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A growing rift between the US and Europe is overshadowing Tuesday’s United Nations climate change summit in New York, further damping hopes for a breakthrough at the Copenhagen talks in December. Connie Hedegaard, the Danish environment minister, lowered expectations, saying: “Things are looking difficult and too slow, that is the fact.” The downgrading of expectations comes as relations between the US and Europe, which started the year of talks as allies, near breakdown. In Brussels, European Union officials have grown increasingly frustrated at the US stance, saying it has fallen short on both its level of ambition to reduce emissions...

EU leaders are said to be furious that the Czech Republic is planning to delay signing the Lisbon treaty for up to six months even if the Irish vote "yes" in their referendum next month. The country might even try to delay it until after the British general election campaign when a Tory victory would see the question put to voters by David Cameron. Nicolas Sarkozy, who helped to draw up the treaty after the French and Dutch voted against its predecessor, the EU Constitution, has warned Prague that it faces "consequences" if it does not swiftly follow an Irish...

Protest in Vienna: Pro-Lifers Demonstrate at City Hall Written by Bruno Schroeder    Thursday, September 17, 2009 A national controversy erupted in Austria when Vienna’s Mayor Michael Häupl allowed a jubilee-party honoring thirty years of “good work” by Austria’s first abortion clinic with the misnomer Pro-Woman. The September 3 celebration was held at City Hall and provoked a storm of protest including nearly 500 people demonstrating outside during the celebration. Pro-lifers sent hundreds of protest letters to the mayor asking him in vain not to honor the celebration of the killing of unborn babies. They then organized a demonstration...

When the historical dust clears, Gordon Brown may find that his greatest achievement was to keep Britain out of the euro and preserve the fire-fighting powers of the Bank of England. Had we joined monetary union in 1999, interest rates set by the European Central Bank would have been near 2 per cent during the mid-years of this decade. This would have been like pouring petrol on the housing fire. The credit bubble would have been even worse. Once the bubble burst, the UK authorities would have been left with few instruments to cushion the downturn and manage the highest...

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned the Czech Republic that it will have to face "consequences" if it continues to delay final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty following a Yes vote in a referendum in Ireland next month. Speaking after a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday (17 September), Mr Sarkozy was careful to praise Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer as a "man of great quality" before taking a clear sideswipe at the country's president, Vaclav Klaus, who has indicated he will postpone as long as possible putting his signature under the treaty -...

Two weeks ago, the U.S. State Department announced its decision to cut off non-humanitarian aid to Honduras in order to protest the arrest and expulsion of former president Manuel Zelaya, the country’s democratically elected leader. Expressing his approval for this measure, Zelaya issued a press release stating, “It is gratifying that the United States has taken a strong position against the coup.” This quote highlights the nature of the decision. By reducing funding to the interim government, the State Department has openly backed Zelaya in a political confrontation that has gripped Honduras since late June. But perhaps the U.S. government...

European Union leaders said they're considering a visa ban for leaders of the June military coup in Honduras. The EU countries are considering the legality of barring officials of Honduras's de facto government from traveling to the European Union following the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, the EUObserver reported Wednesday. Spain already already barred Honduran officials from entering its territories. "Until a peaceful settlement is found, the EU will stand ready to take further restrictive measures including targeting those members of the de facto government who are seen to be blocking progress on a negotiated solution," ministers said in...

U.S. wealth, measured in assets under management, has fallen farther than its transatlantic cousin's. LONDON -- As market participants reflect on the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, so emerges the sobering consequence of the market crash that followed: North America's wealth has now fallen the most out of any other region in the world, allowing Europe to step up to the plate as the world's richest continent. North America, defined as the United States and Canada, had $29.3 trillion in assets under management in 2008, while Europe had $32.7 trillion, according to a survey by the Boston Consulting...

VIENNA -- The Obama administration, hoping to persuade Tehran to curtail its nuclear program and initiate a dialogue that focuses on other issues, will have its first formal meeting since it took office with Iran on Oct. 1. The four other United Nations Security Council permanent members -- China, Russia, France, and the U.K. -- along with Germany will participate in the meeting, which was brokered Monday in a call between Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign-policy chief, and Saeed Jalili, Iran's main nuclear negotiator. The event, whose location hasn't been decided, won't be a "formal negotiation," a spokeswoman for...

"The economic crisis has transformed the global economic landscape. The dreams of a decade ago now seem grandiose." Broadly speaking, the world is run at the outset of the 21st Century by the United States and China together in uneasy condominium. This is the surprising reality of our era. The pattern is unlikely to change much until India takes its full place, perhaps in 40 years. Strasbourg's Babel house has no unifying language or political culture The baton passed from Europe’s tired hands at London’s G20 summit in April, where the only meeting that mattered was the tete-a-tete between Barack...

The British tend to forget about the importance of Germany, our most significant European partner. There are, of course, memories of the world wars of the 20th Century. Relatively few British people speak German; we like to enjoy Mediterranean holidays, so we have come to know the French, Italians and Spanish. Yet Germany is a stable Northern democracy and a major trading partner. The sale of Opel and Vauxhall, which make up the the European branch of General Motors, this week demonstrated the significance of German bargaining power Historically, Britain and Germany have had a more significant relationship than many...

The EU will investigate the billions of euros of state aid offered by the German Government to the Russian-Canadian rescuers of GM Europe. Within hours of the deal being sealed between General Motors, Magna and Russia’s Sberbank, the European Commission said it would examine the financial support offered by the German government, totalling €4.5 billion. The German bailout, funded by its taxpayers, also came under fire in Belgium where a big Opel factory will be closed. Joelle Milquet, Belgium’s vice-premier, criticised the deal that safeguards the future of four Opel plants in Germany while a plant in Antwerp, employing 2,700...

Energy Savings: Europe's ban on the incandescent light bulb began phasing in this month, and the U.S. will soon follow. Is Thomas Edison to blame for global warming? And why are we exporting green jobs?When the warm-mongers assemble in Copenhagen this December to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, no doubt their work to save the earth from the carbon dioxide that gives it life will take place under the eerie light thrown off by compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) mandated by the European Union to fight climate change. The bulbs are more expensive, costing up to...

The European Commission has unveiled plans to allow more refugees from conflict zones and poor nations into European countries. The scheme is aimed at discouraging immigrants—mainly from Africa—from attempting to reach Europe illegally. Many risk their lives as they try to enter the EU, often on rickety boats, relying on human traffickers. The UN says 65,596 refugees were resettled worldwide last year, but the EU accepted just 4,378, or 6.7%. Thousands of migrants sail to Italy from North Africa every year The Commission - the EU's executive arm - says this "contrasts sharply with the numbers taken in by...

European countries like Britain will be forced to take on more refugees from African and Middle-East countries under sweeping new plans proposed by the EU. The EU Commission wants member states to share the burden of the influx of refugees from Africa, which it says falls heaviest on southern countries like Italy, Malta and Spain, where most illegal migrants arrive. The proposal will spark fears that the UK will now have to take on thousands more immigrants from African countries under some form of quota system. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1210689/EU-set-guidelines-number-immigrants-European-country-take.html#ixzz0PxP9B2SP

The crisis over the Swedish newspaper article claiming IDF soldiers killed Palestinians and snatched their organs refuses to fade away, with Sweden's Foreign Minister denying a report that his country would work together with Italy to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitism at an upcoming informal meeting of European foreign ministers. Monday's Haaretz quoted Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini as saying that he and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt agreed to work to pass a resolution saying that the EU, under the Swedish Presidency, strongly condemned anti-Semitism and would work against its manifestations in Europe. Frattini, according to the paper, said...

"Professor Lisa Jardine said that payments should be considered because a national shortage of donated eggs and sperm was driving infertile couples to seek treatment abroad, where large fees are permitted. British donors can receive only expenses, plus up to £250 for lost earnings. Any such move would have to comply with the 2004 EU Tissues and Cells Directive, which restricts the circumstances in which money can change hands for sperm and eggs. The directive requires that governments “shall endeavour to ensure voluntary and unpaid donations of tissues and cells” and states that compensation “is strictly limited to making good...

•Iran is vigorously pursuing several missile and space programs at an almost feverish pace with impressive achievements. The Iranians have upgraded their ballistic missiles to become satellite launchers. To orbit a satellite is a highly sophisticated endeavor. It requires proficiency in stage separation and advanced guidance and control systems to insert the satellite into a stable, desired trajectory. They took the Shahab, extended it a bit, added a new lightweight second stage, and now they have the Safir space launch vehicle. The very capability to build a two-stage satellite launcher, rather than the usual three-stage rockets for space-lift vehicles, is...

Energy-saving lightbulbs are inferior in quality to the traditional models covered by the European Union ban. If you have missed this story, it is probably because you have been reading your daily newspaper in such poor light that you have given up the struggle. Since January 1 this year, when leading retailers announced a voluntary ban on stocking traditional 100-watt incandescent light bulbs, those glorious domestic globes with their Rubens-esque curves, the lights have been going out all over Britain. And life is about to be a whole lot darker. From September 1, shops will no longer be able to...

Twenty percent of the European Union will be Muslim by 2050, according to forecasts cited in a Telegraph report Sunday. The current figure, according to the article, sits at five percent, and will be pushed up due to immigration, and low birth rates among native Europeans. The article noted that the UK, Spain and Holland would hit the 20% mark faster. According to the London-based newspaper, experts have criticized lawmakers' failure to address this "demographic time-bomb."

For anyone wondering what to do with a couple of 20 euro notes stuffed in their sock drawer and no holiday in sight on the Continent, there may be a simple answer - spend them in the UK. From the south coast of England to a Birmingham nightclub and a major high street retailer to Edinburgh's Royal Mile, substantial numbers are saying yes to the euro. Quite where this trend began is in dispute. Dunster, a medieval village in Exmoor, lays claim to being the first place in Britain to accept euros on a par with the pound - not...

"A prominent Swedish MP has insisted that she is not trying to use the European Union's Lisbon Treaty to impose liberal abortion laws on Catholic countries like Ireland, which will vote on whether to accept the treaty in a referendum this autumn. She just wants a proper debate, she says. Birgitta Ohlsson, chairwoman of the centre-right Liberal Party's women's movement, launched a petition last month calling for abortion to be legalised throughout the European Union. The petition, entitled 'Make Noise for Free Choice' is aimed at Ireland, Poland and Malta, all Catholic countries that ban pregnancy terminations. "From a liberal...

The bishops of England, Wales, and Scotland are warning that a proposed EU directive against discrimination and harassment could lead to the erosion of religious freedom. Msgr. Andrew Summersgill, general secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, writes: Discrimination under this Directive is not restricted to employment, and so this subjective approach to harassment will apply in all walks of life, including academic discourses, sermons, theatre, television and radio discussions. Various pressure groups are likely to use the provisions of the Directive to curtail the expression of views they disagree with by the simple expedient of declaring themselves...

The Dutch Muslim Party (NMP) has announced it will take part in local elections in five municipalities next year. The Dutch Muslim Party (NMP) will take part in local elections in Amsterdam, Almere, Den Haag, Rotterdam and Noordoostpolder, its president Henny Kreeft announced today.

My hope for British Conservative Party leader, Daniel Hannan speaking at the Conservative Party Spring Forum at the end of April. YouTube speech 1 of 2 YouTube speech 2 of 2 Enjoy.

The Balkan states of Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina are artificial constructs that are dependent on international organizations to function. Unlike in Iraq, there is no end in sight for this foreign rule and Europe seems to have little in the way of an exit strategy.....

Speaking for the European Union presidency, Swedish migration minister Tobias Billström said on Wednesday that the EU supported requiring visas for Canadians travelling to the EU in response to Canada’s decision to impose visa restrictions on Czech nationals. "As the presidency of the EU, we are in favour of this reciprocity," Swedish Migration and Asylum Policy Minister Tobias Billström told AFP. "But it's up to the Commission to handle the proposal, because the Commission is responsible for the reciprocity mechanism," he added. Canada imposed visas on Czechs to stave off what it said was a steady influx of Roma asylum...

When Robert Spencer starts asking for nominations for the "International Dhimmi of the Year" award, the EU's Solana will certainly be among the top nominees. The EU's Solana has got to be the worse roll-over lay down appeaser to Islamists that Eurabia has. According to this report from Jpost, Solana has said he will seek to have the UNSC recognize a "Palestinian" state even if there is no agreement between Israel and the PA Fatah islamists. Also that the UN should impose it's own solution. Clearly this is one individual that is in such willful ignorant denial of the facts....

The Foreign Affairs Ministry totally rejected EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana’s call for the United Nations Security Council to recognize a Palestinian Authority state, even if an agreement is not reached with Israel. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday at a memorial gathering for Theodore Herzl: “I yearn for the day that the Palestinian leaders face their people and say these clear words: ‘We have had enough of this conflict. We, the Palestinians, recognize the right of the Jewish people to a country of its own on this land. We will live beside you in true peace.”

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in a Spanish press interview on Sunday he will step down in October when his 10-year mandate expires.

The post of President of the European Council is enshrined in the EU's reforming Lisbon Treaty, which can't come into force until all 27 member states have ratified it. So far only 23 nations have completed that process. Whoever is picked for the job would serve a two-and-a-half-year term, renewable once. The new top job is also aimed at finally answering former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's famous 1970 question: "Who do I call if I want to call Europe?" If the Lisbon Treaty does get the greenlight, notably at a second Irish referendum on the subject due in...

Iran, stung by European Union criticism of its handling of post-election unrest, yesterday accused the 27-nation bloc of meddling and demanded an apology before any more talks on Tehran's disputed nuclear programme. Iran's top military commander laid down the condition amid continued recriminations over the June 12 presidential election that returned hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, beating rivals who insist the vote was rigged in his favour. "Because of the interference of this (EU) group in the post-election riots... they have lost their qualification to hold nuclear talks with Iran," Major-General Hassan Firouzabadi was quoted as saying by the semi-official...

ONE evening last week, almost every seat was occupied at Au Cinquième Péché, a bistro in the bustling neighborhood called the Plateau. And almost every table was sampling an appetizer plate that included a specialty of the restaurant’s French-born chef, Benoît Lenglet: a seared, rare loin, dark red in color, with a texture and taste akin to beef tenderloin. But the meat was not beef. It was seal. Across town, at Les Îles en Ville, Andrée Garcia, an owner and chef, has elevated seal from an occasional specialty to a regular feature. The most frequent preparation there, Ms. Garcia said,...

"Stockholm wants to get the EU to sign up to a new UN global warming treaty to be negotiated in Copenhagen in December and which would replace the Kyoto Protocol on cutting carbon emissions that expires in 2012. "We need a global answer to this global problem," Reinfeldt said. ... Other priorities include EU enlargement, of which Sweden is a fierce advocate, improving European judicial cooperation, and developing a strategy to improve the Baltic Sea's marine environment and the region's growth potential. Reinfeldt's government will host the European Commission for a meeting in Stockholm on Wednesday that will formally open...

The European Union’s 27 nations on Sunday joined forces to condemn Iran’s detention of British embassy staff in Tehran,as tensions escalated between Iran and the west in the wake of the disputed elections. After Iran arrested nine local employees working at the UK embassy in Tehran, EU foreign ministers meeting in Corfu said they would respond firmly to any further “harassment or intimidation [by Iran] of foreign or Iranian staff working in embassies”. David Miliband, Britain’s foreign secretary, said he was “deeply concerned” by the arrests and warned their continued detention was “quite unacceptable’’.The seriousness of the diplomatic stand-off was...

CORFU, Greece (Reuters) - The European Union on Sunday condemned Iran's crackdown on post-election protesters and said the EU would meet any Iranian intimidation of European diplomatic staff with a "strong and collective response". Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country takes over the EU presidency from Wednesday, said the Iranian government had been weakened at home and abroad. "Obviously the regime is trying to preserve its position by very harsh repression. But that cannot hide the fact that this is a weakened regime. It has lost legitimacy both internally and externally," Bildt said. EU foreign ministers were meeting on...

EU, US launch trade case against China 24 June 2009, 15:40 CET — filed under: Headline2, China, Trade (BRUSSELS) - The European Union and the United States on Tuesday launched WTO action against China, accusing it of restricting raw materials exports to feed its domestic market. "The European Union has today requested WTO consultations with China regarding China's export restrictions on a number of key raw materials, which it considers are in clear breach of international trade rules," the EU commission said in a statement. In Washington, US Trade Representative Ron Kirk accused China of pursuing a "troubling" industrial policy....

The Czech social democrat party is discussing the possibility of suspending president Vaclav Klaus' powers if he does not sign the EU's Lisbon treaty. The temporary suspension would require a simple majority of 41 votes in the country's 81-seat senate and would allow caretaker prime minister Jan Fischer to sign the document instead. Social democrat senator Alena Gajduskova is leading an "intensive debate" on the subject in her party, the secretary of the senate's constitutional commission, Jan Kysela, told EUobserver. Ms Gajduskova's campaign is also linked to president Klaus' refusal to sign off on the Rome Statute of the International...

SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) – Buoyed by the presence in the White House of a president who wants to prioritize relations with the world’s Muslims, the head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) visited both Washington and Brussels this week, and urged the U.S. to quickly appoint an envoy to the Islamic bloc. OIC secretary-general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu was in Washington on Tuesday when the State Department, in an internal memo, announced that it has selected a “special representative to Muslim communities.” SNIPPET: "From Washington, Ihsanoglu went to Brussels where he announced plans to open a representative office to the European...

Denmark’s Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller says the latest events in Iran are ‘a brutal escalation by the regime’ and calls on the EU to act. Denmark’s Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller (Cons) says he is shocked at the brutality of developments in Iran. “The Iranian regime is becoming increasingly brutal against its population, and to such a degree that it is close to losing its legitimacy,” Møller tells Ritzau during a visit to the Kazakh capital Astana. “I have therefore asked our permanent representative in Brussels to see whether the European Union can do more to stop the abuse...

"A new European Parliament group that is pro-free market and anti-EU integration unveiled its membership list on Monday (22 June), bringing together 55 MEPs from eight EU states. Calling itself the "European Conservatives and Reformists Group," the new faction lists "free enterprise," the "sovereign integrity of the nation state" and "probity in the EU institutions" among its principles. The British Conservative party dominates membership with 26 MEPs, followed by Poland's Law and Justice with 15 deputies and the Czech Republic's ODS party with nine members. The other five MEPs come from the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Hungary and Latvia." "The new...

Last July, the third national Survey of Lifestyle, Attitudes and Nutrition by Ireland's Health Department determined the Irish were smoking more and getting fatter, and though they were drinking a little less, they still were consuming the third highest volume of alcohol per capita in the European Union. Since the last survey in 2002, the smoking rate had risen two points to 29 percent, despite the blanket smoking ban in workplaces and enclosed public spaces that went into effect in 2007, while the overweight rate jumped from 33 percent to 36 percent. At the same time, Ireland is in the...

Mark Steyn on why the fascists are winning in Europe In bad times, if the political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain issues, voters will turn to unrespectable ones To promote a greater sense of Euro-harmony, the European Parliament—actually, make that the European “Parliament”—is organized into ideological blocs, ensuring that French liberals sit with Slovene liberals, and Belgian greens sit with Latvian greens, rather than hunkering down in their ethnic ghettoes. The largest bloc is the “centre-right,” the second-largest are the socialists, and the third is now the “non-inscrits,” the bloc for people who don’t want to belong to...

Autopsies have revealed fractures in the legs, hips and arms of Air France disaster victims, injuries that — coupled with the large pieces of wreckage pulled from the Atlantic — strongly suggest the plane broke up in the air, experts said Wednesday. With more than 400 bits of debris recovered from the ocean's surface, the top French investigator expressed optimism about discovering what brought down Flight 447, but he also called the conditions — far from land in very deep waters — "one of the worst situations ever known in an accident investigation." French investigators are beginning to form "an...

Race-hate attacks have forced more than 100 Romanians to take shelter in a church hall after fleeing their homes in Belfast. Police helped move around 20 families to safety from their homes in the Lisburn Road area of south Belfast last night. The move came a day after youths making Nazi salutes hurled bottles at residents who marched in support of the migrants.

The U.S.' population--and economy--is likely to grow as the E.U.'s declines. For decades many in the American political and policy establishment--including close supporters of President Obama--have looked enviously at the bureaucratic powerhouse of the European Union. In everything from climate change to civil liberties to land use regulation, Europe long has charmed those visionaries, particularly on the left, who wish to remake America in its image. "There is much to be said for being a Denmark or Sweden, even a Great Britain, France or Italy," wrote political scientist Andrew Hacker in his 1971 book The End of the American Era...

The European Union is continuing that proud tradition of appeasing terrorists and believing that the blood of Jewish is cheap. Today, the EUs committee of 27 foreign ministers released a communique about the need for the two major Palestinian Terrorist groups, Hamas and Fatah to reunite to lead the PA. Usually with documents such as this there is also a call for Hamas to forswear terrorism, recognize Israel and accept previous PA agreements with Israel. But no longer. Thanks to an effort by the French (who else?), this document did not call for Hamas to make the simplest moves toward...

Unpublished documents produced by the European Union commission that investigated the conflict between Georgia and Moscow assign much of the blame to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. But the Kremlin and Ossetian militias are also partly responsible.From her office on Avenue de la Paix, Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, 58, looks out onto the botanical gardens in peaceful Geneva. The view offers a welcome respite from the stacks of documents on her desk, which deal exclusively with war and war blame. They contain the responses, from the conflicting parties in the Caucasus region -- Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia -- to...

EU member states say they are ready to help resettle detainees freed from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre. Washington will share information about detainees and will consider, on a case-by-case basis, paying for the costs incurred by the states receiving them. But the issue of EU states accepting released detainess is controversial, partly because Europe's open borders mean former inmates accepted by one state will be able to travel freely through most of the region. Jonathan Faull, a senior European Commission official, said: "It will now be for each country in the EU to decide whether to take detainees from...

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel was left "perplexed" by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana's unprecedented meeting with an official from Lebanon's Hezbollah, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday. "This meeting left us perplexed, and we dare hope that Mr. Solana took advantage of the occassion to press for a disarming of Hezbollah and for the end of the arms smuggling between Syria and Hezbollah," Yigal Palmor told AFP.... ...Solana held talks with Hezbollah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan on Saturday during a Beirut visit.... "Lists of terrorist groups are not the same in every country," Solana told a news conference...