Yves Logghe / AP

Beekeepers protest next to a giant inflatable bee in front of the European Council and Commission in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday April 29.

PARIS — The European Commission will enact a two-year ban on a class of pesticides thought to be harming global bee populations, the European Union’s health commissioner said Monday.

“I pledge to do my utmost to ensure that our bees, which are so vital to our ecosystem and contribute over €22 billion annually to European agriculture, are protected,” Tonio Borg said in a statement from Brussels, where the commission is based.

Mr. Borg made the announcement after representatives of the 27 E.U. member states failed for the second time in two months to reach a binding agreement on a proposal to ban the pesticides, known as neonicotinoids. The commission had proposed the ban after the European Food Safety Authority recommended in January that use of the pesticides be restricted until scientists determined whether they were contributing to a die-off in bee colonies.

Though a simple majority of 15 nations backed the measure in committee Monday, it failed to gain the required “qualified majority,” which takes into account the relative weight of populations. Britain, which abstained last time, opposed the measure this time. Germany, which also abstained last month, backed it. France and Poland, two of Europe’s largest farming nations, supported it.

Under E.U. rules, Mr. Borg has the authority to move ahead on his own in such cases, as his predecessor, John Dalli, did in 2010, controversially allowing the cultivation of genetically modified potatoes.

Worldwide sales of the pesticides total in the billions of dollars. Two companies that make them in Europe, the German giant Bayer CropScience and Syngenta, a Swiss biochemical company, have said they were willing to finance additional research, but that the current data do not justify a ban.

“The proposal is based on poor science and ignores a wealth of evidence from the field that these pesticides do not damage the health of bees,” John Atkin, Syngenta’s chief operating officer, said Monday in a statement. “Instead of banning these products, the commission should now take the opportunity to address the real reasons for bee health decline: disease, viruses and loss of habitat and nutrition.”

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Bayer CropScience called the commission’s plan “a setback for technology, innovation and sustainability,” and warned of “crop yield losses, reduced food quality and loss of competitiveness for European agriculture.”

Europe’s struggle with the question of neonicotinoids and bee health is being closely watched in the United States, where the pesticides are in wide use, and where a bee die-offover the past winter appears to have been one of the worst ever. Beekeepers and environmentalists are suing the Environmental Protection Agency over its approval of the products, which they claim were allowed on the market with inadequate review.

Neonicotinoids are among the world’s most effective and widely used insecticides, and there is significant disagreement as to how much — if at all — they are contributing to the crisis that has devastated global wild and domesticated bee populations.

A plant or seed treated with such a chemical incorporates it into its tissues as it grows, making it lethal to insects that bore into a stem or nibble a leaf. The neonicotinoids are also present in pollen and nectar, and two recent studies have suggested that even sublethal doses might hurt bees.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization notes that 71 of the 100 crops that provide 90 percent of human food are pollinated by bees. Estimates of the value to those crops run to as much as $200 billion annually.

While there are other natural pollinators, including wild bees and flies, current agricultural practices would be impossible without honeybees, and honeybee populations have shrunk alarmingly over the last decade. In the United States, domesticated bee populations are at a 50-year low and falling, and the story is much the same in other countries. Scientists say several factors, including varroa mites and viruses, have contributed to the decline.

In some cases, commercial beekeeping operations are decimated in a matter of days as workers disappear, a phenomenon scientists have named Colony Collapse Disorder. So badly has the bee population been diminished that in California, the important almond crop now requires more than one-third of all the domesticated bees in the United States for pollination.

Some scientists fear that if the neonicotinoids are banned the chemicals that replace them could be worse. But even those who question the linkage between the pesticides and bee deaths say the current state of knowledge is inadequate and that more study is needed.

Under the European measures, which take effect Dec. 1, there will be sharp restrictions on three neonicotinoid pesticides — clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiametoxam — for treating seeds, soil and leaves on flowering crops attractive to bees, like corn, sunflowers and rapeseed, the source of canola oil. The products may still be used on crops like winter wheat for which the danger to bees is deemed to be small. Use by home gardeners will be prohibited.

The two-year ban will allow commission officials to re-examine the scientific studies that were submitted for approval of the pesticides in the first place and “to take into account relevant scientific and technical developments.”

“This gives bees a bit of breathing space to recover,” said Paul de Zylva, an environmental campaigner in London with Friends of the Earth. The time should be used to come up with a comprehensive plan to address the bee crisis, he said, with civil organizations, governments, farmers and companies working together.

The European ban “doesn’t solve all the problems, though, we never said it did,” Mr. de Zylva added. “You’ve got to look at all the problems facing bees, it’s not just pesticides."

This story, "Europe Bans Pesticides Thought Harmful to Bees," first appeared in The New York Times.

TEL AVIV – American and Israeli defense officials welcomed a new arms sale agreement on Monday as a major step toward increasing Israel’s military strength, but Israeli officials said it still left them without the weapons they would need if they decided to attack Iran’s deepest and best-protected nuclear sites.

Jim Watson / AFP-Getty Images

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Yaalon speak during a helicopter tour above the Golan Heights on April 22, 2013. Hagel met his counterpart to put the finishing touches on a major arms deal and for talks on Syria's civil war and the Iranian nuclear threat.

The mixed message came as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and his Israeli counterpart, Moshe Yaalon, reaffirmed their commitment to stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, while sidestepping a continuing disagreement between the two countries about how close to allow Iran to get toward such a goal.

In public, Mr. Hagel again said that Israel had the right to decide by itself how to defend the country, and both officials said military action should be a last resort. But a close adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that “the fundamental difference of views on how much risk we can take with Iran is re-emerging.”

The new weapons sale package includes aircraft for midair refueling and missiles that can cripple an adversary’s air defense system. Both would be critical for Israel if it were to decide on a unilateral attack on Iran.

But what the Israelis wanted most was a weapons system that is missing from the package: a giant bunker-busting bomb designed to penetrate earth and reinforced concrete to destroy deeply buried sites. According to both American and Israeli analysts, it is the only weapon that would have a chance of destroying the Iranian nuclear fuel enrichment center at Fordow, which is buried more than 200 feet under a mountain outside the holy city of Qum.

The weapon, called a Massive Ordnance Penetrator, weighs about 30,000 pounds — so much that Israel does not have any aircraft capable of carrying it. To do so, they would need a B-2 bomber, the stealth aircraft that the United States flew nonstop recently from Missouri to the Korean Peninsula to underscore to North Korea that it could reach their nuclear sites.

The Obama administration has been reluctant to even discuss selling such capability to the Israelis.

Iran has consistently denied that it wants nuclear weapons and has called its uranium enrichment activities peaceful.

The Fordow site has become an increasing source of concern to the Israelis. When they referred last year to Iran entering a “zone of immunity,” Israeli officials said the phrase referred to the moment when the facility would be complete, and immune from attack by Israeli forces. All the centrifuges that enrich uranium at the site have since been installed, but only about a quarter of them are now operating.

Israel has asked the United States for weapons like the Massive Ordnance Penetrator in the past and has been turned down. American officials declined to say whether the yearlong negotiations with Israel that resulted in the new arms package had included a discussion of the new bomb.

Instead, they pointed to a decision by President Obama to send advanced refueling tanker planes to Israel that would make it possible for the country’s fighter aircraft to reach as far as Iran. A similar refueling capability was turned down during the administration of former President George W. Bush.

The debate is about more than just equipment. Israel’s position has been that Iran cannot be allowed to build up too large a stockpile of medium-enriched uranium that could allow it to then race for a bomb. When Mr. Netanyahu addressed the United Nations in New York last September, he drew a red line across a cartoon picture of a bomb, which aides later said indicated that Iran would not be allowed to amass enough medium-enriched uranium to get enough fuel to make a single weapon.

But most of Iran’s production of that uranium is occurring inside the mountain at Fordow. So far, Iran has stayed just below Mr. Netanyahu’s red line, converting some of the fuel to a metallic form that can be used in a nuclear reactor – but that would take a bit more time to convert back to bomb fuel. To the United States, this has offered up more time for a diplomatic solution. To many Israeli officials, it is a ploy, designed to buy time as Iran installs a new generation of centrifuges that could speed its production.

“It’s all about timetables,” said Dore Gold, the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and a member of Mr. Netanyahu’s inner circle of strategists. “If you say the goal is to halt Iran in the enrichment phase, you don’t have much time. If you are waiting for Iran to weaponize” — the position the Obama administration has taken – “maybe you can give it another year or more.”

Mr. Yaalon suggested that there was still time. “There are other tools to be used and to be exhausted, whether it is diplomacy, economic sanctions,” Mr. Yaalon said.

He avoided mentioning another element of the strategy: sabotage of the Iranian program, which has included cyberattacks on enrichment facilities and the assassination of Iranian scientists. He urged support for Iranians who oppose the current government in Tehran, especially in advance of a presidential election scheduled for June.

But without “a credible military option,” Mr. Yaalon warned, “there is no chance” that the Iranian government would curtail its nuclear ambitions.

During a news conference with Mr. Yaalon at the Israeli Ministry of Defense, Mr. Hagel pledged that the United States would sustain its commitment to assuring Israel’s “qualitative military edge,” and he was emphatic in discussing Iran.

“Iran will not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Hagel said. “Period.”

That was far more definitive than anything he said in his confirmation hearing. There he talked about a strategy of containing Iran – a strategy that seemed at odds with Mr. Obama’s stated position — before correcting himself for the record to align with the administration’s position.

The United States has promised Israel $3.1 billion in military financial assistance in this fiscal year, the highest amount ever. Mr. Hagel cited the $460 million the United States has already given to Israel for its missile-defense systems and noted the $220 million request for the next fiscal year.

After his meetings in Tel Aviv, Mr. Hagel toured northern Israel by helicopter, crossing into the Golan Heights occupied by Israeli forces. The flight took him within a couple miles of the Syrian side of their disputed border and about 30 miles from the Syrian capital, Damascus.

On Monday evening, Amos Yadlin, the former head of military intelligence in Israel, told the annual conference of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, that while any Israeli attack would only delay Iran’s program, “this delay could be important because we may have a regime change.”

Mr. Yadlin, now the executive director of the institute, described the tactical differences between the United States and Israel on dealing with Iran as a “time gap.”

“Israel has defined what the trigger is, what the red line is,” he said. Iran, he concluded, “is already there.”

This story, "No Bunker-Buster Bomb in Israel’s U.S. Arms Deal," first appeared in The New York Times.

Carlos Barria / Reuters

A general view of 'Unit 61398,' a secretive Chinese military unit on the outskirts of Shanghai on Feb. 19. The unit is believed to be behind a series of hacking attacks, a U.S. computer security company said, prompting a strong denial by China and accusations that it was in fact the victim of U.S. hacking.

BEIJING – A group of hackers linked to the Chinese military has stolen reams of sensitive data from more than 100 prominent American companies and organizations, according to an explosive new report.

“The details we have analyzed during hundreds of investigations convince us that the groups conducting these activities are based primarily in China and that the Chinese Government is aware of them,” U.S. computer-security firm Mandiant Corp. said in a 74-page report released on Tuesday.

The story was first reported by The New York Times.

One group originating from China that Mandiant had been tracking since 2006 and identified in the study as “APT1” allegedly swiped data from 141 companies in 20 industries ranging from aerospace to telecommunications, according to the report. More than 110 of those companies were American, according to Mandiant.

Mandiant said that the data suggests that the hacker group was either working for or sponsored by China’s People’s Liberation Army. Indeed, according to the organization’s information, APT1’s activity originated from a People’s Liberation Army cyberware division known as “Unit 61398.”

“Our research found that People’s Liberation Army (PLA’s) Unit 61398 is similar to APT1 in its mission, capabilities, and resources,” it said, according to the report.  “PLA Unit 61398 is also located in precisely the same area from which APT1 activity appears to originate.”

Mandiant said that the hacking originated from a drab 12-story office building on the outskirts of Shanghai. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of operatives performed covert corporate espionage and extracted trade secrets, blueprints, pricing data and other corporate information from countless American servers from the innocuous tower, according to Mandiant.

The hackers used techniques like “spear-phishing” -- using spoof emails to trick users into granting access to internal servers --demonstrating a strong proficiency in the English language and advanced understanding of computer security and network operations, the organization said.

Media blackout
Though the story exploded on Twitter and in the foreign news media, it has hardly made any waves in China. Twitter has long been blocked in the country and foreign media companies that broadcast on the mainland like CNN were blacked out when the report was mentioned on air. 

Coverage of Mandiant’s report was also absent from Chinese news websites, but some discussion of the report could still be found on China’s Twitter-like service, Weibo.

“Chinese hackers are so capable! I always thought Americans are very powerful!” exclaimed one user.

“Reports by foreign media cannot be fully trusted,” warned another user, “but there must be something.”

Related: Wall Street Journal infiltrated by Chinese hackers

This was a sentiment partly shared by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, who responded today to questions about the hacking report by calling them “groundless” and reiterating the government’s unwavering position on the matter.

“To make groundless accusations based on some rough material is neither responsible nor professional,” he said, before noting that China was also the victim of hacking attacks.

Hong also argued that the new evidence provided by Mandiant and the New York Times will not withstand closer scrutiny.

But China’s cyber activities have been under increasingly closer scrutiny in recent weeks, as a slew of news stories have come out about Beijing’s reported hacking ambitions. Last month, the New York Times reported that its own servers had been attacked by hackers originating in China, possibly in response to an embarrassing expose it published showing the hidden riches of out-going Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao.

While the White House has largely remained silent on the hacking issue -- President Barack Obama mentioned hacking in his State of the Union but did not specifically cite China -- the government has been noticeably increasing efforts to strengthen cyber security.

Last week Obama issued an Executive Order calling for the improving of critical infrastructure tied to cyber security. That the move came on the eve of the publication of two similar exposes -- last week Bloomberg printed another story demonstrating PLA hacking of American systems -- suggests the administration could be taking a long called for tougher stance on Chinese hacking by “naming and shaming” known mainland hacking groups.  

NBC News' Le Li contributed to this report.

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