WESTERN EUROPEAN NEWS DIGEST
European Union Puts FARC on Terror List, Finally
Yielding to intense pressure both from the Colombian government and, presumably, the United States, the European Union has finally agreed to include the Colombian narcoterrorist FARC on the EU's list of terrorist organizations. However, the EU has refused to do the same with the National Liberation Army (ELN), which it had been assisting in negotiations with the Colombian government until recently. The decision on the FARC allegedly means that FARC bank accounts in EU countries will be frozen, and all political activity by FARC representatives banned.
It remains to be seen whether these decisions will be enforced. For years past, the FARC and similar organizations have received strong support from various European elements.
Colombian military commanders Gens. Fernando Tapias and Jorge Mora responded that the EU decision represented an "elemental recognition," an "expression of reality," and "excellent news."
New Book Claims British Parliament Targetted 9/11
A new book, Inside al-Qaeda, claims that the British Houses of Parliament were targetted on Sept. 11, along with key landmarks in the U.S. capital, but that the grounding of all airlines flights stopped the plan.
The author, Rohan Gunaratna, is the British Chevening Scholar at the Unviersity of St. Andrews, Scotland, and was Hesburgh Scholar at the Institute of International Peace Studies at Notre Dame in the United States, as well as honorary fellow at the International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism in Israel, and principal investigator at the UN's Terrorism Prevention Branch. He told CBS Evening News on June 10 that one Afroz Mohammed was arrested in India after fleeing England after Sept. 11, and admitted that a team had gathered at London's Heathrow Airport to hit the Parliamentan admission he later retracted. Afroz Mohammed is described as following the pattern ascribed to the accused 9/11 hijackersflight training, money from al-Qaeda-connected sources, and so forth
The book also feeds into the current "dirty bomb" hysteria, by claiming that al-Qaeda paid $1.5 million for a canister of South African uranium from a Sudanese military officer, but it turned up empty. The al-Qaeda are still trying to get uranium from Russian, Ukrainian, and Pakistani sources, Gunaratna claims.
Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Hits U.S. Attack on Iraq
According to the German press, former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of the Social Democratic Party has attacked U.S. plans for a war against Iraq, a move which he warned would blow apart the anti-terror coalition and add grist to the mills of Islamic terror propagandists. Schmitd, speaking at a Berlin gathering of 23 Inter-Action Council of former government leaders, also criticized President Bush's formulation of an "axis of evil" as nonsense, asserting that there is no such axis, nor is there any military solution to the problem of terrorism.
Anyway, American policy on the Mideast is "inconsistent," and U.S. conduct is in general unilateralist, Schmidt charged, urging Europeans to acknowledge that as a fact, rather than believing in official U.S. declarations to the contrary.
At present, Europe is weak, Schmidt said, with no more international muscle than India or Brazil, whereas Russia and China at least have the potential to join the club of three global superpowers, along with the United States, by the middle of this century.
Among those attending the Berlin IAC event were former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov, former Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, and former German President Richard von Weizsaecker.
Europeans Think U.S. Outlook 'Totally Mad'
The Europeans think that the United States and its concept of the "axis of evil" are "totally mad," wrote Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen in the paper's June 10 issue.
This observation came after hearing a speech by William Kristol, head of the Weekly Standard and an organizer of the shamelessly pro-empire group, Project for a New American Century (courtesy of the Olin, Bradley, Mellon Scaife, and Smith Richardson foundations, and Rupert Murdoch).
Kristol recently gave a speech before the Council for the United States and Italy at the Villa D'Este in Lake Como, Italy, in which he declared what Cohen called "Kristol's War." Unfortunately for the U.S., Kristol is looked upon as an emissary of the Bush Administration in his rantings. As one of the princes of the Washington neo-conservatives, Kristol "announced a vast foreign policy agenda beginning with a war against Iraq, and ending with replacing the monarchy in Saudi Arabia." Kristol extended his war plan to all the "axis of evil" countries (North Korea, Iran, Iraq), and added a few new countries himselfsuch as Saudi Arabia.
The Europeans call this sort of talk "provocative," Cohen writes, but they mean they think it's nuts.
EU Commission Welcomes Gas Deal with Germany, Russia, Ukraine
The European Union Commission welcomes the tripartite gas policy deal involving Germany, Russia, and Ukraine, the EU Commissioner for Energy, Loyola de Palacio, says, commenting that the agreement just signed by the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine and the Chancellor of Germany near St. Petersburg will contribute to "safe gas supplies to Europe."
An aspect not directly addressed in media reports, is that it is now clear that the entire gas pipeline grid in Europe will be under the control of the Europeans, the Ukrainians, and the Russians. The Ukrainian route handles 80% of Europe's gas imports from Russia. No non-European (geopolitical) interests will be allowed to sneak in. Enron, which before its collapse had ambitions to challenge the gas-trading firms in Europe, is out of the game.
Ukraine will not fully privatize its gas pipeline grid, but maintain national control, and otherwise operate the grid through a consortium group with leading Western European gas firms like Gaz de France, Ruhrgas, Enel. Their partner in the group will be a newly created Russian-Ukrainian joint venture between Neftogaz Ukrainy and GazProm. The Western Europeans are expected to pay Ukraine a net 1.5 billion euros for the arrangement.
The Slovakian gas pipeline grid will be majority-owned by Gaz de France and Ruhrgas in a joint venture that has just received the EU Commission's blessing; the Czech sections of the pipeline grid are majority-owned by Germany's RWE already.
As far as new investments in the ageing Ukrainian pipeline grid and compressor units are concerned, German producers of equipment hope for profitable contracts with the new consortium group, Klaus Mangold, chairman of the Eastern Trades Division of the German Industry, said in Berlin.
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