MADRID: Basques held a somber ceremony Sunday to commemorate the lives of people killed in attacks by the separatist group ETA and to call for an end to the violence that has plagued Spain for four decades.

Hundreds of Basque politicians, survivors and victims' relatives joined together for the ceremony in San Sebastian, a northern resort city.

"Only one reason explains our commitment, the sense of why we must carry on, hang on and withstand so much pain," said Lorencio Sainz, a police officer who was seriously wounded in an ETA bombing in 1984. "It is for liberty and the rights of citizens."

Two artists painted a canvas at the foot of a stage during the ceremony at the city's Kursaal theater where the event took place. The painting showed two people in an embrace, to symbolize peace, with a Basque landscape in the background. The canvas was illuminated at the end of the commemoration.

Some of Tony Blair's expenses claims, which the High Court last week ruled should be disclosed to the public, have been shredded. The documents, itemising Blair's claims for household expenses during a year of his premiership, were destroyed in the midst of a legal battle over whether they should be published. All MPs' expenses are funded by taxpayers.

It is a criminal offence to destroy documents to prevent their disclosure under freedom of information (FOI) laws, but Westminster officials say they were unaware that the files were the subject of a legal challenge. They insist they were destroyed by mistake.

All MPs are entitled to claim for home renovations, furnishings, domestic appliances and groceries with a tariff based on prices at John Lewis, the department store. MPs have for years refused to disclose details of their expenses, which average £136,000, more than twice their salaries.

This position became increasingly untenable with the arrival of FOI laws in January 2005. Since then a number of media organisations, including The Sunday Times, have been conducting a legal batttle for full disclosure of MPs' housing allowance, currently worth a maximum of £23,083.

The struggle to become the Next Big Thing on the French left wing exploded into open warfare at the weekend as the defeated presidential candidate Ségolène Royal announced a bid to become the First Secretary, or leader, of the Socialist Party.

On Thursday, the Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, who is likely to be her main rival, will publish a book called De l'Audace! (Courage!), setting out his political philosophy and ambitions. With six months to go before the Socialists choose their new leader at a conference in Reims, the pair have, in effect, joined battle for the right to be both the party chief and the candidate-elect for the presidential elections in 2012.

Mme Royal, 54, has been bounced into an early declaration by the rising popularity of the gruff, moderate, competent mayor. Although his open homosexuality is regarded as a serious handicap by some political analysts, M. Delanoe, 57, is running far ahead of Mme Royal in recent national opinion polls.

The Dutch government has provoked uproar among the country's business leaders by proposing laws to curb large bonuses and golden handshakes for company bosses.

The Finance minister Wouter Bos launched the "fat cat" crackdown following a series of recent scandals involving "unjustifiable" payouts to prominent business figures. However despite government support, Mr Bos's proposals are under attack from Dutch blue-chips such as Philips, Shell and Unilever, whose chairmen argue they will damage Holland's international competitiveness and drive away corporate talent. "It's something everyone in Europe is concerned about, especially now the economic downturn is starting to bite," said Mr Bos. "You can't expect employees to tighten their belts while those at the top are being paid ever-bigger bonuses, which are often not even linked to their performance. Public support for entrepreneurs will plummet if this continues."

Mr Bos, who leads the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA), has put forward new laws that would slap taxes on companies for over-rewarding bosses. Under the proposed legislation, which is currently making its way through parliament, companies would have to pay a 30 percent tax on severance packages, or "golden parachutes", of more than €500,000 (£398,000), paid to executives when they leave a company. In addition, an extra tax would be levied in cases when company pensions are paid out to executives earning more than €500,000.

Despite emergency measures to resolve the rubbish crisis in the southern Italian city of Naples, the situation worsened Saturday, May 16, with more than 100 fires set to the mountains of garbage.

Angry city residents set the fires overnight, which the overburdened fire-fighters struggled to extinguish.

 

A television team recorded stones being thrown at one fire crew as it attempted to put out a fire in the suburb of Barra.

 

"They are also attacking us because of the mountains of rubbish in the streets," one fireman said. "It's not the first time they have tried to attack us, and I fear that it will also not be the last."

 

Rising temperatures have exacerbated the problem of the stinking mounds of trash, which contain up to 5,000 tons of material.

 

While the latest parliamentary elections gave a big boost to pro-European parties, Serbia's fragmented politics mean the vote could still produce a nationalist, anti-Western government.

Serbia hosts the Eurovision Song Contest next week and its entry, an ethno-tinged love song, is considered one of the favorites to win. If only Serbia's path to Europe were that simple for those who want it.

 

An anti-Western government would mean a setback for the European Union, which invested considerable effort in influencing Sunday's election and urged the next government to pursue "a clear European agenda."

 

As political leaders began coalition talks Monday, the stakes for regional stability, the EU and ordinary Serbs were high. For Serbia's neighbors, including newly seceded Kosovo, an ultra-nationalist leadership in Belgrade would likely spell a new rush of tension.

Scientists say they are worried about new EU proposals which could drastically restrict the number of pesticides available to farmers.

The registration process is changing and many commonly used chemicals are likely to fall out of use.

It is claimed the replacement regime could lead to reduced yields and further increases in food costs.

But anti-pesticide campaigners say the changes are needed to help protect human health and the environment.

At least 20,000 people have marched through central Paris protesting against the French government's plans to cut jobs in the education sector.

The protestors are also unhappy about President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to force schools to stay open in the event of strike action.

Mr Sarkozy was elected a year ago on a platform of reforms, but many of them have provoked stiff opposition.

Separately, fishermen angered by rising fuel costs blockaded La Rochelle port.

A cordon of 90 fishing boats cut off access to the commercial harbour La Pallice on France's Atlantic coast for a fourth day running.

Jean-Claude Trichet said we were seeing "an ongoing, very serious market correction," during an interview with the BBC business editor Robert Peston.

He warned that if central banks were tempted to cut interest rates now, more serious problems could follow.

He compared recent rises in energy and food prices to the 1970s oil shock.

Mr Trichet said the failure of most European economies to digest tighter monetary policy in the 1970s caused higher wages that undermined the region's ability to compete. The net result was mass unemployment.

Well I guess that settles it then.  Europe Is So Doomed.

The blurker formerly known as ignorant bystander.

The British Government is accused of being the chief obstacle to the signing of a treaty to ban cluster bombs, which have maimed and killed thousands of civilians worldwide.

Countries that have suffered the impact of the bombs, humanitarian groups and former commanders of British forces have called for the UK to drop its insistence on retaining cluster munitions, a stance, they say, that is likely to scupper hopes of securing an agreement at an international conference starting in Dublin today.

More than 100 countries are taking part in the talks. Delegates will point out that the vast majority of cluster bomb victims are non-combatants. Opponents of the weapon received the backing yesterday of Pope Benedict XVI, who called for a "strong and credible" treaty to end their use.

The two sets of weapons at the heart of the argument are the M85 and the M73, munitions fired, respectively, by artillery and rockets. British officials claim these are "smart" weapons which minimise the risk of "collateral damage" and are essential for military operations. The M85 is meant to self destruct and not pose a lingering threat to civilians. However, according to the United Nations, 300 civilians were killed or injured in Lebanon, where Israel used the weapons in 2006.

At least five people have been burnt or beaten to death in the South African city of Johannesburg as violence against immigrants spreads.

More than 50 other people were taken to hospital in the suburb of Cleveland with stab or bullet wounds.

The trouble began a week ago in the sprawling township of Alexandra.

Immigrants from neighbouring African countries were set upon by men with guns and iron bars chanting "kick the foreigners out".

China declared three days of national mourning for victims of the Sichuan earthquake and suspended the Olympic torch relay as the nation's most famous rescuer said the search for survivors would go on.

"My soldiers are right now rescuing people. Every day we are pulling people out," said Wang Yi, commander of Unit 8740 of the People's Armed Police Force. "We are very far from the rebuilding process. Our priority is still saving lives."

Mr Wang led 670 officers to the town of Wenchuan, at the quake epicentre, after hiking for 21 hours in driving rain, and has featured prominently in media coverage of the rescue efforts. His soldiers have rescued 407 people and evacuated 3,700 to safety from Wenchuan. "I am an ordinary soldier, that's all," Mr Wang said. "We rescued many people from the debris in Wenchuan. The villages were the most affected, the city itself was less damaged. Some of the villages were completely flattened."

Claims by a leading researcher that cancer deaths in a small town in Queensland, Australia, are 10 times higher than the state average owing to the secret testing of Agent Orange there more than 40 years ago are to be investigated by the authorities.

Australian military scientists sprayed the toxic herbicide on rainforest near Innisfail during defoliant testing in the early years of the Vietnam war, it is alleged. The jungle began dying and has never recovered, according to local people.

The site is near a river which supplies water for the town in the far north of the country and researchers believe the spraying may be responsible for cancer rates in the area being 10 times the state average and four times the national average.

The Innisfail claims were made by the researcher Jean Williams, who has been awarded the Order of Australia medal for her work on the effects of chemicals on Vietnam war veterans. She said she found reports of the secret tests in Australian War Memorial museum archives.

They are countries so rich in oil and gas that they would never want for fuel to drive their booming economies and the lavish lifestyles of their rulers.

Now, however, in a role reversal that makes selling sand to Saudi Arabia look like a sensible business transaction, the oil-rich Gulf states are planning to import coal.

An acute shortage of natural gas has led to the city states of the United Arab Emirates seeking alternative fuels to keep the air cool, the lights on and the water running.

Abu Dhabi is working with Suez, the French utility company, on a nuclear power project but coal is emerging as the best quick fix to avert blackouts as the world's biggest hydrocarbon exporters struggle to cope with high prices for oil and natural gas, infrastructure weakness and a development boom. Some of the world's biggest oil exporters may soon find themselves reliant on imported fuel from a leading coal exporter, such as South Africa.

High food prices are here to stay and the world needs a "green revolution" to feed its rising population, the senior humanitarian official at the United Nations has told The Telegraph.

Sir John Holmes, Britain's former ambassador to Paris who now serves as the UN's under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, said structural changes in the global economy are the cause of the sudden rise in food prices.

"It is possible that in the next two or three years prices will come down a bit from the peaks we've seen in the last few months - but not to where they were before," he said.

Sir John said the emergence of hundreds of millions of middle class consumers in China and India has increased demand for food. High oil prices make transporting food more expensive. The supply of grain has been hit by bad weather and the transfer of land to grow biofuels instead of food crops.

A frontpage NYT piece on Lebanon is, as the Angry Arab finds, extremely inaccurate and sounds like written by the Hariri press office. Today's WaPo wrap up of the last week in Lebanon is a bit better, but still misses many aspects of the actual conflict. For reliable analysis one should read Karim Makdisi at Counterpunch or this account of an anonymous German Lebanon correspondent at Syria Comment.

What the two mainstream pieces try is to shape the meme of sectarian Shia-Sunni conflict as the base of what happened. This is the same tale the U.S. (and the Saudis) have used in their divide and rule strategy in Iraq. In reality the split is much more a political than a religious one and with many more groups and interests involved than just Sunni and Shia.

The UN Convention of Biological Diversity meets starting Monday, May 19, in Bonn to seek ways to preserve the diversity of animal and plant life in the face of challenges such as pollution and global warming.

While some 200 governments, 5,000 delegates and several heads of state will gather in the German city of Bonn starting Monday to address the future of living species, it's doubtful they will say they can meet a goal set in 2002 to slow the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010.

 

UN experts say the earth is facing the most severe spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs became extinct. It's estimated that three species vanish every hour, largely as a result of human activity, such as rising populations, pollution and climate change.

 

"We are at one thousand or even ten thousand times the speed of the natural extinction rate, purely because of human influence," Sigmar Gabriel, the German environment minister who will open the conference, told Deutsche Welle.

 Monday 12 May 2008

    In the debate over genetically modified organisms, many voices have made themselves heard - rarely those of cooks and vintners. Yet we are the ones principally impacted by the introduction of open field GMO into [French] agriculture.

    It is neither our calling nor within our field of competence to decide a scientific debate on the health security of GMO food. The studies conducted up until now remain contradictory and inadequate in their duration. That's why - like the government with respect to MON 810 corn - we defend the precautionary principle: no GMO on our tables or in our cellars, given what we presently know.

    The products of the earth are the basis of our profession and the foundation of our gastronomy. We have the good fortune to enjoy soils and soil products of exceptional quality and variety. We are free to choose those that we like for our wines and our dishes. The right to choose the contents of one's glass and one's plate is a fundamental right.

    This freedom and this choice is threatened today by GMOs and their inevitable consequences: industrialization and standardization of agriculture, soil deterioration and ground pollution, seed and flavor homogenization, destruction of biodiversity and threats to organic agriculture.

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel has inspired and enthralled millions but none who has craned in admiration of the "divinely inspired" work realises it was born out of base rivalry and petty jealousy.

Five centuries after the artist signed the contract to decorate the Pope's personal chapel in the Vatican with scenes from the book of Genesis, the true story of how Michelangelo came to create one of his greatest works can be told.

The artist was awarded the commission unaware that he was the target of a conspiracy hatched by Donato Bramante, the architect of St Peter's Basilica, and the painter Raphael, who persuaded Pope Julius II to oblige Michelangelo - a sculptor with little painting experience - to take on the commission. They believed that, faced with a work on such a vast scale, he was bound to fail and be humiliated.