WESTERN EUROPE

E.U. SAYS TURKEY SHOULD BE GRANTED LESS THAN FULL MEMBERSHIP

Senior European Union officials argued yesterday against giving Turkey full membership and said the lesser status of “privileged partnership” should be offered instead. The need to draft a negotiating framework for entry talks sparked a fierce internal argument among the commissioners who run the E.U.’s executive arm.

The Luxembourg commissioner, Viviane Reding, argued against full membership for Turkey, questioning the need to draw up a formal mandate for talks now.

A small group of commissioners suggested that “privileged partnership” be included as an alternative. Mrs. Reding was backed by the Irish, Austrian, and Slovak commissioners, with the commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, and the Belgian, Finnish, and German commissioners supporting Turkey.

Britain, which takes over the rotating presidency of the E.U. on Friday for six months, is a strong supporter of Turkish membership, arguing that there are vital strategic reasons to anchor the large Muslim nation firmly in the West.

The commissioner in charge of enlargement, Olli Rehn, said his colleagues spent several hours on a “lengthy, argumentative, and very political debate” over Turkey, which is due to begin accession talks on October 3.

– The Daily Telegraph

SOUTHEAST ASIA

VIETNAM TO BEGIN NATIONWIDE POULTRY VACCINATION

HANOI, Vietnam – Vietnam said yesterday it will begin vaccinating poultry nationwide against bird flu in August. Vaccinations will begin August 1 at commercial poultry operations and smaller household farms in northern Nam Dinh province and southern Tien Giang province in the Mekong Delta, the head of Vietnam’s animal health department, Bui Quang Anh, said.

Vaccinations will be slowly expanded to another 40 high-risk provinces in the next two years, he said. An initial 20 million doses of vaccines will be imported from the Netherlands and China. Bird flu began ravaging poultry farms across Vietnam in late 2003, killing or forcing the slaughter of more than 45 million birds. The virus began jumping to humans at about the same time, and has killed 38 people in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand, and four from Cambodia.

– Associated Press

DISCOVERED BONES BELONG TO NEW SPECIES OF HUMAN, SCIENTISTS SAY

KAMPUNG TERAS, Indonesia – The bones in the limestone cave had been buried more than 12,000 years when the archaeologists found them. The villagers say they belonged to sinners who drowned in the biblical Great Flood.

The Indonesian and Australian archaeologists who began unearthing the remains in Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores two years ago have come to a more scientific, if no less sensational, conclusion: They say the bones belong to a tiny, previously unknown species of human.

The little people stood 3-foot-3-inches tall and had a brain the size of a grapefruit, the archaeologists say. Making sophisticated stone tools, they hunted pygmy elephants, giant rats, and Komodo dragons. They used fire to cook and almost certainly had a spoken language. The archaeologists named them “Homo floresiensis,” or Flores Man. The discovery challenges the conventional view of human evolution, particularly the belief that having a big brain is an essential part of being human. Not everyone has welcomed the discovery.

In Indonesia, the October announcement of Flores Man in the respected British journal Nature ignited a conflict within the scientific community and sparked jealousy among experts who were not part of the excavation. Indonesia’s pre-eminent paleoanthropologist, Teuku Jacob, challenged the conclusion that the bones represented a separate species.

Now dispute over the bones has derailed further excavation. The quarrel has prompted the influential Indonesian Institute of Sciences to prohibit digging in the cave, which had been planned for this year and might have produced new evidence in the scientific debate.

– Los Angeles Times

SOUTH ASIA

AMERICA, INDIA SIGN MILITARY COOPERATION PACT

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his counterpart in India have signed a 10-year agreement for greater cooperation between their respective militaries.

Mr. Rumsfeld and the Indian defense minister, Pranab Mukherjee, signed a statement saying the relationship between the two countries had reached “unprecedented levels of cooperation,” the International Herald Tribune reported. The agreement includes joint weapons production, greater sharing of technology and intelligence, and increased trade in arms, the newspaper said.

The agreement comes 10 years after the two countries signed their previous defense pact and seven years after Washington severed military ties with India following the country’s first nuclear tests.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

PERSIAN GULF

GUNMEN KILL POLICE COMMANDOS, MARAUD THROUGH SAMARRA

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Gunmen stormed the former insurgent bastion of Samarra in northern Iraq yesterday, killing at least two elite police commandos and injuring as many as six. Witnesses said armed men in as many as 10 civilian cars marauded through Samarra, a historic Tigris River city filled with archaeological treasures. They attacked a building used by security forces with mortars and rocket-propelled-grenade launchers. The gunmen then surrounded the hospital and began shooting at it until Iraqi and American reinforcements showed up, witnesses said.

– Los Angeles Times