Andy Roberts

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  Ash cloud moves towards UK airspace

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/23/ash-cloud-moves-towards-uk-airspace

  Ash from Iceland’s Grimsvötn volcano could affect Heathrow by the end of the weekThis article titled “Ash cloud moves towards UK airspace” was written by Dan Milmo and Adam Gabbatt, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 23rd May 2011 10.04 UTCAirlines and airports have been warned to expect ash from an erupting Icelandic volcano to arrive in UK airspace by Tuesday, with the possibility that it could affect Heathrow airport by the end of the week.The safety watchdog for British airlines and airports, the Civil Aviation Authority, said today that particles from the Grimsvötn volcano could reach Scotland by midnight tonight and western England by Thursday or Friday, depending on wind direction.If airspace in western England, Ireland and the Atlantic is affected by the smoke plume transatlantic flights in and out of Heathrow could suffer delays later this week as planes are diverted around the most dense parts of the cloud.However, the Civil Aviation Authority said it was confident that a new Europe-wide safety regime introduced after the Eyjafjallajökull eruption last year would reduce disruption significantly and avoid the continental shutdown that stranded millions. Under the new operating procedures, it is understood that the effect of last year’s plume on commercial routes would have been 75% smaller.Nonetheless, some disruption is expected as airplanes divert around the heaviest parts of the cloud. According to the latest forecasts, Inverness and Aberdeen are the most likely airports to suffer disruption tomorrow, although the most accurate estimates can only predict six hours ahead.“Our number one priority is to ensure the safety of people both on board aircraft and on the ground. We can’t rule out disruption, but the new arrangements that have been put in place since last year’s ash cloud mean the aviation sector is better prepared and will help to reduce any disruption in the event that volcanic ash affects UK airspace,” said Andrew Haines, CAA chief executive.Under previous guidelines, aircraft were summarily grounded if there was any volcanic ash in the air. Now, airlines can fly through ash plumes if they can demonstrate that their fleets can handle medium or high-level densities of ash.The Met Office’s volcanic ash advisory centre will identify the density and location of the cloud, aided by satellite images, weather balloons and a radar specially installed for monitoring purposes in Iceland last year. Once those zones are relayed to airlines, they will need to prove that they can fly through them by producing “safety cases” that will include information from aircraft and engine manufacturers on the airline’s tolerance to volcanic ash.A CAA spokesman said all major UK airlines already had safety preparations for medium-density ash clouds.“We are in a much better position than last time,” he said. “Safety will still be paramount but we will be able to drastically reduce disruption compared to last time, provided there is not a huge amount of high-density ash.” The spokesman said a similar level of ash to the Eyjafjallajökull incident would not result in a mass-grounding. “It will be a different picture.” However, jets will have to divert around high-density clouds, causing delays on some routes, because no UK airline has submitted a safety case for flying through heavy ash plumes.BAA, the owner of Heathrow, Stansted, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports, has convened a crisis support team to prepare for a reduction in flights, as airlines and airports await a further briefing from Eurocontrol and the UK air traffic controller, Nats. “We are working closely with the CAA and Nats in preparing contingency plans if ash enters UK airspace,” it said.Under the new ash guidelines, cloud densities are split into three levels: low, medium and high. Once the Met Office assigns a particular density of ash to a section of airspace, airlines must prove they have the safety case to fly through it. A low density cloud is 2g of ash per 10 cubic metres of air, with medium being 2g to 4g of ash per 10 cubic metres. Anything above 4g is deemed high density.The Grimsvötn volcano began erupting on Sunday, causing flights to be cancelled at Iceland’s main Keflavik airport after it sent a plume of ash, smoke and steam 12 miles into the air. Experts have said the eruption was unlikely to have the dramatic impact that the Eyjafjallajökull volcano had in April 2010.“At the moment if the volcano continues to erupt to the same level it has been, and is now, the UK could be at risk of seeing volcanic ash later this week,” said Helen Chivers, a Met Office spokeswoman. “Quite when and how much we can’t really define at the moment.”She said the weather situation was likely to be different from last year, with the wind direction set to change continuously. She added: “If it moves in the way that we’re currently looking, with the eruption continuing the way it is, then if the UK is at risk later this week, then France and Spain could be as well.”While the ash has grounded aircraft in Iceland, it is not anticipated that it will have a similar impact in the rest of Europe.Dr Dave McGarvie, volcanologist at the Open University, said the amount of ash reaching the UK was “likely to be less than in the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption”, and the last two times Grimsvötn erupted it had not affected UK air travel.“In addition, the experience gained from the 2010 eruption, especially by the Met Office, the airline industry, and the engine manufacturers, should mean less disruption to travellers,” he said.The eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in south-east Iceland in April 2010 caused the worst disruption to international air travel since 9/11. Flights across Europe were cancelled for six days, stranding tens of thousands of people, and the eruption was estimated to have cost airlines £130m a day.Eurocontrol said in a statement: “There is currently no impact on European or transatlantic flights and the situation is expected to remain so for the next 24 hours. Aircraft operators are constantly being kept informed of the evolving situation.” guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogAsh cloud moves towards UK airspaceRelated posts:How to pronounce EyjafjallajoekullAsh Grounds Planes, Rest Of World Cut OffTag Cloud

  

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  May 23 2011, 4:09pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Zapatero’s socialists defeated by People’s party in regional elections

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/23/zapateros-socialists-defeated-by-peoples-party-in-regional-elections

  Results seen as protest vote against Spain’s José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s handling of the Spanish economy since 2008This article titled “Zapatero’s socialists defeated by People’s party in regional elections” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for The Guardian on Monday 23rd May 2011 17.28 UTCThe socialist party of Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is licking its wounds after defeat by the conservative opposition People’s party (PP) in municipal and regional elections.In what was widely seen as a protest vote against Zapatero himself and his handling of Spain’s economy, his party lost control of key city halls in places such as Barcelona and Seville while the PP took control of most of the country’s powerful regional governments.The central Castilla La Mancha region, Aragon and the Balearic islands all ejected socialist administrations.“We are aware of the situation that had distanced people from our party and caused them to criticise us with their vote or abstention,” party spokesman José Blanco said.The socialist drubbing came just 10 months before a general election and appeared to clear the way for PP leader Mariano Rajoy to take possession of the prime minister’s Moncloa Palace residence on his third attempt.The voting coincided with the eruption of numerous popular protests against established politics across Spain, with demonstrators camping out in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and in dozens of other cities. A backdrop of 21% unemployment and sluggish growth has spread pessimism throughout Spain as the country struggles to find its feet after the 2008 crash.The socialists lost one in five voters on Sunday, compared to the municipal elections of 2007. Not all those votes were picked up by other mainstream parties, however, and the number of spoilt ballots doubled. But overall turnout was a high 66%.Zapatero is blamed by some for mismanaging a debt crisis that saw Spain on the edge of disaster last year. Others dislike the austerity measures he has since imposed in order to avoid a Portuguese- or Greek-style debacle in Spain.His popularity has plunged since a U-turn last year saw him bring in a strict deficit-cutting plan, which he has pledged to stick to, along with labour and pensions reforms.Markets reacted nervously to the poll result on Monday, pushing up the price of Spanish bonds and pushing down Spanish share prices.The PP urged Zapatero to call a snap general election. “Zapatero and the whole socialist party must reflect on what has happened. Spain cannot waste another year like this,” said the party’s general secretary María Dolores de Cospedal.The one socialist leader to have survived Sunday’s debacle, the head of the Extramadura regional government Guillermo Fernández, also suggested that an early general election might be considered.The socialists must first choose a new leader to take them into those elections, with deputy prime minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and defence minister Carme Chacón as favourites.Party officials said that a timetable for electing the new leader would be set on Saturday.With a general election due in Portugal on 5 June, and with opinion polls showing that socialist prime minister José Sócrates will struggle to hang on to power, the rolling back of leftwing politics that has already taken place in northern Europe now appears to have moved south. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogZapatero’s socialists defeated by People’s party in regional electionsRelated posts:Blair to go, now give back the Labour PartyCatalan independence boost after Barcelona voteZapatero says Spain safe from bailout

  

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  May 23 2011, 12:35pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Spain reveals pain over cuts and unemployment

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/21/spain-reveals-pain-over-cuts-and-unemployment

  Spain protests: Young protesters in Madrid and beyond have many different demands, but they are united in opposing the Spanish governmentThis article titled “Spain reveals pain over cuts and unemployment” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 21st May 2011 11.59 UTCThe arrival of the table, a battered piece of formica bashed on top of four rough, oversized legs raised a cry of joy. Never mind that anyone on a normal chair would barely be able to see over the top – here was another small triumph of the new Spanish revolution, the gathering of angry Spaniards of all colours, ages and persuasions that is sweeping across the country and beyond its borders.The table that arrived in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square was part of the swirl of creative chaos, naive enthusiasm and pent-up frustration that has transformed it into a makeshift camp for thousand of protesters who call themselves los indignados, the indignant ones.Tents and mattresses, armchairs and sofas, a canteen, portaloos and solar panels have sprung up in a remarkable display of organisational prowess. And the mass of people jostling around, each pursuing their own dream or demand, or just watching others doing the same, seemed more like something transported from the Arab spring in North Africa than from Europe.As the protests continued to swell on Friday, with 60,000 people defying authorities to obey the campaign’s “Take over the square!” slogan in dozens of Spanish cities, and with copycat demonstrations across Europe, the question was whether this was the new May 1968 – a youth-led popular revolt against an establishment deemed to have failed an entire generation.Esther Gutierréz, an elfin 26-year-old, wandered through the crowd with a battered shopping cart full of fruit.“We’ve got so much food we don’t know what to do with it. People just bring it to us for free and it’s wonderful stuff,” she said. “We want real democracy. Not just freedom for bankers. You’re not from the Spanish press, are you? We don’t speak to them.”Cynical and ingenuous by turns, the Madrid protesters and those who last week refused to obey orders to budge from the occupied city squares have torn up the rule book of Spanish public politics. The heavyweights of old – political parties, trade unions and media commentators – are not wanted here.“I was sacked when the Madrid regional government closed down a women’s centre last year when it imposed cuts,” explained Beatriz García as she bashed a small frying pan with a wooden spoon. “The unions didn’t even bother to turn up.”The political parties were worse, she said. “There is no renovation. There is nothing new or different, just two parties who take it in turn to govern because our electoral laws favour them.”Just a week ago Spain was known for the passivity of its citizens as they put up with one of the most depressing eras in recent history. Despite unemployment hitting 21%, widespread spending cuts and a socialist government bound to obey the diktats of Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the financial markets, they had refused to show their pain. Marches, sit-ins or riots were for the French – or British students. The real drama, anyway, was in North Africa. Spaniards stayed at home.All that changed this week as demonstrations organised via Facebook and Twitter became static protests in city squares, mushrooming into something that caught politicians, unions and the media by surprise.While journalists were following the dull routine of campaigning for Sunday’s municipal and regional elections, the steam was beginning to escape from a pressure cooker of discontent.Many Spaniards had told pollsters they were tired of the same, well-known political faces – especially those who are due to be re-elected despite being mired in corruption scandals. Politicians have rarely been held in such disregard, with the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and opposition leader, Mariano Rajoy, of the conservative People’s party, rating lowest. Rajoy seems set to take over after a general election next March.When police forcibly evicted the Madrid demonstrators on Tuesday morning, they came back in even greater numbers later that day. By Friday night authorities had lost the battle to impose rules banning public politics on the day before elections. Police could only look on. “Join us, police officers!” the demonstrators shouted.By the early hours of Friday, it was already elbow-room only in the Puerta del Sol – the square which prides itself on being Spain’s “kilometre zero”, the spot from which all other distances are measured.On the statue of King Carlos III, somebody had pinned a sign that read: “We are anti-idiots, not anti-politicians.” Other placards read: “We aren’t against the system, we want to change it”, “Democracy, a daily fight”, and “Take your money out of the bank!”“We’ve brought tents, food and even Trivial Pursuit to keep us entertained,” said Pablo Cantó, a fresh-faced 23-year-old journalism student. Like many younger protesters, and the movement as a whole, he had trouble expressing exactly why he was here. “We want change,” he said. “Things just can’t carry on as they are.”The heavy clouds of cannabis smoke suggested others had brought their own form of entertainment.“I’ve been protesting for decades,” said 60-year-old school teacher Rosa Marín. “I’m glad to see so many young people here. The questions is this: Is this another May 1968, or are they just here for the party?”A gang of drunken skinheads, mindlessly chanting football terrace slogans, were there for the latter.But a neat, disciplined circle of people intently debating social reform showed many were here in earnest. They took turns to stand up and make their proposals, the audience listening and using the sign language applause of the deaf – by shaking their hands above their heads – to show approval without drowning the speakers out.The proposals, due to make their way through a laborious process of committees, working parties and general assemblies, varied from calls for less spending on the military to helping businesses. “Because it is not just money for the owners. They are the ones who give people like us jobs,” said one young man.For some younger protesters, it was a political baptism. “I don’t know what will come out of this, but it is enough just to show everyone how upset we are,” explained Javier de Coca by phone from the protest camp in Barcelona’s Plaza de Catalunya, where there was a surprising absence of the nationalist or separatist symbols of protest movements in recent years.“It’s as if they’ve realised they have more serious problems to deal with,” said one protester. One of those problems is 45% youth unemployment.On a wall beside the tarpaulin-covered command centre in what some were calling Madrid’s “Republic of Sol” – home to a press office, an infirmary and a legal centre – a list of needs had been pinned up. Toilet paper and food were scratched off the list. Bookshelves, wood, rubber gloves and bottles of cooking gas were on it. Volunteers were needed for a creche.“We process the proposals and try to turn them into something that makes legal sense,” explained a volunteer at the legal centre.However, the open assemblies are painfully slow. Some last for hours, as everybody is given their turn to speak. After almost a week of protests, the demonstrators have failed to come up with a coherent set of demands.Electoral reform to end the two-party system and action to both punish corrupt politicians and limit their luxuries and privileges were the main areas of agreement.So is the Arab spring spreading to southern Europe? “You can’t really compare us to people who were risking their lives by protesting,” said 23-year-old computer engineer Jaime Viyuela. “But yes, you can say that we are inspired by the courage of the Arab spring.” guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogSpain reveals pain over cuts and unemploymentRelated posts:Zapatero says Spain safe from bailoutProtest march against coalition cuts expected to attract 300,000Anti-cuts campaigners plan to turn Trafalgar Square into Tahrir Square

  

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  May 21 2011, 8:54am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Cannes film festival review: Midnight in Paris

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/13/cannes-film-festival-review-midnight-in-paris

  Cannes Film Festival opens with a Woody Allen love letter to Paris, the French capital, a shallow examination of nostalgia with endearing performances from Owen Wilson and Marion Cotillard

  This article titled “Cannes film festival review: Midnight in Paris” was written by Peter Bradshaw, for guardian.co.uk on Wednesday 11th May 2011 12.45 UTC From this movie’s opening postcard-view montage of Paris — familiar in a number of ways — it’s clear the French capital is to be added to the list of cities that Woody Allen adores, and idolises all out of proportion. His new movie was an amiable amuse-bouche to begin the Cannes festival feast: sporadically entertaining, light, shallow, self-plagiarising. It’s a romantic fantasy adventure to be compared with the vastly superior ideas of his comparative youth, such as the 1985 movie The Purple Rose Of Cairo, in which it was possible to step through the silver screen, or his 1977 short story The Kugelmass Episode, in which it was possible to enter the world of Madame Bovary. And it’s notable for a cameo from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, playing a deadpan, tolerant museum guide: though it’s a measure of how muted Woody Allen movies are now that she is not obviously outclassed by everyone else. The camera adds 10 pounds, they say, but this rule does not apply to the fashionably thin Carla Bruni. I wonder how Carla’s sister Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi would have played the part. Once again, Allen finds himself in a luxury-tourist European destination, whose interiors he somehow manages to bathe in a soft golden-yellowy glow, like that which might suffuse the lobby of a five-star hotel. As so often, the film features a lead character who should really be played by the director as a younger man, though perhaps Allen intends his movie’s main theme — the fallacy of nostalgia — to be targeted at those critics who worry that his films aren’t any good any more. Owen Wilson is Gil, a wealthy Hollywood scriptwriting hack who still yearns to write a great literary novel; a visit to Paris with his testy fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her grouchy parents triggers a mid-career crisis. Irritated by the banality of contemporary culture, and electrified by his own idealised view of bygone bohemian Paris, Gil takes a midnight stroll, and gets picked up by mysterious revellers in a vintage automobile. He finds himself whisked back in time, hanging out with F Scott Fitzgerald (a nice performance from Britain’s Tom Hiddleston) not to mention Dalí, Hemingway, Picasso, Buñuel, TS Eliot and many, many more. These great figures from the past — Gil doesn’t meet any non-legends in his time-travel — cause him to fluster and squeak with excitement, though Wilson, fundamentally laid-back as ever, doesn’t give it the comedy-astonishment that Woody himself would undoubtedly have delivered. Gil’s ingenuous enthusiasm entrances Picasso’s beautiful mistress Adriana, played with conviction and finesse by Marion Cotillard: they fall in love, but it appears that Adriana is just as discontented with her time period as Gil is with his. It could be that Allen is satirising not just necrophiliac pining for the past but a kind of “history tourism” and “culture tourism” to go with the literal tourism described in the movie. Or it could just be that Allen is hopelessly in thrall to precisely this glib tourist view of Europe. Well, he’s brought back a negligible, pleasant piece of work from his city break. The view of Owen Wilson strolling, incidentally, shows a distinctive loping gait: like Robert Mitchum or John Wayne, he might have one of the most notable walks in Hollywood.

  guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

  Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogCannes film festival review: Midnight in Paris

  Related posts:Arts venues band together to fund new festival of finest radical theatre South of Pigalle Paris Breaks Competition Why is Samaritaine in Paris still closed?

  

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  May 13 2011, 3:35am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Portuguese learn price of €78bn debt bailout

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/04/portuguese-learn-price-of-e78bn-debt-bailout

  Health and education spending in Portugal to be cut by €745m, state pensions reduced and major building projects axed

  This article titled “Portuguese learn price of €78bn debt bailout” was written by Giles Tremlett, for The Guardian on Wednesday 4th May 2011 15.20 UTC

  Portugal woke up to the price of its €78bn (£70bn) bailout on Wednesday as new airports and high-speed rail lines were sacrificed in a package of austerity measures and the government pledged to freeze pensions and shrink the civil service. Lisbon’s new international airport, already on hold, and the building of a high-speed rail link between Lisbon and Oporto will now be put back until after 2013, according to state news agency Lusa. Health and education spending will be cut by €745m, civil service pay and pensions will be frozen, and people on state pensions above €1,500 a month will have them reduced. Civil service staffing is to be squeezed by 1% a year in central government, while regional administrations and town halls will be told to shed 2% of their employees annually. Portugal’s banks will take up to €12bn of the bailout funds to rebuild their capital ratios, according to reports. The banks would have to raise their core tier one capital ratio – a gauge of higher quality capital that mainly comprises equity and retained earnings – to 9% at the end of this year and to 10% by the end of 2012, Reuters said. The country will also carry out a fire sale of the nationalised Banco Português de Negócios (BPN) bank. “The authorities are launching a process to sell BPN on an accelerated schedule and without a minimum price,” according to a memorandum of understanding seen by the Guardian, which added that the sale should be finished in July. Portugal is expected to reduce public spending by 3.4% of its GDP this year and raise an extra 1.7% of GDP by raising taxes on cars, tobacco and electricity and getting rid of income and corporation tax loopholes. A detailed investigation of public-private partnerships (PPPs), which have been used for building hospitals, roads and rail lines, will be carried out to see if they are hiding extra government debt. New PPP projects will be suspended. José Sócrates, Portugal’s caretaker prime minister, announced the areas that would remain untouched when he explained the bailout during a television address to the nation on Tuesday night. These included pensions for the worse-off and the retirement age. But he failed to reveal what austerity measures came with the bailout package, beyond saying they would be similar to those rejected by parliament in March. The March defeat brought down his minority socialist government and a snap election was called for 5 June. Polls show the opposition Social Democrat Party (PSD), which rejected the March austerity package, may win that vote. Representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank met Social Democrat leaders on Wednesday morning to seek their backing for the plan. “The PSD will give its opinion on what it has read and heard late today or early tomorrow,” said Carlos Moedas, the party’s economics advisor, after the meeting. Social Democrat leaders had already indicated they might change elements of any bailout-related austerity package if they were elected to government, although always with the aim of hitting this year’s target of reducing the budget deficit to 5.9% of GDP. The IMF said: “We have said from the start that it is important that any agreement have multi-party support and we shall continue in our efforts with opposition parties to show that this is the case.” Portugal managed to raise €1.12bn euros in three-month treasury bills today with demand almost doubling the offer, but investors insisted on a 4.65% interest rate – up from 4.05% two weeks ago. Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at Capital Economics in London, said the bailout might not be enough to stave off restructuring: “It won’t put an end to speculation that – along with Greece and perhaps others – it will sooner or later need to undertake some form of debt restructuring.”

  guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

  Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogPortuguese learn price of €78bn debt bailout

  Related posts:Ireland forced into new £21bn bailout by debt crisis Portugal bailout fears rise as credit rating cut Portugal’s PM calls on EU for bailout

  

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  May 4 2011, 10:30am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Best in dough! French bakers battle to bag best baguette bounty

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/03/best-in-dough-french-bakers-best-baguette-paris

  Paris bakers competition. With a punishing criteria and several entries stakes are high at a Parisian contest seeking to identify best stick of bread

  This article titled “Best in dough! French bakers battle to bag best baguette bounty” was written by Agnes Poirier in Paris, for The Guardian on Tuesday 3rd May 2011 21.00 UTC They are hot, golden and crispy. Their makers hold them like saints’ relics and the judges in charge of inspecting them wear white gloves. These are the prized entries competing to be named Paris’s best baguette. At the head office of the bakers and pâtissiers’ union in the heart of Paris, young and old bakers queue up to enter the competition, first held in 1994. Pascal Guenard, a baker and pâtissier for more than 20 years is entering a baguette in the contest for the first time. He wears his white uniform and has flour in his hair; his pair of baguettes smell divine. “It’s the first time I’ve competed for best baguette but I came fourth once in the best croissant competition,” he said. “This award is very important for us and for our clients. I want them to be proud and be able to say that their baker makes the best baguette in Paris. It’s also a way for us artisans to fight the big supermarkets which sell crap baguettes for 50 cents. At €1.10, our baguette had better be good.” On the second floor, white-gloved ladies give a number to each pair of baguettes, register every baker’s name and address, and wish them “bonne chance”. Each baguette is then measured and weighed. This is the guillotine moment. Baguettes must measure between 55 and 70cm and weigh between 240g and 310g, criteria that were established 20 years ago. “We had to set up rules,” said Jacques Mabille, president of the bakers union. “During the war, baguette’s crumb was grey. The French grew to hate it. “So after the war, the whiter the crumb, the happier the people were. However, to get a very white crumb, you must compromise on the overall quality of the bread and on its taste. So we chose to return to a more balanced baguette and set up a few rules. … Today, a good baguette has a creamy-looking crumb, a crispy crust, a distinctive flavour and a delicious smell of wheat. And it shouldn’t have more than 18g of salt.” Each year, a third of baguettes are disqualified, usually because they are too heavy and too long. At the end of the queue stands Lahoussaine Damer, 26, a baker and pâtissier since the age of 18. “It’s the third time I’ve competed but I’ve never got into the top 10. This time, I have tried to perfect the cooking. Also, I was careful with the measurement and weight. They are ruthless. My baguette was disqualified last year for one centimetre.” Which French baker does he admire most? “Djibril Bodian.” Bodian, a member of the jury this year, was the winner of last year’s competition. He came to France from Senegal at the age of six, and fell in love with bread through his father, who set up a boulangerie in the Paris suburb of Pantin. After he won, Bodian became the French president’s personal baker, delivering his baguettes every day to the Elysée Palace. “We were never complimented by the Elysée Palace but were told that if nothing was said then it was a good sign, that they liked it” he says. “We have today a whole new generation of bakers in Paris, of African origin, from the Maghreb but also many Japanese and Cambodians,” said Mabille. “Baguettes have universal appeal. Besides, bakers are usually trained in French schools with traditional recipes and savoir faire.” A total of 174 baguettes were entered for the prize, with 38 disqualified. Among the 15 judges was a fromager, a teacher at the boulangerie school of Paris, and a food critic, as well as six Parisians chosen randomly after they entered a lottery. They touched, stroked, chewed, smelled, and even listened to the baguettes, inspecting their backs and bellies. Their colour and holes were closely inspected and intensely debated. Some judges spat out their samples . Three hours later, the verdict was given: after competing for the eighth time, Pascal Barillon, from Montmartre has won the best baguette accolade. As of Wednesday, he will be Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s official supplier.

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  May 3 2011, 5:06pm | Comments »

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  China’s insatiable thirst for fine wine threatens to burst Bordeaux bubble

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/01/chinas-insatiable-thirst-for-fine-wine-threatens-to-burst-bordeaux-bubble

  Bordeaux prices are soaring as buyers in Hong Kong develop a taste for the famed French wine, and this is why you can’t find a reasonably priced real claret in England any more, amongst all the new world wines that fill up the majority of shelf space

  This article titled “China’s insatiable thirst for fine wine threatens to burst Bordeaux bubble” was written by Jamie Doward, for The Observer on Saturday 30th April 2011 23.05 UTC It is one of the most hotly debated topics in the world of wine: is the Bordeaux bubble about to burst? The price of one of France’s most celebrated wines has soared over the last 12 months as British buyers compete with an increasing number of Chinese oenophiles to snap up the all too precious cases of claret. With the likes of Chris de Burgh and Sir David Frost recently selling their Bordeaux collections for six-figure sums, attention has focused on the top-tier wines such as Château Lafite, cases of which are going for as much as £15,000. At the start of the year, Lord Lloyd-Webber sold off a large part of his cellar, including a 12-bottle lot of Château Pétrus 1982 for $77,564 (around £48,500). Berry Brothers recently sold three cases of the same vintage for £58,000 a case. A dozen bottles of a typical second-tier Bordeaux was selling for around £600 a year ago, according to Berry Brothers, the wine merchants, but is now going for anything up to £2,000. But experts say the demand for Bordeaux is now so great that even wines from less well known producers have seen prices rocket. A decision by the Hong Kong government to abolish wine and beer duties has fuelled the demand. Berry Brothers estimates that last year, of the £110m of Bordeaux it sold “en primeur” – while still in the barrel – some £30m worth went through Hong Kong, compared with just £10m the year before. With en primeur sales of the 2010 vintage, which was apparently a fantastic year, soon to take place, the company is anticipating substantial demand from Chinese buyers. “We’ve got fewer than 100 customers in China, so you can imagine what happens if more Chinese people get a thirst for Bordeaux,” said Simon Staples, sales and marketing director at Berry Brothers. Intriguingly, the demand among Chinese buyers is only for red wine and only for Bordeaux. “Burgundy is much more complicated, the knowledge among Chinese buyers isn’t there yet, whereas Bordeaux is much easier to understand,” Staples said. “They want red wine; it’s a male thing, it’s good for the heart, good for the libido.” Staples has remortgaged his home three times in the last 10 years (in 2000, 2005 and 2009) to buy Bordeaux. Last year he recommended that his mother-in-law buy five cases of a particular Bordeaux at £2,400. These are now selling for £7,800. Chateaux producing the wine have responded to the surge in interest, investing in sophisticated machinery and a more rigorous selection policy for their grapes. A taste among a new generation of drinkers to consume Bordeaux much earlier than their predecessors has been driven by an earlier ripening of the grapes, in part down to longer, hotter summers in France. Vineyards have also started to strip leaves to give grapes more sun while leaving them longer on the vine so they are softer and sweeter. “It’s coincided with a new style of Bordeaux,” said Adam Lechmere, the news editor at Decanter magazine. “The vintages are drinkable much younger. You used to have to lay them down for 15 years or so, but now they’re softer and don’t have such harsh tannins.” Staples is confident heightened global demand means Bordeaux prices will not fall even if the UK economy enters a double dip. But others are wary. “People who work in the City tell me this has all the hallmarks of a Bordeaux bubble,” Lechmere said.

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  May 1 2011, 1:17pm | Comments »

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  Catalan independence boost after Barcelona vote

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/11/catalan-independence-boost-after-barcelona-vote

  Nine out of 10 of voters in Barcelona backed independence for Catalonia.

  This article titled “Catalan independence boost after Barcelona vote” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for The Guardian on Monday 11th April 2011 17.08 UTC Campaigners for Catalan independence claim they have made significant advances after one in five people in the region’s capital city, Barcelona, backed a call for a separate state in Sunday’s unofficial referendum. Although the vote was organised by volunteers and had no legal standing, organisers said it had pushed the issue of independence further into mainstream political debate in this wealthy and populous north-eastern Spanish region. Alfred Bosch, spokesman for the organising committee, was happy with the 21% turnout. “We could never, even in our wildest dreams, have imagined a turnout like this,” he said. Nine out of 10 of those who took part backed a separate state, reflecting an overall 20% support for independence seen in similar votes held in hundreds of Catalan towns and villages over the past 18 months.   Among key politicians reported to have voted in favour of independence was the regional prime minister, Artur Mas, of the nationalist Convergence and Union coalition. “This marks a change in the political cycle,” Felip Puig, a senior member of Mas’s government, told the Catalan language newspaper Ara. Critics accused Mas of being a “Sunday separatist” as his party has indicated it would not back a vote calling for independence in the Catalan regional parliament on Wednesday. Some observers claimed Mas was using the referendum to put pressure on the central Spanish government of Socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero amid a bruising battle over funding of the Catalan government. The regional government, which is in charge of major services such as education, health and policing, must cut spending to help Spain meet its deficit reduction targets this year. Mas has vowed to negotiate a new and exclusive fiscal deal with Madrid. Anti-Madrid sentiment has been on the increase in Catalonia ever since the constitutional court last year struck out parts of a new autonomy charter for the region that had been approved at a legal referendum. Non-separatists pointed out that the weekend referendum in Barcelona showed the vast majority of Catalans were not interested enough in independence to take part. Spain’s constitution does not allow for the independence of any of the 17 regions into which it is divided. Constitutional change requires the approval of two-thirds of the deputies in the Spanish parliament and two-thirds of the people at a national referendum. Both of Spain’s two largest parties, the governing socialists and the opposition People’s party, oppose the independence of Catalonia. They jointly account for 323 of the 350 votes in parliament.

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  April 11 2011, 12:16pm | Comments »

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  MEP calls for Nuclear Free Europe

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/09/paulmurphymep-calls-for-nuclear-free-europe

  Paul Murphy, Socialist Party MEP for Dublin speaks at a plenary session of the European Parliament in favour of a nuclear-free future for Europe in light of the catastrophe in Fukushima and calls for the nationalisation of the energy industry and real investment in renewable energy technologies.

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  April 8 2011, 11:53pm | Comments »

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  Spain staves off bailout – for now

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/08/spain-staves-off-bailout-for-now

  As its neighbour Portugal succumbs to a bailout, Spain insists that it won’t follow despite holding €75bn of Portuguese debt

  This article titled “Spain staves off bailout – for now” was written by Giles Tremlett, for The Guardian on Thursday 7th April 2011 19.43 UTC Spanish store fronts, jostling for space along a single block in Lisbon’s João II street, are a sign of just how deeply Spain – which accounts for a third of all Portuguese debt held in foreign banks – is linked to its neighbour. Spain’s two global banks, Santander and BBVA, both have branches on this block, along with another bank, a hotel, a travel agency, a dentistry chain, a pizza restaurant and a supermarket – all of them Spanish businesses. Some 8.5% of Spain’s exports are sent across its western border, meaning that Portuguese austerity measures and an expected return to recession will be also be felt there. But Spanish officials who have watched their bond yields improve even as Portugal headed towards a bailout insist there is no danger of it becoming the next eurozone domino to fall. “(The risk of contagion) is absolutely ruled out … it has been some time since the markets have known that our economy is much more competitive,” Elena Salgado, the finance minister, told the SER radio station. Spanish banks hold around €75bn (£65bn) of Portuguese debt, though only about 30% of this is public debt. Spain had about €25bn in foreign direct investment in Portugal in 2009. The prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who has said he will not stand for a third term next year, told the Guardian last week that his socialist government would continue to meet its deficit targets. He said it would also keep introducing reforms to boost the current timid rate of growth and start bringing down a startling 20% unemployment rate. Salgado said on Wednesday that 2011 growth would be 1.3%.   Spain’s economy is bigger than those of Portugal, Ireland and Greece put together. A bailout there could have disastrous consequences for the eurozone. “Portugal’s bailout request puts the likes of Spain under the spotlight, but we are of the opinion that Spain will not follow due to its improving fiscal situation and recovering economy,” Credit Agricole analysts said in a note to clients .

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  April 8 2011, 5:33am | Comments »

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  Portugal admits it needs EU bailout

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/07/portugal-admits-it-needs-eu-bailout

  Finance minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos says Portugal has ‘to resort to the financing mechanisms’ of the EU. That means a bailout.

  This article titled “Portugal admits it needs EU bailout” was written by Larry Elliott, Heather Stewart and Simon Goodley, for The Guardian on Wednesday 6th April 2011 19.36 UTC Portugal admitted tonight that it will need aid from the European Union to overcome its financial troubles, as the country’s crisis intensified. Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, the finance minister, said: “In this difficult situation, which could have been avoided, I understand that it is necessary to resort to the financing mechanisms available within the European framework.” It was not clear from the comment whether he was referring to a short-term loan until the country’s 5 June snap general election or a fully-fledged bailout such as the ones received by Greece and Ireland – and which markets widely expect Lisbon to need next. The comments came as fears grew of a fresh debt crisis for weak countries on the fringes of the single currency zone as the European Central Bank prepared to start raising interest rates from the emergency level plumbed during the financial crisis. The euro rose on the foreign exchanges today in expectation that the European Central Bank would raise borrowing costs from 1% and signal further policy tightening in the months ahead. But City economists warned that the move would add to debt servicing costs and prove more problematic for countries such as Portugal and Ireland than for the core single country nations of Germany and France. Ben May, of Capital Economics, said: “If interest rates were to rise in line with market expectations, their impact would be greatest in the periphery and may prompt a further escalation of the region’s fiscal crisis. “Higher official interest rates will not only lower economic growth in the periphery, but will also prompt the average interest rate that governments pay on their debts to rise. Other things equal, then, higher interest rates will increase the chance of peripheral government debt spiralling out of control.” Along with other central banks, the ECB slashed interest rates during the financial crisis in an attempt to pull Europe out of recession, but it has responded to rising inflation in recent months with clear signals that borrowing costs will rise. The euro’s strength coincided with a rise in the price of gold to $1,454.84 an ounce. Marchel Alexandrovich, of Jeffries International, said a 1% increase in ECB rates would mean that mortgage debt interest payments of euro area households would rise by around 7% on average, but there would be a 30% jump in debt services payments for households in Portugal and Finland, a 15% increase in Ireland and around a 10% rise in Spain and Italy. “In aggregate, debt interest payments for the euro area households and non-financial corporations would rise by around 0.3% of GDP if ECB rates are one percentage point higher,” he said. “But Germany and France would see a rise of just around 0.1% of GDP, while Portugal, Spain and Ireland would see increases equivalent to 0.8% of GDP. “The countries which least welcome higher interest rates on economic fundamentals are likely to be the ones most affected by them. One more reason why the ECB would be wise to tread very carefully in the months ahead.” Several of Portugal’s banks have been calling on the government to accept help from its eurozone partners, warning that they can no longer continue to buy up Portuguese debt. Lisbon needs to find almost €5bn in repayments this month and another €27bn in June. The rising interest rate on Portuguese borrowing has added to the sense of crisis in the eurozone, amid reports that Greece is under pressure from the International Monetary Fund to default on its borrowing. The Irish government is understood to be concerned about weaker-than-expected tax revenues and the vulnerability of its banking sector. An informal meeting of European finance ministers is planned for Friday

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  April 7 2011, 2:35am | Comments »

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  Zapatero says Spain safe from bailout

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/02/zapatero-says-spain-safe-from-bailout

  ‘Socialist‘ prime minister Zapatero of Spain defends the deficit reduction programme as unemployment rate remains at 20%

  This article titled “Zapatero says Spain safe from bailout” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for The Guardian on Friday 1st April 2011 20.00 UTC Spain’s beleaguered economy is out of the woods and will not need a Greek or Irish-style bailout despite the risk of contagion from troubled neighbour Portugal, according to its Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. In an exclusive interview with the partner publications from the Guardian’s New Europe project, the continent’s most powerful leftwing prime minister insisted that reforms and an austerity programme designed to reverse a runaway deficit were bearing fruit. He refused to be drawn on his own plans, amid rumours that he will announce tomorrow that he will not stand for a third term at elections due early next year. His Socialist party currently trails the opposition conservative People’s party by 16 points in opinion polls. The comments, from a prime minister whom Spaniards describe as “anthropologically optimistic”, came as market pressure on the country’s sovereign debt showed signs of relaxing, despite growing problems in both Portugal and Ireland. “We now have economic growth. The debt risk has stabilised and is out of danger. And now we are close to creating jobs,” Zapatero said. Zapatero sees no conflict between being a deficit warrior and a socialist, but points to key differences between his cuts package and that of Britain’s coalition government. “There is a deep, deep difference between what our government has done on education during the crisis and what Cameron’s government has done,” he said, pointing to education spending that has risen to 15% of Spain’s GDP for the first time. “The fundamental difference between right and left is the capacity to redistribute spending and remove obstacles to equal opportunities,” he insisted. “We haven’t reduced spending on health. We’ve increased spending on unemployment. We’ve maintained spending on social care of the dependent. Why do we do it? To maintain social cohesion.” Instead Spain’s government had brought down its deficit by, among other things, cutting civil service pay and freezing pensions. Zapatero said that, having met last year’s deficit reduction target, Spain would also hit this year’s 6% goal. “Our priority measure is the strict meeting of the deficit target,” he said. Although he claimed jobs would be created soon, the timid growth that some critics blame precisely on spending cuts has had no impact on a startling 20% unemployment rate. “My main anguish is about those people who lose benefit payments but have trouble finding work,” he said. Reforms in the pipeline should bring more flexible collective bargaining, improved competitiveness and a law to limit deficit spending, he said. “It’s true that some reforms mean cuts, but others are simply changes,” he said. “No project can call itself leftwing unless it commits to a competitive economy … we are going to renew Spain’s economic structure.” He warned Portugal that if it wanted to escape a bailout it had no option but to adopt the austerity package that its parliament rejected last week, bringing down José Sócrates’ Socialist government and triggering a June election. “Carrying out the Sócrates austerity plan presented to parliament is fundamental,” Zapatero said. His comments came even before Portugal admitted that its 2010 deficit was €3bn (£2.6bn) higher than originally estimated. Zapatero, speaking before Ireland revealed that it needed a further €24bn to deal with its banks, said he favoured more aid to Greece and Ireland. “We should be ready to increase the aid if they need it,” he said. Like most Spanish politicians, he is an avowed pro-European and saw greater economic integration within the EU as an unexpected but welcome side-effect of the crisis. “Economic integration is being speeded up. That much is clear,” he said. “Integration in politics and security is going more slowly, but it will come. It may take five or 10 years, but the process is inevitable.” He admits that, like everyone else, he would have liked Europe to react faster to the economic crisis. “But it is obvious that, amongst democratic countries, there is something called a decision-making process,” he said. “The Spanish government is lucky because parliament is always very pro-European … but there are other parliaments in Europe that debate every last cent.” Even the Libya crisis was an example of Europe in action, he said. “Who brought a historic resolution to the [UN] security council to intervene in Libya? Two European countries: France and Britain,” he said. “It is Europe that has taken the lead.” The man who pulled Spain’s troops out of Iraq when first elected in 2004 said the UN resolution was a historic step for human rights. “It is the first time we have had a resolution based on a responsibility to protect people,” he said. “A huge amount of care and restraint is being exercised,” he said of the campaign. “We have not had that thing that is so heartrending – and which discredits these operations – which is civilian victims.” But Zapatero, who has sent aircraft and warships to join the Libya campaign, insisted that military means should not be used to oust Gadaffi. “The use of arms is for protecting the population,” he said. “For regime change we have our political and economic strength.” Europe’s task did not end, there, he insisted. “The north of Africa and the Mediterranean as a whole are going to look towards the north. They will look to Europe, and Europe must not look away.” Wind power became Spain’s biggest energy source for the first time in March, but events in Japan have not changed Zapatero’s policy of using nuclear energy, while refusing to build extra capacity. “When nuclear power stations come to the end of their lifespan they will be closed,” he said. “We don’t propose building new power stations and must guarantee the production of alternative sources to cover the closure of every nuclear power station.”

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  April 2 2011, 11:31am | Comments »

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  Nuclear’s green cheerleaders forget Chernobyl at our peril

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/02/nuclears-green-cheerleaders-forget-chernobyl-at-our-peril

  Pundits who downplay the risks of  nuclear radiation are ignoring the casualties of the past such as Chernobyl. Fukushima‘s core meltdown may be worse due to the plutonium in the mixed oxide fuel rods.

  This article titled “Nuclear’s green cheerleaders forget Chernobyl at our peril” was written by John Vidal, for The Guardian on Friday 1st April 2011 19.00 UTC Every day there are more setbacks to solving the Japanese nuclear crisis and it’s pretty clear that the industry and governments are telling us little; have no idea how long it will take to control; or what the real risk of cumulative contamination may be. The authorities reassure us by saying there is no immediate danger and a few absolutist environmentalists obsessed with nuclear power because of the urgency to limit emissions repeat the industry mantra that only a few people died at Chernobyl – the worst nuclear accident in history. Those who disagree are smeared and put in the same camp as climate change deniers. I prefer the words of Alexey Yablokov, member of the Russian academy of sciences, and adviser to President Gorbachev at the time of Chernobyl: “When you hear ‘no immediate danger’ [from nuclear radiation] then you should run away as far and as fast as you can.” Five years ago I visited the still highly contaminated areas of Ukraine and the Belarus border where much of the radioactive plume from Chernobyl descended on 26 April 1986. I challenge chief scientist John Beddington and environmentalists like George Monbiot or any of the pundits now downplaying the risks of radiation to talk to the doctors, the scientists, the mothers, children and villagers who have been left with the consequences of a major nuclear accident. It was grim. We went from hospital to hospital and from one contaminated village to another. We found deformed and genetically mutated babies in the wards; pitifully sick children in the homes; adolescents with stunted growth and dwarf torsos; foetuses without thighs or fingers and villagers who told us every member of their family was sick. This was 20 years after the accident but we heard of many unusual clusters of people with rare bone cancers. One doctor, in tears, told us that one in three pregnancies in some places was malformed and that she was overwhelmed by people with immune and endocrine system disorders. Others said they still saw caesium and strontium in the breast milk of mothers living far from the areas thought to be most affected, and significant radiation still in the food chain. Villages testified that “the Chernobyl necklace” – thyroid cancer – was so common as to be unremarkable; many showed signs of accelerated ageing. The doctors and scientists who have dealt directly with the catastrophe said that the UN International Atomic Energy Agency’s “official” toll, through its Chernobyl Forum, of 50 dead and perhaps 4,000 eventual fatalities was insulting and grossly simplistic. The Ukrainian Scientific Centre for Radiation, which estimated that infant mortality increased 20 to 30% after the accident, said their data had not been accepted by the UN because it had not been published in a major scientific journal. Konstantin Tatuyan, one of the “liquidators” who had helped clean up the plant, told us that nearly all his colleagues had died or had cancers of one sort or another, but that no one had ever asked him for evidence. There was burning resentment at the way the UN, the industry and ill-informed pundits had played down the catastrophe. While there have been thousands of east European studies into the health effects of radiation from Chernobyl, only a very few have been accepted by the UN, and there have been just a handful of international studies trying to gauge an overall figure. They range from the UN’s Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation study (57 direct deaths and 4,000 cancers expected) to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), who estimated that more than 10,000 people had been affected by thyroid cancer alone and a further 50,000 cases could be expected. Moving up the scale, a 2006 report for Green MEPs suggested up to 60,000 possible deaths; Greenpeace took the evidence of 52 scientists and estimated the deaths and illnesses to be 93,000 terminal cancers already and perhaps 140,000 more in time. Using other data, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences declared in 2006 that 212,000 people had died as a direct consequence of Chernobyl. At the end of 2006, Yablokov and two colleagues, factoring in the worldwide drop in births and increase in cancers seen after the accident, estimated in a study published in the annals of the New York Academy of Sciences that 985,000 people had so far died and the environment had been devastated. Their findings were met with almost complete silence by the World Health Organisation and the industry. So who can we trust when the estimates swing so wildly? Should we believe the empirical evidence of the doctors; or governments and industrialists backed by their PR companies? So politicised has nuclear energy become, that you can now pick and choose your data, rubbish your opponents, and ignore anything you do not like. The fact is we may never know the truth about Chernobyl because the records are lost, thousands of people from 24 countries who cleaned up the site have dispersed across the vast former Soviet Union, and many people have died. Fukushima is not Chernobyl, but it is potentially worse. It is a multiple reactor catastrophe happening within 150 miles of a metropolis of 30 million people. If it happened at Sellafield, there would be panic in every major city in Britain. We still don’t know the final outcome but to hear experts claiming that nuclear radiation is not that serious, or that this accident proves the need for nuclear power, is nothing short of disgraceful.

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  April 2 2011, 8:30am | Comments »

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  Marks & Spencer makes Paris comeback with Champs Elysées store

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/01/marks-spencer-makes-paris-comeback-with-champs-elysees-store

  New Marks and Spencers shop to open in Paris France 10 years after controversial retreat. Items on offer will include food – by popular demand.

  This article titled “Marks & Spencer makes Paris comeback with Champs Elysées store” was written by Kim Willsher in Paris, Dan Milmo and Marie Winckler, for The Guardian on Friday 1st April 2011 17.54 UTC Shortbread and Earl Grey tea are heading back to the Champs Elysées later this year as Marks & Spencer returns to France, a decade after its retreat across the Channel prompted street protests in Paris. The retailer replanted a British flag in the heart of the Gallic retail industry by announcing, 10 years after it quit the capital amid stern criticism from trade unions, politicians and ardent muffin fans, that it would open a shop on Paris’s most famous boulevard before Christmas. The retailer is opening a three-storey outlet on the Champs Elysées, towards the end of this year. What is more, following a clamour by British organisations in France and threats of a boycott, it will be selling not only women’s clothing and lingerie – as first thought – but also food. Thoughts of ready meals and cheddar cheese may still appal a nation that gave the world haute cuisine. But French foodies have a grudging respect for the venerable British retailer, and Parisians were excited about the “grand retour”. Comments on French newspaper websites were overwhelmingly positive. Audrey Guttman, 23-year-old Parisienne arts consultant, said: “Special occasions in my childhood were peppered with Marks and Spencer delights such as Bugs Bunny-shaped fried chicken and Percy Pigs soft candy. I was devastated when they left, and the same items coming in from London just didn’t quite taste the same afterwards.” However, like many she was doubtful about the uncool choice of location: “Really, Marks and Spencer, the Champs-Elysées?! It’s not 1999 anymore!” French blogger Wendy Nourry Breguet, 25, added: “As a Frenchie, Marks & Spencer has always been an Ali Baba’s cave of food, fresh products, spices, foreign foods, which are absent from most French shops.” Pierre Cornette, a 28-year-old gallery owner was less convinced: “M&S plays on its super image in France for quality and tradition, but I can’t really see how it’s going to sell its English products to a Paris clientele, above all in this age of organic produce.” As well as the 1,000 sq metre Champs Elysées shop, there will also be five Simply Food stores at “transport hubs” such as railway stations in Paris and a “handful” of larger shops in and around the French capital. A website, trading in euros, will be launched and will be the group’s first to permit international purchases and deliveries across France. The original idea was for the new store to sell only clothing and home goods, in accordance with the lease on the prestigious Parisian floorspace. But a campaign persuaded executives to change their minds. British-born Pamela Lake, a Parisienne since 1963, who spearheaded the “no food, no go” campaign, said she and her British and French friends were delighted by the company’s apparent change of heart. “It would have been commercial suicide to do otherwise,” she said. “I shall be there for my double cream, bacon, sausages and Indian food.” She added: “I phoned my friends this morning and said ‘we’ve won’. Everyone was so pleased. When M&S closed here it was practically a day of national mourning for us in Paris. Now the company has admitted it was the biggest blunder they ever made.” She said French friends who joined the campaign would be looking forward to getting their Christmas crackers, mince pies and Christmas puddings. “They’ve also missed the Stilton cheese,” she said.   All M&S stores in continental Europe were closed as the company battled to turn around its British business. Last year the former boss Sir Stuart Rose said the decision to pull out of Europe was a mistake, calling it “tragic”. The company’s chief executive, Marc Bolland, said the company was “very excited” about its return: “Over the past 10 years the number of demands … from people for us to come back has been enormous.” He added: “Our company has changed in a positive way and France has moved on as well. We want to come back in an extremely positive way.” Bolland has declared he wants to speed up the group’s international expansion and said there was scope for faster growth, particularly in Asian markets. M&S has 358 stores in 42 overseas territories.

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  April 1 2011, 4:36pm | Comments »

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  Ireland forced into new £21bn bailout by debt crisis

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/01/ireland-forced-into-new-21bn-bailout-by-debt-crisis

  Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said that Ireland had been left with an ‘appalling legacy’ as a result of the banking crisis.

  This article titled “Ireland forced into new £21bn bailout by debt crisis” was written by Larry Elliott and Jill Treanor, for The Guardian on Thursday 31st March 2011 20.17 UTC Europe’s debt crisis deepened on Thursday night as Ireland was forced into another €24bn (£21bn) rescue of its banking system and jittery financial markets pushed Portugal closer to a bailout. In a furious attack on the previous government, the Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said the country had been left with “an appalling legacy: a legacy of debt, of unemployment, of emigration, of falling living standards and of low morale” as a result of the banking crisis. After stress tests to assess the vulnerability of the banks to a drastic worsening of the economy, Noonan announced that the government would take a majority stake in all the major lenders. These are to be radically reduced in size and focused on just two players. Ireland’s banks have been crippled by the bursting of a house price and commercial property bubble, created when they took advantage of the country’s membership of the single currency to lend recklessly on low interest rates. The collapse caused an economic crisis that has seen output shrink for three years in a row. “We are now in the third year of the banking crisis. The previous government failed to act. They ducked and dived and procrastinated as they lurched from one crisis to the next. They went through periods of denial and periods of self justification. They paved the road to disaster with good intentions,” Noonan said. “They never fixed the broken banks, however.” Ireland’s central bank governor, Patrick Honohan, said the country was saddled with “one of the costliest banking crises in history”. The total bill has now reached €70bn – equal to €17,000 for each citizen. Analysts said that while Ireland’s latest bank bailout had provided the country with breathing space, time was running out for Portugal, where the government admitted that it would miss its target for deficit reduction in 2010 and revised up its budget deficit figure from 7% of GDP to 8.6%. The poor figures triggered a fresh sell-off of Portuguese bonds and analysts said it would now be cheaper for the country to borrow from the International Monetary Fund and EU, as Ireland is doing, rather than access the international markets. Ireland pays 6% interest on its seven-year loans while bond investors want to charge Portugal 9% to borrow for just five years. As a result of the Irish and Greek bailouts, EU partners have now set up the European financial stability facility (EFSF) as a long-term provider of funds for troubled members of the eurozone. “The key question is when will Portugal need to access the EFSF because it has run out of money. Portugal faces two bond redemptions, one on 15 April (€4.3bn) and one on 15 June (€4.9bn). This week, a government official said that Portugal had sufficient reserves to cover both of these. It is hard to see how this can be the case,” said Emilie Gay from the research consultants Capital Economics. However, Portugal’s finance minister, Teixeira dos Santos, said: “The government is not irresponsible and will guarantee that there is the necessary financing so the country can live up to its responsibilities and honour commitments to its creditors.” Lisbon said the change in its deficit figures was the result of an accounting change demanded by Europe’s statistics agency but bond markets feared it was an effort to deceive investors about the true picture in the past. An auction of €1.5bn of bonds has been scheduled for Friday and will be a test for the market. As a result of the announcement in Dublin, all the Irish banks are now likely to be state-owned. Two new universal banks are expected to be created from existing institutions – Bank of Ireland will remain while Allied Irish Banks and building society EBS are to be merged. “We will also ensure that they are fully recapitalised so that the world looks at these core banks with confidence and they in turn help instil confidence in our economy,” said Noonan. The extra bailout cash is within the funding from the EU/IMF support announced last year. Noonan blamed the crisis on the decision made in September 2008 by the former Fianna Fáil government to guarantee the banking sector, and particularly Anglo Irish Bank, during the international banking crisis.

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  April 1 2011, 9:41am | Comments »

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  Gaddafi issues defiant challenge to Libya conference in London

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/29/gaddafi-issues-defiant-challenge-to-libya-conference-in-london

  Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi condemns ‘crusader strategy’ at the London Conference amid speculation that his foreign minister has defected. Full text of Gaddafi’s letter to the European Parliament: Stop your barbaric and unjust offensive against Libya, leave Libya for the Libyans. You are carrying out an operation to exterminate a peaceful people and destroy a developing country. We are united behind the leadership of the revolution, facing the terrorism of al-Qaida on the one hand and on the other hand terrorism by Nato, which now directly supports al-Qaida.

  This article titled “Gaddafi issues defiant challenge to Libya conference in London” was written by Ian Black in Tripoli, for The Guardian on Tuesday 29th March 2011 20.18 UTC Muammar Gaddafi told the London conference discussing Libya’s future without him that there was no room for compromise with the Benghazi-based rebels, whom he described bluntly as al-Qaida terrorists supported by Nato and representing no one. Far from showing any sign of bending to demands from Barack Obama, David Cameron and other world leaders that he step down, Gaddafi issued a characteristically defiant challenge to what he called a “new crusader strategy or imperialist plan”. But three powerful explosions that shook Tripoli in mid-afternoon – apparently the first daylight attack in 10 days of UN-mandated air strikes – seemed to presage a possible escalation of the conflict. Libyan officials made no comment. In another dramatic development, there was speculation that Gaddafi’s foreign minister, Mousa Kousa, might have defected during a visit to Tunisia. The Libyan leader warned that the UN-imposed no-fly zone would turn north Africa into “a second Afghanistan” in an extraordinary letter sent to the European Parliament, the US Congress and “the Europeans” meeting in London. “Stop your barbaric and unjust offensive against Libya,” he wrote. “Leave Libya for the Libyans. You are carrying out an operation to exterminate a peaceful people and destroy a developing country. We are united behind the leadership of the revolution, facing the terrorism of al-Qaida on the one hand and on the other hand terrorism by Nato, which now directly supports al-Qaida.” The full text shows the Libyan leader to be baffled by the ingratitude of the world towards him after years of rapprochement and utterly dismissive of concerns about the use of violence against his own people. Gaddafi argued that there was no need for foreign intervention, that Libya’s “direct democracy” had no parallel and that its oil resources were the property of its people – a reference to the widespread perception among his supporters that the war is a conspiracy to divide the country and steal its natural resources. Libya has made every effort to help solve global problems, abandoned its weapons of mass destruction, helped the international effort to fight “extremist terrorism”, controlled illegal immigration to Europe and played a positive role in Africa. “There were no demonstrations in Libya or protests like in Tunisia and Egypt,” he claimed. “No one opened fire on demonstrators. No more than 150 people were killed and most of those were soldiers and policemen who were defending themselves.” He attacked a “deliberately fabricated image” of Libya to justify the “second crusader war”, accusing the coalition of committing “merciless massacres”. Kousa, intriguingly, chose the eve of the London conference to pay what was described as a private visit to neighbouring Tunisia, the country’s nearest outlet to the outside world as the no-fly zone has closed all Libyan airports. Tunisian sources said Kousa had left later for an unknown destination. Kousa’s status as veteran Gaddafi stalwart and former intelligence and security chief provoked immediate speculation that he may have followed diplomats who quit en masse in the first days of the uprising. If he has, it would be a grave blow to the regime – and vindication of claims in Washington and elsewhere that cracks are appearing in Gaddafi’s inner circle. Kousa’s deputy, Khaled Kaim, accused the allies of seeking to partition Libya. “The tactic of the coalition is to lead to a stalemate to cut the country in two, which means the civil war is a continuous war, the start of a new Somalia, a very dangerous situation,” he told Italy’s Rai Uno TV channel. “If we are led to a civil war, resolution 1973, which was meant to protect civilians, will on the contrary lead to the murder of civilians.” UN resolution 1973, passed earlier this month, authorised “all necessary measures” to protect civilians. State-run media are continuing to highlight the human toll of the allied attacks, including 12 the regime claims were killed in Sebha, on the edge of the Sahara, when Nato planes hit an ammunition dump. Airstrikes also hit what were described as “military and civilian targets” in the cities of Garyan and Mizda, 40 miles and 90 miles respectively from Tripoli. Foreign journalists who were taken to Mizda were forced to flee when residents fired over their heads. It was unclear whether the violent protest was against the international media or their official government minders.

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  March 29 2011, 3:42pm | Comments »

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  Chernobyl 25 years on: a poisoned landscape

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/27/chernobyl-25-years-on-a-poisoned-landscape

  As Japan struggles with its own Fukushima nuclear plant crisis, Chernobyl, the site of the biggest atomic disaster in history remains a grim, radioactive monument

  This article titled “Chernobyl 25 years on: a poisoned landscape” was written by Robin McKie in Chernobyl, for The Observer on Sunday 27th March 2011 00.06 UTC Yuri Tatarchuk has a disconcerting way of demonstrating Chernobyl’s grim radioactive legacy. An official guide at the wrecked nuclear power plant, he waves his radiation counter at a group of abandoned Soviet army vehicles that were used in the battle to clean up the contamination created by the reactor explosion in 1986. “Some of these trucks are quite clean, but some of them not,” he announces. A sweep of his counter reveals only a few clicks from their doors and roofs. Then he passes the device over one vehicle’s tracks. A sudden angry chatter reveals significant levels of radiation. “Wheels and tracks pick contamination from the soil,” he tells the group that has gathered round him. “There is still plenty of radioactive isotopes – caesium, strontium, even some plutonium – in the ground and we cannot get rid of them.” Twenty-five years on, Chernobyl remains a poisoned landscape. Set among lakes, sandy soil and forests on steppe lands north of Kiev, Chernobyl achieved global notoriety in 1986 when technicians carried out an experiment aimed at testing backup electrical supplies to one of the plant’s four reactors. The flow of water – used as a coolant to carry away the mighty heat of the reactor core – was raised and lowered. After a few minutes, there was a sudden jump in reactor power. Ten seconds later the core was blown apart by a massive explosion. Without a containment vessel, the reactor’s deadly radioactive contents were borne high into the air by the heat of the core’s burning graphite and spread over much of Europe, triggering an international panic. In the blast’s immediate aftermath, 31 plant operators and firemen died – they were not told the reactor was the cause of the blaze or that radiation levels were lethal – while thousands more people, living on land that is now in Ukraine and Belarus, received doses that undoubtedly shortened their lives, although scientists still dispute the death toll. The World Health Organisation puts it at 4,000; Greenpeace says 200,000. Significant levels of radioactive caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium isotopes still pollute the ground. In one zone, dubbed the Red Forest, it reached levels 20 times higher than the contamination at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and remains highly dangerous. The Chernobyl explosion was the world’s worst nuclear accident and is the only one classified as level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Next month will mark the 25th anniversary of the blast, a birthday that has acquired a dramatic resonance following the Fukushima reactor fires in Japan, which have resurrected global fears that nuclear mayhem could afflict the planet again – though it should be noted that the accident there measured only 5 on the nuclear event scale. Chernobyl clearly has much to tell us about the dangers of nuclear power. Hence the recent soaring interest in the plant which, bizarrely, has become a popular tourist destination for foreign visitors to Ukraine. My coach trip last Thursday from Kiev was a sellout – with the 25-strong party including 15 members of the German, US, Russian, Dutch and British media. Television crews fought to interview the few baffled punters on the bus about the forthcoming anniversary, while other journalists simply interviewed each other. Your correspondent was cross-examined for Russian TV about the safety of nuclear power as he stood in front of the radioactive ruins of reactor no 4. It was an extraordinary affair led by the ebullient Tatarchuk, a chunky, cheerful Ukrainian wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Hard Rock Café – Chernobyl”. Sites on our strange tour included the buried village of Kopachi, a close-up look at reactor number 4 itself, a very quick drive through the Red Forest, and an exploration of the abandoned city of Pripyat. Radiation counters were handed out, and if these started to chatter too quickly – usually if we wandered off paths and on to open soil – we were told to make a detour. It was startlingly casual and, in the end, highly unsettling.   The Ukrainian steppe is still frost-burned and the trees leafless at this time of year. There are no buds on branches and little hint of greenery, a combination that only enhances the eerie desolation inside the 30km exclusion zone around the reactor. This land has seen harrowing times. It was occupied by German troops and most communities have memorials to the Soviet soldiers who liberated them – including the village of Kopachi inside the zone. In fact, Kopachi’s memorial is just about all that is left of the place, thanks to Chernobyl. “Kopachi was very badly contaminated and so it was decided to bury it, house by house,” says Tatarchuk. “It seemed a good idea at the time, but it wasn’t. The digging only pushed radioactive material deeper into the soil and closer to the water table, so that contamination spread even further.” It transpires that devastating errors like these were common. The only other evidence of Kopachi’s existence is the primary school near the memorial. Its windows have rotted and the front door hangs on a single hinge. It is also clear that it was abandoned in haste. Schoolbooks, jotters, sheets of music and road safety leaflets litter the hall floor while a single doll – its face blackened and cracked – lies on a cot inside one classroom. Equally disturbing is the vast artificial lake built near the main plant, which was used to provide water coolant for its four reactors. The lake is frozen now, but while Chernobyl’s reactors were operating its water was warm all year round. Lichen blossomed, so a fish farm was built to populate the lake with catfish that ate the lichen and kept the waters clear. After the reactor explosion, the lake was showered with radioactive debris which sank to the bottom. Today water has to be pumped constantly from the nearby river Pripyat to stop the lake evaporating in summer and exposing its toxic sediments, which would dry out and be spread by the wind. However, it is Pripyat that provides the most disturbing evidence of the events of 25 years ago. The city was built to house the families of workers who manned the vast reactor complex at Chernobyl. Four reactors had been built by 1986 and two more were under construction. This was to be the biggest nuclear power complex in Europe. Fifty thousand people had homes here. Reactor no 4 blew up in the early hours of 26 April, but no one told the people of Pripyat. All that day, children were allowed to play outside, despite the plume of radioactive material emerging from the reactor a few kilometres away. Of course, there were rumours of a fire, but people had been indoctrinated to believe a reactor accident was impossible – until a fleet of buses arrived at 2pm the next day, 36 hours after the explosion, and Pripyat’s people were shipped off to camps and resettlement centres. At the time, they were told they would be allowed back to their homes within three days, but in the end they were never allowed to return. For an hour, our group wandered round Pripyat, stepping over broken glass and lumps of wood and stone, with the constant chirrup of our radiation counters providing warnings if we strayed too far. Everywhere nature can be seen to be taking back its territory. Trees have erupted through the thick concrete steps of Pripyat’s central plaza, while the surrounding woods – which now provide homes for healthy populations of wolves, deer and boar – have spread over every piece of open ground. Inside the city, books are littered over the grimy floors of the main library while outside, a Ferris wheel – set up to celebrate May Day that year – is slowly rusting. How many people received fatal doses of radiation in those 36 hours of exposure remains a matter of dispute. Although cheery for most of the trip, Yuri’s anger about the fate of the people of Pripyat at the hands of Ukraine’s former Soviet masters became all too clear: “People were told that they had received a radiation dose of no more than 25 rems, enough to cause only minor illness. But that just was not true. They must have got hundreds of rems, fatal doses. “It was criminal. People should have been given proper diagnoses and proper treatment. They got nothing. At least 5,000 people were badly affected at the time, while women who were pregnant were simply told to have abortions. It was a cruel time.” Today workers are allowed to live in the village of Chernobyl, but for no more than four days at a time. With all four reactors at the plant closed down, they are helping to decontaminate the land within the exclusion zone and to decommission the plant’s first three undamaged reactors. As to reactor no 4, the concrete sarcophagus that hides its wrecked, exposed, radioactive core is now crumbling and work has started on a replacement – although Ukraine has made it clear that it will need international assistance to ensure the project’s successful completion. This is a nation which will have to bear the consequences of the world’s worst nuclear accident for a long time to come. As to the comparison between Fukushima and Chernobyl, Tatarchuk is emphatic: “No, it is not as bad in Japan as it was here, not by a long way. But there are lots of similarities. Basically, we had high radiation and no information in 1986, and that seems to be going on once more. That is the pattern when these things happen.”

  guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

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