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Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Luxembourg are the only EU countries where citizens approve the European Union’s leadership with a clear 50% majority, according to a recent poll by Gallup. Approval ratings in nearly all other member states have dropped dramatically since 2008, especially in the crisis-hit south. The approval of the EU leadership is lowest in Greece (19%), Cyprus (21%) and Spain (27%), according to Gallup poll released on Wednesday (8 January). Other countries with critically low approval ratings include the United Kingdom (29%), Sweden (30%) or the Czech Republic (30%). The EU is still backed by a majority of...

American progressives like to think of their country as backward and reactionary compared to Europe. And they have never been more right than now when Europe and the rest of the First World have gone right while America under Obama has been left back. Recently Australia, Japan and Norway welcomed in conservative governments. Tony Abbott, Australia’s new prime minister, is a former heavyweight boxer who attended Oxford and is putting a spoke in the wheel of the Global Warming ecohoax. Japan is casting off its pacifism and standing up to the People’s Republic of China and Norway gave its left-wing...

In a shocking display of heterosexuality and patent homophobia, President Obama kissed Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt of Denmark, but not Prime Minister David Cameron of Great Britain, a male. "I was hoping for something a bit more intimate, really," said a chagrined Cameron, "but all I got was this rather anemic handshake." When a reporter for BBC asked if being included in the now world famous 'selfie' softened his feelings of rejection, Cameron responded, "It wasn't really the same thing. Perhaps he was trying to meet me halfway, but it seemed more like a half-hearted apology. I put the best...

David Cameron and Barack Obama were caught posing for a mobile phone “selfie” at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service. The two men were sat either side of Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and smiled as she took the snapshot of the three leaders at the FNB Stadium in Soweto. … Twitter user @jamesarmitage3 wrote: “What selfish morons take a ‘selfie’ at a memorial service? Oh yeah that’s right, Barack Obama and David Cameron.” …

US President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, and Denmark's PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt took an impromptu photograph of themselves at the memorial service for the late South African President Nelson Mandela.

The Internet is buzzing over a sequence of photos that appear to show First Lady Michelle Obama having a snit over her husband President Barack Obama having fun with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt as they sat at the Nelson Mandela memorial in South Africa today.The sequence seems to have started with Obama, Thorning-Schmidt and British Prime Minister David Cameron posing for a 'selfie', followed by Obama touching Thorning-Schmidt on her shoulder, then a glaring Michelle Obama, ending up in Barack and Michelle switching seats so that she is now sitting next to Thorning-Schmidt.Photos via Twitter.SourceSource

AFTER 40 years of hesitation and seven hard years of reform and lobbying, Turkey is basking today in the most qualified of invitations to begin the process of joining Europe - a continent whose eastern half the Ottoman empire controlled for centuries. A European Commission report released yesterday, which paves the way for a deciding vote by the 25-member European Union at its December summit, was heavily qualified, and Turkish leaders were muted in their expressions of delight at their initial success. Presenting the decision to the European parliament last night, commission president Romano Prodi said it was a "qualified...

"We've been looking at how we can bring back confidence in the European Union," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in Warsaw late on Monday as he arrived for a meeting of ministers in the Future of Europe Group, which he launched in March. The 11-nation group is poised to submit a raft of recommendations to Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso - heads, respectively, of the bloc's intergovernmental and executive branches, neither of whom are elected by the EU's 500 million people. "We have to understand that we are a community of values and we have to defend...

Firoozeh Bazrafkan was found guilty of racism after writing in her blog that Muslim men use Islam to justify violence against women A Danish-Iranian artist was found guilty of racism by the Western High Court on Monday for statements she made about Muslim men. Firoozeh Bazrafkan was charged with racism after writing in a blog entry, published in Jyllands-Posten newspaper in December 2011, that she was "very convinced that Muslim men around the world rape, abuse and kill their daughters". She added: "This is, according to my understanding as a Danish-Iranian, the result of a defective and inhumane culture –...

"In this way we can promote our moderate message of Islam. The Emir [of Qatar] would really like this." — Mohamed al-Maimouni, spokesman, Danish Islamic Council. Construction crews in Copenhagen have raised Denmark's first minaret -- a 20 meter (65 foot) tower-like structure that will alter Copenhagen's low-rise skyline -- as the finishing touch on a colossal project to build the biggest mega-mosque in Scandinavia. Construction of the minaret, which was finished on September 3, marks the final phase of work on Denmark's first-ever purpose-built mosque, situated at Rovsingsgade Street in Nørrebro, a heavily Islamized district in northwestern Copenhagen. The...

United States residents have an extra reason to smile according to a recent report released by Columbia University's Earth Institute. According to their findings, northern Europe received the highest satisfaction and happiness ranking in life, while Egypt and a few others hit the lowest since the Eurozone crisis via background information from the 2013 World Happiness Report released Monday. When looking at a survey of over 156 countries, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden were ranked as the happiest places, and regions in Sub-Saharan Africa were noted as being the least likely places for overall life satisfaction, according to...

The European Union (EU) is seeking to reassure Israelis who are concerned about the economic harm caused by the EU’s decision to forbid its member states from cooperating, transferring funds, or giving scholarships or research grants to bodies in Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. A senior delegation from the European Union will arrive in Israel early this week to examine ways of preventing damage to Israeli entities operating beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines. …

European banks would leave London “in very short order” if Britain voted to exit the European Union, a senior Goldman Sachs executive said in a newspaper interview published on Monday. Michael Sherwood, a vice-chairman at the bank, said the prospect of a British withdrawal was a real worry given Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans to hold a referendum on the subject if re-elected in 2015. … Goldman’s Sherwood predicted European banks would quickly relocate if Britain did sever its EU ties. “Forget what we would do. Every European firm would be gone in very short order,” he was quoted as...

We’re making a tiny bit of progress in the battle against the welfare state. No, policy hasn’t changed yet, but at least there’s growing recognition that maybe, just maybe, it’s not a good idea to pay people not to work. Particularly when you trap them in lives of dependency and despair and undermine progress in the fight against poverty.This chart shows that various handouts discourage low-income people from earning more money, and a recent blockbuster study from a couple of my colleagues at the Cato Institute revealed that welfare pays more than entry-level employment in dozens of states.And a growing...

Divers have found traces of ancient land swallowed by waves 8500 years ago Doggerland once stretched from Scotland to Denmark Rivers seen underwater by seismic scans Britain was not an island - and area under North Sea was roamed by mammoths and other giant animals Described as the 'real heartland' of Europe Had population of tens of thousands - but devastated by sea level risesBritain's Atlantis' - a hidden underwater world swallowed by the North Sea - has been discovered by divers working with science teams from the University of St Andrews. Doggerland, a huge area of dry land that...

Although the story of Beowulf centres around the heroic exploits of the Scandinavians, it found fame in the epic poem written in Old English by an Anglo-Saxon bard. The poem, which is 3,000 lines long, is testimony to the historic links between the Norse and the Anglo-Saxons, some of whom emigrated from southern Scandinavia. It tells the tale of Beowulf, a Geat warrior from modern-day Scandinavia, who travels to Denmark to help King Hrothgar defend his magnificent hall of Heorot. Beowulf kills the monster Grendel, saving the Danes from his murderous attacks, then defeats the fiend's mother and is later...

The Norwegian Royal Palace, located in the heart of Oslo, is surrounded by a pleasant little park called Slottsparken. It contains lawns, flower beds, and a rippling brook spanned by a footbridge. Behind the Palace is a small cabin where members of the palace guard spend their down time napping and watching TV. A less charming feature of the park is that it’s also been the setting of several rapes – no fewer than five of them between June and October of 2011 alone. Things got so bad that the Radisson Hotel – which is just across the street from...

"The next thing could be that Danish nurses are forced to go under cover as Muslim women in order to please Muslim patients." — Martin Henriksen, Spokesman, Danish People's Party [DF] One of the largest hospitals in Denmark has admitted to serving only halal beef -- meat that is slaughtered in accordance with strict Islamic guidelines -- to all of its patients regardless of whether or not they are Muslim. The revelation that Danes are being forced to eat Islamically slaughtered meat at public institutions has triggered a spirited nationwide debate about how far Denmark should go to accommodate the...

A former Danish Islamist who seven years ago traveled the Muslim world fueling the uproar over newspaper caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad is back in the headlines in Denmark after doing an about-face on the issue. Once a leading critic of the Danish cartoons, which sparked fiery protests in Muslim countries, Lebanese-born Ahmad Akkari now says the Jyllands-Posten newspaper had the right to print them. His unexpected change of heart has received praise from pundits and politicians in recent weeks, though some question his sincerity. It has also disappointed some in the country’s Muslim minority who were deeply offended by...

The European Union’s member states supported sanctions against the Faroe Islands, which could be an import ban or closing its ports to its boats, to protest the islands’ decision to treble the limit on herring fishing. … The move follows months of haggling after the Faroe Islands earlier this year unilaterally increased its existing quota by more than three times the allocations it would have got under EU policy, the Commission said. The Faroe Islands, a self-governed territory within the Danish Realm and not part of the European Union, says the EU rules do not give it a sufficient share...