In other news from Europe, the European Union’s top justice official has acknowledged that U.S. intelligence agents have kidnapped individuals inside Europe as part of a secretive program called extraordinary rendition. On Tuesday the Council of Europe, voted to continue investigating alleged CIA secret flights and prisons in Europe and called for safeguards to prevent human rights abuses by foreign intelligence agents and European countries. The Council also endorsed the findings of Swiss Senator Dick Marty. Earlier this month he concluded 14 European countries have been involved in or complicit in secret CIA operations since the Sept. 11th attacks. On Tuesday Marty warned that the Bush administration’s secret operations are hurting the so-called war on terrorism.

• Swiss Senator Dick Marty: “By using this kind of means, we give some legitimacy to terrorism, and moreover, we create some sympathy for terrorists. I think this sympathy is extremely dangerous, this sympathy is to terrorism what oxygen is to fire”