Meanwhile in Europe

Five Danish soldiers convicted of Geneva Conventions "violations" -- like insulting Iraqi detainees, denying them water, and making them kneel:

A Danish Army captain and four military police officers were found guilty yesterday of breaching human rights conventions in interrogations of detainees in Iraq. The Copenhagen City Court said Capt. Annemette Hommel and the four co-defendants violated the rights of the detainees by forcing them to kneel in uncomfortable positions during questioning in March 2004.

The court declined to issue sentences because of extenuating circumstances, saying the defendants had not received clear guidelines from the Danish military. The five defendants had pleaded innocent in what was Denmark’s first trial related to its 530-strong contingent in the port city of Basra, 400 kilometers southeast of Baghdad. All five immediately appealed the verdict to a higher court.

. . . The trial was conducted in a civilian court because Denmark has no military courts.

Conduct of Spanish troops during the battle of Najaf was "idiotic":

The former US governor of Iraq has condemned Spanish troops for their 'idiotic' conduct in Iraq.

Paul Bremer claimed they "did nothing" as a battle between Shi'ite militia forces and coalition troops went on around them in the Iraqi city of Najaf in 2004. In his memoirs, Bremer wrote: "They are sitting in tanks doing nothing," quoting from notes he made at the time.

"It is a perfect outrage – I call it the 'coalition of the not-at-all-willing'."

Bremer's book, 'My year in Iraq: The struggle to build a future of hope', challenges the version given by the Spanish military of the Najaf uprising in April 2004.

The rebellion took place just days before Spanish troops were due to be withdrawn from Iraq by the newly-elected Socialist government which won a general election weeks earlier.

Bremer claims Spanish troops deployed five kilometres from Najaf refused to help US marines and troops from Latin American countries who were fighting insurgents.

And Europe's record on innovation is fifty years behind the US.

The European Union’s record on innovation is so poor that it would take more than 50 years to catch up with the US, according to a survey presented by the European Commission on Thursday.

The Innovation Scoreboard compares the performance of the 25 EU countries with the US, Japan and several other nations, and ranks them according to factors such as the number of science and engineering graduates, patents, research and development spending and exports of high-tech products. The survey finds that only four EU countries – Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Germany – can compete with the US and Japan in terms of their innovative abilities.