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Scotland’s oil and gas sector is facing a bright future as half of oil reserves remain to be exploited, the Scottish Government's Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism Fergus Ewing said Wednesday, commenting on a new study. Earlier, world leading oil expert Professor Alex Kemp, by using detailed financial modelling, predicted significant discoveries in Scottish oil sector made over the next 30 years. “His new predictions – based on that modelling – show a bright future for Scotland’s oil and gas sector for decades to come – with 99 new economic discoveries over the next three decades,” Ewing told RIA...

European Union leaders announced they will be consolidating energy and environmental goals under a new commissioner, effectively axing the intergovernmental groups’ climate arm as green policies are making it harder for citizens to pay their power bills. Former Spanish agriculture and environment minister Miguel Arias Canete was tapped by the EU Commission to take over a consolidated energy and climate office. Canete will be replacing Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard and Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger in what is seen as a huge blow to Europe’s global warming efforts.

In a week's time, Scotland will not hold a referendum... The year, carefully chosen by Mr Salmond, celebrates the one unequivocal Scottish victory in the long antagonism between the two nations, at Bannockburn in 1314... The Scots have no way of keeping a UK link while extending the powers of the Scottish Parliament... The hoodlums who sought to break up my meetings and confined me to a pub told me to go back to England... Their position is merely the extreme end of Mr Salmond's. ...if they vote "yes" next week, they will not get independence. Rather, they are voting...

Residents of the German city of Wuppertal have expressed concern after a group of young radical Islamists started taking to the streets late at night, trying to deter revellers from drinking and gambling. The self-styled "Sharia Police" have been patrolling an area around the city's main train station, declaring the popular nightlife area to be a "Sharia Controlled Zone". Deutshe Welle reports that witnesses have seen them handing out leaflets urging people not to drink alcohol, attend concerts, gamble, watch pornography or visit prostitutes. The men are believed to be from the Salafi sect of Islam, which is closely related...

The only interesting things about Douglas Carswell's swtich from the Tory Party to Ukip are that it took him so long and that he has acted alone. Any thinking person has been able to see for years that the Tory Party hates conservatives. It is a roadblock, not a road, championing the elite against the people. It is kept in being only by the BBC and various dodgy billionaires, who provide it with airtime and money out of all proportion to its real support. It has no actual aims except office at all costs. It was no actual policies either,...

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's government will set out plans in the coming days to give Scotland more autonomy on tax, spending and welfare if it rejects independence in a referendum on Sept. 18, British finance minister George Osborne said on Sunday.

SOLDIERS are on standby to patrol northern French ports amid growing tensions about an army of migrants intent on reaching Britain. In Calais alone about 100 migrants are arriving every day. Other towns are also reporting high numbers. Most new arrivals are desperate Africans who have travelled from Italy, where they arrive in boats from war-ravaged Libya. Last year almost 8,000 arrived there. This year 100,000 have landed, with most saying Britain is their final destination. Today the Sunday Express can reveal that the huge trade in moving migrants out of Africa and into Britain is worth £5billion a year...

None of this is supposed to be happening at all. Better Together is supported by every major media outlet in Scotland as well as in London. It has the full research resources of the British government and the backing of big business. Yet there now seems to be an irresistible momentum towards yes. This week saw polls showing a massive eight-point swing to yes in the last month alone, with women and Labour voters leading the way. Photos of people queueing up to register to vote in Glasgow have been circulating. Maybe they were people queueing up to defend the...

The campaign to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK is in the lead for the first time ahead of the independence referendum later this month, according to a new poll. A YouGov survey found that the pro-independence campaign, led by the Scottish first minister Alex Salmond, had a two point lead of 51 per cent over the unionists’ 49 per cent. The poll for the Sunday Times is the latest evidence of a dramatic surge for the Yes campaign, which has seen the campaign recover from a 22 point deficit in just one month.

During today’s NATO summit, the alliance agreed to create a rapid reaction force to respond to threats to member states. That force is being formed specifically to deal with threats in eastern Europe. It is a direct response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The Russians responded swiftly. The Foreign Ministry suggests a larger NATO conspiracy is at work. The summit adopted a line towards NATO’s eastward expansion and build-up of its presence near Russia’s borders. These plans were nurtured for a long time and the Ukrainian crisis became merely an excuse for the start of their implementation. Russia also accused...

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...

In a blow to the Yes campaign, Olli Rehn, vice president of the European Parliament and former commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, said keeping the pound without consent from Westminster "would simply not be possible" because EU membership requires countries to have access to an independent central bank. All three main political parties in Westminster have already slammed the door shut on a currency union between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK. However, Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister, has argued that this would not stop Scotland from using the pound anyway.

The debate over Germany’s insistence on eurozone austerity has flared anew as an ailing France continues to demand economic stimulus. The European Central Bank may now be siding with Paris, leaving Merkel looking increasingly alone. […] Berlin is particularly alarmed by the stance taken by ECB head Mario Draghi. At the annual conference of top central bankers from around the world at Jackson Hole, Wyoming in August, Draghi surprised those present by saying “there is leeway to achieve a more growth-friendly composition of fiscal policies.” It was a comment that came close to the kind of debt-fueled growth stimulus measures...

A British woman who converted to Islam has joined ISIS forces in Syria and called for the beheading of Christians on Twitter. Sally Jones, 40, who left Britain for Syria last year, is thought to be using the name Umm Hussain or Sakinah Hussain, and uses the name Umm Hussain al-Britani on Twitter, the Sunday Times reported. In a recent tweet that has since been deleted she said: "You Christians all need beheading with a nice blunt knife and stuck on the railings at Raqqa... Come here I'll do it for you!" Her Twitter bio features a quote from Osama...

Bureaucrats too young to remember the cold war are now turning Europe into a communist state, Putin must be laughing London, England –“That’s it! I’ve had it. I am voting UKIP (the party that wants separation from the EU) from now on!” my husband exclaimed to me this weekend when yet another store was out of stock of the high powered vacuum we wanted to buy before they were banned. He has been a Tory all his life, but this personal intrusion into how we decide to consume is consuming him with anger. As of this past Monday it is...

President Putin has called for talks to discuss "statehood" for eastern Ukraine, Russian media report. He said the issue needed to be discussed to ensure the interests of local people "are definitely upheld". His comments came after the EU gave Russian a one-week ultimatum to reverse course in Ukraine or face sanctions.

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...

Syrian rebel groups strengthened their hold over the Syrian side of the Quneitra Crossing — located on the frontier between Syrian and Israeli controlled parts of the Golan Heights – over the weekend and managed to repel attacks by Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar Assad. The rebels kidnapped dozens of Fiji soldiers, members of the UN observer force stationed in the Golan Heights and are maintaining a siege on a second UN stronghold manned by Philippine soldiers. ... Nusra Front forces took over a stronghold manned by a Fiji UN force and kidnapped the soldiers stationed there at gunpoint,...

European Union leaders on Saturday picked Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, to become the 28-nation bloc’s top diplomat for the next five years. The decision comes as the crisis at the EU’s eastern border pitting Ukraine against Russia poses one of the biggest foreign policy challenges for the bloc in decades. […] Mogherini, a 41-year-old center-left politician, has been Italy’s foreign minister only since February, drawing criticism that she lacks experience. A first attempt to secure Mogherini’s nomination in June failed amid resistance from eastern European leaders. …

TEHRAN (FNA)- Dutch Foreign Minister Evo Opstelten announced that his country plans to withdraw the nationality from the "jihadist" fighters who have joined terrorist groups, even without prior judiciary condemnation. The local authorities announced that around 130 Dutch Salafi Takfiri militants have joined the terrorist groups in Syria as well as Iraq and that 30 of them returned home, while 14 others were killed, Al-Manar reported. According to the Dutch intelligence services, at least two Dutch Salafi Takfiri militants carried out suicide bombings in Syria and Iraq.