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(Reuters) - The UKIP party will likely top European elections on Thursday or come a close second, according to opinion polls that suggest a barrage of criticism accusing it of racial slurs and bigotry has failed to put off voters. All three of Britain's three main political parties have strongly criticised the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which wants Britain to leave the European Union and to impose much tougher immigration controls, prompting the party to take out an advert in a national newspaper to assert that it is not racist.

The European Union is poised to scrap compulsory “best before” labels on coffee, rice, dry pasta, hard cheeses, jams and pickles to help reduce the estimated 100 million tons of food wasted across Europe each year. Officials of the European Commission will table proposals next month allowing national governments to extend the list of foods that do not require best-before dates, in a move which they believe will mean 15 million tons less food a year is discarded by households wrongly worried that it is no longer fit for consumption. […] EU legislation on labeling currently requires all food to...

Who would you vote for in 2016 St. Louis Journal Business Journal poll....

Look out, European Elites: the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) led by Nigel Farage, whose main focus is to force Britain out of the European Union, is riding high ahead of the May 22 EU Parliamentary vote. Watch one of the most powerful political videos I have seen in ages, which was launched last month by UKIP. The UKIP has been rallying support on many of the same issues that Tea Party and other traditional Reagan conservatives are concerned about in the U.S.—a declining middle class, stagnating wages, unrestricted immigration, an expanding dependency class, and affronts to national sovereignty.

UKIP is on course for a massive political upset with victory in the European elections in its sights, according to an exclusive Sky News/YouGov poll. The poll confirms that in recent weeks Nigel Farage's party has leaped ahead of Labour, with the Conservatives in third place and the Liberal Democrats lagging well behind. The poll, which was carried out last week, shows UKIP on 31%, while Labour has slipped back to its lowest YouGov showing in weeks on 25%. With both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats reasonably steady in the polls (the Sky News result shows Tories on 23%, Lib...

The United States have a bloated, unelected bureaucracy answerable only to unelected political appointees to whom they must "suck up" should they desire promotion and more power. It creates more laws (Federal regulations) than the Congress and then interprets them to its advantage.The Federal bureaucracy has grown more vigorously than Topsy. The notion probably had its American origins with Theodore Roosevelt's idea that a bureaucracy of experts could guide the legislative branch and those who administer our laws along proper paths. Not necessarily a bad idea but we now have -- instead of a bureaucracy of experts -- one intent upon "implementing" Federal legislation along lines helpful...

According to Brussels based think-tank Breugel, the EU could replace all of the gas it receives from the EU within the year. “It would be a significant challenge, but not impossible,” the report wrote. EU imported 130 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia in 2013, with some significant changes in its energy policy, such volume could be replaced by gas from other sources. Breugel proposes increasing gas imports from North Africa and Norway, using and importing more LNG, switching energy consumption for natural gas to other fuels are a number of solutions the think-tank proposes. EU countries, especially the...

Diane Francis, National Post Editor-at-Large and Bestselling Author of Merger of the Century, toyed with the idea of merging the US and Canada. In fact, Ms. Francis states that “a merger between the two countries isn’t just desirable but inevitable”. She goes on to say that the US and Canada are culturally compatible on all fronts from lifestyles, to values, and aspirations. According to Ms. Francis, over the last several decades, “Canada has become more like America and America more like Canada”. For instance, the US has become more progressive on civil, gay, and women’s rights; and even recently universal...

Latvian MEP Tatjana Zdanoka urged her colleagues to support her motion to put the Ukranian radical group Right Sector on the terrorist organizations list, reports ITAR-TASS. ...

As the EU slowly recovers from its economic doldrums, member nations vie for U.S. investment and logistical services while shippers increase their willingness to enlarge operations on the continent. With $1 trillion in trade taking place between the U.S. and the 27 nations comprising the European Union (EU), the potential impact of a new transatlantic trade pact is truly significant. The combined population of 800 million generates almost half of the world’s gross domestic product and represents 40 percent of global trade. But while negotiators for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) have yet to iron out a deal,...

White House adviser John Podesta told reporters Monday afternoon that Congress could not derail the Obama administration’s efforts to unilaterally enact policies to fight global warming. Podesta said that the president was committed to using executive orders to pass regulations under the Clean Air Act to limit carbon dioxide emissions that they say cause global warming.

Stockholm. Carl Bildt, Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and one of the architects of the EU Eastern policy, thinks Russia has changed for the worse in the past several years. While it demonstrated attachment to western values in the first decade after the Soviet Union fell apart and tried to impose them on its citizens, Russia’s current leadership takes a firm stand against the West, the Russian agency REX reported. In the words of Mr Bildt, Vladimir Putin demonstrates attachment not to world but to Eastern Orthodox values, which becomes clear from a Twitter post of his [Bildt’s]. ”The new...

One of the standard arguments about Britain’s membership of the European Union is that it’s vital that we stay in because so much of our trade is with other European Union countries. Implicit in this is the claim that this is a result of our being in the EU. The dropping of trade restrictions resulting from the Single Market rules for example. The problem with this argument is that it depends upon an empirical claim: that Britain’s trade with the European Union countries has increased since the foundation of that Single Market. And it turns out that that doesn’t seem...

But Putin's aim has never been Russian control only of Crimea; he has always wanted all of Ukraine, because he fears nothing more than a successful, democratic, modern neighbor that undermines by example the authority of his own "managed democracy." So now we have reached the tragedy's fourth act, in which Russia attempts to grab eastern Ukraine, and the West responds.

From the administrative building out 623 0 Armed militants were Slavyanoserbsky police station in Luhansk. Reported by the Department of Communications Interior Ministry of Ukraine in Luhansk. In particular, as noted in the report, negotiations between the so-called "South-Eastern Army" and the chief of the police station ended. From the administrative building out all third parties have informed the police. "Workers of the police station continue to operate in emergency mode with standard-issue weapons and perform basic functions of public order and combating crime," - said in a statement. The head of the police station asked for help (clogged head...

The European Commission has exercised historic new EU powers allowing it to revise national budgets for the first time Spain and Italy have been warned that their budgets for 2014 are in breach of European Union rules as Brussels uses new powers to force governments to revise spending plans before national parliaments vote on them. France was also cautioned that plans for painful economic reforms represent only "limited progress" as the European Commission exercised new eurozone powers in a historic shift of sovereignty away from elected governments. "Because in an economic and monetary union, national budgetary decisions can have an...

ST IVES, CAMBRIDGESHIRE, UK –– An over-capacity crowd of around 650 people met UKIP leader Nigel Farage for the final town hall-style meeting of his pre-European Election tour of the United Kingdom. With UKIP swag plastered all over the Burgess Hall venue, Farage entered to rapturous applause, flanked by increased security following the assault on him earlier this week. Farage was speaking to the throngs of disaffected Brits, who have witnessed their livelihoods sacrificed for multiculturalism, big state-driven debt, and the transfer of sovereignty over their own lives from their local towns and villages to centralised governments in London and...

It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war The attempt to lever Kiev into the western camp by ousting an elected leader made conflict certain. It could be a threat to us all The threat of war in Ukraine is growing. As the unelected government in Kiev declares itself unable to control the rebellion in the country's east, John Kerry brands Russia a rogue state. The US and the European Union step up sanctions against the Kremlin, accusing it of destabilising Ukraine. The White House is reported to be set on a new cold war policy with...

In a crass and ill-timed intervention, the unelected president of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy has warned Vladimir Putin that the EU intends ultimately to control every country on the western flank of Russia. In an interview with De Standaard newspaper, Van Rompuy speaks about his “dreams” that all the Balkan states will join the EU. He calls it an “inspiring thought” that in the long term “the whole of European territory outside Russia” will be tied in some way to the EU. He admits he does not know if there is public support for such a move, “But we do...

BERLIN (Reuters) - The German government distanced itself from former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Tuesday amid an outpouring of media criticism after pictures were published showing him embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg. The pictures come at a time of high tension between the West and Russia over Ukraine and also underscore German ambivalence about imposing new sanctions on Moscow, despite Chancellor Angela Merkel's criticism of Putin's actions in the crisis. A spokesman for Schroeder confirmed he was in Russia's second city on Monday for a shareholders' meeting of Nord Stream AG, the Russian-German pipeline joint venture he...