EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Union's Lisbon Treaty will not enter into force before the European Parliament elections in June 2009, as was initially hoped, and is unlikely to do so before 1 January 2010 either, Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said in Brussels on Wednesday (17 September).

Juncker: "If I was the Irish Prime Minister, I wouldn't go for a second referendum in the next few months"

"I don't think that the treaty will be in place in June [2009], when the next European elections will take place," Mr Juncker, who is also the president of the eurogroup - gathering the finance ministers of the eurozone - said at a conference organised by the Brussels-based European Policy Centre (EPC).

In order for the document to be in place by June 2009, it would have to be ratified by all 27 EU member states by February - something which according to Luxembourg's premier is "not realistic."

"It's not possible to have this treaty enter into force before the year 2010," he stressed.

A group of leading female personalities launched a campaign in Brussels this week in a bid to boost the number of women in European politics given that they still remain grossly under-represented.

Slightly fewer than one third of the European Parliament's (EP) 785 seats are occupied by women, while only nine of the EU's 27 commissioners are female.

Now a group of leading women politicians has launched a campaign in Brussels aimed at bridging this gender gap when the composition of the EP and the European Commission comes up for renewal next year.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  Wallstrom is among the few leading women politicians in the EU

"A representative democracy without gender equality is a contradiction in terms," said Margot Wallstrom, a Swede who acts as one of the commission's five vice-presidents. "Women and men need to be equally represented in European politics, in order to have a say on decisions that affect their lives," she added.

The European Commission has announced a full review of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy, saying the current regime fails to protect fish stocks.

The commission says that fishermen who obey the fishing rules are being penalised by the irresponsible behaviour of others who flout them.

That "vicious circle" has undermined the ecological balance of the oceans, the commission says.

The EU wants to cut the size of fleets and the time fishermen spend at sea.

A new study has claimed that the European Union is facing a crisis in the United Nations with its influence in human rights issues being undermined by rising regional powers and disillusioned opponents.

The growing assertiveness of Russia and China and the increasing alienation felt by Islamic, African and Latin American states are adding pressure on the EU at a time when it is struggling to make its mark on human rights issues at the world body.

 

The report by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) shows that the EU's support in the UN General Assembly for its human rights positions have dropped from 70 percent approval in the 1990s to 48 percent in 2007 and 55 percent in 2008. In contrast, the report shows that Russia and China have gone from less than 50 percent to over 80 percent in the same period.

 

Recent damaging defeats over human rights issues concerning Iran, Burma and Belarus -- where the EU managed to gain just 80 votes in support of its motions from the 165 members of the General Assembly -- are described in the ECFR study as the EU's "slow motion crisis."

President Dmitry Medvedev has called for Russia to secure its Arctic borders because the region may hold more than a quarter of the world's offshore oil and gas reserves.

"Our first and fundamental task is to turn the Arctic into a resource base for Russia in the 21st century," Medvedev said at a meeting of the National Security Council on Wednesday, Sept. 17. "Using these resources will entirely guarantee Russia's energy security."

´

Russia is involved in an international race with the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark to lay claim to suspected vast energy and mineral reserves that will open up in the wake of global warming.

 

"We must finalize and draft a law on setting the southern border of the Arctic region," Medvedev told the gathering. "This is our responsibility to future generations."

 

The secretary of Russia's Security Council, Nikolay Patruschev, estimated 18 percent of the Arctic was rightfully Russian territory.

 

This week's financial markets meltdown in the United States will have a trickledown effect on Germany, but it is unlikely to derail the economy here. Indeed, there is no acute threat of collapse in Germany, editorials in some of the country's biggest papers argue.

 The bull has lost its head: Germany's blue chip DAX index continued to decline on Wednesday. The financial crisis in the United States continues to dominate the headlines in Germany on Wednesday, with news that the government in Washington would provide a bailout package to insurance giant AIG after its near collapse. Earlier this week, after the US government refused to come to the rescue of investment banking firm Lehman Brothers, many had wondered whether Washington might also take a hands-off approach to AIG.

Although the market meltdown in the US is likely to have some impact on Germany, most editorialists on Wednesday urge calm -- with one major paper even stating that the national economy will continue to grow. Most are united in their view that, once the dust settles, financial markets will be a lot more transparent after this fiasco.

The European Union's executive body called for a massive boost to the food aid the bloc gives its poorest inhabitants, warning that soaring food prices meant that the current system is no longer sufficient.

Under the Commission's proposal, authored by its Agriculture Department, the EU's current budget for food aid would increase by almost 70 percent to roughly 500 million euros ($710.7 million) and be broadened to cover more food products, a statement released in Brussels said.

 

"Stocks are at an all-time low, the number of needy people has increased and food prices have recently risen sharply," said the statement, released on Wednesday, Sept. 17. "The (European) Commission believes it is vital to increase spending on the scheme and to allow food purchases on the open market."

 

Given the soaring food prices of the last two years, and the parallel reduction to near-zero levels of the EU's food stocks, Europe's poor were having a tough time feeding themselves, EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told a news conference Wednesday.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Billionaire philanthropist and financier George Soros has said at a top-level EU conference on the problems facing Roma people in Europe that he supports legal action against Italy over recent anti-Gypsy measures, particularly the fingerprinting of adults and children.

"Certainly, fingerprinting, racial profiling and so on is unacceptable and, I believe, illegal, and I hope that the European Court of Justice will take up the case and declare it illegal," the Hungarian-born founder of the Open Society Institute said on Tuesday (16 September) in a press conference at the first "European Roma Summit" in Brussels, an event jointly organised by the European Commission and the Soros foundation.

Protesters at an EU Roma summit wore T-shirts emblazoned with the words 'Stop Ethnic Profiling'

"I am worried that this could become a de facto European standard," Mr Soros added.

Earlier this year, Mr Berlusconi's government declared a national state of emergency in response to a rise in crime blamed mainly on Romanian immigrants and announced that authorities would begin fingerprinting the Roma population.

New European Union policies regarding the Caucasus must strike a balance between Europe's concerns and the needs of the region's countries and people. At the same time, the Europe must also distance itself from the confrontational position Washington has adopted towards Russia.

 A Georgian soldier places explosives around what the military say is an undetonated Russian bomb that was dropped near Kutaisi airport. A group of Dutch thinkers argue the EU should offer to help clear up cluster bombs as part of a humanitarian aid package. The special summit of European Union leaders earlier this month produced a united response to Russia's military actions in Georgia. This is a positive development since the explosive situation cannot be resolved without a coherent policy response from the European Union. It is particularly important since there are many countries in the region, such as Ukraine, where conflict is at a tipping point.

The decision of Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili to take military action in South Ossetia was most likely underpinned by the belief that the West, including the US and the EU, would support and defend Georgia. Recent events now confirm how wrong he was. Yet there is no question that Russia's invasion, for which it was surprisingly well-prepared, was clearly disproportionate.

Europe has maintained distance from the growing tensions in the Caucasus, which escalated last month. This was a serious mistake. Europe should have intervened much earlier as a mediator in the Georgia conflict. But now Europe must distance itself from the confrontational position that the United States has adopted towards Russia.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed friendship treaties with Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on Wednesday. He also promised them the backing of Russia's armed forces.

The treaties are an attempt to formalize military, diplomatic and economic co-operation between Moscow and the separatist regions, which Russia recognized as independent states after its brief war with Georgia last month.

 

Medvedev signed the treaties with South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity and Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh on Wednesday, Sept. 17. Only Nicaragua has followed Moscow's lead and recognized the enclaves as independent.

 

The deals were signed in the face of widespread global condemnation of Russia's incursion into Georgia. Russia has been accused of neo-imperialism by critics in the West in the midst of the tensest period in Russia-West relations since the Cold War.

 

French Defense Minister Herve Morin added his voice to the chorus of unease and frustration over Europe's commitment to military operations in Afghanistan when he called for more troops and the end of national caveats.

Limits on troop operations and years of military underspending in Europe were damaging the coalition war effort in Afghanistan, Morin said on Wednesday, Sept. 17, as he called on France's European allies to relax restrictions on troop deployment and operations.

France and the United Kingdom were among the few countries which were backing their commitment to the operation with boots on the ground and the necessary finances to assure a successful outcome, Morin said during a visit to Australia to discuss Afghanistan and boost security cooperation between France and Australia in the South Pacific.

A United Nations humanitarian mission will visit areas affected by last month's conflict between Russian and Georgian forces, including South Ossetia, which has seceded from Georgia.

The mission will be in the region from Wednesday, Sept. 17, to Saturday "to gain first-hand knowledge of the humanitarian and human rights situations and needs on the ground, including the position of those displaced by the conflict and other vulnerable groups," the UN said.

The group will visit also the Georgian capital Tbilisi and Gori, a major city that was temporarily occupied by Russian forces.

In addition to the relief mission, the UN said it planned a separate "broader fact-finding mission in the region."

Radovan Karadzic will face a fresh indictment within days which updates the eight-year-old charges against him, prosecutors told judges in The Hague today.

The former Bosnian Serb leader, who has refused to enter a plea against the existing 11 war crimes charges, complained that he would need much more time to prepare his defence, especially if he faced new accusations.

Dr Karadzic told the court that he could prove that Nato tried to have him killed, although he offered no evidence today, and said that he was investigating his claim that he was offered immunity from prosecution by Richard Holbrooke. The former US peace envoy in the Balkans strongly denies that any deal was struck.

"I have irrefutable evidence that Nato tried to liquidate me," Dr Karadzic told Judge Iain Bonomy, on his third appearance before the court.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A group of MEPs from across the political spectrum have launched a campaign calling on EU governments to list Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shia militant group, as a terrorist organisation.

Hezbollah - or "Party of God" - emerged as a militia in response to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Its leaders were inspired by Iranian supreme spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini, while its forces were trained and organised by a contingent of Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Hezbollah emerged as a militia in response to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon

Currently, it plays a significant role in Lebanon's politics, controlling 11 out of 30 seats in the government and wielding veto power in the parliament.

According to Portuguese Socialist Paulo Casaca, it is Hezbollah's political influence that makes it a dangerous organisation. "If it was only a number of lunatics, it would not be as dangerous," the MEP told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday (16 September) unveiling an initiative to have the Lebanese group proscribed.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Parliament has directly saved between €3 and 4 million by temporarily holding two plenary sessions in Brussels, after the ceiling in Strasbourg collapsed over summer.

The exact cost per session is hard to calculate, having to take into account numerous variables such as plane tickets from different European cities for freelance interpreters, who are flown in from home countries for the plenary sessions.

The collapsed ceiling in Strasbourg prompted parliament to hold its September sessions in Brussels

Parliament staff also get a fixed allowance of "just a bit less than €1,000" for one week of Strasbourg, which would amount to €1.2 million per session just for travel and hotel expenses for full-time personnel, parliament spokeswoman Marjory van den Broeke told EUobserver.

"But if you count the people who come in additionally, there is already more per session, and if the maintenance and electricity bills of the [Strasbourg] building are taken into account, the sum is even bigger," she said, summing it all up at €1.5-2 million per plenary.

HBOS has confirmed it is in advanced talks with Lloyds TSB about creating a UK retail banking giant worth £30bn.

The government has also said it will overrule any concerns that competition authorities may raise, BBC Business Editor Robert Peston said.

The deal is set to value HBOS at about £15bn, or 280p a share, a significant premium on its closing price of 147.1p.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The Netherlands' refusal to unfreeze the trade related part of a pre-accession deal with Serbia was "unfair" to Belgrade, but the country still intends to stick to its EU accession agenda and hopes to join the bloc by 2014, Serbian deputy prime minister Bozidar Djelic has said.

"Factually, the Dutch are unfair to Serbia," says Mr Djelic

"Factually, the Dutch are unfair to Serbia," Mr Djelic told EUobserver on the margins of an EU conference on the Roma people in Brussels on Tuesday (16 September).

"Because it's not by chance that 25 member states support the implementation of the interim agreement; that the entire European Commission shares that position, and that the [UN] chief prosecutor [Serge] Brammertz presents a report during which he demonstrates Serbia is doing everything it can to cooperate with The Hague [war crimes] tribunal."

The Netherlands on Monday blocked the unfreezing of an interim deal - part of a pre-accession agreement signed in April - aiming to facilitate economic and trade relations between the EU and Serbia.

FRANKFURT, Sept 17 (Reuters) - European Union countries must quickly build new power generation plants to put in an additional 400,000 megawatts, or half the current total again, by 2020, plant engineers' association VGB said on Wednesday.

Installed power capacity in the bloc's 27 members states now stands at around 780,000 MW, according to industry figures. In a statement, VGB cited a projected rise in electricity consumption by 15 percent to 4,000 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2020 from the current 3,400 MW in the EU-27.

EUROPEAN Union officials have agreed to do more to help Pacific Island nations deal with climate change and tackle the ongoing problem of illegal fishing.

Representatives from Pacific Island Forum member nations Australia, Niue and Tonga met EU officials in Brussels today to hammer out agreements in which Europe will lend a greater helping hand across the Pacific.

One of the key outcomes from the inaugural Pacific Island Forum-EU troika meeting was for work to begin on a joint climate change agreement.

Australia's parliamentary secretary for international development assistance Bob McMullan, who attended the talks, said the agreement was expected to be finalised by the end of the year.

"This isn't about money. This declaration is about principles," he said.

WASHINGTON: Anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim attitudes have been rising nearly in tandem in several European countries, apparently reflecting concerns over immigration, globalization and economic ills, according to a new international survey.

Anti-Jewish feelings were particularly strong in Spain, Poland and Russia - with negativity up significantly since 2006, according to the Pew Research Center's polling. Anti-Muslim views were also strong in those three countries, as well as in Germany and France.

"There is a clear relationship between anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim attitudes," said the report from Pew, released Wednesday. "Publics that view Jews unfavorably also tend to see Muslims in a negative light."

Negative views of Muslims were also strong in several Asian countries: Half or more of the Japanese, Indians, Chinese and South Koreans surveyed said they had negative impressions of Muslims.

DRESDEN: Adopting a strong, at times passionate, pro-Russian stance, the former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder has roundly criticized the United States on several fronts, warning NATO against offering membership to Georgia and opposing Pentagon plans to base its anti-ballistic missile shield in Eastern Europe.

In a 40-minute speech to a large gathering of Russian and German business executives Tuesday night, Schröder covered German, European and Russian politics, but omitted even the customary reference to the importance of the trans-Atlantic relationship.

Schröder, now an executive on the payroll of a Russian-German energy consortium dominated by Gazprom, the Russian state-owned energy monopoly, is at the center of a debate about whether the country hews to its post-1945 ties to Washington, or shifts more toward Moscow, maintaining in effect equal warmth or distance from both.

Schröder said that, if anything, Europe and Russia need each other more than ever - Europe for its energy supplies from Russia and Russia for technological and other European support in its bid to modernize.

To recap, tonight we've been discussing Sen. McCain's bizarre interview in which he appeared not to know who Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero was and, in an effort to wing it, assumed he must be another left-wing, anti-American leader from Latin America. In the Spanish press analysis of the interview, at least, many seem uncertain whether McCain even knows where Spain is, though that strikes me as a bit excessive.

Just how this will get played in the American press will be interesting to see because it cuts to two of McCain's key vulnerabilities -- the first being his apparently rather shaky foreign policy experience if can't identify the leader of a major NATO ally and the second being what I guess we would call declining mental acuity.

svt.se - Rapport

När kapital nu flyttas till säkrare placeringar har statliga Riksgälden haft så stor efterfrågan på statsskuldväxlar att brist har uppstått. Riksgälden agerade i samråd med storbankerna.

Supply is not meeting the demand that has been increasing over the last week. Riksgälden is asking the central bank - Riksbanken - to lower the rate. Analysts view it as worrying that everyone and their grandma is trying to invest in safe papers.

At least 16 people have been killed in an attack on the US embassy in the Yemeni capital Sanaa by a suicide bomber and armed fighters, the country's interior ministry has said.

A suicide bomber on Wednesday morning drove a car close to the embassy before detonating his explosives, witnesses said, leaving part of the building on fire.

Armed men then attacked the embassy from a second car, they said.

Six guards, four civilians and six attackers died in the assault, the interior ministry said.

A group called Islamic Jihad in Yemen has claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened to target the British, Emirati and Saudi embassies in Sanaa, reports say.

The Cuban government under new leader Raul Castro has reportedly accepted the resumption of formal political dialogue with the EU after it lifted diplomatic sanctions against the island two months ago.

TThe EU representative in Havana, Javier Nino this week signaled interest in taking up formal talks with Europe in what could be a first step towards normalization of strained relations between the 27-member bloc and Cuba.

In a letter handed over earlier this month at the embassy of France, current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, Nino said the communist regime was interested in restarting dialogue with the EU

"The Cuban government agrees to begin dialogue. (...) The EU proposal is an unconditional dialogue, mutual benefit, mutual respect on a number of issues such as rights and environmental issues," Nino told news agency AFP on Tuesday, Sept 16.

A third baby has died and the number sickened after being fed milk powder laced with an industrial chemical has soared five-fold to more than 6,000 in one of the worst food quality scandals to rock China.

The Health Minister Chen Zhu said: "As far as possible, minimise the harm to infants' health from the contaminated milk powder."

Hospitals were crowded with anxious parents seeking the free treatment promised by the government for their babies.Supermarket workers in many cities raced to pull tins of formula off shelves in a huge recall and amid fears the numbers of infants ill after drinking powdered milk adulterated with the compound melamine could rise. Minister Chen said more and more parents were expected to take their children to hospitals in the coming days.

The Government has announced that a fifth of 109 dairy manufacturers that have been checked had produced batches of milk products adulterated with melamine, used in plastics and fertilisers banned from foods. But the compound is rich in nitrogen, used to measure protein, and can be used to disguise milk that fails to meet standards or has been diluted.

GAZA STRIP (17 September 2008) - An Italian human rights worker with the Free Gaza Movement and International Solidarity Movement was injured today by the Israeli navy while monitoring human rights abuses against Palestinian fishermen off the coast of the Gaza Strip.

Vittorio Arrigoni was hit by flying glass when the Israeli navy used a high-power water cannon against the unarmed boats. The water canon smashed the glass surrounding the steering section of the boat, with shards lacerating Arrigoni's back. He was taken to hospital immediately upon reaching shore, requiring stitches.

The Israeli navy has imposed severe restrictions on fishing in Gazan waters, regularly attacking any boats attempting to fish over 3 nautical miles. With international accompaniment, fishermen have been attempting to fish their own waters, outside of Israeli imposed limits.

There is growing resignation among some Western diplomats, for example, that the next wave of action against Iran is likely to come from like-minded Western countries - not anytime soon from additional council sanctions.

At the same time, calls are mounting in some diplomatic circles to establish a new "community of democracies" that could sidestep a paralyzed Security Council unable to take on the major global security issues of the day.

US officials and many diplomatic experts say they realize a new Russia has arrived on the international stage, one set on ushering in a multipolar world. At the same time, they recognize that China also favors a less Westcentric and US-dominated international system...

Some longtime observers of the Security Council's workings agree, saying the council's five permanent members - the US, Russia, China, Britain, and France - all have too much interest in keeping the council as the venue for taking up the world's security issues to risk a return to the council's cold-war-style blockages.

Tzipi Livni has claimed victory in the contest to lead Israel's ruling Kadima party as exit polls suggest she won by a clear margin.

The foreign minister told supporters in a radio broadcast that "the good guys" had won after the ballot by members of the party.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is resigning amid corruption allegations.

If she can form a coalition Ms Livni, 50, would become Israel's first woman prime minister in more than 30 years.

Two television exit polls suggested Ms Livni had beaten Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz by a margin of 48% to 37%.