This article titled “Al-Qaida offshoot hopes to turn Africa’s Sahel region into a ‘new Somalia’” was written by Simon Tisdall, for The Guardian on Thursday 8th December 2011 19.02 UTC

An offshoot of al-Qaida is working to turn the whole of Africa’s Sahel region into a “new Somalia” and terrorist bases there pose a growing threat to European and pan-African security, a panel of experts has warned.

Jerome Spinoza, head of the Africa bureau in the French ministry of defence, said the sub-Saharan Sahel area, up to 1,000km wide and stretching from the Atlantic in the west to the Red Sea in the east, presented challenges that western policymakers ignored at their peril.

“Instability is on the rise,” Spinoza told the Chatham House thinktank in London on Thursday. “Without a meaningful policy, the area could constitute a lasting safe haven for jihadists.”

Robert Fowler, a former UN special envoy to Niger and Canadian diplomat who was kidnapped and held hostage for four months in 2008-9 by al-Qaida in the Maghreb (AQIM), said the 31-strong group of captors was well-disciplined and wholly concentrated on its aim of creating an Islamic caliphate embracing the Muslim lands of Africa and the Middle East.

“These men are highly motivated and totally ascetic,” Fowler said. “These guys have no needs. They are dressed in rags. They have a bag of rice and a belt of ammunition and that’s it. I was held in 23 different locations in about 70 days. They are organised. They can break camp in under four minutes.”

Fowler continued: “This was the most focused group of young men I have ever encountered in my life. They are totally committed to jihad. They said to me, ‘We fight to die, you fight to go home to your wife and kids. Guess who will win?’ Even if it takes 200 years … They want to turn the Sahel into a new Somalia.”

Fowler said the terrorist threat to Europe’s southern flank had risen after advanced weapons were plundered during the collapse of the Gaddafi regime in Libya. “They (AQIM) are now equipped with enormous amounts of Libyan weapons and I mean sophisticated weapons such as 20,000 [shoulder-mounted] SA-24 missiles, heavy mortars, heavy artillery and thousands of anti-tank mines … The UN has demanded they be handed over. Well, good luck with that.”

The Sahel region embraces southern Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, southern Algeria, Niger, northern Nigeria, Chad, South Sudan and Darfur in western Sudan, northern Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Spinoza said a host of critical issues faced the region going beyond terrorism. They included recurring rebellions by nomadic Tuareg tribesmen, some of whom were armed by and fought as mercenaries for Gaddafi in this year’s Libya conflict, cocaine trafficking to Europe from the west African coast, and people and arms smuggling.

The region was also confronted by rapid population growth, weak and ineffective governance, inter-state tensions, poor access to education and employment, and increasingly acute food supply problems exacerbated by climate change and the southward advance of the Sahara desert, he said.

AQIM was exploiting the resulting instability, he suggested, spreading its influence south from Algeria and raising the prospect of transcontinental link-ups with Boko Haram militant Islamists in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Spinoza called for a joined-up approach by the international community, suggesting interested countries including France, the Netherlands and the US needed to coordinate their policies with regional and local players. “The EU’s strategy for security involves development, rule of law and (non-military) security but the EU needs to be more concrete,” he said.

Speaking this week, Kristalina Georgieva, the EU commissioner for humanitarian aid crisis response, said the Sahel was likely to experience severe food shortages next year because of erratic rainfall and localised dry spells.

Seven million people were already facing shortages in Niger, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria and Burkina Faso, she said. Current trends pointed to a massive problem of food availability next year.

The European commission last month increased humanitarian funding to the Sahel by €10m (£8.5m) to a total of €55m this year. Niger and Mauritania have already declared a crisis, prepared national action plans, and appealed for international help.

At the eastern end of the Sahel arc, 13 million people remained in need of emergency help and the crisis there was expected to last until the spring and perhaps the summer of 2012, Georgieva said.

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This article titled “Israel approves new settler homes in East Jerusalem” was written by Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem, for The Guardian on Tuesday 27th September 2011 19.27 UTC

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, joined a wave of condemnation of Israel’s approval of the construction of 1,100 homes in an East Jerusalem settlement on Tuesday, which puts at risk international efforts to persuade Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to return to talks.

The move was “counter-productive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties”, Clinton said. “As you know, we have long urged both sides to avoid any kind of action which could undermine trust, including, and perhaps most particularly, in Jerusalem, any action that could be viewed as provocative by either side.”

Lady Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, called for the plan to be reversed, saying settlement expansion “threatens the viability of an agreed two-state solution”.

The expansion of Gilo, a settlement built across the Green Line, was authorised by a Jerusalem planning committee and would be subject to public consultation before final approval.

The Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the move a “slap in the face to all international efforts to protect the fading prospects of peace in the region”. Referring to criticism of its “unilateral” act in seeking recognition of its state, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said “there could be nothing more unilateral than a huge, new round of settlement building on Palestinian land”.

Following the PA’s submission of its request to be admitted to the UN as a full member state, the Middle East Quartet – the US, UN, Russia and the EU – called for both parties to return to the negotiating table. In a statement setting out a timetable for talks, the quartet urged the parties “to refrain from provocative actions”, which was interpreted as a coded call for Israel to hold back from settlement expansion. Neither party has formally responded to the quartet’s statement, but the Palestinians have made clear they want a further settlement freeze before more talks.

The UN announced it was concerned about the decision to build further in Gilo. “Today’s decision … ignores the quartet’s appeal of last Friday to the parties to refrain from provocative actions,” said a spokesman for Robert Serry, the UN special co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process. “This sends the wrong signal at this sensitive time. Settlement activity is contrary to the road map and to international law, and undermines the prospect of resuming negotiations and reaching a two-state solution to the conflict.”

The expansion of Gilo, a huge settlement built on land between Jerusalem and Bethlehem that was captured by Israel in 1967 and later annexed, has been on the table for more than two years. The settlement is illegal under international law. The Israeli government asserts it has the right to build Jewish settlements anywhere in the city.

The approval came as the chairmen of several rightwing parties in Israel wrote to Netanyahu to urge him to annex all West Bank settlements and accelerate settlement construction in response to the Palestinian bid for statehood. They also called for financial sanctions and curbs on Palestinian construction in areas of the West Bank controlled by Israel.

Tensions in the West Bank between settlers and Palestinians have risen sharply this September with the demand for Palestinian statehood at the UN.

An Israeli police investigation concluded that a settler and his infant son, who were killed when their car overturned last Friday, had been struck by a rock thrown by Palestinians. At their funeral on Sunday night, a rabbi called for “collective punishment” of Palestinians, saying “there are no innocents in a war”.

The Israeli security service, Shin Bet, confirmed it had urged the education ministry to halt funding to a religious school in the settlement of Yitzhar. According to a report in the news service Haaretz, security services said senior rabbis were inciting students to attack Palestinian villagers.

A Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli soldiers during a protest last Friday against settlers in the West Bank village of Qusra.

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This article titled “Russia refuses more Syria sanctions” was written by Ian Black, for The Guardian on Monday 12th September 2011 19.44 UTC

Russia has rebuffed western attempts to increase the pressure on the Syrian regime, led by Bashar al-Assad, as new United Nations figures show at least 2,600 people have been killed since anti-government protests erupted in March.

President Dmitry Medvedev said after talks with David Cameron that additional pressure was “absolutely not needed” because existing UN and European Union sanctions were squeezing the regime.

Britain, the US and France have been pushing for tougher action by the UN but have met opposition from Russia and China, veto-wielding permanent members of the security council, and others.

The latest UN casualty figures – 400 more than previously given – were announced on Monday by the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, who called the situation “dire” and again complained that Syria had refused access for a UN humanitarian assessment team.

Syria has banned almost all journalists from entering the country but new images have emerged of killings, injuries and funerals of victims.

One clip, [WARNING: Contains explicit images] posted by the Local Co-ordination Committees, appeared to show the final moments of a 14-year-old boy, Izzat al-Babidi, reportedly shot in the head during a demonstration in the Damascus suburb of Douma on Monday morning.

Other pictures showed hundreds of people attending the funeral of another boy, Subhi Salam, who was fatally wounded by a sniper during protests last Friday.

Pillay’s figure of 2,600 dead was immediately contradicted by a senior aide to Assad, Bouthaina Shaaban. “There are 700 casualties among the army and the police, and 700 among the rebels,” she said in Moscow. “We have a list [of the victims' names], and we can provide it.”

Shaaban’s visit was part of an attempt by Syria to stave off any danger that its Russian ally would abandon it. Medvedev appeared to show that he would stand firm, calling for a “well-balanced position between both parties to the conflict, the Syrian government and the rebels”. This was a far cry from the now firm western position that Assad has lost all legitimacy. Russia’s support brought a call from Syrian opposition activists for a “day of anger”.

Al-Arabiya TV quoted opposition sources as claiming that Syrian military aircraft had been flying low over the central city of Homs, where many have died in recent weeks. Syrian activists describe fighting in the nearby Rastan area between army defectors and loyalists, and an incipient “low-intensity civil war”, with Islamists smuggling in weapons from abroad.

The Saudi-owned channel also reported three clergymen from the Assad family’s Alawite sect in Homs as distancing themselves from the “atrocities” carried out by the regime. This week, opposition figures plan to unveil the final makeup of the Syrian National Council, a broad coalition of different anti-Assad groups.

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This article titled “Priest known for extreme views invited to European parliament by MEPs” was written by Rajeev Syal, for The Guardian on Tuesday 21st June 2011 22.19 UTC

A controversial Polish priest known for running a radio station which regularly broadcasts anti-semitic and homophobic views attended the European parliament on Tuesday at the invitation of politicians from a conservative group in Europe, the Guardian has learned.

Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, whose Radio Maryja station has been criticised by the Vatician, former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and Jewish organisations for its extreme views, was invited to attend by Polish MEPs from the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).

His attendance provoked a surprising outburst from British MEP TImothy Kirkhope, the deputy chairman of the ECR group, who said that he was disappointed not to have been told in advance that such a controversial figure had been invited to attend by fellow MEPs.

“I have never met this gentleman, but he is a controversial figure who has reportedly promoted homophobia and anti-semitism.

“I will be raising this invitation with the group at the earliest opportunity. In future, an invitation should be authorised before being issued using the ECR’s name,” he said.

Kirkhope, who is a leading member of the Conservative Friends of Israel, said he did not know if the ECR’s funds had been used to bring Rydzyk to the European parliament. “Who knows [whether the group's funds were used], this raises a number of issues which need to be discussed at length,” he added.

Rydzyk appeared at a four-hour conference to discuss climate change and renewable energy. The event was organised at the European parliament by Marek Grobarczyk and Tomasz Poreba, two Polish MEPs who are members of the ECR. A British MEP, Julie Girling, was supposed to speak at the meeting, but pulled out at short notice, insiders said.

Rydzyk, the owner of Radio Maryja, was named the sixth most influential man in Poland last year by one newspaper, because of the radio station’s popularity with rural, ultra-conservative communities.

Radio Maryja has been at the centre of criticism and controversy since it was established 11 years ago, with critics arguing that it is vehemently anti-semitic, homophobic and xenophobic.

In January 2000, a guest “historian” from a Catholic university claimed that Auschwitz was not an extermination camp but a large labour camp for Jews.

In 2007, on tapes released by the weekly magazine Wprost, a voice alleged to be Rydzyk’s was heard accusing the then president, Lech Kaczynski, of being in the pocket of Poland’s Jewish community.

“You know what this is about: Poland giving [the Jews] bn (£40bn).

“They [the Jews] will come to you and say: ‘Give me your coat! Take off your trousers! Give me your shoes!’” Rydzyk is alleged to have said, according to the magazine. Rydzyk has refused to deny making the comments, according to the BBC.

Rydzyk has been described as a “kingmaker” in Poland. Last year, he reportedly struck a deal with the Law and Justice Party in which his supporters will make up 50% of the party’s candidates in Poland’s general election, due this year, in return for his backing.

Polish members of the ECR last night stood by the invitation. One told the Guardian: “He [Rydzyk] is misunderstood. He is a very good priest and his views are held by many in Poland.”

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This article titled “Greek crisis: EU leaders must act decisively or face disaster, says IMF” was written by Ian Traynor in Brussels, Larry Elliott, for The Guardian on Monday 20th June 2011 23.05 UTC

The International Monetary Fund has warned European leaders that their hesitant response to Greece’s debt crisis risks triggering the world’s second global financial meltdown in three years.

As EU finance ministers scrambled to build a second bailout of Greece in the space of a year, but delayed throwing Athens a €12bn lifeline until next month, the IMF delivered its bluntest public criticism to date of the way EU leaders have handled the crisis.

“Policymakers are yet again facing uncomfortable dilemmas, raising uncertainty about the final outcome,” the fund said in its annual assessment of the eurozone. “With deeply intertwined fiscal and financial problems, failure to undertake decisive action could rapidly spread the tensions to the core of the euro area and result in large global spillovers … a disorderly outcome cannot be excluded.”

The warning came as the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, was trying to secure agreement from MPs for a package of measures to cut the country’s huge debts that would mean deep wage cuts and sweeping privatisation. Tonight, he faces a crucial parliamentary vote of confidence that could yet derail the delivery of the rescue funds.

After meeting the ministers in Luxembourg, John Lipsky, the IMF’s acting head, warned that the Greek crisis would “be felt much more strongly around the world” if it was allowed to draw in core eurozone banks. He indirectly signalled that Europe’s attempts to get to grips with the crisis over the past 18 months had been disjointed, indecisive, and unproductive.

Lipsky, an American who assumed the leadership of the IMF last month when Dominique Strauss-Kahn of France was forced to resign after being arrested on charges of attempted rape in New York, sounded frustrated with EU leaders’ slow-motion handling of the crisis and exasperated by the arguments raging for months. “The crisis has brought the euro area to a crossroads … Only a cohesive and co-operative approach to crisis management will be successful,” he said.

Following weeks of feuding between Germany and the European Central Bank over whether Greece should effectively restructure some of its debt by forcing losses on private creditors, Lipsky demanded an end to the argument, supporting the ECB against Berlin.

“It is essential to bring the debate about debt restructuring and the set-up of the ESM quickly to a close,” he said, referring to the European stability mechanism, or permanent eurozone bailout fund, to be established in 2013.

His criticisms appeared directed mainly at Germany, which had been insisting Greece’s second bailout should entail “haircuts” or losses for the private banks, pension funds, and insurance companies owed billions by Greece in government debt. The Germans have also been seeking to establish a compulsory role for private creditors in the permanent regime to come into force in two years’ time.

The Luxembourg meeting failed to finalise both a second bailout, expected to amount to €120bn over three years, and to disburse a tranche of €12bn from the rescue launched in May last year, declaring that first Papandreou would need to win cross-party support for the radical austerity and privatisation being pushed through parliament.

“First, Greece must fulfil the conditions. Then we can decide on a new programme so that the payout of the next instalment is possible,” said Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister. If Papandreou failed “this path cannot be taken”.

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the euro group of 17 EU states, called a further meeting of finance ministers for 3 July, a week on Sunday. Greece needs the €12bn by mid-July to avoid default.

The second bailout is to be “financed through both official and private sources … in the form of informal and voluntary roll-overs of existing Greek debt at maturity for a substantial reduction of the required year-by-year funding within the programme, while avoiding a selective default for Greece”, the eurozone ministers said.

The voluntary role of private creditors was a victory for the ECB, while the mention of a “substantial reduction” was aimed at satisfying Germany.

The EU ministers demanded support for Papandreou from opposition parties. “Given the length, magnitude and nature of required reforms in Greece, national unity is a prerequisite for success,” said their statement.

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This article titled “Serbia arrests Ratko Mladic to ‘lift stain’ of Bosnia atrocities” was written by Ian Traynor, Europe editor, for The Guardian on Thursday 26th May 2011 19.11 UTC

Europe’s most wanted war crimes suspect, General Ratko Mladic, was arrested in a north Serbian village 16 years after commanding the worst atrocity on the continent since the Nazi era.

The surprise arrest of the genocide suspect, wanted for the mass murder of almost 8,000 men in Srebrenica, turned a page in the history of the Balkans, offering Serbia closure on decades as a virtual international pariah and giving the country a chance to take its place as a pivotal regional democracy eventually anchored in the European Union.

“We have lifted the stain from Serbia and from Serbs wherever they live,” said President Boris Tadic, announcing the arrest of the fugitive who had been living in a cousin’s cottage in a village north-east of Belgrade under the alias Milorad Komadic. “We have ended a difficult period in our history,” Tadic added.

The 69-year-old retired general, who commanded the Bosnian Serb military during the 1992-95 war and earned a fearsome reputation as the Butcher of Bosnia, was taken to a special court in Belgrade pending extradition to the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Mladic appeared in court on Thursday night, looking frail and walking slowly. He wore a baseball cap and could be heard on state TV saying “good day” to those present.

Mladic’s lawyer said the judge cut short the questioning because the suspect’s “poor physical state” left him unable to communicate. “He is aware he is under arrest, he knows where he is, and he said he does not recognise The Hague tribunal,” said attorney Milos Saljic.

Deputy war crimes prosecutor Bruno Vekaric said that Mladic is taking a lot of medicine, but “responds very rationally to everything that is going on”.

Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime political leader arrested three years ago, is on trial in The Hague on similar charges to Mladic. To speed the proceedings, there will be attempts to merge the two trials into one, sources said.

In a message from his cell on the Dutch coast, Karadzic said he was “very sorry” for Mladic’s “loss of freedom”.

According to officials in Belgrade and accounts to the Serbian media, Mladic wore no disguise and put up no resistance when detained by the Serbian security service in the village of Lazarevo. The general was said to have suffered a stroke, and to be paralysed in one arm. “I am Ratko Mladic,” he reportedly said when arrested.

Local people took to the streets to show their support for Mladic, singing Serbian nationalist songs. “To us, Mladic is a hero, a military hero,” said one, who would only give his name as Paul. “He protected us from Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, even Slovenia. He saved our families,” he said.

The image of a frail and sickly rural retiree was a far cry from the strutting, imperious commander of the 1990s who was a monstrous figure to the Muslims of Bosnia and whose name is synonymous with the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 when Mladic’s forces overran the Bosnian Muslim “safe haven” hill town, then methodically rounded up the males and murdered almost 8,000.

Mladic will be allowed to appeal against extradition, meaning it could be at least a week before he is flown to the Netherlands. The Serbian government is under strong international pressure to get Mladic to The Hague. Tadic said preparations were under way to send Mladic to the Netherlands.

“Mladic will face the charges against him in the international tribunal,” said Lady Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief.

Serge Brammertz, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, said: “We await arrangements for his transfer to The Hague where he will stand trial.”

Barack Obama, in France for the G8 summit, said Mladic must answer to his victims and the world in a court of law.

The arrest represents a huge boost to Serbia’s attempts to move on from a violent past and to try to catch up with other parts of the Balkans in the race towards integration in the EU and possibly Nato.

The arrest came as a coda to the experiment in international justice that has been the Hague tribunal for almost 20 years. Only one of 161 people charged with war crimes remains at large – Goran Hadzic, a wartime leader of the Croatian Serbs.

The continued liberty of Mladic, the most notorious of the Balkan warlords of the 90s, has been the biggest block on Serbia’s international ambitions for years. Following the arrest and extradition in 2008 of Karadzic, as well as the transfer of the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague in 2001, Belgrade is confident it is now washing away the stigma of war crimes.

The Srebrenica massacre was the worst atrocity in Europe for decades and the only event in Bosnia that the tribunal has judged to have been an act of genocide in a war that left 100,000 dead, two thirds of them Bosnian Muslims.

Mladic also faces charges of orchestrating a campaign of terror against the civilian population of Sarajevo, the city his forces kept under siege for more than three years during which 10,000 were killed, of taking UN peacekeepers hostage, and of “the murders, persecution, forcible transfer, detention and mistreatment of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the campaign to permanently remove such persons from the territory under the control of [his] forces”.

Munira Subasic, who heads the association of Bosnian women who lost sons, fathers and husbands at Srebrenica, said: “I’m sorry for all the victims who are dead and cannot see this day.”

When Mladic was indicted by the tribunal in 1995, the judge described the alleged crimes as “truly scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history”.

The prosecution evidence, said Judge Fouad Riad, pointed to deeds of “unimaginable savagery … men and women mutilated and slaughtered, children killed before their mothers’ eyes, a grandfather forced to eat the liver of his own grandson”.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato secretary general, said: “Mladic played a key role in some of the darkest episodes of Balkan and European history.”

Additional reporting by Kevin Burden in Lazarevo.

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This article titled “Portugal seeks EU bailout due to debt crisis” was written by Larry Elliott, Heather Stewart, Simon Goodley and agencies, for The Guardian on Wednesday 6th April 2011 20.26 UTC

Portugal’s prime minister has said his country will ask for a bailout due to its high debts and difficulty raising money on international markets.

Prime Minister José Sócrates said “the government decided today to ask the European Commission for financial help”.

Portugal becomes the third financially troubled eurozone country after Greece and Ireland to request assistance from Europe’s bailout fund and the IMF.

Analysts expect Portugal will need up to €80bn. A bailout had long been expected as Portugal, one of the 17-nation eurozone’s smallest and weakest economies, struggled to finance its economy.

The move came as fears grew of a fresh debt crisis for weak countries on the fringes of the single currency zone as the European Central Bank prepared to start raising interest rates from the emergency level plumbed during the financial crisis.

The euro rose on the foreign exchanges on Wednesday in expectation that the European Central Bank would raise borrowing costs from 1% and signal further policy tightening in the months ahead.

But City economists warned that the interest rate rise would add to debt servicing costs and prove more problematic for countries such as Portugal and Ireland than for the core single country nations of Germany and France. Ben May, of Capital Economics, said: “If interest rates were to rise in line with market expectations, their impact would be greatest in the periphery and may prompt a further escalation of the region’s fiscal crisis.

“Higher official interest rates will not only lower economic growth in the periphery, but will also prompt the average interest rate that governments pay on their debts to rise. Other things equal, then, higher interest rates will increase the chance of peripheral government debt spiralling out of control.”

Along with other central banks, the ECB slashed interest rates during the financial crisis in an attempt to pull Europe out of recession, but it has responded to rising inflation in recent months with clear signals that borrowing costs will rise. The euro’s strength coincided with a rise in the price of gold to ,454.84 an ounce.

Marchel Alexandrovich, of Jeffries International, said a 1% increase in ECB rates would mean that mortgage debt interest payments of euro area households would rise by around 7% on average, but there would be a 30% jump in debt services payments for households in Portugal and Finland, a 15% increase in Ireland and around a 10% rise in Spain and Italy.

“In aggregate, debt interest payments for the euro area households and non-financial corporations would rise by around 0.3% of GDP if ECB rates are one percentage point higher,” he said. “But Germany and France would see a rise of just around 0.1% of GDP, while Portugal, Spain and Ireland would see increases equivalent to 0.8% of GDP.

“The countries which least welcome higher interest rates on economic fundamentals are likely to be the ones most affected by them. One more reason why the ECB would be wise to tread very carefully in the months ahead.”

Several of Portugal’s banks have been calling on the government to accept help from its eurozone partners, warning that they can no longer continue to buy up Portuguese debt. Lisbon needs to find almost €5bn in repayments this month and another €27bn in June. The rising interest rate on Portuguese borrowing has added to the sense of crisis in the eurozone, amid reports that Greece is under pressure from the International Monetary Fund to default on its borrowing. The Irish government is understood to be concerned about weaker-than-expected tax revenues and the vulnerability of its banking sector. An informal meeting of European finance ministers is planned for Friday.

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From The Daily Caller:

A student calendar for the 2011-2012 school year, published by the European Union, has conspicuously omitted Christian holidays, while retaining Jewish and Muslim holidays, reports the Catholic News Agency.

Holiday mainstays such as Christmas and Easter don’t appear on the more than 3 million copies printed by the EU, for free-of-charge distribution to students across the region.

A rep for the EU calls the oversight a “grave error,” but I don’t buy it. This was no accident. I think it was deliberate.

This article titled “US criticises court that may decide on Julian Assange extradition, WikiLeaks cables show” was written by Afua Hirsch, legal affairs correspondent, for The Guardian on Friday 17th December 2010 21.30 UTC

US officials regard European human rights standards as an “irritant”, secret cables show, and have strongly objected to the safeguards which could protect WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from extradition.

In a confidential cable from the US embassy in Strasbourg, US consul general Vincent Carver criticised the Council of Europe, the most authoritative human-rights body for European countries, for its stance against extraditions to America, as well as secret renditions and prisons used to hold terrorist suspects.

He blamed the council for creating anti-US sentiment and hampering the US war on terror. “The Council of Europe (COE) likes to portray itself as a bastion of democracy, a promoter of human rights, and the last best hope for defending the rule of law in Europe – and beyond,” Carver said. “[But] it is an organisation with an inferiority complex and, simultaneously, an overambitious agenda.

“An investigation [by the Council of Europe] into renditions and ‘secret prisons’ in Europe connected to the US war on terrorism … created a great deal of controversy and anti-US sentiment in the Council of Europe,” wrote Carver.

The European court of human rights, the final court of appeal for human rights claims from the UK, whose judgments include the decision to ban deportations to countries which practise torture, is also singled out by the cables.

“The European court of human rights … has also requested more information on pending British extradition cases to the US where it believes the prisoners might be sentenced in the US to life imprisonment with no possible appeal or automatic judicial review of the life sentence,” Carver wrote.

Amid growing speculation over whether Assange could face extradition to the US, the cables make clear America’s opposition to any attempts to interfere on human rights grounds, out of concern for prison conditions in the country.

Assange would have the right to appeal against any extradition decision to the European court of human rights if all other legal avenues failed. His lawyers are already forming human rights arguments to block his extradition within the EU.

The cables also single out high-profile individuals within the Council of Europe for criticism, in particular British secretary general Terry Davis – now retired – who is described by the Americans as an “unpopular lame duck.

“Terry Davis leaves office this summer, after a five-year term that has been, according to many sources, devoid of vision,” Carver wrote in 2009.

“Davis is known as a micro-manager and will not be missed by many of his staff as well as by many resident ambassadors.” Davis provoked the wrath of American officials through his outspoken attacks on secret renditions.

The cables show that US diplomats wanted to visit his successor, current secretary general Thorbjørn Jagland, to persuade him to refrain from similar public criticism of the US.

“Jagland can be expected to criticise the US for the death penalty; he may, however, be less enthusiastic than the previous secgen, Terry Davis, in publicly criticising renditions, particularly if we review such issues with him soon,” Carver wrote.

“In this regard, we highly recommend a visit by a ranking department official … to review our human rights agenda with the new secretary general in the next several weeks.”

News that the Americans sought to pressure Jagland, the former prime minister of Norway, to prevent him from criticising secret renditions is likely to anger many in Europe, who see the council’s role in protecting human rights from counter-terrorism policy as crucial.

But the Americans also reserved judgment on Thomas Hammarberg – the council’s human rights commissioner – for his criticism of US counter-terrorism policy. In a separate cable referring to comments made to the US by the Maltese ambassador, Hammarberg is accused of seeing himself as “God’s gift to the world”.

The cables also reveal the pettiness of diplomatic exchanges within the Council of Europe.

In one exchange the US noted “a rather sad exchange” where Greece complained that Hammarberg had chosen photos of Turkey for his website that portrayed a positive image of the country.

“The Greek ambassador criticised photos apparently chosen for Hammarberg’s website regarding [his] recent official visit to Turkey,” Carver wrote. “The Greek contrasted the ‘vacation-like, very positive’ images with those associated with the commissioner’s visit to Greece.”

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EU nations approved new sanctions against Iran today, imposing additional financial and travel restrictions on a list of Iranian companies and experts — including the country’s largest bank.