French army drills 'cause fire'

Marseille officials and residents are angry at the army over the fire French firefighters have been tackling a major wildfire sparked by a military exercise on the outskirts of Marseille. The blaze threatened some 400 homes and forced the evacuation of a retirement home and centre for disabled people. Officials say the fire is now "under control", although some 500 firefighters remain at the scene. A senior government official said he was "furious" at the army and that troops should have taken more care while carrying out artillery practice. "It's completely unacceptable that the army keeps up these activities during this period as though there was no problem," Regional prefect Michel Sappin told RTL radio. The French armed forces announced it had suspended a Foreign Legion officer who was in charge of the practice, the AFP news agency reports. Wildfires are common in southern France in summer.

Russian leader condemns killing

'The militias had much to fear from her,' says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has expressed "outrage" at the murder of a prominent human rights activist, Natalia Estemirova. He has ordered an inquiry into the killing of Ms Estemirova, who was investigating alleged abuses by government-backed militias in Chechnya. She was abducted and bundled into a van as she left her home in the Chechen capital, Grozny, on Wednesday. Her body was found in neighbouring Ingushetia, with gunshot wounds. Ms Estemirova, 50, had been gathering evidence - for the Russian human rights organisation, Memorial - of a campaign of house-burnings by government-backed militiamen. Accusation The pro-Moscow Chechen president, Ramzan Kadyrov, said the perpetrators of the murder "deserve no support and must be punished as the cruellest of criminals", according to Russian news agency, Interfax. But the chairman of Memorial, Oleg Orlov, has already accused Mr Kadyrov of involvement in the killing. There is no shred of doubt that she was targeted due to her professional activity Human Rights Watch Obituary: Natalia Estemirova In a statement on its website, he said: "I know, I am sure of it, who is guilty for the murder of Natalia...His name is Ramzan Kadyrov." Mr Orlov alleged that Mr Kadyrov, a former Chechen rebel turned Kremlin ally, had previously threatened Ms Estemirova, and considered her "a personal enemy". Memorial is one of Russia's best known human rights groups. In Washington, the White House issued a statement saying the US was "deeply disturbed and saddened by the... brutal slaying". "Such a heinous crime sends a chilling signal to Russian civil society and the international community and illustrates the tragic deterioration of security and the rule of law in the North Caucasus over the last several months," said the White House. 'Sensitive' cases Ms Estemirova had worked with the activists Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in 2006, and Stanislav Markelov, who was killed in January this year. In 2007 she was awarded the inaugural Anna Politkovskaya Prize, and had also received awards from the Swedish and European parliaments. The New-York based human rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Ms Estemirova had been working on "extremely sensitive" cases of human rights abuses in Chechnya. "There is no shred of doubt that she was targeted due to her professional activity," said Tanya Lokshina, HRW Russian researcher in Moscow. Campaign group Amnesty International said her murder was a consequence of the "impunity" allowed to persist by the Russian and Chechen authorities, and an attempt to gag civil society in the country. 'Most to fear' BBC Moscow correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, who met Ms Estemirova in Chechnya just six weeks ago, says she was engaged in very important and dangerous work. She was investigating hundreds of cases of alleged kidnapping, torture and extra-judicial killings by Russian government troops or militias in Chechnya. Our correspondent says it was the government-sponsored militias that had most to fear from her work. She is the most recent in a long line of human rights activists and lawyers to have been killed or attacked in Russia. Our correspondent says the history of this type of case over many years is that very rarely are the killers brought to justice.

Nuclear dawn delayed in Finland

The turbine is the world's largest and will generate about 2m horse powe When it is finished, Finland's Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear reactor will be the biggest the world has ever seen, the excavation site alone is the size of 55 football fields. It was to have been a pilot project for bigger, better, cleaner, Generation III reactors, which would lead the charge back to nuclear power in a continent which had gone cold on atomic energy after the accidents at Chernobyl and Thee Mile Island. But hopes of an early nuclear dawn on the Baltic coast are fading - the May start up date came and went and the OL3 is now not expected to begin pumping out electricity until 2012 - three years later than planned and about $2.4bn dollars (1.7bn euros) over budget. The soaring cranes tell the tale: this project is far from complete. There have been a string of problems starting with the concrete, then the welding. Now, the safety regulator is questioning the designs for the reactor's nerve centre - the Instrumentation and Control system. If Greenpeace had said at the start that... its going to be three and a half years late and 60% over budget, everybody would have laughed Steve Thomas, Greenwich University STUK - the Finnish safety regulator - has shown signs of irritation with the French company Areva who want to build many of Europe's future reactors. For Jukka Laaksonen, director general of STUK, getting the instrumentation and control right is absolutely critical to the safety of the plant. He says the experts at Areva understand the problem but, "the company's management is not going along". Areva, which is mainly owned by the French government, says it is "strengthening" its team to help implement STUK's requests, with a "significant increase" in the taskforce working to sort out the problem. It says part of the problem lies with the regulator who has been slow in approving design documents. Disappointment For his part, Jarmo Tanhua, chief executive of Finnish utility TVO, the ultimate end customer of the plant, admits to being disappointed. Delays with the project could have European, even global ramifications "A lot has been going wrong," says Ariane Sains of Platts Nuclear Publications. "They have had many problems with subcontractors who simply have not understood the very strict requirements for delivering to a nuclear project." Even Philippe Knoche, Areva's chief operating officer, admits things have not been going well. "It's no secret that Areva is losing money on this project," he tells me. The two sides are now fighting over compensation for the delays. TVO is trying to claim back $3.3bn (2.4bn euros) from Areva for the soaring costs, not least to cover having to buy-in electricity to plug the gap until the plant is finished. On the other side Areva is claiming $1.4bn (1bn euros) from the Finns and the relationship on the Baltic has shown signs of icing. "If Greenpeace had said at the start that after four years of construction its going to be three and a half years late and 60% over budget everybody would have laughed at them," says Steve Thomas, Professor of Energy Policy at Greenwich University in the UK who has been monitoring the project. "But that's what has happened. It's hard to think of it going more wrong than it has." 'Teething troubles' Britain's safety regulator, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), now seems to be echoing Finnish concerns. The NII must decide whether to approve the design of Areva's European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) for use in the UK. In a letter to Areva, the NII has warned that if questions regarding the instrumentation and control systems are not resolved it could, "prevent a successful outcome". We are clearly confident we can answer these requirements Philipe Knoche, Areva In the worst case, the EPR could be struck-off the list of reactor designs approved for use in the UK, a devastating blow to the French company and the British nuclear programme. Areva's Philippe Knoche says it is not that "black and white". By knowing the requirement of the regulators upfront, he says they can solve the problems. "We are clearly confident we can answer these requirements," he adds. The French say what they are encountering are just teething troubles, and that when the problems are solved, the EPR will be rolled-out as a global energy solution. They have invested so much in the nuclear future they are unlikely to walk away, but if the safety questions are not adequately answered, the delays could occur yet again in both Britain and Finland. The Finns may be frustrated but they are showing no sign of losing confidence in the nuclear option and they may even go ahead with another reactor after this one. And at least they have a plan and a location for their underground nuclear waste repository and that does put them among the world leaders. The nuclear dawn may be delayed but like the returning sun after the long northern winters, it will eventually come. The question for Finland is when and at what cost.

G8 pledges to boost food supplies

Many farmers in developing countries are at the mercy of drought or flooding Leaders of the G8 developed nations have pledged $20bn (£12bn) for efforts to boost food supplies to the hungry, on the final day of a summit in Italy. The investment, which is $5bn more than had been expected, will fund a three-year initiative to help poor nations develop their own agriculture. US President Barack Obama said the issue of food security was of huge importance to all nations in the world. Richer nations had a moral obligation to help poorer nations, he said. Mr Obama added that the G8 nations had agreed to commit $15bn for the new initiative going into Friday's meeting, but had then promised an additional $5bn in "hard commitments" during the talks. "We do not view this assistance as an end in itself," he said. Has G8 done enough for the poor? Obama holds first talks with Pope In quotes: G8 food pledge assessed G8 warning on Iran crackdown "We believe that the purpose of aid must be to create the conditions where it's no longer needed, to help people become self-sufficient, provide for their families and lift their standards of living." Mr Obama, who has relatives in Kenya, said he had drawn on his family's personal experience in his discussions with other world leaders. The US will reportedly contribute some $3.5bn to the programme. Mr Obama met representatives of Angola, Algeria, Nigeria and Senegal in L'Aquila, where the summit is being held. He will also meet Pope Benedict XVI in Rome before embarking on an African tour later on Friday. African leaders had earlier urged G8 nations to live up to past aid pledges. BBC economics correspondent Andrew Walker says the idea is to put more emphasis on helping people feed themselves. That is to be achieved with more investment in the agriculture of developing countries, and the G8 nations - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US - will provide significant resources, our correspondent adds. Obama insisted Africa can be self-sufficient when it comes to food However, although the total amount of overseas development aid (ODA) was increased in 2008, the rich countries are still behind on their target to double aid that was made at the G8 Gleneagles Summit in 2005 - and Italy is among the laggards. Not all the money pledged to the agriculture initiative at the summit will be new funding. Kanaya Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, told the BBC that he welcomed the announcement of more investment in agriculture in the developing world. "It is time for us to switch because food security is not just food aid," he said. "It is the ability of people to produce food locally and for them to be able to have access to local markets." Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who also attended Friday's talks, told Reuters news agency beforehand that the key message from African nations was that the G8 had to live up to its commitments. Aid organisations have criticised some members for failing to deliver on the promise made at the 2005 G8 summit to increase annual aid levels to sub-Saharan Africa by $25bn by 2010. Italy, the present summit host, has come under particular pressure for cutting, rather than increasing, aid this year. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said the global economic crisis and Italy's mounting debts are responsible for a delay in Rome meeting its promises. Climate challenge On Thursday, when the summit focused on climate change, leaders from both developed and developing nations agreed that global temperatures should not rise more than 2C above 1900 levels. That is the level above which, the UN says, the Earth's climate system would become dangerously unstable. It is time for us to switch because food security is not just food aid Kanaya Nwanze International Fund for Agricultural Development Gaddafi and Brown in first talks Climate deal highlights divisions Mr Obama said the G8 and developing nations had made important strides in dealing with climate change. But the G8 failed to persuade the developing countries to accept targets of cutting emissions by 50% by 2050. On Wednesday, the G8 agreed its own members would work towards 80% cuts by the same date. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the G8 had not done enough and should also set 2020 targets for emissions cuts. BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin says the declaration is a significant step, with all big countries - rich and poor - agreeing there is a scientific limit on the amount we can warm the climate. But there is still a huge way to go, he says, as developing nations like India will not sign up to any 2050 targets unless rich nations show more determination and offer more cash.