EU governments must not miss this opportunity to settle an issue that has been outstanding [far] too long”. European Union governments will be asked to endorse the package next month, and Britain yesterday gave it a cautious welcome.Under the present system, Euro MPs are paid the same as MPs in their own country’s national parliament, leading to huge differentials in salaries, with Italian and German deputies earning significantly more than, for example, Irish or British, counterparts.To make up the difference in salary, lower-paid MEPs have systematically exploited the lax expenses system. Michiel van Hulten, a Dutch MEP, argued: “We’ve all had to give some ground. But the vote was seen as the last chance for parliament to get its house in order before the arrival of 10 new member states next year and ahead of European elections in June. With no requirement to produce proof of payment, MEPs can legally fly economy class but claim a full-cost fare.Under the plan agreed yesterday, all MEPs will earn a gross monthly salary of €8,600 (£6,045), which is equal to 50 per cent of the earnings of a judge at the European Court of Justice.

Euro-MPs voted yesterday in favour of scrapping their notoriously lucrative expenses and introducing a single rate of pay, with MEPs from Scotland to Slovakia earning the same annual salary; and the majority receiving a pay rise.
The deal, approved by most members, will increase the pay of British MEPs by almost 30 per cent at current exchange rates. But it also means that, for the first time, MEPs’ travel expenses will only be reimbursed on production of receipts.The decision is the culmination of a long campaign to shed the gravy train image that has sapped the authority of the Strasbourg parliament. In 1998 he was questioned over his links with Turkish Hezbollah, a radical group not related to the Lebanese group of the same name.. The majority of the victims were Muslims.The misjudgement led to criticism from al-Qa’ida, according to Yitiz.

He said that an accomplice, Habib Aktas, told him the bombings were “considered a failure because it mostly killed Muslim Turks.”Yitiz told police that Aktas and Ibrahim Kus, who have been identified as key suspects in the bombings, met bin Laden in Afghanistan in 2002.The two reportedly told bin Laden that “they wanted to do something in Turkey for the jihad”. According to Yitiz, bin Laden replied, “I am approving it on condition that it is directed against the Americans and their allies but not the Turks.”According to the reports of Yitiz’s interrogation, bin Laden first suggested an attack against Turkey’s Incirlik air base, a sprawling facility used by American troops and US and Israeli ships using the Mediterranean port of Mersin. The President added that the principle of a secular state must also apply in hospitals and other public institutions. Islamic women patients could not refuse to be treated by male doctors..

Osama bin Laden was behind the suicide attacks in Turkey which claimed 62 lives, including that of the British consul general, in Istanbul last month, according to a suspect under interrogation. They believe the bombings were carried out by individuals who received training from al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan.The suspect, Fevzi Yitiz, told interrogators that bin Laden approved attacks in Turkey on condition that Turks were not killed, an intelligence source said. But the militants instead bombed two synagogues on 15 November, and the Turkish headquarters of HSBC bank and the British Consulate five days later. President Jacques Chirac called yesterday for a ban on Islamic headscarves and other obvious religious symbols in state schools and suggested there should be a similar ban on officials or workers who deal with the public. Mr Fayed appealed, but lost the case at the Court of Cassation in April 2002.The Prince of Wales’s office has already said it would be co-operating fully with the inquest into Mr Fayed’s death..