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Ukraine imported gas from Poland and Hungary in July after Russia cut off supplies, and the volume amounted to about a tenth of its imports a year ago, according to domestic gas transport monopoly Ukrtransgaz on Thursday.

Euro zone economic growth ground to a halt in the second quarter as Germany's economy shrank and France's stagnated. The zero growth reported by statistics agency Eurostat on Thursday was cause for alarm throughout the 18-nation region, which is already bracing for the impact of sanctions imposed on and by Russia over Ukraine. Germany, Europe's largest economy, contracted by 0.2 percent in the quarter, undercutting Bundesbank forecasts that gross domestic product would be unchanged. Foreign trade and investment were notable weak spots, the German Statistics Office said on Thursday. "Today’s figures show that the upturn remains too weak to withstand...

The Russian dictator humanitarian, Vladimir Putin, is sending some much needed food and water to those poor oppressed rebels in Eastern Ukraine. After already having shown his penchant for helping individuals who suffer under the tyranny of democratic freedom in the semi-autonomous Peninsula of Crimea, Putin has decided to lend aid to a “rag-tag” group of Pro-Russian separatists… Because if the 20th Century has taught us anything, it is that nothing says “freedom” like a hammer and sickle. In justifying his “humanitarian aid”, the Bond Villain Putin explained that his humanitarian mission was endorsed by the Red Cross… Surely he...

1,200 migrants – mainly from Eritrea, Sudan and Afghanistan, with groups from Somalia, Pakistan and Chad – are now camped out in Calais' forests, hoping one day to cross the Channel to Britain.(VIDEO-AT-LINK) In his 20 years as a lorry driver, Sean Baker, a former soldier, thought he had seen it all. But nothing, he said, compares to the chaos in Calais at the moment. "Just this morning I was filling up my truck with fuel and two migrants jumped in," he said. "I shouted at them and they hopped out. It's mayhem. It happens every hour. "I had one...

Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson kept to familiar themes in his summer speech on Saturday, focusing on Islam, immigration and crime. Swedish party leaders traditionally hold summer speeches on their home turf during the holiday season and Saturday was the turn of the Sweden Democrats' Jimmie Åkesson. A crowd of a few hundred people had gathered in Åkesson's home town of Sölvesborg in Sweden's far south to hear the 35-year-old launch the party's push towards the general election in September. Following a sweeping review of the current global conflict zones, Åkesson shifted focus to Islam. "Islamism is the Nazism and...

With Europe’s Muslim 'immigrants' come ancient hatreds and a revival of anti-Semitism. The Bergische Synagogue in the German town of Wuppertal has a history with arson. The nearly 120-year-old synagogue was burned down during Kristallnacht in 1938. Rebuilt after World War II, it was targeted again about a week ago by arsonists who threw Molotov cocktails at the house of worship (although, thankfully, they failed to set it aflame). Welcome to the New Europe, where the street thugs have learned a lot from the Old Europe. Their protests of the Gaza War during the past few weeks haven’t been anti-Israel...

Tbilisi City Court accepted prosecution’s motion and ordered pre-trial detention of former President Mikheil Saakashvili in absentia. Preliminary court hearing – the stage when a presiding judge, among other issues, decides on the admissibility of evidence submitted by the parties – has been set for September 22. Prosecutor’s office has charged Saakashvili with exceeding official powers in connection to break up of the anti-government protest rallies on November 7, 2007, and raid on and “seizure” of Imedi TV station. “Ahead of the August war [six-year] anniversary Putin could not have imagined more desirable present than Georgian authorities ordering my arrest,”...

A German Army General has been appointed to Chief of Staff of U.S. Army Europe. This is the first time a non-U.S. officer has held this position.

twitter Hate to say 'I toldja', but...

A little over one year ago, The New York Times and USA Today were reporting that the Great Lakes hit all time lows in water levels. According to those reports, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan were 29 inches below their average measurements taken since 1918. Scientists warned communities that they could only expect more tragedy with the Great Lakes. With a lack of rain from climate change, they told everyone to expect levels to continue to drop.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned the crisis gripping Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone would only get worse and could not rule out it spreading to other countries. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has met global health officials on implementing measures to halt the spread of the disease, as the pan-African airline ASKY suspended all flights to and from the capitals of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Meanwhile the European Union allocated an extra two million euros ($2.7 million) to fight the outbreak, bringing total EU funding to 3.9 million euros

Maybe we won't even have to wait 5-years NSFW (slaughter, beheading, etc.) pics/video at Reaganite Republican...

Scientific evidence refuting the theory of modern humanity’s African genesis is common knowledge among those familiar with the most recent scientific papers on the human Genome, Mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomes. Regrettably, within mainstream press and academia circles, there seems to be a conspicuous – and dare we say it – deliberate vacuum when it comes to reporting news of these recent studies and their obvious implications.

Under a 2009 agreement, Libya also agreed to allow Italian coastguard to stop boatloads of African migrants on the seas and forcibly return them to Libya. ... Europe's reliance on Libyan complicity in holding back asylum seekers became particularly clear in the final days of Gaddafi's regime when the threatened dictator warned that if he was deposed, "thousands of people from Libya will invade Europe and there will be no one to stop them." In fact, Gaddafi made good on his promise when, in May 2011, Libyan authorities reportedly began putting non-Libyan citizens on boats and sending them north to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that the U.S. and Europe should work together to develop tougher sanctions on Russia while she backed President Barack Obama's calls for a thorough investigation into the passenger jet that was shot down last week over Ukraine. Clinton said in a Facebook chat from the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, that tougher sanctions would make clear to Russian President Vladimir Putin "that there is a price to pay for this kind of behavior." The former secretary of state said she agreed with Obama's comments earlier Monday urging "immediate and full access"...

Strasbourg, France, Jul 18, 2014 / 02:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the refusal to recognize same-sex “marriages” does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights. In a July 16 ruling, the human rights court explained that while “some Contracting States have extended marriage to same-sex partners,” European laws establishing the right of men and women to freely marry “cannot be construed as imposing an obligation on the Contracting States to grant access to marriage to same-sex couples.” The applicant to the high European human rights court brought his petition after Finland refused...

Following this morning's farce of huge investor demand and then Bank of Portugal's Costa 'hoping' for demand from investors willing to pile more money on losing money into Espirito Santo, it appears things have escalated rapidly... *ESPIRITO SANTO INTERNATIONAL SAYS IT CAN'T MEET OBLIGATIONS *ES INTERNATIONAL APPLIES FOR `CONTROLLED MANAGEMENT' REGIME *ES INTERNATIONAL APPLIES FOR REGIME UNDER LUXEMBOURG LAW The "controlled management" application is the equivalent of declaring a breakup or controlled bankruptcy process (as we explained here). ESI is the ultimate HoldCo in the Banco Espirito Santo family.

LONDON — Angered and dismayed by the downing of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine, European leaders cast about for some form of joint response to the tragedy on Friday, but beyond calls for an international inquiry they showed few signs of immediately following the United States in imposing harsher sanctions on Russia.

Although Pro-Russia separatists have been largely driven out of Donetsk and Luhansk, they still control significant parts of eastern Ukraine. In this dispatch, VICE News correspondent Simon Ostrovsky goes hunting for separatists with Oleh Lyashko, a Ukrainian politician who placed third in the most recent presidential election. Ostrovsky embeds with Lyashko's personal security forces as they successfully track down Viktor Rybalko, a pro-Russia separatist who organized the referendum in Luhansk calling for independence and allegiance with Russia. What Lyashko does is technically illegal, but he believes that the police are not doing their job and has taken it upon himself...