Gerhard Schröder's move to the advisory board of a Russian oil company, after having facilitated the Germany-Russian pipeline deal during his administration, is pretty shocking. He will probably have at least as much power in this position as his previous one. Bad ethics; strong geopolitics.

Meanwhile a winter's worth of fuel burns out in England. If it were a 'terrorist attack' and not an accident, do you think the police would tell us? Hell no. For the same reason the papers here don't report train suicides: fear of copycats.

Yes, I've been watching too much C(IA) N(ews) N(etwork), but it does seem like a particularly bad news week.