French ex-President suggests romance with Diana    Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president and author of the stillborn European Constitution, likes to be thought of as a bit of a charmer. He set out to enhance this image today with a novel which all but claims that he had a love affair with the late Diana, Princess of Wales. Giscard, 83, is having fun, of a dubious kind. His book, The Princess and the President, recounts the "violent passion" between a serving French president in the mid 1980s, and Patricia,"Princess of Cardiff" (capital of Wales, geddit?..), who is unhappily married to an unfaithful heir to the throne. "Fiction or reality ?" asks today's Figaro, which has an exclusive on the book. "Only the former President has the key to this troubling story." The paper says the president gives very elaborate detail of the fictional couple's encounters in the palaces of France and Britain. His descriptions of Princess Pat leave no doubt that she is Diana. "I kissed her hand and she gave me a questioning look, her slate-grey eyes widening as she tilted her head gently forward," the presidential narrator recounts. Like Diana, the unhappy Princess Pat throws her herself into charitable work while indulging in flings with other men. In the book, President Jacques-Henri Lambertye meets Princess Pat at a G7 summit banquet at Buckingham Palace. He then holds her hand under the table on the train back from the 1984 D-Day landing anniversary in Normandy. That would have been three years after the royal wedding and Diana Spencer was 23. Giscard was 58 and bitter about losing the presidency to François Mitterrand three years earlier. It has been known for some time that Giscard, who is known as l'Ex, was charmed by…

  New Protest Builds as Iran Expands Its Crackdown By NAZILA FATHI and ALAN COWELL  TEHRAN — Iran expanded its crackdown on journalists on Wednesday to try to block any coverage of opposition activities, but protesters reached by phone said that tens of thousands had massed in central Tehran again to demonstrate against the disputed presidential election. They described marching silently down a major thoroughfare, with some holding photos of Mir Hussein Moussavi, the main opposition candidate in Friday’s vote. Others lifted their hands high in the air with green ribbons on their wrists and laced through their fingers. It was the fifth day of unrest since election officials declared a landslide victory for the incumbent, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Meanwhile, news reports quoting the semi-official Fars news agency directly accused the United States of interference in the disputed election, summoning the Swiss ambassador, who represents American interests in Tehran, to complain of “interventionist” statements. President Obama said a day earlier that it would be counterproductive for the United States “to be seen as meddling.” But he has also said he was “deeply troubled by the violence” in Iran and that democratic values needed to be observed. The Iranian Foreign Ministry officials, without being specific about which comments they were reacting to, expressed “protest and displeasure,” the news agency said. Despite the government’s attempts to block communications among the opposition, calls for more mass defiance continued. In a message on a Web site associated with him, Mr. Moussavi called on his supporters to rally again on Thursday, and to go to their local mosques to…

 U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan  "An internal Pentagon memo states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys."  Read Article

 Republicans Strain to Ride Tea Party Tiger By KATE ZERNIKEAs they look to make gains in statehouses and Congress this year, Republicans are trying to harness the Tea Party energy that helped make an unknown named Scott Brown the senator-elect from Massachusetts.But it may not be easy, as one Republican in Colorado learned the hard way.When Scott McInnis appeared on Fox News last month underneath a title calling him the “Tea-Party-backed candidate” for governor, he triggered a tempest. Tea Party leaders fired off angry e-mail messages and public statements insisting that he was not their choice.“Let it be known that we will not be used by any party or candidate!” Lu Ann Busse, the head of a coalition of Tea Party brethren known as 9/12 groups, declared at a “Defend the Republic” rally where she was invited to set the record straight after Mr. McInnis’s appearance.Mr. McInnis said it was Fox that gave him the description without consulting him. But he was quick to try to make amends, issuing a statement on his Web site, and in the weeks since he and the head of the state Republican Party have toured Colorado meeting with Tea Party groups.Across the country, many Tea Party activists believe that they have to work within the Republican Party if they want to elect fiscally conservative candidates. But they want the party to work for them — not, they argue, the other way around.For Republican officials, managing the tensions between the two parties — one official, one potent — can be something like a full-time job.“I do spend a lot of my time running interference,” said Dick Wadhams, the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.“I’m a big…

    If Robert Prechter is right, one market analyst said, “we’ve basically got to go to the mountains with a gun and some soup cans Read ArticlePublisher's Note: This article was placed on Saturday, July3rd, when it was already aware of a 4% drop on Asian stock markets - which makes a lower opening on NYSE and other US markets assured.