Ok. Here's the first part. On the subject of the European Union's position on the ratification of the Kyoto treaty, and President Bush's response to it...

On day three of his European tour, Bush was in Gothenburg, Sweden for a meeting with the leaders of the European Union's 15 member nations.

In the streets, thousands demonstrated against the president's rejection of the Kyoto treaty, a 1997 agreement that would commit countries to reduce greenhouse emissions. The president has argued that the treaty was wrong to exempt developing nations like China and India, and would hurt the U.S. economically.

That stance has been criticized by European leaders, and in a press conference Swedish Prime Minister, Goran Persson, the current EU president, said that the two sides had agreed to disagree. (He said,) "The European Union will stick to the Kyoto protocol, and go for a ratification process. The U.S. has chosen another policy. But we have the same targets. And we have to meet the same problems. Climate change is not isolated to Europe, or to America. It's a global (fact?). So never the less, if you are in favor or against the Kyoto protocol, you have to take action. So we agreed to disagree about substance, but agreed to go on with some type of procedure that can lead us back to a position that we can cooperate and try to support each other. We will call for personal representatives to follow up our discussion and that will mean that we send a signal that we (will) go on ahead with the Kyoto protocol, the American government (will) go on ahead with their policy."

President Bush: "As the Prime Minister said, we don't agree on the Kyoto treaty, but we do agree that climate change is a serious issue, and we must work together. We believe that our economies can grow and at the same time come up with climate change solutions."

In fact, no EU country has yet ratified Kyoto although more than thirty smaller nations have done so. EU commission president Romano Prodi was asked 'why not'. "There is no one single country who has declared not to ratify it. The ratification process has started already in some countries and is going on, and there is no one message of refusal or delay of ratification."