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The appointment of Herman Van Rompuy as “President of Europe” is a gift to conspiracy theorists who fear the re-emergence of a Europe dominated by Rome. The wellspring of the Belgian’s Eurofederalism, like that of the EU’s founders, is his Catholic faith. He makes monthly retreats to a Benedictine monastery; even his wife is overawed by “the force he can find in his faith”. I can already see the words “Holy Roman Empire” forming on the lips of Eurosceptics whose mistrust of the EU draws on a dislike of Catholicism. And perhaps there is just a grain of truth in...

(Reuters) - Here are some facts about Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, who on Thursday became the European Union's president. Van Rompuy, 62, emerged as the strongest centre-right candidate. Although he has been prime minister for less than a year, after coming to power following a banking crisis, he has proved a steady hand running a difficult coalition. * RISE TO POWER: -- Van Rompuy helped calm the linguistically divided country after taking charge in December 2008 after 18 months of turmoil under predecessor and fellow Christian Democrat Yves Leterme. -- He had been president of the lower house...

The poetry-loving favourite to become the first president of Europe, Herman Van Rompuy, is also a hard-line opponent of Turkey's bid to join the European Union because it is an Islamic country. Herman Van Rompuy, Belgium's Prime Minister, has in the past spoken out against Turkish EU membership because, he warned, it would dilute Europe's Christian heritage. His position on the issue is so strong that he has won the support of Vlaams Belang, the controversial far-right Flemish anti-immigrant party in Belgium.

PARIS (AFP) – Brigitte Bardot, one-time French screen goddess turned animal rights activist, wants the European Union to institute a "Vegetarian Day" as part of the battle against global warming. In a letter this week to European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barrosoa, Bardot said "a few weeks before the Copenhagen climate summit, I would like to draw your attention to the need to question cattle-farming, whose effects on the environment are of concern." Quoting studies by the World Bank and the UN food agency FAO, Bardot said in the letter which was released Friday that cattle-raising not only caused high...

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...

The title of Chapter 9 is borrowed from Robert Graves. Graves (1895 -1985) was one of those people one could find only in Europe: an Anglo-Irish-German, he was an intellectual son and grandson of intellectuals, a poet, classicist and translator from Greek and Latin, Oxford University professor, novelist and author of 140 books, most remembered nowadays for his I, Claudius, made in 1976 into a hit BBC-Television series with Derek Jacobi in the title role. But Graves was more than that. He was a champion pugilist and a heroic soldier. He served during World War 1 as an officer in...

In the 2008 presidential elections, 69.5 million Americans voted for Barack Obama campaign’s slogan, “Change we can believe in.” Others also believed that Mr. Obama would bring change, but since it would not be change they could believe in, they could not vote for the agent of that change. The European Union too has promised, and already wrought, much change. The European Anthem is one of the main symbols of the change the EUrocracy and its enthusiasts can believe in. “This is the anthem,” one reads, “not only of the European Union but also of Europe in a wider sense....

This serial essay started with the assumption that Barack Hussein Obama’s election as the 44th President of the United States would accelerate the creation of a multicultural supra-state encompassing all the countries founded and developed by whites. This entity, that I called Meccania, would be an ideological extension of the European Union, suppressing and diluting its white majority, its original civilization and its civic freedoms while force-flooding its territories with ever more black, brown and Muslim minorities, and increasing state control over all areas of life. A week after Mr. Obama’s election, it was impossible to exaggerate its impact on...

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...

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...

"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...

A giant imperial power, destined to soon dominate the globe, is suddenly emerging from behind its benign facade! ************************************************************************* In February 1934, Herbert W. Armstrong launched a magazine, using biblical prophecy as his guide, and history and current world events as his frame of reference. It was to become the most widely circulated of all periodic publications during the 20th century. Called the Plain Truth, the first edition of that fledgling publication carried a cover article headlined dramatically, “Is a World Dictator About to Appear?” By August of that year, Adolf Hitler, whose declared goal was global rule, became the...

Energy Savings: Europe's ban on the incandescent light bulb began phasing in this month, and the U.S. will soon follow. Is Thomas Edison to blame for global warming? And why are we exporting green jobs?When the warm-mongers assemble in Copenhagen this December to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, no doubt their work to save the earth from the carbon dioxide that gives it life will take place under the eerie light thrown off by compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) mandated by the European Union to fight climate change. The bulbs are more expensive, costing up to...

Retailers who sell children violent or pornographic videos will be immune from prosecution for the next three months after the discovery of a government blunder 25 years ago. Britain should have notified the European Commission of the existence of the Video Recordings Act 1984 (VRA) — which regulated the industry — but failed to do so. “Unfortunately, discovery of this omission means that, a quarter of a century later, VRA is no longer enforceable against individuals in UK courts,” said Barbara Follett, minister for culture and tourism. Follett said people currently being prosecuted under the act would not be convicted...

Open EU borders are a paradise for weapons and human smugglers, senior Danish police officers say. Senior Danish police officers are complaining that the EU’s open borders under the Schengen agreement have made it simple for criminal groups to smuggle weapons and women into Denmark. “The Schengen agreement has made it much easier to move weapons around Europe and to get them into Denmark. This is a problem as crime becomes much more serious when weapons are involved,” says Henrik Svindt of the Copenhagen Special Unit for Gang Crime and Women Traficking. The issue of how to stop weapons and...

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work ... After eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... And an enormous debt to boot!" Henry Morgenthau Treasury Secretary under FDR, after 2 terms of FDR's "New Deal".

Voters could be asked to cast their ballot for European 'groupings' rather than political parties under plans to shake up the electoral system. Proposals to change the way EU voting works will be tabled next year to counter the low turnout and big gains for fringe parties. The elections have fragmented the European Parliament as never before after voters across the continent elected large numbers of non-aligned MEPs outside the traditional pro-EU Christian Democrats, Socialists and Liberals. In Britain, the BNP, UKIP, and the Greens, made gains. Joseph Daul, the chairman of the European People's Party, parliament's biggest Christian Democrat...

Barack Obama's poll numbers have taken a significant downward turn lately, particularly as a result of the overwhelming unpopularity of his move to nationalize GM (basically, just one in four think it was a good idea - with "nearly as many" favoring a boycott of GM to punish both GM and Obama). Right now, Obama's approval index, measuring those who strongly approve versus those who strongly disapprove, is at zero. "That’s the highest level of strong disapproval and the lowest overall rating yet recorded," according to Rasmussen. The media has been - and continues to - present a warped view...

<p>We are on the edge of one of those periods of history when the gimbals on which the established order is mounted shift and a new world order begins to emerge. And these are, almost always, the most frightening and turbulent of times.</p>

May 14, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A prominent former Soviet dissident says that the European Union is disturbingly similar in its ideological foundations, and its methods, to the Soviet Union. Author and political activist Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky, who spent 12 years in the Russian gulag, is now warning the people of Europe that they are in danger of allowing a new totalitarian superstate to rise. "It is really puzzling to me," says Bukovsky in the documentary "Britain on the Brink," "that having just buried one monster, the Soviet Union, another remarkably similar one, the European Union, is being built." The same...

Wild mushrooms consumed in Europe contain too much nicotine and may raise blood pressure and heart rate, Europe's major food risk assessment agency said on Monday. The European Food Safety Authority, EFSA, has established as safe a concentration of nicotine in fresh mushrooms at 0.036 mg per kg, which was well below the levels it has found in samples from the 2008 crop, EFSA said in a statement. EFSA was asked by the European Commission to analyze the risks of eating wild mushrooms and said further monitoring was needed to set precise safe levels. "Any effects of eating contaminated wild...

The paper is aged and fragile, the typewritten letters slowly fading. But US Military Intelligence report EW-Pa 128 is as chilling now as the day it was written in November 1944. The document, also known as the Red House Report, is a detailed account of a secret meeting at the Maison Rouge Hotel in Strasbourg on August 10, 1944. There, Nazi officials ordered an elite group of German industrialists to plan for Germany's post-war recovery, prepare for the Nazis' return to power and work for a 'strong German empire'. In other words: the Fourth Reich. The three-page, closely typed report,...

URGENT - VOTING IN EU PARLIAMENT 5th of MAY 2009 Don't let the EU parliament lock up the Internet! There will be no way back! Act now! Internet access is not conditional Everyone who owns a website has an interest in defending the free use of Internet... so has everyone who uses Google or Skype... everyone who expresses their opinions freely, does research of any kind, whether for personal health problems or academic study ... everyone who shops online...who dates online...socialises online... listens to music...watches video... Millions of Europeans now depend on the Internet, directly or indirectly, for their livelihood....

Hoping to head off a global pandemic of swine flu that has surfaced in North America, the European Union’s health commissioner on Monday urged Europeans to avoid traveling to the United States or Mexico if doing so is not essential. The warning came as health officials in Spain confirmed early Monday that a man hospitalized in eastern Spain had tested positive for swine flu, becoming what appeared to be Europe’s first case of the disease. Health authorities were also testing 17 other suspected cases across Spain, a major hub for travel between Mexico and Europe. Britain and other European Union...

<p>LUXEMBOURG - The European Union's health commissioner urged Europeans on Monday to postpone nonessential travel to the United States or Mexico due to swine flu.</p> <p>EU Health Commissioner Andorra Vassiliou met with the EU foreign ministers on the subject as Spain reported the first confirmed case of swine flu in Europe. That was also the first swine flu case outside North America.</p>

Nicolas Sarkozy, contrary to caricature, is not always a president ready to shoot the messenger who arrives bearing a discomforting earful. Instead, last week, he made the fellow an officer of the French Legion of Honor. The recipient was André Glucksmann, a major presence at the intersection where the worlds of French intellect and politics converge or collide. Once a Maoist, and a heavyweight in the intellectual architecture resulting from the 1968 student revolt, Mr. Glucksmann has emerged over the succeeding decades as a insistent voice in defense of human rights and (although he probably wouldn’t put it this way)...

OSLO/BONN (Reuters) – Global warming is likely to overshoot a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) rise seen by the European Union and many developing nations as a trigger for "dangerous" change, a Reuters poll of scientists showed on Tuesday. Nine of 11 experts, who were among authors of the final summary by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 (IPCC), also said the evidence that mankind was to blame for climate change had grown stronger in the past two years. Giving personal views of recent research, most projected on average a faster melt of summer ice in the...

Since then, Israel agreed to allow the Muslim Waqf to manage the Temple Mount area, with a view toward preventing inter-religious conflict at one of the world's most sensitive sites. This was a huge concession on Israel's part that has never been properly recognized. By doing so, Israel has underscored its intention to assure freedom of access to members of all faiths at all of the holy sites in Jerusalem. Despite the its historical jurisdictional and the benevolent way Israel has treated the holy sites of other faiths, the EU has reconstructed the truth to come up with the report...

Over the weekend the European Union sent a strong warning if not, a threatening ultimatum to Israel just before they entered the Sabbath Day. Israel’s incoming Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu had better embrace and pursue the “two-state-solution” being promoted by the rest of the world or face the displeasure of the European Union. Karel Schwarzenberg, foreign minister of the Czech Republic which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said that if the new Israeli government does not commit itself to establishing a Palestinian state, "relations would become very difficult indeed."

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox was in San Antonio Friday, delivering a wide-ranging address about U.S.-Mexico relations that touched on trade, the drug war, comprehensive immigration reform and the United States' “mammoth” financial crisis that has spread worldwide. Fox also delivered a message of hope — hope that someday Canada, the United States and Mexico, indeed the rest of Latin America, would function like the European Union. “It's an extremely successful model,” said Fox, whose wife, Marta Sahagún, accompanied him. “My vision is to speed up the process of further integration.” Fox was in town to address the Congressional Hispanic...

When the European Union begins to lecture you on your fiscal polices and criticize your theories. The president of the European Union on Wednesday slammed U.S. plans to spend its way out of recession as “a road to hell.” Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, told the European Parliament that President Barack Obama’s massive stimulus package and banking bailout “will undermine the liquidity of the global financial market.” A day after his government collapsed because of a parliamentary vote of no-confidence, Topolanek took the EU presidency on a collision course with Washington over...

E.U. President Calls U.S. Stimulus ‘Way to Hell’ By STEPHEN CASTLE and DAN BILEFSKY BRUSSELS — Transatlantic tension over the handling of the global economic crisis intensified on Wednesday when the prime minister of the Czech Republic, which holds the European Union presidency, described the U. S. stimulus measures as the “way to hell.” Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek argued that the Obama administration’s fiscal package and financial bailout “will undermine the stability of the global financial market.” Mr. Topolanek’s comments, only a day after he offered his government’s resignation following a no confidence...

BRUSSELS — European Union leaders on Thursday insisted they were spending enough to dig out of the recession, with the EU presidency saying an additional stimulus package “is a deadly idea.” The comment from Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who is hosting a two-day EU summit, came in the wake of the announcement Wednesday that the U.S. Federal Reserve will launch a bold $1.2-trillion (U.S.) effort to lower rates on mortgages and other consumer debt. {snip} German Chancellor Angela Merkel also remained at the forefront opposing any more deficit spending. “We have already made our contribution,” she said. Merkel and...

A tennis player today won his case at the European Court of Justice against airport security staff who believed that his racquets posed a terrorist threat and threw him off a flight. Judges ruled that the unpublished European Union register of hand luggage restrictions could not be enforced because passengers had no way of knowing exactly what was prohibited. The EU list shows that racquets are not specifically banned from the cabin. However, it contains a catch-all prohibition on "any blunt instrument capable of causing injury". An over-eager airport official might still argue that racquets fall into that category. BAA...

When Jemma Swallow designed a logo for her upmarket tea shop, the last thing she predicted was a battle with a giant German manufacturer. Trouble started to brew when she tried to register her simple, hand-painted design featuring a teapot as a trademark. It caused such a stir with German tea company Teekanne that it lodged an official objection on the grounds that it is 'confusingly similar' to its own logo. But yesterday Miss Swallow forced the Germans into an early surrender after they withdrew from further legal proceedings. 'I punched my fist in the air when my solicitor phoned...

Eastern European countries gave an apocalyptic warning yesterday of hordes of unemployed workers heading west as a new Iron Curtain divides rich from poor inside Europe. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Western leaders were told yesterday that five million jobs could be lost in the “new” European Union countries of the East unless radical action were taken to bail them out. The spectacular collapse of some of the post-communist tiger economies led to demands at an EU summit in Brussels for a rescue fund of €190 billion (£170 billion) to stop social collapse in the Eastern...

The Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), COMECE (the Bishops Conference of the European Community), and the Church of England are calling upon the European Union Parliament to approve a Written Declaration on “on the protection of a work-free Sunday as an essential pillar of the European Social Model and as part of the European cultural heritage.” In a press release issued February 11, COMECE provided the following rationale for the Declaration. “The economic and financial crises have made us more aware of the fact that not all aspects of life can be subject to market forces. Unrestrained consumption is neither...

Many countries such as Italy, Germany, and the Czech Republic showed understanding for Israel and described Israel's actions as self-defense. These countries generally used strong language against Hamas and demanded that it stop the rocket attacks unconditionally. At the time of the start of the Israeli airstrikes, the European presidency was held by France. On December 27, the Presidency of the Council of the European Union condemned both the Israeli air raids and the Palestinian rocket strikes on Israel from Gaza and called for an immediate end to these activities. The statement also condemned the disproportionate use of force. As...

The European Commission has called for a global carbon trading market as part of a plan to tackle climate change. The EU is already committed to expanding its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), but now it is urging other industrialised countries to join in. The commission says that by 2015 it wants to link the ETS to other carbon trading systems. The goal is to include emerging economies by 2020. A UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December is to strive for a deal. The commission proposals presented on Wednesday are designed as the EU's contribution to the UN debate, with...

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) — Across Europe, President Barack Obama's decision to shut the Guantanamo Bay prison has raised an awkward question: Which EU states that railed against the camp will offer new lives to released prisoners? The U.S. Defense Department says about 50 of the 245 prisoners awaiting freedom cannot go home again on security or political grounds, raising the need to find an alternative place to send them. But European Union members long critical of Guantanamo shied away Friday from any firm commitments to help. Ireland has joined Portugal, France, Germany and Switzerland in saying it probably would participate...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/margareta-pagano/margareta-pagano-europe-will-not-allow-a-modern-greek-tragedy-1418578.htmlCannot be posted. This article is about how Euro's printed by Greece's central bank are to be avoided, and the monetary and economic problems in the EU. This writer believes that the EU will not let Greece "fail," and if it did it could mean all the Southern EU states leaving.

Slovakia will restart a reactor at its controversial Bohunice nuclear plant to cope with a potential electricity shortage caused by the gas crisis. It shut down the unit at the end of 2008 and the decision is likely to cause anger in neighbouring Austria.

There are hopes that gas flows through Ukraine may soon be restored after the first EU monitors arrived to start checking pipelines from Russia.

Fishermen on Scotland's west coast say they face being wiped out by the drastic cuts to their quotas being put forward by the European Union. Skip related content Related photos / videos EU Ban Could Sink Fishing Trade Unions say dozens of coastal communities are under threat from the proposed changes which are expected to be confirmed in Brussels. EU scientists have called for a complete ban on fishing for cod, haddock and whiting - the three main white fish stocks - because their numbers are now so low off the west coast of Scotland. And while that could drive...

<p>GENEVA (AP) - Islamic proposals to ban criticism of religion, which have gathered strength since the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad two years ago, threaten to derail an already troubled U.N. anti-racism conference planned for next year. The European Union rejects suggestions by Algeria—backed by other Muslim and African countries—that limits on free speech are needed to stop the publication of offensive articles and images.</p>

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...

PRAGUE, (AFP) Czech President Vaclav Klaus hit out at the EU climate deal concluded Friday and described global climate issues as "a silly luxury." "I do not like the way they forced it", Klaus said shortly after an agreement was announced in Brussels. He also claimed that his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy had "pushed" the deal so that it would not be left when the Czech Republic takes over the EU presidency from France on January 1. "This is scandalous," he said. "We should have been able to discuss it during our presidency, to force it now is not very...

"Belgian police arrest Al Qaeda terror suspects," from Agence France-Presse, December 11 (thanks to Alex): AFP - Belgian police on Thursday arrested 14 suspected Al-Qaeda members, including a man believed to have been planning a suicide attack, officials announced, as EU leaders gathered in Brussels. "We don't know where the suicide attack was to take place," federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle told reporters. "It could have been an operation in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but it can't be ruled out that Belgium or

And now for a world government By Gideon Rachman Published: December 8 2008 19:13 | Last updated: December 8 2008 19:13 I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible. A “world government” would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already...

The world sorely needs an economic revival. Where will it come from? If history is any guide, entrepreneurs will help lead the way. The truly radical or disruptive technologies and business processes that drive economic prosperity -- whether in information technology so far, or in clean energy in the years to come -- are most likely to be commercialized by entrepreneurial firms. Yet, as important as the formation and growth of new firms clearly are, there have been no officially sanctioned, internationally comparable entrepreneurship indicators. Until now. Last month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), working with the...