Do you really agree to pay for this war ? And are you happy that those same people refuse child health care reforms ?

US fears Europe-based terrorism

One of the biggest threats to US security may now come from within Europe, US Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff has told the BBC.
He said militant attacks and plots in Europe over recent years had made the US aware of the “real risk that Europe will become a platform for terrorists”.

Mr Chertoff said it was likely security checks on travellers from Europe would be increased.

But he said steps would be taken to ensure travel and trade were not hit.

In the interview on the BBC’s World News America, Mr Chertoff said he had seen “home-grown terrorism begin to rise in Europe”.

He cited deadly bomb attacks on Madrid and London, and a terror alert affecting UK-US flights in August 2006, as well as “people travelling from South Asia and the Middle East into Europe and carrying out attacks there”.

He said it was important to increase security checks on passengers from Europe – most of whom are currently able to enter the United States without being screened first because of a visa waiver programme.

But Mr Chertoff added that immigration checks should not affect travel and trade – an important part of the US economy.

As the fifth anniversary of the creation of his Homeland Security department approaches, Mr Chertoff said the US was now a safer place because of the security strategies that had been adopted.

“Our ability to know who is coming across our borders, and to check them and to take their fingerprints now, is far better than it was five or six years ago,” Mr Chertoff said.

“We have deployed almost twice as many border patrols as we had five or six years ago. We’ve put up literally hundreds of miles of fencing and barriers.

“All of these are very concrete steps forward that have made our security much better than it was,” Mr Chertoff said.

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Biofuels ‘crime against humanity’
By Grant Ferrett
BBC News, New York

A United Nations expert has condemned the growing use of crops to produce biofuels as a replacement for petrol as a crime against humanity.

The UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, said he feared biofuels would bring more hunger.

The growth in the production of biofuels has helped to push the price of some crops to record levels.

Mr Ziegler’s remarks, made at the UN headquarters in New York, are clearly designed to grab attention.

He complained of an ill-conceived dash to convert foodstuffs such as maize and sugar into fuel, which created a recipe for disaster.

Food price rises

It was, he said, a crime against humanity to divert arable land to the production of crops which are then burned for fuel.

He called for a five-year ban on the practice.

Within that time, according to Mr Ziegler, technological advances would enable the use of agricultural waste, such as corn cobs and banana leaves, rather than crops themselves to produce fuel.

The growth in the production of biofuels has been driven, in part, by the desire to find less environmentally-damaging alternatives to oil.

The United States is also keen to reduce its reliance on oil imported from politically unstable regions.

But the trend has contributed to a sharp rise in food prices as farmers, particularly in the US, switch production from wheat and soya to corn, which is then turned into ethanol.

Mr Ziegler is not alone in warning of the problem.

The IMF last week voiced concern that the increasing global reliance on grain as a source of fuel could have serious implications for the world’s poor.

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