European Union

PARIS --European transportation officials urged Britain yesterday not to scuttle a landmark deal on trans-Atlantic air travel because of opposition by its biggest carriers to opening up Heathrow Airport, which serves London. Officials expressed dismay over remarks by the British transport secretary, Douglas Alexander, who implied this week that London would not support the draft "open skies" agreement, announced Friday, in its current form. "Seeing the importance of this issue, we sincerely wish for a consensus agreement," said Michele Cercone, a spokesman for the European Union transport commissioner, Jacques Barrot.

A few short years ago an anti-globalization coalition severely disrupted a World Trade Organization summit meeting in Seattle and began a wave of demonstrations against the institutions seen as being "responsible" for globalization. At the time, most of the protests centered on the perceived inequities between the North's and the South's economies. Western corporations were thought to be gaining a disproportionate share of the benefits of globalization. That kind of disruption seems less likely in 2007.

MOSCOW -- A Russian-Belarusian oil dispute that has shut down a key pipeline carrying crude oil to European customers might drag on long enough to force Russia to cut production, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin said yesterday. The bitter spat between the longtime allies led to a cutoff Monday in the flow of oil across Belarus, prompting complaints from European officials. A warm winter has left Europe with abundant oil supplies, triggering falling prices and keeping a lid on the severity of the continent's short-term worries about the cutoff.

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Clashes between Islamic fighters and Ethiopian-backed government soldiers heightened fears yesterday that Somalia is inching toward a civil war that could drag in the entire Horn of Africa. As international negotiators worked furiously to resolve the dispute, armed battles around Somalia's transitional capital of Baidoa killed at least one government soldier, according to Somali officials. Islamic leaders, who seized control of Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia from warlords this summer, are calling for a "holy war" against Christian-dominated Ethiopia unless the neighboring nation withdraws its troops, which were sent across the border to prop up Somalia's weak transitional government.

Past comments of Pope Benedict XVI about Islam have hurt his standing among Muslims worldwide, but his conciliatory visit to Turkey, and support of the nation's membership in the European Union, should help repair the damage, scholars say. "The stakes are somewhat high, but I don't think the deck is necessarily stacked against him," said Chester Gillis, chairman of Georgetown University's theology department. Some scholars say that the pope's visit is more important than it had been before his comments in September at Germany's University of Regensberg.

The crisis roiling Poland's government arose from a fight over the budget. However, it has brought into stark relief a growing uneasiness about the direction of Poland's foreign policy vis-?-vis the United States. During a recent visit to the U.N. by Polish President Lech Kaczynski, Defense Minister Radek Sikorski announced the decision to send Polish troops to Afghanistan in January. While in the United States, Mr. Kaczynski met also with President Bush - who gave the Polish president five minutes of his time.

As if the world needed another crisis, Kosovo is moving onto the front burner. For seven years, it has been an ill-defined - and relatively ill-run - international protectorate, but now time has run out. The Kosovar Albanians were promised that the United Nations would devise a final status for their territory by the end of this year, and the implication was that it would include a formal severing of ties with Serbia. The U.N. has put off that determination until the end of January, in an effort not to inflame Serbian parliamentary elections.

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- The bullet scar on her arm has faded like a distant star, but Maria Sebestyen remembers when tanks clattered through moonlit alleys, the enemy wore a Soviet uniform and for a bloody moment this city held the world's attention. Revolutions get crushed and enemies change. Today, the fervor and romanticism that defined Cold War defiance seem quaint history from a worn book. University students carry iPods instead of Molotov cocktails; the Danube is busy with tourist boats.

PARIS --The shaky U.N.-brokered cease-fire in Lebanon suffered another blow yesterday when the European countries that have been called upon to provide the backbone of a peacekeeping force delayed a decision on committing troops until the mission is more clearly defined. Their reservations postponed any action on the force at least until Wednesday, when the European Union will take up the issue. Haunted by their experiences in Bosnia in the 1990s, when their forces were unable to stop widespread ethnic killing, European governments are insisting upon clarifying the chain of command and rules of engagement before plunging into the even greater complexities of the Middle East.

WASHINGTON -- International trade talks, launched five years ago to reduce tariffs, quotas and other barriers to commerce worldwide, broke down in Geneva yesterday amid bitter recriminations between the United States and Europe. Peter Mandelson, chief trade negotiator for the European Union, charged that the United States sabotaged the talks by refusing to scale back domestic farm subsidies, which the Europeans say give American agriculture an edge in international competition. Top U.S. trade negotiator Susan Schwab countered that the European Union steadfastly refused to open its agricultural markets to foreign farmers.