the previous month, according to the University of Michigan Index Preview.
However, the indices have been held back by a fresh rise in the dollar, which has hit its highest level against the euro in two months, "pushing down sectors vulnerable to the economic situation," explained Owen Fitzpatrick, Deutsche Bank.
The technological values have lost some ground as a result.
The bond market has declined.
The 10-year Treasury bond yield rose 3.540% from 3.482% on Wednesday night and the 30-year bond yield rose to 4.497% from 4.492% the previous day.
Miss World election again in South Africa
After a month's tour of South Africa, the 112 candidates for the title of Miss World will cross the final hurdle on Saturday to make their dream come true: to be voted the most beautiful woman in the world in front of a billion television viewers.
Five of them have already secured their ticket to the semi-finals during this major beauty fair, which is being held in the Johannesburg area for the second year in a row.
Miss Japan Eruza Sasaki, Perla Beltran Acosta from Mexico, Mariatu Kargbo from Sierra Leone, Kaiane Aldorino from Gilbratar and Yanbing Ma from Canada were crowned Miss Sportive or Miss Top Model during their stay in Africa.
This was a veritable whirlpool of pleasure.
Visiting beautiful cities like Port Elizabeth, Durban and Cape Horn was just extraordinary.
I've seen a lot of things and had a lot of experiences! said Miss Sierra Leone with great enthusiasm.
This competition is taking place in South Africa for the ninth time and will be broadcast live on Saturday from 5pm (3pm Central European Time) from Midrand, north of Johannesburg.
I couldn't imagine a nicer country to hand over my crown.
This experience was just mesmerizing.
I'm lucky to have had this experience twice, underlined Miss World Ksenia Sukhinova in the heat of the South African summer.
For the young Russian, her second stay in South Africa was marked by numerous exchanges of experiences with candidates and the rediscovery of "breathtaking landscapes".
After a month of galas, rehearsals, press encounters and safari, the Miss are now focused on the competition.
Indian Pooja Chopra hopes to follow in the footsteps of Priyanka Chopra, who was elected in 2000 and will also be present at this election, and emulate Aishwarya Rai, who was elected in 1994 and both became Bollywood stars.
Of course it's every woman's dream to be crowned the most beautiful woman in the world, but it's not just about looks.
We are ambassadors of our country and I want to come home with the crown, Miss India interjects with a big smile.
According to the organizers, this 59th edition will be punctuated with music and dance.
The candidates parade in traditional costumes and, last but not least, in bathing suits.
The performance will be presented by a TV presenter, Angela Chow of China, ex-beauty queen from South Africa, Michelle McLean and Miss World committee executive Steve Douglas.
South Africa has shown that it welcomes the world with a warmth and pride that is hard to beat, affirms Julia Morley, President of Miss World.
Like last year, the candidates went on a safari, visited the famous township in Soweto, but this time cycled and tasted the local cuisine.
However, the meeting with South African President Jacob Zuma, who shook hands with them, was quite extraordinary.
Not usual for a head of state, remarked Miss Sierra Leone.
Her fondest memory, however, remains undoubtedly the June 2010 FIFA World Cup draw in Cape Town (south-west), a way for the country to promote the event a little more.
I associate with people I would probably never otherwise be able to get close to.
I will definitely come back for the 2010 World Cup, Miss Italy Alice Taticchi promised enthusiastically.
Johnny Hallyday's news is 'very positive', according to his son David
The news about Johnny Hallyday is "very positive," said his son David upon arrival at Los Angeles airport on Friday to visit his father, who has been hospitalized there for several days.
The news is very positive.
He is very strong, everything is going very well, David Hallyday told the press as he disembarked from the plane he landed in from Paris just after 1pm local time (9pm CET).
The singer's son, who seemed relaxed, assured that he would go "as soon as possible" to the Cedars-Sinaï hospital, where Johnny Hallyday was admitted on Monday in Paris for a bacterial infection following surgery on a herniated disc on November 26 became.
The singer was "placed in an induced coma this night in Los Angeles to relieve his severe pain and to be able to carry out his treatment, the press service announced.
Johnny Hallyday was placed in an induced coma by doctors at Cedars-Sinaï Hospital in Los Angeles, into which he was admitted on Monday due to a secondary bacterial infection following a disc surgery on November 26 in Paris.
The singer had to undergo another operation in the night from Wednesday to Thursday due to the pathological changes caused by the last operation.
His wife Laeticia attended a school event at the Los Angeles French High School where their daughter Jade attends Friday morning, an AFP photographer noted.
The head of the department of orthopedic and traumatological surgery at the Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Yves Catoné, announced that he would visit the singer at the hospital in Los Angeles on Monday.
The producer hired neurosurgeon Dr. Stéphane Delajoux, who operated on the singer on November 26 at the Clinique Internationale du parc Monceau in Paris, heavily burdened.
We were told that he had caused the purest massacre.
Los Angeles surgeons said they were completely outraged, explained Mr. Camus.
I have heard that there may be a court case, he said.
Jean-Claude Camus is of the opinion that Johnny Hallyday "travelled to Los Angeles far too quickly and did so with the permission of the Parisian surgeon".
I personally spoke to this doctor on the phone who assured me that he saw no problems in the trip, which surprised me as I have had two disc surgeries myself, he added.
Shortly before, he announced on RTL that the singer had apparently left the hospital after the operation "without drainage, without everything".
Dr Stéphane Delajoux is well known in the artistic world.
He had operated on the actress Marie Trintignant, a few days before her death in Vilnius, in a clinic in Neuilly-sur-Seine, where he was practicing at the time.
In 2007, he also operated on actress Charlotte Gainsbourg to resorb a hematoma after a brain hemorrhage.
But he's also a doctor with a dubious reputation who has been convicted several times for failed surgeries, not to mention tax evasion and fraud.
Me Olivier Metzner, lawyer for the medical association, described him as "a man without scruples" who "regularly" has to answer to the board of the chamber and is "anything but recommendable".
After a few days of silence, Dr. Stéphane Delajoux issued a statement on Friday through his attorney, Me David Koubbi.
He explained that the intervention "went perfectly" and that the postoperative examinations were "normal".
The operation "did not bleed and therefore does not require drainage," he added.
In any case, the tour of the singer, whose health problems have been mounting since last summer, seems to be in question.
Clearly it's a little too close for a continuation of the tour on January 8th (in Amiens), explained Mr. Camus.
The party alliance UDF (Union for French Democracy) became energetic and called on the Nouveau Center party to stop using its seal
The party alliance, which is monitored by François Bayrou's MoDem party, reacted violently on Friday to an attempt by the leader of the Nouveau Center party, Hervé Morin, to take over the seal, the party once founded by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, and threatened him with a court prosecution asked not to use this seal on any document anymore.
Hervé Morin publicly announces his intention to adopt this UDF seal, considering that François Bayrou would not be worthy of defending this political legacy after shaking hands with the left.
The defense minister, whose party partner is the UMP, wanted to confirm this strategy on Saturday before the NC National Council.
To emphasize his efforts, he had received the support of MP Hervé de Charette (ex-UMP, now at NC), who claims ownership of the UDF trademark, being the first to present this trademark to the "Institut national de la propriété Industrielle" in 2004 has requested.
However, the office of the UDF party alliance, which was monitored by François Bayrous's friends, broke the silence and made it clear that they would not allow themselves to be expropriated and, under threat of legal prosecution, gave the minister and the deputy a deadline to stop using this seal and give them the transfer ownership of the brand.
You have made numerous statements in recent days that you would propose to your political movement to +adopt+ the UDF seal, the party alliance wrote in a letter signed by 19 of the 24 bureau members, including François Bayrou and Marielle de Sarnez, of the MoDem party and Senator Jean Arthuis of the Centrist Alliance.
You probably also believed that you had the right to put the name of this movement +Nouveau centre+, the slogan + of today's UDF + on your political material as well as on the front page of your website.
As you know, you do not have the right to use this seal, the UDF office said, calling on the NC party to "immediately remove any mention of the name UDF from all material and from (their) website".
In addition, Hervé de Charette was required to "transfer ownership of the brand to its legal beneficiaries".
If you refuse, we will take legal action against you to uphold the law and defend the legitimate rights of UDF members, the signatories warned.
In their letter, they emphasize that "UDF" has been a full-fledged political movement since 1978, recalling that Morin and his friends "made the choice" to leave in 2007 to form a rival movement, as others had done in 2002 had to found the "UMP" party.
According to the undersigned, the Nouveau Center party therefore has no rights whatsoever to use the UDF seal (Union pour la démocratie française).
They also recall that the last UDF congress in 2007 approved the three-year membership of the MoDem party and the creation of an agency to defend "the material and moral interests" of the movement founded by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
As for Hervé de Charette, the office continues, "at the time he applied for the brand name, he had not been a member of the UDF for three years" but of the UMP.
He takes advantage, scandalously and fraudulently, of not depositing the acronym UDF to do it for himself.
You also point out that this ruthlessness is on the best way to turning into a criminal offense and ironize the strategy of the NC: "In politics as well as in life it seems to us more dignified to make a name for oneself instead of trying to get out of anonymity by fraudulently acquiring a name to which one has no legal title".
Affaire Liliane Bettencourt: François-Marie Banier is convicted of exploiting weakness
The Nanterre Court of Justice decided on Friday to try the artist François-Marie Banier to see if, as the daughter of billionaire Liliane Bettencourt claims, he took advantage of a moment of weakness in the octogenarian to steal part of her fortune.
The 62-year-old photographer, known for his celebrity photos, will appear in court on April 15-16, 2010 for exploiting weakness, a crime punishable by a maximum of three years in prison and a fine of 375,000 euros becomes.
This decision means there will indeed be a trial in this affair worthy of the saga of one of France's wealthiest families, in which mother and daughter tear up each other while holding the reins of the cosmetics empire L'Oréal.
Likewise, however, the 15th Trial Chamber ordered a medical examination of 87-year-old Liliane Bettencourt, which is being carried out jointly by three doctors.
The heiress and main shareholder of L'Oréal has so far refused to submit to such an investigation, especially under the conditions presented during the investigation by the Nanterre public prosecutor's office.
Doctors appointed on Friday are due to submit a report before March 10, 2010 clearly stating if and at what times Liliane Bettencourt may have been in a state of weakness.
I think she will undergo these examinations.
I will speak to her, Ms Bettencourt's lawyer, Me Georges Kiejman, said after the hearing.
As for Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers' lawyer, Me Olivier Metzner, he is very satisfied with the court's decision.
This is excellent news (...). The report will prove that he (Banier) manipulated this old lady who must be protected, he affirmed.
For two years now, Liliane Bettencourt's only daughter has launched a criminal case against photographer and all-round artist François-Marie Banier, accusing him of having exploited her mother's weakness for years to obtain donations totaling one billion euros in the form of bank checks, to sneak insurance policies or paintings.
For her part, Liliane Bettencourt has always denied being manipulated by the photographer, whom she considers a longtime friend.
Although the court would have to review the admissibility of the lawsuit brought by Ms Bettencourt-Meyers, the pleas by the lawyers on Friday led to a major family debacle.
Liliane Bettencourt's lawyer referred to three letters sent by his client to her notary (1999, 2003 and 2005) in which she wrote that she distrusted Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers' husband.
According to her lawyer, Liliane Bettencourt added: "Could you please explain to my daughter that I wrote to Banier once or twice a day for fifteen years.
I have never been able to speak to Françoise since her marriage".
The Nanterre Public Prosecutor's Office is again of the opinion that the applicant had no right to react in this way, mainly because a guardianship judge has in recent days rejected her request for judicial protection proceedings to be instituted against her mother.
Liliane Bettencourt "has full legal capacity, is not under protection and has no guardian.
No one has the right to act in their place," prosecutor Marie-Christine Daubigney said.
The court has now decided to give judgment after the admissibility trial of Mme Bettencourt-Meyers has taken place.
Manager revolution or the end of strategic foresight?
If nothing changes in the leadership of large French companies, our struggle for the development of economic intelligence will have been in vain ...
For over a decade, the attitude of the management of large companies in relation to its employees, said the position of companies vis-à-vis the consumer before the marketing revolution: it is for the staff to join 'values' intended the best, like it used to impose on the consumer products designed by the technicians at the factory.
By putting the customer at the heart of companies, the marketing revolution has given the strategies of conquering the markets in place ... although the authoritarian temptation to impose separate factors of customer preferences on products again regularly!
Demobilization of employees can lead to deadly demoralization.
The suicides at France Telecom, PSA or Renault are just the tip of a much larger phenomenon that affects employees in particular.
This demobilization has a negative impact on the development of all the intellectual functions of the company, especially those of R&D and, more importantly, those of economic intelligence.
In fact, the IE (Intelligence Economique = economic intelligence) "demands from all parties involved (...) a proactive approach and a future-oriented vision"; it demands a commitment from the employees that the instructions of the authoritarian management totally contradict.
That is why we are calling for an operational revolution that would consist of putting the employees at the center of the company's concerns on an equal footing with the customers.
The very limited use of internal opinion polls
Will internal opinion polls, like the questionnaire that Orange sent to its employees, stimulate this revolution in management practice?
I'm afraid not.
- First of all, because I was able to see that, faced with a new situation, the whole structure, after many detours, finally ends up doing as a matter of priority... what it has always done.
Also because authoritarianism - one of the pathologies of power - increases in proportion to the importance of its own failures.
And finally, because most executives have a simplistic view of human behavior.
Emerging from the great engineering schools, their interpretation of psychology is mechanistic.
They are adopting, through intellectual comfort, the old behaviorist theory recently reactivated by US "neuroscience" and unwittingly widely disseminated by research institutes and through the media.
Thus, and by suggesting that it is possible to pull the "levers" (sic) to engage employees, a recent Ipsos survey published in Le Figaro.fr encourages managers to take a stance on a mechanistic governance system that is essential for today's world is unsuitable.
Identify and measure the mobilization factors
Instead, an operational revolution necessary for the smooth functioning of modern enterprises requires the adoption of a definitive view of human behavior.
It consists in incorporating a fundamental protocol into any management reflection or practice: for wage earners, commitment to the company is only possible if it appears clearly as a means of realizing part of their dreams, ambitions and plans realize.
At the moment, only the studies from the multifunctional analysis adopt this concept of employee motivation.
These studies have shown that they evaluate their company based on a predetermined doxa, which allows them to assess, through their perceived image of the company, what it offers them to help them achieve their life goals.
Thanks to the identification and measurement of these mobilization factors, company managers can control, predict and anticipate their "social performance" and put their human resource management back in the right place.
In this way they create fertile ground favorable for the concerted development of robust and efficient economic intelligence.
Oslo speech: the 'just war' brings Obama praise from the right
The American right on Friday welcomed Barack Obama's speech in Oslo the night before and was pleased that the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize had defended the concept of a "just war" against the enemies of the United States.
Conservatives, who scoffed at giving Obama the award on October 9, applauded the President's speech this time, following the example of former 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
"I liked what he said," Palin, the face of the right-wing Republican Party, told USA Today, adding that she herself raised the issue of a "sometimes necessary" war in her just-released memoir.
War, of course, is the last thing I think Americans want to do, but it is necessary.
We have to stop the terrorists down there, she says.
Obama, who inherited two wars from his predecessor George W. Bush, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, struggled in Oslo on Thursday to justify the use of force; a way of explaining his decision nine days ago to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.
Another opponent of Obama, Newt Gingrich, said the President did a "very good job" in Oslo.
"I thought the speech was really very good," exulted the former Speaker of the House, who particularly appreciated Obama's reference to "the existence of evil in the world."
"I found some parts of this speech to be wholly historical," said Ginrich, who was interviewed on The Takeaway radio show.
The outgoing congressman, who is viewed by some as a possible candidate for the Republican nomination for the 2012 presidential election, said he was pleased to see a "President of the Left" reminding Nobel Committee members that they "are not free and could not hand out a prize for peace if the use of force did not exist".
Obama gave "a very American speech" to Michael Gerson, a former writer for George W. Bush and now an editor at the Washington Post.
In addition to presenting himself as "cosmopolitan" like "he always does," he "spoke like an American president" when he pointed out that Europeans "live in a kind of security bubble that they don't create themselves that they don't do much to protect," Gerson said.
Among the few unconvinced right-wingers, former UN ambassador John Bolton, a Bush-era hawk, described the speech on the National Review Online website as "dull, pompous and uninspired".
To the President's left, Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich is concerned at Barack Obama's defense of resorting to the armed forces.
Wrapping the war under the cloak of justice makes it easy to justify the massacre of the innocent, he warns.
However, the press of the moderate left remains praising the president.
The Los Angeles Times, which still believes Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize prematurely, described the speech as a "monumental work" even for a speaker like himself known for his talent.
The Oslo speech "offers a road map for steering international decisions against conflict, poverty and oppression," enthused the Californian daily.
The New York Times believes that Obama "launched the necessary discourse" and describes his speech as "both somber and exemplary".
Long-distance drivers: Three marathons for an agreement that secures supplies for Christmas
After a three-week marathon of negotiations, the trade unions of the road association and the TLF - the only employers' organization that remained until the end - came to an agreement on Friday evening that puts an end to the strike order and the threatening severe supply shortage at Christmas.
At the signing meeting on Friday evening, State Secretary Dominique Bussereau, responsible for transport, "welcomed" the agreement, which was initiated on Wednesday morning after several weeks of negotiations.
After a second night of negotiations, the negotiators parted early Friday morning in the hope of signing the agreement quickly in the late morning.
And this despite the fact that the three employers' associations (FNTR, Unostra and OTRE) had left the meeting upset.
However, more than six hours passed from the start of the meeting at 11:00 a.m. to the conclusion of the agreement and it was only at 6:00 p.m. that the agreement was signed.
The conflict "would have done a great deal of damage to businesses" and "there were fears that it would affect the end-of-year holidays," said Bussereau.
The agreement provides for a wage increase of 4% for the lowest wage groups (local and regional road transport) and 2.9% for the highest wage groups (international transport).
The hourly rate for employees with the lowest wages increases from 8.72 euros to 9.06 euros.
"That's not very much, but we're going to start small," said Patrice Clos (FO).
The activists are now being instructed to stop blocking the supply centers.
"However, there will probably always be some reluctant people who are not satisfied with the agreement," he adds.
TLF chairman Philippe Grillot spoke of a "good agreement", although it was "difficult to grant these wage increases in view of international competition".
According to him, the increase is 170 euros per month for the low wage groups and 100 to 120 euros for the high wage groups.
"This agreement is based on common sense and respect for workers," said Maxime Dumont (CFDT), while Thierry Douine (CFTC) spoke of "a historic agreement".
Richard Jaubert (CGT) commented on "an acceptable compromise".
The agreement also provides for a 3% increase in travel expenses and the maintenance of the overall budget for road transport in the first half of 2010, which will make it possible in particular to tackle the issue of the 13th monthly salary and the modernization of collective agreements.
M. Bussereau recalled that "the €100 million reduction in employers' taxes" was the subject of a government amendment to the 2009 revised finance bill, which was passed by the National Assembly on Thursday night .
The government is demanding "an identical" vote from the Senate.
The signature of the TLF allows the agreement to initially apply to the companies affiliated to this organization and then, in the event of an extension by the Secretary of Labor, to the entire profession.
This will be the case "in the shortest possible time," assures Bussereau.
The opposition of the employers' associations can only delay the procedure.
The association FNTR denounced a "fraudulent trade" because the 100 million euros "had already been promised to the sector to offset part of the carbon tax".
The Secretary of State for Transport forced us to negotiate as quickly as possible, but not on the basis of a joint analysis, but in order not to annoy the goose eaters in the approaching Christmas days, Unostra complains.
For the Otre association, the agreement threatens "to dig a big grave for the small and medium-sized companies in the sector over the next 12 months".
RER A line: disruptions this weekend, unions unhappy with RATP proposals
Disruptions on the RER A line, the largest rapid transit network in France serving the greater Paris area and Île-de-France, continued over the weekend while a meeting was held on Friday, the 2nd day of the strike, between unions and RATP management ( Independent Parisian passenger transport administration), which keeps strikers waiting with their demands for wage increases.
On this important shopping weekend before Christmas, there were no trains between 10:00 and 20:00. On the central line (between La Défense and Nation) only one in two trains and outside the central line only one in four trains was operational.
The connection to the SNCF trains was interrupted in Nanterre Préfecture, forcing passengers to change trains.
Department store chain Galeries Lafayette, which serves 200,000 customers every day, welcomed the fact that "the RATP is making efforts to connect the big stores".
The RER A line runs through the Paris metropolitan area from west to east.
The RATP section connects the towns of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Nanterre as well as Boissy-Saint-Léger and Marne-La-Vallée.
On Friday, about one in two trains ran as scheduled during rush hour, and almost none during off-peak hours.
As on Thursday, there was no crowd on the platforms because the residents of the Île-de-France had adjusted to the situation.
So early in the morning, the train station at Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Yvelines) was far less crowded than usual, largely because of the lack of high school students.
In Boissy-Saint-Léger (Val-de-Marne), Jack Nbakina, an engineer (29), said he "got up an hour and a half earlier to get to work on time".
The SNCF, which had scheduled staff and security staff to look after travelers, pointed out that there were no bottlenecks at Saint-Lazare station.
Trains operated by SNCF on the RER A line to or from Cergy-Le-Haut arrive and depart from Saint-Lazare station to connect to the metro.
General meetings of the strikers were held again on Saturday and Sunday to review the results, which the unions had described as "poor" after Friday afternoon's meeting with senior management.
The RER manager proposed the specific elaboration of a protocol for line RER A regarding all relevant aspects, working hours, career paths, etc.
However, that's not what drivers want. According to Thierry Garon (Sud), they are demanding a wage supplement that is long overdue.
The CGT was outraged that the RATP itself put its wage supplement proposals in parentheses, stressing that the top management "is unable to solve a problem, while long-distance drivers and SNCF could do it."
The RATP clarified that a new meeting for a “comprehensive review of working conditions” was scheduled for Monday.
This also shows the associations that the company "ignores the weekend drivers".
In the morning, around 150 drivers visited the Paris office of a committee.
Again, it was the top management who had so far refused any discussion during the strike and suggested a meeting once the situation had calmed down.
On Tuesday, the conflict threatened to escalate to the RER B line following advance notice from Unsa and Indépendants.
The associations are demanding a wage supplement of 120 (Unsa) to 150 euros, of which 30 euros are variable (CGT, FO, CFDT, Sud, Indépendants). They also complain about the deterioration of working conditions on this route, which is used by millions of travelers every day.
The drivers of the RER line, who have many years of professional experience, receive a gross wage of 2,200 to 2,700 euros plus a wage supplement of 600 to 650 euros for shift work as well as Sundays and public holidays.
Turkish constitutional court dissolves pro-Kurdish party. decision with serious consequences
Turkey's constitutional court on Friday announced the dissolution of the country's main pro-Kurdish party; a decision immediately followed by angry demonstrations in the Kurdish community in the south-east of the country and in Istanbul.
This decision threatens to severely complicate the government's work as it seeks to reach out to the Kurdish community to end 25-year-old conflicts.
The Democratic Society Party (DTP) was dissolved because it had become a "site of activities prejudicial to the independence of the state and its indivisible unity," according to Constitutional Court President Hasim Kiliç four days later decision to the press.
According to Kiliç, the decision would have been taken unanimously by 11 judges, with a seven-vote majority required to issue the dissolution. He also pointed out that 37 of the party's leaders, including leader Ahmet Türk and parliamentarian Aysel Tugluk, have been banned from politics for five years.
The judge also announced the lifting of the parliamentary immunity enjoyed by Türk and Tugluk and the confiscation of party assets.
The DTP now has 21 seats in Parliament (out of 550).
Before the verdict was passed, the party leaders stated that the parliamentarians would rather leave the parliament than sit like non-party parliamentarians.
The decision followed a case initiated in 2007 by the prosecutor of Turkey's Federal Court, Abdurrahman Yalçinkaya. He accused the DTP of following the "instructions" of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Ankara and numerous other countries regard as a terrorist organization.
Many observers believe that the DTP is the legal political showcase for the PKK rebels.
The party asserts that it has "no connection" to the PKK, but refuses to call it a terrorist organization and calls on the government to negotiate.
The ruling by the Constitutional Court hampers the government, which is keen to accommodate the Kurdish community by proposing a series of measures to strengthen Kurdish rights in order to dry up Kurdish support for the PKK and end the conflict.
DTP leaders reiterate that a dissolution could lead to a resurgence of tensions in south-eastern Anatolia, where numerous demonstrations against PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan's prison conditions in recent weeks have led to clashes with police.
Since the court's announcement, thousands of demonstrators have gathered in front of the DTP's premises in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, which is populated mostly by Kurds.
Law enforcement officers used tear gas grenades and water cannons as protesters began throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks.
Hundreds of people also demonstrated in Istanbul.
After the verdict, Türk assumed that the court's decision would "even further deepen the despair".
"Turkey cannot clarify this (Kurdish, editor's note) question by banning a party," he told the press.
The government, made up of a party that emerged from the Islamist movement, also regretted the decision.
"We oppose the closure of the parties on principle.
That doesn't solve the problems," said Energy Minister Taner Yildiz.
"This decision is a torpedo of the democratic opening that was promoted by the government," said political market observer Ahmet Insel.
"You can obviously expect a reaction from the PKK," he adds.
On Thursday, the PKK claimed responsibility for an attack in which seven soldiers were killed in northern Turkey three days earlier. It was one of the most brutal attacks in recent months.
The snow can come
A really crisp winter, that's what Wolfgang Brauburger wishes for.
Not because he wants to harass the citizens, says the FES winter service manager.
But so that his employees can try out and learn to master the entire vehicle technology.
According to meteorologists, this could happen for the first time this weekend.
More than 330 employees and 120 vehicles are ready to take care of snow and ice.
The FES follows a precise plan.
As soon as it snows everywhere in Frankfurt and the temperatures are below zero, 20 so-called A routes are covered with large gritting vehicles, explains Brauburger.
These include main roads and thoroughfares such as Neue Weg and Hanauer Landstrasse.
But also fire brigade access roads, public transport routes, pedestrian zones and routes with inclines, such as Atzelbergstrasse.
The FES service begins at three in the morning
If necessary, the approximately 1040 kilometers would have to be spread with wet salt, which adheres better, in a maximum of three hours.
That's why the FES starts at three o'clock in the morning "so that the routes are free until the rush hour starts".
It'll be difficult if it doesn't snow until 7:30 a.m.
Then we have a problem, says the winter service manager, "because nobody is willing to make room for the gritting vehicles".
Only then, if it stops snowing, are the feeder and access roads, including Rat-Beil-Straße.
Side and side streets have the last priority.
There will be complaints there, Brauburger knows.
At five o'clock in the morning, the foot soldiers of the FES are on their way, priority is given to clearing danger points and crossings.
The FES usually cannot take care of all cycle paths.
There is a special service in Frankfurt that keeps an eye on the bridges from 10 p.m. to 4:30 a.m., says Brauburger.
Since these quickly become slippery, the spreader is on its way as soon as the temperature falls below two degrees.
If necessary, he will also be called by the police.
The Cradle of the Dinosaurs
Tawa hallae looked like many other carnivorous dinosaurs: the two-meter-long, five-foot-tall animal walked on two powerful hind legs, had an elongated skull with sharp, curved teeth, short arms with sickle-clawed claws, and a long tail.
If the species had lived a few million years later, it wouldn't be anything special.
But Tawa hallae was one of the first dinosaurs with these body features, Sterling Nesbitt of the University of Texas at Austin and colleagues report Thursday in the journal Science.
The animal lived about 215 million years ago in what is now New Mexico, which was then in a dry zone of the supercontinent Pangea on the equator.
Tawa opens a new window on early dinosaur evolution, says Nesbitt.
It teaches us much about the relationships, distribution, and characteristics of early dinosaurs.
In 2006, Nesbitt and other paleontologists began digging at Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico.
We've sometimes found a dozen dinosaur bones in a day, which is unprecedented for Triassic deposits, says team member Randall Irmis of the Utah Museum of Natural History.
The researchers quickly identified some of the bones as a new species.
During the excavation, they collected the remains of a total of five individuals.
Fund confirms theories about early dinosaur history
The name "Tawa" comes from the sun god of the Hopi Indians.
For Sterling Nesbitt it is an extraordinary find: "Dinosaur fossils from the Triassic are extremely rare, mostly you only find single fragments."
Other dinosaur experts don't necessarily share the enthusiasm.
This find is not particularly spectacular, but it confirms some theories about the early history of dinosaurs, says Martin Sander from the University of Bonn.
According to current scholarship, dinosaurs first appeared about 230 million years ago.
However, many of the oldest fossils are incomplete, which is why the assignment of these original dinosaurs is usually controversial.
For example, experts debate when lizards split into their three main lineages: the carnivorous theropods, which later included the Tyrannosaurus rex, the Velociraptor and also birds, the four-legged sauropods known as "long-necks" and their relatives, and the herbivorous Ornithischia (bird pelvic dinosaurs), which included, for example, the species Triceratops and Stegosaurus.
According to Nesbitt and his colleagues' analysis, Tawa hallae is a primordial theropod.
It exhibits an interesting combination of primitive and advanced characteristics, Nesbitt says.
For example, the researchers found evidence of air sacs on the skull of Tawa hallae, such as those found in birds, the descendants of the theropods.
Thanks to the air sacs, birds breathe more efficiently than mammals.
In Tawa hallae, the bones of the spinal column were also apparently partially filled with air.
Tawa is the oldest and most primitive theropod with air sacs, says Randall Irmis.
Since the related lineage of giant sauropods later also possessed air sacs and lightweight bones, the common ancestor of both groups probably produced this useful innovation.
At least three migration waves to North America
Because the most primitive dinosaurs known to date lived in South America, the researchers conclude that the lizards first appeared there.
Accordingly, the three lines of development separated early on and spread from South America to all continents, which at that time still formed a single landmass as the supercontinent Pangea.
This is supported by the fact that the team found the remains of two other, not particularly closely related theropods together with Tawa hallae.
The three cannot descend from a common immigrant ancestor, the researchers argue.
We believe there were at least three waves of migration to North America, says Alan Turner of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, a co-author of the Science study.
Of course there are also contradictions.
An even older species, Silesaurus, which belongs to a sister group of dinosaurs, lived in present-day Poland, says Bonn paleontologist Martin Sander.
In his opinion, the picture could be distorted simply because South America has a particularly large number of primitive dinosaur fossils preserved, while hardly anything can be found on other continents.
How dinosaurs managed to evolve from a relatively rare offshoot of the reptilian phylum to become the dominant terrestrial vertebrates of the Mesozoic is still a mystery.
During the Triassic, the dinosaurs shared their habitat with many other reptiles, for example with the ancestors of today's crocodiles and pterosaurs and with numerous other lizards.
Towards the end of the Triassic, dinosaurs spread around the world and developed many new species, while their relatives became extinct at the Triassic-Jurassic border.
Success story did not last forever
There are two hypotheses to explain this switch, says Martin Sander.
There may have been a mass extinction event that the dinosaurs happened to survive but the other reptiles did not.
Or the dinosaurs were better adapted so that they could outperform the competition.
In any case, the success story did not last forever.
150 million years later, a meteorite impact helped a group of animals to flourish that had also developed in the Triassic and have since eked out a shadowy existence: the mammals.
Solidarity from Vienna to Sao Paulo
The list is long and the signatories are international.
Professors from the University of Toronto like it, the University of Cambridge, the University of Vienna or from Berkeley in California.
There are lecturers from Naples, Quebec, Edinburgh, New York, Sao Paulo, Berlin and Bremen.
The police evacuation of the occupied casino at Frankfurt's Goethe University is making waves around the world.
278 professors and teachers from Goethe University, but also from universities throughout Germany, Europe and North and South America, are showing solidarity with the protesting students on the Westend campus.
In a statement written in German and English, they "disapprove" of the police operation initiated by the Presidium.
University President Werner Müller-Estler had the building occupied by students and lecturers on an education strike vacated last week because walls and works of art had been daubed.
Five students were injured.
According to the undersigned, the damage to property does not justify "the violent dissolution of self-organized courses by students and teachers by a police commando".
The eviction represents an "unacceptable encroachment" on the freedom of research and teaching.
The exclusive focus on vandalism serves "to delegitimize and criminalize the protest" and distracts from the content.
The Presidium had withdrawn from the necessary discourse.
The lecturers call for the immediate cessation of criminal prosecution.
The majority of the squatters did not support the damage to property, it is said.
protest legitimized
The youth of the Verdi trade union and the German trade union federation also show solidarity with the students.
The protest is a legitimate expression of growing concern for one's own future, says Verdi State Youth Secretary Alexander Klein.
Hesse's Science Minister Eva Kühne-Hörmann (CDU) defended the actions of the university president and the police.
We are grateful to the university president.
Destruction and occupation are completely unacceptable means, she said in a current hour on Thursday in the Wiesbaden state parliament.
We have understanding for the protest, but no understanding for vandalism, said the CDU member of parliament Peter Beuth.
The opposition groups SPD, Greens and Left saw it differently.
The CDU uses painted walls as an excuse to criminalize the protest, said Janine Wissler (left).
Instead of dealing with the arguments and demands of the students, they cleared the room.
The left has tabled a motion asking the interior minister to report on the police operation.
New Silicon Valley
For many years it was considered a secret city, inaccessible to western visitors.
Zelenograd, one of ten districts of the capital Moscow, was a heavily guarded site for secret armaments research in the Soviet Union.
Today, the municipality with its 216,000 inhabitants, 37 kilometers from the center of Moscow, is known as "Russia's Silicon Valley".
Important research and production facilities for micro- and nanoelectronics are located here.
Since September 2008, representatives of Zelenograd had established contacts with the Frankfurt science location Riedberg - with the university institutes and the companies of the Frankfurt Innovation Center (FIZ).
There were several mutual visits and on Wednesday Zelenograd and Riedberg signed a "protocol for closer cooperation" in Frankfurt.
Moscow Deputy Mayor Yuri Rosljak and Prefect Anatoly Smirnov of Zelenograd led the Russian delegation, with Edwin Schwarz, Head of Planning, signing for Frankfurt.
In 2010, representatives of FIZ and small and medium-sized companies in the scientific research area will travel to Zelenograd for a seminar.
scientific exchange
It is about a continuous scientific exchange.
But it is also about economic relationships.
FIZ companies are given the opportunity to gain a foothold in the growing Russian market.
Conversely, Russian science companies want to get orders in Germany.
Zelenograd is the seat of important Russian research institutes and companies.
These include the Moscow Institute for Electronic Technology, the large corporations Sitronics and Rosssijskaja Elektronika.
The commune was founded in 1958 as a so-called "socialist planned city" for armaments research.
Zelenograd (literally "green city") got its name from the wooded hilly landscape in which the research facilities are embedded.
Stuttgart brake pad
The dimensions of Stuttgart 21 cannot be overestimated.
For the supporters of the project, it is simply about "the new heart of Europe".
So it is right. S21 is much more than the lowering of a train station, more than a monstrous construction project that will plunge the city of Baden-Württemberg's state capital into hopeless construction site chaos for a decade.
Stuttgart 21 emerged from the spirit of the 1980s.
Terminus stations with tracks that end in the middle of the city were considered transport fossils of the 19th century, acting like the chocks of modern rail traffic, since it once took an enormous amount of time to change locomotives from back to front.
Drive in, stop briefly, drive on - that's how it should work.
And that's why the terminal stations should disappear: in Frankfurt and Munich.
And in Stuttgart: a through station that is about halfway along the trans-European rail line between Paris and Budapest/Bratislava - hence the slogan of the "Heart of Europe".
S21 is now actually being tackled, although the visions of the 1980s are no longer compatible with reality.
Even very ambitious planners have recognized that it is almost unaffordable to implement the lowering in the Hessian and Bavarian cities.
However, terminus stations no longer have any entry and exit problems, since there are modern push-pull trains with locomotives and control cars at both ends.
Nevertheless: Stuttgart 21 along with the new ICE line to Ulm is now being tackled.
State and local politicians have enforced it.
Deutsche Bahn is participating, also because the risk of the largest individual infrastructure project in the republic is borne by the taxpayer and not by the state-owned company.
In terms of urban planning, the project can still be justified to some extent.
A new urban space is being created, which - if you believe the computer-generated graphics of the planners - will be equipped with lots of greenery.
S21 is harmful to the rail transport system.
The through station and the expansion of the route are intended for passenger traffic, which - typical of the 1980s - was credited with huge growth.
At that time there was no competition from low-cost airlines.
However, modern transport policy must first focus on strengthening freight transport, since transport by rail is considerably more environmentally friendly than by truck on the road.
But the new line is not suitable for freight trains because of the steep inclines.
Even more serious is that S21 indirectly affects many other rail projects.
A good six billion euros are to be buried in Swabia.
That's the official number.
Experts consider 10 to 15 billion to be realistic.
One thing is certain, in the next decade there will be a lack of money at other nodes and bottlenecks in the network.
A total of sixty major projects are on the Ministry of Transport's list.
One of the most important is the expansion of the 180-kilometer route through the Rhine Valley.
Since 1987 the route has been built in slow motion.
It would be urgently necessary to press the tube properly here.
But S21 will act as a brake.
The Rhine Valley route becomes a bottleneck for international freight traffic: right in the heart of Europe.
Government examines verdict on airport
In the Wiesbaden state parliament, the state government left open whether it would appeal against the judgment of the Hessian Administrative Court (VGH) on the ban on night flights.
The CDU/FDP coalition commissioned experts to have the more than 400-page VGH judgment legally examined, said Economics Minister Dieter Posch (FDP).
The VGH in Kassel had justified in writing that the state would have to regulate the night flight ban again in the event of the construction of the planned north-west runway at Frankfurt Airport.
The approval of 17 flights between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., as planned by the state government, is not compatible with the legally required protection of the population from night-time aircraft noise.
The coalition must decide by January 4 whether to appeal the verdict.
The opposition criticized this postponement and urged government representatives not to appeal to the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig.
SPD parliamentary group leader Torsten Schäfer-Gümbel called on the CDU and FDP to return to the promises they made before the election to ban night flights. Otherwise, this should be considered a "breach of word".
It's damn difficult when you're allowed to keep your word, said Green Party leader Tarek Al-Wazir, referring to the FDP election slogan "We keep our word".
Minister Posch rejected Schäfer-Gümbel's accusation that the state government was trying to get its night flights out with "perversion of the law and trickery".
A precise legal examination takes time.
The coalition does not want to operate on the basis of a "quick first impression".
We need a legally secure decision, said Stefan Müller (FDP).
The statements made by his parliamentary group on the ban on night flights had never been the way the opposition portrayed them.
US banks are repaying aid
The crisis-ridden US big banks strip off their state shackles.
On Wednesday, the Bank of America repaid the aid from the Tarp bank rescue fund totaling 45 billion dollars (a good 30 billion euros) in one fell swoop.
And according to a report by US broadcaster CNBC, Citigroup is also planning to reimburse state aid.
The institutes want to get rid of the restrictions that came with accepting the money - such as the limitation on the payment of manager bonuses and the payment of high fees.
Bank of America had raised a good $19 billion in fresh money from investors through convertible bonds.
She took the rest of the sum from her own treasury, which was well stocked, among other things, through departmental sales.
Bank boss Kenneth Lewis expressly thanked the American taxpayer on Wednesday evening: The cash injection helped through a very difficult time.
At the height of the financial crisis, the money house took over the investment bank Merrill Lynch.
Citigroup also wants to raise money on the capital market to free itself from its liabilities to the state.
As early as Thursday, the US bank could announce a roughly $20 billion increase in its capital, CNBC reported, citing circles.
A Citigroup spokesman declined to comment.
Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley had already repaid their aid in June.
Fast choice
Then everything went faster than expected.
Barely two weeks after the ZDF board of directors pushed the current editor-in-chief Nikolaus Brender out of office, the station can present a successor.
Last night the committee wanted to vote on the personnel.
Peter Frey, head of the ZDF capital city studio in Berlin, was the favourite.
However, there was no confirmation from the broadcaster - officially, so as not to anticipate the process.
However, it may also have played a role in not further damaging the ZDF director Markus Schächter if this proposal did not go through with the board of directors either.
Frey, Schächter's candidate, needs the support of nine of the 14 board members.
The result of the vote was not known at the time this issue went to press.
Two weeks ago, Schächter's proposal to extend Nikolaus Brender's contract by another five years failed on the board of directors.
Only seven members were in favor of Brender, seven voted against him. Brender's deselection was a bitter defeat for Schächter, but one that was to be expected.
Because the Union majority on the board of directors had signaled weeks before the election that it did not want to confirm Brender in office.
The resistance against the editor-in-chief was organized by the Hessian Prime Minister Roland Koch.
With the argument that under Brender the ZDF news programs had lost audience ratings, he rejected a further term of office for the highly respected editor-in-chief.
Therefore, until shortly before the election, there were protests in which the political influence on ZDF was castigated.
Most recently, even 35 constitutional lawyers had interfered in the debate, who assessed Koch's actions as unconstitutional.
It was of no use.
To person
Peter Frey was born on August 4, 1957 in Bingen.
He studied politics, education and Romance languages.
He then worked for Südwestfunk and the Frankfurter Rundschau.
In 1983 Frey switched to ZDF, initially to the "heute-journal".
Subsequent positions: 1988 to 1990 personal assistant to the editor-in-chief; 1991/92 correspondent in Washington; until 1998 director and moderator of the "Morgenmagazin"; until 2001 head of ZDF foreign policy; since then head of the ZDF capital city studio.
The Greens announced a constitutional complaint after Brender was voted out of office.
Koch's opponent on the board of directors, the Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Kurt Beck, declared last week that the federal states should change the ZDF state contract in such a way that the director's proposals for personnel cannot be blocked by a politically motivated majority.
However, Beck also ruled out party politicians moving out of the supervisory bodies of ZDF.
Brender's prospective successor, Peter Frey, recommended himself to the board of directors with a clever move - by severely criticizing the board immediately after Brender was voted out.
Thanks to this proof of journalistic independence, Schächter was able to nominate him for the post of editor-in-chief without losing face, and the board of directors was able to elect him without suspecting that he was putting a party member into office.
In party arithmetic, Frey is assigned to the left-liberals anyway.
Studies are cleared out
Partial success for the students: After a year of education strikes, the education ministers of the federal states finally gave in on Thursday: At a meeting of the education ministers and university rectors' conference, both sides agreed to improve the study conditions for bachelor's and master's degrees.
The students should be able to cope with their studies in the future.
In detail, they agreed to reduce the examination burden: In principle, each study module should only end with a single examination.
In addition, the workload of the students should be checked and "a realistic and reasonable level" should be guaranteed.
Politicians and universities also want to simplify the recognition of examinations between universities inside and outside Germany.
The federal states have committed themselves to making common structural specifications for bachelor's and master's courses more flexible.
In addition, there should be no deviating state regulations.
Fewer exams
Since the start of the student protests in June, the ministers of education and university rectors have been using the dictum of better academic feasibility.
Now it has been filled with concrete content for the first time.
The so-called Accreditation Council decided to drastically reduce the number of examinations in some cases: "Each module usually ends with just one examination," says a 30-page paper that is intended to partially regulate the admission of degree programs.
With the "significant reduction in the examination burden", explained the accreditation council chairman Reinhold Grimm, an "undesirable development should be stopped, which significantly impaired the ability to study".
In addition, the "studyability" should be "the decisive criterion" in the design in the future.
Modules and content should be "strictly checked" to see whether "unnecessary restrictions on the students when choosing the
Events" would be avoided.
The students are "entitled to be given scope that enables and encourages their own initiative".
The rules should apply to the admission of new courses, but also to the review of existing courses.
These have to be "re-accredited" every five years - which means, however, that it will take until 2015 for all courses to be reviewed.
Ten accreditation agencies nationwide are responsible for this, which are subordinate to the accreditation council set up by the federal states.
In October, the Ministers of Education "emphatically" asked the federal states to influence the agencies in such a way that the wealth of material is not too great and the examination regime is not too strict.
In individual federal states, universities and technical colleges have already agreed on appropriate measures with the state ministries.
Rhineland-Palatinate was the only state to commit additional funds for the further development of the Bologna process.
The universities are primarily to use the money to set up tutor programs and strengthen student advisory services as well as examination and international offices.
The state and universities want to spend ten million euros on this.
At the beginning of 2010, the government intends to introduce an amendment to the Higher Education Act to Parliament.
According to this, only one exam should be necessary to complete a study model.
The study design is to be made more flexible, the recognition of performance records at other universities is to be guaranteed and access to the Master's is to be made easier.
By the end of next year, all degree programs in the state are to be checked for their suitability for study.
The government and opposition had again argued on Thursday about the study conditions in the country.
In addition to praise, there was also criticism of the resolutions.
The federal executive board of the Juso university groups demanded that education policy should no longer take place "behind closed doors" of the ministers and university rectors.
At the latest after the education strikes, the students should now also "have a say" as those affected.
The future academics received support from the President of the German Rectors' Conference (HRK), Margret Wintermantel: "We need the experience of the students," she said on Thursday at a meeting with the Ministers of Education, with whom the HRK was discussing a joint reform paper.
For the Education and Science Union (GEW), the decisions taken in Bonn did not go far enough: They demanded a legal entitlement that would allow every graduate with a bachelor's degree access to a master's degree.
On the other hand, the federal states must ensure that there will be sufficient places for the current generation of bachelor's students tomorrow with the best possible study conditions, according to GEW board member Andreas Keller.
The countries have to hire significantly more lecturers.
However, the Ministers of Education did not comment on freer access to the master's degree.
More than a footnote to Herta Müller
Entering Germany and leaving is almost no control..." is the opening line of a poem by the poet Werner Söllner, in which he uses disturbing scraps of language to address the arrival experience of a dissident who has won freedom but at the same time lost his language area.
Born in 1951 in Banat, Romania, Werner Söllner first worked as a German and English teacher in Bucharest and later as an editor in a children's book publisher before moving to Frankfurt am Main in 1982.
Söllner has received various literary prizes, in 1993 he gave the legendary Frankfurt poetry lectures at the Goethe University, and since 2002 he has been director of the Hessian Literature Forum in the Mousonturm in Frankfurt.
He caused a considerable non-literary stir last Tuesday during a conference in Munich that dealt with "German literature in Romania as reflected and distorted by its Securitate files".
Visibly unsettled and embarrassed, Söllner read a statement in which he admitted to his fellow Romanian-German writers, including Richard Wagner, William Totok, Franz Hodjak and Helmuth Frauendorfer, that he worked as an IM for the Romanian secret service Securitate.
Together with some of those present, Söllner received the German Language Prize in 1989.
Recruitment attempts began gradually, first in 1971.
I am, concluded Söllner, "so someone who has not defended himself enough against the Securitate's attempts at intimidation."
The poet Werner Söllner is IM Walter.
Almost at the same time as the Nobel Prize was awarded to Herta Müller and her unprecedented literary examination of the mechanisms of dictatorial rule, the literary scene and in particular the community of German authors from Romania were shaken by a case that revealed the abysses and baseness of a political system based on surveillance and spying established.
Werner Söllner is not only a perpetrator, but also a victim, as far as one can say based on the current state of knowledge.
IM Walter played a role in his Securitate file, said literary scholar Michael Markel after Söllner's confession, referring to IM Walter's positive influence on him.
He "cut him out" on all the points that were difficult for him at the time, according to Markel.
It was a moral imperative for him to make that comment.
Söllner's statement was unexpected in form and in front of this audience, but the confession of a former dissident and his cooperation with the Romanian secret service is not entirely surprising.
Germany was a comfortable reserve for Securitate spies, Herta Müller wrote in July in Die Zeit after reading her own 914-page file.
One can assume that those affected speculated and in some cases probably also knew which real name was hidden behind the aliases Sorin, Voicu and also Walter.
In contrast to the process of examining the Stasi files, which is now very reliable in this country, dealing with the legacies of the Securitate surveillance is still very vague.
Systematic clarification has been thwarted and obstructed in recent years.
A National Council for the Processing of the Securitate Files (CNSAS) corresponding to the Birthler authority was not founded until 1999, but since then the publication of the files has been rather sluggish.
Only since 2005 has there been a law that regulates the administration of the files.
The fact that the influence of former Securitate members in Romania is still very large was shown in an interview after the announcement of the Nobel Prize for Herta Müller, in which a former Securitate boss from Temesvar made disparaging remarks about the prize winner.
She has a psychosis, after all she was only interrogated once.
The infamy of power thought it could openly express itself here in the form of freedom of opinion.
As is often the case in connection with concealed guilt, the Söllner case certainly raises unavoidable questions.
Why now? Who was harmed? The level-headed reaction of the audience to Söllner's confession gives hope that the continuation of this chapter will be determined by a thirst for knowledge rather than blame and shame.
It is more than a footnote to the genesis of the work of Herta Müller, who accepted the Nobel Prize yesterday.
Filling supplement Champions League
It seemed as if a neatly dressed sales representative had just returned from a very nice Christmas party at which a sporting goods manufacturer had given out goodies, when the new VfB coach, Christian Gross, accompanied by an orange plastic bag from the outfitter, walked into a C-Class at 15 minutes past midnight rose. ¨
The man with the distinctive bald head had himself chauffeured because the city was still unfamiliar to him.
Otherwise he could have driven himself - after all, alcohol wasn't involved, and the 55-year-old wasn't drunk with happiness either.
It had been a pleasant evening, but work will continue tomorrow.
Or just get started.
In the words of the Swiss, who had only signed three days earlier: "We've reached the round of 16", namely in the Champions League thanks to the 3-1 win against Unirea Urziceni from Romania, "but we mustn't be blinded by the success: It's going to be a brutally tough fight against relegation."
The “much more important task” is due on Sunday.
Then it is time to repeat the premier class performance in everyday life in the league in Mainz.
And to stop the weaknesses that were revealed again after the quick three goals by Marica (5th), Träsch (8th) and Pogrebnyak (11th).
draw
The round of 16 of the Champions League (first legs February 16/17 + 23/24/ second legs March 9/10 + 16/17) will be drawn on December 18 in Nyon.
So the joy about the brilliant debut of the Babbel successor remained restrained.
Not only with the supposed savior, who had given the insecure Stuttgart pros self-confidence, commitment and joy in the short time.
"I approached the players and told them to focus on their strengths and urged them to be braver," Gross explained the recipe for success, which sounded so simple, but which had no longer had any effect under therapist Babbel.
He has sparked a certain magic, Babbel supporter Jens Lehmann admitted, "when there is a new impetus in football, sometimes things happen that you would not have thought possible."
And Sami Khedira, who, thanks to his dynamism, became the best player on the pitch after a week-long injury break, tried to describe the "phenomenon" observed with the proverbial "breath of fresh air" and the new manager's way of working: "He's a man who takes action and discipline required.
That's what we need in the current situation."
There was obviously a lack of that under Babbel.
VfB Stuttgart is not out of the woods yet, warns sporting director Horst Heldt
Above all, VfB Stuttgart needs consistency.
Like Gross, players and managers also took care not to overestimate the victory against a weakened and completely overwhelmed defense of the Romanian guests.
They also won in Glasgow before the rude awakening four days later in Leverkusen at 0:4, Khedira pointed out.
And sports director Horst Heldt warned that although one goal for the season had been achieved, the other was still a long way off.
We're not over the hill yet.
The fact that Heldt didn't feel like celebrating on his 40th birthday, even after the first home win in three months, was due to the events of the weekend, which were revived in the form of a TV interview by goalkeeper Jens Lehmann that was broadcast immediately before the start of the game.
There are decisions that others make and not Jens, Heldt countered Lehmann's harsh criticism.
He had accused the board of leadership weakness and decided to change coaches under pressure from pubescent fans.
Lehmann also saw the fact that his day off after games was canceled as a sign of a lack of sovereignty and resentment.
Lehmann's statements were "characterized by pure selfishness," Heldt backed off and announced the consequences for the goalkeeper.
They won't be friends for life anymore, the two forty-year-olds.
But at least they agreed with everyone else that without the preparatory work by the replaced team of coaches, the strong performance in terms of play and fighting would not have been possible.
Babbel and his assistants had "a large part in the success," said Heldt and Lehmann in unison - and the man with the plastic bag also agreed.
Heavyweight World Championship Fight
Heated duel in Bern: Challenger Kevin Johnson repeatedly provoked world champion Vitali Klitschko with words and gestures.
But after twelve hard rounds, the Ukrainian defended his heavyweight title according to the WBC version.
The verdict of the judges was unanimous.
Hamburg – Vitali Klitschko remains heavyweight boxing champion.
The 38-year-old WBC champion defeated the American Kevin Johnson on points by unanimous decision on Saturday night in Bern (120:108, 120:108, 119:109).
For Klitschko it was the third successful title defense after his comeback in October 2008.
Before that, the Ukrainian was world champion twice in the WBO and WBC associations.
Unfortunately, it didn't work out with the knockout that everyone was expecting.
Klitschko increased his record to 39 wins in 41 professional fights, twice he had to admit defeat due to injuries.
Challenger Johnson suffered his first defeat in the 24th fight.
In front of around 17,000 spectators in the Bern Arena, the 2.02 meter tall Klitschko wanted to dictate the fight primarily with his left hand.
Johnson, who is eleven centimeters shorter and who had announced the end of the Klitschko era before the duel, repeatedly eluded the world champion's punches, so that Klitschko was unable to bring his dangerous right hand home decisively.
Overall, the passive Johnson was doing too little for a challenger, just trying to make ends meet.
Although he provoked Klitschko with words and gestures, his punches rarely hit the world champion.
After all, he is only the second boxer after Timo Hoffmann in 2000 to go the full distance of twelve rounds with Klitschko.
The challenger caused quite a stir before the fight in the Swiss capital.
He insulted Klitschko as an "ugly zombie" who "can't do anything right".
At the weigh-in on Friday, the champion allowed himself to be provoked into pushing Johnson's sunglasses off his nose "so that he could see his eyes."
Fourth victory after Klitschko's comeback
Klitschko remained victorious in his fourth fight since his comeback on October 11, 2008.
After a nearly four-year hiatus, he had beaten Nigerian Samuel Peter in Berlin and regained "his" WBC belt, which he previously had to relinquish without a fight.
This year he defeated Juan Carlos Gomez from Cuba and in September Chris Arreola from the USA in his title defenses.
I only took one hit in this fight and I'm physically in very good shape, Klitschko explained the quick return to the ring.
But his dream remains the unification of all four important titles in the family.
Brother Wladimir is world champion of the associations WBO and IBF.
The Brit David Haye, however, wears the WBA belt after he was able to dethrone the 2.13 meter tall Nikolai Walujew in November.
Haye had previously called off a fight against Vitali Klitschko scheduled for September in the summer.
Supposedly, his promotion company is already planning the fight against Klitschko in London's Wembley Stadium.
Case of Kunduz
Frontal attack from the opposition: Greens faction leader Jürgen Trittin has called Defense Minister Guttenberg a liar because of false information about the Kunduz affair.
The SPD and the left are demanding clarification from the chancellor.
Hamburg/Berlin - According to the latest findings on the Kunduz air raid, the opposition has accused Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (CSU) of deliberate deception.
The minister said "knowingly the untruth" about the deadly bombardment of two tankers in September, said Green Party leader Jürgen Trittin on Saturday in the ARD news program "Tagesschau".
It's commonly called: he lied.
The order to kill was given in violation of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) rules.
That's the substance of the report that NATO had that Mr. Guttenberg read, Trittin said.
On Friday it became known that the attack was not just about destroying the hijacked truck, but also about killing two Taliban leaders.
According to the NATO investigation report, up to 142 people were killed or injured in the US airstrike requested by German Kunduz commander Colonel Klein.
Greens, SPD and left called on Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) on Saturday to immediately speak to the Bundestag and also to clarify what Guttenberg really knew about the incident.
Mrs Merkel must clarify whether a strategy of targeted killing is part of the federal government's Afghanistan policy - and whether the Chancellery, the Bundeswehr and the intelligence service have approved this new strategy, demanded Jürgen Trittin and Green Party colleague Renate Künast.
Government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm firmly rejected the criticism.
The chancellor's office has not influenced concrete deployments of the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan, he said.
Doubts about the ministry's presentation of the background to the dismissal of Inspector General Wolfgang Schneiderhan and State Secretary Peter Wichert were also raised on Saturday.
According to information from SPIEGEL, the two Guttenbergs provided correct and complete information about the background to the tanker attack.
Officially, it was said that they had denied the existence of the NATO reports and withheld sensitive details from the minister.
However, those close to the two top officials said that they had even referred several reports to the Ministry of Defense, including a two-page document from the commanding Colonel Klein and a military police report.
Wichert is said to have written a letter asking for clarification of the facts, reports the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung".
It is said that he has not yet received an answer.
The ministry did not comment on the allegations on Saturday and pointed out that this would be clarified in the Bundestag committee of inquiry, which will be constituted next Wednesday.
dream worlds
While awake, some see images and hear voices that others do not see or hear.
The boundaries between imagination and reality are not only blurred in the mentally ill and intoxicated by drugs.
As long as it happens while you're sleeping, you're fine.
When we lie in our dark rooms with our eyes closed, we can freely indulge in the wildest ideas and fantasies.
However, anyone who experiences dreamlike states while awake, sees and hears things that others do not see or hear, is usually considered crazy or drug addicted in the modern western world, or at least as an oddball.
But such images and voices do not only arise in the mentally ill or in drug intoxication.
Our imagination is to blame: the same neuronal processes that enable us to design houses, paint pictures or write novels sometimes ensure that the boundaries between dream, delusion and reality become blurred.
Dream-like altered waking states of consciousness can occur in many different forms, at best we call them visions, at worst delusions.
Even if the trigger and effect may differ, the visions of the mystic Hildegard von Bingen, the drug experiences of the New Age prophet Carlos Castaneda, shamanic raptures, psychoses and hallucinations can be traced back to similar processes.
Hallucinations or delusions arise when the balance of the neuronal messenger substances in the brain - above all dopamine, noradrenaline, serotonin and acetylcholine - is derailed and the interaction of different parts of the brain is disturbed.
Complex hallucinations and delusional thoughts are very common during schizophrenic psychosis.
Gravity no longer has power over him
The connection between madness and dreams has occupied philosophers and physicians since antiquity.
Aristotle understood hallucinations as a form of dreaming in the waking state, Wilhelm Griesinger, one of the founders of modern psychiatry, stated in 1861 that there was "a great similarity between insanity and dream states", for Sigmund Freud the dream was even "a psychosis, with all the inconsistencies, delusions , hallucinations of such".
It's autumn 2001 when Henning T. transforms into a cartoon character.
His body is two-dimensional and brightly colored.
Gravity no longer has any power over him, he levitates on the ceiling.
He feels a kick.
Behind him winged devil figures with blood-red, distorted grimaces, baring teeth.
They chase him, kick him with heavy, flaming boots, throw him against the walls, he feels the pain all over his body.
Loud, malicious voices boom from walls and radio.
He can no longer bear the voices that insult and insult him.
Henning T. rips two cables out of the stereo system, ties them into a sling and fastens them to a hook on the ceiling.
He climbs onto a speaker and puts the noose around his neck.
jumps
The noose loosens.
That should teach you a lesson, the voices shout in a chorus that shatters the eardrums, "go to the clinic and let yourself be healed!"
Today Henning T. is 40 years old, he has experienced six acute psychoses, the last was 2 years ago, the first almost 20 years.
It was triggered by LSD.
His diagnosis is schizoaffective-paranoid psychosis, he is also manic-depressive, he takes medication for depression, mania, schizophrenia.
He has learned to live with his illness and has been married for three years.
In the psychosis I experienced the worst fear and the deepest despair, he says.
The mirages are cruel reality
About one percent of the population suffers from schizophrenia at least once in their lives, and in psychiatric clinics it is treated as the second most common illness after depression.
In an acute schizophrenic psychosis, those affected can usually no longer distinguish between the inner and outer world, they get into an over-excited state that can lead to hallucinations, megalomania, relationship delusions or paranoia.
Hearing voices is particularly common - voices that command, comment or dialogue.
Visual hallucinations are also not uncommon.
The affected person is no longer able to separate the important from the unimportant, the brain can no longer filter out disturbing signals, consciousness is flooded with impressions.
Like dreams, psychosis also opens the floodgates for a flood of ideas and fantasies that come from deeper layers of consciousness.
The perception of reality in psychosis is subject-centered, says Professor Thomas Fuchs, senior physician at the Clinic for General Psychiatry at Heidelberg University Hospital.
The schizophrenic is in the center of events, everything has a meaning directed at him.
At the same time he falls into a passive role, being overwhelmed by what is happening, as in a dream, and unable to actively shape it.
As a result, schizophrenics often feel threatened, controlled, and manipulated.
A comparison of reality is usually not possible for them, the illusions are cruel reality, waking up is impossible.
Having experienced a hallucination once in a lifetime
Unlike in a dream, says Fuchs, "the sensory and spatial structure of reality that is perceived in the psychosis is fundamentally preserved."
The delusional thoughts and hallucinations are based in reality, the alienation of the experience takes place in the real framework.
Researchers are still puzzled as to exactly why our brain is capricious.
Exceptional states can cause anyone to lose touch with reality for a short time, says Fuchs.
But not everyone will develop psychosis.
There appears to be a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia, but twin studies have shown that genes are not the sole determining factors.
Researchers assume that those affected have minimal brain damage.
We assume that the neuronal maturation of the brain is disturbed at an early stage of development, for example by a viral disease in the mother during pregnancy, explains Fuchs.
But it remains a mystery how the disorder of the neuronal system comes about, which initially does not manifest itself for many years.
Environmental influences also play a role - stress or traumatic experiences can trigger a psychosis if the disposition is present.
Hallucinogenic drugs can also trigger psychoses because they interfere with the transmitter system.
When our brains are overheating
The crazy thing is, psychotics suffer from their hallucinations and take expensive drugs to get rid of them, while others spend money on drugs to get them, says Lübeck psychology professor Erich Kasten.
Whether mirages are perceived as pleasant or unpleasant is often just a question of point of view.
Kasten has been collecting reports on hallucinations and illusions for ten years, and last year he evaluated his findings in the book "The unreal world in our heads."
Hallucinations are among the typical side effects of psychoses, but also of a surprising number of other diseases.
In addition to mental disorders such as borderline or depression, these often also include diseases such as migraines, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis or Alzheimer's and craniocerebral trauma.
Surprisingly, under certain conditions, even the brains of healthy people hallucinate.
Hallucinations, Kasten said, are composed of memories that are normally retained.
They arise when brain areas in which sensory perceptions are processed are overactive or underinhibited; when our brain is overheating or when stimulation is lacking.
Drugs can trigger this condition, as can brain damage or psychosis.
But also sensory deprivation, stress, lovesickness or other mental states of emergency.
In recent studies, up to a third of those surveyed said they had experienced a hallucination at least once in their lives.
Sarah K. is 16 years old in the summer of 2005, lives in a small town in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and attends high school there.
A normal girl, actually.
If it weren't for the pictures and voices.
During the break, a lanky boy with long, dark hair may approach him.
When he answers him, the classmates look at him in surprise - no one else sees or hears this boy.
They think the shy girl is a crazy daydreamer, but Sarah K. doesn't dream, she knows that.
She is awake, she hears and sees this boy, just as she hears and sees the girl in the bank next to her.
She can even sense his presence, at least for moments.
It's a nice feeling, she likes the boy.
Am I crazy? she sometimes wonders.
But she knows that this boy and the other illusions are not real and will disappear again.
At night, the apparitions are mostly frightening
Often the mirages are also a burden.
When she sits in the classroom, she sometimes cannot follow the subject matter because the teacher is introducing a new classmate to her eyes and ears, while he is explaining mathematical equations on the blackboard for everyone else to hear and see.
At night, the apparitions are mostly frightening.
When she waits in her dark room for sleep, which comes far too seldom and far too late, she often cannot tell whether she is awake or already dreaming, whether the images she sees are the grimaces or the girl with the bleeding cuts on arms and legs, in front of their open or closed eyes.
Leave me alone, she yells at the figures.
She doesn't tell her parents or friends, they would think she's crazy.
Autumn 2009. Sarah K. is 20 years old today.
She graduated from high school last year and lives with her boyfriend.
A year ago the hallucinations stopped.
Ever since she contacted the psychologist Kasten on the Internet, she has known for sure that she is not crazy.
Madness is also a work of art made of despair
If someone is socially isolated or has sensory deprivation, there's a good chance they'll have hallucinations after a while, Kasten says.
I suspect the brain is then underemployed and takes care of its own entertainment.
Sarah K., an only child, was afraid of other children as a little girl and often played alone.
Her hallucinations began when, at 13, she learned that the man she has called daddy for as long as she can remember is not her biological father.
Since the same areas of the brain that process real impressions and sounds are active in visual and acoustic hallucinations, sufferers like Sarah K. find it difficult to distinguish between illusions and reality. "Every experience," says Kasten, "takes place in the brain, where reality is reflected.
Hallucinations are also images created by the brain, which is why they feel so real."
Kasten also evaluates nocturnal dream images as a form of hallucination.
The hallucinations of healthy people do not differ fundamentally from those of an acute psychosis.
In contrast to schizophrenics, the mentally healthy are able to recognize their illusions as unreal.
Kasten therefore advises his patients to value hallucinations as a special ability.
Borderline state between dream and hallucination
Unfortunately, in our world, which is too much centered on consciousness, imaginary experience is usually pathologized, says Michael Schmidt-Degenhard, Professor in Heidelberg and chief physician at the Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the Florence Nightingale Hospital in Düsseldorf.
A psychosis is a serious, painful illness, but it also holds positive, creative things - delusion is also a work of art made of despair.
Schmidt-Degenhard has researched the so-called oneiroid form of experience, a special form of dream-like altered waking consciousness.
Oneiroids are highly complex, detailed quasi-dreams that the experiencer believes to be real and that they cannot distinguish from the waking state even afterwards.
The oneiroid state of consciousness arises in extreme situations caused by trauma or illness, for example in polyradiculitis patients who experience motor paralysis while fully conscious.
If a person is threatened with loss of self and the world, for example through persistent, complete inability to move, he replaces the life-threatening real situation with his own imaginary world that is decoupled from reality, says Schmidt-Degenhard.
A kind of borderline state between dream and hallucination.
Since it is not possible to cope with a situation in reality, a world change takes place, but the real situation is visualized in the imagination.
An intensive form of creating meaning and meaning in an unbearable situation, which enables us humans to shape our own lives and not to sink into a void of loss of consciousness.
Everything is real, even later in memory
The Zurich art historian Peter Cornelius Claussen also describes his Oneiroid experiences in his book "Herzwechsel" as a rescue operation of the soul.
He is 49 years old when, after heart valve surgery followed by a heart transplant, his consciousness travels for days while his body is condemned to immobility in the intensive care unit.
Claussen immerses himself in a self-created world, visits strange times and places: he sees himself as a bedridden old man on board a train sanatorium, a robot watches over his health.
In the early Middle Ages he lived among nobles who made intoxicants from blood.
Is kidnapped by a Greek on a motorcycle to his home country, surfs the firn snow of the Alps on his hospital bed and meets a Korean mafioso.
He is completely immersed in what is happening in the imagination, everything is real, even later in the memory.
For Claussen, these inner journeys are fundamentally different from any dream.
Dream is another state, he describes his experience.
In complete contrast to this, the memories from mental journeys are still clear to me years later and in minor details.
Clearer and more intense than actually experienced.
The intensity of this experience bursts the horizon of our other everyday experiences, says the psychiatrist Schmidt-Degenhard.
Ultimately, oneiroids, psychoses, hallucinations and drug intoxication show how fragile our inner images of external reality are, even when we are awake.
Any change in the state of consciousness, summarizes the psychologist Kasten, "can lead to a distortion of what we call reality."
An experience that can definitely be enriching.
The snow can come
burda
Children should take over the publishing house at the age of 27
The new publishing boss Kallen is an interim solution: In the long term, Hubert Burda wants to put his company in the hands of his two children, he told SPIEGEL.
The holding company is to continue to belong 100 percent to the family in the future.
Hamburg - The publisher Hubert Burda sees his company in the hands of his children in the long term.
Both children inherit at the age of 27 and have the firm will to join the company, the 69-year-old told SPIEGEL.
As a precaution, we have regulated the details.
The question of whether they are also active in the company only arises afterwards.
Also the question of whether they are able to do so.
You can't put your children in front of 7,500 employees if they aren't sufficiently qualified.
It kills the kids and kills the company too.
Burda announced on Thursday that he would be retiring from the position of CEO in January and had named Paul-Bernhard Kallen as his successor.
52-year-old Kallen has been a board member at Burda since 1999.
Initially he was responsible for technology.
Later, with the treasury department, responsibility for the company's assets was added, and after Jürgen Todenhöfer left, also for direct marketing, foreign countries, printing and finance.
For the first time, there is no family member at the head of the publishing house.
Burda's children are 19 and 17 years old, his son Felix, who would be 42 today, died a few years ago.
The naming of Kallen also serves to "bridge 10, 15 years," said Burda.
The holding company should continue to belong 100 percent to the family, said Burda.
With a view to the Schickedanz and Schaeffler cases, Burda said that even family businesses are not safe from collapse: "It always affected families who let themselves be infected by an addiction to capital, who speculated completely and thought they could make it to the really big one level up players.
That was never my strategy.
According to Burda, he "never had dreams of becoming a world power".
I don't see myself as the political preceptor of this country like Springer was, and I don't want to play in the world league with 'Time' either, those places have gotten too big.
Perfect Beauty
Everything you could wish for in terms of beauty and well-being is now available to you.
At least that's what El Corte Inglés is aiming for, which has recently opened a shop of more than 1000 m² in the shopping center in Callao (Madrid), where everything revolves around body care.
In the spa, located on the eighth floor, you will find, among others, reputable companies such as Hedonai, which provide laser hair removal; Spaxión, with spaces for relaxation and beauty treatments; the hairdressers Luis & Tachi, Marina d'Or with a fitness studio or L'Occitane with their natural cosmetics.
But there is also a food department, which stands out for its tea house with more than 130 different types of tea.
Enjoy a relaxing massage with your partner while enjoying a fantastic view of the capital, or rent the relaxation area for two hours to organize your own "beauty party" with eight friends and then relax in the jacuzzi or relax with a massage and a glass of champagne, these are just some of the many options that Spaxión offers.
The total area is 250 m² divided into 12 rooms for the latest facial and body treatments as well as hydrotherapy.
For example for cavitation in the fight against cellulite or with vibrating surfaces.
The gym also has this type of equipment, there are also virtual trainers who take care of the clients' workouts, offering them a totally personalized training.
You start a training session by entering a personal password on a touchscreen located opposite the machines.
After that, various videos will show you how to carry out your training sessions correctly.
The head of the gym assures that 15 minutes (including warm-up and stretching exercises) is quite enough to train the body muscles.
And if, after exercising your body, you still want to go to the hairdressing salon, the Luis & Tachi company has a room where treatments to regain luster, shine and health for your hair are proposed in a personalized way .
Innovation and exclusivity seem to be the keywords for this spa in the heart of the city, open from 10am to 10pm, 365 days a year.
The most diverse décolletés
Christmas is fast approaching and that's why it's another great opportunity to copy the looks of the stars and bring their party dresses into our closets.
The shape of the cleavage, which is very important for emphasizing the silhouette, is one of the points to consider.
Here are some suggestions.
The singer Fergie has chosen an exaggerated and very complicated cleavage. One can only advise against that.
Endesa and Barcelona by electric car
The electricity company Endesa, together with the city of Barcelona, has created the "LIVE Office".
This is a project to develop and promote electric cars in the Catalan capital.
The "LIVE Office" (Electric Car Introduction Logistics) will define and coordinate the roadmap for the city's EV introduction and make arrangements related to mobility through managing, coordinating, subsidizing, etc.
On the other hand, the MOVELE project is currently being developed to promote the electric car and to summarize opinions and measures from the areas involved.
This is an attempt to push the transportation of the future.
3 "Electric Cities"
However, Barcelona is not the only city that will be involved in the introduction of the electric car in Spain.
Madrid and Seville also participate in this project.
These are the three cities chosen by the government in the MOVELE project to accelerate the adoption of the electric car.
The electricity company Endesa has already signed a framework agreement with the government of Catalonia (la Generalitat).
The purpose of this framework contract is to promote research and technological development activities in the Autonomous Community of Catalonia.
These activities include, among others, activities related to energy and in particular to its performance.
However, it is by no means the only initiative Endesa is taking part in to promote the electric car.
The company participates in standardization groups across Europe and maintains a whole range of additional projects such as G4V, ELVIRE or CENIT VERDE.
Zapatero sees "a calm horizon" for the automotive sector
The Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, predicts "a calm horizon" for the Spanish automotive industry, which is the country's largest exporter.
At the presentation of the economic report for 2009 by the President of the Government, Zapatero recalled the measures that the Government has launched to support the automotive sector during the governing year.
"Without the Auto Industry Competitiveness Plan, today we would have seen a panorama of neglect and the closure of some of our main manufacturing plants," the governor said.
"Thanks to this plan and the car manufacturers' willingness to continue producing in Spain in a very competitive industry, we can see a calm horizon for the future of this industry, which is our main export sector," he added.
He also recalled that the Competitiveness Plan, which is part of the Comprehensive Plan for the Automotive Industry (PIA), allocated 800 million euros for projects by 19 vehicle manufacturers and 137 suppliers, which in turn ensured investments of more than 3 billion euros.
The Prime Minister explained that these investments are intended both for the development of new models and for the modernization of existing products and processes.
Zapatero also underlined the government's measures to stimulate demand, alluding to Plan 2000E, which are being implemented in collaboration with the Autonomous Communities and car manufacturers.
According to the Prime Minister, this plan will reduce emissions by an average of 6% for new vehicles sold on the Spanish market, which in turn has resulted in a "strong increase" in registrations, which increased "by 40%" in November.
On 20,000 square meters of classic vehicles
Madrid hosts the first edition of the International Classic Motor Show, an exhibition for professionals and lovers of the motor world.
This fair will take place from February 5th to 7th, 2010 in the Pabellón de Cristal of the Casa de Campo in Madrid.
200 domestic and foreign exhibitors will present their brands on an exhibition area of 20,000 square meters.
Not only can you admire classic motorcycles and vehicles, but you will also find all imaginable articles related to the world of motors at ClassicAuto Madrid.
Thus, one can find accessories, spare parts, components, fabric accessories, accessories, publications, miniature cars, etc. among the exhibitors at the fair.
Hundreds of items related to the world of classic engines that will delight collectors and enthusiasts.
Among the companies that will be attending this fair are Clásicos de Mos and Good Old Times, vehicle sales, among others; Juan Lumbreras, restorations; Coupe-Francisco Pueche, sale and restoration of automobiles, specialized in Mercedes Benz.
Outdoor skill tests
In addition, the sales activities at this fair are complemented by parallel events: meetings, sports vehicle exhibitions, skill tests, events and competitions.
Skill tests with classic cars and motorcycles will also be held on a specially designed race track outside the fairgrounds.
Mazda3 i-Stop: environmentally friendly sportiness
Mazda wants to prove that being sporty can go hand in hand with protecting the environment.
For this reason, Mazda recently introduced the automatic engine stop and start system, christened i-Stop, on the Mazda3 model, a device that is currently only available for the 2.0 150 hp petrol engine.
This second generation Mazda 3 stands out for its high marks in the overall look.
The finish, the vehicle's design, the comfort, its handling on the road, the mechanics, the i-Stop system...
All these aspects are "very good" for the new Mazda3.
Starting with the front seats, it can be said that the front seats offer excellent ergonomics and good support.
Furthermore, the play of the steering wheel is excellent.
Looking further at the unit consisting of the instrument panel and dashboard, one can see that Mazda is in line with the Japanese trend towards futuristic interior design with a multitude of knobs and switches in the eye-catching colors of red and blue .
This style partly reminds us of the Honda Civic style.
Therefore, it is safe to say that both the Mazda 3 and the Civic, both Japanese models, stand out from the sobriety of the German automobiles, especially the Volkswagen Golf, which everyone wants to surpass.
The passenger compartment of these two Japanese compact cars offers more comfort than ever, so that four adults can travel with the car in the utmost comfort.
All this is complemented by a spacious and clearly shaped trunk.
The stop and start system is currently only available for the 2-litre petrol engine with 150 hp and a 6-speed gearbox.
This engine is a real treat. It stands out for its refinement, for its quiet noise, for its performance and for its low consumption.
And those who don't drive many kilometers a year should consider this i-Stop with petrol engine for its great comfort when shifting gears and its low consumption, even if Mazda's diesel models are the best-selling ones.
In terms of equipment, the so-called Sportive model selected for the test drive is special, as it has a significantly larger number of elements from the standard equipment.
Among the standard equipment, the Lane Change Assist (RVM) stands out, which eliminates the blind spot, but also the traction and stability controls, the cruise control, the photosensitive interior mirror, the on-board computer with a large screen, the sensors for parking, an independent air conditioning system, rain and light sensors, bluetooth and audio bluetooth, as well as the 17-inch chromed rims.
In addition, this version also includes, as if that were not enough equipment, the Premium package which, for an additional 1,500 euros, includes: among other elements, in particular, the adaptive bi-xenon headlights and the BOSE sound system with CD loader.
Conclusion
The Mazda3 2.0 i-Stop is one of the best compact cars in its class.
It is particularly outstanding in terms of the materials used, because of its handling and the variety of equipment.
In addition, those who do not travel many kilometers a year can also buy the i-Stop version, available only with a 2.0 150 hp petrol engine.
The only negative thing about this model is its somewhat high price, which ranges from 21,770 euros for the Luxury model to 23,270 euros for the Sportive model, which has been tested.
In return for this high price, however, the Mazda3 offers us maximum driving pleasure every day.
A premiere with a lot of glamour
LA rolls out the sensuality red carpet for Penélope Cruz, Nicole Kidman and Fergie.
At the premiere of "Nine" the stars were more radiant than ever, dressed in models that look as elegant as they are sexy. (Photos: Gtresonline).
Our "Pe", as elegant as ever, opted for a dark "Lady" dress.
The promises of FonPeek
Peek is extremely limited, a device that only allows you to read your e-mails without any possibility to see certain attachments or surf the Internet.
It enjoyed its five minutes of fame when it was named one of Time magazine's Product of the Year.
It's unlikely to be seen on the street, but the idea itself is still of interest to young people in particular.
In contrast to smartphones, Peek costs very little and has a very cheap flat rate, for example only half the price of the flat rate of an iPhone.
After seeing the success with it, the company launched two new devices: one that's just for Twitter, the other that comes with a lifetime free service for data, as opposed to the Peek, which has a price that's six times the price have to pay.
Fonpeek, presented yesterday at the Le Web event, is the European version of this invention and therefore its third version.
It has the same limitations as its American counterpart, but with a surprise in store.
The monthly maintenance price for the phone, around 12 euros a month, includes roaming throughout Europe.
Those who travel the world with a smartphone already know what it means to lose all the data to check your email once you've crossed a border or when you're desperate for a coffee shop with WiFi ( or a connection possibility with Fon).
The idea of flat rate roaming is incredibly tempting and should have been around for a long time.
It's true that some phone companies already offer special plans and rates for overseas travel, but in my experience you need a PhD in physics and good glasses to read all the fine print.
Repeated criticisms from the European Commission regarding affordable roaming tariffs across Europe have almost always gone unheeded.
Outside of your own country, people are always afraid to read their emails, and rightly so.
That a small device like FonPeek (although it's always amazing that it's called Fon even though it doesn't have Wifi) can offer these kinds of tariffs means that, slowly but surely, phone providers need to rethink and start to consider different ways they can deploy their data network.
Kindle is another good example of this, its prices include downloading books and other Internet inquiries.
Without a contract and without a catch.
This is an Internet-enabled device and you only pay for it once, namely when you buy it, and not month by month.
And that's exactly what I expect one day from FonPeek, a purchase option with lifetime internet access like the Peek already offers in the USA.
And not because I want to buy it.
I check my email on the phone, thanks.
Rather, I expect this because I believe it would be a more appropriate model for the consumer.
It would be interesting to see a computer with the same system.
Michelle's fetish color
Yellow is without a doubt America's first lady's favorite color.
She wore a dress and coat of this color when Barack Obama took office as President of the United States, and she chose the same color again to accompany him at what was undoubtedly the second most important moment of his life: the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.
Michelle Obama wore very similar models on both occasions: except that it was almost the same color - a shiny greenish yellow - the outfit consisted of three parts - a dress, jacket and coat made of the same fabric - and she wore something oversized embroidered or a necklace.
It even goes so far that, at first glance, it seemed that the First Lady of the United States wanted to follow the lead of the Princess of Asturias and decided to wear the same dress on more than one occasion.
However, the two dresses are very different in the type of fabric they are made of.
She wore a lace dress to the inauguration and a patterned velvet dress to Oslo.
The accessories were also different: the first time green shoes with mid-heels and the second time a similar model, but gold-colored.
The hairstyle was also different every time: on this occasion, her hair was pinned up in a crown, on the previous one she wore her hair loose.
75% of working mothers have encountered problems at work because of their motherhood
Discrimination at work has increased in recent years, especially among younger women who want to have children.
This is the conclusion of the study "Fertility and careers of women in Spain" carried out by CSIC in collaboration with the Institute for Women.
The survey of 9,737 women between the ages of 15 and 75 leaves no doubt about it: 75% of working women see their career opportunities on the job market as being limited because of their motherhood.
The study reveals that there are large differences in the decision to start a family and the number of children depending on whether the women work or not and, if so, what kind of job they have.
Those who do nothing outside the home, only work part-time or do not have a permanent job are more likely to become mothers and have more children.
In contrast, women with permanent jobs, especially in the public sector, postpone starting a family and motherhood and therefore have fewer children.
"Women in the 35-49 age group with a permanent job have their first child on average 3.7 years after moving in together, a number that increases to 4.1 years for women with a permanent job, which takes longer have to achieve this and who only realized their moving in together and the first child much later.
In addition, the type of work also has a major impact on motherhood, although less so than the calendar in terms of fertility," explains CSIC researcher Margarita Delgado.
Educational level is another factor to consider when considering women's age at marriage and first child.
According to the survey, the higher the level of education, the higher the age at the time of marriage and the first child.
This difference was also found in women of the same age.
For example, the women in the 35-49 age group, depending on whether they only had a high school diploma or higher, became mothers at an average age of 25.1 or 32.1, respectively.
There is also another difference between women, depending on their level of education.
While women with high school diplomas get married and have their first child before their first permanent job, women with middle and high school diplomas do it the other way around and first seek permanent employment and then marry and then have their first child, Delgado notes.
Diane Kruger is worth it too
L'Oréal Paris recently added a new name to its envied list of ambassadors: Diane Kruger.
From next year, the German actress will be the image of various brand products and will also say the well-known advertising slogan "Because you are worth it".
The leading lady of "Joyeux Noël", one of the most elegant actresses on an international level, will become another famous figurehead like Linda Evangelista, Jane Fonda, Andie MacDowell, Eva Longoria and the Spaniard Penélope Cruz before her.
Before her, the last to join this exclusive club were actresses Evangeline Lilly ("Lost") and Freida Pinto ("Slumdog Millonaire").
The cosmetics company also only has exceptional ambassadors for men: Patrick Dempsey ("Grey's Anatomy") and Matthew Fox (Evangeline's actor colleague in "Lost").
The British fashion industry awards ceremony
The British have an important say in the fashion world.
Their highest representatives - fashion designers and models of both yesterday and today - met at the annual awards ceremony held in London at the Royal Court of Justice.
They all showed up for the occasion.
Ex-model Jerry Hall and her daughter Georgia May Jagger, who was voted this year's best model.
Manuel Vicent's poker game
In "Poker der Aces" (Alfaguara, illustrations by Fernando Vicente), Manuel Vicent presents about thirty x-rays of writers who have accompanied him in his literary life (and, in some cases, in real life as well).
In doing so, he does not use a predictable and terrifying genre (biography, life and work) but seeks a resemblance to the creator's fiery heart.
The journey is exciting and Vicent spares neither horrors nor enlightenments.
Besides being a delightful read, this book is also a moving invitation to read and read again and again.
Here are some excerpts from the book.
About Albert Camus: "Reading his pages, I found out that the Mediterranean is not a sea, but rather a spiritual, almost sensual drive, just as I have always felt without having found words for it: the joy as opposed to the calamitous fate, morality without guilt and innocence without any god".
About Samuel Beckett: "Nihilist, allegorical Christian, he wrote about what was in his blood, not in his mind, between powerlessness and ignorance, with a dazzling poetic humor, meaningless, like the knife blade that almost killed him had."
About Graham Greene: "Our husband was so captivated by this woman with a passion that lasted for thirteen years, in whose flesh the emotion of adultery combined with the pleasure of remorse, a spiritual privilege inherent in it consisted in entering heaven by way of perdition."
About James Joyce: "The Odysseus" was published in Paris in 1922 by Sylvia Beach. It's one of the 8000m peaks in the world literature, you have to climb the north face, the face where the best climbers keep trying."
About William Faulkner: "He was an oddball.
He sometimes said of himself that he was the heir to a county landowner and other times he said that he was the son of a black woman and a crocodile.
Both dreams spoke of a certain greatness."
About Louis-Ferdinand Céline: This writer recorded the insane scream cried out from a bridge by that personality from Munich, so that its echoes resonated in his literary way deep into the night of the 20th century. He did this on a journey during which he fled from himself and implored posterity with a speech full of violence from the worms.
About Dorothy Parker: "One day she knelt down and prayed: my dear God, I ask you to do everything in your power to finally stop writing like a woman."
About Joseph Conrad: "On his tomb are engraved these verses by Spencer: 'the sleep after toil,/ the port after the storm,/ the rest after war,/ after a full life one finds pleasure in death."
About Virginia Wolf: "She always had her depression with her.
Her husband took it with utter normality when she told him that Edward VII was spying on her among the azaleas or that the birds were singing in Greek.
Not a single other case is known where the man showed so much patience and fell in love with a neurotic whose literary talent was even greater than her madness."
About Pío Baroja: "What else was Martín-Santos doing but trying to instill Joyce in Baroja?
What was Benet's intention if he didn't introduce Baroja to Faulkner's weapons?
What was Cela doing but destroying that man's fame so he could put himself on that pedestal?"
Cowardly aggression
My 70-year-old mother was walking through our neighborhood in the town of Fuenlabrada last week when suddenly a group of young people between 15 and 18 years old ran alongside her and our dog, our dog is a mixed breed that we got from the shelter and who only weighs six kilos, and then out of the blue they kicked him twice and severely injured him.
Our indignation cannot be put into words, because it is incomprehensible to us where the fun should be in a cheap aggression against a small and helpless animal, which of course was carried out on a leash.
Add to this the choking fit that a woman, who was taking a leisurely walk, got when she tried to correct these people about the incident, she even feared for her own life, because if such a madman attacks a dog, he might do the same do with a woman, a child, an older gentleman, or probably anyone weaker than himself.
The incident happened in a normally quiet part of town at 5:00 p.m. on an ordinary Tuesday.
The dog howled all day long.
Of course we filed a complaint with a nearby police station, but we have serious doubts as to whether this will do anything at all and in order to prevent any prejudice from the outset, we just want to make it clear that the cowardly criminals were Spaniards.
Our outrage at what happened prompted us to report this incident.
We cannot understand what must be going on in the minds of these young people to find amusing a cheap attack on a helpless animal, an animal that gives us love, companionship and friendship.
We don't know where the good upbringing and respect for animals and people went.
Michelin and Fesvial jointly for the use of the helmet
Tire manufacturer Michelin has launched a campaign to promote helmet use, particularly among younger motorcyclists, in collaboration with the Spanish Road Safety Foundation (Fesvial), both companies announced today.
This initiative aims to raise awareness of the importance of helmet use, as it is ultimately the only protective element that can prevent head injury or even death in the event of a motorcycle accident.
Michelin pointed out that this campaign is part of their commitment to road safety, which "goes far beyond designing and manufacturing products that are becoming safer every day" and further reiterated that they are also involved in other actions pedagogical and informative character contribute to getting one step closer to this goal every day.
This new campaign to promote the use of helmets on motorcycles, which runs under the slogan 'To be or not to be', will in a first phase distribute posters to over 500 motorcycle workshops in order to achieve the widest possible distribution.
Michelin concluded by emphasizing that road safety is "a constant concern" of the company and precisely because, as a manufacturer of tires for two-wheeled vehicles, they always feel obliged to develop ever safer products as one of their main objectives have to be.
Small truck sales are picking up again
After almost two years, the van car market is finally starting to see some light at the end of the dark tunnel.
The 9,425 vehicles registered in Spain in November represent an increase of 12.6% compared to 2008 and, more importantly, the first increase ever after 22 consecutive months of steady decline, according to figures presented by the manufacturers' association Anfac and the car dealers' association Ganvam.
However, these good numbers should be taken with a grain of salt at the moment, as the reference data used for comparison is November 2008, which was a particularly poor year for sales with a 60% drop from the previous year.
However, it is important to remember that, despite last month's increase, total registrations for these 11 months are still 40% below sales for the previous fiscal year.
A total of 95,853 vehicles have been sold since January, but that figure includes all of the vehicles that make up the pickup truck market: passenger car derivatives, pickup trucks, pickup trucks, small vans, and lighter pickup trucks/chassis.
Furthermore, there are still the same storm clouds in the sky, which affect demand the most, because even if some of the vehicles are bought by private individuals, the majority of sales go to small and medium-sized businesses, which in almost 100% of all cases make the purchase with third-party financing.
So, to these limitations, which are a consequence of the cut off faucets of the credit institutions, one has to include other factors, such as the increase in the unemployment rate or the persistence of the bad economic situation.
In this scenario and unlike the passenger cars, the financial support for the purchase of a Plan 2000E vehicle has not helped much.
However, this plan is not only intended for private individuals, self-employed persons and small companies are also entitled to it if they want to buy a van up to 3.5 tons with CO2 emissions that must not exceed 160 grams per kilometer driven. but the low sales numbers speak for themselves.
Just yesterday, Ganvam reminded that it is imperative for the state to also pay special attention to these light trucks, as well as, of course, to industrial vehicles (trucks and buses).
The Car Dealers Association predicts that 2010 will be a year similar to last year, with a 19% drop in sales (both passenger cars and SUVs).
Support for braking maneuvers in critical situations is now mandatory
As was the case with the anti-lock braking system ABS and as is now happening with the ESP stability control system, emergency braking systems must become mandatory equipment in European cars.
In fact, they are already mandatory for all newly registered passenger cars and light vans, for the remaining vehicles a waiting period until the end of February 2011 has been set.
The measure adopted by the European Union aims to improve the protection of pedestrians, however, due to the way these braking systems work, they can also help to prevent many rear-end collisions.
The task of the emergency brake assistant is to apply more pressure to the brakes in the event of a critical braking manoeuvre, which the system recognizes based on the braking force applied by the driver to the brake pedal.
However, this system doesn't keep that pressure going all the way to the end.
According to a study commissioned by the component manufacturer for Bosch vehicles, a third of the drivers involved in an accident did not even manage to press the brake pedal before the collision and half of them had not applied the brakes with full force.
Up to 1,100 accidents
The braking aid, on the other hand, intervenes in the braking system with maximum force and thus reduces the braking time and thus also the braking distance that a car covers when braking.
According to an EU study, up to 1,100 fatal accidents involving pedestrians could be prevented every year if all cars were equipped with this type of emergency braking system.
There would be even fewer accidents - it is estimated that one in four accidents involving personal injury could be prevented - once so-called intelligent emergency braking systems become popular.
Then the vehicle is equipped with a system that detects obstacles (via radar or a camera) and warns the driver, while at the same time applying a light pressure on the brakes.
If the driver reacts to this, the system helps him to increase the pressure on the brake pedal if necessary.
If the driver does not respond to the warning, and even if the collision is inevitable, Brake Assist applies maximum pressure on the brakes to minimize damage.
General Motors postpones plan for Opel until January
While the workforce at Opel's plant in Figueruelas (Zaragoza) has already been briefed by Nick Reilly, the new General Motors (GM) Europe chairman, that production of the new Meriva will start in the first week of April, probably on the 8th. According to Javier Ortega, the American car manufacturer indicates that it needs more time to finalize the Opel rescue plan.
Namely, Nick Reilly, the new chairman of GM Europe, wants to ensure that the parties concerned give their consent to every single point of the plan in advance.
And because of this, the final document, presented first to the workers and then to the governments of the countries where there are plants, may be delayed until early 2010.
On the other hand, GM has assured that it will make a decision regarding the sale of Saab in the next few days.
So it's not surprising that the Swedish government has increased pressure on the American automaker to make a decision as soon as possible.
GM admits to being in contact with some possible new buyers.
One such buyer could be Geely, which also wants to buy Volvo, but the option of the Dutch maker of Skyper sports cars, backed by Russian group Converg, is gaining traction.
If no agreement is reached with either of these buyers, GM could sell some assets to China's BAIC.
The decision to close Saab by the end of the year if it hasn't been sold by then remains upheld.
At the wheel of the Porsche Boxster Spyder
For the development of their latest and very expensive jewel, the engineers used the Boxster S as a basis and actually managed to lighten it by 80 kilos, which means that it now weighs just 1,275 kilos.
To create something like this, they first ditched the automatic pop-up roof and replaced it with a manually-operated canvas roof, which alone saved 21 kilos; thanks to the aluminum doors used on this model, like those of the GT3, another 15 "disappear"; by removing the air conditioning again 13; in addition, the fuel tank has been reduced from 64 to 54 liters, saving another 7 kilos; by installing sporty Bacquet seats another 12 and with the light 19-inch rims another five.
Another six kilos were saved by doing without the CDR-30 audio system and the missing kilo was achieved by replacing the door handles with handles made of fabric.
Although it is also available with the PDK dual-clutch transmission, the test drive was done with a vehicle with a 6-speed manual transmission, mainly on the smaller country roads of California, on mountain roads that were really very curvy.
With his driving behavior you can only give him the grade impeccable.
However, the reduction in his weight has in no way meant that he is no longer as safe on the road.
Quite the opposite is the case: it's been a long time since we've tested such a small and light model, which at the same time gives you a feeling of great safety when cornering, even at high speed.
He's a small athlete, able to warm up his muscles in low gear in the time required for us to tell him to speed, brake, recover, and then start all over again with his engine fetch ...
He does everything he is told. The car does everything we tell it to do with our hands on the wheel, thanks to steering that is as communicative as it is precise.
And he does it with the precision of a surgeon.
An engine sound for all tastes
The sound of its V6 Boxer with 320 hp (10 more than the Boxster S) is extremely successful and can be enhanced even more with the 'sport' option and with a system that can modify the engine noise, already introduced for the first time on the Panamera used.
Acceleration is unimaginably brutal, whether from a standstill or accelerating again.
The suspension is strong but not harsh or uncomfortable.
The asphalt on the country roads where we drove the Boxster Spyder was already quite damaged, but the car coped well with the potholes.
The electronic assistants had almost nothing to do on the entire route; and this despite the fact that we found ice at dawn and loose gravel in the morning on some of these turns.
In summary, it can be said that it is an ultra-light car, a car with which you have an indescribable driving pleasure that is otherwise rather rare and there is much more to it than just a small improvement on the Boxster Ss.
The car will be launched in February 2010 and will cost 70,831 EURO.
bag girl
The singer, a bosom friend of Karl Lagerfeld, is the face of the Coco Cocoon cosmetics line and an occasional starlet at the maison runway shows, presenting her scowl with the same stubbornness as her Chanel bags.
Much more than "Bad Girl" or "It Girl", she is a "Bag Girl".
The Baskonia gives themselves a victory in Israel
Caja Laboral, despite the many absentees in Dusko Ivanovic's team, celebrated a superb 82-91 triumph in his visit to the complicated Maccabi Electra football field, taking first place in his group after Mirza's superb display Teletovic, who was his side's best with eight triples (29 on scoring).
The team from Vitoria was able to replace the significant absences of Herrmann, Oleson, Huertas or Micov with a large dose of effort and teamwork, even if they had to wait until the bitter end to win.
Great hitting from the perimeter with 16 rated triples was instrumental in their eventual victory.
The game started with the Blues and Reds taking the lead from the start.
With the Vitoria side's first four baskets already coming out of the perimeter, you could already tell that they had come onto the field with well-warmed wrists.
It was English and Teletovic who were mainly responsible for the 18-20 at the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter was little different, except that the Álava side opted for an inside play from Barac and the play from Eliyahu, who was greeted with whistles and applause on his return to the team that is his home to theirs Advantage to extend until the break (34-43).
Teletovic was already beginning to emerge as the best of his side with 13 points, although Splitter's minus six rating suggested it wouldn't be the Brazilian's best night.
Nevertheless, despite the clear advantage at the break, the game was far from over and the Maccabees wanted to remind the Vitorian that not everyone wins on their pitch and thanks to the constant attack of the 'Hand of Elías' they got back into the game .
Eidson and Pnini were instrumental in the Yellows turning the tide (50-49).
Even more cons
Ivanovic's team, injured but far from dead, had to prepare a few plays with accuracy to get some air again and one of them suddenly got the pistol of Mirza Teletovic, who scored three almost consecutive trebles and with the support of English and Ribas ensured that the scoreboard returned to a reassuring distance of (54-67), which the hosts were able to embellish at the end of the third quarter with (57-67).
The Alaveses were exposed in the last quarter and English and San Emeterio (60-75) were already announcing they would not allow anyone to take away from them the victory they honestly earned in the opening thirty minutes.
Nonetheless, Pnini and Eidson, the best of their side, didn't give up and tried to reinvigorate their side with three points from the line (70-77).
Despite this, and although Splitter was sent off for fouls, Ivanovic's team didn't give up, defended well and although the Israelis caught up in the last minute (80-85), the game already had a winner and Tel Aviv lost for the first time this season.
Injuries prevented Unicaja from being confronted
Unicaja lost loudly to Olympiacos in Greece and lost the lead in Group B of the Euroliga in a game marked by the absences of Unicajas' players (Freeland, Lima and Archibald), especially in the indoor game was what made it easier for the Greeks to win.
The Málaga team were not afraid of the atmosphere in the Hall of Peace and Friendship, nor of the opposing team, which is perhaps one of the strongest in Europe and has a lot of money.
Thanks to the game they presented in the first quarter, the Andalusians were allowed to start dreaming. Aggressive defense and three consecutive trebles, two by Omar Cook and one by Guillem Rubio, blinded the hosts to 12-18 in the 9th minute.
Olympiacos was surprised by the intensity of Erein Unicaja, even if the home team, with an inside game between Bourousis, Vujcic and Schortsanitis, managed to put the scoreboard 22-20 in their favor in the 13th minute, the minute it was due an action almost ended in a fight between the two Americans Beverley and Williams, which is why both were disqualified.
The Greek team were finally starting to warm up and their dominance on both halves of the game, while the injury elimination of Englishman Joel Freeland and Carlos Jiménez's three self-inflicted errors left their mark on the Unicaja.
Under their infielder and Lithuanian leader Linas Kleizas, with his trebles, they increased their advantage to 44-32 in the 19th minute.
A catch-up hunt was impossible
The third quarter was characterized by many attacks against the Olympiacos team, who, despite their 19 losses, showed themselves superior and even managed to equalize the difference of the match played in Malaga with 66-48 in the 27th minute, which in turn gave them the lead swayed within the group.
Unicaja tried to put up with the many absentees and the retirement of Scotsman Robert Archibald who was injured during the game.
Despite the many disadvantages for the Unicaja, some hope returned to 66-57 in the 31st minute thanks to Cook's lead and triples and Lewis' effort.
Still, it was actually impossible because once the Olympiacos attacked and showed his superiority with inches inside the basket area, there was no stopping him.
Croatian captain Nikola Vujcic managed to increase the goal difference to 81-62 in the 37th minute and Unicaja had to admit defeat and cede the lead to Olympiacos.
How Much Should You Earn Based on Your Facebook Profile?
Facebook users can now know the salary they should earn based on their profile thanks to the new Trovit application, the search engine with the largest number of real estate, job and car ads in Spain.
The How Much Should You Earn tool calculates user salaries based on more than 140,000 job offers on Trovit in Spain. A form is available on Facebook for users to enter their occupation, work experience, age and the city where they work.
Just a week after the application first became available, the search engine found that, on average, the Spanish worker "feels badly paid," explains Albert Ribera, the person responsible for the Trovit product, in a press release.
The Spaniards are the worst paid according to the data Trovit has through its search engines in the UK and France.
A British programmer gets a gross annual salary of 45,226 euros and a French 31,059, as opposed to the 24,000 euros earned by a Spaniard.
As a result, a lorry driver has a net annual salary of 34,247 euros in England, 25,751 in France and 16,420 euros in Spain.
According to Trovit, the lowest paid job in Spain is that of a waiter with €11,592 net per year; followed by the work of a salesman at 14,725 euros and that of a manual worker at 15,667 euros.
The most searched jobs online in the last three months are driver, part-time and social worker.
Brazil give Zelaya a date to leave
The Brazilian government has set a deadline for Manuel Zelaya's stay in its embassy in Tegucigalpa.
The ousted President must leave the diplomatic mission no later than January 27, 2010, when his mandate officially expires
Francisco Catunda, the trade delegate of the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital, confirmed to TV Globo that "Mel" knows that before that date he must have left the embassy where he had found asylum since September 21.
"He is aware that he has to leave on January 27 because his mandate expires on that day and he has to find new accommodation."
The channel also quoted the ex-president confirming his intention to leave the embassy before the appointed date: "My position is to leave as soon as possible, logically with the backing of the government of Brazil," Zelaya explained over the phone .
After the November 29 elections (in which Porfirio Lobo emerged victorious), Zelaya assured that he would stay at the Brazilian embassy until January.
However, this week he attempted to gain sanctuary in Brazil.
However, this failed because of Zelaya's refusal to recognize the status of an asylum-seeking politician, which the "de facto" government headed by Roberto Micheletti wanted to impose on him.
Thanks very much!
After the most tempting days since last spring, when asset inflation was the dominant mood on the markets, uncertainty has returned to the markets, which is by no means surprising given that this is their natural state, in an environment in which where brokers make decisions about an inherently uncertain future.
The measure used to stabilize the markets was to pay off the debt with the direct purchase of assets and indirectly give liquidity a free hand with interest rates hovering around zero, in this way the banks buy assets for settlement.
Central banks have already confirmed that outright asset purchases are all but over and, without questioning their heterodox policy on liquidity, are beginning to throw a spanner in the works, as the BCE did next with its annual auction, the takes place next week.
Therefore, investors are doubting the global economy's ability to sustain economic recovery without these heterodox measures, and we are witnessing a reversal in the reduction of risk premia.
Stock market volatility and corporate bonus differentials are rising again, albeit a far cry from the paranormal levels they reached earlier in the year.
States were forced to nationalize private risks and national debts are rising again.
Quality is now back, and the US, Japan and Germany are the preferred havens for investors, which in turn is widening eurozone country differentials towards Germany.
Spain has so far been little affected by this episode of instability, but then Standard & Poor's came along and threatened a new downward revision of Spain's rating.
On the other hand, a certain uncertainty does no harm in silencing the defenders of moral hazard who have tried again to make world economic policymakers aware of what they have caused, considering the devastating effects , which cut credit led to job losses, had slowed down when they should have announced a new day of thanksgiving.
Nonetheless, what happened in Dubai points to a tribal war between the emirs to restore power to the Emirates, and developments in Greece were also foreseen earlier.
A government that is silent about the national debt, elections and a new government that is pulling in the same direction.
Prodi made it to Berlusconi in Italy and Durão Barroso to Socrates in Portugal.
It makes no sense that earlier this year Ecofin rescued Hungary from defaulting on its foreign payments, thereby allowing a euro member country to default on its obligations.
On the other hand, it is logical that Ecofin has forced the Greek government to be transparent and hold its citizens accountable for the need for extraordinary measures to maintain the stability of state funds.
Yes, as expected, we are in for an episode of normalization of risk premiums, after some excess amounts, this would now be within expectation.
In the case of Spain, there is nothing to worry about as long as sovereign debt differentials are increasing at the same rate as European corporate bonuses.
However, should the European differences diminish and the Spanish continue to increase, this would be a specific Spanish risk.
Standard & Poor's is a farce. While the front-loaded indicators here are forcing a majority of the market research institutes to front-load their recovery scenarios and revise upwards their 2011 scenario, including the OCDE and the European Commission, which again come up with a Japanese scenario for the Spanish economy, promises all that, despite warnings, not a long service life.
Again, although 'careful driving' is the order of the day, it looks like an excellent opportunity to buy Spanish equities.
Connected branches
Iberdrola's President, Ignacio Sánchez Galán, was the first to appear yesterday before the Parliament's subcommittee, which is currently debating Spain's energy supply strategy for the next two decades.
After his appearance, which was followed by Gas Natural-Fenosa chairman Rafael Villaseca, Galán gave the press some bullet points about what he had presented to the subcommittee behind closed doors.
According to the President of Iberdrola, Spain must invest 50 billion euros by 2020 and another 60 billion from that date until 2030, provided that the current nuclear power plants remain operational.
If this is not the case, the investment required would not amount to 60 billion but up to 95 billion.
However, Iberdrola believes that investments should no longer be made in increasing energy production capacity, but rather in distribution networks and international networks.
From 2020, the question will change and the performance should be increased.
His proposal focuses both on gas and coal plants with facilities to capture the carbon dioxide and, of course, above all on renewable energies.
In this case, he assumes that 18,000 MW more will be needed, provided of course that other "support energies" are used.
Galán, who believes that the bill for a sustainable economy that has just been passed by the government is in line with what his company has asked for, had no intention of saying anything against this law, such as incentives for the to create national coal consumption, which would be the exact opposite of all political strategies in the fight against climate change.
In his opinion, "there is a clear long-term bet in this direction, despite some "individual" measures, as described by the President of Iberdrola.
Be that as it may, Galán believes that investment decisions, even if they are long-term, should be made now, since it will take time and a stable remuneration framework to be set up to tackle them.
Ferrovial gets the "handling" from Aer Lingus at ten airports
Ferrovial's subsidiary for airport ground services, Switzerland's Swissport, is the preferred partner of Irish airline Aer Lingus for baggage services at ten European airports where they have a presence.
Paris, London, Frankfurt and Brussels are some of the most important.
The agreement, for which no figures have yet been announced, is set to run for five years.
On the other hand, Ferrovial, the Government of Castile-La Mancha and the University of Alcalá de Henares yesterday signed a protocol of collaboration to create an Innovation Center for Smart Infrastructures.
The alliance plans to invest 20 million by 2012, 50% of which will come from Ferrovial.
One of the tasks of the center will be to study energy efficiency on highways and airports.
Acciona competes with Hochtief and Bouygues for its first highway construction in Australia
Acciona is fighting to get its first freeway in Australia, a market where it already has a presence as an energy and water company.
The construction in question is a tunnel that will cost AUD 1.7 billion.
The French company Bouygues and the German Hochtief are his competitors.
A 5km tunnel in the Australian city of Brisbane, on the east coast, has become the best opportunity for Acciona to establish itself in the country as a construction company and highway operator.
City officials want construction to be completed by the end of 2014.
Having opted for a public-private partnership (PPP) to move the project forward according to a business plan prepared by Ernst & Young, the administration already has a final list of candidates for construction and tollbooth management .
Pending the bids presented in May, the estimated investment is A$1.7 billion (€1.047 billion), with three consortia mostly made up of European construction companies competing in the final phase.
The group, called Transcity, is led by Acciona, the only Spanish company, and its partners are BMD and Ghella.
The first company is one of Australia's largest construction companies, while the second, based in Italy, is one of the top civil engineering specialists.
The Northern Direct consortium, made up of the British company Laing O'Rourke, the Australian Transfield, which is responsible for the infrastructure, and the French construction group Bouygues, are up against the Acciona team.
The third and final consortium shortlisted is called LBRJV, formed from the capital of Australia's Leighton (subsidiary of German builder Hochtief, which in turn is owned by ACS), and also local Baulderstone (owned by German group Bilfinger Berger). ) and the French company Razel, which specializes in public works.
The Australian infrastructure market promises massive construction and privatization but has one hurdle to overcome as the only way to enter is by buying a local developer.
A strategy that the mentioned companies Hochtief or Bilfinger have followed, in addition to Asian references, and which has yet to be followed by the Spanish construction giants.
Even ACS entered this market only through its 30% stake in Hochtief, owner of said Leighton.
millions in assets
Acciona is betting on this key geographic area for the industry, where it is already well known for its work in the energy utility and desalination industries.
Among other assets, it already has its largest windmill farm (192 MW) in Victoria and spearheads the group of companies contracted to build and manage Adelaide's £700 million desalination plant.
His intention now is to consolidate in these two fields and to use these synergies to gain access to the construction and infrastructure branches.
The purpose of the underground toll road, promoted by the Brisbane City Department of Infrastructure and dubbed the Northern Link, is to tunnel the western motorway at Toowong with the bypass at Kelvin Grove (see map) for 5km to connect with each other. This is the largest congestion reduction effort on Brisbane's roads.
The timetable issued by the city administration envisages the award for the summer of 2010 and the start of construction work in December next year.
Although this toll road is expected to open to traffic in the last months of 2014, construction work is expected to continue until 2016.
The tunnel was designed in 2005.
It has two lanes in each direction, an electronic toll collection system and a complex ventilation system.
The Queensland Government is contributing AUD 500 million (EUR 308 million) to the funding.
For Hochtief, Brisbane is already big business.
Australia continues to place sizable contracts with Hochtief, which signed a 154 million deal with the government yesterday.
The sub-company ACS will improve the infrastructure of the domestic broadband network with fiber optic cables through its domestic subsidiary Leighton.
This improvement will provide high-speed Internet access for 400,000 people and will keep the German company busy for 18 months.
On the other hand, the company has received the construction project of the 27-storey King George Tower in the Australian city of Brisbane. The construction work has not yet started and Hochtief has received 129 million for it.
Also in the United Kingdom, in Manchester, it competes with Laing O'Rourke to build and manage two schools for 25 years.
The initial investments amount to 75 million euros.
FCC receives the order for a tunnel in Slovenia for 64 million
FCC, through its subsidiary Alpine, has secured the construction of a 2.1 km tunnel for a motorway in Slovenia for a sum of EUR 64.5 million.
The company received this contract just a few days after being awarded the 130 million bid for the construction work to expand the Bosruck (Austria) tunnel.
In this way, Alpine strengthens its experience in tunnel construction.
Construction is scheduled to begin in early 2010 and will take 32 months to complete.
Sra. Rushmore receives advertising budget from Renfe
Renfe has provided advertising and marketing services for the agency Sra. Attributed to Rushmore for a sum of approximately three million euros annually, the railway company said.
In this contract there is also the possibility of two extensions of 12 months each. Sra. Rushmore was selected from among 16 agencies presenting at this competition organized by Renfe, 4 of which made it to the final round, including TBWA, which has been responsible for advertising for the last 3 years.
From now on Sra. Rushmore will be in charge of designing and producing the campaigns.
France Télécom fined over 63 million for slowing down the competition.
France's competition regulator has fined France Télécom €63 million for anti-competitive behavior in the country's Caribbean territories.
According to the agency, the phone operator has restricted competition in fixed and mobile lines by signing exclusivity deals, pricing plans and loyalty programs for consumers on the fringes of regulation.
Along with this sanction, the former French monopoly and still state-owned company has accumulated more than 560 million euros in penalties since 1994 for obstructing its competitors.
The fine imposed yesterday has been increased even further because the authority that oversees competition believes that France Télécom has committed similar offenses in the past and has therefore relapsed.
application trading
On the other hand, the subsidiary of the French company has followed the example of other telephone operators and has opened an application trading site on the Internet in order to increase revenue from non-telephone transactions.
Basically, this Orange application website is active in France and the United Kingdom.
It will have to wait until 2010 for this site to be available in other countries such as Spain.
The Champions League game has brought Madrid and Barça 476.4 million since the start.
Since its inception in 1992, the Champions League has developed into a source of income for football clubs.
So much so that Real Madrid and Barcelona have since taken in 476.4 million, which puts them third and fifth among the football clubs that have made the most money in the league.
At the top of this list is Manchester United.
At the top of this list is Manchester United.
Winning the UEFA Champions League doesn't just bring glory. It is also one of the main sources of income for the big clubs.
The league has distributed up to 5,362.5 million euros to the 105 teams (12 of which are Spanish) taking part in this event since its inception in the 1992/1993 season, according to UEFA.
Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have benefited from this distribution.
The white club ranks third in Europe to have earned the most money from its participation and the only one, along with AC Milan, to have won the trophy three times.
The reigning Catalan champion and last winner of the former European Cup in 1992 is in fifth place.
The list is headed by Manchester United and Bayern Munich, two teams that also earned the most money from their participation in the past Champions League.
And that's despite losing to Barça.
On the other hand, Spain is only third among the countries that have made money from champions, despite having more titles than all others (five, as opposed to four for Italy, three for England and two for Germany).
distribution
This apparent contradiction can be explained by the complicated funding process used by UEFA.
This financial year, the organization, chaired by Michel Platini, expects to earn €1,090 million from the Champions League.
Of this money, UEFA earmarks 413.1 million for fixed payments: each of the 20 football clubs that took part in the qualifying preliminary round (among them Atlético de Madrid) received 2.1 million.
In addition, those who fought their way into the tournament got 3.8 million just for being there, on top of the 550,000 euros for each game they played.
There is also a bonus for winning (800,000 euros) and for a draw (400,000 per team). The clubs that reached the round of 16 will each receive three million; the four who made it to the quarterfinals, 3.3 million.
The last four get 4 million each.
The winner earns 9 million, in contrast to the runner-up who gets 5.2 million.
A football club gets a minimum of 7.1 million and a maximum of 31.2 million in fixed income.
Barça, on the other hand, earned 2.5 million with their victory in the European Super Cup in August.
However, there are also the variable payments, for which 337.8 million are provided.
This money is awarded in proportion to the value of each individual television market.
The Spanish is among the first and has 4 allocated places.
Last year's champion gets 40% of the allotted money, 30% for second place, 20% for third place and 10% for fourth place.
The other part will be distributed according to the number of games they play in this year's edition.
Nueva Rumasa offers 61 million for 29.9% stake in Sos
The Nueva Rumasa group yesterday leaked details of the share purchase offer with which it intends to acquire a cap of between 25% and 29.9% of Sos' capital.
A percentage that does not force you to make a public tender (opa) based on the number of shares.
Specifically, Nueva Rumasa is offering 1.5025 euros per share, to be paid out over ten years and with an annual interest rate of 1% due to this shift.
Yesterday, Sos shares closed at €1.85, which is why Nueva Rumasa values the company 18% below market value.
According to Nuevan Rumasa, the price of 1.50 euros reflects the real valuation of Sos.
The offer involves the appointment of eight of the 15 advisors.
The Jeréz-based group gives shareholders 15 days to express their interest in selling their shares.
CNMV affirmed that it had not been informed of this offer, although the Ruiz Mateos company confirmed that it had been in contact with the authority.
If closed, the deposit would amount to 611.7 million while the value of Sos is 254.27 million.
Meanwhile, Sos continues to restructure its management.
Trying to stay on the fringes of potential bids and the legal wrangling of their ex-managers, brothers Jesús and Jaime Salazar have announced the appointment of María Luisa Jordá as Head of Internal Audit.
A decision that makes her the first woman to hold a senior position at the food company.
This is a newly created post reporting directly to the Group Chair.
This is far from free of polemics, as the company is locked in a legal battle over suspected diversion of more than $230 million from Sos to other Salazar family companies.
It cannot be ruled out that Sos will move further capital over the next few months.
Regarding the Salazar loan, ex-counselors Ildefonso Ortega and Ángel Fernández Noriega (representatives of the CCM and Unicaja) appeared yesterday before the National Assembly and confirmed that they had approved the transfer of 212 million without knowing their destination.
CNMV approves Paternina's public expulsion tender submitted by investment company Mer
The National Stock Exchange Commission (CNMV) approved the public tender for Federico Paternina presented by the investment company Mer last October 9th.
The Regulatory Authority stated that it approved this tender after demonstrating that the terms comply with the applicable laws and that the content of the submitted explanatory sheet can be considered "sufficient" as amended last December 2nd.
CNMV has also announced that this offer is aimed at the acquisition of 550,008 shares in Federico Paternina at a price of 7.65 euros per share, which is 8.95% of the share capital, made up of 6,142,786 euros on the stock exchanges of Shares admitted to Madrid and Bilbao.
It was also announced that 5,592,778 million shares have been committed, which cannot be transferred in any way until the end of the tender and whose price has been set by Federico Paternina in accordance with the laws in force.
New programs for assessing vehicles
In these days of storms and accidents, it's not just garages that make money
Every day, thousands of vehicles involved in accidents are towed into garages where an assessor must assess the damage caused and the cost of repairs.
No two accidents are the same, and calculating the cost of parts and labor can be a tedious and complicated task.
Calculating the repair cost of between $20,000 and $30,000 by hand, including parts and labor, can take up to two or three hours.
On the other hand, with the support of the latest IT tools, it is a matter of minutes
Therefore, almost 100% of appraisers use this type of system.
The service and application providers for accident assessment and repair collect the information they receive from the manufacturers in order to then process it and offer it to their customers in the form of a useful program.
In Spain, Audatex, part of the American group Solera, is the market leader; 80% of all reports are created with their products.
The other two companies that compete in the assessment and report preparation tool market are GtMotive and Eurotax.
Working with the data provided by the manufacturers is anything but easy.
According to Eduardo Velázquez, Audatex sales manager, it works with 63 manufacturers and importers, each of which provides the information in a different format.
In addition, the amount of data to be processed is increasing, to the point that in the last five years even more versions, variants and engines have come onto the market than in the entire fifteen years before.
As soon as a new car comes onto the market, work begins for the companies.
It's a tedious task, because every single one of the thousands upon thousands of vehicle parts has to be categorized and its price entered.
In addition, an "intelligent" graphic image is created for each model, on which you can "click" on different parts of the vehicle.
If this is a high-selling model, the work can be completed in a week if the process proceeds quickly.
If it's a less common car, it can take up to three or four months. Audatex currently has complete information on 99.2% of cars sold in Spain.
For example, among the more exclusive models, they have information about the Porsche models but not Ferrari or Lamborghini.
In terms of the fleet of vehicles on the roads, it is over 99%.
In order to carry out documentation work and create databases, Audatex has eight centers distributed around the world (Spain, France, Germany, USA, Brazil, Mexico, China and Japan) and each of them specializes in certain brands.
The national headquarters are located in Alcobendas (Madrid).
There, more than a hundred technicians (usually mechanical specialists) work simultaneously with three computer screens.
Audatex invests 90 million euros annually in developing these databases.
They ingest 2.5 million files every month and their clients get the updates every other day.
The elaboration of this enormous flow of information allows companies to use it in different ways and thereby offer different products.
The most common use is for repairs and restoration, but depending on the country there are also tools for managing scrap parts or calculating a car's sale or salvage value.
The only company that has a guide that gives information about the value of used cars in Spain is Eurotax.
Audatex does not offer this service in Spain, but it does in the United States.
When reviewing the products that Audatex offers, one can easily get an idea of the type of support they provide to industry professionals.
This company offers ten different tools, with the star of the products being AudaPlus, a standard accident assessment solution for the assessors.
It includes vehicles, motorcycles, light and heavy industrial vehicles.
In addition to the cost of the parts, it includes the repair times estimated by the manufacturer or the painting prices.
This tool is paid according to the purpose of use, ie for each report.
It is most expensive for customers who use it rarely, a maximum of ten times a month, namely 5.75 euros per month.
On the other hand, any insurance company that does thousands of appraisals negotiates the price with Audatex.
With other products, like AudaVIN, you can fully identify a vehicle and the equipment it left the assembly line with just the VIN number.
AudaGlass deals with vehicle windows, and AudaSubastas is an online service open to professionals that allows you to bid on vehicles that have been declared a total loss.
Their statistics service is very useful for identifying trends, conducting geo-demographic analysis, or for obtaining information about the variations by make and model.
For example, you can use it to examine how many models of a certain car brand had to go to the workshop due to breakdowns or how many of them were involved in a serious accident in a certain period of time.
Gt Motive is the only Spanish company dedicated to the development of this type of computer tools.
It sells, among others, Gt Estimate, which is also intended for appraisers and, in the same way, provides digital images, access to parts or prices and the manufacturer's official working hours.
Gt Motive is a company of the Einsa Group, founded in 1971 as a provider of services and solutions for assessing damage, breakdowns and vehicle maintenance.
The GT guide to appraisals is a reference product on the market.
They work with 24,000 workshop users, 3,100 appraisers and 53 insurance companies.
Its business volume has increased by 20% annually over the last three years and in 2008 the turnover was 10.8 million euros.
At the beginning of last year they started to enter the international market with the opening of an office in Paris.
Audatex, on the other hand, was founded in Germany in 1966 and set up in Spain in 1979.
According to company sources, 62% of its business is in Europe and the rest of the world, and the remaining 38% in the Americas. They work with 900 insurance companies and 33,000 workshops, 3,000 of them in Spain.
The total global turnover of the Solera group (Audatex, Sidexa, Informex ABZ, Hollander and IMS) is 557 million dollars, 3.35 more than in 2008.
In Germany, the company has revenues of 19.1 million euros, 7.2% more than in the previous year.
In 2005, the Solera group was worth $1 billion on the stock exchange and today its shares are worth $2.4 billion.
They have been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 2007 and are part of the Standard & Poor's reference index.
Auction of accident cars on the Internet
Last October, the Solera Autoonline group bought an internet platform for the sale of salvaged vehicles and motorcycles.
This purchase meant paying 59.5 million euros for 85% of the company's capital, which could increase to the remaining 15% next year.
The purpose of this purchase was to offer its customers more services and added value, with the possibility of accessing a huge international market.
This appraisal and purchase service is intended exclusively for industry professionals such as insurance companies, appraisers, car rental companies, garages, junkyards and car dealers, who need to be registered before they can operate.
This platform was founded in Germany in 1996 and manages more than 650,000 operations across Europe, 500,000 of them in Germany alone.
Their main markets are Spain, Greece, Poland and Turkey.
The site now has more than 1,500 registered sellers and 4,000 reviewers.
3,000 ads are managed every day and 100 new ads are added every day on the Spanish market.
According to Spanish legislation, a vehicle whose VIN has been deregistered can no longer be driven on the roads, but certain undamaged parts can be used as spare parts.
On the other hand, cars with historical value can be registered again, even if they have been deregistered after difficult visits to the authorities.
Workshop estimate in four steps
With the Auda-Taller tool, the Audatex company ensures that the user receives an estimate in just four steps: identify the vehicle, search for the spare part, create and generate an estimate.
The ease of use of these systems is a fundamental condition, above all to convince the older professionals who are usually more or less against the use of these new computer technologies.
The database includes 1,034 vehicles, 666 of which are passenger cars, 109 SUVs, 137 motorcycles, 78 vans and 44 trucks.
Of course you need a computer with an internet connection to use it.
After the model to be repaired has been identified using the chassis number, a graphic of the respective model appears and then the required spare part is selected.
The user can include variables such as the price for the hours worked, surcharges or discounts and after that he can print the estimate and give it to his client.
However, AudaTaller is not a review tool like AudaPlus, but rather a reference catalogue.
The main difference between the two systems is that the workshop-oriented one does not include estimated working times.
The cost of using this tool is 350 euros per year, an amount that the customer can easily afford.
Audatex is currently working on being able to offer these images in three-dimensional format.
This is an innovation that car mechanics have been waiting for for a long time, as it allows you to select a door, for example, and then completely flip the image to see the inside.