Privacy conflict looms for Facebook Google

GENEVA - You have been tagged in twelve photos — even if you"re not sealed up to the Web site.

European regulators are questioning either the have use of posting photos, videos and alternative report about peoplesites such as Facebook but their determine is a crack of remoteness laws.

The Swiss and German probes go to the heart of a discuss that has gained movement in Europe among high-profile remoteness cases: To what border are amicable networking platforms obliged for the calm their members upload?

Story continues next ↓advertisement your ad here

The actions set the theatre for a uninformed conflict in in in between American Web giants and European authorities a month after an Italian justice hold 3 Google management team criminally obliged for a user-posted video.

Any changes ensuing from the review could drastically change the proceed Facebook, Googles YouTube and others operate, alternate the shortcoming for ensuring personal remoteness from users to the company.

Swiss and German interpretation insurance commissioners are perfectionist that Facebook insist the have use of permitting users to upload e-mail addresses, photographs and alternative personal sum about people who havent sealed up to the site.

"The proceed the orderly at the moment, they simply concede any one who wants to have use of this use to contend they have the determine of their friends or acquaintances," Swiss supervision official Hanspeter Thuer told

To heed with Switzerlands despotic remoteness law, Facebook could be compulsory to hit people whose report has been posted online and ask them either they determine to the being stored there, he said.

Thilo Weichert, interpretation insurance supervision official in the northern German state of Schleswig Holstein, pronounced in a write talk that Facebooks avowal that it gets required determine for the posting of personal report is "total nonsense."

"We"ve created to Facebook and told them they"re not abiding by the law in Europe," he said.

The probes by the German and Swiss remoteness watchdogs are still rough and would not have evident consequences elsewhere. However, Weichert pronounced the issue is being discussed with alternative interpretation insurance officials in the 27-nation European Union, that in 2000 spoken remoteness a elemental right that companies and governments contingency respect.

The European position differs strongly from the self-regulatory, free marketplace proceed adored in the United States, where Web companies have flourished by charity users free services if they yield personal report to assistance promotion aim them better, according to Columbia University law highbrow Eben Moglen.

"If the European regulators get serious, it will emanate a poignant conflict," pronounced Moglen, who has been examining online remoteness issues since the early days of the Web.

Richard Allan, executive of process for Facebook Europe, pronounced a little of the functions being scrutinized — such as those permitting users to upload their friends" e-mail addresses to find them online — were usual opposite the industry. The association has not prolonged ago combined a apparatus for nonusers to have their interpretation removed, he said.

"As a tellurian association what we"re perplexing to do is to have certain that the systems encounter the mandate of all the jurisdictions in that we operate," Allan said.

According to Joe McNamee of the Brussels-based advocacy organisation European Digital Rights, one of the majority usual complaints about Facebook is the robe of removing users to "invite" their e-mail contacts to turn members too.

"The receiver didnt wish the messages, and the sender didnt comprehend they were going out," pronounced McNamee. "You would have to poke prolonged and tough for someone who would see determine in there."

European Union remoteness watchdogs showed their ardour for going after Google last month, when the 27-nation confederation told the poke hulk to advise people prior to it sends cameras in to cities to take cinema for the Street View maps.

Googles interpretation remoteness arch Peter Fleischer pronounced he is additionally "still reeling" from the Italian justice preference that condemned him and dual alternative comparison officials to six-month dangling sentences for violating an autistic teenagers right to remoteness by permitting a video of him being bullied to be postedthe Net.

Vetting all user-generated calm would be dear since of the immeasurable volume of interpretation involved, pronounced Fleischer. It could additionally come close to censorship, since companies would be forced to pull the line in in in between bona fide free debate and advance of privacy, he said. Blogger, YouTube and alternative Google products have prolonged been used by activists from Iceland to Iran to request supervision and corporate abuses.

But Fleischer concurred that users themselves should be some-more courteous about what they post, generally if it involves in isolation element about others.

"Both as a make a difference of usual clarity and as a make a difference of usual courtesy, users should not upload photos or videos of alternative people unless those alternative people consented," he said.

Click for associated contentYour new  Facebook ‘friend’ might be the FBICheck your Facebook remoteness settings. Now! Your Facebook profile: An open entice to crime?

Privacy concerns stirred the Mountain View, California-based association last year to hold off together with face approval when it launched Google Goggles, a apparatus to brand and yield report about objects inside pictures. Another company, Face.com, has left forward with the own face-recognition tool, though CEO Gil Hirsch says there are built-in restrictions to safeguard privacy.

While Facebook and Google contend they are committed to operative with European regulators, remoteness campaigners contend the companies move usually as fast as positively necessary. Earlier this year Facebook concluded to lift the smallest age for users in Spain from thirteen to 14, to heed with the countrys remoteness laws. It has no such age order for report users posts about others.

Moglen, of Columbia University, pronounced even if European regulators rallied together they would find it formidable to force their manners on U.S. companies, since the close attribute in in in between Silicon Valley and the administration department of President Barack Obama.

"If the Europeans wish that fight, afterwards certainly the American supervision wants the alternative side."

,,.

Duke Energy gets rate cut in tumble Consumer

Customers of Duke Energy, the states largest energy company, will see a rate cut this fall.

Dukes requested rebate will equivalent the 4.3 percent rate enlarge for residential business the association implemented in January.

Charlotte-based Duke is asking the N.C. Utilities Commission to cut the rate since the association has been utilizing less fuel to beget physical phenomenon during the mercantile downturn. The association can regulate the fuel apportionment of the rate once a year.

Dukes ask contingency still be authorized by the utilities commission and would go in to outcome Sept. 1.

The good will be short-lived, however. In January, 4 months after the rate decrease, Duke is raising the residential rate by 3.3 percent. That enlarge was formerly authorized by regulators as piece of a two-year phase-in, the initial proviso of that took place dual months ago.

Duke has some-more than 160,000 business in Durham, Chapel Hill and the horse opera Triangle.

Using a superficial knowledge of neon can lift the dullest room out of the winter ennui

When majority people think of neon, visions of Eighties Day-Glo wardrobe and smiley faces open to mind. But how about neon in interiors? Somehow that doesn"t receptive to advice as if it would work in the homes.

And yet, here we are at the commencement of a new decade with a superficial knowledge of neon looming in the shops.

Neon is not for timorous violets - rather it"s for people who wish to have a confidant statement.

Spoon club stool, 280, Heal"s, heals.co.uk Briar lampshade, 89, Clarissa Hulse at Abode Living, abodeliving.co.uk

Eating less ripened offspring will meant there are fewer damaged arms Natalie Haynes

Natalie Haynes & ,}

Hold your apples and put the carrots down. A investigate of 500,000 Europeans has found that eating five portions of ripened offspring and veg a day competence not forestall cancer after all. For years, open health campaigns have told us to sneer some-more broccoli if we wish to live past Christmas, and it turns out that they competence have been offered us a lemon.

The idea was once done that a large money coming in of vegetables could forestall up to 50 per cent of cancers. Now, it appears, the best-case unfolding is some-more similar to 2.5 per cent. Which, frankly, is lucky, given majority of us didnt eat five portions a day, even when we believed that eating beetroot was the nutritive homogeneous of a discerning sip of chemotherapy.

In 2008 a consult by the Food Standards Agency found that 59 per cent of people in England, 54 per cent of people in Scotland, 50 per cent of the Welsh and a small 45 per cent of Northern Irish people ate the claim series of tomatoes each day. The rest of us looked at supermarket shelves groaning with uninformed produce, thought of Jamie Olivers enlivening big face, and still paid for a pack of digestives instead. So fire me, we thought. I wish a biscuit, and a satsuma only wouldnt cut it.

Wait a notation chocolate thinly slice ginger nuts? Ginger is a tuber, right? This is both a biscuit and a vegetable. That counts as a win.

The complaint with healthy-eating campaigns is that they dont fool around to the strengths. We all know that baked sweat bread is less full of health than cabbage. We only cite cake. And even if we utterly similar to cabbage, when someone tells us to eat it, we dont wish it any more. If you give people a set of rules, we will simply try to mishandle them. We are mischievous that way. Or maybe were only stupid.

The Health Food Manufacturers Association expelled a inform a integrate of years ago observant that dual thirds of Britons thought chips counted as a five-a-day vegetable. Nutritionists appeared on the news, decrying the ignorance. Stupid Britons, meditative a potato is a vegetable. Well, Ive been vegetarian for some-more than twenty years, so Ive eaten utterly a couple of veg in my time. And I think a potato is a unfeeling too.

We should welcome this new investigate that frees us from the ripened offspring and veg tyranny. Maybe if we stop meditative we have to eat five portions each day, we competence only eat vegetables since theyre nice.

And see at the upside: bananas are the majority renouned ripened offspring in the country. If we begin eating fewer of them, we wouldnt be any some-more expected to get cancer. We will, however, be extremely less expected to trip on a banana skin.

Cancer rates competence stay the same, but there will be a thespian rebate in damaged arms.

The Sketch No eruptions only a taxation hike

"Because that is what this celebration is about. Its about justice. Its about fairness. Vote for us and we"ll put it right." Who pronounced that? Who doesnt contend that? They"re all observant it, the Labour destiny is to be satisfactory for all, the Tories explain integrity for their futurity, Liberal Democrats are satisfactory for fairnesss sake. They only cant assistance it.

In point of fact, the allude to at the commencement comes from Nick Griffin and his British National Fairness Party.

The Greens launched their declaration yesterday in the greatest environmental day for a prolonged time. It wasnt just lava flow, they are a purify and neat niche in the complicated domestic class. So of course, they are Fighting for Fairness. Caroline Lucas is the leader, you"ve probably seen her. Shes nice. Is she fair?

"Other parties are clustered around monster cuts to open services," she said. That didnt receptive to advice fair. Hooray for the Greens. Their votes going up, they say, they are winning seats in councils, the Assembly, the European Parliament. There are electorate who similar to the sold integrity they are fighting for (a higher smallest wage, a majority higher state grant and stealing incentives to save for retirement).

Considering how small majority people have the startling redistributive parties dont do better. Ah, but they are; Caroline pronounced they were up 44 per cent and in the Euro elections in the north came inside of an genius of violence the alternative integrity and probity celebration (see above).

The Greens are penetrating on internal commercial operation and internal energy and local... things, but are similarly penetrating on the vast, remote and inflexible governing body of the European Union.

They wish "to do things in a really opposite way" and that includes hiking taxation by twenty-five per cent in one go. Thats an extra, oooh, I dont know �150bn or so?

Thats one great thing. They"re similar to bankers. They"ve discerned how to get their hands on alternative peoples income and how to make use of it to enlarge their power, status and position. Thats their reward structure. It shows they are unsentimental people. If they could answer one subject I"d opinion for them myself.

Why cant I be an MEP? The complement is so slanted opposite people similar to me, it isnt fair.

PS: Is that a yes or a no? Asked yesterday either he was "nervous" about the debate, Gordon said: "I dont think anybody goes in to something new but feeling something about whats going to happen."

simoncarr@sketch.sc

More from Simon Carr

Obama: Healthcare remodel cant wait for a era

Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON Sat Feb 27, 2010 6:05am EST Factbox Factbox: Democrats try to assist healthcare billFri, Feb twenty-six 2010 Related News Scenarios: Healthcare check faces capricious futureFri, Feb twenty-six 2010 Related Video Obama vs Republicans on healthcare Thu, Feb twenty-five 2010 < 1 / 8 >

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama sought on Saturday to hint movement for a last pull to revitalise his stalled healthcare overhaul, insisting that Americans "cannot wait for for for an additional era for us to act."

Barack Obama&&&&Healthcare Reform

Two days after a healthcare limit that constructed no Republican converts, Obama used his weekly air wave residence to try to convene open await for a Democratic bid to press brazen with remodel legislation, with or but bipartisan agreement.

The White House pronounced Obama would have known a preference subsequent week on "the proceed forward" on healthcare, signaling his calm is using thin with Republicans who have demanded he throw his year-old proceed and begin over.

Facing singular options, Obama"s aides and associate Democrats are focusing on prospects for resorting to a parliamentary tactic called settlement that would bypass the need for Republican await and concede capitulation by a elementary infancy opinion in the Democratic-led Congress.

With Republicans condemning any such move, it would be a politically unsure scheme in a congressional choosing year when polls show most Americans doubtful of Obama"s efforts to revamp the $2.5 trillion healthcare industry.

"I am fervent and peaceful to move brazen with members of both parties on health caring if the alternative side is critical about entrance together to finalise the differences and get this done," Obama said. "But I additionally hold that we cannot lose the event to encounter this challenge."

"The tens of millions of men and women who cannot means their health word cannot wait for for for an additional era for us to act," he said.

READY TO FORGE AHEAD

Democrats in the Senate and House authorized healthcare bills last year that would reshape the uneasy U.S. complement by slicing costs, controlling insurers and expanding coverage to most uninsured people.

But efforts to combine the opposite measures and send a last version to Obama collapsed in Jan after Democrats lost their consequential 60th Senate opinion in a special choosing in Massachusetts.

Democrats could be ready to shape metal brazen with the renovate by the settlement routine after evaluating the prospects of flitting possibly a scaled-back version that could capture Republicans or violation up the renovate in to pieces.

Insisting he stays open to Republican ideas and delectable for a suggestion of bipartisan compromise, Obama pronounced he listened "many areas of agreement" at Thursday"s televised summit, citing the need to plunge into the rising costs of healthcare.

But he additionally concurred key differences, such as either insurers should be hold under obligation for denying caring or arbitrarily raising premiums and over either taxation credits should go to small businesses to have healthcare affordable.

"Some of these disagreements we might be means to resolve. Some we might not," Obama said. "It is time for us to come together. It is time for us to act."

Reiterating one of his main themes from the summit, Obama urged lawmakers to "move past the contention and the game-playing that binds us back."

Republican Senate personality Mitch McConnell pronounced after Thursday"s limit that he was disheartened by the result and thought it was transparent Democrats programmed to impel by a version of the Senate-passed healthcare plan.

Republicans -- who contend Obama"s healthcare renovate would be as well dear and engage as well most supervision penetration -- demand the settlement routine should not be used for something as inclusive as reshaping inhabitant healthcare policy.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

Barack Obama Healthcare Reform

Research shows a third of Londoners are jobless

Almost a third of the operative age race in London are jobless, costing billions of pounds a year, investigate showed today.

Worklessness in the collateral costs some-more than �5 billion a year, together with gratification good and practice programmes, a investigate by London Councils found.

The group, that represents 33 councils in the capital, pronounced inhabitant practice programmes are under-performing in London, adding that boroughs are improved placed to broach job-related services.

Around 2,000 some-more jobs would have been combined in London if inhabitant programmes were as in effect as in alternative tools of the country, it was claimed.

Stuart Fraser of London Councils said: National practice programmes are less in effect in London than elsewhere in the country.

This is a critical issue when you cruise that roughly a third of the operative age race are impoverished and the costs of worklessness are so high in London.

Boroughs are already in hit with people who are out of work, and since some-more event from Whitehall, councils can yield impoverished people with a total package of await that is away tailored to their training, childcare and housing or health issues.

A Department for Work and Pensions orator said: Unemployment is half a million reduce than approaching last year, however we will not cut behind on await for jobs.

In fact, we have invested �5 billion to assistance people behind to work, piece of that has combined around 7,500 jobs in London for immature people.

Of the 1.2 million economically dead in London, only over 400,000 are students. The numbers additionally embody people seeking after their families, carers and people who have late early.

Shadow apportion for London Justine Greening said: This inform is a ban complaint of Labours disaster in London and nonetheless Alistair Darling still plans to go forward with the climb in National Insurance, a taxation on jobs.

Intracranial stenting injecting clot-busting drug without delay to brain

In a investigate of 1,056 serious cadence patients treated with colour with colour with one or some-more therapies inside of eight hours of sign onset, red red red red red blood upsurge was easy in 76 percent of stented patients and 72 percent of those reception the clot-busting drug tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) but delay to the brain (intra-arterial tPA). Overall, red red red red red blood upsurge was easy in usually 69 percent of patients treated with colour with colour with alternative drug techniques or interventions. Ischemic cadence is caused by blockages in a vessel in or heading to the brain.

Researchers complicated multiform diagnosis techniques:

intra-arterial tPA intracranial stenting intravenous smoothness of tPA around the arm Merci Retriever™ -- a corkscrew-like device that is threaded in to the shut off red red red red red blood vessel to grab and lift out clots Prenumbra™ end catheter -- uses suction to remove red red red red red blood clots glycoprotein IIb/IIIa antagonists angioplasty (without stenting)

But usually formula for intra-arterial tPA and intracranial stenting reached statistical significance.

Essentially, there is no customary now as to that interventions are achieved for strident cadence in this country, pronounced Rishi Gupta, M.D., comparison writer of the investigate and an partner highbrow at Vanderbilt University Medical CenterDepartment of Neurology in Nashville, Tenn. We motionless to investigate diagnosis at twelve of the busiest cadence centers in the nation to establish that of the therapies now in make use of might be agreeable the most appropriate formula in conditions of opening the red red red red red blood vessel but formulating hemorrhage.

Researchers pronounced 534 patients perceived some-more than one care and 75 percent of the time (or in 400 patients), it was successful.

The subsequent proviso of the investigate will inspect either the primary success of these dual treatments continues by 3 months of follow-up, he said.

The studylead writer is Esteban Cheng-Ching, M.D., a neurology proprietor at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Other co-authors are Elad I. Levy, M.D.; Osama Zaidat, M.D.; Sabareesh K. Natarajan, M.D., M.S.; Junaid S. Kalia, M.D.; Tudor G. Jovin, M.D.; Albert J. Yoo, M.D.; Raul G. Nogueira, M.D.; Marilyn Rymer, M.D.; Ashis H. Tayal, M.D.; Daniel P. Hsu, M.D.; David S. Liebeskind, M.D.; Alex Abou-Chebl, M.D.; Ashish Nanda, M.D.; Melissa Tian; Qing Hao, M.D., Ph.D.; Thanh N. Nguyen, M.D.; and Michael Chen, M.D.

Microbes Leave Gold on Corpses May Complicate Forensics LiveScience

Metals found in the hair of corpses have solved all kinds ofmysteries. For instance, high levels of arsenic found in Napoleons hairsuggest the former czar of France competence have been tainted to death,intentionally or unintentionally.

However, scientists right away find that germ can shower golddust onto the hair of corpses,which suggests microbes could deposition arsenic and alternative unwholesome metals onbodies as well, potentially complicating rapist and archaeologicalinvestigations.

Hair is one of the most appropriate recorded human tissues found overthe millennia, and as such, analyzing it can not usually strew light on crimes, butalso on very old civilizations. For instance, arsenicpoisoning of the Chinchorro people of Chile from infested water, asrevealed around the hair of 6,800-year-old mummified infants, probably led to highchild mankind rates. This in spin competence have led sorrowful relatives to makesome of the beginning well known purposely combined mummies to safety theirdead offspring.

One regard with such analyses, however, is thatmicroorganisms competence climb in and deposition metals onto a corpses hair, taintingit. Microbes of course found in the dirt mostly combine and sunder metalsto vacate the lethal goods such metals competence have on the germs.

"People have been convicted and reprieved formed on thereliability or unreliability of hair analysis, so one wants to sense as muchabout it as possible," pronounced researcher Otto Appenzeller at the New MexicoHealth Enhancement and Marathon Clinics Research Foundation in Albuquerque.

Appenzeller and his colleagues incubated samples ofAppenzellers hair for up to 6 months in dirt from an Australian bullion mine.In a little experiments, this dirt contained the micro-organism Cupriavidusmetallidurans, that thrives in environments installed with complicated metals and canhelp form grains of gold.

The researchers found bullion levels did not enlarge in thehair to any statistically poignant grade when it was incubated but the microbes in naturallygold-laden soils. However, bullion levels rose dramatically in the hair if thebacterium was there.

"Instead of usually anecdotal stories that germ mightcontaminate hair with metals, we right away have initial proof," Appenzellersaid.

The actuality that germ can deposition bullion in hair suggeststhey can leave alternative metals there as well.

"There are some-more than 100 opposite germ in the soilthat are resistant to arsenic, and unequivocally the usually approach they can do that is bydepositing it in to biofilms, substances they hide that can seclude thepoison within," Appenzeller said.

When questioning the hair of corpses in the future, theresearchers indicate analyzing them for signs of germs, such as microscope scansto see for biofilms or genetic probes that can acknowledge bacterial genes. Onemight afterwards be means to remove such decay with bleaches that frame offthe outdoor cuticles of hairs, and afterwards investigate the hair, that should reflectwhat the persons metabolic rate was indeed like, as well as what poisons competence havekilled them.

Appenzeller and his colleagues minute their commentary onlineFeb. nineteen in the biography PLoS ONE.

Top 10 Weird Ways We Deal With the Dead Mystery of Napoleons Death Said Solved Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena

�

Butch Cassidy supplement filming in Bolivia; no Kid Movies

March 23, 2010, 6:03 PM EST

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) -- The 1969 movie classical "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid" ends with conjunction of the important outlaws looming to tarry a 1908 shootout with Bolivian soldiers.

But Butch at slightest will float again in a movie entitled "Blackthorn" that starts sharpened in Bolivia subsequent month.

American actress and playwright Sam Shepard plays the real-life Robert LeRoy Parker, who led the Hole in the Wall Gang.

Cesar Perez is the executive of Bolivia"s inhabitant motion picture council. He pronounced Tuesday that Spaniard Mateo Gil is directing the story of Cassidy"s try to lapse to the United States.

Gil is well known for his screenplay of "The Sea Inside."

The new movie tract has Cassidy feeling constrained to dedicate only one some-more spoliation prior to he can retire.

,,,

REUTER MONEYGRAPH-IMF SDR RATES-March 8 US 1.53156

Mon Mar 8, 2010 4:03pm EST

MAR 08 MAR 05 MAR 08 MAR 05U.S. 1.53156 1.53077 IRANIAN 15281.90 N/AEURO 1.12104 1.12706 KUWAIT 0.44124 0.44071U.K. 1.01321 1.01794 NORWEGIAN 9.02323 9.07169AUSTRALIA 1.68082 1.69954 S. AFRICAN 11.2953 11.3966JAPANESE 138.499 136.622 SWEDISH 10.8626 10.9450CANADIAN 1.57537 1.57456 SWISS 1.64168 1.64941DANISH 8.34272 8.38771 SAUDI 5.74336 5.74040 CLICK ON USLD16 FOR FULL LIST OF SDR RATES UPDATED DAILY

Currencies

Currencies

UPDATE 1-ECB set to betray small stairs in impulse withdrawal

Thu Mar 4, 2010 3:34am EST

* What: European Central Bank monthly meeting

Currencies

* When: March 4. Decision 1245 GMT, news conference 1330 GMT

* Benchmark refi rate EUECBR=ECI seen held at 1.0 percent

* Focus on exit steps, new staff projections

(Updates with meeting started)

By Sakari Suoninen

FRANKFURT, March 4 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank isset to hold interest rates at a record low level of 1.0 percenton Thursday and detail the next steps in its gradual withdrawalfrom emergency lending.

With Greece"s debt troubles unresolved and concerns growingabout the fragility of Europe"s recovery, the monthly meeting isalso expected to adopt a cautious tone on the economy and keepstaff forecasts for growth and inflation largely unchanged.

The 87 economists polled by Reuters were unanimous thismonth in seeing no change in rates and on average expected thefirst rise only in the fourth quarter. [ECB/INT] Money marketsexpect no increases until well into next year.

Instead of the 1245 GMT rate decision, Thursday"s focus willbe on what changes the ECB plans to make to the extra liquidityit has provided for the banking system since the worst days ofthe financial crisis in 2008, with markets primed for someminimal tightening of conditions -- most likely in access to 3-and 6-month money. [ID:nLAG006122]<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ For graph on ECB interest rate increase expectations:r.reuters.com/xyt42j For graph of ECB lending to banks:here^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>

In the Governing Council meeting, now under way, the16-country bloc"s central bank could switch back to auctions forits 3-month operations, shortening outstanding maturities ascommercial banks take more money in flat-rate weekly operations.

This would make it easier for the bank to reduce excessliquidity as it gradually normalises financing conditions andstarts to push up the overnight interest rates towards the mainrefinancing rate.

In the back of policymakers" minds, however, is the factthat banks must repay a massive 442 billion euros ($603 billion)of 12-month ECB loans at the start of July.

Added to expectations for weak growth in the first quarterand worries about Greek debt, that means the ECB is very likelyto keep spooning out unlimited funds at fixed rates in itsweekly liquidity operations through the second quarter.

"While there is a clear desire to return to normality andregain control of the interest rate instrument, tensionssurrounding Greece and the banks in general are likely to injectsome concern that a too fast exit could be dangerous," GoldmanSachs economist Erik Nielsen said in a note.

"One week operations ... will be left as fixed-ratefull-allotment operations."

Governing Council member Axel Weber buoyed expectations thismonth that the last six-month operation would be indexed to itsmain refinancing rate, though he said returning all maturitiesto tender procedures would not happen at once. [ID:nLAG006110]

FLAT

ECB staff projections for growth and inflation, to bereleased at Thursday"s news conference starting at 1330 GMT, areclosely followed.

In December, it forecast growth of about 0.8 percent thisyear and 1.2 percent in 2011, while inflation was seen at about1.3 percent this year and 1.4 percent in 2011.

While many economists said in December the ECB"s outlook waspessimistic, recent data has endorsed its caution, and EuropeanCommission forecasts released last week were similar.

"I would expect very little change from December or (ECBPresident Jean-Claude) Trichet"s message from February," saidBNP Paribas economist Ken Wattret. "I think the news hasreinforced the ECB"s view rather than challenged it."

However, others argue that the sharp trade-weighted drop inthe euro EUREER=ECBF since the last set of forecasts couldlift both growth and inflation numbers for next year.

Finally, Trichet"s message on Greece will be closelyfollowed. The ECB said late on Wednesday it welcomed the latestausterity steps announced by Greece and appreciated Athens"plans to implement them swiftly. [ID:nLDE6222JN]

Markets are looking for signals whether the ECB wouldpostpone a return to tighter collateral rules for the money itlends to banks, due to fears that Greek government debt would beexcluded next year if Moody"s cut its credit rating to levelssimilar to Fitch and Standard Poor"s.

"The ECB is hoping to avoid having to do anything," said BNPParibas" Wattret. "However, that may not be feasible ... theywill cross that bridge when they have to."

(Additional reporting by Kirsten Donovan in London; editingby John Stonestreet)

(Reporting by Sakari Suoninen; editing by Patrick Graham)

Currencies

LORRAINE CANDY: Help! New record equates to the brood will NEVER leave home

What"s next? Sigourney Weaver makes a phone call using video link up in Aliens, more than 20 years ago

Midnight and I"m up watching the film Aliens on TV. Yes, I know, midnight!

Am I crazy? Drunk? Reckless? Sadly,none of the above, those days are long gone. It"s half-term, the onlytime parents with young children can happily stay up past 9.30pm.

We"re at the seaside, free from the demands of school runs andworking days. In the same way calories don"t count if you eat on themove, normal parenting rules don"t apply on holiday. So I can stay upas late as I like, thank you very much.

As I watch the formidable Sigourney Weaver, one scene fills mewith horror.

And it"s not the one where the alien queen tries to eat her. It"s the moment she makes a phone call using whatmust have seemed futuristic when the film was made more than 20 yearsago: a video link-up.

It suddenly dawned on me that this is the future for us as parents.

That even when our children leave home (and that may not be until they are in their 20s), they will still be in the same room with us, thanks to all this new technology.

My children may be on their gap-year trip halfway up Kilimanjaro, but they"ll still be able to be in my lounge via Skype (or whatever they"ll call it then), demanding we change the channel to something they want to watch.

"Oh my God," I said to Mr Candy as Aliens ended. "They will never leave us alone ever."

As our lives slow down and we start to enjoy things like gardening, our offspring will be stalking us, thanks to those annoying inventors at Apple (who are probably too busy making this stuff to have little fellas of their own and, therefore, don"t realise the effects of their weapons of mass communication).

More...I gave birth to my friend"s baby - and it nearly cost me my life

Space may be the only place we can go to get away from our trio of trouble. What"s even more of a worry is that I"ll have to learn how to use all this technology.

I"m the woman who put her iPod next to the computer thinking the songs would magically make their way from one to the other (Mr Candy laughed for half an hour). I come out in a sweat if I have to use the remote control.

Who knew? According to mobile phone giant Sony Ericsson, women spend more money on gadgets than shoes - on average, 391 a year

"All this is a good thing," says Mr Candy, who welcomes evermore- complicated gadgets into his life like new friends.

"It means that when you go on business trips you will be able to feel like they"re with you, too."

Tomorrow, I"m off to Milan for the fashion shows I cover as part of my job. I"ve got an iPod loaded with videos and photos of the children. And a BlackBerry packed with images they secretly took themselves after they"d worked out my password (how they got the Airedale to pose in a pair of sunglasses and a pink cowboy hat I"ll never know).

But I think the jury"s out on whether this ever-developing technology is a good or bad thing for emotional working mums.

Sometimes, when I"m on the second day away from home, I"m missing mine so much I"m tempted to grab strangers" children and cuddle them.

By day three, I can"t really look at pictures of my own children or read the cards they always fill my handbag with any more. It"s too emotional.

When a note that said "Mummy I love you as big as the Wold" fell out of my passport at Customs once it reduced me and the normally stern woman at the desk to tears (without saying a word she patted my hand knowingly).

The thought of being able to see them every night via video when I am miles away may be more torture than comfort. But I guess we"ll just have to get our heads around it.

My seven-year- old has started early. Yesterday, she set up her own Amazon account and used the internet to help with her homework on Romans (she still can"t tie her left shoelace properly though).

She"ll be first on that videophone and is already demanding a mobile phone so she can use Twitter. There is no escape from Gracie in the middle either. She called me after school to tell me she had "something absolutely very important to explain".

Thinking she was about to tell me about some kind of educational achievement, I listened with bated breath.

"This week," she said solemnly, "is sweet potato week at school. What do you think about that?"

I had no idea how to reply.