Parliament Does Not Support Amendment Freeing Tymoshenko Today , the Ukraine parliament dismissed , within the Code of Criminal Procedure amendment , the motion to revoke an article based on which the opposition leader , Yulia Tymoshenko , was sentenced . The amendment that would lead to freeing the imprisoned former Prime Minister was revoked during second reading of the proposal for mitigation of sentences for economic offences . In October , Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison for entering into what was reported to be a disadvantageous gas deal with Russia . The verdict is not yet final ; the court will hear Tymoshenko 's appeal in December . Tymoshenko claims the verdict is a political revenge of the regime ; in the West , the trial has also evoked suspicion of being biased . The proposal to remove Article 365 from the Code of Criminal Procedure , upon which the former Prime Minister was sentenced , was supported by 147 members of parliament . Its ratification would require 226 votes . Libya 's Victory The story of Libya 's liberation , or rebellion , already has its defeated . Muammar Kaddafi is buried at an unknown place in the desert . Without him , the war is over . It is time to define the winners . As a rule , Islamists win in the country ; the question is whether they are the moderate or the radical ones . The transitional cabinet declared itself a follower of the customary Sharia law , of which we have already heard . Libya will become a crime free country , as the punishment for stealing is having one 's hand amputated . Women can forget about emancipation ; potential religious renegades will be executed ; etc . Instead of a dictator , a society consisting of competing tribes will be united by Koran . Libya will be in an order we cannot imagine and surely would not ask for . However , our lifestyle is neither unique nor the best one and would not , most probably , be suitable for , for example , the people of Libya . In fact , it is a wonder that the Islamic fighters accepted help from the nonbelievers . Their only excuse is that from their point of view , NATO raids were not controlled by an American general , but Allah , the greatness of whom they celebrated with each strike . When winners are sought for in Libya , the West is not on the list . We participated in a shooting , served Islam , and our politicians got rid of a dictator , their political ally , without any guarantee of profit . Given the recent bad experience from Afghanistan and Iraq , we decided against military occupation of Libya . The locals thus do not have to worry about expelling of the " crusaders . " Without the occupation , will the oil companies get Libya 's black gold for next to nothing , though ? It is quite likely that they will not . The West will then finally be able to boast about its selfless protection of human rights . Unless the followers of the Sharia law put a stop to that . New Era of Crisis Commences France and the rest of Europe are now in the investors " spotlight . A statistical storm blew over Europe on Tuesday . Individual countries released their 3Q GDP data . Between quarters , the Czech economy stagnated ; Germany and France are growing . Yet the debit market is breaking records today . Investors are no longer looking at only Italy ; they now focus on Spain , France , Austria , and others . Eurozone statistical offices in Germany , Czech Republic , and some other countries , released their preliminary estimates of economic development in the third quarter . Germany 's GDP has grown by the expected 0.5 % ; and France 's by 0.4 % . Both countries also adjusted their second quarter data , where Germany did better than expected ( a 0.3 % increase instead of the original 0.1 % ) . France reported a slight decrease , by 0.1 % ( the original information suggested stagnation ) . In this year 's third quarter , the Czech economy showed an interim increase of 1.5 % . Between the quarters though , the GDP stagnated . According to the Czech Statistical Office , this confirmed the trend of a gradual slowing of economic growth . The results are worse than estimates by analysts . Key events : In this year 's third quarter , Czech economy showed an interim increase of 1.5 % ; however , it stagnated between the quarters . Based on preliminary and seasonal data , in the third quarter , the German economy grew by 0.5 % . Between July and September , the economy of both the Eurozone and the European Union grew , compared to the previous quarter , by 0.2 % , which corresponds with estimates by analysts . The Greek economy showed an interim decrease of 5.2 % . The earnings on its 10 ##AT##-##AT## year bonds are 28.45 % . Earnings of both Italian and Spanish bonds are growing towards critical limits . Even Austria , Netherlands , France , and Belgium , etc. are beginning to experience problems . Despite the fact that the situation in the region is getting worse , earnings of Czech 1 - year bonds stay under 4 % . Voices are coming from Germany , suggesting that ECB be the last resort creditor . Czechs qualified for EURO . In Montenegro they won 1 : 0 and celebrate a 200 million windfall . Football representation successfully managed the toughest task of the season ! Thanks to both the great Čech and beautiful goal of Petr Jiráček , they won 1 : 0 . In the second half , Czech football was lucky to maintain its luxury lead from the home return match , and will again feature at the European Championship . IHNED.cz watched the progress match in a detailed report . Nearly no excitement in the first half , and a great portion of luck in the other . Czech representation team , partially due to the home team 's failure in the close ; the great Čech ; and heroic Jiráček ; won 1 : 0 in Montenegro , and celebrates moving on to the European Championship . Perfect Czech team defence only allowed the Montenegro team to threaten in the second half . Damjanovic and Vucinic became the match 's least lucky couple after losing two great opportunities . The wonderful Petr Čech is one of the reasons the Czech representation team will not miss the next year 's European Championship . And Czech football will thus gain nearly 200 million Czech Crowns . From the opening minutes , the game was very pugnacious . Both teams found it difficult to join in the combination ; the game remained around the mid ##AT##-##AT## field line most of the time . That was also why there was no pressure from the home team in the first half . Long kicks behind the defence were neatly averted by the Czech defence . Iranian Students Are Prepared to Die for Their Country 's Nuclear Program They created a live shield . Several hundred university students created a live chain around the nuclear power plant in Iran . The gesture is to express their support of their country 's nuclear program against a possible Israel attack . At Tuesday noon , students ' prayers in front of the building were followed by their chanting of death to both the USA and Israel . In Isfahan , Iran , several hundred university students created a live chain around Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility . This way , they express their readiness to protect their country 's nuclear program with their own lives . In its recent report , the International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA ) stated that everything leads to the conclusion that Iran has not stopped striving for a nuclear weapon . Possible attack on Iran nuclear facilities has been discussed in Israel . At Tuesday noon , students ' prayers in front of the entrance into Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility were followed by their chanting of death to both the USA and Israel . In case of an attack , aimed at the highest possible paralysation of the Iranian nuclear program , the targets would be , based on Israel press , the facilities in both Isfahan and Natanz , where the uranium is being enriched . An Obese Child 's Diet : No breakfast and sausage for dinner Over a third of children between 9 and 13 are overweight ; while 9 % of schoolchildren are overweight , 5 % are obese . As a recent research shows , obese children usually come from families with unhealthy lifestyle . Again , we can see the importance of the environment and models surrounding a human being for his or her healthy development . For example , sausages occur up to half more frequently on the tables of obese children compared to the families of children with standard weight . Over 19 % of obese children had fried chips for dinner the day before the research connected to the educational event called Obesity is No Accident . Moreover , the families of obese children do not practise sports . However , this concerns a majority of families of current schoolchildren - only 15 % of the children said their parents find time for sports activities at least once a week . The research was performed among 900 children . The research took place at the end of last year 's school year ; it included almost 900 elementary school children from throughout Bohemia . It was the second year of the Obesity is No Accident event supported by both Všeobecná zdravotní pojišťovna insurance company and Unilever . So far , the project has been joined by over 12 thousand school children from 4th to 8th grades . Proper diet and sufficient sports activities represent key defining factors causing dramatically growing number of children who are either overweight or obese . " For example , only half of those inquired said they have five meals a day , in the breakfast ##AT##-##AT## snack ##AT##-##AT## lunch ##AT##-##AT## snack ##AT##-##AT## dinner pattern , one of the basic preconditions of correct diet , " one of the results of the research says . No lunch and sausage in the evening Experts warn that even relative details are crucial for healthy development ; such as a regular time of family breakfast . In the Czech Republic , only 23 % of schoolchildren 's families have breakfast together . In a majority of families , everyone has breakfast separately . The worst discovery was the fact that in one tenth of households people do not have breakfast at all . Yet breakfast is the core of proper daily diet . A survey has shown that fries are consumed more often in the families of obese children . Nearly everyone - regardless of their weight - drinks sweet soft drinks every day ( 70 % ) . Though over 40 % of children do sports regularly , the number drops down to less than a half - 15 % - when it comes to their parents . Compose your own menu Another part of the survey allowed selected children ( 204 boys and 172 girls from 13 schools ) to compose their own menu based on selection offered and their taste and opinions . " Diet preferences of Czech children between 12 and 15 are far from ideal as regards healthy diet . " Their favourite meals include large number of flour , meat , and sweet dishes . " Especially alarming is the high popularity of sweet soft drinks , " the final report of the survey concludes . As the main dish for lunch , pasta won very tightly over poultry . However , children showed very little interest in legumes , fish , and vegetable lunches . Tendency towards health The survey also showed that children are willing to adjust their eating habits provided they are given correct information . " Many participants from the survey control group showed a significant shift of preferences towards healthy food when completing a questionnaire after the end of the Obesity is No Accident educational lecture , " project results show . This was quite significant , for example , in case of sweet soft drinks , where more children would begin to prefer plain water . In addition , for their main course , children ticked poultry and fish more often , limiting sweet meals and dumplings . A Stylist Must Also Be a Good Psychologist , Professionals Claim In the opening article on stylist training , I was complaining a bit about the amount of information in the introductory lessons . I had no idea what was coming . Lectures by three experts from the field ; dressing tips for difficult figures ; and a seminar on how it works in practise . And more is yet to come . The closer we get to the final exam , the more information and practical tasks await . The training takes place every Saturday and Sunday , but it is really packed with information . This time , together with Alenka , the Director , ( there is not a single man in the course ) we discussed how to dress a woman whose body is not in perfect symmetry . A majority of women are not perfectly symmetrical . One has a short neck , the other has a boyish figure without proper curves , yet another is overweight . A stylist must know how to optically soften wide shoulders , make the neck look longer , or add the curves necessary . We were given tips on how to accentuate the figure of women such as Jennifer Lopez , i.e. with bigger breasts and hips and narrow waist , and not to dress them too provocatively . For example , if the difference between the waist and hips is such that the skirt or trousers do not fit , it is worth to have at least one piece custom ##AT##-##AT## made . You will definitely not regret the investment , as perfectly fitting clothes are priceless . In a custom ##AT##-##AT## made skirt , you will feel much better than in one that keeps shifting , rolling up , sticking out in your waist , etc . Boyish figures , on the other hand , can wear clothes with ruffling , appliqué , embroidery , or shirring . Given the abundance of such information and figure types , I am glad to have a whole week to sort it all out in my head . Still , I fear it is too much , with regard to the homework we were given . Each of the course participants was given a celebrity to create two outfits for : day and night . We must consider their current appearance , their fashion style , and figure type . I am to dress Miranda Kerr whom you may know from the Victoria 's Secret campaigns . Inside I rejoice , as she is so much easier to dress than , say , Britney Spears , Christina Aguilera , who has recently gained about a ton ( please , understand I am exaggerating ) , or the very young Selena Gomez . We must cut the clothes out of magazines or find them on the Internet and print and graphically process them . Moodboard , as the result is called , then expresses our personal style and attitude to graphic depiction . It is important to think about the graphic part of styling . A stylist does not just dress physical people , but creates product pages in magazines ( based on specific instructions , for example , trendy purses , coats , etc . ) . This is what a stylist and designer , Mario Kameník , was telling us about . But that was not until Sunday . A stylist needs general knowledge Saturday 's lecture , filled with information on figure types , was livened up by three guests from the field . A stylist , Honza Pokorný ; a fashion designer , Jakub Polanka ; and a fashion photographer , Ben Renč . Jakub reminded us that fashion is an illusion , and a stylist should be able to use this fact . A good stylist can work with a single piece of clothing in different ways . In this case , variability is key . For example , a trench coat may be worn in the standard way , over jeans and T ##AT##-##AT## shirt , as a coat ; but it may also be worn on naked body , with step ##AT##-##AT## ins , as a dress . Another option is rolling up the sleeves or collar , and the entire look changes completely . " Play with it , " he emphasised . However , I appreciated the following advice the most : " For your work , you need to know the rules perfectly . " 'Then you can start breaking them , ' Jakub told us . Here I finally understood why we drill all the definitions and rules of what to combine with what and why , while in fashion magazines we often see something else . Not to mention fashion shows . From Ben , the photographer , I learned that a stylist must have more outfit versions prepared than the number he is to take pictures of . So , for a ten ##AT##-##AT## page fashion story ( equals ten outfits ) , I have to be ready to create at least fifteen of them . Now I also know that in the picture , a piece of clothing often looks and functions in combination with others completely different from reality . We must therefore take that into consideration when creating an outfit . Honza Pokorný confirmed that image and style often are half the success . Just look at Madonna , who is no miraculous singer , yet her image and marketing turned her into a worldwide star . The attitude towards stylist services is still rather cold in the Czech Republic . Even famous people often consider it redundant ( believing it is sufficient to be good at something , and how they look at it comes second ) . And if someone finally lets us create their styling , then we should expect them to give us different ( smaller ) size than what they really wear . Then , we are left to Google and find out if the tabloids wrote something about a celebrity gaining / losing weight , etc . On Sunday , both Honza and Mario were stressing the fact that for a stylist it is not enough to know about fashion and be able to create an outfit . Our work chiefly consists of communicating with people we dress ; it is therefore important to be a good psychologist . To be able to estimate people , not to pander , and stick to one 's opinion . " If a manager asks you to go through her clothes and add some nice pieces , you cannot throw out her entire wardrobe telling her how awful the clothes are . " " Find at least a few pieces you can praise , and recommend what to wear them with " Mario says . He also showed us what specifically a duty bag must contain . That is the bag you fasten around your waist to carry all the props you need . Aside from the obvious things , such as scissors , a sticky roller , or safety pins , it should have a nylon thread ( for the stylist to use when taking pictures of products such as purses or hats ) , special clip ##AT##-##AT## ons for holding the clothes in the back in case it is too large ( pins and similar things are forbidden as they damage the clothes ) , or a sewing set . To have some change from listening , and gain some practical experience , we learned how to properly underlay shoe soles . Even when taking photographs in a studio where the surface is even , the soles might get damaged - not to mention shooting outside . And so we were sticking away . You must not touch the shoes with the scissors , to avoid any damage . This requires real skill . Mario pleased me by praising my job . The skills mentioned are really not my cup of tea . This is just a fragment of what we heard during the second weekend course session . I am beginning to realise that to be a professional stylist is no piece of cake , no matter what people say . V Need for Speed : The Run takes place across America . Review An originally carefree ride turned into a routine morning drive to work because of a series of completely superfluous and sloppy mistakes . The ambitions were met to a certain point , but it does not matter since nobody obviously wanted to do any extra work . Before it was released , the new version subtitled The Run created high expectations . It promised to shift the old Need For Speed racing series in a new direction ; the demos made it look like a game that might stand up in the action racing genre . We were curious to see the sections where the main character gets out of the car and runs . Typical for the NFS series though , in the end many things are different from what we expected . The game represents a possibly decent arcade race , but the whole is burdened by several unnecessary mistakes featured in the series for a number of years . This means they are not really mistakes , but the expression of an incomprehensible laziness of the developers . The adventure opens very well . You are introduced into a story , where the main character , Jack , decides to solve some personal issues by participating in an illegal race across America . You get in the car on the west coast , in San Francisco , and your task is to be the first one to reach New York . The idea brings several interesting features . The route is divided into ten stages , subdivided into over fifty races . This means each race takes place on a different route , and given stages are set in varied and interesting environments . One thus does not feel the game keeps offering the same things . Despite the graphics being on the same level of previous parts of the series , some of the environments are very nice to look at . Still , it is nothing world ##AT##-##AT## shattering . Driving through the desert , autumnal countryside , or high in snow ##AT##-##AT## covered mountains is visually very pleasant though . In addition , the races are , from time to time , enlivened by an untypical feature . For example , in the desert , you get into a sandstorm , significantly decreasing the visibility . On the other hand , in the mountains , you have to be careful not to get under an avalanche . Individual races are ordered fairly well . There are just a few types , but it is sufficient . For a while , you try to overtake a number of competitors ( basically a regular race ) ; then you try to beat the time ( standard stopwatch race ) ; or you are in a duel with a single rival . On top of everything else you sometimes come across the police who make your efforts more difficult . The parts outside the car are new . They are just interactive animations , where most of the time Jack is running away from someone and you need to help him by pressing the right buttons at the right time . Nothing difficult . It is a surprise though , that these parts are much less in number than you would expect ( just three to be precise ) . It actually turns out to be good for the game , because this feature does not get to be boring ; within what was already said , it is one of the things that make the game more entertaining . The driving model follows the footsteps of the previous parts . This means that it is nothing special anymore , but it cannot be considered a negative . If you are looking for a real ##AT##-##AT## to ##AT##-##AT## life simulation , you will have to look elsewhere . Still , this driving model is fully suitable for the action style racing , even though we could find better at the competition . So far , everything is just right . However , after some time , problems come . In contrast with the driving model , the collision model is not that good . From a game of this type , one does not expect complicated deformations and collisions , but when you have no idea , before crashing into any object , how your car will act , something is not right . Typically , when overtaking or passing cars tightly in common traffic , you sometimes lightly touch the other car . Yet sometimes in nearly identical situation your car ends up in wild pirouettes . Or , crashed completely . This is not such a big deal due to the restart system , but is enough to spoil the fun . The restarts are done so that if you crash or get far off the track , the game takes you back to the last interrupted point . Nevertheless , there are only five restarts available per each race . If you use them up , you have to start the race from the beginning . This makes it an aid in case something does not work out , but you cannot rely on it completely . Sometimes the restarts are not enough and you need to learn a given section of the race by heart . A significant shortcoming of the game is the fact that the same things often happen in the same places . For example , some turns have to be driven through in a specific way , otherwise you simply do not fit in . At other times you meet civilian cars at a given place in the very same configuration , no matter if you come first , fifth , five seconds earlier , or one minute later . This is especially annoying in situations where you can see how your rival drives through the two cars coming in the opposite direction so easily , while when you get there , the cars are already positioned so that you have to either drive around or slow down . It makes no difference when you get to them ; everything is set so that the situation always occurs just in front of your nose . The competitors have other advantages , too . While playing the game , you find several places , where , regardless of time , the same competitor overtakes you at the very same spot . This is most obvious at the end of the game , on a long bridge , where you are driving in the opposite direction . Obviously , your rival has to get in front of you no matter what . The thing is that when he is driving in front of you , he makes your vision worse , which causes you to crash the car a few times in the section . One can understand the attempt at making the game more interesting and adrenalin ##AT##-##AT## filled , but it is so obvious it gets annoying quickly . It 's a pity , because despite the simple driving model , the game is entertaining and sometimes even so full of action you do not have time to pay attention to what is happening around you . It is not important whether the reason you do not get bored is the concept with fifty unique tracks , ordering of races , or something else . The idea of changing cars during races is unusual . You have to watch out for gas stations along the way , as that is where you car may change despite the fact that in most of the cases the one you have is fully sufficient . Cars are divided into three categories . Sports cars are suitable for cities ; strong American cars for straight highway sections ; and exotic supersports cars for technical driving , such as along crooked mountain tracks . The key story mode is closely connected with the challenge mode ; these are the races in individual locations you know from the story . Here , you gain both medals and experience points for your profile , common for both challenges and the story . Various features unlock fir getting a higher driver level : starting with cars and ending with profile backgrounds . Again , the profile is interconnected with an on ##AT##-##AT## line Autolog function , which , among other things , compares the results you have reached with those of other players , and ensures community functions . Yet another setback difficult to understand ; is the situation from the last race in the story . You and your car get into a subway tunnel ( let 's say you do ) , where you speed down the tracks in the darkness ( let 's say you do ) . Your speedometer shows numbers from 150 to 200 km / h ( let 's say it does ) , when suddenly , a subway train comes running down from behind you , turning your car into a pile of scrap metal . For several days , our editorial staff kept discussing whether when designing the game no one thought for a moment or whether its authors really think we are such morons . The technical part of the game is nothing extraordinary ; but the overall visual impression is mostly pleasant , sometimes even great . It is a pity though , that in some dramatic moments , the recording , in some cases rather tragically , decreases . This especially concerns accidents with large number of participants , where fluent recoding would not help you much anyway . The sound is all right ; the soundtrack is a matter of taste . In order to please the widest possible young audience , the soundtrack is ' flecked in from all quarters ' ; but there probably will not be many people buying the game because of its music . Overall impression of Need for Speed : The Run is quite confused . If the game avoided those clearly redundant mistakes , we could sincerely say that The Run is the best part of NFS for the past several years . However , the game feels unfinished . It surely is a nice entertainment , but prepare to be blinded by the mistakes with the strength of airport spotlights . UK 's Choirs Will Sing at the Students for Velvet Concert The third year of the Festa Academia Festival offers joining the international Students ' Day and Velvet Revolution anniversary with a musical event . It will introduce about twenty high school and university choirs . The main focus of the festival is on two concerts taking place on November 17 . " Charles University has been greatly involved in the festival . " " Participating choirs include the Choir of the Pedagogical Department and Humanities ; Václav Hampl , the Rector , will be in the committee , " Jakub Čaloun , head of the organisation team says . The climax will be a free public concert by high school choirs , which takes place at 2 p.m. , on November 17 , at a plaza in front of the National Technical Library in Dejvice . Celebration Jazz Mass , a piece by an important Czech jazzman , Karel Růžička is on the programme . In the evening , in the ceremonial National House in Vinohrady , there will be a " Students for Velvet " concert , featuring university choirs , including those from the Charles University . The aim of Festa Academica is to celebrate the international Students " Day and commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the Velvet Revolution with dignity ; as well as to present the public with top quality choir music , and to develop creative cooperation among young people . The chief organiser is českých pěveckých sborů ( Czech Choirs ) in cooperation with Jan Kepler 's Grammar School . The entire event is under the auspices of Bohuslav Svoboda , Lord Mayor of Prague , and Václav Hampl , Rector of Charles University . The festival takes place from November 16 to 20 , in Prague and Pardubice . The programme offers both ceremonial concerts and numerous musical meetings , students " happenings , matinées , and more . For detailed information please visit festival web pages at : www.festaacademica.cz EU Ambassadress Vicenová : Czechs have the reputation of being negative and euro ##AT##-##AT## sceptical " Lisbon Treaty caused significant imbalance between individual institutions . " " I did not expect it to be such a tough war . " " It will take five or six years before the situation becomes somewhat stable , calm , and before all players get used to their new roles , " EU Ambassadress Milena Vicenová opened her lecture at the Law Department sharply . She proved how true she is to her " Clearly and openly about Europe " motto in the very first part of her lecture , where she described individual EU organs and the relationships between them in such a clear and intelligible , way that many lecturers from the UK Law Dept. could be jealous . Moreover , Vicenová praised the work of new long ##AT##-##AT## term President of the European Council , Herman Van Rompuy : " At first , critics said he was plain , a grey office mouse who cannot fulfil any roles ; I have to say everyone was amazed at how wonderfully he acquitted his role . " " He is a person who can listen to all twenty ##AT##-##AT## seven member states , communicate with them perfectly , and who has a clear vision of where the EU should be headed . " She explained her new position of foreign affairs and security policy representative as a reply to a question : " Who is the European Union ? Which phone number should I call ? " ; i.e. as an important step to unification and better clarity of Union 's policy towards countries such as China or India . No One Wants To Ban Our Cheese Specialties Vicenová further focused on the agenda crucial for the EU in the past , present , and near future . She described Czech presidency from the year before last as a success . Czechs were dealing with the coming financial crisis ; they solved the as crisis ; and organised the East Partnership Summit . She said the fall of the government at the time was a great negative causing significant damage to the Czech Republic . Currently , Czech representatives in the EU has been very busy . As the ambassadress said , both the presidency and the following financial crisis caused an ongoing stirring . In addition , a new seven ##AT##-##AT## year EU budget needs to be passed , which is very complicated due to the current crisis . Whether the budget will be slim and frugal ; which fields will be given preference ; which countries will be supported more and which less ; all of that is on the coming agenda . The ambassadress reminded the key slogans she took to Brussels : " About Europe , Clearly . " " I really do not like all the abbreviations , foreign words , and jargon no one understands . How are citizens supposed to understand that in Brussels , people are not trying to come up with crooked or round cucumbers , different size bananas , or that someone wants to ban our cheese specialties.' She also wants to use the EU environment better , and get more Czechs into European institutions . Multispeed Europe Is Coming The ambassadress says Czechs are said to be Euro ##AT##-##AT## sceptics ; as well as people noticing the negative rather than the positive sides of things . She wishes more Czech representatives were involved in European institutions . She thinks numerous factors are to blame : for example , the modesty of our candidates and their inability to write motivation letters ; together with low support from the Czech side . Along with the success of Czech presidency , she highlighted the power and cooperation of the Visegrad Group . " Believe me that when I meet someone from Poland and Hungary , and a Slovak is coming to join us , the Frenchman next to me says : " Hey , what 's that gathering about , is that the Visegrad Group again ? ' and he is not happy about it in the slightest.' In the Union 's future , Vicenová expects mainly new strict rules for the budget policy of member states . Rather than a new European Federation , she finds the concept of two ##AT##-##AT## speed , if not multi ##AT##-##AT## speed Europe , very realistic . " We have both countries inside and outside the Eurozone . " " We have Schengen area , and we already have an institute of reinforced cooperation . " " For the first time it was said that the countries who want are to cooperate , while those who are not willing can stand off . " " The number of such institutes will be growing ; it will be a highly two ##AT##-##AT## speed Europe , " Vicenová expects . In this regard , she appreciated the roles of both the Czech Republic and Herman Van Rompuy in pushing forward the rule based on which , all topics influencing the entire EU should be negotiated by all member states , and not just those belonging into the Eurozone . Brand Story : The IMB Innovator Starts the Second Century of Its Existence Should someone search for the word that would best express the IMB strategy , the closest one would probably be " long ##AT##-##AT## term . " To the wide public , IMB is a symbol of technological revolution ; the company is seen as a highly temporary one , yet it was founded over a hundred years ago . The company 's durability goes back to its first boss , a visionary , Thomas J. Watson Sr. He believed in his motto saying that numerous world problems can be easily solved if people are willing to think . His motto : ' Think ! ' thus become an imprint around which the life of the future giant would unfold ( as well as the name of its internal magazine that IMB started to publish in 1935 ) . Moreover , it was the foundation of company culture Watson was building carefully . " For us in IMB , long ##AT##-##AT## term thinking means continuous movement towards the future . IMB survived and flourished for a hundred years , because it remained true to its original values , while it was not afraid to change everything around itself . During our first century , this allowed us to transform the technology , business , and the company . In the second century , we hope to be able to achieve even more , " says current company Director , Samuel J. Palmisano , on the occasion of the anniversary . Sophisticated System In the 1930s , Watson approached employee care similarly to Baťa in the Czech Republic - people from IMB were among the first American employees to have a paid holiday , insurance from their employer , an elegant uniform , and a sophisticated system of bonuses for the best inventors and businessmen . Just as sophisticated is IBM 's long ##AT##-##AT## term relationship with customers . From the very beginning , the company was brilliant in exploiting talented people . It was one of the first world companies to abolish all discrimination , which rendered it with great selection . Consistent with the anti ##AT##-##AT## discrimination strategy is the current plan expecting a woman , Virginia Rometty , to take over after Palmisano next year . She has been working in IMB for thirty years ; she is currently a Director of Sales , Marketing , and Strategy . In the last few years , IMB has been organising jams , on ##AT##-##AT## line brainstorming sessions , from which many future strategies and innovations arise . It is no surprise that the ideas are plentiful - the company employs nearly half a million people . Institution with a Good Reputation Company 's strong business position is ensured by its strong internal and external image . " From the beginning , the concept of IBM was that of an institution rather than a technology company , ' a Harvard Business School Professor and author of a book about IBM , Rosabeth Moss Kanter , told the Economist . " IBM is not a technology firm ; it is a company that helps to solve business problems using technology , " George Colony of Forrester Research consultation company adds . As the company itself says , there is a difference between entering a market and creating it . During the hundred years , IMB , or the " Big Blue , " as it is called in the US because of its logo , has grown into one of the largest companies in the world . It seems to be the most universal technology company - developing hardware and software ; infrastructure ; hosting ; and consultation services within a range from servers to nanotechnologies . It holds the most patents of all American technology companies ; five of its employees were awarded the Nobel Price . Its inventions include , for example , the cash point , pay card , financial swap , bar code , and floppy disc . With about 220 billion dollars , based on market capitalisation , IBM has become the second largest technology company ( Apple being number one ) this year , overrunning Microsoft for the first time since 1996 . View Ahead Not all of its products fitted the taste of both the customers and period . For example , IBM failed with its own operating system OS / 2 ; Prodigy on ##AT##-##AT## line services ; and IBM PCjr computers . " If your business is defined by movement forward , you cannot be emotionally attached to the past , ' says Samuel J. Palmisano . That is why IBM easily builds its foundations on many platforms - if they do not work , it leaves them . This is how it differs from , for example , its competitor , Microsoft , which basically stands and falls on Windows , its operating system . Perspective Technology IBM 's revenues chiefly consist of services , about one fifth for each comes from software and hardware . While in 1990 , with over a half share , it was the strongest hardware representative . Since 2000 , IBM has sold low profitable assets worth 15 billion dollars . During the same time , it has invested 58 billion dollars into purchasing of perspective technologies . It has continued the investments even after 2008 , when the modern economic crisis first hit the world . IBM follows the legacy of its first director , Thomas J. Watson , who increased the amount of investments during the Great Depression . So far , IMB seems to be getting through the current crisis without any harm . Since the beginning of 2008 , the price of IBM 's shares has grown by remarkable 120 per cent ; company 's net earnings have been growing continuously . IBM 's company motto is to change everything , except for its values . We may therefore expect that even if another crisis comes , this flexible giant will manage . IBM History : From Cheese Cutter To Space Travel IBM ( International Business Machines ) was founded in New York , a hundred years ago . Its original name " Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation " was quite complicated . It took the name of IBM in 1924 . Originally , this was a brand used for company 's branches in Canada and South America . Foundations for the later IBM were laid by a merger of four companies , the history of which goes back to the 1880s . They owned technologies such as the legendary " time clock , " i.e. a clock recording the time when employees arrive and leave work . The architect of the new company was a businessman , Charles Ranlett Flint , who , until 1930 , also presided over the company 's Board of Trustees . Flint hired a director of a competing company , Thomas J. Watson , to help him with company management . The leader then put the IBM 's founder in the shade - Watson 's ideas remain the base for invincible company culture and identity . Watson led the company until 1952 . IBM , as its name suggests , started by producing and selling various business machines - from meat and cheese cutters to cash registers . During the first four years of Watson 's leadership , the revenue doubled to nine million dollars , and company 's vast expansion into all continents commenced . Watson became so essential for the company , that after nearly forty years , his position in the director 's chair was taken by his son , Thomas Watson Junior . Under his leadership , IBM started to develop artificial intelligence and created the first programming language . In 1960s , both people and computers from IBM helped NASA control space flights - to Mercury , Saturn , and in 1969 , man 's flight to the Moon . Meanwhile , in 1964 , IBM developed the first computer family - the IBM line System / 360 . The classic PC that defined the computer standards of the period , called IBM 5150 , came to the market in 1981 . Twenty years later , IBM sold computer production to a Chinese company , Lenovo , While buying the consultant division of PricewaterhouseCoopers , and thus commenced its full focus on consulting and high added value services . In the past three years , IBM has been highly successful with its Smarter Planet concept . Its goal is both smart exploitation of technologies in areas that have not yet been planned for and improving the situation in traffic or town management . For commerce , IBM has recently introduced a Smarter Commerce platform that helps businessmen control the whole commerce cycle . IBM 's history is strong even in our country . In former Czechoslovakia , as the first country in both Central and Eastern Europe , IBM founded its branch in 1932 . Today , IBM CZ also runs a strategic outsourcing centre in Brno . The headquarters for both Central and Eastern Europe resides in Prague , where there also is a world level research team focusing on voice recognition . Rychtářová about her Unfaithful Husband : Iveto , keep the fool , I don 't want him anymore ! Darina Rychtářová ( 53 ) said it is over ! After her husband , Josef Rychtář ( 53 ) , became both the bodyguard and lover of Iveta Bartošová ( 45 ) , Darina still hoped he would wake up and come back home . However , she does not want to wait any longer , and set clear rules for her future life . " Pepa may return home , but no longer as my partner , " Rychtářová explained . When Darina Rychtářová provided shelter for Bartošová in her house in summer , she probably had not the slightest idea of what was going to happen to her marriage . Even though she had Iveta move out of Říčany 30 days later , Pepa would not leave the singer . Moreover , he publically admitted he loved her . After some time , Darina resigned , pretended to accept her husband 's affair ; and now she gave him her final goodbye . Rychytář does not care who his wife sleeps with Even if one day Rychtář and Bartošová would split up , his wife will not welcome him with open arms . " He is the biological father to my sons and if he wants to spend his last days in our house , no one will chase him out . " " However , he will complete his days not as my beloved , lost and found old fool , but as a person I have certain bonds to , " Rychtářová said , adding she had already disengaged herself from her husband and only insists on mutual decency . So far , Josef does not mind that his wife closed the hind gate on him . " I respect my wife 's decision . " " I will be with Iveta , and I don 't mean to change that . " " My wife decided for marriage on paper , and I respect it . " " Our company still operates ; I am in charge of repairs , garden , the house , and shopping . " " Darina and I communicate in a completely normal way , only we do not share our bed anymore , " Rychtář said for Blesk . He claims that if Rychtářová found a new love , he would not stand in her way . " We don 't sleep together , and I don 't care where she goes , with whom , and if she has a boyfriend . I know it 's my fault , I fell in love with Iveta , and I accept full responsibility , " Josef concluded . The Worst Feminine Habits : Do They Concern You ? When you ask men to name some typical bad habits women have , they usually come up with all of them in an instant . Dear ladies , do you recognise yourself in the lines to follow , describing several women 's habits that make the men see red ? Shopping Does your other half complain you are addicted to shopping ? Do you need to buy at least one piece of clothing a week ? Do you like shopping , in mass sales ? If so , then your shopping may be seen as bad habit . Some women recognise they should somewhat control their passion for shopping . Still , who of you could resist walking through clothes shops looking for well fitting clothes and then trying them all ( ideally , in various colour versions ) in the changing rooms ? Shopping may be a hobby for a majority of women , but for men , it may become absolute hell . Just remember how many times you have told your other half to wait for you outside ... Permanent Dissatisfaction " Am I too fat ? " " I need to lose at least five kilos - should I start doing some exercise ? " " Are you still attracted to me ? " Do you find these sentences familiar ? You do ? Then , you belong to the group of women obsessed by their appearance . Not that you should stop looking after yourself , but many men are literary allergic to their partners " constant complaints about their looks . The stronger sex also agrees that the higher the frequency of such complaints , the more annoying women are . Order and Cleanliness First It is like a never ending story . Cleaning the windows , vacuuming , wiping the floors , dusting , scrubbing the bathtub - at least twice a week . Do you blame your partner for stepping onto the clean tiles in dirty shoes ; your children for messing up a clean sink and leaving fingerprints over the glass pane in the living room that was so difficult to clean ? In case you suffer from this " deviation , " try to realise that no extremes are good ; and that within your family , order and cleanliness should not go first . This harmless desire for cleanliness may threaten your relationships , as well as the entire family . Bossing About " Throw the underwear into the bin . " " Do you plan to wear the dirty socks tomorrow ? " " Wet dishtowels do not belong on the floor . " If you boss your partner around several times a day , he may find it very annoying . Naturally , you mean well , you just want everything to be perfect . Maybe , if men realised that , women would not have to boss them around so much ... Gossiping Some women love gossiping , offending , and plotting against others . Women are focused on relationships , which is why they like to discuss who , where , who with , how , and why . Every now and then , probably each of us releases a gossip here or there . Let 's be frank , this is probably the nature all women . However , there are tougher gossips , women who enjoy frequent gossiping and despise everyone . They are , especially within a female work team , very dangerous for their surroundings . Assists of Jágr and Voráček Helped Philadelphia 's Victory During Monday 's NHL match , hockey forward , Jaromír Jágr 's two assists helped Philadelphia 's victory 5 : 3 on Carolina 's ice . Again , he leads the productivity of Czech players in the game . In both cases , Claude Giroux , used the experience of a thirty ##AT##-##AT## nine year old star ; he added an extra pass and was announced best player of the match . Two assists in the match also belonged to Jágr 's team ##AT##-##AT## mate , Jakub Voráček . After the match , Jágr told the overseas journalists he had predicted a great evening for Giroux . " I told him before the match he would score a hat ##AT##-##AT## trick . " " I felt it . " " You sometimes feel such things , " explained Jágr , after whose action Giroux scored a goal on the first Flyers " shot . A little bit later , second score for the team bore Czech traces too . The trailing Hurricanes ' Voráček won the puck and presented it to Maxim Talbot , who scored between the circles . A second before the first break , a home player , Patrick Dwyer , narrowed the lead in a power ##AT##-##AT## play , but the beginning of the second part was led by Flyers again . Specifically by Giroux . After assist with Jágr , he scored the third goal ; consequently , his shot was touched into a fourth goal by Wayne Simmonds . " I love playing with him . " " I don 't ; want to say he 's the best league player , but he 's definitely among the best three , " said Jágr , complimenting his center . " I never thought that at the end of my career I would play with a hockey player like him . " " It makes me happy . " " I want to assist him . " " All those years in NHL , my team ##AT##-##AT## mates tried to assist me , and now its reversing , " Jágr added . Carolina made the match more dramatic with Tuomo Ruutu and Dwyer 's goal from a penalty shot , making it a single goal difference . Further complications were avoided by Matt Read who increased the difference to two points . " Pronger did great in our zone . " " He poked out the puck , I gained speed , and Read went on to the more distant pole . " " I aimed at him , and I 'm glad it worked , " Voráček described his view of the last goal of the match . Its victory moved Philadelphia onto the top of the Eastern Conference . Czech Montreal defenseman , Jaroslav Špaček , did not finish the match with Buffalo ; he left in the second period due to an upper body injury . Along with the experienced back , the Candiens lost their two ##AT##-##AT## goal lead and lost 2 : 3 after a penalty shoot ##AT##-##AT## out . Tomáš Plekanec failed to score on one of their raids . More than lost points , the home trainer was sorry for high sick rate in the back , as the match was finished with just five defenders . " The situation is bad . " " We finished the match with just one experienced player , the rest were young men . " " However , there is nothing we can do about that , we just have to face it , " Jacques Martin said . " Substitution by substitution , it was overwhelming and we couldn 't resist . " " We should have made the game simpler , moving the puck out of our zone . " " That was our weakness , " a defender , P. K. Subban added . With thirty interventions , Czech goalie , Ondřej Pavelec , helped Winnipeg 's 5 : 2 victory over Tampa Bay . Jets " goals , which interrupted a five ##AT##-##AT## match series of losses , were shared by five different scorers . Development of Trip Prices Since 1989 Until 1989 , only five state travel agencies were allowed in the former Czechoslovakia : Čedok , Sporturist , CKM , Rekrea , and Autoturist . As travelling to the West was strictly limited , travel agencies of the time mostly sold tours to the socialist block countries . For their holiday , Czech tourists thus went to the sea to the German Democratic Republic ; Soviet Union ( Sochi , Crimea near the Black Sea ) ; Bulgaria ; Romania ( both to the Black Sea ) ; and Hungary ( Balaton ) . The only exception was the period from 1962 to 1972 , when we had the opportunity to travel to Yugoslavia . Nevertheless , the Yugoslavian regime turned West , which caused significant limitations to trips to Yugoslavia for Czech tourists . A great paradox of the socialistic period was that citizens of the socialist block ( i.e. Czechoslovaks too ) were not allowed free individual travel within the socialist countries . If a Czechoslovak citizen wanted to travel , as an individual , to , for example , the Soviet Union or Poland , an invitation letter from the country was necessary ; otherwise , individual travel was impossible . At the time , travel agencies would offer some trips to the West , but one either had to stand in a line overnight , with a sleeping bag or have some " good friends " in the agency . Still , that was not all . A foreign currency assurance was essential for travels to the West . It was not granted to politically unreliable people , who were not allowed to travel at all . Czechoslovakian currency was not freely convertible ; without the currency assurance , it was not possible to obtain financial means ( Western currency ) for travelling West . Most often , Czechs spent their holiday at home , which resulted in great number of cottages and summer houses , a habit that survives until now . Since 1989 , Czech tourism thus experienced a real revolution . While until 1989 , a holiday in the GDR or Bulgaria was the climax of our travels , last year , Czechs spent 4.5 million holidays in countries all over the world . A great paradox we do not realise anymore is that until 1989 , we could not freely visit the currently most popular Croatia , as it was part of former Yugoslavia . Right at the beginning of 1990 , visa requirements for neighbouring West European countries were cancelled . This started a huge wave of short ##AT##-##AT## term visits of chiefly Vienna and Germany . Czechoslovaks could not get enough of travelling to the West . Everyone wanted to go there for at least a moment . For example , in Paris , Czech tours slept in parks in tents , because their income at the time was not enough to pay for a hotel or a pension . A typical feature of Czech tourism then was bringing their own food ( cans , salami , etc . ) to save money . Another important moment was the introduction of freely convertible Czech Crown . After decades , our tourists thus finally able to freely buy Western currencies . Our living standards and average income were growing , which , around 1997 , resulted in another important moment . Since 1997 , increased demand allowed travel agencies to prepare regular trips by charter airlines . Compared to the past , air trips thus became unbelievably cheap due to the ability to order quantity discounts . By the end of 1990s , Czechs did not need visa for visiting nearly all developed world countries , except for the USA . This made our travelling even easier . The next significant event in the history of after revolution travelling came in 2000 . High demand resulted in the historically first direct charter flight from the Czech Republic to an exotic country , Thailand . Since then , direct charter flights take Czech tourists to warm exotic countries . This winter , flights from the Czech Republic will reach twelve exotic destinations . Currently about 100 thousand Czechs visit exotic countries every year ! Yet another important event of this period , symbolising our development after the revolution , came in 2008 . On November 17 , 2008 , the USA removed visa requirements for Czech tourists . Our country has thus permanently joined the world 's most developed countries . For the first time in history , in 2008 Czechs spent more than a half of their holidays abroad ( 50.3 % ) ; and for the first time in history , they spent over 15 thousand Crowns per person per holiday abroad , including their costs at the destination . General Meeting Should Find a President , Mate Threat Returns For nearly five months , Czech football has had no President . There exists a risk that Ivan Hašek 's successor , the head of Czech Republic 's Football Association ( FAČR ) will not be known even after another extraordinary general meeting , which is to take place in Nymburk on Thursday . There is still no agreement as to which election rules to follow . Without it , voting for the three candidates will not start . Jindřich Rajchl , Miroslav Pelta , and Tomáš Paclík are eager to lead Czech football . Hašek resigned from his function in June . When leaving , he called to his colleagues to unite and find a strong personality who would lead football in the future . However , Hašek 's era sees football back in quarrels between both association chambers , unable to agree on a common candidate . This was fully shown on September 16 , when a new President was to be chosen . General meeting delegates wasted their trip to the National House in Prague , Smíchov , as the negotiations remained blocked , not just regarding the election method . No agreement was reached as to who is entitled to vote at the general meeting - whether the statutory representatives only , or also officials given power of attorney . This single point has been partially settled since , thanks to a recommendation of the Institute of State and Law , according to which representation based on power of attorney is not possible . Arguments concerning the election rules continue , though . The Executive Board has not been of much help either , though at its meetings , both regular and extraordinary , it is mostly preoccupied by this issue . The view of election options has changed several times , but the key point remains the same . The question is : How to proceed in the 3rd round to avoid mate ? " The argument is based on whether to follow the by ##AT##-##AT## laws or to find another model , " says one of the three FAČR Vice ##AT##-##AT## Presidents , Dušan Svoboda , who represents professional football in the association 's management . Based on the model given by the by ##AT##-##AT## laws , the winner of the 3rd round is a candidate with higher percentage support from the chamber he is the candidate for . Moravia is said to accept a compromise to have a candidate with the highest percentage of total votes from both chambers win the election . The Czech part stresses a condition that in the percentage total , the winner must gain at least two ##AT##-##AT## third superiority . " However , the two previous rounds would then lose their meaning ; that would completely deny the two ##AT##-##AT## chamber concept , " Svoboda agrees with Moravia 's arguments . He says it would be best not to bend the rules and vote according to the existing regulations . Somewhat surprisingly Tomáš Paclík agrees with his opinion even if it is estimated that the election rules defined by the by ##AT##-##AT## laws fits Pelta best of the candidates . 'I wish the elections follow the by ##AT##-##AT## laws to the maximum.' " I want to avoid all kinds of representative nonsense , as at the previous general meeting , " says the owner of Viktorie Plzeň , who is a candidate for the first time ; and in his statements he chiefly stood against Pelta . Pelta remains an optimist . He believes the new President will be known in Nymburk ; he also hopes that in the future , the candidates will cooperate constructively . " All passionate stirring will calm down with today 's prospective advance of the national team into the European Championship . " " Football will be back on the happy wave , people will be more willing to cooperate , " a Jablonec functionary says . Of the three candidates , he has the most experience with football management on both professional and regional levels . Rajchl is more reserved . " I hope for an agreement , but the situation is very ambivalent . " " It is not between people from Bohemia and Moravia , but there are attempts at purposeful adjustment of regulations . " " That may cause another blockage of the general meeting . " " I hope the common sense wins , " Rajchl said . There is not much time left for an agreement between the parties . Some negotiations are said to have taken place directly in Montenegro ; but who knows if the football generality will be complete before the match . An extra flight that was to take , among others , the Vice Presidents Dalibor Kučera and Rajchl to Podgorica did not leave Prague in the morning due to a technical failure . An alternative was sought for in order to transport part of the executive board to the scene of the barraged rematch . Finally , a meeting at ministry level , said to happen on Wednesday , may decide . Minister of Education , Youth , and Sports , Josef Dobeš , would like to force the split parties inside the strongest sports association in the country to reach an agreement . A lot is in the game : Government grants ; football trustworthiness ; and the planned ČSTV general meeting dealing with new direction of Czech sports following Sazka 's financial problems . Paclík Enters the Presidential Fight As He Cannot See a Suitable Candidate If , before the extraordinary general meeting , the Head of Pilsen football players , Tomáš Paclík , saw a strong candidate , who would meet all of his expectations of a new Football Association of the Czech Republic ( FAČR ) President , he would not even apply for the top function . " If there was a good quality candidate , I 'd fight for him and not participate in the fight . " " But no such person has currently been found , " Paclík said to ČTK . Paclík 's motivation to join the fight with Miroslav Pelta and Jindřich Rajchl is to try to prevent Pelta , reportedly the favourite of the elections , from entering the top of the FAČR . Moreover , Paclík emphasizes that should he win , he would only remain the President until 2013 , when a regular general meeting is scheduled . In the future , he would like to see the position given to an experienced top manager , not excessively connected to football life . " I 've spoken to some people that could be considered . " " I was terrible for me to hear some of them say that at this point , they don 't even want to identify themselves with Czech football . " " I 'd like to change this opinion , " he said . At the moment , Paclík 's strongest disagreement with Pelta is based on the latter 's connection to Roman Berbr , President of Pilsen 's regional football association . Berber is a man of controversial reputation , who is , behind the scenes , known as powerful lobbyist , capable of influencing the votes of general meeting delegates . Paclík therefore finds it unacceptable for Pelta to become the President . " If he wins , current situation will be preserved and nothing in football would move forward . " " Combined with support from Berbr , a capable businessman , this would be even more harmful for the football , " Paclík said . He is hinting at the fact that some years ago , Pelta 's name was recorded during phone tapping in a corruption affair investigation ; Pelta came out without a sentence . " I don 't know what prestige Pelta 's victory would bring to football . " " And how would we look in the eyes UEFA and FIFA , " Paclík said . He is now more detached from his former statement saying he would " sell the Pilsen club if Pelta became President . " In case Paclík wins on Thursday , he could imagine cooperation with Pelta in the future . This opinion is shared by another candidate , Rajchl , whom Paclík supported before the September general meeting that ended as a fiasco . " He ( Pelta ) would be the first one I 'd go to . " 'He is very capable.' " I can see him as the head of the representation . " 'But he cannot manage the association.' " I don 't poke my nose in what I don 't understand either , ' said Paclík , who gained a lot of attention in September , when he supported the removal of board of referees , led by Luděk Macela , replaced by Dagmar Damková . Paclík claims he would dare to manage the association . He refers to his skills from management of private companies ; since last summer , he has been managing the Pilsen team that , with his support , celebrated its first league triumph in May . " I have the strength to make the football environment change , to support its improvement . " " To limit the influence of some interest groups that tend to influence the disciplinary and appeal board , leading to disgusting situations , " Paclík said . He does not hide his antipathy for , e.g. Sparta 's Director , Daniel Křetínský . One of his priorities would be the strengthening of relations between FAČR and the Czech Olympic Committee , with whose support he would lobby at the political top to get more money for sports from the lottery tax . " That 's one of the key things the new President should attend to . " " If taxes are imposed on gambling , as the political parties declare , I understand their arguments , but they must clearly say where the money will go , " he said . Paclík does not consider his connection with the Pilsen club a burden , though he claims that an FAČR President should be a non ##AT##-##AT## party one . Pelta is connected to Jablonec , and Rajchl to Prague Dukla . " It 's not ideal . " " Yet , I don 't see a point in transferring my shares in the Pilsen club hypocritically to someone else , while coming back there in six months , " Paclík says . Pelta Promised New FAČR Regulations That Would Avoid Election Mate Two days before the general meeting of the football association , one of the Presidential candidates , Miroslav Pelta , promised that if he is elected , he would strive for new FAČR regulations to avoid future disputes over the election rules . Before the Thursday negotiations in Nymburk , a Jablonec functionary remains an optimist and believes that the pre ##AT##-##AT## election fight would be significantly suppressed by today 's prospective success of our football representation . Prior to the failed election in September , Pelta promised that if he was to win , he would focus on both the representation and gaining of financial means . He decided to participate in the elections before the last general meeting at the last moment . A two ##AT##-##AT## month delay thus could have been useful for him to defend his ideas concerning football management in wider context . " People at all levels have been in football for long , and they expect the President to be known on Thursday . " " They feel it 's high time someone leads the association , " claims the man chiefly connected with the Jablonec club ; but he spent many years in Sparta and the association 's executive board . This gives him the reason to believe he is experienced enough to manage Czech football . He believes current problems with elections are caused by the euphoria there was in the time of Ivan Hašek 's reign . " Unfortunately , regulations that were not as perfect as we all thought were passed at the general meeting in June . " " If various representations were not accepted , we would have had a President since September , " Pelta said . He approached the rewriting of the key document of the civil association as a decoy for the delegates . " If I become President , I will take it as my personal task , and I 'm willing to take personal responsibility in case the attempt fails . " " It is a fundamental issue we cannot exist without , " Pelta claims . Other than that , he says he does not try to define himself against the rivals . In the past , he has already announced he can imagine his cooperation with Jindřich Rajchl , whom he recognises for his legal education ; he is well aware of the fact that his rival candidate should become his first Vice President . For a long time , he did not attack Tomáš Paclík , who has constantly criticised Pelta . " He 's been in football for over a year , and gained some success . " " However , his attacks were not decent , and many people were caught by surprise by the method of his election campaign . " " This is too , is why some of them now doubt his true character , " Pelta said about his rival . Pelta himself claims to be true to the proclamations he announced in September . He sees his strongest weapon in knowledge of football , from the lowest competitions to representation . The representation should be the shopping window of football . " Í would also try to end all affairs , starting from the Bohemians case or the aftermath of last year 's corruption scandal . " " Right after that , I would focus on negotiations with both private and state sectors , to ensure enough money for the whole football , " the forty ##AT##-##AT## six year old candidate told ČTK two months ago . He then promised that his arrival to the head of the football would not mean any personnel housecleaning . " I 'd need to learn about the job descriptions of individual employees . " That was his message for Strahov , where the long period of interregnum causes understandable nervousness . Despite current catastrophic scenarios accompanying the general meeting planned , he believes that on Thursday , the delegates will not come to Nymburk in vain . " If the only questionable point is how to perform the elections in the third round that is something we can get over . " " Football needs trustworthiness it can only gain by finally having its leader , " says Pelta , who , two days before the crucial day of his career of a functionary , remains an optimist . Rajchl Promises That under Him , the FAČR Will Start Working Hard If , on Thursday 's general meeting , Jindřich Rajchl , the existing Vice President , is to become the President of Czech Football Association , many people in the Association would reportedly not be pleased . Rajchl promises that if he is elected , hard work will come . He wants to establish system changes and make members of the executive board responsible for individual football areas . He also promised to solve the Bohemians case ; improve relations with both UEFA and FIFA ; bring more money to football ; and continue the work of the previous President , Ivan Hašek . " As President , I 'd like to focus on football as a whole . " " From international contacts with UEFA and FIFA , to representation , professional football , and performance football for the youth . " " By this , I don 't mean I 'd do everything on my own , " Rajchl said in his interview for ČTK . " I 'm a team player , and I want to distribute the competences within the executive board so that each member focuses on a certain area . " 'I 'll distribute tasks strictly so that in each of these segments , football makes big steps forward . " " That would probably not please many people , as it would mean hard work , not just criticizing of the work of others , " he added . Critical atmosphere in football movement supposedly made him doubt his candidature . " I 'm known to work 20 hours a day . " " But I need to know if it has any sense ; and that I won 't be surrounded by people throwing sticks under my feet and question my every move , " he explained his hesitation . " However , many people told me I mustn 't give up , otherwise others would follow . " " That 's a trust I can 't just throw away , " he said . Moreover , he says his motivation is to continue the work he started with Hašek . " A great amount of work was done in those two years , and I don 't want to throw it all away . " " Processes have been started that may bear fruit in a few years , and I don 't want someone else to stop them , " he said , in fear that if the other candidate , Miroslav Pelta , is elected , situation f the Association might return to the period before Hašek . " I believe in systematic approach , which is something I don 't think Mirek Pelta is competent of . " " He is chiefly surrounded by people who would do football so that it would only be for the chosen ones . " " I can be blamed for many things , but certainly not for being subjective . " " I try to be objective . " " I want to make football for everyone , because then everyone has a good time , not just the chosen few , " Rajchl said . Furthermore , he refutes the allegations he would only be a Czech President . " Though some people try to claim the opposite , I plan to do the maximum for Moravia . " " For example , it is high time to consider about splitting the second league into Czech and Moravian parts , winners of which would continue into the first league . " " This would prevent the current situation , where there are just three Moravian units in the league , which is a problem concerning young players in Moravia , " Rajchl said . As the Presidential fight has been joined by Pilsen club Manager , Tomáš Paclík , Rajchl does not dare to estimate his chances to win . " Nevertheless , I can still feel a strong support in the Czech chamber that elected me its Vice President , and can see I have achieved some clear successes , " Rajchl said . Among his successes , he includes the saving of dozens of millions of Crowns on disadvantageous contracts , negotiating TV contracts , and negotiations about the lottery law . On the other hand , he considers the fact that the association does not stick together partially as his own fault . While claiming that Pelta has been ' disqualified from returning trustworthiness to Czech football ' , he considers the other rival , Paclík , a strong candidate that has things to offer . " No one can doubt that he did a great job in Pilsen this year . " " If he is elected , I hope he would continue in the things Ivan Hašek started , without significant personnel changes in the committees . " " He wouldn 't want to twist things for his own benefit , " Rajchl said about his rival . Europe 's most beautiful pools Leap into the water By Julia Stanek Paddling pools with universal fibre optics and status pools in Budapest . Travellers can experience Europe 's incredible water - and relax tired limbs in a Jacuzzi after a city tour or a ramble . One book can tell you where the water is at its best . There was one thing Iris Meder could not do without on research trips over the last one and a half years : her swimming costume . Lying back on the water , she has looked up at artistically designed domes , has swum towards marble cherubs awaiting her at the edge of the pool and has marvelled at meticulously restored art nouveau swimming pools . She rushed to add any pool she liked to her notebook - with essential details on the construction and the history of the building . The architectural historian Meder looked at more than 200 swimming pools - and has now compiled here experiences in her recently published book Badefreuden ( The Joys of Bathing ) , covering everything from public swimming baths in Munich to historical bathing palaces in the Black Forest and " hardcore concrete buildings " in Taunus . Her " journey to the most unusual baths in Central Europe " took here through 13 countries . Besides Germany , Austria and Switzerland , she visited baths in Italy , France , the Czech Republic , Slovakia , Slovenia , Hungary , Romania and Poland - and one city each in Luxembourg , Serbia and Croatia . The 46 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old is a real bathing culture enthusiast . She has very little enthusiasm for sport , says Meder - but in the water , it 's a different matter . The only downside is that fans of swimming have to cope with blue glazed tiles and the stench of chlorine while joggers can breathe in the beguiling scent of spruce forests or listen to the bright twittering of birds in the park . " One day , I asked myself why swimming baths always have to be so ugly , " says Vienna ##AT##-##AT## based Meder . " So I started collecting beautiful baths . " Water surface doubles architecture Splashing in the diving pool and ethereal sauna oils - the wellness factor in baths is so great because all the senses are stimulated , according to Meder . And swimming baths can be a real treat for the eyes if the builders have gone to the trouble . " You have the surface of the water in pools instead of a floor . " " The surface is very transparent , but also reflects the beauty of the entire building . " Everything is mirrored visually : high ceilings , colourful tiles and diving boards . The illustrated pocketbook The Joys of Bathing provides valuable information on the architectural and cultural history of historic pleasure and health oases over 190 pages - and makes you want to leap into the water . Pool collector Meder discovered some notable examples during research in Hungary . She found nitrate ##AT##-##AT## rich water in a karst cave ( the Cave Bath in Miskolctapolca ) and a thermal bath filled with alkaline water in a bottle ##AT##-##AT## shaped building ( Városi Termálfürdö in Jászberény ) in addition to magnificent therapeutic baths such as the 100 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old Széchenyi baths in Budapest . Many of the heated outdoor baths in Switzerland and Austria , on the other hand , offer spectacular views . You can view all of Zurich from a rooftop bath or look out on the snow ##AT##-##AT## capped Arlberg from an outdoor pool in St. Anton . And there is a window in the steam bath giving a view of the action on the ski piste . Perhaps the most unusual pool design awaits bathers in Längenfeld . The Aqua Dome in Ötztal looks like a UFO has just landed in the Alps . It steams during the winter from three open ##AT##-##AT## topped shells dwarfed by the Ötztal mountains behind it . Alhambra in the Black Forest Pool collector Meder was not greeted by the smell of chlorine in every swimming pool . A lot of thermal baths smell of sulphur . The Árpád baths in Békescsaba , Hungary , smell so strongly of oil you may find it difficult to believe you are in a health spa . The smell comes from the hydrogen carbonate in the alkaline water . The water is almost black with silt that sticks to the skin as soon as you slide into the pool - a wellness experience of a particular kind . Iris Meder , however , was at one point disappointed in her search for beautiful bathing places . When she tried to visit the outdoor pool at the Czech baths of Luhatschowitz , she found the area sealed off . The baths , designed by the architect Dušan Jurkovic in 1902 , have been closed . When Meder looked through the weather ##AT##-##AT## beaten windows of the red , white and yellow art nouveau building , she could see weeds growing up through the tiles . One place where decay has been stopped in its tracks is a magical swimming bath in the Black Forest - the Palais Thermal in Bad Wildbad . The baths have already gone through three stages of construction . You will not only discover neo ##AT##-##AT## Romanesque elements from the period after it was built in 1844 , but also a Moorish hall in Alhambra style added around 1900 . Following its careful modernisation in 1995 , the Palais Thermal is the favourite swimming pool of pool connoisseur Iris Meder - and not just because she comes from the Black Forest . " It is a real achievement to harmonise such different architectural styles so brilliantly , " says Meder . A dip in the thermal pool in such a palace is clearly of secondary importance . Agricultural commodities speculation Deutsche Bank has commodity trading investigated By Christian Teevs Will Deutsche Bank stop trading agricultural commodities ? According to SPIEGEL ONLINE , Josef Ackermann has given a working group the task of investigating the consequences of speculation for the poor around the world . The CEO plans to make changes in January . Hamburg - For German citizens the situation is clear . According to one study , 84 percent of Germans find it unacceptable that banks speculate on agricultural commodities such as wheat and maize . Two thirds of those questioned demand that Deutsche Bank and other banks cease trading in agricultural commodities , as trading deepens the problems faced by the very poorest people around the world . The findings were made in a survey conducted by the Forsa Institute for Social Research and Statistical Analysis on behalf of the consumer organisation Foodwatch . The study is based on a report presented by Foodwatch in mid ##AT##-##AT## October . The author of the report , Harald Schumann , shows that betting on global commodities exchanges drives up prices - and the banks are therefore complicit in global hunger . The campaign by consumer advocates is directed specifically at the head of Deutsche Bank , Josef Ackermann , although large banking houses such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley trade in the same way . Originally , commodity betting was designed as a means of protecting traders against price fluctuations . However , most experts now agree that the gamblers have left behind the rules of supply and demand - and are profiting at the expense of the poorest . In contrast to US competitors , Ackermann has responded to the criticism . He has promised to investigate the accusations and has said that no trade is " worth putting Deutsche Bank 's good reputation at risk . " According to SPIEGEL ONLINE , an international working group is currently investigating the accusations contained in the Foodwatch report . The investigation should be complete by the end of the year when the findings will be presented to Deutsche Bank 's board of managing directors - with recommendations for action . The head of the bank then plans to announce changes following the investigation at the end of January . Commodities trading may be reduced or stopped completely . Ackermann working on his image The president of Foodwatch , Thilo Bode , welcomed the news while emphasising his criticism of the financial sector . " Betting on rising food prices is an extreme example of how thoughtlessly banks are currently acting against the common interest . " As top bank lobbyist , Ackermann has a particular duty , according to Bode . " Deutsche Bank must remove all investments from its portfolio that bet money on food prices , " said Bode . " It does not matter whether this is about starving people or the reputation of Deutsche Bank . " Ackermann 's sensitive response is at first surprising , but then the CEO would like to present a perfect image just a few months before the end of his term in office . Deutsche Bank announced on Monday that the chairman will not move to the supervisory board as had been planned . Cancelling contentious food commodity speculation could improve his image . He also need have little concern for the costs - it would be up to his successor to manage the outcome . One in two people would withdraw commodities investments Foodwatch is striving to keep up the pressure on the manager . To date , more than 30,000 internet users have joined the organisation 's campaign . Bode published the survey on Tuesday . The survey was conducted for the Forsa Institute for Social Research and Statistical Analysis on 7 and 8 November and 1001 people took part . No more than eleven percent think it is legitimate for Deutsche Bank to offer investments that bet on the price of foodstuffs . Many banking customers would also take direct action if they discover that their bank is involved in such trading . According to the survey , one in two would withdraw investments that end up in commodities speculation . 43 percent would recommend leaving the bank , 49 percent said they would think about closing their account and switching to a different bank . 21er Haus in Vienna The relocated pavilion By Ingeborg Wiensowski An architectural history with highs , lows and a happy ##AT##-##AT## ever ##AT##-##AT## after . Austria 's Pavilion for the 1958 World 's Fair in Brussels won prizes , became a museum in Vienna , stood empty and was abandoned . Now it is being reopened as an exhibition centre . Austria 's pavilion , designed by Karl Schwanzer for the 1958 Brussels World 's Fair , is a famous textbook example of modern post ##AT##-##AT## war architecture with its clear shapes , glass halls , bold strokes and the new construction materials that expressed belief in technical progress . Schwanzer 's pavilion won the Grand Prix d 'Architecture in 1958 for its light floating steel ##AT##-##AT## glass structure . The building is considered a milestone in contemporary architecture . It made the architect so famous that he also built Austria 's pavilion at the next world 's fair . He finally shot to fame internationally in 1973 with his legendary four ##AT##-##AT## cylinder BMW Tower and its bowl ##AT##-##AT## shaped sister building . The pavilion , planned as a temporary exhibition building , was relocated to the Schweizer Garten near Vienna 's Südbahnhof , converted and opened as the Museum of the 20th Century in 1962 - and is widely referred to as the " 20er Haus " for this reason . However , the building was not suitable as a museum for technical and spatial reasons - it had no walls to hang artworks and poor air conditioning . Nonetheless , it continued to be used until contemporary art in Vienna was given a new home . The building stood empty from 2001 and fell into a worse and worse state of repair . The architect Adolf Krischanitz has now renovated the pavilion , which has been named the " 21er Haus " and will be used as a contemporary art museum . The museum is a branch of the Belvedere museum , which will open the first exhibition on Tuesday evening - a delight in every respect . Agnes Husslein ##AT##-##AT## Arco who became the new director of the Austrian Galerie Belvedere in 2007 was instrumental in the new beginning . Husslein ##AT##-##AT## Arco , an art history graduate with a remarkable career in her youth as an ice skater , who went on to Sotheby 's , the Guggenheim Museum and to become the founding director of the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg , convinced politicians and conservators to go ahead with renovation , attracted public funding and private sponsorship and decided on the use of the building . The new museum was to house the Fritz Wotruba Foundation 's permanent collection , a café and a bookshop alongside contemporary art . An office building was also to be built . Strict supervision & limited budget Krischanitz was then the ideal choice to carry out the project . He was known , of course , for having renovated and expanded Joseph Olbrich 's Secession in Vienna , and had won the competition , but he also studied under Schwanzer at the Vienna University of Technology and the pavilion was an " exceptionally important place " for him where had visited exhibitions " almost every weekend . " He knew the original design and knew the issues the building was facing , a building that had already lost some of its grandeur and lightness when it was relocated to Vienna and converted . The problems facing the latest alterations were much greater . The building was " an energy guzzler , " says Krischanitz . The window profiles of the glass facade were replaced , fibreglass ##AT##-##AT## reinforced safety glass was put in and the glass roof was replaced by high ##AT##-##AT## grade safety glass . Thermal bridge steel girders were strengthened or replaced and asbestos was removed from ceilings . Two lower floors created space for the new use of the building , a sunken light well between the building and the street provides lighting , a bridge leads to the entrance - almost a new building , but still the delicate Schwanzer pavilion . The original external doors have been retained and the building has been painted in the old red ##AT##-##AT## brown colour of rust ##AT##-##AT## proofing . And the cinema hall is exactly as it used to be . All this under the strict supervision of the monument authority and with a limited budget . " We often had to find a material that was good , cheap and met with the approval of the monument authority , " says Krischanitz , pointing to the rough flooring in the basement . The building has remained flexible and light despite the constraints , problems and conversions . Krischanitz stated recently that the pavilion " from Brussels " had been tough - a typical " drop in the city " story . Architecture like this is " always in the wrong place " and nonetheless wants to " stimulate a real awareness . " The 21er Haus is very much in the right place , as there has been a stroke of luck in town planning . The completely redesigned " main station quarter " with offices and residential properties is developing around the Schweizer Garten . There may also be a second stroke of luck . The 21er Haus may be bolstered by another Krischanitz building - the collector Francesca von Habsburg has purchased the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin and is reported to be negotiating with the city for a neighbouring location in the Schweizer Garten . Deutsche Bahn plans winter crisis package into the millions Deutsche Bahn has come up with a crisis plan to prevent train cancellations in the winter . The number of employees is to double . The costs will run into the millions . According to a newspaper report , Deutsche Bahn will spend more than 70 million Euros more this year in the battle to prevent winter ##AT##-##AT## time cancellations and delays . Referring to an internal crisis plan at Deutsche Bahn , the Bild newspaper has reported that investment of around 300 million Euros in total is planned up to 2015 . Investment is intended to improve the availability of locomotives and the rail network , even in the face of extreme weather conditions . The number of internal and external employees involved in removing snow from rail facilities and platforms is to double to 16,000 . The aim is to clear platforms of snow and ice by start of business and 90 percent of the critical points within four to five hours . Rüdiger Grube , head of Deutsche Bahn , warned of train cancellations and delays this winter at a summit with government and industry two months ago . Last winter , Deutsche Bahn had considerable difficulties in its passenger business , as it lacked reserves in the face of difficult weather conditions . Numerous new regional trains have been waiting for years for approval from the Federal Railway Office . There is also some delay in the delivery of ICE trains . Deutsche Bahn has also been forced to have the axles of ICE trains checked significantly more frequently for many years , after an ICE train 's axle broke in Cologne 's main station . Deutsche Bank pays multi ##AT##-##AT## million pound fine in the USA Fresh trouble is following hard on the heels of the uproar around Josef Ackermann , CEO of Deutsche Bank : Deutsche Bank faces a multi ##AT##-##AT## million pound fine in the USA . As if the problems at home were not already enough for Deutsche Bank , the industry giant 's past in the USA is now also catching up with it . Frankfurt ##AT##-##AT## based Deutsche Bank will pay 145 million dollars ( 106 million Euros ) to settle disputes arising from the bankruptcy of five major credit unions during the financial crisis . The issue centres on the sale of mortgage securities . The National Credit Union Administration ( NCUA ) , a financial market regulator , accuses a string of major banks of having used false promises to mislead credit unions into buying the financial products . The value of the securities dropped dramatically during the financial crisis and brought down the credit unions . " We are happy to have resolved the issue without the parties going to court , " said a Deutsche Bank spokesman in new York . The bank did not admit culpability in the settlement . The same is true of Citigroup , which agreed to pay 20.5 million dollars . The NCUA chairman , Debbie Matz , welcomed the responsiveness of the two banks . The National Credit Union Administration ( NCUA ) is responsible for the US credit unions and intervenes in bankruptcies to protect customer deposits . The NCUA is fighting for compensation for losses that run into the billions . The current settlements are the first of their kind . The regulator had also approached other major banks and sued JPMorgan Chase , the Royal Bank of Scotland and Goldman Sachs in the summer . The dubious mortgage securities are so ##AT##-##AT## called mortgage ##AT##-##AT## backed securities . They are underpinned by home loans . This sealed the fate of a number of financial companies when the US property bubble exploded in 2007 . The US investment bank , Lehman Brothers , went belly up in September 2008 at the height of the financial crisis . The banks battling against a strong wind in the USA several years later . Investors and regulators have brought a vast number of claims for compensation or to punish misconduct . The Federal Housing Finance Agency ( FHFA ) has been behind the largest wave of claims . It accuses 18 major international banks of having taken in US lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on mortgage transactions valued at around 200 billion dollars . Deutsche Bank also faces legal action by the FHFA covering multiple transactions with a total value of 14.2 billion dollars from 2005 to 2007 . The regulator is demanding that the Frankfurt ##AT##-##AT## based bank take responsibility for " substantial losses , " but has not yet specified the exact sum . Deutsche Bank has rejected the claims as baseless and has declared its intention to fend off the claims . Warren Buffett pumps 10 billion into IBM Financial guru Buffett is investing heavily in the IT company , IBM . Since March , he has bought up shares totalling more than ten billion dollars . Until now , the major American investor , Warren Buffett , had always claimed not to invest in IT and computing companies , as it was difficult to forecast the long ##AT##-##AT## term development . However , IBM 's annual reports changed his mind on investing in the industry . According to Buffett , he should have realised much earlier that IBM primarily offers services and purchases computer systems for the IT departments of other companies . Investment by Warren Buffett is considered a knighthood in the financial world . The IT veteran IBM has now earned the title of " Sir IBM . " Buffett revealed that he had purchased IBM shares totalling 10.7 billion dollars since March on the US business news broadcaster CNBC . His investment holding company , Berkshire Hathaway , has become one of the largest shareholders in IBM with a 5.5 percent stake . Buffett said that even IBM knew nothing of his involvement until recently . He praised the management , which has managed to bring in profits even during the economic crisis . " They have done a great job , " said Buffett , referring to the management strategy . For a fairly long time , IBM has focused on lucrative IT services such as data centres . The computer pioneer - now more than 100 years old - also provides software and consultancy services , as well as powerful business computers . Buffett had avoided technology firms to date . He claimed only to invest in companies whose business he understands and invested in a freight railway , for example , a lubricant manufacturer and a machine manufacturer . His holding company , Berkshire Hathaway , owns shares in a long list of major companies such as Coca ##AT##-##AT## Cola and Munich Re ( formerly Münchener Rück ) alongside around 80 of its own subsidiaries . The 81 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old took over the small textile company Berkshire Hathaway in the 1960s and built it up , with clever investments , into one of the most valuable companies in the world . His lifestyle , however , has remained humble , making him a cult figure for countless investors around the world . His almost infallible instinct for making money has earned him a nickname as the " Oracle from Omaha . " The IBM share price rose by one percent before the markets opened following the announcement of Buffett 's investment . " Big Blue , " as IBM is also known , is worth more than 220 billion dollars on the stock exchange , making it one of the most valuable technology companies in the world alongside Apple and Microsoft . Buffett , however , has said he is not planning to invest in Microsoft . The founder , Bill Gates , is a close friend . Imminent danger Following the discovery of the " Zwickau cell , " Turkish media express doubt about the rule of law in Germany . One newspaper speaks of a " bloody ideology " that is now resurfacing . The murder of eight Turkish and one Greek businessman between 2000 and 2006 was the result of right ##AT##-##AT## wing extremist ideology . Fear and concern has been the reaction to this report in Turkey and within the German ##AT##-##AT## Turkish community in Germany . For many German Turks , the news brings back to life a long ##AT##-##AT## dead spectre . There has been no comparable right ##AT##-##AT## wing extremist violence against Turks since the arson attacks in Mölln in November 1992 and in Solingen in May 1993 . There was never any question , however , that xenophobia does exist in Germany . The right ##AT##-##AT## wing extremist network that has now been discovered , however , is on a scale that has not yet been fully understood . " Is this a revival of the bloody ideology ? " was the headline of the internet edition of the Turkish newspaper Haberturk . The Sabah newspaper , on the other hand , points out that one of the perpetrators was a confidential informant for the intelligence services and expresses concern that the German authorities may be caught up in the right ##AT##-##AT## wing extremist quagmire . The Turkish Community of Germany ( TGD ) reacted calmly , remembering the victims of racial violence during a silent vigil in front of the Brandenburg Gate at the weekend . Just two weeks earlier , the Turkish Community in Berlin had commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the German ##AT##-##AT## Turkish bilateral agreement on labour recruitment in a ceremony with German and Turkish politicians . Cooperation between the two countries was presented in a positive light - as a success story . The coverage by some Turkish media has been like a slap in the face . " Germany 's present on the fiftieth anniversary " is the title of one article on the Haber X Turkish internet platform , which comments on the circumstances around the series of murders . The German edition of Hürriyet also does not miss the chance to make this connection . " It is beginning to stink , " is the title of the column by Ahmet Külahci . He points out that people have been murdered who had paid taxes and made an important contribution to Germany 's redevelopment with their work . The behaviour of the police and the subsequently successful manhunt is heavily criticised on German ##AT##-##AT## Turkish internet forums . The authors are asking themselves why the German authorities did not think earlier to look for suspects in right ##AT##-##AT## wing extremist circles . Some writers even go as far as some strong rhetoric . " If things continue to be done so cack ##AT##-##AT## handedly , migrants have no option but armed self ##AT##-##AT## defence . " " That will be the best self ##AT##-##AT## defence . " " Peace in Germany depends very strongly on how the entire network is uncovered and on the appropriateness of punishment , " writes " Selen . " The attacks on Mölln and Solingen in the 90s are an example of what it means for peace in Germany to be at risk . The photo of the burnt out ruin of Solingen is deeply engrained in German and Turkish memory . No other event has shown the Turks living here more clearly that there is imminent danger and shown the Germans that mistrust and distance can culminate in real violence . The attacks , however , increased the sense of Turkish unity . Do not repeat the mistakes of the past The Turkish press at the time complained mainly of the failure of German policy following the attacks . Helmut Kohl declined to visit the survivors in Mölln . He sent a telegram of commiseration to the Turkish president after the arson attack in Solingen , but it was his foreign minister , Klaus Kinkel , who took his place at the memorial ceremony in Cologne - Kinkel summed up in his speech the taxes Turks contribute in Germany , just as if he were calculating the value of a person by the taxes he pays . The coverage by the Turkish media at the time again shows how deep the mistrust of many German Turks in the current German state has become since . Straight talking is what is needed now , alongside efforts to identify and reassess right ##AT##-##AT## wing extremist terrorism in Germany . The Lake Zurich banking scandal The most risk ##AT##-##AT## taking bank in Europe is not in Italy or France , but in Switzerland . UBS almost went bankrupt during the financial crisis and has been struggling from one crisis to the next ever since . A German is now to bring it back in line . Axel Weber certainly had not imagined that would be his role . After his spectacular departure from the head of the Federal bank , it was announced in July that he would be starting an almost equally spectacular new job in 2013 : Chairman of the Board of Directors of the major Swiss bank UBS - an unexpected and lucrative career move . Axel Weber was clearly delighted , praising Switzerland for its beauty and UBS for its newly won solidity and making some friendly remarks about his future colleagues . " UBS has managed to turn around . " " I am looking forward to working with Kaspar Villiger and Oswald Grübel . " But by September it was already clear that everything would be very different . A UBS trader in London had bypassed all the bank 's security systems and gambled away around 1.7 billion Euros . UBS CEO , Oswald Grübel - a banker not only famous in Switzerland - had to go . The UBS Chairman has been considered ailing ever since - and everyone is asking : when will Axel Weber finally arrive ? Weber is to advise the bank from February 2012 . And he will take on the role of Chairman of the Board in May , and not in 2013 , the bank announced on Tuesday . That will be tough for Axel Weber . He is an economics professor and central banker , not a conventional banker , and clearly would need some time to adjust . All at once , he is taking on responsibility for the strategy of a bank that has once again proven that it has long deserved the title of " Europe 's biggest banking scandal . " UBS is both huge - it was the biggest asset manager in the world until recently - and has been struggling from one scandal to the next for years . The proud Swiss bank , it seems , is to be spared nothing . It began in the financial crisis . UBS had an excellent reputation until 2007 . The bank combined the image of the secretive and solid , but equally savvy asset manager with ambitious targets , aiming to become a major player in investment banking . As a result , in 2007 UBS was managing 1.6 billion , thereby managing more more money from wealthy clients than any other bank in the world , and had risen to the league of the world 's biggest banks as an investment bank . That made an impression . The former banker and long ##AT##-##AT## standing banking professor at the Swiss Institute of Banking of the University of Zurich , Hans Geiger , explains : " I always presented UBS to my students as the model of a good bank . " " From what we know today , you have to ask how I could be so wrong . " He was very wrong indeed . It only became clear in 2007 that something was really going very wrong at UBS . In the middle of the year , CEO Peter Wuffli - considered a highly intellectual and equally brilliant banker - suddenly stepped down . Some months later we could guess at why he had left . The investment division of the bank had gambled on subprime securities and was forced to write off billions . UBS announced a capital increase , believe it or not , of 13 billion Swiss francs to face the crisis . The bank actually managed to find investors , but investors many bankers would have respectfully declined a short while earlier - a less than transparent Asian sovereign wealth fund from Singapore and an Arabic sovereign wealth fund that was so secretive , even its name was not disclosed . That was just the first blow . It got a lot worse in April 2008 . The bank was forced to announce new losses running into the billions and Chairman of the Board of Directors , Marcel Ospel - the second best paid chairman in Switzerland in 2006 - resigned . Catastrophe followed in October 2008 . UBS faced collapse from a lack of investment during the financial crisis and had to be saved by the state . The National Bank bought up toxic securities from UBS for untold billions and the Swiss Confederation paid six billion Swiss francs for a mandatory convertible bond to become part owner of the bank . The whole of Switzerland was shocked - the country recognised the dramatic consequences for a small country of being home to such large banks . After all , the balance sheet total for UBS in 2007 was more than five times the economic output of Switzerland ( see chart ) . " We would not be able to save the UBS for a second time , " says banking researcher Geiger . The second catastrophe followed closely on the heels of the first . A few months later , UBS capitulated in the tax dispute with the USA and declared that it was prepared to hand over the data of wealthy clients who had potentially avoided paying tax with the help of the bank . UBS also agreed to pay 780 million dollars consisting of repayment of unjustified profits from the business and a penalty . UBS therefore more or less admitted having been an accessory to tax evasion . At the same time , UBS lost something that had always been its advantage when competing for rich clients - the fog of secrecy . Swiss banking secrecy was not the same after the scandal . The CEO and the Chairman then resigned and the exodus of client money began . The bank had lost its credibility in both of its core business divisions within a few months - in investment banking thanks to bad speculation and in asset management by aiding and abetting tax evasion . And just as things had calmed down and UBS looked like it would start to turn things around , along came a disastrous rogue trader . A single trader gambled away 1.7 billion Euros before the bank noticed something was wrong . One thing is clear - risk management in the investment banking division is still not working . " The Adoboli incident clearly showed that risk control had changed too little , " says Martin Janssen , economic and professor of finance at the Swiss Banking Institute of the University of Zurich . The CFO of one major German bank also has no doubts : " The problem facing UBS is that it does not having a handle on risk control . " It was precisely the concept of caution that had long ago made Swiss bankers the guardians of the world 's major assets - no excessive risk , but security for money , whether the world fell apart outside the Alpine republic or not . The safes of Swiss banks had become a symbol of unshakeable reliability , just as Lindt and Sprüngli had come to symbolise sophisticated chocolate . The UBS headquarters in Zurich still fit the cliché of the dignified Swiss private bank - just a bit bigger . The location alone is classic . The bank has its head office on Zurich 's Bahnhofstrasse that leads from the main station directly to Zurich Lake , surrounded by the snow ##AT##-##AT## capped peaks of the Swiss mountains . The buildings are ostentatious and the shop rates are among the highest in Europe . Jewellers such as Tiffany 's are to be found here between traditional Swiss shops such as Confiserie Sprüngli . The Swiss banks have resided here for hundreds of years - from the National Bank to the palace of Credit Suisse and elite private banks such as Julius Bär . A heavy revolving door opens onto the UBS reception . The walls within are clad in marble behind vast leather armchairs . There is a large sign to the " Safe " next to the bank 's logo . UBS knows that its clients are looking for - security . But both the major Swiss banks , UBS and Credit Suisse , at some point ousted the Swiss banking concept - or betrayed it , as the head of one small Swiss private bank believes . He would prefer not to see his name in the newspaper - he too , like all Swiss bankers , does business with the two major banks . He believes UBS has grown too big - particularly in investment banking where the Anglo ##AT##-##AT## Saxons are also very active . In his opinion , the Swiss have nothing to add . " And if they do , they have adapted to the customs of the Anglo ##AT##-##AT## Saxons long ago . " It was in fact Anglo ##AT##-##AT## Saxon investment banking that changed UBS , brought in its first big profits - and then the debacle . No other European financial institution has lost as much money in the subprime jungle as the major Swiss bank . The catastrophe became evident on 15 October 2008 . " That Wednesday , the government coalition of a small country with a population of seven million undertook the largest rescue operation in the history of the nation , " writes author Lukas Hässig in his book The UBS Crash . The politicians approved up to 68 billion Swiss francs ( around 45 billion Euros ) to save the bank from bankruptcy . How could it have come to that ? Talking to Swiss banks , they see the issue mainly in the size of UBS . Two of the three major Swiss banks consolidated into a single , vast group in June 1998 . A bank was created that was already too big for small Switzerland when the merger was agreed - and a bank that continued to grow . The fact that the two banks that went to form UBS complemented each other helped . One was a wealthy but sedate bank specialising in asset management in Zurich and the other was less wealthy , but much more internationalised . The internationalised investment bankers suddenly had access to a lot of money that they could use to turn an almighty wheel . Two names are connected with the rise of UBS : Peter Wuffli , Group CEO of UBS from 2001 to 2007 , and Marcel Ospel , Chairman of the Board of Directors . " I always thought that Wuffli and Ospel were a dream team , " says the banking research , Hans Geiger . " Wuffli , highly intellectual , modest , with a deep understanding of models and statistics , and Ospel , with gut instinct who had worked his way up from being a banker 's apprentice . " But Ospel in the end relied on Wuffli . And Wuffli ultimately may have made a critical error . " He thought his models were reality , " says Geiger . " That is tragic . " Tragic it may be . Pride comes before a fall . Employees of UBS clearly remember the management meetings where CEO Wuffli always repeated the same slogan - dethrone Goldman Sachs . The American bank was the world 's most powerful investment bank . It led the " league tables " that documented the success of the banks at that time . UBS wanted to get to the very top of the league . It managed some of the way . UBS was a major player in foreign exchange and stocks . Commissioned management consultants , however , pointed out a weakness . In terms of what in banking terminology is referred to as " fixed income , " UBS was far behind the very largest banks . UBS had gaps in its US mortgage products . To plug the hole , UBS entered on an adventure that almost cost it its existence . Hungry for growth , the bank itself and a hedge fund founded by the bank invested in US subprime securities . It developed into a vast machine that packaged up securities based on US mortgage credit and passed them on - while itself continuing to bear risks . Even when other banks had long been looking for a way out , UBS carried on . " UBS was buying as late as the summer of 2007 when the US housing market was in flames , " says banking expert Geiger . The greater the rise , the greater the fall . One manager after the next had to go as the attempts to clean up proved more difficult than anticipated . Posts at UBS became a game of musical chairs and remain uncertain to this day . Any head of the major bank now has an almost impossible job . He must find a strategy for a bank that has turned its back on all existing business models . Banking expert Geiger already has an idea - quit investment banking , focus on asset management and turn back to Swiss roots . The bank , however , is not ( yet ) prepared to go that far . It is clear , nonetheless , that investment banking must shrink significantly . The new head of the bank , Sergio Ermotti , plans to present his future strategy to the world on Tuesday . The 51 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old Italo ##AT##-##AT## Swiss banker was actually only imagined as a transitional solution when the bank parted ways unexpectedly with his predecessor Grübel . Since then , he has proved his mettle and is now to head UBS permanently , the Zurich ##AT##-##AT## based bank announced on Tuesday . Ermotti plans to take the investment bank back to where it was in the mid ##AT##-##AT## 90s . He is cutting 3500 jobs . But that will not be enough . UBS needs a vision . What is UBS ? How does it plan to make money ? Those are the questions Axel Weber is definitely already asking himself . Publicly , he has only so far that he and his wife will look for a flat in Zurich . Next year . Fear of recession in Europe depresses US stock exchange The impending recession in Europe has depressed the mood of US investors at the start of the week . The change of government in Athens and Rome had little impact . Curbed industrial production on the continent nipped hopes that the debt crisis might stabilise in the bud . The general relief following the change of government in Rome and Athens was not sustained . The Euro fell against the dollar . The Italian and Greek glass was still considered half full last week , not half empty - now the problems are coming to the fore once again , said Mark Luschini of Janney Montgomery Scott . Financial stocks in particular were on the sales receipts . The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed business at 12,078 with a fall of 0.6 percent . The market barometer fluctuated between 12,027 and 12,170 points in the course of trading . The broader S & P 500 index closed at 1251 point , down one percent . The Nasdaq Technology Index lost 0.8 percent and closed trading at 2657 points . In Frankfurt , the Dax fell 1.2 percent closing at 5985 points . Industry in the 17 Euro countries has significantly reduced production and is adjusting to the end of the upturn . The Eurostat statistics office announced that , in September , companies produced two percent less than in the previous month . The announcement made US investors sceptical . " We are not an island . We are dependent , " said Steve Goldman of Goldman Management . He also claimed that Europe is not likely to shake off a recession quickly and that there are further signs of weakness in the banks . The investment legend , Warren Buffett , could only support such caution . In a CNBC interview , he said that it was not yet clear whether Europe is strong enough to do all that is needed to end the crisis . In his opinion , it is therefore too early to invest in European government bonds or banks . Instead , Buffett threw a decades ##AT##-##AT## old principle out of the window to invest in the US technology industry . His investment of more than ten billion dollars in IBM boosted the veteran company 's share price by almost one percent against the trend during the course of trading . The shares closed almost unchanged at 187.35 dollars . Buffett claims to have paid 170 dollars on average per share and now has a 5.5 percent stake . The share price of his investment company Berkshire Hathaway fell 1.3 percent . Bank of America share certificates fell significantly more strongly than the market by 2.6 percent . The bank is converting almost all its remaining shares in the China Construction Bank into cash , bringing in 6.6 billion dollars . The bank primarily plans to bolster its capital quota with the net profit from the sale to meet tougher regulations . The aircraft manufacturer Boeing gained , limiting losses on the Dow . The share price went up 1.5 percent after the corporation picked up the biggest order in its history . The Emirates airline ordered 50 long ##AT##-##AT## range type 777 aeroplanes on Sunday with an order value of 18 billion dollars . Including options to buy 20 more planes , the total volume is in fact 26 billion dollars . Around 710 million shares changed hands on the New York stock exchange . 719 shares rose , 2281 fell and 79 remained unchanged . 630 shares finished up , 1913 down and 82 unchanged on the Nasdaq on turnover of 1.38 billion shares . Intelligent crows are spreading in cities Rooks are considered problem birds in many places . Experts now say the highly intelligent animals can no longer be driven from cities . Some like the birds , others would like to get rid of them as fast as possible . Crows have been part of the cityscape for hundreds of years , but residents complaining about the filth and noise the animals create are increasing in number in many communities . A solution to the problem birds , however , is far from within reach . Experts at the first crow symposium in the East Frisian town of Leer have said that rooks can no longer be forced out of cities . Specialists from all over Germany discussed possible solutions . Looking for alternatives in the cities Conservationists stated that migration of specially protected rooks was the root of the problem in cities , pointing out that the use of chemicals in agriculture was increasingly destroying traditional habitats . Hunting , increasing development and felling of typical breeding trees was making life hard for the birds . Crows are protected . There are large colonies with more than 600 breeding pairs in the Westphalian town of Soest and in the north ##AT##-##AT## west in Jever , Diepholz , Achim bei Bremen and Leer . A controversial project to cull crows in Leer was behind negative headlines in 2005 . Critics described the capture of the birds in bird traps and how they were beaten to death with clubs as particularly brutal . " Normal displacement and deterrence does nothing , " said town and country planner Werner Klöver from Leer . Spraying off nests with water or felling trees often has undesired consequences , said environment expert Manfred Kaiser from Lahr in Baden ##AT##-##AT## Württemberg . " The animals disperse and large colonies split up and spread to other areas . " Deterrence would only be conceivable as an exception in hospitals , retirement homes and schools . " We have to live with them . Getting rid of them is not an option . " Without the surrounding area , the problem in the cities will not be solved , said Leer 's mayor , Wolfgang Kellner . A combination of deterring birds from sensitive residential areas and offering incentives for them to move back to other areas would be an option . " Information boards instead of chain saws " was the slogan proposed by the psychologist and ethnologist Uta Maria Jürgens , who argued for a totally different approach to the birds . " We should have the self ##AT##-##AT## confidence to live with this problem . " Jürgens was a co ##AT##-##AT## founder of the Ascherberg crow educational trail in Schleswig ##AT##-##AT## Holstein , where notice boards provide information about the life of the highly intelligent rook . The project is already attracting interest from tourists . Jürgens also expressed her opinion on the criticism of the noise the birds make . " The noise conveys a lot of information . They have a lot to say to each other . " The intelligence and skill of the birds are legendary . Rooks often do not just use tools to get hold of a choice morsel , but create tools themselves . Behavioural researchers at the University of Cambridge recently tested the extent of the birds " intelligence on four rooks . In one experiment , the birds quickly learnt that they had to knock over a platform to get to a moth larva . They recognised the size and shape of stone needed to collapse the platform without much training . In a second experiment , the canny crows had to solve a trickier problem . The researchers put a small bucket with a moth larva in a vertical cylinder . The birds could not reach their prey with their beaks . However , the researchers had provided pieces of wire . All four birds used the wire to form a hook and used the hook to fish the bucket out of the tube by its handle . Three of the four rooks even managed it at the first attempt . Ronaldo rockets Portugal to Euro 2012 The hopes of Bosnians and Turks for a last minute win were short ##AT##-##AT## lived . The favourites Portugal , Croatia and the Czech Republic , plus Ireland , will be at the 2012 European championship . Portugal , the Czech Republic , Croatia and Ireland have got the final spots for the Euro 2012 championship in Poland and Ukraine . Led by superstar Cristiano Ronaldo who scored in the 8th and 53rd minutes , Portugal beat Bosnia ##AT##-##AT## Herzegovina 6 : 2 ( 2 : 1 ) , rounding off their fifth Euro appearance perfectly after 0 : 0 in the first leg . The Czechs only needed 1 : 0 ( 0 : 0 ) in the playoff second leg against outsider Montenegro after a clear win in the first leg ( 2 : 0 ) . Croatia did not miss a trick with 0 : 0 against Turkey and Ireland managed an easy 1 : 1 ( 1 : 0 ) against Estonia . Nani ( 24th minute ) , Helder Postiga ( 72nd and 82nd ) and Miguel Veloso ( 80th ) scored the other goals for Portugal . The former Wolfsburg Bundesliga professional Zvjezdan Misimovic and captain Emir Spahic evened the score with a converted 41st ##AT##-##AT## minute penalty and a goal in the 65th for Bosnia . Sena Lulic got a second yellow card in the 54th minute . Bosnia had already been knocked out of the World Cup 2010 playoffs in South Africa against Portugal . Portugal got off to a perfect start in Lisbon 's Estadio da Luz . Ronaldo pounded a free kick into the nets from about 30 meters to take an early lead . A good quarter of an hour later , Nani displayed his long ##AT##-##AT## range abilities , raising the lead to 2 : 0 from the 25 metre line . The Bosnians , with no opening in the first half hour , had their first opportunity with goal scorer Edin Dzeko . The former Wolfsburg player from the English championship leader Manchester City put a header onto the bottom edge of the crossbar in the 33rd minute , but the ball did not go over the goal line . Jiracek scores for the Czech Republic The referee Wolfgang Stark from Ergolding then garnered some attention . Following an attack on Helder Postiga in the Bosnian penalty area in the 36th minute , Stark decided the Portuguese player had simulated and gave him a yellow card . Stark also awarded a controversial penalty for handball after a foul by Fabio Coentrao - Misimovic converted . After half ##AT##-##AT## time , the vice ##AT##-##AT## European champions of 2004 settled the score with four more goals . Petr Jiracek cleared up any remaining doubt for the Czechs in the 81st minute . The European champions of 1976 are going to the Euro Championship for the fifth time in a row . Luck also smiled on trainer Michal Bilek 's team and Bundesliga legionaries Michael Kadlec ( Bayer Leverkusen ) and Tomas Pekhart ( 1st FC Nuremberg ) with a potentially catastrophic error early on . Goalie Petr Cech prevented a potential own goal from Tomas Sivok in the 9th minute with a split ##AT##-##AT## second reflex . Montenegro had its best opportunities when the Stevan Jovetic and Dejan Damjanovic duo were on the field . Damjanovic took a shot from the edge of the penalty area that just missed Cech 's goal in the 40th minute . After half ##AT##-##AT## time , the crossbar saved the Czechs " already battered world ##AT##-##AT## class goalie after the forward from FC Seoul retreated in the 50th minute . The winning goal was scored just before full ##AT##-##AT## time . Turkey , meanwhile , was lacking football genius in Zagreb . Four days after losing 0 : 3 in Istanbul , the Turks could do no better than a 0 : 0 draw in Zagreb . While it is now virtually a certainty that national trainer Guus Hiddink must now give up his place on the bench of the team that reached third place in 2002 , the Croatians are through to the final round of a European championship for the fourth time . The Turks almost managed the perfect start in front of 31,000 spectators at the Maksimir stadium . Selcuk Inan 's long ##AT##-##AT## range shot hit the post in the seventh minute and striker Kazim Kazim was unable to put the rebound into the net . Croatia then woke up , taking more and more control of the game . The Croatians continued in fine form after half ##AT##-##AT## time . The Budesliga legionaries Danijel Pranjic ( Bayern Munich ) and Gordon Schildenfeld ( Eintracht Frankfurt ) were on the field alongside Mario Mandzukic from VfL Wolfsburg , who made space for Ivan Perisic from Dortmund from the 62nd minute . Trapattoni going to Euro 2012 The Irish in Dublin were celebrating their first appearance at the European championship since 1988 in Germany . Trainer Giovanni Trapattoni 's team - already looking assured of a place following the 4 : 0 victory in the first leg - took the lead in the 32nd minute thanks to a goal from Stephen Ward . Konstantin Vassiljev equalised for the away team in the 57th minute . Ireland kept up the pace , but had to wait until the 23rd minute when Robbie Keane from Los Angeles had the first clean shot on goal . The Estonian rearguard prevented him at the last moment from taking Ireland into the lead . The goal came in the 32nd minute . After a failed defence by goalie Pavel Londak , Ward was on the spot and pushed the ball over the line to bring the score to 1 : 0 . Woman critically injured after falling over in tram A 52 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old woman was critically injured in Berlin ##AT##-##AT## Lichtenberg on Monday after falling over in a tram . The police announced in a statement on Tuesday that she had undergone an emergency operation in hospital . The tram was forced to break abruptly on Herzbergallee when a vehicle stopped suddenly in front of it . The car then turned off and drove away - the driver is being traced . The other passengers on the tram were unhurt . Armed man holds up chemist 's in Friedenau An armed man held up a chemist 's on Bundesallee in Berlin ##AT##-##AT## Friedenau on Monday evening . The police announced in a statement that he had threatened a 25 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old employee with a firearm and demanded money be handed over . After the cash draw was handed over , the robber fled unrecognised and with an unknown amount of money . The female employee suffered from shock . Drunk driver seriously injured A 21 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old drunk driver was seriously injured early on Tuesday morning on Märkische Allee in Berlin ##AT##-##AT## Marzahn . He attempted to swerve out of the way of a van with trailer that shot out onto the road from a petrol station . His vehicle skidded , crossed the centre strip into oncoming traffic and crashed into several trees . The 21 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old was taken to hospital . The 40 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old van driver was unhurt . Cyclist knocked down and seriously injured A 61 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old female cyclist was knocked down and seriously injured by a car in Berlin ##AT##-##AT## Mitte on Monday . The police announced in a statement on Tuesday that she had attempted to cross the road on her bike at the pedestrian crossing on the Karl ##AT##-##AT## Liebknecht ##AT##-##AT## Strasse / Alexanderstrasse crossing . A 72 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old driver drove into her as he was turning off . The woman was knocked down and taken to hospital for inpatient care in a critical state . On the run : car thief turns ghost driver A man was driving a stolen car in Charlottenburg at night . He rammed a parked vehicle and pushed it up against two other cars and three bikes when turning around . A police pursuit began . The fugitive sped onto the motorway - against oncoming traffic ! He scraped against a concrete crash barrier and lost parts of the car . The car came to a halt and the man fled on foot . Pedestrian shot with an air rifle from a balcony A female pedestrian in Schwedt has been shot with an air rifle from a balcony . The police announced in a statement that the 32 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old was out and about on Sunday in the vicinity of her flat when she was shot in the back . She was taken to hospital to treat a laceration . The police identified four suspects - a 19 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old is the primary suspect . A police spokesman said there is no connection between the woman and the suspects . 25 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old seriously injured in a car accident A male driver has been seriously injured in the Potsdam ##AT##-##AT## Mittelmark district in a head ##AT##-##AT## on collision with a lorry . The police announced in a statement that the 25 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old mini van driver came off the road on Monday afternoon on an A road near Wiesenburg and skidded into a crash barrier . The cause of the accident is not yet known . The car was hurled onto the opposite side of the road by the violence of the impact and collided with a lorry . The 25 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old had to be cut out of his vehicle by the fire service . He was taken to hospital in a rescue helicopter . Fire in cinema on Alexanderplatz A fire broke out in Kino Cubix on Alexanderplatz on Sunday night . The police announced in a statement that around 70 cinema ##AT##-##AT## goers at a late night viewing had to leave the cinema on Rathausstrasse shortly after midnight . No one was hurt . The fire was probably caused by a technical failure in the electricity system according to the investigations so far . The power failed at the same time and powerful fumes developed . Woman seriously injured by attempted handbag robbery A woman has been seriously injured by an attempted handbag robbery in Niedergörsdorf in the Teltow ##AT##-##AT## Fläming district . The police announced in a statement that the hooded perpetrator surprised the woman on Friday at a parking space in front of a shop and tried to grab her handbag . When the victim defended herself , he struck her hands and head with a truncheon . He then fled empty ##AT##-##AT## handed . The woman was admitted to hospital with serious injuries . Grave ##AT##-##AT## tenders robbed Elderly people have repeatedly been robbed in recent weeks at a cemetery in Fürstenwalde . The police announced in a statement that bags , money , mobile phones , bank cards and bunches of keys have been stolen in a total of twelve thefts since mid ##AT##-##AT## October . The victims were mainly elderly women tending the plots of relatives . They had left their bicycles or Zimmer frames with valuables nearby . The most recent theft of several hundred Euros in cash occurred last Friday . Six graffiti sprayers arrested The police have caught six graffiti sprayers . The police announced in a statement that the six youths were arrested on Sunday in Marzahn . The men , ranging in age from 15 to 25 , had sprayed a railway carriage at Hohenschönhausener ##AT##-##AT## Grenzgraben . They had used a ladder to climb onto the carriage and had smashed a window . A witness notified the police . The offenders initially fled when officers arrived . However , they were arrested shortly after at a stop on Landsberger Allee . Wheelchair user hit by a car and seriously injured A male wheelchair user has been seriously injured crossing a road in Schwedt . The police announced in a statement that the man attempted to cross a street at the pedestrian crossing on Saturday and was not spotted by a female driver . The vehicle hit the wheelchair and the man fell onto the road and suffered head injuries . He had to be taken to hospital for inpatient treatment . Seven ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old hit and injured by a car in Wedding A seven ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old boy was knocked down and seriously injured by a car on Tegeler Strasse in Berlin ##AT##-##AT## Wedding on Sunday evening . The police announced in a statement that he was taken to hospital with injuries to the face and leg . The child ran out onto the road in front of a car driven by a 53 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old woman . The driver was not able to brake in time and the car hit the boy . The boy was not accompanied by adults . Cyclist seriously injured in Kreuzberg A 46 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old male cyclist was knocked down and seriously injured by a car in Berlin ##AT##-##AT## Kreuzberg late on Sunday evening . The police announced in a statement on Monday that he had been taken to hospital with head injuries and could not be questioned . The cause of the collision with the vehicle driven by a 22 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old man is not yet clear . Burnt out car in Köpenick A car was burnt out early on Monday morning on Dregerhoffstrasse in Berlin ##AT##-##AT## Köpenick . A police spokeswoman said a 34 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old man attempted to put the fire out . He was unsuccessful and the fire brigade had to bring the fire under control . The vehicle was an older model . Arson is suspected , but without a political motive . Hit and run after accident in Lichtenberg A driver fled after a serious accident in Lichtenberg on Saturday night without helping his wounded passenger . The police announced in a statement that the man had skidded on Möllendorfstrasse , crashed into a tramway pylon and had landed on the trackbed . A female tram driver was able to brake in time and saw the driver flee . The fire brigade was informed and had to free a seriously injured 23 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old from the car wreck and take him to hospital . The owner of the vehicle later stated that her car had been stolen some time earlier . Fire in a cellar in Tempelhof There was a fire in a part of a cellar on Monday night in a house in Tempelhof . The police announced in a statement that tenants of the building on Marienfelder Allee noticed smoke on the staircase and contacted the fire brigade . An 18 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old who had shown conspicuous interest in the fire ##AT##-##AT## fighting operation was initially arrested . However , he was released as suspicion was not confirmed . Injured people at punch ##AT##-##AT## up in fast food restaurant Two people at a fast food restaurant in Pankow were injured in a punch ##AT##-##AT## up on Saturday night . The police announced in a statement that four men aged between 18 and 21 began arguing with two restaurant workers on Prenzlauer Promenade at around 01 : 20 . Two 19 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## olds attempted to help , but were immediately punched and kicked by the four men . Both suffered head injuries . The four assailants were arrested in the restaurant . Courageous bystander attacked at underground station - offender arrested A courageous bystander leapt to help girls being bothered at Gesundbrunnen underground station and was beaten up . Three hooligans attacked the 41 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old man on Saturday and sprayed pepper spray into his face after punching him . The three then fled the scene . The police announced in a statement that one 19 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old has been arrested subsequently on suspicion . A female passer ##AT##-##AT## by called the police from her mobile . Officers found the pepper spray in a bin near the underground station . The courageous bystander was taken to hospital for outpatient treatment . Construction pit in flames in the embassy quarter A fire broke out in a construction pit in the embassy quarter of Tiergarten on Saturday . The police announced in a statement that construction materials set on fire at around 12 : 00 during welding work on Tiergartenstrasse . The fire caused a large cloud of fumes that could be seen clearly from some distance . The fire brigade arrived with four crews and was able to bring the fire under control quickly . A district heating pipe and a power supply line were also affected by the fire . The structural stability of the construction pit would now also have to be checked , said a fire brigade spokesman . No one was hurt during the fire . Tiergartenstrasse was closed to car and bus traffic during the fire ##AT##-##AT## fighting operation . 40 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old seriously injured during robbery Unknown assailants robbed and seriously injured a 40 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old man on Friday evening in Berlin ##AT##-##AT## Mitte . The police announced in a statement on Saturday that the man was out and about on Martin ##AT##-##AT## Opitz ##AT##-##AT## Strasse at around 23 : 30 when he was approached by the three offenders and asked for the time . The men then followed him , punched and kicked their unsuspecting victim and fled with his wallet and mobile . Police officers found the seriously injured man lying on the street and called casualty . The man was taken to hospital . Father attacks tram driver - child looks on A drunken father verbally abused and then hit a female tram driver on Friday evening in front of his four ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old son . The police announced in a statement on Saturday that the 49 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old Berlin Transport Authority ( BVG ) worker had to stop on Seestrasse in Wedding when she was suddenly attacked by the 30 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old man . The man punched her in the face while his son looked on . Police officers quickly arrested the drunken man . The boy had to be picked up by his grandfather . The tram driver was slightly injured . Rubbish bins set alight in Wedding Unknown persons set rubbish bins on fire in a back yard in Wedding on Friday night . The police announced in a statement that a resident noticed the fire at around midnight and also saw two darkly dressed men fleeing across the adjacent cemetery wall on Steegerstrasse . The fire brigade was notified and quickly put out the fire . Hungry Labrador turns on hotplate - apartment fire A hungry dog is believed to have started a fire in an apartment in Brandenburg / Havel . The police announced in a statement on Friday that the Labrador is thought to have leapt onto the cooker to get to its food . The dog then must have pushed a switch and turned on the hotplate . Paper on the cooker caught fire . The fourth floor flat was set alight on Thursday afternoon . The dog died of smoke intoxication . The 18 ##AT##-##AT## year ##AT##-##AT## old tenant who was not in the flat at the time of the fire is being investigated for negligent arson . Star ##AT##-##AT## studded Twilight world premiere in Hollywood A flurry of flashing cameras , screaming fans and beaming Twilight stars . Thousands of curious onlookers gathered on the black ##AT##-##AT## coloured carpet in front of the Nokia theatre in Los Angeles at the world premiere of Breaking Dawn Part 1 . The procession of stars lasted several hours . The fans of the vampire saga were not disappointed . Vampire actor Robert Pattinson , his werewolf rival Taylor Lautner and " Bella " beauty Kristen Stewart signed autographs and posed with fans . Bella finally gets to marry her true love in part four . SAP plans to double workforce in China Europe 's largest software producer , SAP , plans to invest billions and almost double its workforce in China in the next few years . The Dax ##AT##-##AT## listed company announced on Tuesday that around two billion dollars ( around 1.5 billion Euros ) is to be invested by 2015 . " We will create more research and development facilities and hire thousands of people , " Bill McDermott , co ##AT##-##AT## chief executive of SAP , said in a statement at a consumer show in Peking . The 2500 ##AT##-##AT## strong workforce is to grow to 4500 . The world market leader in enterprise software plans to double its number of offices from five to ten or eleven . SAP is currently located in Beijing , Shanghai , Guanzhou , Chengdu and Dalian . Around 4000 SAP customers are in the boom country compared to the company 's more than 176,000 customers worldwide . The plans for growth in China are also an important pillar of the Dax ##AT##-##AT## listed company 's 2015 strategy . SAP plans to increase turnover to 20 billion Euros by 2015 . The company from Walldorf made around 12.5 billion Euros last year . Business for the software provider is looking better than ever , with 55,000 employees worldwide . SAP has been in China for 20 years . " We now want to scale our operations , " McDermott said . " Our aim is to drive sustainable growth through informisation in China . " Mass Slaughter on a Personal Level Peter Englund 's intense and bighearted new book , " The Beauty and the Sorrow : An Intimate History of the First World War , " begins with a long dramatis personae of the sort that can make your heart sink . Here is advice for proceeding : Gently excise this page and make it your bookmark . You will be getting to know these people very well in Mr. Englund 's novelistic telling , and this dramatis personae will function as your GPS , a beacon during those few moments when , like one of his men and women , you are confused and bereft in the fog of war . Mr. Englund is a Swedish historian and journalist . He is also the new permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy , which awards the Nobel Prize in Literature . What he has written here is an unusual book , one he describes , not inaccurately , as " a work of anti ##AT##-##AT## history . " It contains few big names , major treaties or famous battles ; there are almost no ambassadors , dashing journalists or discussions of tactics and materiel . It 's not so much a book about what happened , he explains , as " a book about what it was like . " It 's about " feelings , impressions , experiences and moods . " " The Beauty and the Sorrow " threads together the wartime experiences of 20 more or less unremarkable men and women , on both sides of the war , from schoolgirls and botanists to mountain climbers , doctors , ambulance drivers and clerks . A few of these people will become heroes . A few will become prisoners of war , or lose limbs , go mad or die . Their lives flicker here like votive candles lighted in a church ; new ones are added to the mix while some wink out . Mr. Englund 's book is a deviation from standard history books . It is a corrective too to the notion that World War I was only about the dire trench warfare on the Western Front . " The Beauty and the Sorrow " expertly pans across other theaters of war : the Alps , the Balkans , the Eastern Front , Mesopotamia , East Africa . Soldiers in this book have beehives fall on them ; one has Christmas in Egypt under the pyramids ; tsetse flies are an intractable problem . This is a moving book , almost from the start . War floods these people 's lives like a natural catastrophe , a Hurricane Katrina that reeks of cordite . When cannon fire is heard in the distance , and you are a woman at home with your children , do you stay or flee ? Who is coming , anyway ? Almost no one understands what 's happening , even why this war is to be fought . " Lack of facts , " Mr. Englund observes , " has been padded out with guesses , suppositions , hopes , fears , idées fixes , conspiracy theories , dreams , nightmares and rumors . " " The Beauty and the Sorrow " follows individuals like Florence Farmborough , an English nurse in the Russian Army , and Richard Stumpf , a young German high ##AT##-##AT## seas fleet seaman . Their stories are mostly taken from memoirs , letters and other already published material . The accounts of their lives can be terrifying or stirring , but are most fully alive in Mr. Englund 's accumulation of small moments , stray details . Many of these are about deprivation and making do . In telling a German schoolgirl 's story he says : " Ersatz , everywhere ersatz . " " Substitute coffee , fake aluminum , imitation rubber , paper bandages , wooden buttons . " He goes on about the ersatz food in Germany . He describes " meat made of pressed rice boiled in mutton fat ( and finished off with a fake bone made of wood ) ; tobacco made of dried roots and dried potato peel ; shoes soled with wood . " There are , he notes , " 837 registered meat substitutes permissible in the production of sausages , 511 registered coffee substitutes . " Some stories are about honor and bravery . One American recognizes his own impulse toward savagery and declares about war : " You feel that , after all , this is what men were intended for rather than to sit in easy chairs with a cigarette and whiskey , the evening paper or the best seller , and to pretend that such a veneer means civilization and that there is no barbarian behind your starched and studded shirt front . " Conversely a British soldier realizes that he will most likely die , and that no one will notice or care . " Once one is resigned to the thought of sacrificing oneself , one would like to think that it might happen in front of an audience , " he writes . Instead , it is horribly like " a condemned man being strangled secretly . " Other observations are about an old Europe falling away , and about new types of terror . " The conflict has increasingly become an economic competition , " Mr. Englund writes , " a war between factories . " He catches the arrival of what he calls " a new species in the bestiary of the young century : the articulate and ideologically convinced mass murderer in well ##AT##-##AT## cut clothes who performs his butchery while sitting behind a desk . " People behave in unanticipated ways ; there is as much base behavior as heroism . Mr. Englund discussed the soldiers who actively tried to catch a venereal disease from prostitutes as a way to evade service at the front . " The most grotesque expression of this can be seen in the trade of gonococcal pus , which soldiers buy and smear into their genitals in the hope of ending up in hospital , " he writes . " Those who are really desperate rub it into their eyes , which often results in lifelong blindness . " In this translation from the Swedish by Peter Graves , Mr. Englund 's prose is supple but unshowy , perfectly suited to his humane task . In dozens of small scenes he catches the way the war has " unleashed uniquely uncontrollable forces : extreme nationalism , social revolution , religious hatred . " People begin to ask why their leaders are making them fight . The best books about World War I have often been oblique , like Paul Fussell 's " Great War and Modern Memory , " or novels , like Erich Maria Remarque 's " All Quiet on the Western Front , " rather than comprehensive histories . Mr. Englund 's volume joins an unconventional pantheon . His book has the most devastating ending I can remember in a piece of nonfiction . I won 't give it away . But it 's as if he has reached from his book , snatched that dramatis personae page from your fingers , and lighted it with a match . After an Earlier Misstep , a Minutely Planned Raid Hundreds of police officers were involved , some of them wearing riot helmets . The overnight hours of Monday into Tuesday were chosen because Zuccotti Park would be at its emptiest . The operation was kept secret from all but a few high ##AT##-##AT## ranking officers , with others initially being told that they were embarking on an exercise . Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly was at the center , his presence underscoring how the operation was fraught with challenges for the Police Department . There could be no repeat of episodes in recent weeks , like the pepper ##AT##-##AT## spraying of protesters , that violated department rules and created a firestorm of public sympathy for the squatters . And so the police operation to clear Zuccotti Park of protesters unfolded after two weeks of planning and training . Officials had prepared by watching how occupations in other cities played out . A major disaster drill was held on Randalls Island , with an eye toward Zuccotti . Officials increased so ##AT##-##AT## called disorder training - counterterrorism measures that involve moving large numbers of police officers quickly - to focus on Lower Manhattan . The last training session was on Monday night , on the Manhattan side of the East River . The orders to move into the park came down at the " last minute , " said someone familiar with the orders , which referred to the assignment only as " an exercise . " " The few cops that I know that were called into this thing , they were not told it was for going into Zuccotti Park , " said the person , who spoke on the condition of anonymity . " The only people who were aware of them going into Zuccotti Park were at the very highest levels of the department . " One reason for the secrecy was a lesson learned by the city . On Oct. 14 , officials wanted to clear the park , but then backed off as hundreds of protesters streamed in ahead of time after hearing of the plans . The operation on Tuesday involved officers from various police units , including boroughwide task forces - scores of mobile officers who are usually used to flood high ##AT##-##AT## crime neighborhoods . Mr. Kelly said many people , almost like commuters , had been coming and going from the park during the day , making 1 a.m. a good time to move in . " It was appropriate to do it when the smallest number of people were in the park , " he said . Emergency Service Unit trucks with klieg lights and loudspeakers gathered at Pike Slip and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive , near the Manhattan Bridge , before moving out . The lights and prerecorded messages booming from the loudspeakers seemed to cow many protesters . As the community affairs officers moved into the park in their light ##AT##-##AT## blue windbreakers , many protesters simply gathered their belongings and left . No tents were touched until 1 : 45 a.m. , the police said , giving the protesters time to gather their belongings . Other teams of officers were seen gathering on the perimeter to move in if arrests were needed in the park . Reporters in the park were forced to leave . Paul J. Browne , the Police Department 's chief spokesman , said it was for their safety . But many journalists said that they had been prevented from seeing the police take action in the park , and that they had been roughly handled by officers . Mr. Browne said television camera trucks on Church Street , along the park 's western border , were able to capture images . As the police moved west through the dense tangle of protesters " personal belongings , including luggage and plastic lawn and leaf bags stuffed with clothing , crews from the Sanitation Department followed , scooping up what was left behind . Some protesters who refused to move were dragged out , the images appearing on the Internet soon after . A core group of protesters took up positions close to the encampment 's kitchen area , near the center of the park . Some made a barrier , and the police moved in to methodically arrest them . About 10 people in the epicenter of the encampment locked themselves together by their arms . And two people chained themselves to trees , Mr. Kelly said . Emergency service officers were called in to cut the locks . No arrests were made in the park until about 3 : 30 a.m. , Mr. Kelly said . The clearing operation was complete about 75 minutes later , the police said . Mr. Browne said about 142 people were arrested in the park . Most of the arrests were for " disorderly conduct and resisting arrest , " he said . The highest ##AT##-##AT## ranking officer on the scene was Joseph J. Esposito , the chief of department , the top uniformed officer in the department . Phil T. Pulaski , the department 's chief of detectives , was also there . Mr. Kelly , while present , was " not directing operations , " Mr. Browne said . A second group of officers waited along the eastern side of Broadway , between Liberty and Cedar Streets , in case they had to move in . Barricades were set up at Cortlandt Street , a block north of the park , and at Pine Street , a block south . From those positions , the police were seen expanding the perimeter even farther outward from Zuccotti Park . At one point , several officers , many with shields , were seen pushing people farther out . About 28 people were on the northern perimeter . Some of the rowdiest action of the night took place south of the park . Around 5 a.m. , south of Pine Street , one protester jumped on the hood of a police car , and others were seen releasing the air from the tires of a police van . At one point , a piece of plywood came flying from the crowd . In the end , one officer and one protester were hospitalized . Support Workers ' Union Will Sue City Over Layoffs The union representing hundreds of school support workers who lost their jobs last month plans to sue the city on Wednesday , claiming the layoffs were unnecessary and discriminatory because of their disproportionate impact on schools that serve poor students . The lawsuit is possibly the last weapon available to the union , District Council 37 , in its effort to reverse the layoffs . Six hundred seventy ##AT##-##AT## two school aides , parent coordinators and other employees who were among the city 's lowest paid lost their jobs on Oct. 7 , in a move union leaders have described as political payback for their refusal to let the city access a health care fund run by labor groups to close its budget gap last spring . City officials have categorically denied that accusation . At a City Council hearing last month , Schools Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott said the layoffs were a part of the budget they signed off on in June . One council member fired back , telling him that nothing in the budget specified that school support staff members would be laid off . District Council 37 officials said they filed a notice of claim , warning the Department of Education that it would be sued ; it will hold a news conference on Wednesday to announce the lawsuit 's filing formally , in State Supreme Court in Manhattan . The suit will list Mr. Walcott and the city 's Department of Education as defendants , and counts eight laid ##AT##-##AT## off workers as plaintiffs , all of them black or Latino women , as were most of the aides who lost their jobs . Elizabeth Thomas , a spokeswoman for the city 's Law Department , said the city had not seen the lawsuit and therefore could not comment on its specific allegations . According to a draft of the complaint obtained by The New York Times , the union has zeroed in on the number of layoffs at schools in poor parts of the city to support a claim of inequitable treatment , saying poor schools lost more aides because they had been chronically underfinanced . It points out that while there were no layoffs on Staten Island and few layoffs in schools in the Upper East Side or TriBeCa , 17 school aides lost their jobs in District 23 in Brownsville , Brooklyn , and 46 were let go in Districts 8 and 9 in the South Bronx . Noting the loss of five out of eight school aides employed by Public School 36 in Harlem , where 68 percent of the students live in poverty , the lawsuit says , " This is not a neighborhood of well ##AT##-##AT## heeled parents who can fund ##AT##-##AT## raise to make up the budget shortfalls . " P.S. 36 " s budget was cut by 3.26 percent this year , and it also lost money when the city changed the way it calculates the extra financing for each poor student schools enroll . The union also claims that high school principals may have been misled by the language in a memo authorizing the dismissal of parent coordinators . The memo used the word " excess " to describe the action , even though " excess " more commonly describes the act of moving a teacher from a school 's payroll into a pool of available workers whose salaries are paid by the central office . " Sixty ##AT##-##AT## six parent coordinators were laid off , " the draft complaint says , " and not merely excessed . " Mission over , Congress ready to agree on Libya It finally looks like Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are ready to agree on something related to the uprising in Libya . All it took was for the revolt to succeed , longtime dictator Moammar Gaddafi to be captured and killed and American involvement to end . On Tuesday , the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is to consider a resolution , sponsored by Chairman John Kerry ( D ##AT##-##AT## Mass . ) , along with Sens. John McCain ( R ##AT##-##AT## Ariz . ) and Joseph I. Lieberman ( I ##AT##-##AT## Conn . ) , applauding Libyans for their successful rebellion and U.S. troops for their " bravery . " " This resolution is about honoring the courageous people of Libya as they begin to rebuild their country , " Kerry said . " It 's an affirmation of bipartisan support for their democratic aspirations . " The language may sound innocuous , but nothing about the Libya debate has been easy so far . This summer , lawmakers from both parties squabbled with each other and the White House over the wording of a series of resolutions to approve or disapprove of the U.S. military 's role in the NATO mission in Libya . In June , Kerry and McCain introduced a resolution authorizing the limited use of U.S. military forces in Libya . The bill was defeated in the House by a wide bipartisan margin , and it never came up for a vote in the Senate . But on the same day that bill failed in the House , the chamber also voted down a measure that would have cut funding for American operations in Libya . That left the U.S. mission in a form of legislative purgatory - with Congress upset enough to criticize Obama 's handling of the mission but not so angry as to actually pull the rug out from under it . Then Congress 's indecision was overtaken by events . Tripoli fell to Libyan rebels in August , and Gaddafi was killed Oct. 20 . The NATO mission officially ended Oct. 31 . Now the Senate may be ready to act . The Foreign Relations Committee resolution " congratulates the people of Libya for their tremendous courage and extraordinary resilience in liberating themselves " and " commends the men and women of the United States Armed Forces and their coalition partners who engaged in military operations to protect the people of Libya for their extraordinary bravery and professionalism . " The resolution also " affirms the national interest of the United States in a successful and irreversible transition to democracy in Libya . " Will the new measure earn the full support of the Foreign Relations panel , or will it split lawmakers like the June bill did ? The last version was opposed by Sen. Richard G. Lugar ( Ind . ) , the committee 's top Republican . Lugar 's spokesman said Monday that he had not seen the final version of the new bill yet . Across the Capitol , the House is to vote this week on a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget , a top legislative priority of nearly every congressional Republican and some Democrats . The measure , sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte ( R ##AT##-##AT## Va . ) , will be the first constitutional amendment on the budget or any other topic to actually get a floor vote in the House or Senate this Congress . Other lawmakers have been unsuccessful so far in bringing their amendments to the floor , but not for lack of trying . Goodlatte 's is just one of 68 constitutional amendments that have been introduced this Congress , spanning a wide range of topics . Some are duplicates - the same bill offered in both the House and Senate - and others are slight variations on each other . There are at least 15 versions of the balanced budget amendment in the House alone , and another handful that would " control federal spending . " Some of those bills are identical too , but they give their sponsors - particularly freshmen Republicans looking to burnish their resumes - the chance to brag that they " authored " such a measure . The Budget Control Act , which passed in August , required that both the House and Senate vote on a balanced budget amendment . In March , 58 senators voted in favor of a non ##AT##-##AT## binding resolution supporting the idea of such an amendment . Beyond the budget , several members want to limit the number of terms members of Congress can serve , while Rep. José E. Serrano ( D ##AT##-##AT## N.Y. ) wants to lift the two ##AT##-##AT## term limit for presidents . Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr . ( D ##AT##-##AT## Ill . ) has offered a host of amendments guaranteeing the right to quality education and health care , among other subjects . An amendment prohibiting same ##AT##-##AT## sex marriage is a perennial offering , as is one prohibiting flag ##AT##-##AT## burning . Some lawmakers also want to allow for the nullification of federal laws if they are opposed by two ##AT##-##AT## thirds of the states . As eager as members have been to offer amendments , they 're not moving at any faster pace than in past years . In the 111th Congress , lawmakers offered 77 such amendments , and they introduced 66 in the 110th . The pace pales in comparison to that of the early 1990s , when members regularly offered more than 150 amendments every two years , according to numbers provided by the Senate Library . But they weren 't much more successful then than they are now . The last amendment to be added - the 27th - was ratified in 1992 , but it was actually proposed by Congress in 1789 . " Beat up but not beaten , " Giffords speaks in first TV interview since shooting Ten months after a gunman shot her at point ##AT##-##AT## blank range at a constituent event in Tucson , Rep. Gabrielle Gifffords ( D ##AT##-##AT## Ariz . ) appeared on national television Monday night , sang along to the Broadway show tune " The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow " and said she wanted to get better more than she wanted to return to Congress . Appearing on ABC News 's " 20 / 20 " with Diane Sawyer , Giffords struggled to formed sentences and needed help walking . The show documented her difficult journey back from the damage inflicted by a bullet that fractured her skull and pierced the left side of her brain , passing from the front to the back of her head . Three months ago , she made a surprise return to the House to triumphantly cast her vote on the debt ##AT##-##AT## ceiling deal . In her first television interview since the January shooting that killed six and wounded 13 , Giffords smiled , laughed and sang - and described her recovery as " difficult . " Asked by Sawyer how she feels , Giffords , 41 , responded , " Pretty good . " The interview with Giffords and her husband , astronaut Mark Kelly , was part of an hour ##AT##-##AT## long " 20 / 20 " special that aired on the eve of the release of the couple 's new book , " Gabby : A Story of Courage and Hope . " The special traced Giffords 's recovery since the Jan. 8 shooting . In videos shot by Kelly in the first few weeks , she is seen in her hospital bed , her head shaved and a long scar across her forehead . She is capable only of holding up one or two fingers as her husband encourages her . Months later , Giffords is seen sitting up in a wheelchair as therapists teach her how to perform simple actions . A nod of the head . A pucker of the lips . And then , her first word : " What . " Within days , Giffords uttered another word - " toast , " a request for a change in her breakfast menu . Videos aired by ABC show that music played a central role in Giffords 's recovery : The congresswoman is seen singing along with therapists to Cyndi Lauper 's " Girls Just Wanna Have Fun " and Tom Petty 's " Free Fallin . " " In the interview with Sawyer , Giffords , who goes through two hours of therapy every day , said she has no memory of the day of the shooting . Her husband said that he was reading Giffords a newspaper story about the shooting on March 12 when she stopped him to ask for the first time about the six who had been killed in the incident . Suspected gunman Jared Lee Loughner is being held at a Missouri prison and is being forcibly medicated as he awaits trial . " A lot of people died , " Giffords told Sawyer . " Tough , tough , tough . " At one point in his wife 's recovery , Kelly told Sawyer , she said , " I 've been beaten . " " So , I would say , " Gabby , you have not been beaten , " " Kelly said . You 've just been beat up . And you 're going to get through this , and you 're going to recover and you 're going to come back stronger than ever . Troops feel more pity than respect The event was a Wall Street gala that raised millions of dollars for homeless veterans in New York City . Kid Rock sang a ballad about helplessness , frustration and loss . On cue , several hundred soldiers , sailors , airmen and Marines strode into position around him . The black ##AT##-##AT## tie crowd rose to its feet and cheered . " The servicemen and women were regarded as heroes , " said David Saltzman , who organized the spring fundraiser . A senior military officer at the gala , also attended by the Joint Chiefs then ##AT##-##AT## chairman , Adm. Mike Mullen , saw the troops " role differently . " They were rolled out like some sort of orphan kid , " the officer wrote in an e ##AT##-##AT## mail . I 'm sure the organizers meant well . I know they did . But it wasn 't respect , really . It was pity . The starkly conflicting impressions illustrate the uneasy relationship that has taken hold between the military and an often distant , sometimes adoring American public . The troops are lavished with praise for their sacrifices . But the praise comes with a price , service members say . The public increasingly acts as if it feels sorry for those in uniform . " We aren 't victims at all , " said Brig. Gen. Sean B. MacFarland , who commanded troops in Iraq and will soon leave for Afghanistan . " But it seems that the only way that some can be supportive is to cast us in the role of hapless souls . " The topic is a sensitive one for military leaders , who do not want to appear ungrateful or at odds with the public they serve . They also realize that the anger that returning troops faced in the latter years of the Vietnam War was far worse . As a result , most of the conversations about pity take place quietly and privately among combat veterans . After his two sons returned from combat tours with the Marines , retired Col. Mark Cancian warned them that people outside the military would view their service from two perspectives . Some would look at them with a sense of awe because they faced down insurgents and traveled to exotic places . Others would wonder whether there was an " angry , violent veteran beneath the surface , " said Cancian , who fought in Iraq and returned to a senior government job in Washington . During his job search , he said , he sensed that some interviewers had subtly inquired whether he would be able to hold up under the strain of a demanding Washington job immediately after his combat tour . " When you talk about your service , you need to counter the negative impressions , " Cancian recalled telling his sons . The military 's unease springs , in part , from American indifference to the wars . Battlefield achievements are rarely singled out for praise by a country that has little familiarity with the military and sees little direct benefit from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars . " We , as a nation , no longer value military heroism in ways that were entirely common in World War II , " said retired Lt. Gen. David Barno , who commanded U.S. troops in Afghanistan . Instead , praise from politicians and the public focuses largely on the depth of a service member 's suffering . Troops are recognized for the number of tours they have endured , the number of friends they have lost or the extent of their injuries . Military Faces Mounting Pressure to Crack Down on Rape This week , a landmark hearing will decide whether 28 women and men have a case against the military for alleged inaction on rape . If not , hundreds of plaintiffs are lining up for the next one . Pfc. Elizabeth Lyman was 25 years old and 11 weeks pregnant the night she says she was raped by a fellow soldier . It was October 2008 , and she was heading back to her barracks at Miramar Air Station , just north of San Diego , after dinner with a friend when she ran into a male colleague carrying a 12 ##AT##-##AT## pack of beer . He asked if he could join her in her room for a drink . " A red flag went up , " Lyman says . But the Texas native brushed aside her concern . I thought , no , he 's 19 . " He 's from Texas , " she says . " I wish I had listened to my instincts . " Within minutes of entering Lyman 's room , the man came up from behind her , throwing her down and raping her , she alleges . This week , on Nov. 18 , Lyman and 27 other current and former military personnel will anxiously await a court ruling in a historic hearing to be held in Arlington , Va . , that will decide whether a suit they have brought against former defense secretary Robert Gates and his predecessor , Donald Rumsfeld , will go to trial . The suit alleges that Gates and Rumsfeld failed to curtail widespread rape within the military , in violation of soldiers " constitutional rights . Filed in February by Susan Burke , a Washington , D.C. , attorney , the suit initially involved 17 plaintiffs but grew to 28 in the following months - 25 women and three men , all of whom allege that they were raped or sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers , and that the military failed to investigate , prosecute , or provide adequate justice after the alleged attacks . Burke says she is going after the military 's top brass because the problem begins with them . " The military is a top ##AT##-##AT## down structure , " she says . " Who are the individuals who are in the position to eradicate the culture of retaliation ? The top leadership . " Burke also says that since February , she has been contacted by nearly 400 other survivors , many of whom could be part of future suits . Her strategy : rather than piling all the plaintiffs into this case - putting all her eggs in one basket , so to speak - she will file multiple cases , if need be , to keep the pressure on . The defense team for the Department of Defense , led by United States Attorney Neil MacBride , has filed a motion to dismiss the case . The court papers , obtained by Newsweek , detail the defense strategy - essentially , that the military cannot be sued by current or former soldiers for injuries incurred in the armed forces . Per a 1950 Supreme Court ruling called the Feres Doctrine , the federal government is not liable for injury sustained by active ##AT##-##AT## duty personnel . " The alleged harms are incident to plaintiffs " military service , " the documents say . The Department of Defense declined to comment for this story . Things have changed since the ' 50s . While women are still officially prohibited from serving in combat , that distinction is in name only : modern wars rarely have clear front lines . In both Iraq and Afghanistan , teams of female soldiers are playing increasingly important roles , especially in reaching out to local women in war zones . The result : between those two wars , 150 female soldiers have died - two thirds of them during combat situations . It 's time for the military to modernize as well , Burke says . She isn 't alone in her fight ; three other lawsuits are under way in addition to hers . At Yale Law School , the Veterans " Legal Services Clinic is preparing a case against the four major military academies for allegedly fostering a misogynistic atmosphere . Separately , the nonprofit Vietnam Veterans of America is assembling a suit against the military that focuses on the " personality disorder " diagnoses assigned to rape victims in order to discharge them from service - a common occurrence , according to activists such as Anu Bhagwati of the Service Women 's Action Network , a human ##AT##-##AT## rights group . Her group filed a suit in December against the Veterans Administration , charging it with discriminatory practices in the way it handles benefit claims for people who say they were sexually assaulted in the service . Nine separate bills have been introduced in Congress by a bipartisan mix of senators and representatives , proposing a range of fixes . In 2010 there were 3,158 sexual assaults reported , according to the Department of Defense 's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office . But assaults are notoriously underreported , and by the Pentagon 's own estimate , that figure accounts for approximately 13.5 percent of the estimated 19,000 incidents that occurred that year . The report , released in March , also examines prosecution rates : in 2010 , 20 percent of reported cases in the military went to trial - half the rate of the civilian justice system . The plaintiffs in Burke 's case describe their attacks as just the first of a series of traumas . In Lyman 's case , she reported the alleged rape to military police less than an hour after it occurred . That night , she says , she was asked to recount the details of her rape 11 separate times to a stream of police , doctors , and commanders . She did a rape kit , and her assailant 's blood - from a cut on his arm - was found in her bed . Six months later , in April 2009 , Lyman sat through a hearing before a judge , during which she was questioned about having had sex with her boyfriend earlier on the day of the attack . Six people testified as character witnesses on behalf of the alleged perpetrator , who was eventually acquitted . " I remember the day when the verdict was read , " Lyman says . " I thought I was going to go into labor - I ran screaming from the courtroom . " " They put me into the psychiatric unit , and when I got out , I remember saying to my command officer , " That wasn 't his trial . That was my trial . " " Lyman was ordered to visit a military psychiatrist , who eventually diagnosed her with a personality disorder , rendering her unfit for service . In January 2010 she was discharged under less ##AT##-##AT## than ##AT##-##AT## honorable terms , preventing her from receiving any benefits . As for whether the case filed by Lyman and her fellow plaintiffs moves forward , it 's a long shot , says John Turley , professor of law at George Washington University Law School . However , he notes , " In my view they should be able to move forward . " What stands between them and a verdict is this doctrine that has been criticized since it was first issued . I 've been a lifelong critic of the Feres Doctrine . The military is decades behind because they don 't have the same incentive and deterrent posed by liability . He adds , " The odds are heavily against them ... but it 's important for them to try . " These things only change when good people are willing to fight . If the hearing doesn 't go their way , Burke , the plaintiffs " lawyer , will cue up her hundreds of other plaintiffs for future cases . " We will continue battling the military on this issue until reform occurs , " she says . Or until we die , whichever comes first . Walls Have Eyes : How Researchers Are Studying You on Facebook Before he became the new face of right ##AT##-##AT## wing extremism in Europe , Anders Behring Breivik was just another guy airing his anti ##AT##-##AT## immigration views online . On Monday , Breivik , who admitted to a killing spree in Norway in July which left 77 people dead , faced his first public court hearing . While Breivik may have acted alone , he was far from alone in cyberspace : he had spent much of the time leading up to his attack at his computer , chatting with some of the millions of nationalists who support right ##AT##-##AT## wing groups on social ##AT##-##AT## networking sites . After this summer 's tragedy , researchers wanted to find out more about these people . But how to find them ? Easy - just log on to Facebook . " We realized that it wasn 't that difficult to get to them at all , " says Jamie Bartlett , the lead author of a recently published report on European digital populism by British think tank DEMOS . Facebook 's stash of personal information is so encyclopedic , says Bartlett , that the researchers could simply use the site 's advertising tool to pinpoint their desired demographic with scientific accuracy - the way marketers have been doing for years . Bartlett 's team found half a million fans of right ##AT##-##AT## wing groups across Europe and then targeted them with ads , but instead of linking to a new band or diet product , the ads invited users to complete a survey that asked questions about their education level , attitudes towards violence and optimism about their own future . By reaching out through Facebook , Bartlett and his colleagues were able to survey over 10,000 followers of 14 far ##AT##-##AT## right parties in 11 European countries - all without ever leaving the office . " It 's quite a new way of doing research , " Bartlett says . Some of the results aren 't all that surprising : online supporters of right ##AT##-##AT## wing groups tend to be young , male , and vexed by immigration . But in something of a twist , " those who combine their online activism with offline activism are more reasonable , more democratic and less violent than those who just remain behind the computer screen . " DEMOS 's work is just one example of how Facebook is becoming a hot new tool in the hands of scientists . Think tanks , medical researchers and political scientists are using the site to study everything from health issues to social trends as expressed in ' Likes ' , wall posts and status updates . With over 800 million active users adding an average of three pieces of content per day , the Facebook " data supernova " is generating a research boom , driving the number of academic papers with the site 's name in the title up almost 800 % over the past five years . For some researchers , the beauty of Facebook is that it lets you study people you couldn 't approach with a clipboard on the street . " Before , when you tried to survey people from the British National Party , it would be very difficult to identify them . " " You 'd have to go through the party and they would never allow you access , " says Bartlett . " Facebook cuts all that out - you go to them directly . " Others say the site could offer a way to identify and tackle social ##AT##-##AT## health problems . A recent study by Dr. Megan Moreno of the University of Wisconsin , Madison and her colleagues found that undergraduates who discussed their drunken exploits on Facebook were significantly more at risk for problem drinking than students who were silent on the topic . Moreno suggests that students ' peers , such as residential advisors , could monitor the site and intervene to help a student who posts one too many boozy status updates . " You can 't treat a problem if you can 't diagnose it , " Dimitri Christakis , Moreno 's co ##AT##-##AT## author and director of the Center for Child Health , Behavior and Development at the Seattle Children 's Research Institute , told the Washington Post . " We 've found a way to identify kids at risk who would not otherwise be diagnosed . " Facebook , too , is constantly tapping into its own population for data . The site 's Data Team has worked up stats on relationship status and Valentine 's Day , voter turnout in the 2010 midterms , and a National Happiness Index ( mainly using information only it can access - champions of digital freedom have long held that the site should make its vast trove of data available to others for research . ) But Facebook 's users know the site is watching them , whether they like it or not - the trade off for being able to play Scrabble with a friend thousands of miles away is allowing the site to mine your personal information . But what about when Facebook users become part of a survey they don 't even know about ? While researchers have well ##AT##-##AT## defined guidelines about how they collect their data offline , online it 's a free ##AT##-##AT## for ##AT##-##AT## all . " I don 't think a lot of users had even thought about the fact that a researcher could be looking at their profiles , " says Neil Selwyn , a sociologist at the London Knowledge Lab , of a 2006 study he conducted using students ' public Facebook walls . " As far as they were concerned , it was just between them and their friends . " Then there 's the question of methodology . Even offline , there 's no guarantee that a research subject is being completely honest . On Facebook , it 's impossible to know how much of a user 's profile information and wall posts are true . " What you say on Facebook and what you do outside of Facebook are two completely different things , " says Selwyn . Which is why , despite his years as a technology researcher , Selwyn thinks a clipboard and a pen are still the best research tools anyone can use . " There 's no substitute for going into the real world and speaking to real people , " he says . " Social research is supposed to be about the social - and a hell of a lot of the social still takes place offline . " " Cold and Inhuman " : Anders Behring Breivik Makes First Public Court Appearance Anders Behring Breivik , the man who confessed to masterminding twin attacks that killed 77 people in Norway this summer , has described himself as a " resistance " fighter during his first public court appearance in Oslo . " I am a military commander in the Norwegian resistance movement and Knights Templar Norway , " he said before a courtroom packed with 500 people . " I object to the court because you received your mandate from organizations that support hate ideology and because it supports multiculturalism . " " I acknowledge the acts but I do not plead guilty . " Judge Torkjel Nesheim interrupted Breivik during that monologue because he " did not want to give Breivik the opportunity to use this hearing as a platform for him to express his views . " For the same reason he refused to allow Breivik , who brought a pre ##AT##-##AT## written speech with him , to address the relatives of his victims at the end of the hearing . Nesheim also ordered police to hold Breivik in custody for 12 more weeks , banned him from accessing media for four weeks , and said that authorities will have tight control over all visits and correspondence for eight weeks . Around 30 survivors and victims " relatives attended the hearing . Some came hoping to look Breivik in the eye , others to confirm that he is being held under lock and key . All attended with the goal of moving toward closure . " I thought he seemed cold and inhuman , " one Utoya survivor told Norwegian broadcaster NRK . " It was uncomfortable , but for me I moved on a little bit after seeing and hearing the suspect . " Dressed in a dark suit and blue tie , Breivik remained calm and professional throughout the hearing and looked journalists and survivors in the eye as he entered and exited the building . Despite Breivik 's bizarre notion of being part of a larger " resistance " movement , the judge determined that he is not insane , and said that there is no evidence he acted with accomplices . It may comfort some that the July 22 attacks seem to be the work of one extremist rather than a group of radicals . But that doesn 't automatically ease the grief and confusion that an entire nation still feels . " I wish he looked like a monster , but he doesn 't , " a relative of one victim said . " It would be so much easier if he did . " 7 Lessons From the Lost Steve Jobs Interview , Showing at a Theater This Week Following the death of Steve Jobs on Oct. 5 , there were some who compared him to Henry Ford - singling out the tech genius as the Great Modern Inventor . But what Apple fans might find most revealing in a recently rediscovered Jobs interview dusted off in advance of special movie screenings in major markets this week , is how much this creative mind understood about business processes and product workflows . He was certainly a designer , dreamer and self ##AT##-##AT## identified hippie , but he was also a meticulous organizer and flow ##AT##-##AT## chart tweaker - a man who believed that many business executives suffered from " a disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90 percent of the work ... [ but ] there 's a tremendous amount of craftsmanship between a great idea and a great product . " Back in 1995 , Bob Cringely was developing the TV series Triumph of the Nerds about the dawn of the personal computer , and he sat down for more than an hour with Jobs for a rare , extended conversation . At that point in time it had been roughly 10 years since Jobs had been forced out of Apple , and he was already hard at work at his new computer company NeXT , looking forward to the popular adoption of the Internet . While a small portion of Cringely 's interview was used in Nerds , he says that the interview 's master copies went missing in shipping . It was only following Jobs " death that a complete VHS copy was discovered in the director 's garage . This footage , slightly re ##AT##-##AT## edited , is the basis of the 68 ##AT##-##AT## minute Steve Jobs : The Lost Interview , coming to Landmark Theaters this Wednesday and Thursday . For someone known to loathe in ##AT##-##AT## depth interviews , Jobs seems surprisingly eager here to expound on his technological philosophies and business strategies . And incredibly thoughtful . At four different points during the interview , there are major gaps between questions and answers - 10 to 15 ##AT##-##AT## second ruminations , where Jobs is clearly weighing his thoughts , aiming for precision . There are also moments where Jobs " perfectionism rises to the surface , where he seems impatient about Cringely 's questions , nudging him to move faster towards issues or subplots of greater import . Filmed before the era of Pixar , the iPod or the iPhone , there 's something eerily prescient about the Lost Interview , as Jobs assesses what he sees other companies doing right and wrong , and offers his own vision of the future of computing . It 's one thing to read posthumous appraisals of Jobs " career , but there 's something raw and inspiring about the Jobs we see here , the anxious dreamer on the brink of greatness . He has a vision for the way things could be and should be . Not long after spelling it all out here he went and did it . A quick rundown of seven notable Lost Interview sequences : On how he learned to run a business : " Throughout the years in business , I 'd always ask : " Why do you do things ? " and the answers you invariably get are : " Oh , that 's just the way it 's done . " " Nobody knows why they do what they do , nobody thinks about things very deeply in business . That 's what I found . Jobs goes on to detail his efforts to streamline accounting at Apple . Baffled by the way costs were recorded - often beginning with a " standard cost " that amounted to a blind guess , which was then adjusted with a " variance " - he developed an automated factory that ensured they could determine business costs down to the second . On pranking the Pope : Jobs recounts the " Blue Box " that he built with Steve Wozniak - a device that allowed people to effectively hack the phone company and make long distance calls for free . The device has been widely written about before , but Jobs " euphoria here in describing the Blue Box as an act of empowerment is infectious . He describes how he and Wozniak would test the box by using a pay phone , placing a call , and then connecting from one AT & T network to another while looping in as many satellites as possible . " We were wrapping things around the globe a half dozen times and you would yell through the pay phone and it would come through a minute later in the pay phone next door , " Jobs says with a giggle . " We were young and what we learned was that we could build something ourselves that could control billions of dollars of infrastructure around the world . " Us two , we didn 't know much , but we could build a little thing that could control a giant thing - it was an incredible lesson , and I don 't think there would have ever been Apple without it . Jobs goes on to detail one glorious prank that he and Wozniak nearly pulled of , ringing the Vatican via the Blue Box in the middle of the night and requesting to speak to the Pope , while doing their very best impression of Henry Kissinger . As various members of the Catholic hierarchy were summoned in the middle of the night to talk to the American diplomat , the two burst into giggles just before the Pope himself was roused to come answer the phone . On falling in love with technology ( and cold ##AT##-##AT## calling Bill Hewlett ) : At the age of 12 , on the hunt for spare parts to build a frequency counter , he looked up Bill Hewlett in the phone book and gave him a call . Not long after their 20 ##AT##-##AT## minute phone conversation , Jobs landed a part ##AT##-##AT## time summer job at Hewlett ##AT##-##AT## Packard . " That made a remarkable influence on me , it was the only company I had seen at that age and it formed my view of what a company was and how well they treated their employees . " Jobs later became one of the HP employees to visit the company 's Palo Alto research labs , where he saw " the first desktop computer ever made . " It was as big as a suitcase , had a small cathode ray tube display , and I fell in love with it . I would get a ride up to HP as a teenager and hang around that machine and write programs for it . On improvising innovation : At several points in the interview , Jobs talks about inventing new products on the fly . Early in his career , as he set out to sell a handful of circuit boards , he was asked by a customer to assemble the full computer . Working on only 30 days of credit , he had to figure out both the assembly and delivery of the finished devices . Later while at Apple , he recalls the struggles he faced in developing a computer mouse : " I remember having dramatic arguments ... they were screaming at me that it would take five years [ to build a mouse that would cost $ 300 ] , and I got fed up and went outside and found a designer . " Ninety days later , we had a mouse we could build for $ 15 that was incredibly reliable . On great companies losing steam : Long before he led the revival of Apple , Jobs presciently foresaw the ways in which so many industry leaders would stumble in their vision , and lose control of their market share . " Say you work at IBM or Xerox , so you make a better copier or printer , so what ? " You have a monopoly of the market share , so the company 's not more successful . Sales and marketing makes it more successful , so [ it 's those kinds of people ] who end up running companies and the product people get driven out of the decision ##AT##-##AT## making forum . The product genius that led to that monopolistic position is rotted out by people who have no conception of good products vs. bad products - the craftsmanship required . That 's what happened at Xerox ... Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry . It could have been ten times its size , could have been the Microsoft of the 90s ... They grabbed defeat from victory . On innovation as art form : " There 's a tremendous amount of craftsmanship between a great idea and a great product ... as you evolve that great idea , it changes and grows . " You learn a lot about the subtleties of it . There are tradeoffs you have to make - certain things you can 't make electrons do , glass do , robots do , factories do . You have to keep 5,000 things in your brain - these concepts - fitting them all together ... Ultimately it comes down to taste - it comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best stuff humans have done , and then trying to bring those things in to what you 're doing . Picasso said that good artists copy , great artists steal . We 've always been shameless about stealing great ideas . It 's part of what made the Macintosh great , was that the people who were working on it were musicians , poets , artists , zoologists , historians who just happened to be the best computer scientists in the world . If not for computer science , they would be doing amazing things in other fields . Scalia and Thomas dine with healthcare law challengers as court takes case The day the Supreme Court gathered behind closed doors to consider the politically divisive question of whether it would hear a challenge to President Obama 's healthcare law , two of its justices , Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas , were feted at a dinner sponsored by the law firm that will argue the case before the high court . The occasion was last Thursday , when all nine justices met for a conference to pour over the petitions for review . One of the cases at issue was a suit brought by 26 states challenging the sweeping healthcare overhaul passed by Congress last year , a law that has been a rallying cry for conservative activists nationwide . The justices agreed to hear the suit ; indeed , a landmark 5 1 / 2 ##AT##-##AT## hour argument is expected in March , and the outcome is likely to further roil the 2012 presidential race , which will be in full swing by the time the court 's decision is released . The lawyer who will stand before the court and argue that the law should be thrown out is likely to be Paul Clement , who served as U.S. solicitor general during the George W. Bush administration . Clement 's law firm , Bancroft PLLC , was one of almost two dozen firms that helped sponsor the annual dinner of the Federalist Society , a longstanding group dedicated to advocating conservative legal principles . Another firm that sponsored the dinner , Jones Day , represents one of the trade associations that challenged the law , the National Federation of Independent Business . Another sponsor was pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc , which has an enormous financial stake in the outcome of the litigation . The dinner was held at a Washington hotel hours after the court 's conference over the case . In attendance was , among others , Mitch McConnell , the Senate 's top Republican and an avowed opponent of the healthcare law . The featured guests at the dinner ? Scalia and Thomas . It 's nothing new : The two justices have been attending Federalist Society events for years . And it 's nothing that runs afoul of ethics rules . In fact , justices are exempt from the Code of Conduct that governs the actions of lower federal justices . If they were , they arguably fell under code 's Canon 4C , which states , " A judge may attend fund ##AT##-##AT## raising events of law ##AT##-##AT## related and other organizations although the judge may not be a speaker , a guest of honor , or featured on the program of such an event . " Nevertheless , the sheer proximity of Scalia and Thomas to two of the law firms in the case , as well as to a company with a massive financial interest , was enough to alarm ethics ##AT##-##AT## in ##AT##-##AT## government activists . " This stunning breach of ethics and indifference to the code belies claims by several justices that the court abides by the same rules that apply to all other federal judges , " said Bob Edgar , the president of Common Cause . " The justices were wining and dining at a black ##AT##-##AT## tie fundraiser with attorneys who have pending cases before the court . " Their appearance and assistance in fundraising for this event undercuts any claims of impartiality , and is unacceptable . Scalia and Thomas have shown little regard for critics who say they too readily mix the business of the court with agenda ##AT##-##AT## driven groups such as the Federalist Society . And Thomas " wife , Ginni , is a high ##AT##-##AT## profile conservative activist . Moreover , conservatives argue that it 's Justice Elena Kagan who has an ethical issue , not Scalia and Thomas . Kagan served as solicitor general in the Obama administration when the first legal challenges to the law were brought at the trial court level . Her critics have pushed for Kagan to recuse herself from hearing the case , saying that she was too invested in defending the law then to be impartial now . Kagan has given no indication she will do so . Boeing gets record $ 18 ##AT##-##AT## billion jetliner order Emirates airline orders 50 twin ##AT##-##AT## aisle Boeing 777 jetliners with an option for 20 more . Boeing also sells six Boeing Dreamliners to Oman Air , a deal worth more than $ 1 billion . It 's rarely news when a company gets an order for 50 units of its product . But it 's a big deal when the company is airplane ##AT##-##AT## maker Boeing Co. and the list price for those 50 airplanes totals a record $ 18 billion . Just as big is where Boeing got the order : the Middle East , a growing gold mine of future airplane orders . In a forecast released Monday , the Chicago company estimates that airlines in the Middle East over the next 20 years will need 2,520 airplanes worth $ 450 billion . Boeing over the weekend announced its biggest ##AT##-##AT## ever order by dollar value for commercial airplanes - 50 twin ##AT##-##AT## aisle Boeing 777 jets . The blockbuster order came from Emirates airline in Dubai . The airline also has an option to buy 20 more planes , which would push the total list price to $ 26 billion , Boeing announced at the 2011 Dubai Air Show . Then on Monday , Boeing said Oman Air ordered six Boeing 787 ##AT##-##AT## 8s , the so ##AT##-##AT## called Dreamliner , which boasts dramatically better fuel economy and passenger amenities . List price for six of those is more than $ 1 billion . " This is clearly a huge positive for Boeing , " Morningstar analyst Neal Dihora said . " The quality of these particular customers is pretty strong . " Many Middle East airlines are owned by their oil ##AT##-##AT## producing nations . So , not only do they have the money to pay for planes , but a surge in fuel prices - usually damaging to airlines because it 's one of their biggest costs - is not as detrimental because the country is making money on the higher price of oil . That 's important because they will be less likely than other airlines to cancel or delay airplane orders when fuel prices rise , Dihora said . " They have a natural hedge , " he said . The Emirates order solidifies Boeing 's lead in the market for wide ##AT##-##AT## body planes and helps hold at bay competitor Airbus SAS ' attempt to encroach on its dominance with the A350 airliner . Boeing 's win at the air show comes four months after Airbus said it would push back the debut of the largest A350 , which competes directly with the 777 ##AT##-##AT## 300ER . It delayed the debut to add more thrust after customers demanded more payload and range . Boeing Co shares rose 1.5 % to $ 67.94 . Mexico president 's sister apparently defeated in Michoacan vote Luisa Maria Calderon alleges that drug traffickers helped opponent Fausto Vallejo of the PRI in the governor 's race . President Felipe Calderon 's sister appears to have lost her bid for governor of Michoacan during violent state elections , and she alleged Monday that drug traffickers helped tip the race in favor of one of her opponents . Preliminary results gave the lead in the race for governor of the western state to Fausto Vallejo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party , or PRI . " The intervention by organized crime during the entire election process and especially yesterday is alarming , not just for Michoacan but for the entire country , " Luisa Maria Calderon said in a radio interview a day after Sunday 's vote . " They threatened our candidates , our poll workers .... They seized ballot boxes , set up roadblocks ... and ordered people to vote " for the PRI . The PRI ruled Mexico for seven decades until losing the presidency in 2000 . But it is staging a comeback , and victory in Michoacan is an important step in that effort . The PRI is hoping to win the presidential election in July . Vallejo appears to have only narrowly edged out Calderon , who had led polls before election day . Calderon , a candidate for her brother 's conservative National Action Party , or PAN , refused to recognize Vallejo as the winner . Silvano Aureoles , the candidate for the leftist Democratic Revolution Party , or PRD , which currently holds the governorship , came in third , a bad defeat for the divided and hapless left ahead of the 2012 presidential vote . Aureoles also refused to recognize the preliminary results . Vallejo , former mayor of the state capital of Morelia , denied ties to drug traffickers and urged the other candidates to accept the results . Michoacan has long been dominated by drug cartels specializing in marijuana , heroin and methamphetamines . It is President Calderon 's home state , and he chose Michoacan to launch a military ##AT##-##AT## led offensive against traffickers in December 2006 . Yet violence has persisted . A PAN mayor was assassinated a week before the election as he campaigned for Luisa Maria Calderon , and numerous candidates quit local races out of fear . For the PRI , though , however nasty the Michoacan election looks , a win will help the party 's momentum . The man expected to represent the PRI in the presidential race , Enrique Pena Nieto , speaking from Washington , congratulated Vallejo and said , " I think this victory should be very encouraging , looking ahead to next year . " ADB urges Asia to help rescue eurozone The Asian Development Bank has called for India and China to be ready to help rescue the eurozone from its sovereign debt crisis to avoid a long ##AT##-##AT## term downturn that will stunt the growth of Asian economies . Rajat Nag , the managing director of the Manila ##AT##-##AT## based ADB , said the world 's two fastest ##AT##-##AT## growing large economies had to " do all they can " to speed the recovery of the the currency bloc either through the International Monetary Fund or direct bilateral arrangements . He warned against Bric [ Brazil , Russia , India , China ] countries looking at Europe 's difficulties in a " dispassionate way " and said that Asian financial assistance alongside European leadership and resources would help avoid a long ##AT##-##AT## term breakdown in the global economy . " We are all in this together . " " So anybody who can help Europe get out of the crisis is useful , " he told the Financial Times in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Mumbai . " Asia may be shielded to some extent but it cannot be immune . " " So if China and India can help , by all means . " Europe 's monetary union has been badly undermined by a sovereign debt crisis in past months . In recent days , Italy 's borrowing costs have soared dangerously and the prime ministers of both Italy and Greece have resigned . The unfolding sovereign debt crisis in Europe has raised fears that it could push the global economy back into recession and prompted calls for leading emerging economies to band together to help the eurozone find a solution . Mr Nag predicted that any Asian support would be channelled through the IMF , but said bilateral assistance -- like buying the bonds of the EU 's bail ##AT##-##AT## out fund , the European financial stability facility -- offered greater bargaining power to Europe 's Asian partners . Anand Sharma , India 's minister of trade , said that " India will do whatever it can " to help the eurozone as its own economy was now suffering falling exports and a drying up of foreign capital inflows . " Nobody wants the eurozone to remain unstable and turbulent , " he said . " We have monumental challenges and we have to sustain a high level of growth . " " It is not an option , it is an imperative , because where do we find employment for tens of millions of our young men and women . " Others argue that developing economies like India have no business helping wealthy Europeans when they face their own profound economic challenges . Ashutosh Varshney , a professor at Brown University in the US , said it would be politically very difficult to sell assistance to Europe to India 's 1.2bn people , of whom as many as 800m live on about $ 2 a day or less . " Sometime they will find out that Greeks retire at the age of 50 and go on holiday to beaches and it won 't go down well , " he said . Lee Howell , the managing director of the World Economic Forum , likewise questioned why India 's reserves should be used to keep Greece 's numerous and well ##AT##-##AT## paid public sector workers in jobs in poorly managed , loss ##AT##-##AT## making utilities like the railways . Mr Nag said that the eurozone crisis threatened " significant knock ##AT##-##AT## on effects " across Asia . The ADB 's forecast of 7.5 per cent economic growth in Asia for 2011 / 12 now faced " risks on the downside " because of the threat from Europe . He said vulnerable emerging markets needed to make " contingency plans " to protect themselves from a downturn and significant capital outflows from their economies . Dire warnings from Pentagon over potential defense cuts Defense Secretary Leon Panetta turned up the heat on Congress Monday , warning that looming automatic budget cuts would undermine national security and set off a financial chain reaction from the hallways of the Pentagon , to the battlefields of Afghanistan , to civilian assembly lines . The Pentagon already is digesting $ 450 billion of reductions over the next decade but now fears an additional $ 600 billion or more in cuts may be imminent if Congress cannot reach a deal on spending . " The impacts of these cuts would be devastating for the department , " Panetta said in a letter to Sens. John McCain , R ##AT##-##AT## Arizona , and Lindsey Graham , R ##AT##-##AT## South Carolina . He said that congressional failure to reach a budget agreement and the resulting so ##AT##-##AT## called sequestration would trigger 23 % across ##AT##-##AT## the ##AT##-##AT## board reductions and a halt to many new projects . " Such a large cut , applied in this indiscriminate manner , would render most of our ship and construction projects unexecutable -- you cannot buy three quarters of a ship or a building -- and seriously damage other modernization efforts , " Panetta wrote to the senators . " We would also be forced to separate many of our civilian personnel involuntarily and , because the reduction would be imposed so quickly , we would almost certainly have to furlough civilians in order to meet the target . " " These changes would break faith with those who maintain our military and seriously damage readiness . " The cuts would eventually hit combat troops , Panetta said . " While wartime funding in the Overseas Contingency Operations accounts is not directly affected by the sequester , war efforts would be adversely affected by the severe disruption in the base budgets , " Panetta warned . " Contracting personnel would be cut , resulting in delays in the contracts and the contract oversight that support the war . " " Payroll personnel would be cut , resulting in late payments to wartime vendors , and legal and policy support would be disrupted . " The two senators had written Panetta 10 days ago , asking for details of the potential impact of the automatic cuts on the Defense Department . " The consequence of a sequester on the Defense Department would set off a swift decline of the United States as the world 's leading military power . " " We are staunchly opposed to this draconian action , " the senators said in a joint statement Monday afternoon when they released Panetta 's letter . " This is not an outcome that we can live with , and it is certainly not one that we should impose on ourselves . " " The sequester is a threat to the national security interests of the United States , and it should not be allowed to occur . " Whether the Panetta letter and the fresh warnings from Senators will increase pressure for a budget compromise or step up calls to exempt the Pentagon from cuts remains to be seen . Panetta has been increasingly outspoken about the possible cuts , although he came to the top Pentagon job with years of budget expertise himself in Congress and the White House and knowing that he was facing tough choices . At a news conference last week , the secretary of defense painted a bleak picture of what could lie ahead -- a military with a shell but no core . " It 's a ship without sailors . " " It 's a brigade without bullets . " " It 's an air wing without enough trained pilots . " " It 's a paper tiger , an Army of barracks , buildings and bombs without enough trained soldiers able to accomplish the mission , " Panetta said in his opening remarks at the Pentagon . " It 's a force that suffers low morale , poor readiness and is unable to keep up with potential adversaries . " " In effect , it invites aggression .. " In an addendum to his letters to McCain and Graham , Panetta spelled out new specifics of how reductions " generate significant operational risks : delay response time to crises , conflicts , and disasters ; severely limits our ability to be forward deployed and engaged around the world ; and assumes unacceptable risk in future combat operations . " And Panetta said that some of the biggest defense projects could face the ax , including those already being tested and some just in early stages of planning . That list included the F35 Joint Strike Fighter , a planned new bomber , the next ##AT##-##AT## generation ballistic submarine , the new littoral combat ship and the new ground combat vehicle the Army and Marines need to replace the humvee . Halting further development and testing the F35 could generate some $ 80 billion in savings over 10 years but its supporters say it is a vital next step to upgrade and meet potential threats from China and other rivals . How to spot a lie A glance at recent headlines indicates just how serious and pervasive deceit and lying are in daily life . Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is busy trading allegations of sexual harassment with several women ; each side accuses the other of lying . Administrators at Penn State have been charged with perjury for allegedly covering up reports that a retired football coach was sexually assaulting boys . Last week French president Nicolas Sarkozy was caught on an open microphone asserting to U.S. President Barack Obama that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a liar . Lying has destroyed careers and convulsed countries . New York congressman and Internet flasher Anthony Weiner made a fool of himself issuing denials quickly contradicted by incontrovertible evidence . Former presidential candidate John Edwards has been charged with campaign finance violations connected to the cover ##AT##-##AT## up of an extramarital affair . And then again , no one who lived through it will ever forget the media circus President Bill Clinton unleashed by lying during his second term in office about his sexual involvement with Monica Lewinsky . Tales of cheating on school and college tests are rife . There have been instances where teachers have given students test answers in order to make themselves look good on their performance reviews . Mentors who should be teaching the opposite are sending a message that lying and cheating are acceptable . How much deceit do we encounter ? On a given day , studies show , you may be lied to anywhere from 10 to 200 times . Now granted , many of those are white lies . Another study showed that strangers lied three times within the first 10 minutes of meeting each other . Detecting lies , or " lie spotting , " is an essential skill for everyone to acquire , for both personal and professional reasons . Far from being a parlor game similar to , say , charades , where the object is to exclaim , " Gotcha , " deception detection is a serious branch of knowledge based on scientific data collected over the last six decades at prestigious universities conducting in ##AT##-##AT## depth research projects , especially in psychology and physiology . One result of the research is that most old myths about lying have been debunked . Liars do look you in the eye . They do not always stutter , stammer , blush or fidget . Don 't conclude from this that liars are hard to spot and difficult to unmask . A trained lie spotter can get to the truth by learning about statement structure , facial micro ##AT##-##AT## expressions , question formation and timing . I spent several years surveying the scientific findings in the vast and ever emerging body of knowledge on deception , and it is clear that deception detection is a modern skill that is easy to learn and helpful in navigating our complex world -- especially if your professional responsibilities include hiring , interviewing , negotiating or managing . Good liars are skilled at reading others well , putting them at ease , managing their own emotions and intuitively sensing how others perceive them . We know from research that extroverts lie more than introverts , that men tell more " self ##AT##-##AT## oriented " lies while women tell more " other ##AT##-##AT## oriented " lies -- usually to protect someone 's feelings -- that married people lie less frequently to their partners than unmarried people do ( but the lies they do tell tend to be " whoppers " ) . We also know that if you are perceived as a wrongdoer , others will feel less guilt in lying to you . How do you tell if someone is lying ? First , observe your subject 's normal behavior . This is called " baselining . " It helps provide a reference point for measuring changes later . Observe your subject 's posture , laugh , vocal quality . You 'd better know if someone normally taps their foot all the time so you don 't make unjust accusations when you see foot ##AT##-##AT## tapping in the middle of the meeting . Then look for clusters of deceptive verbal and nonverbal behaviors . Consider these clusters red flags , not proof of deception . Deceptive people might freeze their upper body when trying to remember their story , they might point their feet toward the door , lean toward an exit , shift their posture in significant ways or exhibit " post ##AT##-##AT## interview relief " -- that exaggerated exhale of relief and shift in posture when all the hard questions are over . Interrogators often falsely signal that an interview is over just to look for that post ##AT##-##AT## interview relief . Also , pay attention to your subject 's language . Scott Peterson famously slipped and used the past tense while claiming his murdered wife was alive , launching a nationwide search for her . Deceptive individuals might also use distancing language : " I did not have sexual relations with that woman ... Miss Lewinsky " or repeat a hard question in its entirety . The most common verbal indicators are subtle . Someone might use lots of " qualifying language " when answering a hard question : " Well ... to tell you the truth ... as far as I know ... to the best of my knowledge . " This renders the answer perceptual rather than factual and is often a red flag . There 's no magic bullet for detecting lies , but developing skills to ferret out deception is possible . These skills will enhance anyone 's chances of avoiding victimization by scam artists in their professional and personal lives . Controversial Oil Pipeline Plan to Be Rerouted After Threat of Delayed U.S. Approval Days after the Obama administration threatened to delay approval of a planned oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico -- angering unions while appeasing environmentalists -- the company seeking to build the pipeline says it 's willing to reroute the project to get it back on track . TransCanada said Monday evening it will move the planned pipeline out of the environmentally sensitive Sandhills area of Nebraska , and is confident the project will still win approval . The company announced the decision at a news conference at the Nebraska Capitol . TransCanada official Alex Pourbax says the company remains confident it will eventually get a pipeline approved , albeit with a different route . That comes after the State Department 's announcement last week that it would delay a decision on a federal permit for the project until it studies new potential routes that avoid the Sandhills areas of Nebraska and the Ogallala aquifer , a vast underground water supply . " This is a real path forward , " Rep. Lee Terry , a Republican from Nebraska , told Fox News . The new environmental review ordered by the State Department likely would push off any decision until 2013 , after next year 's elections , though officials denied that politics was involved in the decision . Obama , in a written statement last week , described the decision as the State Department 's call , and expressed support for it . The 1,700 ##AT##-##AT## mile pipeline would extend from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico . It would carry 700,000 barrels per day from the province of Alberta to refineries in Texas . To do so would require it crossing six states . It is hated by environmentalists but loved by labor groups , who have banked on the estimated 20,000 jobs tied to the pipeline . But Nebraska lawmakers opposed to the plan are weighing legislation to force a move away from the Sand Hills region and Ogallala aquifer , a major source of drinking water and irrigation . The State Department 's current Environmental Impact Study found the project would pose only limited adverse environmental impacts , but the energy industry source said the department 's inspector general has ordered a separate probe of the review process , centering on two questions . One is whether a lobbyist hired by TransCanada , Paul Elliott , who was a campaign adviser to Hillary Clinton in 2008 , represents a conflict of interest for the program . The other is whether a firm that was hired to conduct the original study was an inappropriate choice because it was tied to TransCanada . Patti LaBelle Sued for Allegedly Causing Toddler to Vomit out of Fear A New York family claims that disco diva Patti LaBelle launched into a rampage in the lobby of their Manhattan building , terrifying their toddler daughter to the point where she threw up in fear . The " Lady Marmalade " singer 's tirade frightened 18 ##AT##-##AT## month ##AT##-##AT## old Genevieve Monk so badly that she suffered " personality changes , sleep disorder " and " increased fear of strangers , " her family says in the Manhattan Supreme Court suit . It was Nov. 10 of last year when stagehand Kevin Monk , his kindergarten ##AT##-##AT## teacher wife , Roseanna , and Genevieve were getting ready to go on a family trip . While Kevin Monk got the car , Roseanna Monk came down to the lobby of their Riverside Boulevard building with their luggage , carrying Genevieve . Roseanna Monk said she stopped near the door and put her daughter down for a moment . " Someone came up behind me and said , " Do you know what your daughter is doing ? " I said " yes " and went to pick her up , " she said . LaBelle angrily admonished the pregnant woman . " She said in an aggressive tone , " You shouldn 't have left your daughter by the door , " " Roseanna Monk said . " I told her , " I have no interest in what you say or think . ' " She became enraged and started using profanities -- the C ##AT##-##AT## word and the F ##AT##-##AT## word in a loud voice ... She had a bottle of water and started flicking water from the bottle on me . She said Genevieve got hysterical . " I said to this woman , " Look what you 've done to my daughter , " " the child 's mother said . LaBelle lunged at the mom -- who was still holding Genevieve -- and had to be restrained by her entourage and pulled out to a waiting car , Roseanna Monk said . The tot was crying so hard that she vomited , she added . Later , the family sent a note asking for an apology from LaBelle but got no response . LaBelle 's lawyer and representatives did not return calls for comment . The suit seeks unspecified damages , but the family 's lawyer , Sam Davis , said he took the case for free and that the family plans to donate any money it gets to a children 's cancer charity . " The purpose is to hold Patti LaBelle responsible for her conduct , " Davis said . " That kind of behavior is completely unacceptable , especially when aimed at a kindergarten teacher carrying an 18 ##AT##-##AT## month ##AT##-##AT## old child . " The climatic adversity slowed down the economy During the first year of Mario Lopez Valdez management , in Sinaloa increased the unemployment and the informality , foreign investment declined and the economy was reduced . 2011 is a year that will be remembered in the economic history of Sinaloa , being related to the first year of Mario Lopez Valdez government also called the year of change , which generated great expectations as regards the development of the economy , but given the climatic adversity of the beginning of the year , there was no growth , however there was registered a decline in the main indicators of economic development . The low February temperatures , not only did they cause losses of millions for the agricultural sector , but they limited the possibilities of the state economy to grow , causing a contraction of the economic activity in general of 3.6 percent in the first half of the year , mainly supported by the historic fall of 31.16 per cent in agriculture , which affected the dynamics of other economic sectors . According to the report regarding the areas affected by the frost , issued by the Mexican Council for Sustainable Rural Development there were damaged 835.582 hectares , out of which 78.03 percent suffered total damage and the remaining of 21.07 percent had partial damage . The main damaged crops were the vegetables , corn and chickpea . The fall in the economic activity has generated , until November , a constant increase of the unemployment in the state , according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography , the unemployment state rate during the first three quarters of the year registered an accelerated growth , from January to March 55.053 Sinaloa habitants were unemployed , with a rate of 4.53 percent of the economically active population for the second quarter , the rate became 5.28 percent , and between July and September the average continued to increase to 6.19 percent , a rate that in terms of the number of people represents more than 74.000 of unemployed Sinaloa habitants , an increase compared to the first half of 18.969 individuals . Lower liquidity Unemployment in Sinaloa during the year is multi ##AT##-##AT## factorial , for the economist Gerardo Lopez Cervantes , director at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences of the UAS , the growth of unemployment can be explained indirectly , depending on the actions that the public policy has been taken . " What we 're seeing now is an increase of the unemployment that has to do with several factors , including the loss of liquidity in the market for the purpose of a resource constraint imposed by the legislation that passed in the Congress in order to combat money laundering since for the people who illegally possess dollars is not easy work with , invest and use them in something " he said . Stopped Immigration Lopez Cervantes said that in the increase of unemployment there is also a demographic factor . " The number of people who leaves the state in search of a job abroad , in the United States has been restricted , first of all due to the difficulties to enter , and second of all because once they enter they already have too many difficulties in finding a job , that group of people is staying and demanding jobs here , in the state , causing the rate of unemployment to rise , " he said . Informality The labor market analysis of Sinaloa gets worse when considering the high level of informality that prevails among the working conditions , according to INEGI , 60.38 percent of the active population in the state works without being quoted as workers to any social security institution . In addition to the unemployment and informality , another state labor reminder is represented by low wages ; the entity has the lowest wages in the country , according to the records of the Mexican Social Security Institute and the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare . The monthly average income of Sinaloa workers was , until September , 5.352 pesos , well below the national average , that is of 7.375 pesos . Contraction of FDI In addition to the fall in economic activity and high unemployment rate , in 2011 there was recorded the largest decline in foreign direct investment over the past 10 years , according to the Ministry of Finance from January to June the state FDI totaled 630.697 dollars , which represents a fall of 87.74 percent compared to the 5.143.312 dollars during the same period of last year . For its part , the Ministry of Economic Development of the State Government accounted a total investment of 17.280.000 pesos during the year , which occurred mainly in tertiary sector companies . Debt Against the backdrop of economic downturn , the state government asked in July during the state congress , the approval of a credit of 3 billion pesos , which would be for the investment in infrastructure projects in 18 municipalities , in order to reactivate the economy , the local congressional approval was for a total of 2.600 million pesos , and until November no benefits of the debt were observed in any sector of the state economy . Reactions For business representatives , the first year of Mario Lopez Valdes government demonstrates a lack of capacity of the government . Miguel Loredo Lopez , president of the National Chamber of Transformation Industry , said that during 2011 there was a lack of harmonization of the wills of various sectors , including the state government itself . " The performance of the economy in Sinaloa this year has been really poor , one has to work hard in order to regain the ground lost this year , in 2012 we must redouble our efforts , we failed to align the efforts of all and above all the good and synchronized motion of the new government team , we hope that next year will be much better " he said . Economic slowness Lopez Loredo said that the events such as early frost this year stopped the state economy and its performance and growth were restricted . " The low economic flow is the product of several events , including frost , one of the main effects has been a slow economy which does not turn fast enough for generating an economic dynamism that allows having an acceptable flow level of the processes , products and services and therefore , at the end of the year we are closing it below our expectations , " he said . Redefining the vocation Teodoro Salazar Uriarte , president of the Employers " Confederation of the Mexican Republic in Sinaloa , said that the state is required to prosecute the most dynamic productive activities . " Overall , we found that there has been working on , we believe it is necessary to develop a long term program that redefines the vocation and the economic course of the state , it is important to detonate all the material and human potential resource that Sinaloa has , " he said . Work to Do Coparmex President stressed the importance of establishing a future vision to guide better the efforts of the government . " Overall I would say that the Government has been striving to be successful in various fields , in terms of economic development there is some progress but it is important to develop a long ##AT##-##AT## term program , " he said . He noted that the current administration has shown progress in its own manner of leading the public policy . " There are elements that allow us saying that the government is becoming more inclusive , and what I can say is that there is work done and I think the government is aware that there is work to do , " he said . They condemn him for 8 kilograms of marijuana Five years in prison and a fine of 100 days was the sentence given to a Navolato citizen for the possession of eight kilos of marijuana . The General Attorney Office reported that the sentenced drug dealer is Omar Alexis Valenzuela Sandoval , for the crime against health , in its variant of possession of marijuana for purposes of trade . According to the record AP / SIN / CLN / 687 / 2010 / MI , Valenzuela Sandoval was arrested by the Mexican Army , the 7th of June 2010 , in a surveillance operation on the street Cipriano Valdez , in front of the post 80 in the town of El Castillo , Navolato . The drug dealer was driving a white pickup truck , where he was carrying a black bag in the box of the vehicle and on the passenger 's seat a small backpack , where the soldiers found eight kilograms and 23 grams of marijuana . For these reasons , the insured was put at the disposal of the Second District Court and the sentenced person continues to be a prisoner at the Center for Supporting the Legal Consequences of the Crime . There must be made contributions to works The social works referred to in the programs such as Habitat , Rescue of Public Spaces and 3x1 for migrants risk not to be completed or to have serious delays due to the lack of funds , said Miguel Angel Lopez Miranda . The Director of Municipal Social Development indicated that although so far the work programs have advanced they are at risk because the State Government failed to make the contributions that correspond , which represent a resource superior to 11 million pesos in all three programs . He noted that the total investment in these three programs is of nearly 50 million pesos , of which the State has to contribute with 25 percent and so far only the Federation and the Municipality have provided resources for the works , so the possible delay in the completion of these is in force . " They have to contribute with almost 12 million and even though the year is ending they have not given us a dime , since starting with July they had to give us a part , " he said , " in order not to delay we have started the works and they are very advanced , but we need the money . " He mentioned that last year , during the administration of Jesus Aguilar Padilla , the State did not comply with the contributions it had to make , so that at the beginning of the administration the municipality had to borrow money in order to cover more than 7 million , a sum that was not provided on that occasion by the state administration . " It happened to us in the previous administration because the State did not have the financial capacity to participate and the programs continued advancing , and this year in order to access these programs we had to get the resources to cover what the state left pending , " he explained . Although there is a commitment of the state authorities to comply with the delivery of these resources , he said that the request was made ​ ​ to the Secretary of Administration and Finance , Armando Villarreal , to speed up the efforts so that the percentages that correspond to them to come as quickly as possible . " They have to contribute with almost 12 million and even though the year is ending they have not given us a dime . " The court validates " digital television transition " in Mexico in 2015 The replacement of analog with digital is one of the most important changes that has hit the world in recent years The Supreme Court of Justice ( SCJ ) rejected the constitutional controversies brought by the Senate and House of Representatives against the presidential decree that brings forward the so ##AT##-##AT## called " digital television transition " from 2021 to 2015 , since the eight votes needed to invalidate it were not obtained . A minority of four ministers , including the President of the Court , Juan Silva Meza , considered that President Felipe Calderon did not exceed his authority by issuing a decree detailing the actions to take in order to achieve the transition to the digital terrestrial television . With this result , the constitutional controversy promoted by the Senate , was rejected for not meeting the qualified majority of eight votes for the Court to pronounce on the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the decree , and this remains in force . The sentence project prepared by the Minister Olga Sánchez Cordero , proposed to declare unconstitutional the decree , because the regulation of radio and television materials is a power reserved by law to the Federal Telecommunications Commission ( Cofetel ) , in violation of the principles of hierarchical subordination and law reserve . Only Zaldivar , Jorge Mario Pardo , Margarita Luna and Sánchez Cordero voted for the project . With this argument , both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies promoted two constitutional controversies to contradict the decree , and to support the claims , the minister Sánchez Cordero suspended the application of the decree and all actions stipulated there regarding the digital transition . At the ministers " meeting there was also decided to reject the claim filed by the Chamber of Deputies , without entering into the discussion of the project , also in charge of the minister Sánchez Cordero . In his speech , the minister said he did not agree with the arguments of the project in the sense that the federal executive cannot structure through general rules the measures for the public administration to get prepared . " Nor do I consider that if made would affect the autonomy of the regulatory body , " and recalled that the planning of public policies in strategic areas such as the telecommunications sector correspond to the federal executive , who has a constitutional mandate , the guidance of the State . The replacement of analog to digital is one of the most important changes that have hit the world in recent years , and results in a better utilization of the radio ##AT##-##AT## electric spectrum , better signal quality and more channels . Delaying the change , he said , would mean delaying the benefits of digitization , which involves a public interest decision , which has not only a technical dimension , " as it covers economic , social , political and national security issues . " These issues , he said , " require the operation of the entire system established under the principle of the state economic stewardship , comprises a group of powers which the Constitution leads to the state executive power . " He recalled that a large number of countries around the world has now completed the digital transition , and has done it through the executive , despite of having highly specialized technical bodies . There cannot be concluded that the government , by issuing the contested decree , that invades in any way the competence of the Congress , is providing in the administrative area the observation of the laws issued by the Legislature , he said . They analyze the possibility of a " vote by vote " count in Michoacán According to the data transmitted by the PERP the difference between the first and second place in the gubernatorial election is of only 27 percent , even without counting the votes corresponding to 879 of the total of 6.074 minutes . The possibility of counting " vote by vote " is a reality as regards the electoral process of this year in Michoacán , where according to the data obtained from the Preliminary Electoral Results Program ( PERP ) the difference between the first and the second place of the governor 's election is of only 27 percent , even without counting the votes that correspond to 879 of the total 6.074 minutes . In this regard , the President of the General Council of Michoacán Electoral Institute ( MEI ) , Maria de los Angeles Llanderal Zaragoza , recalled that a few days ago , the last November 9th , the electoral body approved a set of guidelines in order to harmonize the local regulations with the electoral federal reform . As it will be recalled , Michoacán did not authorize the Constitution or the Electoral Code of the State or the Electoral Justice Act , since the Congress of the state approved the reforms shortly before the legal deadline for them to come into force in this electoral process and the Governor Leonel Godoy Rangel omitted its publication within the periods specified in the Law in the State Official Gazette , arguing that he had some objections . The same November 9th , the Supreme Court of Justice ( SCJ ) resolved the constitutional controversy promoted by the local legislature and described as " invalid and illegal " the vote of the state representative for the constitutional reforms , since he has no right " to sanction or vote them . " Interviewed about the possibility of the " vote by vote , " Maria de los Angeles Llanderal stated that with the adoption of the appropriate guidelines by the General Council of the MEI it will be possible to perform partial and total counts of the vote by the local electoral body . Thus , the partial recount of one or more electoral boxes may occur in the assumptions that : the results of the records do not match ; there is no record of the count on the record of the box or they are not included in the power of the president ; or when there are obvious errors or alterations of the minutes . In addition , the total count of the vote received in all boxes of the election may take place when there is an indication that the difference between the alleged candidate winner of the election in question and the one who has obtained the second place in the voting , is equal to or less than one percentage point , as long as at the beginning of the session there is a request of the representative of the party and / or coalition that nominated the second of the mentioned candidates . The total vote count will also be done if at the end of the ordinary calculation is established that the difference between the winner and the candidate placed on second position is equal to or less than one percentage point , as long as there is a request of the representative of the political party whose candidate came on the second position , case in which there will be excluded the electoral boxes that have been considered during the partial recount . There should be noted that in this situation is the election of Morelia , where according to PERP the difference between the first and the second place is of just 0.16 percent , even without counting the votes of 129 of the 923 total minutes . His last will His ashes will be spread in the mountains of Zapalinamé , confirms the family . The remains of the pilot Felipe Bacio Cortes arrived in Saltillo , his hometown , this Sunday night ; on Monday there were carried out the reconnaissance and a requiem mass . According to the family the last wish of the Lieutenant Colonel was his ashes to be spread in the mountains of Zapalinamé . After receiving a tribute together with the other persons who died in the accident , the family of Bacio Cortes returned to the capital of Coahuila on the board of an aircraft of the Mexican Air Force , the closest people attended the ceremony at the Campo Marte . At noon the ashes of the Lieutenant Colonel arrived at the chapel located on the boulevard Nazario Ortiz Garza , where family and friends were coming . At 5 : 30 in the afternoon he received the reconnaissance of the Technological Institute of Saltillo organized by his former high school classmates and the football team , that Felipe Bacio was a part of , during his high school preparation . " His wish was to return to Saltillo , and his ashes to be spread in the mountains of Zapalinamé , he always said this to his family and friends , " this is what was announced by Sandra Cortes Bacio the sister of the pilot . For her , the lieutenant colonel had fulfilled all his dreams , she considers that he was at the height of his life , " he was a successful man , an extraordinary father , son , and a loving brother and devoted to his family . " Felipe Cortes Bacio left very young the city of Saltillo in order to enter the College of the Air in Zapopan , Jalisco . Some did not believe him , they said that he got dizzy even in the truck , but always wanted to fulfill his dream , that of becoming a pilot . His nephew Jorge Alberto Dávila Bacio remembers him as a very good person , " just arrived in Saltillo the whole family wanted to greet him , as when he brought Martha Sahagun to Saltillo . " The young man recalls that even when he was seven years old he traveled to Zapopan for the graduation of his relative , so he knows that his uncle died doing what he loved most in life : piloting an aircraft . They give him a last farewell Shot guns were fired for the lieutenant colonel of the Mexican Air Force , Felipe Cortés Bacio , headed by the Governor Jorge Torres Lopez , the people of the village and Government of the State , the Mexican Army , through the Sixth Military Zone , the Mexican Air Force itself , managers and students of the Technological High School of Saltillo , where he studied in 1985 and made himself remarked both in study or in sport gave him the last farewell . Bacio Cortés died the past days when the helicopter he piloted collapsed , along with Secretary of the Provincial Government , José Francisco Blake Mora , and six others , all officials of this department . At 18 : 05 the remains of Bacio Cortés ( cremated ) , a citizen of Saltillo arrived to be given by the funeral home to members of the Mexican Air Force , led by Major James Martinez , on the esplanade of the training school , where he was already expected by his family , including his daughter Amanda and his wife Cristina , her mother , brothers and other relatives , students and teachers . Three bodies are found left in the NL Cadereyta farm Hours before the discovery , the military authority presented in media eleven persons who were detained in the same municipality for crimes related to organized crime . Three men were found shot dead in different parts of the body and with the shot of grace , in an abandoned farm of the municipality of Cadereyta Jimenez , Nuevo Leon . The discovery occurred at kilometer 1.5 of the Cadereyta road to Santiago , at the height of the community known as El Castillo . Several people who went through the site noted that in the country ##AT##-##AT## house , whose wall is beige with brown , the gate was wide open . Looking inward , at about three meters , they located the bodies of three people , so they immediately gave notice to the corresponding authorities . One of the men wore a yellow t ##AT##-##AT## shirt with black jeans , with no shoes , and near him there was one man with white under vest . At almost one meter there was the body of another individual with red shirt and blue jeans . The three were face down . According to the data obtained there , the three persons were killed in another place , since there were no cases on the site . On the fence of the country house there are legends directed from one organized crime group to another , and there are several bullet holes in it and in the gate . 11 are captured in Cadereyta The National Defense Secretariat made ​ ​ the presentation of the 11 people , including a minor , who were part of a criminal group that operated mainly in the municipality of Cadereyta and who are accused of abductions , killings , " inveigles " and clandestine burials . According to the released information , initially ​ ​ on November 11th in the colony of Los Alvero there were arrested eight people and one person who remained deprived of his / her liberty was rescued . They were given three houses and a cell phone , claiming to be members of the criminal group called " Los Zetas . " The another event occurred on November 12th at 06 : 00 am , the military personnel made a surveillance tour in the village Rancho Viejo in Cadereyta , seeing a car without number plates and with two men on board . By stopping them and making the inspection , the militaries found a rifle , a chamber and 18 cartridges . Subsequently , after these statements , on November 13th at 14 : 00 one of his accomplices was stopped in the common land of La Pravda , who seeing the military tried to escape . He is accused of clandestine burials in the municipalities of the General Teran , China and Cadereyta . Wednesday there will be formed the new Italian government The appointed prime minister , Mario Monti , will meet tomorrow with the president of Italy in order to present the new government that will face the crisis that has put the country on the edge of an economic disaster The designated Italian prime minister , Mario Monti , will meet Wednesday with the President of Italy in order to present the new government that will face the crisis that has put Italy on the edge of an economic disaster and has endangered the entire euro zone . A statement from the presidential palace announced that Monti , named on Sunday , will meet on Wednesday with the president , Giorgio Napolitano , to confirm that he can form a government . He is expected to present a cabinet composed largely of technocrats , although it is unclear when the new executive will undertake the position . Monti said the he will present to the president the results of his talks with the political parties in his attempt to form a government . " I want to confirm my complete confidence in the ability of our country of getting out of this difficult phase , " said the former European commissioner to the reporters . Monti did not say explicitly that he could form a government but the tone of his comments indicated that the obstacles had been overcome . The " framework is now well delineated , " he said . Monti has completed the process of forming a government in less than three days , much less than the normal , while Italy fought a political and financial crisis that has driven the cost of its debt to unsustainable levels . The new administration led by the former European Commissioner Monti must approve a tough austerity package demanded by the European leaders in order to regain the confidence in Italy . Underlying the pressure on Monti to hurry , the instable markets put the yield of the Italian BTP bonds to 10 ##AT##-##AT## year above 7 percent , the level at which Greece and Ireland were forced to be rescued . Emma Marcegaglia , leader of the Italian employers ' Federation told the reporters after meeting with Monti : " We said we would support very much this government . " We believe that this government is the last chance for Italy to get out of this emergency situation . Monti 's chances of success were considerably boosted by the support of the LDP party of Silvio Berlusconi , who was forced to resign on Saturday due to the crisis . " We believe that the efforts of Professor Monti are destined to have a good outcome , " said to the reporters Angelino Alfano , secretary of the center ##AT##-##AT## right party . The support of the LDP , the largest party in Italy , is significant because until now many of its members had opposed the government majority made of technocrats that Monti is forming . Parliamentary support Monti 's new government must have a strong parliamentary support for applying the reforms that are likely to be unpopular austerity reforms . Any blockage or delay in their efforts could lead to a new and devastating attack on the financial markets . The Italian association of foreign banks added to the pressure by warning that a failure of Monti would be a disaster . Monti began on Monday his consultations with the political parties , unions and business groups , as well as with youth and women organizations . He will end his meeting on Tuesday night . Monti was appointed on Sunday by Napolitano , who has enabled an extremely rapid transition in response to the crisis . After a brief rest at the end of last week , when it became clear that Berlusconi would resign , the Italian debt costs have now reached critical levels between uncertainties about whether the new prime minister will succeed . Rescuing Italy with a public debt of 1.8 billion Euros would be too much for the current financial defenses of the euro zone . Monti has said that his government would last until the next elections scheduled for 2013 , despite the widespread predictions that politicians would only give him time to implement the reforms before moving forward with the elections . Monti said he would like to include politicians in his cabinet , but the major parties insist that it must be made only of technicians , an indication of his objections to a process forced by the financial pressure . Political sources said that the mutual mistrust and disagreement between the parties are complicating the attempt to include political figures . The familiarity of the Spanish is higher than that of the Ticos Of the 22 players called in Spain , ten passed 50 international games . On the side of Costa Rica only one of 22 called players reached 50 games . A minor contrast to Costa Rica , comparing the 22 players called by both countries for the friendly game today , at 3 : 05 pm at the National Stadium in San Jose . While the world and Europe champions , number one in the monthly top of FIFA , have a long record of Class A inter selection , the Tricolor has only the defender Michael Umana as the only one who has 50 international games . That number was reached Friday before the game against Panama ( 0 ##AT##-##AT## 2 ) , in Rommel Fernandez . Spanish football players playing in the All ##AT##-##AT## Star League and in powerful clubs of the Premier League of England are during the year very active in league and local cup competitions and there are high ##AT##-##AT## level shocks in the European Cups and Champions League . To this is added the Spanish Fury experience in complicated qualifications for Euro and World Cup . The Ticos players , however , have a limited international experience in an area such as CONCACAF , which is considered the lowest level within FIFA We see that the peak of the Spanish selection is the goalkeeper Iker Casillas , who last Saturday against England ( game lost with 0 ##AT##-##AT## 1 in London ) equaled the record of the ex goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta , with 126 international matches . Casillas will play today against the Tricolor and will impose a new record of 127 international matches for Spain . Xavi Hernandez , the player of Barcelona , has 106 matches . Casillas and Xavi were recognized last week by UEFA together with the other player of the Iberian team , Zubizarreta with 126 matches and Schalke striker Raul Gonzalez with 102 . Almost near the centennial number is Carles Puyol , with 97 games . Xabi Alonso follows them with 91 , Fernando Torres , with 90 , David Villa and Sergio Ramos , both with 81 , Andres Iniesta , with 62 , Cesc Fabregas , with 61 , and David Silva , with 53 . On Costa Rican side , and close to Michael Umana , are the left ##AT##-##AT## lateral Junior Diaz , with 48 matches and the striker Bryan Ruiz , with 45 . After this , only five exceeded the 30 games : Keilor Navas with 31 , Randall Azofeifa with 32 , Michael Barrantes with 31 , Carlos Hernandez with 36 and Jose Luis Lopez with 35 . The least . More than 30 matches in Spain have Gerard Piqué ( 37 ) , Sergio Busquets ( 36 ) , Santiago Santi Cazorla ( 32 ) , Alvaro Arbeloa ( 31 ) and Raul Albiol ( 31 ) . On the national side , with less than 30 presences , there are Roy Miller with 26 , Winston Parks with 26 , Gabriel Badilla with 25 and Roy Myrie with 23 . The rest doesn 't come near the 20 . While Nacho Moreal has only four games and Jordi Alba two , in Costa Rica Victor Bolivar has only one Olman Vargas and Nelson Edder did not debut yet . The leading scorer of Spain is David Villa is , with 50 goals , followed by Fernando Torres with 27 . For Costa Rica , Bryan Ruiz is the one that registers more points , two more than Carlos Hernandez and three more than Roy Myrie and Parks . Quintet included the country on the tour for celebrating two decades of experience 'Going to Costa Rica is a dream come true' In an exclusive interview with Viva , the bassist Jeff Ament , of Pearl Jam , said the band is ready to offer one of its best concerts next Sunday at the National Stadium . There were more than 20 years of wait , but the band says that for the member is also a dream turned into reality playing in the country . This was stated by the bassist and founding member , Jeff Ament , who spoke exclusively with Viva , from Brazil , last week . The group is on the South American zone within the tour celebrating two decades of work and Sunday 20th will make its only stop in Central America . That day they will be present at the National Stadium , starting at 7 : 30 pm , together with the band of Los Angeles The X and the band of the nationals Las Robertas . This is an excerpt of the conversation , whose full transcript is online in The Nation . For your followers from Costa Rica , is a dream come true that Pearl Jam will play in Costa Rica ? Are you aware of what your fans are experiencing ? Going to Costa Rica is a dream come true for us too . This is only our second time in South and Central America and so far has been great . I 've been to Costa Rica only once , on vacation , it is a beautiful country and I think we 'll be able to stay a few days there . So we are excited to bring our music there . I ask this because there is a kind of devotion to the band ; the fans live with intensity the days before the concert . What do you say to your most fervent followers ? Thank you for staying with us through all these years . It took us almost 21 years to get to Costa Rica , thanks for waiting so long and we regret that it took us so long to get here . Some people as regards your concert refer to it as the biggest show of the year . Does this add a bit of pressure on your visit ? Some of the biggest shows we 've played over the past 21 years occurred during the last couple of weeks . We had a few wonderful shows in Sao Paulo and we hope that this has put us in shape for this concert in Costa Rica . Really , we are very eager to play there . We love this country , we love to surf and the jungle , for both things , Costa Rica is one of the best countries in the world . How did you discover Costa Rica and its waves for surfing ? We have many friends who are surfers and I have a great friend who lives in Tamarindo and the waves here are incredible . My friends are always going to surf in Costa Rica and Nicaragua , along with Mexico , these are great places to surf , and that 's how we learned about , through people who love surfing . Viewing the tour , one can say that you have been making great shows with lots of songs . What have you planned for the presentation in Costa Rica ? As we have never played there before , then we have no restrictions on what we can do . We will try to make the best show possible with a good variety of songs ; we will try to play a couple of songs of each album and give our fans a good and diverse repertoire . You never repeat the repertoire . How come ? I think it 's partly because we have nine discs and we can play more than 120 songs and everyone likes different songs , so it 's difficult to choose which songs to play every night . When we have two or three songs in the repertoire that we have not been playing for a while , this keeps us focused and keeps us surprised because it reminds us the reasons why we liked those songs and that we might have forgotten . That makes the show more interesting for us and therefore I think it also makes it more interesting for the people . With this tour , you are celebrating 20 years of experience . Looking back , is it hard to believe all you have made ? Yes , absolutely . First , I think none of us could ever imagine we 'd be in a rock band and doing this for over 20 years makes it seem like a dream . We count our blessings and we are very excited that we can continue making music together . We all love each other and love making music . We are fortunate to go to places in the world where we always wanted to go . Things could not be better for us . What does it mean for you having been a fundamental part of the rise of grunge ? It has always been an honor to be a part of that group of great bands . We are good friends of the people of Soundgarden , Mudhoney and Alice in Chains . It 's amazing when a movement arises from a group of friends and it is unusual . From time to time , arises a band of a city , but it is much more strange when five or ten bands come out at the same time from the same city . We are proud and honored to be part of the Seattle group . I still play with some of them from time to time . Last year , we were at a festival with Alice in Chains and we were in Canada with Mudhoney , we saw Soundgarden in its tour , so we are fortunate to be friends with all of them and we are honored to be part of the Seattle sound that aroused . It is also very strange that a band like yours remains united with the same members for so long . Yes , four of us were together for 21 years and Matt ( Cameron ) joined us 13 years ago , which , by itself , is much longer than many bands lasted . First , I think we are all lucky to be still alive and , secondly , we all care about the others . We are all very close friends and , thanks to this , there have also been opened musical avenues that give each the freedom to experiment . We trust each other with the music of each and this could not be better . Your relationship to the word fame has not been easy ; but thanks to your success , you have been able to do whatever you wanted . How do you find a balance ? As we have grown , it has been easier to find a balance . We take care of not being too much on tour because it is easy to fall into this game of big crowds and people who love your music . While one remembers that people are there for the music , that reminds you that you must respect the music and what brought it , without setting your mind on being famous and being a rock star , something that none of us really cares about . How do you remember your other project Manother Love Bone ? I think we write very good songs and at the beginning was a great thing . We were a band for almost three years and never released an album until after the death of Andy ( Andrew Woods ) . There were many frustrations because lasted so long and the most important thing is that we are still close friends of Bruce ( Fair ##AT##-##AT## weather ) and Greg ( Gilmore ) , who started in the band with us and when I hear a song or see a picture I think of the incredible person that Andy was and how he made ​ ​ me laugh , it was always a pleasure to go to work , laugh , talk about music and football and much more . It was a remarkable man and we miss him . The national band Las Robertas will be responsible for opening the show in Costa Rica . Is it true that you know its work , especially Eddie Vedder , and that 's why you chose it for the opening ? Yes , the production sent us several videos proposals and that was the band that we liked most , so we 're anxious to see what Las Robertas can offer live and should be very entertaining . Why do you always change the lyrics of Yellow Ledbetter live ? That is a question for Ed ( Eddie Vedder ) , so I do not know . He sings it and I think he does this with the first thing that comes to his mind . As a bassist , what are your influences ? There are so many . Within the first that come to my mind are Geezer Butler , John Entwistle , C.J. Ramone , John Doe , Paul McCartney , Chuck Dukowski ... There are so many I could talk all afternoon about the bassists that I love . How did Pearl Jam succeeded to maintain grunge relevant despite of not being any longer a fad ? I think all of us feel a bit disconnected from the word grunge . When I think of it , it reminds me of the bands I mentioned before , like Mudhoney , Soundgarden , Nirvana and all that came at the same time , and if it is important now , I think it 's wonderful because it is music worth listening to and bands as Mudhoney are making now music better than ever . At first , your music had a darker content , and now has become more positive . How do you explain this change ? It 's interesting because I think there are a couple of songs on the album that may appear lighter , but there are songs like The End or Just Breathe that are qualified as very dark although they can sound a little positive . With both , when Ed played them , I cried when I heard them , and these songs are profoundly dark . I think that when you grow up and there was some trauma in your life and you lost a family member or friend , these things start to influence your art and your music and these two songs certainly represent that for me . Also , I think you can be a happy person and still be able to make music that is dark . Peru : Fujimori was hospitalized again for medical tests The ex President Alberto Fujimori was hospitalized Tuesday in a public hospital in order to be evaluated for the loss of muscle strength that occurs in the legs , informed his family doctor . Fujimori , 72 years old , who is sentenced at 25 years in prison for human rights violations committed during his government ( 1990 ##AT##-##AT## 2000 ) , suffers from several ailments , including cancer of the tongue for which he has been operated four times and it is kept under control . The congressman Alejandro Aguinaga , who is his personal physician , told to Canal N of television that Fujimori will be evaluated for three days at the National Institute of Neoplastic Diseases in order to determine the reason for the pain and the loss of strength in his lower limbs . Aguinaga said that in his opinion Fujimori would be a candidate for getting the benefit of pardon on humanitarian grounds ; however , he said he did not want this because he knows he is innocent . He had surgery four times for cancer of the tongue , has a weight loss of 18 kilos to which other diseases were added such as severe erosive gastritis , pancreatic cysts , kidney stones , high blood pressure and circulation problems in the legs , listed the doctor . Fujimori is in prison since September 2007 in the Police National Department of Special Operations . In April 2009 he was sentenced to 25 years of prison for killing 25 people at the hands of a squad of annihilation of the army that operated clandestinely in the early years of his government . Mujica travels to Mexico to strengthen political ties An official delegation headed by the Uruguayan President José Mujica , and composed of several ministers and businessmen , will begin this Tuesday a visit to Mexico in order to expand trade between the two countries and to approach political issues in the region . Mujica will meet next Wednesday his Mexican equal , Felipe Calderon , the highest point of an extensive agenda of meetings with political , commercial authorities and a meeting with the community of Uruguayans living in Mexico , according to the schedule released by the Uruguayan Presidency . The meeting between both presidents , in the city of Guadalajara , will be " favorable for the exchange of information as regards the political issues between the two nations , " as published the Presidency of the South American country on its website . According to the local media , Mujica seeks to get Calderon 's support for Uruguay in the incident with France that arose when the French President Nicolas Sarkozy , included the South American country on a list of tax havens at the G20 meeting in the French city of Cannes . In his speech , Sarkozy threatened to exclude from the international community those countries that remain tax havens , a statement that caused the refusal of Uruguay and the call to consultation of its ambassador in the European country . Mexico presides since November , the G20 , a group composed of the world 's most powerful developed and emerging countries , and has in effect with the South American country since January this year , an agreement to exchange tax information in order to avoid double taxation . The Uruguayan government has attempted in recent years to speed up the conclusion of tax exchanging arrangements in order to leave the " gray list " of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ( OECD ) , composed of countries that did not implement all international standards of tax cooperation . On the trade plan , Mexico and Uruguay have in force since 2004 a Free Trade Agreement ( FTA ) that has increased the exchange of goods between both countries . The mustachioed plumber comes to be three ##AT##-##AT## dimensional with " Super Mario 3D Land " Super Mario has fought tirelessly for over 25 years to save Princess Peach from the evil clutches of Bowser , but never before he had done this in three dimensions : in " Super Mario 3D Land " he will fight for the love of the girl in stereoscopic technology . The title , which arrives in the stores around the world this month , has been designed to exploit the features of the potable console Nintendo 3DS , which allows playing in three dimensions without the need of using glasses . " Mario is the character who has to say how it should work the stereoscopy without glasses , " said the press head of Nintendo in Spain , Omar Alvarez , during the presentation of the game in Madrid . Alvarez said that " Super Mario 3D Land " is " the first video game of Nintendo originally designed for this support , " because until now successes like " Star Fox 64 3D " or " Zelda : Ocarina of Time 3D " were adaptations of existing titles . Nintendo spokesman has claimed that , despite being in 3D , " Super Mario 3D Land " is an " accessible " video game which allows enjoying a quick and fluid game . Alvarez said that " Super Mario 3D Land " contains two games in one : the first part is " simple " to engage less skilled users . Once pasted , most experts will give a " second round " to the levels of the play , which this time , are more difficult . In addition , the users can choose in real ##AT##-##AT## time between " D aggressive " or one that only affects the depth of the action , but will need to be played in three dimensions in order to overcome the various challenges and " not to succumb optical illusions . " This incursion of Super Mario in three dimensions represents also the return of the character to a portable console , fact that has not occurred since 2005 . In this game Nintendo winks to the fans of the series and repeats the successful formula of the previous games , the plumber with mustache will have to go through dangerous mined platforms in order to free princess Peach . Although the player will find new movements , the surroundings , costumes and enemies and also a " playable " Luigi . Colom guarantees Portillo 's extradition to the United States President Alvaro Colom said on Tuesday that the extradition process of the ex leader Alfonso Portillo has begun in order to respond in the United States of laundering $ 70 million . Thus ends the process for Guatemala to respond to the request of north country that claimed for Portillo to judge him there . At a press conference , Colom said that his decision is according to the independence of judiciary and executive powers , taking into account that a trial court had already ordered the extradition . He stated that during his mandate he did not " put his hands " in judicial decisions and accepted all extradition proceedings he has ever known . In addition to Portillo , Sergio Ruano Marroquin will be extradited for murder and serious injury , and Edgar Estrada Morales and Victor Estrada Paredes , both for drug traffic . What 's done by Colom represents an executive process after getting exhausted all legal and constitutional courts to prosecute the ex head of state between 2000 and 2004 . In accordance with the resolutions of the Fifth Criminal Court and the Constitutional Court ( CC ) , Portillo will be extradited once resolved his legal situation in Guatemala and guaranteed his human rights . Portillo was acquitted of embezzlement of Q120 million in the Defense Ministry when he was a president , which was the process that preceded the extradition , but the Public Ministry appealed and reopened the case . Trinijove has helped 6,000 young people at risk The entity was created to prevent the fall on the margins of the society of untrained young men The balance of the first 25 years of life of the social support entity Trinijove is important : 6,000 young people at risk of exclusion have been helped to overcome a difficult situation during this century quarter . To this there are added over a hundred jobs currently created ​ ​ for this social group . The anniversary served to make a balance at a ceremony held in the old factory complex Fabra i Coats where attended over 300 people . Trinijove was born in the neighborhood of Trinitat Vella in 1986 with the aim of helping young people with little education , no job , and drug problems or at risk of falling into marginality . The yesterday celebration at Sant Andreu gathered a large number of responsible entities and institutions that in these 25 years have collaborated with the association . The diverse political representation , in the election time , showed the unitary character of the work done by Trinijove . Next to the president of the Generalitat , Artur Mas , and his predecessor Jordi Pujol , attended the ceremony the ex counselor of Socialist Education , Ernest Maragall , and the ex lieutenant of the mayor and current eco socialist Councilman Ricard Goma . Also attended at the Fabra i Coats the actual Counselor for Social Welfare and Family , Josep Lluís Cleries and CEO of the social work of La Caixa , Jaume Lanaspa . He said Trinijove was born in a very difficult time and that the current period is also difficult , but added that the work done so far " is a good base . " The president gave Trinijove as an example for fighting against the bad circumstances and giving hope to people with difficulties . " The crisis is not new to the entity and the work done by it , " he said . An occupied farm where macro parties were given was evacuated The invaders had seized 11 of the 13 floors of the building , Balmes , 51 The 12 occupants left the farm at noon yesterday without a fight It seems that the nightmare lived by the neighbors residing in 51 Balmes Street has come to an end . Twelve people left voluntarily yesterday at noon the property they were illegally occupying , and where they organized macro parties that exasperated the neighborhood , by court order without police intervention . When the operation was finished the lock on the door was changed in order to prevent a repeat of the situation . " From now on there will be an access control , " said the manager . The squatters , who had invaded 11 of the 13 floors of the building , the rest are inhabited- took all the wiring and part of the water , painted the walls and left residues of all kinds , especially alcoholic beverage cans . The first three floors were the scene of mass parties , which lasted up to two days and exasperated the tenants . Next to the building there is a nightclub , Balmes 51 , which has also been damaged . The owner , Maria Pantinat told to Europa Press that since the building was occupied her business went down 80 % . The owner of the club says that the invaders of the farm made ​ ​ her an unfair competition , since they were selling drinks for three Euros , while in the club worth 10 . In addition , the owner of the disco had to respond to neighborhood complaints of noise , while , as she noted , the noise was not caused by customers of the club , but by the inhabitants of the squat and , above all , those attending the parties that were organized there , which had increased in frequency and intensity in recent weeks , as the angry neighbors said . The head of the club said that the discomfort was so great that even reached an agreement with the owner of the property and there are now nine months since she " forgives " him for paying the rent . The City Police also confirmed that in recent weeks has received more complaints from neighbors about the situation . The chairman of the PP municipal group , of the council Alberto Fernández Díaz , had claimed last week " to immediately evacuate the building in order to solve the problems of coexistence and community spirit caused to neighbors , and the degradation of the area . " The popular leader explained that before the summer there was only one floor of the building occupied , but over the last few months the squatters had entered into all floors and in almost every floor and that in some of them occurred burglaries . In this sense , he added that " it is necessary to put an end to impunity and to be strongly against the incivility that has been generated on the farm . " Also yesterday , the members of the police evacuated a building in Nou Barris . At 15 : 30 the police went to 35 Montral Street after receiving a call from a neighbor who had noticed that four people had entered the building . The four were arrested at the time . Park or mountain ? The architects agree on the opportunity of the call beyond controversies over fees The municipal contest on the 16 doors reopened the debate on the role of Collserola in Barcelona In mid 80 's at the height of the now extinct Metropolitan Corporation of Barcelona ( MCB ) , this Administration printed promotional leaflets of Collserola . The booklet defined the mountain as the great park of the metropolitan Barcelona . Moreover , it was accompanied by a comparison , in figures , with the New York Central Park . On the death of the MCB , in 1987 , the park was placed again in the minds of many , as the upper limit of Barcelona , ​ ​ being the Catalan capital one of the few that is not oriented towards the north ##AT##-##AT## south but up ( mountain ) -down ( sea ) . The classification of Collserola as a natural park redounds in this idea . The reference was not Central Park , but Yellowstone , with the wild boar on the role of Yogi Bear . This was all about until , in September , the council called for a mega competition composed of 16 contests for as many other doors to Collserola . A door refers to the idea of the park , no doubt . Either that or someone wants to put gates to the field . The question comes alone : Collserola ? Park or mountain ? The competition , both as for its merely organizational side as for its reflection on the city is a topic of conversation among all architects of Barcelona . It 's almost a recurrent theme to make use of when two members of this ancient lineage of elected persons recognize themselves in an elevator . And this fact gives rise precisely to one of the few similarities between what three architects of Barcelona are saying and the academics , which have been presented . Miguel Roldan , Daniel Modolo and Mara Bayona : the competition is appropriate For Roland , after approaching the coastline becomes " necessary " to discuss about " the mountain front , " whenever Ildefons Cerda 's speech , that of green apples has not been carried out . " It should be assumed that the largest park in Barcelona is the beach . Among other things , for its great accessibility . Collserola is more complex , " says the architect to whom the title of " gates of Collserola " contains a " lexical trap " : we should not think about them " as access to a park , but as the delimitation of some areas where we must act . " Modolo , as Roland and Bayona with experience in the urban world , called the proposal " intellectual challenge " with " some dangers . " Hazards arising from the " uncertainty of projecting the public space " after the experience of the 80 " s which had in the Forum area " his swan song . " The first fear is the own delimitation of the borders where to build . " Limiting something is setting up the next step , " meaning , overcoming . " We must think of new urban planning tools , because the current [ in reference to the General Metropolitan Plan ( GMP ) ] can lead to a real disaster . " Tighter to the question , Modolo believes that simplifying the Collserola valley side " can be understood as a park , Barcelona , ​ ​ not " by a purely topographical issue . Modolo remembers that there is already a work done by the Board of Collserola that " should not fall on deaf ears , " although he is grateful for the opportunity that the city hall offers to his profession to intervene in this project " from the very beginning . " And further , understands that the proximity of the mountain with the city is the pass that allows architects to enter the debate , but " he doubts " about whether this technical profile is the one that should lead multidisciplinary teams ( " a success , " he points ) that have had to create : " The architects should be only a tool . " Bayona suggests that the answer to the question that gives the title of this piece is complex , because the contest rules lack a global view of Collserola : " 16 cross contests have been called -he says ##AT##-##AT## on sea- mountain sense , but there is no longitudinal reading , to see and understand the area as a whole . " This leads , at least in this case , to have chosen to participate in the 16 contests . Otherwise , a project for one of the gates can crash into the program and definition with the project of the architect of the next gate . In your opinion , the council should ensure that the band immediately above the Ronda de Dalt should provide in its entirety , an area of equipment to conduct a smooth transition between the city and the green . Casino forgives Jonas Larrazabal and this one will be free After 72 days of arrangements , the legal representative of the Red Casino forgave the brother of the mayor of Monterrey of the process against him for alleged extortion After spending 72 days in jail , Manuel Jonas Larrazabal will be free after the legal representative of the Red Casino granted him forgiveness before the Second Criminal Court District , which follows a process of blackmail against the brother of the mayor of Monterrey . After the bombing of Casino Royale , Red Casino owner , Sergio Gil Garcia , made ​ ​ public a series of photographs and videos where allegedly Manuel Jonas required him to pay an economic fee so that the city hall of Monterrey allows the clandestine operation of the bet house . After the public condemnation , the State General Attorney opened a criminal case against the mayor 's brother and on September 2nd , he was arrested and imprisoned for 30 days . After four hours before the Agent of the Public Ministry for Heritage Crimes , he was transferred to the Temporary Jail , located in the Old Neighborhood of the state capital . In this place he remained for 49 days following the pronunciation of a second restriction order after the prosecutor dismissed the crimes of bribery and organized crime . On October 19th he was transferred to Cadereyta allegedly for blackmailing with a half million of pesos the owners of Red Casino , but he stayed there only a few hours in the medium ##AT##-##AT## security prison because there were death threats against him . The authorities allowed him to continue the trial in the municipal cells boarding San Nicolas of Garza . On October 25th he an arrest order was issued by the clerk of Second Criminal District Court , Jorge Yanez , who said that after nearly two months of inquiries there was enough evidence to establish the guilt of Jonas , such as the collection of 1.5 million pesos from the representatives of the bookmaker in exchange for allowing the operation of it . On Monday , the legal representative of Red Casino , Victor Aldo Garcia Gomez , appeared before the judge José Luis Pecina to seek pardon for the regional mayor 's brother , so that in the coming hours he might regain his freedom . During the legal diligence , the public prosecutor attached to the Court , Ramiro Arias , questioned Garcia Gomez whether he had repaired the damage and which of the partners of the betting house granted pardon , although the lawyer tried to reserve the name . Based on the record 197 / 2011 legal pardon is granted to Jonas Larrazabal and thereafter there may not be made ​ ​ any claim about the process that was intended against him ; also no damage repair or punishment will be required . After the hearing of the legal representative of the bookmarkers , at almost 15 : 50 it was ordered the immediate release of Larrazabal Breton . The clerk of the court , Jorge Yanez , went to the jail of the municipality of San Nicolas of Garza to notify Jonah that he has been legally pardoned and his record will be filed . Also he will notify him about the immediate release order issued by the judge . The Secretary Dionisio Perez Jacome gives details of the crash where the Interior Minister , Francisco Blake , and seven others died . The Ministry of Communications and Transportation ( MCT ) reported that the results obtained on the accident in which the Interior Secretary Francisco Blake Mora , and seven others died , indicate that the helicopter hit directly the ground in complete structural integrity , without the pilot attempting a forced landing . During a press conference , Dionisio Perez Jacome , Minister of Communications and Transport , said that before the aircraft took off , the pilot found that weather conditions were suitable for the flight . " The elements that seem to indicate that the unit had several contacts with the ground , the blades came into contact with trees at 25 meters where the unit lost the fuselage . " He also reported that the unit was designed for 19 people , so it fulfilled the necessary requirements to transport people . He also said that the investigations made ​ ​ in the area of impact do not report the appearance of pieces on the ground . " In a research it is reported that there are no parts or components of the ship in another place , the impact is presented in a structural way . " The design of the helicopter conceived for 19 passengers , fulfilled the appropriate requirements for transporting passengers . The land has a slope of seven degrees to 30 degrees . For now , the secretary said it is a priority to have the results as soon as possible ; however , the investigation may take several months or even one year . Meanwhile , Gilberto Lopez Meyer , general director of Airports and Auxiliary Services , said that at the time of the impact , the Presidential helicopter was operating in cruising speed and that this happened in a soft ascending land . " This information reinforces the hypothesis of a normal cruise operation at the time of the impact , " he said . At the press conference , the owner of the SCT , Perez Jacome , listed six important elements in the investigation : Visual flight : According to the aviation regulations the flight was conducted under visual flight rules , this means that the crew must have visibility during the flight and the ground . Weather Conditions : AICM reports were indicating suitable conditions for taking off as the aircraft moved towards the border area between Mexico City and Mexico State there were layers of clouds at low altitudes . Selected routes : It is likely that due to cloud conditions the crew has searched an area of lower elevation and greater visibility into the valley of Cuernavaca . Location of the impact . The coordinates of the impact and the last record of the aircraft radar match , probably before the impact there was no loss of control or change in the flight direction . Dispersion of wreckage on a small area : The information available so far suggests that the impact occurred in a straight and lateral line . The dispersion of the wreckage suggests that the helicopter struck the ground in conditions of structural integrity . There was not detected evidence of fire or explosion : On the area of the accident there remains undisclosed evidence in the wreckage of the craft , some kind of explosion or fire . Recent research results indicate it may have had multiple contacts with the ground . During the field work there have been found pieces of the aircraft at an altitude of 9.200 feet above mean sea level , the ground has a slope ranging from seven degrees to 30 degrees . The pictures show the sequence in which it dismantled along that journey . The information provides elements that seem to indicate that the helicopter may have had multiple impacts with the ground . After a thorough research in a wider area than the surrendered off area , near the place the accident took place , there have not been found scattered pieces of the aircraft , which strengthens the assumption that the impact is presented in terms of structural integrity . MSS announces a protocol for finding obesity gene Social Security directs a research to find the gene for obesity in children and young people ; it is supported by specialists from the IPN The Mexican Social Security Institute ( MSSI ) has announced that conducts a research to discover the gene for obesity in children and young people , called the protocol of ' Genetics of obesity in childhood and adolescence ' , which will provide counting on markers associated with overweight . In a statement , the head of the Medical Research Unit in Biochemistry of Specialties Hospital , XXI Century National Medical Center , Miguel Cruz Lopez , explained that it was integrated a multidisciplinary team of physicians , nurses , nutritionists and social workers . The team is supported by specialists and graduate students from the National Institute of Public Health ( NIPH ) and the Centre for Research and Advanced Studies ( Cinvestav ) National Polytechnic Institute ( NPI ) . The research invites the population entitled or not , to participate by going to the participant sport units of the MSSI in the Valley of Mexico , where there will be carried out the tests to children , every Saturday from 8 : 00 o 'clock . He stressed that the protocol started in the Cuauhtémoc sports unit ( West Mexico State ) and since October 8th , the activity takes place in the Netzahualcoyotl Sport unit ( East State of Mexico ) . Once reached the goal of bringing 500 to 600 children , the study will continue in the Independence Sport Unit ( South the Mexico City ) and finally in the Morelos Sports Unit ( North the Mexico City ) . He explained that the purpose of this research is to understand the components and the importance of genetics in relation to the development of obesity and identify in children and young Mexicans the risk factors for preventing the appearance of chronic degenerative diseases . On November 14th , there will be celebrated the World Diabetes Day , and the goal is to collect three thousand children and young people between 6 and 14 years , with the consent and parental supervision for the implementation of specific questionnaires on food . They will also be asked about physical activity and family hereditary history of disease , in order to avoid risk factors that give rise to diseases such as diabetes or kidney failure . He explained that on Saturday to all participants will be applied anthropometric measurements ( weight , height , and waist circumference ) , blood pressure measurements , and determination of glucose , triglycerides , cholesterol and insulin and genetic ( seeking to identify genes that are associated to childhood obesity ) . Cruz Lopez said that this research reflects the concern of health professionals for the alarming weight gain in children . Health Surveys made between 1999 and 2006 reported that in only six years there was an increase in the case of the boys , 77 percent were obese , and 47 percent in the case of the girls ; in terms of overweight there was also observed a dramatic rise , " said the specialist of the MSSI . He said the justification for searching the markers is based on that the population of the country differs from other in its genetic history . He reported that on average , the Mexican has a 65 percent of American Indian heritage , 30 percent European and five percent African and this condition is reflected in the genes that are associated with diabetes and overweight . He explained that generally , the genetics of obesity result in the inability to burn off the excess energy that we consume ( calories ) and which is stored as fat . The researcher explained that the direct benefit for the participants is a comprehensive assessment of the children , which can detect if they have any degree of overweight or obesity . Even , he said , the presence of dark ##AT##-##AT## colored folds ( acanthuses ) on the neck and forearm indicates the likelihood of suffering of metabolic disorders and even prediabetes . The information is handled with confidentiality , doctors deliver it in writing to the parents , to whom they explain each of the measurements and changes in the lifestyle that have to be undertaken in order to prevent disease . Cruz Lopez explained that there are three major components that cause overweight , obesity and other chronic diseases : sedentary lifestyle , which is the lack of daily physical activity , staying most of the day and watching TV and using means of transport instead of walking short distances . Also it is due to the high caloric intake , meaning , and the increased consumption of sugary drinks , carbohydrate ( tamales , bread , pizza , hamburger , etc . ) with high fat and protein and genetics analyzed in this protocol . UNAM asphalt would avoid potholes Rafael Herrera , a researcher at the Faculty of Chemistry of UNAM , develops polymer ##AT##-##AT## modified asphalt to produce a mixture with the best performance , regardless of the environmental conditions and temperature If the signals sent by the road surface were attended , it would be necessary to repair about 200 thousand potholes every rainy season in the Metropolitan Area of Valley of Mexico , said Rafael Herrera Najera , a researcher at the Chemistry Faculty ( CF ) of the UNAM , who said that if the process of construction and maintenance of an asphalt pavement is adequate , the potholes could be reduced or even completely eliminated . In his lecture A technological view of the pothole , issued under the International Year of Chemistry , announced that the laboratory he is responsible for is developing a polymer modified asphalt to produce a mixture with characteristics similar to the asphalt , but with a better mechanical strength , both at high and low temperatures . Herrera Nájera said that this type of modified asphalt could be used in places where the weather is extremely hot , as some cities in the north , to improve its performance and , therefore , the formation of potholes . He explained that the asphalt , the heavier oil part is a set of hydrocarbon molecules , some of high molecular weight , called asphaltenes , and other of low molecular weight , called maltenes , which together give the road surface its viscoelastic characteristic behavior . The viscoelastic behavior of the asphalt consists in the fact that at high temperatures near 180 degrees , it behaves like a liquid at 120 ° C , its viscosity is very high and at 50 degrees Celsius has a nearly solid state , whereas at very low temperatures the asphalt becomes fragile , he said . This means that the resistance of the street asphalt is not uniform , but is modified during the day according to the environmental conditions and temperature , said the specialist in chemical engineering . CF researcher observed that the streets of Mexico City are mostly covered by flexible pavement , which is composed of six layers of material , out of which the last three involve the asphalt . Among the most superficial layers is the asphalt , composed of small stones dipped into the asphalt and then compacted . Each of the stones which compose this covering , he said , is dipped with asphalt . When driving vehicles and generating effort , it allows the forces to spread very well on the pavement . If it were modified asphalt it would spread even better , said the chemical engineer . On the asphalt covering , he added , is placed a final layer called rolling covering , which is made ​ ​ of a fine stone material , meaning sand also dipped into the asphalt . Since this is the layer that will be in contact with the wheels of the vehicle , it must have a better mechanical strength than the asphalt covering and provide road friction . As being the part of the pavement that will receive and diffuse the efforts , the rolling covering also requires proper thickness and the material it is made of must be take into consideration . The weather , especially humidity and temperature variations are also a very important factor to consider , especially water , he said , because it greatly affects the performance of the asphalt . When the ground is wet , water diffuses inside the covering and it 's hard to get out , this causing a softening of all layers of the pavement and , therefore , the formation of potholes . In the formation of a pothole , he said , the first to wear is the rolling covering and only after that is affected the asphalt , but the damage does not happen instantly , it is a process that should be attended at the first signs with appropriate maintenance programs . Also a member of the National System of Researchers explained that the vehicle load is another important factor in the formation of potholes and , therefore , the thickness of each layer of the pavement should be always made in relation to the vehicle load and ensure this fulfillment , in order to prevent the frequent formation of potholes . Rafael Herrera said that there is still much to investigate and work to do on the asphalt , for example , asphalt emulsions , which in other countries are already on the market and even help repair potholes with easiness and without using high temperatures . What did the candidate of Valley lack to be the new Miss Colombia ? Analysis of the factors that affected Serna Melina Ramirez for not getting the crown of Miss Colombia . The Valley gets its title number 14 of princess . Once again Cauca Valley remains with the desire of the crown of Miss Colombia . This time Melina Ramirez Serna had to be content with being on the winning podium , wearing the silver crown and the band that accredited her as the new princess of Colombia . With the result obtained last night in Cartagena , where Miss Atlantic won the crown and scepter , the department counts with 14 Princess titles and Melina joins the legion of women of Valley of Cauca who have been close to the crown but were proclaimed princesses , among them Miriam Ospina Benoit ( 1947 ) , Clara Borrero Dominguez ( 1949 ) , Patricia Bellini Ayala ( 1979 ) , Lorena Álvarez ( 1981 ) , Rose Mary Alzate ( 1983 ) , Olga Maria Arenas ( 1987 ) , Leila Blanque ( 1988 ) , Monica Evers ( 1989 ) , Maria Consuela Pinedo ( 1990 ) , Diana Isabel Romero ( 1993 ) , Giselle Aljure Garcés ( 2000 ) , Catalina Giraldo ( 2007 ) , Stephanie Garcés Aljure ( 2008 ) . Now the big question many are asking is : What was missing ? Because the result is the defeat of a big favorite who in each performance showed that she had everything to be the new Miss Colombia , not in vain she was elected Queen of the Police and Best Jolie Face of Vogue , titles that were obtained by queens as Taliana Vargas or Natalia Navarro , who took the crown of Miss Colombia . The first key factor in the decision of the jury to designate her as First Princess is that she did not convince with her answer to the question " ' What is the book that has marked you and why ? Asked ​ ​ by Martin Murillo Gomez from the Literary Cart Let 's read . To the questioner she answered " I read a lot , I believe a lot in literature , I think it is a form of culturalization , and I definitely think that the book that marked my childhood is " The little Prince ' is a pretty deep book . Today I read " Crime and Punishment ' it is a book of universal literature that we all should read ; and now I 'm reading the book by Irene Nemirovski , a Russian , a beautiful book called " The heat of blood.' A response that the jury did not like due to the term " culturalization ' and second of all for not specifically explaining how each of the cited books have marked her . But after the ceremony Melina said she was calm and happy with the result " the universe is wise it happens what it has to happen . " And for you all , please read a little bit , ' The Little Prince ' it is a great book " Among the launched hypotheses it is said that Valley got burned by favoritism . A reporter from Bogota suggested that for being the preferred , the acclaimed , and the candidate who received all preliminary awards ( Oster food challenge , the public vote for the best traditional costume , and Mother Queen ) , " that aroused the jealousy of the other candidates , stressed the queen and therefore she did not shine on stage . And that was noted in her first appearance in swimsuit on the beach of Hilton and during her two shows at the evening coronation . Although in both she looked confident , it was noted that she lacked the strength and energy that Magdalena and Atlántico representatives did show . Ariel Osorio , a journalist of the program " Like home ' , of the RCN channel said that the fact that Melina was designated as princess " means that the candidate who more awards wins during the competition is not the queen . " In addition , Valley lately avoided talking to the press , and that was wrong . Another hypothesis is that Valley failed to convince the jury about her interest in social work , which is ultimately the essence of the National Beauty Contest . This is why , two days before the election the international jury Lucy Doughty said they were seeking a woman committed to the social needs of her country . " Beauty is not enough for a Miss Colombia , we must look beyond the physical appearance and focus on social awareness , before entering the contest they must be already involved in projects , " she said . There is also a speculation that Valley sinned for her defects on the posterior and the fibrosis that could be seen on her abdomen , but it is contradictory because the jury specifically chose her as the candidate ' natural beauty ' with the healthier body , good nutrition and responsible physical work . The coach of the queens Jorge Hernán Orozco recognizes that Melina did not have the best body , that there were better , " but the problem of fibrosis on the abdomen , which for me was not very noticeable , made her lose points the last day . " Meanwhile , the journalist Guido Hoyos , of Cromos magazine considers that the error of the Valley of Cauca were the surgical interventions she suffered . " The surgeries are fine , but Valley did not know how to do them . Her body was never her strong advantage and here is where she was punished . For this award , which for the first time is given by the National Beauty Contest , after the swimsuit parade a cruel prophecy was fulfilled last night , it was said that this was the flicker that Raymundo granted to Melina for not giving her the pleasure of taking the crown . Reality or not , the fact is that Melina today begins a year of reign , not as sovereign , but as a princess , a position that gives her the opportunity to represent Colombia in one of the international competitions designated by the National Competition itself . However , she will go down in history as one of the queens that despite her overwhelming passage through Cartagena , found difficulties in getting the crown . Such was the work of the person who identified the body of Alfonso Cano A Cali lophoscopist entered into history as the man who confirmed the death of " Alfonso Cano . The work of these officials is a key work . On November 4th the lophoscopist of Cali CTI passed into history as the man who confirmed the identity of the FARC top leader , " Alfonso Cano , through the comparison of his fingerprints . Of the seven lophoscopists working in the branch of CTI , this week it was the turn of " availability ' for Eleazar Gonzalez , a man of Puerto Tejada , who had spent 21 years working in the area of judicial investigation . At the beginning of his career , Gonzalez worked in municipalities of Chocó , where he often had to go for more than five days in the jungle to reach the place where there were the bodies that should be identified . In 2000 he moved to the capital of the Valley and , after making the corresponding courses , he specialized in lophoscopy , which is the study of skin friction , meaning the palms of the hands and feet . The week of Eliazar 's operation against alias Alfonso Cano he was warned to take clothes only for three days . Something big was coming . On Friday night he went from Cauca with a helicopter , to Palmira . He knew he had to identify two corpses and one was suspected to be of the man who led the world 's oldest guerrilla , so they asked him to take the ten print card of Guillermo León Sáenz ( his real name ) . However , when he arrived with the research team to the site where the body was , he did not recognize him by his physical appearance ; it was very different from that seen in the media . He was without beard , dressed as a farmer of the area , without glasses and much thinner . But the prints do not lie . Accompanied by a Galtonian magnifying glass , ink , a paddle and a flashlight , Eliazar compared the fingerprints of the corpse with those of the card . His eye did not fail him : it was " Alfonso Cano ' . That same night , the man from Puerto Tejada was asked to confirm the defense minister , Juan Carlos Pinzón , that it was the top leader of the FARC . In search of the fingerprint For a fingerprint specialist from Sijin of Cali the recognition made ​ ​ by the President Juan Manuel Santos to Eleazar Gonzalez in the press conference for the operation against " Cano ' , is very significant . Many people do not know our work . The fingerprinting science is an exact science , without error , which can be key solution in solving crimes . Apart from the identification of bodies , the fingerprinting specialists support research for crimes like theft and murder and confirm the identity of those captured . When captured , many criminals have fake cards or do not have papers . We will take their fingerprint and seek them in the database . The researcher said that , in a case of theft , he had to remove a piece of the wall of a house because in that place the thief had supported his hand on to take a safe full of jewels and money . " The walls are difficult because they are not suitable surfaces to get a print , but in this case we could get the print of the whole hand and identify the offender , who had participated in several robberies " he said . The prints can also rule out or confirm suspects in murder cases . They have recently found a dead man , with liquor bottles around him . Through the investigation it was determined that a relative could be suspected of the crime and , indeed , a print on the bottle matched . Although this does not guarantee that it was the murderer , it places him it in the murder scene . A fingerprint expert of CTI explained that in objects " footprints are drawn with chemical or physical reagents . " When they appear there is used a paddle or tape to lift them . After that , the prints are sent to Asif , which is the criminal database , or at the Registry . " The problem is that there are still many undocumented Colombians , " said CTI expert . He clarified that not everything is as shown in CSI television program . Just as not everything that glitters is gold , not everything you touch turns into a footprint . However , if it can be used , the comparison is being made . The " angry persons " challenge the authorities in New York Hundreds of protesters were crowding round in front of Zuccotti square to camp . A part of the protesters listened to the eviction order and moved to a nearby park . The members of the movement Occupy Wall Street challenged on Tuesday the authorities of New York when trying to enter again , under the protection of a court order , in the Manhattan Square where they were evacuated at dawn when trying to occupy another park of the Big Apple . Hundreds of protesters crowded round the Zuccotti square , where they wanted to get in thanks to a court order that allows " the angry persons " to camp on the site , while another part of the movement responded to the eviction by occupying a park north the city where there have been made further arrests . " Our idea is that if the court does not allow us to return to camp in the square , we will camp somewhere else and continue the legal battle to return to Zuccotti , and through peaceful sit ##AT##-##AT## ins and demonstrations , " said one of the spokesmen of the movement " Occupy Wall Street , " Mark Bray . Bray explained that the response of the " angry persons " to the evacuation of the camp issued personally by the mayor of New York , Michael Bloomberg , came to court , where Judge Lucy Billings issued an order prohibiting the forced evacuation of the place and allowing the demonstrators to remain camped . In addition , the " angry persons " proceeded to the occupation of a new park located at the confluence of the downtown Canal Street and Sixth Avenue , near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel , which connects New York and New Jersey , owned by the parish of Trinity Church . At least for one hour they were able to occupy the place , but then the police came and proceeded to arrest some of the protesters , although Bray could not confirm the precise number , while telling Efe that he saw several journalists who were also handcuffed . The organization ensures that there are several hundred people camped at that point , where a delegation of religious leaders has already gone to show their support to the members of the movement trying to mediate with the police . Meanwhile , Zuccotti square , which is a privately owned site , remains closed waiting for a court hearing scheduled for this Tuesday in which to examine the legality of the evacuation of this morning . Some of the protesters moved there were carrying and distributing at that time copies of that court order and even they gave these copies to officers guarding the place , which led to " some small confrontations , " said Bray , who claimed that some officers beaten the demonstrators . The court order prohibits the authorities to evacuate the members of Occupy Wall Street and enforce " laws that were issued after the beginning of the occupation or to prohibit demonstrators regain access to the park with shops and other property used before . " Mayor Bloomberg told reporters that , because of that court order , the city had suspended the reopening of the public space and protesters were informed , however , that local laws do not allow them to re ##AT##-##AT## install with camping shops and sleeping bags . The councilman personally defended the evacuation of the Zuccotti square carried out at dawn , an operation in which about 200 arrests were made and this was decided so because protesters were " violating the law . " Bloomberg said he gave the order to evacuate the square because it was becoming " a place where people did not come to protest , but to break the law and , in some cases , to do harm to others " as " Some businesses had received threats ' and neighbors feared " for the quality of life . " " The evacuation of this morning was disgusting and shows that deep inside Bloomberg is more interested in preserving the financial interests of American workers , " added the spokesman of the movement , who accused the mayor of " disrespect for the freedom of expression . " The responsible of " Occupy Wall Street " also indicated that they intend to organize " great deeds " for Thursday in collaboration with community organizations and unions , in order to commemorate the last two months of protests , which began on September 17th . Pamela Anderson will be Virgin Mary in a special Christmas TV show Along with Michael Buble and other prominent Canadians , she will appear on the television program " It 's a Russell Peters Christmas " on December 1st The Canadian Pamela Anderson has been the assistant of Tim Allen in " Home Improvement " lifeguard in " Baywatch " Bunny in " Playboy , " the wife of rock musician Tommy Lee and now , the actress and model is the Virgin Mary in a special Christmas show at the Canadian television . The private television channel CTV announced today that Anderson , along with the " crooner " ( ballad singer ) Michael Buble and other prominent Canadians , will appear on the television program " It 's a Russell Peters Christmas " on December 1st , interpreting a very different Mary . CTV presented today images of the television show in which Anderson , also known by the wide distribution over the internet of a pornographic home video where she appears together with her ​ ​ husband , the drummer of " Mötley Crüe , " Tommy Lee , appears dressed as the Virgin Mary holding in a crib a doll depicting Jesus . In the scene , Peters , a well known Canadian comedian of Indian origin who recently appeared as a presenter on the tour of " My Violent Torpedo of Truth " by Charlie Sheen appears as Joseph . In addition to Anderson and Peters , the CTV Christmas special show features the Canadian singer Buble , who at the end of March married in Buenos Aires the Argentinean model Luisana Lopilato , and he is not a stranger as regards the controversy . Recently , Buble called " bitch " the American Kim Kardashian during one of his concerts in New York . Japan reborn after the earthquake GDP grows by 1.5 % due to domestic consumption and puts an end to the downward spiral that began in March Since last March , the Japanese economy was paralyzed , still recovering from the devastating earthquake , resulting in a nuclear crisis , the worst catastrophe suffered by the Nippon country since the Second World War . The first estimates of Tokyo government regarding the material losses amounted to $ 300,000 million , a blow that , despite the difficult global context , seems to have dimmed . After three consecutive quarters of declines , the Gross Domestic Product data between July and September helped to turn the page , definitely : GDP increased by 1.5 % compared to the previous quarter and by 6 % in annualized rate . The one recorded in the second quarter , for the Japanese the Fiscal Year begins in March 2012 - represents also the fastest rhythm of growth from January to March 2010 . The recovery can be explained in part by the recovery in the purchase of machinery to restore areas devastated by the earthquake and the following tsunami . In fact , companies increased their investment by 1.1 % versus 0.9 % decline in capital expenditures which was observed from January to March , the first decline after six months of uninterrupted increases . However , the true revulsion of the Japanese economy is not based exclusively on the Keynesian impulse that invites taking advantage on the crisis to strengthen ##AT##-##AT## or rebuild ##AT##-##AT## infrastructure , using of gaps to grow from scratch . Japan has awakened , especially thanks to the evolution of the household consumption , which now represents 60 % of the Japanese GDP . This variable climbed 1 % , driven by the increase of expenditure for cars , travels and leisure activities . The stigma of the yen Tokyo has entrusted to the internal market , when the yen ##AT##-##AT## the Nippon currency has become one of the " refuge values " chosen by investors who wanted to get rid of the debt crisis in the euro area and the negative forecasts of the U.S. , a privilege that weighs like a stone in the accounts of export companies . With a stronger currency , the products are more expensive abroad , a serious slap for a country whose economic line is determined by the health of large technological groups . Toyota or Sony , for example , blamed the yen for their weak results between July and September . As markets continue their siege of the peripheral countries of the EU , the Government of Yoshihiko Noda does not lower the guard . " We must be vigilant to the risks that remain , such as the deterioration of some foreign economies , the impact of floods in Thailand and the rapid appreciation of the yen , " said yesterday the Secretary of State for Economic Policy , Motohisa Furukawa . And indeed , the perspectives are not encouraging . The Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development ( OECD ) said that most member countries showed in September clear signs of economic slowdown . The indicator that anticipates the turning points in the global economy showed that the major powers are slowing . Since it fell four tenths to 100.4 points , compared to 100.8 in August . The euro zone even fell below the average , which is at the level of 100 , since it rushed eight tenths up to 99.13 points . Athens feeds back the doubts Papademos said that adjustments will be approved , but conservatives will not sign any written commitment With peripheral risk subsidies launched and uncertainty reinstated in the parks , Greece is still entangled in the maze that leads to the exit of the great European debt crisis . The feeling that the " consent " of the new transitional government of Hellene comes imposed more by the demands of Brussels than by a genuine conviction of political forces began to be confirmed by facts . While the new prime minister , Lukas Papademos warned yesterday that there is no alternative to structural reforms and that the period of one hundred days agreed in his appointment may be underestimated for applying them , the leader of the conservative New Democracy party , Antonis Samaras , ensured that he will not support new austerity measures in any case and reiterated his demand for new elections scheduled on February 19th . " The main task of this Government is implementing the decisions of the summit of October 26th , " Papademos said yesterday when opening a parliamentary debate that it will culminate tomorrow with a vote of confidence to the new Executive . A package of 24 programs to boost employment , reform of the disciplinary code of civil servants and new measures against tax evasion will be the first initiatives . However , the message of Samaras does not clear the doubts about his position : " We are committed to helping the transitional government , but we are not committed to anything . " The Conservative leader was one step further in his pulse to the EU and the IMF , the entities that must unfreeze the 8,000 million that Athens urgently needed , and made ​ ​ clear he will not give his approval to any letter of commitment to comply with the adjustments . But the European Commission , still having a nappy rash by the impact caused by the all or nothing statement of the Papandreou referendum , reiterated yesterday that its demand is clear : it will not unlock the help if the new Government and the leaders of Hellene major parties do not sign " a written commitment without ambiguity and this as soon as possible . " The Economic Affairs spokesman , Amadeu Altafaj , said the troika inspectors would return " very soon " to Athens to discuss with the new government " what has to be done to pay the sixth tranche " of 8,000 million , although there is no definite date . The Greek hank still has a thread for the moment . Mrs. Sofia : " They are instruments of progress and hope " The queen highlights the " dominant " place in Spain in relation to this type of finance Spain " has achieved a prominent place worldwide in the role of Microfinance . " Queen Sofia recalled yesterday that the country has become over the last two decades the second donor in relation to the instruments of cooperation ; whose " essence " she said lies in being an " instrument for social progress , justice and hope for a better future for all humanity , based on trust in human beings . " The Queen opened yesterday the Fifth Global Microcredit Summit in Valladolid with the belief that " there is no doubt " that such operations are " absolutely essential " to achieve the Millennium Goals set by the United Nations for 2015 , and , " especially having as a goal halving the volume of people living with less than a dollar per day , with this fixing the " poverty line . " Spain is " still working " to expand the network of beneficiaries all over the world , and assumes the task with " responsibility " said Mrs. Sofia , who hoped that the efforts and contributions originated in the Summit , which will be held until Thursday , will " ensure the creation of new capabilities and better opportunities for the poorest people , and especially for women , " the main beneficiaries of these loans . There are " many achievements " and " many challenges we are facing . " The Microcredit Summit arises not only as a forum for debate , but also as a platform that promotes " two basic goals . " Thus , His Majesty explained that she hopes that at the end of 2015 , 175 million poor families will have acceded to these financial services and one hundred million of these households will get out of the poverty in which they are immersed . The impulse for the creation of micro credits in Spain and in the rest of the world " has followed the path started years ago " by Muhammad Yunus , highlighted Mrs. Sofia as an " act of justice and recognition . " And she described the father of this tool as an " admirable idealist of the universal cause of the fight against poverty , " whose work is known for 15 years , when the Queen went to Bangladesh to find out in the field the policy of loans . This experience was followed a year later by the first World Summit in Washington and other meetings such as those held in Ivory Coast in 1999 , Canada 2006 , and " in all I have seen the continued evolution , " said His Majesty , whose link with this project made her earn yesterday the title of the " head of the family " in Valladolid from the " banker of the poor . " Finally , the Queen Mrs. Sofia concluded by encouraging those present to participate in the debate and find solutions to advance the fight against poverty . " Ethical imperative " Foreign Minister , Trinidad Jiménez , said that solidarity " is an ethical imperative " to every democratic state . In this regard , she said that it would be a mistake to link cooperation with developing countries in times of economic boom , as it is a " continuing obligation . " Jimenez found that microcredit supposes " a serious and rigorous policy dedicated to eradicating poverty , " and now " more than ever , " the governments of developed countries must work under the criteria of solidarity and not let this fall as victim of adjustments . For Spain , microcredit is " one of the main lines of development cooperation . " The Secretary of State for International Cooperation , Soraya Rodriguez , praised the " success " to give " trust " to people " excluded to whom all doors are closed , " and the mayor of Valladolid , Francisco Javier Leon de la Riva , welcomed those present to a city that " opens its doors caught by the spirit of solidarity . " CDU intends to elect the European President by universal suffrage The first day of the congress of the Christian Democratic Union ( CDU ) on Monday 14 November , in Leipzig took place without any real problems arising for the Chancellor Angela Merkel , who is also President of the Christian Democratic party . The future of Europe was not initially planned to be on the programme , but imposed itself in the autumn , in particular to satisfy the militants who will be watching the government 's policy on Greece today and perhaps that on Italy tomorrow .... The motion on the preidency of the European Commission , tabled by the directorate , was adopted almost unanimously . Out of 1001 delegates , only nine voted against and ten abstained from voting . The standing ovation lasting several minutes which they , Angela Merkel and then a few hours later , Wolfgang Schäuble , the very Europhile Minister of Finance , received at the end of their respective speeches , left no room for doubt . The main idea of the Chancellor and of the motion , is embodied in the slogan " the right response to the crisis is not less Europe , but more Europe . " Not only because Europe means peace , but because " nine million jobs depend directly on the Euro . " For the Chancellor , " the time has arrived for a breakthrough in Europe . " This could mean modifications of the Treaty of Lisbon , making it possible to strengthen the control by the European Union of the budgetary policies of the countries of the Eurozone , but this could also affect the election of the president of the European Commission by universal suffrage " in order to impart a face to Europe . " This is , generally speaking , the case of one of the proposals of the motion adopted by the congress , whose inspiration clearly comes from Wolfgang Schäuble . Certainly , it is not probable that the Twenty ##AT##-##AT## Seven will rapidly agree to this solution ; Great Britain is opposed to it and the heads of CDU think that Nicolas Sarkozy is also opposed to it . But the marker is in place . Similarly , the delegates rejected by an overwhelming majority the proposal to weight the vote of each country ##AT##-##AT## Member of the directorate of the European Central Bank according the size of its economy , which would clearly increase the weight of the German economy . Anxious to calm the climate in her party , the Chancellor increased the number of her references to Konrad Adenauer and to Helmut Kohl , but she did not seek to influence the congress on the back of the " small " European countries , or of countries in difficulty , which are quick to criticise " arrogant " Germany . Although the motion on Europe devotes a paragraph to the importance of " Franco ##AT##-##AT## German friendship , " Angela Merkel did not mention France . Except when in a hole . Recalling that two centuries ago , Leipzig was the scene of a bloody battle . In fact , it was one of the most humiliating defeats of the Napoleonic army . What is sick leave fraud ? After allowances , the UMP and the government are launching an offensive against sick leave . On 15 November , Nicolas Sarkozy will be in Bordeaux to visit a family allowances allocation fund and to make a speech on this subject , which has been recurring since 2007 , concerning the fight against social assistance fraud . And to help this offensive stemming from a desire to make economies in the context of constraints , but which also forms part of the presidential re ##AT##-##AT## election campaign , the majority want to concentrate on sick leave . First and foremost , with a view to budgetary economies , the government intends to impose on private employees a fourth day of unemployment before the start of unemployment benefit Clearly , without the specific consent of the employer , an employee falling sick will lose four days ' pay equal to at least 15 % of his / her monthly income . A measure , which threatens to arouse anger , but which , according to Les Echos , would produce a saving of 280 million Euros . And which would be accompanied by another measure with a more symbolic effect , namely , the imposition on public employees of one day 's wait for benefit payment in the case of sick leave ( public employees have not hitherto had to wait for the payment of benefit , as against a three days ' wait by private employees ) . Now that these questions are being discussed , the majority are also relaunching the subject of fraud , targeting abuses linked to medical certificates . " The controls will become more rigid and in addition , if you are caught , you will have to repay any non ##AT##-##AT## legitimate benefit received , " warned Xavier Bertrand on RTL on Sunday 13 November . As in other cases , the effects of the announcement appear a little disproportionate to the reality of medical certificate ##AT##-##AT## related fraud . This has actually been monitored constantly since 2002 via political offensives , which have usually borne fruit . The French are no sicker than people elsewhere in Europe . Let us first of all look at the national figures . According to the Caisse nationale d 'assurance maladie ( CNAM ) , over 237 million Euros of daily compensation were paid in 2006 . According to l 'Institut de Recherche et de Documentation en Economie de la Santé , the daily compensation expenditure in 2008 at 11,3 thousand million Euros , was 5 % of total health expenditure . Of this sum , 46 % concerned maternity leave and accidents at work and 54 % sick leave benefit at 6,2 thousand million Euros . And therefore represented 2,5 % of health ##AT##-##AT## related expenditure . The French spent an average of 14,5 days on sick leave in 2010 , compared with 17.8 days in 2009 , according to a study by Alma Consulting Group . An average , which conceals certain divergences ; another inquiry published in 2007 by the Monster.com career management site , showed that 75 % of the 40 000 French employees questioned said that they had not taken any days of sick leave . Another study , this time concerning sickness insurances , states that in 2010 , 37 % of sick leave lasted less than 8 days , 15 % 15 days to one month , 15 % from one to three months and 11 % lasted longer . Comparing these figures with those of their European neighbours , French employees are no more inclined to take sick leave than those in any other country . A long study carried out in 2010 by two CNRS researchers showed that between 1994 and 2001 , the global rate of absence from work in France ( for reasons of health or not ) fluctuated between 10 % and 11 % , compared with between 20 % and 28 % in Denmark , 15 % in the United Kingdom , or between 16 % and 18 % in The Netherlands . Sickness certificate ##AT##-##AT## related fraud is very low , compared with " black " labour . As regards fraud , it is very low . The strengthening of legislation since 2002 has led to systematic controls of certificates valid for longer than 45 days . In 2008 , out of 1,5 million controls , the CNAM found that 13 % of the 285 000 controls on short ##AT##-##AT## term sickness certificates were " unjustified , " or too long , " equal to 37 050 cases . In the case of systematically controlled certificates valid for more than 45 days , 11 % cases were found to be " inappropriate or unjustified " out of 1,2 million , equal to 132 000 . In total therefore , 169 000 cases were " unjustified , " out of several million of employees issued with certificates . A figure which represents very few cases , compared , for example , with the " black " labour figure . According to the UMP deputy Dominique Tian , author of a report on the subject in June , this would represent 9 to 15 thousand million Euros annual tax shortfall , equal to more than the total cost of daily compensation and therefore infinitely higher than losses due to fraud . Papademos : Greece must implement a new adjustment plan Greece needs a new programme of adjustment to rescue its economy . This was declared on Monday 14 November by the Prime Minister Lucas Papadémos in parliament , adding that the 100 days granted to his coalition government were not long enough for the accomplishment of this task . " To pursue the efforts of rescuing the economy , we need the support of our European partners and a new programme of budgetary adjustment " declared the head of government , who made his first public speech opening the debate on the vote of confidence in parliament on Wednesday . The implementation of the decisions taken at the summit of the Eurozone on 27 October shall be the " principal task " of the new government , because participation of the country in the Eurozone " is at stake , " he added . Consequently , M. Papademos forecast that the country 's public deficit would be reduced to " about 9 % " of the PIB by the end of the year , after having been 10.6 % in 2010 and 15.7 % in 2009 . The Right rejects new austerity measures On Monday , Antonis Samaras , the leader of the Right , gave his support to already approved measures to try and emerge from the debt crisis , but warned that his party would not support additional austerity . " We will not vote in favour of new measures , " he said at a meeting with the deputies of his New Democracy party . He declared his agreement with the objectives of reduction of the deficit and of the debt and of the struggle against waste , but also his opposition to any policy which would prevent economic recovery . To Olli Rehn , the European commissioner responsible for economic and monetary affairs , who warned that the FMI and the EU would not unblock the loan of 8 thousand million Euros required , without a written guarantee of all parties that they would support the planned measures , Antonio Samaras replied that his word was sufficient and that he would not sign anything under outside pressure . It is necessary to legalise euthanasia and assisted suicide , says a committee of experts Canadians are living half dead , according to a report of the Royal Society of Canada Regarding palliative medicine , the committee claims that governments , healthcare institutions and doctors work together to provide the best possible palliative care , apart from cancer cases . Canadian society is half dead . Only 9 % of Canadians agree to speak with their doctor when they want to die and take steps to that end . This is one the conclusions of an imposing report by the Royal Society of Canada , in which six experts in different fields took part , including ethics , the law and medicine . This committee recommends to the government to modify the criminal code , so as to permit assisted suicide and euthanasia when it is elected by a patient deemed competent to make such a decision . At the outset , the experts cite a recent inquiry by the Economist Intelligence Unit , which compared the quality of death in 40 countries worldwide . Whilst Canada is placed 10th , the study notes that " the medicalisation of death in Canada has produced a culture in which people are afraid to tackle the subject of death . Medicalisation or not , 77 % of Canadians do not have access to palliative care , report experts appointed by the Royal Society of Canada . And 86 % of them end by dying in hospital Countrywide , it is in Quebec that the rate is highest , with 86 % of deaths taking place in hospital . On the delicate question of euthanasia and assisted suicide , the authors of the report arrive at conclusions which oppose the position of the Federal government , which has already said that it does not wish to change anything in the criminal code concerning euthanasia and assisted suicide . Now , according to the experts who also reviewed the position of all countries where these actions have been legalised or decriminalised , there is no proof that the aid decriminalisation involves abuses of application , that is to say , the practice of euthanasia , or of assisted suicide on persons who are not competent , or not consenting . On the contrary , affirmed during a teleconference , Jocelyn Downie , who submitted the report , more such cases were found precisely in those countries , where euthanasia and assisted suicide have not been legalised . " Euthanasia is practised in Canada , where it is clearly illegal . " " Assisted suicide is practised in Canada , where it is clearly illegal , explains Jocelyn Downie . Canadians in favour of euthanasia It should be remembered that 85 % of Canadians are in favour of euthanasia , because according to an Angus Reid enquiry in 2010 , they believe that it would allow persons at the end of their lives to alleviate their suffering . And the legalisation of euthanasia would not result in sending a message that the life of aged or handicapped persons had less value . Regarding persons who commit assisted suicide , investigations indicate that 41 % of such cases should not have been prosecuted . Regarding the continuation , or the withdrawal of nursing care of a patient , the situation is less clear , say the authors of the report . They also suggest among their other recommendations , that the penal code should state that legally valid withdrawal of nursing care is not criminal . The committee of experts also requests that health professionals should be trained in the duty to respect a withdrawal of nursing care at the end of life without having to fear criminal prosecution . Regarding palliative care , the committee calls on governments , nursing institutions , and doctors to work together to provide the best possible palliative care and not only in cases of cancer . Lastly , concerning palliative sedation already widely used in Canadian health institutions , the committee asks that it should be considered where it only serves to reduce physical pain , as does euthanasia and that it should be subject to the same procedures . Reservations of other experts Certain experts in the field of the health ##AT##-##AT## related legislation have already voiced reservations concerning the conclusions of the Royal Society of Canada experts ' report . Maître Pierre Deschamps , a specialist in health legislation , described as " extreme " the position of the experts who signed the report , because among other things , it does not restrict the practice of euthanasia to terminal cases . " This opens the door on a situation where everyone who is tired of life and who is over 18 years old , could ask for help to commit suicide , says Me Deschamps , who yesterday consulted a summary of the report . Me Deschamps also stresses that the authors of the report appear to place the independence of the person above all other values which contribute to the fabric of society He says that " in society there are signposts and constraints . The specialist in health legislation , Margaret Somerville also expressed " strong opposition to the conclusions of the report , which she described as being " obviously pro ##AT##-##AT## euthanasia . " Margaret Somerville , who is herself a member of the Royal Society of Canada , contests , in particular , the data of the report concerning abuses in certain countries where euthanasia and assisted suicide have been legalised as in The Netherlands and in Oregon . The King of Jordan calls on president Assad to relinquish power Damascus denounces a " plot " Syria is becoming increasingly isolated The partisans of Bachar al ##AT##-##AT## Assad demonstrated yesterday in front of the offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs . Diplomatic pressures intensified yesterday on the Syria of Bachar al ##AT##-##AT## Assad , who , with the support of Russia , is resisting them and has denounced a " plot " against his country . Two days after the suspension of Syria from membership of the Arab League , the European Union has reinforced its sanctions against Damascus , whilst Syria 's neighbours Turkey and Jordan , came out in favour of president Assad 's departure . King Abdallah II of Jordan yesterday became the first Arab leader to call on president Bachar al ##AT##-##AT## Assad to relinquish power in Syria , where some forty civilians and members of the armed forces of the regime were killed . " If Bachar had the interest of his country at heart , he would have to resign , but he would also have to create the necessary conditions for a new phase of the political life , said the King of Jordan , a neighbouring country of Syria , in a BBC interview . In his turn , the Turkish foreign minister , Ahmet Davutoglu deplored the fact that Turkish efforts to mediate , which began at the start of the year , did not meet with success . " Those in the Middle East who are at peace with their people , but cannot satisfy their aspirations , will leave power , he said , alluding to Syria , a neighbouring country , on which Turkey is adopting an increasingly hard line . For their part , the United States are congratulating themselves on the increased consensus against Assad and the actions of the Syrian regime following the decisions of the Arab League and the European Union . " The international community , the United States , the European Union , the Arab Legaue , and countries such as Turkey , are adopting an increasingly harder line " in the face of the the repression in Syria , observed Mark Toner , a spokesman of the State Department . During this time , 16 civilians and at least 19 members of the armed forces of the regime die in the area of Deraa in the south of Syria , announced l 'Observatoire syrien des droits de l 'homme ( OSDH ) . Two other civilians died during exchanges of fire and heavy rifles at Jobar in the besieged town of Homs , according tot his ONG . During a Press conference , the Syrian foreign minister Walid Mouallem stated that the country was approaching the end of the crisis . " He moreover reacted strongly against the decision of the Arab League to suspend Damascus which according to him represents a " dangerous step . " Syria will not bend , he added , assuring that plots against Syria would fail . " After its decision to suspend Syria , the Arab League is at present studying " a protection mechanism for civilians and wants the dispatch of 500 members of of Arab rights of man organisations , of media and of military observers into the country . The French foreign minister Alain Juppé also declared himself in favour to the dispatch of UNO observers to help to protect civilians from repression by the regime , which according to him , is " paranoid . " A new extraordinary meeting of the League is planned for tomorrow to debate the implementation of escape from the crisis decided on 2 November and foreseeing in particular , the withdrawal of armed forces from the towns in dispute and the liberation of arrested demonstrators . The Russian foreign minister , Sergyey Lavrov , yesterday described as " incorrect " the decision of the Arab League , whilst China exhorted Syria to implement the plan of emerging from the crisis , taking care not to support possible sanctions against Damascus . Italy Monti demands time from the markets and sacrifices from Italians The future head of the Italian government , Mario Monti , has asked the markets for a little time to form his team and to implement a programme , which will involve " sacrifices , " in order to recover credibility lost over the last few months of the Berlusconi government . The former European commissioner was yesterday in discussions with the political parties before today 's meeting with unions and employers He will have to form a relatively moderate cabinet composed of technocrats from outside parliament . " Monti spoke about an important programme involving a lot of sacrifices , " said Francesco Nucara , a deputy of one of the numerous small parliamentary groups taking part in the discussions after meeting the prime minister ##AT##-##AT## designate . The president of the Chamber or deputies , Gianfranco Fini , said that he would wait to learn if Mario Monti would ask parliament for a vote of confidence between now and Friday , to ascertain whether the new government had enough support . The consultations will end in the presentation by M. Monti of a limited list of a dozen or so ministers to the head of State , Giorgio Napolitano . M. Monti commented on the nervousness of the stockmarkets here , asking them for time . In a " democracy , time is needed for the preparation of a government and a programme , he stressed , adding that he was certain that the markets would be patient and understanding . " His appointment by the president was initially welcomed by the markets , but disquiet re ##AT##-##AT## emerged , in particular after an unexpected fall in industrial production in Eurozone in September . The prime minister ##AT##-##AT## designate had to form a team , most importantly comprising technocrats , even though he stressed that he would also like to include " politicians . " The new government would have to last until 2013 , the date of the next election , he said . According to the president of the Chamber of deputies , Gianfranco Fini , the new government would secure the vote of confidence of parliament by Friday . M. Monti undertook that once in office he would work hard to ensure that Italy would once again become a protagonist in Europe . A spokesman for the European Commissioner , Olli Rehn. stressed that " regardless of a new government , our diagnostic of the Italian economy has not changed . " The European Union , being convinced that Rome would not achieve its objective budget in 2013 despite the austerity plan adopted over recent months , has asked , in particular , for stringent new measures . The Italian " boss of bosses " Emma Marcegaglia , who will meet him on Tuesday , has also insisted on the necessity of relaunching the economy , " because a country which does not have growth , cannot observe the parameters of deficit . " M. Monti , known for his competence and for his independence when he was European Commissioner ( 1994 ##AT##-##AT## 2004 ) , represents a " change of epoch " for Italy after 17 years of " berlusconism , " the " professor " symbolising " the challenge of seriousness " and " another Italy , " according to the leaderwriters . The great unknown is the longevity of his team . President Napolitano would like to avoid an early election , because by April 2012 Italy must place State debentures worth 200 thousand million Euros . A Russian scientist has assisted an Iranian nuclear programme A Russian scientist , Vycheslav Danilenko , assisted Iran to develop a detonator usable with a nuclear weapon , confirmed on Monday an American agency specialising in the field of atomic hazard . The Institute of Science of International Safety ISIS ) bases itself on the recent report from the International Atomic Safety Agency ( AIEA ) and other documents from this UNO agency , to identify this researcher . Last week , AIEA announced its serious disquiet concerning a " possible military dimension " of the Iranian nuclear programme . According to ISIS drawing largely on AIEA documents , M. Danilenko , born in 1934 , worked for 30 years from the ' sixties onward , in a Soviet military nuclear centre in Tcheliabinsk ( Ural ) , and was involved in the manufacture by explosion of synthetic diamonds . In 1989 or 1991 he left the centre to establish a company producing " nano ##AT##-##AT## diamants " in Kiev . The economic difficulties of his company led him to contact the Iranian embassy in Ukraine in 1995 . He then cooperated on an Iranian programme from 1996 to 2002 , before returning to Russia . In its last report , AIEA mentions " strong indications that the development by Iran " of a system of nuclear detonation " was aided by the work of a foreign expert , who not only knew this technique well , but who also informed the Agency that he had worked for most of his career on this technology in the military nuclear programme of his country of origin . " Anti ##AT##-##AT## Moslem crimes have increased by 50 % Between 2009 and 2010 , anti ##AT##-##AT## Moslem crimes increase by almost 50 % , whilst during the same period other forms of racial and religious violence had fallen slightly , or had not changed , according to FBI statistics published on Monday . According to these figures , the total number of cases of violence against Moslems moved from 107 in 2009 to 160 in 2010 , equal to an increase of 49 % , as against an increase of 13 % of cases of violence against Catholics , a fall of 4 % of attacks on Jews and a global increase of 14 % in anti ##AT##-##AT## religious crimes . The global number of hate crimes increased very slightly to 6 628 cases , of which 47,3 % were motivated by racial differences and 20 % by religious differences , according to FBI . " After a decrease in 2009 , it is disturbing to see these crimes increasing again , stressed the rights of man organisation , Human Rights First , " the increase of cases of anti ##AT##-##AT## Moslem violence is particularly significant , " added the organisation in a communiqué . " Human Rights First has long stressed that acts of violence against Moslems , as well as all forms of hate crime , must be regarded as serious violations of human rights , " adds one of the managers of the organisation , Paul Legendre . " The American government can and must do more to deal with his abuse , he adds , judging that this could be due to the editing of police reports on hate crimes . " " Hate crime " in Federal law , is a legacy from the period of struggle for civil rights . This legislation was passed after the death of Martin Luther King to punish acts of violence linked to race , colour of skin , religion , origin and now sexual orientation . Twitter modifies its platform and resembles Facebook On Monday , the microblog site Twitter introduced changes in the presentation of its platform , to allow its users , in particular , to observe the activity of those whom they are monitoring , which makes its service resemble that of Facebook . A new tab " activity " and another " name " make it possible to follow more legibly and directly the activity of other " Twitters , " the internet navigators whose messages are monitored ( " tweets " ) and of those who monitor you . This enables one to know if they cause messages to be monitored , if they subscribe new accounts , if they have favourite messages , etc . This new Twitter formula was tested " on a small percentage of users in August " before being broadcast to the entire network on Monday , indicated a spokeswoman of Twitter , Carolyn Penner to AFP . Twitter , which has been known so far for being rather unintuitive , and for its use of somewhat esoteric terms ( RT for re ##AT##-##AT## posting someone else 's message , # followfriday for recommending following other users ) , much to the delight of experienced users , is thus opening itself to a wider audience by offering a user experience closer to those of popular social networks Facebook and Google + . On the network , users debated this innovation via " tweets " on internet . " It is useless , invasive and resembles Facebook excessively " " The functionality activity will help me to monitor better certain elements of my Twitter flow , " sent @ dannykronstrom . Austria Inscription of a budgetary " golden rule " in the constitution The government of the great social democratic / Christian democratic coalition in power in Austria decided on Tuesday to write a budgetary " golden rule " into the constitution , in order to reduce public deficits and so avoid a possible downgrading by rating agencies of Austria 's sovereign credit rsting ( triple A ) . It was the social ##AT##-##AT## democratic Chancellor his elf , Werner Faymann , who announced this decision at the end of a meeting of the council of ministers , with the Austrian public debt at 74,6 % , much higher than the norm of a maximum of 60 % set by the treaty of Maastricht , but below the public debt of countries like Italy , Greece or Spain . " If the solvency of Austria had not fallen by a single notch , from AAA to AA + , we would have to pay three thousand million Euros of interest more every year , " argued the vice ##AT##-##AT## chancellor and Christian democratic foreign minister , Michael Spindelegger . Austria thus complies with a request from the Brussels summit of member ##AT##-##AT## States of Eurozone on 26 October ; the heads of State and government requested a reduction by the end of 2102 of public deficits and a return to balanced public accounts in the constitution or in a law to the same effect . The dispositions adopted by the Austrian government approach the " German model , " being the first European country to adopt this " rule . " By 2017 , the public structural deficit must fall by 0.75 % of the PIB ) and from 2017 , the structural public deficit of the Austrian Federal State must not exceed 0,35 % of PIB in any year , whilst the Länder , as well as communities , must submit balanced budgets . The objective is that of making public debt fall below the 60 % criterion fixed by the treaty of Maastricht by 2020 / 2021 . Yoshihoko Noda threatens fresh intervention on the exchange market The Japanese prime minister , Yoshihiko Noda , warned on Tuesday that the Japanese authorities would again intervene in the exchanges market if the value of the yen continued to rise . " We would intervene as we did the last time , if we found excessive volatility in the rate of exchange of the yen , explained M. Noda to the Senate . On Tuesday , the yen rose to near historical levels , causing the Japanese authorities to intervene on 31 October . On that date , Tokyo sold the yen against the dollar on a massive scale in order to cut the value of the Japanese currency , which was setting a new record of strength since 1945 . But the yen had risen regularly since then , stimulated by purchases by investors who regard it as a " shelter " in these uncertain times of worldwide economic slowdown and the debt crisis in Europe . On Tuesday , the dollar fell below 77 yen and the Euro fell under the symbolic bar of 105 yen , close to levels which triggered the last intervention . Prior to the financial crisis of 2008 ##AT##-##AT## 2009 , the dollar was about 120 yen and the Euro over 160 yen . This rise of the Japanese currency damages Japanese exports , because it makes Japanese products more expensive and reduces the value of income of Japanese firms from abroad , when converted into the national currency . " Japan is fighting to reconstruct itself " since the earthquake and the tsunami on 11 March , which devastated the region of Tohoku ( north ##AT##-##AT## east ) , stressed M. Noda who fears that this rise of the yen does not kill the fragile embryonic recovery . The world 's third biggest economic power has resumed growth in the third quarter -1,5 % compared with the previous quarter - for the first time for a year , thanks to a rise in exports and consumption of households affected by the catastrophe . But the prime minister felt that the high price of the yen did to reflect " Japan 's economic fundamentals . " The minister of finance , Jun Azumi , called on the Bank of Japan ( BoJ ) , which on Tuesday opened a two ##AT##-##AT## day meeting of its monetary policy council , to take every necessary step to weaken the yen . But the deputy governor of the institution , Hirohide Yamaguchi , warned that the Bank of Japan had already taken steps the " appropriate steps " stating that no additional monetary flexibility was to be expected on Wednesday Since its last meeting at the end of October , the issuing institution increased by 5.000 million yen ( 47 thousand million Euro 's ) worth of treasury bond purchases , raising the ceiling to 55.000 thousand million yen ( 519 thousand million Euros ) , which it is devoting to the purchase of various financial securities to flood the liquidity market . Eurozone : the rates are climbing , the stock exchanges are wavering The risk of contagion of the debt crisis is undermining European indices . Despite the appointment of new heads of government in Greece and in Italy and better growth figures in France and in Germany , the rates in fragile countries continue to rise . Still worried about the stability of Eurozone , European exchanges have entered a little further into the negative area on this Tuesday 15 November . In Paris , at 10 a.m. , the CAC 40 lost 1,4 % to end at 3.064 points . The Dax at Frankfurt fell 0,4 % and London 0,1 % . " With the new tensions about the yield of loans of Eurozone States in difficulties , the share markets worldwide contimue to lose a part of their recent gains . " " Nervous investors are only too aware of the risk of contagion , " explains Terry Pratt , an institutional broker at IG Markets quoted by Reuter . The Tokyo exchange closed with a fall of 0,7 % , suffering fresh doubts of market participants on the subject of the capacity of Europe to contain the debt crisis . " Japan , like the rest of the world has its eyes riveted on Europe and the exchanges will chase one another in a corridor of narrow variations as investors will not have proof that the situation has stabilised , " states Mitsushige Akino , fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management . This re ##AT##-##AT## emergence of disquiet about the future of Eurozone penalises the single currency , which has continued to fall on Tuesday . The Euro is reaching its lowest level for a month and a half . Towards 10 a.m. the European currency is worth 1,3570 dollars , having fallen by 0,4 % . According to brokers , it fell after the party of the chancellor Angela Merkel , the CDU meeting on Monday adopted a motion , envisaging , in particular , the possibility of a country in difficulty leaving the Eurozone without also leaving the European Union . Italian and Spanish rates substantially above 6 % The borrowing rates of Italy and Spain remain at very disquieting levels . This Tuesday morning the yield of Italian 10 ##AT##-##AT## year debentures attained 6,85 % , that of Spanish ones of the same maturity date , 6,2 % . These tensions of the rates of interest of southern countries , but also France , continue to feed the apprehensions of participants . The head of the future Italian government , Mario Monti asked the markets for time to restore the situation in an Italy threatened by asphyxia by the weight of its debt . The new Greek prime minister Lucas Papademos affirmed that the implementation of decisions taken at the Eurozone summit on 27 October would be " the principal task " of his government . Spain finds itself in the line of fire by the markets ahead of the parliamentary elections on Sunday . The spread of the rate between 10 ##AT##-##AT## year German and Spanish bonds has reached a new historically high level . Awaiting the growth figures of Eurozone France has recorded an economic growth of 0,4 % in the third quarter , a little better than the expected 0,3 % , due to increased household consumption . The Inseen nevertheless revised downwards the figure for the second quarter , with a fall of 0,1 % of the gross internal product ( PIB ) instead of stagnation . And it is really the fourth quarter , which most disquiets the economists . Germany for its part , ha recorded a growth of 0,5 % for the same period . A first estimate in respect of the whole Eurozone is expected at 11 a.m , the European Commission having warned against the risk of a new recession . Energy policy : Facts must prevail over dogmas If there is a topic which cannot be dealt with via short ##AT##-##AT## term considerations , or under the stress of emotion , it is energy policy . The availability and cost of electricity affect directly the purchasing power and the competitiveness of companies . It is healthy that an electoral rendezvous should be an occasion for reflecting on such stakes and the place occupied by nuclear power . The debate will not be fruitful , unless it explores all the economic , social and environmental consequences of the proposed options . The French must base their opinion on the objective facts of rational data . Now that we are 7 thousand million human beings on the planet , demographic development will involve a doubling of demand for electricity by 2050 , unless a huge proportion of the world 's population is deprived of a vital element . During the same period , it will become necessary to palliate the increasing shortage of fossil resources in order to continue to produce electricity permanently without forgetting the overriding need to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases to fight climatic imbalance , a subject which has vanished from the ecological debate . The Fukushima accident does not modify any of these parameters . This is why Germany is isolated in its decision to renounce nuclear energy . This is not the case of Belgium , which subordinates its decision to the need to find a source able to replace nuclear energy , or that of Switzerland , which intends to build only the most modern ones . On the other hand , Great Britain , Finland , Poland , the Czech Republic , the Netherlands , Sweden , South Africa , China , India , Brazil to quote only a few , pursue their projects with determination . The United States , decided after Fukushima to add a unit to their range by resuming the construction of a centre , which was interrupted after the Three Mile Island accident . Although the German model based on renewable energies is sometimes quoted as an example , the reality contradicts that argument . The choice of Berlin will result in a rise of the price of electricity , an increased energy dependence aggravated by increased recourse to imported gas , in particular from Russia , a jump in carbon dioxide emissions due to the construction of gas and of coal centres . In a few months all these adverse effects will already be felt . The case of Denmark should be considered . Champion of Europe in the construction of turbines , from which it draws 30 % of its electricity , it is also one of the largest users of coal and of gas due to intermittent wind ; due to which its carbon dioxide emissions and the price of its electricity are respectively 65 % and 50 % higher than the European average . On the other hand , thanks to the constancy of energy policy , our neighbours pay 40 % more for their electricity than French households . Since in the worldwide economy the cost of energy is a key factor of competitiveness and a stake in the maintenance of the industrial tool in the national territory , French companies benefit from the cheapest electricity in Europe . Due to this , any significant fall in the cost of nuclear energy would bring about a big rise of cost of electricity , which would render illusory the fine declarations on re ##AT##-##AT## industrialisation of our country and the protection of purchasing power . A price , which a large majority of the French refuse to pay , all the more so , since they do not object to this form of energy in principle . It should be recalled that the energy policy of our country made it possible to establish an industrial line of 125 000 direct jobs and 410 000 resulting ones . Strongly export ##AT##-##AT## oriented , it attracts a galaxy of specialised RME 's in international markets and creates many jobs , which cannot be moved elsewhere . If France decided to abandon nuclear power , she would sacrifice a large number of these RME 's and lose the annual 6 thousand million Euro 's worth of French exports of nuclear equipment and services . What electrician would recommend a EPR designed to function for sixty years , if the decline of its manufacture was programmed ? To solve the energy equation , it must be admitted that there is no miraculous or diabolical source of production of electricity . The development by Areva of low carbon dioxide emission solutions , nuclear and renewable , bears witness to the complementary nature sources of energy . For nuclear energy to maintain the highest level of safety , is absolutely vital . In France , we have a safety authority , which exercises an intransigent and transparent control of existing generation centres such as Flamanville . Our teams , whose professionalism is recognised , are accustomed to the same safety ##AT##-##AT## related obsession . In a space of 50 years , the nuclear industry has experienced three serious incidents . Only one , Three Mile Island , occurred under normal operating conditions , but without any human or environmental consequences . At Tchernobyl , the design of the reactor and unforgivable human error brought about the drama . At Fukushima , some people appear to forget that the accident resulted from two natural disasters of unprecedented magnitude , which caused the death of tens of thousands of people . The nuclear industry will draw lessons from this accident , as it has from its two predecessors . The fruit of this step and of cooperation between safety authorities , the operators and French and German constructors , the EPR presents a design enabling it to resist such phenomena . Since it is being considered by all electricians wishing to construct a generation centre , a decision to construct it at Flamanville would be a magnificent gift to the competitors of Areva and EDF by clearing their way to seizing the leadership of the unavoidable development of nuclear energy . It is essential and legitimate to look for the best fan of energies for our country , but it would be irresponsible to allow emotion , dogmas and partisan manoeuvres to dominate the debate , which is so decisive for the economic , social and financial situation of our country . Is immigration a burden or an opportunity for the economy ? Immigration policy under Nicolas Sarkozy was criticised from various aspects a congestion of police , legal and administrative services subjected to a policy of numbers and the compatibility of that policy with the self ##AT##-##AT## proclaimed status of the country as the country of French human rights . More recently , it is administrative harassment of foreign students , which is topical , with the minister of the interior ( " Libération " on 23 May ) declaring that France " does not need foreign talent , bricklayers and waiters . " But it is only rarely analysed from the economic viewpoint . There is a lot of consensus between the Left and the Right on this subject . On the Right , the tone was set by Jacques Chirac , who declared in 1976 that " 900,000 unemployed would not become a problem in a country with 2 million of foreign workers , " and on the Left by Michel Rocard explaining in 1990 that France " cannot accommodate all the world 's misery . " The only difference , the degree of generosity In 2005 , the fear of invasion of the national territory by hordes of Polish plumbers was felt both on the Left and on the Right . Both sides see immigrants as a burden on the French economy and on French society . The only difference resides in the degree of generosity , which one deigns to grant to immigrants . In his programme , François Hollande confines himself to banalities , saying that co ##AT##-##AT## development would allow our immigration problem to be solved . " This notion of immigration being a burden and a problem , may be an electoral asset , but it is economically very costly . As the economists Ian Goldin and Geoffrey Cameron , remind us in a recent book summarising the most recent knowledge of immigration ( Exceptional People : How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future , mai 2011 , Princeton University Press , 352 pp . ) , there is wide consensus among specialists on the positive impact of migration flows on economic growth , wages and employment in countries , which admit immigrants . Restraining immigration leads to anaemic growth and harms employment . Fears about the impact of immigrants are based on the notion that they are liable to replace native workers , in particular unskilled ones , exerting downward pressure on wages . But experience shows that in reality immigrants are much more complementary to , rather than replacements of , local labour , exercising trades in which there is a shortage of local labour . Unskilled immigrants work in sectors , which do not attract local labour and the most highly skilled ones in dynamic sectors where training does is not linked to offers of employment . A positive effect on wages In the same way as a surgeon would find it difficult to work in a country with a shortage of anaesthetists , the complementarities existing between locals and immigrants bring it about that the arrival of immigrants has a positive effect on the pay of locals . Giovanni Peri has calculated that a rise of 1 % in the migratory flow causes an increase of between 0,6 and 0,9 % in real long ##AT##-##AT## term pay . And does so without taking into account the fact that the diversity contributed by immigrants contributes to the creation of ideas and to economic growth ( a large proportion of naturalised immigrants are among American Nobel prizewinners , whilst Google , Intel , Paypal , eBay and Yahoo were all founded by immigrants ) . Migrants are also net contributors to social systems , averaging 1 % of the total budgets of European countries . Th World Labour Organisation estimates that for example in Germany , an immigrant arriving at the age of 30 , will make a net contribution ( receipts less expenditure ) of an average of 150,000 Euros to public budgets during his lifetime . Nicolas Sarkozy wished at the start of his mandate to look for missing points of growth " with the teeth . " The teeth in question , intended to serve to dissuade immigrants , had precisely the opposite effect . Europe invented democracy , thinks in terms of European democracy Democracy is a precious possession ; it is also a fragile one . The European continent should be able to remember that having invented it in Athens over two thousand years ago , it experienced during the XXth century the tragedies of the World War , of totalitarisms , the Holocaust , the gulag , but also Franco in Spain , Salazar in Portugal and the colonels in Greece . Some believed that it was enough for democracy to finally triumph over its enemies , to exercise the vote , and to do so as directly as possible . It is known that since the time of Napoleon it was a matter of faculty of thinking . Universal suffrage , in order to be the sine qua non of democracy , is not enough and can actually become a " tool of oppression " as once said the republican philosopher Etienne Vacherot . No , democracy requires a lot more , a public space , a public spirit , values , an organisation , a separation and control of powers , education , the Lumieres , economic and social solidarity , justice . The European crisis , which we are passing through , is an economic crisis , but it is primarily a political crisis and a crisis of democracy . In this respect , the palinode of a true ##AT##-##AT## false Greek referendum will have a double revelatory value , that of a need of a powerful reversal of policy , but also that of the worrying sentiment of its impossibility and of its incongruity . This ambivalence must be thought through , in order that it can be bypassed . The truth is that the lines of the forefront of democratic struggle have now moved , and that for many , the republican soldiers are no longer firing in the right direction . We have nothing to gain from demanding a succession of national referendums organised as required and in a confused sequence . The " free hand " of an absolute European monarch , or a jump with tied feet into the nationalist void ; what a choice for a citizen ! No , we do not want the blades of a guillotine , but an exercise , joint , serene and ongoing , of choice and of democracy , this time on European level . There are no crises in Greece , Italy , Spain or Portugal and one would not know where to stop enumerating them , because there is only a single crisis and that is in Europe . It is the whole of Europe , which defers to the dictates of the markets and of rating agencies , who suffer from their incapacity and a lack of solidarity . It is all Europe , which is humiliated on the international scene . There is disquiet about the transfer of sovereignty to Europe , but it is the entire Europe , which is gradually losing its sovereignty , and with its each of its nations . The urgency concerns the return to popular sovereignty , the direction of the European project . Because it is by all working together , that Europeans will be able reduce the weight of their individual debts , to free themselves from the markets and to prepare for the future by investing in it . Emerging from the crisis will entail decisions on European level , which cannot be made without total democratic legitimacy without leading us into disaster . After having long fought this proposal by specialists and of Jacques Delors , the whole world now calls for a European economic government . Let is be so . But the idea without stronger economic , political and democratic integration and lived in such by citizens , would be a fresh folly and a new impasse . We must launch a new stage of European construction . To establish the Republic in France , it was necessary to " make " republicans . The Revolution of interests would not be enough . This lesson remains valid . We must construct a Europe integrated on economic level . This can only be done by constructing a more democratic Europe on political level , a real popular European sovereignty . To make Europe , let us make Europeans . Chip maps without contacts become generalised The worldwide chip map room opens on Tuesday at Villepinte near Paris , in an optimistic atmosphere . The year 2011 should actually end on an 11 % rise of worldwide sales of microprocessors ( Bank cards , telephones with a SIM card ... ) , with over 6 thousand million units , according to Eurosmart . The most important sector is that of contactless technology , which enables paying for common transport or paying for purchases simply by passing the card over a reader . This year , 460 million of contactless chip cards should be sold worldwide , as against 320 millions a year earlier ! Their share will progress in 2012 ( 580 million units expected ) and represent almost 10 % of the global market of chip cards ( 6,925 million cards ) . For a long time , lagging behind the Asia ##AT##-##AT## Pacific region , Europe is now gaining ground in contactless payment . Some 26 million Visa bank cards are already equipped with this functionality and 75 000 payment terminals accept them . In France , the start is more modest ; 400.000 contactless Visa card are in use . But the large stores are installing superfast slots . This year , Carrefour issued 2,5 million contactless MasterCards . To achieve higher speeds , it is now necessary to equip their clients . " Two large French establishments have undertaken to distribute systematically in future to their clients , bank cards equipped for contactless use , announces Gérard Nébouy , Director ##AT##-##AT## General of Visa Europe France . Banks are testing payment by mobile telephone But this is only a first stage of the future mode of payment , namely , the mobile telephone . Few apparatus are at present equipped with NFC technology ( Near Field Communication , essential for implementing these transactions . " They have been delayed . " But they should really take wing next year . " " We are counting on a worldwide sale of 80 to 120 million units in 2012 , explains Marc Bertin , president of Eurosmart . But the banks are forging ahead . Yesterday , Crédit Agricole announced a test to run from next December to June in Caen . The iPhones of some 200 clients and collaborators are going to be equipped to authorise contactless payment . The BPCE has a similar project in Strasbourg and in Marseille . And the Société Générale also said yesterday that it is preparing the market launch of an offer enabling its clients to pay via their mobiles . The terrorist front extends from Sahara to Nigeria Paris is disquieted by links between the Islamic Maghreb and the Boko Haram sect . Suspected for a long time , the links between the terrorist group al ##AT##-##AT## Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb ( Aqmi ) and the Nigerian Boko Haram sect have been confirmed . On Sunday , the Algerian deputy foreign minister , Abdelkader Messahel , even stated that Algiers is now certain . " The manner in which the two organisations operate and the reports of secret services show that there is a lot of cooperation , he explained without elaborating . Paris appears to make a similar analysis . The inquiry into the kidnapping of two Frenchmen in Niger in January discovered two bridges . The men kidnapped men in a restaurant in Niamey by relatives of Aqui , Antoine de Léocour and Vincent Delory had to be killed on the next day at the same time as several of their kidnappers during an operation launched by special French forces . Among the rubble left behind by the action , French and Nigerian investigators found several telephone chips belonging to the terrorists . Terrorist axis The analysis of calls exchanged indicates several interlocutors based in Mali , in Niger and in Nigeria . According to Radio France Internationale ( RFI ) , two numbers interest the investigators in particular ; one leads to a Nigerian who lived for a long time in Maiduguri , a town in Northern Nigeria , the cradle of Boko Haram and the other to a man said to be close to Aqmi and to the sect . " This is an advance , but it is undoubtedly necessary to await more exact proofs before talking about operational cooperation between Aqmi and Boko Haram . " " But it is possible . " " It has been known for years that the sect benefits from outside financial and intellectual support and that it is becoming more and more active , says Kunle Amuwo , a Nigerian researcher . In recent months , this support became more and more evident from the developments and statements by Boko Haram and from its methods of operation , which increasingly include resort to kamikazes and to increasingly complex explosive engines of the same type as those used by Aqmi . The international community , starting with Washington , is now exerting pressure on Abuja to take into account the problems caused by Boko Haram . Nigerian authorities have in fact long considered the group to be a community of enlightened persons not worthy of interest . Rapid success Founded in 2002 at Maiduguri around a mosque , a school and a fundamentalist imam Mohammed Yusuf , Boko Haram - which means in Hausa " with Western education " is a criminal , who promotes the installation of an islamic emirate in the Moslem north of Nigeria . In this poor region , the association is enjoying rapid success . It is politicised and demands rigid respect of sharia , whilst its militants engage in a struggle with the impious central government . The latter target primarily churches , bars and administrations . In 2009 , the militants of Boko Haram showed themselves particularly active , multiplying attacks on police establishments . The reaction of Abuja is , as usual , without light and shade . The army surrounds a town and leaves 800 dead behind . Mohammed Yusuf , arrested alive , was killed in prison . Now the sect will become radicalised and will leave its northern fiefs . Last Christmas it claimed an attack , which left 80 dead at Jos and then more at Abuja . In June at Abuja , Boko Haram takes a secured police QG during a suicide attack , its first . In August , the local United Nations headquarters will be its first international target . The creation of a terrorist axis in Africa , which will move from Mauritania to Somalia via Nigeria , now disquiets all security specialists . Now that Aqmi has invested Mali and Niger and the Somalis of al ##AT##-##AT## Chebab operate in Kenya , Boko Haram appears to be a new menace in the continent . Last week during an interview in Nigeria with president Goodluck Jonathan , Alain Juppé warned against Boko Haram and declared himself ready to share all intelligence . The world according to the republican presidential candidates Concerning China , Iran , aid to Israel , Mitt Romney , Herman Cain , and Rick Perry compete in simplification and a lack of knowledge . Can an America weakened by crisis , lead a complex world by simple and indeed , simplistic , ideas ? To listen to republican presidential candidates , the electors might believe it . For some days , Mitt Romney , Herman Cain , Rick Perry and the others multiply resounding and abbreviated foreign policy declarations , which are traditionally a republican strong suit . Concerning China , Iran and aid to Israel , the slogans , are often fused together . Mitt Romney , the best placed for nomination of the " Grand Old Party , " threatened to drag the Chinese before the OMC and to accuse them of " manipulation of their currency , a sensitive subject in an America exasperated by the migration of whole sections of its industry to Asia . So much the worse if this should trigger a trade war , he said . Jon Huntsman , Obama 's former ambassador to China and the only candidate with a vision of a sophisticated foreign policy , has failed to suppress an attitude which flatters the emotions . He called for a muscular , but a constructive , dialogue with Peking ( the current position of Obama ) . But Huntsman , who is stagnating at the bottom of the polls , remains inaudible . In the style of Reagan Romney also promised military strikes on Iran , if sanctions failed to stop its nuclear programme . " If I am elected , I will stop Iran , he trumpeted . " " If Obama is re ##AT##-##AT## elected , they will have the bomb . " Hr also promised to increase military aid to Israel , accusing Obama of failing in his obligations to wards that partner . The entrepreneur Herman Cain , the second best ##AT##-##AT## placed candidate , declares an embarrassing lack of knowledge of the files . Recently , he called for opposition to the Chinese military threat , because Peking is trying to develop a nuclear capacity - apparently unaware of the fact that China has possessed it since 1964 ! The Texas governor Rick Perry , who supports Israel and wants military strikes against Iran , says that he is ready to involve the USA army in Mexico against the drug cartels . Resort to the torture of terrorist suspects prohibited by Obama in 2009 , is also recommended by Cain , Perry and by the candidate Michele Bachmann . One is far away from the 2008 republican candidate John McCain , a foreign policy heavyweight . The opponents of the current president reply that Reagan also had simple ideas and that he won the cold war . They recall that Obama himself was an amateur and that he had to water down his wine concerning anti ##AT##-##AT## terrorism . They insist with good reason on the setback of his naive dialogue with Iran on the premature departure of the " boys " from Iraq , his tergiversations in Libya labelling him weak . But the attack is not so easy . The population judges as positive Obama 's the balance of national security , which eliminated Bin Laden . Since Iraq , it distrusts military interventions , which run into quicksands . And in arguing that it is necessary to reconstruct America economically to revive its leadership , Obama is right . The North Stream , a new portal for the entry of Russian gas into Europe The North Stream gasduct connecting Western Europe and Russia directly along the bottom of the Baltic sea , has been commissioned . It is scheduled to supply gas for the equivalent of 30 million homes . Gazprom , the giant Russian gas producer , wanted to celebrate the event with a " bang . " Over 500 guests including four heads of State and of government took part last Tuesday on the shores of the Baltic , between an orchestral performance and a fine buffet , in the inauguration of North Stream , the new gasduct , which directly links Russia and Germany under the sea . Symbolically , the German Chancellor Angela Merkel , the Russian president Dmitri Medvedev , the French prime minister François Fillon and his Dutch opposite number Mark Rutte jointly turned the valve controlling the entry of Russian gas into the West European network . With this new gasduct , 27,5 thousand million additional cubic metres of Russian gas will arrive every year in Western Europe via a first pipeline of 1 224 km linking the region of Saint Petersburg to the Land of Mecklemburg ##AT##-##AT## Pomerania . A second pipeline is due to be ready by the end of 2012 , making it possible to deliver a total of 55 thousand million cubic metres of gas , the equivalent of the entire French consumption . And the possibility of constructing a third pipeline of the same course is already under discussion . For Gazprom , the completion on time of this huge project is a victory . The project was fiercely competed for by Poland and the Baltic States . The North Stream will in fact allow gas to be delivered directly to Germany , avoiding any passage via a third country ( Poland or the Ukraine ) . These two countries will lose some of their power : it will become more difficult for them to influence Russia by threatening to close access to West European markets . At the most critical point of the debate , Warsaw did not hesitate to compare North Stream new " German ##AT##-##AT## Soviet pact , " referring to the alliance between Hitler and Stalin to occupy Poland in 1939 . That is to say that the topic is politically sensitive . By supporting this Russian project , Western Europe is gaining greater security for its supplies . But at the price of depriving Europe of energy , since the project has created a breach between eastern and western Europe . Russia has succeeded in less than five years , in achieving its vision of a direct alliance between Russia and the the rich Western countries , which consume large quantities of gas , and whose deposits are declining . " This gasduct is a component of partnership with Russia , it is a new artery which links us organically , " confirmed François Fillon inaugurating the gasduct , demonstrating to what extent large gas contracts are both politically and economically important . All this explains the broad smiles on the faces of the heads of Gazprom , present in large numbers at Lubmin , the point of arrival of the gas . The construction of this gasduct is also a technical exploit . The undersea pipeline is made of steel embedded in concrete , in order to protect it from ships ' anchors . Ir rests on the bottom of the sea , at an average depth of 200 metres . To construct it , it was necessary to avoid minefields dating back to the second World War . " A hundred had to be removed or destroyed as a precaution , " says Jens Müller , spokesman of North Stream company . It was also necessary to multiply steps of protecting the fauna and the flora . The pipeline is a long metal serpent , of weight equivalent to that of 242 Eiffel towers , with no breaks throughout its length , no valves and no maintenance stations . A control platform was provided on the level of Sweden , but the project managers abandoned it since the Swedes were not keen on seeing a Russian State company becoming permanently on its shores . " In case of accident we stop the passage of gas for at least one minute , " states Jens Müller . In the case of a leak , the gas contained in the gasduct therefore escapes into the air . But this is thought to be unlikely by the constructors who provided welds to leak only every 100 000 years . The surveillance of the state of the gasduct is provided by an undersea robot , pulled by a ship for outside observation , as well as by an apparatus circulating within the gasduct . Being cigar ##AT##-##AT## shaped , it is introduced inside the 1 ##AT##-##AT## metre wide pipeline , and it is pushed along by the gas . On arrival after 3 complete days of travel at a speed of 3 metres per second , it delivers precise information concerning any metal deformation . The gasduct was designed to work for 50 years without any need for even the smallest repair . The gas circulation is implemented simply by its pressure . This is 200 bar on leaving and 100 bar on arrival . Five companies combined their forces to implement this project . The leader remains Gazprom , which holds 51 % of the shareholding . The others are the German companies E.ON and BASF ( 15.5 % each ) and the Dutch Gasunie and the French Group GDF Suez ( 9 % each ) . These five companies have created a joint enterprise called North Stream , delegated to construct and to operate the gasduct . It has its headquarters at Zug in Switzerland , where taxation is particularly favourable . Gazprom next leased to this company for twenty renewable years , the entire capacity of gas transport . " Gazprom will pay for the total capacity , whatever may be the quantity of gas actually transported , " states Jens Müller . The financing of the construction of the gasduct was provided to the extent of 30 % by the shareholders and of 70 % by Bank loans . The total cost of the works will be 7.4 thousand million Euros for the two pipelines . The GDF Suez investment will be about 240 millions . But the minority shareholders are certain to recover their costs , since Gazprom assumes the entire risk . The gasduct emerges from the Baltic sea at Lubmin on a sandy littoral planted with conifers . 4.5 metre high valves form the gas exit . Sensors measure pressure , temperature and the specific gravities of arriving gas before being transferred into German gasducts . Since last Tuesday , the terminal has been receiving one million cubic metres of Russian gas every hour . At full capacity , this will be 3 million an hour and in 2012 , 6 million . Moleskine , a brand card . Created fifteen years ago by an Italian company , Moleskine will restore the taste of writing . It is a scent of adventure , of hours sent in writing by a the light of a candle . The Moleskine notebook is easily recognised , by its black rectangular cover , its elastic , its broken white pages , as if aged over time . Nevertheless , the Moleskine notebook as we know it today , was born in 1997 . The Italian company Modo Modo , based in Milan , decided to launch a designer notebook . Maria Sebregondi , then a consultant of the company , has assumed responsibility for the launch of the new product . The notebook draws its inspiration from an old production technique , the mole skin which means varnished cotton used for covering benches , for example . This type of notebook is said to be highly prized by writers and travellers . " Moleskine has been updated to meet current taste for an old and forgotten object , which was an avantgarde artists ' icon up to the XXth century , " related Maria Sebregondi , who has since become the manager of the brand name at Modo Modo . Success is there . Between 2006 and 2010 , sales rose by 25 % to reach 12.7 million units . One has travelled far from the production of the first years , when only 3000 notebooks were made . Moleskine is crossing the Italian frontiers and is exporting to 70 countries , from France to the USA . It is difficult to establish a profile of the typical purchaser , because the notebook attracts equally a businessman , a student and a professional . Moleskine consumers are cosmopolitan , open ##AT##-##AT## minded and cultivated . The small Italian company , which had only 12 employees at the start , now has almost 100 and two offices , one in Milan and the other in New York . Its distributes its notebooks to Fnac libraries , small shops in town centres and has succeeded in becoming well known . " We followed the spirit of the times and this need for new means of writing , notwithstanding the rise of e ##AT##-##AT## mail , " explains Maria Sebregondi . This cultural signature accompanies the development of Moleskine ; recently , the brand launched an exhibition " Detour " where architects or artists exhibit their own notebook . In August , it also launched a leopardskin pattern cover on the occasion of the Film Festival in Locarno . Exploiting its success and the cultural aura , Moleskine diversified its products to include handbags , pens , computer bags . The brand includes every kind of support . A success , which aroused envy ; in the autumn of 2006 , Modo Modo was bought by the investment fund SG Capital Europe , now Syntegra Capital , to write a new page in the history of Moleskine . Why is the rate of unemployment of handicapped workers so high ? Some 19 % of handicapped persons are looking for work . The 15th week for the employment of the handicapped starts today . Despite a public voluntary policy introduced in 2005 , the rate of unemployment of the handicapped is still twice as high as the average , namely 19 % , versus 9 % for the population as a whole . Discouraging ? " No , stresses Eric Blanchet , Director ##AT##-##AT## General of Adapt , the association which organises the week for the employment of the handicapped . " " The progress achieved since 15 years ago is considerable . " " At that time the rate of unemployment was not 2x but 3x as high . " " There is however still a huge amount to do . " It must be said that for the handicapped , the obstacles to obtaining employment are still many . They are rather old : 37 % are over 50 ( 17 % on average ) . They have rather a low level of qualifications ; 80 % do not have the " bac " and out of the 2.3 million students in higher education only 10 000 are handicapped . Lastly , long ##AT##-##AT## term unemployment is very widespread , being 85 % for the handicapped versus 38 % on an average . Briefly , all these are criteria which greatly complicate a return to employment and which constitute the nub of the problem , " according to Christian Grapin , director ##AT##-##AT## general of Tremplin , an association created in 1992 to help companies to recruit handicapped workers . Here are some of the brakes . It is hardly necessary to speak about mentalities , which do change , but too slowly . A study carried out in April by the association IMS ##AT##-##AT## Entreprendre pour la Cité showed that the managers questioned had a low level of knowledge of handicap , " with an " over ##AT##-##AT## representation of persons in wheelchairs , psychically or intellectually deficient persons . " Result - private companies employing over 20 persons are still far from achieving the objective of employing the 6 % of handicapped workers , fixed by a law dating back to 1987 . The latter known figures dating to 2008 have a ratio of 2.6 % . " We are now on around 3 % , " says Pierre Blanc , director ##AT##-##AT## general of the Agefiph , the organisation responsible for collecting contributions from companies which do not observe this law . Proof : The number of " taxed " establishments , like the sums paid , have fallen between 2007 and 2011 , from 59 000 to 46 000 structures ( and from 606 to 480 million Euros ) . " The law of 2005 , which raised the contributions , created a strong pressure on companies , explains Pierre Blanc . " " But this improvement also reflects a rise of consciousness , in particular within large groups . " According to the ministry of employment , only 59 % of establishments employing between 20 and 49 handicapped persons , versus 82 % of companies employing between 100 and 199 persons . Chance : " What happiness " Before facing the Blues on Tuesday evening ( 20.45 hrs ) Eden Hazard and Georges Leekens did not hide the pleasure , which this friendly match gave to them . We do not go so far as to say that there was connivance between them , but the image is symbolic . Sitting side by side on the tribune of the auditorium of the Stade de France , Georges Leekens and Eden Hazard made peace . Five months following the gesture of humour of his attacker against Turkey , the Belgian selector can only be praised . " I am very pleased with Eden , his progress and the fact that he is Belgian . " " I want to go forward , assures the Lillois . In contrast between his respective club and selection performances , " it is of a piece if it is justified . " " At Lille , I am there all the year round , which is not the case of Belgium . " " I must take my marks . " Selected to play against Romania on Friday evening in its match against France , Hazard went to Saint ##AT##-##AT## Denis in order at last to " shine . " Not however forgetting the notion of " pleasing . " He encouraged the Blues from the age of 7 years and the victorious campaigns of 1998 and 2000 . " I always supported them , he affirms . This necessarily participates in strengthening even more the particular character of this match . All the more so , since opposite are Mathieu ( Debuchy ) , Yohan ( Cabaye ) and Adil ( Rami ) , " he recalls . " We just crossed each others path . " " To be able to play against them , that is pure happiness ! " With bonhomie , Leekens recalled " pride . " " Pride " of playing in " a gala match . " " Pride " also in inding ass " neighbour " that France has " become again a very high level team " only a little more than one year after the trauma of Knysna . " Laurent Blanc was a thunderbolt , he enthuses . Now that Belgium will miss the next Euro , the technician will share an aircraft with the Blues management ... Brazil in 2014 . " Our little Belgians become big , " he stressed . " One is building something , the players are ambitious , they are hungry . " " You will realise this during the matches to come . Including that against France . Portugal is very confident The Portugal of Paulo Bento starts its return match against Bosnia ( 22h00 ) very optimistically , this Tuesday in Lisbon . On their way there , both teams appeared to lack realism . " At the end of these 90 minutes , we will be a happy team and most importantly , a happy country . " Paulo Bento already sees himself in Poland and in the Ukraine . For him there is not a shadow of a doubt , the Selection , with which he has been at odds since September 2010 , will qualify for Euro 2012 . Portugal is only 90 minutes away from happiness . But there is match to play and an opponent , Bosnia to conquer . In view of the ( 0 ##AT##-##AT## 0 ) , on Friday in the hell of Zenica it is clear that the games are not over . Whilst Portugal dominated the match for over one hour , it was not able to reach this precious target , which would have consoled it . " It is a good result , which nevertheless involves a certain risk " But on their side , in their illuminated Stade de la Luz in Lisbon , the Portuguese are convinced that they are playing in front of a public which must be enthusiastic , even if the match is very close , " said an optimistic , but lucid , Bento " We are expecting a very close match , but we are convinced that we can win , declared the Portuguese trainer aged 42 . " We continue to have a 50 % chance of being at Euro 2012 , " even under the successor of Carlos Queiroz . The zero taken on Friday from Bosnia obliges the Portuguese to win . A zero may be sufficient for the Bosnians . " It is a good result , which nevertheless carries some risk , regrets Bento . " We are going to play a team which has many technical qualities and which has players possessing many individual qualities , " he added . As already in Zenica , the Portuguese would plan to exert maximal pressure on the Bosnians from the start , to " give them no time to think . " A good idea , provided that it will , prove realistic this time .