■ Germany
Ambassador summoned
The Foreign Ministry said on Friday it had summoned Iran's ambassador to protest against suggestions by Iran's president on Thursday that the Holocaust might not have happened and that Israel should be moved to Europe. Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said at a government news conference the decision to deliver a formal protest to Iran's envoy in Berlin was meant to show that Berlin was taking the president's comments very seriously. "We have summoned the Iranian ambassador," Jaeger told reporters. "When one summons an ambassador, then you signal the start of something in diplomacy, that there are grounds for serious discussion."
■ United Kingdom
Britain aided nuke program
Fresh and apparently incriminating documents have come to light under the Freedom of Information Act on the way Britain helped Israel obtain its nuclear bomb 40 years ago, by selling it 20 tonnes of heavy water. The government files not only confirm that Britain was a knowing party to the deal, but also contain subsequent intelligence assessments confirming that the sale of heavy water, which is used to produce plutonium, was crucial to Israel's nuclear weapons program. Kim Howells, a Foreign Office minister, had previously claimed that "the UK was not in fact a party to the sale of heavy water to Israel."
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