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The Ukrainian government has revealed it plans to be a full European Union member-state within two years ahead of a historic Ukraine-EU summit in Kyiv. “We have a very ambitious plan to join the European Union within the next two years,” revealed Denys Shmyhal, the Prime Minister of Ukraine, in comments to POLITICO. “So we expect that this year, in 2023, we can already have this pre-entry stage of negotiations,” Shmyhal continued, speaking ahead of a summit between President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government and top eurocrats at the European Commission and the European Council.

More than a million people have joined a day of protests and strikes, according to France's interior ministry, against plans to push back the age of retirement from 62 to 64. Some 80,000 protesters took to the streets of Paris, with demonstrations in 200 more French cities. President Emmanuel Macron called the reforms "just and responsible" - but they are facing a make-or-break moment.... The head of the big CGT union, Philippe Martinez, put the total number of protesters at beyond two million... ...The prime minister invoked the principle of "inter-generational solidarity" to justify the decision to make people work...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Microsoft is likely to receive an EU antitrust warning about its $69 billion bid for "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard, people familiar with the matter said, that could pose another challenge to completing the deal. The European Commission is readying a charge sheet known as a statement of objections setting out its concerns about the deal which will be sent to Microsoft in the coming weeks, the people said. The EU antitrust watchdog, which has set an April 11 deadline for its decision on the deal, declined to comment. Microsoft said: "We're continuing to work with...

“Women accounted for fewer than one in ten of the detections, while the share of reported minors fell slightly to around 9 percent of all detections.” Approximately 330,000 illegal border crossings into the European Union (EU) were recorded in 2022, the highest figure since the migration crisis of 2016. According to the latest data from EU border agency Frontex, the number of illegal entries into the Union increased 64 percent from the previous year. Syrian, Afghan, and Tunisian nationals account for half of the entries According to the Agency, 330,000 irregular entries were recorded in 2022. The number of Syrian...

Webster University assistant professor Ralph Schoellhammer says the Dutch government's plan to shut down 3,000 farms in a bid to comply with EU emissions standards is a “war against humanity”. Mr Schoellhammer said these decisions are made due to a “cultish ideology”. “We get the promises that ‘oh this is not going to be a problem, we are going to move to alternate modes of production’, be it energy or agriculture,” he told Sky News Australia. “In the end, it never works.”‘War against humanity’: Netherlands to shut down 3,000 farms

In 1066, Duke William of Normandy left France on a fleet of ships to fight his cousin and competitor for the vacant English throne, Harold Godwinson, and at the Battle of Hastings, the matter was settled. Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon claimant, was dead, and a new age for England began.(1) Had the EU existed then, he'd have never had the chance. Given current EU red tape, efforts to make a replica of La Mora, the ship Williams used to become The Conqueror, mean it may still not be ready for the 1,000 year anniversary. Unless Great Britain, having shucked off...

The US, Japan, Taiwan and India also recently announced mandatory testing, as China deals with a Covid surge. But the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said the surge was "not expected to impact" the EU. In a statement, the ECDC said: High levels of Covid in China are anticipated given the country's low immunity and recent relaxation of its rules But higher immunity in the EU means a Covid surge in China is not expected to impact the bloc The Covid-19 variants circulating in China are already circulating in the EU Potential imported infections from China are "rather...

The European Commission is considering banning ships registered in European Union countries from using crews of sailors from the Philippines. The prohibition could drastically impact global shipping: Currently, one in four crew members on merchant vessels around the world hails from the Philippines. And the European Union is second only to Panama in gross merchant tonnage. If this ban goes through, it’s poised to rock an industry that’s been struggling for years. Deutsche Welle reports the ban is being considered after an audit by the European Maritime Safety Agency. European regulators found that maritime education institutions in the Philippines didn’t...

In January 2023, Kazakhstan will try to transport oil to Germany through the “Dostyk” pipeline as a test. This was stated in the press release of “Kazmunaigaz” company dated December 21. “The raw materials of KMG’s oil producing organizations are sent to domestic oil refineries to fulfill the obligations to deliver oil products to the domestic market of Kazakhstan. And the volume of KMG’s oil for export is delivered to a single system trader – KMG Trading, which first meets the needs of oil refineries of “KazMunayGas” in Romania. The rest of the oil for export will be sold under...

Would you like to pay a carbon tax every time that you turn your heater on? What about every time that you fill up your vehicle with gasoline? Incredibly, this will soon be what life is like in Europe. When I first heard that the EU plans to impose direct carbon taxes on individuals, I thought that it must be just another false Internet rumor. But it isn’t a false rumor. News sources in Europe are reporting on it, and you can find information about this plan on the official website of the European Parliament. I don’t know why the...

EUROPEAN HIGH COURT OKAYS ANTI-CATHOLICISMChristmas carols were being sung when a woman walked into Mass, ascended to the altar, naked from the waist up, with pro-abortion slogans all over her body. She then proceeded to “abort” Jesus, holding up pieces of calf liver to symbolize an aborted baby. She completed her blasphemous act by urinating on the altar in front of parishioners.This 2013 stunt occurred in France. Now the European Court of Human Rights has taken her side, saying she was unjustly found guilty by a French court for an unlawful “sexual display.” The high court said she was merely...

Despite my support for Elon Musk’s continuing efforts to reduce censorship and restore free speech protections on Twitter, I have been critical of some of his moves from his use of polls on restoring certain posters to the suspensions of media figures this week. However, this morning, I was struck by the European Union (EU) rushing into the controversy to threaten, again, sanctions against Musk. The EU is apparently aghast that Twitter could suspend media even temporarily after ignoring the bans on conservative media for years under the old management. I understand Musk’s view of such tracking as a form...

The European Union has threatened to levy sanctions against Twitter following the suspension of several establishment media journalists over allegedly sharing private location of Elon Musk’s jet. On Thursday evening, Twitter suspended journalists from CNN, Mashable, New York Times, Washington Post, Vox, and former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann for alleged violations of the platform’s updated terms of service on doxxing, or the exposing of private details such as location or address on the internet. “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation,” Musk tweeted Wednesday. “This includes posting links to...

The war on cash has just gone to an entirely new level. When I heard that the European Union was planning to completely ban all cash transactions above 10,000 euros, I had a hard time believing it. There are so many wild rumors flying around on the Internet these days, and so I wasn’t going to write about this unless I could confirm it. Unfortunately, this particular rumor is quite real. Under the pretext of fighting “money laundering and terrorist financing”, the European Union will be entirely outlawing all cash payments greater than 10,000 euros. The following comes from the...

The EU announced the depletion of European military stocks.According to Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the military actions have served as a “wake-up call” for the European Union. The European Union, according to EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borell, has depleted its military reserves by supplying weapons to Ukraine.“This war has also served as a wake-up call to all of us in terms of our military capabilities. We provided weapons to Ukraine, but as we did so, we realized that our military reserves had been depleted

Germany is to comply virtually immediately with the EU directive to end fertilizer following the same path as the Netherlands. There is just no support in the data for Climate Change Mania. This is part of an agenda that will no doubt reduce the population along with the termination of fossil fuels. These people want war it appears to reduce the population as well and the people are fools to buy into this agenda. The lowest peak average temperature was in the year 2000 at 72.7 degrees. The low in this data set was 1888 and 72.6.and it was 72.8...

We have seen an increase in calls for a negotiated solution of the war in Ukraine. From the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, from progressive members of Congress and from leading international relations scholars, a growing number of voices urge the United States to invest in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and to give peace a chance. According to some reports, the Biden administration is also warming up to the thought.It’s a dangerous idea.Fears of nuclear escalation between Russia and NATO drive many to argue for negotiations, and although the impetus is well-intentioned, the suggestion is naive and impractical. In...

Ursula von Der Leyen’s did the unthinkable today — she told the truth. During a speech condemning Russia for committing war crimes, she noted in passing that 100,000 Ukrainian “officers” (sic) have been killed since the start of the SMO.Ukraine was not happy:Ukraine has hit back at a claim by the European Commission’s president that 100,000 of Kyiv’s troops have been killed since Russia’s invasion in February.Ursula von der Leyen used the number in a video address, prompting Kyiv’s armed forces to state that the death toll was “classified information.” Footage of her speech has since been edited to cut...

They really really REALLY are scared of Elon Musk.As I have written about before, the European Union has been making noises about Twitter’s compliance with its Digital Services Act, which among other things requires pretty aggressive censorship of speech, under the guise of preventing “misinformation.”More details on #Mastodon ⤵️ https://t.co/rNlULHh181— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) November 30, 2022Today the EU went a step further, openly threaten to ban Twitter in Europe unless Musk buckles to their demands:The EU has threatened Elon Musk’s Twitter with a European ban unless the billionaire abides by its strict rules on content moderation, setting up a regulatory...

Bitcoin's conceptual design and technological shortcomings make it questionable as a means of payment: real Bitcoin transactions are cumbersome, slow and expensive. Bitcoin has never been used to any significant extent for legal real-world transactions. Bitcoin is also not suitable as an investment. It does not generate cash flow (like real estate) or dividends (like equities), cannot be used productively (like commodities) or provide social benefits (like gold). The market valuation of Bitcoin is therefore based purely on speculation. Speculative bubbles rely on new money flowing in. Bitcoin has also repeatedly benefited from waves of new investors. The manipulations by...