Prices for the three key commodities – cereals, beef and dairy products – could be slashed by up to one third between 2000 and 2002, accompanied by a huge shift towards direct aid for farmers on low incomes.
Defending the proposals, Franz Fischler, the EU farm commissioner, warned there was no other option. As revealed by The Independent last week, proposals unveiled by European Commission President Jacques Santer yesterday outline the first stage of a bid to phase out guaranteed market prices, the cornerstone of the annual pounds 30bn Common Agricultural Policy budget since its inception in 1962. There is concern that laboratory chemicals may have escaped from their containers and could damage the cosmonauts’ equipment.. European agriculture ministers open negotiations next week on the most radical ever reform of the EU’s farm policy, the pace and scale of which is being directly dictated by the planned expansion into Eastern Europe. These cables, which were unhooked in the scramble to seal off the module after it was holed, will be reconnected to a hatch linking it with Mir.The crew’s task is further complicated by uncertainty over what may be floating around inside Spektr. Under the initial plans, he was not expected to venture into space during his stint on Mir flight, although he has walked in space before, in 1995.Under the original plan, Foale was to have spent the operation in the Soyuz escape capsule, ready to launch an emergency getaway if necessary.If he replaces the commander, then it is likely he will find himself assisting the flight engineer, Alexander Lazutkin, who will enter the module and try to locate wires from three solar panels.

Although he is now a US citizen, he was born in Lincolnshire, educated at Cambridge, and is the son of an RAF air commodore.The chief of Russia’s Mission Control, Vladimir Solovyov, said yesterday that Foale was “clearly delighted” by the possibility of taking part in the sortie. Russian press reports say that officials blame him for the accident, the worst in the station’s 11-year-history.A practice run is planned on Monday. Reports here said that afterwards officials in Russia’s Mission Control outside Moscow and Nasa’s Johnson Centre in Houston will hold a video conference to decide whether Foale should participate If he does, it will be a first for Britain. “He can do some basic things, but no official simulations or the actual spacewalk – none of that’s been approved by Nasa yet,” said a spokesman.The two-man repairs mission had been planned for this week, but was postponed when Tsibliyev, 43, developed an irregular heartbeat, a condition which doctors attributed to tension in the aftermath of the crash He also complained of tiredness and overwork. Last night, Nasa said it had not yet agreed to allow him to go on the sortie, or to take part in extensive pre-walk training. Mir has been on just over half power since the collision.However, the Russians appear to be more enthusiastic about using Foale for the mission than their counterparts in Houston.

The module was punctured in a collision with a cargo ship three weeks ago.The sortie may yet be carried out by a relief crew who are due to dock with Mir on 7 August, but the Russians have made clear that they want to go ahead as soon as they safely can. But no final decision will be taken until next week.
The trip to reconnect solar panels in the dark, freezing and airless Spektr module has been rescheduled to next Thursday because the commander, Vasily Tsibliyev, has developed heart problems. They claimed that Nasa had agreed to allow Foale to train for the operation, which some are billing the most dangerous space-walk ever. Russian officials yesterday decided that the ailing commander of the damaged Mir space station will not take part in a perilous repairs mission, and made further moves to press Nasa to allow the British astronaut Michael Foale to replace him. The UN-forged coalition between Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh failed, and Cambodia, plagued by rivalry between the two co-premiers, was racked by corruption and all but paralysed for the past 18 months.”At least now things might get done, laws might get passed, and the country might get moving again,” said a diplomat.But the stance is hardly justifiable in the face of the country’s collective terror at the prospect of a return to life without the freedoms promised in the four years since its imperfect, but fledgling, democracy lurched into life..

Hun Sen added a veneer of legitimacy to his takeover by naming the Funcinpec Foreign Minister, Ung Huot, to replace his former boss as co-premier.The reason for the attitude appears to be one of pragmatism. “Royalist Traitors,” read graffiti scrawled across the broken walls of one erstwhile Funcinpec party office in Phnom Penh.But the initial anger of the world’s democracies has been replaced by a cynical acceptance of the country’s new and authoritarian sole power. In the rural provinces and in towns across the country, signs of Prince Ranariddh’s Funcinpec political party have been ripped down by troops. Party slogans have been painted over with broad strokes of black paint and replaced with new messages.

Although fighting continues in the remote north-western jungles, the situation has calmed over much of the country. Prince Ranariddh fled into exile and the militias of Hun Sen are tightening their grip amid reports of arrests and killings. Japan, the US and Germany suspended aid programmes; thousands of foreigners were evacuated or advised to leave in a gesture of diplomatic protest. In two days’ fighting in Phnom Penh, 58 people, mostly civilians, died. Accountability and freedom were always tall orders for a country bred on violence but the international community, he says, looks poised to abandon all hopes of true democracy in Cambodia in deference to Hun Sen, a man whom, at great risk, he labels “Cambodia’s new dictator”.
Earlier this month forces loyal to “second” prime minister Hun Sen ousted his rival and senior co-premier, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, accusing him of forging an illegal pact with the hated Khmer Rouge guerrillas. “Hun Sen’s gamble with democracy and the world looks like it will pay off and the losers are the people of Cambodia.