Eideard

Container ship loading in Hamburg – this week
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

The eurozone emerged from its worst recession since World War II in the third quarter of last year, thanks to strong exports, according to official figures released Friday.

The combined economy of the 16 European Union (EU) nations that use the euro grew by 0.4 percent in the third quarter of 2009, compared with the previous three months, EU statistics office Eurostat said in its final figures, confirming previous estimates.

It ended the economic contraction in the previous five consecutive quarters, as well as the deepest zone’s recession.

Eurostat said economic growth in the third quarter was mainly due to strong exports, which increased by 3.1 percent over the previous quarter, but household final consumption and investment, the other two growth engines, had fallen by 0.1 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively.

The 16 countries that use the euro saw their trade surplus with the rest of the world rise massively in October as imports fell and exports remained at recent high levels — despite the ongoing strength of the currency.

The figures provide further evidence that the eurozone is benefiting from recovering global demand as its leading export markets emerge from recession…

Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, said Friday that the eurozone’s trade surplus during the month spiked to €8.8 billion from €0.9 billion in September…

Hey, I know what a trade surplus is. Anyone else remember?

Pubs chain JD Wetherspoon said today that it would create 10,000 jobs over the next five years with the opening of 250 new pubs.

The business, which currently employs 21,000 people and has 743 pubs across the UK, is to invest £250m in the new outlets over the period. It expects to open new pubs in locations including Sheffield, Livingston, Leominster, Otley, New Malden, Liverpool, Haverfordwest and Newcastle. The roles include management positions, as well as bar and kitchen staff…

Wetherspoon opened its first pub in December 1979. In September it hailed its best ever annual results after the company went back to basics to ride out the recession…

The chain said it took lessons from the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s to combat tough trading conditions, “concentrating on the key ingredients of standard, service, staff training and incentives”.

Sounds like the Brits have their priorities straight.

To spearhead its push into Internet services, Nokia put users in charge when it opened in 2007 the networking site Mosh, which lets people post anything they want.

Less than two years later the world’s top cellphone maker has decided to put an end to “people power”, killing a site that attracted a wide audience around the globe, unlike most of Nokia’s new fledgling services.

Mosh is a simple website customized for access from any feature phone or smartphone, but it can also be used from a personal computer.

It has been compared by users to the origins of the Internet, where people can access content and share it with others for free.

“We don’t know where it exactly goes and we are not entirely in control,” one of the founders of the site, George Linardos, told Reuters shortly after it was opened…

Like the Internet, Mosh attracted loads of pornographic content, and it also stoked tension between Nokia and record labels, with whom Nokia is in close cooperation for its music offerings.

“It was never going to last for ever, I’m surprised that it lasted this long,” says artist Derrick Welsh, who goes by the name “moshing” on the site.

Nokia has been pretty mellow about experimentation. I can’t see too many American tech firms of comparable size being that free and easy. I’ll have to drop by their new sites to see what they’re like – after they’re up and running.

Brazil’s President signed agreement to explore for oil in Cuba’s offshore waters
Daylife/Reuters Pictures

The White House has moved to ease some travel and trade restrictions as a cautious first step towards better ties with Havana, raising hopes of an eventual lifting of the four-decade-old economic embargo. Several Bush-era controls are expected to be relaxed in the run-up to next month’s Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago to gild the president’s regional debut and signal a new era of “Yankee” cooperation…

“The effect on ordinary Cubans will be fairly significant. It will improve things and be very welcome,” said a western diplomat in Havana. The changes would reverse hardline Bush policies but not fundamentally alter relations between the superpower and the island, he added. “It just takes us back to the 1990s.”

Bush wanted to take us back to the 1940′s. As did Kennedy.

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President Barack Obama’s budget outline has called for eliminating substantial tax breaks and increasing fees for the oil and natural gas industry, while boosting funding for cleaner fuel development.

Obama has made transforming the way Americans use energy a priority for his presidency. He has pledged to double U.S. renewable energy production in three years and wants 10 percent of electricity to come from clean energy sources by 2012.

His budget includes more than $50 million in increased funding for the Interior Department to conduct environmental studies to assess alternative energy resources and bolster clean energy development.

Obama’s plan, which must still be approved by Congress, would levy an excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas, raising $5.3 billion in revenue from 2011 to 2019.

This new 13 percent tax on all oil and gas production in the Gulf would only affect those companies that are currently not paying any royalties due to a loophole, said an Interior Department official. The official said producers who already pay royalties will receive a tax credit.

Oil industry execs, lobbyists and their tame politicians are already whining about the proposals. When will these thugs realize that American voters are tired of being screwed by the Oil Patch Boys?

When you see a headline in a newspaper that says “Are we all going to die next Wednesday?”, one can’t help but wonder at our fascination with the idea of the end of the world.

Jehovah’s Witnesses have predicted the end several times, but have stopped. Millerites predicted end of world for 22 October 1844 – day known to followers as Great Disappointment. Edgar C Whisenant wrote 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988 – followed up with predictions for 1989, 1993, and 1994.

“It is a very ancient pattern in human thought. It is rooted in ancient, even pre-biblical Middle Eastern myths of ultimate chaos and ultimate struggle between the forces of order and chaos,” says cultural historian Paul S Boyer…

And although end of the world thinking crops up in many religions, those in the West are probably most aware of Christian eschatology. “It isn’t just the lunatic fringe, it’s an integral part of all Christianity. But [in mainstream Christianity] it is put into perspective that it may happen ‘one day’,” says Stephen J Hunt, a sociologist of religion.

“But certain groups and movements believe it is in their generation. They are saying we have got the truth and nobody else has.”

Any religion worth its salt – and tithe – has to have an exclusive market for True Believers. It’s the best way to ensure a useful amount of power and wealth.