BBC NEWS | World | Europe | UK urges tough response to Russia

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has called on the EU and Nato to initiate "hard-headed engagement" with Russia in response to its actions in Georgia.

In a speech in Ukraine's capital, Kiev, he urged them to bolster their allies, rebalance the energy relationship with Russia and defend international law.

Russia recognised the independence of Georgia's two breakaway regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, on Tuesday.

Moscow's fellow G8 members have condemned its actions in Georgia.

As many as 71 illegal migrants drowned after their boat sank in the Mediterranean Sea, eight of their companions have told Maltese police.

The survivors were rescued by a fishing vessel from a semi-submerged dinghy about 70km (40 miles) off Malta, then handed over to a Maltese military boat.

The ship and a military aircraft searched the area for other survivors but none were found, the police said.

Malta - the smallest EU member state - is a leading destination for migrants.

A Bosnian-born man has pleaded not guilty in Norway's first war crimes trial since the end of World War II.

Mirsad Repak, now a Norwegian citizen, is accused of having mistreated civilian detainees during the Bosnian conflict in 1992.

At the time he was a member of the paramilitary Croatian Defence Forces.

The charges relate to the imprisonment of Bosnian Serbs, mainly at the Dretelj detention camp. Norway brought in new laws in March to deal with war crimes.

Russia's nuclear energy monopoly Rosatom has agreed on construction of a new power plant in Russia's European exclave of Kaliningrad, the company said.

Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko inked the deal Wednesday, Aug. 27, for the construction of the plant about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the capital of the Baltic Sea exclave between Poland and Lithuania.

 

The plant will have two reactors with a total capacity of 2,300 megawatts on completion of the first stage of construction in 2015.

The Irish government has insisted that no second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is in the works after Europe minister Dick Roche on the weekend told press that another vote on the text would be "appropriate."

"Nothing whatsoever has been decided vis-a-vis the next step, because we're only in the process of analysis at this stage," the Irish Times quotes an unnamed government spokesperson as saying.

A second Irish referendum not likely this side the European Parliament elections in June 2009

"People who are saying 'another referendum or legislation,' they are all jumping ahead to an outcome, and the government isn't anywhere near that."

Meanwhile, the UK's Financial Times reports that Irish government officials have privately conceded that any second referendum, should one take place, would not occur before next year's European Parliamentary elections, but rather in the second half of 2009.

Western politicians are rushing to bolster Ukraine's pro-Western government amid fears that the former Soviet Republic is becoming the frontline of the "new Cold War."

A day after Russia threw down a fresh challenge to the West by recognising Georgia's breakaway territories as independent states, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, was the first Western official in Kiev to show support for the president of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko. The US vice president, Dick Cheney, is travelling to both Georgia and Ukraine next week.

Mr Yushchenko, who fell victim to a mysterious poisoning that almost cost him his life after he led the Orange Revolution in 2004, fears that his country could be next on Vladimir Putin's hit list.

But are the Western visitors telling the Ukrainian leader "we're all Ukrainians now", after the Republican presidential candidate Senator John MccCain expressed solidarity with the Georgian people by saying "we are all Georgians now"? Not exactly.

MOSCOW: Russian commanders Wednesday said they were growing alarmed at the number of NATO warships sailing into the Black Sea, conceding that NATO vessels now outnumbered the ships in their fleet anchored off the western coast of Georgia.

As focus turned to the balance of naval power in the sea, the leader of the separatist region of Abkhazia said he would invite Russia to establish a naval base at the deep-water port of Sukhumi.

And in a move certain to pique Russia, at a time when tensions over Ukraine's predominantly Russian province of Crimea are already elevated, the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yushchenko, said he would open negotiations with the authorities in Moscow to raise the rent on the Russian naval base at Sevastopol.

The Untied States is pursuing a delicate policy of delivering humanitarian aid on military transport planes and ships, to illustrate to the Russians that they do not fully control Georgia's airspace or coastline.

British motorists have become a safety menace on France's roads, regularly flouting the speed limits after crossing the Channel, French police say.

Hospitals in the north of France report a high number of British casualties as holidaymakers rush to catch ferries or the shuttle home.

The problem is so serious that officers from England are being sent to patrol motorways near northern French ports in an attempt to convince Britons that they are not immune to a recent crackdown on speeding on French roads.

In a four-hour period last weekend, on the A26 motorway near Saint-Omer, a Franco-British patrol stopped 30 cars for breaking the 130km/h (80mph) limit. All but two were from Britain. British drivers have committed half of the most serious speeding offences - over 125mph - in the region this year.

"Often British drivers pretend they do not understand and they think that the French police have it in for them," Lieutenant Patrick Vanderstaerten, of the Pas-de-Calais police, said. "It's an old cliché from the old Anglo-French quarrel."

Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet, could be the next flashpoint in the new Cold War. And any violent disturbance in Crimea could provide the political seismic shock to split Ukraine itself along its existing fault lines of ethnicity, language and religion.

The Crimean peninsula is the only part of Ukraine where ethnic Russians are in a majority. Many of them are deeply resentful about being part of Ukraine and openly call for annexation by Russia. Moscow has fostered pro-annexation groups for years.

Vasyl Ovcharuk, a Ukrainian-Crimean political activist, said: "Moscow has laid the foundations for the occupation of Crimea with years of careful propaganda. It's like Hitler's excuse of helping the ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland as justification for the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938. I have no doubt that, now that the Georgian conflict is over, Russia aims to take over Crimea.The level of hatred against anything Ukrainian here is astonishing. Many people have been attacked in the street for merely speaking Ukrainian. You can talk French, German, or Chinese here without problems but if you speak Ukrainian, people often come up and start insulting you."

Bill Clinton is to address the US Democratic Party convention - his speech closely watched for signs of his commitment to Barack Obama's campaign.

The former president's wife, Hillary, lost to Mr Obama in her bid to become the Democrat's White House nominee, with discord lingering in the party.

Mr Clinton will be followed by Joe Biden, Barack Obama's running-mate, who will deliver the keynote address.

Mr Obama is due to arrive in Denver, where the convention is taking place.

Brazil's Supreme Court has begun considering the future of one of the country's biggest indigenous reserves.

The judges will decide whether the Raposa Serra do Sol reservation should remain a single unbroken territory.

Indian leaders believe the case will set a crucial precedent regarding the protection of their rights and land.

Non-indigenous farmers are demanding the right to remain in the area and say if they are evicted it will harm the region's economic development.

Thai riot police have surrounded the prime minister's compound to try to evict anti-government protesters who took over the building on Tuesday.

But demonstrators are vowing to stay camped in the grounds of the premises until PM Samak Sundaravej steps down.

A court has issued arrest warrants for nine protest leaders on charges of trying to overthrow the government.

The protesters say Mr Samak is a proxy for former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup in 2006.

Egypt has urged Israel to stop making threats against Lebanon, its foreign minister said on a visit to Beirut.

Ahmed Abul Gheit has been holding talks with Lebanese leaders about the rising tensions with Israel.

Israel's prime minister warned last week that his country would hit all of Lebanon harder than in the 2006 war if Hezbollah guerrillas attacked again.

The Lebanese Shia movement recently joined a national union government in Lebanon ending months of civil strife.

Human rights organisations have condemned the execution of another juvenile offender in Iran on Tuesday.

Behnam Zare was the second Iranian in a week to be put to death for a crime he committed when he was under 18 and the sixth such execution in 2008.

Human rights groups say neither Zare's family nor his lawyer were notified prior to the execution.

Iran is the only country known to have executed people this year for crimes committed while they were minors.

Moments ago, she moved for a two-thirds majority vote to suspend the rules and end the roll call vote, in order to nominate Obama by acclamation.

"With eyes firmly fixed on the future, and in the spirit of unity with the goal of victory," Hillary said, "with faith in our party and our country, let's declare together with one voice right here, right now that Barack Obama is our candidate and he will be our president."

DENVER: It seemed like a typical Democratic line, one that would play well with the partisan crowd that has packed the Pepsi Center this week.

"Above all," it said, "we can't have a Statue of Liberty welcoming immigrants to our country as we build a wall on the Southern border. Instead, let us build bridges of friendship and cooperation with our Southern neighbors."

But when Representative José Serrano of the New York submitted his three-minute speech as required to the high command of Senator Barack Obama's campaign, the remark was excised. In fact, there was no mention of immigration policy, an issue of great importance to Serrano and his constituents in New York.

That was not all that was missing; the speech he delivered here on Monday bore little resemblance to the one he had written. The deletions appeared to reflect political sensitivities of a campaign seeking to attract moderate voters in the general election.

Currently in Denver to get some strategy lessons from the Democratic National Convention, a top official for Germany's Social Democrats told DW that he's also there to see what an Obama victory would mean for Germany.

Hubertus Heil, 35, is general secretary of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) and a member of the German parliament.

Deutsche Welle: Why did you come to Denver?

Hubertus Heil: We are here to observe the Democratic National Convention, not so much to watch the show -- interesting as it is -- as to talk to people in order to find out what an administration led by Barack Obama would mean in terms of foreign, security, economic and environmental policy. Obviously it would have an effect on German politics, and that is why we are here.

What conclusions have you reached so far?

Obviously, a lot remains unclear. The candidate here to be nominated is very promising, to Europe and Germany, but his agenda is still unclear. Take the question of Afghanistan or the environment. These are issues we are discussing, and it is apparent that the Democratic Party, and especially the unions supporting the party, have a keen political interest in helping steer globalization -- for example by addressing labor standards around the world. 

An Italian priest who said he wanted to hold the world's first beauty contest for nuns has decided to cancel the project, saying he was misunderstood.

Antonio Rungi said he had never intended to put sisters on the catwalk, but had wanted to erase a stereotype of them as being old and dour.

He had wanted to hold the contest online on his internet blog.

Father Rungi said he changed his mind after the local religious authorities expressed their displeasure.

The Dalai Lama is suffering from exhaustion and has cancelled all his international trips, officials say.

The exiled spiritual Tibetan leader, 73, has cancelled two forthcoming trips to Mexico and the Dominican Republic, said a statement issued by his office.

The 1989 Nobel peace prize-winner had recently been experiencing "discomfort" which his doctors attributed to "exhaustion", the statement said.

Beijing has accused the Dalai Lama of stirring up unrest in Tibet.

Early stone tools developed by our species Homo sapiens were no more sophisticated than those used by our extinct relatives the Neanderthals.

That is the conclusion of researchers who recreated and compared tools used by these ancient human groups.

The findings cast doubt on suggestions that more advanced stone technologies gave modern humans a competitive edge over the Neanderthals.

The work by a US-British team appears in the Journal of Human Evolution.

Two key figures in the right-wing music scene have been arrested in a major international operation. Police say the arrests, which follow three years of investigations, are a major blow to the extremist scene.

A German and a Dane with ties to the right-wing music distributor Celtic Moon were arrested on Wednesday, Aug. 27, in Denmark, said Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).

 

The BKA said the arrests, the outcome of international cooperation, shook up the extremist music distribution scene, dispelling its sense of security.  

 

Flemming C. and Stephan G. have been accused of financing, commissioning and distributing recordings that have been deemed illegal because of their extremist content. 

Whether cattle are reared organically or with conventional farming methods, the end effect is bad for the environment, according to a new German consumer report. The agricultural lobby, however, is preventing politicians from tackling this massive source of greenhouse gas emissions.

 A cow being measured for emissions. Cattle may be gentle creatures but farming them is contributing to climate change, says consumer group Foodwatch. For most people, it's the very picture of rural bliss, of a life in tune with nature and the wholesome world of farming: the happy cow standing on a lush meadow, calmly chewing its cud, a calf at its side.

But for Thilo Bode, the sight of this gentle-eyed creature is everything but reassuring. Bode, the head of German consumer protection organization Foodwatch, warns: "The cow is a climate bomb."

Whether they are raised conventionally or organically, one thing cows have in common is that they burp and fart to their hearts' content. Like all ruminants, cows are constantly emitting methane -- a greenhouse gas that is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide -- from both ends. As malodorous as pigs may be, it is the gaseous emissions of billions of cattle, goats and sheep that are contributing to global warming.

Sarah Michelle Gellar's hit show 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' has been blamed for 50,000 women abandoning traditional Christian religions to study paganism.

The study's author Dr Kristin Aune says: "Because of its focus on female empowerment, young women are attracted by Wicca, popularised by the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In short, women are abandoning the church."
(Examiner)

Diabetes researchers convert pancreas cells to produce insulin

Harvard study may ultimately shift treatment options for a variety of diseases away from stem cells.

By Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
5:08 PM PDT, August 27, 2008

Injecting a cocktail of proteins directly into the bodies of diabetic mice, researchers have converted normal pancreas cells into insulin-producing cells -- a genetic transformation that could pave the way for treating intractable diseases and injuries using a patient's own supply of healthy tissue.

The Harvard University scientists activated a trio of dormant genes that commanded the cells to transform themselves, much like loading a new operating system onto a computer to change a PC into a Mac.

Within 10 days, the pancreas cells ceased their normal function -- making gut enzymes to digest food -- and instead produced insulin to regulate blood sugar, according to a study published online today in the journal Nature.

Alarming sex appeal

SCIENCE NEWS, Web edition : Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

Roosters that call out in alarm prove popular with the hens

ALARM CHARM Roosters that readily call out in alarm when danger looms tend to win favor with hens and sire plenty of chicks. Full Story C. Evans

In the long run it's not a guy's looks that count. It's his little clucks in the face of danger.

A high rate of calling out in alarm turns out to be one of the clearest signs of a rooster with a successful sex life, says Chris Evans of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. A rooster that readily gives warning calls when danger looms tends to rank high in number of times hens accept him as a mate and in number of chicks sired, Evans, David R. Wilson and colleagues report in the September Animal Behaviour.