Economics Commisioner Joaquim Almunia is reportedly rolling his sleeves up. He is apparently preparing to use Italy’s continuing excess deficit as a test case, to show the way the new SGP will be applied. Forgive me if I am a little skeptical, but then again a French no on Sunday may leave him with little [...]

The Washington Post has sent a correspondent and a photographer to Finland for three weeks to “figure the place out.”
“Finland just might be the world’s most interesting country that Americans know least about. It has the best school system in the world, some of the most liberated women (the president is female), more cell phones [...]

“Voting for the C.D.U. Sunday meant putting a stop to Schr?der’s reform agenda…..But in the future, if the C.D.U. has power, there is no stopping the reforms.” says Morgan Stanley’s Elga Barsch (remember her?). This argument draws attention to an important enigma which must be puzzling a lot of people. As the New York Times [...]

You know, there something puzzling me this morning: if you’re clearly so turned off by French political life, why spend so much of your time studying it?
The French referendum on the European constitution is quickly developing into one of those contests where you dearly wish both sides could lose
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Wormholes are definitely out it seems:
The concept of wormholes will be familiar to anyone who has watched the TV programmes Farscape, Stargate SG1 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.[...]But the idea of building these so-called traversable wormholes is looking increasingly shaky, according to two new scientific analyses.

Well timed ahead of the French referendum, Deutsche Bahm AG and la SNCF are demonstrating what “ever closer union” can be about… increased quality of life (AP via IHT):
A new high-speed train line will link France and Germany beginning in 2007, cutting travel time between Paris and Frankfurt to under four hours, officials said Monday. [...]

To continue with the self-promotion… I put another demo of one of my songs online on my “music blog” tapsmusic.de. It’s called “when you look at me” (128kbit mp3 | 64kbit wma9). Feel free to listen and decide for yourself if it’s worth more than four points…

Apart from the discussion of Schr?ders surprise decision to call for early elections, it’s a quiet day here at Afoe: but don’t forget, there are lots and lots of snippets over at our new sister blog. Tobias has given it a nice facelift too.

Nathan’s Registan continues to be one of the most reliable sources of news and analysis, to the extent that he is now being blocked from inside Uzebekistan itself. Among links you kind find there is one to the appropriately named Radio Silence. You can also access an on the ground report of the refugee situation [...]

The referendum battle continues its course. Le Monde notes the importance of the fact that whilst the ‘no’ vote seems to be consolidating its lead in France (see this FT graph), with only one week to go one fifth of the votes still declare themselves to be ‘undecided’.
Meantime the normally sobre EU Observer, lets it [...]