It’s not the easiest subject to traverse for those unfamiliar with the inner workings on regulation and deregulation initiatives, which is perhaps why it seems to have led to confusion in some quarters over what the report actually is.

• The cumulative cost, or a cost of the ’stock’ of regulation, measures the entire cost to the economy since 1998, which is £176 billion. The EU is responsible for 71%, or £124 billion of that cost. We explained that £176 billion is equivalent to 12.6% of the UK’s annual GDP, and roughly equivalent to the country’s budget deficit. This does not mean that the £176 billion cost of regulation occurs in one year, as we make clear, and the comparison to the budget deficit and GDP is illustrative. In particular it’s a useful reminder that regulatory policy deserves as much scrutiny as budgetary policy, as both have a significant impact on the economy. We can see why the Commission doesn’t like that thought. We’re note sure what the Commission’s remark about ‘double-counting’ refers to.

• In the report, we do address the counterfactual , i.e. the costs that would have occured in absence of EU regulation. This is indeed an interesting discussion - one that the Commission would do well in seriously engaging with. We accept that many regulations - but certainly not all - would exist in national law also in the absence of the EU. However, and this is crucial, while the framework of laws may still exist at the national level, a whole range of prescriptive requirements that go with it would not. We give examples in our report.

• Additionally, knowing the source of regulation is vitalling important, both in terms of practically amending the law if so desired, and in terms of political accountability. Not knowing the source of the laws massively undercuts citizens’ ability to hold policymakers to account. I.e. if I’m not happy with my energy bills rising as a result of regulation, who should I blame? The answer is far from straightforward.

• The annual cost of regulation measures the cost to business and the pulic sector arising from red tape in any given year (from existing and new regulation). We consider this to be a more useful measure than the cumulative cost as it allows us to look at trends. The Commission doesn’t seem to address this figure, which is surprising. Particularly as it shows that the EU proportion of the total cost has gone down over the last three years (at 59% in 2009, compared to a 72% average), which could be a sign of the EU’s ‘better regulation agenda’ beginning to pay off…

• But the most interesting figure is the benefit/cost ratio, showing the benefits of EU and UK regulations relative to each other. This figure is not being addressed by the Commission either. The ratio makes clear that for both EU regulations and UK regulations the benefits outweigh the costs, but UK regulations areo n average 2.5 times more cost-efficient than EU laws. This is also true in the areas where the EU and UK regulate the same parts of the economy (for example, social policy and environment legislation). This is what the Commission really should be trying to respond to if they’re concerned with relative benefits.

Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has warned politicians in the south of the country that the scheduled referendum on the status of the region could be cancelled.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Sudan’s south given poll warning

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has warned that any delay to April elections could affect next January’s referendum on secession for the south.

His comments come amid rumours that the former southern rebels, the SPLM, will call for a delay of the elections - the first national vote in 24 years.

Other northern opposition parties have already called for a delay, saying the polls will not be free and fair.

The referendum was part of a 2005 deal ending a 21-year north-south civil war.

The conflict between the mainly Muslim north and the Christian and animist south claimed the lives of some 1.5 million people.

Correspondents say the idea of secession is popular in the south - and while Mr Bashir’s party would prefer the country to remain united, the president has said he would honour the outcome of the referendum.

Ballot paper concerns

On Monday, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement’s deputy secretary general in the south said the party did not want a delay if a free vote could be guaranteed by the election commission.

But Anne Ito said there were concerns that ballot papers for April’s parliamentary and presidential elections were being printed on government printing presses.

The BBC’s James Copnall in Khartoum says the northern opposition parties and the SPLM are due to meet on Wednesday to discuss a common position.

A meeting between Mr Bashir and SPLM leader Salva Kiir - who is also president of the south - to discuss the crisis was called off on Tuesday.

Last week, Mr Bashir threatened to expel foreign election monitors after they suggested the elections should be delayed.

Our correspondent says President Bashir needs an electoral victory to give him credibility.

Violence between rival ethnic group continues to claim hundreds of lives each year in the south, making it difficult to ensure security during the election.

In Darfur, hundreds of thousands of people still live in refugee camps after a separate conflict.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8595443.stm
Published: 2010/03/30 15:29:41 GMT

The recent election of Iyad ‘Alawi’s ‘Iraqiyah bloc is a significant step in Iraq’s move to a more representative and hopefully more stable government. It is also a rejection - albeit by the slimmest of margins - of the almost theocratic Shi’a domination of the Iraqi government under current Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. ‘Alawi’s alliance includes both Arab Sunnis and Shi’as.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have ties to Iyad ‘Alawi. In 1996, after the United States government began to distance itself from the Iraqi National Congress led by prominent Shi’a banker Ahmad Chalabi, the Central Intelligence Agency started to work closely with Iyad ‘Alawi’s British-supported Iraq National Accord (the “Wifaq”) to try to effect the overthrow of the Saddam Husayn regime. I was part of that effort, codenamed DBACHILLES.

In 1996, I was part of the CIA team that deployed to the region to work with “Dr Iyad,” as we called him, and his group of exiled Iraqi military officers and other leaders. In the end, the effort failed, but I developed great respect for the physician turned politician and opposition leader. I think ‘Alawi possesses the traits necessary to unify Iraq’s Arab population, which up until now has been split into distrusting Sunni and Shi’a camps. This is in stark contrast to the divisive current al-Maliki government which has alienated the Sunnis.

Of course, ‘Alawi’s first challenge will be to form a government, not an easy task with such a small margin of victory. Al-Maliki will not quietly depart the scene - he is too fond of what he believes is his rightful place in Iraqi politics, and he has allies. Since the adage “politics makes strange bedfellows” certainly applies to Iraq, there are rumors that the third-place group, the Iraq National Alliance, will ally with al-Maliki’s party to challenge an ‘Alawi government.

There are also supporters of radical Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the INA, once again making al-Sadr a power player in Iraqi politics. Although ‘Alawi has expressed a willingness to continue to improve relations with neighboring Iran, Iran would clearly prefer an Iraqi government headed by al-Maliki, or even better, al-Sadr. Al-Sadr has been in Iran studying to acquire the title of ayatollah to better improve his chances to emerge as the future leader of Iraq.

Iyad ‘Alawi is the right choice for Iraq at this time. I hope he is able to form a coalition government that does not include the likes of Nuri al-Maliki. It is the only way to bridge the divide between the Sunnis and Shi’a in the country. Unless that happens, the internal dispute will continue and possibly expand. If the Sunnis do not feel invested, they will work against the government, not with it.

Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders today expressed their appreciation of United Nations efforts to reunite the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, saying important progress had been made in recent talks between the two sides.

Under a new plan unveiled by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today, Haiti’s human capital will play a crucial role in the country’s recovery following January’s catastrophic earthquake through food-for-work projects to stimulate the agricultural sector.

By declaring that breast cancer genes can’t be patented, a US court has raised questions about all other US gene patents, says Andy Coghlan

Engineers at the Large Hadron Collider have smashed together beams at 7 teraelectronvolts – the start of the physics programme, says Richard Fisher

Millions of vulnerable people remain in fuel poverty despite a multi-billion spending scheme to help elderly people heat their homes, MPs have warned.

By Louise Gray, Environment CorrespondentPublished: 7:00AM BST 30 Mar 2010
Ministers promised to end fuel poverty among deprived households by 2010 in England and to wipe out the problem completely by 2016.
But the influential Energy and Climate Change (ECC) Committee said both targets will be missed because taxpayers’ money spent on the problem has not been given to the right people.

The number of households in ‘fuel poverty’ – or spending more than 10 per cent of their income on heating – has doubled to around £4.6 million this year.
Paddy Tipping, chairman of the committee, said efforts like the Warm Front Scheme have failed because the money is offered to the elderly and those on benefits. He pointed out that not all old people struggle to pay the bills while many vulnerable people do not claim credits.
He said the Government also failed to take into account rural communities that struggle to pay the bills because they are not on the mains grid and poor families in badly insulated homes.
“Some people who are fuel poor do not get help, while others who are not in fuel poverty receive assistance,” he said.
The MPs suggested a database that shows which homes are better insulated and more data sharing on households with problems, although this has issues for privacy.
Consumer groups are also concerned about plans by British Gas to roll out smart meters to one million homes this year.
Which? is worried that information on the energy use of individual households could be “misused”.

Following the infamous “Obama snub“, the ‘EU as global power’ project has suffered another humiliating dressing down this week. This time the reality check comes from the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy, who, in his frustration with the shambolic organisation of the EU representation has set out some guidelines as to how the member states should behave at future WTO meetings:

“If one European takes the floor on one topic, and then another European takes the floor on the same topic, nobody listens. Nobody listens because either it’s the same thing and it gets boring, or it’s not the same thing and it will not influence the result at the end of the day….So the right solution, if I may, is at least to make sure that they speak with one mouth. Not one voice—one mouth—on each topic on the agenda. That would be a great improvement.”

More than a little patronising and far from the “unified EU voice” that those supporters of the Lisbon Treaty suggested. Gideon Rachman, reporting from the Brussels Forum of the German Marshall Fund on his FTblog, has offered an insight into how the EU is actually viewed by American diplomats:

“In the lobby of the conference hotel, I just bumped into some official Americans who had been to see senior people at the commission. They had delicately raised the question of which of the two European ‘presidents’ would represent the EU at future international summits. ‘Oh that’s all settled,’ they were told, ‘they’re both going.’ With enormous self-restraint, the Americans apparently refrained from laughing out loud, or banging their heads against the wall. Meanwhile European officials still maintain, with a straight face, that the Treaty has ’simplified’ Europe’s structures.

Which pretty much sums it up.

Nick Clegg has already responded to our letter and it’s good that he describes himself as “a huge supporter of Friends of the Earth.”
We’re going to wait until we’ve received responses from all the party leaders to comment further, but in the meantime it’d be great if you let us know what you think - you can comment below.
Here’s his letter for you to read.
————————————————————————————————————
Dear Andy,
Thank you and all your co-signatories very much for your letter. I couldn’t agree with you more: this election could be a turning point, not just for Britain but for the world environment. Some people think that’s overstating it, but the scientists tell us that the coming five years could be our last chance to avert dangerous climate change. That means the government we elect next has the most enormous responsibility: to provide change at home and leadership abroad to stop the disaster from happening.
I am a huge supporter of Friends of the Earth. I’ve met up with FoE campaigners twice in the last year – at Glastonbury and at Sipsom, the village that will be destroyed if plans for a third runway go ahead. I am delighted you have chosen to get so involved in trying to influence the outcome of the election in a green direction. It’s people like you who can and must make the difference and ensure the next set of MPs take that responsibility for the future of our planet seriously.
The sad truth is there are far too many people standing for Parliament, especially in the Labour and Conservative parties who do not. I wish we didn’t have to make climate change a party-political issue, but when some parties don’t recognise the need for change, it has to be. Labour voted down a plan Liberal Democrats put before the House of Commons to cut government emissions by 10% this year as part of the 10-10 campaign. And the Conservatives don’t even support targets to generate just 15% of our energy from renewables. Yes, they speak well about the environment, but when it comes down to it, they block the action we need.
As you say in your letter, these are difficult economic times, but the recession must not be an excuse not to take action now. Indeed, economic recovery and green politics can go hand in hand. That is why we’re committed to a green jobs package. By investing in green technologies, home insulation, and public transport, we’d create hundreds of thousands of new jobs that will last and make the economy sustainable too. Britain can also be the green powerhouse of Europe, moving to renewables and not relying on nuclear – and now’s our chance to prove it.
The climate challenge requires a response at all levels of government – and Liberal Democrats would hard-wire green thinking into our whole approach. We know how important it is to make housing greener, so in government we’d start a programme to do just that – as well as tightening up the rule on new homes so they’re fully energy-efficient and changing the way we charge for energy, so people who use less are better off. We’d cut fares for passengers on public transport and create a UK Infrastructure Bank to invest in high-speed rail and shift money from roads to rail. We’d reduce air pollution and set a target for zero waste, so we stop wasting resources and ruining our precious landscape with landfill.
I could go on and on about our policies on climate change and on protecting our natural environment. You can find pages of policies on our website, and I hope you’ll take the chance to take a look. We are full of ideas about real changes we can make – eager to get power and influence so we can make them happen. Wherever Liberal Democrats are have power, from parish councils right up to the European Parliament, we use it to implement green change.
I genuinely believe the future of the climate is at stake, and you can make a difference. You only have one vote: use it wisely.

Nick Clegg
Leader of the Liberal Democrats