"Stand Back! I Have A Fishing Pole!"

Going to Europe anytime soon? If so, leave your fishing pole at home. That goes for your pool cue, ice skates, ski poles and skateboards. At least, if you're planning to take those items with you into the cabin. The EU has come up with a uniform set of regulations on what you can and can't take with you when flying to or in Europe.

"Ensuring that air passengers are safe is a top priority for the EU," said the European commission's UK honcho, Jim Dougal. "This is why we need to ban items that could be used as weapons by terrorists."

The commission also banned several items from being checked as luggage, including: bleach, rat poison, infected blood, vehicle batteries, corrosive or radioactive material.

US Sky Marshal Confab Falls Through

At the same Friday meeting in Brussels, where EU aviation officials decided to standardize the ban on carry-on and checked luggage, they disagreed with American representatives on President Bush's order to put armed air marshals on foreign flights going to or overflying the US. One spokesman said Portugal, Sweden, Finland and Denmark are worried that putting guns on planes put the lives of both passengers and crew at risk.

Senior US officials say they will now meet with representatives from individual EU countries to hammer out separate agreements on a country-by-country basis.

FMI: www.europa.eu.int