What are the secret ingredients needed to transform a city or region into a hotspot in the green economy?

Necessity can be a primary driving force. In 1974, in the wake of the first oil embargo, Japan embarked on Project Sunshine to create a solar industry and promote efficiency. Brazil’s ethanol industry launched around same time for the same reasons.

Israel has become a leader in drip irrigation, desalination, sustainable development and drought-resistant agriculture because of its environment. Approximately 93 percent of the country’s land mass consists of “dry lands” that receive 600 millimeters of rain or less a year; as a result, the country remains a leader in drip irrigation, desalination, sustainable development and drought-resistant agriculture.

Denmark, Scotland and the rest of the North Sea nations are leaders in wind and the burgeoning potential for wave and tidal power. Why? They are some of the best places in the world to find strong winds and rough seas.

But weather doesn’t paint the whole picture. Human factors, arguably, are far more important in determining a green city. Look again at the U.S. The computer industry did not start in Silicon Valley. It actually began in Philadelphia. The scientists who built ENIAC, America’s first computer, at the University of Pennsylvania founded their spinoff companies like Sperry-Rand nearby.

Then Fred Terman, Stanford University’s Provost in the 1950s, began to woo engineers and aggressively seek out government contracts. Shockley Semiconductor, Fairchild, Intel, Apple and 28-year-old billionaires followed.

Some of the crucial factors: government incentives, universities with tech transfer policies, and executives who've been through the colonoscopy of building a startup. The U.S., China and Taiwan have these factors, but so does Japan -- so why don't startups bloom there? Which way will Scandinavia go?

Ireland? Brazil? England? Jordan? Vietnam?

What do you think?

Read more on this topic in a joint effort by General Electric Ecomagination and Greentech Media, and join the conversation here.

Women waiting at a health clinic in southern Malawi. Outreach health services in remote villages are one of the reasons Malawi has experienced a drop in child mortality.

The population of the world, long expected to stabilize just above 9 billion in the middle of the century, will instead keep growing and may hit 10.1 billion by the year 2100, the United Nations projected in a report released Tuesday.

Growth in Africa remains so high that the population there could more than triple in this century, rising from today’s one billion to 3.6 billion, the report said — a sobering forecast for a continent already struggling to provide food and water for its people.

The new report comes just ahead of a demographic milestone, with the world population expected to pass 7 billion in late October, only a dozen years after it surpassed 6 billion. Demographers called the new projections a reminder that a problem that helped define global politics in the 20th century, the population explosion, is far from solved in the 21st.

“Every billion more people makes life more difficult for everybody — it’s as simple as that,” said John Bongaarts, a demographer at the Population Council, a research group in New York. “Is it the end of the world? No. Can we feed 10 billion people? Probably. But we obviously would be better off with a smaller population.”

The projections were made by the United Nations population division, which has a track record of fairly accurate forecasts. In the new report, the division raised its forecast for the year 2050, estimating that the world would most likely have 9.3 billion people then, an increase of 156 million over the previous estimate for that year, published in 2008.

Among the factors behind the upward revisions is that fertility is not declining as rapidly as expected in some poor countries, and has shown a slight increase in many wealthier countries, including the United States, Britain and Denmark.

The director of the United Nations population division, Hania Zlotnik, said the world’s fastest-growing countries, and the wealthy Western nations that help finance their development, face a choice about whether to renew their emphasis on programs that encourage family planning.

Though they were a major focus of development policy in the 1970s and 1980s, such programs have stagnated in many countries, caught up in ideological battles over abortion, sex education and the role of women in society. Conservatives have attacked such programs as government meddling in private decisions, and in some countries, Catholic groups fought widespread availability of birth control. And some feminists called for less focus on population control and more on empowering women.

Over the past decade, foreign aid to pay for contraceptives — $238 million in 2009 — has barely budged, according to United Nations estimates. The United States has long been the biggest donor, but the budget compromise in Congress last month cut international family planning programs by 5 percent.

“The need has grown, but the availability of family planning services has not,” said Rachel Nugent, an economist at the Center for Global Development in Washington, a research group.

Read on

Do the various Islamist groups in Pakistan and al-Qaida affiliates around the world pose a real threat to the west, and what strategic direction will they now take?

North of Osama bin Laden's last hiding place is the town of Muzaffarabad, prime recruiting and training territory for groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT, the army of the pure) who have waged jihad for almost two decades against the Indian state in disputed Kashmir.

South and west are the lowlands where groups such as Jaish-e-Muhammad (Militia of Muhammad) have training bases and the semi-autonomous tribal areas, described by one MI6 officer as the "Grand Central Station" of international militancy. This is where Pakistani Taliban, Uzbek and other central Asian outfits, the networks led by the warlord and cleric Jalaluddin Haqqani, several Arab groups including Algerians, Libyans and Egyptians, and others are all to be found. Here are European volunteers too.

The vital questions in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death are do these various outfits pose a genuine threat to the west; and what strategic direction will they now take?

Though most of the groups in the Pakistani tribal zones have no formal link to al-Qaida, several have already shown signs of interest in the kind of international attacks and the global agenda that Bin Laden pioneered. The Pakistani Taliban were responsible for the training and commissioning of Faisal Shahzad, a young Pakistani who tried to kill hundreds in Times Square, New York, in May 2010. There is also Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani who broke away from local groups and was revealed by Indian interrogation documents obtained by the Guardian to be behind plots in Denmark and elsewhere in Europe.

Also in the tribal zones – though increasingly squeezed by Pakistani military operations and drone strikes – are central Asian groups that have shown their desire to strike in Europe largely through the use of German volunteers.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the biggest militant groups in the world, is based mainly in the eastern Pakistani province of Punjab. It is torn by fierce disputes pitting hardliners who favour waging war against the Pakistani government and other "hypocrite, apostate" regimes against those who hope to remain close to the Pakistani security establishment. These tensions in part led to the 2008 attack in Mumbai, India's commercial capital, in which more than 160 people died.

But the various affiliates of al-Qaida around the globe – with one exception – have shown little interest in pursuing the global agenda that was the raison d'être of Bin Laden's group. The most recent addition to the "network of networks" that he and his associate Ayman al-Zawahiri had woven together over the years were Somali militants. Last July they attacked restaurants in Uganda in their first international strike. But the reasons for the bombing – to deter Uganda from sending more troops to peacekeeping forces in Somalia – were local.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was formed in late 2006 and announced in 2007 by Zawahiri. The aim was to create a new alliance of existing militant groups along the north African shoreline and provide a springboard to Europe. In this it singularly failed. AQIM was dominated by Algerians who had little interest in reaching out to Libyan or Moroccan counterparts. Though some targets of attacks were international – such as the United Nations – most remained locked into a local dynamic. On 28 April a blast shook the southern city of Marrakech, killing 16 people including a Briton. The cafe that was attacked was a favourite among French visitors – representative of the former colonial power.

In Iraq too, the trend has been towards a more local agenda. Though proving itself more tenacious than had been thought, al-Qaida in Iraq is still limited to the north-western corner of the country and has shown no interest in launching attacks – even regionally, let alone further afield.

The exception is Yemen, from where al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has enthusiastically embraced a global agenda and launched several foiled strikes on American targets. A key figure in Yemen is Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric who has used the internet to build a large international following. He was in touch with an American army major who in November 2009 went on a shooting rampage on a US military base that killed 13, and his sermons influenced the British student Roshonara Choudhry who in May 2010 stabbed a member of parliament.

Bin Laden's death barely leaves these "affiliate groups" bereft. Most had parted company, organisationally and ideologically, with al-Qaida central leadership a long time ago.

One group that will have to rapidly adjust is the Afghan Taliban. Bin Laden spent 15 years trying to convince Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the movement, and his followers to wholeheartedly embrace the global agenda. In this the al-Qaida leader had some success, particularly among the younger members who have risen to replace older men killed or captured.

However, on Tuesday, after the dramatic raid on Bin Laden's compound, a Taliban spokesman was noncommittal, merely saying that without hard proof either from the Americans or from the "closest [people] to Osama" that the Saudi-born militant was dead, the movement would refrain from making any comment.

Al-Qaida, founded by bin Laden in 1988, was only ever one of scores of militant groups, all with deep roots in the individual circumstances and histories of different parts of the Islamic world. Sometimes its leader succeeded in binding a few of these fractious and often parochial outfits together around a single agenda to fight a common enemy: the west. Now Bin Laden has gone the centrifugal forces that defined the chaotic world of Islamic militancy before al-Qaida's dominance are set to reassert themselves.

Making the most of the resources you have is the key to redesigning services – and that goes for local government too

Leaders in the public and private sector are often urged to be creative in response to hard times. "Don't hold back. Be innovative, be radical, challenge the way things are done," wrote the prime minister and his deputy to public servants when appealing for money-saving ideas. A recent global survey of CEOs voted creativity the most important capability for business leaders, given the complexity and volatility of today's business environment.

Innovative ideas are fine, but they won't necessarily cut the deficit. Novelty is no guarantee of success; between 50% and 70% of corporate innovations fail to achieve their aims. Of course there is a need to rethink public service delivery when budgets have been so dramatically cut. But instead of more creative councils, may I suggest that we need more ingenious communities and councils? Let me use three stories to explain why this is more than just pedantry.

The first is of a science teacher in a school in rural India. Mr Raghuvanshi has few resources; tiny classrooms and little more than chalk and a blackboard – but his lessons are engaging. When teaching about electricity, he improvises a battery from a copper vessel, a water purification candle and common chemicals. He shows that electricity flows by placing a magnetic needle close to the circuit and showing that it twitches in response.

Ed Smylie was the leader of the famous Nasa team that solved Apollo 13 astronauts' tainted oxygen supply. His scientists and engineers recreated the exact resources available to the astronauts, and developed a way to fashion instruction manuals, maps and (of course) duct tape into a device that allowed pure air to circulate again.

Christian Riisager was an unlikely player in a global race for alternative energy sparked by the oil crisis of the 70s. The Danish carpenter used wood, a car motor and lorry gears to make a turbine that generated electricity from wind, which his countrymen gradually developed. Today Denmark are world leaders in the field, home to four of the six largest wind turbine firms in the world.

The description that links Mr Raghuvanshi, Ed Smylie and Christian Riisager isn't creative or innovative, but ingenious. Ingenious people have an inclination to work with the resources easily to hand, a knack for combining these resources in a surprising way and in doing so, an ability to solve problems. They, and the solutions they devise, exemplify ingenuity and we need more of it in local government.

Easier said than done of course. Who are these ingenious people, and how can ingenious solutions be devised? Over the last few months, staff at the Royal Society of Arts have tried to answer this by pouring over the literature and talking to many ingenious people from diverse backgrounds – from improvisational comedians to survival instructors. We've developed a theoretical understanding of ingenuity and the factors that cause some people to thrive on tiny budgets – while others falter.

The research results in several simple principles that could encourage more collective ingenuity. These principles may seem obvious, but they are often overlooked by public sector managers despairing of their shrivelled budgets. For instance, when facing constraints it helps to use "bounded" creativity techniques, which use the available resources to inspire ideas rather than by exhorting people to "think out of the box". It's also crucial to set objectives that are clear and sufficiently engaging to cultivate people's sense of "being on a mission". When forming problem-solving teams, choose people that are able to transfer knowledge from one field into another, and develop each team's sense of cohesion and potency.

Councils around the country are engaged in re-thinking public services, and many have saved money by sharing the 'back-ends' of distinct services. But councils must go beyond this, working together with communities and local businesses to identify and better use available resources. Rather than improvising with duct tape, lorry gears and water purification candles, what ingenious use can we make of spare physical assets, social and professional networks and volunteer capacity?

Matthew Taylor is chief executive of the RSA. View their pamphlet How to be Ingenious here

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by Sebastian Rotella

This story was originally published on Dec. 29, 2010.

Update May 2, 2011: As the world now knows, Osama Bin Laden was found not in a cave but just a short walk from the Pakistan's top military academy. That raises many questions about Pakistan, its military and security services.

We have long reported on the security services’ seeming double-games. Last year, we detailed the Mumbai attacks, laying out the evidence that officers in Pakistan’s powerful intelligence service, the ISI, collaborated on the plot with the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group.

Pakistan's powerful intelligence service has been accused for years of playing a "double game": acting as a front-line U.S. ally in the fight against terror while supporting selected terrorist groups which serve Pakistani interests.

Now, for the first time, there is a detailed inside account of how that game is played. The U.S. investigation of the 2008 Mumbai attacks has built a strong case that officers in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) collaborated with the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group in the plot that killed 166 people, six of them Americans. U.S. and Indian investigators say their understanding of the ISI-Lashkar alliance is drawn from the confessions of David Coleman Headley, an American convicted of participating in the Mumbai plot, as well as documents, phone records and electronic eavesdropping.

Officials from both countries say they are persuaded that ISI officers recruited and trained Headley in spying techniques and gave him money and instructions to scout targets in Mumbai and elsewhere. Headley has told investigators that a Pakistani Navy frogman helped plan the maritime attack on Mumbai, according to a 119-page report recounting his interrogation this year by Indian authorities. The report, which was obtained by ProPublica, quotes Headley as saying his Pakistani intelligence handler took part in a discussion about a subsequent Lashkar plot to attack a Danish newspaper -- information that Pakistan did not share with Danish authorities.

In essence, U.S. and Indian officials say, Headley was more than a terrorist: He served as a Pakistani spy.

During the period that ISI officers allegedly helped Lashkar plan to kill Americans and Jews in Mumbai, the intelligence service was working closely with the CIA and U.S. military in counter-terrorism efforts and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was pledging his support for the U.S. campaign against militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials deny any link to Lashkar and point out that hundreds of ISI officers have died in clashes with militants. They accuse India of politically motivated distortion in the report on Headley's interrogation.

"It is a stereotype, a Pakistan-specific version of an Indian interrogation," said a Pakistani official who requested anonymity because of the sensitive topic. "The Indian version is totally distorted and fabricated as there was no involvement of the ISI whatsoever. Nor did any serving official interact with Headley or any of the perpetrators."

But U.S. investigators see much of Headley's account as credible, U.S. officials said. The investigators believe his main handler, a man identified only as Major Iqbal, was a serving member of ISI and one of several Pakistani intelligence officers who had contact with Headley, according to U.S. officials.

The Obama administration has expressed frustration with Pakistan's failure to bring to justice the suspected masterminds of Mumbai and to rein in Lashkar, the ISI's longtime proxy army against India. Recent intelligence shows Lashkar remains intent on striking the West, according to a U.S. official who requested anonymity.

Tensions between Washington and Islamabad worsened earlier this month when the CIA was forced to abruptly withdraw its station chief from Pakistan after his identity was made public in a lawsuit there. U.S. government officials suspect that the ISI leaked the station chief's name to Pakistani lawyers suing the CIA for deaths in drone missile strikes, the U.S. official told ProPublica. The official said the move may have been "tit-for-tat" because of a recent civil lawsuit filed in New York by relatives of the victims of the Mumbai attacks naming the ISI and its chiefs as plaintiffs along with Lashkar.

The ISI plays a dominant role in Pakistan's fractured government. Most experts see its long-standing alliance with militant groups as a mix of geo-political strategy -- extremists are a useful weapon against India -- and anti-Western ideology. Headley's story of his high-level dealings with spies and militants alike opens a door into a secretive underworld, according to officials and experts.

"I don't know of any other cases in which ISI has used and worked with Americans," said Charles Faddis, a former CIA counter-terror chief who worked in South Asia. "Having a guy like this would be great for LeT and ISI. The Indians are working off a profile of what they think enemy operatives look like. This guy does not fit that profile. He can walk through the screen without being seen."

When he spoke to Indian investigators in June, Headley repeated much of the account he had given U.S. investigators before pleading guilty in March to conducting reconnaissance for the Mumbai and Denmark plots, U.S. officials say. Since his arrest in late 2009, the FBI and Indian counterparts have spent more than a year checking his confessions against other evidence: witness testimony, phone and e-mail intercepts, travel and credit card records, data stored in his computer.

"Most of the Headley statement is consistent with what we know about the ISI and its operations," said an Indian counter-terrorism official who requested anonymity. "And it's consistent with what he told the FBI and what they told us. A lot has been cross-referenced to travel, communications, other evidence."

Aspects of the Indian report of the Headley interrogation have been previously disclosed, but its significance in detailing the ISI's interaction with Lashkar has not been fully described. This article is based on that document, U.S. court papers and interviews with Western and South Asian investigators, intelligence officials and experts.

Headley's revelations have led to differing interpretations. Indian leaders and some Western experts say his account reinforces accusations that the ISI plays an active role in terrorist operations.

"For the first time you have an American talking about this agency not just being aware of, but involved in, a terrorist plot," said Sajjan Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a security consulting firm based in London. "What have the last nine years since 9/11 been about? And all the money from the U.S. taxpayers to fund and stabilize Pakistan? Is that money being used for terrorism?"

On the other hand, U.S. counter-terrorism officials do not see evidence that ISI chiefs made an "institutional, top-down decision" to attack Mumbai, the U.S. official said. Some feel that Headley's nuanced, sometimes ambiguous narrative tends to exonerate the top spymasters. For example: Headley told investigators that the ISI's director general was apparently caught off-guard by the carnage in Mumbai, the Indian report says.

"We should not assume that simply because the ISI policy is to sustain Lashkar that the leadership is aware of every detail in terms of the group's operations," said Stephen Tankel, author of the forthcoming book "Storming the World Stage: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba." "The ISI policy is not to allow Lashkar to cross certain red lines, but sometimes the interpretation by ISI handlers of what constitutes an acceptable operation is different than that of the leadership."

Between June 3 and June 9, investigators of India's National Investigation Agency questioned Headley for 34 hours in Chicago in the presence of U.S. prosecutors, FBI agents and his lawyers, the report says. He cooperated as part of a plea deal enabling him to avoid the death penalty. The Indian interrogation report offers Headley's story in his own words: the wild odyssey of a Pakistani-American businessman-turned-militant who was also an informant of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

At each step along the way, the ISI emerges as a central player.

Headley begins the account with his trip to Lahore in 2000 to visit his family home. While there, he befriended Lashkar's spiritual leader, Hafiz Saeed, who draws tens of thousands of followers to rallies.

Headley, a former heroin dealer, was on U.S. federal probation and working as a DEA informant, according to U.S. officials.

Over the next several years, Headley embraced the cleric's ideology. Between 2002 -- when Pakistan officially outlawed Lashkar -- and 2005, he did five stints at Lashkar terror camps where officers of the ISI and the Pakistani army helped provide arms, screening and training, according to the report and Western investigators. Lashkar assigned him to work with a militant chief named Sajid Mir, also known as Sajid Majid, who allegedly became a lead plotter of the Mumbai attacks. Western investigators say that Mir had close ties to the ISI and may be a former military or intelligence officer.

Throughout this period, Headley told interrogators, he saw Lashkar maintain an almost-symbiotic relationship with the ISI. The spy agency has "control over the most important operatives" of Lashkar and every chief "is handled by some ISI official," he said, according to the Indian report. An ISI brigadier general served as handler for Zaki-ur-Rehmane Lakhvi, Lashkar's military chief, who also "is close to the [Director General] of ISI," he said.

The ISI funds Lashkar and shields Saeed, the spiritual leader, from interference, Headley said.

"He is very close to ISI," Headley said of Saeed. "He is well protected."

The description conforms to what is known by foreign intelligence agencies, officials and experts said. Lashkar was born as a guerrilla force fighting against India's control of the disputed Kashmir region. In exchange for funding and direction from the ISI, the militant group has steadfastly avoided attacking the Pakistani state in contrast to al Qaeda, its longtime ally, and other groups. The ISI retains alliances to selected militant networks both because of ideological sympathy and a strategic imperative to fight Indian influence in the region, U.S. officials say.

Critics see those ties as a key source of violence and instability in the region. In a blunt speech this month in Washington, former Afghan spy chief Amrullah Saleh accused Pakistan of supporting Lashkar and also declared that the headquarters of the Taliban "are in Pakistani intelligence's basements."

Pakistani officials deny such allegations.

Headley began a direct relationship with ISI officers in January 2006 after Pakistani authorities briefly detained him for trying to smuggle arms into India, according to his account. An ISI officer named Major Samir Ali interviewed the American, then referred him to a Major Iqbal, who became his main handler in Lahore. Major Iqbal, described as fat, deep-voiced and in his mid-thirties, introduced Headley to a man identified as Lieutenant Colonel Shah, who promised Headley financial support for terrorist operations against India.

At subsequent meetings in safe houses, Major Iqbal gave Headley secret documents on India. He assigned a non-commissioned officer to give the American standard intelligence training. Headley learned techniques for detecting surveillance, developing sources and other skills, then practiced with the lower-ranking officer on the streets of Lahore. The specialized training lasted several months and continued intermittently afterward as Major Iqbal taught Headley how to use cameras and other devices for missions, the report says.

"I became close to Major Iqbal," Headley told interrogators. "The training given by this NCO under the guidance of Major Iqbal was much more scientific and effective than the trainings I did in the LeT camps."

Phone and e-mail evidence have corroborated Headley's contact with Major Iqbal and other suspected ISI officers, U.S. and Indian officials say. Major Iqbal has been detected directing intelligence and terror operations in other cases, officials say.

Because Lashkar keeps the spy agency informed about activities of its foreign militants, the arrest of Headley near the Pakistani border may have been part of a plan to recruit a promising American operative, the Indian counter-terror official said.

"I have come across previous cases of Lashkar recruits trained by ISI separate from the camp training," the Indian official said. "There was a guy from the south of India who underwent similar training. He was an attractive recruit because he was very articulate. He had connections to several militant groups and knew two or three languages."

Pakistani officials say they have not been able to identify Major Iqbal or confirm any involvement of military officers.

"It's possible people impersonate the ISI or the army," the Pakistani official said. "Uniforms have been stolen in the past for this kind of thing."

Headley said Major Iqbal gave him $25,000 to set up a front company in Mumbai as a cover while conducting reconnaissance for the attacks. Headley spent months scouting the Taj Mahal hotel and other targets for Mir and Major Iqbal, who also sent him on separate missions to gather intelligence on an atomic research center and military sites around India. Major Iqbal called Headley from a phone number with a 646 area code (one used in the New York area), the report says. This could have been a technique to conceal the origin of the calls in Pakistan and avoid eavesdropping by American and Indian intelligence agencies, experts say.

Headley told investigators that Major Iqbal contributed advice about tactical issues to the Mumbai plot: escape routes for the gunmen, setting up a safe house, hijacking an Indian vessel at sea. Headley said the major approved of Mir's decision to attack Western targets such as the Chabad House Jewish center directed by an American rabbi.

"He was very happy to know that Chabad House had been chosen as a target," Headley said.

The rabbi and his pregnant wife were killed by gunmen during the Mumbai attacks.

Headley reported separately to Iqbal and Mir, his Lashkar handler, but the two handlers coordinated with each other, the report said.

"The whole thing feels like ISI is trying to maintain plausible deniability," Faddis said, using the intelligence term for operating through an intermediary who can be disavowed. "They are running in parallel with LeT and clearly leveraging sources for their own purposes, but they are still trying to avoid being directly tied to the attack planning, most of the time."

Indian investigators say Headley's confession portrays Iqbal as a mastermind of the attacks. U.S. investigators analyze his account differently, attributing a more limited support role to the ISI officer.

In the interrogation, Headley implicated other Pakistani military men. He said a Pakistani Navy frogman helped plan the portion of the assault that involved hijacking an Indian vessel at sea, according to the report. Headley described attending a two-day meeting of plotters in Muzzafarabad in 2008 at which the guest of honor was the crew-cut, clean-shaven frogman named Abdur Rehman. He gave the Lashkar chiefs technical advice, the report says.

"They had discussed various landing options along the coast of Mumbai," Headley said. "The sea chart brought by the frogman was discussed. ... The frogman told them that the sea became rough after the month of June. ... [He] told me to check the position of the naval vessels on the Indian side so as to avoid a gunfight."

ISI officers supplied a boat for a failed first attempt to send the gunmen to Mumbai and intervened when the American's chaotic personal life got him in trouble just two months before the attack, the report says.

Headley had married a Moroccan medical student in Lahore in 2007, though he already had a Pakistani wife and a third wife in New York. The Moroccan wife quarreled with him and visited the U.S. embassy in early 2008 to warn officials that she thought her husband was involved in terrorism, according to U.S. officials.

In September, the wife also complained about Headley to "senior police officials" in Lahore, the Indian report says. Headley said Pakistani police jailed him for eight days; his account does not specify the charges. Headley's Pakistani father-in-law put up bail and "Major Iqbal also helped me [in] this case," Headley said.

The incident, which could not be independently confirmed, joins a list of a half-a-dozen missed warnings from Headley's wives and associates dating back to 2001.

The Pakistani official denied the story. Noting that Headley had worked for the DEA, he blamed U.S. officials for failing to tell Pakistan about intelligence that was shared with India in 2008 warning about a possible attack on Mumbai.

"He was not arrested in Lahore in September 2008 as he claims," the Pakistani official said. "The U.S. had intelligence reports about this plot but they were not shown to Pakistan. Perhaps with Pakistan alerted, the plots could have been avoided."

Headley said the Mumbai plot caused -- and resulted from -- conflict in the Lashkar-ISI partnership. Disillusioned militants demanding a bigger role in fighting in Afghanistan were defecting to al Qaeda and the Taliban, while chiefs of Lashkar and the ISI tried to keep the main focus on Kashmir, he said.

In response to the dangerous internal rifts, Lashkar decided on a spectacular al Qaeda-style strike on Western targets in Mumbai, and the ISI approved the shift in tactics, Headley explained.

"The ISI I believe had no ambiguity of understanding the necessity to strike India [and]... shifting and minimizing the theater of violence from the domestic soil of Pakistan," he said.

The analysis rings true, according to officials and experts.

"Lashkar's senior leaders are sometimes pulled between adherence to the ISI and their dedication to pan-Islamist jihad," Tankel said. "Meanwhile, the ISI is trying to pressure the group enough to keep it in line and not so much that it fragments. That becomes more difficult as LeT integrates further with other outfits and a segment of its members agitate for breaking free of ISI control."

Three months after the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, the ISI arrested Lakhvi, the Lashkar military chief, and six other militants. In a potentially significant revelation, Headley said Gen. Ahmed Suja Pasha, the director general of the ISI, went to see Lakhvi in custody, according to the report.

"Pasha had visited him to understand the Mumbai attack conspiracy," the report quotes Headley as saying, without further elaboration.

Pakistani officials deny that the spymaster made the jailhouse visit. U.S. and Indian officials and experts are more willing to believe the story.

Headley's language suggests that Pasha, who had become director only two months before Mumbai, was surprised by the attack or at least its dimensions. This reinforces the U.S. view that top ISI brass were not involved.

Once again, Indian officials disagree. They believe Pasha visited the jailed Lashkar chief to ensure his silence and obedience.

"I think Pasha was aware of the plot beforehand, or he is not chief of the ISI," the Indian counter-terror official said.

Headley's testimony that Lashkar bosses have high-ranking ISI handlers, if accurate, suggests that information about the plot must have circulated among senior ranks of the spy agency. Key questions center on how much ISI liaison officers to Lashkar -- in addition to Major Iqbal -- and others in the spy agency knew about the Mumbai plot, U.S. investigators say.

ISI officers certainly knew of Lashkar's increasing determination to take its terror campaign into the West, Headley said. The report describes a crucial meeting in November 2008. After almost two years maintaining a careful distance from each other, Headley's handlers from the ISI and Lashkar paid him a joint visit in Lahore, the report says.

"This is the first time Major Iqbal and Sajid came together to my home," he said. "We discussed about the Denmark project."

The project was a plot to attack a Danish newspaper that had published caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed. Mir directed and funded Headley's subsequent reconnaissance on the newspaper's offices in Denmark, according to the report and U.S. court papers. But U.S. officials have not previously mentioned Major Iqbal's involvement in the high-stakes meeting to launch an attack in the heart of Europe.

"The presence of Iqbal at a meeting about the Denmark plot is pretty seismic," Gohel said. "They take it to the next phase. Either the hierarchy was aware or there was no accountability."

Experts said Iqbal's visit alongside Mir sent a message of trust to Headley. But the extent to which the major approved of the Danish plot, and the degree to which he was acting on his own, remain unclear.

"I think this was a particularly sensitive discussion and somebody above Iqbal's pay-grade told him to sit in and be present for the conversation between Headley and Mir," Faddis said.

Major Iqbal soon cut off contact with Headley because "the Mumbai investigation was getting bigger and hotter" and a suspect had revealed "ISI cooperation" in the plot, the report says. Lashkar shelved the Denmark project, so Headley continued plotting and scouting in Denmark and elsewhere in Europe under the direction of al Qaeda, U.S. court documents say.

But Headley did not sever all links to the ISI. He remained in touch with Ali, the major who had first recruited him, until June 2009, even during trips back to the United States, he said. The report does not say whether Major Ali knew Headley was conducting reconnaissance for al Qaeda and Lashkar until his arrest in October of 2009.

Pakistan charged Lakhvi and six other militants in the Mumbai attacks, but their trial has stalled. Pakistani officials say lack of evidence has prevented them from identifying or arresting Major Iqbal, Mir and other suspected masterminds. But they insist that they want to get to the bottom of Headley's explosive allegations.

"Pakistan is considering an interrogation of Headley, making a request to the U.S.," the Pakistani official said. "We are pursuing the matter. Pakistan is committed to not allowing its soil to be used for terrorist attacks on any other country."

Industry sources say while the curfew will not affect the revenues of game publishers in the short term, it will certainly harm the image of the companies in the local and overseas market.
“The mandatory shutdown system is unconstitutional and allows the government to rule over families,” said the Korea Association of Game Industry in a statement. “It’s regrettable how [the system] has branded game publishers as those with ill intentions like those making drugs.”

The government-developed common curriculum will be used in kindergartens and daycare centers alike, according to the plan.
About 400,000 of the nation's 435,000 children who turn 5 next year, or about 91 percent, will benefit from the policy.
Children who are educated at home or at high-cost educational facilities, including English language institutes, will not receive the subsidy, but officials expect the expansion of state support will encourage more low- and middle-income parents to send their children to kindergartens or daycare centers.
The government will revise related laws in the second half of this year to give a legal guarantee to the new system, officials said.

The Netherlands topped the list with an average score of 100 followed by Denmark with 99 and Singapore with 98.
India and Philippines are also high among Asian countries, ranking 19th and 35th, respectively.
North Korea ranked 96th, China 105th, Thailand 116th, Japan 135th and Saudi Arabia 153rd.
The international average score in 2010 is 80 with 20.1 in reading section, 19.5 in listening, 20.7 in writing and 20 in speaking.

New ACT Party leader Don Brash would not set any bottom lines for economic policies he would like accepted in a coalition deal with National after the November 26 election, despite criticising National's handling of the economy.

Speaking on TV1's Q&A programme, Brash said National had critisised the former Labour government's policies such as interest free student loans but had failed to change them.

Before his takeover of ACT, which he was confirmed as leader of on Saturday, Brash led the government's 2025 taskforce. It was tasked with identifying economic policies needed to close a 30% wage gap with Australia by 2025. Prime Minister John Key and Finance Minister Bill English brushed aside the vast majority of the recommendations, saying they would be too extreme to impliment.

'Not prudent'

Asked whether a policy of raising the pension age would be a bottom line, Brash said he did not think it was "prudent at all to talk about bottom lines in anything".

"I certainly think that John Key is being irresponsible in saying that it must not go up," Brash said in reference to Prime Minister John Key's pledge to resign before his government raised the eligibility age for Superannuation payments, currently 65.

"I mean, Australia, UK, US, Germany, Denmark – all are raising that age, and every objective observer says it has to gradually – and I stress gradually – change over a period of a decade," Brash said.

Meanwhile, Brash noted Key labeled the removal of interest on student loans as a huge election bribe.

"And it was. I mean, let’s try and be objective. The Labour government in the first two terms were quite responsible, fiscally.  They didn’t have a great burst of government spending.  In the last term, they went bonkers. And National said so, not just me but John Key said so, again and again. But in government we’ve done nothing about it," Brash said.

Your view?

Should Brash already be setting bottom lines for economic policies National would need to accept if it wanted ACT as a coalition partner?

Or should he wait to see what type of polling ACT has after his takeover?

Brash wants ACT to get 10% of the Party vote - if National has to accept ACT as a coalition partner, which policies should Brash set as bottom lines?

The Obama administration does not seem tuned in to the concept of friends and enemies in the Middle East, except perversely. It undermines friends and takes a hands-off approach to enemies. I have the unsettling feeling that we will we end up frankly supporting the genocidal enemies of Israel and the United States in the Middle East. I have the unsettling feeling that we will end up supporting Hamas and Hezbollah if not Syria and Iran before Obama leaves the political stage. Why can't the State Department give a straightforward answer to the question whether the United States will support a Fatah/Hamas government in the West Bank and Gaza? It's not a difficult question.

And at home, the Obama Department of Justice has killed the prosecution of a the Holy Land Foundation co-conspirators who make up a Hamas front in the United States. As Andrew McCarthy put it, the department has prevented the prosecution of "Islamist organizations designated as unindicted coconspirators in the Hamas financing case -- the prosecution in which five officials of an Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) were convicted and given long sentences." Why would that be? It appears to have something to do with "outreach."

We haven't heard much about Libya lately. Should an American action intended to remove a tinpot dictator be stuck in neutral this late in the day? One wonders where the prince of Denmark is when you really need him. Hamlet, call your office.

Having expressed this thought on Friday, I see that Paul Rahe makes the case that Obama actually bears a certain resemblance to Shakespeare's inaction hero. One could also make the case, however, that he bears a resemblance to Marc Antony, to Polonius, and to several other Shakespearian characters. I'm not sure which cuts closest to the core.

Ryan Lizza's important New Yorker article quotes an anonymous Obama adviser describing Obama's approach to the Libya kinesis as "leading from behind." Charles Krauthammer devotes a good column to explicating the meaning of the phrase applied to Obama. Consider this passage:

"Obama came of age politically," explains Lizza, "during the post-Cold War era, a time when America's unmatched power created widespread resentment." But the world did not begin with the coming to consciousness of Barack Obama. Cold War resentments ran just as deep.

It is the fate of any assertive superpower to be envied, denounced, and blamed for everything under the sun. Nothing has changed. Moreover, for a country so deeply reviled, why during the massive unrest in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, and Syria have anti-American demonstrations been such a rarity?

Who truly reviles America the hegemon? The world that Obama lived in and that shaped him intellectually: the elite universities; his Hyde Park milieu (including his not-to-be-mentioned friends, William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn); the church he attended for two decades, ringing with sermons more virulently anti-American than anything heard in today's full-throated uprising of the Arab Street.

It is the liberal elites who revile the American colossus and devoutly wish to see it cut down to size. Leading from behind -- diminishing America's global standing and assertiveness -- is a reaction to their view of America, not the world's.

Other presidents take anti-Americanism as a given, rather than evidence of American malignancy, believing -- as do most Americans -- in the rightness of our cause and the nobility of our intentions. Obama thinks anti-Americanism is a verdict on America's fitness for leadership. I would suggest that "leading from behind" is a verdict on Obama's fitness for leadership.

The average American would describe the views of "the liberal elites" as anti-American, as Krauthammer thinks they are. Krauthammer tactfully says here that Obama shares these views, that Obama concurs in the anti-American verdict on America's fitness for leadership. It's a frame of mind that explains a lot. To borrow a phrase, it is "the most unkindest cut of all."

I wish to put the record straight: we are a proud nation but we are people of moderation, and we don't believe his ridiculous PR

What do the following have in common: drug dealers, al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, misguided youth, tribal leaders, Nescafé, hallucinatory pills (Tramadol), the CIA, al-Jazeera, the BBC, America, Israel, Denmark, Qatar, the Libyan diaspora, stray dogs, cats, rats and cockroaches?

This is just a snippet from the list of culprits that the Libyan government wants you to believe are responsible for the recent violence in Libya.

Over the last two months we have seen the feeble attempts of the media arm of the Libyan regime try to disseminate pro-Gaddafi propaganda and enhance its stature both abroad and with Libyan civilians via the state television.

State TV broadcasts hours of talk shows every day inviting guests to talk about the current situation. They often have zero insight into the atrocities being committed and some well-known guests have even claimed that dead saints and demons fight amongst the ranks of Gaddafi's forces.

The Libyan TV anchor Hala Misrati is one of many of the regime's public faces who spew this sensationalist rubbish. Her recent highlights include a claim that al-Jazeera cameraman Hassan Ali Jaber, the first journalist to be killed during the conflict, was murdered by al-Jazeera itself. She also delivered a 10-minute tirade claiming Eman al-Obeidi was a prostitute and interrogated the captured Syrian journalist Rana Alakabani live on air for daring to mention on her tapped cellphone that she had to queue up for bread.

It seems that with every attempt to improve their public stature, they stumble over themselves even further – which is a shame considering that they have previously received expert consultancy from one of the world's leading PR firms. The Libyan government throughout this saga has shown itself to be incoherent and inconsistent.

For Libyan citizens, any actions or even thoughts that divulge from the party line are regarded as thought crime. Thought police (also known as the revolutionary guards) would punish such deplorable actions by taking those responsible to Room 101 never to be seen again. If we take the Orwellian analogy further, one can see parallels between Gaddafi and the dictator/pig in Animal Farm.

Then there is our favourite clown: government spokesman Musa Ibrahim.

According to him, the Libyan regime was planning a new constitution, political reform, free elections and a democracy. During an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, we saw him claim that Libyan revolutionaries are drugged up with hallucinatory pills. State TV even went further and tried to show evidence which turned out to be Tramadol – a drug whose side effects include drowsiness and constipation. Only this week, Musa Ibrahim showed his blind allegiance to Gaddafi by claiming that not even God can choose Gaddafi's future in Libya.

We have seen the Libyan government (mainly through Musa Ibrahim) announce a ceasefire three times – for it to be violated immediately. Despite Musa Ibrahim's fabrication of events, the indiscriminate massacre of civilians continues in the besieged city of Misrata using illegal cluster munitions, and has left more than 1,000 civilians dead.

There still seem to be some who see a political future for the Gaddafi family in Libya, such as Saif Gaddafi's former associate Benjamin Barber. His call for "dialogue" ignores the root of the problem which is the Gaddafis themselves. When confronted by gangs of mercenaries, rapists, torturers and murderers using child soldiers intent on the destruction of everything and anyone in their path, there is little room for negotiation.

Others are choosing to jump on the Libyan media bandwagon by claiming that the revolutionaries are being controlled by al-Qaida cells and Islamic extremists. If Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of al-Quds al-Arabi, wishes to make such sensationalist comments, he should back them by evidence.

I wish to put the record straight on Libya as I see it. Libya is a largely conservative country in comparison to some of its Arab neighbours. Libyans are highly educated. They reject extremism in all its forms.

We have been subjected to the extremist Gaddafi rule for a period that spans over six decades. It is not desirable for Libyans to let extremism of any kind sabotage the revolution, whether this is political, religious, liberalist, military or otherwise. We are a Muslim, Arab, Libyan nation and we wave our banner proudly, but we are a people of moderation.

The time for negotiation with Gaddafi ended the moment that he started shooting at peaceful protesters in Benghazi on the 15 February. The blood of Libyan citizens has been spilled before the world's eyes, and although this is not the first time Muammar Gaddafi has done so in the last 42 years, this time Libyan citizens cannot pretend to continue to live their normal lives under his rule – and the citizens of the world cannot do this either.

The tide has finally turned against Gaddafi, and the waves of freedom are lapping up the shores of Bab al-Azizia, his stronghold in Tripoli. Despite this, Gaddafi's government only wants to send you this message: don't believe what you see, don't believe what you hear, just believe what we tell you to believe.

John Michael Greer - Alternatives to Nihilism, Part Three: Remember Your Name

Look beyond the realm of partisan quarrels and the same deeply troubled conscience appears over and over again in American life. Consider, as one example out of many, the way that protecting children turned from a reasonable human concern to an obsessive-compulsive fixation. Raised under the frantic surveillance of helicopter moms, forbidden from playing outside or even visiting another child’s home except on the basis of a prearranged and parentally approved play date, a generation of American children were held hostage by a galaxy of parental terrors that have only the most distorted relationship to reality, but serve to distract attention from the fact that the lifestyles chosen by these same parents were condemning their children to a troubled and dangerous life in a depleted, polluted, and impoverished world.

The irony reached a dizzying intensity as tens of thousands of American parents rushed out to buy SUVs to transport their children to places every previous generation of American children proved perfectly capable of reaching by themselves on foot or on bike. It became the conventional wisdom, during the peak of the SUV craze, that the safety provided to young passengers by these massive rolling fortresses justified their purchase. No one wanted to deal with the fact that it was precisely the lifestyle exemplified by the SUV that was, and remains, the single most pressing threat to children’s long-term safety and welfare.

Tripoli witness: Rioting, fighting and dying for fuel

Tales of tension and gang-fights are common in Tripoli's long queues for fuel. One resident in the Libyan capital - who does not want his name to be used for security reasons - explains.

It has been an explosive week in Tripoli, both literally and figuratively.

Nato air strikes intensified after a quiet period.

Meanwhile, the fuel shortage, that state television channels deny exists, has hit an all-time high in the past eight days.

Fertiliser sector seeks gas diversion from power plants

ISLAMABAD: The fertiliser sector has offered the government that it will pay cost differential of running power plants on fuels other than gas, provided the government diverts 120 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of gas to fertiliser plants, as low availability of gas has not only reduced power generation by 800 megawatts, but is also becoming a reason for urea shortage.

Russian fuel shortage to impact Tajik harvests, ministry says

Tajikistan’s Agriculture Ministry on Friday issued a warning that fluctuations in the availability of Russian gas could impact harvests and have a negative impact on the country’s agribusiness sector.

“The sowing campaign was carried out in the country in good time, but acute fuel shortages may seriously affect land treatment that will tell on productivity and quality of agricultural crops, including cotton,” the Tajik news agency AsiaPlus.tj reported ministry spokesman Narzullo Dadaboyev as saying on Friday.

LPG's Aramco price hits record high at $ 980 per ton

KARACHI: The international price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has jumped by $ 96 to record high at $ 980 per ton for May 2011, raising its import price by Rs 9,043 to Rs 97,560 per ton, the highest ever in country's history.

Gasoline prices soar in Germany to new record high

Gasoline prices in Germany reached a record high of 1.62 euro per liter, a day after Russia raised export duties by 44 percent to ensure domestic supply. Earlier this week, oil companies reported huge profits.

Drivers in Germany about to return from Easter holidays will face a nasty shock as gasoline prices on Friday reached a record high of around 1.62 euros per liter ($2.41). That's even higher than the 2008 record of 1.59 euros per liter.

Mideast Oil Recovery Enters New Phase

DUBAI—It has always been an axiom of world energy markets that Persian Gulf oil is both easy and cheap to produce.

The crude that gushes from the scorching desert sands of Saudi Arabia is thought to cost less than $5 a barrel to produce, compared to the $70 price tag on raising a barrel from deep Atlantic waters.

But many of the Persian Gulf oilfields have been producing for decades, and a number of the newer fields in the region contain heavier and harder-to-extract crudes. Squeezing out the remaining reserves from some existing fields and developing new, more complicated ones will be costlier and will require more advanced technology, according to analysts and oilfield engineers.

Stuart Staniford: Chinese inflation and next recession musings

So, in 2007/2008 the sector that gave way was the American subprime consumer, along with a significant chunk of the financial system that was predicated on the idea that poor Americans could continue to take on more and more debt indefinitely. Instead, rising gas and food prices eventually destabilized the finances of that sector of consumers, they started to default, then their lenders started to default, financial contagion set in, and the situation was only stabilized with massive extraordinary interventions by sovereign governments. That worked, but left a lot of the sovereigns in significantly weaker condition than before.

Now poor Americans borrowing more and more to bid house prices higher and higher was always an unsustainable trend that was going to end in tears one way or another. But the timing was likely determined by the oil/food price shock that ended in 2008.

So now, just three years later, here we are again with oil and food prices rising fast, and the question in my mind is this: what part of the global fabric tears next? And when?

Shale Boom, Gas Demand to Make North America LNG Exports Reality

The increase in North American natural gas due to the shale gas boom and a projected increase in global gas demand mean that North America will become a liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter within the next few years.

PA State Senate Proposes Impact Fee on Gas Drilling

The ranking Republican in the state Senate today proposed an impact fee on Marcellus shale gas drilling, of which an estimated 60 percent would go to counties and municipalities with deep wells as well as townships and boroughs neighboring drilling production sites.

Pemex Output May Reach 3 Million Barrels in 2015-2017

Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-run oil company, may see production rise to 3 million barrels a day in the period from 2015 to 2017, Juan Jose Suarez Coppel, chief executive officer said today.

Pemex, as the company is known, will cut losses in its refinery business by about 8 billion pesos this year, Suarez Coppel said at an event in Mexico City.

What's wrong with China becoming Afghanistan's main patron?

We are hearing that Pakistan has urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to turn away from the United States, and embrace China as his country's chief big-power patron. Is that a wacky idea? The answer is no. As we've observed with the flow of oil and natural gas from Central Asia, an active Big China serves U.S. and western interests when it comes to this particular region.

Deep Oil From Diamonds? Maybe, Says A New Report

According to a new computer model, liquid methane in contact with a partially hydrogen-terminated diamond surface at extremely high pressures and temperatures spontaneously forms longer hydrocarbons, and hence the material of crude oil could be formed deep in the earth.

Nigeria’s Ruling Party Keeps Majority in General Elections

(Bloomberg) -- Nigeria’s ruling party retained a majority in national legislative and state-governor elections that were called the cleanest in a decade in Africa’s top oil producer, according to partial results released by authorities.

ANALYSIS-China sharpens axe to cull "teapot" refiners

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's state-owned oil companies can cover any shortages of refined fuel products under plans to shut small refiners known as "teapots" that make up 10 to 15 percent of the country's capacity, though fuel oil imports would fall sharply.

When is it time to say goodbye to a company?

Even if you do have hundreds of great people in the company, BP's culture is extremely problematic. Short of serious criminality, laws do not permit a government-led off-with-his-head approach applied to bad dictators. As for a market response, one might ask what type of incident would trigger a company-changing selloff. The type that forces a lopping off of the entire top of the company, and a true transformation of the culture. Or its acquisition by a more responsible rival.

A Spanish Island's Quest to Be the Greenest Place on Earth

At the moment, the project that will transform the future of El Hierro doesn't look like much more than a hole in the ground. Or two, to be exact: one on top of a mountain, another smaller one down below, and in between, a long stretch of pipeline tinted the same color as the scrub that grows so abundantly on this volcanic island. But when this innovative wind-power system goes online at the end of 2011, it will turn El Hierro, the easternmost of Spain's Canary Islands, into the first inhabited landmass in the world to become completely energy self-sufficient. And that's just the first step in a plan that may make the island the most sustainable place on Earth.

Bitching About an Unsustainable Lifestyle

My Facebook pal — who I won’t name out of courtesy and to save her possible embarrassment — recently urged her online followers to take part in a national Post-It Note campaign at the gas pump designed to show outrage at the spiraling prices that she had read about somewhere. In her words, “Every time I buy gas, I leave a sticky note on the gas pump which says, ‘How’s that Hope & Change working out for you?’ I encourage all of you to join me in my little adventure.”

If you can’t tell, my acquaintance is a conservative Republican and she’s blaming President Obama and his energy policies for the rising prices, and borrows a smart-ass barb from everyone’s favorite half-term governor, Sarah Palin.

(By the way, this acquaintance opposes Cincinnati’s proposed streetcar system and generally is against mass transit. Go figure.)

Obama renews call for ending oil subsidies

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama on Saturday said Congress should halt subsidizing oil companies to invest in the energy of the future.

"When oil companies are making huge profits and you're struggling at the pump, and we?re scouring the federal budget for spending we can afford to do without, these tax giveaways aren't right," Obama said in his weekly radio address.

"They aren't smart. And we need to end them," he added.

Pump prices rise 2 cents as supplies tighten

Gas pump prices across the country rose to within a dime of $4 a gallon Friday, as weather-related refinery outages tightened supplies and pushed prices up.

The national average increased 2 cents to nearly $3.91 a gallon for regular gasoline. It's the highest level since July 31, 2008, when pump prices were falling from a record $4.11 a gallon on July 17 of that year.

Drivers in nine states and the District of Columbia already pay $4 a gallon or more for gas. At the current rate of increase, the national average could reach $4 by May 8, Analysts expect it to start falling later in the month, as refineries return to full production and more gas becomes available.

Gas Prices: Californians Are Mad as Hell but Still Driving

The driver of a white Porsche zips into the Costco gas station in Marina del Rey, Calif., and takes his place in line. It's a Friday afternoon and all 16 of the pumps are taken. At $4.19 per gallon, prices there are among the least expensive on the west side of Los Angeles these days. The Porsche owner, Santa Monica attorney Matt Jones, ends up paying $56 to fill up — $15 more than it would have cost him a year ago, but $10 less than he could have spent last week at a more expensive station in Santa Monica.

End in sight for soft natural gas price as U.S. inventories, production falling

There may be an end in sight for soft natural gas prices that have plagued the industry over the last three years. A U.S. Energy Information Administration report released Thursday showed natural gas inventories this year are lower than expected and now sit at 20% below the fiveyear average.

Iran’s Revolutionary guard gets new gas project

TEHRAN — A consortium connected to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard has been awarded two giant gas development projects.

The semiofficial Mehr news agency quotes Mahdi Fakoor, a senior Oil Ministry official, saying that Khatam-ol-Anbia will develop Halgan and Sefid Baghoon gas fields in southern Iran.

How Syria and Libya Got to be Turkey's Headaches

With neighboring Syria in crisis, the Arab Spring has finally arrived on Turkey's doorstep — and with it, one big headache for a government that has spent recent years staking its political fortunes on the region.

Review of Carl Safina’s “A Sea in Flames,” a post-mortem on the BP oil spill.

Not since Rachel Carson wrote her sea trilogy — “Under the Sea-wind,” “The Sea Around Us” and “The Edge of the Sea” — has a conservationist written about marine ecosystems with the factual elegance of Carl Safina. His 1997 book “Song for the Blue Ocean” jarred readers about the tragic diminution of numerous fish species: bluefin tuna, white marlin, swordfish. All the great runs of these species, he warned, were lurching toward expiration. Safina, a marine biologist, has positioned himself as a protector of the seas, a man in communion with dolphins and whales. Other Safina books have dealt with leatherback turtles, Laysan albatross, shellfish stocks — any and everything that grapples with the health of the world’s oceans.

BP Accident Lives On in Ads

A book by Sinclair Lewis that was published in 1935 has been largely forgotten, except for its chilling title, “It Can’t Happen Here.” That idea provides the premise for a campaign for an advocacy organization that is tied to the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill.

Plains' 200,000 bpd Alberta pipeline spills oil

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - A 200,000 barrel per day oil pipeline belonging to a unit of Plains All American Pipeline LP ruptured on Friday, spilling hundreds of barrels of oil, regulators said.

Plains' Rainbow pipeline, which runs from Zama in northwest Alberta 770 kilometers (480 miles) south to Edmonton, sprung a leak at 7:30 a.m. local time.

"It's not a small leak," said Davis Sheremata, a spokesman for Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board, which regulates pipelines in the province. "It's a significant leak, in the hundreds of barrels."

Energy Information Agency Feels Budget Ax

The federal government’s ability to gather and analyze energy data and produce market forecasts will be significantly impaired by the recently enacted budget cuts, the administrator of the Energy Information Administration said.

Why China Could Prove to be the Better Place for EVs

This week Shai Agassi’s Better Place is realizing a long held dream of moving to a better place to realize electric vehicle battery swapping in lieu of fast charging for the electric car: Guangzhou, China. While Agassi’s electric vehicle battery swapping stations have already launched in far smaller nations: Agassi’s native Israel, and Denmark and Hawaii, it could well be that this launch in China will turn out to be the one that really gives lift-off to the Better Place battery swapping model for the electric car industry.

Peak Oil Aware Biologist John Janovy, Jr. Predicts Future Human Evolution

What Will Human Life Be Like in a Couple of Thousand Years?

Obviously there is no way to answer this question of the title for certain, but we can do a little thought experiment that might suggest some answers. Picture yourself in what is now Israel at the time of Jesus' crucifixion attempting to predict what human life would be like in the year 2010 and you will have a sense of the difficulty in making such predictions. ...

Regardless of specific predictions by various experts, many of whom have personal or political agendas, the historical record is fairly clear. That record tells us two things: (1) you cannot predict technological innovations and developments very accurately or very far in advance, and (2) deteriorating environmental conditions are probably the most important factor in the collapse of civilizations.

New Brazil Policies May Not Prevent Rising Ethanol Prices, Analyst Says

Brazil’s move to assume more authority over the country’s ethanol supply chain may not prevent a repeat of this month’s surge in prices for the renewable fuel, an analyst said.

Johnsonville plant shutdown fuels counties' job fears

TVA’s game-changing plan to shut down parts of its coal-burning power production fleet will mean cleaner air for Middle Tennessee and elsewhere, but it has left at least one community in shock.

Humphreys County, already dealing with an 11.6 percent unemployment rate, could lose as many as 270 jobs with the shuttering of the coal-fired boilers at the Johnsonville plant.

Radiation exposure levels near limit for 2 nuclear plant workers

TOKYO — As the nuclear crisis continues at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, two workers, who were previously hospitalized for possible radiation burns, turned out Saturday to have been exposed to radiation levels close to the limit of 250 millisieverts while seven women in affected areas were found with slightly contaminated breast milk.

IAEA to send team to inspect Fukushima plant in mid-May

VIENNA — The International Atomic Energy Agency plans to send a team to Japan in mid-May to inspect the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, IAEA sources said Friday.

Russia to Keep Nuclear-Energy Expansion Plan to ’Balance’ Mix, Putin Says

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Russia is keeping its plans to increase the share of nuclear power to have a “balanced” energy industry.

“We need to produce as many units, I mean big units, as in the entire Soviet period,” Putin said at a meeting with trade unions in Penza, central Russia, yesterday. “Our energy should be balanced; it should be based on several sources: nuclear, hydrocarbon, hydro power, wind, solar panels.”

Council for Renewable Energy demands a ban on Nuclear Energy

The World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE) demands a global ban on new nuclear power, policies to phase out current plants - and a decisive, immediate move to a 100% renewable world.

The Top 10 Solar States

Here, courtesy of the Solar Energy Industries Association, is a Top 10 list for cumulative installed solar capacity in the United States as of 2010.

Philippines need not forego growth for environment, says World Bank exec

Manila (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN) - Like other developing nations, the Philippines does not have to sacrifice growth to save the planet, according to the World Bank's special envoy on climate change.

Andrew Steer, who was on a two-day visit here earlier this week, said the Philippines, a relatively low emitter of greenhouse gases, was not obliged to enact climate-change policies if this would mean the loss of jobs and income.

Europe's top 300 firms get climate-ranked

LONDON (UPI) -- British insurer Aviva ranks the climate-friendliest of 300 large European companies but many companies don't do enough to bring down greenhouse gas emissions, a new study indicates.

Disaster Needed for U.S. to Act on Climate Change, Harvard’s Stavins Says

The U.S. probably won’t take significant steps to curb climate change until an environmental disaster sways public view and prompts political action, Robert Stavins of Harvard University said.

“It’s unlikely that the U.S. is going to take serious action on climate change until there are observable, dramatic events, almost catastrophic in nature, that drive public opinion and drive the political process in that direction,” Stavins, director of Harvard’s Environmental Economics Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said today in an interview in Bloomberg’s Boston office.

The Government today asserted that none of its agencies had connived with Neils Holck alias Kim Davy or Peter Bleach, accused in the Purulia Arms Dropping case of December 1995, in any way or helped them in their heinous act, notwithstanding what the duo had told a television channel earlier this week.

"The Government of India has facilitated the free, impartial and professional investigation of the case at every stage," an official statement said.

It said the Government was committed to unravel the truth and the entire conspiracy behind the crime and to bring all the guilty to justice.

The statement came two days after a television channel quoted Davy as saying that the entire operation to smuggle in huge quantities of arms and ammunition was carried out with the implicit approval of the highest echelons of power in India.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said in a statement yesterday that it had not found any evidence that any government agency had helped Davy in his crime by way of any act of commission or omission.

The Government today said documents pertaining to the case against Bleach and the Latvians involved in the crime were already in the public domain.

"When Kim Davy is extradited to India and put on trial the documents pertaining to his role will also be put in the public domain.

"Government and the CBI are acutely conscious of the fact that nothing should be done at this stage that will prejudice the extradition proceedings or the intended trial of Kim Davy after his extradition to India," the statement said.

According to the statement, on the intervening night of 17/18th December, 1995, a huge consignment of sophisticated arms and ammunition was airdropped over some villages in Purulia district of West Bengal.

An FIR was registered in the Jhalda Police Station and investigation was taken up under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Arms Act, the Explosive Act and so on.

Later, in view of the seriousness of the matter, the Centre requested the West Bengal Government to hand over the case to the CBI for a thorough investigation. The state government did so on December 27, 1995.

On December 22, 1995, the aircraft concerned in this case was forced to land at Mumbai airport and six crew members, including a British citizen, Bleach, and five Latvians - Klishin, Gaidash, Timmerman, Moskovitin and Antimenko - were taken into custody. However, Davy was able to escape from the airport.

The CBI filed a charge sheet on March 20, 1996 against 13 persons: i) Peter James Gilfran Von Kalketein Bleach, ii) Alexander Klichine @Sasha, iii) Igor Moskvitine @Alexandre, iv) Oleg Gaidach, v) Evgueni Antimenko, vi) Igor Timmerman, vii) Deepak @Daya Anand @Daya Anand Manikan (Absconding), viii) Kim Palgrave Davy @Davy Km Peter (Absconding), ix) Acharya Suranjanananda Avadhuta @Satyendra Narayan Singh (Absconding), x) Acharya Saileshwarananda Avadhuta @Umesh Chandra Sharma (Absconding), xi) Acharya Jagadishwarananda Avadhuta (Absconding), xii) Acharya Tadbhavananda Avadhuta @Tusar Kanti (Absconding) and .

Subsequently in the process of continuing investigation two more charge sheets were

filed in the case. The judgement in the case was pronounced on February 2, 2000 and the convicted accused persons - Peter James Gilfran Vol Kalkstein Bleach, Alexander Klichine @Sasha, Igor Moskvitine @Alexandre, Oleg Gaidach, Evgueni Antimenko and Igor Timmerman - were sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs.25000 each.

The statement said that, later, in spite of objection by the prosecuting agency, the then Government granted Presidential pardon to remit the sentences in respect of five Latvians on July 22, 2000 and in respect of Bleach on February 4, 2004.

The Government said it had taken the incident very seriously from the very beginning. Immediately after the air drop, the Government had set up an inter-ministerial group to co-ordinate effort. As a result, the aircraft involved could be quickly identified and was later forced to land at Mumbai international airport.

It said various intelligence and security agencies of the Government had provided all out support to the CBI in its investigation in and outside the country. Letters rogatory were also sent to several countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Singapore, United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Latvia, and Denmark. Investigations were also conducted through mutual legal assistance arrangements in the United States, South Africa, Netherlands, Ecuador, Brazil, and Sweden.

The statement said the allegations by Davy, who masterminded the arms drop, were mischievous and aimed at misleading the prosecuting agency and the court in Denmark, which are seized with the matter of his extradition to India to face trial.

"Earlier also he has admitted his role in this crime not only in front of the print and visual media, including BBC, and in a book written by him, but also in front of Danish court at Hillerod in Copenhagen. His self serving allegations and attempt to give a political colour to his crime and thus deflect the judicial process of his extradition is not substantiated by the evidence and facts," it said.

"As for the allegations by Peter Bleach, he was convicted and sentenced to life by an Indian court of law on the basis of evidence collected by the CBI. This conviction was never set aside by any superior court in India. The allegations and contentions of Bleach as voiced by him now could have been raised during his free and fair trail in an open court of law. He was given every opportunity to prove his alleged innocence whereas the trial court found him one of the main conspirators and convicted him for life," it said.

The statement said that, from the very beginning, the Government and CBI had shown all seriousness in locating and extraditing Davy. Since he was traced in Denmark in the year 2001, efforts continued to extradite him to India, in spite of the fact that there is no extradition treaty between Denmark and India.

It said the matter had repeatedly been taken up at the highest levels resulting in the initiation of extradition proceedings against Davy. During the recent visit of the Danish Deputy Prime Minister, this matter was again taken up by External Affairs Minister S M Krishna.

"The case remains under investigation. Any new facts emerging at any time will be looked into by the CBI in a professional manner. Moreover once Kim Davy is extradited and put to trial in an Indian court of law he will get ample opportunity to explain his contentions and his defense to the court which will decide on his culpability as per the evidence and the law," the statement added.

NNN

The carbon tax has inflamed the old conflicts between progressives and conservatives – between those who favour government-imposed solutions, and the free-market capitalists or those who simply mistrust big government.

In an effort to win over the conservatives, Greg Combet has been busy spruiking the economic benefits of a carbon tax to everyone from householders to CEOs.

Combet boasts that “Every dollar raised by the carbon price will be dedicated to supporting households with any price impacts, and supporting businesses through the transition to a clean energy economy.”

This is impossible. Under the “Fast Start Finance” commitment from Cancun, which Combet announced, $599 million will be given to the IPCC under Australia’s combating AGW obligations. This $599 million is on top of the commitment made by Australia at Cancun to give 10% of revenue raised from a carbon tax to the IPCC. Then there will be the bureaucratic expansion to run the tax, checking compliance and eligibility criteria; these administration costs apparently run at 50% for the Australian government. All this probably explains why Combet’s boss, PM Gillard, is saying “more than 50 per cent of money raised [from the carbon pricing scheme] will go to assisting households.”

This must be part of the “certainty for investors” which Combet describes as an advantage of a carbon tax.

According to Combet, “with Australia's enormous clean energy resources, putting a price on carbon and shifting to clean energy will have big benefits for our economy.” This has not been the experience of other countries.

Spain’s experiment with a carbon tax and subsidisation of wind and solar resulted in 2.2 jobs lost for every green job bought by subsidies. Italy fared even worse with 4.8 jobs lost for every green job bought by subsidy. Similar results occurred in Germany and Denmark.

Apart from overseas experience showing a carbon tax and subsidisation of green energy costs jobs the results also show shrinkage in GDP; Spain’s economy actually contracted during the period which green energy was subsidised. This should be no surprise to Combet because in 2009 the then NSW Labour government commissioned Frontier Modelling to analyse the effect the 5% ETS proposed by the then Rudd government would have on the Australian GDP. The modelling showed a $2 trillion reduction in the Australian economy directly linked to the effect of the ETS by 2050; that’s $50 billion per annum; enough to pay for the NBN.

The shrinkage occurs because green energy is both far more expensive than conventional energy and does not meet the society’s needs. California is the classic example of this. California’s sweet ride with green energy began in 1973-4 with the first oil shock; this experiment gained momentum in the 1980s when the US government offered big tax breaks for wind power. After 40 years of massive investment and cutting edge technology in wind and solar California today obtains only 2.4% and 0.4% from those 2 sources. As for moral leadership, despite banning coal mining California still receives nearly 10% of its power from coal, all imported. California’s dominant energy source is gas.

Apart from a Treasury release saying that a $30 per tonne carbon tax will add $860 per household there have been no economic modelling to support its cheery predictions about a carbon tax. The overseas examples listed above prove they won't eventuate.

That proof that a carbon tax represents a massive shift towards big government lies in the already available details in the government’s National Greenhouse Emissions Reporting website [NGER].

NGER lists all the corporations currently obligated to report their emissions of CO2; this obligation is based on a threshold which only catches the largest of businesses; this threshold will be lowered or non-existent with the advent of a carbon tax after the Greens gain power on the 1^st July 2011, so the total revenue collectable from a carbon tax will be much larger the NGER indicates at present.

But that's not all. The NGER structures the carbon tax as a DOUBLE tax applying both to the production of energy [Scope 1] and the use of that energy [Scope 2].

The figures are staggering. Scope 1 emissions are just under 341 million tonnes. Because the use in Scope 2 will approximate the emissions from Scope 1 another 341 million tonnes can be added for a total of 682 million tonnes of emissions. The Greens preferred CO2 tax rate is $45 per tonne; at that rate the carbon tax will extract $15 billion from the Australian economy per year. And that’s before agriculture and petrol are slugged.

Julia Gillard and Greg Combet are saying somewhere between 50% and 100% of the money will be returned to consumers but that is qualified by saying that only the most needy will be looked after. There are about 7.5 million residential household accounts for electricity in Australia, but obviously only about one quarter, or 2 million of those are needy if pension and low income thresholds are applied. If the government allocates half of the revenue or $7.5 billion to those 2 million households that will be $3,750 per household, well above the Treasury estimate of what it will cost the average household at $30 per tonne. Even if another $15 is added to the carbon tax price that will, according to Treasury, only cost the average household $1,290 [$860 + $430].

But this doesn’t take into account two crucial and proven consequences of the carbon tax. The first is GDP shrinkage estimated to be $50 billion per year; that will cost the average household 3 times what the direct effect of the carbon tax will, adding another $3,870 to the average household. With the $1,290 added on that now comes to $5,160. If the government gives all the collected revenue to the bottom 2 million households that will be $7,500 per household so those households will be better off. The other 5.5 million households will of course be out of pocket by $5,160.

The second problem goes beyond compensation however. Part of the GDP shrinkage will be relocating and closing business; part of that closing business will be energy providers. The Australian Energy Market Operator, the peak body for appraisal of all Australian energy providers, has already predicted energy shortages and black-outs within 2 years.

It doesn’t much matter how much compensation you are given if there is nothing to spend it on and you can’t count it in the dark. Of course with a failing economy the compensation will only last a year because after that time there will no “polluters” to collect it from.

Even if man-made global warming [AGW] were real we know that an Australian carbon tax will have no effect on rising temperature; the sums have been done, the questions have been asked and the only answers given have been odd.

With this Government's reputation for bungled schemes - the BER, the home insulation scheme, the mining tax, clean coal to name a few - even progressives should think twice about whether this government has the capacity to introduce such a complex reform as a carbon tax and trading scheme.

The risk is not that Australia will be left behind in putting in place new, better, cleaner, greener technology, but that Australia will be left with no steel industry, no aluminium industry, no refineries or smelters.

Australians are not “per person, the highest polluters in the developed world”, as Combet claims; this is wrong, we are 12th, with one of the most efficient industrial sectors in the world, a product of necessity brought on by the low population and the “tyranny of distance” which aggravates infrastructure and service provision in Australia compared with other countries. It’s a pity Combet is not spruiking that instead of a carbon tax which will send that efficiency away from Australia.


Anthony Cox is a lawyer and secretary of The Climate Sceptics.

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Kelly Reichardt's new frontier story Meek's Cutoff tilts decisively toward socially-minded existentialism

THURS/21

Beginners (Mike Mills, U.S., 2010) There is nothing conventional about Beginners, a film that starts off with the funeral arrangements for one of its central characters. That man is Hal (Christopher Plummer), who came out to his son Oliver (Ewan McGregor) at the ripe age of 75. Through flashbacks, we see the relationship play out — Oliver's inability to commit tempered by his father's tremendous late-stage passion for life. Hal himself is a rare character: an elderly gay man, secure in his sexuality and, by his own admission, horny. He even has a much younger boyfriend, played by the handsome Goran Visnjic. While the father-son bond is the heart of Beginners, we also see the charming development of a relationship between Oliver and French actor Anna (Melanie Laurent). It all comes together beautifully in a film that is bittersweet but ultimately satisfying. Beginners deserves praise not only for telling a story too often left untold, but for doing so with grace and a refreshing sense of whimsy. Thurs/21, 7 p.m., Castro. (Louis Peitzman)

FRI/22

The Good Life (Eva Mulvad, Denmark, 2010) Portraits of the formerly wealthy are often guilty of peddling secondhand nostalgia for some ancien regime while simultaneously stoking schadenfreude toward the now-deposed (just ask Vanity Fair). Eva Mulvad's melancholy character study of 50-something Annemette Beckmann and her aged mother, Mette, avoids both traps even as her subjects — formerly wealthy Danish expats living on the dole in a cramped apartment in a coastal Portuguese town — offer few inroads for sympathy. Narcissistic and petulant, Annemette blames the loss of her family's wealth on the 1974 nationalization of Portugal's then-Communist government, and claims that her cosseted upbringing has made it hard to find a job ("Work doesn't become me," she gratingly protests at one point). Mette, who is more likeable, is a resigned realist whose sole comfort, aside from the pet dog, seems to be her knowledge that she is not long for this world. Comparisons to Grey Gardens (1975) are inevitable here, but the Beckmanns simply aren't as interesting or possessed by as idiosyncratic a joie de vivre as the Beales, making The Good Life a tough slog. Fri/22, 3:45 p.m.; April 28, 6:45 p.m.; and May 1, 9:30 p.m., Kabuki. (Matt Sussman)

Hahaha (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2010) Do you remember a time you behaved badly (not horribly, but bad enough that you felt ashamed) but you didn't really think about it until long after the fact, say, when getting drinks with an old friend? If you can't, than the latest from South Korean director Hong Sang-soo will probably jog your memory. As with many of Hong's films, Hahaha's premise is similar to the above scenario: two 30-something buds get together and reminisce about their recent trips to the same seaside town. Shown in episodic flashbacks, we start to realize that the incidents and players in their separate accounts overlap into one story filled with terrible poetry, domineering mothers, stalker-ish behavior, and poorly made choices. Hong's films are primers in how not to treat your fellow human beings (straight dudes are usually the culprits), so take notes. Fri/22, 9:15 p.m.; Mon/25, 9 p.m.; and Tues/26, 3:30 p.m., Kabuki. (Sussman)

I'm Glad My Mother is Alive (Claude Miller and Nathan Miller, France, 2009) Codirected with his son Nathan, this latest by veteran French director Claude Miller is an about-face from his acclaimed 2007 period epic A Secret. Viscerally up-to-the-moment in content and handheld-camera style, it's a small story that builds toward an enormous punch. Thomas (played by Maxime Renard as a child, then Vincent Rottiers) is a lifelong malcontent whose troubles are rooted in his abandonment at age five by an irresponsible mother (Sophie Cattani). Neither the attentions of well-meaning adoptive parents or the influence of his better-adjusted younger brother can quell Thomas' mix of furious resentment and curiosity toward his mere, whom he finally develops a relationship with as a young adult. As usual, Miller doesn't "explain" his characters or let them explain themselves, yet everything feels emotionally true — right up to a narrative destination both that feels both shocking and inevitable. Fri/22, 6:45 p.m., and Mon/25, 9:30 p.m., Kabuki. (Dennis Harvey)

Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, U.S., 2010) After three broke down road movies (1994's River of Grass, 2006's Old Joy, 2008's Wendy and Lucy), Kelly Reichardt's new frontier story tilts decisively toward socially-minded existentialism. It's 1845 on the choked plains of Oregon, miles from the fertile valley where a wagon train of three families is headed. They've hired the rogue guide Meek to show them the way, but he's got them lost and low on water. When the group captures a Cayeuse Indian, Solomon proposes they keep him on as a compass; Meek thinks it better to hang him and be done with it. The periodic shots of the men deliberating are filmed from a distance — the earshot range of the three women (Michelle Williams, Zoe Kazan, and Shirley Henderson) who set up camp each night. It's through subtle moves like these that Meek's Cutoff gives a vivid taste of being subject to fate and, worse still, the likes of Meek. Reichardt winnows away the close-ups, small talk, and music that provided the simple gifts of her earlier work, and the overall effect is suitably austere. Fri/22, 9 p.m., and Mon/25, 4:30 p.m., Kabuki. (Max Goldberg)

Stake Land (Jim Mickle, U.S., 2010) Not gonna lie — the reason I wanted to review this one was because of the film still in the SFIFF catalog. Rotten-faced vampire with a stake through its neck? Yes, please! But while Jim Mickle's apocalyptic road movie does offer plenty of gore, it's more introspective than one might expect, following an orphaned teenage boy, Martin (Connor Paolo, Serena's little bro on Gossip Girl), and his gruff mentor, Mister (Snake Plissken-ish Nick Damici), on their travels through a ravaged America. As books, films, and comics have taught us, whenever a big chunk of the human race is wiped out (thanks to zombies, vampires, an unknown cataclysm, etc.), the remaining population will either be good (heroic, like Mister and Martin, or helpless, like the stragglers they rescue, including a nun played by Kelly McGillis), or evil — cannibals, rapists, religious nuts, militant survivalists, etc. Stake Land doesn't throw many curveballs into its end-times narrative, but it's beautifully shot and doesn't hold back on the brutality. Larry Fessenden (director of 2006's The Last Winter) produced and has a brief cameo as a helpful bartender. Fri/22, 11:30 p.m., and Mon/25, 9:45 p.m., Kabuki. (Cheryl Eddy)

SAT/23

The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (Andrei Ujica, Romania, 2010) Andrei Ujica's three-hour documentary uses decades of propagandic footage to let the late Romanian dictator — who was overthrown by popular revolt and executed in 1989 — hang himself with his own grandiose image-making. While the populace suffered (off-screen, you might want to bone up on the facts before seeing this ironical, commentary-free portrait), the "great leader" and his wife Elena were constantly seen holding state dances, playing volleyball, hunting bear, and vacationing hither and yon. (We even see them on the Universal Studios tour.) There's no surprise in seeing them greeted with enormous pageantry in China; but it's a little shocking to see this tyrant welcome Nixon (in the first-ever U.S. presidential visit to a Communist nation), lauded by Jimmy Cartner, and hobnobbing with Queen Elizabeth. This grotesque parade of self-glorifying public moments has a happy ending, however. Sat/23, 12:45 p.m., Kabuki; Sun/24, 5:15 p.m., New People; May 1, 1:30 p.m., PFA. (Harvey)

Life, Above All (Oliver Schmitz, South Africa/Germany, 2010) It's tough enough to simply grow up, let alone care for a parent with AIDS and deal with the suspicions and fears of the no-nothing adults all around you. Rising above easy preaching and hand-wringing didacticism, Life, Above All takes as its blueprint the 2004 best-seller by Allan Stratton, Chandra's Secrets, and makes compelling work of the story of 12-year-old Chandra (Khomotso Manyaka) and her unfortunate family, unable to get effective help amid the thicket of ignorance regarding AIDS in Africa. After her newborn sister dies, Chandra finds her loyalty torn between her bright-eyed best friend Esther (Keaobaka Makanyane), who's rumored to hooking among the truck drivers in their dusty, sun-scorched rural South African hometown, and her mother (Lerato Mvelase), who listens far too closely to her bourgie friend Mrs. Tafa (an OTT Harriet Manamela), for her own good. Cape Town native director Oliver Schmitz sticks close to the action playing across his actors' faces, and he's rewarded, particularly by the graceful Manyaka, in this life-affirmer about little girls forced to shoulder heart-breaking responsibility far too soon. Sat/23, 4 p.m., and April 28, 6 p.m., Kabuki. (Kimberly Chun)

The Mill and the Cross (Lech Majewski, Poland/Sweden, 2010) One of the clichés often told about art is that it is supposed to speak to us. Polish director Lech Majewski's gorgeous experiment in bringing Flemish Renaissance painter Peter Bruegel's sprawling 1564 canvas The Procession to Calvary to life attempts to do just that. Majeswki both re-stages Bruegel's painting — which draws parallels between its depiction of Christ en route to his crucifixion and the persecution of Flemish citizens by the Spanish inquisition's militia — in stunning tableaux vivant that combine bluescreen technology and stage backdrops, and gives back stories to a dozen or so of its 500 figures. Periodically, Bruegel himself (Rutger Hauer) addresses the camera mid-sketch to dolefully explain the allegorical nature of his work, but these pedantic asides speak less forcefully than Majeswki's beautifully lighted vignettes of the small joys and many hardships that comprised everyday life in the 16th century. Beguiling yet wholly absorbing, this portrait of a portrait is like nothing else at the festival. Sat/23, 12:30 p.m., SFMOMA, and April 27, 9 p.m., Kabuki. (Sussman) Mind the Gap Experimental film fans: come for the big names, but don't miss out on the newcomers. Locals Jay Rosenblatt (melancholy found-footage bio The D Train), Kerry Laitala (psychedelic 3-D brain-dazzler Chromatastic), and Skye Thorstenson (mannequin-horror music video freak out Tourist Trap, featuring the acting and singing stylings of the Guardian's Johnny Ray Huston) offer strong entries in an overall excellent program. International bigwigs Peter Tscherkassky (the 25-minute Coming Attractions, a layered study of airplanes, Hollywood, and Hollywood airplanes — not for the crash-phobic) and Jonathan Caouette ("Lynchian" has been used to describe the Chloë Sevigny-starring All Flowers In Time, though it contains a scary-faces contest that'd spook even Frank Booth) are also notable. New names for me were Zachary Drucker, whose Lost Lake introduces a transsexual, pervert-huntin' vigilante for the ages, and my top pick: Kelly Sears' Once it started it could not end otherwise, a deliciously sinister hidden-history lesson imagined via 1970s high-school yearbooks. Sat/23, 4:45 p.m., and May 1, 9:45 p.m., Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Troll Hunter (André Ovredal, Norway, 2010) Yes, The Troll Hunter riffs off The Blair Witch Project (1999) with both whimsy and, um, rabidity. Yes, you may gawk at its humongoid, anatomically correct, three-headed trolls, never to be mistaken for grotesquely cute rubber dolls, Orcs, or garden gnomes again. Yes, you may not believe, but you will find this lampoon of reality TV-style journalism, and an affectionate jab at Norway's favorite mythical creature, very entertaining. Told that a series of strange attacks could be chalked up to marauding bears, three college students (Glenn Erland Tosterud, Tomas Alf Larsen, and Johanna Morck) strap on their gumshoes and choose instead to pursue a mysterious poacher Hans (Otto Jespersen) who repeatedly rebuffs their interview attempts. Little did the young folk realize that their late-night excursions following the hunter into the woods would lead at least one of them to rue his or her christening day. Ornamenting his yarn with beauty shots of majestic mountains, fjords, and waterfalls, Norwegian director-writer André Ovredal takes the viewer beyond horror-fantasy — handheld camera at the ready — and into a semi-goofy wilderness of dark comedy, populated by rock-eating, fart-blowing trolls and overshadowed by a Scandinavian government cover-up sorta-worthy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). Sat/23, 11:30 p.m., Kabuki; Mon/25, 6:15 p.m., New People. (Chun)

World on a Wire (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Germany, 1973) The words "Rainer Werner Fassbinder" and "science fiction film" are enough to get certain film buffs salivating, but the Euro-trashy interior décor is almost reason enough to see this restored print of the New German Cinema master's cyber thriller. Originally a two-part TV miniseries, World on a Wire is set in an alternate present (then 1973) in which everything seems to be made of concrete, mirror, Lucite, or orange plastic. When the inventor of a supercomputer responsible for generating an artificial world mysteriously disappears, his handsome predecessor must fight against his corporate bosses to find out what really happened, and in the process, stumbles upon a far more shattering secret about the nature of reality itself. Riffing off the understated cool of Godard's Alphaville (1965) while beating 1999's The Matrix to the punch by some 25 years, World on a Wire is a stylistically singular entry in Fassbinder's prolific filmography. Sat/23, 8:45 p.m., Kabuki, and April 30, 2 p.m., PFA. (Sussman) SUN/24

A Cat in Paris (Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli, France/Belgium/Netherlands/Switzerland, 2010) Save your pocket poodles, please: Paris, as cities go, is most decidedly feline. From 1917's silent serial Les Vampires to its uber-cool 1990s update Irma Vep, cat burglars and the Parisian skyline have gone together like café and au lait. Add actual cats and jazz to the mix for good measure (even Disney saw fit to set its jazzy 1970 Aristocats in the City of Light). At just over an hour long, the animated A Cat in Paris is an enjoyable little amuse-bouche that employs all the standards of the cats-in-Paris meme: Billie Holiday warbling on the soundtrack, a dashingly heroic antihero who scales the rooftops as if he studied parkour under Spider-Man, and the titular untamable black cat who serves as his partner in crime. Complete with a climatic Hitchcockian set piece on the rooftops of Notre Dame Cathedral, A Cat in Paris has a refreshingly angular and graphic, almost cubist, feel. Directors Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli's work certainly doesn't rank among that of countryman Sylvain Chomet (2010's The Illusionist), but this family film is worth checking out if kitties up to no good in Purr-ree simply make you want to le squee. Sun/24, 12:30 p.m., Kabuki, and May 1, 12:30 p.m., New People. (Michelle Devereaux)

MON/25

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog, U.S., 2010) The latest documentary from Werner Herzog once again goes where no filmmaker — or many human beings, for that matter — has gone before: the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave, a heavily-guarded cavern in Southern France containing the oldest prehistoric artwork on record. Access is highly restricted, but Herzog's 3D study is surely the next best thing to an in-person visit. The eerie beauty of the works leads to a typically Herzog-ian quest to learn more about the primitive culture that produced the paintings; as usual, Herzog's experts have their own quirks (like a circus performer-turned-scientist), and the director's own wry narration is peppered with random pop culture references and existential ponderings. It's all interwoven with footage of crude yet beautiful renderings of horses and rhinos, calcified cave-bear skulls, and other time-capsule peeks at life tens of thousands of years ago. The end result is awe-inspiring. Mon/25, 7 p.m., and Tues/26, 9:30 p.m., Kabuki. (Eddy)

TUES/26

Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzmán, France/Chile/Germany, 2010) Chile's Atacama Desert, the setting for Patricio Guzmán's lyrically haunting and meditative documentary, is supposedly the driest place on earth. As a result, it's also the most ideal place to study the stars. Here, in this most Mars-like of earthly landscapes, astronomers look to the heavens in an attempt to decode the origins of the universe. Guzmán superimposes images from the world's most powerful telescopes — effluent, gaseous nebulas, clusters of constellations rendered in 3-D brilliance — over the night sky of Atacama for an even more otherworldly effect, but it's the film's terrestrial preoccupations that resonate most. For decades, a small, ever dwindling group of women have scoured the cracked clay of Atacama searching for loved ones who disappeared early in Augusto Pinochet's regime. They take their tiny, toy-like spades and sift through the dirt, finding a partial jawbone here, an entire mummified corpse there. Guzmán's attempt through voice-over to make these "architects of memory," both astronomers and excavators alike, a metaphor for Chile's reluctance to deal with its past atrocities is only marginally successful. Here, it's the images that do all the talking — if "memory has a gravitational force," their emotional weight is as inescapable as a black hole. Tues/26, 6:30 p.m., Kabuki, and April 28, 6:15 p.m., PFA. (Devereaux)

The Sleeping Beauty (Catherine Breillat, France, 2010) Fairytales are endemically Freudian; perhaps it has something to with their use of subconscious fantasy to mourn — and breathlessly anticipate — the looming loss of childhood. French provocateuse Catherine Breillat's feminist re-imagining of The Sleeping Beauty carries her hyper-sexualized signature, but now she also has free reign to throw in bizarre and beastly metaphors for feminine and masculine desire in the form of boil-covered, dungeon-dwelling ogres, albino teenage princes, and icy-beautiful snow queens. The story follows Anastasia, a poor little aristocrat, who longs to be a boy (she calls herself "Sir Vladimir"). When her hand is pricked with a yew spindle (more of a phallic impalement, really), Anastasia falls into a 100-year adventurous slumber, eventually awakening as a sexually ripe 16-year-old. It all plays like an anchorless, Brothers Grimm version of Sally Potter's 1992 Orlando. And while it's definitely not for the kiddies, it's hard to believe that many adults would find its overt symbolism and plodding narrative any more than a sporadically entertaining exercise in preciousness. Your own dreams will undoubtedly be more interesting — perhaps you can catch a few zzz's in a theater screening this movie. Tues/26, 6:15 p.m., and April 27, 6:30 p.m., Kabuki. (Devereaux)

THE 54TH ANNUAL SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL runs April 21–May 5. Venues are the Sundance Kabuki, 1881 Post, SF; Castro, 429 Castro, SF; New People, 1746 Post, SF; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third, SF; and Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, SF. For tickets (most shows $13) and complete schedule visit www.sffs.org>.

How far does NATO’s intervention to protect civilians in Libya represent a deepening of the norm of responsibility to protect (R2P)? The international community’s response to the current crisis shows signs of a progressive acceptance of R2P, although there are reasons to be cautious in thinking the same combination of factors are likely to hold in other cases of humanitarian atrocities.

In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the idea that states, and the international community, bear a ‘responsibility to protect’ people from mass atrocity crimes, such as those in Libya that began in February 2011. While the Security Council agreed to the doctrine of the ‘responsibility to protect’ in 2006, it has only invoked it in relation to two cases, first Darfur and now Libya.

The Security Council referred to R2P on Darfur when authorising a United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur (prior to UNAMID) however in this situation the government of Sudan did not consent to the deployment and the resolution was not implemented. This left the UN looking weak and contributed to further delays before a United Nations-African Union ‘hybrid’ peacekeeping mission was authorised a year later.

The two United Nations Security Council resolutions (1970 and 1973) adopted in response to the humanitarian crisis in Libya suggest, on the surface, that state leaders have taken civilian protection norms further than at any previous time when the ‘something must be done’ call has resounded throughout the international community.  In support of this view, notice how lack of consent on the part of the Libyan government did not prevent the Council from adopting and implementing a Chapter VII resolution.

What makes the forcible action to prevent further atrocities in Libya all the more remarkable, from the perspective of UN authorisation, is that when it came to voting on resolution 1973, no state can have been deluded into thinking military action might not follow. To use the term that divided the diplomatic community over Iraq in late 2002 and early 2003, it was clear that any resolution would ‘trigger’ immediate air strikes against Libyan military targets.

The conjoining of purpose with process, in relation to the collective use of force, has not been seen - so argues UN expert Ramesh Thakur - since the 1991 Gulf War. No other resolution has connected “all necessary measures” to civilian protection so explicitly. In so doing, the Libya case stands apart from other recent interventions for alleged humanitarian purposes. In the case of Kosovo, the British tried to argue that a UN resolution would not be achieved because permanent members of the Security Council were preparing to cast an ‘unreasonable’ veto.  In the case of Iraq in 2003, the legal basis for the war - albeit undertaken ostensibly to disarm Iraq - was grounded in the idea that earlier UN Security Resolutions 678, 687 and 1441 combined to achieve, ‘implied authorisation’. The current Libyan resolutions are more explicit in authorising the use of force to protect civilians.

A second line of argument in support of the view that the action against Libya is a significant consolidation of norms of civilian protection relates to the Security Council’s referral of the situation in Libya to the International Criminal Court (ICC) less than two weeks after the protests began.

This is only the second time the Security Council has referred a matter to the ICC for investigation.  Also noteworthy is the fact that the referral was carried out with every member of the Council agreeing, including the United States, a long-standing sceptic in relation to international criminal jurisdiction and an opponent of the Rome Statute. The only other case that the Council has referred to the ICC was Darfur, but this was more than two years after the crisis had begun. In the case of Libya, the Council has been remarkably quick, and surprisingly united in referring this matter to the ICC.

Perfect storm

Set against the view that Resolution 1973 constitutes R2P norm consolidation, several factors have to be born in mind. The first relates to the indeterminate character of the resolution in operational terms. The no-fly zone was authorised to be implemented by member states who have notified the Secretary-General of the Security Council or the League of Arab States.

According to a briefing by Ban Ki-Moon, the UK, the US, Denmark, Canada, Italy, Qatar, Belgium, Norway, Spain, the United Arab Emirates and NATO all sent letters of notification to indicate their involvement.  But who precisely was to lead the mission, and according to what terms of engagement? These questions were left unanswered in Resolution 1973.

The other reason to be cautious in relation to the intervention in Libya is that 1973 was more contentious than many have inferred. The absence of a veto being cast by a permanent member masks over the extent to which many influential countries refused to lend their support to the no-fly zone. To be lawful, Security Council resolutions only need 9 countries to vote ‘yes’, and no vetos. However, the Council places a great importance on unanimity and the vast majority of resolutions are passed with all 15 members voting ‘yes’. 

To show just how unusual the 10/5 split was in the Council, consider the fact that of the approximately 70 resolutions that are passed each year, about 65 of them include every Council member voting ‘yes’. In fact, resolution 1973 on Libya is the only resolution that has been passed by the Council so far in 2011 without the support of every Council member.

Abstentions by China, Russia, Germany, India and Brazil raise a bigger question for forcible civilian protection; what future do such actions have in a world that is not being led by the United States and its western allies? While Germany can be bracketed for reasons of the societal taboo on the use of force, the same does not hold for the so-called rising powers such as Brazil, China, Russia and India. The world after the decline of American hegemony is likely to be less inclined to engage in forcible protective interventions.

Supporters of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ see 1973 as further evidence of a deeper normative consensus around the need to use force, as a last resort, in response to actual and potential atrocity crimes. Rather than viewing it as a precedent that is likely to be invoked at any point soon, there are good reasons for thinking of it as a ‘perfect storm’ demanding decisive action. Military force was clearly necessary to prevent further atrocities which Gaddafi was publically threatening; Gaddafi had made an enemy of the West in the 1990s following several high profile state-sponsored terrorist attacks; he had few friends in the region; and the geo-strategic terrain was favourable to NATO.

Accepting this, it is also the case that Resolution 1973 is the clearest example of the UN authorising enforcement action since the First Gulf War. We have evidence of an unusually forceful and quick response from the UN Security Council with the objective of protecting civilians. However, in thinking of Libya as a precedent, this must be tempered with an understanding of factors that are unique to this situation. Gaddafi loudly stated his intentions to engage in atrocities, and he lacked allies in the Security Council to prevent action from being taken against him. The situation in Libya has put R2P front and centre in diplomacy and security, but the factors that have here aligned to authorise and implement the no-fly zone may not coincide in other cases. 

David Cameron and his advisers want to make us feel better, but they don't know how

One of the best gauges of whether a statement actually means anything is to stick a not in its middle. If the opposite sounds ridiculous, then the chances are the original proposition is mush. Who would seriously argue that banks shouldn't be well-regulated, that the starvation of African babies is perfectly OK, thanks, or that civil liberties aren't worth a fig?

Run the mush test over the launch of the campaign group Action for Happiness. "I'm up for more happiness!" was one slogan – as if anyone but a Dickensian villain, hobbling around Victorian London and sending ragged-trousered tots scattering in fear before him, would ever admit otherwise.

The same combination of vagueness and grandiosity runs through the website. "Action for Happiness is a movement for positive social change" – other movements presumably go round calling for things to get worse. "We're bringing together people from all walks of life who want to play a part in creating a happier society for everyone" – rather than recruiting from the narrowest demographic imaginable, in order to proselytise for misery.

Big, baggy talk like this must be partly why the British debate on happiness has failed to get past the opening shots. Here is a big idea – that government ministers should make policy decisions with an eye to making us happier rather than ever-richer – that deserves a proper airing. What it has got instead is the policy equivalent of a Rorschach test, in which commentators and wonks talk about what makes them happy, which isn't the same thing at all. Even when David Cameron says: "It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money and it's time we focused not just on GDP but on GWB – general wellbeing", the statement gets treated as just another respray of the true blues rather than a yardstick against which to judge his policies. But one of the key findings of researchers is that unemployment is a surefire way of making people utterly miserable – which means that whatever else is wrong with the prime minister's austerity economics, it also contradicts his goal of making voters happier.

Seeking specifics, I went to the Action for Happiness launch. In a grand former church packed out with believers and activists, it felt like an inaugural love-in. One of the founders, LSE economist Richard Layard, described "the science of happiness". Helping a stranger lights up the same part of your brain as eating a bar of chocolate, apparently – although the significance of that finding went unexplained, as did what would happen if you assisted a stranger in eating their Green & Black's.

A former Buddhist monk called Andy led the hall in meditation, battling the plaintive rings of an abandoned Nokia. "Help out a friend in need," we were advised. "Make sure you get enough sleep." Thanks, Mum.

This is happiness in its banal and individualistic form: a kind of smile-high club. It also mis-sells the research it's meant to be promoting – by both overstating its status as a science and understating its potential to affect the way governments set policy.

At the moment, happiness is as much a science as that bit in the L'Oréal ads when a bunch of equations float across the screen. Action for Happiness claims: "If we could increase our levels of happiness to those in Denmark, Britain would have 2.5 million fewer people suffering from unhappiness." Yet the best researchers in the field have no idea how we might do that.

Between them, David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald practically invented happiness economics. They organised the world's first ever economics of happiness conference at the LSE in 1993 ("We stuck up posters, we put out 100 chairs," remembers Oswald. "About eight people turned up."). In a paper produced this February for the Academy of Management Perspectives the two lay out the state of research. The most telling part comes when they discuss the mental wellbeing of the Danes and the Dutch – then remark: "We do not yet know why these countries are so perplexingly happy."

What they do know, however, is that the field could end up posing a major challenge to free-market orthodoxy. For a start, one thing that happiness research shows is that people aren't as good at choosing for themselves as they like to think – a BMW, for instance, really doesn't give us so much more pleasure than a Micra.

And paying attention to happiness gives a whole different slant to economic policy-making than simply focusing on increasing income. Take air pollution, which is often seen as the necessary price paid for economic growth; research shows that dirty air makes people consistently and notably more upset. Where civil servants and politicians were once able to shrug off complaints about pollution as just so much whining nimbyism, in the future they might have costings that back up the anti-pollution campaigners.

A few years ago, Layard wrote Happiness, the best starter book on the subject, and he knows the field might end up being revolutionary. When I asked him last week what Hayek, father of free-market thinking and another former LSE professor would make of his campaign, he replied: "God knows. The road to serfdom, no doubt" – a reference to the Austrian's tract against big government.

But in order to make their policies more attractive to Whitehall and Westminster, Layard and his colleagues have taken all the politics out and left nice-sounding aspirations about turning "the rising tide of excessive individualism". You wouldn't want to argue with it, let alone disagree. The problem is, you probably wouldn't bother to engage, either.

A significant slice of the British electorate could be mobilised by a radical right party such as the UK Independence party

Ukip, a party once dismissed as being filled with "cranks and gadflies", poses a real threat to the main parties at the forthcoming elections. It was perhaps an acknowledgement of this challenge from a resurgent Ukip that encouraged David Cameron to make a controversial speech on immigration this week, in which he reached out to disgruntled Conservatives who might be thinking of flirting with Nigel Farage.

Though grassroots Tories have long voiced concern over immigration, they have seldom been tempted by a credible alternative. But after polling almost a million votes in the general election, recruiting the help of former Tory donors and finishing second in the Barnsley by-election, there is no question Ukip is on a roll. Labour progressives might find it all too easy to dismiss these events as a fortuitous bout of internecine warfare on the right. But as our recent study shows, supporters of Ukip are more than just grumpy old Tories. And there are good reasons why Labour should also be concerned by their rise.

We have examined citizens who voted Ukip at the 2009 European elections. The election of two BNP candidates stole much of the limelight that night, but Ukip far outperformed them: it beat Labour for second place, won more than 16% of the vote and elected more than a dozen MEPs. It was the strongest performance by Ukip at any election.

Drawing on a poll undertaken by YouGov, our study sheds light on the profile and attitudes of 4,500 Ukip supporters. Respondents were asked who they planned to vote for in the next Westminster elections as well as the European parliament (EP) elections; this meant we could distinguish voters who lent Ukip support for EP elections from those who expressed a commitment to Ukip in domestic elections as well. This distinction proved crucial.

"Strategic defectors" are voters who support Ukip at European elections but return to the Conservatives at general elections: they are older, financially comfortable, middle-class men with Conservative sympathies, socially conservative Eurosceptics who are motivated principally by their desire to send a message to the Conservatives. They are driven principally by Euroscepticism (unsurprisingly) and, to a lesser extent, concerns about immigration.

The "core loyalists", on the other hand, stick with Ukip at all elections and are a very different electorate. They are more working class, more economically insecure, and more likely to say they come from Labour-voting families. In all these respects, as our chart below shows, they are more similar to the BNP's support base than the Conservatives'.

A similar pattern emerges when we look at their attitudes. Core loyalists are intensely Eurosceptic, as we might expect, but they are also much more deeply disaffected with mainstream politics than the strategic defectors. Core loyalists regard all the main parties as the same and politicians as deeply corrupt. Anxiety over immigration also emerges as a more powerful motive for this group, although they are distinct from BNP voters on the issue of racism.

While we found many BNP supporters quite willing to endorse statements such as "black people are intellectually inferior", Ukip core loyalists were much more reluctant – though they expressed higher levels of agreement with such statements than either mainstream Conservatives or strategic Ukip supporters.

Ukip in domestic elections, then, are the BNP minus the racism. Ukip has appropriated the BNP's most potent campaign themes – opposition to immigration, demands for Muslim integration, attacks on the political class – but is free of fascist baggage. This is important: upwards of 80% of voters continue to reject the notion that Griffin's BNP is a credible alternative.

Unlike Griffin's appearance on Question Time, no one is likely to accuse Nigel Farage of Holocaust denial or Nazi sympathies; but then, nor is Farage likely to defend the Ku Klux Klan. He is regarded – and treated – as a legitimate part of the political class. This empowers Ukip with the potential to win over the large pool of voters who remain disaffected from the mainstream, and are fearful about immigration – but disgusted by the extremism of the BNP.

So why should Labour worry? Our study finds Ukip's domestic support is drawn from the same pool of angry white working-class voters as the BNP, but in 2009 Ukip was already three times as popular. Since then, the political environment has changed dramatically, and largely to Ukip's benefit. Rising unemployment and economic stagnation, combined with the coalition's cuts to public services, will enlarge the pool of angry, economically struggling voters.

Controversies over immigration will also continue. Most migration remains outside of the government's control and settlement rates are unlikely to hit David Cameron's target. Voters will notice if the "cap" fails, are likely to interpret the growth of already-settled minority communities as new waves of immigration and, in short, will not be happy.

There are wider consequences, as our colleague Dr Lauren McLaren has shown. When voters hold negative ratings of immigration, they are also less likely to trust their political institutions.

The entrance of the Liberal Democrats into the coalition has also changed the dynamic, for it leaves Ukip alone as the only "protest party" with national presence for voters disgruntled with the coalition but also unimpressed with Labour. This gives Ukip an unprecedented opportunity to build a national presence. They have a large electorate of socially conservative, Eurosceptic, anti-elitist, anti-immigration voters virtually to themselves.

The BNP's bankruptcy and infighting leaves no competition on the far right; the compromises of coalition limit the Conservatives' ability to compete from the centre-right; and Labour's divisions over immigration leave the centre left silent on an issue which is of major concern to voters.

How concerned should those on the centre left be? In a recent study, we estimated that perhaps 20% of the British electorate are available to be mobilised by a radical right party. The Searchlight Trust recently came to the same conclusion, noting how Britain lacked a successful radical right party "not because British people are more moderate but simply because these views have not found a political articulation".

A sustained breakthrough for Ukip would have serious consequences. The emergence of powerful radical right movements in countries like Denmark, the Netherlands and France has pushed the debate over immigration, identity and integration firmly to the right. France has implemented a burqa ban; the Dutch government relies for its majority on a party whose leader compares the Qur'an to Mein Kampf; and the entrance of the Danish People's party into a governing coalition led to the passage of draconian immigration laws.

Ukip still has weaknesses, particularly in the strength of its activist base and local organisation, but it is operating in the most favourable environment it has ever seen and if it breaks through there is widespread support for its brand of politics. Those on the centre left who are cheered by the collapse of the BNP could soon find themselves facing a much more potent and respected radical right competitor. They need to develop an effective response. And now.

• This article originally appeared on Left Foot Forward and is republished here with permission

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Allotment spaces are at a premium again but should, theoretically, no be. Councils are obliged, in way of statutory requirement, that is to say “by law”, to make available allotment plots for everyone who wants to have one. But that, unfortunately, is but the theory.

The practice, unfortunately, looks different and in some areas, especially now that food is getting pricey and also in that people want to grow their own to know where it comes from and as to food miles. Applicants for allotment plots far outstrip the supply and the local authorities simply add people to waiting lists, and that is it. They should, however, legally, actively create more spaces and in most instances those spaces could be found.

Poole Council in Dorset currently have 900 people on the waiting list for new allotments and they only have 423 plots in total. I hope they get something sorted out soon as growing your own veg can save a lot of money for some people and it's much better for you and for the environment too.

The picture does not look any different in other parts of the UK; in fact in some places there are thousands of applicants for a few hundred plots. The fact that rents are fairly low for allotment plots; somewhere in the region of £5-£10 per annum, does not give councils much incentive to open up spaces.

However, this is where, in my opinion, they go about it the wrong way. If they could encourage applicants for plots to form their own associations councils could then make uncleared land available and get the people to clear the plots out for themselves rather than, as seems to be the practice, the council making such areas ready.

People who are really interested in having plots, against some concessions, will, I am convinced, be more than happy to clear the new allotment fields themselves and then establish a proper allotment club or something there.

I have see this work in other countries, such as in Germany, where allotments are so much bigger and different than in Britain and the Schrebergaertner, aka Kleingaertner, the allotment gardeners, also take themselves so much more serious than do the allotment gardeners in Britain and in Germany the Kleingaertner are a power to be reckoned with in local politics too.

The movement of the small gardens (Kleingaerten) in Germany and other countries, such as the Netherlands and Denmark, is very much a real movement and many people take part in this, but in Germany, for instance, from what I know, there are long waiting lists as there it is not a statutory requirement for the local governments to provide plots and, in fact, the gardening societies lease the land from local government or other landowners or even own the land themselves as an association.

The truth is that, with the amount of people on the waiting lists for allotment plots and people's interest in growing their own food and food security, Britain needs to make more provisions of allotment areas and they must be created now. We need more allotments.

© 2011

Head of International Monetary Fund urges EU-wide support for new stability mechanism

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is on a collision course with chancellor George Osborne and Bank of England governor Mervyn King after the Washington-based agency voiced concern over Britain's refusal to support a funding package to tackle the eurozone crisis.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF, said Europe needed to come up with a more coherent plan to deal with government debt following the bailouts of Ireland and Greece. He criticised piecemeal attempts to resolve individual countries' debt problems, which critics believe leads to instability and undermines investor confidence in Europe.

The likelihood of prolonged negotiations over a Portuguese bailout deal was another instance of the need for an overarching mechanism to deal with all EU countries should they get into trouble, Strauss-Kahn told the IMF's spring conference.

However, Osborne has made it clear that he believes resolving the debt problems of eurozone countries is a matter for the eurozone and not for the broader EU, which includes nations with their own currencies.

The UK is expected to participate in raising €85bn-€90bn (£52bn-£55bn) to support Portugal, but Osborne has told France and Germany there will be no more cash from the UK for eurozone bailouts after the Portugal deal.

The chancellor would like to go further and repeal article 122 of the Treaty of Lisbon, which has been used to corral EU member states to bail out Ireland and Greece. The treaty says: "Where a member state is in difficulties or is seriously threatened with difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control, the council, on a proposal from the commission, may grant, under certain conditions, union financial assistance to the member state concerned."

A move to amend the article is seen as essential if Britain is to avoid taking part in further bailouts.

It is understood the Bank of England also views the debt problems of eurozone members as a matter for countries within the euro area.

Strauss-Kahn said that a "European deal" needs to be in place because "the piecemeal approach is not working". And Olivier Blanchard, the IMF's chief economist, said the European debt crisis was one of the most crucial issues holding back the world economy and preventing the restoration of confidence: "How Europe is going to get out of a hole is a very big issue."

The IMF is understood to want Brussels to coordinate a long-term strategy with funding facilities that indebted countries can access without the need for further negotiations. Eurozone leaders have agreed to put in place a €500bn European Stability Mechanism (ESM), but the scheme will not be ready until 2013 and relies on France and Germany as lead underwriters of the fund.

IMF officials fear that without a speedier resolution and the participation of Britain and other richer EU nations outside the eurozone, in particular Sweden and Denmark, the investor spotlight will fall on other heavily indebted countries such as Italy, Belgium, Spain and Hungary.

Italy has a debt to GDP ratio of 110%, while Belgium's debts have reached 98% of GDP. Spain and Hungary have lower total debts, but remain in recession and investors are concerned these countries will find it difficult to grow and create jobs while implementing unprecedented spending cuts.

If any of these countries gets into trouble, several investor institutions have argued that the current funding mechanisms will be unable to cope, triggering another sovereign debt crisis.

Earlier this month EU finance ministers, including Osborne, met in Hungary to discuss the terms of Portugal's bailout package. Osborne ruled out offering direct bilateral loans to Lisbon, but is expected to participate in an EU-wide funding package and a large slice of funding via the IMF.

The IMF has part-funded the Greek and Irish bailouts. It has become increasingly frustrated at the hardline attitude of Berlin and London to the support, which has only been offered at high interest rates and with terms that demand dramatic cuts in spending and higher taxes. The IMF recently loosened the terms of Greece's IMF loans after attempts to recoup lost taxes from the country's wealthy businesspeople failed.

Strauss-Kahn said he was anxious that weakening growth and high youth unemployment would lead to social unrest.

The IMF cut its 2011 forecast for Irish GDP growth to 0.5% from 0.9% and said unemployment would hit 14.5%, from the 13.5% anticipated previously.

Despite the gloomy prognosis, he said he was confident Greece and Ireland would meet their debt obligations and begin to recover, but concern remained over the protection offered by the EU for future crises.

Ireland was downgraded last week by ratings agency Moody's, which said Dublin's recovery plans were still in doubt.

Moody's cited Ireland's weaker growth prospects when it cut the country's rating by two notches to the verge of junk status and kept its outlook on negative, meaning the next move could also be down.

Osborne said Spain showed that eurozone countries were capable of regaining investor trust without further support from EU countries. He praised the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for restoring investor trust in the country after months of speculation that it would follow Portugal in needing a bailout.

“When you look at me, you see an old man,” an 80-year old man told a friend of mine at a wedding reception a few years ago. “But when I look in the mirror, I see the face of a 19-year-old.”

Then he scampered off to the dance floor.

The magic advice of Mr. Martini came floating back to me this week after a round of high-tech conferences. The nations of the world are clamoring to become the Silicon Valley of Green. China, Japan, South Korea, France, Finland, Denmark, the United Arab Emirates and many U.S. states have combed their universities for interesting intellectual property and created plans to woo investors and corporate partners.

Each touts sparkling industrial parks, high-ranking schools, tax holidays and enough laboratory and/or clean room real estate to pave Luxembourg twice over.

But what is often missing, and what can help seal the deal, is good ol’ fashioned salesmanship and a willingness to go the last mile. Andrew Chung of Lightspeed Venture Partners, for instance, told me how provincial officials in China hold celebrations for visiting dignitaries. CoalTek, a startup founded in Georgia and trialed in Kentucky and a Lightspeed portfolio company, has turned 100 percent of its orientation toward Mongolia.

Mississippi convinced four high-tech startups to open factories in its state last year. Financial incentives played a huge role. The state has given the companies -- Twin Creeks Technologies, Soladigm, Stion and Kior -- approximately $254 million in low-cost loans. Not loan guarantees like the DOE is giving out, but real loans: the state takes out bonds and hands them over without a markup to startups, according to Kathy Gelston, chief financial officer for the Mississippi Development Authority.

The ease of doing business in the state was also a key factor. If a company wants to speak to the department of revenue or secretary of state, they just have to make a few calls and a meeting is set, she said. The state doesn't even have a solar program.

Another company contemplating creating facilities in Ohio was greeted with a roundtable of the state’s business leaders. The state moved to the top of the list.

By contrast, Israel has been trying, but without much success, to persuade multinational pharmaceutical manufacturers to open labs. Israeli universities have a wealth of biotech talent and technology.

Back in the '80s, Israel convinced high-tech firms like Intel, Motorola and Nokia to open labs and development centers: but for the occasional Hebrew sign, the industrial park in Haifa is a spitting image of Great America Parkway in Santa Clara.

“The government regulations have become too tough,” said Dan Kaufman, Bengis Center for Entrepreneurship and High-Tech Management at Ben-Gurion University. “We have lost the flexibility to do tailor-made projects. [...] We were very innovative in the '80s.”

California, meanwhile, has a dismal reputation in this regard. Solopower, based in Silicon Valley, is going to Oregon. Bridgelux CEO Bill Watkins and Miasole CEO Joseph Laia have both said they would like to keep factories in the U.S. and even California. Drive down Walsh Road in Silicon Valley, says Laia, and look at all the empty offices.

But good luck getting action from the state’s business revitalization bureaus. With our action-figure governor gone, it will be even harder. Meanwhile, calls from overseas pour in on a regular basis.

Again, money talks, but salesmanship helps. Between two competing deals, it can become a factor. It can also in turn make a state bureaucracy more flexible and dynamic: once a deal is on the line, you’re more determined to land it. Self-imposed sclerosis: that’s the real problem facing California and Israel.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the U.S. is not categorically at an economic disadvantage to China. Labor costs less in China, but automation is reducing that delta. 'Buy American' standards also give an incentive to build in the U.S.  Labor and raw materials cost less in China, but increased automation and other factors can narrow the gap.

Technology geography is also not fixed. After World War II, Philadelphia was the epicenter of the U.S. computing industry and TV industry. Stanford -- under the direction of Fred Terman -- aggressively sought government grants and industry leaders. Persuading William Shockley to come here was the first step in a tip in the balance of power that has lead to Silicon Valley being a world icon.

This also -- and I don’t think I need to say this, but I will -- plays straight into American strengths. Let’s face it. We are not intellectuals. Almost all of our great scientists were born in other countries. Our science and math scores barely put us in the top ten percent of zoo animals.

But we excel at glad-handing. We gave the world Guy Fieri of the Food Network and Billy Mays. University mascots and corporate togetherness seminars! We are the steak house waiters of the world tossing a Caesar salad at tableside. Whenever I interview European or Asian companies, I will come across a self-deprecating, semi-off kilter exec who seems to revel in rocking the boat. Invariably, they were trained in America.

Just embrace it.

Granted, like innovation and high tech, we don’t have a monopoly on this. China has learned fast and the optimism is palpable. This is one of the few times in its 5,000-year-plus history when tomorrow will be better than today.

It won’t be easy. But I believe that you, my fellow Americans, can rise to the flesh-pressing challenge.

Zainab al-Khawaja enters fourth day of hunger strike as government is accused of human rights violations

A Bahraini woman who witnessed her father, a well-known human rights activist, being seized by masked soldiers, beaten unconscious and then taken into custody, has told the Guardian that she is willing to die on hunger strike unless he is released.

Zainab al-Khawaja, 27, will today enter her fourth day without food in protest at the violent arrest and subsequent disappearance of the outspoken dissident Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, 50, along with her husband and brother-in-law.

Zainab, who was brought up in exile in Denmark, is taking only water, and told the Guardian she is already feeling weak, with breast-feeding sapping her strength faster than she had expected. She says she will leave her 18-month-old child with family members if she dies.

Around a dozen masked and heavily armed soldiers, apparently from Bahrain's special forces, stormed her apartment in the capital, Manama, at 2am on Saturday. Her father had previously called for Bahrain's king to face trial for murder, torture and corruption.

The family's attempts to find out from the police what has happened to the men have failed and they fear they are being tortured. Zainab, who started her fast on Monday, said she now dreams about her father's fate.

"I am willing to go all the way," she said. "Either they come out or I will not eat. I don't care where it ends up."

Asked whether she was willing to die, she replied: "Yes. It is difficult with a child but I am willing to make that sacrifice. My daughter has great aunts and grandmothers who will look after her if anything happens to me … We have the feeling that sacrifices are necessary to bring changes to our country, but what is making it harder is the way the world is reacting. Still the US administration is standing with the dictator here."

Her threat to take her own life came amid signs that the Bahraini regime is toughening its stance against pro-democracy activists. Yesterday was the funeral of the third protester to die in police custody this month. Chanting mourners in Manama pulled the burial cloth off Kareem Fakhrawi, a member of Wifaq, a leading Shia opposition group, to reveal a puncture wound to his neck, extensive bruising across his upper arms, sides and abdomen, and lesions around his lower leg and ankle.

Human Rights Watch yesterday called on Bahrain's public prosecutor to investigate deaths in custody reported since 3 April, citing "signs of horrific abuse" on the body of Ali Isa Ibrahim Saqer, who died after turning himself in to the police, who had threatened to detain members of his family if he did not.

The authorities alleged he had tried to run a policeman over in a car during an anti-government protest. The interior ministry issued a statement published in Bahrain newspapers saying that he had "created chaos" in a detention centre "which led security forces to bring the situation under control".

The ministry attributed the death in custody of Zakariya Rashid Hassan, 40, arrested on charges of calling for the overthrow of the regime, to "sickle cell anaemia complications" despite his brother showing Human Rights Watch a photo he said he took during pre-burial cleansing which showed a wound on his right shoulder, a gash on his nose and blood that had issued from his ears and lips.

"If those responsible are not stopped soon the number of dead in custody will exceed those killed during the protest," the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights warned yesterday.

A coalition of 19 Middle Eastern human rights organisations also condemned Bahrain's latest crackdown and warned that Abdulhadi al-Khawaja "is at great risk of being subjected to additional torture and ill-treatment while being detained incommunicado".

The government remains defiant in the face of allegations that they are violating human rights, and Khalid al-Khalifa, Bahrain's foreign minister, posted on Twitter that al-Khawaja "is not a reformer … he called for the overthrow of the legitimate regime … he violently resisted the arrest and had to be subdued". In an account of the raid posted on her website, Zainab al-Khawaja described how her father was "grabbed by the neck, dragged down a flight of stairs and then beaten unconscious in front of me".

"He never raised his hand to resist them, and the only words he said were: 'I can't breathe,'" she wrote. "Even after he was unconscious, the masked men kept kicking and beating him while cursing and saying that they were going to kill him."

She said the special forces also beat up her husband, Wafi Almajed, and her brother-in-law, Hussein Ahmed, but their focus was on her father, who they repeatedly called "the target" during the raid. She is also demanding the release of her uncle, Salah al-Khawaja, arrested three weeks ago.

Zainab said yesterday: "Before they arrested people you thought, yes, they may be tortured, but you will see them again. Now you can't be sure."

She added that the spate of deaths in custody appears to be a deliberate government tactic to increase fear among dissidents. "The government seems to be proud of this because they are the ones announcing the deaths."

"It's outrageous and cruel that people are taken off to detention and the families hear nothing until the body shows up with signs of abuse," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The authorities need to explain why this is happening, put a stop to it, and hold anyone responsible to account."

Amnesty International estimates the government is holding more than 400 activists over protests that began on 14 February. The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights said the number is more than 600.

European court of human rights rules UK must draw up proposals to end ban on prisoners voting within six months

The government has lost its final appeal against giving prisoners the right to vote following a ruling by the European court of human rights.

A five-judge panel said the UK must now draw up proposals within six months to end the blanket ban on prisoners voting. The court delivered the ultimatum after upholding its decision last November to award two UK prisoners €5,000 (£4,350) in costs and expenses for their loss of voting rights, which was ruled a breach of their human rights.

In February MPs overwhelmingly backed a motion calling for the maintenance of a blanket ban on prisoners voting, a move that apparently strengthened the government's hand as it sought to introduce the minimum possible requirements on voting rights for prisoners.

However, the court yesterday dismissed the government's request for an appeal hearing and decreed its original verdict final.

A statement issued by the court said: "The court now gives the UK government six months from 11 April 2011 to introduce legislative proposals to bring the disputed law in line with the [European Human Rights] Convention."

"The government is further required to enact the relevant legislation within any time frame decided by the Committee of Ministers, the executive arm of the Council of Europe, which supervises the execution of the Court's judgments".

More than five years ago the same court delivered a similar verdict in a separate case brought by a prisoner, but the then Labour government left the blanket ban in place despite publishing a timetable for legislation and issuing two consultation papers proposing different solutions.

Last November's second ruling, in which the Strasbourg court set a deadline of August 2011 for the introduction of UK legislation, came in a case brought by prisoners named as Robert Greens and MT, both serving time at Peterhead prison.

By then, the government had announced that it reluctantly accepted there was a legal obligation to offer voting rights to at least some prisoners, and scrap the total ban.

The minister for political and constitutional reform, Mark Harper, said at the time: "I think every member in the House is exasperated about this but we have no choice about complying with the law."

The next day, the prime minister told MPs: "It makes me physically ill to contemplate giving the vote to prisoners. They should lose some rights including the right to vote."

But Cameron said the government had to comply or face possible compensation claims running into millions in a flood of human rights claims by inmates.

A spokesperson for the Cabinet Office said last night: "We are disappointed with the court's decision. We will consider the next steps."

The UK is one of several European countries, including Armenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary and Romania, which automatically remove voting rights from sentenced prisoners, although remand prisoners still have the vote.

The human rights judges are not insisting that all prisoners have the right to vote, declaring only that it is a blanket ban on such a right that breaches the human rights code.

It leaves the government free to decide how to implement voting rights, for example by offering the right to vote to prisoners serving relatively short sentences, while maintaining a ban for long-term prisoners jailed for more serious crimes.

About 40% of the countries in the Council of Europe – which include all 27 EU member states – have no restrictions on prisoners voting. Others ban only some sentenced prisoners from voting.

In France and Germany courts have the power to impose loss of voting rights as an additional punishment, while Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark are among countries with no ban at all on voting for prisoners.

Ireland ended a voting ban five years ago, giving all prisoners a postal vote in the constituency where they would normally live.

Added Sweden

DR Audience Researchers Peter Niegel and Dennis Christensen presented an enlightening case study of audience loss at the start of hourly newscasts even on the national broadcast service of Denmark in Toronto last month at BBM's annual "Staying Tuned" conference.

Buckle yourself in over the next few days, as I recap a few highlights of their findings:

---------------------------------------------- Website: http://www.albrightandomalley.com

Soon ships will be able to sail across an open Arctic Ocean during the summer months. The low humming of freight vessels will be a regular sound. The reduced presence of massive multi-year sea-ice is rapidly becoming a reality as the thicker and older ice is being exported from the region.

The thinner and more fragile seasonal sea-ice layer, partly replacing the old and thicker ice, is no match for modern icebreakers or even strengthened freight containers. A Norwegian cargo-ship has already traversed the Northeast Passage: faster than expected and without encountering any major challenges.

The increased shipping in the Arctic, tourism included, is just beginning. The escalation of the trend is certain. It is understandable: the distance saved by choosing the Northern Sea Route rather than the Panama strait shortens the journey between the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean by about one third (roughly 4,000 nautical miles) of the total. 

The implications will be profound. The opening of new shipping-routes has throughout modern history been followed by major cultural and political change. So will it be with the Arctic. A harbinger of this change is that as the summer sea-ice margin withdraws northward and opens up more space for shipping, the interests of the oil companies are also drifting northwards. The factors driving this shift are twofold: oil wells further south are drying up, and the Barents Sea is becoming more accessible. 

The levels of political (and geopolitical) conflict over the Arctic are still low. But much is at stake, and the environmental question is but one of many. A European Union report says that there is “a range of disagreements on issues within the international law of the sea…” concerning the Arctic marine area. The reality of an Arctic pushed into disequilibrium is that the climatic and the political feedback of instability seem likely to be far-reaching, perhaps even global (see "The effects of sea ice loss on biodiversity", Arctic Council, 5 April 2011). 

The blue north

The resources of the Arctic are many and rich. The seabed contains considerable amounts of oil and natural gas. The prospect of minerals is frequently mentioned, especially rare-earth minerals that are in increasing demand now that China has announced that it will be reducing its exports.

A United States Geological Survey (USGS) report released in 2008 says that the Arctic seabed contains nearly 20% of the world’s oil reserves and 30% of its gas reserves. Most of this is likely to be on the Russian side. But the uncertainties associated with these figures are large, because many of the areas have not yet been properly mapped. A detailed mapping of the seabed in the Barents Sea will reveal, if not the true potential, a more realistic picture.

An important development here is he Norwegian Oil Directorate’s announcement on 1 April 2011 that Statoil has made its biggest gas and oil discovery for twenty years. The field is located in the Barents Sea; preliminary analysis suggests that it contains 25-40 standard million cubic metres of high quality oil and 2-7 standard billion cubic metres.

The European mainland relies on steady gas exported from Russia and Norway, making the question of future energy delivery per se a security question. The question of how safe that delivery will be in the future is fundamental. This is but one of the emerging Arctic-related issues whose geopolitical ripples are being felt in Europe’s political core.

The fact that the European Union desires a stronger presence in the “high north” is no secret. The president of the European council, Herman von Rompey, delivered a speech in October 2010 - hosted by the International Polar Foundation (IPF) - in which he stated that the EU seeks observer status at the Arctic Council. This body - which currently consists of Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland Canada, the United States and Russia - is in demand; China is also eager to participate.

At the IPF meeting, von Rompey emphasised the strong research presence that the EU already has in the Arctic and wants to develop further. The union’s aim for an increased role in the region is expressed in the European parliament's report A sustainable EU policy for the High North (formally approved on 20 January 2011). 

The rising political interest in the Arctic is evident elsewhere. Norway’s foreign-affairs minister Jonas Gahr Støre has repeatedly stated that the question of the High North represents the most important area of interest for the Norwegian government, and that it will become a new geopolitical focus in the near future. Sweden will assume the chair of the Arctic Council in June 2011, and is expected to launch an Arctic strategy some time during the year. This might speed up the process of getting the EU an observer status within the council.

But nature too will play a role in these calculations. It can interfere with, and even dictate, the course of politics, albeit in ways difficult or impossible to anticipate. The tsunami in Japan on 11 March 2011, with its huge impact on the domestic outlook as well as international trade, is a case in point.

Yet nature’s frequent and powerful intervention in societies and the daily life of people is rarely factored in when accounting for major political and societal shifts. The case of the Arctic - a large area suddenly and unexpectedly made available for exploitation - has few if any historical parallels. It may be compared to the Klondike gold-rush in California or the scramble for Africa, and in contemporary terms to the prospective contest over Antarctica. In the latter respect, how the Arctic experience is managed will create some kind of precedent for the southern vastness.

The rich arena

The rich resources and security concerns embedded in the Arctic (related as these are) underpin the European Union’s interest in expanding its political presence in the region. The overlapping interests are significant here: Denmark, Finland and Sweden are members both of the Arctic Council and the EU, and Iceland may soon join the union).

The EU’s own position on Icelandic membership states that it “underlines the need for a coordinated Arctic policy at EU level and represents a strategic opportunity for the EU to assume a more active role and contribute to multilateral governance in the Arctic region”. The EU’s wider objective is to become more of an “insider” to the Arctic.

There are two plausible avenues here. The first is for the EU to fund the giant polar-research vessel Aurora Borealis. This ship can be present in the Arctic year-around and conduct research in areas hitherto impossible. Such a major investment would both provide the EU with a unique research platform and heighten its political presence. A final decision awaits.

The second and broader avenue is to launch a major, long-term cross-disciplinary Arctic research programme that encompasses natural and social science alike, including all aspects of the presence of indigenous peoples.

It should be kept in mind that much of the Arctic is, in scientific terms, still uncharted territory. Many of the biological and physical processes operating in the Arctic are poorly understood, a point highlighted in a report of the International Oceanographic Commission (IOC), entitled Why monitor the Arctic Ocean? These sciences will play a major role in transforming knowledge and understanding of the Arctic, and thus enabling new ways of managing it.

An equally large impact is likely to come from increased trade, especially between neighbouring states. Shtokman Development AG, a consortium of three major companies - Total S.A. (France), Statoil (Norway) and Gazprom (Russia) - is a prime example. The company aims to produce 23.7 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year in the first phase, planned to last twenty-five years. A border settlement between Russia and Norway in September 2010, after forty years of we-agree-to-disagree, was clearly related to the Shtokman field. This has set in chain a series of bilateral trade and political deals between Arctic countries. This is another underlying reason for the EU and China to take a keener interest in the Arctic.

The race for the Arctic is one where science and trade are the forerunners, but where politics follow close behind. It represents a new ground for interactions that primarily, though but not exclusively, involve the eight countries claiming ownership. The scale of its oil-and-gas resources alone make it certain that it will develop into a centre of geopolitical gravity, where the environmental stakes will be huge.

The appearance of the Arctic, the desolate windswept icy landscape that resonates so profoundly with the idea of vulnerability and environmental sensitivity, is deeply ingrained in humanity’s self-awareness. The day that pristine look is gone will open the Arctic in another sense: to be treated just like any other ocean on Earth.

By. Øyvind Paasche

Source: Open Democracy

Put some countries in alphabetical order, not additions

David Hunkar submits: Denmark is the one of the world leaders in producing electricity from wind. About 20% of the electricity produced in Denmark comes from wind power. Since the 1980s, the Danish government provided various incentives for the growth of this industry with the goal of reducing fossil fuel imports. As a results of these efforts, today Denmark is not only a world leader in wind...

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Denmark is the one of the world leaders in producing electricity from wind. About 20% of the electricity produced in Denmark comes from wind power. Since the 1980s, the Danish government provided various incentives for the growth of this industry with the goal of reducing fossil fuel imports. As a results of these efforts, today Denmark is not only a world leader in wind power generation but also is a major exporter of wind power technology and expertise to other countries.

In recent years, India and China have embarked on a mission to reduce their fossil fuel imports and encourage the production of electricity from renewable energy sources. Today, India has the fifth-largest installed wind capacity in the world with more than three-times the installed capacity of Denmark. However China is much ahead of India in this industry, as shown in the chart below: (Click to enlarge)

The moral uncertainty of war is conveyed with devastating effect in a remarkable dispatch from Afghanistan's frontline

When you join the British army you're given (or used to be given) a document in a brown waterproof jacket called a pay book. Beginning with your name and number, it was part identity card, part record of your pay, part documentation of your shooting skills. This latter section was preceded by the statement: "Your Weapons Are Given to You to Kill the Enemy." I was reminded of this conjunction of a surrendered identity, the receipt of money and the implied licence to kill while watching Armadillo, a remarkable documentary directed by the Danish film-maker Janus Metz, and photographed with an astonishing mixture of lyricism, acute observation and gut-wrenching immediacy by Lars Skree. Both were embedded for six months in 2009 with a Danish infantry company operating in the Nato-led Isaf (International Security Assistance Force) at a forward operating base called Armadillo in the Helmand province of Afghanistan.

Seven years ago, Susanne Bier, the Danish director who won a best foreign language film Oscar this year for In a Better World, examined Denmark's military involvement in Afghanistan in her thoughtful movie Brothers. But it had little of the impact or immediacy of Armadillo, a cinema verite film that eschews commentary, interviews or statements direct to camera and is much like another highly regarded documentary, Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington's Restrepo. That also followed an infantry unit at a remote base, in that case in the mountainous Korengal Valley area.

Armadillo begins with the soldiers in their regimental depot being given a final address by an unseen senior officer who tells them that the government has determined national policy and it is their duty to implement it. There follows an introduction to key members of the unit, among them the sweet-faced adolescent Mads and the platoon's cheerful Asian medic, Kim; a farewell party with entertainment by a stripper; parting from family and friends at the airport; and a lengthy flight with them all stretched out in rows in a military transport plane.

Settling into their dusty new camp, they're told their job is to befriend the locals whom they're protecting from the Taliban: "Keep things you don't want from your ration packs and give them to the village kids." In this place, "Green Zone" doesn't mean a protective haven, as it does in Baghdad, but the Taliban-dominated terrain outside the Armadillo.

From the start it becomes clear that the locals are deeply distrustful and unco-operative. They regard both the occupying troops and the Taliban as "men with guns" (the title more than incidentally of a John Sayles film about Latin American peons trapped between violent governments and guerrillas). The defining difference is that the soldiers will go away and the Taliban will hang around to cut your throat. The kids, meanwhile, shower the visitors with untranslated insults. An introductory patrol goes badly through poor fieldwork, but soon there's a routine of guard duty, forays into the countryside, the traditional Danish pursuit of watching porn movies and the more recent activity of playing violent video games.

A curious indifference to the locals grows as recently planted fields are trampled, livestock killed by grenades and compensation paid for damaged property. The largely unseen Taliban, nicknamed "ninjas" for the lethal stealth with which they come and go, cannot be distinguished from the nearby villagers, and all are greeted with similar suspicion. Three Danes from another unit are killed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and a tough, much-respected Danish leader receives serious head injuries and is flown back to Copenhagen for treatment. Oddly, nothing apparently diminishes the martial zeal of the soldiers who, young Mads among them, seem to combine military esprit de corps with a Viking love of combat. Most appear to be war lovers, a type the French call baroudeurs.

In the movie's crucial episode, which aroused a continuing controversy in Denmark after its premiere at Cannes last May, a volunteer night patrol blacks up and goes out to confront the Taliban. Shortly after dawn, in a brilliantly shot and edited sequence, civilians flee the village, the enemy is located in a ditch and destroyed and an air strike brought in. It is, on the face of it, a successful mission. However, we see a grenade lobbed into a ditch, and five injured Taliban are killed off in, as one of the soldiers later says, "the most humane way possible". Was this a war crime? Or were they protecting themselves from a crafty foe? Did they seem to be enjoying it? Should there have been more handwringing? This is Rashomon military style disturbingly set out before us. However, medals were presented, no one was charged and most of the troops involved subsequently volunteered for another tour of duty in Afghanistan.

It took great courage for Janus Metz and Lars Skree to make Armadillo – first to shoot it under such conditions and then to present the material in this non-judgmental manner. The audience is confronted with a genuine moral challenge, both by the issues raised by the killing of the Taliban and in the way we look at the war in Afghanistan itself, still raging after nearly a decade.The film's final images resonate – first a non-triumphalist march through the streets back home, the warriors led by two comrades in wheelchairs, and then a weary soldier, bearded and tattooed, getting into a shower to cleanse himself of memories that are, one infers, as indelible as the tattoos that cover his arms.

"I attach great importance to the musicians have strong rights. In government, we have carefully considered the matter and finds that a term of 70 years would be a sensible approach. Musicians should not experience losing rights to their recordings, while they are still active. We will therefore work towards an extension of protection that will strengthen the musicians and record companies' rights. "

Historians and descendants aim to restore the reputation of the Earl of Bothwell, Mary Stuart's husband, who died in an exile's dungeon

Elizabeth I was said to fear him as the one man whose allegiance she could never buy. At one point he was the only Scottish nobleman not on her payroll. And after his death, the mention of his name could still reduce her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, to tears.

Now a new book claims that history has much maligned James Hepburn, the 4th Earl of Bothwell (1534-1578). It argues that he was in fact another Braveheart who deserves a place alongside Celtic heroes such as Robert the Bruce and William Wallace. And, spurred on by the prospect of a full and glorious rehabilitation for the 16th-century Scot who died a horrible death in exile in Denmark, one of his descendants is campaigning to repatriate his body.

Bothwell, the third husband of Mary Stuart – the young Scots queen who lost her throne and later her head – was portrayed by his enemies as a control freak who killed Lord Darnley, Mary's previous husband, and dominated the young queen, kidnapping her and forcing her into marriage.

In fact, says renowned French historian Catherine Hermary-Vieille, Bothwell is a misunderstood hero who adored Mary, pretended to abduct the already pregnant queen to save her reputation, was her only true love and was simply disliked by jealous courtiers who lied about him.

"Much of what we had been told about him was through the accounts of people who disliked him, who were unreliable witnesses at a time when everyone was plotting or in a counter-plot," says Hermary-Vieille.

"These Scottish lords were tough; they had feuds they fought for generations after everyone else had long forgotten what they were about, so to find a man like this of such character, so loyal to the queen and to Scotland, he was the only one. He was the last great patriot of an independent Scotland. It's a pity history and the Scots do not remember him as such."

Hermary-Vieille's book, Lord James, has become a bestseller in France and the English-language version has just been published. One man who hopes it will help to reclaim Bothwell's reputation is his descendant Sir Alastair Buchan-Hepburn, who has mounted a campaign to have Bothwell's remains returned.

"It is very much our hope that he will be returned to Scotland and given a place of burial here," he says. "Bothwell's battles are long over but we have not stopped fighting for him, for a recognition of the heroic part he played in Scottish history. He was no murderer; everyone wanted Darnley dead apart from his own father, and indeed there is some hard evidence that Darnley was plotting to kill Bothwell and Mary when he blew himself up. He was a true patriot at a time when loyalty and honour were hard to find."

Bothwell died, his mind unhinged, in a Danish dungeon in 1578. For the 10 years after he fled Scotland when Mary traded his freedom for her own capture, he was chained to a pillar around which his feet had worn a groove in the stone floor. His queen spent 19 years in captivity before her execution at the age of 44 on the orders of Elizabeth I.

Buchan-Hepburn hopes to persuade the Scottish first minister to approach the Danish royal family: "The Danes see it not as a family matter but as a head-of-state-to-another-head-of-state matter, so we really need the Scottish government to intercede. I do think we have a duty to repatriate and remember this man, who was so important to how British history unravelled itself."

Hermary-Vieille agrees: "I don't see any reason why the Danes want to keep this man in some little church at the end of nowhere. He was the king and he belongs to Scotland. I went to visit the church in Denmark and the coffin is behind big, big iron chains and a lock. It is sad he is still locked up. He needs to be free now. And come home."

The North American Aerospace Command (NORAD), which has been tracking Santa (along with intercontinental ballistic missiles, spy planes, and other rogue aircraft) since 1955, has announced that this year it will also be counting how many cookies he eats en route.

Presumably our newly diet-conscious government is concerned that if every child in the world leaves out cookies and milk for Santa, he will put on more than the extra pound or two of weight most Americans accumulate over the holidays.

But, in an important twist that I can only hope NORAD has on its radar, Santa only eats cookies washed down with milk in North America. In the U.K., where I grew up, Father Christmas is treated to mince pies and sherry, although in some households that is upgraded to a stiff drop of whiskey. In Ireland, rumor has it, the sherry is replaced by a bottle of Guinness, and the internet, that most trustworthy of sources, suggests that Australian children leave out a nice cold beer to refresh Santa on the Antipodean leg of his journey.

One French friend (and parent) suggested that Père Noël should be rewarded with a glass of wine, some cheese, and a handful of marrons glacés, but that may just be wishful thinking. Traditionally, French children only leave out hay and carrots for Père Noël's donkey (donkey? I suppose the reindeer have to rest at some point). Venezuelan and Belgian children also cater to Santa's trusty steed rather than St. Nick himself, although in Belgium, Santa's non-politically-correct helper Black Pete often gets a beer, perhaps in return for the pepernoten cookies he leaves behind.

In Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Santa also goes hungry, but his lucky elves are welcomed with bowl after bowl of rice pudding. In neighboring Finland, however, St. Nicholas arrives while children are actually awake, and is too busy quizzing them on whether they have been good or bad to indulge in any snacks/bribes.

According to Caroline Oates, librarian of The Folklore Society in London, each of these various treats are the cultural traces of a pre-Christian mythology, in which evil spirits were propitiated and good fortune attracted to the household through the judicious application of offerings.

In any case, it's good to know that while Santa's diet may not be healthy, it is certainly varied.

Image (cc) from Flickr user cygnus921