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Car manufacturers are slowing their transition to producing electric vehicles (EVs), because of low customer demand and production problems. Mercedes-Benz announced to investors in March of this year that it is going back on its pledge to sell only fully electric cars by 2030. Instead, investors were told that the company plans to continue to make gasoline-powered cars well into the next decade. Fully electric cars and hybrids will account for only up to half of its sales by 2030. It appears that carmakers are suffering after committing wholeheartedly to the ideological fad of EVs, rather than introducing them as...

If Donald Trump wins a second term in the White House in November, NATO may fall apart, a recent wargame found. As a presidential candidate, Trump has threatened to quit NATO unless European allies contribute more, and should he carry it out Europe may decide to go it alone on defense, the game suggests. "A US policy of frustrating NATO has the potential to cause the alliance to collapse, with the EU as a candidate for eventually replacing NATO's ultimate function — defending Europe from Russia," wrote Finley Grimble, the British defense expert who designed and ran the game. The...

Ireland, Spain and a number of other EU member states are considering 21 May as the date on which they will jointly recognize the State of Palestine, RTÉ News understands. Two sources have said that 21 May is being looked at. A third source said contacts between Dublin and Madrid, as well as between Slovenia and Malta, have been intensifying with a view to the countries jointly recognizing Palestinian statehood. […] Currently, eight EU member states recognize the State of Palestine, the most recent being Sweden in 2014. Ireland has been in ongoing discussions with “like-minded” states for a number...

The Irish state is now at war with its own people as clashes grow between police and Irish citizens who are protesting against unchecked migrants being forced into their communities.

The rate of carbon tax will increase today with consumers of carbon fuels set to pay more for such products. Carbon tax is applied per tonne (1.1 ton) of carbon dioxide emitted by carbon fuels, and from today it increases by €7.50 ($8), bringing the rate to €56 ($59.71) per tonne. From today, natural gas customers will also pay just over 1c (1.1¢) extra per kilowatt hour, adding just under €17 ($18.22) to annual bills. It will bring the total carbon tax that customers pay in a year to around €122 ($130), based on average consumption of 11,000 kilowatt hours...

Well, as suspected, the war in Ukraine isn't about Democracy. It is about business and appeasing investors, the same investors who are also donators to the political parties. Col Douglas MacGregor talks about BlackRock and other investors who wanted to carve up Russia & Ukraine.

Cars will beep, vibrate or slow down if drivers are speeding under new mandatory safety technology which comes into effect this summer. From July 6, new vehicles sold in the European Union and Northern Ireland will be fitted with intelligent speed assistance (ISA) to prevent accidents. Although the UK has opted out, meaning it will not be a requirement on British roads, the technology will still be installed in most cars, and drivers can choose to switch it off on a daily basis. Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, an independent research organisation, told the Sunday Times: “I think...

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron warned Thursday that Europe could “die” if it fails to build its own robust defense as Russia’s war in Ukraine rages on, or if it fails to undertake major trade and economic reforms to compete with China and the U.S. . . . “Our Europe today is mortal,” Macron said. “It can die and that depends solely on our choices,” he added. He called on people to make those choices now because, “it’s today that Europe is between war and peace.”

A leading Eurocrat in Brussels branded Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives who voted against President Joe Biden’s demands to send billions more of American taxpayer dollars to fund the war in Ukraine as “traitors”.On Saturday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) for violated the ‘Hastert Rule’, which requires Republican speakers to only put forward bills to the floor of the House if a majority of the GOP conference supports the measure, to push through a $60 billion Ukraine aid bill.The bill passed with the support of House Democrats, many of whom were seen waving Ukrainian flags and chanting “Ukraine!”...

The European Council decided today to list four persons and two entities under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime. "The listed individuals and entities are responsible for serious human rights abuses against Palestinians, including torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and for the violation of right to property and to private and family life of Palestinians in the West Bank," the EU stated. "The listed entities are Lehava, a radical right-wing Jewish supremacist group, and Hilltop Youth, a radical youth group consisting of members known for violent acts against Palestinians and their villages in the...

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) unveiled a gambit to burst a legislative logjam and unleash a four-vote flood including a standalone vote on tens of billions in American taxpayer aid to Ukraine. The plan appears to exploit the sense of urgency in Congress for sending aid to Israel in the wake of Iranian missile attacks in a scheme to bypass Republican animosity towards continuing to fund Ukraine’s war against Russia. Johnson unveiled his plan to his colleagues during a Monday night House Republican Conference meeting. His plan is to hold a single vote on a rule — the product specifying which...

Ireland is close to formally recognizing a Palestinian state and would like to do so in concert with Spain and other like-minded countries, its new prime minister Simon Harris said on Friday after meeting his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez, reported the Reuters news agency. “Let me this evening say our assessment is that that point is coming much closer and we would like to move together in doing so,” Harris said after meeting Sanchez, the first premier to visit Dublin since Harris became prime minister this week. “When we move forward, we would like to do so with as many...

April 9 (UPI) -- The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service said Tuesday that at 1.68 degrees Celsius hotter than the "pre-industrial" era, March was the warmest March on record and the tenth straight temperature record-breaking month. The new March high was calculated from an estimate of the average March temperature during the "pre-industrial" reference period, designated as 1850-1900 which also shows a year-round global average temperature from April 2023 to March 2024 period that is 1.58 degrees Celsius higher than the pre-industrial average. The climate group's top scientist called for urgent cuts in the volume of greenhouse gasses being...

STRASBOURG, France, April 9 (Reuters) - Europe's top human rights court ruled on Tuesday that the Swiss government had violated the human rights of its citizens by failing to do enough to combat climate change. The European Court of Human Rights's (ECtHR) decision on the case brought by more than 2,000 elderly Swiss women set a precedent that will resonate across Europe and beyond for how courts deal with a growing trend of climate litigation. The Swiss women, known as KlimaSeniorinnen, argued their government's climate inaction put them at risk of dying during heatwaves. In her ruling, Court President Siofra...

A group of older Swiss women have won the first ever climate case victory in the European Court of Human Rights. The women, mostly in their 70s, said that their age and gender made them particularly vulnerable to the effects of heatwaves linked to climate change. The court said Switzerland's efforts to meet its emission reduction targets had been woefully inadequate. It is the first time the powerful court has ruled on global warming. Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg joined activists celebrating at the court in Strasbourg on Tuesday. "We still can't really believe it. We keep asking our lawyers, 'is...

Earlier today, locals protesting against a refugee centre in Coolock, Dublin were confronted by leftist journalists and other antifa types. Here are the facts as we understand them from local first-hand sources in Coolock. We will be updating this article as more details are established:A small group of men arrived in the afternoon of Saturday April 6th to the old Crown Paints Factory in Coolock which is being picketed by locals opposing the plantation of up to 1000 asylum seekers there. They arrived to counterprotest and take footageAccording to video and our sources, the men were told to leave as...

The public has been repulsed by the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza, incoming Taoiseach (prime minister) Simon Harris has said. Mr. Harris said that Ireland stands ready to recognize the Palestinian state while calling for a two-state solution. In his keynote speech at the Fine Gael Ard Fheis* in Galway, the Fine Gael leader said the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza has worsened “before our eyes” and Ireland cannot stay silent on the actions of Israel. “We condemn the massacre carried out by Hamas in October and again call for the release of all hostages,” Mr Harris said....

Big trouble may be brewing in little Moldova, which is starting to look like a staging area for the European Union to offset an emerging Russian victory in Ukraine. Whether such a plan, if attempted, would succeed is not clear. But Moldova is not the most stable country in the world with the nation split between pro-EU and pro-Russian elements. US troops are now in Moldova with Romanians, ostensibly for a military exercise called JCET 2024 (Joint Command Exchange Training). The exercise started on April 1 and will continue until April 19. According to a Moldovan Ministry of Defense statement,...

The number of people seeking international protection in Ireland in the first three months of this year has risen by more than 2,000 compared to the same time last year. Figures from the Department of Justice show 5,163 people applied for international protection up to 28 March. This represents a rise of 2,170, or 72%, from the same period of time last year when 2,993 applications were made by 28 March 2023. More than one third of those who have applied for international protection so far this year are from Nigeria (1,668) while 416 are from Bangladesh, 400 from Pakistan,...

It is a plan seen as a way to "Trump-proof" aid for Ukraine. The proposals would give the Western alliance a more direct role in coordinating the supply of arms, ammunition and equipment to Kyiv as it fights Russia's invasion, diplomats say. Speaking before the meeting, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the proposal aims to send the message to Russia that it cannot win the war. “What is obvious is that we need new and more money for Ukraine. And we need it over many years. And the whole idea of now discussing a framework, commitments and an institutionalized...