PRAGUE – A Czech court struck down a complaint against the EU reform treaty on Tuesday, removing the proposed charter's last legal hurdle and intensifying pressure on President Vaclav Klaus to sign it.
The Constitutional Court's chief judge, Pavel Rychetsky, said the Lisbon Treaty, which has already been ratified by other member nations, "does not violate the (Czech) constitution."
At the end of the ruling, whose reading took almost two hours, Rychetsky said all formal obstacles for ratification "are removed."
Klaus is the last obstacle to the full ratification of the treaty, which is designed to transform Europe into a more unified and powerful global player. The charter, which was bogged down in negotiations for almost a decade, has been ratified by all other 26 EU nations.
In Brussels, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he was "extremely pleased" with the verdict.
"Together with the commitments given by all member states to the Czech government at the European Council last week, I believe that no further unnecessary delays should prevent the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty," Barroso said.
"I hope that we can now move forward as quickly as possible on the nomination of the president of the European Council and vice president of the Commission High Representative," he said, referring to the newly-created post of president, who will chair EU summits, and the bloc's new foreign policy chief, who will represent the EU abroad.
"The decision clears the way for President Vaclav Klaus to sign and finalize the ratification of the treaty and I am very confident he will do so," said Jerzy Buzek, president of the European Parliament. "The Treaty of Lisbon should now enter into force by the end of the year."
Klaus was awaiting the Brno-based court's ruling before deciding whether to endorse the treaty. It is not clear when that could happen.
Prime Minister Jan Fischer welcomed the verdict.
"The last hurdle has been cleared," Fischer said in a statement. He said he now expects Klaus to sign the treaty. He previously said he hoped Klaus could do that by the end of the year.
The court was asked to rule by a group of senators who filed a motion arguing the treaty was not in line with the constitution. Last year, the court dismissed a similar complaint.
Failure of the treaty would send the EU into an unprecedented crisis. Negotiators say its reforms — creating a new EU president post, giving more power to the foreign policy chief and streamlining EU decision-making — are needed to make the EU more effective.
Last week, EU leaders agreed to Klaus' last-minute demand — an opt-out from the treaty's Charter of Fundamental Rights in return for his signing of it. Klaus said he was not planning to make any further demands.
The Czech leader asked for the option over worries of property claims by ethnic Germans stripped of their land and expelled after World War II.
But it was considered Klaus had used the demand for the opt-out to try to scuttle ratification of the treaty, which he opposes. He fears the treaty would hand over too many national powers to EU institutions in Brussels.
Both houses of the Czech Parliament already have ratified the treaty.
___

Associated Press writers Robert Wielaard and Constant Brand in Brussels contributed to this report.

The ancient South American Nasca civilization may have
caused its own demise by clear-cutting huge swaths of forest, a new study has
found.

The civilization disappeared mysteriously around 1,500 years
ago, after apparently prospering during the first half of the first millennium
A.D. in the valleys of south coastal Peru. Scientists have previously
suggested a massive El Niño event
disrupted the climate and caused the Nasca's demise, but new research suggests
that deforestation
may have also played an important role.

The Nasca are best known for leaving behind large geoglyphs
called Nazca lines carved into the surface of the vast, empty desert plain that
lies between the Peruvian towns
of Nazca and Palpa. Though the lines have spawned many interpretations, including
the suggestion that they were created by aliens, most scholars now think they
were sacred pathways that Nasca people followed during their ancient rituals.
The enigmatic society that once flourished apparently collapsed around 500 A.D.
after a bloody resource war. To investigate this event a team of archaeologists
led by David Beresford-Jones from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological
Research at the U.K.'s Cambridge University
gathered plant remains in the lower Ica
Valley. Based on this
evidence and pollen samples collected by co-researcher Alex Chepstow-Lusty of
the French Institute of Andean Studies in Lima,
the scientists found that the Nasca cleared huge areas of forest to make way
for agriculture. The native huarango tree, which once covered what is now a
desert area, was gradually replaced by crops such as cotton and maize.
This vital tree was a crucial part of the desert's fragile ecosystem, serving
to enhance soil fertility and moisture and help hold the Nasca's narrow,
vulnerable irrigation
channels in place.
Eventually, the people cut down so many trees that they reached a tipping point
at which the arid ecosystem was irreversibly damaged, the researchers found. At
this point a major El Niño event likely occurred, triggering floods made
much worse by the lack of forests that used to protect the delicate desert
ecology.

"These were very particular forests," Beresford-Jones
said. "The huarango is a remarkable nitrogen-fixing tree and it was an
important source of food, forage, timber and fuel for the local people.
Furthermore, it is the ecological 'keystone' species in this desert zone,
enhancing soil fertility and moisture, ameliorating desert extremes in the
microclimate beneath its canopy and underpinning the floodplain with one of the
deepest root systems of any tree known. In time, gradual woodland clearance
crossed an ecological threshold - sharply defined in such desert environments -
exposing the landscape to the region's extraordinary desert winds and the
effects of El Niño floods."
Without the huarango cover, when El Niño did strike, the river down-cut into
its floodplain, Nasca irrigation systems were damaged and the area became
unworkable for agriculture. This finding fits with other evidence that shows
that the generations that came afterwards did not fare as well as their
predecessors: infant mortality rose, while average adult life expectancy fell.
The crops cultivated by their ancestors disappeared in the lower Ica Valley
and the area was probably afflicted by a severe drought.

The research also stresses the importance of huarango
woodlands for sustaining livelihoods and creating fertile areas in these
environments. There are now no undisturbed ecosystems in the region and what
remains of the old-growth huarango forests is being destroyed in illegal
charcoal-burning operations.
"The mistakes of prehistory offer us important lessons for our management
of fragile, arid areas in the present," said co-author Oliver Whaley of the
Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew,
England.

The new study is detailed in the journal Latin American
Antiquity.

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Original Story: Ancient Civilization Cut Path to DemiseLiveScience.com chronicles the daily advances and innovations made in science and technology. We take on the misconceptions that often pop up around scientific discoveries and deliver short, provocative explanations with a certain wit and style. Check out our science videos, Trivia & Quizzes and Top 10s. Join our community to debate hot-button issues like stem cells, climate change and evolution. You can also sign up for free newsletters, register for RSS feeds and get cool gadgets at the LiveScience Store.