Report: UK to claim Atlantic territory

LONDON - Britain is preparing to claim tens of thousands of square miles of Atlantic seabed around some of the country's remote island possessions, a newspaper reported Saturday, including areas around the Falkland Islands.

The Guardian said Britain plans to exploit an international rule that allows countries to claim underwater territory as far away as 350 miles from its shoreline.
The claims include areas around the Falklands, some 8,000 miles from the British mainland; Ascension Island, a volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic; and Rockall — a tiny, uninhabited rock 200 miles off the Scottish coast.
Preliminary talks on Rockall are due to be held next week in Iceland, Chris Carleton, the head of law of the sea division of Britain's Hydrographic Office, told The Guardian.
Carleton said the Falklands claim was the most likely to be contentious. The status of the British-run Falklands is hotly disputed by Argentina, which also claims sovereignty over the islands and fought a war over the territory in 1982. Relations have improved since, but Argentina still claims the Falklands as its own and recently pulled out of a 1995 agreement to explore for oil and gas in the region.
Britain already has licenses for exploratory drilling within a 200-mile radius of the islands, The Guardian said, adding that the new claims would extend the area under British control up to the area around South Georgia, an even more remote British island deep in the south Atlantic.
"It effectively joins up the area around South Georgia to the Falklands," Carleton was quoted as saying. "It's a claim but how it's handled has not been decided yet. It's all a bit tricky."
Britain's Foreign Office said it had no information on the plans, while Carleton did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

FBI head, Austria assess soccer security

VIENNA, Austria - FBI Director Robert S. Mueller met with Austrian officials Thursday to discuss last week's arrests in Vienna of two suspected al-Qaida operatives and assess the threat of terrorism during next summer's Euro 2008 soccer tournament.

Interior Minister Guenther Platter described the meeting as an "intensive exchange of ideas" on counterterrorism efforts in Austria, which will co-host the June 7-29 tournament along with Switzerland.

Vienna police last week arrested three people suspected of ties to a video posted online in March that threatened Austria and Germany with attacks if they do not withdraw military personnel from Afghanistan. One of the suspects later was released for lack of evidence.
Canadian authorities have arrested a fourth suspect believed linked to the video threat.
Austrian authorities had earlier said the prime suspect was the operator of the German-language Web site for the Global Islamic Media Front, an al-Qaida propaganda group.
But the Global Islamic Media Front, in a statement issued to jihadist Internet forums on Thursday, denied that those arrested have any connection to it, according to the SITE Intelligence Group — a U.S. terrorism research center that monitors al-Qaida messages.
Platter declined to comment on measures being taken to secure Euro 2008, which will draw hundreds of thousands of soccer fans to Austria, but he confirmed plans to travel to Washington next month for more discussions with U.S. counterterrorism experts.
Canada's National Post newspaper, citing information from SITE, first reported Wednesday that the suspects allegedly discussed the possibility of carrying out an attack on one or more tournament venues.
Rudolf Gollia, a spokesman for Austria's Interior Ministry, said authorities had no knowledge of any discussions by the Vienna suspects that focused on Euro 2008.
Platter has said authorities found no evidence suggesting the suspects arrested last week were plotting to carry out an attack in Austria, although he said one of the suspects had looked into acquiring explosives.
About 2,000 Austrian police have been undergoing special training on how to contain violence during the soccer championship.
With the increasing use of the Internet as a tool to recruit Islamic radicals willing to carry out attacks, "now more than ever" it is critical for countries to cooperate and exchange information, Mueller told reporters, describing Thursday's meeting as "fruitful."
"Our success has been based on relations both within the United States and abroad," he said

Qatar agency takes stake in LSE

LONDON - The Qatar Investment Authority said Thursday it had acquired a 20 percent stake in the London Stock Exchange, the same day that Borse Dubai announced a deal to acquire the Nasdaq Stock Market's 28 percent stake in the LSE.

Terms of the Qatar deal were not disclosed.
Saying it intended to by a long-term shareholder, the Qatar Investment Authority said it "sees itself as a shareholder that will provide stability and support for the board's strategy of developing further its business and thereby reinforce the City of London's position as the world's top global capital market."
It ruled out a takeover bid for the time being, but said it reserved the right to change that position if someone else announces an intention to bid.
The London Stock Exchange, which declined to comment earlier Thursday about the Dubai deal, welcomed the Qatar investment. It said it had a long-standing relationship with the Qatari investors based on plans to develop the market in Qatar.
"The exchange believes that, given the strength of Qatar's economy and the development of Doha as a major financial center, there are significant opportunities to build further this relationship to the mutual benefit of both parties," it said in a statement.
Nasdaq failed in its bid earlier this year to take over the London Stock Exchange, which has turned away several bids over the past few years.
LSE shares soared 9.8 percent to 1,596 pence ($32.03) on Thursday. Borse Dubai is paying 1,414 pence ($28.38) per LSE share in its deal with Nasdaq.

Microsoft loses European appeal

By MATT MOORE and AOIFE WHITE 16 minutes ago
BRUSSELS, Belgium - Microsoft lost its appeal of a European antitrust order Monday that obliges the technology giant to share communications code with rivals, sell a copy of Windows without Media Player and pay a $613 million fine — the largest ever by EU regulators.

The EU Court of First Instance ruled against Microsoft on both parts of the case, saying the European Commission was correct in concluding that the world's biggest software company was guilty of monopoly abuse in trying to use its power over desktop computers to muscle into server software.
Microsoft Corp., based in Redmond, Wash., said it would withhold comment on the decision and on whether it would appeal to the EU's highest court, the European Court of Justice, until it had gone through the 248-page ruling. It has two months to appeal. Microsoft earned $14.07 billion last fiscal year.
"I don't want to talk about what will come next," said Microsoft lawyer Brad Smith. "We need to read the ruling before we make any decision."
But he said the company accepted that it may need to do more to comply with EU demands — without giving specifics.
"It's not our desire and it is not our goal to have continuous arguments and disputes. We want to move forward," he told reporters — saying he had called the Commission earlier to congratulate them.
The court had confirmed that regulators had "quite broad power and quite broad discretion" over companies with large market shares, he said, citing Google Inc., Apple Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. as those that needed to heed the decision.
The court said regulators had clearly demonstrated that selling media software with Windows had damaged rivals.
"The court observes that it is beyond dispute that in consequence of the tying consumers are unable to acquire the Windows operating system without simultaneously acquiring Windows Media Player," it said.
"In that regard, the court considers that neither the fact that Microsoft does not charge a separate price for Windows Media Player nor the fact that consumers are not obliged to use that Media Player is irrelevant."
But it did overturn regulators' decision to appoint a monitoring trustee to watch how Microsoft had complied with the ruling, saying the Commission had exceeded its powers by ordering Microsoft to pay for all the costs of the trustee.
The mood at EU headquarters was one of elation and the court's decision was hailed as a big victory for the EU's competition policy and for consumer rights.
"The ruling confirms more than ever that Microsoft must comply," said EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. "I will not tolerate continued noncompliance."
Kroes said however that the victory did not yet mean that software customers have more choice than they did three years ago, when Microsoft was slapped with the original EU fine.
"The court has confirmed the Commission's view that consumers are suffering at the hands of Microsoft," she said.
She refused to say what the implications of Monday's decision would have on other ongoing legal fights between the EU and Microsoft.
The European Committee for Interoperable Systems called the ruling a good result.
"It's a very good day, for it signals that there will be fair competition for the sector," said Maurits Dolmans, a lawyer for the group.
In its ruling, the court upheld both the Commission's argument and its order for Microsoft to hand over information on server protocols to rivals. Microsoft had claimed these were protected by patents and the Commission was forcing it to give away valuable intellectual property at little or no cost.
The court confirmed "that the necessary degree of interoperability required by the Commission is well founded and that there is no inconsistency between that degree of interoperability and the remedy imposed by the Commission.
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AP Business Writer Aoife White contributed to this report from Brussels, Belgium. Associated Press writer Robert Wielaard contributed to this report.