Historians of the Stone Age fear that they will have to rip up their theories about Neanderthal Man after doubt has been cast on the carbon dating of skeletons by a leading German anthropologist. Work by the flamboyant Professor Reiner Protsch von Zieten showed that Neanderthal Man existed in northern Europe. Calculations on skeletal remains found at Hahnofersand, near Hamburg, stated that they were 36,000 years old. Yet recent research at Oxford University's carbon-dating laboratory has suggested that they date back a mere 7,500 years. By that time, Homo sapiens were already well-established and the Neanderthals were extinct. Chris Stringer, a Stone Age specialist and head of human origins at London's Natural History Museum, said: "What was considered a major piece of evidence showing that the Neanderthals once lived in northern Europe has fallen by the wayside. We are having to rewrite prehistory."

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European winters will disappear by 2080 and extreme weather will become more common unless global warming across the continent is slowed, warns a major new report. Europe is warming more quickly than the rest of the world with potentially devastating consequences, including more frequent heatwaves, flooding, rising sea levels and melting glaciers, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA) report. The changes are happening at such a pace that Europeans must put in place strategies to adapt to an unfamiliar climate, the researchers write, although they stress the importance of the Kyoto Protocol in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The report paints a dismal picture of Europe’s future, based on climatic changes since the Industrial Revolution, which have accelerated over the last 50 years. The concentration of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, in the lower atmosphere is at its highest for possibly 20 million years, and stands 34 per cent higher than its pre-Industrial Revolution level. The global warming rate is now almost 0.2°C per decade, and temperatures in Europe are projected to climb by a further 2 to 6.3 degrees this century, due to the build-up of greenhouse gases. Picture postcard European snowscapes are destined to become consigned to history books before the end of the century, and 75 per cent of Alpine glaciers will have melted by 2050 – melting reduced the glaciers by one-tenth in 2003 alone, the study found. Sea levels are predicted to rise for centuries to come, at a rate of up to four times faster than during the last century – a particular concern in low-lying countries such as the Netherlands, where half the population lives below sea-level. Freak weather conditions, such as the floods of 2001 that killed about 80 people, and the heatwave of 2003 that led to more than 20,000 deaths, are set to become more frequent and severe, the report states.

Europe could lose over one million jobs as firms move jobs to India and elsewhere, though Ireland will barely be affected, according to a new report. The predicted exodus of 1.2 million European jobs to offshore locations by 2015 will have a minimal impact on employment in the Irish Republic, according to new research from independent research company Forrester. The report predicts that less than one tenth of one per cent of jobs in the Irish Republic will move offshore. The impact in Britain will be far more dramatic, with 56,000 British jobs expected to be offshored in 2004 and a total of 760,000 by 2015.

The Government has revised its growth forecast for the Irish economy in 2004 upwards to 4.2% in GNP terms and 4.7% in GDP terms. At the time of the last Budget, the Irish Government forecast that GNP would increase by 3.0%, with GDP seen rising by 3.3% in 2004.

In a dramatic departure from the Bush administration, Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter says he now believes that the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified. Bereuter wrote in a four-page letter to constituents in the final days of his congressional career that he now feels that the war was a mistake. Bereuter is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. His letter represented a departure from his support for a 2002 House resolution authorizing the president to go to war. His vote to authorize the use of military force - even preemptive force - was based on faulty, or misrepresented, intelligence that led to the fear that Saddam Hussein would share weapons of mass destruction with terrorists, Bereuter said. Bereuter will depart the House after 26 years to become president of the Asia Foundation on September 1, 2004.

The 2004 growth forecast for the Irish economy will be raised to 4.5% from 3.3% in the Irish Government's Annual Economic Review and Outlook. The review is expected to highlight higher-than-expected retail sales figures as one of the main drivers of the better than expected growth. However, many economists also believe that higher sales may be a factor behind accelerating inflation. Employment is also expected to remain strong. The Irish Department of Finance is maintaining its prediction that the jobless rate will average less than 4.5% in 2004. The upward revision of the gross domestic product (GDP) forecast will be yet another bonus for the new Irish Finance Minister after tax receipts have come in well ahead of target so far this year. The Irish Exchequer posted a surplus of E255m at the end of July 2004, compared to a deficit of E241m at the same stage in 2003, when tax receipts were below expectations and the economic recovery was still shaky.

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A genetic analysis of the Australian dingo suggests that the dogs tagged along on an epic expansion of people out of southern China around 6,000 years ago. An international team claims that dingoes descend from a small group that could have been introduced to Australia in a single chance event from Asia. Evidence from mitochondrial DNA suggests that the wild dogs arrived on the continent around 5,000 years ago. Peter Savolainen of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues think that the introduction of the dogs may be associated with the spread of seafaring Austronesian-speaking people throughout South-East Asia. The Austronesian culture had its origins in south China, expanding from Taiwan via the Philippines to Indonesia. Although dingoes are now wild, they descend from domestic dogs that accompanied these Austronesians on their voyages. The dingo is not endangered but interbreeding with domestic dogs is a major problem. About 80% of dingoes are now thought to be hybrids.

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The Irish unemployment rate will ease down to around 4% in 2004, according to the latest report from the Central Bank of Ireland. The rate is predicted to average 4.5% this year and to ease down to 4.25% in 2005. In its summer bulletin, the Bank says that this rate "probably" represents a situation close to full employment for the Irish economy. In its recently published annual report, the Bank upgraded its growth forecasts for 2004, with GNP seen coming in at 4.25%. The Central Bank bullish on the outlook for jobs, forecasting that the total number of people at work will increase by 47,000, or around 2.5%, this year to 1,858 million. An increase of 44,000 is seen for 2005. The jobs market will "tighten", the bank predicts, with recent Central Statistics Office figures showing that the number of people available and looking for work has declined since 2003. However, the bulletin says that there is not, as yet, the same degree of labor market tightness as was evident during 2001, although it cautioned that labor shortage in some areas could emerge.