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Gutach: Increased safety for pedestrians
They are not even 100 metres apart: On Tuesday, the new B 33 pedestrian lights in Dorfparkplatz in Gutach became operational - within view of the existing Town Hall traffic lights.
Two sets of lights so close to one another: intentional or just a silly error?
Yesterday, Gutacht's Mayor gave a clear answer to this question.
"At the time, the Town Hall traffic lights were installed because this was a school route," explained Eckert yesterday.
The Kluser lights protect cyclists, as well as those travelling by bus and the residents of Bergle.
The system, which officially became operational yesterday, is of importance to the Sulzbachweg/Kirchstrasse junction.
We have the museum, two churches, the spa gardens, the bus stop, a doctor's practice and a bank, not to mention the traffic from the 'Grub' residential area.
"At times of high road and pedestrian traffic, an additional set of lights were required to ensure safety," said Eckert.
This was also confirmed by Peter Arnold from the Offenburg District Office.
"According to current measurements, around 12,000 vehicles travel through the town of Gutach on the B33 on a daily basis, of which heavy goods traffic accounts for around ten per cent," emphasised Arnold.
Therefore the construction of an additional set of lights was more than necessary: "Here safety comes first, it's that simple," said Arnold.
A total of four road safety inspections were carried out and a roundabout was also considered, however, this idea was rejected on account of the narrowness of the Sulzbachweg/Kirchstrasse junctions.
According to Arnold, every possible test was carried out prior to the selection of the location for the traffic light posts: "Using a goods vehicle loaded with particularly long tree trunks, we also tested whether such vehicles could access the B 33 from the Sulzbachweg without knocking over the traffic light posts".
The traffic light system itself, which cost around EUR 15,000, is the "most modern system that is currently available on the market," explained Arnold.
The system is fitted with coloured LEDs, which are bright enough that drivers can easily see the lights, even when the sun is low in the sky.
And they are also energy-efficient: The older light systems consume around 100 Watts, with the new ones consuming just eight.
There are three sets of lights per direction of travel.
Arnold explained the technology used by the new system: It is fitted with two radar sensors.
If the pedestrian presses the button at the traffic lights, the top radar sensor checks the traffic status.
If the street is clear, the pedestrian obtains a green light immediately, if not, there is a delay of around 15 seconds.
An additional radar sensor checks whether the green phase for the pedestrian can be ended.
"If a group of people or if disabled persons are crossing the street, the green phase is extended, thus ensuring that everyone gets safely across the street," explained Arnold.
Of course, drivers must also play their part and keep their eyes on the road.
Yesterday this was not the case: The light had barely turned green for pedestrians when a luxury vehicle sped through on a red light.
For more than 30 years, Josef Winkler has been writing from the heart, telling of the hardships of his childhood and youth.
The catastrophes of his Catholic village upbringing - the speechlessness, his tendency towards brute force and dulled sexuality, the confinement and lack of joy - all of this has been described many times by the Kaernten-born poet.
The Büchner prizewinner is known primarily as a writer of prose, with theatre texts something of a rarity for him.
In a collage of prose texts For his performance piece, "Wetterleuchten auf der Zungenspitze" (Summer lightning on the tip of your tongue), which can now be seen in Garage X on Petersplatz, Gerhard Fresacher ,creates a collage of prose texts.
The theatre producer has thus combined elements from the autobiographically inspired novel "Der Leibeigene" (1987) [The Bondsman] featuring prose miniatures from "Leichnam, seine Familie belauernd" (2003) [Corpse, stalking his family].
On the predominantly empty stage - with one important requirement: a crumpled sofa, on which cast members allude to copulating and masturbating - the eight-person ensemble work their way through the text material.
However, Director Fresacher seems to have little trust in the text.
The 70-minute performance glosses over the script with a host of director's additions, well-known from the repertoire of post-dramatic theatrical styles.
In particular, the actresses play a major role in the sometimes rather dubious staging.
They are manhandled, their heads held under water, tacked to the wall by their evening gowns.
Wrapped in cellophane or in girdles, they stumble on dangerously high heels across the set, either delivering monologues at the top of their voices or lying completely silent on the stage.
However, the source text makes barely any reference to this intense delivery.
The best moments of the evening is when the singing starts - tracks range from Deep Purple to traditional folk songs.
Only towards the end does the highly charged performance start to wind down, and we see flashes of Winkler's somewhat absurd sense of humour.
A black box in your car?
As America's road planners struggle to find the cash to mend a crumbling highway system, many are beginning to see a solution in a little black box that fits neatly by the dashboard of your car.
The devices, which track every mile a motorist drives and transmit that information to bureaucrats, are at the center of a controversial attempt in Washington and state planning offices to overhaul the outdated system for funding America's major roads.
The usually dull arena of highway planning has suddenly spawned intense debate and colorful alliances.
Libertarians have joined environmental groups in lobbying to allow government to use the little boxes to keep track of the miles you drive, and possibly where you drive them - then use the information to draw up a tax bill.
The tea party is aghast.
The American Civil Liberties Union is deeply concerned, too, raising a variety of privacy issues.
And while Congress can't agree on whether to proceed, several states are not waiting.
They are exploring how, over the next decade, they can move to a system in which drivers pay per mile of road they roll over.
Thousands of motorists have already taken the black boxes, some of which have GPS monitoring, for a test drive.
This really is a must for our nation.
"It is not a matter of something we might choose to do," said Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, which is planning for the state to start tracking miles driven by every California motorist by 2025.
There is going to be a change in how we pay these taxes.
The technology is there to do it.
The push comes as the country's Highway Trust Fund, financed with taxes Americans pay at the gas pump, is broke.
Americans don't buy as much gas as they used to.
Cars get many more miles to the gallon.
The federal tax itself, 18.4 cents per gallon, hasn't gone up in 20 years.
Politicians are loath to raise the tax even one penny when gas prices are high.
"The gas tax is just not sustainable," said Lee Munnich, a transportation policy expert at the University of Minnesota.
His state recently put tracking devices on 500 cars to test out a pay-by-mile system.
"This works out as the most logical alternative over the long term," he said.
Wonks call it a mileage-based user fee.
It is no surprise that the idea appeals to urban liberals, as the taxes could be rigged to change driving patterns in ways that could help reduce congestion and greenhouse gases, for example.
California planners are looking to the system as they devise strategies to meet the goals laid out in the state's ambitious global warming laws.
But Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, has said he, too, sees it as the most viable long-term alternative.
The free marketeers at the Reason Foundation are also fond of having drivers pay per mile.
"This is not just a tax going into a black hole," said Adrian Moore, vice president of policy at Reason.
People are paying more directly into what they are getting.
The movement is also bolstered by two former U.S. Transportation secretaries, who in a 2011 report urged Congress to move in the pay-per-mile direction.
The U.S. Senate approved a $90-million pilot project last year that would have involved about 10,000 cars.
But the House leadership killed the proposal, acting on concerns of rural lawmakers representing constituents whose daily lives often involve logging lots of miles to get to work or into town.
Several states and cities are nonetheless moving ahead on their own.
The most eager is Oregon, which is enlisting 5,000 drivers in the country's biggest experiment.
Those drivers will soon pay the mileage fees instead of gas taxes to the state.
Nevada has already completed a pilot.
New York City is looking into one.
Illinois is trying it on a limited basis with trucks.
And the I-95 Coalition, which includes 17 state transportation departments along the Eastern Seaboard (including Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida), is studying how they could go about implementing the change.
The concept is not a universal hit.
In Nevada, where about 50 volunteers' cars were equipped with the devices not long ago, drivers were uneasy about the government being able to monitor their every move.
"Concerns about Big Brother and those sorts of things were a major problem," said Alauddin Khan, who directs strategic and performance management at the Nevada Department of Transportation.
It was not something people wanted.
As the trial got underway, the ACLU of Nevada warned on its website: "It would be fairly easy to turn these devices into full-fledged tracking devices."
There is no need to build an enormous, unwieldy technological infrastructure that will inevitably be expanded to keep records of individuals' everyday comings and goings.
Nevada is among several states now scrambling to find affordable technology that would allow the state to keep track of how many miles a car is being driven, but not exactly where and at what time.
If you can do that, Khan said, the public gets more comfortable.
The hunt for that technology has led some state agencies to a small California startup called True Mileage.
The firm was not originally in the business of helping states tax drivers.
It was seeking to break into an emerging market in auto insurance, in which drivers would pay based on their mileage.
But the devices it is testing appeal to highway planners because they don't use GPS and deliver a limited amount of information, uploaded periodically by modem.
"People will be more willing to do this if you do not track their speed and you do not track their location," said Ryan Morrison, chief executive of True Mileage.
There have been some big mistakes in some of these state pilot programs.
There are a lot less expensive and less intrusive ways to do this.
In Oregon, planners are experimenting with giving drivers different choices.
They can choose a device with or without GPS.
Or they can choose not to have a device at all, opting instead to pay a flat fee based on the average number of miles driven by all state residents.
Other places are hoping to sell the concept to a wary public by having the devices do more, not less.
In New York City, transportation officials are seeking to develop a taxing device that would also be equipped to pay parking meter fees, provide "pay-as-you-drive" insurance, and create a pool of real-time speed data from other drivers that motorists could use to avoid traffic.
"Motorists would be attracted to participate because of the value of the benefits it offers to them," says a city planning document.
Some transportation planners, though, wonder if all the talk about paying by the mile is just a giant distraction.
At the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the San Francisco Bay Area, officials say Congress could very simply deal with the bankrupt Highway Trust Fund by raising gas taxes.
An extra one-time or annual levy could be imposed on drivers of hybrids and others whose vehicles don't use much gas, so they pay their fair share.
"There is no need for radical surgery when all you need to do is take an aspirin," said Randy Rentschler, the commission's director of legislation and public affairs.
If we do this, hundreds of millions of drivers will be concerned about their privacy and a host of other things.
Königsfeld: Small team gives a spirited performance
The voluntary fire service bravely came through the main autumn test run in spite of a lack of personnel.
Only eleven men took part in the exercise.
For the training exercise, department commander, Hans Kammerer, chose the Feder premises on Burgberger Strasse.
A short-circuit was reported to have occurred there during sawing.
Two people were injured by the resulting fire and the spread of smoke, however, one was able to make an emergency call.
Two fire fighters equipped with respiratory gear prepared to enter the building following the initial inspection of the situation by Hans Kammerer.
After a short time they managed to find the first person and direct them out of the building.
The second person had to be carried.
This was not so simple as they also had to negotiate a narrow stairwell.
The building, a workshop with integrated stabling for two horses, was not easy to secure.
There were large quantities of wood and bales of straw stored inside.
In addition to this, there were also electrical machines for wood processing.
The first attempt to extinguish the fire was made using the tank on the fire engine.
Another line was taken from the surface hydrant around 100 metres away.
Only three attempts could be made to extinguish the blaze.
A hollow-stream nozzle in the building was also used.
For Hans Kammerer, the exercise was also a chance to show what can be achieved with just a few available staff.
In case of emergency, support is provided by the Königsfeld daytime task force.
The Commander expressed his satisfaction following the exercise.
Networking between universities and companies is important
On a visit to the district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, it was explained to Parliamentary President Guido Wolf in Titisee-Neustadt where the workforce of tomorrow will come from.
In the Hochschwarzwald Support Centre, he addressed this important question alongside the executive principals of the vocational colleges and the district grammar school and the chairs of the parents' council.
"Education is an important factor for the location," highlighted Claudia Stehle, Director of the Hans Thoma School, which introduced the networked Hochschwarzwald Education Centre Schools Project.
During the presentation, Wolf seemed impressed by the educational pilot project.
Since 2011, there has been successful collaboration in Wälderstadt between the Support Centre, the District Grammar School and the Vocational School Complex.
He also praised the family-friendly approach within the district.
"It is important, not only to keep the family life stage in mind, but, on account of demographic change, the period spent providing long-term care and support for relatives as well," explained Wolf.
He also stated that an increasing number of employed persons are looking after the long-term care and support of relatives.
"Without support from their employer, the resulting burden placed on employees could result in the termination of the employment contract," said Wolf.
However, nobody can afford to lose qualified workers," he added.
Another, particularly important factor is that of networking between universities and companies.
"After all, people who have learned of the merits of the region during their studies often remain within the region, along with their acquired knowledge and skills, which contributes to the strengthening of the region," said the State Parliamentary President, expressing his thorough conviction.
For it is only if a sufficient number of educational places can be provided that the need for skilled workers can be covered.
In his opinion, the district's advantage as a location is its advantageous location in south-west Germany, in immediate proximity to France and Switzerland.
In addition to this, on his train journey from Titisee-Neustadt to Freiburg, he experienced first-hand the efforts already undertaken to develop public transport.
"You must continue to be tenacious and make sure that local public transport becomes even better," he explained in the address given to the local politicians in attendance.
Music makes for an entertaining afternoon
It was 15 years ago that the Kaul family first invited the Dietingen senior citizens for coffee and cake, followed by a snack.
Previously, the elderly citizens were hosted in the service station canteen.
The coffee afternoon is now held in the St. Josef nursing home.
The residents of the home were delighted with the delicious cakes and tarts.
Later on, a sausage salad was provided.
Silvia Kimmich-Bantle and her father Karl Kimmich entertained those in attendance with popular tunes.
The more than 100-year-old natural stone wall, serving as the foremost boundary between the old school yard - which is due to be renovated - and Kirchstrasse, will once again feature on the renovation cost plan for the town of Bräunlingen.
In the days before the Kilbig Autumn Folk Festival, when the first renovation work was being carried out at the front of the school yard, a small corner wall with balustrades was installed to stabilise and relieve the static load on the old natural stone wall, which is more than one hundred years old.
According to Alexander Misok of the Bräunlingen Municipal Planning and Building Control Authority, the ongoing procedure plans to involve the Regional Memorial Authority in the planning stage and to draw up a renovation concept for the old wall.
A cost calculation is to be performed by a team of professionals, which will then be submitted to the Town Council, which will make a decision and determine the ongoing procedure.
A decision is expected to be made in the coming year.
Following the renovation, plastering and planting of trees in the old internal school yard, within the two wings of the 1912 school, as a subsequent measure the boundary wall, which is in need of refurbishment, must be renovated from the ground up within the foreseeable future.
The historic, one hundred-year-old boundary wall between the old school-yard and Kirchstrasse is in need of renovation, primarily as a result of water and frost damage, on account of the lack of drainage, and is leaning forwards.
Deep cracks in a number of individual stones testify to the weather damage, however, at present the wall is not in danger of collapse.
A secure wall is essential for a school yard that is used by pupils, and this is the purpose of the current fortification work.
The school yard renovation was originally planned back in 2008/2009, however, high unplanned expenses meant that the work had to be pushed back.
The Regional Memorial Authority will have a major say in the historic school wall renovation, which has even been used for filming.
If this authority were to impose requirements, then the town of Bräunlingen would hope to receive subsidies from the monument preservationists.
The pupils of the Bräunlingen Primary School, who are now being taught in a well renovated old school building, with a new hall, will soon be able to use the old school yard as well.
Özdemir wants jazz training in Stuttgart
Cem Özdemir, Federal Chairman of the Green Party, has now engaged in the ongoing discussions regarding the future of the Baden-Wuerttemberg Music Academy.
"I do not think it is right to abandon comprehensive training in the Stuttgart Music College," said Özdemir, speaking to the "Stuttgarter Nachrichten".
Jazz and classical music belong together at the jazz location of Stuttgart.
As such, Özdemir, who is the favourite in Stuttgart for a direct mandate in the parliamentary elections on 22 September, is in disagreement with the Green-Red State Government.
On the basis of an expert study, this government is urging the reorganisation of the five music colleges in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
In accordance with these plans, the jazz and pop courses, among others, are to be relocated from the Stuttgart Music College to the Mannheim Music College.
US borders: "Super tunnel" for drug smuggling discovered
On the border between Mexico and the USA, investigators have discovered and shut down a "super tunnel" intended for drug smuggling.
As announced by the US Customs Authorities, the pipe between Tijuana and San Diego, measuring more than 500 metres in length, was equipped with electricity, a railway track and a ventilation system.
Three suspects were detained in relation to the discovery, with eight tonnes of marijuana and almost 150 kilograms of cocaine seized.
According to the details provided, the tunnel had not yet been put into use.
"These cartels are stupid if they think that they can dig through under the radar," said the US Attorney for the District of Southern California, Laura Diffy, at a press conference held in front of a warehouse in San Diego, where the end of the tunnel was discovered.
Referring to the drug gangs, Duffy assured: "If you continue to build and attempt to use these tunnels, we are determined to make this a big waste of your dirty money".
Both the US authorities and the Mexican security forces are engaged in an ongoing battle against the drug cartels.
Since 2006, more than 77,000 people have been killed in conjunction with drug crime in Mexico.
Built by experts
Due to the elaborate configuration of the tunnel, investigators are working on the assumption that it was build by architects and engineers and that the construction took around one year.
The railway system was equipped in such a way that electrically powered carts could be used on it.
On the Mexican side, the entrance is located in a building located 80 metres from the border.
According to the authorities, a ladder runs 20 metres underground to the actual entrance of the tunnel.
The tunnel has a cross-section measuring 1.20 metres high and 90 centimetres across.
It would thus be suitable to assist illegal immigration into the USA.
Two of the suspects were detained in conjunction with the cocaine find.
The third, a Mexican, was detained due to the seizure of the marijuana.
All three face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, according to the authorities.
Since 2006, eight tunnels of this type have been discovered, the press conference in San Diego continued.
However, this was the first time that cocaine was found in such a tunnel construction.
Normally cocaine is smuggled in smaller quantities and not through tunnels.
This shows the "desperation" of the drug gangs, whose traditional routes have now been cut off, said Bill Sherman of the DEA Drug Squad in San Diego.
They will do anything to make it to the USA.
No specific details were given regarding those detained, but it is reported that at least one is Mexican
They can expect prison terms of up to ten years.
2014 is to be a year of celebration in Geisingen
The anniversary celebrations in the town of Geisingen, to mark the 1,250th
anniversary of the first documented mention of the town, are drawing closer.
When the year comes to an end in just eight weeks, the anniversary year will be upon us.
Geisingen and Kirchen-Hausen were first documented together in the year 794.
A deed was drafted in Kirchen, in which both towns are mentioned.
On 15 March, the anniversary year will be officially launched, and because Geisingen currently has no suitable venues, this launch event will take place in the location where the two towns were first documented 1,250 years ago, in Kirchen-Hausen.
As part of the anniversary celebrations, a number of events are planned both in Geisingen and Kirchen-Hausen.
Kirchen-Hausen will celebrate the 1,250th anniversary with a celebratory weekend from 18 to 20
July.
On the Friday there will be a ceremony, and on the Saturday and Sunday a party will be held at the Kirchtalhalle.
The Kirchen-Hausen Kirchenfest festival will also be held on this celebratory weekend.
Town Musical Director, Rudolf Barth, has composed a commissioned piece for the town on the occasion of the anniversary, which will be performed on three dates.
On 21 June, in conjunction with the Schwarzwaldverein [Black Forest Association] Mid-Summer Festival, on 12 July in the Arena, accompanied by fireworks, and on 13 December as the first concert put on by the Stadtmusik (Town Musical Society) in the new Festival Hall.
This venue will be completed and inaugurated in the anniversary year, with the official date set for the last weekend in September, on 27 and 28 September.
On the occasion of the Geisingen town anniversary, a new chronicle will also be published.
"However, it will not merely be a chronicle of Geisingen itself, but rather a printed work on the Geisingen of today, which now consists of Geisingen, Kirchen-Hausen, Leipferdingen, Aulfingen and Gutmadingen," said Mayor Walter Hengstler.
And the Geisingen of today is also celebrating a birthday in 2014, as it was in 1974 that the incorporations to form the current region were completed.
The new chronicle is to be presented on 21 or 22 November in the new Festival Hall in Geisingen.
However, 2014 is also a year of many anniversaries in other respects.
The Narrenzunft Strohglonki (Strohglonki Fool's Guild celebration) begins on 8 February with an evening of traditional customs on the occasion of its 60-year anniversary/ The Harmonie Gutmadingen music association will turn 90 years old and on 29 March will hold a celebratory banquet and then from 1 to 4 May will be celebrating the Bezirksfest [District Music Festival].
The Leipferdingen Nursing Home will turn 40 years old, the Geisingen School has now been at its new location for 50 years and will be celebrating this on 10 May, and the Polyhymnia Leipferdingen music association will turn 150 years old and will be celebrating this as part of the Brunnenfest [Fountain Festival] from 4 to 7 July.
The town of Geisingen was first officially documented in the year 764, in a deed of donation, which is now in the possession of the St. Gallen Monastery.
The deed was drawn up in Kirchen (Hausen), which at the time was the location of the courthouse.
Both communities are thus mentioned in the same deed.
One reason for choosing 2014 to celebrate the 1,250-year anniversary in this way, is that it also coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Community Reform (Gemeindereform).
Council sets its sights on rail system
Should the "Am Hirschen" railway crossing be reconstructed at great cost, in order to increase traffic safety?
The Town Councils have decided that the answer is yes.
Schiltach will have to contribute up to EUR 220,000 to the project.
The Deutsche Bahn hopes to improve the Kinzigtal railway line in the coming year.
In particular, safety at railway crossings is to be increased - collisions between trains and other vehicles frequently occur at these across the country.
If the municipalities agree to the reconstruction measures, they will be required to contribute one third of the costs, with the remainder divided between Deutsche Bahn and the Federal Government.
Schiltach's town master mason, Roland Grießhaber, explained the peculiarities of the "Am Hirschen" railway crossing to the Town Council.
At the crossing, the town is planning to increase the height of the mouth of the tunnel to the west of the railway line.
Larger vehicles, for example those that transport long logs, would be able to wait there in the event of oncoming traffic, without having to block the railway line.
Grießhaber therefore suggested that a required supporting wall be constructed in such a way that the town could in due course widen the adjoining street in order to guarantee the smooth flow of traffic.
This was the subject of controversial discussion in the Town Council, as some council members cast doubt over the need to widen the road: Thomas Kipp summarised the perspective of the critics with this statement: "Do we have to hand over so much money on account of so few vehicles?"
Mayor Thomas Haas retorted: The "Hirschen" railway crossing is used regularly for the transportation of long logs.
Even wood from the "Kuhbach" area is occasionally transported via this route, as the vehicles, which measure 20 metres in length, would not be able to use the route via the Häberles Bridge, as they would not be able to make the turn on the Hauptstrasse.
Furthermore, when the Hauptstrasse is blocked, the route would also serve as a bypass for those vehicles that are not permitted to use the tunnel, argued Haas.
Given that it is likely that the Kirchberg and Schlossberg tunnel will have to be reconstructed and renovated, as is currently the case in Wolfach, the "Am Hirschen" railway crossing may become of major traffic significance for a longer period of time.
The councillors agreed to have an investigation conducted as to what costs the planned widening of the road would incur.
Nevertheless, the reconstruction of the railway crossing was consented to by a majority, on the provision that the required supporting wall be built in such a way that the town could, if required, extend the connecting road in the "Bahnhofstraße" direction to around 5.5 metres to accommodate oncoming traffic.
The reconstruction of the railway crossing at the Trautwein tannery could, on the other hand, bring with it an entirely different problem with regard to access to the steep "Geroltzhäuser Weg".
The Administrative Department had Deutsche Bahn's reconstruction plans investigated by the Breinlinger Engineering Office, as they had doubts as to whether the planned connection of the Geroltzhäuser Weg will be straightforward.
The investigation came to the conclusion that it could not be ruled out that the inclination of the road could result in longer vehicles becoming stuck.
The town, as the authority responsible for road construction, would then bear responsibility for this.
The reconstruction could therefore result in liability disputes.
Because both the transportation of wood and turning are both possible as things are, the reconstruction of the railway crossing should not be consented to, argued Haas.
At this point, the risk of a train collision with a vehicle positioned on the crossing is considerably lower than at other railway crossings, on account of the fact that there is a midpoint from which there is a good line of sight, directly alongside the stopping point.
The trains themselves, coming from the central station, must also be sufficiently slowed down so that there is no threat of collision.
According to the councillors, the reconstruction of this railway line was rejected by a majority, as the town of Schiltach would "bear the brunt of the cost" for the problem of vehicles becoming stuck, since the Deutsche Bahn would be able to deny any responsibility following the completion of the construction work.
The committee considers the reconstruction of the "Vor Heubach" and 'Vor Kuhbach" railway crossings, for which the crossing agreements have already been reached with Deutsche Bahn, to be unproblematic.
ESA makes decision on major space missions: Missions costing billions
Distant planets, gravitational waves or black holes - experts from the European Space Agency must now agree on two major projects that are to be launched in the coming years.
There were 30 proposals to choose from, five of which are still in the running.
Distant worlds.
Astronomers have already found more than 1,000 planets near other stars.
Whether or not life exists on at least some of these, no-one knows.
The choice is a difficult one: Should we search for gravitational waves?
Or instead conduct research into the origin of the cosmos?
Or search for planets similar to the Earth and thus perhaps discover extraterrestrial life?
These are the questions currently being asked by those responsible at the European Space Agency, ESA.
For their "Cosmic Vision" programme, they are looking for ideas for two major space projects, which should greatly advance research.
The budget for "L-Missions" such as this lies at around one billion Euro.
The projects are planned to start in 2028 and 2034.
At the beginning of September, the elite in the field of European space research met in Paris to discuss proposals for such missions.
30 ideas were up for debate, of which five have now made it onto the short list.
Numerous panels are assessing the proposals, posing questions to the researchers.
Over the coming days, a final decision is to be made by the Scientific Programme Committee.
In total, four main questions were chosen by the ESA, to which the missions of the "Cosmic Vision" programme, initiated in 2007, are to find the answers.
What are the conditions required for the formation of planets and life?
The precise processes for the formation of stars from large gas clouds - and thus the formation of the planets that orbit these stars - lie in proverbial darkness.
A large infra-red telescope in space could penetrate this darkness.
And if a star has planets, under what circumstances can life exist there?
In order to pursue this question, the "Cheops" space telescope is to be launched in 2017, with which 500 known planetary systems in proximity to us will be investigated in greater detail.
The possibilities are, however, limited - Cheops is a small mission with a budget of 150 million Euro.
With larger instruments, astronomers could map planets similar to Earth and even analyse the composition of their atmospheres, and thus search for "biomarkers": gases that serve as an indicator for biological activity.
How does the solar system function?
This question should also provide information regarding the preconditions for the origins of life.
The magnetic activity of a star, the interaction of its magnetic field and the emitted particle radiation play an important role.
It is possible to investigate these processes in our solar system, to serve as an example to be applied elsewhere.
With the "Solar Orbiter", the ESA has already approved an M-class mission (for which the budget stands at around half a million Euro) to address this matter.
The probe is to be launched in 2017 and will closely observe the surface and activity of the sun.
Jupiter and its moons are also of great interest to the researchers.
They want to find our what role the giant planet has played in the development of the solar system.
The ESA is planning that the first of the total of three L-Missions of the "Cosmic Vision" programme will address this subject.
The "Juice" (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) probe is planned to begin its journey in 2022.
Eight years later it will reach Jupiter and will investigate the atmosphere of the planet as well as the icy moons Europa, Callisto and Ganymede.
What are the basic physical laws of the Universe?
Outer space offers many possibilities for studying substances under extreme conditions and thus examining whether the laws of nature, as known to us, are still valid there.
There may also be deviations that could show physicians the path to a new theory, under the umbrella of which all known natural laws could be united.
How did the universe come about and what does it consist of?
13.7 billion years ago, our cosmos was created by the Big Bang.
Alongside the materials familiar to us, from which stars, planets and life forms such as ourselves are composed, there exists dark matter, the gravitational force of which holds galaxies and galaxy clusters together, and dark energy, the effects of which accelerate the expansion of the universe.
Thus far, researchers know neither which physical laws applied in the initial moments after the Big Bang, nor what dark matter and dark energy consist of.
With "Euclid", the ESA has already approved an M-mission, planned to commence in 2020.
With a special telescope, the probe is to examine the distribution of material in the universe across the entire sky, thus enabling conclusions to be drawn regarding the properties of dark matter and dark energy.
Proposals that are in the running...
Of the 30 proposals, only two will remain at the end of the selection procedure.
The proposal with the best chance of approval as an L-mission, in the opinion of many experts, is "E-Lisa", a demanding concept that aims to prove the existence of gravitational waves.
Many physicians perceive this to entail changes in the structure of space-time, which Albert Einstein predicted almost 100 years ago.
To date they have never been proved to exist.
The scientists behind the project hope that Elisa could achieve this.
The mission involves placing a detector, consisting of two or three probes, in outer space.
Unlike systems on Earth, it could also prove gravitational waves created during the Big Bang, and thus provide fresh knowledge regarding the origin of the cosmos.
Four other proposals are still competing for the second L-mission place: a large X-ray telescope called "Athena", which among other things would research black holes, "Icy Planets", another mission to the outer planets of the solar system, "prism", a mission for the measurement of cosmic background radiation, and the "Exoplanet Finder", which would find and investigate planets similar to Earth.
Among others, proposals that have already been ruled out include proposals for bringing samples back from Mars, conducting research on the moon, Venus and asteroids, as well as proposals in the area of solar physics.
Snowden ready to "cooperate" with Germany over US surveillance
Edward Snowden, the US intelligence whistleblower, has declared that he is willing to travel to Berlin to give evidence to the German parliament if the US National Security Agency and its director Keith Alexander fail to provide answers about its activities.
German MP Hans-Christian Ströbele on Thursday met Mr Snowden in Russia, where he has been granted asylum, to discuss him testifying in Germany.
A letter from Mr Snowden, presented to the media in Berlin on Friday by the MP, said: "Though the outcome of my efforts has been demonstrably positive, my government continues to treat dissent as defection, and seeks to criminalise political speech with felony charges that provide no defence."
However, speaking the truth is not a crime.
In the letter, Mr Snowden said he believed the support of the international community could persuade the US government to abandon criminal charges against him.
The charges filed by the US justice department include espionage and theft of government property.
Hans-Peter Friedrich, German interior minister, told Zeit Online: "If Mr Snowden is ready to speak to German officials, we will find ways to make this possible."
Relations between the US and Germany have come under strain following claims that the NSA bugged Chancellor Angela's Merkel's phone.
Thomas Oppermann, the MP who heads the parliamentary panel that oversees intelligence, said that if there were an opportunity to hear Mr Snowden as a witness "without bringing him into danger and completely ruining relations with the US," it should be taken.
Mr Ströbele, an MP for Germany's Green party, published a picture of himself with Mr Snowden on his Twitter feed.
He was accompanied on his visit to Russia by two German journalists.
Mr Ströbele said that, according to the former NSA contractor's lawyer, Mr Snowden would not be able to return to Russia if he left.
If Mr Snowden testified in Germany he would need assurances that he would be "safe" there, the MP said.
Mr Snowden said in his letter that he had faced a "severe and sustained" campaign of persecution that forced him from his home.
However he said that he was heartened by the worldwide response to "my act of political expression."
Citizens around the world as well as high officials - including in the United States - have judged the revelation of an unaccountable system of pervasive surveillance to be a public service.
The letter extends an offer to cooperate with German authorities "when the difficulties of this humanitarian situation have been resolved."
Frontier Airlines to charge for carry-on baggage
Frontier Airlines plans to charge up to $100 for passengers to store carry-on luggage on board their flight.
Frontier Airlines plans to start charging up to $100 for a carry-on bag and $2 for coffee or soda, although its announcement on Wednesday did say that passengers will get to keep the whole can.
The new carry-on fee is for bags in the overhead bin, so small bags under the seat will still be free.
Frontier said it will charge $25 if the fee is paid in advance, $100 if travelers wait to pay until they're at the gate.
Frontier spokeswoman Kate O'Malley said the $100 fee is to get travelers to take care of the charge in advance.
"We don't want to charge that," she said.
Airlines began charging for the first and second checked bags in 2008.
Passengers trying to avoid those fees have been stuffing as much as they can into carry-on baggage stashed in overhead bins, meaning those bins often run out of space.
Fees are one way to get passengers to bring less on board.
O'Malley said the new charge is not really about raising money.
It's about Frontier's most loyal customers making it very clear that finding overhead bin space has become increasingly difficult.
Passengers who buy their tickets on the airline's website won't have to pay.
That means one passenger in line at a Frontier gate might get to bring a bag on for free, while the next person in line might owe $100 for a similar bag.
O'Malley said Frontier's website and check-in procedures are being changed to make sure passengers know about the fee before they get to the gate.
Frontier's new carry-on fee won't start until summer, though a date hasn't been set.
Passengers often grumble about baggage charges and other fees, but airlines love them.
They argue that luggage costs money to handle, and passengers who want the service should pay for it.
Many on Wall Street view the addition of baggage fees as a sign that airlines are charging enough money to cover the cost of air travel after years of losses.
Most haven't touched carry-on bag fees, though.
Spirit Airlines Inc. started the first carry-on fee three years ago, and fellow discounter Allegiant Air later followed.
The only other airline with such a fee is Hungary's Wizz Air, said airline consultant Jay Sorensen, who closely tracks add-on fees.
He estimated in a December 2011 report that Spirit's carry-on fee brings in $50 million a year.
Sorensen, a former executive with Midwest Airlines, flew Spirit recently and wondered what he'd find at the gate as passengers encountered Spirit's unusual carry-on bag fee.
"The boarding process was the smoothest I had seen in my airline career," he said.
I was expecting to see gnashing of teeth and a fight breaking out at the gate.
The plane was full, he said, "and it boarded lickety-split."
Frontier is also following Spirit's $2 charge for coffee, tea, soda, or juice.
Frontier said passengers who get soda or juice can keep the whole can, and it will give coffee refills for free.
It will still give away water.
US Airways briefly tried charging for beverages in 2008 but backed down seven months later after passengers complained and no other major airline followed.
Frontier's move to charge the carry-on fee if passengers don't buy direct from the airline is its latest effort to steer customers toward its own website.
Airlines pay online travel sellers such as Orbitz $10 to $25 for each ticket sold.
That has given all airlines an incentive to steer passengers to buy directly from them instead of going through an online travel agency.
Frontier has gone the furthest in this area, though.
In September it began giving half as many frequent flier miles to customers who bought through an online travel agency.
On Wednesday it slashed the mileage award to 25 percent of the miles of the trip.
So, a 1,000 mile Frontier trip purchased from an online travel agency would earn 250 miles.
It also allows passengers to choose their seat in advance only if they buy directly from the Frontier website.
Frontier has a loyal base of customers in its home city of Denver, but its business is shrinking and losing money.
Revenue dropped 9 percent and its flying capacity shrank almost 13 percent in the first quarter, according to financial results released Wednesday by corporate parent Republic Airways Holdings Inc.
Republic has been trying to fix Frontier's finances as part of selling the airline.
Sayings come from the Bible
At least 40 women attended the last women's breakfast of the year, in the Evangelical Parish of Bisingen.
The theme of the day in the parish hall was "Sayings from the Bible" and "Expressions from the Middle Ages".
Zita Köhler, the Chairperson of the Parish Council, agreed to give a talk on Biblical proverbs after breakfast.
"Proverbs contain pearls of wisdom, commandments or warnings," she explained.
She compared several German sayings with the corresponding Bible verses and explained the meaning.
She referred to sayings such as: "Holzauge sei wachsam" (keep your eyes peeled), "wie Schuppen von den Augen fallen" (like scales falling from one's eyes), "ein Auge auf jemand werfen" (to cast an eye on someone), "den Seinen gibt's der Herr im Schlaf" (good things come to some when they sleep) and "seine Hände in Unschuld waschen" (to wash one's hands of something).
On several occasions, the speaker asked those listening to guess what proverb they were based on.
Expressions from the Middle Ages were addressed by Parish Councillor Christel Dehner: "Aller guten Dinge sind drei" (All good things come in threes), "blau machen" (to skip school/work), "etwas verhauen" (to wallop something).
She explained the meaning and origin of the expressions, which she referred to as "bridges to the past".
To round off the morning there was a tombola.
The prizes were placed, covered, on a table and were humorously paraphrased prior to being presented to the winners.
Mayoral candidate Roman Waizenegger was also to be found among the visitors to the joint breakfast.
Learning rather than unemployment: Tourism pilot project for the untrained
A pilot project for the tourist industry is being launched today in the Mecklenburg lake district.
Under the management of the Federal Employment Agency, 49 men and women who are already working within the industry as untrained workers, will be trained as qualified hotel and restaurant staff over the course of three winters.
"What's innovative about it is that the six-month courses end with diplomas," said Carmen Wiechert of the Neubrandenburg Employment Agency.
There are many benefits: The participants will not be unemployed, the companies receive trained skilled workers, which are in continually increasing demand in hotels and restaurants, and the agency will not have to fund unemployment.
Also involved in the project are the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Neubrandenburg and the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Deutsche Hotel- und Gaststätte, Dehoga) of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
NSA Blames "Internal Error," Not Hackers, For Website Crash
The shadowy National Security Agency said late Friday that it was a glitch that brought down its public website for a few hours, not hackers as some claimed online.
"NSA.gov was not accessible for several hours tonight because of an internal error that occurred during a scheduled update," the spy agency said in an emailed statement.
The issue will be resolved this evening.
Claims that the outage was caused by a distributed denial of service [DDoS] attack are not true.
Earlier this evening online server trackers noted the NSA's website had been down for at least six hours, and the site continues to be inaccessible for some users.
Earlier an NSA spokesperson told ABC News the agency's internal, sensitive network was "not at all" compromised.
No classified information is in danger, the spokesperson said.
At least one hacktivist group online claimed that they were responsible for bringing down the NSA site with a DDoS attack.
DDoS attacks are designed to flood a target website with traffic until the servers are overloaded and the site collapses.
The cyber tactic is a relatively unsophisticated one and the attacks are not meant to penetrate the internal network of the target system.
The formerly super secretive NSA, once nicknamed No Such Agency, has found itself in very public light, and amid vicious criticism, in past months following a stream of revelations about is vast foreign and domestic surveillance programs - collectively the product of secret NSA files stolen from the agency and leaked by disenchanted former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Such growing controversy surrounding the agency prompted early speculation that tonight's incident was the result of a targeted cyber operation.
In October, the number of jobless fell slightly by 22, to a total of 1,307.
The rate of 3.1 per cent is indeed better than the previous year and is also better than in September, "however, we had hoped for more," said Monika Felder-Bauer, acting branch manager of the Employment Agency in Sonthofen.
Several companies have thus far reacted cautiously when it comes to hiring.
Stating a reason for this, Felder-Bauer said: "We have barely any skilled workers in the fields of skilled crafts and trades, healthcare and geriatric care."
Seasonal job offers for staff in hotel and restaurant businesses have been coming in since September.
The Winter season within the industry begins in mid-December.
The complete background report on this can be found in the "Allgäuer Anzeigeblatt" newspaper dated 31/10/2013 (page 33).
Bombardier profit dips as plane deliveries, orders fall
Canadian plane and train maker Bombardier Inc reported a 15 percent fall in net profit on Thursday, pressured by fewer aircraft orders and deliveries in the third quarter and contract issues in its train unit.
Montreal-based Bombardier also did not release any flight test data for its brand-new CSeries aircraft or offer an update on whether the plane will meet its ambitious schedule of going into commercial service by next September.
After the test plane's inaugural flight about a month and a half ago, it has only flown three more times, raising questions over whether the testing phase is on track.
Results fell short of forecasts and sent shares sliding more than 8 percent on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Cameron Doerksen, an analyst with National Bank Financial, lowered his rating to "sector perform" from "outperform" on Thursday with the view that the stock has limited upside over the next one or two quarters.
"While the weaker aircraft deliveries were mostly anticipated, we are clearly disappointed by the margin performance in transportation," Doerksen said in a client note.
We believe that Bombardier will receive new orders for the CSeries as the flight test program progresses.
However, if no new orders are announced in the coming months, we suspect that the market will become more skeptical of the program.
Bombardier hopes the CSeries aircraft family can catapult it into the low end of a market now dominated by Boeing and Airbus.
The first test plane was unveiled in March and took flight for the first time in September after months of delays.
But firm orders for the CSeries are moderate so far at 177 as potential buyers wait for flight test results to validate the company's claims about the new jetliner's fuel efficiency and cost savings potential.
There are currently 403 total orders and commitments with 15 customers and operators.
Chief Executive Officer Pierre Beaudoin was confident Bombardier would meet its 300 firm order target by the time the first jet is put into commercial use.
Executives also reassured analysts and media on Thursday the program was progressing according to schedule.
"The test plane didn't stay on the ground longer than anticipated," Beaudoin said in a conference call, adding that ground tests and software updates were scheduled during the plane's downtime.
Every manufacturer schedules it in a different way.
We had decided to do a first flight and to do an update period and that's what we have done.
That will happen all through the flight program.
The second of five test planes is expected to take flight in the coming weeks, with the remainder following shortly after, the company said.
Still, analysts are skeptical the first customer can begin operating a CSeries plane 12 months after its maiden flight.
Bombardier said it was evaluating the entry-into-service (EIS) schedule and will provide an update in the next few months.
"This slow pace of flight testing - although in line with Bombardier's internal schedule apparently - reinforces our view that entry-into-service will be pushed to Q1/15," said Doerksen.
For the third quarter ended September 30, Bombardier's net profit fell to $147 million, or 8 cents per share, from $172 million, or 9 cents per share a year earlier.
Adjusted earnings per share were unchanged at 9 cents.
Revenue dipped marginally to $4.1 billion from $4.2 billion.
Analysts had expected earnings of 10 cents per share and revenue of $4.56 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The world's fourth-largest planemaker said it delivered 45 aircraft during the quarter, down from 57 a year earlier.
Net orders fell to 26 aircraft, from 83.
The backlog in the aerospace division was $32.9 billion as of September 30, unchanged from December 31.
"In aerospace, results were in line with our guidance, but the low order intake and overall market conditions were a disappointment," Beaudoin said.
Aerospace revenue fell 13 percent to $2 billion.
Bombardier, the world's largest trainmaker, said revenue in that division rose nearly 11 percent to $2.1 billion.
The order backlog in the transportation unit was $32.6 billion as of September 30, up marginally from December 31.
The transportation division's margins were affected by execution issues in a few large contracts.
Executives said new guidance would be provided in the fourth quarter.
Shares of Bombardier, which also announced that Google Inc Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette would join the board, were down 8.5 percent at C$4.83 in mid afternoon trading on Thursday.
Brazil's Embraer SA, the world's third-largest commercial planemaker and Bombardier's closest rival, reported a 10 percent fall in quarterly profit on Thursday.
USA: Shots fired at Los Angeles Airport
On Friday morning (local time) an unknown suspect fired shots at the LAX Airport.
While the airport management announced via short messaging service Twitter that the shooter is in custody, the "Los Angeles Times" reported that the man is dead.
A member of security staff was also killed.
The media also reported that several people injured.
US President Barack Obama is being kept informed of the situation, said White House spokesperson Jay Carney.
The incident took place in Terminal 3. Eye witnesses reported seeing a shooter with a gun in one of the departure lounges, as was reported by several media.
One traveller told the broadcaster CNN about how many people had sought protection in panic.
Travellers screamed and children cried.
Panic broke out among those waiting, with many hiding behind seats in fear.
An employee of the "Los Angeles Times" who was travelling at the time told of how he had heard two shots fired.
An employee of security company TSA suffered a gunshot wound to the foot.
The scene was "like something out of a movie".
The man reported that he was then himself taken to a safety area.
The shots were said to have been fired near a security inspection area.
Airport building evacuated
Television footage revealed how numerous ambulances and police cars arrived at a terminal.
One hundred people were brought out of the building to safety.
Users on Twitter published photos of a SWAT officer and a weapon lying on the ground.
According to a message shared by the airport management via twitter, the incident began at 9.30 am (local time).
The access roads were blocked off, which, according to CNN, caused long tailbacks.
Except for the landing of arrival aircraft, flight traffic was temporarily suspended, it was reported.
However, several planes could be seen taking off on CNN.
Terminal 3 serves mainly small US airlines.
The Los Angeles LAX airport is one of the largest airports in the USA.
Cocaine-addict lawyer who tipped off Mr Big about police investigation is jailed
Basharat Ditta, 42, would feed information to crime lord Neil Scarbrough
The solicitor feared his secret drug addiction would be exposed
Was given a three-year prison sentence at Liverpool Crown Court
A top defence lawyer who told a drugs Mr Big about a major police investigation, because he feared his secret drug addiction would be exposed, has been jailed for three years.
Basharat Ditta, 42, would feed sensitive intelligence to crime lord Neil Scarbrough about inquiries into his drug trafficking activities after he became compromised by his cocaine habit.
The solicitor, who was nicknamed "Bash" and hailed by criminals as a "top brief," was arrested at his home in 2011 following a police surveillance operation into Scarborough, who he had represented in a previous narcotics trial.
Officers spotted Sarborough, 32, dropping off three bags of cocaine at the lawyer's home in Blackburn, Lancashire, while he was out at a Law Society dinner with colleagues.
Inquiries revealed Ditta was a "regular user" of the Class A drug after tests found traces of cocaine in his hair, on his wallet and on his credit cards.
Over an eight month period between January and August 2011 he sought to illicitly obtain information on the arrests of two men on behalf of Scarborough as well as one of his associates.
All four suspects were being watched by police at the time as part of a major investigation into a heroin and cocaine racket operating across Lancashire, Cumbria, Merseyside, Berkshire and West Yorkshire.
They and 32 other men were later jailed after police seized heroin and cocaine worth £1.5million along with more than £200,000 in cash during a series of raids.
Ditta, 42, fed information to criminals because of fears his cocaine addiction would be exposed
Today at Liverpool Crown Court Ditta, who works at law firm Forbes Solicitors, based in Blackburn, was facing disgrace after being found guilty of two counts of perverting the course of justice following a three week trial at Liverpool Crown Court.
He admitted cocaine possession at an earlier hearing.
The lawyer's downfall came after police investigating Scarborough discovered he had been in regular phone contact with Ditta in February 2011.
Two detectives trailed the suspect and spotted him arriving at Ditta's house in and was seen to place the drugs which had a purity of 60 per cent under the lawyer's bins in a black golf glove.
Soon after the drop off, Scarborough was in regular phone contact with Ditta who had been out at the dinner at the Blackburn Rovers football stadium, Ewood Park.
The lawyer returned home to discover the drugs and there were nine communications between them.
The court heard Ditta was a "regular user" of cocaine after tests found traces of the Class A drug in his hair, wallet and on his credit cards
Ditta was arrested later but denied using cocaine and and said he had been speaking to the suspected dealer because he was his client and argued their discussions were subject to "legal privilege."
During his arrest Ditta picked up his wallet and tried to remove several credit cards but they were all seized and a hair sample was taken fom him.
In a police interview he said he ran an office at his home address as well as work place and clients would call at his house on legal business.
But the court heard he would call major players in the drugs supply chain, some of whom he had previously represented, after key arrests to tell them what detectives knew about them.
Prosecuting, Anne Whyte said: "If anyone should know not to the break the law, it is a criminal solicitor."
Mr Ditta is accused of abusing his position as a criminal solicitor, having become too involved with specific clients.
The relationship we are talking about is not simply a drug dealer, but a drug dealer providing his own lawyer with drugs.
Some of his communications will undoubtedly have been legitimate ones because he was their lawyer.
But this went way beyond the ordinary confines of a lawyer-client relationship.
He thwarted the police's investigation as much as possible to enable them to continue in their criminal activities.
Mr Ditta was not honouring his profession, but dishonouring it.
He got too close to certain clients, in particular Scarborough, and he allowed his independence to be compromised.
Ditta denied wrongdoing and claimed: "If I was a corrupt lawyer, which I am not, and I wanted to feed information to Mr Scarborough, I would not wait 15 hours, I would do it immediately."
But after the hearing Supt Lee Halstead from Lancashire Police said: "Mr Ditta turned from criminal solicitor to a criminal himself the moment he started obtaining drugs from organised criminals."
His addiction to cocaine left him hopelessly compromised and vulnerable to the motives of leading members of organised crime groups who tasked him to obtain valuable information regarding police investigations.
Solicitors should uphold the highest standards of integrity and should instil trust and confidence in the public.
Mr Ditta has betrayed this trust and attempted to hide behind the veneer of his profession.
Lancashire's Serious and Organised Crime Unit led the investigation into Mr Ditta which has also seen him convicted of three counts of possession of cocaine and now perverting the course of justice, demonstrating our commitment to bringing criminals to justice.
Let this case serve as a warning to criminals that no one is beyond the reach of the law.
We will find you and put you before the courts.
Scarborough himself was jailed for 14 years after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply heroin, cocaine and cannabis.
Thirty five other men involved in the racket were jailed for a total of 153 years for drugs offences.
On his website Ditta gave a question and answer session about himself in which he says his fantasy job would be a lawyer representing clients on Death Row in America, his ultimate dinner guest as being Mohammed Ali and inequality as his motivation for work.
Revolutionary Sacred Music Factory
To close the celebrations on the occasion of its 160th anniversary, the Liederkranz Dunningen (Dunningen Amateur Choir, or Glee Club, if you like) will perform Franz Schubert's "Deutsche Messe" (German Mass) to accompany two church services.
Following the great success of the musical, "Rock my Life", which enthused audiences this past Spring, the Liederkranz will bless two church services with the performance of Franz Schubert's Deutsche Messe, to close its anniversary year celebrations.
On Saturday 26 October, this exceptional mass will be heard from 7.00 p.m. during the evening mass in the St. Marinuskirche Dunningen and on Sunday 27 October, from 10.15, at the service in the St. Johannes Baptistkirche in Lackendorf.
The so-called 'German Mass', with the original title "Gesänge zur Feier des heiliges Opfers der Messe" (Songs to celebrate the holy sacrifice of the mass), D 872, is a spiritual work by composer Franz Schubert, dating from 1826, at at the time it was written was considered almost revolutionary.
Patron Johan Philipp Neumann has in mind for the mass to be performed as part of the church services.
Under the directorship of Hermann Schneider, the choir will be accompanied by the wind ensemble of the Frohsinn Tennenbronn Music Society, and by Noemi Lokodi on the organ.
Haslach: Scepticism visibly gives way to confidence
The 2015 Parish Council elections will bring about fundamental change, for example in the Haslach Pastoral Care Unit (Seelsorgeeinheit Haslach, SE).
There will then only be one joint Parish Council for all six parishes.
In a joint meeting on Saturday, the committees from Haslach, Hofstetten, Mühlenbach, Fischerbach, Steinach and Welschensteinach prepared for the changes.
This is because there are no further changes to be made to the fundamental decisions of the diocese and it is up to the Parish Councils to implement these in as satisfactory a manner possible.
During the course of the day one thing became particularly clear: the scepticism towards the new system is reluctantly yet visibly giving way to confidence.
The extremely constructive discussions between the six committees and the full-time members of the pastoral care team addressed topics ranging from perceptions and expectations regarding the 2015 reforms, to concrete proposals regarding the future composition and size of the Parish Council.
Regional Dean Georg Schmitt explained the newly drawn-up guidelines for pastoral care units in the arch-diocese of Freiburg with the help of a presentation.
According to the guidelines, the SE Haslach, as a church community, will be a corporation under public law, which shall assume the rights and obligations of the six individual church communities.
There will then only be one joint Parish Council and a Foundation Council, in which the rector will be represented by virtue of his office.
From each parish, at least two elected members are to be represented, with so-called church community teams set up on-site in the six parishes.
In future their task will be to promote church life on a local basis.
Regarding the issue of the finances of the individual parishes, the need for extensive discussion became evident.
The reforms plan for the accumulated assets in the parishes to be retained for a specified purpose.
Accounts payable, on the other hand, will be passed over to the "church community" as a whole.
In particular, planned major investments, the debts from which thus affect all parishes, were cause for great concern.
"In the past, investments were only made in projects that could be managed by the individual parishes by themselves," said Haslach's Parish Council Chairman Bruno Prinzbach.
Barbar Ritter, Chair of the Committee in the Schutterwald-Neuried pastoral care unit, has practical experience of a joint committee for five parishes.
In 2006 she set herself the task, "Become one, remain five" and came to realise that the task is really not that simple.
The Committees of the Haslach pastoral care unit set out to answer questions regarding the future composition and size of the joint Parish Council, and the practical work of the church community teams.
The specific details will be confirmed in subsequent meetings and decided in an additional joint meeting of all six committees in the coming spring.
At the end, Parish Counsellor Michael Schöner from Steinach presented the new logo of the pastoral care unit, which was agreed on by a clear majority.
Electricity to become more expensive in Pfullendorf
The citizens of Pfullendorf will have to adjust to high electricity costs.
As Managing Director of the municipal energy company, Jörg-Arne Bias, confirmed to the SÜDKURIER, families of four in Pfullendorf will be on the receiving end of a price increase of EUR 70 to 90 per year.
One major reason for the upcoming price increase is the rise of the so-called EEC Levy from 5.277 to 6.3 Cents per kilowatt hour.
This levy will be reset by the four operators of the large power grids, in October of each year.
They estimate the additional costs they will incur as a result of the "energy turnaround", which they will be able to recover by means of a levy on the price of electricity.
The Pfullendorf municipal energy company forms the last link in this chain.
In its projections, the supervisory council of the energy company even assumed a levy higher than that reported by Jörg-Arne Bias.
The specific figures must now be calculated before the municipal energy cmpany can inform its customers of the precise price increase next week.
"We are working on the assumption of an increase of 1 cent plus x," said Bias, with the figure likely to be closer to 2 cents.
Traffic lights permanently red: observe waiting time
Sometimes a traffic light simply never turns green.
The contact loop on the road does not react, or the light itself is defective.
What should you do - drive through on red?
If an affected person has waited for a sufficiently long period of time at a red light, and provided the crossing is clear, they can drive on, explained Stuttgart-based lawyer Ralf Becker in "Motorrad" (Motorcycle) magazine.
The waiting time must, however, be "appropriate", which can be interpreted differently on a case-to-case basis.
Becker advises that you wait at least five minutes before a fault with the traffic lights can be assumed.
Anyone who drives on in spite of a red light must, however, be aware that he/she will be fully liable for any resulting accident.
Anyone who waits for less than five minutes has, under certain circumstances, not waited long enough, warned Becker, referring to a ruling of the Hamm Higher Regional Court.
In the case in question, a driver ignored a light that was permanently red after around three minutes and and was held responsible for negligently jumping a red light.
The traffic lights were actually not defective, but rather turned green just a few minutes later.
He was spared a driving ban on account of the special circumstances - but was not spared a fine.
Town Council delighted with solid budget
Every time discussion in Town Council meetings turns to the budget, Mayor Ralph Gerster has good reason to smile.
The municipality coffers in Herdwangen-Schönach are well stocked and the administration has been debt-free since 2005.
In this sense, this the 2012 budgetary year, can also be recorded as a complete success.
This became clear upon presentation of the annual accounts for 2012.
As Andrea Rothmund explained, the administrative budget came in at more than EUR one million higher than originally planned, at around 7.6 million Euro.
The administrative budget surplus, at around EUR 1.8 million, also stood at around EUR one million above projections.
The surplus is primarily due to higher trade tax income and the local authorities' contribution towards income tax.
The capital budget also stood well above the projected values.
Instead of the projected EUR 1.5 million Euro, the value for last year was EUR 2.5 million.
"This is mainly due to the higher contribution from the administrative budget," said Rothmund.
Because fewer investments were made in the 2012 budgetary year than planned, the reserves also came in higher.
In total, they managed to increase the general contingency reserves by around EUR 2.1 million, to a total of EUR 4.9 million.
Mayor Ralph Gerster thanked Rothmund and its team for the good work.
"A job like this is not something you achieve overnight," said Gerster in praise of the annual financial statement.
He and the Town Councillors are clearly delighted with the good figures.
It may sound like a paradox, but it is precisely these good figures that could soon work out expensive for the citizens.
In the past, a good financial situation meant that the local authorities could do away with high municipal rates.
However, according to Gerster, from time to time this has resulted in subsidies being reduced by the state.
There are prerequisites that must be fulfilled in order to receive these subsidies from various compensation elements.
Among other requirements, the towns and municipalities applying for the subsidies must levy certain municipal rates.
"We have to address the subject of municipal rates, as there are investments to be made in the coming years for which we could do with subsidies," commented Gerster regarding this matter.
Nagold: Hugo Wermter - a choir member for 60 years
Having been a singer for 60 years, Hubert Wermter's story with the Cäcilia Male Choral Society is almost twice as long as that of the Autumn Festival, during which he was ceremonially honoured.
As per usual, Hubert Wermter stood on the stage in the colours of his male voice choir.
Even after 60 years he still finds great pleasure from singing with the choir, which has achieved much more than popularity during this period.
Wermter has also been active within the association, serving as a member of the committee for 28 years, among other roles.
For his commitment and loyalty to the organisation, he has also received several awards: Jörg Kohr, Lay Pastor acting on behalf of the Cäcilian Association of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, presented him with an Association Certificate and a letter of commendation signed by Bishop Gebhard Fürst - the choir also serves as a church choir.
His choir colleagues presented him with a German Choral Association certificate and an engraved pewter plate.
Aside from honouring Hugo, the 31st Autumn Festival progressed as usual: Alongside the Betra Male Voice Choir, the Salzstetten Choral Club, the Baisingen Choral Division and the Local Music Society, the Vollmaringen singers delivered a colourful blend of different choral and song styles, which entertained the 400 or so visitors.
The Vollmaringen Male Voice Choir got things running with atmospheric songs such as "Im Weinparadies" and "Lustig, ihr Brüder".
They had also prepared a short serenade as a tribute to their honorary singer Hubert Wermter - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Bundeslied".
The Betra Male Voice Choir also sang classic choral pieces such as "Jägerwerben" by Julius Wengert, "Weit, weit weg" by Hubert Goisern and the folk song "Wann du durchgehst durchs Tal".
With its mixed choir and its ladies' ensemble - the "Impulschor" (Impulse Choir), the Salzstetten Choral Club ensured that the female quota was fulfilled at the festival.
The mixed choir carried listeners away to foreign lands with the Neapolitan folksongs "Santa Lucia" and "Eviva Espana" by Antos Gus, while the "Impulschor" also drew on foreign languages: "Liberatio" and "Hey Jude" were included on their programme.
The Choral Division of the Baisingen Sports Club returned to its home ground with "Was isch der Schwob?" by Hans Süssmuth and Robert Pappert's "Bierlied", while the Vollmaringen Music Society provided the crowning musical conclusion.
For children, there was a small auxiliary programme - "Oma Hanne" (Grandma Hanne), a.k.a Hannelore Stollsteimer, performed a 'Kasperl' theater (similar to Punch and Judy) and read some stories, which kept the children entertained throughout the afternoon.
Children's dreams come true
Over the next few days, the nursery schools and day care centres in Zollernalb district will be receiving mail.
The Schwarzwälder Bote (Black Forest Herald), in collaboration with Bauhaus and the Sparkasse Zollernalb Savings Bank, would like to support the institutions in granting their construction and renovation wishes.
Does the nursery school need a new sand box?
All nurseries, day care centres and créches from across the entire Zollernalb district can become involved in the campaign.
If they have a construction or renovation request for their institution, they can register this with the Schwarzwälder Bote.
Get creative with your children and surprise the judging panel of the Kindergarten-Baustelle (Nursery School-Construction Site) campaign.
A panel consisting of representatives from the Schwarzwälder Bote, Bauhaus and Sparkasse Zollernalb will select three wishes from those submitted.
What are the requirements for participation?
It must be possible to fulfil the wish using construction materials to a maximum value of EUR 2,000 and on one (campaign) day.
Furthermore, the winner must provide a number of hard-working building helpers.
What is the deal with the campaign day and the helpers?
With the support of the Sparkasse Zollernalb, Bauhaus will be providing the materials.
They will be delivered to the nursery schools on an agreed day and should there be assembled/made use of directly by the helpers.
Helpers can include parents, grandparents, friends, organisations and, of course, the teachers and children themselves.
Kenyan press outraged at controversial media law
"It is a frightening place, and it is valid to ask: what is there to prevent Parliament from simply sweeping away the independence of the judiciary tomorrow?" the paper said, challenging the bill as unconstitutional.
"This law is draconian and very punitive and we reject it," said Cyrus Kamau, managing director for Capital Group - home to CapitalFM, one of Kenya's most respected independent radio stations and news websites.
He said the new media tribunal "will always be biased because it's an extension of the government," and that restrictions on content and advertising would damage Kenya's place in the global economy.
"I hope the president will listen to us, and we appeal to him to reject this bill and return it to the MPs," he said.
According to The Star newspaper, the new bill will effectively hand the government "a stranglehold over the media," while The Standard said democracy and free speech in Kenya had been "dealt a major blow" and lambasted the bill as "draconian."
The passing of the bill comes amid a string of measures to reinforce national security in the wake of the September's attack by Islamist gunmen on the Westgate shopping mall.
Kenya media drew the ire of authorities by broadcasting security camera footage of troops who were dispatched to the scene of the attack purportedly robbing the upmarket mall.
Police chief David Kimaiyo reacted by summoning two journalists and a media executive for questioning, although the summons was retracted following a media outcry.
Under the new bill, media houses can be fined up to 20 million Kenyan shillings and individual journalists up to one million with the additional risk of being "de-listed," or barred from receiving official press accreditation.
The tribunal also has the power to seize the property of an offender if a fine is not paid.
According to the Daily Nation, "even one fine is enough to cripple most FM stations."
It also said the measures could have a devastating effect on what it described as Kenya's "lively blogosphere."
By silencing the media, politicians know they can do whatever they like with impunity.
"No one will ever know," wrote Nation journalist Mutuma Mathiu, describing the Kenyan media as a key source of checks and balances in public life.
"Left to themselves, politicians would bankrupt the country and take us back to hunting and gathering," he wrote.
Kenyan lawmakers have been the target of public anger in the past.
In May they voted to overturn cuts ordered by the national salaries commission and reinstate their hefty salaries of around 532,000 shillings a month tax-free - ranked among the highest in the world.
Bad-Dürrheim: A dream comes true for the FC
The official inaugural ceremony for the astro-turf sports field did not wane in significance for the town and the football club, in spite of the cold weather and rain.
Everyone had hoped for more pleasant conditions for the ceremony last Saturday, however the weather gods chose not to cooperate.
So anyone who came without an umbrella, or for whatever reason could not hold onto one, drew the short straw.
This was the case for the musicians who accompanied the ceremony, as well as for a number of speakers.
Thus, FC Chairman Albrecht Schlenker, who spoke of the fulfilment of a dream, also got fairly wet.
His thanks went first and foremost to Mayor Walter Klumpp, who was heavily involved in the realisation of the project, the Town Council, the companies involved and club members who played a part.
Particular mention went out to Lothar Held, Paul Weizenegger, Heiner Gail and Peter Graf.
The spry pensioners laid 400 square metres of flagging for the new paths.
This remarkable voluntary commitment was also honoured by Member of the State Parliament, Karl Rombach.
Further words of greeting were issued to the town Sports Commissioner, Hubert Baier, the District Chairperson of the Southern Baden Football Association, Kuno Kayan, and Friedrich Knorr from the planning office, who announced a donation to the club's youth division.
Mayor Klumpp recalled that weather-related influences in the Spring and Autumn had repeatedly afflicted the original sports field, to such an extent that it could not be played on.
It was way back 15 years ago that solutions to the problem were first considered, when the construction of a third pitch on the football club site or at the secondary school on Salinensee Lake were considered.
Both ideas were rejected.
Six years ago, thoughts turned to laying an astro-turf pitch, which was generally viewed as the perfect solution.
Specific plans were drawn up two years ago, when the FC inherited the Schabelstube in leasehold, promised a contribution of EUR 100,000 for the construction of the pitch and the state approved a subsidy of EUR 104,000.
In October 2012, the Town Council decided to cover the remaining EUR 356,000 of the total cost of EUR 560,000, summarised Klumpp.
Work began on the 68 x 108 metre astro-turf pitch on 4 June.
During the construction phase, which lasted over three months, 3,000 cubic metres of earth were removed, of which half was used for the laying of a dirt bike track.
Union and SPD have continued their coalition negotiations, addressing the topics of internal affairs and justice.
To this end, the competent working group met this morning.
Among other issues, topics discussed included direct democracy, the bribery of MPs and the Federal Police.
During the morning, the Migration and Integration working group also sought to continue its discussions.
Among the issues to be addressed was that of dual nationality, in which regard both sides have opposing ideas.
The SPD would like to put an end to the pressure placed on immigrant children to decide on one nationality - the Union rejects the notion of a dual passport.
Regarding the subject of traffic, which was not on the agenda for this Friday, the SPD substantiated its opposition to a car toll charge promoted by the CSU.
A toll road sticker would amount to a "flat rate fee for frequent drivers and would thus be environmentally counterproductive," explained the SPD negotiator for issues relating to traffic, Florian Pronold, in a letter to his parliamentary group.
There would be a threat of diverted traffic on country roads, which are already accident hotspots.
The introduction of a toll for cars would also only be a first step, in Pronold's eyes.
"There is the risk that the compensation for Germans would be abolished at a later point in time," he said.
Dieter Thomas Kuhn in Stuttgart: The "singing mountain wave" on the open-air stage
Stuttgart - "When will it be summer again?" was actually not the question on people's lips at the Killesberg Open-Air Theatre on Friday evening.
It genuinely was a tropical evening in Stuttgart.
This therefore provided the ideal conditions for pop star, Dieter Thomas Kuhn, and his band.
Click through the image gallery of the performance by the "singing mountain wave".
Car driver seriously injured in accident
A 37-year-old car driver from Aachen was seriously injured in an accident on Thursday evening.
According to information from the police, a 41-year-old from Müsch was travelling in his car on the Kempener bypass in the direction of Grefrath, at around 9.15 p.m..
As he went to turn right onto St. Töniser Straße he failed to see the 37-year-old's oncoming vehicle.
The vehicles collided.
The Aachen resident suffered serious injuries and had to be taken to the hospital for treatment.
Konstanz: Road block following accident on the Schänzle roundabout
According to police, the accident occurred when a 51-year-old driver of a Swiss Seat Ibiza was travelling out of town in the left lane of the two-lane Reichenaustrasse.
Shortly before the Schänzle roundabout he noticed that was in the left-turn lane going in the direction of Stromeyersdorfstraße and moved across to the right lane.
In so doing, he collided with the BMW of a 23-year-old Konstanz resident, travelling in that lane.
The VW Passat of a 19-year-old driver travelling behind the BMW was also damaged.
In total, EUR 15,000 of material damage was caused, announced the police.
The road had to be blocked off while the accident was being investigated, the statement continued.
Vienna Airport abolishes passenger call-outs
Mr. Max Maier, please make your way to Gate 24.
In future, announcements such as this will no longer happen at Vienna International Airport.
The majority of loudspeaker announcements will cease - thus considerably reducing the noise level.
The goal of this adjustment is to create a more relaxing atmosphere.
As airport spokesperson Peter Kleeman announced to Radio Vienna that in adjusting the approach towards announcements, Vienna Airport is following an international trend.
Among others, the airports in Kopenhagen, Frankfurt and Dubai have already done away with the noisy call-outs.
By doing away with these announcements - on average around 200 personal call-outs come through the loudspeakers per day - the atmosphere in the airport should be calmer in future.
"Experience has also shown that these individual announcements are relatively seldom taken notice of, and at the same time, all other information regarding changes to departure gates or flight times are somewhat lost among them," said Kleeman while chatting to the radio broadcaster.
Highland Games in Kaltenhof
Alongside brake van pulling with tractors, there will also be a second contest at the agricultural autumn festival at Kaltenhof from 6 to 8 September.
On Saturday 7 September, the Highland Games will start at 1:30 p.m.
While they are of course a Scottish tradition, they have been given a touch of Swabian colour at the Kaltenhof event grounds.
Teams and individual competitors will be pitted against one another in the disciplines of tossing the caber, horseshoe tossing and bucket carrying.
The caber is four and a half metres long and weighs 25 to 30 kilometres.
"It isn't about the distance," explains organiser Peter Saile.
The log must be thrown vertically, somersault once and then finish lying straight.
This scores maximum points.
In tossing the horseshoe, it all comes down to accuracy.
Horseshoes are thrown onto a peg from a distance of eight metres.
Participants must then prove their skill and strength by carrying a bucket of water 50 metres.
Time is recorded and water quantity measured in a vat at the end.
Two members of each "clan" or team can then take part in the individual competition.
The winners of the team and individual contests receive prizes.
Teams can practice from 10:00 a.m.
Suitable clothing is desirable - for example competitors can wear kilts.
However, Swabian traditional clothing is also permitted.
The judging panel will also award a few bonus points for "outfits".
Registration is open until a few hours prior to the beginning of the competition.
With the Scottish-Swabian Highland Games and the tractor pulling contest, which will begin half an hour beforehand, there promises to be a great deal of action at the event grounds on Saturday.
In the evening, fans of brass band music will be in for a treat of their own.
At 19:00, the "biraböhmische" (a play on words alluding to the regions pear trees, Bohemia, and perhaps their love of beer as well!) wind music group from Schömberg, provide a great evening of entertainment.
The band plays lively polkas and marches.
However, their repertoire also includes emotive waltzes and a full big band sound.
Heinz Koch from Weilen unter den Rinnen will also be there, better known as the 'singing inn keeper and black sausage baron".
In the past, he has appeared at the Christmas market in Dornhan and the Narrenzunft (Fool's Guild event).
On Sunday, the Leinstetten Music Society will entertain audiences with a morning session, with the Böffingen Farmer's Band as guests from 2:00 p.m., and then the "Oldies" will bring the celebrations to a close.
The celebrations will get under way on Friday, with the "Stoppelacker" (Stubble Field) party featuring DJ Ralf.
Other items in the itinerary on Saturday and Sunday include the vintage car and tractor meet and exhibitions by companies on the topic of agriculture and forestry.
Further attractions on Sunday are the corn maze, the craft market and sheep shearing.
Specially for children, there is a petting zoo, "straw bouncy castle", tractor driving (under supervision) and tractor surfing.
The event is organised by the community hall association, the ski club and the "Zündkapsele" (blasting caps) tractor enthusiasts.
An overview of milk and egg alternatives
Vegan nutrition promotes vegetable alternatives to eggs, milk and dairy products.
Mashed tofu with plant cream, for example, serves as a substitute for quark cheese.
The Vegetarian Association will provide further examples on World Vegan Day on 1 November.
On the occasion of World vegan Day on 1 November, the Vegetarian Association of Germany will propose a host of vegan alternatives:
Pure plant margarine is a good alternative to butter, while yoghurt can be replaced by soya yoghurt.
Soya, oat, almond or rice milk can be used in place of milk.
Plant whipping cream can replace traditional whipping cream.
There are also plant alternatives to eggs.
Half a mashed, ripe banana, for example, can replace an egg as a binding agent in a cake.
50 grams of apple sauce or a tablespoon of ground linseed plus three tablespoons of water are also suitable.
A dough becomes fluffy by replacing egg with a mixture of one tablespoon of baking powder, one tablespoon of cornflour and three tablespoons of mineral water, for example.
50 grams of soya yoghurt or silken tofu can also fulfil this purpose.
According to information from the Vegetarian Association, around 800,000 Germans currently have a vegan diet, i.e. a 100% vegetable diet.
Sleepless in New York
On the way to their host families in Weymouth, Massachusetts, the pupils of the Schwarzwald Grammar School got to know the American city of New York.
After an eight-hour flight, they headed straight for Brooklyn Bridge, via which the heart of the city, Manhattan, can be reached on foot.
From here there is a fascinating view of the world-famous skyline, which is particularly impressive in the evening light.
Due to the time difference, the pupils had been on the go for almost 24 hours, however, true to the slogan, "the city never sleeps", the day was rounded off with a trip to Times Square.
In spite of a shutdown, they were able to visit the Statue of Liberty on the second day, and climb the statue on foot.
They then moved on to the Financial District, via Wall Street, to visit the 9/11 memorial.
On the third day, the pupils were able to take in an overview of the fascinating city from the viewing platform of the Empire State Building, enjoying the views from a height of 373 metres.
They then made their way through the hustle and bustle of the New York streets, via the Rockerfeller Center, to Central Park, which provided the perfect opportunity to rest a while in the Autumn sun.
Following a short flight from New York to Boston, the pupils have now arrived with their host families and are experiencing the school day at Weymouth High School.
Once again this year, on Saint Hubert's day, a Hubert mass will be celebrated in the Parish of St. Marien on Hülsbergstrasse.
St. Hubert was, according to legend, a truly ruthless hunter, who converted following a vision and was later appointed Bishop of Lüttich.
Hunting horn group "Jagdreiter Westfalen", under the directorship of Brigitte Kluth, played old, traditional French melodies on parforce horns (natural horns in the key of E flat).
The wind players wear riding clothes, as they provide musical accompaniment mainly for riders, horses and packs of hounds on drag hunts.
The solemn mass is to take place on Sunday 3 November at 11.30 a.m.
The newly designed Opschlag stands out with a new café.
One that invites you to linger a while and to come again.
One that wants to get its name out there.
According to dictionaries, déjà vu is defined as a psychological phenomenon, which expresses itself in the feeling of having already experienced or seen a new situation.
In the case of a visit to the café of the same name at the Opschlag in Kleve County, with a view of the Rhein-Waal University, it doesn't always have to remain a pure déjà vu feeling.
Ultimately, this is precisely the aim of the café with the wonderful name: to make an actual visit and something that can be repeated on a recurring basis, not just theoretically, but tangibly.
Because it is fun and simply beautiful.
A glance into the internal workings at Opschlag 8 gives the onlooker a positive feeling right from the outset.
With its ultra-modern yet cosy café ambience, it looks like a place designed to make you feel good.
The team here, with business founders, Mirjam van der Stelt and Daniel Büttner at the helm, spoils guests with a wide range of coffees and cocktails.
In addition to this, there are delicious cakes or freshly baked baguettes, filled to order.
The owners, both 33 years old, have already made a name for themselves as restaurateurs prior to opening the chic café on the Opschlag: They previously managed the "Art Lounge" in Kranenburg.
By moving to Kleve on the Opschlag, the friendly café lovers hope to reach a wider audience.
Not least through university customers.
"We don't have a specific target group," emphasises Daniel Büttner.
In actual fact, here the pair hope to appeal as much to young students as they do to senior citizens and all age brackets.
Speaking of café lovers...
The two friendly owners are motivated by their love of coffee.
They themselves enjoy the fragrant, hot brew in a variet of formats.
Espresso fan
Daniel Büttner is more of an espresso fan, while Mirjam van der Stelt is the cappuccino drinker.
"And a baguette with it - that's my thing," she revealed to the NRZ.
There have already been two events held in the brightly lit café.
Or perhaps more accurately, one.
This is because the Hafenfest took place more outside than in - Café Déjà Vu did not benefit from it.
However, there was also the Ringelnatz evening.
The two 33-year-olds found it "beautiful, successful and funny".
But it was not for everyone.
Perhaps this is why Daniel Büttner is not a vocal fan of evening events: "You just cannot please everyone".
And with an event, I am always only appealing to those who have expressed an interest in the special event.
For this reason, events will always be an exception to the rule for us.
"We want to cause as little disruption as possible to normal business".
That is to say: Déjà Vu also stands for reliability.
This is with regard to the quality of the products that are offered here, as well as the team and the fantastic setting on the Opschlag in Kleve.
The street that is fast becoming a 'restaurant mile'.
This is to the delight of many Kleve residents, guests from near and far and the students who are discovering the 'restaurant mile', and with it the Café Déjà Vu, for themselves.
Anke Gellert-Helpenstein
A day of thanks with the MGV (Male Choral Society) in Dinker
This year the "Friedrich Wilhelm Dinker" MGV issued an invitation to its 165th anniversary celebration, which 52 guests, active singers and their wives were happy to accept.
In the clubhouse at the "Witteborg" Inn in Dinker, all those present enjoyed the friendly get-together in the name of music.
Traditionally, the anniversary celebration is also always the fitting occasion to bestow honours.
This time around, secretary Rolf Wagener was delighted to receive the special "Singer of the Year" award.
"Not only have you kept countless records for us, but you have also done so much running around for us, and for this we offer our sincere thanks," said Choir Chairman Erich Schlotmann.
The awards for participation in the performances and choir rehearsals by means of the presentation of "activity posies", this year went to Choir Director Dieter Schulze, with 44 attendance marks, followed by Honorary Chairman Horst Pier-Ribbert, the Chairman himself, and last year's "Singer of the Year" Friedrich Winkler, each having attended 42 times.
Fifth place went to Artur Brückner, responsible for organising music copies.
The Board of Directors gave special thanks to the team managed by innkeeper, Ange Pier-Ribbert, which once again delighted those present with a top class menu, and to Gerda Pier-Ribbert for the table decorations.
The "Friedrich-Wilhelm" MGV meets for its regular choir rehearsals in the clubhouse every Tuesday at 19:45.
"New voices that love to sing are more than welcome any time," said Schlotmann.
UN hails new goals to tackle poverty
The United Nations is to start work immediately on a new set of goals to replace the millennium development goals, which were put place 12 years ago to tackle global poverty.
Australian diplomats played a key role in pushing for "sustainable development goals" to replace the MDGs, which expire in 2015, ahead of the UN sustainable development summit that began in Rio de Janeiro overnight.
They were included in the final draft of the document, which will be endorsed by world leaders including Ms Gillard during the summit.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the summit overnight that now is the time to "rise above national interests."
"I am pleased that member states have agreed to launch and take ownership of a process to establish universal sustainable development goals - SDGs," he said.
These SDGs will build on our advances under the millennium development goals, and they will be an integral part of the post-2015 development framework.
I will spare no effort to implement the mandate given to me by member states to realise our vision of sustainable development goals that build on the success of the MDGs.
Even though the SG Achim/Baden has gone four match days without victory, a positive mood is still prevailing within the top flight handball team.
Trainer Tomasz Malmon will not let there be any doubt of this fact.
Everyone is still fully motivated for the task at hand.
That said, I do hope that we finally start winning again.
"I no longer remember how a victory like that tastes," said Malmon, anticipating success for his team at VfL Fredenbeck II.
Even though the third-tier reserves from Fredenbeck are no't exactly in the best form at the moment, Malmon has issued a warning in advance
I trained many of the players myself in the A-Youth.
Consequently, they will be particularly motivated playing against their former coach.
"In addition, we will have to wait and see whether reinforcements from the first team will be there," explained the SG coach.
In any case, if they are to finally get back on the winning track, Malmon's team will have to improve on recent performances.
There have been major problems, primarily in terms of covering and counter attacking.
The team's eye for the goal must be considerably improved.
Therefore, I hope that my players have finally managed to clear their heads during the short break.
Mozambique security concerns mount as powerful personalities clash
With a statue of Samora Machel, Mozambique's founding president, staring down on them, thousands of people gathered in central Maputo to chant peace slogans in a rare public demonstration.
"We want peace back; we want stability," said Vanessa de Sousa, chief executive of an investment company.
Fearful about the future of her country, she swapped her corporate attire for a T-shirt emblazoned with "we demand security" in Portuguese as she joined the crowds in the capital's Independence Square on Thursday.
For two weeks, there have been almost daily reports of clashes between government forces and Renamo, some of the worst skirmishes since a peace deal more than 20 years ago.
Renamo was once a notorious rebel movement, initially backed by white-ruled Rhodesia and then South Africa's apartheid government as part of efforts to destabilise the country's independent government.
After a 1992 peace deal, it became an opposition party.
Analysts believe the country is unlikely to slide back into full-blown conflict, but recent events have unnerved foreign investors and locals.
The stakes are high for the fast-growing economy as the discovery of huge offshore gas reserves and coal deposits in the northwest could bring in more than $50bn of investment over the next few next years from companies including Rio Tinto, Vale of Brazil, Eni of Italy and Anadarko of the US.
The ruling Frelimo party, the dominant political force since 1975, and Renamo blame each other for the tension.
Renamo says the government initiated the latest clashes by launching an attack on its members in Sofala province, traditionally a Renamo stronghold, on October 17.
Assaults on the former rebels then escalated as government forces attacked Renamo bases and attempted to kill Afonso Dhlakama, the group's leader, Fernando Mazanga, Renamo's spokesman, told the Financial Times.
The government blames Renamo for triggering the clashes, accusing it of attacking soldiers.
President Armando Guebuza has sought to play down concerns about instability.
Mr Guebuza told AFP, the French news agency, on Wednesday that Mr Dhlakama saw himself as a "loser" who wanted to use "whatever remains of his forces to try to prove that he can impose on the government his own decisions."
Both Frelimo and Renamo insist they want to avoid war.
But concerns have grown after Mr Mazanga was quoted as saying Renamo was abandoning the 1992 peace accord.
He told the FT that he meant the agreement was no longer being respected by Frelimo.
"Our vision is to come back to negotiations, but with seriousness," Mr Mazanga said.
Previous talks between the parties have done little to ease tensions fuelled by a series of clashes this year.
"It's two big men (Guebuza and Dhlakama) butting heads together," said Joseph Hanlon, a lecturer at the Open University and Mozambique expert.
Neither of them are good negotiators and neither of them are prepared to make the kind of concessions that are necessary.
Renamo, which has been pushing for electoral reforms, had already said that it would boycott municipal elections due in November.
Presidential and parliamentary polls are scheduled for next year.
Some commentators have interpreted its use of force as the attempt of an ailing movement to win concessions and financial spoils from the government.
Renamo's share of the vote has been declining since 1992, while a newer party, the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM) which was formed by a former Renamo member, is expected to improve its showing at the elections.
Mr Mazanga says Mr Guebuza - who is due to step down when his second term ends next year - wants to destroy the country's democracy.
"He does not want multi-party democracy, he does not want transparent elections he does not want peace because he does not want to leave the presidency," Mr Mazanga said.
It is unclear how much capacity Renamo has, but it has carried out disruptive hit-and-run attacks on police stations and vehicles on a key north-south highway.
Most of the skirmishes have taken place in Sofala province, which is several hundred kilometres north of Maputo, but hosts Beira, the port that miners, including Rio Tinto and Vale, rely on to export coal.
In June, Rio suspended its use of the railway for about a week after Renamo threatened to attack the line.
Mr Mazanga was coy when asked about whether Renamo would repeat this threat.
Renamo wanted to "warn the international community that things were not going well in Mozambique," Mr Mazanga said.
The instability has added to frustrations with the government, says Fernando Lima, head of Mediacoop, an independent media company, with many people also concerned about corruption, the slow pace of development and a recent spate of kidnappings.
"People think the ones responsible for the future of the country are the government and the president, and he should be the one to find solutions for the problems," he says.
Omar Sultuane, a demonstrator, said people just wanted stability.
"No one cares about Renamo and Frelimo, they just want peace again, they want free access to the roads," he said.
Children should be taught myths and legends as "models for a way of life", author says.
Tales of Thor could show "brute strength is no match for subtle trickery," while the Arthurian legends reveal the importance of having a dream.
Saying many of the myths would be "far too wild, far too scandalous and in some cases far too filthy to be taught in schools," Crossley-Holland advocated a "careful selection" of age-appropriate works.
"I find it wonderful that in America, myth and folklore already has a part in education," he said.
I have been advocating it as a plan for twenty years.
He added authors and teachers being "overtly didactic" is a "total switch-off" for children, with messages being "subliminated" in enjoyable stories.
Crossley-Holland, who has translated Beowulf from Anglo-Saxon as well as writing the Penguin Book of Norse Myths and British Folk Tales, said: "You may well have intentions but you do better to keep them well out of sight."
Perhaps the big difference between an adult author writing for an adult and an adult author writing for a child is the necessity for some sense of hope.
Not that everything has to be simplified or come to a happy ending, but that there is an innate sense of good and evil.
And that must be subliminated; revealed through a story rather than stated.
The old basis of showing not telling.
Hansjakob back in Freihof once again
100 years ago, Heinrich Hansjakob moved into his retirement home in Haslach, on Sunday his final years in the "Freihof" were brought to life.
The large audience was inspired by the extremely amusing role play.
From his arrival, to his being conferred with honorary citizenship and his death, Alois Kraftzcyk, the scriptwriter and actor portraying Hansjakob, has written an entertaining play, which received great acclaim under the directorship of Cornelia Volk.
Marcus Zagermann, serving as narrator, guided the audience through the ten different scenes, explained circumstances and provided links explaining leaps from his youth to the time when he was approaching retirement.
On 22 October 1913, Hansjakob returned home to his childhood paradise, to his Freihof.
It was there that the role-play began, with Alois Krafczyk shining once again in his famous role as the town's great son.
True to style, he travelled with a two-horse carriage drawn by "Schwarzwälder Füchsen" (Black Forest Chestnut Horses) owned by Erich Becherer from Mühlenbach.
Not only was he received with great applause from the audience, but was also welcomed by his sister Philippine.
Billy Sum-Hermann managed unbelievably well to place herself in the role of the sister and brought the character to life amazingly well, in terms of both her expressions and gestures.
Between the individual scenes, the Mühlenbacher Bauernkapelle played appropriately selected musical pieces, thus rounding off the performance.
The honour of presenting the title of honorary citizen went to Haslach's Mayor, Heinz Winkler, who, together with a section of the Town Council, made an appearance representing the Mayor of Hüttich from back in Hansjakob's day.
The "Dreikönig" singers then made their own appearance, leading Hansjakob to exclaim: "Oh how beautiful, this brings childhood memories of my own time in a Dreikönig group back to life".
With their song, "O Jesulein", they delighted the audience in the Freihof, as did the "Storchentagskinder" with their loud cries of "Heraus, Heraus" .
In his day, Hansjakob expressed his criticism of the institutional church, as well as his concerns regarding the excesses in the rural economy, the consequences of industrialisation and the effects of the war.
He found his place of rest on his native soil, behind his mausoleum on the Brand near Hofstetten.
The role-play ended with the words "A restless spirit finally found rest and returned home forever".
The performance received great applause and many words of praise from the audience.
Basketball: Hopes are growing for the Neckar Riesen (Neckar Giants).
The chances of the relegated Ludwigsburg Budesliga basketball players remaining in the league have improved.
This is because there is to be a wild card procedure, and the Neckar Riesen are now up against one applicant fewer.
The Hamburg Towers basketball project is declining to make an application for a possible stand-in place.
"We will not participate in the wild card process," said former national team player Pascal Roller, who has been putting together the concept for a professional club in the Hansa town since 2012.
However, there was no sigh of relief to be heard from Ludwigsburg.
"We are not concerning ourselves with the wild card process until it is certain that Düsseldorf is not receiving a licence," said boss of the Neckar Riesen Alexander Reil, speaking to our paper.
Newly promoted Düsseldorf Baskets have until 23 May to submit documents to the arbitration panel and prove their financial fitness for the Bundesliga.
However, the Rhineland team have already been refused the licence twice.
The Court of Arbitration is the authority of last resort.
Haigerloch: Focus on the Abendmahlskirche
As the town's contribution to the 150th anniversary of the Protestant Church in Haigerloch, the town's Office of Culture and Tourism is to dedicate the last of this year's public thematic tours on Sunday 27 October to the Abendsmahlskirche (Church of the Holy Communion).
Following a visit to the Nuclear Bunker Museum, the focus will turn to Haigerloch in the period after 1850, when Haigerloch came under Prussian rule.
The crowning glory will be a visit to the Abendmahlskirche.
There the participants of the tour will be told the story of the construction of the church and will gain insight into the development of the Protestant congregation, in what is a Catholic area through and through.
Last but not least, while in the church eyes will also turn to the last supper painting, painted by Friedrich Schüz with the support of Walter Kröll and Georg Halbritter.
It is a faithful reproduction of the famous work Leonardo da Vinci in Milan.
The meeting point for the one and a half hour tour is the Nuclear Bunder Museum, at 3:00 p.m.
Tickets are available from the ticket office at the Nuclear Bunker Museum.
The Haigerloch Town Tourist Office is available for questions and to provide you with information.
Snowden may make further statements in Russia
The former US intelligence expert, Edward Snowden, may make further statements regarding the US espionage scandal from his Russian asylum.
Representatives of the Federal Prosecutor could either submit questions in writing or meet the 30-year-old in person in Russia.
This was reported by the Interfax Agency with reference to groups aware of the situation, which were not named in greater detail.
Such matters are to be clarified at an intergovernmental level, it was stated.
A departure of Snowden from Russia is virtually impossible.
"If this were to happen, he would lose his status as a refugee," said the Agency, quoting their source.
Because Germany is an ally of the USA, Snowden would be at risk of deportation if he were to travel there, the source continued.
Endurance pays dividends
Six teams battled to become champion at the club tennis tournament.
In the end, it was the endurance of the Maier/Bronner team that decided the final match.
The tennis division of the Sportfreunde Rohrdorf (Rohrdorf Sports Fans) enjoyed perfect weather for the tournament for local clubs and enthusiasts.
The focus of the tournament was on the fun of playing tennis.
Five matches were scheduled for each team, with every team playing one match against all the others.
The matches were doubles matches with a long set up to nine points, or a maximum duration of 45 minutes.
Anja Schlichter managed the tournament
The organisation of the tournament was placed in the trusty hands of Anja Schlichter, who was supported by Carmen Müller and Inga Kronemeyer.
After the first three matches and a lunch break with pasta, the tournament moved into the crucial phase.
The favourites, Andre Maier/Matthias Bronner, were tied with Michael Klippel and Sadmin Osmicic (both teams from the SG Rohrweiler), meaning that the last two games had to produce a victor.
At the awards ceremony, Carmen Müller finally had the pleasure of presenting the Challenge Cup to Andre Maier and Matthias Bronner, who had shown the greatest staying power on the final leg.
Second place was taken by the Michael Klippel / Sadmin Osmicic partnership.
Bronze went to Rainer and Bernd Maier of the Asphaltriecher team.
In the late afternoon sun, accompanied by coffee and cake, the tournament drew to a successful close.
On the last weekend in August, the Vogtsbauernhof Black Forest Open Air Museum in Gutach near Hornberg will once again be firmly in the hands of children.
Traditionally, the museum welcomes visitors on a Saturday and Sunday, this year on on 24 and 25 August, to a colourful party for children and families as part of the summer holiday programme, with numerous participation activities and events.
"On both days, adults and children alike can learn various traditional handicrafts," said the press release.
Whether producing soap, turning candles, felting or making silk, there is a suitable activity whatever your age.
The children will receive help from regional artisans, present from 11.00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.
Activities will also be taking place in the museum workshop.
The young guests will be able to demonstrate their manual skills building cuckoo pipes, water wheels or spinning tops.
The host of old games, such as wheelbarrow racing or walking on stilts, promises plenty of fun.
Here speed and coordination are the order of the day.
For any miniature detectives, the open air museum will be offering a mystery tour through the museum on Saturday and Sunday, at midday and 2.00 p.m. respectively.
On a tour of the premises, the children will have to work out which stories are true and which have been made up.
In addition, visitors will have the special opportunity to get to know the open air museum on a carriage journey drawn by Black Forest Chestnut horses.
It is not just horses that can be found and admired on the grounds, but many other animals such as sheep, goats, cows and chickens as well.
On the Sunday the children will also be able to enjoy the clown, Otsch, who will be doing pranks with the museum guests from 11.00 a.m.
Meanwhile, a cosy and magical alternative will be provided by Hermann Büttner.
The story-teller will be taking the younger guests to the wonderful world of fairytale at 11.00 a.m., 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.
The traditional children's dance group from Gutach will also be performing at 11:30 a.m.
Furthermore, on both event days, from 11.00 a.m. until 5.00 p.m., numerous artisans such as the broom maker, the sewer, the spinner, the weaver and the baker will be letting visitors look over their shoulders.
So, visitors to the open air museum can expect a varied holiday programme right through to the end of the summer holidays in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
In a small town in New Zealand, Burt Munro is considered a lovable oddball, all because he resolved to compete in a race in America with his 1920 motorbike.
In spite of his heart defect, Burt could not be deterred from pursuing his dream.
With his savings, a few donations and a mortgage on his old workshop, he set off to Los Angeles by ship.
The film will be followed by coffee, tea and cake.
Piercing beep disturbs residents
Rhenus Midgard has also invested highly in land
They stockpile the coal that arrives on ships.
At the same time, the company also has other irons in the fire at the location.
Besides coal imports, Rhenus Midgard is also active in the field of wind park logistics, among other ventures.
The coals shimmer black in the storage yard in front of the embankment.
Here two huge blue stacker and reclaimer machines distribute or load the coals as required.
With each movement of the handling machines, a shrill warning noise rings out over the site.
"The signals are for the purpose of security and are legally prescribed," said Matthias Schrell, Managing Director of Rhenus Midgard in Wilhelmshaven.
Unfortunately, in the event of unfavourable wind, they can be heard from far away - and as a result there have already been a number of complaints from people from the north of the town.
The 40-year-old said that he is taking the complaints very seriously and has therefore been in touch with those affected.
In close consultation with the authorities, we are now in a position to make the warning signals quieter by means of the implementation of technical measures.
In future he will also seek open dialogue with neighbours.
For Matthias Schrell has some further plans at the location.
With the construction of the Lower Saxony Bridge, Rhenus Midgard is continuing to focus on coal exports for power stations and is one of the major powers in this sector in Europe.
Thanks to the mooring basin to the front of the terminal, sunken to a depth of 18.5 metres, it has for some time now been possible to unload Capesize bulk carriers here.
"In terms of handling, this year we hope to break the 3 million tonne mark," said Schrell.
Alongside the local Eon power plant, the imported coals also go to power plants inland.
When the GDF-Suez plant is added to the network, around 5 million tonnes of coal imports per year will be realistic.
The three ship unloaders on the bridge and the second transport belt could see this rise to 10 million.
Bavaria's basketball players optimistic in spite of first defeat.
Even their first defeat in the Euroleague could not curtail the huge optimism of the FC Bayern München Basketballers.
"No-one can stop us believing that we can win, even against the best team in Europe over the last two years," assessed Bayern coach Svetislav Pesic following the unfortunate 83:88 (39:47) defeat to title defenders Olympiakos Piräus on Thursday evening.
We have delivered a message: Basketball also exists in Munich!
In their first three appearances in the European top flight, the Munich team put in a good performance for long periods, but in the crucial phases were not sufficiently focussed.
Initially the guests managed to turn a 15-point deficit into a lead, with 13 minutes to go, before Piräus was able to turn the game around once again.
"We fought back incredibly well against the two-time Euroleague champions, but then once again made careless mistakes.
We are proud of our performance, but we want to win every game.
Malcolm Delaney and Nihad Djedovic were the most successful strikers for the Munich team, who had celebrated clear wins against the Italian Series champions Montepaschi Siena, and the Polish title-holders, Zielona Góra, in their first two games.
Ben Greenman: The Tenth Anniversary of the New York Comedy Festival: The New Yorker
One could argue that New York City is the birthplace of standup comedy in America: nearly a hundred years ago, the vaudevillian Frank Fay, who served as the master of ceremonies at the Palace Theatre, on Broadway, started telling jokes directly to the crowd, in a conversational manner.
Fay's innovation has been extended through the years, most recently by the New York Comedy Festival.
Created and overseen by Caroline Hirsch, the founder of the standup institution Carolines, the festival celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, with more than sixty shows at small clubs and large theatres.
"Most of these headliners appeared at Carolines, and went on to greater success, to the point where they're too big to play a club," Hirsch said.
We built this festival as a way of continuing to work with them.
This year's event includes appearances by Wanda Sykes, Kathy Griffin, and Bill Maher, as well as "Stand Up for Heroes," an annual music-and-comedy benefit for military veterans, at Madison Square Garden, featuring, among others, Bruce Springsteen, Jon Stewart, Roger Waters, and Bill Cosby.
As the festival has expanded, so has the world of comedy.
Several of the comedians participating in this year's festival came up through nontraditional channels, such as shows on smaller networks, like Comedy Central, FX, and Spike.
Nick Kroll rose to prominence on a deep-cable sitcom (FXX's gleefully raunchy fantasy-football-themed "The League") and now has his own Comedy Central sketch show.
Jenny Slate has been a cast member on both "Saturday Night Live" and "Parks and Recreation," though she is best known for her viral video series "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On."
Both Kroll and Slate, as well as other young comedians with distinctive voices (the surreally pessimistic Anthony Jeselnik, the wry, racially focussed W. Kamau Bell), are products of the decentralized world of American comedy.
One of the festival's biggest draws will be an interview: David Steinberg talking to Larry David.
Steinberg started as a standup comedian but has become an accomplished television and film director, as well as an unofficial comedy historian.
From 2005 to 2007, he hosted a show on TV Land called "Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg."
The meeting takes place at Town Hall, in the center of Manhattan.
"The city is definitely in the comedy DNA of all of Larry's work," Steinberg said.
He was telling me that, when he's here, sometimes he'll walk down an alley between two buildings and think to himself, Hey, if I lose all my money, maybe I'll live here.
Iran satisfied with the nuclear negotiations process
Iran has expressed satisfaction with the negotiation process, one week before the next nuclear meeting with the five UN veto powers and Germany.
"After many years, we have now reached an agreement with the International Nuclear Energy Authorities to clear up the differences from past years," wrote Foreign Minister Mohammed Dschawad Sarif on his Facebook page.
It will without doubt be a long path, but the chief nuclear negotiator is satisfied with the negotiation process and is also optimistic that both sides will come to a solution in the end.
Drama in Uruguay: Boys kill playmate with machetes
Two children have confessed to the murder of an 11-year-old in Uruguay.
The two boys, aged 14 and 12, had invited their victim to go bird hunting with them.
On Tuesday, armed with machetes and knives, they stabbed the 11-year-old to death and threw the body into a well, reported the "El País" newspaper on Thursday.
They then went and played football in front of their homes in a working class district.
The body was found the following night in the village of Cerro Pelado, 15 kilometres to the north of the exclusive beach resort of Punta del Este.
A five year-old half-sister of the younger offender, who they took with them, was to make a statement as an alibi, stating that she was sexually assaulted by the boy.
However, when the girl described the progression of events to the police without mentioning an attack against herself, the two boys confessed to the pre-meditated murder of the 11-year-old.
The older of the pair cited a rivalry on the football field as the motive.
He was provisionally taken to a psychiatric young offenders institute.
Pimp must go to prison
The District Court of Constance has condemned a 33-year-old man from St. Georgen to three and a half years in prison for exploitative human trafficking, pimping, issuing threats and grievous bodily harm.
The former German soldier who, following two tours in Afghanistan, had worked as a doorman, made a confession within the context of a plea-bargaining procedure.
According to the confession, on five occasions he got to know women via Internet or telephone contacts, who he then sent out onto the streets against their will after a few weeks.
He broke any resistance by means of violence and the issuing of threats.
He kept the income from women, some of whom worked for him for years.
He prevented the women from making contact with the outside world by confiscating their mobile phones and SIM cards.
Together with an accomplice, who procured the women, he brought them to various brothels in the south-west.
There he had them monitored to some extent, in order to control their income.
Appearing before the court, the accused initially claimed that he was suffering from severe trauma after colleagues serving alongside him in Afghanistan had lost their lives in an explosion.
Once a psychiatric expert had cast considerable doubt on him suffering from any psychiatric condition, and thus on his limited culpability, the 33-year-old made a full confession.
The court did not have to question any more of the female victims.
As an official from the Criminal Investigation Department reported, following the first conviction achieved using telephone surveillance measures, at least four further cases of exploitative human trafficking could be identified.
The intercepted conversations were characterised by a high level of aggression.
In subsequent hearings, the victims confirmed their ordeal.
A further witness, whereby one of the woman had suffered blue bruises all over her body, is yet to make a statement.
This is a case of a "completely broken personality", that views the violence and exploitation in this field as normal.
Yesterday the accused expressed regret for his behaviour.
"I have removed myself from these circles and hope to lead a completely normal life following my imprisonment," he stated.
Oil extends drop toward $96 a barrel
The price of oil continued to fall on Friday as concerns over high supplies offset a report showing China's power-hungry manufacturing sector is strengthening.
Benchmark U.S. crude for December delivery was down 14 cents at $96.24 a barrel by late morning in Europe in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The contract fell 39 cents on Thursday, leaving it down 5.8 percent for the month of October.
Ample supplies of crude have weighed on the price in recent weeks.
The Energy Department said Wednesday that U.S. supplies increased 4.1 million barrels last week.
Over five weeks, supplies have risen by more than 25 million barrels.
But a suggestion of stronger demand came Friday from two reports on Chinese manufacturing that showed an uptick in activity.
That suggests China's economic recovery could continue to strengthen after growth rebounded to 7.8 percent in the third quarter from a two-decade low in the previous quarter.
Brent crude, a benchmark for international crude also used by U.S. refineries, fell 26 cents to $108.58 a barrel on the ICE exchange in London.
Court blocks ruling on NYPD stop-and-frisk policy
A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked a judge's order requiring changes to the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk program and removed the judge from the case.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the decisions of Judge Shira Scheindlin will be stayed pending the outcome of an appeal by the city.
The judge had ruled in August the city violated the Constitution in the way it carried out its program of stopping and questioning people.
The city appealed her findings and her remedial orders, including a decision to assign a monitor to help the police department changes its policy and training program associated with it.
The appeals court heard arguments Tuesday on the requested stay.
The appeals court said the judge needed to be removed from the case because she ran afoul of the code of conduct for U.S. judges by compromising the necessity for a judge to avoid the appearance of partiality in part because of a series of media interviews and public statements responding publicly to criticism of the court.
The judge had ruled that police officers violated the civil rights of tens of thousands of people by wrongly targeting black and Hispanic men with its stop-and-frisk program.
She appointed an outside monitor to oversee major changes, including reforms in policies, training and supervision, and she ordered a pilot program to test body-worn cameras in some precincts where most stops occur.
In August, New York City agreed to end the practice of storing the names and addresses of people whose cases are dismissed after a police stop.
An oral argument on the city's appeal is scheduled for sometime after March 14, 2014.
The stop-and-frisk tactic has been criticized by a number of civil rights advocates.
Stop-and-frisk has been around for decades in some form, but recorded stops increased dramatically under the administration of independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg to an all-time high in 2011 of 684,330, mostly of black and Hispanic men.
A lawsuit was filed in 2004 by four men, all minorities, and became a class action case.
Supporters of changes to the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program say the changes will end unfair practices, will mold a more trusted and effective police force and can affect how other police departments use the policy.
Opponents say the changes would lower police morale but not crime, waste money and not solve a broader problem of a police force under pressure after shrinking by thousands of officers during the last decade.
The judge noted she wasn't putting an end to the stop-and-frisk practice, which is constitutional, but was reforming the way the NYPD implemented its stops.
On the happiness of dreaming camels
Happiness is an oasis that only dreaming camels manage to reach
It was with this piece of Bedouin wisdom that the first ever chairman Wolfgang Henne described the history and fascination behind the "Helping Hands" society.
Saturday evening saw the celebration of the tenth birthday of the organisation, which can already look back on impressive results.
Founding Chairman Henne reported in depth on the work of the organisation.
In 2004, he visited the Cheijk-Zajed Hospital in Nouakchott in Mauritania for the first time.
As a result, an important collaboration was developed and the gynaecologist, Hanne, has performed countless operations on several journeys to the location.
During the speech, images from the trips were shown on a large screen, in order to give the guests at the anniversary event an insight into the initiatives mentioned.
The organisation's desert vehicle was also shown.
It is a former federal border protection vehicle.
Rainer Prewo, the former Lord Mayor of Nagold, made the suggestion of equipping this vehicle with a photovoltaic system and, according to Henne, he is now planning to assume an advisory role within the organisation.
In 2008, the Schleeh carpentry company from Baiersbronn built the hospital station in Socogim, a poor district on the edge of the Capital, in the record time of less than one week - free of charge.
Henne also mentioned a new mother and child hospital in Nouakchott
This is particularly interesting at a time when Nagold is set to do away with its maternity clinic.
You learn a great deal working as a doctor in Africa, said Henne, for example that you should slow down to avoid burn-out.
Due to the political unrest in the country, it has not been possible to make as many journeys as planned, but for this reason, many local doctors have come to Germany, to sit in on lectures on a variety of topics.
In addition, containers with materials are regularly sent to Africa, for example in March of this year when medical devices, medicines, bandaging material, hospital beds and spectacles were sent.
Co-initiator Hans-Joachim Fuchtel himself provided plenty of local colour, telling of Mercedes vehicles in Mauritania converted into mobile goat stalls and sharing the experiences of the Stammheim musicians, who traditionally support the organisation on their trips to Mauritania.
He identified his personal motivation as being his work in the area of auditing as a young member of parliament.
When it became clear to him how much money is wasted, he decided to help the Africans with controlling of their budget by the people.
Fuchtel also emphasised that a global economy requires global human kindness.
The fact that Africa lies closer than many think should by no means be forgotten.
Africa is not at all that far from Gran Canaria.
Coulson used phone hacking to verify tip
Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson allegedly used "phone hacking, surveillance and confrontation" in an attempt to confirm a bogus tip about an affair involving then-home secretary Charles Clarke.
Prosecutor Andrew Edis QC told the Old Bailey that the News of the World heard a false rumour in May 2005 that Clarke was seeing his "attractive special adviser," Hannah Pawlby.
The newspaper tasked private investigator Glenn Mulcaire with hacking Pawlby's voicemails and "door-stepped" her, but Coulson also called and left her voicemails, the court heard.
"The prosecution suggests that Mr Coulson, who is now the editor of the NotW, he is not the man who stands outside people's houses hoping to catch them out, he is the man who likes to put the story to people to see what they will say," Mr Edis said.
He said the NotW used three ways to investigate stories: phone hacking, surveillance, and confrontation.
The editor is personally involved in the third.
Obviously he knows about the second, surveillance, he must do.
What about the first?
Does he know about phone hacking?
He says he doesn't, we say "Oh yes, he did".
Rumours about an affair involving Clarke were first picked up by the NotW's features desk when a source who was sexually interested in Ms Pawlby was told: "Don't bother wasting your time, she's with Charles."
A tape of voicemails taken from her phone on at least three occasions was seized from Mulcaire's home in August 2006.
Investigators also found entries on the private investigator's computer which had Ms Pawlby and her sister as "Projects."
During the period she was being investigated, Ms Pawlby's grandparents received anonymous calls asking for information about her, Mr Edis said.
Meanwhile, former chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck and former reporter James Weatherup oversaw surveillance of Ms Pawlby's movements.
Leaving her a voicemail on June 18 2005, Coulson told her: "I've got a story that we're planning to run tomorrow that I really would like to speak to Charles about."
Mr Edis said Coulson's involvement in the story followed the same pattern as with other important men, such as former home secretary David Blunkett.
The jury heard on Thursday that Coulson confronted Mr Blunkett over an affair with a married woman while he was himself seeing co-defendant Rebekah Brooks, who was married at the time.
Coulson and Brooks deny conspiring with others to hack phones between October 3 2000 and August 9 2006.
Mulcaire, Thurlbeck and Weatherup have admitted phone hacking.
In protest against the planned tax on the rich, the French Football Association is set to actually go through with the first strike since 1972.
A mediation meeting comes to an end without resolution.
In the conflict regarding the tax on the wealthy, the government and the professional football association in France have manoeuvred into a cul-de-sac following a failed mediation meeting.
President François Hollande welcomed club and association representatives to Paris' Élysée Palace on Thursday, where he listened to their complaints.
However, he refused to spare the football association from the planned 75% income tax to be imposed on those earning in excess of one million €per year, which every company in the country will have to pay for two years, from 2014.
The opposition also remained adamant.
The strike announced for the end of November will now go ahead, informed the head of the Union of Professional Football Clubs (UCPF), Jean-Pierre Louvel.
The Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 match days scheduled between 29 November and 2 December will thus be cancelled.
Gechingen: Absolute protection not possible
"We want to involve the residents in the planning at as early a stage as possible," said Mayor Jens Häußler, opening the citizen's information event regarding the flood protection concept in Gechingen.
Around 80 participants came to the Gemeindehalle (community hall) to have the planned measures explained to them, to express their concerns and submit ideas.
Häußler made clear: "The final decisions will be made by the members of the Town Council".
Häußler commented that the flood that found Gechingen unprepared on 15 May 2009, was a decisive event in raising the question of protective measures for the future.
A river basin study was commissioned in collaboration with the neighbouring community of Aidlingen, which now forms the basis for the flood protection concept in Gechingen.
"The goal is the protection of as many developed plots of land as possible," said Häußler.
The basis for the plans is the need for protection against expected floods, which statistically occurs every 100 years, according to the German Weather Service.
Climate change is taken into account in the form of an allowance of 15 per cent.
In expert circles this is referred to as "HQ 100aKlima".
The masses of water that caused considerable damage in Gechingen in 2009 was equivalent to a 1,000-year flood.
"There is no such thing as absolute protection, but we can attempt to make a relative improvement," said Häußler.
In order to achieve HQ 100aKlima protection, around four million €must be invested in Gechingen, whereby the town can count on a State subsidy of around 70 per cent.
However, Häußler indicated that the funding would only be provided if an overall concept is developed.
In order to develop such a concept, the town is reliant on the cooperation of its citizens.
A complex planning and approval procedure must be completed.
In a best case scenario, implementation could begin in 2016.
Among other measures, the protection concept, which (we reported) has already been presented to the Town Council during the past week, plans local measures in the tributary to the River Irm, running from the Stammheim Valley.
In conjunction with the presentation of the flood protection concept, the participants made use of the opportunity to submit their concerns.
Among others, the question was raised as to why embankments and detention reservoirs are no longer planned to protect the location.
Gregor Kühn, technical planner at the commissioned engineering company, Hügelsheim-based 'Wald und Corbe', who presented the concept, emphasised that it required the interplay of all proposed measures, in order that their sum might achieve the desired goal.
Furthermore, the most economic solution must be found, said Joachim Wald of Wald und Corbe.
There was resentment among local residents of the old town, who have repeatedly to suffer as a result of the overflowing of the canal network, even during normal thunderstorms.
The problem is known to the administrative department and initial measures have already been taken.
However, Häußler indicated that the guidelines for canal systems are different to those for flood protection, and these must not be confused.
The town is obliged to design the canal network in such a way that it can withstand rainfall events every two to three years.
To make the sewerage channels wider would gobble up millions.
Persons seriously injured following collision
Early on Friday afternoon, two car drivers were seriously injured in a head-on collision on Landesstraße 44 (a rural road).
The police completely blocked off the road immediately, but initially could not make much comment on the cause of the accident.
However, they did mention that there were various witness statements that first had to be assessed.
What is certain is that the 19-year-old female driver of a VW Golf was driving in the direction of Revensdorf and the 38-year-old man from Gettorf came towards her in his Hyundai.
The two vehicles collided, whereby the woman was so severely stuck that it took the fire service almost half an hour to free her from the vehicle wreckage.
Initially the actual cause of the accident remained unclear.
Both unfortunate parties were taken to nearby hospitals.
The road remained fully blocked off for around two hours.
You could call him the Dostoevsky of the USA.
Philip K. Dick was a God seeker, a metaphysician, and to a certain extent his novels and stories also feature recurring themes.
The external likeness is astounding: the piercing eyes, the beard, the high forehead.
And so, as Fyodor M. Dostoevsky - with his massive oeuvre - is considered the revealer and apologist of the Russian soul, Philip K. Dick is considered an American prophet, who is certainly highly esteemed within his own native country.
Some titles have been released by the Heyne Verlag publishing house,the 'Haffman's cassette' featuring 118 stories was distributed by Zweitaudenseins.
Dick illustrates America - the kingdom of breathtaking technical progress, paired with paranoia, a fixation on security and the belief of having been chosen.
Dick had 'God experiences', and his later books read like a mixture of the Book of Revelation and a computer manual.
Perhaps he was crazy, or perhaps drugs had affected his brain.
He realised, early on, that computers are divinities.
He wrote a 'Theology of the Computer' and questioned what separates humans from the machine, the creator from the creation.
That is the "Blade Runner" problem.
Killing.
A master of science fiction.
A fantastic writer.
His stories have inspired film producers such as Ridley Scott, Paul Verhoeven and Steven Spielberg.
The latter story is now particularly significant.
"Minority Report" originates from the year 1956, and exudes the scent of the Cold War and the McCarthy Tribunal.
Here the principle of the "Pre-Crime" is developed, i.e. something that is now more or less official doctrine within the White House.
In Dick's world, which is alarmingly similar to our own, mutants look into the future - and the police have access to this insight.
"We arrest individuals who've broken no law," says the government official.
"We get to them first, before they can commit an act of violence".
And: "In our society we have no major crimes, but we do have a detention camp full of would-be criminals". They read time streams.
They assume that bad things are going to happen and prevent the criminal thought turning into action.
Dick's tale acts as a blueprint for the anti-terror laws and the phone tapping madness of the NSA.
Anticipation of attack: This is also how Obama's drone philosophy and practices work.
However, Dick's story is not yet finished.
The Police Chief argues that there is no more division of power, the military controls daily life - and what is left of the State.
Then the watcher is himself being watched and is convicted of a future crime.
The system slips up.
It is perfect, but it lies.
It devises its own conditions.
It not only accepts errors and victims, but builds itself on them.
The system creates the threat that it is fighting against.
To read Philip K. Dick means to get closer to the truth, time and time again.
Issuing statements regarding the Merkel spying scandal from Russia
The former US intelligence expert, Edward Snowden, may make further statements regarding the US espionage scandal involving Federal Chancellor, Angela Merkel, from his Russian asylum.
Representatives of the German Federal Prosecutor's Office could either submit questions in writing or meet the 30-year-old in person in Russia, reported the Interfax Agency.
Green Party parliament representative, Hans-Christian Ströbele, was yesterday the first German politician to meet with Snowden in Moscow, to discuss the scandal with him.
NSA revelations boost corporate paranoia about state surveillance
On a mild day in late August a German police helicopter buzzed low over the US consulate in Frankfurt, the financial capital of Germany.
On the instruction of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany's domestic intelligence agency, its mission was to photograph the rooftop of the US outpost, which is located less than 5km from the European Central Bank and Bundesbank.
German media say the BfV hoped to identify the presence of listening antennas and the action prompted an exchange between the US and the German foreign ministry in Berlin.
James Clapper, US Director of National Intelligence, insisted again in September that the US does not use foreign intelligence capabilities "to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of US companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line."
But ever since Edward Snowden, the contractor turned whistleblower, began releasing his treasure trove of US surveillance secrets, European governments and business leaders are no longer sure whether to take the director at his word.
Reports that the US National Security Agency spied on Brazilian oil company Petrobras and gained access to data held by US cloud providers including Google and Yahoo have ratcheted corporate paranoia about state surveillance to new highs.
The final straw came when it was revealed that Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone had been bugged, possibly for about a decade.
If Europe's most powerful person can be targeted, then surely business leaders are also potential targets.
Snowden has made transparent the intensive collaboration between US intelligence services and companies.
I think it's conceivable that these data are used for mutual benefit.
"Germany must wake up," says Oliver Grün, president of BITMi, which represents small and medium sized German IT companies.
German companies believe the US now poses almost as big a risk as China when it comes to industrial espionage and data theft, according to a survey published in July by EY, the consultancy.
In all the documentation leaked by Mr Snowden, there has, however, been no evidence to date that the US has passed on foreign companies' trade secrets to its own companies.
Politicians have expressed concern that the EU lacks certain IT and internet capabilities and should strive to reduce its dependence on the US.
Business leaders are sceptical about this.
Someone in the German parliament says we should build a German Google.
I can only shut my eyes and slowly open them again...
"That's not the way," Hasso Plattner, chairman of German business software company SAP, says.
If one wanted a strong European IT industry, then one shouldn't have let it die out 20 years ago.
Everything is subsidised in Germany, from coal, to cars and farmers.
Everything but the IT industry.
Still, the reach and technical sophistication of US spy agencies exposed by the Snowden revelations have come as a shock to some companies who previously thought the biggest surveillance risk was posed by China.
A big shift is occurring in cloud computing where European executives have become more aware that data stored in the US is subject to that jurisdiction and therefore potentially vulnerable.
According to a survey carried out by the Cloud Security Alliance, a trade body, some 10 per cent of non-US members cancelled plans to use a US-based cloud provider after revelations about the US Prism data mining programme.
Jim Snabe, co-chief executive at SAP, says: "We see a new question from customers that didn't come up a year ago - which is where is my data stored and can you guarantee that it stays physically in that jurisdiction."
Many German executives argue that the latest reports are simply confirmation of what they already knew: that powerful states want to steal their most prized secrets and these data must therefore be guarded at all costs.
That economic spying takes place is not a surprise.
It has always taken place.
"This has been a topic for many years and hasn't fundamentally changed through the current discussion," says Kurt Bock, chief executive of chemical maker BASF.
The Americans spy on us on the commercial and industrial level as we spy on them too, because it is in the national interest to defend our businesses.
Corporate leaders are not generally keen to boast about the countermeasures they have taken, in case this hands an advantage to an attacker.
For large companies, the message has long since been drummed home that picking up a free USB stick at a trade fair, or leaving a laptop unguarded in a hotel room are unwise, to say the least.
Ulrich Hackenberg, board member at carmaker Audi, says it has been standard practice for years for mobile phones to be collected before board meetings so they cannot be used as remote listening devices.
Germany's BfV advises executives to consider using simple prepaid mobiles when on foreign trips because of the risk that smart phones are compromised.
The prepaid mobiles are then thrown away afterwards.
However, there is concern that small and medium-sized companies remain vulnerable to hacking and surveillance.
In Germany, many of these companies are global market leaders in their particular niche.
"Small and medium sized companies often lack the experience, personnel and financial resources to protect corporate secrets effectively against unauthorised access," the BfV warns in a report.
The US warns its own companies about economic espionage by other countries.
The US National Intelligence Estimate in February named France alongside Russia and Israel in a second tier of offenders who engage in hacking for economic intelligence, behind China, according to The Washington Post.
A board member at a German blue-chip company concurred that when it comes to economic espionage, "the French are the worst."
Bernard Squarcini, former head of the French internal intelligence agency DCRI, was quoted in an interview this month as saying: "The services know perfectly well that all countries, even as they co-operate in the antiterrorist fight, spy on their allies."
Hechingen: Trade fair provides the answers to wedding questions
"Marriage is and remains the most important journey of discovery a person can undertake," said the philosopher Sören Kierkegaard.
Tips, at least as to how the wedding celebration can be a success, have now been given at a special trade fair in the Domäne in Hechingen.
Important suppliers of all wedding-related products and services were represented.
A trend: The retro look is back once again.
This begins with the wedding clothing.
White is a must, best muted or in cream.
At the front, dresses with numerous ruffles and embroidery are in, often with a veil, while to the rear they run down the back and often end in a train.
However, opinions differ, as Stefanie Koch from the Modehaus Kleidermüller emphasised.
For men, suits with a waistcoat and neckerchief are most popular, although some people do choose cream or brown combinations.
Selecting the venue is important, it was explained.
Plain adjoining rooms are not ideal, the ambience should be special.
In this regard, the Domäne drew attention to their own facilities in the carriage house.
Uwe Link has an offer for anyone who wants to set off in a carriage.
"However, carriages are also popular for hen parties," he commented.
People were also on the lookout for romantic ideas for invitations, flower arrangements and wedding photographs.
The "After-Wedding Photo" is becoming increasingly fashionable - that is, series of pictures taken a few days after the celebration, at special locations, preferably in front of waterfalls or the like, but in full wedding clothing, explained Elisabeth Keidel.
Many other details for a successful wedding were presented in the Domäne on Sunday.
Flower arrangements, rings, wedding tables, cakes and also a magician, such as Marko Ripperger, who can entertain guests with style.
The correct cosmetics and nail care mustn't be forgotten.
Everything you need for an unforgettable celebration.
Dog-lovers victorious
Once again the athletes from the Bitz dog-lovers association were victorious at a Rally Obedience Tournament.
Achim Scherrenbacher started things off in Kandel with two dogs; with his bitch Sandy he achieved 94 points in the Beginners class and thus took fifth place, while with 15-month-old Marley he took twelfth place with 87 points.
With her dog Woody competing in the Class 1 competition, Susi Höpp was subject to the critical scrutiny of the judge.
Parents of Georgia teen who died in 'freak accident' believe son was murdered
The parents of a Georgia teenager, whose body was found inside a rolled-up wrestling mat in his high school gym, believe their son was murdered, the family's attorney said Thursday.
Kendrick Johnson, of Valdosta, Ga., was found Jan. 11 stuck in an upright mat propped behind the bleachers inside his high school gym.
Lowndes County sheriff's investigators concluded Johnson died in a freak accident, but the 17-year-old's family disputes that.
"They absolutely think their son was murdered," Benjamin Crump, an attorney representing Kenneth and Jacquelyn Johnson, told FoxNews.com.
They never believed he died the way the sheriff concluded.
"They believe that it defies logic, the laws of physics as well as common sense," Crump said.
They think this is a cover-up to protect the person or people responsible for their son's death.
"They sent their son to school with a book-bag and he was returned to them in a body bag," he said.
U.S. Attorney Michael Moore said Thursday he is conducting a formal investigation into Johnson's death, noting that several key questions remain unanswered.
What was the cause of death?
Was his death the result of a crime?
Moore said at a press conference Thursday afternoon.
I will follow the facts wherever they lead.
My objective is to discovery the truth.
"I am of the opinion that a sufficient basis exists" for a formal investigation, he said.
Moore told reporters that the initial autopsy indicated Johnson died as a result of "positional asphyxia."
A second autopsy, however, listed a different cause of death, according to Moore.
"There are several questions that must be answered or confirmed," he said.
Moore added that if he uncovers sufficient evidence to warrant a criminal or civil rights investigation into the death of Johnson he will ask the FBI to conduct it.
A representative from the Lowndes County Sheriff's Office was not immediately available for comment when contacted Thursday.
A southern Georgia judge on Wednesday ordered authorities to release all surveillance video that investigators reviewed.
The teenager's parents said they hope the video footage will contain clues to how he died.
CDC issues children's allergy guidelines for schools
On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a set of guidelines to manage children's food allergies at school.
This is the first set of such guidelines the U.S. government has put out, as the number of school-age children suffering from food allergies climbs.
One in 20 children in the United States now have food allergies.
The CDC found the prevalence of food allergies among children increased 18 percent between 1997 and 2007.
The guide contains information for schools on how to make faculty and staff aware of children's food allergies, and how to handle them should an allergic reaction occur.
It also recommends schools have epinephrine stocked -- the EpiPen brand auto-injector being most commonly used -- to respond to potentially fatal anaphylaxis.
State legislatures have recently been updating rules to allow schools to stock epinephrine more easily.
The report also includes a list of typical symptoms communicated by children who are having an allergic reaction.
Kids may say, "It feels like something is poking my tongue," "My tongue feels like there is hair on it," or "My tongue is tingling."
Parents of Intersex Kids Can Pick 'Gender Undetermined'
Germany became the first European nation to recognize a third gender for babies born with ambiguous genitalia.
No longer will newborns be rigidly assigned to male or female.
The new law doesn't require parents to declare any gender for such children, allowing parents to declare gender "undetermined" or "unspecified" on their birth certificates.
The aim of the law was to take the pressure off parents who might make hasty decisions on sex-assignment surgery for newborns, and to fight discrimination against those who are intersex.
One intersex person, according to the BBC, said years later, "I am neither a man nor a woman."
I will remain the patchwork created by doctors, bruised and scarred.
An estimated one in 2,000 children born each year is neither boy nor girl.
They are intersex, part of a group of about 60 conditions that fall under the diagnosis of disorders of sexual development, an umbrella term for those with atypical chromosomes, gonads (ovaries or testes), or unusually developed genitalia.
Wallis Simpson may have been intersex.
Gender identification is still not well understood, but most experts in the United States say that when sex cannot be determined, it's better to use the best available information to assign it then to wait and monitor the child's psychological and physical development before undertaking surgery, if at all.
New York City psychiatrist Dr. Jack Drescher, who specializes in issues of gender identification, said the new German law "sounds like a good thing."
Intersex children pose ethical dilemma.
"Some people have life-endangering conditions that require surgery, but most kids do not," he said.
You can make a gender assignment without surgery, and then see how identity develops.
The science of knowing how a child will develop any gender identity is not very accurate.
Nobody can answer the questions about why this happens.
It's like the mystery of why people are gay.
A report filed to the European Commission in 2011 described intersex people as different from transsexual or transgender people, as their status is not gender related but instead relates to their biological makeup, which is neither exclusively male nor exclusively female, but is typical of both at once or not clearly defined as either.
These features can manifest themselves in secondary sexual characteristics, such as muscle mass, hair distribution, breasts and stature; primary sexual characteristics such as reproductive organs and genitalia; or in chromosomal structures and hormones.
The report also gives an overview of the discrimination faced by intersex and transgender people in the realm of employment, as well as levels of harassment, violence and bias crimes.
Gender nonconforming boys now have special camp.
Already, Australia and Nepal allow adults to mark male, female or a "third gender" on their official documents.
In June, a 52-year-old Australian, Norrie May-Welby, became the world's first recognized "genderless" person after winning a legal appeal to keep an "unspecified" gender status for life.
German passports will have a third designation other than M or F -- X, for intersex, according to the Interior Ministry.
In neighboring France, gender issues are still controversial, according to a news report on France 24.
In 2011, dozens of French lawmakers from that strongly Catholic country signed a petition for "gender theory" to be withdrawn from school textbooks.
The U.S. website Catholic Online has also opposed the German law, writing that "as the world is being dragged into a new state, where gender is a choice, but sexual activity is not, we reverse two more pillars of civilization."
One Maryland mother of a newborn also told the Baby Zone that she would rather see babies assigned gender at birth.
"Parenting is stressful enough without extra limitations, especially if you don't know the gender of your child," she told the parenting website.
Children need stability and certainty.
Historically, children born with both male and female genitalia were called hermaphrodites, named for the handsome Greek god who had dual sexuality.
And as little as a decade ago, the medical community thought of gender as a slate that could be erased and then redrawn.
But now, many are challenging the ethical basis of surgery, knowing that gender identity is complex, and doctors can sometimes get it wrong, not knowing how a child will feel about their gender assignment when they grow up.
"Back in the middle of the 20th century, it was called a 'psychiatric emergency,'" said Drescher.
When these kids were born, you didn't call the psychiatrist, you called a surgeon.
The prevailing theory on how to treat children with ambiguous genitalia was put forward by Dr. John Money at Johns Hopkins University, who held that gender was malleable.
He coined the term "gender identity" and argued that social and environmental cues -- how parents raised a child -- interacted with a child's genes and hormones to shape whether the person identified as male or female.
But in one 1966 case, known as "John/Joan," his theories became controversial.
He advised the parents of a boy whose penis had been severed in a botched circumcision to have the child fully castrated, removing his testicles, as well, and to raise him as a girl.
"Money presented the case as a successful case of transition, but it was not," said Drescher.
When the boy was around 15, he transitioned back to a boy and married a woman.
But at 38, he committed suicide.
Drescher said that now some doctors are still "practicing that model."
But in the 1990s, with the advent of the Internet, survivors of these gender surgeries have come forward "not happy with the outcome."
Such was the case with Jim Bruce, a 36-year-old writer from Montana, who was born with XY male chromosomes but ambiguous genitals.
Doctors couldn't be sure if he had a large clitoris or a small penis and were convinced he could never live a "satisfactory life" as a man.
So shortly after his birth in 1976, Bruce's external organ and testes were surgically removed and he was raised as a girl.
He was given female hormones at age 12.
"I knew that I wasn't a girl," he told ABCNews.com.
I was unhappy, but it was really difficult to ask questions.
At 18, he was set for a vaginoplasty.
But depressed and knowing something was wrong, he demanded medical records.
What he found out was horrifying.
I was sterilized at birth -- and no one ever told me.
Bruce was born with a DSD that prevented his body from producing enough testosterone to properly develop his genitals.
After learning the truth, he changed back to a man, taking testosterone shots and having his breasts removed.
Surgery rendered him infertile.
Today, he advocates for others in an organization called the Interface Project, trying to normalize perceptions of those who are intersex.
But Anne Tamar-Mattis, executive director for California-based legal group Advocates for Informed Choice, worries that the German law "invites labeling and stigma."
"A lot of activists are concerned that what the German rule will do is encourage parents to make quick decisions and give the child an 'undetermined,'" she said.
We are afraid it will encourage intervention.
We think a better process is assigning male or female sex, then waiting.
But we haven't seen how the law will play out, so all we can do is speculate.
Tamar-Mattis said that her organization supports the Australian law because "it allows adults to choose to be recognized in a third gender."
"Adults should be able to make their own decisions about legal gender," she said.
German law is about assigning it at birth.
That is not a battle young children should have to take up at this point.
When they are grown, they can make decisions about their own bodies.
But Dr. Arlene Baratz, a Pittsburgh breast radiologist who has a daughter with a disorder of sexual development and helps hundreds of others in a support group, said the German law will "empower" both parents and children.
Baratz's daughter Katie was born with male chromosomes, but has a DSD called complete androgen insensitivity syndrome.
Because her androgen receptors are faulty, Katie developed female characteristics.
She has a vagina, but no uterus or ovaries.
Now at 29, Katie is married and at the University of Pennsylvania, a resident in child psychiatry.
Though she is infertile, she hopes to become a parent through adoption or gestational surrogacy.
"The law gives parents some space not to have to rush into making decisions themselves," said Baratz.
It gives them the time to do some tests and figure it out and a period of time before they write 'male' or 'female.'
This way, you are OK -- raise the child, love the child.
You have a wonderful baby and enjoy the fun.
We don't have to rush into surgery that is irreversible.
"It brings the children into the decision and takes away the anxiety that motivates parents because they don't feel they are doing the right thing," she said.
Ultimately, the child will decide which sex he or she feels more comfortable with -- and that's a wonderful thing.
It empowers children to make the decision for themselves.
Unknown attackers injure girl with shots fired from car
Unknown attackers have injured a twelve-year-old girl in Saxony-Anhalt when firing shots from a car.
The assailants fired on a group of children on Thursday evening in Genthin, presumably with an air gun.
This was announced by the police in Burg.
The girl suffered minor injury to her left calf.
Rescue workers took the girl to the hospital.
The shots came from a small car, which drove past a group of six children and suddenly stopped.
Witnesses saw two people sitting in the car.
The assailants also fired shots at a bus stop.
A pane of glass was shattered.
They then drove away.
The Criminal Investigation Department is investigating the matter, it was stated on Friday.
Thus far, the Kempten Police Department can look back on a calm Halloween night.
The authorities were only called out twice to deal with children throwing eggs against houses.
Because the home owners realised this immediately, the egg remnants could be cleaned off at once, meaning that no material damage occurred.
Furthermore, in the town centre area, while a few fireworks were set off, no material damage was caused here either.
The residents of the Bischof-Freundorfer-Weg reported that a car was wrapped in toilet paper and its wheel trims stolen.
However, the man found all his wheel trims nearby prior to the police arriving, on account of which no further police involvement was required.
Living with a future-oriented perspective
If truth be told, Waltraud Ries, lives a dreamy life.
Her house is located in a peaceful neighbourhood in Stuttgart, with plenty of greenery, an old tree population, nice neighbours and not too much traffic.
She is only a few minutes from the city centre using public transport.
"Hopefully you aren't afraid of spiders?" asks Waltraud Ries, pointing out a large spider on the door frame.
I have been looking for a new home for my husband and myself for some time now.
But you know how difficult that is in Stuttgart.
However, the reason for the desire to move is not arachnophobia, but rather the fear of not being able to manage the large number of steps up to their house, and inside their home in their old age, she explained.
Furthermore: Since undergoing a meniscus operation, the lady, in her mid-fifties, has had to experience for herself what it means to move from floor to floor with a disability.
Only recently, she released a book on the subject of "Living happily in old age - Which type of property is the best for me?".
"Our home is the best example of a property that simply doesn't work in old age," she begins to recount.
When she moved to the maisonette with her husband 20 years ago, it was simply just a pretty apartment in green surroundings.
Now, in her mid-fifties, Waltraud Ries has different thoughts about it.
However, she is aware that she is one of the few people to actually deal with the topic of 'living in old age'.
The majority of people put it to the back of their minds for as long as possible.
Only other people get old, she says, smirking.
Only when the psychological strain becomes severe do people give it consideration.
"But at this stage it can be too late," said Ries.
In her book, the interior decorator presents 17 housing models for independent living in old age.
"However, which type of residence you choose is always a personal decision," she explains.
There is no solution to overcoming old age.
Even if you can afford to spend your retirement in Tuscany or Brittany, you should always take the fact that you may become ill into consideration.
And: 'Without a sound knowledge of the local language, you can even become lonely when living the dolce vita,' added the author, providing food for thought for those seeking to move abroad.
Her models include classic care models, alternative living arrangements and the often-mentioned pensioners' living community.
In old age everyone has their quirks and ticks.
'However, this type of residential community would not be for me,' she commented with a wink.
Definitely nothing like student accommodation with a shared bathroom and kitchen.
'In old age you simply need your own space to withdraw to,' said Ries.
However, the author does not wish to rule out the possibility that a pensioners' residential community can work.
However, it must operate differently to the classic student digs.
And sometimes you also just want your peace and quiet,' she believes.
With this opinion she is at least not alone in the State Capital.
The experience of Theresa Rütten, head of the citizen's Life in Old Age service in the State Capital, is also that 'the majority of old people in Stuttgart want to remain in their own homes for as long as possible'.
Her agency agency advises people on the topic of 'growing old'.
Therefore the experience of the Stiftung Warentest consumer study is also that elderly people in particular would accept inconveniences and limitations just to be able to remain in their usual environment.
Nowadays there are many possibilities for designing the house or apartment in such a way as to be barrier-free.
Ries recommends that all those working on the age-appropriate renovation of their house or apartment first seek out in-depth information and don't simply use the first tradesman that comes along.
Nowadays there are specialists in renovation to suit the needs of the elderly.
Even in the case of rental apartments some landlords can have this work carried out, even if it is just a matter of raising the level of the toilet seat, clarified the interior designer.
However, it is not always the case that your existing apartment can be made age-appropriate and therefore barrier-free, even if it is as beautiful as ever.
Waltraud Ries had to go through this experience herself.
You could of course install a stair lift inside the apartment, but the cobbled path up to the door of the apartment, featuring a number of steps would be a much greater hindrance.
She will keep looking until she has found the ideal property for herself and her husband.
She is more afraid of the move than of the spider on her front door.
The USA still want to prosecute Snowden
The USA have not changed their position regarding the former US Secret Service employee Edward Snowden.
He is still accused of passing on secret information without authorisation.
He must therefore face criminal proceedings in the USA, said the spokesperson for the US Foreign Office, Jennifer Psaki, in Washington.
Even the most recent statements from Snowden will not change this fact.
Following a recent meeting with Snowden in Moscow, German Green Party politician Hans-Christian Ströbele appealed to the USA not to continue to threaten him with prosecution.
Psaki emphasised that Ströbele's comments were the views of a parliamentarian, and not those of a German government member.
Secret Service whistleblower, Edward Snowden is, in principle, willing to hold a discussion with the German authorities.
However, he first wishes for his situation to be clarified.
This was made clear by the former NSA employee, currently sought by the USA, in an open letter that Green Party politician Hans-Christian Ströbele made public on Friday following a meeting with Snowden, and passed on to the Federal Government, the Federal Parliament and the Federal Public Prosecutor General.
The letter was purported to have been worded as follows:
To whom it may concern,
I have been invited to write to you regarding your investigation of mass surveillance.
I am Edward Joseph Snowden, formerly employed through contracts or direct hire as a technical expert for the United States National Security Agency, and Defense Intelligence Agency.
In the course of my service to these organizations, I believe I witnessed systemic violations of law by my government that created a moral duty to act.
As a result of reporting these concerns, I have faced a severe and sustained campaign of persecution that forced me from my family and home.
I am currently living in exile under a grant of temporary asylum in the Russian Federation in accordance with international law.
I am heartened by the response to my act of political expression, in both the United States and beyond.
Citizens around the world as well as high officials - including in the United States - have judged the revelation of an unaccountable system of pervasive surveillance to be a public service.
These spying revelations have resulted in the proposal of many new laws and policies to address formerly concealed abuses of the public trust.
The benefits to society of this growing knowledge are becoming increasingly clear at the same time that claimed risks are being shown to have been mitigated.
Though the outcome of my efforts has been demonstrably positive, my government continues to treat dissent as defection, and seeks to criminalize political speech with felony charges that provide no defence.
However, speaking the truth is not a crime.
I am confident that with the support of the international community, the government of the United States will abandon this harmful behaviour.
I hope that when the difficulties of this humanitarian situation have been resolved, I will be able to cooperate in the responsible finding of facts regarding reports in the media, particularly with regard to the truth and authenticity of documents, as appropriate and in accordance with the law.
I look forward to speaking with you in your country when the situation is resolved, and thank you for your efforts in upholding the international laws that protect us all.
Edward Snowden, as witnessed by Hans-Christian Ströbele
A kindergarten has found a private buyer
"The building is in good hands," said Winterlingen's Mayor Michael Maier.
The local authorities have sold the former Kindergarten on Gartenstraße to a private buyer.
The Town Council consented to the sale in its most recent meeting, during the part of the meeting that was not open to the public.
The building changed hands for an "appropriate" price.
"The local authorities are satisfied," emphasised Maier.
EUR 100,000 have been added to the local budget.
It is not yet clear how the new owner will use the former Kindergarten.
The Mayor considers it the right decision that Winterlingen has handed over responsibility for the building to someone else before the winter, and thus will no longer have to pay for the upkeep of the building, such as heating it, tending to the garden and clearing the pavement.
"This expense has now been offloaded," Maier was glad to say.
Open-air concert accompanied by high summer temperatures.
The Hammereisenbach Music Society gave an open-air concert on the terrace of the Hammer Guest House.
When conductor, Bianca Willmann, raised the baton at 7:30 p.m., the thermometer was still reading 25 degrees.
Around 50 listeners enjoyed the sounds of the Hammrich musicians.
Chairperson, Manuela Honeck, provided explanation to accompany the pieces.
In so doing, Honeck thanked all those who had helped successfully manage the first Musikerhock.
Report: Obama campaign considered dumping Biden for Hillary Clinton
President Barack Obama's closest advisers secretly considered replacing Vice President Joe Biden with Hillary Clinton on the 2012 ticket, according to the New York Times.
The revelation is the most notable bombshell from Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's heavily anticipated 2012 campaign tome, "Double Down: Game Change 2012."
The Times obtained a copy of the forthcoming book and reported Thursday evening that the President's top aides conducted "extensive group-sessions and polling in late 2011" to gauge whether the dumping Biden could help bolster Obama's waning re-election hopes.
According to the Times' national political correspondent Jonathan Martin, the book provides a thorough account of the effort by senior officials inside the campaign and the White House, namely former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, to measure what effect swapping former Secretary of State Clinton for the Vice President would have in the polls.
The potential switch was a closely guarded secret within the Chicago campaign infrastructure and inside the Oval Office.
Only half a dozen of the President's closest advisers -- including Daley, former Obama campaign chief Jim Messina, and former White House senior advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe -- knew the change was under consideration.
"Double Down" claims Daley spearheaded the effort to replace Biden, despite their "close personal rapport," before ultimately deciding against the move when their data showed adding Clinton to the ticket wouldn't "materially improve Obama's odds."
In an interview with Martin, Daley confirmed that the administration did in fact consider replacing Biden with Clinton.
"I was vocal about looking into a whole bunch of things, and this was one of them," Daley told the paper.
You have to remember, at that point the President was in awful shape, so we were like, "Holy Christ, what do we do?"
While Daley characterized the research as "due diligence," Martin told CNN's Anderson Cooper that the re-election campaign made a significant investment in finding out whether the move would pay dividends at the polls.
"Campaigns don't spend the kind of money on polling and focus groups unless they're seriously considering something," Martin said on AC360.
It's unclear, however, whether Obama knew his team was exploring the swap.
Martin told CNN that he asked Daley whether his then-boss knew about the potential shuffle.
While Daley said he doesn't think the President "was aware" of the potential change, the former chief of staff admitted that it's "possible" Obama knew.
Martin added that "Double Down" does not definitively answer whether the political probing reached Obama's desk.
Cooper asked Martin whether he seriously thought Obama did not know about the research into dumping Biden from the ticket.
"Possibly," Martin replied.
What happens with my e-mail when in transit?
E-mail is short for electronic mail.
Are there technical measures to maintain privacy of correspondence, similar to that of the traditional postal service, implemented into the design of this Internet-based service?
When designing the early Internet services, the focus lay on making communication possible.
Thus, when developing the underlying technical protocols, no attention was given to creating a stable foundation for the interception-proof exchange of mail.
For this reason, a traditional email is more like an open postcard than a sealed letter.
When user "Anna" sends an email to "Benni", are the pair's computers then directly connected?
Anna's email program or browser first sends the mail to her service provider's mail server.
If she has a Gmail account, for example, this would be Google.
This mail server sends the content to the provider that Benni uses.
En route, the mail can pass through any number of other servers on the Internet.
Benni can then call up the content from his provider.
Are traditional e-mails read by third parties on their journey through the net?
The majority of e-mails are read several times by software robots en route to the recipient.
Checks are generally carried out by the sender's provider as to whether the mail contains malware as an attachment.
A virus check is also carried out on the recipient systems.
In addition, the providers check whether it is nuisance or unwanted spam mail, which are deleted immediately or at least sorted into a spam folder.
Do the robots have other tasks?
In the case of systems such as Gmail, the robots also identify the information that Google requires for displaying context-based advertising.
If Anna and Benni communicate about their upcoming holiday travels via Gmail, Google can display corresponding links to holiday offers.
Do unknown individuals also read the e-mails?
The probability of unauthorised persons reading a mail is extremely low.
However, theoretically, it is possible.
Within companies, administrators are often able to read electronic mail that is sent.
Law enforcement authorities and Secret Services also have legal authorisation to intercept or take note of e-mails.
This may include potential illegal spying activities.
Is it possible to protect e-mails against being read?
With an encryption using the OpenPGP standard, an e-mail can be effectively protected against being read.
With great technical effort, it is also possible to conceal the metadata of email communication so that it is not even possible to tell who is communicating with whom.
How important are Yahoo and Google within the e-mail market in Germany?
According to a study conducted by Convios Consulting in August 2013, among the main mail services in private use, Yahoo and Google play only a minor role.
While the number of Yahoo Mail accounts has fallen recently, Google's Gmail managed to grow considerably.
Mother buried in shallow forest grave and pension stolen
When his elderly mother died, a man from Wolfsburg devised a plan.
He buried the deceased in a forest - and continued to collect her pension and care allowance.
According to police investigations, a 67-year-old Wolfsburg resident buried his dead mother in the woods in order that he might continue to collect her pension and care allowance.
He first covered up the death of the 89-year-old and then pocketed the money for more than a year and a half.
The 67-year-old must now face charges of fraud, said a spokesperson on Friday.
According to the statement, the man hid the woman in a forest near Helmstedt.
The man was already under suspicion back in May: At that time the fact that medications for his care-reliant mother were no longer required drew suspicion.
The pensioner told investigators that his mother had travelled to Spain.
The officials found this strange and so continued to investigate.
It was discovered that the mother and son had lived in the same residence for more than 15 years and that he had cared for her in her final days.
The 67-year-old finally acknowledged the death of his mother.
According to police, an autopsy showed no evidence of any capital offence.
Fancy a glow-in-the-dark ice cream?
A British entrepreneur has created the world's first glow-in-the-dark ice cream - using jellyfish.
Charlie Francis has harnessed the fluorescent properties of the marine animal to develop the luminescent snack.
He came up with the idea after reading a research paper on jellyfish and convinced scientists in China to chemically recreate the glowing protein.
The ice cream reacts with the eater's tongue - raising the pH level in the protein and making it glow.
Chris says because the ice cream lights up when it reacts with the heat of the mouth it means the more you lick, the brighter it becomes.
Charlie, founder of the "Lick Me I'm Delicious" ice cream company, said: "It is incredible stuff but still at very early days in terms of production, so £200 gets you about 2g of the stuff."
The protein we are using in the ice cream reacts with your tongue at neutral pH.
So as your mouth warms up the protein it will raise the pH level and the ice cream will glow.
We have been testing it out over the past few months and it seemed perfect to share it over Halloween because it gives that wonderful glow effect.
It is probably the most expensive ice cream I have made because the jellyfish luminescence is four times more expensive than gold.
So each scoop costs me around £140.
It tastes pretty good though.
Charlie's experimental company, based in Bristol, is famed for its unusual flavours including beer, cheese, beef and gold leaf.
But his next creation is set to be even more ambitious.
He said: "I really want to develop an invisible ice cream."
It is inherently impossible because of the refraction caused by the ice crystals which make up the ice cream, but I reckon we will find a way of doing it.
The ice cream harnesses the fluorescent properties of a jellyfish, synthesized by Chinese scientists
After six match days, TSV Morsum are yet to score a single point in the Handball Association League.
And of all possible times, Ingo Ehler's team has a derby match against TSV Daverden tomorrow, which celebrated their first victory last week.
The season begins afresh for us with this match.
"I hope that we finally have our heads clear," commented Ehlers, remaining cautiously optimistic.
For this match he finally has his complete squad available, with the exception of Hendrick Blohme who is out with long-term injury.
Like us, Daverden place emphasis on high tempo play.
For this reason, we must keep our errors to a minimum.
However, the top priority is to improve our cover play, which has recently left much to be desired.
Daverden's coach Thomas Panitz comes across as much more relaxed following his team's first victory of the season against Nordhorn.
The match was of course a indication of what we are capable of.
However, it by no means makes us favourites, as anything can happen in the derby.
Nonetheless, Panitz is now looking to come up with the goods in Morsum and thus start a winning streak.
Jan-Malte Jodat will not be playing.
Thus, A-Youth player Joost Windßuß, who plays an active part for A-Youth League team HC Bremen, will be celebrating his season début.
Anyone who is not fired up for a game like this should stay at home.
Halloween 2013: By the Numbers
When I was little, Halloween was magical.
My sister and I were allowed to eat candy, stay up late and play dress-up for the neighborhood.
Nowadays, I've become more of a scrooge.
I haven't signed up for the past two years to give out candy in my apartment and probably won't this year.
But stats show that I'm a black sheep when it comes to Halloween.
The majority of Americans - 158 million of them in fact - will be celebrating Halloween this year, spending a total of $6.9 billion on candy, costumes and decorations, according to the National Retail Federation.
One thing I do look forward to every Halloween are the trends.
Costumes are expected to account for $1.2 billion dollars out of the $6.9 billion spent, according to the NRF.
This year, sexy inanimate objects are all the rage.
Women don't have to be sexy professionals anymore; they can also be sexy foods like pizza, hamburgers and carrots.
As for men, I expect we will be seeing a lot of zombies, thanks to The Walking Dead and I'll bet the Daft Punk space men will make it into our Instagram feeds this year.
According to Google, the highest searched costumes are zombies, Batman, pirates and witches.
I guess there's nothing wrong with going traditional.
We dressed our dogs up last year and to my amazement we were not alone.
In fact, Americans will spend $330 million on pet costumes this year, according to the NRF.
That's a lot of ironic hotdog dogs.
When it comes to candy, we don't screw around.
Americans will spend $1.9 billion on it this year, according to The Nielsen Company.
That's around 600 million pounds worth of Hershey bars, lollipops, Milk Duds, Twizzlers and Clark Bars.
That's great news for the 41 million trick-or-treaters set to take over our neighborhoods, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
In fact, we will buy and, who are we kidding, consume 90 million pounds of chocolate during Halloween.
The one thing we don't want to consume, candy corn; and yet nearly 35 million pounds of it are sold around Halloween, according to the National Confectioners Association.
That's about 9 billion individual kernels of corn.
It's a mystery I have yet to solve.
Nothing is more quintessentially Halloween than haunted houses.
They have the best names, like "Terror Behind the Walls" (which, by the way is in an actual prison), "Howl-O-Scream" and "The House of Shock."
In fact, there are 1,200 officially sanctioned haunted houses in the United States generating about $500 million in revenue, according to America Haunts, and that includes those awesome photos of you mid-peeing your pants that your friend puts on Facebook and you can't take down and then that guy you like sees the photo and leaves a comment like "nice face."
Finally, let's talk pumpkins.
Charlie Brown introduced us to The Great Pumpkin when we were kids, and carving a jack-o-lantern is like decorating a Christmas tree - it's something we've done since we were little.
Lucky for us, the "baby in a pumpkin trend" started only last year thanks to Pinterest, so most of us grew up carving these gourds not sitting in them.
This year, Americans will spend around $106 million on pumpkins, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The jack-o-lantern slowly withering on your front porch probably came from Illinois, which grew 542 million pounds of pumpkin this year.
If you're looking for extra credit, call Tim and Susan Mathisdon in Napa, Calif., and try to carve up their 2,032 pound pumpkin.
House fire in Helmbrechts: Rescue services retrieve charred body
The fire service were called out to Helmbrechts late on Thursday evening.
A three-bedroom house in the district of Hof catches fire during the night.
Rescue workers retrieve a charred body from the house.
During a fire in Helmbrechts, rescue services found a charred body in a three-bedroom house.
Whether this person was living in the house is as yet unclear, said a police spokesperson in Bayreuth.
Late on Thursday evening, fire broke out on the ground floor of the house.
When the fire service arrived, the flames were already bursting out of a window.
Rescue workers entered the premises and found the body in a bedroom.
This and another bedroom were completely burnt out.
The entire ground floor suffered damage.
There were no other residents at home during the fire, continued the police spokesperson.
For the time being, the house is no longer habitable.
The precise cause of the fire was initially unclear.
Germany's largest national church has launched a campaign advertising the minister's position.
This comes at the same time as a possible shortage of ministers: The Protestant Lutheran Regional Church of Hanover calculates that, as things stand, the current number of around 1,800 pastors will be halved by 2030.
For the young people of today, the career is very attractive and offers good future prospects, said Pastor Mathis Burfien (43) in a conversation with the Protestant Press Service.
It is attractive to be able to determine your own daily working routine.
With Burfien, the regional church has for first time commissioned a minister to work full time, endeavouring to inspire young people to study theology.
At present, fewer and fewer young people are deciding to study theology after their Abitur examinations (equivalent to A levels).
Burfien puts this down to the process of secularisation: "God's voice is quiet, the world is loud".
The job is characterised by great freedom and variety.
I am the master of my own schedule and can therefore turn my focus to what is important to me.
As pastoral workers, ministers can be close to people.
They earn as much as teachers and can make a good living.
Of course wages are higher within the private sector, but on the other hand, theologians have a secure employer.
This would suit the young people of today, as it is not just about your career, but about having a meaningful job as well.
According to information from the Regional Church, which covers three quarters of Lower Saxony, around 60 pastors retire every year.
At the same time, around 40 theology graduates begin as vicars.
In future it may be difficult to fill positions in sparsely populated outlying areas such as Harz, Emsland or Wendland.
Among other initiatives, Burfien wants to organise study days for young people, inviting famous faces who have studied theology.
Theology courses offer broad training.
You can even become Federal President with a theology degree.
Land Rover rally series announced
The interior has racing seats and six-point harness belts, as well as an intercom system.
Options include upgraded brakes, a service package providing access to Bowler Works mechanics, logistic support, and vehicle storage between events.
Drew Bowler, the managing director of Bowler Motorsport, said: "Rally customers coming to Bowler have changed."
They're not all experienced racers, but people looking for excitement and adventure, and an achievable path towards world-class events.
We're delighted to be offering this path in partnership with Land Rover and the MSA, and believe the format offers a new way to experience different rally disciplines in the UK and overseas, and prepare entrants for the rigours and realities of Rally Raid.
We've really enjoyed developing the Defender Challenge car - it'll be a really fun championship.
Additionally, the Defender Challenge will provide a training and test day in February, as well as the option to compete in desert events in North Africa and the Middle East.
Fire crews called to rescue lost puppy after she got stuck 50ft above the ground on precarious ledge in a quarry
Cocker spaniel Ruby had run off after she was in a minor road crash
She was spotted three days later by a dog walker trapped in the quarry
Firefighters abseil down cliff face to pluck the dog from certain death
A puppy had a lucky escape after fire crews were called to lift her to safety when she somehow got herself stuck 50ft up on a precarious cliff ledge.
Nine month-old cocker spaniel Ruby had run off after being involved in a road crash on Sunday afternoon and survived three days alone before being rescued from a quarry on Wednesday.
Her owners Scott Alderson, 25, and his girlfriend Becky Hall, 20, were at Flappit Quarry in Denholme, West Yorkshire, to be reunited with Ruby and have thanked West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service.
They had searched frantically for their missing dog and posted appeals on social networking sites after she had ran into the quarry following the minor accident.
At around 2.15pm on Wednesday, an eagle-eyed dog walker spotted Ruby on the ledge in the quarry, stranded 50ft up.
A Technical Rescue Team from Cleckheaton Fire Station rushed to the scene and abseiled down to rescue Ruby and used a pet tube to transport her up the cliff.
Specialist Technical Rescue Officer Andy Clayton said: 'She was in a precarious situation.
She was right in the middle of the cliff face - 50ft from the top and bottom.
She did not move a muscle during the rescue - she was frozen solid.
But she is fine now.
She was eating biscuits afterwards.
This was a very unusual call-out.
The fact that the dog was spotted is unbelievable.
Specialist Technical Rescue Officer Peter Lau said: "Ruby had a very lucky escape."
The potential was there that she could have been very seriously injured or worse.
Ruby was taken to the vets for a check-up and was found to be fine other than exhaustion and dehydration.
Miss Hall, from Halifax, West Yorkshire, said: "Watching the rescue was terrifying."
I could not believe that she was up there in the first place.
It was amazing to get her back in our arms.
The vet said that if she became too exhausted and collapsed she would probably have fallen.
The firefighters were amazing.
It was really daring what they did.
We are just so grateful and every single one of them was absolutely tremendous.
Mr Alderson, from Keighley, added: "We were scared that she might fall but she stayed there."
The firefighters were brilliant.
I just can't believe where she was.
Mick Jagger says he never hit on Katy Perry when she was 18.
During an interview with an Australian radio show this week, the pop star said she sang backing vocals for Jagger's 2004 song "Old Habits Die Hard."
Perry said she had dinner with the veteran rocker and that "he hit on me when I was 18."
She added, "That was a long time ago, and he's been very kind."
In a statement Thursday, a representative for Jagger, 70, says he "categorically denies that he has ever made a pass at Katy Perry."
The rep adds: "Perhaps she is confusing him with someone else."
Perry was one of the singers to make a guest appearance on the Rolling Stones' tour this year.
Her new album, "Prism," debuted at No. 1 this week.
George Kerevan: Europe break-up gives Scots choice
Another day, another independence scare story.
This time we are warned that an independent Scotland would be required to join the Europe-wide free-travel zone as a condition of EU membership.
Cue stories about passport controls at Berwick and a barbed wire border along Hadrian's Wall.
True, the Strathclyde paper pointed out the possible economic benefits of freer movement with the rest of Europe, though - predictably - that did not figure in the headlines.
Nor did anyone point out that the EU member states spend much of their time bending their formal rules if it suits them.
Since Scotland isn't in the Schengen area now, continued non-compliance would be a cheap concession for Brussels to offer up in return for whatever it really wanted out of the Scots.
So, a non-story, then.
And one that is so long in the tooth it has become fossilised: I first heard the "independence means passport controls" canard at least 40 years ago.
Yet there is an interesting point lost in this retelling of a whiskery old tale.
Why should an independent Scotland be expected to do Europe's bidding, anyway?
Why trade London's yoke for that of Brussels, especially now?
Here is the real European news: the great, post-war plan to unite Europe has finally stalled.
With the euro crisis, Project Europe is officially dead.
Across the EU, parties which are dedicated to opposing the EU, or to scrapping the euro as a common currency, are gaining ground.
Even in Germany, the Eurosceptic Alternative for Germany Party - founded only this year - came from nowhere to grab nearly five million votes in September's federal elections, thus effectively knocking the Free Democrats (equivalent to our own Lib Dems) out of the Bundestag.
There has always been domestic opposition to the plan to create a federal Europe.
However, the current economic crisis has proved a watershed.
The austerity imposed by Berlin and the European Central Bank, coupled with the straitjacket imposed on national economies through adherence to the common currency, has led many people to think Project Europe has gone too far.
The crisis of the euro has little to do with national governments running excessive budget deficits - that was true only of Greece.
Rather, the euro system locked in its members at exchange rates favourable to German exporters - something German politicians want to keep.
Without the possibility of domestic currency devaluation, southern Europe finds itself with a built-in productivity disadvantage vis-à-vis Germany.
The only recourse is to slash wages and public spending - spurred on by Berlin.
Beyond the current budget and currency problems lies a deeper European productivity malaise.
As a result of "green" energy policies imposed by Brussels - code for subsidising French and German energy firms at the consumer's expense - European industry pays twice as much for electricity, and four times as much for gas, as in the United States.
That is a crippling cost disadvantage, as we've already seen at Grangemouth.
All the wage freezes in the world won't stop the European petrochemicals industry being hammered by cheap US shale gas.
As a result, revolt is brewing, especially in France, once the EU's main cheerleader.
After the war, the French political elite saw the EU as a vehicle to keep Germany in check, and to give Paris equal billing in the world with Washington.
But Berlin no longer needs Paris as a passport to political legitimacy and has imposed its own economic policy on Europe, leaving the battered French economy struggling.
Result: Marine Le Pen's right-wing, anti-EU National Front has just won a crucial by-election, knocking the ruling Socialists into third place.
The Front is now the most popular party in France with 24 per cent of the vote - a timely warning to British Labour that they can't assume a split on the right will automatically favour the left.
What is Le Pen doing with her newfound popularity among the French white, working class?
She wants to use next year's EU elections to create an anti-EU, anti-common currency bloc across the European Parliament.
If, as is very possible, anti-EU parties do well in these elections, such a bloc could dominate the European Parliament for the first time.
Here's my point: sometime soon growing anti-EU and anti-common currency feeling in Europe will coalesce to kill the euro.
The EU won't disappear, but it will revert to something more like the loose "Europe of the (Sovereign) Nations" favoured by General de Gaulle.
Germany and a few of its satellite economies might keep the euro but France and southern Europe will revive their own currencies.
I expect the UK will distance itself from this project, hoping to cosy up to the US.
However, Washington's growing interest in the Pacific suggests Britain will be left out in the Atlantic cold.
Where does this leave Scotland?
We can choose to be a region of (essentially) Little England.
Or we can defend our own economic interests - which includes telling Berlin and Brussels where to get off.
I suspect that Scotland could do well inside a looser European arrangement provided we kept our own currency.
Co-operation with other like-minded countries will be easier in a non-federal Europe of the Nations.
Otherwise we should consider emulating Norway and retaining our economic independence.
The SNP government in Scotland is - remarkably-- the most successful anti-austerity political movement in Europe, having won a spectacular majority in 2011 on the basis of opposing the cuts proposed (and implemented) by Labour's chancellor Alistair Darling and the subsequent Tory-Lib Dem coalition.
It would be ridiculous now for Scotland to vote for independence only to accept austerity imposed by Berlin and Brussels.
Early puberty: Growing older sooner
African-American and Hispanic girls tend to reach puberty earlier than their white counterparts, research shows.
Physical changes don't mean puberty is imminent
There's no evidence that hormones or other chemicals are to blame
Experts think the obesity epidemic might be one trigger of early puberty
The trend toward early puberty is not as pronounced with boys
Former CNN correspondent Pat Etheridge is a journalist specializing in children's health and family issues.
Should a mother be alarmed if her daughter begins to sprout breast buds and pubic hair at 7 or 8?
At the annual conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics this week in Orlando, Florida, pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Paul Kaplowitz explained that these early physical changes are quite common among American girls and represent a new norm.
"I spend a lot of time reassuring parents -- usually, this does not signal a rapid progression into full puberty," said Kaplowitz.
Obvious signs of development, such as budding breasts, pubic and underarm hair and body odor are appearing sooner in girls.
But there has been only a slight shift in the age of menarche (the first period) over the past four decades.
In the United States, the average age is 12.5 years, down from 12.75 in 1970.
"Once breasts begin to develop, it takes at least two to three years before menarche," said Kaplowitz, also author of "Early Puberty in Girls: The Essential Guide to Coping with This Common Problem."
Time is the most accurate test of how puberty is going to progress.
There is debate about what constitutes the actual onset of puberty, but it is considered "precocious" when breast enlargement is accompanied by a growth spurt before age 8.
In most cases, the process will slow down or stall -- something a pediatrician can monitor closely.
A more rapid progression may warrant tests by an endocrinologist to rule out serious problems such as tumors or cysts.
There are treatments to delay early menses and ward off another consequence: premature aging of the bones that ultimately can lead to stunted growth and being short as an adult.
Recommendations for drug or hormone therapy are based on the child's age, rate of development, growth rate and emotional maturity.
Psychosocial aspects are important, too.
Kaplowitz is cautious with medication but acknowledges, "suppressing puberty may alleviate behavioral issues and girls' feelings of being different from peers."
The other big issue is understandable: Parents simply don't want their very young daughters having periods.
"They worry about the risk of pregnancy or even how they will handle hygiene," said Kaplowitz.
"It was a shock," recalls one woman whose daughter started her period at 10.
Even though there were signs and we had talked about menstruation, she was not emotionally prepared.
She came home from school scared and upset to be the first among her friends.
There are lots of well-publicized theories about the causes of precocious puberty.
Yet, there's no consistent body of evidence that hormones in milk or other foods, chemicals in the environment or sexual messages in the media are to blame.
Boys - like girls - are hitting puberty earlier.
Kaplowitz contends the premise that holds the most weight is the epidemic of obesity.
He helped conduct a 2001 study of 6- to 9-year-old girls that links body fat to the timing of puberty.
Other findings support this conclusion, but there are many other contributing factors.
In this country, African-American and Hispanic girls tend to reach puberty earlier than their white counterparts.
There are varying explanations.
Globally, patterns of early puberty appear to be influenced by everything from economic conditions to climate to genes.
Another conundrum: Although boys are getting facial and pubic hair at younger ages, the trend toward full-blown early puberty is not as pronounced as it is with girls.
Other doctors attending the AAP conference reinforced the complexities of the topic.
The appearance of acne and pubic hair is common even in infants and toddlers.
"We need to be careful about how we identify the true onset of puberty," said Dr. Lawrence Silverman, a pediatric endocrinologist at Goryeb Children's Hospital in Morristown, New Jersey.
Parents should not hesitate to get guidance from their pediatrician about how to talk with their child.
"It may mean having a sooner-than-expected conversation," Kaplowitz advised.
If you remain calm, your child usually will respond well.
Girls who blossom early need reassurance that, even when it happens ahead of schedule, the process is a normal part of life.
Jet makers feud over seat width with big orders at stake
A row has flared up between leading plane makers over the width of tourist-class seats on long-distance flights, setting the tone for a bitter confrontation at this month's Dubai Airshow.
The dispute focuses on the width of seats provided on long-haul flights for economy passengers - not always the ones most courted by airlines, but whose allocated space holds the key to efficiency claims for the latest jets offered by Airbus SAS and Boeing Co.
Airbus this week called for an industry standard that would provide for a seat at least 18 inches (46 cm) wide in economy cabins, but its U.S. arch-rival Boeing says it should be for airlines to decide.
The dispute comes as plane makers vie to sell ever-larger versions of their twin-engined long-distance aircraft, with potentially record orders expected at the November 17-21 event.
How the back of the plane is laid out - particularly whether seating is 9 or 10 abreast - is central to the economic performance claims being made for new "mini-jumbo" jet designs.
Boeing says its revamped "777X" will hold 406 people based on economy seats more than 17 inches wide and set out 10 in each row.
Airbus says the competing version of its A350 will carry 350 people in 18-inch-wide economy seat laid out 9 abreast.
Plane giants often trade blows on technical matters through advertising in the trade press.
Now, Airbus is appealing directly to the public ahead of the Dubai Airshow, where the 777X is expected to dominate with more than 100 orders.
It recently previewed what may be the start of a new ad war by showing financiers a slide illustrating three people squashed together at a restaurant, titled "Would You Accept This?"
"Boeing is proposing long-distance flying in seats narrower than regional turbo-props," said Airbus sales chief John Leahy.
As diets change, people get bigger but plane seating has not radically changed.
Between the early 1970s, when the Boeing 747 jumbo defined modern long-haul travel, and the turn of the century, the weight of the average American 40- to 49-year-old male increased by 10 per cent, according to U.S. Health Department Data.
The waist of the average 21st-century American male is 39.7 inches, according to U.S. health statistics.
Airbus says its rival is sticking to a seat concept from the 1950s, when the average girth of the newly christened "jet set" was narrower.
Airbus says it has commissioned research suggesting an extra inch in seat width improves sleep quality by 53 per cent.
Boeing disputes Airbus's figures on seat measurements and says it is not up to manufacturers to step into decisions on how airlines balance fares and facilities.
It also says research shows cabin experience depends on more than the width of a seat.
"It really comes down to providing flexibility to airlines and allowing them to do the things that they believe they need to do to be successful," said Boeing cabins expert Kent Craver.
They don't want us to dictate to them what makes them profitable.
They know their business better than anyone else.
For flyers it is about more elbow room, but for suppliers it is increasingly an issue that could affect earnings.
Behind the dispute is a race for plane orders with at least $700-billion of estimated business at list prices in coming decades, enough to tip the scales of U.S. and European exports.
As Reuters first reported in July, seat layout is exactly what drives the battle between the latest jets.
Both Airbus and Boeing claim 20 per cent better efficiency per seat in their latest twin-engined long-haul designs than the market leader in that segment, the 365-seat Boeing 777-300ER.
Boeing's performance claims depend in part on comparing the 10-abreast 777X with an original 9-abreast 777 design.
The gain in unit costs is blunted compared with 10-abreast now in use.
"The reason Boeing are doing this is to cram more seats in to make their plane more competitive with our products," said Kevin Keniston, head of passenger comfort at Europe's Airbus.
On the other hand, analysts say full 10-seat-per-row cabins for existing 777s suggest many passengers are voting for the denser layout, which may go hand in hand with cheaper fares.
"Eighteen inches in seat width would be great for passengers, but the reality is that from a business point of the Airbus proposal is driven by the threat of the 777," said cabin interiors expert Mary Kirby, founder and editor of the Runway Girl Network.
Airbus and Boeing do not supply seats but offer a catalogue of suppliers for airlines to choose from.
Globe-trotting jet sellers even carry tape measures to check on competing layouts.
While boasting comfort, all builders also offer jets with high-density layouts for low-cost airlines and regional travel.
Airbus offers a 10-abreast A350 but says it has not yet sold it.
Until recently, Airbus was stressing the need for more cabin customization by offering wider aisle seats on some of its jets.
Without the support of the only other maker of large modern jets, experts say its call for a new industry standard is unlikely to fly, but could distract from a wave of 777X sales.
New anti-nicotine vaccine could take the pleasure out of smoking
Scientists have developed an anti-nicotine vaccine that could take the pleasure out of smoking a cigarette.
A single dose of the vaccine was able to protect mice against nicotine addiction for life.
Further tests are needed before starting human trials, which would take several years, but Professor Ronald Crystal of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York said the early signs are good.
"We are very hopeful that this kind of vaccine strategy can finally help the millions of smokers who have tried to stop, exhausting all the methods on the market today, but find their nicotine addiction to be strong enough to overcome these current approaches," Prof Cornell said.
The new vaccine contains a harmless virus that has been engineered to carry the genetic information to make anti-nicotine antibodies.
The virus selectively infects liver cells, which then start to make a steady stream of the antibodies.
The antibodies hunt down any nicotine molecules in the bloodstream, neutralising them before they reached the brain, preventing a smoker from getting a nicotine hit.
In tests, vaccinated mice who were subsequently given nicotine continued with their normal activity.
But mice who had not been given the vaccine "chilled out," say the researchers, a sign that the nicotine had reached their brains.
The experiments are described in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Previous tobacco vaccines failed because they contained antibodies.
The jabs had to be given so frequently to keep antibody levels topped up that they proved expensive and impractical.
But the cost of the new vaccine is likely to be far lower, because it turns liver cells into antibody factories.
Prof Crystal said that if a future human vaccine was completely safe it could be given to children before they were tempted to try a cigarette, preventing nicotine addiction.
But more likely it would be used by smokers to quit.
"They will know if they start smoking again, they will receive no pleasure from it due to the nicotine vaccine, and that can help them kick the habit," he said.
British scientists said the results were interesting but warned far more research was needed.
Tripodi denies being influenced by Obeid
Former NSW Labor minister Joe Tripodi will be investigated by the state's corruption watchdog.
Former NSW minister Joe Tripodi has denied changing maritime leases policy at the request of his political mentor Eddie Obeid, who had hidden interests in three properties on government-controlled land.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on Friday widened its inquiry into whether Mr Obeid lobbied several state ministers to have leases at Circular Quay, where the Obeids owned two restaurants and a cafe, renewed without going to tender after their expiration in August 2005.
It's now investigating allegations Mr Tripodi knew of Mr Obeid's secret interest in the properties, after evidence given by Mr Tripodi's former deputy chief of staff, Lynne Ashpole, on Thursday.
During years of discussions starting in 2005 the government had been pushing for the leases to go to public tender.
The lessees were against this and also wanted longer terms.
In 2009 leases for the Circular Quay enterprises, which earned the Obeids about $2.5 million annually, were renewed without going to public tender.
Mr Tripodi, who was ports minister from February 2006 until November 2009, was initially in favour of public tenders.
But he denied the changes were made at the request of Mr Obeid, who Mr Tripodi acknowledged was urging a shift in government lease policy.
A phone transcript tabled in ICAC showed calls in August and September 2007 between Mr Obeid, Mr Tripodi and Steve Dunn, a senior bureaucrat who had come into the ports ministry after working under Mr Obeid in the fisheries department.
"Was the matter being discussed in the course of these telephone conversations the development of the commercial lease policy," Assistant Commissioner Anthony Whealy asked Mr Tripodi.
"No," Mr Tripodi replied.
I can't remember what was discussed but it definitely wasn't that.
Definitely not between myself and Mr Obeid.
Israeli warplanes attack target inside Syria, official says
Israeli warplanes struck a target inside the Syrian port city of Latakia Thursday night, a senior administration official confirms to Fox News.
The official did not specify what the target was, but said there was at least one.
The Associated Press reports the target was Russian-made SA-125 missiles.
At least twice earlier this year Israel launched airstrikes on shipments of missiles inside Syria.
Foreign workers on 457 visas could undergo "genuineness" test
A "genuineness" test for foreign workers on 457 visas is being considered by the government as it contemplates expanding a crackdown.
The test, if adopted, would be applied through a criteria aimed at preventing 457s being used to fill unskilled positions or as a back door way to move family and friends to Australia.
A government discussion paper was released today as former Labor MP Maxine McKew slammed the government's rhetoric about foreign workers, saying it could offend Australia's neighbours.
"Loud declarations about 'foreigners getting to the back of the queue' and 'Aussie jobs first' are a very unpleasant throwback to a time when unions demanded a protected labor market," she told the Australia India Institute today.
Historically, that meant it was white labour that had to be protected - and if some in the region saw echoes of that historic artifact, I wouldn't be surprised.
The discussion paper outlines 12 measures that were previously considered by former Immigration Minister Chris Bowen.
Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor, who was yesterday in Sri Lanka where he is meeting officials about people smuggling, has implemented five of the recommended changes with the remainder under consideration.
If the "genuineness" criteria was adopted a visa applicant could be scrutinised about "whether the nomination is genuine in circumstances where the nominee is a relation or personal associate of an owner or relevant person of the sponsoring business."
Businesses could also be required to account for the number of 457 visa holders after previously businesses who had intended to sponsor a small number of workers then employed hundreds.
Meanwhile, a 35-year-old Sri Lankan asylum seeker died of a suspected heart attack after arriving on an asylum boat at Christmas Island this week.
The man's distraught nine-year-old son travelled to Australia with him and has been comforted since the death of his father on Wednesday by an adult cousin who was also on the vessel.
Australian authorities rushed the man to Christmas Island Hospital, where he died.
A study aiming to increase the benefits to Scotland of the HS2 rail project has been announced by the UK government.
The work by HS2 Ltd suggests high-speed services to Scotland and the north of England will start as soon as Phase One opens in 2026.
Transport minister Baroness Kramer said the project would "bring the UK together."
Scottish transport minister Keith Brown said he was "excited" to work with the UK government on the plan.
Phase One will consist of a new high speed rail line between London and the West Midlands.
When Phase Two is completed, lines will run to Manchester and Leeds.
In June the government revised the estimated cost of building the high-speed link between London and the North of England from £32.7bn to £42.6bn.
The UK government, which has been holding talks with Transport Scotland, has instructed HS2 Ltd to look at further rail capacity and journey time improvements for northern England and Scotland.
This is to include the possibility of eventual journey times from Glasgow and Edinburgh to London of three hours or less.
Baroness Kramer said: "Our goal for HS2 is for a truly national network that will bring the UK and its cities closer together."
We are driving forward HS2 because the benefits it will bring are huge.
Without it we face a crisis in capacity on our rail network.
But it is also about connectivity, across the UK 18 cities including Glasgow and Edinburgh will be better connected because of HS2.
Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael added: "Today's announcement is good news for Scotland."
For the Scottish government, Keith Brown called on Mr Carmichael to "unequivocally" back Scotland's inclusion in the HS2 network.
Mr Brown said: "High speed rail has the potential to bring huge economic benefits to Scotland, but also adds Scotland's economic weight to the overall case for high speed rail across Britain."
So we are excited to work in partnership with the UK Government to examine options for bringing high speed rail to Scotland, creating benefit for all and complementing the Glasgow-Edinburgh line which the Scottish Government is already planning.
I look forward to reviewing the report of the investigation with UK ministers next year and together decide on the next steps.
Aircraft electronic device rules to stay in force in Australia for now
Australian airline passengers will need to continue turning off their tablets and smart phones during take-off and landing despite moves in the US to loosen regulations covering the devices.
The US Federal Aviation Administration has left the way open for American carriers to change their procedures so that passengers will be able to read e-books, watch videos or play games on their devices during critical phases of flight provided they remain in "airplane" mode.
Passengers can already do this during the bulk of a flight but many people find it annoying to be unable to access their e-books during take-offs and landings.
Australian carriers are looking at the decision, which requires US carriers to undertake a massive amount of work to meet the requirements, but have indicated they have no immediate plans to change their procedures.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority also said it was looking at the announcement but emphasised that restrictions on the use of electronic devices in critical phases of flight were still in place in Australia.
"CASA currently has no specific regulations governing the use of electronic devices in aircraft," it said.
The issue is covered by regulations which require aircraft operators to ensure safety is maintained at all times and passengers to comply with the safety instructions given by crew members.
Virgin, which has already been talking to CASA about extending the use its in-flight wi-fi entertainment system, was amenable to a change but said it would take its lead from the regulator.
"We would welcome a review by CASA into allowing the use of electronic devices because we really do think it will improve the customer experience now that we have (wireless in-flight entertainment) on our planes," a spokesman said.
Qantas said it would stick with the current rules for now.
"Our current policy is that electronic devices cannot be used during take-off and landing and we have no immediate plans to change that," it said.
The FAA ruling applies to American airlines.
However, we are always interested in regulatory developments that could benefit passengers and we will certainly be taking a close look at the FAA's decision and the reasons behind it.
For US carriers, the impact of the ruling will vary from airline to airline and will depend on the age of their fleet.
Carriers will need to prove their planes can tolerate radio interference from mobile devices as well as revise manuals, training materials, carry-on baggage programs and passenger briefings.
"Once an airline verifies the tolerance of its fleet, it can allow passengers to use handheld, lightweight electronic devices such as tablets, e-readers, and smartphones-at all altitudes," the FAA said.
In rare instances of low visibility, the crew will instruct passengers to turn off their devices during landing.
The group also recommended that heavier devices should be safely stowed under seats or in overhead bins during take-off and landing.
Travelling BVB fans created terrible scenes with flares in the Veltins Arena before the district derby against Schalke
Borussia Dortmund announced that there would be serious consequences.
Before Friday's Bundesliga match against VfB Stuttgart, the 'Ultras' responded with silence - initially.
It was an unusual, almost ghostly atmosphere that the fans created until shortly before the kick-off of the Bundesliga match between the German runners-up Borussia Dortmend and VfB Stuttgart, in the Signal Iduna Park.
It was mainly the chants of away fans that could be heard.
The south stand, on the other hand, where the most loyal - and the loudest - of BVB fans stand, was initially unusually quiet: No singing and no battle cries.
The 'Capo's' podium, the individual who usually coordinates the unison chants, remained empty.
And right at the front, on the stand, a single large flag with the text "Stadium Ban Section" blew in the wind.
Only when goalkeeper, Roman Weidenfeller, was the first BVB player to step onto the field, did cheers briefly erupt, as is usually the case.
When his team mates followed, there was loud singing and scarves were waving - but by no means everywhere.
In the central blocks of the south stand, blocks 12 and 13, nothing moved.
Even stadium announcer, Norbert Dickel, speaking once again of the successful results in recent days - the derby victory, the win against Arsenal, the contract extension of coach Jörgen klopp - did not raise spirits.
Just five minutes before kick-off, the Capo climbed onto his podium - and the tension that had been almost tangible up until that point, lifted with a large shout, as Dickel asked for a shout from each section of fans as usual.
As always, the south stand was left until the end, and finally the stand resumed its usual role as the loudest section of the stadium.
And as soon as the vociferous request for "derby winners stand up" came from the south stand upon kick-off, everything was back to normal.
The previous silence was indeed a reaction to the events of previous days.
Immediately before the local district derby against FC Schalke 04, some of the travelling BVB fans fired flares into the crowds of spectators and onto the pitch - and in so doing almost hit goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller.
The kick-off was delayed on account of the chaotic scenes,
As a result, BVB Chairman Hans Joachim Watzke had invited the heads of the Dortmund Ultras fan group to his office - and if Watzke's words are to be believed, this was a rather uncomfortable meeting for the fan representatives.
"There will be massive impact for the entire Ultra movement," announced the BVB Chairman on Thursday evening at a panel discussion in Frankfurt.
As an immediate measure, Watzke prohibited the Ultras from organising choreography for the home match against VfB Stuttgart.
"I have banned it," he explained.
We cannot ignore the zero tolerance policy regarding pyrotechnics in Saxony.
In addition, the Ultras were given the option of several different punishments - they now have until Tuesday to decide which one to accept.
Otherwise BVB will impose a sanction by the end of next week, said Watzke.
"It will be severe," assured Watzke.
It will be interesting to see the reactions in the south stand then.
Pawnbrokers shine in Singapore as middle class feel the pinch
At a pawnshop in Bendemeer shopping centre in Singapore, Janani Amirthalinga is swapping a gold bangle, ring and pair of earrings to pay her daughters" school fees.
"My husband and I have just bought a house so all my money's stuck there," Mrs Amirthalinga says.
Even though she earns S$3,000 ($2,400) a month as an administrator and her husband works as well, the monthly family income is insufficient, she says.
Indeed, such is demand across parts of southeast Asia - where household debt is rising - that ValueMax, where she is carrying out her transaction, this week became the third pawnshop to list on the Singapore stock exchange.
Pawning jewellery is not merely a fast way to land cash - S$1,300 in Ms Amirthalinga's case - but almost as cheap as unsecured bank loans.
Typically pawnbrokers in Singapore charge an effective annual percentage rate of 17 per cent, just above the 15.4 per cent offered at United Overseas Bank, a local lender with a branch in the same shopping centre.
However, pawnbrokers have the advantage of not requiring credit checks or proof of salary, and can arrange loans faster than banks.
Hence millions of people across the region are turning to pawnshops as families feel the squeeze from rising living costs and ballooning household and consumer debt.
After five years of robust growth since the global financial crisis, and cheap credit fuelled by loose monetary policy in advanced economies, lower- and middle-income families are turning to pawn shops to make up the difference as their economies slow.
This week Standard & Poor's, the rating agency, cited increasing household leverage, mainly from rising mortgages, as a risk factor for Asian banks" creditworthiness.
It said that Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore had the highest household debt to gross domestic product ratios in Asia.
Malaysia topped the list at 80 per cent of GDP, up from 60 per cent in 2008.
Economists are also worried about high levels of consumer debt in Thailand, which this week narrowly emerged from technical recession.
On Thursday, data showed continued export weakness, and a softening in consumer demand.
"Bottom line is that with costs rising, people in the middle to lower end [of the income scale] will be looking to supplement their income wherever they can," says Song Seng Wun, economist at CIMB, a Malaysian bank.
Historically high prices for gold in the past two years have added to the rush to pawn personal belongings, as people take the opportunity to cash in the value of their family jewellery.
In Singapore, about 70 per cent of items pawned at the city-state's 200 pawn outlets are gold.
People are saying "the gold price looks good, let's pawn grandma's gold chain and get it back next month.
In Thailand the largest pawnshop operator, EasyMoney, has seen an up to 20 per cent rise in the number of customers using its outlets in recent months.
Such is the growth in the pawn business that ValueMax, operator of the outlet at Bendemeer and of 15 others like it in Singapore, plans to expand not only in neighbouring Malaysia - where it has four shops - but outside Asia too, says Yeah Lee Ching, ValueMax's executive director.
The company will fund that by using 60 per cent of S$66m it raised this week in a listing on the Singapore stock exchange.
While some discount lenders have come under fire for high interest rates, Ms Yeah says that not only does pawning offer cheaper rates than other lenders, it also does not add directly to debt.
"Customers are mortgaging items that they already own, and monetising personal assets does not increase household debt," she says.
There's an increased social acceptance of pawnbroking as a means to secure short term, secured financing.
Nor are the types of people who use pawnbrokers only the financially stretched.
Wealthy people in Singapore also use ValueMax outlets, pawning gold bars or Rolex watches, which can command up to 60 per cent of their purchase price in cash.
We see customers from all walks of life.
"They include wealthy individuals who need to borrow short term for business ventures or investments, or small businesses with a need to tide over their cash flow needs," says Ms Yeah.
Sometimes they just need the money very quickly.
NSA siphons data from Google and Yahoo - Snowden wants to help
Secret Service whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has a fundamental interest in helping Germany clarify the increasingly explosive NSA espionage scandal.
According to Green Party MP. Hans-Christian Ströbele, his surprising meeting with Snowden in Russia addressed the conditions under which the former Secret Service employee would make a statement to a German District Attorney or before an investigation committee.
Snowden referred to his complex legal situation, Ströbele said on ARD's "Panorama" programme.
$325m rescue package for Tassie health
The Federal Government insists a $325 million rescue package for Tasmania's ailing health system has tough conditions attached that will ensure the State Government can't waste the funds.
Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek has announced the Commonwealth is taking "urgent action" to head off a crisis caused by the island state's aging population, higher rates of chronic disease and system constraints.
The funding, over four years, was decided after government consultations with Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie.
"The Government has come up with an emergency rescue package we believe will address the unique challenges faced by the state," Ms Plibersek said today.
The $325 million package includes a $31 million elective surgery blitz.
An additional 2600 operations including orthopedic and cataract surgery will help clear a backlog.
There's also money for walk-in clinics in Hobart and Launceston, better after-hospital care, medical specialist training, mental health services and the rollout of personal electronic health record systems in local hospitals.
"These investments respond to the ideas that front-line clinicians have told me will be the best ways to tend to Tasmania's health system," Ms Plibersek said.
The minister insisted the Tasmanian Government would face a strict reporting and accountability regime.
The state would have to maintain current funding levels in order to receive Commonwealth cash and report monthly on where it was spending the extra funds.
A three-person commission will be set up to ensure the state is delivering services as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Mr Wilkie today said the $325 million would count for little "unless it's followed by genuine reform to put Tasmania's public health system on a more sustainable footing."
He nevertheless praised the Government for responding to his request for urgent assistance which he first raised with the Prime Minister at the beginning of May.
"I'm hopeful the federal assistance package will go a long way towards taking the state's public health system off the critical list," Mr Wilkie said.
According to the State Government these additional elective procedures will largely reverse the recent cuts.
But federal Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton believes today's announcement is a "band-aid solution."
"The reason we are here is that the Labor State Government ripped $430 million out of its health system," he told ABC TV.
You can't have a state government ripping out almost half-a-billion dollars and the Commonwealth put in $300 million and pretend it's a good news day.
Mr Dutton called on Ms Plibersek to guarantee that not one dollar out of the rescue package would be spent on additional bureaucracy.
Guillaume Nicloux's adaptation of Denis Diderot's novel boasts exceptional production design and period detail but is also heavier going than it should be.
Unfolding in 1760s France, it tells the grim story of Suzanne, a young aristocrat sent to a convent by her family.
When she rebels, she experiences extreme cruelty at the hands of a wantonly sadistic Mother Superior and becomes an object of erotic fascination for another.
The film never slips into prurience or sensationalism - and that's the problem.
The earnest solemnity of the storytelling risks making it a hair shirt-like ordeal for audiences, too.
Syria has destroyed its chemical weapons making ability, watchdog group says
Syria has destroyed critical equipment for producing chemical weapons and poison gas munitions, the global chemical weapons watchdog said Thursday as fierce clashes raged in the country's north, close to one of the sites where toxic agents are believed to be stored.
Also Thursday, a Syrian activist group said more than 120,000 people have been killed since the start of the country's civil war nearly three years ago.
The announcement by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons came one day ahead of the Nov.
1 deadline set by The Hague-based organization for Damascus to destroy or "render inoperable" all chemical weapon production facilities and machinery for mixing chemicals into poison gas and filling munitions.
The completion of what is essentially the initial stage of destruction is a significant milestone in an ambitious timeline that aims to destroy all of Damascus' chemical weapons by mid-2014.
Destruction of the equipment means that Syria can no longer produce new chemical weapons.
However, Damascus still has to start destroying existing weapons and stockpiles.
The country is believed to have around 1,000 metric tons of chemicals and weapons including mustard gas and the nerve agent sarin.
The announcement came as fighting raged Thursday in the town of Safira, which experts say is home to a chemical weapons production facility as well as storage sites, reported the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The activist group, which has been tracking the death toll through a network of activists in Syria, said Thursday that 120,296 people have died.
Of those, it said 61,067 are civilians, including 6,365 children.
On the government side, it said 29,954 are members of President Bashar Assad's armed forces, 18,678 are pro-government fighters and 187 are Lebanese Hezbollah militants.
Also among the dead it said were 2,202 army defectors and some 5,375 opposition fighters, many of them foreigners.
On July 25, the U.N. estimated 100,000 have died in the conflict since March 2011.
It has not updated that figure since.
The conflict has forced some 2 million people to flee the country.
Assad's troops have been battling rebels, many of them linked to al-Qaida groups, in Safira for weeks.
The Observatory said there were casualties on both sides Thursday but had no specifics.
The fighting underscored the dangers the chemical weapons' inspectors face as they race against tight deadlines in their mission to rid Syria of the toxic arsenal in the midst of an ongoing civil war.
A statement from the OPCW, which works closely with the United Nations, said its team was "now satisfied that it has verified - and seen destroyed - all of Syria's declared critical production and mixing/filling equipment."
It added that, "no further inspection activities are currently planned."
Earlier this week, the inspectors said they had completed their first round of verification work, visiting 21 of 23 sites declared by Damascus.
They were unable to visit two sites because of security concerns, the inspectors said.
On Thursday, OPCW said the two locations were, according to Syria, "abandoned and ... the chemical weapons program items they contained were moved to other declared sites, which were inspected."
It was not immediately clear if the facility in Safira was one of the two sites that OPCW inspectors were not able to visit.
Syria has submitted a plan for the total destruction of its chemical weapons that has to be approved next month by the OPCW's executive committee.
"I salute the fortitude and courage you've all demonstrated in fulfilling the most challenging mission ever undertaken by this organization," the watchdog's director-general, Ahmet Uzumcu, said in comments released by the OPCW.
Now in its third year, the civil war pits the primarily Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad's government and its security forces, which are stacked with members of his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
In other developments, the Observatory's chief Rami Abdurrahman said there had been a strong explosion Wednesday inside an air defense facility in Syria's coastal province of Latakia.
The cause of the blast was not known, he said.
Anger over Bali bomb plotter's sentence
Survivors and relatives of the 202 people killed in the 2002 Bali bombing have reacted with anger over the sentence given to the last of the plotters to face justice, saying Umar Patek should face a firing squad.
Patek, who spent almost 10 years on the run as one of South-East Asia's most wanted, was yesterday sentenced to 20 years in jail for his role in building the explosive devices used in the bombing.
He could be released within 15 years if granted parole.
The 45-year-old was found guilty of mass murder for the attack on two nightclubs in the popular tourist area of Kuta which left 202 people dead, including 88 Australians, and injured scores more.
He was also found guilty of a number of other terrorism-related charges, including a wave of bombings of churches across Indonesia on Christmas Eve in 2000.
Prosecutors had demanded a life sentence, although they could have pushed that the man dubbed the "Demolition Man" for his reputation as a master bomb-maker be sentenced to death.
The decision has reignited painful memories for Perth mother June Corteen, who lost her 39-year-old twin daughters Jane and Jenny in the destruction unleashed by Patek and his co-conspirators almost a decade ago.
Fighting back tears, she said Patek should have been sentenced to death.
I really feel that he should follow in the footsteps of the other guys.
"He should be put in front of the firing squad," Ms Corteen told AAP.
I have to live every day without seeing more grandchildren, and my daughters.
The Sari Club was levelled when a massive bomb loaded into a van parked outside was detonated just after 11pm on October 12, 2002.
Peter Hughes was in Paddy's Bar where a suicide bomber detonated a backpack loaded with explosives just 20 seconds earlier.
He lapsed into a month-long coma in the wake of the bombing, and "died" three times while on life support.
Mr Hughes said Patek should have shared the same fate as three other members of the Jemaah Islamiah terror cell responsible for the carnage - Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra - who were executed four years ago.
Really, this guy should get the death penalty before anybody.
To keep him alive, well, there's no reason to keep him alive.
To get 20 years, after killing 202 people and injuring many hundreds, it's not much.
Patek is the last of the Bali bombers to face justice.
He had avoided capture for almost a decade but was eventually apprehended in January 2011 in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad, where US forces killed former al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden less than four months later.
During the trial, an FBI agent testified that intelligence reports had revealed Patek was in Pakistan to meet with bin Laden in an effort to re-establish links between South-East Asian terrorist groups and al-Qaeda.
"He didn't give himself up," Ms Corteen said.
Until just recently, he really didn't feel sorry for how much grief he caused other people.
The verdict comes ahead of the 10th anniversary of the attack later this year, which will be marked by ceremonies in Bali and Australia.
"There will be a lot of tears this year," Ms Corteen said.
Patek may yet appeal his sentence.
FAA: Air passengers can now use gadgets on planes (but not make cell phone calls)
Airline passengers will be able to use their electronic devices gate-to-gate to read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music - but not talk on their cellphones - under much-anticipated new guidelines issued Thursday by the Federal Aviation Administration.
But passengers shouldn't expect changes to happen immediately.
How fast the change is implemented will vary by the airline, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said at a news conference.
Airlines will have to show the FAA how their airplanes meet the new guidelines and that they've updating their flight crew training manuals and rules for stowing devices to reflect the new guidelines.
The FAA said it has already received plans from some airlines to expand the use of portable electronic devices on planes.
Delta and JetBlue were among the airliners who have already submitted plans.
"Depending on the condition of the plan, we could approve expanded use of electronic devices very soon," the FAA said in a statement.
Currently, passengers are required to turn off their smartphones, tablets and other devices once a plane's door closes.
They're not supposed to restart them until the planes reach 10,000 feet and the captain gives the go-ahead.
Passengers are supposed to turn their devices off again as the plane descends to land and not restart them until the plane is on the ground.
Under the new guidelines, airlines whose planes are properly protected from electronic interference may allow passengers to use the devices during takeoffs, landings and taxiing, the FAA said.
Most new airliners and other planes that have been modified so that passengers can use Wifi at higher altitudes are expected to meet the criteria.
Laura Glading, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, welcomed the changes.
"Once the new policy is safely implemented - and we're going to work closely with the carrier to do that - it will be a win-win," Glading said in a statement.
We're frankly tired of feeling like 'hall monitors' when it comes to this issue.
But connecting to the Internet to surf, exchange emails, text or download data will still be prohibited below 10,000 feet, the agency said.
Passengers will be told to switch their smartphones, tablets and other devices to airplane mode.
So, still no Words With Friends, the online Scrabble-type game that actor Alec Baldwin was playing on his smartphone in 2011 when he was famously booted off an American Airlines jet for refusing to turn off the device while the plane was parked at the gate.
And heavier devices such as laptops will continue to have to be stowed because of concern they might injure someone if they go flying around the cabin.
In-flight cellphone calls also will continue to be prohibited.
Regulatory authority over phone calls belongs to the Federal Communications Commission, not the FAA.
FAA may lift ban on some electronic devices during takeoff and landing
Last month, National Transportation Safety Board Mark Rosenker, a CBS News national transportation safety expert, said that cell phones are still considered a risk.
"Cell phones, that really is an issue, not just because potentially it could create interference with navigational devices, but we do know, according to the FCC, that it could interfere with cell phone towers when they're in the air," Rosenker said.
An industry advisory committee created by the FAA to examine the issue recommended last month that the government permit greater use of personal electronic devices.
Pressure has been building on the FAA in recent years to ease restrictions on their use.
Critics such as Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., contend there is no valid safety reason for the prohibitions.
The restrictions have also become increasingly difficult to enforce as use of the devices has become ubiquitous.
Some studies indicate as many as a third of passengers forget or ignore directions to turn off their devices.
The FAA began restricting passengers' use of electronic devices in 1966 in response to reports of interference with navigation and communications equipment when passengers began carrying FM radios, the high-tech gadgets of their day.
New airliners are far more reliant on electrical systems than previous generations of aircraft, but they are also designed and approved by the FAA to be resistant to electronic interference.
Airlines have been offering Wi-Fi use at cruising altitudes to passengers for several years.
Planes modified for Wi-Fi systems are also more resistant to interference.
The vast majority of airliners should qualify for greater electronic device use under the new guidelines, Huerta said.
Today's electronic devices generally emit much lower power radio transmissions than previous generations of devices.
E-readers, for example, emit only minimal transmissions when turning a page.
But transmissions are stronger when devices are downloading or sending data.
Among those pressing for a relaxation of restrictions on passengers' use of the devices has been Amazon.com.
In 2011, company officials loaded an airliner full of their Kindle e-readers and flew it around to test for problems but found none.
FAA advisory committee members expressed mixed feelings about whether use of the devices presents any risk.
Douglas Kidd of the National Association of Airline Passengers said he believes interference from the devices is genuine even if the risk is minimal.
Other committee members said there are only anecdotal reports from pilots to support that the devices can interfere with aircraft systems, and most of those reports are very old.
However, the committee recommended the FAA allow pilots to order passengers to shut off devices during instrument landings in low visibility.
A travel industry group welcomed the changes, calling them common-sense accommodations for a traveling public now bristling with technology.
"We're pleased the FAA recognizes that an enjoyable passenger experience is not incompatible with safety and security," said Roger Dow, CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.
Bird airlifted to safety from North Sea rig released back into wild
A bird airlifted ashore after being found exhausted on a North Sea oil rig has been released back into the wild.
The water rail was put on a helicopter to Aberdeen last month before being nursed back to health by the Scottish SPCA at its rescue centre in Alloa.
Centre manager Colin Seddon said: "This water rail was likely a winter migrant from Northern Europe who got caught up in strong winds over the North Sea."
It seems the bird became exhausted and managed to find refuge on the oil rig.
He added: "It was unable to fly off again so we were contacted for help."
The water rail was fit and well by the time it was released.
Is Europe's elite ready to do business with Britain?
Business for Britain launched in April with a pledge to bring business together and define what the UK's wealth and job creators want to see changed in our relationship with the EU.
To that end, we commissioned the largest and most comprehensive poll of British business leaders asking them for their thoughts on Britain, business and the EU.
YouGov polled over 1,000 business leaders, broadly representative of Britain's business sizes, sectors and regions.
The conclusions of the poll will come as a surprise to many.
We found that the vast majority of businesses are now looking to export outside of Europe, focusing on countries that are modernising and growing while the EU states stagnate.
They want to see the Government prioritise new trading links with the likes of China, India and Brazil, rather than getting bogged down in the long and arduous process of reforming the EU's arcane institutions.
When asked their views on specific policy areas - ranging from monopoly regulation to product laws - the majority of business leaders thought that control of these key competences should be returned to Westminster.
There was general discontent with the Single Market, with businesses saying that the costs of Brussels regulation now outweighed the benefits of being part of Europe's trading area - even 40 per cent of large businesses, traditionally the most pro-European of companies, agreed.
Finally, and most tellingly of all, our poll of business leaders found a clear majority wanted to see Britain pursue a course of treaty change and a relationship with the EU that is based on trade, not politics.
This finding, which was reflected across the sizes and major business groups, shows that business is pushing for a "meaningful change" that brings powers back to the UK.
The stakes are high - achieving treaty change and a better deal for Britain sees a 16 per cent swing towards voting to stay in the EU in a referendum.
The Prime Minister should be in no doubt: this poll shows that British business backs his plan for renegotiating the terms of Britain's membership of the EU.
It also shows that business expects that renegotiation to make a significant shift in the current balance of power back towards the UK.
A better deal for British business is possible, and increasingly necessary as the eurozone embarks on the road to closer economic and fiscal union.
The priority must be jobs and growth in Britain and, as the findings of our poll show, for business this means a renewed focus on trade and a fundamental change in Brussels" regulatory approach.
Gazprom's Alexei Miller says pipeline in Bulgaria starts new gas era
The start of construction of the South Stream gas pipeline in Bulgaria marks the launch of one of Europe's largest energy projects, Gazprom's chief said.
"A landmark event has taken place today: Construction started on the Bulgarian section of the South Stream gas pipeline, the most large-scale and important project in Europe," Gazprom Chairman Alexei Miller said in a statement Thursday.
This project is a key element of energy security of the whole European continent.
South Stream is meant to add diversity to Russia's export routes through Europe.
A contractual dispute between Gazprom and its counterparts in Ukraine, which hosts most of Russia's gas for Europe, adds a layer of risk to conventional routes, officials say.
Miller said the direct connection to Bulgaria, a member of the European Union, means geopolitical risks associated with transit countries are eliminated "forever."
Bulgarian consumers will receive gas from South Stream at a discounted rate once the entire project starts operating in 2015.
Gazprom said construction should begin in other downstream countries by year's end.
The pipeline is designed for an annual capacity of 2.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Nothing beats Germany as a property location for national and international investors.
The economic situation is right, and the financing options are fantastic.
This was the message of the 9th 'Immobilientag' (Property Day) organised by the Börsen Zeitung (stock exchange newspaper).
The German property markets are benefiting from the country's economic strength and general conditions which, compared with the rest of Europe, are very competitive.
This was pointed out by Christian Ulbrich, Jones Lang LaSalle CEO for Europe, the Near East and Africa, at the 9th 'Immobilientag' (Property Day) organised by the Börsen Zeitung (stock exchange newspaper).
The extent to which German commercial properties are sought after is evident in the transaction volumes, said Ulbrich.
In the first three quarters of this year, there was an increase of 31% compared to the same period the year before.
In Great Britain, growth stands at just 6%, and in France at 19%.
"Property investments offer an attractive rate of return," said Ulbrich.
The yield gap between properties and federal government bonds is at a historically high level.
The FAA is easing restrictions on the use of electronic gadgets on airplanes - though chatting on cellphones will still be prohibited.
Warplanes attack a store of Russian missiles in the port city of Latakia, an official says.
It's an apparent continuation of Israel's campaign to keep arms from proliferating in the Mideast.
A federal appeals court blocks a judge's ruling that the NYPD's controversial tactic discriminates against minorities.
Nearly 100 African migrants hoping to travel to Algeria die of thirst after their two trucks break down in the middle of the Sahara.
Experts say violence that left 14 adults and seven children dead is nothing more than random chance, not a sign of growing violence in America.
Rather than being rattled by the U.S. government shutdown, investors kept their focus on what probably matters more: the Federal Reserve.
The California woman plans to challenge what may be a first-of-its-kind citation, saying the Internet-connected eyewear makes navigation easier.
Police say they have a video that appears to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking a crack pipe.
Even close allies keep things from one another - and work every angle to find out what's being held back.
The Vatican wants to know how Catholic parishes around the globe handle sensitive issues like contraception, divorce and gay couples.
Two YMCA employees charged with sex offences before allegations against Jonathan Lord, Royal Commission hears
Two YMCA NSW employees had been charged with child sex offences before allegations were raised against Caringbah child care worker Jonathan Lord in 2011, the child sexual abuse Royal Commission has heard.
But in its opening statement to the Commission it said it had "never dealt with an incident of child sexual assault within its organisation," the Commission was told.
Chief executive officer Phillip Hare was asked about one case where a YMCA employee was charged child pornography offences, and another when a gym instructor at the YMCA Caringbah Hall was convicted of child sexual offences against children in his care in 1991.
Mr Hare told Gail Furness, counsel assisting the Commission, he knew about the first case but did not know about the second one.
He conceded the YMCA's opening statement to the commission was also inaccurate in claiming "there have been external audits of the YMCA that have recognised the YMCA as being at the forefront of child safety."
Evidence before the commission is that YMCA was notified that it received the second lowest of four possible ratings in a Department of Education and Communities quality audit in August this year.
Mr Hare, who started with the YMCA when he was 21, conceded management "from myself down" failed by recruiting Lord and failed to make sure staff were clear about their obligations to report child safe policy breaches.
Earlier this year Lord was convicted for sexual offences against 12 boys during the two years he worked at the YMCA.
He was jailed for a minimum of six years.
But Mr Hare rejected the suggestion the YMCA had a cultural problem which prevented staff from reporting Lord's breaches of child safety.
Staff gave evidence they observed breaches including Lord being alone with children, babysitting them privately, having them sit on his lap, saying he loved one and letting them play with his mobile phone.
Danielle Ockwell, who was supervised by Lord and asked for child protection training because she was concerned about his behaviour, testified she found the YMCA Caringbah children's services manager Jacqui Barnat who supervised Lord "very intimidating and hard to approach a lot of the time."
The CEO said he did not accept staff's evidence that they were uncomfortable with reporting upwards to their managers.
Rather, he said, their friendships with Lord clouded their judgements about reporting him.
Mr Hare said he had provided his view to the YMCA NSW board that the lesson for the organisation from the "Jonathan Lord incident" was "not about reporting" by staff, and the board agreed with him.
Mr Hare said the decision to get staff to sign confidentiality agreements soon after the allegations emerged was made by YMCA general manager of children's services Liam Whitley.
He said it was intended to avoid contamination of evidence but was "overzealous" and poorly executed.
YMCA NSW was not a child safe organisation at the time Jonathan Lord was employed between 2009 and 2011, child sex abuse expert Professor Stephen Smallbone of Griffith University told the commission.
He said there were "serious problems" in recruitment, screening, induction, training and supervision of staff.
The hearing adjourned until December 20.
Tony Blair said he'd seize the chance to return as Britain's prime minister - but acknowledges a comeback is unlikely.
In an interview overnight to mark the fifth anniversary of his departure from office, the 59-year-old aired his views on various domestic policies.
Since he stood down in June 2007 after a decade as leader, Mr Blair has largely avoided discussing British politics, confining most of his comments to foreign affairs and his role as envoy to the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers.
Asked if he would return to the post of prime minister, Mr Blair was quoted by London's Evening Standard as saying: "Yes, sure, but it's not likely to happen is it, so..."
As crowds of horse-showing experts gathered in Cardiff to battle it out for Horse of the Year, they knew the competition would be tough.
But nobody was quite ready for three-year-old Fenton Kirkland.
Not yet in school and just months on from taking his first steps, the toddler and his pet Shetland pony Toffee trotted through the three rounds with ease to take the top prize - leaving their 30 adult opponents trailing behind.
The inseparable pair - who are the same height - were commended for appearance, behaviour and style at the annual contest run by Sunnybank Equestrian Centre, in Rudry near Cardiff.
Taking to the stage against men and women in smart bowler hats, he tipped his flat cap at a jaunty angle and paraded two-year-old Toffee around the ring.
Fenton was lauded by judges for natural handling skills well beyond his years.
And Toffee received top marks for his appearance and personality.
Fenton was given Toffee as a third birthday present last March and has practised with the Shetland pony every day since.
His mother Donna, 30, said: "Fenton and Toffee are a great double act."
They were up against all comers but the two of them walked off with the gold cup and rosette.
It was only the second time he had competed with Toffee and we were all ecstatic when he won.
Complete strangers in the arena all thought he was so phenomenal they wanted photos taken with him.
The youngster, from the village of Nantyglo, near Ebbw Vale, South Wales, is following in the footsteps of his aunt Sharon Howells, who has been showing horses for more than 10 years.
Mrs Howells said: "The whole place was electric and everybody was cheering and clapping."
He was running on sand down the full length of the arena and even though he looked so tiny he did a marvellous job.
Fenton is animal mad - he loves horses, tractors and farms and has got two chickens which he looks after.
The way he has started he'll be at the Horse of the Year show before long - and I'm sure he'll do well.
A spokesman for the annual horse show said: "Fenton is only three but he knows how to handle his pony."
They are a great team together.
The judges marked Fenton and Toffee on how well they were turned out and the way they presented in the show ring.
They look for good teamwork between the pony and the handler - Fenton and Toffee were the best in the ring.
I'm sure Fenton was helped by his cute clothes, he really looked the part.
China plea paper 'to be overhauled'
A Chinese newspaper that made a front-page appeal for the release of a reporter accused of defamation is to be overhauled, a press regulator says.
The Guangzhou-based New Express made a rare public plea for the release of journalist Chen Yongzhou.
But Mr Chen subsequently admitted on television that he had taken bribes to fabricate stories about a part state-owned company.
Now the New Express is to undergo "full rectification," the regulator said.
The "rectification" order came from the Guangdong Administration of Press and Publication, Radio, Film and Television.
A preliminary investigation showed that Yangcheng Evening News Group's New Express had published several untrue reports about listed company Zoomlion in the period of September 2012 to August 2013.
"New Express's editorial management was disordered," the regulator said in a statement.
It said it had decided to "impose an administrative penalty on Chen Yongzhou by revoking his reporter's license."
It had also "instructed Yangcheng Evening News Group to undertake a complete rectification of New Express, and recommended they investigate the relevant responsible persons at New Express and immediately revise New Express's leadership team."
Mr Chen wrote several articles for the New Express alleging financial irregularities at a construction-equipment company called Zoomlion.
After he was detained, his newspaper published two front-page appeals for his release, saying it backed his journalism.
But Mr Chen then appeared on state television admitting he had published false stories for money.
"In this case I've caused damages to Zoomlion and also the whole news media industry and its ability to earn the public's trust," he told state broadcaster CCTV.
I did this mainly because I hankered after money and fame.
I've realised my wrongdoing.
Following Mr Chen's apology, New Express issued a front-page apology, saying it had failed to properly check his reports.
Several high-profile suspects have made televised confessions recently.
Experts say confessions are still routinely coerced, despite a change in the law earlier this year banning the authorities from forcing anyone to incriminate themselves.
US-Mexico drug tunnel with its own railway found
One of the most sophisticated drug smuggling tunnels between the USA and Mexico has been found, complete with its own lighting, ventilation and electric rail systems.
US authorities described the four foot by three foot tunnel as one of the most sophisticated secret passages they have ever discovered.
The tunnel, which zigzags the length of nearly six football pitches, links warehouses near Tijuana, Mexico and San Diego, USA.
The area is filled with nondescript warehouses, making it easier to conceal trucks being loaded with drugs.
The tunnel was shut down before any drugs made it through undetected, authorities said.
Authorities seized eight-and-a-half tons of marijuana and 327 pounds of cocaine in connection with the tunnel's discovery, according to court records.
Three men who authorities say worked as drivers were charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine with intent to distribute.
They face prison sentences between 10 years and life imprisonment if convicted.
In Nogales, Arizona, smugglers tap into vast underground drainage canals.
The tunnel is the eighth major passage discovered in San Diego since 2006.
Some of the largest tunnels have been discovered after central Mexico's marijuana harvest in October, which presents drug cartels with a challenge of how to quickly get their product to consumers.
In 2010, authorities found a roughly 700-yard passage equipped with rail tracks that extended from the kitchen of a Tijuana home to two San Diego warehouses.
Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr still love each other
Actors Orlando Bloom and Model Miranda Kerr want to go their separate ways.
However, in an interview, Bloom has said that he and Kerr still love each other.
Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom are parents to two-year-old Flynn.
Actor Orlando Bloom announced his separation from his wife, supermodel Miranda Kerr.
In an interview with US journalist Katie Couric, which is to be broadcast on Friday (local time), Bloom said, "sometimes life doesn't go exactly as we plan or hope for".
He and Kerr still love each other, emphasised the 36-year-old.
"We're going to support one another and love each other as parents to Flynn".
Kerr and Bloom have been married since 2010. Their son Flynn was born in 2011.
According to dictionaries, veganism is a sub-category of vegetarianism, yet the two do differ considerably.
For while vegetarians allow themselves to consume cream tarts, ice cream or a strong Edam, these indulgences are off the menu for vegans.
Milk, cheese, egg - alongside avoiding meat and fish, vegans refrain from eating all products of animal origin - even honey is not permitted.
You might ask what is left, however, upon closer inspection the world of vegan nutrition is characterised by great resourcefulness.
"Spreads are very popular," explained Ute Henkelmann the owner of the local health food store, which provides a host of special products for vegans.
Reuben Proctor also likes to visit the store on "Domgasse".
The New Zealander has been vegan for 13 years, and in Lampertheim he can find (almost) everything that he needs to get by. "In 1997 I adjusted my diet and became a vegetarian".
At the turn of the millennium I took the next step and became vegan.
"However, it wasn't just the diet that convinced me, but also my choice of shoes," said Proctor, who prefers artificial leather over normal leather.
He realised that you can also overcome all other daily concerns without animal products.
First and foremost, being vegan is a matter of ethics.
"I don't want animals to have to die for me," said Proctor, expressing the maxim of vegans, which applies to all their consumer behaviour.
Rather than missing burgers, scrambled eggs or gummi bears, the vegan has quickly discovered entirely new products that really inspire him.
"It is a double bonus," says Proctor now, "in actual fact being vegan is not about doing without, it's not about asceticism, but rather it is an enhancement". Regarding the assumption that when you convert your diet you are reducing your choice of meal options, Proctor puts this down to force of habit.
And it is precisely this conditioning that results in many a well-intentioned attempt failing.
"The temptation factor is a decisive factor in causing many to quickly give up, similar to with smoking," says Proctor, providing a comparison.
And he argues: "Certain flavours are not linked to animal produce".
Often it is the herbs or the type of preparation that provide the flavour.
"You can, however, create the same effect in other ways," explains the vegan.
For example, when attending a barbecue party, Proctor brings aubergines, mushrooms and also a few vegan sausages.
He ensures a balanced, varied diet, whereby everything should also have a good hearty flavour.
Of course you want to have something with a bit of bite, that is fair enough.
"It should be tasty, but this doesn't necessarily mean animal-based food," said Proctor.
He has not suffered any damage to his health or eating disorders - another wide-spread assumption.
Converting has had a positive effect for me.
I do not consume any foreign cholesterol and have increased my vitamin intake.
There are top athletes who also have an exclusively vegan diet.
"My blood values are excellent - I have myself checked on a regular basis," revealed Proctor.
Many critics of veganism warn in particular of the lack of vitamin B12.
"Because animals are fed on fodder instead of grazing, it is dubious whether the vitamin B12 content in meat sold in freezers is actually high," commented Proctor.
For vegans there is also the option of taking the co-enzyme in the form of tablets.
"My B12 values are fine," he explained.
Proctor does not have to travel far to buy food.
There are basic foodstuffs available everywhere, and every supermarket now has soya milk and other products.
I can find everything I need locally.
I only purchase special items now and again.
"Many people overlook the fact that even though ready-made vegan products are expensive, it is well-known that this is also the case for "normal" ready-made products.
In any case, the preparation of vegan dishes is much cheaper and less time consuming than commonly assumed.
"In home cooking, there is much to be discovered - with a few minor tweaks you can achieve good, if not sometimes better results," said Proctor.
Margarine in place of butter, a little more baking powder and bicarbonate of soda in place of egg - Proctor has even managed to astonish his in-laws with his vegan cheese cakes.
The vegan adds new spice to family parties.
When you cook together there is a certain dynamic - cooking takes on new value.
"The situations that may arise are as varied as the people themselves," said Proctor.
Of course he has already met with scepticism.
Do you not like my food any more?
"Should I feel bad now because I drink milk?" - as a vegan you have to be tactful in such matters.
"I do not disapprove of people, I am part of this society," said Proctor, explaining that he was not choosing a life of isolation.
And on closer observation, the everyday world does not appear quite so 'un-vegan' - and vegans are not quite as limited in their everyday lives as is commonly assumed.
Fast food is also permitted.
Chips are available everywhere!
"Many doner kebab houses offer falafel, or even vegetarian Yufka," says Proctor.
In a pizzeria he avoids pasta dishes or just orders a pizza without cheese, all just a question of habit.
Restaurants are slowly adapting to things.
"When I began eating a vegan diet 13 years ago, things were even more difficult," says the New Zealander, and he points out: "You have to talk with people, make them aware".
"If enough requests are made, they will perhaps be inclined to expand their menus," he hopes.
There are vegan restaurants opening up, such as the Kombüse in Mannheim or Café Vogelfrei.
Proctor hopes that other restaurants will also have at least one vegan dish on the menu.
Essentially, vegan dishes are for everyone.
Anyone can eat them, they are the exact opposite of exclusive.
"Meat dishes, on the other hand, are exclusive, in the truest sense of the word, as they rule others out," assessed Proctor.
"If you want to avoid food scandals, veganism is a safe way to rule out the majority of scandals from the outset," says Proctor.
However, purchasing vegan products can be difficult to start with.
OInce you come to understand that peanuts, in particular, may also contain animal additives as a colourant, people seem to quickly lose courage when following a code of ethics with so many hurdles and pitfalls.
Therefore, for this reason and others, Reuben Proctor and Lars Thomsen have written a book. "Veganissimo - Tierische Inhaltsstoffe und ihre Alternativen" (Veganissimo - Animal Ingredients and their Alternatives) explains the many ingredients hidden in both foodstuffs and cleaning agents.
"You gradually develop an internal scanner and you know which symbols and logos you have to look out for". Proctor has learned that "it is sometimes better too take small steps rather than to stand still or stumble".
Veganism is an important moral compass, which has an effect on your consciousness.
Perhaps he won't manage to help you break old habits altogether, but at least he manages to teach consumers to critically question their habits.
Stock exchange operator Nasdaq OMX keeps its customers on tenterhooks.
Trading at the Nasdaq Options Market was interrupted on Friday afternoon, German time.
In an announcement, the operator cited technical problems as the reason.
On the other eleven options markets, including two also operated by Nasdaq OMX, business continued as normal.
The most recent incident is the latest in a series of both small and large breakdowns suffered by the stock exchange operator.
As recently as last Tuesday, the Nasdaq indices were not calculated for one hour due to data transfer errors.
In August of this year there were two breakdowns in a single week.
First of all, US investment bank Goldman Sachs sent large quantities of incorrect purchase orders to the options markets due to technical problems.
As a result, the stock exchange operators required almost an entire day to look through and delete the orders.
Two days later, half of all stock dealing in the USA came to a standstill for several hours, due to a computer failure in the Nasdaq exchange.
Furthermore, last year the listing of Facebook on the stock exchange caused quite a furore.
The Nasdaq systems could not cope with the flood of purchase and sales orders, the Exchange Supervisory Authority established at a later date, imposing a record penalty of 10 million dollars on the company.
Konstanz: Cyclist knocks over 63-year-old man
According to the police, the accident occurred on Thursday evening at around 10:00 p.m., when a 26-year-old man was cycling illegally, on the left footpath of the Bahnhofplatz in the direction of Marktstätte, on a ladies bicycle.
According to police, when a 63-year-old man suddenly stepped out of a pub onto the footpath, the cyclist was unable to brake in time.
During the subsequent collision, the pedestrian was thrown against the wall of the building, and then fell onto the ground, suffering a laceration to the head that measured around 15 centimetres in length.
An ambulance team brought the injured man to the clinic for medical treatment.
British police serve Assange with extradition notice
Btitish police served an extradition notice today on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has taken refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London and requested asylum.
Scotland Yard said they had served a "surrender notice" on the 40-year-old Australian requiring him to appear at a police station, adding that failure to do so would make him further liable to arrest.
Assange faces extradition to Sweden over sex crime allegations, having exhausted his options under British law when the Supreme Court overturned his appeal against extradition earlier this month.
Fearing Stockholm would pass him on to the US, he sought refuge at Ecuador's embassy in London on June 19, asking the South American country for political asylum.
Scotland Yard has "served a surrender notice upon a 40-year-old man that requires him to attend a police station at date and time of our choosing," a spokesman said.
He remains in breach of his bail conditions.
The embassy declined to comment on the serving of the police notice.
Assange fears he will be extradited from Sweden to the United States to face possible espionage charges, after releasing more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables on the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website.
Driver speeding at 130mph with hot drink between legs fined £1,000
A motorist has been fined £1,000 for driving at up to 130mph (210km/h) with a hot drink balanced between his legs.
Andrew Howie, 35, of Tiptree, Essex, was spotted driving his Mercedes Benz on the A120 at Braintree on 27 May.
When police stopped him they discovered the takeaway drink between his legs.
At Colchester Magistrates' Court Howie admitted a charge of driving without due care and attention.
Seven points added to his licence resulted in him receiving a six-month driving ban.
Howie was also ordered to pay costs of £90 and a victim surcharge of £100.
Tax on foreign property owners to burst London's bubble
The Treasury have provisionally costed out the CGT measure but are awaiting a final decision from Mr Osborne, who, in the 2012 Budget, introduced a 7% rate of stamp duty for homes costing more than £2m and annual charges for buyers who choose to hold homes in a company rather than as individuals.
Already the stamp duty take for residential property in the boroughs of Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea, which stood at £708 million in the 2012/13 tax year, exceeds the combined total for Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, the North East, North West and Yorkshire and the Humber put together.
Mr Cook said: "Following increases in stamp duty of high value homes and the introduction of associated anti-avoidance legislation, it is very difficult to argue that high value property is under-taxed irrespective of the effect of the out-dated council tax system."
"But this move could make some foreign investors reticent to buy property in London or current owners reluctant to sell," he added.
Prime property - the top 5% to 10% of the housing market by price - in the affluent south-west London belt, which stretches from Fulham to Wimbledon, has increased by a record 11.8% over the past year.
Prices in central London continued to show steady year-on-year growth of 5.6% but were overshadowed by a burgeoning "domestic market" with the city's south west, north (7.4%) and east (6.5%) all experiencing an uptick, according to research from Savills.
Scientists have shed more light on how the movements of a dog's tail are linked to its mood.
Earlier research had revealed that happy dogs wag their tails more to the right (from the dog's point of view), while nervous dogs have a left-dominated swish.
But now scientists say that fellow canines can spot and respond to these subtle tail differences.
Prof Georgio Vallortigara, a neuroscientist from the University of Trento, said: "It is very well known in humans that the left and right side of the brain are differently involved in stimuli that invokes positive or negative emotions."
Here we attempted to look at it in other species.
He added that just as in humans, for dogs the right side of the brain was responsible for left-handed movement and vice versa, and the two hemispheres played different roles in emotions.
To find out more about how dogs react to the lop-sided tail wags of other dogs, the researchers monitored the animals as they watched films of other dogs.
They measured the pets' heart rates and analysed their behaviour.
It will probably not be long before we understand why their tails sometimes go one way, sometimes the other
Prof Vallortigara said: "We presented dogs with movies of dogs - either a naturalistic version or a silhouette to get rid of any other confounding issues, and we could doctor the movement of the tail and present the tail more to the left or right."
When the animals saw an otherwise expressionless dog move its tail to the right (from the tail-wagging dog's point of view), they stayed perfectly relaxed.
But when they spotted a tail veer predominantly to the left (again from the tail-swishing dog's point of view), their heart rates picked up and they looked anxious.
Prof Vallortigara said he didn't think that the dogs were intentionally communicating with each other through these movements.
Instead, he believes that they dogs have learned from experience what moves they should and shouldn't feel worried about.
He said: "If you have several meetings with other dogs, and frequently their tail wagging one way is associated with a more friendly behaviour, and the right side is producing a less friendly behaviour, you respond on the basis of that experience."
The researchers say the findings could give owners, vets and trainers a better insight into their animal's emotions.
Dog behaviour expert John Bradshaw, a visiting fellow at the University of Bristol's school of veterinary science, said this was not the first study to examine whether left and right were important to canines.
Last year a team from the University of Lincoln found that dogs turn their heads to the left when looking at an aggressive dog and to the right when looking at a happy dog.
And in another research paper from the University of Victoria in Canada, he said: "Dogs were more likely to approach a robot dog when its 'tail' was made to wag left rather than right, rather than becoming anxious - the opposite way around to the Italian study."
He said the differences could be because the dogs in the different studies were not fully interpreting the animals in the films or robo-dogs as canines.
A study of how dogs responded to real dogs could help, he explained.
"While there is considerable evidence from many different mammals that the two sides of the brain are used for different purposes, much of the detail still has to be hammered out - and dogs are no exception," he said.
However, given the ease with which their behaviour can be recorded, it will probably not be long before we understand why their tails sometimes go one way, sometimes the other.
Arctic Monkeys postpone Glasgow gig due to Alex Turner's illness
Rock band the Arctic Monkeys have postponed a gig in Glasgow after their lead singer was diagnosed with laryngitis.
The Sheffield group were scheduled to perform at the Hydro venue in the city on Friday.
However, lead singer Alex Turner's illness has forced them to reschedule the show.
The band's announcement came after they were forced to similarly postpone a gig at the LG Arena in Birmingham on Thursday.
In a statement on their official website, the Arctic Monkeys said: "Following the decision to postpone the show at the Birmingham LG Arena tonight and after seeking medical advice, Arctic Monkeys must also postpone the show at the Glasgow Hydro on Friday, November 1."
"Alex Turner has been diagnosed with laryngitis and is regrettably not able to perform."
The show at the LG Arena in Birmingham will now take place on November 20 and the show at the Glasgow Hydro will now take place on November 21.
All tickets remain valid for these shows.
We wish to apologise to all ticket holders for any inconvenience this has caused.
Please contact the customer services at the box office you purchased your tickets from for any further assistance.
Pope Francis to name first cardinals in February
Pope Francis will create new cardinals of the Catholic Church for his first time on February 22, the Vatican announced Thursday.
Cardinals are the highest-ranking clergy in the Catholic Church below the pope, and they're the ones who elect popes, so Francis will be appointing his first group of men who will ultimately help choose his successor.
There are now 201 cardinals.
However, once a cardinal reaches 80 he is no longer permitted to participate in the election of a pope -- this falls to a group of 120 "cardinal electors."
In a statement announcing the news, Father Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said a meeting of all the existing cardinals would be held before the ceremony to elevate the new cardinals, known as a consistory.
"Pope Francis has decided to communicate his decision to convoke February's consistory in advance in order to facilitate the planning of other meetings involving the participation of cardinals from different parts of the world," Lombardi said.
Jack Valero of Catholic Voices said that by February, the number of cardinal electors was likely to have dropped.
He said usually a pope would name as many cardinals as was needed to raise the number of cardinal electors back to 120 and as many cardinals aged over 80 as he wanted.
Next year's consistory would be significant because it would be the first since Francis was elected in March this year, Valero said.
At the moment there is a sort of bias towards Europe and especially towards Italy.
"It will be interesting to see whether the new Pope will nominate cardinals from the rest of the world to restore the balance," he said.
Forty percent of Roman Catholics are in South America, but they have a tiny number of cardinals.
The cardinals will also be the first to be chosen since Francis formed the Council of Cardinals, a group of eight cardinals from around the world tasked with looking into ways to reform the church.
In the past the Pope decided everything on his own.
"Now Francis has selected these eight cardinals to help him," Valero said.
He said it was "quite possible" that Francis would ask the cardinals for advice.
But we've not been in that situation before -- it's all completely new.
Valero said popes typically elevated bishops from large places to the position of cardinal but that Francis was "full of surprises -- so we don't know who he'll name."
GM recalls some new pickup trucks in U.S. to fix seatbacks
General Motors Co is recalling nearly 19,000 of its all-new 2014 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks to repair a problem with the manual reclining seatback, according to a notice from U.S. auto safety regulators on Friday.
On some of the trucks, the front seats may have a defect in the reclining mechanism.
As a result, the seatbacks fail to comply with federal auto safety standards on head restraints.
"If the vehicle is struck from behind, the head restraint may not properly protect occupants, increasing the risk of injury," according to the notice posted on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website.
The recalled models were built between August 1 and September 10.
GM's truck roll-out began in June and represents the most important vehicle launch for the No. 1 U.S. automaker since its 2009 bankruptcy restructuring.
GM told truck owners about the defect in the first half of October.
NHTSA could not review the owner notification letter due to the 16-day government shutdown, which tempered auto sales growth in October.
Sales of the Silverado and Sierra trucks, which were redesigned for the 2014 model year, were up about 20 percent during the first 10 months of the year, GM said on Friday.
In October, GM sold 42,660 Silverado and 16,503 Sierra pickup trucks.
GM shares were up 1.4 percent at $37.47 on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday afternoon.
An Obama voter's cry of despair
I voted for President Obama twice, sharing hope in possibility of change
He says Obama has had worthy efforts thwarted by GOP obstructionism
Obstructionism can't excuse Obamacare website woes, drone attacks
Obama's 2008 campaign memoir is a sad reminder of what might have been
Nathaniel P. Morris is a second-year student at Harvard Medical School.
I'm reading a terribly sad book these days.
It's a book that I thought would uplift me during the doldrums of second-year medical school, and renew in me a sense of hope.
It's called "The Audacity to Win," and it's a memoir of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.
When I'm finished with my patient write-ups at night and get into bed, the book returns me to a time when politics inspired millions and speeches could take your breath away.
The election turned out to be a landslide, and news anchors paused to reflect on the historic nature of the hour.
My classmates cried with joy, and my parents saved every newspaper they could find.
A young team of visionaries was headed for the White House, and the nation was ready for change.
During Obama's transition to office in 2008, he had an 82% approval rating.
And then I close the book.
Cutting to the present is a rude awakening, like snapping out of a dream.
It's hard to remember those days of optimism -- they seem a distant memory, a sad reminder of opportunities gone by.
Change indeed happened, in the years since I cast my first ballot.
It was simply nothing I could have imagined.
I credit Obama with great and varied accomplishments, from the passage of the Affordable Care Act to our military exit from Iraq, the end of "don't ask don't tell," to the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Moreover, I believe that partisan obstructionism has upended too many efforts to push our nation forward: immigration reform, a public option for health care, and closing the base at Guantanamo Bay, among others.
But, after the countless times in which I have found myself defending the Obama administration to colleagues and peers, I've reached a limit to the explanations that I can provide.
I've reached a point of political despair.
Republican obstructionism cannot explain allowing the bugging of foreign leaders, nor having drones strike innocent children overseas.
It cannot explain having the National Security Agency collect data on the private lives of Americans, nor prosecuting whistle-blowers who reveal government wrongdoing.
It cannot account for assassinating Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, without a trial, nor shirking public funding and spending limits during presidential campaigns.
It cannot justify the findings of a report that says the White House's efforts to silence the media are the "most aggressive ... since the Nixon Administration."
And, most recently, it cannot excuse the failure to design a simple website more than three years since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law.
I don't know if this is what I should have expected.
If, at 18 years old, I was supposed to figure out that governance may contradict the political campaigns that precede it.
Obviously, elective office isn't a predictable course, as the opposing political party and random events, such as the Newtown massacre, will shape our public conversation.
Yet, of all of the examples that I have listed above, they largely seem to be of the administration's own choosing.
That is what troubles me most of all.
I voted for Obama again in 2012, but not because I was excited by his candidacy.
Mitt Romney presented a confusing and unrefined alternative who could not seem to lock down his policies or his positions.
I felt that a second term for Obama, free from the pressures of future elections, would fulfill the hope that we had heard of for so long.
Still, as Obama's approval rating sank below 45% this week, returning to 2008 through that book has become that much harder.
It makes me yearn for the many promises that disappeared.
This week I was reading the portion of the book describing how Obama suffered a huge loss to Clinton in the Pennsylvania primary.
At a post-mortem campaign meeting, he told his staff that they needed to get back on track and stay true to the purpose of their cause.
"I want us to get our mojo back," he said.
We've got to remember who we are.'
It's five years later, Mr. President, and I couldn't agree with you more.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Nathaniel Morris.
Clive Palmer claims PM Tony Abbott has conflict of interest over parental leave scheme
Billionaire MP Clive Palmer says Prime Minister Tony Abbott has a conflict of interest over his parental leave scheme because his daughters might get pregnant and benefit from it.
The mining magnate, who is in a dispute about paying a $6 million carbon tax bill, made the claim as he tried to brush off questions about whether he had a conflict.
The Palmer United Party could control up to four votes in the Senate that may be crucial in deciding if the carbon and mining taxes are axed.
But Mr Palmer claimed it was only ministers who could have a conflict of interest and said Mr Abbott's daughters stood to personally benefit from policies.
"He's got a major conflict of interest when it comes to paid parental leave because if any of those daughters get pregnant, he'll have a direct interest whether they get leave or not," Mr Palmer said.
Two months after the election, the electoral commission officially declared Mr Palmer the winner of the Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax by 53 votes, after a recount.
Mr Palmer called for overhaul of election counting to speed up the process.
Tony Abbott's daughters Frances and Bridget.
Should this election be decided two months after we stopped voting?
"We need to have a better system," he said.
Why is it that we shouldn't have a system where you can walk in, punch your details into a computer, vote immediately and have a result at 6.30 that night?
Mr Palmer also criticised the use of pencils to mark ballots.
Is it because they can rub out the result if someone doesn't like it?
In this day and age having a pencil seems extraordinary.
The Electoral Commission has been studying options for electronic voting and recently released a joint discussion paper with New Zealand.
Mr Palmer, 59, said his policies included an international airport for the Sunshine Coast and he would take "very seriously" his new job.
Public office is about public service.
"We seek no reward, except the reward of history that we can at a critical time serve this community," he said.
RBS suspends two forex traders
Royal Bank of Scotland has suspended two traders in its foreign exchange division according to two people familiar with the situation, in another sign that the global probe by regulators into the suspected manipulation of the currency market is rapidly gaining traction.
Some of the world's largest banks, including UBS, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and RBS, have confirmed they are co-operating with regulators in investigations into the world's largest financial market, where $5.3tn changes hands each day.
The two traders would be the first RBS employees to be suspended in the widening probe that echoes the Libor interbank lending manipulation scandal.
The bank, which declined to comment on the suspensions, confirmed this month that it has received requests for information from regulators.
"Our ongoing inquiry into this matter continues and we are co-operating fully with the FCA and our other regulators," the bank said two weeks ago.
Last month, people close to the situation said that RBS had turned over records of emails and instant messages to the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, sent to and from a former trader.
This trader, Richard Usher, left RBS in 2010 and is understand to have be given leave from his current position as European head of forex spot trading at JPMorgan.
Rohan Ramchandani, head of European spot trading at Citi, went on leave this week, while Matt Gardiner, a former senior currencies trader at Barclays and UBS, was suspended by Standard Chartered this week.
None of these traders have been accused of any wrongdoing.
Mr Usher's instant message group included bankers at Barclays and Citigroup, people close to the situation said.
UBS said this week it had taken action against some of its employees after the Swiss regulator, Finma, said it was investigating suspected manipulation of the foreign exchange market at a number of Swiss banks.
At least six authorities globally - the European Commission, Finma, Switzerland's competition authority Weko, the FCA, the Department of Justice in the US and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority - are looking at allegations that bankers colluded to move the currencies market.
HSBC, Citigroup, JPMorgan and Credit Suisse have also launched internal probes or received requests for information from regulators, said people familiar with the situation.
Banks are scouring through years" worth of instant messages and emails to search for instances of wrongdoing.
News about the probes has rattled traders in an area that has been one of the bigger profit drivers of investment banks' trading units in past years but which has been challenged this year as low volatility in currencies cuts opportunities for speculators.
Some bankers have tried to play down the affair by saying the vast and highly liquid foreign exchange market is almost impossible to manipulate, but senior traders are saying this is not necessarily true.
A senior trader said that despite the huge volume of daily foreign exchange trading, the fragmentation of liquidity between different trading platforms and banks" increasing use of their own internal platforms meant that "you can start to get an impact on the market at quite small ticket prices."
The news came on the same day as Credit Suisse announced it had dismissed a trader at its London exchange traded funds desk this week after he had caused a nearly $6m loss late last year.
The bank promptly notified the relevant authorities and has been co-operating with its regulators.
"We are confident the trader acted alone and that the matter has been contained," Credit Suisse said.
Hoarding on the Bechtle plot painted
A group belonging to the "Schweizer Wiese" citizen's initiative has given the hoarding on the Bechtle plot on the spa promenade in Bad Herrenalb a face-lift.
In addition, they have cleaned and widened the footpath, a press release announced.
The planned covering of the dilapidated house to the rear of the plot was not permitted for safety reasons, as the premises were at risk of collapsing.
Alfred Abel, who currently manages the site, arranged the 'face-lift' in cooperation with his colleague, Reinhard Domke, from the citizen's initiative.
Before the citizen's initiative project, a banner with the message "We are in favour" was put up.
However, this did little to distract the 20 or so members of the citizen's initiative from their project.
Their motto, on the large billboard stated "We are against unfinished buildings".
In so doing they wanted to point out the danger of even bigger ruins on the Schweizer Wiese - should the huge project one day fail.
Chatting with many people passing by the "construction site", it became clear that many citizens believe the execution of the project would make things much better for the town, although many have the same questions as the citizen's initiative regarding the scale of the planned project.
However, they are beginning to resign themselves as the town continues to stall in providing answers, said a statement from the citizen's initiative.
We have now been told that the public statements made by the Mayor are also having an impact.
In May, in the meeting of the Town Council, he said that he feared for the outcome of the spa should the population vote against the plans for a spa and wellness complex on the Schweizer Wiese in the local referendum.
Some appear utterly frightened by it, others perceive it as a "blatant attempt to blackmail" the population, continued the press release from the citizen's initiative.
The citizen's initiative thanked those who donated paint and all those who lent a hand.
Rangnick scolding for refs: Mane is no diver
As satisfied as Ralf Rangnick is with the present winning form of the Austrian Bundesliga table-toppers, Red Bull Salzburg, the Sporting Director of the "Bulls" expressed equal disappointment with the referees.
"There is currently a dangerous trend, with Mane and Alan being dubbed as 'divers'," he said at a press conference in Salburg on Thursday, in defence of the two tricky offensive players.
The most recent cause for Rangnick's criticism was the yellow card for Mane at 3:0 against Grödig last Sunday, whereby the Senegalese striker was penalised for supposed play acting - admittedly this was not justified, as shown by TV footage.
"A blatant wrong decision," commented Rangnick, who referred to Harkam as being "completely out of his depth".
Harkam also played "his part" in the escalation between Salzburg Coach Roger Schmidt and Grödig Trainer Adi Hütter after the game.
He firmly defended his German compatriot: "In each individual situation I would have behaved in the same way as Roger Schmidt".
Schmidt himself did not wish to have any contact with his colleagues after the skirmish with Hütter.
I do not know why.
"After all, I was the one who was insulted," emphasised the 46-year-old.
However, with regard to the winning run, Rangnick sang his team's praises.
"There are only two words for it: Really good," he stated.
There is not a lot you can criticise.
Most of all, the manner in which the team is playing is impressive.
We must stay composed and keep it up.
There will hardly be any squad changes in the winter transfer window.
There is no major reason to change anything.
"Unless a player comes forward and expresses the desire to leave the club," explained Rangnick.
Supreme Court upholds Obama health care law
In a major victory for the Obama administration, the US Supreme Court today ruled Barack Obama's signature health care law is constitutional.
By a 5-4 vote, the justices ruled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's individual mandate - which requires citizens to buy health insurance by 2014 or else pay a penalty - was constitutional under the taxing power of the government.
Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the four more liberal members of the court while Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy dissented.
The court also upheld the remaining sections of the 2700 page law, and further held that the health care law's requirement that states increase Medicaid eligibility or else lose all federal Medicaid funding is not unconstitutionally coercive.
The suit to block the law was brought by 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business.
The law was vigorously opposed by each of the major Republican presidential candidates during the 2012 primary season, including presumptive nominee Mitt Romney.
Norway: Norwegian village lights itself up with huge mirrors
Using huge mirrors, the residents of a Norwegian village have brought light to their dreary valley.
Due to the low level of sunshine, from autumn until spring the village of Rjukan in the Vestfjord valley normally languishes in the shadows of the surrounding mountains.
With three gigantic mirrors, each 45 metres tall, a centuries-old dream came true on Wednesday.
"Finally!', raved Mayor Steinar Bergsland at the inaugural ceremony, televised by broadcaster TV2.
Some valley residents lay back on sun loungers, while others safely put on their sunglasses.
Up until now, those hungry for sunshine in the winter had to travel to a nearby peak by cable car.
Ten years ago, local artist Martin Andersen presented the proposal of directing the sun into the valley using mirrors.
However, this basic idea had been talked of in the location since 1913.
After several years of debate, the Town Council finally approved the project, which cost 5 million krone (around EUR 615,000).
A similar construction has provided sunshine to the Italian alpine resort of Viganella for a number of years.
The post is hardly ever emptied on Sundays
"Many citizens will not yet have noticed that red dots indicating a Sunday post collection are still to be found on many post boxes in the town centre and its districts. However, if you read the small print on the yellow boxes operated by Post AG, you will quickly find out that the boxes are no longer emptied on Sundays and holidays," announced the FDP.
An inquiry by the FDP confirmed this.
Only the post boxes in front of the post office building at Ernst-Ludwig-Straße 36 and at Jakob-Müller-Straße 1 in Hüttenfeld are still emptied.
Whether there are still Sunday collections in Hofheim and Rosengarten is not addressed in the inquiry by the FDP.
The FDP spokesperson for social and youth-related affairs, Fritz Röhrenbeck wants to dig deeper into this.
The Sunday collection is an important postal service, especially in the case of scheduled post.
"The company is radically and unacceptably cutting back on this, despite the price increase for letters in January 2013.
Thomas Bittner, Liberal Party Parliamentary Group and Municipal Association Chairman, is supporting his fellow group members: "What annoys me, is the fact that the collection times have been changed or cancelled on the quiet here".
In so doing, the postal service is miles off the mark when it comes to public accessibility.
"At least the post boxes in the districts of Neuschloß and Rosengarten must still be emptied on Sundays," said Bittner and Röhrenbeck in unison.
It is also the case for the town centre that those citizens in particular who are not mobile must also be able to access a post box with a Sunday collection on foot.
In the Town Parliament, Röhrenbeck asked whether the Town Council was planning discussions with the postal service regarding this matter.
Mayor Erich Maier responded that the postal service had not communicated with Lampertheim.
To the best of his knowledge, however, there is a Sunday collection in Hofheim.
Their party has spoken out in favour of privatisation.
"Decisions will then be made elsewhere," said Maier.
Frankfurt parking fees to increase dramatically
Parking in Frankfurt could soon be noticeably more expensive.
The City Magistrate today discussed a submission by the head of the department for transport, Stefan Majer (Green Party).
According to the proposal, parking fees are to be increased by 50 per cent.
This increase will not, however, be the result of raised prices, but rather the fact that time interval permitted by parking meters and ticketing machines will be reduced from 30 to 20 minutes.
The City Council must reach a decision on this in December.
The Retail Committee of the Frankfurt Chamber of Industry and Commerce believes that this is "not a good idea".
The option of parking right outside their businesses is "an advantage to smaller retailers that must not be underestimated.".
The Verkehrsclub Deutschland (German Traffic Club) is of the opinion that an increase after two decades is "completely appropriate and actually long overdue".
Local public transport will also become more expensive.
Freudenstadt: Quick moves take hosts by surprise
With a slender squad, the TSV Freudenstadt Herren I team (Men's First Team) stepped into the Schiller School Gymnasium in Reutlingen to face TG Gönningen of the Swabian Alb region.
The Alb men stood on the other side of the net with what was undoubtedly a more experienced team.
However, it soon became evident that, due in part to their age, they could not really keep up with the fast pace of the Freudenstadt team.
Gönningen found it extremely difficult to cope with the hard and well-positioned offensive moves.
They repeatedly missed the passes and attacks coming cleanly over the net from Simon Schenk and Eduard Schulz and their blocking game was not up to scratch.
Clear victories in the first two sets clearly demonstrated the superiority of the Freudenstadt team in all areas.
Faced with this overwhelming and match-determining performance, the third set was won following a somewhat tame and spiritless performance, for a final score of 3:0 (25:13, 25:14, 25:22).
On 2 November, when they play TV Baiersbronn, who managed a clear victory in Nagold, they will step onto the court to face a much stronger opponent.
TSV Freudenstadt I: Dominik Bäuerle, Yannik Büchle, Sebastian Dölker, Felix Pälchen, Stefan Räller, Simon Schenk and Eduard Schulz.
In the B Class, two teams from Baiersbronn and Freudenstadt faced off in the Murgtalhalle in Baiersbronn.
They produced a hard-fought two-hour match.
Nerves on both sides, particularly when receiving the ball, resulted in errors and lost points; there was even a lack of passing at times and at some critical moments overeagerness saw potential points wasted.
However, in this evenly matched game, the great physical effort of Marcus Blasutto's TSV team proved decisive in spite of tremendous commitment by both teams.
Maintenance day at the small 'Engländerhütte'
For what was then the fifth maintenance day in the follow-up to the Natura 2000 project in Upper Hotzenwald, a group of dedicated participants met at the small Engländerhütte (Englishman's Cottage) in Ibach
Following suggestions from the population, the of the valley in the area of the cottage was to be cleared, said Mayor Helmut Kaiser.
According to Kaiser, many hikers refer to this area as the showpiece of the Schluchtensteig, where the landscape provides the ideal framework for fantastic views.
He thanked those present for their willingness to cooperate and emphasised that the maintenance day is a suitable instrument through which to strengthen the connection between people and nature,
He is offering every citizen the opportunity to focus on nature itself.
At the same time as the tourist aspect, environmental aspects should also be taken into consideration.
This environmental aspect was explained by Friederike Tribukait of the Department of Nature Conservation of the Freiburg Regional Council, following the greeting by Regional Councillor Tilman Bollacher, who had taken on the role of patron and wished the campaign every success.
According to Tribukait, the tourist objective of the vision coincided with the goal of preserving the now extremely overgrown old Allmend grazing pasture, with its specific protected habitats, through its opening and connection to the still existing grazing land.
Certain species, such as rare butterflies or grasshoppers, cannot get past barriers in the form of forest areas.
They require these clear pathways in order to preserve their species.
Tribukait said that she did not want to fail to use this opportunity to say a word in defence of the planned biosphere area.
The current measures do not integrate seamlessly into these plans.
A biosphere area offers the chance for sustainable economic and ecological development on the basis of the internationally recognised Unesco status, and thus offers an extension to what has been achieved thus far with the Life Project and the previous care days.
After the various statements, forest ranger Christoph Wehle and Life Project manager Cornelia Bischoff divided the helpers into groups.
The larger trees had been cut down in advance, although forest tractors were on-call if required.
One group of helpers were to take care of the clearance of juniper bushes and the maintenance of a dry stone wall.
The objective was to create a clear view at the viewpoint.
Löffingen: Köpfler still the only candidate
Information online: Although Löffingen, the small town of Baar, with its 7,514 residents, can be described as having an intact infrastructure, forward-looking school, youth and senior citizens policies and its own municipal energy companies, thus far no-one has registered as a second mayoral candidate.
So far, the only candidate to succeed Mayor Norbert Brugger, who is no longer running on account of his age, is 46-year-old banker and business economist Dieter Köpfler from Löffingen.
The deadline for applications is Monday 11 November, at 6:00 p.m.
Google, Samsung, Huawei sued over Nortel patents
The group that owns thousands of former Nortel patents filed a barrage of patent lawsuits on Thursday against cell phone manufacturers including Google, the company it outbid in the Nortel bankruptcy auction.
Rockstar, the consortium that bought the Nortel patents for $4.5 billion, sued Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, HTC Corp, Huawei and four other companies for patent infringement in U.S. District Court in Texas.
Rockstar is jointly owned by Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry, Ericsson and Sony.
Google is accused of infringing seven patents.
The patents cover technology that helps match Internet search terms with relevant advertising, the lawsuit said, which is the core of Google's search business.
Representatives for Samsung, Huawei, HTC and Rockstar could not immediately be reached.
Samsung, Huawei and HTC all manufacture phones that operate on Google's Android operating system, which competes fiercely with Apple and Microsoft mobile products.
In 2011 Google placed an initial $900 million bid for Nortel's patents.
Google increased its bid several times, ultimately offering as much as $4.4 billion.
After losing out to Rockstar on the Nortel patents, Google went on to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, a deal driven partly by Motorola's library of patents.
"Despite losing in its attempt to acquire the patents-in-suit at auction, Google has infringed and continues to infringe," the lawsuit said.
Rockstar is seeking increased damages against Google, as it claims Google's patent infringement is willful, according to the complaint.
Egypt swears in first freely elected president
Mohamed Morsi takes the oath of office but his day of triumph is unlikely to mark end of political strife in Egypt.
ISLAMIST Mohamed Morsi promised a "new Egypt" as he took the oath of office to become the country's first freely elected president, succeeding Hosni Mubarak who was ousted 16 months ago.
At his inauguration before the Supreme Constitutional Court, Morsi also became the Arab world's first freely elected Islamist president and Egypt's fifth head of state since the overthrow of the monarchy some 60 years ago.
He took the oath before the court's 18 black-robed judges in its Nile-side seat built to resemble an ancient Egyptian temple.
"We aspire to a better tomorrow, a new Egypt and a second republic," Morsi said during a solemn ceremony shown live on state television.
"Today, the Egyptian people laid the foundation of a new life - absolute freedom, a genuine democracy and stability," said Morsi, a 60-year-old US-trained engineer from the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist group that has spent most of the 84 years since its inception as an outlawed organisation harshly targeted by successive governments.
Hundreds of soldiers and policemen guarded the building as Morsi arrived shortly after 11am local time in a small motorcade.
Only several hundred supporters gathered outside the court to cheer the new president and, in a departure from the presidential pomp of the Mubarak years, traffic was only briefly halted to allow his motorcade through on the usually busy road linking the city centre with its southern suburbs.
Derided as the Brotherhood's uncharismatic "spare tyre," his personal prestige has surged since his victory and his delivery of a Friday speech that tried to present him as a candidate not just of Islamists but of all those who want to complete the work of the 2011 uprising against the authoritarian Mubarak.
"Egypt today is a civil, national, constitutional and modern state," Morsi, wearing a blue business suit and a red tie, told the judges in the wood-panelled chamber where he took the oath of office.
Morsi later travelled to Cairo University where he was to make his inauguration address.
He was given an official welcome by an army band that played the national anthem as he stood to attention.
Military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi was in attendance.
His arrival was greeted with chants of, "The army and the people are one hand," from the hundreds gathered in the university's main lecture room.
Established in 1908 as a bastion of secular education, Cairo University later became a stronghold of Islamist student groups in the 1970s.
Morsi took a symbolic oath on Friday in Tahrir Square, birthplace of the uprising that ended Mubarak's authoritarian rule last year, and vowed to reclaim presidential powers stripped from his office by the military council that took over from the ousted leader.
But by agreeing to take the official oath before the court, rather than before parliament as is customary, he is bowing to the military's will in an indication that the contest for power will continue.
Morsi's speech in Tahrir Square was filled with dramatic populist gestures.
Falkenberg club makes for two wonderful evenings.
The new season in the Falkenberg "Blue Velvet" club has begun.
This Friday evening, the "Pump this party" event will be taking place, while one day later, on Saturday evening, festivities will continue with an over-25s party.
Fat beats and cool sounds are of course promised by the organisers on both nights.
Worker falls from ladder: seriously injured
On Thursday, a 51-year-old worker in Eggelsberg fell from a ladder while replacing a broken external sensor and was seriously injured.
The man from Lamprechtshausen wanted to replace a broken heating sensor on the external facade of a guest house.
As he was climbing the ladder, which was resting on the roof guttering, it slipped away and the man fell onto the concrete below.
He suffered serious injuries and was taken by the "Christophorus 6" rescue helicopter to the Salzburg Regional Hospital.
Rapist in South Africa: two life sentences
Nine months after the brutal rape and mutilation of a 17-year-old girl in South Africa, the perpetrator was condemned to two life sentences on Friday.
This was reported by broadcaster SABC.
The victim later died as a result of the serious injuries.
Johannes Kana had already been found guilty of the crime at the start of the week.
The crime had caused nationwide horror.
The then 21-year-old had raped Anene Booysen in February in an industrial estate in Bredasdorp, near Capetown.
For 14 hours, doctors battled to save the life of the victim, ultimately in vain.
The sight of the young girl was so horrific that the carers and nursing staff required psychological support.
During the trial, Kana admitted to having been in a bar with Booysen on the night of the attack.
He also admitted to beating and raping her, however he denied being responsible for the death of the girl.
The police had initially assumed that there were multiple attackers, however, they released two suspects from custody as the evidence against them was insufficient.
During the proceedings the public prosecution also emphasised that they were convinced that Kana was alone at the time of the attack.
Rapes are almost part of everyday life in South Africa: There are around 64,000 reports of sexual assault every year.
This is almost ten times as many as in Germany, although with a population of 82 million people, Germany has a much higher number of residents than South Africa (50 million).
Police and women's associations in South Africa, however, estimate the number of unreported cases of sexual assault to be 10-25 times as high.
Jumbo visits the home of Black Forest ham
Jumbo on the search for the "world's best ham": For the TV programme "Galileo", the Pro7 star visited Bonndorf.
The presenter established one thing right from the outset: The most important thing when it comes to ham are the legs of pork - turbo fattening does not provide a good basis for this.
Can ham bought in a supermarket be as good as a quality product?
Uli, boss of the large ham factory in Schwarzwald, explained to Jumbo how the Bonndorf company, "Adler", operates.
"Germany's most-loved ham," said Jumbo, presenting the Black Forest ham.
He could only enter the factory when wearing hair protection and a white coat.
Jumbo also had to first disinfect his hands before he could reach for the microphone.
Jumbo seen getting something to keep him going at a fast food restaurant in Waldshut
"Here they work with huge quantities," commented the television producers, astonished by the mass production of Black Forest ham.
16,000 joints of meat per week speak for themselves.
Weight, fat content and colour: Uli explained what was required for the best quality.
The majority of the pigs are slaughtered at six months old.
Television with standards?
Even specific details such as the pH value of the meat play a role.
The darker the meat, the higher the pH value.
"I would be curious what would happen if you were to measure Roberto Blanco," said Jumbo cynically.
Here the standard of private television production is presented in its purest form.
Nonetheless, it is worth watching.
The viewer sees that joints are still carved by hand.
After all: Black Forest ham traditionally arrives on the shelf boneless.
The secret of the ham is the mix of herbs combined with salt.
The appearance of the smoking tower and furnace remind Jumbo of a submarine.
The trick: Here fir branches in the smoker provide the special flavour of Black Forest ham.
After 20 days in the smoke, the ham is finally almost black.
"And now the slice will disappear inside Jumbo," he said, announcing his sampling of the product.
"That is really delicious," said the TV star in conclusion.
All those involved will be happy with that evaluation.
Thought travel agents were a thing of the past thanks to the internet?
Flight Centre seem to be bucking the trend.
The company has upgraded its full year profit forecast and is looking to record earnings from holidaymakers in Australia and the United Kingdom.
The travel company now expects its full year underlying profit before tax to be between $325 million and $340 million, compared with the $305 million to $315 million it previously forecast.
If the current guidance is achieved it will represent a 12 to 17 per cent growth on the record $290.4 million profit it achieved in 2011/12.
Managing director Graham Turner said Flight Centre had made 8 per cent profit in the first half and had started the second half strongly especially in Australian and UK non-business travel.
"Year-to-date, our 10 countries are profitable and several are on track for record full-year earnings before interest and tax contributions," he said.
This includes Australia and the United Kingdom, which are typically our largest profit generators.
In Australia the leisure business rebounded during the second half which offset a slightly weaker domestic corporate travel market.
Similarly in the UK, Flight Centre's leisure business performed well while corporate clients were spending less.
Its US business had recovered its losses during its seasonally weaker first half and was expected to deliver its third consecutive full year profit.
Flight Centre shares were up 3c at $38.20 yesterday.
Schools urged to focus more on maths, spelling and grammar
English literature courses will require pupils to study at least one Shakespeare play, a 19th century novel, Romantic poetry and contemporary British fiction from 1914 onwards.
The exam will also feature "unseen texts" to encourage wider reading;
A combined English literature and language course will be scrapped.
From 2015, pupils will be required to take a standalone GCSE in language, with strong incentives to choose English literature as a separate qualification.
The Department for Education is due to release the new syllabuses in English and maths tomorrow - the first subjects to undergo a radical overhaul.
It will make changes in other core subjects next year.
In a separate move, Ofqual, the exams regulator, will unveil a shake-up of the structure of GCSEs, with a new grading system and less coursework.
Speaking in the summer, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said there was a "widespread consensus that we need to reform our examination system to restore public confidence," insisting GCSEs would be "more challenging, more ambitious and more rigorous."
Studies show that English schools devote less time to maths - 116 hours a year or three hours a week during term time - than in most countries.
By comparison, Australian schools provide an average of 143 hours a year and pupils do around 138 hours in Singapore.
While there will be no formal requirement to devote more of the timetable to maths, Coalition sources said the extensive maths GCSE - combined with more weighting for the subject in league tables - was likely to encourage schools to provide extra teaching.
The syllabus will place a greater focus on "real world problems," including financial mathematics.
Beautiful animals and delicious tarts entice
The most beautiful rabbits of various breeds and colourings will be presented at the District Exhibition this weekend in the community centre.
The evaluations were already made on Thursday.
Once again, the W514 local association are organising this large exhibition.
Here breeders from the clubs in the District of Soest will be exhibiting their best animals, while young private individuals from Wickeder are also showing their rabbits.
On Thursday, six adjudicators assessed the numerous rabbits and were able to assign awards to the exceptional animals.
The visitors to the show will be kept well informed, with the evaluations of all animals posted on their cages.
Mayor Hermann Arndt will be officially opening the exhibition at 14:30.
The rabbit show will, however, be open to all visitors from 10:00 a.m. on Saturday and from 10:00 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, which will be followed by the prize ceremony.
Guests are also invited to take part in a tombola with impressive prizes and to sample some delicious food from the cafeteria.
Pamela Anderson chops off those iconic blonde locks, debuts dramatic new pixie cut.
Pam's blonde locks were made famous by her role in sexy TV show Baywatch.
Pamela Anderson is the latest celebrity to shock fans with a dramatic new hairdo.
The ex-Baywatch babe has ditched her long blonde locks in favour of a platinum pixie crop.
The 46-year-old actress revealed her latest look while out and about in LA on Wednesday and shared a snap on her Twitter page.
It's the first time in 20 years that the blonde beauty has had short hair, and we're loving the demure change.
What do you think about Pammy's hair?
Share with us your thoughts in the comments below.
Salem: Johanna Rahner at the Ecumenical Discussion Forum
At the next Ecumenical Discussion Forum on Monday 21 October, in the Neues Museum des Schlosses (New Castle Museum), the focus will be on the topic of "To hell with Hell - Theological reflections on how we now approach the notion of end times".
The speaker will be Johanna Rahner.
The Ecumenical Discussion Forum is an initiative of the Catholic and Protestant churches in Salem, the Salem Castle and the Lake Constance District Cultural Office.
At the forum, Johanna Rahner wants to address the question of how people today view the "end times" after death.
While people in past centuries were overly conscious of it, focusing on the pictures of heaven and hell "that up until now have defined our ideas", contemporary prophetic teaching on the hope of consummation is characterised more by a certain bashfulness, or even speechlessness.
"The greater hope has been well and truly cast out of Christians by religious critics," said the speaker.
They have "provided us with so many question marks, that we seem to have lost our exclamation marks".
Johanna Rahner continued: "However, the crucial challenge to this remains fear of death".
Associated with this is the matter of that longing, "that dreams that everything will be good at the end".
Johanna Rahner, born in 1962 in Baden-Baden, studied Catholic theology and biology from 1982 to 1989 at the Albert Ludwig's University in Freiburg.
In 1997 she graduated as a doctor of theology, also in Freiburg.
A post-doctoral lecturing qualification in fundamental theology and ecumenical theology followed in 2003 at the Westfalian Wilhelm's University.
Since 2010, Johanna Rahner has occupied a Chair for Systematic Theology in the Institute for Catholic Theology at the University of Kassel.
Geislingen: More than 100 young Catholics from Kleiner Heuberg stand together in the confirmation of their profession of faith
In two services, 101 15 and 16-year-olds from the Am Kleinen Heuberg pastoral care unit were confirmed.
In the morning, the service was accompanied by the Laudato-Si Group, while the afternoon service featured 'The Spirit' youth choir.
Upon receiving the confirmation sacrament, the young people accepted their baptism and asked for the power of the Holy Spirit.
Over recent months those being confirmed, under the direction of Deacon Reiner Dehner and the assistance of several church members, have been preparing for the special day.
In various projects, they learned of the different tasks involved in Christian church life and attended the Youth Day in Untermachtal together.
Illmensee: Second mountain bike race enthuses participants
In fantastic weather, 214 cyclists came to Illmensee to take on the circuit, over the hills and around the lake.
This was announced by Ulrich Knobel of the organising Illmensee Sports Club.
Among the participants there were also numerous amateur cyclists who wanted the chance to practice their hobby in a competitive environment, in particular over the short distance of 15 kilometres with a 300 metre climb.
Two top-class junior cyclists were also in the starting line-up for the competition: Felix Bader from Bad Waldsee and Pascal Treubel from Aach-Linz came with the recommendation of having achieved good positions at the German Championships.
The pair managed to break away from the field in keeping with expectations.
As was the case the previous year, Felix Bader managed to hold on to a small lead right to the end and defended his title as the overall winner of the short distance race
Once again, Pascal Treubel took second place.
In the ladies' race it was Theresa Duelli of Team Albtraum who managed to take top place on the podium.
In second and third places were Anne Adel from Illmensee and Leonie Treiber from Owingen.
The increasing number of riders that live or work in the area is a fantastic development.
And it was not only about top performance - the entire range of athletic ability was represented.
Participants' ages were also wide-ranging, with the youngest starters at ten years old up to the oldest at over 70.
This year, there were even more absolute top athletes at the starting line for the main race.
Four cyclists managed to break away from the top regional racers.
These included Philipp Pangerl, a semi-professional mountain biker from the Black Tusk Racing Team.
Together with a team mate, Pangerl has already twice been crowned World Champion in the 12-hour race.
This year he became European Champion in this special discipline.
Also competing was Roland Ballerstedt, who has already claimed two German duathlon championships.
After 45 kilometres and a climb of 900 metres, the leading riders were neck and neck on the final straight in front of the Drei-Seen-Hall.
Pangerl sped over the finish line in first place.
Only one second later, the experienced Ballerstedt managed to take second place in the overall standings.
Hermann and Warthmann then reached the finish line simultaneously to take joint third in the overall standings.
In the ladies' race, Christiane Cohsmann achieved the fastest time in the main race.
Areane Blersch from Binzwangen took second place, ahead of Natascha Werner from Stuttgart.
Athletes and assistants seemed very satisfied with the smooth and well-organised running of the event.
Trekking through mud, rivers and jungle to provide free medical care
Dr. Georges Bwelle is bringing free health care to rural villages in Cameroon
Bwelle and his team spend almost every weekend seeing hundreds of patients
There aren't many doctors in the west African country; just one for every 5,000 people
Cast your vote here or through your mobile device
Dr. Georges Bwelle is one of the top 10 CNN Heroes of 2013.
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That person will receive $250,000 to continue their extraordinary work.
For 21 years, Georges Bwelle watched his ill father slip in and out of consciousness, traveling to hospitals that weren't equipped to help him.
Jamef Bwelle was injured in a 1981 car accident near Yaounde, Cameroon's capital.
He suffered only a broken arm at first, but an infection developed and spread to his brain, creating a hematoma that would affect him for the rest of his life.
"There were no neurosurgeons in Cameroon," Georges Bwelle said.
We would have taken him out of Cameroon if we had the money.
Instead, Bwelle spent years escorting his father to overcrowded clinics and hospitals, getting whatever treatment they could get.
"It's not easy," Bwelle said.
You can leave home at 5 a.m., running to the hospital to be the first, and you are not the first.
There are a lot of patients.
Some people can die because they are waiting.
The situation hasn't changed much since Bwelle's father passed away in 2002.
In Cameroon, there is only one doctor for every 5,000 people, according to the World Health Organization.
For comparison's sake, the ratio in the United States is one doctor for every 413 people.
And even if they could see a physician, many Cameroonians couldn't afford it.
Two out of five people in the country live below the poverty line, and nearly three-quarters of the country's health-care spending is private.
"The only problem they have is poverty," Bwelle said.
And with poverty, they cannot enjoy their life.
Seeing his father and so many of his countrymen suffer, Bwelle was determined to do something about it.
Dr. Georges Bwelle and his team of volunteers have performed 700 free surgeries in the past year.
He became a doctor himself, working as a vascular surgeon in Yaounde's Central Hospital.
And he started a nonprofit, ASCOVIME, that travels into rural areas on weekends to provide free medical care.
Since 2008, he and his group of volunteers have helped nearly 32,000 people.
Almost every Friday, he and up to 30 people jam into vans, tie medical supplies to the roofs and travel across rough terrain to visit villages in need.
Their luck doesn't always hold out.
They've had to push vehicles through rivers and mud more than once.
But when they arrive, they receive a true heroes' welcome: a feast, singing and dancing, and the best accommodations the community can offer.
In these villages, free medical care is truly a cause for celebration, and Bwelle -- with his big smile and boundless energy -- is more than happy to join in the fun.
The next morning, the team begins meeting with hundreds of patients.
"We are receiving 500 people in each trip," Bwelle said.
They are coming from 60 kilometers around the village, and they're coming on foot.
Each of these weekend clinics provides a variety of medical care.
Many people are treated for malaria, tuberculosis, malnutrition, diabetes, parasites and sexually transmitted diseases.
Others might receive crutches, a pair of donated eyeglasses or free birth certificates -- documentation that's required for school but that many impoverished families simply can't afford.
In the evenings, the team will do simple surgeries with local anesthesia.
Operations are usually done in a schoolhouse, town hall or home; after the procedure, patients get up and walk to the recovery area to make way for the next person.
With the group's generator lighting the operating room and sanitizing equipment, Bwelle and his volunteers work into the early hours of Sunday morning.
It's a backbreaking pace, but village musicians usually help keep the team motivated.
"They are beating drums all night to keep us awake and continue our work," Bwelle said.
On Sunday, the team heads back to the city, tired but proud of their work.
The group -- a mix of Cameroonian doctors and foreign medical students -- has performed 700 free surgeries in the past year, and they know that their help can make a world of difference to those they help.
One man explained that the free hernia surgery he'd received will allow him to work again.
"This will change my future with my family," the man said.
In addition to holding these weekend clinics and working as a hospital surgeon, Bwelle also works nights at private medical clinics around Yaounde.
It's this second job, he said, that funds about 60% of his nonprofit; the rest is covered by private donations.
"I'm not sure when he sleeps," said Katie O'Malley, a second-year medical student from Drexel University in Philadelphia and volunteer with Bwelle's group.
He is always either at the hospital or trying to make money for the organization so he can go on these campaigns.
For medical and nursing students such as O'Malley, who come from the United States and Europe to join Bwelle on his missions, it's a hands-on opportunity they'd never get at home.
"We've been able to scrub in on surgeries where we help blot blood away or hold tools for Dr. Bwelle," O'Malley said.
That's not something you'd ever get to do in America as a second-year medical student.
The student volunteers usually pay their own way to Cameroon, often arriving with donated medical supplies.
But once they arrive in Yaounde, their board, transportation and instruction are covered by Bwelle.
"He's a hero, without a doubt," O'Malley said.
He gives his life to this organization, and his desire to help the Cameroon people is everlasting.
For Bwelle, the near-constant workload isn't a hardship.
Helping others live happier lives, fulfilling a promise he made to his father, is something that brings him great joy.
"I am so happy when I am doing this work," Bwelle said.
And I think about my father.
I hope he sees what I am doing.
To make people laugh, to reduce the pain, that's why I'm doing this.
Check out the ASCOVIME website and see how to help.
Mastering the struggle to perfection.
The role of Santiago, the old man in Hemingway's novel "The Old Man and the Sea", is perfectly suited to Horst Janson.
Janson is an old hand himself when it comes to his profession, the art of acting.
The old man, Santiago, is the best there is when it comes to fishing.
As such, the pair complement one another superbly.
You almost think that you can see the folds in the old man's neck, of which young fisherman Manolo speaks.
When Santiago sits arched over on the chair, tired of life, this is a genuine emotion for Janson.
Furthermore, the role of the old fisherman is a character role, through and through, which Janson masters excellently.
Hemingway told the story of a fighter, a courageous man who doesn't give up and who ultimately wins the battle against the fish as a result of his knowledge and his strong will.
For long periods, Janson is the only performer on the stage.
He manages to focus the audience's attention on himself, with the result that his monologues never become boring, not even for just a moment.
His efforts to finally pull the fish to the surface of the water are so genuine that members of the audience forget that the sea in question consists merely of water bottles, illuminated in blue.
Director Jens Hasselmann has the old man in the boat perform in front of Fischerdorf.
During the course of the performance he has the respective active scene illuminated. Santiago's cabin and the bar of singer Marie-Luise Gunst, who sings of the Cuban lifestyle, with your songs and beautiful voice.
The four musicians accompany with Cuban rhythms and guests at the bar at the same time.
Tourism: Descent to the Romans
Beneath Cologne, a sewage channel from Roman times, measuring around 120 metres in length, has been preserved.
Anyone visiting Cologne cannot miss the cathedral.
The two towers, measuring around 157 metres, extend into the heavens, making it Europe's second tallest church building.
However, only a few visitors who marvel at the two ornate church towers realise that there is much to discover beneath the cathedral.
Rainer Schulze is an expert when it comes to the Cologne underworld.
The meeting point for his tours is the Cologne Tourism Service Centre, right at the cathedral.
The tour begins in a somewhat unspectacular fashion: "We begin in the underground car park," says Schulze.
In the 1970s, the city fathers wanted a car-friendly city, and therefore the only sections of the old city wall that remain are those that were not too tall.
The majority of the users of the parking garage therefore now hurry past the Roman relics and simply drop off their car.
However, anyone who takes a closer look on parking level D2 will discover an archaeological site, cordoned off by metal railings.
Ruins measuring five metres tall, made from stones around the size of the palm of your hand, are waiting to be discovered.
"These are remnants of the Roman city wall, which was built in the second half of the first century A.D," explains Schulze.
Before returning to daylight, Schulze has participants take a glance into a dark, 15-metre shaft on the upper parking level.
This is the well of the old cathedral, which is barely noticed at all these days.
The next stop on the tour is the praetorium, where participants once again descend to the depths.
Here we find the residence of what was once the most powerful man to the north of the Alps, the Praetor of the CCAA.
One visitor wants to know what CCAA means.
"The abbreviation stands for "Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium", which is basically amounts to "City under Roman Law and City of the Agrippinians, founded under Emperor Claudius at the Site of the Altars for the Imperial Cult".
And the Praetorium refers to the former Governor's Palace and the centre of power of the Roman Empire on the Rhine.
From the exhibition vestibule, a tunnel leads to the preserved Roman sewer, measuring around 120 metres in length.
"If you want you can take a peaceful stroll along a section of the so-called Cloaca Maxima," says Schulze, encouraging the guests.
Schulze has one more surprise.
Once he has collected the key from the information desk, he leads the group to a 16-metre, accessible shaft.
"We are now in the Mikwe, a ritual Jewish bath," he explains.
The Jewish congregation built their bath deep into the ground in order to reach the groundwater essential for ritual washing.
To this day the differing water levels caused by the varying levels of the Rhine can be read at the lower end of the Mikwe, the origins of which trace back to the eighth century.
The Mikwe is to form part of an archaeological area at the Town Hall Square, on which construction work is set to begin shortly.
However, it will be a few years before it is complete.
Leg almost hacked off: Rocker retrial
A bloody attack within the 'Rocker' scene is to be re-investigated after more than four years.
Proceedings for attempted murder, grievous bodily harm and material damage, brought against two 30-year-olds have begun before the Frankfurt District Court.
They are being accompanied by strict security precautions.
The accused initially remained silent.
They are said to have been active within the Rocker scene and to have at the time belonged to the Bandidos.
The Public Prosecutor accused them of having stabbed and beaten three men in a car in Finowfurt, together with unknown accomplices.
All the victims were seriously injured, with one man almost losing a leg.
The victims were said to have belonged to the competing gang, the Hell's Angels.
One is said to have been a high-ranking member from Berlin.
It seems that the attack was preceded by a car chase involving several cars.
According to accusations, this was part of a turf war and represented a demonstration of power.
The two accused were acquitted in an initial trial at the beginning of 2012.
At the time, a speaker for the court said that it could not be proven that the men had actually been involved in the bloody feud.
The assailants had worn masks and had not been recognised.
The Federal Supreme Court repealed the verdict following an appeal by the Public Prosecutor's Office and referred the case back to the District Court for a re-trial.
One of the accused is currently serving time in an open prison on account of another offence.
Proceedings initially mainly involved the reconstruction of the series of events on the night of the crime.
The police inspector responsible at the time was invited as a witness.
The central point of focus was on mobile phone conversations between the accused and third parties, which the police had intercepted.
What makes things difficult is that Rockers almost always observe what they consider to be complete silence appearing before the court - they say absolutely nothing.
This also applies in the case of the victims.
In the first trial, only one of the victims spoke out.
When asked, Public Prosecutor Stefan Golfier of the Frankfurt (Oder) Public Prosecutor's Office said that new evidence had come to light since the previous trial.
A further eleven days of proceedings have been scheduled for the trial.
The throwaway society does not think
The night was long, the music loud and the atmosphere good, but at some point everyone has to go home.
Except: In the stomachs of those in the passenger and back seats, hunger strikes.
Of course, this may be down to the odd cocktail or glass of bubbly!
So what could be more natural than to casually pull into the next drive-through to pick yourself up a little treat?
I admit, I am right with you with it comes to picking up some fast food late at night, or early in the morning as the case may be.
A few chips, a coke, a burger - and then straight home and into bed!
However, on the way home the clear differences between me and other hungry clubbers become evident.
What is wrong with people who continually throw their fast food bags out of the car window?!
At the weekend in particular, discarded paper bags can be found at the side of the road and in car parks.
"Why is this?" I ask myself.
Are the people too stupid to take their bags home or throw them into the nearest rubbish bin?
After all, waste paper does more than spoil the landscape.
Bags have also been seen covering transport facilities such as crash barriers, thus causing accidents.
However, the so-called "throwaway society" does not think about such things. They probably do not even know what the term even means.
If you are often out and about in the evening, more often than not with several people in the car, you will know what a back seat can look like after having partied through the night: clothes, bottles and other rubbish begin to pile up.
A few bags won't make much of a difference there - in contrast to on the street where no-one wants to trample through other peoples' leftover food.
I can see the day coming when towns and municipalities will get fed up clearing up - and the fast food chains will have to operate a deposit scheme for their bags.
Obama's Health Care Walk Back
Amid a firestorm of criticism, President Obama yesterday walked back his oft-repeated, unambiguous promise that "if you like your health plan, you can keep it."
With hundreds of thousands receiving cancellation notices from their providers, Republicans have slammed the president in recent days for misleading the American public.
Yesterday, Obama tweaked his original pledge.
"For the vast majority of people who have health insurance that works, you can keep it," he said in a speech in Boston.
Addressing what he called the "flurry in the news" about the cancellations, Obama urged Americans receiving these notices to shop for new coverage in the marketplace.
Most people are going to be able to get better, comprehensive health care plans for the same price or even cheaper than projected.
"You're going to get a better deal," he said.
The administration has said it should come as no surprise that the 5 percent of the population who purchase insurance on their own may be forced to switch plans because their coverage doesn't meet the new standards required under the Affordable Care Act.
"Let me say directly to these Americans: you deserve better," Sebelius said in testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in Washington.
Sebelius, who is overseeing implementation of the Affordable Care Act, said the launch of the online marketplace has gone "miserably" since October.
"I am as frustrated and angry as anyone," she said.
I am eager to earn your confidence back.
An exasperated Sebelius uttered that phrase, caught by a hot mic, to an aide seated behind her at yesterday's House hearing following a contentious exchange with Rep. Billy Long, R-Mo., over whether she should be required to enroll in Obamacare.
More than three hours into the hearing, Long repeatedly pressed Sebelius on why the "architect" of the Affordable Care Act has not voluntarily forgone government-sponsored insurance to purchase a plan through HealthCare.gov, which she is now pitching to millions of Americans.
The government in Jerusalem fails to confirm an attack on the Syrian airforce base
On Thursday, an American government official, who wished to remain anonymous, made a statement to American news broadcaster CNN, stating that Israeli fighter planes had attacked an airforce base in the Syrian town of Latakia the day before.
The target was "missiles and related equipment", which the Israeli government feared were intended for the Lebanese Hezbollah, according to CNN.
The Syrian and Lebanese media, as well as Arabic broadcaster Al-Arabiya, had previously reported that the base in the port town of Latakia was fired upon during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, and the Israelis were identified as the responsible party.
Israeli television broadcaster Channel 2 showed satellite images of the base in Latakia, in which Russian S-125 Newa-type defence missiles and a battery of SA-3 missiles could be seen, which according to Channel 2 have a range of 35 kilometres and can transport warheads weighing up to 70 kilograms.
Unsure, the government in Jerusalem has not officially confirmed the attack.
However, press agency Reuters has also quoted an anonymous Israeli government official as saying that he believed that Israel had carried out the attack, but was not sure.
In any case, a spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Defence said: "We are not commenting on these reports".
Journalist Ron Ben-Yishai, writing for daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, emphasised that the Syrian regime had already previously attempted, in some cases successfully, to deliver ground to air missiles to Hezbollah.
The Israeli government had previously repeatedly warned that any attempt by Syria to supply Hezbollah with chemical or other dangerous weapons would be crossing a "red line", which would result in a military response.
John Kerry says US spying has "reached too far inappropriately" in unprecedented admission
John Kerry has indicated a softening of the U.S's defensive stance on its surveillance programmes with an unprecedented admission that on occasions its spying has "reached too far inappropriately."
The Secretary of State also admitted that he'd been guilty, along with Barack Obama, of being on "automatic pilot" as incendiary revelations from whistleblower Edward Snowden about the NSA's spying activities emerged.
The leaks have put the US government at the centre of a diplomatic storm with its allies.
Speaking to an open government conference in London via video link, Mr Kerry said: "There is no question that the President and I and others in government have actually learned of some things that had been happening on an automatic pilot because the ability has been there, going back to World War Two and to the very difficult years of the Cold War, and then, of course, 9/11."
He then became the first high-ranking member of the U.S government to admit that US spying had crossed the line, but emphasised that no one's rights had been abused.
He said: "In some cases, it has reached too far inappropriately."
And the President is determined to try to clarify and make clear for people and is now doing a thorough review in order that nobody will have the sense of abuse.
I assure you innocent people are not being abused in this process.
Mr Kerry insisted, however, that the NSA was a force for good and that its surveillance operations had saved many lives.
He added: "We're dealing in a new world where people are willing to blow themselves up."
There is radical extremism in the world that is hell-bent and determined to try to kill people and blow people up and attack governments.
So what if you were able to intercept that and stop it before it happens?
We have actually prevented airplanes from going down, buildings from being blown up, and people from being assassinated because we've been able to learn ahead of time of the plans.
Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers will head to Europe to help address concerns abroad about alleged U.S. spying and convince the Europeans of the need to continue joint anti-terrorism efforts with the U.S., the chairman of a Senate subcommittee on European affairs said on Thursday.
Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said he spoke with European Parliament members and others this week and is concerned about their threats to stop participating in anti-terrorist organizations because of frustration over surveillance by the National Security Agency.
"It's really important for U.S. national security interests for Europeans to stay on board with us with respect to our mutual anti-terrorism endeavors," Murphy, a first-term Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs, said in an interview from Washington.
And I'm going to Europe to make it clear to them that we need to continue to work together in combatting terrorism, notwithstanding their anger over these NSA programs.
News reports that the NSA swept up millions of phone records in Europe have frayed relations with some U.S. allies, though the agency's chief said this week that they were inaccurate and reflected a misunderstanding of metadata that Nato allies collected and shared with the United States.
Other revelations cited documents leaked by Snowden that the NSA monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone and those of up to 34 other world leaders.
The national intelligence director, James Clapper, defended spying on allies as necessary and said it's commonplace on both sides.
Amid the uproar, Murphy said his office is arranging the congressional trip, expected to take place this year, and hopes the delegation will include members of both parties and both chambers.
Names of other participating lawmakers were to be released in coming days.
He said the itinerary is still being worked out.
While Murphy said the purpose of the trip is to help improve relationships, he said some "tough love" will also be dispensed.
He said European leaders need to be honest with their own people about the kind of espionage programs they've used for years themselves.
"While we can amend our surveillance programs to better protect the rights of Europeans, they also need to come to terms with the fact that we're not the only ones that are out there spying," Murphy said.
Meanwhile, Mr Kerry is scheduled to head this weekend to the Middle East and Poland to address rancor over U.S. strategies in the Syria, Egypt and Iran as well as U.S. surveillance activities.
A stubborn ankle injury threatens to prevent the deployment of Nicolai Müller in the FSV Mainz's Bundesliga away match at FC Augsburg.
Mainz are concerned regarding the availability of Nicolai Müller.
Tomorrow he will attempt to train with the team.
Up until now he has only managed individual training.
"We will shortly make a decision regarding whether he will play," said manager Thomas Tuchel.
The 40 year-old hopes to have his best striker (with six goals) in the team.
Mainz are already without the injured key players Niki Zimling, Julian Baumgartlinger and Niko Bungert.
Australian woman appeals Thai jail time
A 21-year-old Sydney woman sentenced to 15 days jail in Phuket for falsely claiming she was assaulted by a taxi driver is appealing the verdict and has been granted bail.
Stevie Rochelle Bamford was initially found guilty by a Phuket provincial court on June 15 of making false claims after telling Thai police a local taxi driver, with two other men restraining her, carried out the assault in the early hours of Sunday June 10.
However, CCTV footage later revealed she had returned to her hotel safely after becoming separated from her Australian boyfriend.
Phuket police interviewed Bamford for two days before she confessed to fabricating the story.
She was held in local police cells before the court hearing.
Bamford was sentenced to serve the 15-day prison term at a low security detention centre on the outskirts of Phuket rather than in an adult women's jail.
She is the daughter of former Australian league player Peter Tunks, who has appealed to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra to assist his daughter.
Tunks told Sydney's Sunday Telegraph the whole family was "extremely concerned" about his daughter's welfare and wanted her back in Australia.
"It's obviously been a worrying time but we're hopeful to have her back home safely as soon as possible," Tunks said.
Bamford is appealing the sentence and has been granted bail of 50,000 baht.
Reports in Australia said that in the meantime, she was holidaying at the resort area of Krabi in Southern Thailand.
Thai-based legal sources said Bamford was being represented by a local lawyer in Phuket but warned that the appeal may lead to the court increasing her sentence by up to two years and forcing her to serve it in an adult prison.
However, following the recent murder of Australian travel agent Michelle Smith in Phuket, Thailand may also be looking to repair its battered tourist image, leading to an acquittal.