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European leaders vowed Thursday to defend the landmark Paris climate pact at a G20 summit next week, setting them on collision course with US President Donald Trump at what is expected to be a stormy meeting. Leaders of Germany, France, Italy and other EU economies acknowledged their long standing ties with Washington but said they would not give in on “existential” threats like global warming. They also stressed the importance of keeping markets open, warning that the protectionism and isolationism symbolized by Trump’s “America First” stance won’t solve global problems. On the biggest challenges, Europe was now “a reference point,”...

AMERICA needs a “strong and united” European Union as an ally if it wants to remain the world’s top dog in the face of competition from China and Russia, Brussels chief Jean-Claude Juncker said today . . . Eurocrats and Mr Pence have both been keen to repair broken bridges, which have been smashed to an unprecedented extent following the billionaire tycoon’s shock election victory

The European Union declared the Trump administration a “threat” on Tuesday, laying bare what many Europeans think privately and setting the stage for increased tension between the US and EU. European Union President Donald Tusk’s diplomatic bombshell listed the Trump administration as a threat alongside China, Russia, terrorism and radical Islam, adding that “worrying declarations by the new American administration all make our future highly unpredictable.” “The change in Washington puts the European Union in a difficult situation; with the new administration seeming to put into question the last 70 years of American foreign policy,” Tusk said in a letter...

There you have it, it's official: the European Union has truly gone insane. EU President Donald Tusk ("president" is a misnomer; Tusk wasn't elected by European voters, of course, because that's how Europe rolls) wrote a letter to 27 EU heads of state listing Donald Trump as a threat along with communist China, dictatorial Russia, and murderous radical Islam: "An increasingly, let us call it, assertive China, especially on the seas, Russia's aggressive policy towards Ukraine and its neighbours, wars, terror and anarchy in the Middle East and in Africa, with radical Islam playing a major role, as well as...

European Union leader Donald Tusk urged Britain on Thursday to hurry up and get on with finalizing its divorce from the bloc. Tusk, president of the EU’s governing Council, met Prime Minister Theresa May in London for talks about the fallout from Britain’s June 23 vote to leave the EU. Ahead of the meeting, Tusk told May that “the ball is now in your court” to start negotiations. He said the process should begin as soon as possible. …

A Polish government spokeswoman Elzbieta Witek has said that Poland’s former Prime Minister and current president of the European Council Donald Tusk should be tried for the way the 2010 Smolensk air crash, in which President Lech Kaczynski died, was handled. Witek said that Poland’s State Tribunal [court that handles cases against highest state officials] would be "a good thing" for Tusk. [....] “Tusk should be put before the State Tribunal, because he has a lot to answer for”, Lipinski said. “It is enough to recall giving away of the Smolensk investigation to the Russians,” he said. Lipinski reportedly accused...

(Reuters) - European Union leaders on Saturday chose Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk to chair their Council and named Italian Federica Mogherini to run the bloc's foreign relations, as the EU prepared to threaten Russia with new sanctions over Ukraine. A summit in Brussels shared the two coveted EU posts between a Kremlin critic from ex-communist Eastern Europe and the foreign minister of one of Moscow's biggest customers for gas. EU officials gave Ukraine's embattled President Petro Poroshenko a warm welcome and assurances of further support. But divisions among the 28 EU nations have hampered action against Moscow, and a...

The bones of a juvenile Ice Age Columbian mammoth have been found in a field near Castroville, the first discovery of its kind in Monterey County. The remains were uncovered by earthmoving equipment in December, said Mark Hylkema, Santa Cruz District archaeologist for the state Department of Parks. The precise location of the find is being kept under wraps to discourage souvenir hunters from damaging, looting or contaminating the site. Hylkema has specialized in the study of Native American culture on the Central Coast. He is recommending that a controlled excavation of the site be done "with a particular goal...

Polish PM: Iran's comments on Israel annuls right to place in int'l community By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stressed on Wednesday that Poland stands alongside Israel on the issue of the threat posed by Iran, maintaining that Poland "has no doubt that Iran's words toward Israel cancels its right to a place in the international community." Tusk emphasized his country's alliance with Israel with regard to Iran, saying that "if there are exceptions in Europe with regard to the Iran issue, it is definitely not Poland," speaking at a joint press conference with Prime Minister...

Moscow should have no illusions about Tusk, says Russian press 08.11.2007 12:37 The Thursday issue of the Russian daily Viedomosti has expressed doubt as to whether the future PM Donald Tusk’s attitude towards Russia will be any better than that of “the revolting Kaczyński brothers". According to Viedomosti, in an article titled Walesa’s friend, it reads: "One should not expect Tusk - who differs from the Kaczynskis in his economic liberalism, with a truly European political correctness - to drastically change the direction of his country’s policies". The newspaper also writes: "Russia - so happy to have seen the demise...

This is a bad time for anyone who still clings to the belief that Europe will one day wake up to the potentially catastrophic consequences it faces from attack by a variety of foes – whether rogue states with nuclear weapons or Islamic extremists with dirty bombs. The first hammer blow to the continent's belated attempts to develop a credible defence policy came with the election win last weekend of Donald Tusk's Civic Platform in the Polish general election. The size of Mr Tusk's victory owed much to the widespread unpopularity of the Kaczynski twins – opinion polls showed that...

I'm surprised nobody has posted this before, so here are the first exit polls / projections: Civic Platform - PO: 44.2% Law and Justice - PiS: 31.3% Left and Democrats - LiD: 12.2% Polish People's Party / Peasant Party - PSL: 7.9% Unfortunately, the link is in Polish, so only those who speak it need to click!

Young Polish workers have flocked in the hundreds of thousands to the UK, Ireland and Sweden to find work since Poland's EU entry in 2004. Now Poland is faced with a serious lack of skilled workers and Warsaw wants to entice them back home. One of Poland's biggest exports since joining the European Union has been its own people. But now Warsaw has decided the brain drain needs to be reversed and the government has launched a campaign to entice the migrants to come back home. In one of the biggest exoduses in post-war Europe, between 1.2 and 2 million...

This Sunday's election result in the race for the Polish presidency will have a strong impact in Europe -- especially if it can help boost momentum for bureaucratic reform and free-market economics. After winning the first round of the presidential balloting, Donald Tusk, of the free-market Civic Platform party, lost in the runoff. His party came in close second in the parliamentary election with a 15 percent flat tax proposal as one of its main messages. But despite the loss, free-market supporters can take some comfort in his showing. Many of the voters who in the end chose Lech Kaczynski...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Tough-talking Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczynski led Poland's presidential runoff Sunday after a campaign in which he stressed traditional Roman Catholic values and the need for a social safety net. An exit poll for Polish public television showed him leading with 52.8 percent to 47.2 percent over pro-market legislator Donald Tusk, and Tusk said he had lost. "Today I must tell myself I did not make it," Tusk told glum supporters at his election headquarters. An exit poll for TVN24 private television showed an even wider margin, Kaczynski with 53.5 percent and Tusk with 46.5 percent. Partial...

WARSAW Donald Tusk and Lech Kaczynski were running neck and neck in public opinion polls Friday as Poland prepared for a presidential runoff on Sunday. Tusk, the 48-year-old candidate of the business-friendly Civic Platform party, finished three percentage points in front of Kaczynski in the first round of the election two weeks ago and then built up a healthy lead over his conservative rival. But on Friday, the last day that poll results can be published before the voting, surveys showed that the gap between the two had closed. One poll by a little-known agency even put the 56-year-old Kaczynski...

The Polish presidential election race is heating up as polls on the final day suggest support for the two main contenders is almost level. A poll for the national news agency PAP put support for both the conservative Lech Kaczynski and free market advocate Donald Tusk at around 50%. Mr Tusk, of the Civil Platform party, has been the frontrunner until now. His party was beaten at the last minute by Mr Kaczynski's Law and Justice party in parliamentary elections last month. Polling agencies PBS and OBOP put Mr Tusk in the lead on Friday, with around 52% of the...

Analysis: Polish right triumphs By Adam Easton BBC correspondent in Warsaw Poland's presidential election has confirmed a swing to the right. Whoever wins in the second round in two weeks' time, Poland will have a right-wing president and prime minister for the first time in 12 years. In both the presidential and recent parliamentary elections voters punished the former communists for failing to reduce high unemployment and curb corruption. With more than 90% of the votes counted, Donald Tusk of the liberal Civic Platform party led with 35.82% and Lech Kaczynski of the conservative Law and Justice Party trailed slightly...

The final count in Poland's presidential election confirmed Monday that the pro-market lawmaker Donald Tusk won more votes than conservative Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczynski, but fell short of a majority needed for an outright victory in a first round of balloting. Tusk, the smooth-mannered deputy parliament speaker, had 36.3 percent of the votes from Sunday's election, while the outspoken Kaczynski had 33.1 percent. Tusk vowed to next take his campaign to small towns and villages to win over rural voters ahead of the runoff election Oct. 23. The race in the formerly communist country centered on the Europe-wide issue of...

1. Donald Tusk (social moderate, fiscal conservative) 35,82% 2. Lech Kaczynski (social conservative, fiscal moderate) 33,29% 3. Andrzej Lepper (left-wing populist) 15,59% 4. Marek Borowski (socialdemocrat) 10,19% 5. Jaroslaw Kalinowski (agrarian moderate) 1,85% 6. Janusz Korwin-Mikke (libertarian) 1,41% 7. Henryka Bochniarz (liberal) 1,25% Other candidates received less than 1%.