Germany's Power 'Is Causing Fear' in Europe

The EU summit on Monday was overshadowed by a new upsurge in fears of German domination following reports over the weekend that Berlin was proposing dispatching an EU commissioner to Athens to seize control of the Greek budget.

Chancellor Angela Merkel wanted the summit to send out a positive message about a commitment to jobs and growth, but failed to dispel the impression that Germany is throwing its weight about in the euro crisis.

Greek newspaper Ta Nea published a cartoon of Merkel holding Greece like a marionette under the headline "Nein! Nein! Nein!" And Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti warned this month that Germany must do more to help its eurozone partners or risk a backlash from citizens frustrated with austerity measures.

Economic data released on Tuesday underlined that Germany is doing far better than its European partners. German unemployment fell to a record low of 6.7 percent in January while joblessness in the euro zone rose to 10.4 percent in December, the highest rate since June 1998.

German media commentators say Germany has a right to insist on fiscal discipline in Europe but needs to tread more lightly in its rhetoric, and must refrain from proposals that insult its partners. The idea of an austerity commissioner, they say, was insensitive and unworkable.

The conservative Die Welt writes:

"Whatever the euro summit agreed and whatever the next one will agree -- we won't get a European austerity commissioner equipped with authoritative powers."

"Countries in crisis can't be transformed into protectorates. An EU fiscal commissioner wouldn't be able to achieve much unless he had the powers of an occupying statute."

"The conclusion almost sounds paradoxical: In order to rescue their state and their sovereignty, the Greeks have to leave the euro zone. They owe it to themselves. They have to go their own way with the freedom afforded by exchange rate movements and with a strong stimulus of economic growth."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Germany has the strongest economy by far in the EU, and its lead is growing. It is also the most populous country, which isn't insignificant in democratic terms. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that the German government is making use of this clout; that's legitimate."

"But Germany isn't the hegemon of Europe. It isn't the hesitant or even steamrolling hegemon who flattens the other members of the EU and/or euro zone. The union of the Europeans doesn't work that way. It isn't geared to systematic domination or subordination. That is the great achievement of its construction -- it is founded on respect. If Germany is to lead, as most partners want it to or say they want it to, this leadership cannot simply consist of giving orders.

"Leadership has to be learned. But it doesn't amount to some higher form of selflessness and distributing welfare. Germany bears a major burden in having to overcome a crisis that others got themselves into. It is de facto liable for their debts, which was never planned. Who can blame it for making its views clear? The fact that it insists on budget discipline doesn't undermine democracy in the debtor countries: It is the logic of life in the currency union, whose members joined of their own free will. No one should be insulted. But that applies to everyone. The Greek public shouldn't stupidly call the chancellor a Nazi, and should draw the right conclusions from a grandiose failure. And despite all the fuss being made: The country has de facto already surrendered its budget autonomy."

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"Germany stands where it never wanted to stand again after 1945: as the dominant power in the middle of Europe. Its attempts to achieve this with cannons and tanks in the 20th century ended in apocalypses of blood and fire, but that's precisely why that Germany no longer exists.

"No country succumbed to the temptation of nationalism more terribly than Germany; in its collective memory, the crimes it committed across Europe still weigh heavily. True, it is a disgrace to exploit that fact today, even in Greece, whose political parties drove the state to ruin. But it should teach the German government not to confuse firmness with the arrogance of power when it comes to the euro crisis. Because this power is very real, and it is causing fear. The idea to impose an austerity commissioner on Greece was insensitive, as was the demand made by FDP leader Philipp Rösler for 'leadership and monitoring of Greece.'

"The Germans led Greece before, and though the massacres of Distomo and Kefalonia have nothing to do with today's euro crisis, such foolish tirades only fan the hysteria and the resistance."

"In truth, this worst crisis since the start of the European Union shows how vital that union is. It shows that a common currency, the free movement of goods, open borders and friendship among peoples can't be taken for granted. These are historically unique achievements of a continent whose peoples settled their disputes by waging war up until two generations ago. Today there are ways and means, common institutions that now face their great test."

"Germany must convince rather than dictate. It is just as dependent on Europe as the Greeks."

Spiegel

Exporting revolutions a dangerous game

Confrontation between Farage and Schulz

UN: World lacks enough food as population soars

LONDON (Reuters) - The world is running out of time to make sure there is enough food, water and energy to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population and to avoid sending up to 3 billion people into poverty, a U.N. report warned on Monday.

As the world's population looks set to grow to nearly 9 billion by 2040 from 7 billion now, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially.

Even by 2030, the world will need at least 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water, according to U.N. estimates, at a time when a changing environment is creating new limits to supply.

And if the world fails to tackle these problems, it risks condemning up to 3 billion people into poverty, the report said.

Efforts towards sustainable development are neither fast enough nor deep enough, as well as suffering from a lack of political will, theUnited Nations' high-level panel on global sustainability said.

"The current global development model is unsustainable. To achieve sustainability, a transformation of the global economy is required," the report said.

"Tinkering on the margins will not do the job. The current global economic crisis ... offers an opportunity for significant reforms."

Although the number of people living in absolute poverty has been reduced to 27 percent of world population from 46 percent in 1990 and the global economy has grown 75 percent since 1992, improved lifestyles and changing consumer habits have put natural resources under increasing strain.

There are 20 million more undernourished people now than in 2000; 5.2 million hectares of forest are lost per year - an area the size of Costa Rica; 85 percent of all fish stocks are over-exploited or depleted; and carbon dioxide emissions have risen 38 percent between 1990 and 2009, which heightens the risk of sea level rise and more extreme weather.

The panel, which made 56 recommendations for sustainable development to be included in economic policy as quickly as possible, said a "new political economy" was needed.

"Let's use the upcoming Rio+20 summit to kick off this global transition towards a sustainable growth model for the 21st century that the world so badly needs," EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in response to the report, referring to a U.N. sustainable development summit this June in Brazil.

ACTION

Among the panel's recommendations, it urged governments to agree on a set of sustainable development goals which would complement the eight Millennium Development Goals to 2015 and create a framework for action after 2015.

They should work with international organizations to create an "evergreen revolution," which would at least double productivity while reducing resource use and avoiding further biodiversity losses, the report said.

Water and marine ecosystems should be managed more efficiently and there should be universal access to affordable sustainable energy by 2030.

To make the economy more sustainable, carbon and natural resource pricing should be established through taxation, regulation or emissions trading schemes by 2020 and fossil fuel subsidies should also be phased out by that time.

National fiscal and credit systems should be reformed to provide long-term incentives for sustainable practices as well as disincentives for unsustainable ones.

Sovereign wealth and public pension funds, as well as development banks and export credit agencies should apply sustainable development criteria to their investment decisions, and governments or stock market watchdogs should revise regulations to encourage their use.

Governments and scientists should also strengthen the relationship between policy and science by regularly examining the science behind environmental thresholds or "tipping points" and the United Nations should consider naming a chief scientific adviser or board to advise the organization, the report said.


Yahoo News

Mind reading program translates brain activity into words

Scientists have picked up fragments of people's thoughts by decoding the brain activity caused by words that they hear.

The remarkable feat has given researchers fresh insight into how the brain processes language, and raises the tantalising prospect of devices that can return speech to the speechless.

Though in its infancy, the work paves the way for brain implants that could monitor a person's thoughts and speak words and sentences as they imagine them.

Such devices could transform the lives of thousands of people who lose the ability to speak as a result of a stroke or other medical conditions.

Experiments on 15 patients in the US showed that a computer could decipher their brain activity and play back words they heard, though at times the words were difficult to recognise.

"This is exciting in terms of the basic science of how the brain decodes what we hear," said Robert Knight, a senior member of the team and director of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.

"Potentially, the technique could be used to develop an implantable prosthetic device to aid speaking, and for some patients that would be wonderful. The next step is to test whether we can decode a word when a person imagines it. That might sound spooky, but this could really help patients. Perhaps in 10 years it will be as common as grandmother getting a new hip," Knight said. The study is published in the journalPLoS Biology.

The scientists ran tests on patients who were already in hospital for an operation to treat intractable epilepsy. In that procedure, patients have the top of their skull removed and a net of electrodes laid across the surface of their brain. Doctors use the electrodes to identify the precise trigger point of the patient's fit, before removing the tissue. Sometimes, patients wait for days before they have enough seizures to locate the source of the problem.

Scientist Brian Pasley enrolled 15 patients to take part. He played each a series of words for five to 10 minutes while recording their brain activity from the electrode nets. He then created computer programs that could recognise sounds encoded in the brain waves.

The brain seems to break sounds down into their constituent acoustic frequencies. The most important range for speech is 1-8,000 Hertz.

Pasley compared the technique to a pianist who can hear a piece in their mind just by knowing which keys are played.

He next played a collection of new words to the patients to see if the algorithms could pick out and repeat recognisable words. Among them were words such as "Waldo", "structure", "doubt" and "property".

The scientists got their best results when they recorded activity in the superior temporal gyrus, part of the brain that sits to one side, above the ear.

"I didn't think it could possibly work, but Brian did it," said Knight. "His model can reproduce the sound the patient heard and you can actually recognise the word, though not at a perfect level."

The prospect of reading minds has led to ethical concerns that the technology could be used covertly or to interrogate criminals and terrorists.

Knight said that is in the realm of science fiction. "To reproduce what we did, you would have to open up someone's skull and they would have to co-operate." Making a device to help people speak will not be easy. Brain signals that encode imagined words could be harder to decipher and the device must be small and operate wirelessly. Another potential headache is distinguishing between words a person wants to say and thoughts they would rather keep private.

Jan Schnupp, professor of neuroscience at Oxford University called the work "remarkable".

"Neuroscientists have long believed that the brain works by translating aspects of the external world, such as spoken words, into patterns of electrical activity. But proving that this is true by showing that it is possible to translate these activity patterns back into the original sound – or at least a fair approximation – is nevertheless a great step forward. It paves the way to rapid progress toward biomedical applications," he said.

"Some may worry though that this sort of technology might lead to mind-reading devices which could one day be used to eavesdrop on the privacy of our thoughts. Such worries are unjustified. It is worth remembering that these scientists could only get their technique to work because epileptic patients had cooperated closely and willingly with them, and allowed a large array of electrodes to be placed directly on the surface of their brains.

"We can rest assured that our skulls will remain an impenetrable barrier for any would-be technological mind hacker for any foreseeable future," he added.

The Guardian

India's ID plan: An end to its inept bureaucracy

NEW DELHI // A plan to provide each of India's 1.2 billion citizens with a unique identification number has been praised as an essential programme to impose some efficiency on India's infamously inept bureaucracy.

But its opponents have said it is ripe for abuse. The government could use it to spy on its citizens and criminals could steal the data and create false identities.

Since the plan was launched in mid-2010, about 110 million Indians have queued up at data-processing centres across the country to have their irises scanned and their fingerprints recorded.

The unique identification (UID) number that arrives in the post a couple of months later can then be used to apply for welfare benefits and set up a bank account, without the endless form-filling and bribe-giving, which often goes along with proving your existence in India.

Headed by the respected former chairman of IT giant Infosys, Nandan Nilekani, the scheme has been a model of unusual government efficiency.

But the programme is now under threat from the Home Ministry, which has its own biometric database.

It collects not only fingerprints and irises, but also sensitive information such as caste and religion, which it wants to use for security purposes.

A turf war between the Home Ministry and the UID Authority led to a compromise last week. The agencies agreed to share their data to avoid duplication. That allowed Mr Nilekani to collect another 400 million people on to his database. The government is providing more than US$1.5 billion (Dh5.5bn) to merge the databases.

The deal is a boon for the Home Ministry, since it has only registered about 8 million citizens on its National Population Register (NPR).

Senators demand study of airport scanners for possible cancer

Chances are, if you have been at an U.S. airport lately, you've been inside a tubular body scanning machine called a "backscatter," named for the way it scatters electrons. On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation to determine whether the scanners emit harmful levels of cancer-causing radiation, as some experts believe.

The bill would also require signs at airports to clearly alert travelers of alternative screening options available in lieu of the X-ray devices.

Primary bill sponsor Sen. Susan Collins, top Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told of a once-pregnant constituent who believes she miscarried after unknowingly entering a backscatter machine.

"Time and time again I have expressed my concern over their use, particularly since there is an alternative screening technology available," she said. "While the (Transportation Security Administration) has repeatedly told the public that the amount of radiation emitted from these machines is extremely small, passengers and some scientific experts have raised legitimate questions about the impact of repeated exposure to this radiation."

According to the TSA's website, "One scan is equivalent to approximately 10 microRem of radiation. This is equivalent to the exposure each person receives in about two minutes of airplane flight at altitude or each person receives every 15 minutes from naturally occurring background radiation."

A TSA official told Fox News on Tuesday, "While we do not comment on pending legislation, TSA is committed to working with Congress to explore options for an additional study to further prove these machines are safe for all passengers."

The agency notes that "the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and NCRP (National Council on Radiation Protection) have advised that the (backscatter) is safe to use on anyone ages 5 and up regardless of gender or any medical condition."

Meanwhile, in November, the European Commission announced that it would ban the use of X-ray machines from all airports in the 27-member European Union "in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens' health and safety."

The Collins bill, co-sponsored by panel members Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, Carl Levin, D-Mich., Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Scott Brown, R-Mass., would "require the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate, in consultation with the National Science Foundation, to commission an independent study on the possible health effects of the X-ray radiation emitted by some of the scanning machines in airports."

"We simply do not truly know the risk of this radiation exposure over multiple screenings for frequent fliers, those in vulnerable groups, or TSA employees themselves who were operating these machines," Collins warned.

It is unclear when the bill will be brought up for a vote.

Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/01/31/senators-demand-study-airport-scanners-possible-cancer-exposure#ixzz1l8h5ZCpz