London 2012: Strike threat by Unite to Olympic Games

Industrial action against government cuts could be timed to disrupt the London 2012 Olympics, the leader of Britain’s largest union has said.

Len McCluskey, of the Unite union, also called for civil disobedience during the Games to defend public services.

In an interview with the Guardian, Mr McCluskey said his union had discussed the possibility of strike action but there were currently no plans in place.

Conservative co-chairman Baroness Warsi said she was “shocked” by his comments.

Mr McCluskey said: “If the Olympics provide us with an opportunity, then that’s exactly one that we should be looking at.”

The union boss added: “The attacks that are being launched on public sector workers at the moment are so deep and ideological that the idea the world should arrive in London and have these wonderful Olympic Games as though everything is nice and rosy in the garden is unthinkable.

‘Right to protest’

“Our very way of life is being attacked. By then this crazy Health and Social Care Bill may have been passed, so we are looking at the privatisation of our National Health Service.

“I believe the unions, and the general community, have got every right to be out protesting.”

Mr McCluskey said the purpose of protest was “to bring your grievances to the attention of as many people as possible”.

Baroness Warsi said it was “an appalling display of naked self-interest” – and called on the Labour leader to intervene.

“The London Olympics will be a great occasion for this country. It is disgraceful for a trade union boss to be calling for mass disruption when the eyes of the world will be on Britain,” she said.

“I am shocked that Unite would sink so low as to spoil this great national event for everyone else. Ed Miliband must urgently order his union cronies to rule out disrupting the Olympics.”

Shadow Olympics minister Tessa Jowell said no athlete or visitor would understand or sympathise with any disruption.

She said: “If this is a negotiation it should take place in private. Unions and employers should get together and sort it out without threats or disruption to Britain’s Olympics.”

UK presses for European human rights convention changes

By James LandaleDeputy Political Editor, BBC News

The government is calling for the European Convention on Human Rights to be substantially rewritten so national courts have a much greater say.

Ministers have long promised to use the six-month presidency of the Council of Europe for reform in Strasbourg.

They have now circulated a detailed position paper with plans for the human rights court, the BBC has learned.

The document is the basis for negotiations with other countries ahead of a summit in Brighton in April.

Fewer cases

The draft that I have seen says the European Court should not be able to examine cases that are “identical in substance to a claim that has been considered by a national court”.

The exception would be when “a national court has manifestly made an error in its interpretation of the convention”, or if the case “raises a serious question about the way the convention is interpreted or applied”.

This would mean far fewer cases would ever reach Strasbourg.

The government also calls for people to have much less time to apply to the European Court – just two, three or four months, not six months as now, after a national court makes its final judgement.

Massive backlog

The position paper – known as the draft Brighton Declaration – says the European Convention should be rewritten so that it includes two key principles.

One of “subsidiarity”, namely that decisions should be taken at the lowest levels possible, and the “margin of appreciation”, namely that national governments should have greater leeway in applying the judgements of the court.

The government calls for a new procedure so the Strasbourg court can offer advisory opinions that would not be binding on national courts.

And it demands that more judges are appointed to deal with the court’s massive backlog of cases.

The document also sets out the government’s call for a new commission to rethink the whole future of the court and the convention.

The government is under substantial pressure to act to curb the powers of the Strasbourg court.

Many MPs – and many voters – oppose its recent decisions to prevent the deportation of the radical cleric Abu Qatada and allow prisoners the vote.

Water down

But the government’s proposed reforms are controversial – and they’ll need the unanimous agreement of 46 other countries in Brighton if they are to come into force.

It is likely that some countries will seek to water down the impact of these reforms.

The Strasbourg judges themselves openly oppose many of the UK government’s proposals, such as incorporating subsidiarity and the margin of appreciation, onto the face of the convention.

There is a broad consensus within the Council of Europe that the court needs to change, above all that its backlog is too large and it needs to focus more on cases dealing with fundamental rights.

But there is much caution towards the idea of curbing the powers of the Strasbourg judges.

There is also the question of the Liberal Democrats. Many are very reluctant to question the role of the Strasbourg court and some may find these proposals hard to stomach.

Mitt Romney secures wins in Arizona and Michigan

Mitt Romney: “More jobs, less debt and smaller government”

US Republican White House contender Mitt Romney has pulled off a double win in the Michigan and Arizona primaries.

“We didn’t win by a lot, but we won by enough and that’s what counts,” Mr Romney said in Michigan.

In Arizona, he leads with 47% of votes, and heads Rick Santorum in Michigan by 41% to 38% with 92% counted.

Michigan was seen as vital for Mr Romney, born in the state where his father was governor, but had struggled to win over conservative voters.

Rick Santorum addressed supporters in Michigan, moments after he reportedly called Mr Romney to concede defeat, thanking voters for their support.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Congressman Ron Paul did not compete in Arizona and Michigan, focusing on contests scheduled for next week.

Mr Gingrich was on course to poll 16% in Arizona, with Mr Paul on 8%.

In Michigan, Mr Paul has won 12% of the vote, with 7% for Mr Gingrich.

Michigan battle

Proclaiming his wins, Mitt Romney said he would hammer home a consistent campaign message in the coming weeks.

“We need more jobs, less debt, and smaller government,” Mr Romney said in a speech to supporters in Michigan. “We’ve got to hear that day-in and day-out.”

He also criticised President Barack Obama for his economic policy and argued that the US “needs a recovery from this recovery”.

“What we can’t afford is four more years of Barack Obama with nothing to answer to.”

Mr Santorum told supporters he came into “the backyard of his opponent” and did better than expected.

Mr Romney will be awarded all of Arizona’s 29 presidential nominating delegates, but will share Michigan’s 30 delegates, as a district-based system is in place in the Wolverine State.

The projected Arizona win comes after a barely contested race there, with campaign resources mainly deployed elsewhere in recent weeks.

That contrasts with an expensive, hard-fought campaign in Michigan, where Mr Romney and an independent committee supporting him spent almost $4m (£2.5m) in advertising.

On Tuesday, Mr Romney appeared to acknowledge that he has had trouble winning over conservative voters in a state where he was expected to do well.

Rick Santorum: “A month ago they didn’t know who we are but they do now”

He said his disconnect with the party’s right-wing stemmed from his unwillingness to make “incendiary” comments.

In the end, exit polling in both states showed that about half of voters “strongly” backed the candidate they voted for.

In Michigan, the state’s primary rules allow non-Republicans to register as party members and vote in the primary – meaning that around 10% of all voters identified themselves as Democrats.

Tuesday’s two primaries were the first test for Mr Santorum since a three-state sweep in primary and caucus earlier in February.

Mr Romney won earlier contests in New Hampshire and Florida, but had struggled in recent weeks.

The former Massachusetts governor currently has 152 delegates, compared to Mr Santorum’s 72, with 1,144 needed to secure the nomination

The National

$1.4bn profit for HSBC’s Middle East operations

The Middle East unit of the banking giant reported a 67 per cent increase in profits to US$1.4 billion (Dh5.14bn) as debt restructurings of big UAE companies eased off.

At a global level, HSBC reported full-year pre-tax profits of $21.8bn at a global level, an increase of 15 per cent on a year earlier.

However, stripping out the effect of $3.9bn worth of mark-to-market gains on its own debts, the bank’s underlying profit fell by 6.3 per cent.

Despite a $900 million cost-cutting drive that spurred the bank to close 16 businesses in various countries last year, costs rose across the bank by 10 per cent, which it attributed to higher staff costs in faster-growing markets.

Meanwhile, Stuart Gulliver, the HSBC’s chief executive, was awarded £5.9m(Dh34.3m) in bonuses and share options as part of a total pay packet of £7.1m.

It has been a difficult year for global banks, many of which have felt the effects of the euro-zone sovereign debt crisis. Dubai banks have also fared badly as they dealt with the mounting cost of bringing the emirate’s financial crisis to heel.

But HSBC reported an easing of bad debts at its Middle East operations.

Provisions for bad debts fell 53.2 per cent to $293m, which the bank attributed to fewer restructurings among its large corporate customers in the UAE.

“Loan impairment charges and other credit risk provisions fell in the Middle East … due to the non-recurrence of restructuring activity for a small number of large customers,” the bank said.

It reported little impact from the Arab Spring.

“Although significant unrest and political changes were witnessed in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, the majority of the group’s exposures in the region were concentrated in our associate investment in Saudi Arabia and in the UAE, where the respective political landscapes remained stable and economic growth continued to recover.”

However, renegotiated loans increased by 42.2 per cent to $2.6bn, the third-highest regional total worldwide after Europe and North America. HSBC was among the banks that signed a $25bn restructuring deal with Dubai World in March.

The bank’s wide-ranging cost-cutting exercise started last year was beginning to bear fruit, said Simon Cooper, the chief executive of HSBC Middle East.

HSBC made two rounds of lay-offs during the year in the region, closing its retail banking operations in Kuwait and its retail brokerage in the UAE after trading volumes collapsed.

“This was the year that we saw our strategic plan for the region come to fruition, returning HSBC to sustainable growth, re-engineering our business to improve efficiency and to better serve our customers, and managing our client and branch portfolio,” Mr Cooper said.

In Qatar, the bank also closed its Islamic banking operations, HSBC Amanah, after an order by the country’s central bank banning conventional banks from running Sharia-compliant operations.

UAE set for rush of companies wanting to set up shop

Tom Arnold

Feb 28, 2012

The UAE is bracing for a flood of interest from GCC companies after a recent rule change allowing them to set up branches in the country more easily, says a seniorMinistry of Finance official.

Now other states need to do the same to make it easier for UAE firms to become established across the Gulf under common market laws, said Khalid Al Bustani, the assistant undersecretary for international financial relations at the Ministry of Finance.

“We are sure more investors from the GCC will be coming to the UAE this year,” he said. “One reason is the normal economic growth and the other is the change of legislation to make it easier for GCC companies to open branches in the UAE.”

More GCC businesses are already licensed in the UAE than in other states. The UAE granted 26,223 business licences to GCC nationals in 2010, up nearly 9 per cent from the year before, according to the latest ministry data.

GCC firms wanting to open branches in the Emirates in the past faced a number of regulatory hurdles. But this month the Cabinet approved a law enabling them to open branches without restrictions and giving them the same treatment as local companies.

The change is the latest step taken by the UAE to satisfy the GCC common market, which was set up in 2008 to promote the free flow of trade, labour and capital.

The UAE, however, wants it to become easier for companies from the Emirates to register and conduct business in other GCC states.

“We are looking to attract GCC companies to come here as we want an open market. We expect other GCC states to do the same as us, and most of them are,” Mr Al Bustani said. “But this is the issue we are bringing to the GCC, as a lot of [UAE] companies still face challenges and impediments to set up business elsewhere.”

GCC nationals can work, buy houses, trade shares, attend school and receive medical treatment in all six states.

But obstacles have beset other aspects of the common market. The problems are mainly attributable to delays in individual states in pushing through laws agreed on at a GCC ministerial level.

Border disputes and trade barriers have disrupted the flow of some intra-GCC trade, despite the existence of a customs union. A cornerstone of the common market, the customs union is meant to establish a free-trade bloc among GCC nations.

The region has an estimated combined market size of US$1 trillion (Dh3.67tn) and average per-capita GDP of $45,000, giving it significant clout as an economic bloc.

Oscars joy for Abu Dhabi with The Help

Gregor Hunter

Feb 28, 2012

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The speeches have been given and the tears brushed away, but the real Oscar winner at the 84th Academy Awards was clear from the box office takings – Abu Dhabi.

Oscars 2012The 84th Annual Academy Awards.

The Help, co-produced by Image Nation, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Media, which owns and publishes The National, was the highest-grossing film of all those winning awards this year. Total ticket sales for the film since its release on August 10 were US$169.6 million (Dh622.9m), according to Box Office Mojo, a Hollywood research website.

Octavia Spencer received the Oscar for best supporting actress in in the US civil rights-era drama.

The film’s combination of box-office success and critical acclaim was one the film production company was eager to repeat, said Mohammed Al Mubarak, the chairman of Image Nation.

“We are extremely proud for Abu Dhabi to be associated with such a successful and recognised film,” he said.

Coming second among the Oscar winners for box office take was Rango, which scooped the award for best animated feature film, and recorded receipts of $123.4m.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo came third, with sales of $101.4m and an Oscar for best film editing.

The Artist, the winner of the award for best picture, pulled in $31.8m, the third-lowest among the nominees for the award.

The box-office success of The Help will further Abu Dhabi’s goals of developing a movie industry, said Michael Garin, the chief executive of Image Nation.

“Image Nation is 100 per cent focused on building the foundations of a motion-picture industry in Abu Dhabi,” he said.

The emirate deserves to be proud of The Help, which without the funding from Image Nation might not have been possible, said Peter Scarlet, the executive director of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival.

But just as significant for film makers in the Middle East was the success of A Separation, an Iranian film which won an Academy Award for best foreign language picture, the first time Iran has won an Oscar, Mr Scarlet added.

“At a time of such political tension, that a film from Iran is getting a major award in the US is very good news and cause to believe that people are more important than politics and more important than government,” he said.

Chinese ‘netizens’ inundate Obama’s Google+ page

President Obama’s page on Google’s social network site has been inundated with messages in Chinese after restrictions in China were removed.

Every current topic on Mr Obama’s Google+ page attracted hundreds of Chinese comments.

Some contributors made jokes; others said they were occupying the site in the style of western Occupy campaigns.

Google+ is normally blocked in China along with other social media that the authorities deem unacceptable.

Since Google+ was launched in 2011, software known informally as the Great Firewall had appeared to block it within China.

But on 20 February 2012 internet-users in many parts of China found they could gain access to the site – prompting some to suggest occupying it, in a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Occupy Wall Street campaign.

On 24 and 25 February, to the consternation of American readers, every current topic on President Obama’s 2012 election campaign page attracted hundreds of comments, apparently from China.

Their exact provenance cannot be verified, but the expressions contributors used were in the style of mainland China and in simplified Chinese.

A few appealed for the liberty of the civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who is under house arrest.

Others asked about a recent political intrigue in south-west China, in which one of the country’s top policemen, Wang Lijun, spent a day in the US consulate in Chengdu for undisclosed reasons.

But many simply voiced delight at their freedom to speak: they talked about occupying the furniture and bringing snacks and soft drinks.

The White House in Washington has not commented on the upsurge of Chinese interest in President Obama’s campaign site.

But it has prompted one poster to suggest that if China ever abandoned its internet restrictions, the United States would have to protect its social media with a Great Firewall of its own.

Osama Bin Laden compound being demolished in Pakistan

Pakistan is demolishing the compound where US forces killed Osama Bin Laden, in the city of Abbottabad, residents and police say.

The al-Qaeda leader was shot dead at the compound in the north-western city near the capital Islamabad in May 2011.

Bulldozers arrived after dark to demolish the outer walls, and have been working through the night.

There is heavy security around the compound, which served as Bin Laden’s hideout for more than five years.

Residents say an unannounced curfew has been placed in the area, and residents have been asked not to leave their homes, the BBC’s Ilyas Khan in Islamabad reports.

The site is a large compound with high walls built around the actual house.

Officials say the compound was handed over by the military to the civil authorities before the operation started.

They say the demolition was decided soon after the 2 May 2011 raid, but it was put off when the government set up a judicial commission to investigate the operation by US forces.

“Since the commission has almost completed its work and did not need the compound for any further investigation, it was decided it should be razed,” an official said.

He said the reason for the demolition was the visitors the place continued to attract, which posed a security threat to the area, located in an important garrison town.

Stealth operation

Osama Bin Laden is said to have lived in the compound with his family for several years.

On that day, a team of US special forces flew from Afghanistan to Bin Laden’s hiding place during the night in stealth helicopters on a secret operation.

They swept through the buildings within the high-walled enclosure and shot dead a total of five people, including Bin Laden.

Some 40 minutes later they left, taking with them Bin Laden’s body and a hoard of computer data devices and other information containing intelligence about al-Qaeda and Bin Laden’s activities.

The compound has been a painful reminder for Pakistan, which was embarrassed by the unilateral US operation that killed Bin Laden, correspondents say

Scandinavian food: Why is it becoming popular in the UK?

By Maddy SavageBBC News

Swedish food sales in the UK have risen by almost 30% in the past five years, with Norway and Denmark also reporting an increase in exports destined for our dining tables. So why is Scandinavian cuisine getting so popular here?

It began with the warm, creamy, cut-price meatballs designed to fuel flat-pack furniture fans seeking a break from the aisles of Ikea. But over the past few years Scandinavian cuisine has been spreading beyond Britain’s retail parks and creeping into supermarkets and restaurants.

The latest figures from government agency Statistics Sweden indicate that Swedish food and drink sales in the UK were worth almost £290m in 2010. Norway measures its performance in weight, with about 127,000 tonnes exported here in 2011, a rise of 18% since 2006.

Last January, food trends agency the Food People tipped Scandinavian food as the “hottest UK culinary trend of 2011″.

Since then UK retailers Waitrose and John Lewis have been trying out Scandinavian speciality products, from crispbreads to speciality cheeses and lingonberry jam.

Marks and Spencer has launched a range of Swedish cinnamon buns. Danish Chef Christoffer Hruskova’s London restaurant, North Road, has been awarded a Michelin star.

“There are two sides to food from the region,” says Scandinavian-born Mark Ruby, who runs KRO – a budget-friendly chain of Danish restaurants in locations across Manchester and Cheshire.

“You have the hearty dishes, like meatballs and lots of pork and fish. They’re comfort foodswhich people really enjoy, especially on a cold winter’s day. But the other strand is food with a real attention to detail, things that you eat with your eyes. Danish open sandwiches for example or the smorgasbord, which is a platter of different dishes.”

He says Scandinavian cooking is about quality and service. Some of the more complex Scandinavian meals take years to perfect, making it difficult to train staff working in the often transient hospitality trade in the UK.

“The world’s best restaurant is in Copenhagen,” he adds. Noma was awarded the prestigious annual prize by Restaurant Magazine, which draws on the opinions of more than 800 international industry experts.

“I think that Noma’s success has helped open the door to Scandinavian food and the Scandinavian way of life. It’s not so different from the UK so it’s almost a voyeuristic fascination for people, as if they are looking over their garden fence at neighbours they have never noticed before.”

For those within the food critic and blogging communities, the Scandinavian kitchen has been a major influence over the past 18 months.

Part-Norwegian Signe Johansen, a food anthropologist based in London, secured a publishing deal for the recipes she posted on her Scandelicious blog, with reviewers dubbing her the Nordic Nigella.

Niche food?

Kerstin Rodgers, who blogs under the name Ms Marmite Lover and runs an underground supper club restaurant from inside her home in north London, became so obsessed with the region’s cuisine she visited Sweden and brought back original ingredients to use at Scandinavian-themed dinners.

“I have been interested in other aspects of Scandinavia for years,” she says. “I fancy the men and like a lot of people I enjoy Swedish design. Now it seems to be Scandinavia’s turn to have a real impact on our cooking. There is a genuine movement in the UK supporting food from the region.”

But why now? Is it the times we are living in that has made us chose this moment to turn our attention to dishes long loved by Nordic neighbours?

“For me it is because so much of it is fresh and healthy – apart from the buns,” says Rodgers. “Cured fish and herrings are low carb, high protein and have fresh flavours, which people are looking for these days.

“I think that culture has an influence too. I was so engrossed in Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that I tried to read it in the shower. I hankered after the sweater in The Killing TV series. The country itself makes a refreshing change from sun, sea and sand.”

She believes that Scandinavian food consumption could soon become much more widespread.

“It is the same thing that we saw happening in the 1980s when there was a cultural explosion in Spain, with Pedro Almodovar’s movies. After that, tapas restaurants started popping up everywhere in Britain. Or if you think about sushi, raw fish seemed mad when we first heard about it but not any more.”

‘Temporary shelf-life’

Analysts at the ESCP Europe business school take a different view.

“We are going through a period of austerity and we can’t show off,” says affiliate professor Jeremy Baker. “People are looking for authenticity and along come the Scandinavians to help us out, with a whole range of foods, designs and products which are nice, simple, very attractive, warm and happy.”

He believes that Scandinavian food could have a more temporary shelf-life.

“Certain cuisines can be sold as a complete lifestyle. People are very happy to buy into the Spanish or Mediterranean way of life. You cannot say the same thing about Scandinavia. It works on a smaller level with people showing an interest in individual items – the bread, the fish, using lingonberries and elderflowers.”

Like many niche food styles, Scandinavian cooking also includes some dishes that will most likely never become household favourites in Britain. One of the region’s most famous offerings in this category is Lutefisk – aged, dried white fish soaked in lye (sodium hydroxide).

American author Garrison Keillor famously described it as resembling squirrels’ insides run over by trucks.

“Most lutefisk is not edible by normal people,” he wrote in his 2008 novel, Pontoon. “It is reminiscent of the afterbirth of a dog or the world’s largest chunk of phlegm.”

For those with a sweeter tooth, KRO owner Ruby recommends Rod Grod med Flode: “It’s a cold berry stew soup with a swirl of cream. It tastes like a raspberry ripple ice cream that has slightly melted.”

However, even this Scandinavian classic proves controversial in the elite London quarters of the Danish Ambassador to the UK, Anne Hedensted Steffenson.

“I hate the consistency,” she says. “Rod Grod med Flode is supposed to taste of fruit but I think it has a wishy-washy flavour and the cream is fatty. I know I am from Denmark but I will never come to terms with it. My tip is liquorice ice cream – I think everyone should try it.”

But with Denmark producing some of the strongest liquorice in the world, her suggestion is perhaps further evidence that the Scandinavian dream might not make it to the British mainstream.

From the BBC

The myth of the eight-hour sleep

By Stephanie HegartyBBC World Service

We often worry about lying awake in the middle of the night – but it could be good for you. A growing body of evidence from both science and history suggests that the eight-hour sleep may be unnatural.

In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month.

It took some time for their sleep to regulate but by the fourth week the subjects settled into a very distinct sleeping pattern. They slept first for four hours, then woke for one or two hours before falling into a second four-hour sleep.

Though sleep scientists were impressed by the study, among the general public the idea that we must sleep for eight consecutive hours persists.

In 2001, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a seminal paper, drawn from 16 years of research, revealing a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks.

His book At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, published four years later, unearths more than 500 references to a segmented sleeping pattern – in diaries, court records, medical books and literature, from Homer’s Odyssey to an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria.

Much like the experience of Wehr’s subjects, these references describe a first sleep which began about two hours after dusk, followed by waking period of one or two hours and then a second sleep.

“It’s not just the number of references – it is the way they refer to it, as if it was common knowledge,” Ekirch says.

During this waking period people were quite active. They often got up, went to the toilet or smoked tobacco and some even visited neighbours. Most people stayed in bed, read, wrote and often prayed. Countless prayer manuals from the late 15th Century offered special prayers for the hours in between sleeps.

And these hours weren’t entirely solitary – people often chatted to bed-fellows or had sex.

A doctor’s manual from 16th Century France even advised couples that the best time to conceive was not at the end of a long day’s labour but “after the first sleep”, when “they have more enjoyment” and “do it better”.

Ekirch found that references to the first and second sleep started to disappear during the late 17th Century. This started among the urban upper classes in northern Europe and over the course of the next 200 years filtered down to the rest of Western society.

By the 1920s the idea of a first and second sleep had receded entirely from our social consciousness.

He attributes the initial shift to improvements in street lighting, domestic lighting and a surge in coffee houses – which were sometimes open all night. As the night became a place for legitimate activity and as that activity increased, the length of time people could dedicate to rest dwindled.

In his new book, Evening’s Empire, historian Craig Koslofsky puts forward an account of how this happened.

“Associations with night before the 17th Century were not good,” he says. The night was a place populated by people of disrepute – criminals, prostitutes and drunks.

“Even the wealthy, who could afford candlelight, had better things to spend their money on. There was no prestige or social value associated with staying up all night.”

That changed in the wake of the Reformation and the counter-Reformation. Protestants and Catholics became accustomed to holding secret services at night, during periods of persecution. If earlier the night had belonged to reprobates, now respectable people became accustomed to exploiting the hours of darkness.

This trend migrated to the social sphere too, but only for those who could afford to live by candlelight. With the advent of street lighting, however, socialising at night began to filter down through the classes.

In 1667, Paris became the first city in the world to light its streets, using wax candles in glass lamps. It was followed by Lille in the same year and Amsterdam two years later, where a much more efficient oil-powered lamp was developed.

London didn’t join their ranks until 1684 but by the end of the century, more than 50 of Europe’s major towns and cities were lit at night.

Night became fashionable and spending hours lying in bed was considered a waste of time.

“People were becoming increasingly time-conscious and sensitive to efficiency, certainly before the 19th Century,” says Roger Ekirch. “But the industrial revolution intensified that attitude by leaps and bounds.”

Strong evidence of this shifting attitude is contained in a medical journal from 1829 which urged parents to force their children out of a pattern of first and second sleep.

“If no disease or accident there intervene, they will need no further repose than that obtained in their first sleep, which custom will have caused to terminate by itself just at the usual hour.

“And then, if they turn upon their ear to take a second nap, they will be taught to look upon it as an intemperance not at all redounding to their credit.”

Today, most people seem to have adapted quite well to the eight-hour sleep, but Ekirch believes many sleeping problems may have roots in the human body’s natural preference for segmented sleep as well as the ubiquity of artificial light.

This could be the root of a condition called sleep maintenance insomnia, where people wake during the night and have trouble getting back to sleep, he suggests.

The condition first appears in literature at the end of the 19th Century, at the same time as accounts of segmented sleep disappear.

“For most of evolution we slept a certain way,” says sleep psychologist Gregg Jacobs. “Waking up during the night is part of normal human physiology.”

The idea that we must sleep in a consolidated block could be damaging, he says, if it makes people who wake up at night anxious, as this anxiety can itself prohibit sleeps and is likely to seep into waking life too.

Russell Foster, a professor of circadian [body clock] neuroscience at Oxford, shares this point of view.

“Many people wake up at night and panic,” he says. “I tell them that what they are experiencing is a throwback to the bi-modal sleep pattern.”

But the majority of doctors still fail to acknowledge that a consolidated eight-hour sleep may be unnatural.

“Over 30% of the medical problems that doctors are faced with stem directly or indirectly from sleep. But sleep has been ignored in medical training and there are very few centres where sleep is studied,” he says.

Jacobs suggests that the waking period between sleeps, when people were forced into periods of rest and relaxation, could have played an important part in the human capacity to regulate stress naturally.

In many historic accounts, Ekirch found that people used the time to meditate on their dreams.

“Today we spend less time doing those things,” says Dr Jacobs. “It’s not a coincidence that, in modern life, the number of people who report anxiety, stress, depression, alcoholism and drug abuse has gone up.”

So the next time you wake up in the middle of the night, think of your pre-industrial ancestors and relax. Lying awake could be good for you.

Stages of sleep

Every 60-100 minutes we go through a cycle of four stages of sleep

• Stage 1 is a drowsy, relaxed state between being awake and sleeping – breathing slows, muscles relax, heart rate drops
• Stage 2 is slightly deeper sleep – you may feel awake and this means that, on many nights, you may be asleep and not know it
• Stage 3 and Stage 4, or Deep Sleep – it is very hard to wake up from Deep Sleep because this is when there is the lowest amount of activity in your body
• After Deep Sleep, we go back to Stage 2 for a few minutes, and then enter Dream Sleep – also called REM (rapid eye movement) sleep – which, as its name suggests, is when you dream

In a full sleep cycle, a person goes through all the stages of sleep from one to four, then back down through stages three and two, before entering dream sleep

Source: Gregg Jacobs

Male Y chromosome extinction theory challenged

By Neil BowdlerScience and health reporter, BBC News

Men may not become extinct after all, according to a new study.

Previous research has suggested the Y sex chromosome, which only men carry, is decaying genetically so fast that it will be extinct in five million years’ time.

A gene within the chromosome is the switch which leads to testes development and the secretion of male hormones.

But a new US study in Nature suggests the genetic decay has all but ended.

Professor Jennifer Graves of Australian National University has previously suggested the Y chromosome may become extinct in as little as five million years’ time, based on the rate at which genes are disappearing from the chromosome.

Genetics professor Brian Sykes predicted the demise of the Y chromosome, and of men, in as little as 100,000 years in his 2003 book Adam’s Curse: A Future without Men.

The predictions were based on comparisons between the human X and Y sex chromosomes. While these chromosomes were once thought to be identical far back in the early history of mammals, the Y chromosome now has about 78 genes, compared with about 800 in the X chromosome.

Jennifer Hughes and colleagues at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have sought to determine whether rumours of the Y chromosome’s demise have been exaggerated.

In a previous Nature paper in 2005, they compared the human Y chromosome with that of the chimpanzee, whose lineage diverged from that of humans about six million years ago.

They have now sequenced the Y chromosome of the rhesus monkey, which is separated from humans by 25 million years of evolution.

The conclusion from these comparative studies is that genetic decay has in recent history been minimal, with the human chromosome having lost no further genes in the last six million years, and only one in the last 25 million years.

“The Y is not going anywhere and gene loss has probably come to a halt,” Ms Hughes told BBC News. “We can’t rule out the possibility it could happen another time, but the genes which are left on the Y are here to stay.

“They apparently serve some critical function which we don’t know much about yet, but the genes are being preserved pretty well by natural selection.”

X-Y crossing

Most humans cells contain 23 sets of chromosomes, including one pair of sex chromosomes. In women, this sex pair consist of two X chromosomes, while men have one X and one Y chromosome. It is a gene within the Y chromosome which triggers the development in the embryo of male testes and the secretion of male hormones.

Professor Julian Parkhill visits the Wellcome Collection to unravel the science behind the genome

Genetic deterioration of the Y chromosome has occurred because unlike with the two X chromosomes in women, there is very little swapping of genetic material between the Y and X chromosome during reproduction. This means mutations and deletions in the Y chromosome are preserved between (male) generations.

“The X is fine because in females it gets to recombine with the other X but the Y never gets to recombine over almost its entire length, and shutting down that recombination has left the Y vulnerable to all these degenerative forces,” said Dr Hughes, “which is why we’re left with the Y we have today.”

Commenting on the paper, Professor Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading and author of Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind, said that while there might be some squabbling in academic circles over the timings of the events, the paper told us there was a future for males in the very long term.

“It’s a very nice piece of work, showing that gene loss in the male-specific region of the Y chromosome proceeds rapidly at first – exponentially in fact – but then reaches a point at which purifying selection brings this process to a halt.”

From Bloomberg

Protest graffiti in German in Athens on Feb. 15, 2012. Photographer: Robert Geiss/DPA/ZUMAPRESS.com

Greek President Karolos Papoulias, right, at the Ministry of National Defence in Athens on Feb. 15, 2012. Photographer: Simela Pantzartzi/EPA/Landov

Greek President Karolos Papoulias slammed Germany’s finance minister for recent comments about his country as stalled bailout talksstoked tensions between Greece and the northern European countries funding its rescue.

“I don’t accept insults to my country by Mr. Schaeuble,” Papoulias, who fought in the resistance against the Nazis during World War II, said in a speech today. “I don’t accept it as a Greek. Who is Mr. Schaeuble to ridicule Greece? Who are the Dutch? Who are the Finns? We always had the pride to defend not just our own freedom, not just our own country, but the freedom of all of Europe.”

Papoulias’s comments came as Wolfgang Schaeuble and other European officials pushed Greece to gouge more cuts out of its budget to qualify for a new bailout that would stave off an economic collapse. Schaeuble today blamed Greece’s New Democracy party, the second largest, for holding up agreement on a new rescue package and his deputy, Steffen Kampeter, compared Greece to a “bottomless pit.”

Greek politicians are expressing their frustration after European finance ministers last week rejected a Greek austerity package worth 7 percent of gross domestic product. That prompted New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras to complain that a gun was being held to the country’s head. George Karatzaferis, head of Laos, the third party in the governing coalition, said the country “could do without the German boot.”

Playing With Fire

“We are continually faced with new terms,” Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told reporters in Athens today. “In the euro area, there are plenty who don’t want us anymore. There are some playing with fire, domestically and abroad. Some are playing with torches and some are playing with matches. But the risk is equally great.”

Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker later said after a conference call with euro region finance ministers that he’s confident a decision on Greece will be made on Feb. 20.

Papoulias, 82, asked today to have his public salary stopped as a gesture of solidarity with Greeks amid the country’s economic crisis, Venizelos told reporters.

Papoulias receives about 300,000 euros ($392,400) a year, according to Bloomberg calculations based on government documents. The press office of the president couldn’t confirm the data. U.S. President Barack Obama received a total of $395,188 in 2010, according to his tax return published on the White House website.

Papoulias has decided to forfeit his annual compensation “as a symbolic gesture at a moment when the Greek people are called upon to undergo such sacrifices,” Venizelos said.

Demonstrators in Athens tore up marble in front of parliament, clashed with police and set 45 buildings on fire on Feb. 12, protesting against the government’s new package of spending cuts.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eleni Chrepa in Athens at echrepa@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Maria Petrakis at mpetrakis@bloomberg.net

China Reduces Holdings of U.S. Treasuries to Lowest Level Since June 2010

By Cordell Eddings and Daniel Kruger - Feb 16, 2012 2:28 AM GMT+0400

China is the largest foreign lender to the U.S. Photographer: Nelson Ching/Bloomberg

China, the largest foreign lender to the U.S., reduced its holdings of Treasuries in December to the least since June 2010 amid efforts to assist Europe in addressing its debt crisis.

The world’s second-largest economy decreased its U.S. debt securities by $31.9 billion from November, or 2.8 percent, to $1.11 trillion, according to Treasury Department data released yesterday. Its position in longer-term notes and bonds also fell $32.5 billion, or 2.8 percent, to $1.1 trillion, the least since June 2010. Japan, the second biggest buyer, increased its holding by $3.5 billion to $1.04 trillion.

“We continue to see Chinese Treasury holdings trending lower as they are acting on their desire for diversification and as they may get more involved in the situation in Europe,” said Ian Lyngen, a government bond strategist at CRT Capital Group LLC in Stamford, Connecticut.

China’s policy makers have advocated diversification of the nation’s foreign exchange reserves away from U.S. assets. China may support Europe through channels such as the International Monetary Fund, the European Financial Stability Facility and the European Stability Mechanism, said People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan.

European Assets

“China will always adhere to the principle of holding assets of EU sovereign debt,” Zhou said in Beijing yesterday. “We would participate in resolving the euro debt crisis,” he said.

Chinese Officials, including central bank adviser Li Daokui, have urged diversification of the nation’s foreign exchange reserves. The Asian nation will “seek diversification in the management of reserve assets, strengthen risk management, and minimize the negative impacts of the fluctuations in the international financial market on the Chinese economy,” Zhou said in August.

Foreign investors held 47.6 percent of outstanding public Treasury debt as of December, the smallest proportion since October 2006, Treasury data show.

Net buying of long-term equities, notes and bonds totaled $17.9 billion during the month compared with net purchases of $61.3 billion the previous month, the Treasury Department said. Including short-term securities such as stock swaps, foreigners bought a net $87.1 billion in December compared with net buying of $42.9 billion the previous month.

China increased its position in shorter-term bills by $600 million to $2.9 billion. The U.S. updated data on Feb. 28, 2011 to show China’s Treasury investments in October 2010 were a record $1.18 trillion, 30 percent more than the initial estimate of $906.8 billion.

“Overall flows were weak for the U.S. and the Chinese tactical selling reflected that as Treasuries were giving back very little,” said Aaron Kohli, an interest-rate strategist BNP Paribas SA in New York, one of 21 primary dealers that trade directly with the Federal Reserve. “As yields rise, look for China to buy Treasuries again.”

Treasuries have lost 0.1 percent this year after returning 9.8 percent last year, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch index.

To contact the reporter on this story: Cordell Eddings in New York at ceddings@bloomberg.net; Daniel Kruger in New York at dkruger1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net