News stories by Julio Godoy, page 10

Under pressure from its European Union (EU) peers and confronted with the undeniable realities of the Greek financial collapse, the German government has finally given up its resistance to a multinational bailout programme for the Mediterranean EU member states.

After tens of thousands of people turned out to protest against any extension of life to existing nuclear power plants, it seems clear that Germans continue to be emphatically opposed to nuclear energy.

French state-owned company Areva continues to deny any wrongdoing after findings that populated areas in Niger remain contaminated with high levels of radio-activity. The company seems to be escaping censure partly because of lack of data on cancer-related causes of death among Nigeriens working at or living near the uranium mines.

Recent research by Greenpeace suggests that French state-owned company Areva’s public claims of decontamination of populated areas near uranium mines in Niger are false. High radio-activity persists in towns and rural areas near the mines, affecting some 80,000 people.

Rampant illegal fishing is hitting some of the poorest West African countries the hardest as this practice is globally most rife in the east central Atlantic Ocean area, which covers the territorial waters of some 15 African countries from Morocco and Mauritania in the north to Angola in the south.

Germany’s obsession with maintaining a trade surplus, in line with its mercantilist traditions, is one cause for the severe economic crisis that has gripped several Euro-Mediterranean countries, say economists.

The Catholic Church has for decades protected paedophile priests and clerics who sexually abused children from judiciary prosecution, according to German theologians, law experts, and internal church documents.

New cases of tax evasion in several European countries are showing the limits of the informal agreements reached between the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and tax havens such as Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.

The enormous technical and financial risks involved in the construction and operation of new nuclear power plants make them prohibitive for private investors, rebutting the thesis of a renaissance in nuclear energy, say several independent European studies.

It was probably an irony that Europe's coldest winter in 50 years coincided with the U.N. climate change summit in Copenhagen last December, which failed to deliver a treaty to reduce global warming emissions.