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Why Is The EU Forcing European Nations To Adopt 'Bail-In' Legislation by the End of the Summer? Are they expecting something to happen? As you will read about below, the European Union says that any nation within the EU that does not enact "bail-in" legislation within the next two months will face legal action. The countries that are being threatened in this manner include Italy and France. If you fast forward two months from this moment, that puts us in early August. So clearly the European Union wants everything to be squared away by the end of the summer. Is...

When it comes to dealing with the increasing calls to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel, the United States and Europe are moving in two opposite directions. Last week, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed into law legislation that bars public entities from conducting business with companies that discriminate against Israel. It’s the first of its kind, though other states are likely to follow suit. Meanwhile, growing displeasure with the frozen Israeli-Palestinian peace process has led European Union countries to call to label products from settlements in disputed territories in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, as well in...

Santa Claus is on his way to 12 TPP nations and packing grift for many more Overnight the long suspected nightmarish North American Union (NAU) has come true. Even though its creators have tagged it with a much more benign-sounding, all-encompassing name, Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), it’s the equivalent of taking North America—America in decline in particular—off life support. They’re pulling the plug on North American sovereignty and getting away with it by passing off the TPP under the sugar coating of ‘Free Trade For All’. Santa Claus is on his way to 12 TPP nations and packing grift for many...

More than 220 members of the European Parliament issued a statement, this week, warning about the flagrant rise of breaches of human rights in Iran. They have asserted that Iranian regime is the heart of the crisis in the Middle East. Many representatives in the European Parliament have already declared they will participate in this year’s Iranian resistance reunion. The meeting will take place in Paris on June 13th.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called Wednesday on Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to resume peace negotiations, saying the situation on the ground was "not sustainable," according to AFP. Mogherini issued the remarks after eyewitnesses said the Israeli Air Force (IAF) carried out four strikes on terror targets in Gaza on Wednesday, hours after terrorists launched five rockets at civilians in the Jewish state. "We see the situation on the ground as not sustainable and (it is) an illusion to think the status quo is an option," Mogherini said at the opening of an annual meeting in Brussels...

A European Union plan to disperse 40,000 migrants from Italy and Greece to other member countries met with resistance on Wednesday, with Britain saying it would not participate and some eastern states calling for a voluntary scheme.

Germany and France have forged a pact to integrate the eurozone without reopening the EU’s treaties, in a blow to David Cameron’s referendum campaign. Sidestepping Britain’s demands to renegotiate the Lisbon treaty and Britain’s place in the EU, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, François Hollande, have sealed an agreement aimed at fashioning a tighter political union among the single-currency countries while operating within the confines of the existing treaty.

Greece cannot make an upcoming payment to the International Monetary Fund on June 5 unless foreign lenders disburse more aid, a senior ruling party lawmaker said on Wednesday, the latest warning from Athens it is on the verge of default. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's leftist government says it hopes to reach a cash-for-reforms deal in days, although European Union and IMF lenders are more pessimistic and say talks are moving too slowly for that. Greek officials now point to a race against the clock to clinch a deal before payments totaling about 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) to the IMF...

UPDATE: Greek Default Would Mean Poverty Trap, Dijsselbloem Tells VNThe Humanitarian Crisis Relief program was one of the top priorities of the SYRIZA-Independent Greeks coalition government and it was pushed forwards despite the Troika-Institutions objections. After the EU leaders Summit end of March, EU Commission President Jean Claude Juncker had announced to release 2 billion euro to tackle the Greek humanitarian crisis. While it is not clear if Juncker sent the money or not, As KeepTalkingGreece reports, 212,897 Greeks have so far submitted requests to be part of the Humanitarian Crisis Relief Program.  The majority of the needy seek...

The British General Election, on May 7th, was an epic in two respects. First, in spite of polls forecasting a hung parliament, David Cameron's Conservative Party was given unexpectedly large support, winning 331 seats, or 51 % for an overall majority of four, and showing once again the failure of left wing parties to make traction in Europe. Second, Nicola Sturgeon's Scottish Nationalists Party (SNP) swept the Labour Party aside in Scotland to achieve an unexpected landslide and rekindle Scottish pressure for independence and, with it, a threat to the continued cohesion of the United Kingdom. Likely there will be...

The website of Nate Silver, the American polling expert, surveyed all of Britain’s public-opinion surveys on Election day in Britain and declared that the chance that David Cameron’s Conservatives would win a majority of seats “was vanishingly small when the polls closed — around 1 in 500.” But that is precisely what happened, leading Nate Silver to write a piece titled “The World May Have a Polling Problem.” He listed the errors that overtook “probably the four highest-profile elections of the past year, at least from the standpoint of the U.S. and U.K. media”: 1) The final polls in the...

An EU army is Germany’s ‘long term goal’ according to one of its ministers. Ursula von der Leyen called for defence cooperation to be strengthened so that the continent can respond quickly to international crises.

European antitrust regulators on Wednesday charged the Russian energy giant Gazprom with abusing its dominance in natural gas markets, a move amounting to a direct challenge to the authorities in Moscow. The European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said that unfair pricing might have resulted in higher gas prices in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, which have long been wholly or substantially dependent on Russian gas. In those countries, the commission said, Gazprom was suspected of charging wholesalers prices that were significantly higher compared with the company’s costs or to benchmark prices.

Europe’s antitrust regulator has decided to file formal charges against Google Inc. for violating the bloc’s antitrust laws, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, stepping up a five-year investigation that is set to become the biggest competition battle in Brussels since the European Union’s pursuit of Microsoft Corp. a decade ago. EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager made the decision on Tuesday in consultation with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and will inform her fellow EU commissioners at a meeting on Wednesday, the person said

Poland is to build observation towers along its land border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, according to a Polish news agency.

Chisinau (AFP) - Moldova's decision to sign key trade and political agreements with the European Union has cost it dearly, as its giant trading partner Russia swiftly punished it through an embargo strangling its farm and wine industries. Nevertheless, in the tug of war between the West and Russia, Moldova's foreign minister told AFP that there can only be one option for the former Soviet state -- EU membership.

At their meeting in Brussels, the heads of European countries will be looking for ways to combat disinformation spread by Russia. The European Council will address for the first time the influence of disinformation disseminated by Russia on EU citizens. The heads of the European Union Member States will also obligate the high representative of the union for foreign affairs and security policy to prepare a general EU strategic communication action plan to oppose the information war carried out by Russia and to ensure the security of the European public sphere. "Information security will be addressed on the initiative of...

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Iran and six world powers have agreed on the outlines of an understanding to limit Iran’s nuclear programs, negotiators indicated Thursday, as both sides prepared for announcements.

Significant agreements regarding Iran's nuclear program have been reached, according to tweets by officials ahead of a planned joint statement. "Found solution," Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted. "Solutions on key parameters" reached, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Twitter. The European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, tweeted, "Good news," regarding the talks.

The European Commission has warned EU citizens that they should close their Facebook accounts if they want to keep information private from US security services, finding that current Safe Harbour legislation does not protect citizen’s data. The comments were made by EC attorney Bernhard Schima in a case brought by privacy campaigner Maximilian Schrems, looking at whether the data of EU citizens should be considered safe if sent to the US in a post-Snowden revelation landscape. “You might consider closing your Facebook account, if you have one,” Schima told attorney general Yves Bot in a hearing of the case at...