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The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says: * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability. * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that...

ROME – The Vatican has denounced a ruling by the European court of human rights that said the display of crucifixes in Italian public schools violates religious and educational freedoms. Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi says the crucifix is a "fundamental sign of the importance of religious values" in Italian history and culture. He says the European court had no right intervening in such a profoundly Italian matter .. .. In Strasbourg, France, on Tuesday ordered Italy to pay a euro5,000 ($7,390) fine to a mother who wanted crucifixes removed from her children's classrooms. The Italian government said it...

Energy-saving lightbulbs are inferior in quality to the traditional models covered by the European Union ban. If you have missed this story, it is probably because you have been reading your daily newspaper in such poor light that you have given up the struggle. Since January 1 this year, when leading retailers announced a voluntary ban on stocking traditional 100-watt incandescent light bulbs, those glorious domestic globes with their Rubens-esque curves, the lights have been going out all over Britain. And life is about to be a whole lot darker. From September 1, shops will no longer be able to...

(MOSCOW) - Russia on Wednesday lauded the work of the EU monitoring mission in Georgia, in rare praise from Moscow for what is now the sole international presence around the country's conflict zones. "The presence of the EU monitors... is an important stabilizing factor and we welcome it," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with the state news channel Vesti 24. The importance of the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) has grown in recent months after the withdrawal of observer missions of the United Nations and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Both the UN and OSCE...

The Czech social democrat party is discussing the possibility of suspending president Vaclav Klaus' powers if he does not sign the EU's Lisbon treaty. The temporary suspension would require a simple majority of 41 votes in the country's 81-seat senate and would allow caretaker prime minister Jan Fischer to sign the document instead. Social democrat senator Alena Gajduskova is leading an "intensive debate" on the subject in her party, the secretary of the senate's constitutional commission, Jan Kysela, told EUobserver. Ms Gajduskova's campaign is also linked to president Klaus' refusal to sign off on the Rome Statute of the International...

Kendall Myers, 72, who appeared in federal court in Washington on Wednesday charged with spying for Havana for nearly 30 years, had a fascination with Northern Ireland. The Daily Telegraph has established that as well as seeking the envoy's post, which carried the rank of ambassador, Mr Myers travelled to the British Isles and met British and Irish officials, senior Northern Ireland politicians and intelligence officers. .... "Anything this guy could have found from his European responsibilities he might have funnelled to the Cubans for them to sell off," said John Bolton, a former top State Department official in the...

The European Union has slipped the leash of democratic control. It is one thing to advance the Monnet Project by treaty creep and stealth directives. It is another to put questions of sovereignty to a popular vote and then refuse to abide by the outcome. Europe's elites have crossed a political line by reviving the EU Constitution under the guise of the Lisbon Treaty and ramming it through without referendums, after it had already been rejected by French and Dutch voters. To continue a second time after rejection by the Irish – alone in voting – amounts to a putsch....

European Union directive forced the Ministry of Defence to review their "close-combat" role. Under the Equal Treatment Directive, the MoD said it had to carry out the study despite a similar review in 2002 concluding that the policy to employ only male personnel in close combat roles should remain. Lance Corporal Amy Thomas, is thought to be the first British woman to fire on the frontline in Afghanistan Servicewomen are currently excluded from roles where they are likely to "deliberately close with and kill the enemy face-to-face". Brigadier Richard Nugee, the Army's Director of Manning, is leading the review that...

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...

In a development that could significantly impact the rights of parents and the sovereignty of European nations, the European Commission and the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) have embarked on a strategy and plan of action for protecting the “rights of the child� at the EU-level. The adoption and contents of the strategy and plan of action are important to consider in light of the anticipated push for the United States to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In July 2006, the European Commission adopted the Communication “Towards an EU Strategy on the Rights of...

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission wants the US to dissolve all government links with the body that 'governs' the internet, replacing it with an international forum for discussing internet governance and online security. The rules and decisions on key internet governance issues, such as the creation of top level domains (such as .com and .eu) and managing the internet address system that ensures computers can connect to each other, are currently made by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a private, not-for profit corporation based in California which operates under an agreement with the US...

The European Union was accused of "contempt for democracy" on Sunday after it emerged that hundreds of members of a new diplomatic service are being trained - even though the Lisbon Treaty that creates it has not come into effect. Five hundred and thirty staff from the European Commission have already begun training to build a "shared diplomatic culture and an esprit de corps" for the EU's putative External Action Service (EEAS). Irish voters blocked the Lisbon Treaty, which provides the legal basis for a new Euro-diplomatic corps, when they rejected the renamed EU Constitution in a referendum last June....

Using 'Miss' and 'Mrs' has been banned by leaders of the European Union because they are not considered politically correct. Brussels bureaucrats have decided the words are sexist and issued new guidelines in its bid to create 'gender-neutral' language. The booklet warns European politicians they must avoid referring to a woman's marital status. This also means Madame and Mademoiselle, Frau and Fraulein and Senora and Senorita are banned. 'Political correctness gone mad': The European Parliament has banned MEPs from using 'Miss' and 'Mrs' because it claims they are sexist Instead of using the standard titles, it is asking MEPs to...

The Czech Republic has an "obligation" to ratify the European Union's Lisbon Treaty despite the collapse of its government, the European Commission president has said. José Manuel Barroso warned Czech politicians yesterday that the EU Treaty "should not be used as a weapon on domestic issues". "The Czech Republic has signed the treaty and so the Czech Republic has an obligation to ratify. I really hope that this domestic, political development is not used as a way to put in question the treaty," he said. "Rejection would only serve to damage other countries in the Union. All 27 member states...

The outspoken Czech leader has warned of a ‘democratic deficit’ THE leader of the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating European Union presidency, has warned that a “Europe of states” is in danger of turning into a “state of Europe”, legislating on almost every aspect of people’s lives but lacking in democracy and transparency. In an interview with The Sunday Times, President Vaclav Klaus drew parallels between Brussels and the failed communist dictatorships of eastern Europe. “My criticism is based on the sensitivity towards attempts to restrain freedom and democracy, and it does relate to the fact that for most...

The United Nations took over command of an EU protection force in eastern Chad on Sunday, and there were growing fears of more rebel violence and the possible arrival of tens of thousands more refugees from Sudan's Darfur. The European Union formally handed over command to the U.N. mission in Chad and Central African Republic (MINURCAT) at a ceremony in Chad's eastern city of Abeche on Sunday morning after Eufor's year-long mandate expired at midnight. The handover, which sees around 5,000 U.N.-commanded troops replace an EU force of close to 3,500, takes place at a time of heightened tension after...

LONDON (Reuters) - The United States must make deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions than proposed by President Barack Obama if the world is to stand a chance of avoiding devastating climate change, an EU official said. Jos Delbeke, the European Commission's deputy director-general of the environment, said a goal of bringing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020, set by Obama last month, will probably not be enough. "I doubt whether that will bring us to the average required by developed countries," he told Reuters on Friday. "We in Europe would hope the U.S. will do...

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...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted heads of state and finance ministers from Europe's largest economies to try to establish a common European position on economic reforms before an April 2 summit of the Group of 20 nations. "All financial markets, products and participants including hedge funds and other private pools of capital which may pose a systematic risk must be subjected to appropriate oversight or regulation," Merkel said in a statement released on behalf of the summit members, following the talks. Top officials from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, the Netherlands and Czech Republic agreed on seven key points...

"Not so long ago, in our part of Europe we lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives and therefore also no parliamentary opposition," said Klaus. "We learned the bitter lesson that with no opposition, there is no freedom."

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...

BRUSSELS/LONDON, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Rich nations could raise $200 billion in climate funds through a levy on their greenhouse gases from 2013-2020 to help poor countries prepare for global warming, the European Union will say next week. The plan is set out in an EU paper outlining the bloc's position ahead of U.N.-led climate talks in Copenhagen in December, meant to agree a new, global climate treaty. The fund-raising idea is the most specific yet from any rich country or bloc on how to persuade developing nations to agree binding, concrete steps to slow their greenhouse gas emissions --...

STRASBOURG (EJP)---MEPs have co-signed a resolution regarding the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza which is due to be approved Thursday by the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Several MEPs said the EU should freeze the process of upgrading its relations with Israel, as a reaction against Israel's "disproportionate" military offensive on Gaza. The parliament's resolution calls on both sides to respect UN Security Council resolution 1860 that demands an immediate end to the hostilities, the withdrawal of the Israeli troops from Gaza, the sustained reopening of the crossing points, the lifting of the blockade and the prevention of smuggling of illicit...

The international monitoring teams sent to the central dispatching centers in Kiev and Moscow to monitor the resumption of Russian gas flows to the EU are on site but have been denied access to the control rooms, an EC official said Tuesday. "Access to the control rooms are essential to know what is happening," EC energy spokesman Ferran Tarradellas told reporters in Brussels. "We are asking for full and free access to the control room for 24 hours a day." Observers don't have access either to Russian gas company Gazprom's or Ukrainian gas company Naftogaz' central dispatching control rooms in...

Just as Cuba celebrates 50 years since dictator Fidel Castro and his bearded companions instituted their revolution, Cubans may be less than thrilled to join the festivities. Long lines formed at the Spanish consulate on December 29, 2008 in Havana as up to 200,000 Cubans are expected to request Spanish citizenship in the next two years. Spain is allowing Cubans who can claim a Spanish grandparent to emigrate to the motherland and henceforth become citizens of the European Union. Passed by the Spanish Congress of Deputies in October 2007, the so-called Law of Historical Memory allows Spanish nationality for the...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 22 (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, agreed on Monday to take a common EU-Brazil position to the next G20 summit dealing with the global financial crisis. "We decided with President Lula that things must change and change profoundly," Sarkozy, the current president of the European Union, said in a speech at a two-day EU-Brazil summit in Rio de Janeiro. "We decided to narrow our positions and arrive in London with a common vision, on the future role of the IMF, the system of management of financial...

Prague - Czech President Vaclav Klaus' meeting with leaders of the European Parliament Friday ended in a rift, a transcript of the meeting released by his office showed. The president, who is an outspoken critic of the European Union and its reform treaty, was angered by questions from Daniel Cohn- Bendit, the head of the European Greens. Klaus' aide told reporters after the meeting that the president considers Cohn-Bendit's behaviour 'a big provocation.' According to the transcript, Cohn-Bendit first presented Klaus with an EU flag, which the president has so far refused to hang at his seat, Prague Castle. The...

Angela Merkel today joined the rest of the EU in signing up to an €200 billion rescue plan for Europe’s economy – as the British ambassador in Berlin complained formally about her finance minister’s outspoken criticism of Gordon Brown’s VAT cut. Mrs Merkel, the German Chancellor, gave her support to an EU-wide recovery plan across the 27 member states, suggesting that she is planning to increase the level of tax cuts in Germany in the New Year as the recession deepens. Jose Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, called for talks with the incoming US administration of Barack...

POZNAN, Poland (AFP) – US Senator John Kerry, president-elect Barack Obama's point man at UN environment talks in Poland, said on Friday the EU's new climate pact was "an enormous act of leadership" that blazes a path for the entire world. "The EU today said, 'yes, we can and here's how,' and that's pretty good," Kerry told AFP as ministers prepared to wrap up 12 days of talks in Poznan, Poland on preparing a global climate pact to be signed in Copenhagen next December. The pact is "very exciting," he said. "It represents an enormous act of leadership which will...

‘Antimissile shield in Poland provokes Russia’ Italian PM says Created: 13.11.2008 10:35 Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi stated yesterday that the deployment of the US antimissile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic is a “provocation” against Russia. “Let’s speak frankly: we believe that there have been some provocations against the Russian federation such as the project to deploy missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic,” Berlusconi said. Italy’s PM reminded that the Russian president Dmitrij Medvedev’s response to that plan was to announce the deployment of missiles in – as Berlusconi put it – “the Russian enclave in the...

Russia and the EU agreed today to pile pressure on President Bush to accept far-reaching changes to the global financial system at the G-20 summit in Washington. Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian President, said that Russia's ideas were almost identical to those put forward by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, on behalf of the EU. Both men have talked of the need for fundamental changes to post-war institutions such as the International Monetary Fund to take better account of the developing economic powers of the world, while President Bush has appeared reluctant to make major alterations. In a sign that they...

Czech President Vaclav Klaus branded Ireland's foreign minister a hypocrite Wednesday, in an unseemly row threatening to cast a cloud over EU efforts to resolve a crisis triggered by Irish voters. Notoriously eurosceptic Klaus, whose country takes over the European Union's presidency in January, made the comments after Foreign Minister Micheal Martin accused him of "inappropriate" remarks at a meeting with Irish eurosceptics. "Such hypocrisy I cannot accept," Klaus told Czech reporters in Dublin, quoted by the Czech Republic's CTK news agency. "If someone doesn't please me, I will say so to his face -- and not behind his back."...

BERLIN (Reuters) - NATO needs to reach out to Russia and make clear the defence alliance and Moscow will be most effective at fighting the world's security problems if they work together, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday. Merkel said she welcomed the prospect of Georgia and Ukraine becoming members of NATO but warned that neither country would be ready to join "in the foreseeable future". She has at times been a leading critic of Russia, especially on issues like human rights. But on Monday she focused more on the importance of Russia. "I think it is better to...

European Union foreign ministers are hoping to persuade Poland and Lithuania that the EU should resume partnership talks with Russia. "We need and want to work with Russia," the British and Swedish governments said in a joint statement as EU foreign ministers met in Brussels on Monday. The EU suspended talks over Russia's military action in Georgia, but most members now want them to restart. However, Poland and Lithuania say Russia has not complied with a truce. An EU-brokered ceasefire called on Russian and Georgian troops to return to positions held before the war in early August. However, Russia still...

U.S. airlines cry foul over new EU rule Regulation that places tough pollution standards on air carriers may spur legal action against the European Union. By Shelley Emling Cox International Correspondent Saturday, November 08, 2008 London —- A new European Union rule imposing tougher pollution limits on U.S. airlines violates international law and will likely result in a legal challenge, U.S. government officials say. All airlines flying in or out of the EU will have to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas considered a major contributor to global warming, by 3 percent in 2012 and by 5 percent starting...

BRUSSELS: The head of the European Union (EU)'s executive body, the European Commission, on Wednesday congratulated Barack Obama on his victory in th e US presidential election and called on him to work with the EU to shape a "new deal for a new world". "This is a time for a renewed commitment between Europe and the US. I want to assure Senator Obama of the support of the European Commission and of my personal support in forging this renewed commitment to face together the many challenges ahead of us," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said. "We need a...

Britain is preparing to "sell" Georgia and hand a "victory" to Russia by agreeing to start talks on a partnership agreement between Moscow and the European Union, according to senior European diplomats. Only eight weeks ago, Gordon Brown helped persuade other European leaders to punish Russia for its strike into Georgia by postponing talks on a new "Partnership and Cooperation Agreement" with the EU. Aside from verbal condemnation and a general review of the EU's relations with Moscow, this was the only tangible counter-measure imposed on the Kremlin after the war. Both the Prime Minister and David Miliband, the Foreign...

AN EX-KGB spymaster who subjected the British secret service to its worst embarrassment since the Cold War is the right-hand man of Lord Mandelson's controversial Russian friend Oleg Deripaska, the Evening Standard discloses today. Valery Pechenkin was a high-ranking officer in the KGB and a Colonel-General in its successor, the FSB. He is employed as head of security at Deripaska's company Basic Element, but the part he plays in Deripaska's affairs goes far beyond the role suggested by his job title. According to well-placed sources in Moscow, Pechenkin is one of Deripaska's strongest links to the Kremlin. The veteran spy...

French President and EU presidency holder Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday (21 October) unveiled a new cooperation strategy with Russia that would build stronger economic links between Europe and its largest Eastern European neighbour. Speaking in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Sarkozy called Russia "our neighbours" and surprised the audience by alluding to "a common economic space between Russia and the EU". The term recalls the early stages of EU history, which saw the development of a 'common market' that was subsequently renamed the 'single market' in the 1980s. Sarkozy's view of Russia sharing a common economic space marks another step in...

European Union leaders on Thurday demanded swift measures to shield their manufacturers against the threat of a severe economic recession triggered by the global financial meltdown. After long and sometimes sharp discussions, the bloc’s 27 leaders also decided to stick to a December deadline to secure a deal on climate change, but promised to take into account the concerns of Poland and other former communist countries. Wrapping up a two-day summit in Brussels, the leaders said they intended to work with the US and other countries to bring about “a real and complete reform of the international financial system”, based...

EU, US call for global summit to reshape banking as early as next month in New York The Group of Eight major industrial nations announced Wednesday they will hold a global summit -- perhaps as early as November in New York -- to forge common action to prevent another economic meltdown. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said all European Union nations backed radical restructuring of global institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. He called for a meeting "preferably in New York, where everything started" and said it should lead to "a new capitalism." Sarkozy said emerging economies such...

Traditional light bulbs are to be banned from 2010, EU energy ministers have decided. The high energy filament bulbs are being phased out in order to improve energy efficiency and meet climate change targets. The switchover, which will affect all of the European Union's 500 million citizens, was first ordered at a Brussels summit last year as part of an ambitious energy policy to fight climate change. A meeting of EU energy ministers, including the UK's new secretary of state for energy and climate change Ed Miliband decided to go ahead with the ban. The move has previously proved controversial....

Somehow, I doubt that Russia’s latest diplomatic project will gain much traction with its closest European neighbors, but it does at least expose the Russians as something other than allies to the US. Dmitry Medvedev has called on France and other European nations to form an anti-American front. Nicolas Sarkozy declined direct comment: THE President of Russia has called on Europe’s leaders to create a new world order that would minimise the role of the United States. Confident that a row with Europe prompted by Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August was over, Dmitry Medvedev arrived in the French spa...

It is said that Vladimir Lenin once called Soviet sympathizers in Western countries “useful idiots” for unwittingly advancing the cause of revolutionary Russia. Were the Bolshevik leader alive today, he might apply the same label to German environmentalists, whose influence over their country’s energy policy has been an inadvertent, but essential factor in Moscow’s post-Cold War rise. Two decades of stringent environmental regulations have made Germany, Europe’s largest economy, increasingly dependent on natural gas from Russia, the world’s largest exporter. Of course, economic leverage translates seamlessly into political power, and Russia’s sway over German foreign policy has been conspicuous as...

Poland has claimed that it has assembled enough votes to block a landmark EU climate change agreement after spearheading a revolt by Eastern European states that fear the package would increase their dependence on Russian natural gas supplies. A six nation bloc on the EU's eastern fringes signed a pact to fight a proposal designed to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by a fifth by 2020. The target represents the EU's landmark initiative to address the pressures of climate change and would return the continent's output of CO2 to 1990 levels. Poland has led efforts to fend off adoption of...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says it is ironic that European banks have turned out to be deeper in debt than their US counterparts. It took a weekend to shatter the complacency of German finance minister Peer Steinbrück. Last Thursday he told us that the financial crisis was an "American problem", the fruit of Anglo-Saxon greed and inept regulation that would cost the United States its "superpower status". By Monday, Mr Steinbrück was having to orchestrate Germany's biggest bank bail-out, putting together a €35 billion loan package to save Hypo Real Estate. By then Europe was "staring into the abyss," he admitted. Belgium...

EU's Mandelson lashes U.S. lawmakers for rejecting plan LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers have "taken leave of their senses" by rejecting a $700 billion (388 billion pound) financial bailout plan, European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said on Monday. The U.S. House of Representatives earlier voted against the plan to help the financial industry in a shock vote that sent global markets sliding and led to recriminations between Republicans and Democrats. "I feel they've taken leave of their senses and I hope that in Europe we will not see politicians and parliamentarians replicating the sort of irresponsibility and political partisanship...

WARSAW, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Eastern members of the European Union said on Friday its tough plans to tackle global warming could force them to rely more on Russian gas and the bloc should be equally ambitious in ensuring their energy security. The EU is pushing through measures aimed at cutting CO2 emissions by a fifth by 2020, compared with 1990 levels, in hopes of averting the worst effects of climate change. But ex-communist EU members such as Warsaw fear such targets will increase their reliance on imports from their former overlord Russia of natural gas, which produces much less...

LOL! Only in Europe would they even think of offering something so odd! hehe

Russian ambassador to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov has said that he expects Bulgaria to block EU sanctions aimed at Russia, website mediapool.bg reported quoting Bulgarian National Radio's correspondent in Brussels. “In order for such a resolution to be taken, which I don’t believe will materialise in the first place, it will need a complete consensus and that of Bulgaria, with every country having the power to decide for itself,” Chizhov was quoted as saying. “I do hope, however, that within the EU common sense will prevail and that Bulgaria will not need to block the unilateral decision,” he added,...