THE HANDSTAND

British historian David Irving was charged Tuesday with violating an Austrian law that makes Holocaust denial in this formerly Nazi-ruled nation a crime.

Irving, a controversial Third Reich scholar who has claimed that Adolf Hitler knew nothing about the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews, is accused of giving two speeches in 1989 in which he denied the existence of Nazi gas chambers during World War II, prosecutor Otto Schneider said.

He was arrested Nov. 11 in the southern province of Styria on a warrant issued in 1989. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

Irving, 67, remains in custody in Vienna. His attorney, Elmar Kresbach, said he would decide how to proceed after discussing the charges with his client Wednesday.

A detention hearing will be held Friday to determine whether Irving should be held for up to four more weeks, Schneider said.

After his arrest, Irving supporters posted a statement on his website saying he was detained while on a one-day visit to Vienna, where they said he had been invited "by courageous students to address an ancient university association."

Irving in the past has faced allegations of spreading anti-Semitic and racist ideas. He is the author of nearly 30 books, including "Hitler's War," which challenges the extent of the Holocaust.

Besides his claims that Hitler knew nothing about the Holocaust, he also has been quoted as saying there was "not one shred of evidence" that the Nazis carried out their "Final Solution" to exterminate the Jewish population on such a massive scale.

Irving said he does not deny Jews were killed by the Nazis, but challenges the number and manner of Jewish concentration camp deaths.

He has questioned the use of large-scale gas chambers to exterminate the Jews and has claimed that the numbers of those who perished are far lower than those generally accepted. He also contends that most Jews who died at Auschwitz did so from diseases like typhus, not gas poisoning.

Irving has had numerous run-ins with the law over the years. In 1992, a judge in Germany fined him the equivalent of USD 6,000 for publicly insisting the Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz were a hoax.

In March, more than 200 historians from around the world petitioned the C-SPAN television network to cancel a project that would have included a speech by Irving as a counterpoint to a lecture by Deborah Lipstadt, a Holocaust expert. Irving once sued Lipstadt for libel for calling him a Holocaust denier. He lost his case when a British court handling the case in 2000 declared that Irving could be labeled as such, ruling that he was anti-Semitic, racist and that he misrepresented historical information.

McCreevy attacks EU tax harmonisation concept

Irish internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy has suggested tax harmonisation is not and will not be on the Brussels agenda whether "by the front door or the back", stressing tax competition among countries is "healthy".

In a speech given in Brussels on Thursday (10 November), Mr McCreevy said "National vetoes will be retained and competition between member states for inward investment - some of it tax based - will continue. Tax competition is a healthy spur to governments across Europe," according to the Financial Times.

He also expressed doubts about the initiative announced earlier by tax commissioner Laszlo Kovacs to create a common corporate tax base within 3-4 years.

"To establish a common tax base we will need first to get agreement on what constitutes taxable profits. Assuming we can agree on [this] during our lifetime, we will probably then have completed one third of the journey. The harder bit comes next," he said.

Several experts argue a single tax base would lead to better efficiency for companies, due to a higher transparency and easier calculations.

However, its opponents say the move would be the first step to harmonising tax rates.

National opposition
Tax policy is viewed as a key element of national competency in EU member states, and some of them strongly oppose any mention of potential tax harmonisation within the bloc.

Ireland in particular has benefited from its lower corporate taxes in attracting foreign investment, with some of the poorer countries in central and eastern Europe viewing this as an example to follow.

The EU executive claims it has no intentions to trigger tax harmonisation, and that the Kovacs single tax base proposal does not portend such a move.

However, Slovak finance minister Ivan Miklos recently suggested he doubts that the "commission can find even three countries that would agree on the actual common provisions of such a base."

The trouble with indirect taxation
The EU does have a set of common rules about value added tax (VAT) on various products.

In this field, the commission on Thursday won a case against Germany, as the Luxembourg-based European court ruled that Berlin must start taxing pre-rolled packs of tobacco at the same rate as normal cigarettes.

The popular products, commonly known as "sticks", can be quickly inserted into rolling papers and smoked but cost about half as much as normal cigarettes due to high tobacco tax in the country.

The EU executive is also planning to take Sweden to court due to its high tax on wine, which is hurting wine importers unfairly the commission says.

Water vapour rather than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the main reason why Europe's climate is warming, according to a new study.

The scientists say that rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gases are increasing humidity, which in turn amplifies the temperature rise.

This is potentially a positive feedback mechanism which could increase the impact of greenhouse gases such as CO2.

The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The scientists involved have used research networks and weather stations across Europe to measure temperature, humidity and longwave radiation, which plays a key role in the greenhouse effect.

Although rising concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides and other gases are almost certainly driving the global rise in temperature observed in recent decades, the natural greenhouse effect - without which the world would be considerably colder - is largely down to atmospheric water vapour.

Because human activities change its concentrations very little, it is generally not mentioned in discussions of modern-day greenhouse warming.

But climate scientists have been aware for decades that mechanisms involving water vapour could amplify temperature increases, and have attempted to model these effects in computer simulations.

GEOFFREY LEAN, INDEPENDENT, UK - A catastrophic collapse in sea and bird life numbers along America's Northwest Pacific seaboard is raising fears that global warming is beginning to irreparably damage the health of the oceans. Scientists say a dramatic rise in the ocean temperature led to unprecedented deaths of birds and fish this summer all along the coast from central California to British Columbia in Canada. The population of seabirds, such as cormorants, auklets and murres, and fish, including salmon and rockfish, fell to record lows.

This ecological meltdown mirrors a similar development taking place thousands of miles away in the North Sea. . . Also caused by warming of the water, the increase in temperatures there has driven the plankton that form the base of the marine food chain hundreds of miles north, triggering a collapse in the number of sand eels on which many birds and large fish feed and causing a rapid decline in puffins, razorbills, kittiwakes and other birds.

The collapses in the Pacific are also down to the disappearance of plankton, though the immediate cause for this is different. Normally, winds blow south along the coast in spring and summer, pushing warmer surface waters away from the shore and allowing colder water that is rich in nutrients to well up from the sea bottom, feeding the microscopic plants called phytoplankton. These are eaten by zooplankton, tiny animals that in turn feed fish, seabirds and marine mammals.

Straw praises Israel and British Jews
By Jeremy Last© 09/Nov/2005
www.ejpress.org/article/4139
British foreign secretary Jack Straw has praised Israel for the “astonishing amount” it has achieved since the establishment of the state nearly 60 years ago.

Speaking to the Labour Friends of Israel lobby group last Wednesday, Straw also noted the important contribution British Jews have made to UK society over the last 350 years.

At the meeting Straw noted the technological and scientific achievements Israel has made as well as their "democratic resilience."

He said: “In nearly six decades, Israel has achieved an astonishing amount. It has built a thriving democracy in a region historically dominated by autocratic regimes.

“And, as a leading global competitor in areas such as medicine, scientific research, and information technology, it now has one of the most advanced economies in the world.

“These are things for which the people of Israel and the wider Jewish community are rightly proud. Today the United Kingdom and Israel share the same democratic values and we enjoy practical collaboration in many areas.”

Proud community

Highlighting the recent anniversary of 350 years since the re-admittance of Jews into the UK, Straw said he believed the British Jewish community was an example of the success of British multiculturalism. “Today’s Jewish community in this country should be proud of its vitality and vibrancy and be congratulated for its many achievements. “Anglo-Jewry serves to provide a positive message for multicultural Britain, as a religious minority who have, over time, integrated themselves into the fabric of British life and culture, whilst still maintaining their ancient traditions and central tenets of their faith”

The foreign secretary connected the recent start of the Jewish new year to new hopes for the peace process. Although he noted the difficulties, especially since the recent suicide bombing in Hadera, he said: “I know that you have just started the reading of the Torah from the very first portion of Genesis – in the beginning. “We must make every effort for a new beginning with renewed efforts to support the peace process.”

Straw made the speech just days before the commemoration that mark the ten-year anniversary of the assassination of former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Noting Rabin’s quest for peace, which ultimately led to his death, Straw said: “Prime minister Rabin embarked on a courageous journey which laid the groundwork for future negotiations between Israel and Palestine. All the friends of Israel – both here and around the world – hope that one day this vision of peace will be realised.

Iranian problems

The foreign secretary also used the speech to call for the UN to demand that Syria and Iran halt support for terror groups such as Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. Noting the recent positive moves by Arab states in terms of civil liberties, he said: These remarkable shifts in attitude by Arab states throw into sharper relief the baleful, harmful influence of two states who are in a mindset which allows them to believe that the clock can be turned back to before 1967, if not before 1948. These two states are Iran and Syria.”
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