AUGUST 2006

european news

28.07.2006 - 09:57 CET | By Lucia Kubosova
The Finnish presidency of the EU has denied giving Israel a green light to continue its operations in Lebanon and suggested that Jerusalem's interpretation of Wednesday's international crisis talks in Rome was "totally wrong."

The strong message from Finnish foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja came after Israel's justice minister Haim Ramon said that divisions among world leaders meeting in Rome could be seen as "permission" for Israel to continue its offensive.

Mr Tuomioja met Israel's top officials on Thursday (27 July) and is due to travel to Beirut on Friday. His protest against Jerusalem's misinterpretation of the Rome conference conclusions was echoed by Berlin and Rome.

Italian prime minister Romano Prodi pointed out that "The position expressed by the conference cannot be interpreted as an authorisation."

And German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier insisted the Rome emergency talks had signalled "just the opposite," as all its participants "wanted to see an end to the fighting as swiftly as possible."

Wednesday's conference was attended by several European foreign ministers, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and UN secretary general Kofi Annan, as well as Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt but not Syria or Iran.

Under US pressure, the top-level meeting abstained from calling for an immediate ceasefire in the region - but has endorsed the idea of a peacekeeping force "under a UN mandate."

European drought verging on ‘disaster’

Published: August 9 2006 18:03 | Last updated: August 9 2006 18:03

As Europe wilts under a blistering sun, water levels in the region’s rivers and reservoirs are plummeting. The night skies over Spain’s forests glow orange with deadly wildfires. Cracked mud-flats border shrinking waterways. Fish lie stranded on the dry beds of lakes and rivers.

Water levels on parts of Italy’s longest and most commercially vital river, the Po – which has stirred awe with the fury of its floods – have dropped to their lowest in living memory. On the Rhine, Europe’s busiest waterway, low waters have forced ships to carry less cargo and make up for lost revenue with surcharges of up to 50 per cent. Spain’s reservoirs were filled to just 45 per cent of capacity as of August 7, and in one case to 13 per cent, approaching the point at which only unusable sludge remains.

Desperate to conserve water, Paris has for the first time decided not to dampen the dusty paths of its public gardens. English gardeners are banned from using hosepipes, while swimming pools remain empty in many Spanish towns.

Farmers predict a sharp fall in crops and face losses of billions of euros. In Italy, the Agricultural Confederation, a farmers’ association, says production of beets, maize, rice and animal fodder will approach record lows, while the grape harvest is expected to be the lowest in two decades. Italy’s farmers calculate losses so far this year at €500m ($644m, £337m). Ermete Realacci, head of a parliamentary environment committee, said the agricultural emergency was “verging on a natural disaster”.

In Spain, where farmers face watering restrictions of up to 60 per cent, the cereal crop is set to be 17 per cent lower than the average over the past five years. Smaller harvests are expected in Germany and Poland, where the government has promised up to 500m zlotys (€128m) to support farmers who lose more than a third of their income because of drought.

The baking sun has ripened some crops early, forcing farmers to leave fruit and vegetables unharvested. In the UK – the world’s second biggest frozen pea producer – some growers have had to leave 20 per cent of their harvest in the field to be taken up when dry for animal feed.

Spanish farmers are planting fewer thirsty crops such as wheat, corn and rice and, in the parched province of Valencia, are digging up small trees to sell for ornamental use. The French ecology ministry says a 20 per cent drop in the farmland devoted to corn over the past four years has saved 360m cubic metres of water – the consumption of 6m people.

French livestock farmers have been forced to dig into their winter stocks of hay, says Jean-Michel Delmas of the French agricultural union FNSEA. He warns that stress caused by the heat has thrown cattle off their usual fertility cycles and veal production could fall 10-15 per cent.

The European Commission has given permission to farmers in nine countries – including France, Italy, Germany and Spain – to graze livestock on “set-aside” land normally off limits until August 31 to prevent over-production.

The drought is not bad news for every farmer. In the UK, harvests of some soft fruit are expected to be bigger than normal, as is winter-sown barley, while farmers whose crops escape damage can command higher prices. 

With forests dry as tinder, thousands of hectares of trees have fallen prey to fire in Portugal and Spain. One hundred fires raged in northern Spain this week, killing at least three people, though the number of major fires has dropped from around 6,000 in 2005 – when devastating blazes claimed dozens of lives - to 3,000 so far this year.

Lower hydroelectric and nuclear output has forced some countries to crank up more costly oil-burning generators, sending energy prices soaring.

The heat has warmed the rivers on which Germany, Belgium and France rely to cool power plants. With the temperature of the Rhine last month reaching 28°C in places, Germany restricted the amount of cooling water nuclear power stations could siphon from tributaries. France raised the temperature ceiling at which power stations are allowed to drain water into rivers, but EDF, the country’s largest electricity producer, was nonetheless forced to import power.at prices as high as E160 per megawatt hour.

The drought has exposed some countries’ mismanagement of the little water available. Italy has relatively high rainfall but some experts estimate 40 per cent of supplies are lost through leaking infrastructure.

Spain’s environment ministry says at least 80 per cent of water used for agriculture is wasted. The sector consumes about 75 per cent of the country’s water – double the average in the EU – but accounts for only 5 per cent of gross domestic product.

The World Wildlife Fund this month called for an end to farming subsidies for water-dependent crops such as sugar beet, blaming them for soaring water consumption.

With droughts expected to hit Europe with growing frequency and parts of the Mediterranean region at high risk of desertification, long-term fixes remain elusive. The Spanish government is building 25 desalination plants in a bid to boost supply but the plants are voracious consumers of energy and the water they produce is expensive.

Environmentalists say governments must invest in reservoirs, better water canals, alternative energy sources and more efficient irrigation systems. Until they do, they can exhort consumers to turn off the tap – or turn it off themselves.

Reporting by Victoria Burnett in Madrid, Peggy Hollinger in Paris, Tony Barber in Rome, Jan Cienski in Warsaw, Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt, Fiona Harvey in London, Andrew Bounds in Brussels

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

US Cracks Europe GPS Satellite Codes

by Staff Writers
Brussels (UPI) Jul 11, 2006
U.S. scientists have reportedly cracked the European Union's secret satellite navigation codes. The codes, to be used by the EU's Galileo satellite system, casts doubt the $4.2 billion project will pay for itself through commercial fees, The London Telegraph reported Tuesday.

Cornell University Professor Mark Psiaki said he and colleagues cracked the coded data being beamed to Earth by a prototype orbiting satellite.

That, The Telegraph said, is potentially devastating for the EU, which wants to charge high-tech firms license fees to access that data, before they can make and sell compatible navigation devices to the public.

Galileo is to be a European rival to the United States' military-controlled GPS system, which supplies signals without charge. Galileo's designers, however, say it will be more accurate than GPS.

The European Commission said Monday Cornell's success in cracking codes for the prototype is irrelevant, since the final Galileo codes will be different.

Galileo, due to be operational by 2010, is a joint venture of the European Commission, the European Space Agency and private investors, including an arm of the Chinese government.

Source: United Press International

Weapon stops:

July 29/30, 2006 -- First, it was a series of CIA prisoner rendition flights that used Glasgow, Scotland's Prestwick Airport as a stopover point. Now, the United States has been caught using Prestwick to ship GBU28 "bunker buster" bombs, laser-guided bombs, and other weapons to Israel for its military attacks on Lebanon and Gaza. The arms have been transported by two chartered A310 cargo planes from the United States via Prestwick to Tel Aviv. Bush "apologized" to his boy friend Tony Blair for not having the right "paperwork" prepared in advance for the hazardous arms flights through Scotland. Blair's spokesman in Washington told reporters, "President Bush did apologize for the fact that proper procedures were not followed . . . It was a gracious thing to do."

Blair overruled his own Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett by saying the arms flights would continue. Beckett had earlier condemned the flights and voice her opposition to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Blair's continuing support for Bush has earned him a severe backlash from members of his own Labor Party who had been vocal Blair supporters.

Members of the Scottish Parliament, particularly Scottish National Party members, are calling on the Scottish government to ban the U.S. flights from Scotland, a move that could result in a constitutional crisis between London and Edinburgh. Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish Nationalists, said, "called on the Labour-LibDem [Liberal Democratic] Scottish Executive to step back from its role as an accessory to the escalation of violence in the Middle East by using its own transport powers to prevent such flights and get behind the overwhelming calls from the rest of the
world for an immediate ceasefire to the conflict."

PARIS PROTESTS
report and photos Frank Rynne

Anti-War Rally in Paris Weds 26th July

Around 900 people gathered on Place De l'Opera at 18.30 Wednesday. The same groups thatparticipated in Saturday's protest were all represented. Protestors stood in silence on the edge of the place waving Lebanese and Palestinian flags as the rush hour traffi snaked by. Speakers expressed anger at the international community's moribund response to the crisis and condemned Isreals attack on Lebanon, its infrastructure and its civilians.

On Saturday 29th protestors will gather at Pl. de la Rebublicique. They will then march to Barbes. Organiser are expecting a much higher turn out for Saturday's march.

report and photos Frank Rynne©

Germany:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said in an interview that at the present time she does not support the idea of German troops being part of a peacekeeping contingent in Lebanon. In an interview with the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, Merkel said she saw other opportunities for Germany to help out in the region, such as providing training for the police and military forces. The German leader said the capacity of the country's armed forces, or Bundeswehr, were "largely exhausted." "We are in Congo, we provide the most troops in the Balkans, and we have our largest contingent in Afghanistan," she said.

"As Germans, we should proceed in this region with utmost caution," she added. While Germany has not ruled out sending troops, officials insist that any talk of a contribution is premature until a UN mandate for a multinational force is drawn up. In the newspaper interview Merkel said besides Germany helping train Lebanese units, one of the most important areas was aiding in the "stabilization of the Lebanese reconciliation process."

"Many survivors of the Holocaust are still living in Israel and I don't know how they would react if German troops had to act against an Israeli soldier who was defending his country," Stephan Kramer, the Secretary-general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told German public radio last week. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2113333,00.html

Negotiations Nothing to be Ashamed of, Says War Resisters' International

We have learned that Israel’s massive bombing of Lebanon has now escalated into a full invasion, at the cost of (so far) hundreds of lives, most of them Lebanese.

We are the International Council of the War Resisters' International, meeting in Eringerfeld, Germany, following the “Globalising Nonviolence” conference of the WRI, which brought together 200-plus activists from every continent and from the Middle East. We believe that Israel’s devastation of Lebanon will result in the destruction of not one, but two countries – that such is the inevitable law of violence. Israel’s own history stands as proof: Fifty-eight years of violence have brought Israelis neither peace nor security. This most recent assault will only escalate the cycle.

We do not support Hizballah’s incursion into Israel – nor Israel's long incursions into Mazrea' Shiba'a in Lebanon. Hizballah’s killing of Israeli soldiers was preceded a month earlier by Israel’s live ammunition exercises into Lebanon, killing three Lebanese shepherds. Hizballah’s capture of Israeli soldiers took place against the backdrop of Israel’s ongoing imprisonment of 10,000 political prisoners, including Palestinian women and children, as well as some Lebanese prisoners. It is clear that Israel is the initiator of this conflict. Nevertheless, we also absolutely oppose Hizballah's retaliation to this aggression, just as we deplore any killing. We reject the logic of war, of returning a blow for a blow.

We support the rights of all people living under occupation to resist that occupation. It is a principle of nonviolence that all injustice must be resisted. We of WRI know of many nonviolent groups in this region that could lead the way to just, peaceful and nonviolent solutions.

We fear the repercussions when a nuclear-armed power uses its vast military superiority to besiege Gaza, to build a wall that further isolates the already-occupied Palestinians, and now to invade a neighbouring country. Indeed the disparity of military capability between the two countries makes it impossible to call the invasion of Lebanon an even-handed conflict; it is certainly not self-defence. Unrestrained by the international community, or by a judicious reckoning of the inevitable consequences to itself, Israel is attacking the entire country of Lebanon, destroying the civilian infrastructure with US-supplied munitions, destroying or seizing precious resources, and killing civilians.

The awful magnitude and comprehensive destruction of these attacks leads us to believe that Israel had planned the destruction of Lebanon long before. It is also important to raise the question of the US interests possibly involved in this war, in the context of the current US occupation of Iraq and US statements regarding Syria and Iran.

Whatever the history, the immediate need now is for negotiations. “Negotiating – even in war – is nothing to be ashamed of,” says Sheerin al-Araj, a Palestinian participant in the conference. “In fact, negotiations are the only way any war has ever ended.” Because, again, of the vast disparity of military might, we believe that Israel requires a special urging toward those negotiations.

Therefore we call upon the US government to halt military aid to Israel and to stop protecting Israel from the UN and international law sanctions.

We call for Israel to initiate an immediate cessation of its attacks on Lebanon and to dismantle the Wall and the occupation of Palestine.

We call upon those who stand for justice and peace everywhere to provide humanitarian aid for the people of Lebanon, as well as of Palestine, and international support for those nonviolent groups on all sides struggling to bring peace to the region.

Finally, we call upon all people – especially the people of the United States – to oppose the military profiteers who alone will benefit from this war.
War Resisters' International

Blair government coming into conflict with Britain's traditions in Arab world

By BETH GARDINER (Associated Press Writer)
Associated Press
07/24/2006

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair's outspoken support for Washington's stance on the Mideast crisis runs against much of what British diplomacy has stood for: a long tradition as a friend of the Arab world, whose roots go back to Lawrence of Arabia.

Blair's refusal to criticize Israel - his calls for a cease-fire are always qualified - appears to be causing particularly strong strains with the Foreign Office, where civil servants have prided themselves on rising above the fray of political expediencies.

That was plainly visible last week when Kim Howells, a senior official in the ministry, spoke to the media after seeing the destruction in Lebanon.

In language far stronger than Blair has used, Howells expressed horror at the suffering caused by the Israeli military campaign and suggested America should do more to stop the bombing.

"I very much hope that the Americans understand what's happening to Lebanon," he told British Broadcasting Corp. television. "The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people. These have not been surgical strikes... If they're chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation."

Blair's willingness to follow Washington's lead on the Middle East crisis - coming after he did the same in the Iraq war - hits a deeper nerve.

If Britain was instrumental in the creation of the Israeli state - pulling its troops and administration out of Palestine as Israelis celebrated their independence in 1948 - it also sees itself as having deep historical responsibilities toward Arab states stemming from its days as a colonial power.

The great icon of this world view, of course, is T.E. Lawrence - who rode camel-back with Arab rebels in their struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire and European powers.

The Israeli government has frequently accused the BBC of unfair coverage, and even wouldn't talk to its reporters for months during the recent Palestinian uprising. British academics sparked an uproar among Israel advocates recently by calling for a boycott of their Israeli counterparts.

Foreign Office policymakers apparently fear that Blair's current position will jeopardize their hard-fought standing in the Arab world.

There are "rumblings and unhappiness" among the office's Middle East specialists, who believe that from Iraq to Israel, Blair bases his stance on the region's problems more on a desire to stick close to Washington than on the realities on the ground, said Rosemary Hollis, of the Chatham House think-tank.

"We're talking about an awful lot of officials and people who've been bruised by trying to toe a line that's taken the country in a direction that nobody ever wanted or planned," she said. "It's really rather embarrassing to watch how Britain is just paying attention to the signals (from Washington) as opposing to the needs (in Lebanon)."

Blair has refused demands from lawmakers that he join U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and many other world leaders in calling for an immediate end to an Israeli bombing campaign that has killed at least 380 people - most of them civilians - in Lebanon. On the Israeli side 36 people - civilians and soldiers - have been killed, many in rocket strikes.

"The prime minister tends to first ask himself 'What's this going to do to my relationship with the United States?'" said David Heathcot-Amory, a member of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee from the opposition Conservative party.

Taking a stance nearly identical to U.S. President George W. Bush's, Blair has repeatedly emphasized Hezbollah's rocket attacks on the Jewish state and has backed Israel's demands that two kidnapped soldiers be released and the guerrillas banished from the border.

"If it is to stop, it has to stop on both sides," he said at a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Monday.

Blair's office has not distanced itself from Howells' comments, suggesting it may have seen some benefit - both domestically and internationally - in emphasizing how worried it is about the destruction in Lebanon.

The fighting is not the first crisis to have highlighted differences between Downing Street and the Foreign Office.

Three years ago, then-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made Britain's case for the Iraq war in public but privately questioned whether the invasion was wise.

His assertion that military action against Iran was inconceivable - a term Blair never used - suggested another area of disagreement, one that may have been responsible for Straw's removal from office in May.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Germany to sign protocol opening Nazi files to researchers
Associated Press
07/25/2006

By DAVID RISING (Associated Press Writer)

BERLIN - Germany will sign an agreement Wednesday to open an archive of millions of Nazi files to researchers that describe how the Holocaust was carried out, the Foreign Ministry said.

The accord was reached in April by the 11-nation governing body of the International Tracing Service, the arm of the International Committee of the Red Cross that oversees the archive in the western German town of Bad Arolsen.

Guenter Gloser, a deputy German foreign minister, will formally sign the protocol in the presence of representatives of the other 10 nations at a ceremony in Berlin, the ministry said Monday.

Ambassador William Timken Jr. will sign the agreement on behalf of the United States, the U.S. Embassy said.

The opening respects the "strong interest of current research" in opening the archive, the German Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "The signing also underlines the high value that the government places on dealing with the past."

Once signed, the protocol needs to be ratified by all 11 signatory states before the archives can be opened.

There is no concrete timeline on when access will be broadened to journalists and other researchers once the protocol is signed, but German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries has said she hoped that the process would be complete by the end of the year.

"Once the last country ratifies (the new agreement), then the archive will be opened," chief archivist Udo Jost told the AP in a telephone interview. "We hope it will be as soon as possible, but we have absolutely no influence on the process."

Aging Holocaust survivors and victims' families had pressed for the change, arguing that the histories of their loved ones could otherwise be lost.

Germany had said that access to the files by Holocaust researchers would violate its privacy laws, but dropped its objection earlier this year.

Under a 1955 treaty, information is currently only given out to former victims. A third party can only access the archives with the written consent of a former victim.

The service was founded after World War II to trace missing persons. Later, survivors eligible for compensation applied to the archive for documentary evidence of their mistreatment.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

tony Blair ....

Tony Blair today dismissed increasing demands from the Archbishop of Canterbury and senior Labour MPs to back a UN call for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Lebanon conflict.

The prime minister's official spokesman said a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza call would only "make people feel good for a few hours" and would have no impact.

Downing Street has been highly supportive of Israel's right to defend itself aggressively against Hizbullah rocket attacks in northern Israel and the kidnapping of two soldiers.
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THE VEGETABLE BRAIN

The baby-boom generation are becoming increasingly addicted to heroin, sleeping pills and tranquillisers, new figures show.

Numbers being referred to clinics are also growing according to statistics collected centrally for the first time by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA)

Between April 2004 and March this year the number of over 45-year-olds being treated for heroin addiction in England rose by 13 per cent from 11,475 to 13,015 according to the NTA.

Benzodiazipines, which include Valium and Diazepam, was the fifth largest group in England during both years with an increase from 839 to 921 referrals in March this year.

The total number of over 45s treated in England rose by 1,012 to 23,191.

US-Led NATO Dutch occupation forces killed 18 Afghanis, justifying that by describing them as "enemy" fighters who allegedly set up positions in rugged hills overlooking a Dutch camp in southern Afghanistan, the Dutch military chief said Friday. There were no Dutch casualties during a 10-day mission. (In previous NATO occupation forces killing of Afghanis, they turned to be civilians though they were described first as Taliban fighters - Al-Jazeerah).

"If we had not done something then our soldiers could have come under fire and the construction of our camp could have been hindered," Gen. Dick Berlijn, commander of the Dutch occupation forces, told reporters in The Hague.

Berlijn said the Taliban fighters were massing on terrain on both sides of the Baluchi Valley, about 6 miles north of where Dutch troops are building Camp Holland. "The Baluchi Valley is a strategic position and in the end we decided that if we did not do something about it, it would be a major threat for us," he said. There are some 455 Dutch soldiers setting up camp near Tarin Kot, capital of Uruzgan Province, where a 1,400-strong Dutch reconstruction team is due to start work next month.