Free Republic

VIENNA, Austria, NOV. 6, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Real religious freedom is not freedom from religion, says a historian writing in response to this week's European court decision discouraging crucifixes in Italian schools. Martin Kugler, an expert for the human rights network Christianophobia.eu in Vienna, offered 12 theses to unveil the mistaken thinking of the court, which decided in favor of an atheist mother who protested the crucifix in her children's school. Kugler explained: "The right to religious freedom can only mean its exercise -- not the freedom from confrontation. The meaning of 'freedom of religion' has nothing to do with creating...

Europe Cracks Down on Home School Parents MUNICH, Germany - Increasing custody cases in Europe are proof that officials there have declared war against home schooling and parental rights, according to some residents.In Sweden, police burst onto a plane and took 7-year-old Dominic Johansson from his parents as they were about to leave the country.Months earlier, they told school officials they were going to home school Dominic, prompting officials to open an investigation. In a similar case in Germany, the government abducted 7-year-old Dan Schulz while the family was sleeping. He can be heard on tape screaming that he...

Daniel Hannan, the Conservative MEP, has resigned as European legal spokesman only two months after taking up the post in protest at his party's stance on the Lisbon Treaty. Mr Hannan, a leading Eurosceptic, became the Tory spokesman on legal affairs in the European Parliament in September. But last night on his Telegraph blog, Mr Hannan, the Conservative MEP for South East England, said he would be returning to the back benches in order to campaign for direct democracy that will see power in the hands of individual citizens.

Mr Klaus was the last head of state to sign the Treaty. It now has legal force across the European Union's 27 countries. "I announce that I signed the Lisbon Treaty at 15.00 [2pm GMT] today," said Mr Klaus, speaking in the Czech capital, Prague. He had signalled he would put pen to paper after getting a British-style opt-out to the Charter of Fundamental Rights at an EU summit in Brussels last week. Gordon Brown earlier welcomed the final ruling by the Czech constitutional court that the Lisbon Treaty would not damage Czech sovereignty. Like other European leaders, the British...

This update is Italy's reaction to the "European Court: No Crucifixes in Italian Schools" article. Way to go guys! Italy, Vatican in uproar over court crucifix ruling By Philip Pullella ROME (Reuters) – The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that crucifixes should be removed from Italian classrooms, prompting Vatican anger and sparking uproar in Italy, where such icons are embedded in the national psyche.

The president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, has signed the EU's Lisbon Treaty, the final step in the charter's ratification.

LONDON (AFP) – David Cameron, leader of the Conservative party, widely tipped to be the next prime minister, is to drop plans for a referendum on the European Union's key reforming Lisbon Treaty, a newspaper said Tuesday. Cameron is set to announce he will abandon a pledge to hold a vote on the treaty if his party wins the country's general election due by next June, the Daily Telegraph said. A referendum had threatened to cause a headache for the European Union amid delays over the introduction of the treaty in the 27-nation bloc, which must be ratified by all...

Conservative government will not give a referendum on the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty. The Tory party leader’s admission, which could come as early as Tuesday, will bring accusations that he has broken clear promises to grant a popular vote on the treaty. Mr Cameron gave voters an “iron-clad” promise in 2007 that a Conservative government would hold a popular vote on Lisbon. And, in May this year, he said: "A progressive reform agenda demands that we redistribute power from the EU to Britain and from judges to the people. We will therefore hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty." But...

BRUSSELS (AFP) – A Norwegian warship inspecting fishing boats off the coast of Somalia for suspected pirate activity was caught in heavy gunfire in the early hours of Sunday, a European Union naval commander said. The Norwegian sailors, cruising just off the north-eastern Somali coast, were fired upon in the dead of night by a dhow with between five and seven men on board and armed with heavy weaponry and Kalashnikov rifles, he added. ..... "The boarding party returned fire in self-defence -- and retreated to 1,000 metres (yards), because their main job was to escort a World Food Programme...

The French head of state said he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had agreed to back "the same candidate," adding that the pair shared the same "vision" for two new top jobs to be created under the Lisbon Treaty, and their favoured runners. Sarkozy, who said Lisbon could now enter force as early as December 1, would not reveal the identity of his and Merkel's preferred choice, but said Europe's George Washington, in reference to the founding US father, would need to be both "charismatic" and a "consensus-builder."

European heads of state will formally recommend this week that rich countries should hand over around €100bn (£90bn) a year to nations such as India and Vietnam by 2020 to help them cope with the impact of global warming. The pledge is expected to come at the end of a two-day summit of European leaders on Thursday and Friday, and before negotiations on a new climate treaty in Copenhagen in December. ..... China and India have called for rich countries to hand over 1% of their GDP.

England is a strange place these days. A sort of political volcano has exploded, and the significance of it is not clear. According to pretty well everyone with access to free speech, fascism has erupted. The British National party has been making surreptitious headway for some time now, but restricted to winning a seat on some local council here or there. Suddenly in elections for the European parliament in Brussels, the BNP got about 900,000 votes, entitling it under proportional representation to two seats. One of those seats goes to Nick Griffin, the BNP leader. [....] Griffin has only one...

Sick Berlusconi to Miss EU Summit Mr Berlusconi is to go back on trial next month, accused of tax fraud Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has a bout of scarlet fever and will miss this week's EU summit in Brussels, his foreign minister says. The minister, Franco Frattini, said he would attend instead of Mr Berlusconi. Italian media reports say Mr Berlusconi, 73, has a mild form of the fever, which can result in a sore throat, high temperature and rash. He is thought to have caught it from one of his grandchildren. Doctors have advised him not to travel...

BELGRADE -- The average highest income tax rate in EU countries is almost double that of Serbia, Belgrade daily Blic writes. At the same time, a lower rate is applied only in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. According to valid legislation, a Serbian citizen will pay about EUR 146,000 to the state out of each million they earn – half the figure that a Cypriot citizen would pay in taxes. In Denmark, the number would reach over half a million euros, says the newspaper. Saša Radulović, an independent investment consultant who has worked in Germany, Canada and the...

Spain Jobless Rate Stays At 17.9% Spain's unemployment rate is the highest in the EU Spain's unemployment rate has remained at 17.9% in the third quarter, the highest in the European Union. The number of jobless now stands at 4.1 million, the country's statistics agency said. The Spanish unemployment rate had risen for the previous eight quarters after its construction and debt-fuelled economic boom ended suddenly. Separately, a survey showed German business confidence rose for a seventh consecutive month in October. [snip]Posted last week: Spain Tips Into Depression

HUA HIN, Thailand — Asian leaders will pledge to overcome their differences and push towards the formation of an EU-style community as they wrap up an annual summit in Thailand on Sunday. Human rights issues, border disputes and signs of apathy over a meeting that was twice delayed by protests have at times marred the gathering of leaders from a region that contains more than half the world's population. But plans to increase the region's global clout by building closer ties eventually dominated the three-day meeting of Southeast Asian nations along with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New...

EU Member Godfrey Bloom on the scam of Global Warming.

Tony Blair could be crowned first President of Europe at a special summit of EU leaders next month. Diplomatic sources say French President Nicolas Sarkozy is pushing for an extraordinary meeting in Brussels to install the former prime minister in the new £275,000-a-year post...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8LHOdZGRdo

Free Trade: Europe just walked off with the second-biggest trade deal in history with South Korea, bringing a fresh $26 billion to both economies and extending their clout globally. It's a prize that could have been ours. Welcome to the new America, the land of the left behind. As the Obama administration dithers for the eighth straight month about three pending free-trade treaties, those dust clouds you see are Europe taking off and running with the big one — South Korea. Late Thursday, Europe completed a free-trade pact with Korea in which 99% of all tariffs will be scrapped within...

German 'Wise Men' Fear Credit Crunch In 2010 Germany's leading institutes have warned that the pace of economic recovery is "unsustainable" and that the country's banks may face a fresh crisis over the next year as bad debts surface in earnest. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor Published: 7:31PM BST 15 Oct 2009 The Wise Men said Germany's economy would contract by 5pc this year 'There is still a significant risk of further shocks to the international financial system,' said a joint report by the five 'Wise Men', a panel that advises the government. Emergency action by the European Central...

The Czech Cabinet meets in emergency session today to consider how to persuade their stubborn President to sign the Lisbon treaty — under intense pressure from Paris and Berlin to complete the ratification as soon as possible. With President Klaus demanding a last-minute amendment as the price of his signature — the final approval required in the 27-nation European Union — the Government is locked in a trial of strength with its head of state and on the brink of a constitutional crisis. If it supports his demands the treaty might have to be reopened amid lengthy delays, possibly allowing...

Recently Turkish PM Erodgan canceled a joint military exercise with Israel, to show Turkey's support of Palestine. His next move was to tell the people of Turkey to have more children. I am sure that neither of these actions have anything to do with the worldwide jihad. Nah....could never happen with "moderate" Turkey.

Revelling in the fuss he was causing, Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, calmly tucked into a plate of steamed shellfish on the terrace of the elegant Adriatic hotel in the Albanian seaside resort of Durres last week. In faraway Brussels furious diplomats were calling for his impeachment and even his country’s expulsion from the European Union because of his obstinate refusal to sign the Lisbon treaty. Klaus, now the only European leader holding out against ratifying the document, made it clear he did not give a damn. European leaders were told he was not available to take...

“If the president is obstructing the democratic process and opposing the decision of parliament as well as the will of the people, he is moving beyond the law and will need to face the consequences,” a German diplomat told The Sunday Times. Jiri Oberfalzer, a member of the Czech senate and Klaus’s closest ally, said Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, had already threatened the Czechs with expulsion from the EU. “Ideas of changing the constitution just to get rid of the president only shows how weak our young democracy is,” said Oberfalzer, a Eurosceptic. The political hot potato now lands...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljAANHPkrAE&NR=1

Turkey and Armenia signed a landmark peace accord on Saturday to restore ties and open their shared border after a century of hostility stemming from the First World War mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman forces. But in an indication of the many pitfalls that lie ahead of its implementation, the ceremony was marred by a three-hour delay due to last-minute disagreements on statements, forcing U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to engage in intense discussions to salvage a deal. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian signed the Swiss-mediated deal in Zurich at a ceremony...

Vaclav Klaus, the anti-EU president of the Czech Republic, today moved to re–open the union's ill-starred Lisbon treaty, stirring exasperation in Brussels, Berlin, and Paris by demanding that Prague be granted exemptions from parts of the reform blueprint. snip . . . Member states and Brussels are desperate to get the treaty in place before the UK election next year, to lessen the chances of a referendum on the document in Britain. The Conservative party leader, David Cameron, has pledged to stage a referendum if he takes office with the treaty not fully ratified.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish President Lech Kaczynski will sign the European Union's Lisbon Treaty into law on Sunday October 11, a presidential aide said on Thursday. Poland and the Czech Republic are the only countries in the 27-member EU still to ratify the treaty after Irish voters overwhelmingly backed the document in a referendum last Friday. The treaty aims to streamline EU decision-making. It has to be ratified by all 27 member states to come into force. "The president keeps his word. He said he will sign the treaty with no delays if the Irish say 'yes'. On Sunday he...

Sept. 22: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair The reluctant vote in favor of further European integration by the Irish this weekend may usher Tony Blair into a new role as titular head of the European Union — despite most of Europe being reluctant to have him. The former prime minister is the leading candidate to become the European Union president for a want of alternatives rather than any enthusiasm. With the Irish having finally ratified the Lisbon treaty, all that remains is for the Czech and Polish presidents to sign it and authorize the creation of two new...

n a contest watched closely in Europe but largely ignored in America, the Irish voted on Friday to approve the Lisbon Treaty. The European establishment is celebrating what is supposed to become a stronger European Union. But the fat (Czech) lady has yet to sing. Five years ago members of the EU advanced a continental constitution to create a consolidated government in Brussels, with a president and foreign minister, increased "competencies," or responsibilities, for the EU, and fewer national vetoes over other issues. But in 2005 the Dutch and French peoples voted no. After that democratic debacle, the Eurocratic elite...

TONY Blair is set to be made the first President of Europe in weeks, The Sun can reveal. He will be nominated by EU leaders in Brussels if, as expected, Ireland backs the hated Lisbon Treaty in tomorrow's referendum. A senior Government source said: "If we get a 'Yes' vote it will all move very, very quickly. Tony could be named by the end of October." The leaders of the EU's 27 nations, not the voters, will choose the president. Former PM Mr Blair would not formally take up the powerful position until all EU countries ratified the Treaty. Even...

Just when you might think capitalism’s global crisis would breathe new life into the left, it’s looking increasingly divided and tired. The reelection of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany a week ago is highlighting a conservative surge in her country and Europe’s other powerhouse economies - Britain, France, and Italy - where the center-right is either firmly in power or about to get there. What happened? Much of the answer lies in the nature of modern European politics, where even the most ardent conservatives can still embrace social welfare policies that would seem leftist to Americans. And in recent years,...

Pope Benedict XVI went to the Czech Republic — repeatedly de­scribed as a “ religious wasteland” in the European press — to remind Czechs and all Europeans of the continent’s Christian roots which, he said, must be remembered and nour­ished if Europe is to have a future. Reporters for the major Europe­an newspapers pointed out that the Pope went to the former Soviet sat­ellite to mark the 20th anniversary of the “Velvet Revolution,” which saw the overthrow of the Commu­nist government in November 1989, and to celebrate the September 28 feast day of St. Wenceslaus, the na­tion’s patron. The press...

Ireland voted strongly in favour of the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, overturning a stunning No vote and taking a key step towards ending the 27-nation bloc's deadlock, ministers said Saturday. Europe Minister Dick Roche told AFP he expected "overwhelming" backing for the treaty in a second referendum, called after a June 2008 No vote, while Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin predicted a "convincing win." The No camp conceded defeat even before official results were published, after informal exit polls pointed to a 60 per cent vote in favour of the treaty -- designed to streamline decision-making in the expanding European...

The Irish Yes to the Lisbon Treaty has been greeted with whoops of joy by the European establishment from Cork to Cracow. But the long battle over Lisbon is not over. The spotlight now falls on the Czech Republic and its President, Vaclav Klaus. EU elites may have successfully defeated democracy for the fifth time – they overrode the Danish No to Maastricht in 1992, the Irish No to Nice in 2001, and the Dutch and French Nos to the European Constitution (the forerunner of Lisbon) in 2005. But the Lisbon Treaty still remains unratified in two Central European states...

Bloodied by the recession, and struggling under 20 billion euros of public debt, Ireland has reversed its earlier rejection of the controversial treaty It was lashing with rain but that wasn't the full reason Paul Callaghan was finding it hard to muster up the enthusiasm to mark his X. "I'm here because I have a vote and, basically, I've been told what to do with it," he said gloomily as he stood outside one of Dublin's polling stations in O'Connell Street on Saturday afternoon. "Look at the state we are in now," he said. "A year ago I had a...

Ireland has said yes to a plan to raise the political voice of Europe in world affairs, voting overwhelmingly to approve a treaty aimed at streamlining the operations of the European Union after rejecting the same pact only last year. Irish government and E.U. officials hailed the strong turnout in favor of the Lisbon Treaty, which would give the E.U. its first full-time president and foreign policy chief. Approval of the referendum follows a bitterly fought campaign that had raised concerns among foreign investors about Ireland’s commitment to the 27-nation bloc but ultimately hinged on Ireland ’s profound economic troubles.

Irish PM formally declares victory for yes side in European Union Lisbon treaty referendum.

A senior Government source said: "If we get a 'Yes' vote it will all move very, very quickly. Tony could be named by the end of October." The leaders of the EU's 27 nations, not the voters, will choose the president.

Turkish hopes of joining the EU appeared to be all but over after Germany gave warning it was ready to join France and Italy in outright opposition to the country's membership. Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Free Democrats (FDP) are both hostile to the accession of the overwhelmingly Muslim country of 71 million. The CDU is against the Turks joining for cultural reasons while the FDP leader, and probable new foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle has said the country's economy is too far below European standards to integrate comfortably with other members. With almost three million ethnic Turks living...

Websites using the .yu domain extension will cease to be available online from 30 September. The extension - assigned to the former Republic of Yugoslavia - has been replaced by .rs (for Serbia) and .me (for Montenegro)

The Mad Hatter told Alice that "words mean what you want them to mean." He would have been at home in the European Union, where "no" means "yes" and political propaganda is passed off as information. If Ireland votes No to the Lisbon Treaty, the EU will continue and Ireland will be part of it, but if they vote Yes the Irish will find they have even less leverage in Europe than today. In the course of the second referendum campaign in Ireland some extraordinary claims have been made about the economic consequences of voting No: it would frighten investors,...

Merkel 'Heads For' New Coalition Angela Merkel said she wanted to be a chancellor "for all Germans" Chancellor Angela Merkel has been returned to power in Germany, exit polls suggest, after her conservative bloc won more than 33% of the vote. Mrs Merkel told supporters they had achieved "something magnificent", but said she wanted to be a chancellor of all Germans at a moment of crisis. Mrs Merkel's bloc now looks set to form a centre-right alliance with her preferred partner, the pro-reform FDP. She says the alliance will get Germany out of its worst crisis in 60 years. Her...

After years of dithering, and despite Moscow's threats, agreement has been finalised for a project to bring non-Russian gas to Europe. Adrian Blomfield reports On an autumn evening in 2002, a group of European executives celebrated a major energy deal by taking in a spot of Verdi at the Vienna State Opera House. At dinner afterwards, the businessmen resolved to christen the gas pipeline they had agreed to build "Nabucco", after the opera they had just seen. Having watched Nabucco save the Jews from imminent execution at the hands of an interloper, the executives – and their EU backers –...

NEW YORK - The Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union agreed today to return their ambassadors to Honduras in Tegucigalpa, a city abandoned after the overthrow of Manuel Zelaya. The OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza and Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, announced this decision after their meeting in New York with representatives of twelve countries in the Americas, the Spanish presidency of the EU and European Commission. They also agreed to send as soon as possible (Friday or Saturday) a diplomatic mission to Tegucigalpa, composed of American foreign ministers, with the aim of launching a...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The executive arm of the European Union unveiled details Monday of its antitrust case against Intel Corp., including internal emails that the commission said showed the chip giant coercing or cutting deals with manufacturers to shut out rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. But Intel Corp. immediately fired back, saying the E.U. Commission "relied heavily on speculation found in emails from lower-level employees that did not participate in the negotiation of the relevant agreements," according to spokesman Chuck Mulloy. The release of the nonconfidential version of its Intel decision comes about a week after details of the...

David Cameron has launched a last-ditch attempt to scupper the controversial new EU treaty. The Tory leader sent a letter to Czech president Vaclav Klaus, reassuring Mr Klaus that if he held up the EU's Lisbon deal, Mr Cameron would stage a referendum in Britain if he wins power. Mr Klaus has now indicated he is planning to delay signing the treaty for up to six months. The intervention risks infuriating EU leaders, who are desperate to get the treaty into law. The Czechs represent the last real hurdle to the blueprint if, as expected, the Irish vote 'yes' in...

"EU funding 'Orwellian' artificial intelligence plan to monitor public for "abnormal behaviour" The European Union is spending millions of pounds developing "Orwellian" technologies designed to scour the internet and CCTV images for "abnormal behaviour"." SNIPPET: "A five-year research programme, called Project Indect, aims to develop computer programmes which act as "agents" to monitor and process information from web sites, discussion forums, file servers, peer-to-peer networks and even individual computers. Its main objectives include the "automatic detection of threats and abnormal behaviour or violence"." SNIPPET: "Project Indect, which received nearly £10 million in funding from the European Union, involves the Police...

CALAIS, France (AP) - French police cleared out, then bulldozed, a squalid forest camp near the northern city of Calais on Tuesday, detaining hundreds of illegal immigrants who had hoped to slip across the English Channel into Britain. French Immigration Minister Eric Besson called the site - known as "the Jungle" - a "base camp for human traffickers" who promise the migrants passage for enormous fees or dump them there after bringing them across Europe.