This will give him the right to block nominees with no evident talents for a commissioner's job, and to demote lousy ones once in office. (Next year's constitutional conference might give him the power to sack them outright.) But governments could respond bitterly all the same if the commissioner involved is theirs.

ECONOMIST: The challenge awaiting Romano Prodi

"Sometimes I feel a bit left out of those spontaneous meetings, the ones coworkers can have easily in an office when they're passing by each others' desks, " she said.

CNN: Internet moms: Getting the best of both worlds

Terry Matthews wouldn't know "hang ten" from "high five, " but in his office in the farmlands outside Ottawa the transplanted Welshman uses surf imagery for catching the big ones in telecom, as he did in the 1990s at Canada's Newbridge Networks.

FORBES: Celtic charm

Among the complaints were ones from the UK Foreign Office and insurance companies in several European countries.

BBC: EU warns Spain over hospitals' rejection of EU health card

For example, if a physician saw three young children with flu symptoms in his office, he might sell any yellow shares he had for the following week and buy red ones.

ECONOMIST: Betting on influenza outbreaks