Ashton hails UN resolution on EU's extra observer rights

English.news.cn 2011-05-04

BRUSSELS, May 3 (Xinhua) -- EU foreign policy chief on Tuesday welcomed the UN resolution on a special observer status that will enable EU representatives to present and promote the bloc's positions in the UN.

"I am very pleased that the United Nations General Assembly adopted today's Resolution, which takes account of the institutional changes brought by the Lisbon Treaty,"said Catherine Ashton in a statement.

Ashton said she has placed great importance in the EU's cooperation with the UN, adding that the resolution will enable the EU to "continue to support the UN's vital work in a coherent and effective manner."

A total of 180 members of the 192-nation UN General Assembly voted for the resolution, and Zimbabwe and Nauru abstained for the voting.

Media reports say Ashton did a lot of lobbying before the vote and it is now highly possible other regional groups may seek similar right to speak up at the General Assembly and reply in debates.

Some countries were outspoken about their concerns over the decision, saying that granting the EU an extra collective voice will privilege its 27 members above all other countries.

Editor: yan

Related Articles:

Gordon Brown calls for reform of global bodies including WB, IMF and UN

World Bank Doesn't Belong at the Green Climate Fund's Drawing Table

Civil libertarians slam EU Internet filtering considerations

Deutsche Welle, May 3, 2011

Rights groups fear any EU filtering
would lead to censorship

A possible plan by the EU published this week to create a 'single secure European cyberspace' by blocking 'illicit content' has come under attack by civil liberties groups who say it would lead to censorship.

Considerations by the European Union to create a more "secure European cyberspace" by requiring ISPs to block "illicit content" have come under attack from anti-censorship groups, who compare the plan to China's system for controlling citizen's online access.

"It's a bad idea, opening the floodgates to a lot of restrictions on what people can and cannot see on the Internet," said Jim Killock, executive director of the UK-based Open Rights Group, told Deutsche Welle. "It's very disturbing."

The plans were discussed during a meeting held in February of the Law Enforcement Working Party (LEWP) of the Council of the European Union, the EU's central legislative and decision-making body. Details of this meeting were recently revealed online.

The LEWP is a forum for cooperation on issues like counterterrorism, customs and fraud.

The closed meeting was held in February but the issue only gained attention after the minutes were published online this week.

The one-paragraph entry in the meeting minutes said the LEWP proposed creating a "single secure European cyberspace," thereby creating a "virtual Schengen border." The goal would be to block "illicit contents" on the basis of an EU black list.

Some fear erecting a Great Firewall
of Europe similar to China's

Open to abuse?

No detail into what might be considered "illicit" was given nor how such regulations would be enforced, which worry rights groups.

"It's impractical, from a technological side, and it's likely to create market barriers, not to mention censorship and all sorts of civil liberties abuses," said Killock. "It sets a bad example for the rest of the world."

He compared it to China's heavy-handed approach to restricting what its citizens can view online.

"It erects a great firewall of Europe, in essence," he said.

In addition, from a technical side, filtering systems have proven very porous and easy to circumvent.

The European Union said that while a possible filtering system was discussed at the February meeting chaired by the Hungarians, who currently hold the EU presidency, many people in Brussels were unaware of the discussions, nor has there been any follow-up document or activity on the matter.

"In my opinion, it's a dead child," an EU diplomat told Deutsche Welle on the condition of anonymity.

Despite blockages, there are
techniques to circumvent censorship

Already blocking
Internet filtering discussions are not new in Europe, and some countries, such as Finland, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, have moved to block domains that feature content like child pornography and file-sharing sites.

"Many member states think that the biggest problem of blocking is that it's not effective," Ivan Koedjikov, head of the Department of Information Society and Action against Crime at the Council of Europe, told Deutsche Welle. "This would create a false sense of security related to criminal offenses."

He said he would like to see public-private partnerships between governments and ISPs, which would work together when it comes to illegal sites, which are outlined in the council's Convention on Cybercrime to include child pornography and offenses related to copyright infringement.

"The Internet is a public place, like a public square, the TV or radio, and should be subject to norms and regulations and not become a free-for-all," he said.

While child pornography will find few public advocates, there are concerns that a filtering system could be subject to "mission creep," meaning legal content could end up on a "black list" and be filtered as well.

Author: Kyle James

Editor: Cyrus Farivar

Related Article:

Dutch push freedom of internet

US accuses Deutsche Bank of lying

BBC News, 3 May 2011

Related Stories

• Goldman Sachs 'misled investors'
• Deutsche Bank fined over lending

The US Justice Department has sued Deutsche Bank for more than $1bn (£600m) for defrauding the government.

Deutsche Bank said it would
defend itself vigorously

The complaint says Deutsche's MortgageIT subsidiary lied in order to get Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insurance for its loans.

FHA rules say lenders must make sure the borrower will be able to repay the loan, but the Justice Department claims Deutsche did not do so.

A Deutsche spokesperson described the claims as "unreasonable and unfair".

"We intend to defend against the action vigorously," she added.

The lawsuit is one of the first targeting mortgage lenders under the federal False Claims Act.

The government says that between 1999 and 2009, MortgageIT endorsed more than 39,000 mortgages for FHA insurance.

It says that the lender had powerful incentives to generate as many FHA-insured loans as it could so that it could then sell them on to investors.

Deutsche Bank bought MortgageIT for $430m in 2007.

The government said it had paid out more than $386m in FHA insurance claims and related costs.

The global financial crisis was sparked by mortgages being given to people who could not afford them, with the debt then being repackaged and sold on to investors.

The US government has been trying to hold the mortgage industry responsible for the crisis as well as the housing slump and large numbers of foreclosures.

Related Article:

US sues Deutsche Bank in billion-dollar fraud case

Dutch hothouses could help solve world food crisis

RNW, 2 May 2011, by Johan Huizinga

(Photo: RNW)

Dutch hothouses used to have a reputation for wasting energy. But nowadays it’s the most innovative sector in the Netherlands, producing food extremely efficiently using sustainable energy. Even the Chinese are interested.

China, like the Netherlands, does not have enough agricultural land to feed its own population. Dutch intensive greenhouse systems could help increase food production in China.

Professor of greenhouse farming at the Agricultural University of Wageningen Olaf van Kooten explains:

“Cultivation under glass is extremely efficient in its use of water and energy. In the future, we will have to feed around 15 billion people across the world, and this could be a key to the solution.”

Water

Excess warm water is stored
underground (Photo: RNW)

Stef Huisman grows tropical plants and trees for offices. He uses a closed water system. His nursery has trees standing in two to three centimetres of water. Every week, the water is filtered for sand and ultra violet rays and reused.

“That is all the water we need. The rain that falls on the roof is enough to water the plants. We don’t use any ground water.”

Professor Van Kooten thinks this technique could be an important export product.

“If we continue like this, the only water we use will literally be the water in the product. To produce a kilo of tomatoes, you will only need a litre of water.”

Ground heat

Water is pumped from a depth of
three kilometers (Photo: RNW)

The use of the ground heat to heat the greenhouses is just as important. Ted Duijvestijn has drilled a 3-kilometre-deep shaft to heat his tomato greenhouses in Pijnacker. The system pumps salt water which is 75 degrees Celsius upwards to the greenhouses. Once the water cools it is pumped back into the ground, where it reheats again.

The system, which was installed in March, is already making 60 percent savings. Once the electric pumps are powered by his own windmills, the greenhouses will more or less only run on sustainable energy. There will even be excess energy and warm water produced so that greenhouse owners will also become energy suppliers.

LED lighting

Rob Baan uses four colours in
LED-lighting (Photo: RNW)

And then there are the lights which are used to help plants grow. Vegetable grower Rob Baan has replaced his with low-energy LED lights which give exactly the right colour. Next to the greenhouse is a windmill to provide the energy for the LED lights.

In the summer the greenhouses are heated by the sun, producing temperatures above 50 degrees. Excess warmth is used to heat water, which is stored underground for the winter.

No pesticides

Wouldn’t it be easier to cultivate food in regions where no greenhouses are needed. Mr Baan very firmly says “No.”

“There are no insects here. Our greenhouses are either free of insects or we have predators in the greenhouses which eat them. We do not spay pesticides on the plants. Our production methods are becoming more and more sustainable. In the future, these kind of farms will be built close to cities, so that food can be produced locally.”

Meanwhile he has started up his own businesses in the United States and Japan.

Related Articles:

The Netherlands plans to pave streets with solar panels

Wind industry sees big potential for little turbines

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain - (Google)

Offshore wind park powers German hopes for non-nuclear future

Deutsche Welle, 02.05.2011 

Germany is speeding up efforts to
generate more green energy

Germany's first commercial offshore wind power park, in the Baltic Sea, officially opens on Monday. The facility, which is expected to generate enough power for 50,000 homes, looks set to be the first of many.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was set to be the guest of honor at the switch-on of the Baltic 1 wind park, which lies 16 kilometers (10 miles) off the German coast.

The chancellor was due to push the start button for 21 wind generators that the park operators say will generate enough power for 50,000 homes.

Baltic 1, which is located off the Fischland-Darss-Zingst peninsula is the first of two planned by the Karlsruhe-based utility firm Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW).

The second, consisting of 80 generators located off the German Baltic island of Rügen, is scheduled to be opened in 2013. It is hoped that that facility will generate enough energy to serve the needs of 340,000 households. The firm has estimated the cost of its investment to be 1.2 billion euros ($1.7 billion).

The wind park is located off the
Fischland-Darss-Zingst peninsula

"The age of renewable energy will enter a new stage." said Jürgen Seidel, Economic Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in anticipation of the switch-on.

First commercial project

Baltic 1 is the first such venture to take place on a commercial basis in Germany, although the offshore wind park Alpha Ventus - underwritten by the German government - did open last year in the North Sea.

The opening comes at a time of growing calls for Germany to invest in renewable sources of power such as wind. The country, which has a strong anti-nuclear movement, has seen concerns resurface following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

Germany's Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) has said that permission has been granted for 23 offshore wind parks in the North Sea, with a generating capacity of 7650 megawatts, and three in the Baltic with a capacity of 1040 megawatts.

In comparison, an average-sized nuclear power station would generate some 1000 megawatts.

The agency also revealed that it has received applications for 56 more wind parks in the North Sea and 15 more in the Baltic.

Author: Richard Connor (AFP, dpa)

Editor: Nicole Goebel

Ten nations urge new push for non-proliferation

Deutsche Welle, 30.04.2011

Group seeks to ban all fissile
material for nuclear weapons

The foreign ministers of ten countries have called for fresh efforts by the international community to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and materials at a meeting in Germany.

At talks in Berlin on Saturday, hosted by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, ten nations agreed to renew their efforts to speed up nuclear disarmament.

"We encourage all countries who may still be hesitant to follow our example," Westerwelle said.

The German foreign minister said that the participants from five continents saw themselves as the vanguard of a new global disarmament effort.

"We want to make this young decade a decade of disarmament," he said.

A joint statement released after the meeting said that the goal of the initiative was to "work toward achieving nuclear disarmament and strengthening the international non-proliferation regime."

Seeking nuclear disarmament

Westerwelle told journalists that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the international Nuclear Test Ban Treaty should be adopted by all countries, adding that the production and mining of all fissile material for nuclear weapons should be banned internationally. He called for resuscitating the Geneva Disarmament Convention.

Attending the talks with Germany were Japan, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Chile, Poland, Mexico, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

Last year, these countries formed the group Friends of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Author: Gregg Benzow (dpa,AP)

Editor: Kyle James

EU investigates banks over credit default swaps use

BBC News, 29 April 2011

Big Banking

• Santander says upturn has begun
• Barclays' quarterly profit falls
• Weak trading saps Goldman profits
• Slow business hits Citi profits

The EU's competition authorities are investigating the activities of nine of the world's biggest banks over the market for credit default swaps (CDS).

The EU probes involve 16 global
banking giants as well as other
linked institutions

CDS's are a form of insurance policy taken out on financial instruments, such as bonds, in case they lose value.

The banks include Barclays, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup.

The probe centres on whether preferential treatment - including special low fees - was given by a clearing house to drum up business.

The other five banks involved are Bank of America, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and UBS.

The EU's anti-trust commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, said in a statement: "CDS's play a useful role for financial markets and for the economy.

"Recent developments have shown, however, that the trading of this asset class suffers a number of inefficiencies that cannot be solved through regulation alone."

The value of CDS - said to be in the region of $28 trillion (£17tn) dwarfs the worth of the instruments they are based on.

As well as providing insurance against a bond going bad, CDS are also used for speculation, with banks and hedge funds trading in CDS to make money without actually owning the underlying bonds.

During the height of the financial crisis there were concerns that speculation in CDS for bonds was driving down prices and fuelling market panic.

The European Commission said it is investigating whether the nine big investment banks received special treatment from the clearing house ICE Clear Europe, and were therefore only giving their business to ICE.

The Commission said: "The effects of these agreements could be that other clearing houses have difficulties successfully entering the market and that other CDS players have no real choice where to clear their transactions."

The nine banks are shareholders in ICE's US clearing arm.

Preferential treatment?

In a separate case, the Commission said it was investigating whether those nine banks - and the seven others that act as dealers in the CDS market - give essential information on pricing and other daily activities only to Markit Group Ltd, which is the leading financial data provider for that market.

Such preferential treatment "could be the consequence of collusion between them or an abuse of a possible collective dominance" and could lock other data providers out of the CDS business, the Commission said.

Seven other firms are targeted in this probe: BNP Paribas, Commerzbank, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Wells Fargo, Credit Agricole and Societe Generale.

All 16 banks, which control around 90% of the market whereby banks deal with each other, are shareholders of Markit.

Markit holds a near monopoly on financial data, which the EU says could leave smaller competitors with worse information on pricing.

Market players, however, insist that there is no conclusive proof of such a link.

Markit said Friday it "does not believe it has engaged in any inappropriate conduct and looks forward to demonstrating that to the Commission".

A spokeswoman for IntercontinentalExchange said the company would cooperate with the investigation.

Related Articles:

Mervyn King slams banks for putting profits before people and preying on the vulnerable

Dutch banks don't hedge their bets

US agrees to new banking rules

The Netherlands plans to pave streets with solar panels

Deutsche Welle, 28.04.2011

Some technical adjustments are
needed, but roads offer plenty of
surface area

Amsterdam feels about as close to being owned by cyclists as any city can. Yet if that's not environmentally friendly enough, the Dutch are now looking to turn their bike paths, and streets, into clean power plants.

Paving the streets of the Netherlands with solar panels will kick off with a trial in the small town of Krommenie, 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Amsterdam, next year.

The city lane opposite the town's train station will be covered with 100 meters (328 feet) of solar panels.

Until now, solar panels have been placed in locations with no other purpose than to extract energy from the sun. This is about to change.

"Solar energy is a rather diffused energy source and you need a lot of area to use it. And these roads, this is some space we already use," said Sten de Wit, a project manager at the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) that came up with the idea.

"There is a lot of area covered with roads. If you compare the amount of rooftops in the Netherlands and the amount of area that is covered with roads it's approximately twice as big," he added.

Dual purpose

Solar panels on the street will differ
from those on rooftops

New technology was needed to develop the 1.5 by 2.5 meter solar tiles necessary for the solar paths. A key challenge was establishing the right surface for the roads.

The slabs incorporate a transparent top, an optical layer of tiny lenses and beneath that a series of small flat solar cells housed in concrete.

The glass top of the solar blocks is highly resistant and has been roughened to allow grip.

"The idea is if you roughened the surface of the top layer, perhaps you get some pollution over time, not all the light will come through the top layer. So what we do is we have these special kind of lenses which are very flat and they concentrate, they focus the light on to the relatively small solar cells and in that way you can use the light that comes through the top layer rather efficiently," Sten de Wit says.

At a laboratory in the Dutch town of Delft, a machine tests the structure's resistance. Some of the tests that are now taking place will help determine how many cars can drive over it before it wears out.

The blocks will also be placed slightly atilt to ensure water runs down to the roadside when it rains – a common occurrence in the Netherlands.

The solar panel will be covered with
a transparent top layer

Will the project survive in the real world?

The pilot project is expected to last for five years and the investors will be looking at how this state of the art technology performs in the wear and tear of the real world, where pollution or heavy traffic could impair the panels' ability to gather sunlight.

The experiment is being backed by the local regional government, and Green Left politician Bert Heller is one of the project's most enthusiastic supporters.

"In the whole of the Netherlands there's about 137,000 kilometers of roads and bicycle tracks - if you could put this innovation on all of those kilometers, you'd be able to fuel all the cars now driving those roads with electricity."

Indeed, one of the goals is to connect the system to a future electric car program.

The Northern Dutch province where Krommenie is located has provided an initial investment of 50,000 euros ($74,000) to build the prototype solar road, and it expects to recoup this money if the project advances.

"It's a relatively small amount of money we put into it, if it comes into production then of course we would like the production in our province. So there will be a clear economic side-effect."

Long-term payoff

Solar paths would be more expensive
than regular paths but would hopefully
pay off over time

TNO project manager Sten de Wit agrees that this is an investment in the future. "If you look at the comparison with a normal road, then of course it will be more expensive. But on the other hand, you get a lot of energy out of this system."

"The idea is that we want to build a system which eventually generates so much energy that the cost of the road over the duration of the lifetime is not that much higher than the cost of a normal road," he said.

TNO hopes that every 70 square meters (753 square feet) of solar road will generate a year's worth of energy for a medium-sized household.

Of course, not all roads can expect to be equipped with the technology. Shady and traffic-dense regions would be pointless, but elsewhere Dutch people can soon expect to see their dark paved streets turned to light transparent glass.

Author: Cintia Taylor

Editor: Nathan Witkop

Related Article:

Solar panel installations surge on UK household roofs

Solar panel installations surge on UK household roofs

• Government subsidies driving demand for panels
• Expert says fall in price removes need for feed-in tariff review

guardian.co.uk, Adam Vaughan, Thursday 28 April 2011

HomeSun solar panels are installed onto homes in Delabole near Bodmin
in Cornwall, where residents have teamed up to create what may be Britain's
first 'solar street'. Photograph: Simon Burt/PA

Householders rushing to put solar panels on their roof in order to take advantage of government subsidies have more than tripled the amount of solar power in the UK over the past year, figures published on Thursday show.

The lure of making nearly £1,000 a year has led to a record 11,314 people, largely homeowners, installing solar panels in the first three months of this year. The 'solar gold rush' appears to have been driven by the introduction of feed-in tariffs (Fits) last year, which pay businesses, groups and individuals for generating green energy.

The total amount of installed solar power in the UK has jumped from 26MW before the scheme started on 1 April 2010, to 77.8MW at the end of March this year, according to the department of energy and climate change (DECC). This takes the number of solar photovoltaic systems in the UK taking part in the Fits scheme to 28,505, alongside over a thousand micro wind turbines and just over 200 small hydro sites.

But despite the rise in demand, solar power under the Fits scheme still contributes only a tiny amount of the UK's total electricity generation. At 77.8MW, it accounts for just 0.104% of the 75GW provided by fossil fuel, nuclear and large scale renewable power plants. The UK's largest coal fired power station, Drax in Yorkshire, generates approximately 4,000MW.

The surge of installations in the past three months comes despite the government announcing a review of the feed-in tariffs in January, which is expected to exclude large-scale solar farms in a bid to protect the scheme for homeowners.

Ray Noble, a solar PV specialist at Renewable Energy Association, told the Guardian: "The vast majority of these installs are domestic and the surge is a result of rising consumer awareness, with people telling one another about solar. It's not a rush to beat the government's solar review [announced in January] – most people haven't even heard of the review. But I think the figures would have been even higher without the review."

Noble said that a fall in solar costs meant the government could avoid excluding large solar schemes by cutting the rate of solar tariff payments: "The cost of solar is falling, because solar panels are getting cheaper and the labour costs are coming down as bigger players and more competition enter what was once a cottage industry. We think the feed-in-tariffs [currently 43.3p/kWH for solar photovoltaics] could come down by as much as 30% and still make financial sense for consumers."

The DECC's figures also reveal that one of the UK's first mega solar schemes came online at the start of this year. The development, which was over 100KW, compared to around 2-3KW for most householders, is the sort that will no longer be eligible for the Fits under the review's proposals, which put a subsidy cap on solar installations above 50KW.

Businesses and environmental groups last week attacked the government review for sending the wrong signal to investors. Penny Shepherd, the chief executive of UKSIF, the UK's leading organisation representing financiers specialising in green investments, said: "One area of particular concern has been the changes to feed-in tariffs [subsidies for renewable energy]. It wasn't the proposal itself, but the sudden revision that sent out the wrong signal – investors need confidence that [the] policy will remain stable."

Syrian funding causes embarrassment at British university

University of St Andrews to review acceptance of funding arranged by Bashar al-Assad's controversial regime in Damascus

guardian.co.uk, Peter Beaumont and Jeevan Vasagar, Wednesday 27 April 2011

The University of St Andrews has received more than £100,000
in funding from Bashar al-Assad’s regime for its centre
for Syrian studies. (Photograph: David Cheskin/PA)

A prestigious British university is to review the work of one of its academic research centres because its funding was arranged by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Guardian can reveal.

The University of St Andrews, where Prince William and Kate Middleton studied, has received more than £100,000 in funding for its centre for Syrian studies with the assistance of the Syrian ambassador to the UK, Sami Khiyami.

Following questions on Wednesday from the Guardian about its relations with figures associated with the regime – and "in view of significant international concerns about recent events in Syria" – a spokesman for St Andrews said the university would be reviewing the centre's work "to ensure its high academic standards are maintained".

The university's association with the Assad regime has come under scrutiny in the wake of the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Syria which is estimated to have claimed 450 lives so far.

In addition to Khiyami, the centre's board of advisers also boasts other figures closely associated with the Damascus regime including Fawaz Akhras, the charismatic British-based cardiologist who is not only Bashar al-Assad's father-in-law, but also acts as a gatekeeper for the family, screening British journalists before they are granted an interview with his daughter Asma or his son-in-law.

Akhras is also the founder of the British Syrian Society, which has organised visits to Damascus and meetings with Assad for sympathetic members of parliament, as well as organising an investment conference in London to introduce British, European and Arab businesses to Syrian government ministers.

Opened in November 2006 as part of the university's school of international relations, funding for the centre was only secured with the assistance of Khiyami, who, according to the centre's head, Prof Raymond Hinnebusch, persuaded Syrian-born British businessman Ayman Asfari to pay for it.

Asfari is head of Petrofac, the London and Aberdeen-based oil and gas services company, which is a partner of the Syrian government in two major projects in the country worth $1bn, according to the company's figures.

The latest embarrassing disclosure over connections between a British university and an authoritarian Arab regime follows the row that engulfed the London School of Economics over its links with Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

Supporters of the centre and of Hinnebusch – including the author Patrick Seale, who is an adviser to the centre – insist on the necessity of engaging with Syria as it appeared to be grappling with reform, and stress the seriousness of its academic work. But critics claim that British universities should have been far more vigilant before associating with regimes with a record of human rights and other abuses.

According to Hinnebusch, writing in the Syrian Studies Association newsletter last year: "Khiyami made the decisive breakthrough in finding a philanthropist who was willing to provide the funding to launch the centre."

A well-known scholar on Syria, he insists that his centre supports "politically unbiased research", and he has written that he believes Syria is "lamentably misunderstood in policy circles and in the western media where the over-amplified voices of special interest pundits are allowed to demonise all who oppose imperial plans for the region".

Despite the fact that the opening of the centre came at a time when western governments were attempting to engage with Damascus, Syria remained – as it still does – a police state with few political freedoms or rights of free expression, and a state where human rights abuses continue.

Among events organised by the centre, in partnership with the Orient Centre for International Studies based in Syria, was a conference in Damascus in 2008 with papers provided by a former adviser to Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's harshly authoritarian father who was implicated in numerous human rights abuses, and other pro-regime officials.

Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow, who has called for an inquiry into British universities' links with despotic Middle Eastern regimes, said: "We need to learn from what's happened with Libyan funding of our universities, that universities should not accept money from governments like Syria, or those with connections to the Syrian government. The danger is that you get compromised by the amount of money, and it inevitably influences your outlook on the Middle East. I've argued that universities that take money from dictatorships should receive a reduction in their public subsidy."

The MP said he found it astonishing that St Andrews had not mentioned the relationship with Syria in response to a freedom of information request he submitted about donations from the Middle East or Africa since 2000.

Robin Simcox, who studied foreign funding of universities in a report for the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: "Universities take this money claiming they're going to break down walls and open relations. What they end up doing is colluding with murderous family-run regimes. These universities have got it wrong. With the likes of Gaddafi, they say the people they're taking money from are reformers. They're not reformers, they're tyrants."

Sam Westrop, a spokesman for a student-run campaign to ensure ethical funding of universities, said that it would put pressure on St Andrews to explain its Syrian links.

However Niall Scott, a spokesman for St Andrews, said the centre for Syrian studies "was established with the assistance of a £105,000 donation from the Asfari foundation, a recognised UK charity, in 2007. This is the only external funding the centre has received. The salaries of CSS staff are paid directly by the university.

Its board of advisers comprises a cross-section of Syrian interests and viewpoints. From an academic standpoint, it is critical to be able to engage directly with all aspects of Syrian society in order to better understand the regime.

"The University of St Andrews assiduously and regularly reviews its research centres and institutes and is satisfied that the CSS has met the high academic and ethical standards required to function effectively and independently.

"In view, however, of significant international concerns about recent events in Syria, a further review of the centre is currently underway to ensure its high academic standards are maintained."