Odd Stories: German Celeb Bunny Meets Untimely Demise

Berlin - An earless baby bunny that was a rising star on Germany's celebrity animal scene had his 15 minutes of fame brought to an abrupt end when he was accidentally stepped on by a television cameraman.

The fate of 17-day-old Til, a bunny with a genetic defect, was plastered across German newspapers on Thursday, the same day a small zoo in Saxony was to have presented him to the world at a press conference.

The cameraman told Bild newspaper he hadn't seen Til, who had buried himself in hay, when he took the fateful step backward Wednesday.

Zoo director Uwe Dempewolf tells Spiegel magazine Til didn't suffer: "It was a direct hit."

Germany has been home to several global animal celebrities in recent years, including polar bear Knut and Paul the prognosticating octopus.

Older Nuclear Plants Pose Safety Challenge: IAEA

(Reuters) - Eighty percent of the world's nuclear power plants are more than 20 years old, raising safety concerns, a draft U.N. report says a year after Japan's Fukushima disaster.

Many operators have begun programs, or expressed their intention, to run reactors beyond their planned design lifetimes, said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) document which has not yet been made public.

"There are growing expectations that older nuclear reactors should meet enhanced safety objectives, closer to that of recent or future reactor designs," the Vienna-based U.N. agency's annual Nuclear Safety Review said.

"There is a concern about the ability of the ageing nuclear fleet to fulfill these expectations."
By Fredrik Dahl

Worldwide - The Fukushima tragedy was triggered on March 11, 2011, when an earthquake unleashed a tsunami that left 19,000 people dead or missing. It also smashed into the coastal power plant causing a series of catastrophic failures at the facility.

Images of the stricken plant shook public confidence in nuclear power and forced the nuclear industry to launch a campaign to defend its safety record.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano told Reuters last week that nuclear power is now safer than it was a year ago. The report said the "operational level of NPP (nuclear power plant) safety around the world remains high".

It cited steady improvements in terms of unplanned reactor shutdowns in recent years.

But the 56-page IAEA document also highlighted an ageing nuclear fleet, with eighty percent of the 435 facilities more than two decades old at the end of last year.

This "could impact safety and their ability to meet member states' energy requirements in an economical and efficient manner", said the report, which has been submitted to IAEA member states but not yet finalized.

Operators and regulators opting for so-called long term operation "must thoroughly analyze the safety aspects related to the ageing of 'irreplaceable' key components", it added.

LESSONS LEARNT?

About 70 percent of the world's 254 research reactors have been in operation for more than 30 years "with many of them exceeding their original design life," it said.

The document was debated by the IAEA's 35-nation governing board last week, almost exactly a year after the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

Last year's tsunami overwhelmed Fukushima on Japan's northeast coast, knocking out critical power supplies that resulted in a nuclear meltdown and the release of radiation.

The reactors were stabilized by December, but high radiation levels hamper a cleanup that is expected to take decades.

The crisis sparked a rethink about nuclear power and countries such as Germany, Italy and Switzerland have decided to phase out their reactors.

But other states, for example fast-growing China and India, continue to look to nuclear energy to meet their growing energy needs, the IAEA report said, adding that some "are even accelerating their nuclear energy programs".

France is building its first "advanced" reactor and Russia is seeking to double its nuclear energy output by 2020, it said.

"All countries that are using nuclear power are much more serious about nuclear safety," Amano said last week. But environmental group Greenpeace said no "real lessons" appeared to have been learnt from Fukushima.

Germany Harnesses Green Power in Desolate East

Germany - Germany's solution to a large part of its energy dilemma may lie in a muddy field in desolate, windswept flatlands in the northeast. 

In an area 75 miles north of Berlin that until now has attracted more birdwatchers than cutting-edge industries, start-up Enertrag AG, with the help of partners Vattenfall, Total and Deutsche Bahn, is operating one of the first plants to generate wind power and convert it into hydrogen.

Politicians and utilities are looking to the new technology's potential as Germany withdraws from nuclear power and turns to green power to reach 35 percent of its electricity mix by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050, from 20 percent today.

"My personal wish is that we help create the energy turning point and that wind power-to-hydrogen will take on a leading role. The politicians are very interested in what we are doing here," Werner Diwald, 46, an Enertrag board member, said.

Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan last March, Germany closed eight nuclear reactor blocks in one fell swoop, leaving power grids vulnerable to any gaps in output from less predictable power from wind and sunshine.

Hydrogen, among its many advantages, is predictable. It can be contained and transported without any carbon emissions. It can be used to generate power and heat, fuel cars or go into natural gas pipelines as an extra ingredient.

"Hydrogen is the only energy source that can safeguard energy supply over long periods," Diwald said.

The Enertrag plant has been online since October after two years of construction at a cost of 21 million euros ($27.9 million). When the wind blows, its three turbines can generate up to 6 megawatts of power.
The power is passed through water and split into oxygen and hydrogen via an electrolyser, which is housed in a supersized garage and then stored in five tanks. The plant can convert up to 0.5 MW into hydrogen, producing 12 kg per hour or enough to power a hydrogen car for 1,200 km.

This technology turns wind into a source of baseload power, the industry's word for 24-hour supply.

The hydrogen can be mixed with biogas made from local corn waste and fed into cogeneration plants, which produce electricity and heat. The power can be fed back into the grid at times when little or no wind is available, and the heat can be fed into a district heating network. During periods of low wind, the biogas plant can run on biomass alone.

"We believe that power-to-gas is one of the most promising technologies for pushing forward Germany's energy strategy shift," said Kurt Oswald, a partner at global consultancy A.T. Kearney, based in the Vienna office.

"It could provide the link between volatile power like wind and solar and the established power and gas systems."

COST QUESTION

The biggest question will be how to make wind-to-hydrogen profitable.

A.T. Kearney figures show that producing hydrogen or methane, a gas derived from it in another conversion process, costs two to four times the amount Germany pays for imported gas. Mechanization would unlock the entire gas grid as methane acts and behaves just like imported gas.

"Incentives will be necessary to help the technology reach market maturity," Oswald said.

Enertrag says the answer may lie in feed-in tariffs, or subsidies, for hydrogen. Germany used this strategy to turn itself a world leader in wind and solar power.

Diwald said that Germany would need investment of 700 million to 1 billion euros to create a hydrogen market big enough to incentivize companies and investors.

Other alternatives could be tax waivers or the passing on of additional costs down to consumers via network transmission fees.

Oswald said conversion to hydrogen or methane could help save on the expected cost of 10 billion euros to build transmission lines to connect new offshore wind power centers in the north to cities and industries further south.

Utilities are looking to hydrogen as a possible savior as they adjust to the government's new renewable targets and focus more on wind. If they intend to stay in business when the country goes fully green, they must act now.

Vattenfall has 850 MW of offshore wind around European coasts, making it the number two offshore operator worldwide. It wants to spend 4.2 billion euros on expansion between 2012 and 2016.

Oil companies such as Total have come to see hydrogen as a form of hedge against longer-term oil market risks from diminishing supplies and demand-suppressing price rises.

Hydrogen can fuel noise-free and emission-free cars. Tanker lorries already take hydrogen from the Prenzlau plant to Berlin, where Total and others already operate a few hydrogen pumps at regular filling stations.

The car industry wants to develop cars powered by hydrogen because these vehicles can travel 100 km on one kg of hydrogen and distances of 400 to 500 km in total. By comparison, electric cars that run on batteries can only reach up to 200 km.

"If a weak euro and all-time high petrol prices become a problem for consumers, alternative technologies such as power-to-gas could quite quickly become interesting," said Josef Auer, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Research.

A number of car companies including Daimler and Toyota have said they will start high-volume production of hydrogen-run cars in the middle of this decade.

Railway operator Deutsche Bahn is also looking to use power from hydrogen to offset carbon emissions from its rail network.

THE GRID

Enertrag will feed hydrogen gas into the natural gas grid from the summer. Greenpeace Energy, a subsidiary of the environmental organization, is already buying some of this "windgas" and selling it to households.

If done on a mass scale, the use of hydrogen or methane could help reduce reliance on gas imports. This is an important political factor for Germany, which gets 40 percent of its gas from Russia.

Hydrogen could also be stored in Germany's underground gas caverns without major problems, which in total offer space for a fifth of annual consumption.

"The gas industry is battling with sales problems of its own because heating demand is falling," Diwald said. "It has a big chance to present itself as a solution - to absorb hydrogen and raise its sales and profits in the process."

Enertrag plans to build 10 MW of additional hydrogen conversion capacity from 2015 onwards.

But there remain many unanswered questions for the hydrogen start-ups, said Vattenfall spokesman Lutz Wiese.

"Who can fund large-scale electrolysers, what sites are suitable geologically, where is there a lot of wind power and no grid infrastructure, and how will competition between hydrogen for cars and for electricity and heat pan out?" he said.

Berlin is already putting funds into developing this nascent technology to help it become financially viable.
Ministries have offered 200 million euros between 2011 and 2014 for research into energy storage, generating strong competition for the funds.

"Germany may be in a unique position (to transform its energy system) because not only is there a consensus in society but also the technological competency," Stephan Reimelt, head of GE Energy Germany told an energy conference in Berlin in January.

Germany's strong economy also gives it an edge, he said.

Back in Prenzlau, Enertrag executive Sven Pyka, who buys corn for the biogas plant, dusts off his work jacket as he walks back to the car.

Some locals were worried at first about the safety of the hydrogen plant but a recent visitors day attracted 300 people from surrounding communities, he says.

"Now they are increasingly curious about it," he said.

Kim Dotcom's Money Won Him New Zealand Residency

Wellington, New Zealand - In the eyes of New Zealand immigration authorities in 2010, Kim Dotcom's money trumped his criminal past.

Documents released to The Associated Press this week under New Zealand public records laws show that immigration officials granted the Megaupload founder residency that year after deciding the money he could bring to the country outweighed concern about criminal convictions in his native Germany for computer fraud and stock-price manipulation.

Dotcom was charged with racketeering in the U.S. this year; prosecutors say he facilitated millions of illegal downloads through his website. U.S. authorities are seeking Dotcom's extradition from New Zealand, where he remains under house arrest.

At the time his residency application was being considered, Dotcom had made charitable contributions in New Zealand and was planning to sponsor a fireworks show for the city of Auckland at a cost of 600,000 New Zealand dollars ($492,000). He set a deadline for immigration officials to act on his application and threatened to move to Australia or Canada if they didn't meet it.

They complied.

"The applicant has already made a substantial economic contribution to New Zealand through his spending here and will make further investments," immigration official Chris Biggs wrote. "I consider that these benefits and potential benefits outweigh the negative aspects flowing from the applicant's convictions."

In an email sent Tuesday to the AP, immigration official Jan Clark said due process was followed and all elements of Dotcom's application were appropriately considered.

New Zealand records show that Dotcom first applied for New Zealand residency in June 2010 under a special category for wealthy investors. Before that, he had been living in Hong Kong, where Megaupload is registered.

Dotcom's immigration agent, David Cooper, described him in application papers as a billionaire, a term immigration officials repeated in their own assessments. Cooper told the AP in an interview that the description came from Dotcom himself.

Subsequent asset seizures, however, indicate Dotcom's wealth to be far less than $1 billion. Dotcom's lawyers have declined AP requests to make him available for an interview.

Dotcom was convicted in 1998 of computer fraud and dealing in stolen phone cards. In 2002, he was convicted of manipulating the stock price of an Internet startup. Both times, he was fined but managed to avoid jail time. New Zealand immigration authorities noted that the convictions occurred a long time ago.

On Oct. 26, 2010, an immigration manager, Gareth Grigg, sent a memo to a colleague saying that he'd been advised by Cooper that "Mr. Dotcom wants a decision on his application by 1 November 2010 or he will walk away" and consider his residency options in Australia or Canada.

He noted Dotcom's charitable contributions, but also noted in a section titled "Risks" that: "Mr. Dotcom may be seen to be controlling the processing of his application;" that he may "attract 'buying residence' criticism;" and that proceeding with the application without all the outstanding information "may amount to Mr. Dotcom being afforded special treatment because of his wealth."

Nevertheless, six days later — on Dotcom's Nov. 1 deadline — New Zealand immigration officials decided to grant him residency.

Two months after he was granted residency, Dotcom was convicted in Hong Kong on several counts of failing to disclose his shareholding levels to the Securities and Futures Commission, and was fined 8,000 Hong Kong dollars ($1,031). New Zealand immigration authorities decided the convictions were too minor to consider deporting Dotcom.

In another development, Dotcom this week told file-sharing news website TorrentFreak that "Guess what — we found a large number of Mega accounts from U.S. government officials, including the Department of Justice and U.S. Senate."

Megaupload was shut down in January when Dotcom was arrested.

"I hope we will soon have permission to give them and the rest of our users access to their files," Dotcom told the website.

Dotcom did not suggest that government officials illegally shared copyrighted material. U.S. prosecutors allege that illegal downloads on Dotcom's website cost movie makers and songwriters some half a billion dollars.

Dotcom, who legally changed his name from Kim Schmitz, has said U.S. authorities have cherry-picked evidence in their indictment in a way that is "misleading and malicious."

The Sun Shines Less on Solar Power in Germany

By Daan Bauwens

Berlin - Germany is capable of producing as much solar energy as the rest of the world together. But now the German government is proposing dramatic cuts in subsidies for solar panels. They say consumer demand is so high it can no longer support the technology.

Germany has a production capacity of more than 25,000 megawatts. In December 2011 alone, a record 7,500 megawatts capacity was added to the German solar park. That is the equivalent of five average nuclear power plants. On sunny days, solar power can provide up to 25 percent of the country's energy.

The success of solar power in Germany is led by a generous subsidy policy to promote renewables, especially photovoltaic cells. In the German subsidy system, utility companies are obliged to pay people who generate their own solar power, for instance with photovoltaic cells on the roofs of their houses.

Germany has also seen cooperatives renting space on the roofs of public buildings for the placement of solar panels. Over the years, the German energy capacity output has more than doubled the government’s projected target.

But at the end of last month, German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen and Economy Minister Phillip Roesler proposed a plan to cut subsidies for solar power by almost 30 percent. The decision follows similar subsidy cuts in the UK, Italy and France last year. In Germany subsidies had already been cut 50 percent over the last three years.

To avoid a last-minute boom, ministers Roettgen and Roesler proposed on Feb. 23 that the cuts would be implemented on Mar. 9, giving the industry no more than two weeks to prepare for the change. This proposal sparked anger in the solar industry and amongst environmentalists, resulting in protests at Berlin's Brandenburger Gate.

"This decision will kill the market for solar energy," says Stefan Hief, CEO of Cosmoenergy, manufacturer of photovoltaic cells. "If there have to be cuts, they should not be as drastic as the government is proposing. This way, we are going to lose thousands of jobs in the sector, at a time when we are the world leaders in solar power production and the German public is in favour of renewables. For us, this decision comes down to nothing but a total solar phase-out," he tells IPS.

In an open letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel, the German solar industry association BSW-Solar stated that the proposed cuts would "undermine Germany's position as an international textbook example for solar power." As a result of the German goverment's recent declarations, employees at the American solar panel manufacturer First Solar in Brandenburg have now been obliged to start working halftime.

It is not clear why the German government wants to cut the subsidies. According to some sources, the cuts are intended to channel more money into other renewables such as wind energy. But the main reason could be that, because of the success of solar power, the costs are getting too high for the German government. The December addition of 7,500 megawatts of solar panels led to a subsidy of more than 8 billion euros.

Power companies, obliged to pay people who generate their own solar power, pass the extra costs on to the consumers in their electricity bill. The goverment says it has to decrease the financial burden on consumers by lessening the subsidies.

But according to Dr. Cornelia Ziehm at the Deutsche Umwelthilfe (German Environmental Aid) in Berlin, the reasons are mostly political. "It is true there is a problem," she admits to IPS, "the amount of money being put into the solar industry is high. But more than this, in this time of crisis the German minister of economy Roesler was in need of a new theme to tackle. He discovered the subsidies for solar energy were quite high so he proposed to cut them as a means to reduce costs for the German citizens.

"This idea was not warmly welcomed by the Ministry of Environment," Cornelia Ziehm says. "But since last summer's decision to completely phase out nuclear energy by 2020 after the Fukushima disaster, environment minister Roettgen has been under a lot of pressure by several people in his party, the CDU (Christian Democratic Union). Some CDU politicians are in favour of nuclear energy and still don't agree with the phase-out, but voted for it under pressure of CDU President Angela Merkel. This decision can be seen as a contra-revolution within the CDU."

Following protests at Brandenburger Gate Monday last week, an official spokesperson declared the subsidy cuts will not come into force before Apr. 1. (END)

Odd Stories: No nugget: Top Bidder for Commander in Chief Chicken Drops Out

By Nick Hytrek

Dakota City, Nebraska - George Washington didn't let the fact that many of his troops had no shoes on their feet stop him from attacking an enemy camp at Trenton, N.J.

Rebekah Speight isn't going to let a buyer's cold feet keep her from raising money to send kids to summer camp.

The owner of the now world-famous McDonald's McNugget bearing a resemblance to Washington remains optimistic about selling the frozen chicken chunk after the winner of an online auction backed out on the deal.

"They were very sorry," Speight said of the bidder, who had submitted the winning bid of $8,100 Monday on eBay.

Speight said eBay rules allow her to offer the McNugget to the second-highest bidder, who had bid $8,000.

Speight said she's been in contact with that bidder, but a deal might not be doable because the bidder lives overseas. Speight is concerned that she might not be able to ensure that the chicken will ship quickly enough to remain frozen.

If that deal falls through, Speight said, she can offer the nugget to the third-highest bidder, and so on. She has 60 days to decide what to do.

The Washington McNugget has taken on a life of its own, drawing interview requests from media in Germany and Canada. Speight said her goal remains to raise $15,000 to send 50 kids from the Family Worship Center in Sioux City to summer camp in Dayton, Iowa.

"I know the McNugget is fun, but it's really about the kids and getting them to camp," she said.

Speight, of Dakota City, noticed the nugget's resemblance to the first president when cleaning up her children's uneaten meals at a Sioux City McDonald's three years ago. It's been in her freezer since then.

Suspicion Rises Between Western Advisers, Afghans

By Deb Riechmann

Kabul, Afghanistan - "Shoulder to shoulder" is the mantra of the NATO-Afghan military partnership. Now, after Afghan soldiers and police turned their guns on their foreign partners during outrage over the Quran burnings, even Western advisers — not just combat troops — are looking over their shoulders.

The deepening distrust is jeopardizing the U.S.-led coalition's strategy of training Afghan security forces and helping government workers so that international troops can go home.

The advisers do a variety of jobs. While some focus on the battlefield, others pore over geological surveys, lure outside investors or make sure that key mountain passes are clear of snow. They work closely with their Afghan counterparts to build a government strong enough to fend off threats and attacks from the Taliban and other militants trying to destabilize their country.

There has been lingering distrust for years. Afghan soldiers and police, or militants dressed in their uniforms, have shot and killed more than 75 U.S. and other coalition forces in Afghanistan since 2007.

But tensions soared Feb. 25 when two U.S. military advisers were found dead with gunshots to the back of the head inside the Afghan Ministry of Interior, one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the capital, Kabul.

The two were among six U.S. troops killed by Afghan security forces during a week of demonstrations over the burning of Islamic books and Qurans at a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan. President Barack Obama and U.S. military officials say the burnings were a mistake and not intentional.

Hours after the military advisers' bodies were found on the floor of their office, Gen. John Allen, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, took the unprecedented step of recalling hundreds of coalition personnel working in more than two dozen government ministries in Kabul. He said the decision was made "for obvious force protection reasons." Britain, France, Germany and Canada quickly followed suit, putting much of the West's mentoring and advising work on hold.

"It's a declining relationship. It has been for years," said Martine van Bijlert, co-founder of the Afghan Analyst Network in Kabul. "You won't be able to fix that. The big question is 'Will it remain a workable relationship?' I think it's possible. It could settle down, but it won't fully settle down to the old level."

"These advisers are crucial, especially in the security sector when we're talking about transition," said Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies in Kabul. "Certainly the Afghan government can function without them, but if they don't return, it will take a toll on the financial situation of the government. Many of these projects financed by donors require the presence of these advisers."

Allen is determined to get the advisers back into the ministries as soon as possible — when he deems it is safe enough to do so, said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a coalition spokesman. The coalition has not disclosed the total number of advisers who work in the ministries.

Their work has not completely stopped, he said.

"Though they are not physically standing beside them, the advisers are still in daily communication with their Afghan counterparts, as Gen. Allen directed to keep the lines of communication open," Cummings said. "We are committed to our partnership with the government of Afghanistan. ... Tens of thousands of Afghan and coalition troops continue to effectively work together on significant missions every day."

A few dozen advisers critical to the mission have trickled back to work, but with additional security, Cummings said.

A senior Western adviser who oversees advisers in several ministries said that when they go back they probably will be required to wear body armor and travel in groups with armed escorts. The adviser said they also might have to get permission to visit the ministries, reducing day-to-day contact with their Afghan partners.

Some advisers, such as the ones involved in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands program, will balk at increased security, the adviser said. The U.S. established the program in September 2009 to create a team of military and civilian experts who could develop close working relationships with their Afghan and Pakistani counterparts.

Contractors who serve as advisers generally are not so eager to rush back to the ministries, and some told the adviser they are ready to head home.

The adviser and all others who spoke on condition of anonymity for this article did so because of increasing tensions in the NATO-Afghan relationship.

Restoring trust between Western advisers and their Afghan counterparts will be challenging.

"If an adviser gets killed and you're an adviser, it's going to be difficult," said Nadia Gerspacher, a senior program adviser for the United States Institute of Peace in Washington.

"Is it going to make people less trusting and feeling more insecure in the ministry? Probably," said Gerspacher, who has been in contact with advisers in Kabul since the killings.

An international security contractor said he could feel the tension when he visited an Interior Ministry office the day after the U.S. advisers were killed. Usually Afghan police there greet him with "Salamou Aleikom," meaning "Peace be with you." This time, 14 or 15 armed policemen standing in a hallway outside the office were silent, he said. The policemen asked an interpreter whether the Western contractor was American or British. He and a colleague soon left.

An Afghan National Police general at the Interior Ministry said he felt ashamed by the killings and would welcome the advisers back.

They are the teachers for Afghanistan's new system of providing security and if they don't return, the work being done to reform the unprofessional and corrupt policemen will collapse, said the general. A lot of work has been suspended since the killings, the general said.

Another official at the Interior Ministry said the Western advisers' morale had been shattered.

When two Western advisers visited his unit a few days ago, he tried to break the tension. Jokingly, he shook his finger at them, smiled and said: "You've been absent for four or five days. Your pay will be docked." He said that he has developed strong bonds with a few of the Western advisers and will consider them good friends forever.

Some ministries aren't so dependent on the advisers, according to an official at the Finance Ministry. He said the advisers were badly needed three or four years ago, but that the ministry was now staffed with talented, well-trained Afghan employees who no longer need the 20 to 25 well-paid Westerners who currently work there. The ministry could hire five Afghans with the salary paid to one Westerner, he said.

Abu Dhabi Gets Full Ownership of Chip Manufacturer

By Adam Schreck

Dubai, United Arab Emirates - The Abu Dhabi government on Monday agreed to acquire full control of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s former microchip manufacturing unit, though AMD will remain a key customer.

 

AMD is giving up its minority stake in Milpitas, Calif.-based manufacturer GlobalFoundries as part of a revised supply agreement. The deal will give Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Investment Co. total ownership of GlobalFoundries, which was founded as a spin-off from AMD in 2009.

While AMD will remain one of GlobalFoundries' "strategic customers," it will now be better positioned to diversify its customer base, according to ATIC communications head Laurie Doyle Kelly.

"It can really pursue its strategy and mandate of being a fully independent foundry," she said in an interview.

A foundry does the work of manufacturing chips for microprocessor designers such as AMD that do not operate their own production plants. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD is the world's number two maker of personal computer microprocessors — the "brains" of PCs — after Intel Corp.

GlobalFoundries has chip-making plants in Dresden, Germany and Singapore. It is starting production at a new plant in upstate New York, which it expects will be fully operational by the end of this year or early 2013, Kelly said.

Under the terms of their new wafer supply deal, AMD said GlobalFoundries agreed to waive a requirement that it buy a new type of chip for a set period and make quarterly payment obligations that were outlined in an earlier supply agreement.

In addition to giving up its less than 10 percent stake, AMD said it will pay GlobalFoundries $425 million as part of the deal. It expects to book a one-time charge of $703 million in the first quarter to cover the cash payment and other costs.

AMD spun off its chip-making operations into GlobalFoundries in 2009 in an effort to cut costs. ATIC took a majority stake in the newly created company at the outset.

ATIC was set up by the government of Abu Dhabi to drive the development of a technology industry in the oil-rich sheikdom, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It bought Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. for $1.8 billion in 2009 and combined those operations into GlobalFoundries' business.

Study: Old Flu Drug Speeds Brain Injury Recovery

By Stephanie Nano

New York - Researchers are reporting the first treatment to speed recovery from severe brain injuries caused by falls and car crashes: a cheap flu medicine whose side benefits were discovered by accident decades ago.

Severely injured patients who were given amantadine got better faster than those who received a dummy medicine. After four weeks, more people in the flu drug group could give reliable yes-and-no answers, follow commands or use a spoon or hairbrush — things that few of them could do at the start. Far fewer patients who got amantadine remained in a vegetative state, 17 percent versus 32 percent.

"This drug moved the needle in terms of speeding patient recovery, and that's not been shown before," said neuropsychologist Joseph Giacino of Boston's Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, co-leader of the study. He added: "It really does provide hope for a population that is viewed in many places as hopeless."

Many doctors began using amantadine for brain injuries years ago, but until now there's never been a big study to show that it works. The results of the federally funded study appear in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

A neurologist who wasn't involved in the research called it an important step. But many questions remain, including whether people less severely injured would benefit, and whether amantadine actually improves patients' long-term outcome or just speeds up their recovery.

Each year, an estimated 1.7 million Americans suffer a traumatic brain injury. Falls, car crashes, colliding with or getting hit by an object, and assaults are the leading causes. About three-quarters are concussions or other mild forms that heal over time. But about 52,000 people with brain injuries die each year and 275,000 are hospitalized, many with persistent, debilitating injuries, according to government figures.

With no proven remedies to rely on, doctors have used a variety of medicines approved for other ailments in the hopes that they would help brain injury patients. Those decisions are based on "hunches and logic rather than data," said Dr. John Whyte, of the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute in suburban Philadelphia. He led the study along with Giacino.

Amantadine (uh-MAN'-tah-deen), an inexpensive generic, was approved for the flu in the mid-1960s. The first inkling that it might have other uses came a few years later when it appeared to improve Parkinson's symptoms in nursing home patients who got it. It was found to have an effect on the brain's dopamine system, whose many functions include movement and alertness, and it was later approved for Parkinson's.

It's now commonly used for brain injuries, and the researchers felt it was important to find out "whether we're treating patients with a useful drug, a harmful drug or a useless drug," Whyte said.

The study was done in the U.S., Denmark and Germany and involved 184 severely disabled patients, about 36 years old on average. About a third were in a vegetative state, meaning unconscious but with periods of wakefulness. The rest were minimally conscious, showing some signs of awareness. They were treated one to four months after getting injured, a period when a lot of patients get better on their own, Giacino noted.

They were randomly assigned to receive amantadine or a dummy drug daily for four weeks. Both groups made small but significant improvement, but the rate of recovery was faster in the group getting amantadine. 

When treatment stopped, recovery in the drug group slowed. Two weeks later, the level of recovery in the two groups was about the same.

There was no group difference in side effects, which included seizure, insomnia and rigid muscles.

The study was short, and the effect on long-term outcome is unknown. But Giacino said the drug still has value even if it only hastens recovery.

"What condition would we not jump for joy if we could have it over with faster?" he said.

The study didn't include those with penetrating head injuries, like the gunshot wound former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords suffered, but Giacino said the drug should have similar effects in those patients. Whether it would work in patients with brain injuries not caused by trauma, such as a stroke, isn't known.

Whyte said the researchers want to test the drug for longer periods.

Dr. Ramon Diaz-Arrastia said the results were welcome news in a field that has seen many failed efforts. He is director of clinical research at the government's Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine, which works with the military and government scientists on brain injury research.

"It's an important step toward developing better therapies," he said.

Since amantadine is so commonly used, he said U.S. troops with severe brain injuries in Iraq or Afghanistan probably get it, or should get it now. Since 2000, some 233,000 troops have suffered traumatic brain injuries, including about 6,100 serious cases, many of them from bomb blasts or shrapnel.

Laura Bacon said amantadine seems to be helping her brother recover from a car accident in Vermont last October. Nicholas Gnazzo, 47, of Rochester, N.H., was in a coma for weeks before he was taken for rehabilitation to Spaulding, where doctors put him on amantadine in January.

Since then he has been more alert, able to communicate with nods or gestures — like pointing to his eyes when he wants his glasses, his sister said. Giacino agreed her brother has gotten better, but whether it is because of the drug can't be determined. Gnazzo wasn't part of the study.

"It's been four months now, and we know we still have a long way to go," Bacon said. "Anything that could be faster — or feel faster to us — is a positive."

German Special Assembly to Elect New President

Germany - The German government, alongside two of its major opposition parties, will jointly nominate a former human rights activist as the president of the country.

Chancellor Angela Merkel released a statement on February 19th stating Joachim Gauck will be backed by the Social Democrat and Green parties.

Former President Christian Wulff resigned after being plagued for two months about allegations he received kickbacks from friends while he governed Lower Saxony.

Until a special assembly - which in this case is just a formality given the cross-party backing of Gauck - elects the President, Speaker of the Parliament Horst Seehofer is temporarily filling the position.

Merkel praised the backing, adding in her statement "Let's not forget that we have churchmen like Gauck to thank for the success of East Germany's peaceful revolution."

Gauck was one of several pastors who helped to bring an end to the split between East and West Germany, as well as preserve and expose the crimes of the East German secret police force.

Odd Stories: Sauerkraut Causes Shutdown of Road

Friedberg, Germany - A massive traffic jam occurred in Friedberg after a hundreds of packages of sauerkraut spilled onto the autobahn during the morning's rush hour.

The accident happened after the truck crashed into a another vehicle.

Germany's temperatures, as well as most of Europe's, are lower than normal, causing the meats to quickly freeze to the road's surface.

Authorities had to shut down the road for four hours as they tried to remove the sausages from the road.

Odd Stories: German City's Parking Fines are Just the Ticket

By Alice Baghdjian

Potsdam, Germany - German authorities are giving parking violators in one city an unexpected break by issuing tickets without fines.

The tickets, put on carelessly parked cars in Potsdam, include a fine of 0 euros and the cheerful message "Glueck gehabt!!!" (Lucky you!!!). The new approach is designed to admonish motorists without hitting them in the wallet.

"The tickets serve as a warning to parking offenders," said Regina Thielemann, a city of Potsdam spokeswoman. "They're issued when the driver isn't around. So they're given written notice when they'd ordinarily only get a verbal warning."

Potsdam, the state capital of Brandenburg just outside Berlin, earned around 1.2 million euros from parking fines in 2011, she said. Around 120,000 parking fines were issued last year.

In Germany -- a country known for its fondness for obeying rules and punishing offenders -- Potsdam's fine-free tickets have caught the attention of the national media.

One recipient, Kathrin Bach, said her initial reaction to finding a note on her windscreen was one of annoyance -- until she read the message.

"I thought 'Oh no - got another ticket'," she told Germany's Bild newspaper. "I've paid loads of parking fines before because there are so few parking spaces in the area," she added.

Bach's offence -- parking less than five meters away from a road junction -- should have cost her 10 euros, according to the city's parking rules.

New Virus Affecting European Meat

Europe - A new virus that affects animals in Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium is cause for concern according to the European Food Safety Authority.

The virus, called Schmallenberg and named after its town of possible origin in Germany, causes birth defects in cattle, sheep, and goats. It causes abnormalities of the head, neck, and limbs.

The EFSA is looking into how the virus, which comes from insects, will affect livestock in upcoming months and years, as well as how it will affect the human population.

According to Commission health spokesman Frederic Vincent “Nothing shows at this stage that the virus can infect human beings, but nevertheless we have asked EFSA to look into that as well”

Russia has, at the moment, banned imports of sheep and goat meat from the European countries in question.

Germany to Seek EU Animal Welfare Label on Meat

Germany will press the European Union to introduce a label on meat saying it came from humanely raised farm animals, German agriculture minister Ilse Aigner said on Thursday.

The move would be part of a new German government programme to improve farm animal welfare, she said.

"Transparency changes buying behaviour and then the production processes and manufacturing processes," she said at the opening of the Green Week food trade fair in Berlin.

An EU-wide label on meat to show consumers that the animal was reared humanely should be introduced, she said.

"This will make it possible for consumers to recognise products which were produced using a very high level of animal welfare," she said.

It would not be practical for Germany to make such a move alone, she said.

Farm animal welfare is part of a charter for agriculture and consumers setting out a series of medium and long term goals for German farm policy announced by Aigner on Thursday.

The charter said the amount of space farm animals receive and their freedom of movement were key factors for animal welfare.

Practices such as castrating piglets without painkillers was not compatible with animal welfare, it said.

The actual definition of humanely-reared still needs considerable research, said a report from a ministry working group preparing the charter.

Consumers must be ready to pay more for meat with such labels, German farmer's association DBV said.
"Consumers will have to change their understanding of prices," said Heinrich Graf von Bassewitz, DBV spokesman for organic farming.

"Consumers who complain about so-called factory farming have pushed forward this form of agriculture though their purchases of cheap foods and their extreme price-consciousness."

Fish Imitates Octopus That Imitates Fish

Indonesia/California/Gottingen - The infamous mimic octopus, known to impersonate flatfish, lionfish, and sea snakes, now has an imitator of its own.

The jawfish, a tiny fish that surely would be eaten by almost any other animal in the ocean, usually stays close to its burrow ready to retreat from any danger. It was noticed in July of 2011 during a trip to Indonesia by Godehard Kopp of the University of Gottingen (Germany) clinging to the octopus. The fish was imitating an octopus that imitates another fish species. In spite of how close it was to the octopus, the fish seems to be unnoticed.

Kopp sent the video he made about the jawfish to the people who discovered it, Rich Ross and Luiz Rocha of the California Academy of Sciences. Because this behavior has never been documented before they published it in the journal Coral Reefs. They theorize the jawfish “hitches a ride with the octopus for protection, allowing it to venture away from its burrow to look for food—a case of 'opportunistic mimicry.' “

Dr. Rocha said about the discovery "This is a unique case in the reefs not only because the model for the jawfish is a mimic itself, but also because this is the first case of a jawfish involved in mimicry. Unfortunately, reefs in the Coral Triangle area of southeast Asia are rapidly declining mostly due to harmful human activities, and we may lose species involved in unique interactions like this even before we get to know them."

German President Refuses to Resign

While expressing his refusal to resign, German president Christian Wulff admitted Wednesday he made a “grave mistake” by trying to stop a newspaper from publishing a story that would embarrass him.

"The call to the chief editor of Bild was a grave mistake, for which I am sorry and for which I apologize,"

The voice-mail in question was sparked by Wulff letting a low-interest rate on his home loan. He told the editor-in-chief there would be “war” if the article was published.

Despite pressure to resign as president and the distraction it poses for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who nominated him for the position, he said “[I will not resign] because I had great support in the past weeks from many citizens, my friends and employees. I like fulfilling my duties [as president] and have taken the job for five years and want to show at the end of the five years that I was a good, successful president. This has been a learning process. I went from being a state premier to president very quickly, without time to adjust or prepare. It all went very fast."

Murkel has, for the moment at least, decided to continue backing Wulff.

Health Inequality in the World

Chicago – Americans with chronic illnesses struggle more to pay their medical bills or need more help than their counterparts in other high-income countries, according to a survey by the Commonwealth Fund.


The survey studied 18-thousand adults not in the United States, but in ten other countries around the world. Past reports by the nonpartisan group have been used by politicians and policymakers who advocate for healthcare reform. Chances are this one will be touted as a strong argument it.


“Despite spending far more on health care than any other country, the United States practically stands alone when it comes to people with illness or chronic conditions having difficulty affording health care and paying medical bills,” says Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis.


The survey, which took place over the telephone, included those who were in fair or good health, had surgery in the recent years, or treated for a serious illness or injury in the past year.


Forty-two percent of the 1,200 U.S. adults in the survey went without care, visiting a doctor, or not getting a prescription filled, as a result of costs. and more than a quarter (27%) said they couldn't pay, the study found. The comparison with countries like Australia, Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, reveals at the most a 41-point gap. Those countries had between one and 14 percent.


More than seven out of ten people in Britain, Switzerland, France, New Zealand, and the Netherlands were found to be able to get an appointment for their illnesses on the same day or the next. Half of the Canadian and Swiss patients are able to get the same speedy care.


Adults under the age of 65, 51 percent, didn't have care because of the costs when compared to those older than 65, who were under Medicare.


For more information about health inequality, visit the CommonWealthFund website.

Odd Stories: Sausages and Euros

Braunschweig, Germany – A 78-year-old pensioner found herself paying five euros for a package containing more than 2,000. The owner of the butcher shop put the day's money in a paper bag and placed it next to the register. The employee thought it was the cuts and gave that to the customer.

She got 100 euros from the butcher and a free basket of sausages for being honest.

Odd Stories: Fake Corpse Causes Stir in Germany

Bad Ems, Germany – A fake corpse of AiWeiWei, a Chinese artist and dissent, bothered small-town German citizens. They believed the “body”, placed face-down in front of a glass windows, was real and called the police.

Chinese artist He Xiangyu used real human hair – hand-knotted onto plastic and fiberglass – to make the realistic features. Xiangyu created the statue as praise to WeiWei's criticism of China's corruption and censorship.

Earlier this year he was detained for 81 days, resulting in criticism from Western governments. He was also ordered to pay 15 million yuan – the equivalent to $2.4 million – in fines and taxes.

Update: Thanks to the all-watchful eye of Jenny, it has come to my attention I forgot to find a picture before this article was released.  I collect the odd stories throughout the week and time them to come out on the weekends.  Somehow trying to find the pictures escaped my mind.  Anyway here they are, provided by the Washington Post.

Odd Stories: Patina Falls Victim to Cleaning

Dortmund, Germany – A cleaning woman accidentally damaged a piece of art valued at $1.1-million dollars. The work of art, Martin Kippenberger's “When It Starts Dripping from the Ceiling”, remains in its place after the cleaner scrubbed away a patina meant to look like a dried rain puddle, Reuters reports.

It's not yet determined if the patina would be restored or kept in its current condition but the insurance adjusters are assessing the damage. Dortmund city spokeswoman Dagmar Papajewski said the company employing the cleaning staff told them to stay at least eight inches away from the piece and it's not exactly sure why the patina suffered such a fate.