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The European Union told Iran on Monday it must suspend uranium enrichment, a few days after the Islamic state ruled out doing just that, as Tehran and the West engaged in diplomatic shadow-boxing ahead of nuclear talks this month. The United States called on Iran to take "urgent practical steps" to build confidence during negotiations with world powers on Tehran's nuclear program, which Washington and its allies suspect is a bid to develop an atomic bomb capability. Iran, attending an international conference in Vienna alongside its Western foes, for its part accused the United States of supporting Israel's atomic activities....

Obama began to increase his divide-and-conquer Class Warfare rhetoric as his financial losses began to increase sharply. Obama has had a lifelong, consistent hatred of America, and class warfare was merely a means to his end of Destroying America, in 4 years. Unable to accept responsibility for his financial failures, Obama has consistently blamed men who have demonstrated strong support for the core values of America, such as President George W. Bush, as well as men who have made profits, such as JPM CEO Jamie Dimon. This week Obama blamed America's Founding Fathers for making it difficult for Obama to...

By Wednesday, November 23rd, the Deficit Reduction Panel has to report on ways to cut the federal deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over ten years. Democrats refuse to support spending cuts unless Republicans agree to tax increases. And there is an increasing chance that the Republican members of the Commission – or at least some of them – will cave in to the Democratic demands. When Obama took office and embarked on his spending spree, he calculated that by raising spending and borrowing the money, he could force Republicans to raise taxes. Higher taxes on the rich is not...

EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact. Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month. Last night, critics claimed the EU was at odds with both science and common sense. Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said: “This is stupidity writ large. “The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are: highly-paid, highly-pensioned officials worrying about the obvious qualities of...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- European stocks fell sharply on Monday on renewed fears of a eurozone debt crisis and concerns about the global economy. London's FTSE 100 (UKX) index finished its trading session down 3.2%, while France's CAC 40 (CAC40) dropped 4%. In Germany, the DAX (DAX) shed 5.3%. The move followed more moderate drops in Asia's stock markets. Japan's Nikkei 225 (N225) index finished Monday trading down 1.9%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng (HSI) index shed 3% for the day. "Europe's faltering management of its crisis is starting to blur the line between a banking crisis and a euro...

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking at West Point, said last week that “Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined.” In saying this, Gates was repeating a dictum laid down by Douglas MacArthur after the Korean War, who urged the United States to avoid land wars in Asia. Given that the United States has fought four major land wars in Asia since World War II — Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq — none of which had...

Wealthy people across Europe are following in billionaire Warren Buffett's footsteps by calling for higher taxes on the rich. In Germany, a group of 50 people, called "The Wealthy for a Capital Levy," have urged Chancellor Angela Merkel to make people like them pay more in taxes and "stop the gap between rich and poor getting even bigger," The Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday. In France, 16 of the country's wealthiest people, including billionaire L'Oreal heiress Lilliane Bettencourt and oil company Total's chief executive Christophe de Margerie signed a petition calling for wealthy people to make a "special contribution" to the...

LAS VEGAS — While religious service attendance has decreased for all white Americans since the early 1970s, the rate of decline has been more than twice as high for those without college degrees compared to those who graduated from college, according to new research to be presented at the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. "Our study suggests that the less educated are dropping out of the American religious sector, similarly to the way in which they have dropped out of the American labor market," said lead researcher W. Bradford Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University...

Roubini Warns of Global Recession Risk Economist Nouriel Roubini says the risk of a global recession is greater than 50 percent, and the next two to three months will reveal the economy's direction. In an interview with WSJ's Simon Constable, Roubini also says he's putting his money in cash. "This is not the time to be in risky assets," he says.

Stop the presses. Barely did we have time to report that European regulators failed to impose a coordinated short selling ban, that Bloomberg reports that the countries most impact by the market plunge are about to impose standalone short-selling bans. These are Belgium, Italy, Spain and France. In other words, it really is on and the 2008 Lehman PTSD flashbacks may now resume. Until we get a headline that says it isn't. The rescue of the Borsa Italian is now more schizophrenic than that of Greece. As a reminder, in the previous post the FT quoted Abraham Lioui, a professor...

The debt-ceiling brouhaha diverts attention from the most fundamental economic issue we face: Do we want a European-style welfare state? If we do, how in the world are we going to pay for it? Presidential candidate Barack Obama called for "hope and change," but he was deliberately vague on the "fundamental change" part. In speeches as president both at home and abroad, he appeared to reject American exceptionalism and intimated we have much to learn from Europe, especially its cradle-to-grave welfare state. Obama's juggernaut passage of universal health care, despite severe budget and employment problems and the loss of his...

Although Italy’s economic indicators are better than other countries', hedge funds have chosen to attack it because of the country’s huge public debt andThe last battleground stagnant growth. The fall of the eurozone’s third largest economy would deal a fatal blow to the common currency while providing enormous profit opportunities to speculators. At the Milan stock exchange, 11 July 2011 by Maurizio Ricci The Battle of the Euro has truly begun. Edward Altman, analyst for Classis Capital, forecast a month ago already that: “The final battle for the survival of the euro will be held, not in Spain but on...

'A roundabout revolution is slowly sweeping the US. The land of the car, where the stop sign and traffic light have ruled for decades, has started to embrace the free-flowing British circular. A few moments after entering Carmel, it's clear why the city has been described as the Milton Keynes of the US. As the sat-nav loudly and regularly points out, there's often a roundabout up ahead. But unlike in the English town famous for them, driving into this pretty city on the outskirts of Indianapolis also involves passing several more under construction. The city is at the forefront of...

"Refugees ought not to come to Germany," announces Die Welt. The position that Berlin is expected to adopt when European interior ministers meet to discuss immigration on 11 April is unlikely to be welcomed by Italy which has called for solidarity in the drive to cope with thousands of immigrants who have recently arrived from North Africa. “Italy’s dirty tricks amount to unacceptable blackmail," remarks the conservative daily, which nonetheless acknowledges that "it is inadmissible that Italy and Malta pay the price for changes that are in all of Europe’s interest." For Die Welt, Europe should come together to invest...

China’s vehicle manufacturer Foton is setting up an assembly plant in Kenya in what is set to heighten the battle between China and Western nations for business in Kenya. The Sh1.2 billion assembly plant is expected to churn out 10,000 units of prime movers, tippers, buses, pick-ups, and light commercial trucks per year, making it one of the biggest foreign direct investments by a Chinese company. Foton said it is setting up the plant to avoid paying a 25 per cent import duty on cars to allow in its low cost products putting it in a head-to-head battle with Japanese...

This could not have been more predictable: The junior partner in the Norwegian government, the Socialist Left Party of Kristin Halvorsen, (Sosialistisk Venstreparti), plans to vote on a measure calling for military action against Israel if it decides to act against the Hamas in Gaza… Here is the less than lucid reasoning behind the motion: The credibility of the world community in its confrontation with the Gadafi regime is undermined when there is no reaction against other states in the region who commit injustices against civil population.

Strasbourg, France, Jan 14, 2011 / 02:11 pm (CNA).- A 2011-2012 school calendar published by the European Union has omitted Christian holidays, while continuing to note important Jewish and Muslim celebrations. The European Union has printed three million copies of the calendar which will be distributed free-of-charge to students who request them. Former French politician and government minister, Christine Boutin, wrote in her blog Jan. 11 that the calendar leaves out Christianity, “the religion practiced or recognized as forming the cultural assembly of our ‘old’ continent.” Boutin is a consultant for the Pontifical Council for the Family, as well as...

BRUSSELS (AFP) – More than half of European adults are now overweight and too many children smoke or are obese, raising the risk of cancer or heart attacks, a European health report showed Tuesday. Just over 15 percent of adults in the European Union are obese, a rate that has more than doubled over the past 20 years in most EU states, the study found. The obesity rate ranges from less than 10 percent in Romania and Italy to more than 20 percent in Britain, Ireland and Malta, said the report issued by the European Commission and the Organisation for...

The drive towards a European superstate has had its flaws exposed at last, says Christopher Booker. The collapse of the euro: The most obvious place for disintegration to begin was the single currency Twelve years ago, I stood on the plinth of Nelson’s Column in the pouring rain, addressing a crowd of 10,000 people. We had marched through central London in the biggest ever demonstration against Britain joining the euro, a course then being daily urged on us by the BBC, with the aid of such Euro-zealots as Michael Heseltine, Chris Patten, Kenneth Clarke and Sir Leon Brittan. At the...

In an interview with SPIEGEL, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, 68, criticizes US calls for Germany to reduce exports, outlines his plans for an insolvency framework for indebted European nations and the emphasizes the significance of the German-French axis for Europe...

France has been convulsed by violent demonstrations against modest pension reforms. Britain is imposing a tough fiscal “austerity” regime to plug a cavernous budget gap. Crisis-torn Greece is struggling to avoid a sovereign-debt default. Ireland, Portugal, and Spain are grappling with their own major-league financial woes. Is it fair to say that the much-ballyhooed European model is crumbling? That depends on which “European model” you’re referring to. Though Western Europe is often lazily portrayed as a monolithic bastion of welfare-state sclerosis, it is in fact robustly heterogeneous. France has a brittle pension system and rigid labor markets, but the Dutch,...

The controversy surrounding the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case is disconcerting. The allegations that the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is not enforcing civil rights laws in a race-neutral manner is disturbing on several levels - as a European, an Italian, a woman and a judge. The accusations made by two Justice Department attorneys who worked in the Civil Rights Division ...

If I weren't getting so used to the inequity of political correctness, I would be stunned at this: http://www.blackpeoplemeet.com/index.cfm The Fresh Prince happened to be on TV while I was surfing the Internet and of course, the commercials are aimed toward the largest audience for such programming, black people. For a moment my jaw dropped as I watched the commercial that caught my attention as soon as I heard "black people meet" in the background. To be sure, I checked http://www.whitepeoplemeet.com/ and was redirected to a dating site for Generation X'ers that never once mentioned race. I don't know why...

The leaders of Moscow's 1.5 million strong Muslim community say they desperately need more places of worship. But a plan to build a new mosque has run into local opposition which is being fuelled by nationalists calling for a "clean Moscow" without Muslims and foreigners. Small trees are supposed to be keeping the Muslims out of Tekstilshchiki, a district in south eastern Moscow. A young man sets to work with his shovel, pushing it into the earth with a determined kick. Then he places a seedling into the hole and sprinkles earth over it. Using her watering can, Maria Sotova...

A key figure in one of Europe's most infamous Islamic extremist networks has written a public letter renouncing whole swathes of the ideology that led him to try to murder non-believers. On Saturday a Dutch newspaper published what Jason Walters, an imprisoned member of the Netherlands-based "Hofstad Group," calls a "review document." The letter offers a window into the mind of a man who dedicated his life to spreading a militant version of Islam, by force when he deemed it necessary. It joins a small but important list of similar recantations, which have become a tool for counterterrorism officials seeking

Italy is set to become the next European country to ban the burka after a government report ruled in favour of the proposed legislation. MPs from the anti-immigration Northern League party, a member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling right wing coalition, have presented the proposal in a bill.

Ultra-loose monetary policies by the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank are throwing the world into "chaos" rather than helping the global economic recovery, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said on Tuesday. A "flood of liquidity" from the Fed and the ECB is bringing instability to foreign-exchange markets, forcing countries such as Japan and Brazil to defend its exporters... "The irony is that the Fed is creating all this liquidity with the hope that it will revive the American economy," Stiglitz said. "It's doing nothing for the American economy, but it's causing chaos over the rest of the world....

Airport Lobbies Possible Terror Targets in European Plot, Official Says Mounting 'Chatter' by Jihadi Extremists Has Law Enforcement Nervous Among the possible targets in the suspected European terror plot are pre-security areas in at least five major European airports, a law enforcement official told ABC News. Authorities believe terror teams are preparing to mount a commando like attack featuring small units and small firearms modeled after the Mumbai attack two years ago. The State Department issued a highly unusual "Travel Alert" Sunday for "potential terrorist attacks in Europe," saying U.S. citizens are "reminded of the potential for terrorists to attack...

Even Willy Wonka might struggle to use this much chocolate. Yesterday, somebody bought 241,000 tonnes of cocoa beans. The purchase was enough to move the entire global cocoa market, sending the price to the highest level since 1977, and triggering rumours and intrigue in the City. It is unclear which person, or group of traders, was behind the deal, but it was the largest single cocoa trade for 14 years. The cocoa beans, which are sitting in warehouses either in The Netherlands, Hamburg, or closer to home in London, Liverpool or Humberside is equivalent to the entire supply of the...

SNIPPET: "Free Palestine Movement, Reporters with Borders say plan to send ship carrying dozens of activists, European MPs to Gaza as early as next weekend" SNIPPET: "The Turkish-owned Mavi Marmara ship and the Irish-owned Rachel Corrie ship are not alone: Two non-governmental Lebanese organizations announced Saturday that the plan to send an aid vessel of their own to the Gaza Strip as early as next weekend. In a press conference in Beirut, the Free Palestine Movement and Reporters without Borders organization announced that the ship, which will be carrying humanitarian aid, will include passengers interested in expressing their solidarity, as...

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: Time for John Clarke and Bryan Dawe with a few reflections on Europe's financial woes. BRYAN DAWE: Your name is Roger yes? JOHN CLARKE: Roger. BRYAN DAWE: Ah, that's your name? JOHN CLARKE: Roger. BRYAN DAWE: Good. And what do you do Roger? JOHN CLARKE: I'm a financial consultant. BRYAN DAWE: Ah, financial consultant, eh? JOHN CLARKE: Roger, yes. BRYAN DAWE: Terrific and Roger how is business at the moment? JOHN CLARKE: Not bad thank you. Been a bit quiet lately. BRYAN DAWE: How do you mean lately? JOHN CLARKE: Since the war. Been a bit quiet....

Joe Biden’s May 6 speech to the European Parliament appears to have been largely ignored by the American media, both old and new. The full performance can be viewed below. The video comes complete with images (at 0:18 of the clip) of Biden puffing out his chest as Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” the unofficial EU anthem, is played. ----click on link for amazing video and analysis

PARIS — Across Western Europe, the “lifestyle superpower,” the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt. The deficit crisis that threatens the euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare, built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II. Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism. Europeans have benefited from low military spending, protected by NATO and the American nuclear umbrella. They have also translated...

Crisis Imperils Liberal Benefits Long Expected by Europeans By STEVEN ERLANGER May 22, 2010 PARIS — Across Western Europe, the “lifestyle superpower,” the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt. The deficit crisis that threatens the euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare, built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II. Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism. Europeans have benefited from low...

After a week of preemptive attacks on a possible IMF bailout of Greece, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) introduces the European Bailout Protection Act, aimed at preventing taxpayer dollars from going to a rescue plan. "This legislation would require that countries like Greece cut spending and put their own fiscal house in order," says Pence, backed up by other members of the House GOP, "instead of looking to the United States for a bailout. We face record unemployment and a debt crisis of our own, and American taxpayers should not be forced to bear the risk for nations that have avoided...

ATHENS—Greece's fiscal crisis took a new turn to violence Wednesday when three people died in a firebomb attack amid a paralyzing national strike, while governments from Spain to the U.S. took steps to prevent the widening financial damage from hitting their own economies. U.S. Treasury officials have been quietly urging their European and International Monetary Fund counterparts to put together a Greek rescue plan more quickly to contain the damage, it emerged Wednesday, as U.S. policy makers worry the continent's problems could undermine a U.S. recovery much as U.S. housing woes hammered Europe in 2008. In Spain, rival political leaders...

The new European group JCall raises a disturbing question: how could pro-Israel intellectuals like Alain Finkielkraut and Bernard-Henri Levy support a venture that is simultaneously anti-Israel and intellectually incoherent? JCall presented a petition to the European Parliament this week that asserted that Israel’s future “depends upon” peace with the Palestinians, so the European Union must “put pressure on both parties.” Then, abandoning the pretense of even-handedness, it added: “Systematic support of Israeli government policy is dangerous and does not serve the true interests of the state of Israel.” There was no comparable warning against supporting Palestinian Authority policies, some of...

A new leftist European Jewish group, JCall, has written a letter to be delivered Sunday to the European Parliament calling for a cessation of what it calls systematic support for Israeli government decisions. JCall, which describes itself as "the European J Street" and is to be officially launched Sunday with the presentation of the letter, has raised a storm with its call to stop construction in West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem.

The European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers' dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips. Antonio Tajani, the European Union commissioner for enterprise and industry, proposed a strategy that could cost European taxpayers hundreds of millions of euros a year.

AMSTERDAM – Major airlines that sent test flights into European air space found no damage Sunday from the volcanic ash that has paralyzed aviation over the continent, raising pressure on governments to ease restrictions that have thrown global travel and commerce into chaos. Is it safe to fly yet? Airline officials and some pilots say the passengerless test flights show that it is. Meteorologists warn that the skies over Europe remain unstable from an Icelandic volcano that continues to spew ash capable of knocking out jet engines. European Union officials said air traffic could return to half its normal level...

Note: The following text is a quote: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, March 18, 2010 Chicago Resident David Coleman Headley Pleads Guilty to Role in India and Denmark Terrorism Conspiracies Admits Conducting Surveillance for Lashkar e Tayyiba in Planning 2008 Mumbai Attacks David Coleman Headley, a U.S. citizen of partial Pakistani descent, pleaded guilty today to a dozen federal terrorism charges, admitting that he participated in planning the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, as well as later planning to attack a Danish newspaper. In pleading guilty to all 12 counts that were brought against him in December and were...

PARIS — President Obama’s decision to skip a United States-European Union summit meeting scheduled for Madrid in May has predictably upset European officials, who suggested Tuesday that the summit meeting itself would now be postponed, possibly to the autumn. In addition to the palpable sense of insult among European officials, there is a growing concern that Europe is being taken for granted and losing importance in American eyes compared with the rise of a newly truculent China

Just months after rushing to order enough swine-flu vaccine to protect their citizens, European governments are cancelling orders and trying to sell or give away extra doses as they sit on a glut of the vaccine. The main reason: European health officials decided that only one shot per person was needed, instead of the two originally planned. Low demand is also to blame. Many Europeans believe the pandemic has turned out to be fairly mild, and don't see a reason to get vaccinated. Some are also concerned that they will suffer side effects from the shots, despite assurances otherwise from...

PRAGUE (AFP) – Take a tram instead of a taxi and don't change your towel every day -- such are the rules at a two-day "carbon-free" congress of the Party of European Socialists (PES), which started in Prague on Monday. "The idea is simple: we want our congress to have absolutely no impact on the amount of carbon in the environment," said the organisers, who have made climate change one of the top items on the agenda. Hundreds of men in ties and women in sharp outfits arrived at the congress venue clutching tram tickets, distributed for free by the...

After the Wall Geoff Lewis, November 13, 2009 Twenty years ago the Berlin wall that divided Germany from freedom and communism came down. At a recent event at the Heritage Foundation, panelists reviewed the “pulse” of Europe twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. “Nearly two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, publics of former Iron Curtain countries generally look back approvingly at the collapse of communism,” according to “The Pulse of Europe 2009,” a study released by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in 2009. “Majorities of people in most former Soviet republics and Eastern European...

An interesting paradox. Last year America elected a president who, in attitudes and policies, is closer to the elites of Western Europe than any of his predecessors. Yet in the nine months that he has been in office ordinary Americans have been moving away from those attitudes and policies and have increasingly embraced positions that over the years have made Americans distinctive from those in other advanced Western democracies.

Obama promised to neuter America before the election in one of his campaign ads to supporters: That was one promise he decided to keep. As promised, Barack Obama will go ahead with his plan to weaken America's stand in the world. The Guardian reported today that Obama is pushing a radical plan to eliminate not hundreds but thousands of the nation's strategic warheads, via Free Republic. Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country's arsenal, the Guardian can reveal. Obama has rejected the...

Is Germany’s Charlemagne About to Appear? August 25, 2009 | From theTrumpet.com Germany and a great church are working to restore the tradition of Charlemagne. By Gerald Flurry [CORRECTION: A reference in this article to a document by President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill to “destroy German militarism and Nazism” said it was signed after the Allies defeated Germany in World War ii. In fact, they signed that document in February 1945 at the Yalta Conference. The error has been corrected.] As I write this article, Germany is just weeks from electing a new chancellor. That election and...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Thursday shelved a Bush-era plan for an Eastern European missile defense plan that has been a major irritant in relations with Russia. He said a redesigned defensive system would be cheaper and more effective against the threat from Iranian missiles. "Our new missile defense architecture in Europe will provide stronger, smarter and swifter defenses of American forces and America's allies," Obama said in an announcement from the White House. "It is more comprehensive than the previous program, it deploys capabilities that are proven and cost effective, and it sustains and builds upon our commitment...

BRUSSELS (AFP) – The World Trade Organisation has judged European subsidies paid to Airbus illegal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing a source "familiar with the matter". But European sources who declined to be named told AFP that the interim ruling released by the WTO indicated that the US complaint was only partially upheld. The Journal reported from Brussels that the WTO concluded that every launch-aid package given to Airbus for the development of its A380 double-decker long-range airliner was an illegal subsidy. The conclusion was contained in a report of around 1,000 pages, with hard copies only...