THIS magazine recently reported that the Pentagon is anxious about the European Space Agency鈥檚 Galileo network of position-finding satellites (7 June, p 13). It claims that Galileo could interfere with the US鈥檚 own Global Positioning System. With Galileo promising to give more accurate navigational signals than GPS, I asked Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, for his opinion.
Hoon said that the government fully supports the Galileo project, which will provide Europe with a civil satellite-based positioning system. That will give the UK and the wider European Union good commercial and industrial opportunities. However, he added, as well as the US, the UK and a number of other EU member states are concerned about the potential overlap of certain Galileo signals and the planned 鈥渕ilitary鈥� code of GPS.
GPS is used by the armed forces of most European nations, and it is the de facto NATO standard, said Hoon. But there could be occasions during military operations when the UK and its allies might want to jam the signals of other positioning systems 鈥� including Galileo 鈥� in a localised area, to deny adversaries this useful information. If Galileo signals overlap the military GPS code, it will not be possible to jam these signals without severely degrading the performance of military GPS, thus denying vital positioning and timing data to friendly forces. The EU, along with the European Commission and Galileo project groups, is discussing possible solutions with the US, and the UK is playing its full part, said Hoon.
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It is clear that although the UK went along with the US in the Iraq war, British industry is to be given no commercial quarter by its American competition.
LAST year, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, the idea was floated of a World Environment Organization (快猫短视频, 7 September 2002, p 3). Maybe it was a bit fanciful, but it was a step in the right direction at least. Elliot Morley, now minister of state at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, tells me that at present there is no international environmental body with judicial powers that could make rulings on environmental damage. There are provisions in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) that allow countries to enforce measures to protect the environment, such as the Kyoto treaty to cut greenhouse gases. Sadly, the effectiveness of many of these MEAs is variable, the links between them weak and many topics not covered. Nevertheless, pressing for greater compliance is worthwhile.
Morley went on to say that as a member of the European Union and the World Trade Organization, the UK is actively engaged in clarifying the relationship between MEAs and the WTO, through the development agenda drawn up in Doha, Qatar, to help poorer countries to trade on equal terms with richer ones. The UK seeks to ensure that trade and environment regimes are immediately supportive of each other, not least by getting agreement within the WTO that the current trade provisions in MEAs are consistent with existing trade rules, said Morley.
From what I know of him, I am certain Morley will bring a new dynamism in these matters.
