I look forward to a successful transition.” But Germany’s development minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, said: “The enthusiasm in old Europe is not exactly overwhelming.”The choice of successor to Mr Wolfensohn, who steps down in May after 10 years, was the subject of furious speculation. But he added that Mr Wolfowitz was “a compassionate, decent man who will do a fine job”.The outgoing World Bank president, James Wolfensohn, was similarly gracious. “He is a person of high intellect, integrity and broad experience in both the public and private sectors… “This is not a qualification to head the World Bank.”President Bush tacitly acknowledged the contentiousness of his choice, telling reporters he had called several world leaders to explain his decision before making it public. “He is a defense specialist, he is a military specialist,” Professor Sachs said. “We intend to honour those in civil society in Ireland,” President Bush said at a White House press conference.The Oval Office meeting with the McCartney sisters ­ at which they plan to hand him a dossier on the crime ­ would be a “very strong part of that statement,” Mr Bush added. He described the women as “very brave souls,” whose brother “hopefully will not have died in vain.”After the meeting with the two Senators, and a Northern Ireland Bureau lunch, the family was due to attend the annual gala dinner of the America/Ireland Fund (to which Mr Adams has been invited along with Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister, and a host of other dignitaries.One suspect in the killing is expected to be questioned shortly, and his solicitor is already understood to have contacted the police..

President George Bush risked the ire of the international community for the second time in as many weeks yesterday as he nominated his administration’s leading neo-conservative hawk, Paul Wolfowitz, to be the head of the World Bank. “There is no noble alternative to resignation.”At the very least, it means that Mr Summers will continue to be distracted by the controversy, ignited by a speech at an academic conference on women in science. He said one reason there were fewer women attaining the highest positions in the sciences was because of intrinsic differences in ability between the sexes. The scandal embroiling Harvard University’s beleaguered president, Lawrence Summers, took yet another twist, when one of thebiggest faculties passed a vote of no confidence in him. In a shocking, though only symbolic, 215-185 vote, the faculty of arts and sciences approved a motion expressing a “lack of confidence” in Mr Summers’ leadership yesterday.

It was the latest scolding visited upon the president for remarks he made in January suggesting that women are innately less capable than men in sciences.
It had been widely assumed that Mr Summers, a former US treasury secretary, had weathered the worst of the storm. The topic is Croatia right now.” Slovenia’s Foreign Minister, Dimitrij Rupel, said the precedent set by yesterday’s decision was that “conditions for EU enlargement are getting tougher”. That implies that there will be little leniency if Turkey fails to meet any of the conditions asked of it if it does start talks in October.Croatia’s hopes of starting membership talks immediately foundered on the decision of the EU to make full co-operation with the UN tribunal investigating war crimes in the former Yugoslavia a precondition of negotiations.British, Dutch, and German diplomats have argued that, if Croatia is allowed to open EU membership talks without the surrender of General Ante Gotovina, that could make it impossible to secure the handover of the two most wanted war criminals in the Balkans. That gives Zagreb more than two months to prove it is doing everything possible to track down the former general who is accused of responsibility for massacres of Serbs in Krajina in the 1990s.The Croatian premier, Ivo Sanader, said his country had met obligations to co-operate with The Hague.. Mr Straw argued, for the first time, that, while more cooperation with the UN tribunal was essential, “none of us are making [the surrender of General Gotovina] a precondition”.He added that, were full co-operation given but “that co-operation was unsuccessful in the arrest of the fugitive, the government concerned should not be penalised for matters beyond its control”.Carla Del Ponte, the UN’s chief war crimes prosecutor, is due to deliver another assessment of Croatia’s co-operation in June to the UN Security Council, Mr Straw pointed out. They are the former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic. “If we want Serbia to come into line, then our position towards Croatia has to be very clear, otherwise we also lose our leverage vis-a-vis Serbia,” said the Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Gucht.But the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, took a conciliatory tone and suggested that a compromise may be possible in June.

The dispute also poses a potentially explosive problem for Britain which takes over the presidency of the EU in the second half of this year.Asked directly if Austria would be willing to block Turkey’s accession talks in October, Austria’s Foreign Minister, Ursula Plassnik, replied: “I won’t answer on that. That operation was the biggest round-up against child pornography in Spain. Those detained, all Spaniards, included teachers, lecturers, students, computer engineers, cleaning staff, civil servants and military officers; 21 of those detained were themselves minors.. Croatia’s talks on joining the EU have been suspended, splitting the 25 member states and jeopardising Turkey’s ambitions to join the union.