FOLLOWING THE EUROPEAN UNION

BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will become the first German leader to attend a commemoration of the 1944 D-Day landings in June after being invited by France.


AFP/File Photo



Ten years ago Paris did not ask Chancellor Helmut Kohl to the high-profile 50th anniversary. But President Jacques Chirac's invitation now, and Schroeder's acceptance, mark a gesture of reconciliation contrasting with that apparent snub.


"Mr Chirac invited the chancellor before Christmas," a Berlin government spokesman said on Thursday, adding that Schroeder -- the first chancellor too young to remember World War II -- had immediately accepted.


"He's very pleased to have been invited."


France confirmed the invitation to a 60th anniversary ceremony that, as a result, looks set to symbolise lasting peace between two close European Union (news - web sites) partners who hope they have now buried the animosity that took them to war twice in the last century.


On June 6, 1944, the Allies opened a daring campaign against Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy in northwestern France, finally relieving pressure on Soviet forces battling in the east.


American, British and Canadian-led troops stormed ashore at dawn from a flotilla of ships, backed by airborne landings. Thousands died on the beaches but the invasion hastened the end for Hitler's armies, already reeling before the Soviet onslaught.


CONTRAST WITH 1994


This year's anniversary comes shortly after Schroeder's own 60th birthday. Born on April 7, 1944, he was just two months old when the landings took place. He never knew his father, who was killed in action in Romania not long after he was born.


D-Day is marked each year by veterans and politicians at the site of the landings.


A spokeswoman for Chirac confirmed Schroeder's invitation and said all other guests had been informed. These include representatives from around 15 nations who attended in 1994 from countries who contributed troops to the landings.


In what became a political row, Schroeder's predecessor, Kohl, was not invited to the key 1994 commemorations.


To ease the resultant tension with Germany, whose eastern and western parts had been reunified four years earlier after the Cold War ended, French President Francois Mitterrand invited German troops to join France's national Bastille Day parade along the Champs Elysees in Paris the following month.


Ten years earlier, Kohl and Mitterrand made a poignant gesture of reconciliation when they held hands at a memorial to the dead of World War One at Verdun, a battlefield in north France.


Russians, who took no part in D-Day, were not invited in 1994 and there was no word of an invitation to them this year.

Hawks demand an end to all evil, and maybe France, too
By David Rennie in Washington
January 1, 2004

Washington's hawks have sent a public manifesto to President George Bush demanding regime change in Syria and Iran and a Cuba-style military blockade of North Korea backed by planning for a pre-emptive strike on its nuclear sites.

The manifesto, which was sent on Tuesday, is presented as a "manual for victory" in the war on terrorism. It also calls for Saudi Arabia and France to be treated not as allies but as rivals and possibly enemies.

The manifesto is contained in a new book by Richard Perle (pictured), a Pentagon adviser and "intellectual guru" of the hardline neo-conservative movement, and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter. They warn of a faltering of the "will to win" in Washington.

In the battle for the President's ear, the manifesto represents an attempt by hawks to break out of the post-Iraq doldrums and strike back at what they see as a campaign of hostile leaking by their foes in such centres of caution as the State Department or in the military top brass.

Their publication, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, coincided with the latest broadside from the hawks' main enemy, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell.

Though recovering from prostate cancer, Mr Powell summoned reporters to his bedside to hail "encouraging" signs of a "new attitude" in Iran and call for the US to keep open the prospect of dialogue with Tehran.

Such talk is anathema to hawks like Mr Perle and Mr Frum, who urge Washington to shun the mullahs and work for their overthrow in concert with Iranian dissidents.

The book demands that any talks with North Korea require the complete and immediate abandonment of its nuclear program.

As North Korea will probably refuse such terms, the book urges a Cuba-style military blockade and overt preparations for war, including the rapid withdrawal of US forces from the South Korean border so that they move out of range of North Korean artillery.

Such steps, with luck, will prompt China to oust its nominal ally, Kim Jong-il, and install a saner regime in North Korea, the authors write.

The authoritarian rule of Syria's leader, Bashar Assad, should also be ended, encouraged by shutting oil supplies from Iraq, seizing arms he buys from Iran, and raids into Syria to hunt terrorists.

The book calls for tough action against France and its dreams of offsetting US power. "We should force European governments to choose between Paris and Washington," it says.

The Telegraph, London

BTW today, Ireland begins its presidency of the European Union.

To we English...

you build tanks with steel and make them work with coal

Now the question is : Will Bush also come ?

Comme en 1994, tous les dirigeants des dizaines de pays engagés contre l'Allemagne durant la seconde guerre mondiale, notamment le président américain George W. Bush, la reine Elizabeth II d'Angleterre et les premiers ministres britannique Tony Blair et canadien Paul Martin ont été invités en Normandie le 6 juin 2004.
[quoted from Pour la première fois, un chancelier allemand participera aux commémorations du 6 juin 1944]