World News 05-11-2001 European Leaders Furious Over Blair`s Private Dinner who: Tony Blair what: Hosts impromptu war summit for European leaders where: Downing Street, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "Tony Blair summoned fellow European leaders to London last night for an unprecedented council of war," reports The Guardian, "fuelling speculation that the allies were planning a ground offensive in Afghanistan." "Mr Blair originally planned a dinner for himself, Gerhard Schröder, German chancellor, and Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin, the French president and prime minister," explains The Financial Times. "However, as other EU leaders heard about the dinner they one by one complained angrily to Mr Blair and demanded a place." By the afternoon, the guest list included Italy`s Silvio Berlusconi and Spain`s José María Aznar, but still the flurry of diplomtic phone calls continued. "Javier Solana, the EU`s representative on foreign and security affairs, was added to the guest list late yesterday," says The Telegraph, "along with the Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt and the Dutch leader Wim Kok." "The meeting came as the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, ruled out any pause in the air strikes during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan," reports The Independent. His announcement comes in spite of pleas by Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf to halt the bombings from November 17th, warning of "a huge negative fall-out". Elsewhere, The scotsman publishes "the first known photograph of US Special Forces soldiers in Afghanistan preparing plans for launching a ground offensive against the Taleban." [... more]

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