By: Andrew Rettman – EUobserver

Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer should run the European Commission according to MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit, while British ex-commissioner Chris Patten is eyeing an EU foreign minister role.

“A European mandate would not be the worst thing for Joschka,” Mr Cohn-Bendit told the Frankfurt Journal magazine on Tuesday (4 August).

The two politicians know each other since the 1970s, when both helped staged street protests for the radical left and later joined the Green party.

Mr Fischer was foreign minister under chancellor Gerhard Schroeder from 1998 to 2005. He supported German military intervention in Kosovo but opposed the Iraq war.

He came back onto the EU political scene in June by agreeing to promote the Nabucco gas pipeline – a project to link the EU directly to suppliers in the Caspian Sea region, reducing dependency on Russia.

Britain’s former EU commissioner for external relations, Chris Patten, has meanwhile told the FT that he would like to take up the new EU “foreign minister” role envisaged by the Lisbon treaty.

“I’m not campaigning for the job …But if I was approached, which I think is unlikely, I would certainly be very positive about it,” he said.

Mr Patten worked in Brussels from 1999 to 2004 earning a reputation as a critic of the then US president George Bush. He is currently the chancellor of Oxford University.

Mr Cohn-Bendit opposes the re-appointment of centre-right Portuguese politician Jose-Manuel Barroso as commission chief on grounds that he has tried to sideline the European Parliament.

But no serious competitors have come forward for the post since the 27 EU states voiced backing for Mr Barroso in June.

Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, former Finnish prime minister Paavo Lipponen, Finnish EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn and Dutch former Nato chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer have been named as potential EU foreign relations chiefs.

By: Hillel Fendel – Arutz Sheva

In Bethlehem, some 2,000 Fatah members are taking part in the first Fatah conference in 20 years. The very first sentence of the opening speech honored the “shahids” who killed themselves fighting Jews.

“In the name of the shahids and in the name of Jerusalem, the capital of the Palestinian state, we declare the opening of the sixth convention of our movement, Fatah.” With these words, convention chairman Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) – a former Palestinian Authority prime minister and speaker of the PA legislature – introduced the politically-charged gathering.

Shahids literally means “martyrs,” and the reference is to those who killed themselves or were killed in their war of terrorism against Israel.

Photos of fighters against Israel, including a young boy holding a rifle, dot the walls of the Bethlehem hotel hosting the convention. The official Fatah symbol includes a map of all of Israel – not just Judea and Samaria – on the backdrop of a rifle and sword – thus making Fatah indistinguishable from Hamas in their ultimate goals to replace all of Israel.

The convention has been called in order to formulate the Fatah ideological platform and determine the leadership of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority for the coming years. PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is seeking to retain power for himself and the “old guard,” in the face of a challenge from convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti and the younger generation.

Barghouti Seeking to Head PA
Barghouti is serving five life sentences in Israel for authorizing and organizing the murder of five Israelis in three separate attacks; he was acquitted “for lack of evidence” of murdering nine others and taking part in 33 other attacks.

Barghouti once summed up his approach to Israel and peace in the Middle East by saying, “After we attain a Palestinian state [in Judea and Samaria], there will be greater things for which to strive… There is no room for more than one state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.”

The PA’s Al-Quds newspaper published this week the contents of the message that Barghouti sent to the current Fatah conference. Barghouti outlined his view of the agreement he foresees with Israel: “We are still in the national liberation stage… The main, primary and holiest mission of the Palestinian nation [sic] in the homeland and in the diaspora is the continued national struggle to bring about the end of the Israeli occupation and the settlements, and [Israel’s] full retreat to the June 4, ’67 borders, including from occupied eastern Jerusalem, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with full sovereignty, with its capital in eastern Jerusalem, the ‘right of return’ [of the millions of descendants of Arabs who left Israel in 1948] and the fulfillment of their rights in accordance with UN Resolution 194, and the release of all prisoners and detainees.”

The terrorist leader further said that the “Palestinian resistance” – Arab-speak for “terrorism” – will end only after Israel’s “occupation” ends and when the national rights of the “Palestinian nation” are realized.

Barghouti said that negotiations must be resumed with Israel only if Israel first stops all settlement activity and agrees to release all PA prisoners within one year. Ironically, Hamas said it would not allow Gazans to travel to the conference until Fatah frees the 1,000 Hamas prisoners it holds in its prisons.

Abbas Against Hamas, Israel
Abu Mazen, for his part, spoke out strongly against his other rival, Hamas, calling them “princes of darkness who divide the homeland and the nation and harm democracy by preventing Fatah members from Gaza to take part in this convention.”

He said that Fatah has long been at the forefront of the PLO – “the same PLO that Hamas tried to conceal, as others have tried to do. But the PLO will continue to exist until our state is established.”

Abu Mazen also attacked Israel for trying to create new facts on the ground in eastern Jerusalem and claim the united city under Israeli sovereignty, even though “understandings reached with the Americans guarantee us Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley, and more.”

The convention is expected to include a clause in its platform negating the recognition of Israel as the Jewish State, and calling for “struggle using all means.” MK Avi Dichter, a former Public Security Minister, commented to Israeli media that this means that yet another intifada cannot be ruled out.

* Defiant Iran president takes oath Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been sworn in for a second term as Iran’s president, after weeks of post-election unrest.

* Russian Subs Patrolling Off East Coast of U.S. A pair of nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines has been patrolling off the eastern seaboard of the United States in recent days.

* ‘Stability in North could be shattered’ The current stability in the North is “in danger,” Deputy OC Northern Command Brig.-Gen. Alon Friedman was quoted by the Times as saying Tuesday.

* Fatah Convention Opens With Hamas-Like Platform In Bethlehem, some 2,000 Fatah members are taking part in the first Fatah conference in 20 years.

* Peres: Absence of peace means uncontrollable nuclear Mideast “If we miss this chance for peace, the Middle East will become an uncontrollable nuclear zone and there will be no turning back.”

* Netanyahu Visits Nuclear Facility in Possible Hint to Iran Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited the nuclear reactor facility in Dimona Tuesday.

* Peres: No peace means nuclear Mideast President Shimon Peres warned Tuesday that if Israel dallied on the peace front, the Middle East would almost certainly reach “a point of no return”.

* Hezbollah stockpiles 40,000 rockets near Israel border Three years after Israel fought a bloody war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, there are fears that hostilities could erupt again.

* New names emerge for top EU jobs Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer should run the European Commission according to MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit.

* Jordan backs effort for Arab concessions Jordan’s foreign minister strongly backed the Obama administration’s efforts to garner confidence-building measures toward Israel from Arab states Tuesday.

By: Mordechai Kedar – The Jerusalem Post

Recently, pressure has been applied by US President Barack Obama to prevent the construction of a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. If Israel deserves the title “state” it has to stand united in an effort to rebuff this pressure resolutely.

[Illustrative]
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski

There are several justifications for this strong Israeli stand. First, the struggle over settlement in Jerusalem is at heart a struggle over Israeli sovereignty in the city, based on 3,000 years of Jewish history in the holy city, long before Washington was the capital of the United States, Paris the capital of France and Cairo the capital of Egypt. Jerusalem, and particularly the area of the Temple, embodies the hopes and is the focus of the prayers of the Jewish people since it went into exile 1,940 years ago.

Zionism is based on the idea of returning to Zion, meaning to Jerusalem, not to Beersheba or Haifa or Jaffa. Every year at this time, during the month of Av, we weep for the destruction of Jerusalem, with mourning for Yavne, Tzippori, Masada and Gamla added to the mourning for Jerusalem. The prophets of Israel prophesied the salvation of Jerusalem and no other city. Conceding any portion of the city, especially the Temple Mount, would create a sense of destruction among many Jews. They then might lose their faith in the Zionist enterprise and react in ways that could endanger the unity of Israeli society.

Second, if the state of Israel concedes the Temple Mount and other parts of Jerusalem it would be signaling world Jewry that it has lost its link to Judaism and would thereby risk losing the support of many Jews in the world who would consider this an act of treachery against our religion, our history and the Jewish hope of salvation that was realized in part 42 years ago.

Third, Jerusalem never was, even for a day, the capital of a Palestinian or Arab entity. After the Muslim conquest in the seventh century, the capital was Ramleh, located 40 km from Jerusalem. Even Jordan, which ruled East Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967 did not make it its capital. Accordingly, the Palestinian demand to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine has no basis in history.

Fourth, in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the issue of Jerusalem does not stand alone: if Israel shows even a little flexibility on this question, it will invite pressures to concede “just a little” on the issue of refugees and the crack in the dam will widen and wreak destruction on the entire Zionist enterprise.

Fifth, concessions offered in neighborhoods adjacent to Jerusalem would place the capital of Israel within range of light weapons, enable snipers to target pedestrians and return the city back to the pre-1967 days of protective walls. Today the city is already within range of missiles and rockets from Ramallah and Bethlehem; moving the attackers even closer, within the line of sight of Jerusalem, would only increase their appetite for rendering the lives of Jews unbearable. No one in Israel or beyond can assure us that a future Palestinian government will deal with these attackers efficiently, without the bother of High Court injunctions and appeals from human rights activists.

Sixth, the territory of East Jerusalem was never under Jordanian sovereignty. Hence it is impossible to argue that East Jerusalem is “occupied territory”. At most this is disputed territory, to which the non-Jewish contender cannot be defined in sovereign terms since it is not a state. Accordingly, Israel has a considerable judicial advantage in seeking recognition of its annexation. Only politics is delaying this process.

The conclusion that emerges from this discussion is that a concession on Jerusalem or parts of the city constitutes surrender to a baseless Palestinian, Arab and Islamic demand and could endanger both the capital of Israel and the entire Zionist enterprise. Israel must expand and enrich Jewish residence in the historic capital of the Jewish people in order to eliminate once and forever the possibility of partitioning the city. We don’t have to generate superfluous friction by placing Jews in crowded Arab neighborhoods. But housing construction in the Shepherd Hotel location is important, if only because of the link between this structure and the Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who volunteered to recruit tens of thousands of Muslims for the Nazi extermination machine.

The entire city of Jerusalem should be developed on the basis of Jewish-Arab equality; interested Arab residents should be granted full Israeli citizenship. Israel should declare for all to see and hear on road signs, in official documents and in the language used by the Broadcasting Authority that the name of its capital is Yerushalaim, not Urshalim and certainly not al-Quds. The Islamic conquest of this country ended with WWI and there is no reason to perpetuate the name that desert tribes gave the eternal city of the Jewish people.

By: –

Turkey has marked a sad anniversary of 50 years knocking on Europe’s door, with some enthusiasts hoping that the EU’s recent deal on the Nabucco gas pipeline could speed up Ankara’s membership bid.

The Eurasian country of 74 million on Friday (31 July) marked a half century from the first official announcement of its application to join the EU, which was then called the European Economic Community.

On the same day in 1959, Turkey’s prime minister Adnan Menderes made the first partnership application to join the economic bloc of what was then six countries, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, created only two years before in 1957.

Ankara’s bid came before several other EU countries now seen as the bloc’s heavyweights, such as Britain or Spain, joined the currently 27-member club. But it has proceeded in a death-slow tempo and along with re-emerging doubts about the ultimate goal of the mutual relationship and contacts between Turkey and Europe.

First off, the EEC turned down the country’s application. In 1963 however, the two sides adopted an association agreement which did mention the membership prospects for Turkey. But it took almost 40 years for Ankara to acquire a formal candidate status and six more years to kick off the actual talks on the conditions to join the bloc, in 2005.

“Our country has no longer any tolerance for time wasting and delays,” Turkey’s chief negotiator with the EU, Egemen Bagis, said in a statement on the anniversary which he said the country remembers but is “not a cause for celebration,” AFP reported.

“We have to learn lessons from past mistakes, fulfil our responsibilities and achieve the goal of full membership as soon as possible,” Mr Bagis added, stressing Ankara’s determination to continue on the path of reform.

After four years of accession talks, Turkey has opened 11 chapters out of 35 policy areas which contain existing rules that need to be transcribed into all candidate countries’ national legislation.

From the outset, the process of opening and provisionally closing its negotiating chapters has been halted due to disagreements with Cyprus – as all current EU members need to give their formal blessing to any progress in the talks of candidates.

The dispute between the two countries dates back to Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974, which took place five days after a brief Greek-inspired coup. Ankara has been present with its troops in the northern part of the island, as the only country recognising the state of Turkish Cypriots.

In 2006, the EU decided to block eight negotiating areas from further discussion due to Ankara’s failure to meet its commitments regarding Cyprus, notably its refusal to allow Cypriot ships and planes into Turkish ports and airspace.

Nabucco pipeline

Recently, Nicosia refused to give its nod to a closure of Turkey’s energy chapter due to Ankara’s moves against the Cypriot efforts to exploit the island’s energy sources off its southern coast.

Ironically, Turkey is viewed as a key ally in future energy co-operation that could help break the bloc’s energy dependence on Russia. On 13 July, an intergovernmental agreement between Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria was signed by five prime ministers on the construction of the Nabucco pipeline.

The project, supported by both the EU and US, is due to diversify the current natural gas suppliers and delivery routes for Europe, by pumping gas from Erzurum in Turkey to Baumgarten an der March in Austria.

Speaking at the signing ceremony in July, the European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso hinted the pipeline could eventually improve the chances for Turkey’s EU bid.

“I believe that with the arrival of the first gas – and some experts have said this will be as early as 2014 – this agreement will open the door to a new era between the EU and Turkey,” Mr Barroso said, adding: “Gas pipes may be made of steel, but Nabucco can cement the links between our people.”

But some Turkish experts warn that similar hopes in Ankara might prove unrealistic.

“There are many countries with whom the EU trades extensively; however, the EU did not give any hope of EU membership to any of them. I think it would be wrong to build a direct link between Nabucco and the EU,” Emre İseri, a professor at Kadir Has University, said, according to Today’s Zaman daily.

By: Steve Connor – independent.co.uk

The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.

Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.

In an interview with The Independent, Dr Birol said that the public and many governments appeared to be oblivious to the fact that the oil on which modern civilisation depends is running out far faster than previously predicted and that global production is likely to peak in about 10 years – at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated.

But the first detailed assessment of more than 800 oil fields in the world, covering three quarters of global reserves, has found that most of the biggest fields have already peaked and that the rate of decline in oil production is now running at nearly twice the pace as calculated just two years ago. On top of this, there is a problem of chronic under-investment by oil-producing countries, a feature that is set to result in an “oil crunch” within the next five years which will jeopardise any hope of a recovery from the present global economic recession, he said.

In a stark warning to Britain and the other Western powers, Dr Birol said that the market power of the very few oil-producing countries that hold substantial reserves of oil – mostly in the Middle East – would increase rapidly as the oil crisis begins to grip after 2010.

“One day we will run out of oil, it is not today or tomorrow, but one day we will run out of oil and we have to leave oil before oil leaves us, and we have to prepare ourselves for that day,” Dr Birol said. “The earlier we start, the better, because all of our economic and social system is based on oil, so to change from that will take a lot of time and a lot of money and we should take this issue very seriously,” he said.

“The market power of the very few oil-producing countries, mainly in the Middle East, will increase very quickly. They already have about 40 per cent share of the oil market and this will increase much more strongly in the future,” he said.

There is now a real risk of a crunch in the oil supply after next year when demand picks up because not enough is being done to build up new supplies of oil to compensate for the rapid decline in existing fields.

The IEA estimates that the decline in oil production in existing fields is now running at 6.7 per cent a year compared to the 3.7 per cent decline it had estimated in 2007, which it now acknowledges to be wrong.

“If we see a tightness of the markets, people in the street will see it in terms of higher prices, much higher than we see now. It will have an impact on the economy, definitely, especially if we see this tightness in the markets in the next few years,” Dr Birol said.

“It will be especially important because the global economy will still be very fragile, very vulnerable. Many people think there will be a recovery in a few years’ time but it will be a slow recovery and a fragile recovery and we will have the risk that the recovery will be strangled with higher oil prices,” he told The Independent.

In its first-ever assessment of the world’s major oil fields, the IEA concluded that the global energy system was at a crossroads and that consumption of oil was “patently unsustainable”, with expected demand far outstripping supply.

Oil production has already peaked in non-Opec countries and the era of cheap oil has come to an end, it warned.

In most fields, oil production has now peaked, which means that other sources of supply have to be found to meet existing demand.

Even if demand remained steady, the world would have to find the equivalent of four Saudi Arabias to maintain production, and six Saudi Arabias if it is to keep up with the expected increase in demand between now and 2030, Dr Birol said.

“It’s a big challenge in terms of the geology, in terms of the investment and in terms of the geopolitics. So this is a big risk and it’s mainly because of the rates of the declining oil fields,” he said.

“Many governments now are more and more aware that at least the day of cheap and easy oil is over… [however] I’m not very optimistic about governments being aware of the difficulties we may face in the oil supply,” he said.

Environmentalists fear that as supplies of conventional oil run out, governments will be forced to exploit even dirtier alternatives, such as the massive reserves of tar sands in Alberta, Canada, which would be immensely damaging to the environment because of the amount of energy needed to recover a barrel of tar-sand oil compared to the energy needed to collect the same amount of crude oil.

“Just because oil is running out faster than we have collectively assumed, does not mean the pressure is off on climate change,” said Jeremy Leggett, a former oil-industry consultant and now a green entrepreneur with Solar Century.

“Shell and others want to turn to tar, and extract oil from coal. But these are very carbon-intensive processes, and will deepen the climate problem,” Dr Leggett said.

“What we need to do is accelerate the mobilisation of renewables, energy efficiency and alternative transport.

“We have to do this for global warming reasons anyway, but the imminent energy crisis redoubles the imperative,” he said.

Oil: An unclear future

*Why is oil so important as an energy source?

Crude oil has been critical for economic development and the smooth functioning of almost every aspect of society. Agriculture and food production is heavily dependent on oil for fuel and fertilisers. In the US, for instance, it takes the direct and indirect use of about six barrels of oil to raise one beef steer. It is the basis of most transport systems. Oil is also crucial to the drugs and chemicals industries and is a strategic asset for the military.

*How are oil reserves estimated?

The amount of oil recoverable is always going to be an assessment subject to the vagaries of economics – which determines the price of the oil and whether it is worth the costs of pumping it out –and technology, which determines how easy it is to discover and recover. Probable reserves have a better than 50 per cent chance of getting oil out. Possible reserves have less than 50 per cent chance.

*Why is there such disagreement over oil reserves?

All numbers tend to be informed estimates. Different experts make different assumptions so it is under- standable that they can come to different conclusions. Some countries see the size of their oilfields as a national security issue and do not want to provide accurate information. Another problem concerns how fast oil production is declining in fields that are past their peak production. The rate of decline can vary from field to field and this affects calculations on the size of the reserves. A further factor is the expected size of future demand for oil.

*What is “peak oil” and when will it be reached?

This is the point when the maximum rate at which oil is extracted reaches a peak because of technical and geological constraints, with global production going into decline from then on. The UK Government, along with many other governments, has believed that peak oil will not occur until well into the 21st Century, at least not until after 2030. The International Energy Agency believes peak oil will come perhaps by 2020. But it also believes that we are heading for an even earlier “oil crunch” because demand after 2010 is likely to exceed dwindling supplies.

*With global warming, why should we be worried about peak oil?

There are large reserves of non-conventional oil, such as the tar sands of Canada. But this oil is dirty and will produce vast amounts of carbon dioxide which will make a nonsense of any climate change agreement. Another problem concerns how fast oil production is declining in fields that are past their peak production. The rate of decline can vary from field to field and this affects calculations on the size of the reserves. If we are not adequately prepared for peak oil, global warming could become far worse than expected.

By: Andrew Rettmann – EUobserver

Atheists could attack galleries for showing religious art and witches could claim the right to use church halls under a draft EU equal rights law, the Roman Catholic church has warned.

The EU bill aims to curtail discrimination on grounds of religion, disability, age or sexual preference in social situations not covered by existing labour law, such as renting properties.

The directive could enter into force in 2011 if member states give unanimous approval in discussions planned for November by the Swedish EU presidency.

The criticism was put forward in recent days by the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales as part of a British government consultation procedure.

The bishops’ group “commends” the EU effort to protect “the innate dignity of every person.”

But it calls for the legal text to soften a clause against creating an “offensive environment” and to add an exemption to let religious organisations “function in accordance with [their] ethos.”

“There is a risk that practical implementation may effectively turn the directive into an instrument of oppression against one or other group,” the church paper, signed by bishops’ conference general secretary Monsignor Andrew Summersgill, says.

“Homosexual groups …may declare themselves offended by the presentation of the Catholic Church’s moral teaching on homosexual acts; Catholics may declare themselves offended by a ‘Gay Pride’ march; an atheist may be offended by religious pictures in an art gallery.”

“It is not clear whether [the bill] would apply to the activities of a Catholic priest, if, as recently occurred, he were to refuse to take a booking for a Church Hall from a group of witches,” it adds.

The European Parliament passed the draft law in April by 363 votes against 226. Left-leaning and liberal MEPs championed the bill. But centre-right deputies said it will create too much red tape.

By: Valentina Pop – EUobserver

Nato’s new secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen wants to improve the alliance’s practical co-operation with the European Union by trying to persuade Greek and Turkish leaders to set aside their bilateral disputes blocking the interaction of the two organisations.

“We all know that there are other obstacles towards an improved co-operation between Nato and the EU. This is a priority for me, to get rid of these obstacles,” Mr Rasmussen said on Monday (3 August) during his first press conference as secretary general of the North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato). He formally took over the post on 1 August.

First day at work for new Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Photo: Nato)

His predecessor conceded a month ago his “disappointment” over the lack of a strategic partnership between the two organisations both located in Brussels and sharing 21 of the EU’s 27 and Nato’s 28 members.

The main sticking point in EU-Nato relations is the unresolved status of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Its southern, Greek-Cypriot part, is a member of the EU, while the northern Turkish dominated part of the island is only recognised as an independent state by Ankara. As a result, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey refuse to allow the EU and Nato to share security information.

Mr Rasmussen on Monday said Greece and Turkey would be among the first Nato members for him to visit this month, and “obviously this issue will be one of my focal points.”

The Dane hailed France’s return to the military structures of the alliance earlier this year and was confident that this decision “will definitely facilitate a process towards strengthening co-operation between Nato and the EU.”

He also pledged to draw on his “network” of EU leaders he knows very well as a a former Danish premier in the past eight years in order to make the two organisations work together properly.

Mr Rasmussen’s task will be to chair Nato meetings and co-ordinate the decision-making process among member states, as well as the drafting and negotiating of a new strategic concept for the alliance.

The new document, to be adopted by member states next year in Lisbon, would upgrade the security priorities of Nato, taking into account new threats such as terrorism, piracy, energy disruptions and climate change.

The new Nato secretary general will be advised by a group of 12 experts, chaired by former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright and Jeroen van der Veer, former CEO of Royal Dutch Shell.

An online discussion forum was also launched on Monday, with Mr Rasmussen stressing that he wanted “to assure everyone who shares their views with us, that they will be heard.”

Mending ties with the Arab world

Dialogue with the Arab world was of particular importance to the new secretary general, who announced that he would meet in person with each ambassador of the 11 partners in Northern Africa and the Middle East, in an effort to mend ties after the so-called cartoon row back in 2005 when he was prime minister of Denmark.

Mr Rasmussen became embroiled in a dispute with Muslim countries outraged by the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. As a premier, he refused to take any government actions against the paper and cited freedom of expression as one of the founding elements of democracy.

Nato has invited Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Mauritania, Morocco, Qatar, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates to work more closely with it on security in two groups known as the Mediterranean Dialogue and Istanbul Co-operation Initiative.

“Let me assure the governments and people that I am fully committed to building stronger relations with them on the basis of mutual respect, understanding and trust,” Mr Rasmussen said.

No dreams about Russia

Strained after the Georgian war a year ago, Nato-Russia relations would be one of Mr Rasmussen’s main priorities, he said.

“Now, I’m not a dreamer,” Mr Rasmussen admitted. “It is obvious that there will be fundamental issues on which we disagree. We have to insist, for example, that Russia fully complies with its international obligations, including respecting the territorial integrity and political freedom of its neighbours,” he said in reference to the Russian military presence in Georgian breakaway provinces Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Moscow has recognised as independent countries.

“But we can not let those areas of disagreement poison the whole relationship,” he added.

Nato froze ties with Russia after the war in August last year, but re-started formal co-operation in spring.

Regarding Ukraine and Georgia’s prospects of becoming Nato members – another sticking point in Nato-Russia relations – Mr Rasmussen said that either country can join once it fulfills the criteria, but neither has done so yet.

“I consider it a very important challenge to convince the Russian people and leadership that Nato is really not an enemy,” he explained.

By: Lisbeth Kirk – EUobserver

The European Union’s population is set to reach the 500 million mark in 2009, new figures from Eurostat, the bloc’s statistics agency, showed on Wednesday (3 August).

On 1 January 2009 the population was estimated to stand at 499.8 million, compared with 497.7 million on 1 January 2008.

Germany is still the most populous EU state, but has the lowest birthrate (Photo: wikipedia)

The EU population has been on the rise since 2004 due to an increase in birth rates combined with annual immigration of between 1.5 and 2 million people.

Last year, 5.4 million babies were born in the 27 EU member states, which translates as 10.9 per 1,000 inhabitants.

Only in Germany fewer children were born in 2008 than in previous years (8.2 per 1,000 inhabitants in 2008 compared to 8.3 in 2007).

Outside the EU, Turkey also saw a significant drop in its birth-rate (from 19.4 in 2007 to 17.9 in 2008).

Ireland still holds the record as the most fertile EU country (16.9 per 1,000 inhabitants) followed by France (13.0), the UK (12.9), Estonia (12.0), Sweden (11.9) and Denmark (11.8).

At the other end, Germans are making the fewest babies. Austria had the second lowest birthrate in the EU (9.3) and despite the Italians’ reputation for romance, the country had the third lowest figure (9.6).

At the other end of the scale, the EU27 deathrate was stable at 9.7 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants in 2008, the same as in 2007.

Bulgaria has the highest deathrate among member states (14.5), followed by Latvia (13.7). The lowest deathrates were recorded in Ireland, Cyprus and Turkey (6.4).

Germany is still by far the most populous EU country with 82 million inhabitants on 1 January 2009, followed by France (64 million), the UK (62 million) and Italy (60 million).

On immigration, Luxembourg welcomed the most newcomers per capita (15.8 per 1,000 inhabitants), followed by Slovenia (9.6), Spain (9.1) and Italy (7.3).

Four countries are shedding people however, with people leaving Lithuania (-2.3 per 1,000 inhabitants), Latvia (-1.1), Poland (-0.4) and Bulgaria (-0.1).

* Abbas: Keep on with talks ‘as long as there’s a tiny bit of hope’ At the opening of Fatah’s sixth general assembly Tuesday morning, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that his people must persist with peace negotiations with Israel.

* EU population to hit 500 million The European Union’s population is set to reach the 500 million mark in 2009.

* Zawahri: Israel must be wiped off map Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaida’s second-in-command, said on Monday that Israel should be wiped off the map.

* Arab leaders, on U.S. visits, put onus on Israel Two visiting Arab leaders sought to ratchet up diplomatic pressure on Israel in Washington.

* US Mideast plan anticipated ‘in matter of weeks’ Despite recent Arab statements opposing US demands for confidence-building steps towards Israel, the US anticipates it will have the pieces in place to formally re-launch the Arab-Israel peace process.

* Global economy at risk from oil price rise The world economy cannot sustain any further rise in the oil price, the International Energy Agency’s chief economist warned as oil prices rose toward a record high for the year.

* New Nato chief pledges to fix relations with EU Nato’s new secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen wants to improve the alliance’s practical co-operation with the European Union.

* ‘Israel soon to be larger than Diaspora’ Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu welcomed a planeload of olim on Tuesday at Ben Gurion Airport, telling them “we’re close to a tipping point.”

* Bill Clinton on N Korea mission Former US President Bill Clinton has arrived in North Korea on a surprise visit to discuss the fate of two jailed US reporters.

* Catholics alarmed by EU equal rights law Atheists could attack galleries for showing religious art and witches could claim the right to use church halls under a draft EU equal rights law.