HAMBURG (Reuters) - The European Union is likely to achieve its target of generating 10 percent of transport fuels from renewable sources by 2020 by blending biofuels with fossil fuels, a leading EU researcher said. Most blending is likely to use first-generation biofuels produced with food crops, said Giovanni De Santi, director of the Energy Institute at the European Union Commission's Joint Research Center. The EU plans to source 10 percent of transport fuels from renewable sources by 2020 to combat global warming. All EU countries must now prepare plans to show how they plan to reach green energy targets. Second generation biofuels produced from a wide range of non-food crops from wood to grass and algae are not likely to make a significant contribution to biofuel production for another ten years, De Santi told Reuters at the European Biomass Conference in Hamburg on Thursday.
HAMBURG (Reuters) - The European Union is likely to achieve its target of generating 10 percent of transport fuels from renewable sources by 2020 by blending biofuels with fossil fuels, a leading EU researcher said.
Most blending is likely to use first-generation biofuels produced with food crops, said Giovanni De Santi, director of the Energy Institute at the European Union Commission's Joint Research Center.
The EU plans to source 10 percent of transport fuels from renewable sources by 2020 to combat global warming.
All EU countries must now prepare plans to show how they plan to reach green energy targets.
Second generation biofuels produced from a wide range of non-food crops from wood to grass and algae are not likely to make a significant contribution to biofuel production for another ten years, De Santi told Reuters at the European Biomass Conference in Hamburg on Thursday.
Energy experts and editorialists in Moscow derided yesterday's (2 July) EU recommendation to fill up gas storage quickly while prices were low in order to prepare for a potential supply disruption this winter after tensions between Russia and Ukraine resurfaced over a payment row. After a meeting of the EU's Gas Coordination Group on 2 July, the Commission recommendedexternal member states to better prepare for the coming winter period and to fill their gas storage capacity from all possible available sources. The Russian daily Vremya Novostey mocked this decision, calling it "another testimony of the helplessness of the European bureaucrats". Editorialist Alexei Grivach argues that filling up gas storage capacity in Western Europe while Eastern European and Balkan countries are still suffering supply deficits and lack alternative supply routes, would in no way alleviate the situation of the most vulnerable countries.
After a meeting of the EU's Gas Coordination Group on 2 July, the Commission recommendedexternal member states to better prepare for the coming winter period and to fill their gas storage capacity from all possible available sources.
The Russian daily Vremya Novostey mocked this decision, calling it "another testimony of the helplessness of the European bureaucrats".
Editorialist Alexei Grivach argues that filling up gas storage capacity in Western Europe while Eastern European and Balkan countries are still suffering supply deficits and lack alternative supply routes, would in no way alleviate the situation of the most vulnerable countries.
European governments are due to sign an agreement on the Nabucco gas pipeline on 13 July, the European Commission has announced.The Nabucco pipeline will bring Central Asian gas to western Europe via Turkey and the Balkans, bypassing Russia. Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria - the pipeline's five transit countries - will sign the accord. The pipeline - which will compete with new rival Russian pipelines - should be operational by 2014.
European governments are due to sign an agreement on the Nabucco gas pipeline on 13 July, the European Commission has announced.
The Nabucco pipeline will bring Central Asian gas to western Europe via Turkey and the Balkans, bypassing Russia.
Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria - the pipeline's five transit countries - will sign the accord.
The pipeline - which will compete with new rival Russian pipelines - should be operational by 2014.
Public sector broadcasters will have to prove they are not distorting the media market before launching mobile phone or internet services, according to revamped EU rules on broadcasting unveiled by the European Commission yesterday (2 July). The EU executive will now insist that new media ventures funded by state broadcasters are subject to an "ex-ante test" to examine whether the service strikes a fair balance between competition in the marketplace and the social and cultural needs catered to by public media outlets. However, it will be left to each EU member state to work out precisely how the test will operate. Similar tests have already been used in Germany, the UK and the Belgian Flemish governments, and Ireland is set to introduce one shortly. In the UK, for example, the BBC Trust assesses the public value of new media ventures while Ofcom, the media regulator, measures the impact on the market. The revised rules are built on principles laid down in 2001 but have been updated to take account of new media and in response to claims by private sector media firms that public broadcasters were using public money to encroach on their turf.
Public sector broadcasters will have to prove they are not distorting the media market before launching mobile phone or internet services, according to revamped EU rules on broadcasting unveiled by the European Commission yesterday (2 July).
The EU executive will now insist that new media ventures funded by state broadcasters are subject to an "ex-ante test" to examine whether the service strikes a fair balance between competition in the marketplace and the social and cultural needs catered to by public media outlets.
However, it will be left to each EU member state to work out precisely how the test will operate. Similar tests have already been used in Germany, the UK and the Belgian Flemish governments, and Ireland is set to introduce one shortly.
In the UK, for example, the BBC Trust assesses the public value of new media ventures while Ofcom, the media regulator, measures the impact on the market.
The revised rules are built on principles laid down in 2001 but have been updated to take account of new media and in response to claims by private sector media firms that public broadcasters were using public money to encroach on their turf.
A German state minister has blamed the European Union (EU) for problems in the state Landesbank banking system.Dr Werner Marnette, a minister in the government of Schleswig Holstein, said banks changed their operations when the EU told them to be more competitive. Dr Marnette said he refused to sign bail-out packages for state banks such as HSH, which is part-owned by Schleswig Holstein. He said HSH Nordbank had made huge losses on complex credit investments. 'Lost contact'"In former times when these Landesbanks gave credit to a company, the risk was covered by the state," he told the BBC World Service's Business Daily.
A German state minister has blamed the European Union (EU) for problems in the state Landesbank banking system.
Dr Werner Marnette, a minister in the government of Schleswig Holstein, said banks changed their operations when the EU told them to be more competitive.
Dr Marnette said he refused to sign bail-out packages for state banks such as HSH, which is part-owned by Schleswig Holstein.
He said HSH Nordbank had made huge losses on complex credit investments.
'Lost contact'
"In former times when these Landesbanks gave credit to a company, the risk was covered by the state," he told the BBC World Service's Business Daily.
Afte the State guarantee was gone, funds were more expensive, and they were no longer competitive lending to German industry, and thus had to go and lend elsewehre to get a good return - elsewhere being way too risky for the price, as it turned out.
So yes, they were inefficient and subsidized, but it seems they did their job better then than now. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Frederik Reinfeldt, the prime minister of Sweden, said today that the European Parliament would not vote in July on whether to approve giving José Manuel Barroso a second term as European Commission president.Sweden took over the presidency of the Council of Ministers on 1 July, just two weeks after the European Council had agreed to nominate Barroso for a second term.Reinfeldt and other members of the Council had wanted the newly elected Parliament to endorse the nomination at its first plenary session, which will be held in Strasbourg on 14-16 July. Four groups - the Socialists, the Liberals, the Greens and the United European Left - all want to delay the vote until September at the earliest.But Reinfeldt is now resigned to a delay. Speaking at a press conference in Stockholm with Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France, he said: "Some important [political] groups have said they are not ready and want to defer the decision slightly."
Labour is considering a plan to raise National Insurance contributions to fund a guaranteed minimum level of care for the elderly, The Independent has learnt. The aim would be to end the current "postcode lottery" over the services provided to the elderly in their own homes, and to avoid the need for old people to sell their property to fund expensive care home fees. Ministers describe these issues as "unfinished business" from when the modern welfare state was set up by Labour after the Second World War.The Government will set out its initial thinking in a Green Paper on long-term care next week.An expansion of social care is emerging as one of the "big ideas" for a fourth term to be included in Labour's general election manifesto.Under the plans, social care would not be nationalised, but tailored to individual needs through different providers.It would be brought into line with the NHS, so that people would know what support to expect, ending the anxiety and uncertainty caused by the existing patchwork system. No decisions have been made, and ministers want a big national debate first.
Labour is considering a plan to raise National Insurance contributions to fund a guaranteed minimum level of care for the elderly, The Independent has learnt.
The aim would be to end the current "postcode lottery" over the services provided to the elderly in their own homes, and to avoid the need for old people to sell their property to fund expensive care home fees. Ministers describe these issues as "unfinished business" from when the modern welfare state was set up by Labour after the Second World War.
The Government will set out its initial thinking in a Green Paper on long-term care next week.
An expansion of social care is emerging as one of the "big ideas" for a fourth term to be included in Labour's general election manifesto.
Under the plans, social care would not be nationalised, but tailored to individual needs through different providers.
It would be brought into line with the NHS, so that people would know what support to expect, ending the anxiety and uncertainty caused by the existing patchwork system. No decisions have been made, and ministers want a big national debate first.
More regressive taxation.
When they suggested creating a bracket with a higher marginal rate there was lots of gnashing of teeth over creeping socialism and a turn to the left. But raising NI contributions (which are already regressive as less is paid proportionally on higher incomes) won't be criticised.
"Labour" all right. A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds; a man of deeds and not of words is like a garden full of turds — Anonymous
Nine Chechen police officers were killed today in the Russian republic of Ingushetia after gunmen opened fire on their convoy, Russia's Interfax news agency reported, citing the republic's interior ministry. The attackers, who fired automatic weapons at the police convoy from a forest at the roadside, also left nine policemen badly wounded, the news agency reported. The Kremlin-appointed leader of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, is fighting for his life in hospital after a suicide bomb blast struck his armoured car on June 22 in the city of Nazran, where today's attack also took place. After the attack on Yevkurov, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the head of the neighbouring republic of Chechnya to fight insurgents across the regional border in Ingushetia.
Nine Chechen police officers were killed today in the Russian republic of Ingushetia after gunmen opened fire on their convoy, Russia's Interfax news agency reported, citing the republic's interior ministry.
The attackers, who fired automatic weapons at the police convoy from a forest at the roadside, also left nine policemen badly wounded, the news agency reported.
The Kremlin-appointed leader of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, is fighting for his life in hospital after a suicide bomb blast struck his armoured car on June 22 in the city of Nazran, where today's attack also took place.
After the attack on Yevkurov, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the head of the neighbouring republic of Chechnya to fight insurgents across the regional border in Ingushetia.
There have been ugly scenes in Italy as demonstrators denouncing the planned expansion of a US military base clashed with riot police. Violence erupted as security forces moved to prevent protesters from crossing a bridge and getting nearer to the controversial site. Youths lit firecrackers and threw stones and bottles at police who replied with tear gas.
There have been ugly scenes in Italy as demonstrators denouncing the planned expansion of a US military base clashed with riot police.
Violence erupted as security forces moved to prevent protesters from crossing a bridge and getting nearer to the controversial site.
Youths lit firecrackers and threw stones and bottles at police who replied with tear gas.
