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The number of Europeans joining Islamist fighters in Syria and Iraq has surged to about 3,000 from 2,000 only months ago, the EU counter-terrorism chief said Tuesday. (snip) The European fighters, he said, come mainly from France, Britain, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark but a few come from Spain, Italy, Ireland and now Austria.

MOSCOW, September 21 (RIA Novosti) – Belgian authorities have detained two people, who planned a terrorist attack in European Commission Headquarters in Brussels, Agence France-Presse has reported citing the local media. According to Belgian daily L'Echo, the country’s authorities have been conducting a number of preventive operations in recent months against the extremism in the region and have arrested several people suspected of links with jihadists. A source told L'Echo that about 400 Belgian citizens are involved in the Syrian conflict fighting on the side of the extremists, and approximately 90 people have returned home. The Dutch NOS Media Company...

<p>Putin made this statement[....]“If I want, the Russian troops may enter not only in Kiev but also in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw and Bucharest,” the German newspaper cited Putin’s words. According to the newspaper, the Russian President advised Poroshenko “not to count on the EU too much” because if he wished, he could “influence and block the decisions made in the EU”.</p>

German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that in Germany, multiculturalism has “utterly failed.” Both Australia’s ex-prime minister John Howard and Spain’s ex-prime minister Jose Maria Aznar reached the same conclusion about multiculturalism in their countries. British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned that multiculturalism is fostering extremist ideology and directly contributing to homegrown Islamic terrorism. UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said the United Kingdom’s push for multiculturalism has not united Britons but pushed them apart. It has allowed for Islam to emerge despite Britain’s Judeo-Christian culture. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the roots of violent Islamism are not...

Ukraine's parliament ratified an agreement to deepen economic and political ties with the European Union on Tuesday, and passed legislation to grant autonomy to the rebellious east as part of a peace deal. The ratification vote draws a line under the issue that last year sparked Ukraine's crisis, which resulted in the ousting of the president, the annexation of Crimea by Russia and a war with the Russia-backed separatists that has killed more than 2,600 people.

President Barack Obama would seek to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad if American planes were attacked upon entering Syrian air space, Peter Baker of The New York Times reports. If Assad's troops fired at American planes entering Syrian airspace, "Obama said he would order American forces to wipe out Syria’s air defense system," Baker reports. "He went on to say that such an action by Mr. Assad would lead to his overthrow, according to one account."

APPEASEMENT POLITICS In a concession to Russia, Ukraine and the European Union agreed delay implementation of a major trade agreement until the start of 2016, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said. They also appeared to be preparing to make more concessions after the ratification of the agreement, scheduled for next week. EU Trade Commissioner Karl de Gucht said in Brussels that Ukraine, Russia and EU also agreed on extending unilateral trade preferences for Ukraine until the end of 2015 as well. They allowed Ukraine to boost exports to EU by 14 percent in the first half of this year,...

The euroskeptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has taken big strides forward in regional elections in two eastern German states. Results are emerging from votes in Thuringia and Brandenburg. Results of exit polls released just before the close of voting on Sunday showed the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which was founded only last year, had gained 10 percent of the vote in Thuringia and 12 percent of the vote in Brandenburg, meaning it has won a place in the parliaments of both states for the first time. A fortnight ago the AfD was elected to the regional parliament in another...

If, when in February Victoria Nuland infamously launched a (not so) covert campaign to replace the ruling Ukraine president oblivious to the human casualties, resulting in a civil war in east Ukraine, NATO encroachment along the borders of Russia, and a near-terminal escalation in hostilities between Ukraine, Russian, and various regional NATO members, the US intention was to provoke the Kremlin so hard that the nation with the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources would jettison the US Dollar and in the process begin the unraveling of the USD reserve currency status (as much as Jared Bernstein desires...

From Benny Peiser and The GWPF – [Conservative MEP] Miguel Arias Canete, Spain’s former agriculture and environment minister, was nominated as the European Union’s next commissioner for climate and energy, becoming the first single supervisor of those two policy areas. The new commission will take office as energy policy is moving up the EU agenda amid a crisis in Ukraine, the transit country for around half of Russian natural gas to Europe, and the unrest in Middle East. –Ewa Krukowska, Bloomberg 10 September 2014 Jean-Claude Juncker’s decision to group EU commissioners into teams serving under a vice-president has been...

The United States and European Union plan to stop billions of dollars in oil exploration in Russia by the world's largest energy companies including Exxon Mobil Corp and BP Plc, U.S. government sources said. The planned sanctions over Russia's aggression toward Ukraine would ban U.S. and European companies from cooperating with Russia on searching its Arctic territory, deep seas or shale formations for crude, said two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the measures have not been made public. The measures, which one of the sources said represented "preliminary thinking," would expand sanctions the Obama administration announced...

On Thursday morning, the European Central Bank surprised markets with a raft of stimulative measures including cuts in interest rates and the commencement of asset purchases. The news sent the euro currency much lower, but currency expert Boris Schlossberg of BK Asset Management identifies another reason why the euro could call even further: fresh concerns over a European Union breakup. ECB president Mario Draghi, in announcing the measures, mentioned that the vote was not unanimous. The strongest economy in the eurozone, Germany, is widely expected to have dissented. "It's a very, very tenuous union in many ways, and we see...

European employment targets are "unrealistic" and "bold action" is needed to boost job creation, according to a report published by the Ambrosetti Forum ahead of the open of its international economics conference. About 5.6 million jobs have been lost across the 28 countries that belong to the European Union (EU) since the global financial crisis of 2008, Ambrosetti's economists say. "The economic crisis produced growing unemployment levels in the EU, which now requires bold action from policymakers to boost labor demand as well as to implement labor market structural reforms," the economists wrote in their "Labor market scenario in Europe"...

Israel was again condemned on Tuesday over its decision to declare 4,000 dunams of land in Judea, mostly in Gush Etzion, as state land, with the European Union (EU) and the U.S. State Department being the latest ones to issue condemnations. "We condemn the new appropriation of land in the West Bank, relating to plans for further settlement expansion, announced by the Israeli government on Sunday,” said the EU in a statement. “Settlements are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to render the two-state solution impossible. The EU reiterates that it will not recognize any...

ZURICH (Reuters) - At least 10 Swiss banks have withdrawn from a U.S. program aimed at settling a tax dispute between them and the United States, Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag said on Sunday, quoting unnamed sources. Around 100 Swiss banks came forward at the end of last year to work with U.S. authorities in a program brokered by the Swiss government to help the banks make amends for aiding tax evasion. "At least 10 banks that had decided at the end of 2013 to pay a fine have withdrawn their decision," NZZ am Sonntag said, quoting unnamed lawyers and...

(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...

In late November 2012, while Matteo Renzi was making an ill-fated bid for leadership of the Italian centre-left, a young MP from his Democratic Party (PD) piped up on Twitter to remark: "OK, Renzi has quite a lot to learn about foreign policy … He won't make the pass mark, I fear #thirdgrade." When he won the PD primaries the following winter, Renzi – canny as ever – hired his sharp-tongued critic as the party's spokesperson on Europe and international affairs. Once prime minister, he ushered her into the top job at Italy's foreign office. Now, the shoe is firmly...

(Reuters) - Russia is at war with Ukraine and so effectively at war with Europe, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said on Saturday, calling on Europe to supply Kiev with military equipment.

The German government has announced proposals to tackle alleged abuses of the benefits system by migrants from elsewhere in the European Union. Under the plan, EU migrants would no longer receive social welfare benefits after six months out of work. EU citizens convicted of benefits fraud could also face deportation.

A British jihadist’s apparent role in the beheading of American journalist James Foley shows Britain has become an “incubator for terrorism,” and cries out for Prime Minister David Cameron to tackle the growing problem of radical Islam, critics of the government say. Former rapper Abdel Majed Abdel Bary, 23, is believed to be the hooded figure who loomed over Foley and blasted the U.S. airstrikes in Iraq before cutting off his head in a gruesome video released Aug. 19, a senior Western intelligence official told Fox News. If that proves true, it would only be the latest example of barbarism...