Barcepundit (English edition)

2009-11-04T19:37:00.001+01:00

THE PAIN IN SPAIN falls everywhere:

Spain’s unemployment figures are truly shocking. Almost one in every five workers is out of a job. Only Latvia faces a worse problem. The Spanish employment minister, struggling to put on a brave face, points out the rate of increase is slowing, but that is cold comfort to the millions on the dole. Spain faces a long, hard battle to get back the jobs it has lost.

At 19.3 percent in September, the jobless figure is more than double the EU average of 9.2 percent.

[...] The European Commission sees no improvement in employment for the next two years, while some economists forecast further deterioration. The government is preparing another stimulus package, this disease will be around for years to come.

Plus this:

The new jobless numbers come as the European Commission projected Tuesday that the Spanish economy won’t return to growth until 2011 and the government’s budget deficit will likely reach double digits this year and next.

Meanwhile, in a mental journey to Mars:

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has said that Spain’s economy would begin emerging from recession “at the end of this year or the beginning of 2010″, though he acknowledged that unemployment - now nearly 18 percent - would remain high for some time.

He doesn't even realize you can't really have one without the other.

2009-11-04T19:21:00.000+01:00

CAN YOU TRUST IRAN? In a word, no:

Satellite photos indicate that Iran has increased production at a uranium mine, underscoring the need for wider UN inspections to determine whether the country is trying to build a nuclear weapon.

Evidence of stepped-up activity at the Gchine mine, near the Persian Gulf coast city of Bandar Abbas, is seen in pictures obtained by Bloomberg News and the Washington-based New America Foundation, according to four nuclear analysts who examined the images. The mine could produce enough uranium to craft at least two atomic bombs a year, experts said.

2009-11-02T21:30:00.000+01:00

WHEN A GEEK has twins...

2009-11-01T09:42:00.000+01:00

THIS WILL GIVE YOU the best idea of the sorry state of education nowadays; it's from the UK, but give and take it should be the same mostly anywhere....

(via)

2009-10-28T20:17:00.002+01:00

IF THIS finally sees the light, it can't come soon enough:

A new kind of portable electrochemical battery that can produce thousands of hours of power - and soon replace the expensive regular or rechargeable batteries in hearing aids and sensors and eventually in cellphones, laptop computers and even electric cars - has been developed at Haifa's Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

The unique battery is based on silicon as a fuel that reverts to its original sand. The battery can also be left on the shelf for years and inserted into a device to provide immediate power.

2009-10-28T18:02:00.000+01:00

BARACK CLINTON?

During his first nine months in office, President Obama has quietly rewarded scores of top Democratic donors with VIP access to the White House, private briefings with administration advisers and invitations to important speeches and town-hall meetings.

High-dollar fundraisers have been promised access to senior White House officials in exchange for pledges to donate $30,400 personally or to bundle $300,000 in contributions ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, according to internal Democratic National Committee documents obtained by The Washington Times.

I wonder who slept in the Lincold Bedroom...

2009-10-27T10:15:00.001+01:00

ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT: Obama's self-portrait (click to enlarge)

2009-10-26T15:10:00.000+01:00

OBAMA, the conservatives' best friend: according to Gallup, he's "manufacturing" them at full speed.

2009-10-26T10:13:00.002+01:00

HELEN THOMAS' 5 lessons for Obama.

2009-10-25T14:57:00.000+01:00

LOL: How to censor a porn movie:

2009-10-24T15:56:00.002+02:00

THIS ISN'T GOOD:

Spain's unemployment rate remained practically unchanged at an EU-high of 17.9 percent in the third quarter after rising for eight consecutive quarters. Officials warned the rate will probably rise again.
The number of jobless now stands at 4,123,300, the National Statistics Institute said.

That figure is down slightly from the second quarter, by 14,100, but this had a negligible impact on the unemployment rate because the workforce also decreased.

2009-10-22T21:29:00.000+02:00

WANNA SAVE THE PLANET? Then eat your dog:...

The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found.

Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living.

The couple have assessed the carbon emissions created bypopular pets, taking into account the ingredients of pet food and the land needed to create them.

See? Korean do it for the sake of Humankind!

2009-10-22T09:44:00.002+02:00

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL has very harsh words about Spain's foreign policy:

Havana's man in Europe is returning from Cuba with a simple request: For his EU partners to drop their focus on human rights. After a two-day visit with the Cuban government, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos will press his Continental counterparts to scrap their 1996 "Common Position" on Cuba in order to fully normalize ties with Raul Castro's dictatorship.

Keep reading.

2009-10-20T15:36:00.002+02:00

MUST READ: Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch, rightfully criticizes the organization for its anti-Israel bias.

2009-10-16T18:55:00.002+02:00

BUMMERS: "Catalonia says no to happy hour"

2009-10-15T16:50:00.001+02:00

THE 10 COUNTRIES most at risk of a meltdown. Guess which is first.

UPDATE. Spanish banking crises, then and now.

2009-10-14T21:31:00.000+02:00

THE FIRST EURO DOMINO may be about to fall: "Latvia threatens foreign banks with huge losses. Crisis-hit Baltic state proposes emergency law to slash mortgage holders' liabilities to lenders."

Which will be the next one? Well, considering this, and this, and this... Don't even want to think about it.

2009-10-13T21:48:00.003+02:00

A PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED picture of the 1989 Tinanamen massacre, from Italy's paper L'Unità. Let's give China another Olympic games! (click to enlarge)

(via El País)

2009-10-13T15:12:00.001+02:00

IF THIS IS TRUE, it's utterly shameful:

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is due to hold talks with the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, in Moscow today amid claims that Washington has agreed to stop criticising Russia's human rights record in return for improved relations.

According to today's Kommersant newspaper, the White House will no longer issue public criticisms of Russia's democratic failings. Clinton will propose that the US and Russia co-operate on a missile defence shield against a possible Iranian attack, the paper said.

The reported plan is likely to dismay both international rights groups and Russia's opposition. Barack Obama's predecessors, Bill Clinton and George Bush, regularly criticised the Kremlin over its war in Chechnya and the rollback of democracy under the former president Vladimir Putin.

2009-10-13T12:44:00.001+02:00

MR. ZAPATERO GOES TO WASHINGTON: Spain's primer minister begins his -believe it or not- first official visit to the US. Gone are the days when Zapatero sounded more like Ciara than a country's leader.

UPDATE. More at the Examiner, where by the way they refer to Zapatero as head of state. He's not: he's the prime minister, that is, the chief of the executive branch (Kin Juan Carlos is Spain's head of state). The confusion may stem from the fact that the official name of his position is "presidente del gobierno"which is sometimes translated as "president of the government" and thus made equivalent to head of state. But the accurate translation for "presidente del gobierno", if you need one, would be "chairman of the cabinet". But you don't really need that; it's better to simply "prime minister".

2009-10-12T19:28:00.000+02:00

SMALL CHANGE: "Billions of dollars and a Nobel Prize later, it looks like ‘microlending’ doesn’t actually do much to fight poverty."

2009-10-12T19:06:00.003+02:00

GOT A KINDLE? Then you can now read Barcepunditon it!

2009-10-12T15:14:00.000+02:00

OBAMA fails to win the Nobel prize in Economics:

While few observers think Obama has done anything for world peace in the nearly nine months he's been in office, the same clearly can't be said for economics.

The president has worked tirelessly since even before his inauguration to wrest control of the U.S. economy from failed free markets, and the evil CEOs who profit from them, and to turn it over to wise, fair and benevolent bureaucrats.

A bit surprised to see this on CBS...

2009-10-12T12:16:00.002+02:00

HOW IRANIAN NUKES would reshape the Middle East.

2009-10-11T15:33:00.003+02:00

10 FAMOUS QUOTES that were cut short. LOL.