Contrary to popular belief, the European Union's expansion towards central and Eastern Europe has not sparked a massive influx of Polish plumbers or Bulgarian builders to the bloc's richest nations, figures due out Tuesd

According to the European Commission's latest report, more and more workers from the EU's 12 newest member states have been relocating to Germany or Britain since being allowed to move freely around the 27-member bloc.

 

However, their numbers remain small in relative terms. In fact, the EU's richer nations continue to receive a far higher share of foreign immigrants from the developing world.

 

For instance, the number of Bulgarians and Romanians who found a job in one of the EU's 15 older member states grew to 1.6 million in 2007, up from 1.3 million in 2006 -- when those two countries were not yet part of the EU. Most of them have headed to Spain and Italy.

 

But Bulgarians and Romanians still account for just 0.4 percent of the total population of the EU's richest nations, compared to 0.3 percent in 2006.

The suspected military chief of the Basque separatist group, Eta, has been arrested in southern France.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero called the arrest of Mikel Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, alias "Txeroki", a "severe blow" to Eta.

Mr Garikoitz Aspiazu is suspected of the murder of two Spanish civil guard officers in France in 2007.

Eta is blamed for the deaths of more than 820 people in its 40-year campaign for an independent Basque nation.

The arrest of Mr Garikoitz Aspiazu, 35, which took place overnight in the Hautes-Pyrenees region of France, follows the detention of Eta's alleged political commander, Javier Lopez Pena, in a joint Spanish-French operation in the French city of Bordeaux in May.

Fresh witness accounts have undermined Georgia's portrayal of its onslaught on the breakaway territory of South Ossetia as a purely defensive operation, and prompted authorities to launch a fightback to counter allegations that it is rewriting the history of its six-day war with Russia.

Amnesty International will today be the latest to challenge the Georgian narrative in an authoritative 76-page report which accuses Georgia and Russia of war crimes during the short, sharp war triggered by the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on 7 August. The war, ended by French mediation after Russia invaded Georgia proper in a land, sea and air assault, triggered the most serious crisis in international relations since the Cold War.

The Amnesty report specifically accuses Georgian forces of having committed "indiscriminate attacks" on 7 August "causing deaths and injuries among South Ossetian civilians and considerable damage to civilian objects". It says: "Serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by all sides."

Ryan Grist, the head of the international monitoring group during the conflict, told The Independent that when the war started the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali "did still contain women and children" who should have been protected from the conflict which had built up over months.

Rents fell for the first time in five years between July and October as home-movers flooded the rental market with properties that they could not sell.

According to a new survey, 12 per cent more lettings agents said that rents had fallen rather than risen between August and October. That was a reversal from the previous three months, when nearly a third more agents said that rents were rising, figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) show.

It is the first time since 2003 that the gauge of rental yields has turned negative. James Scott-Lee, of RICS, said: "Many vendors have been forced to become amateur landlords, creating an inevitable downward pressure on rents."

This came as a report said that more than one in three landlords would be plunged into negative equity by the middle of next year as house prices continue to fall.

A law expanding the spying abilities of Germany's federal police has been criticized by police unions. They say the proposed law's aggressive online evidence-gathering measures are ill-conceived and open to abuse.

Less than a week after Germany's lower house of parliament approved new anti-terrorism legislation that would vastly expand the cyber-spying powers of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), two police trade unions and the German Judicial Federation demanded that amendments be made to the so-called Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigations Bill.

 

The bill, backed strongly by Chancellor Angela Merkel's grand coalition government, was passed in the Bundestag last week with 375 parliamentarians in favor and 168 against. The plan, if approved by the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament, could go into effect in early 2009.

 

Among the most contentious points in the bill are those addressing the expansion of surreptitious online search capabilities and an increase in the BKA's powers to access information from the computers, telephone conversations and homes of suspected terrorists.

 

If enacted the plan would allow "remote forensic software" to search secretly through hard drives and send potentially incriminating evidence back to investigators. The measure does not, however, allow the police to enter a home in order to install monitoring equipment or software on a computer.

The Irish foreign minister, Micheal Martin has said that Dublin is in talks with other European capitals to see if the retention of a commissioner for each member state is viable - a key concern of No voters in the June referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

Mr Martin made the announcement on Monday (17 November) speaking to Irish public broadcaster RTE.

While abortion and gay marriage figured prominently amongst election literature, voters had other concerns about the treaty

"We've had a number of discussions over the last couple of weeks, and those discussions are ongoing and have intensified in recent times," he said.

Talks have looked at a range of issues, such as abortion, neutrality and taxation.

The question of Ireland's traditional neutrality, which No campaigners argued was under threat from a growing militarisation of the European Union was one of the main reasons people voted No, according to a post-referendum commission poll. Taxation figured equally prominently according to the Eurobarometer survey, as did the loss of a commissioner.

Abortion however did not figure prominently amongst people's concerns, being the reason for casting a ballot against the Lisbon Treaty for just two percent of No voters.

There are persistent differences across Europe in how long people live without major health problems, with both GDP and expenditure on elderly care of their home countries among the key factors influencing these trends.

A research team at University at Leicester has found that western Europeans live healthily on average 14 years more than their counterparts in the east of the continent, according to a report in UK medical journal the Lancet, published on Monday (17 November).

Elderly people in Denmark tend to live healthily the longest time, while Estonians the shortest

The study found that a 50-year-old man from Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden or Malta will live well until they are over 70 without disability or major health problems that would force him to limit his activities.

At the same time, his neighbours of the same age in Hungary, Latvia, Slovakia and Lithuania would live healthy lives for ten years fewer, with the highest average age (73.6) recorded in Denmark, and the lowest (59.0) in Estonia - a difference of 14 years.

Moreover, Danish women tend to have the highest number of healthy years (74.1) compared to other European women, with the women with lowest number of healthy years coming from Estonia (60.4).

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Citizens from the western Balkans have mixed feelings regarding their countries' EU future, with Kosovars and Albanians being particularly optimistic, but barely a third of Croats consider EU accession to be "a good thing," a new survey has shown.

While those living in Kosovo and Albania back their countries' EU integration almost unanimously (89% and 83% respectively), only 29 percent of Croats think Zagreb's EU membership would be beneficial, while 26 percent say it would be a bad thing, according to a Gallup survey presented in Brussels on Monday (17 November).

Less than 30 percent of Croats think their country's EU membership would be beneficial.

Croatia is ahead of the other western Balkan countries on the road to EU membership, with the European Commission confirming earlier this month that it could conclude EU accession talks next year. Albania, on the other hand, is much less advanced, while Kosovo only declared unilateral independence from Serbia nine months ago.

But in Croatia, respondents' national pride and attachment to the country was particularly high, Robert Manchin, founder and managing director of Gallup Europe, told reporters while introducing the survey's results.

Additionally, it is "normal" for EU enthusiasm to decrease in candidate countries the closer they get to EU membership, as it is then when "painful reforms" carried by their governments in order to make the accession happen are most felt by the citizens, Fabrice de Kerchove of the Belgian King Baudouin Foundation added.

For years an Estonian government official has apparently been collecting the most intimate secrets of NATO and the EU -- and passing them on to the Russians. The case is a disaster for Brussels.

Communications between the suspected top spy and his commanding officer seemed like a throwback to the Cold War. Investigators allege that in order to send messages to his Russian contact, Herman Simm, 61, used a converted radio which looked like a relic from yesteryear's world of consumer electronics. But there was nothing old-fashioned about what Simm, a high-ranking official in the Estonian Defense Ministry in Tallinn, reportedly transmitted to Moscow over the years. It was the very latest intelligence information.

Although Simm was arrested with his wife Heete in the Estonian capital Tallinn on Sept. 21, this spy story -- which has been largely kept under wraps until now -- primarily concerns the European Union and NATO based in faraway Brussels. Since Simm was responsible for dealing with classified information in Tallinn, he had access to nearly all documents exchanged within the EU and NATO. Officials who are familiar with the case assume that "virtually everything" that circulates between EU member states was passed on to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR -- including confidential analyses by NATO on the Kosovo crisis, the war in Georgia and even the missile defense program. Investigators believe that Simm was a "big fish."

Estonian capital city Tallinn: For the former Soviet state, the scandal has become the downside of a political success story. Meanwhile, a number of investigative teams from the EU and NATO have flown to Tallinn to probe the extent of the intelligence disaster. The investigation is being led by the NATO Office for Security, which is headed by an American official. As investigators pursue their work, they continue to unearth mounting evidence pointing to the enormity of the betrayal. A German government official has called the situation a "catastrophe," and Jaanus Rahumägi, a member of Estonia's national parliament who heads the parliamentary oversight committee for the government security agency, fears "historic damage."

Nicolas Sarkozy's reformist government faces an outpouring of anger from French unions this week as airline pilots, train drivers, teachers, students and postal workers lead a series of strikes.

In a sign of public sector unease at Sarkozy's drive to liberalise the French labour market, union leaders urged ministers not to push through changes to working conditions at a time of rising unemployment and job insecurity.

"The public services have to accept the fact that they cannot just do what they like," said Bernard Thibault, the head of France's most powerful union, the CGT. "They cannot just unilaterally impose changes [on working conditions]."

Air France pilots, protesting against moves to raise their retirement age from 60 to 65, were the first group to register their dissent this week. Despite a promise from the government that such a step would be "optional", the four-day strike continued yesterday, leading to the cancellation of 40% of the airline's flights.

Meeting in the northern Italian port of Trieste on Tuesday, Germany's chancellor and her Italian counterpart focused on global economic problems -- but also had time for a quick game of hide and seek.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel favor a possible partnership between German airline Lufthansa and ailing Italian carrier Alitalia.

 

"We both view a collaboration between Alitalia and Lufthansa very favorably. In fact we hope it will occur," Berlusconi said during a joint news conference with Merkel in Trieste after surprising his German guest with a game of hide and seek at the beginning of their meeting.

 

As Merkel approached to greet Berlusconi, he hid behind a column and called out "coo-coo!". Merkel then turned to him, laughed and said "Silvio!" before embracing him, according to reports.

  

MEPs have overwhelmingly called on the European Commission to ensure that women are paid as much as men at work.

They complain that the existing legislation - now in place for some 30 years - is well out of date, and want the EU to ensure employers stop discriminating - possibly under the threat of fines.

The European Parliament on Tuesday (17 November) adopted a report 590 votes to 23 against requesting the EU's executive draft a legislative proposal revising the current law on equal pay.

Currently, women in Europe earn some 15 percent less than men on average across all sectors, and up to 25 percent less when they are not working in the public sector, and varying between four and 25 percent among the member states,

The report was adopted under a special procedure in which the parliament, having obtained an absolute majority, can call on the commission to bring forward a legislative proposal.

A police officer, more than a dozen soldiers, a vicar and a Chelsea pensioner have been named on a list purporting to comprise the entire membership of the British National Party.

They were exposed after bloggers posted around 10,000 names, together with home addresses, telephone numbers, jobs and even hobbies on the internet.

The leak led some BNP members to fear that they may lose their jobs or face other reprisals...

The publication of the list sparked panic among BNP members using anonymous internet chatrooms. Many expressed fears that they may lose their jobs or face disciplinary action as a result.

One user of a right-wing site wrote: "I'm also on the list, what the ---- is going on? I could lose my job."

Another said: "The reccession means many of us could lose our jobs, add this info to it and its a dead cert."

The publication of the membership list sparked jubilation among anti-racist groups and other critics of the BNP, which wants an immediate halt to immigration and the "voluntary resettlement" of existing immigrants.

The BNP leadership on Tuesday confirmed that the list was a broadly accurate picture of the party membership list for 2007. The party and said it had contacted police about the publication.

Labour backbenchers last night began to forecast a general election next summer after a day when the effects of the economic crisis slashed the Tory poll lead to three points and led David Cameron to abandon his commitment to match Labour spending plans if the Tories win power.

Cameron's move liberates him to offer tax or spending cuts, but left him isolated in opposition to the government's plans to use short-term financial help to boost consumer spending and help the economy.

The Tory leader claimed: "We cannot afford a massive tax giveaway." But his position was undermined as the Institute of Directors came out in favour of a £20bn stimulus, including a 3p cut in income tax, and the CBI also gave its support.

The Mori survey yesterday showed Cameron's advantage had collapsed to three points, with the Tories on 40 points, down five, Labour on 37 points, up seven, and the Liberal Democrats on 12, down two. Mori said the lead represented only a four-seat Tory Commons majority.

Labour is wary of fuelling speculation after the debacle of not calling an election last year, but said if polls went in the same direction over the winter, an election in June, the date of the European elections, becomes a serious option.