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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...

We Can Stop the European Bank Bailout. Barack Obama wants to bail out European banks. No, it is no joke. He really wants to. He is going to send the International Monetary Fund billions of dollars that will then be used to do in Europe what Obama has done here.We can stop it. House Republicans are going to vote in a block to oppose this, which means around thirty Democrats are needed. The Blue Dog Democrats are logical targets. Those Democrats who represent districts that tilt Republican can be pressured. And among them, the freshman Blue Dogs can really be...

A Dutch MP banned from Britain for his anti-Islamic views has won more than 15 per cent of the vote in Holland's European Parliament elections, exit polls have shown. Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party are to take four of the 25 Dutch seats in the European assembly as right-wing and fringe parties were set to gain all over Europe. The results are giving credence to the theory that the economic downturn, cynicism over the union's eastward expansion and worries about relations between Muslims and non-Muslims are fuelling a voter backlash against mainstream politicians. Wilders was barred from entering Britain...

(IsraelNN.com) Despite the EU Parliament's vote Wednesday to legalize “shechita,” the Jewish method of humane animal slaughter is still very much in danger. It was reported on Thursday that the European Jewish Community “hailed” the European Parliament’s vote to legalize the traditional Jewish method of slaughter into European law. However, it was later clarified that in fact, the Parliament only has consultative status in this case, and that the European Union’s Council of Agricultural Ministers will have the final say when it convenes next month. "During the original debate on this issue in Norway, one of the parliamentarians said straight...

Summary of key points: European banks own 8 trillion US assets (treasuries, agencies, consumer loans, etc…) and they are losing access to their dollar funding. If European banks are forced to sell their US assets, it will crash the credit markets, and they will have to recognize enormous losses. Since the fed is desperate to prevent the collapse of the US financial system, it lent those European banks 600 billion dollars so that they wouldn’t be forced to sell. Meanwhile, European banks accepted this 600 billion because they don’t want to recognize losses on their toxic US securities. What is...

Last Tuesday, a Parisian appeals court overturned the convictions of five former Guantanamo inmates who had been found guilty on terrorist conspiracy charges in 2007. The development should give pause to wonder not only about the wisdom of plans to transfer Guantanamo inmates to European countries (see my earlier New Majority piece here), but more fundamentally about the very idea of treating the "disposition" of Guantanamo inmates as an issue for civilian courts, whether in the US or abroad. The five French Gitmo detainees were repatriated to France in 2004 and 2005. They were tried and convicted on charges of...

STRASBOURG (AFP) – The European Parliament on Wednesday approved the EU's climate change package, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, lifting the last hurdle to the ambitious plan. Six texts on the package, already agreed by the 27 European Union member states, were passed by a large majority of the MEPs present. "We have sealed the climate package," said European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering, after the vote. The so-called "20-20-20" climate package, which Europe hopes will serve as a model to other nations, will oblige EU nations to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent...

Ashamed to be an American? You will be if your vote is for Obama this November... Why Europeans want you NOT to vote for Obama: We the citizens of Europe beg you please to vote for the Republican candidate. Because we view Barack Hussein Obama to be a left-wing impostor and troublemaker and a frontman for the insidious immoral Anti-American postmodern collectivist anarchistic movement that the left, in alliance with the creative and entertainment mass media of artists, pop musicians, actors and press, have been working for forty years to bring to power...

Air traffic, urban transport and public services have ground to a halt in Greece, where hundreds of thousands of people have walked out on strike. =snip= A small group of protesters threw stones and clashed with riotpolice, who fired tear gas. But there were no reports of injuries and for the most part rallies in the capital passed off peacefully. Country 'at a halt' Public offices across the country were forced to close, with hundreds of thousands of people thought to have joined the nationwide strike, called by two unions representing some 2.5 million people. Nearly 200 domestic and international...

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday proposed a pan-European summit to review a proposal to create a "reliable collective" security system in Europe. Saying that the existing architecture of European security "did not pass the strength test in recent events," referring to the Georgia conflict, he told the UN General Assembly that a "pan-European summit" should take "a comprehensive look at security problems." Lavrov did not say when or where this summit would be held but said its task would be to weigh a proposal made by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Berlin last June...

The first official image of a Russian-European manned spacecraft has been unveiled. It is designed to replace the Soyuz vehicle currently in use by Russia and will allow Europe to participate directly in crew transportation. The reusable ship was conceived to carry four people towards the Moon, rivalling the US Ares/Orion system. Unlike previous crewed vehicles, it will use thrusters to make a soft landing when it returns to Earth. I think the main roadmap is the agreement between the European and Russian space agencies. That is their Plan A Anatoly Zak In some respects, the capsule resembles America's next-generation...