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.
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 in Kyrgyzstan.
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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 hair down for once to suggest that the Dutch No Looks Irrerversible, especially after a row surrounding the Eurovision song contest.
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Actually the FT isn’t giving any apparent credence to the Times story, focusing on the embarrasing position the UK government might find itself in if there is a ‘no’. “Senior government officials are warning that if the French public votes No in its referendum on the European Union constitution, it could undermine Britain’s presidency of the EU in the second half of the year.”
Well, if you believe Times (and after last weeks episode with the Independent I believe no-one), le petit ‘non’, like its equivalent le petit mensonge, is not all that serious after all. According to the Times, Britain is working with other European states to draw up plans to keep the European Union constitution alive if there is a narrow ?non? vote in France next week. Just a soupcon of ‘no’ will, in the end ‘help the medicine go down’.
I can’t believe it: “Belle de Jour” is still making waves in the conventional press. And in the Sunday Times Womens Section at that.
That’s the current estimate of Morgan Stanley economist Vincenzo Guzzo. And even this he suggests can only be achieved at the price of a series of one-off measures which make the longer term outlook even worse. Just one of the problems:” Labor productivity growth averaged an appalling -0.4% over the past four years”.
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A special commission on the deficit set up by the government of Prime Minister Jose Socrates has just reported that the deficit this year will reach 6.83 % of GDP, that’s more than twice the European Union’s 3 percent limit. Over to you Almunia.
Portugal will have the highest budget deficit of any country using the euro since the common currency was introduced in 1999, the government said today. The announcement will prompt a package of spending control measures that may include freezes on wages of civil servants.
Gerhard Schr?der and the SPD have suffered a major election setback in these regional elections. Schr?der’s response it seems has been to suggest he will call an early general election late this year.
Schroeder made his proposal after exit polls showed the Social Democratic Party (SPD) suffered a heavy defeat in a state election in North Rhine-Westphalia where it had ruled for 39 years.
The conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won 45 percent, comfortably ahead of the 37.2 percent for the SPD, public TV said.
Schroeder said the “bitter defeat” in North Rhine-Westphalia “throws into question the political basis for the continuation of our work” at a time when Germany was in need of wide-ranging reforms.