December 31, 2010

Eurozone 'has 80% chance of losing the single currency in next decade,' claims think-tank
There is an 80 per cent chance that the euro will not survive in its current form, a leading think tank has warned. The financial crisis that has crippled Greece and Ireland will spread to other debt-ridden European countries in the New Year, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research. Among those in the firing line will be Italy and Spain – the third and fourth biggest economies in the single currency bloc behind Germany and France.
Read article in the Daily Mail (UK)

December 28, 2010

Half of Germans want to axe the euro
Half of all Germans want to ditch the euro and bring back their deutschmark, according to a poll.
Read article in the Daily Express (UK)

December 26, 2010

Reich Bureaucrats Seen in a New Light
BERLIN — It’s eerily quiet in the depths of the German Foreign Ministry, where tens of thousands of documents are filed away in narrow drawers. The documents consist of telegrams and reports filed by German ambassadors from all over the world as well as from diplomats based in Berlin. One document on display tells of the Wannsee Conference in 1942. There, in a villa in southern Berlin, a group of top Nazi officials drew up plans for the “final solution of the Jewish question.” They involved the deportation of the Jewish population of Europe and the French colonies of North Africa, including Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, to German-occupied areas in Eastern Europe, where they were to be murdered. Jews were also forcibly conscripted into labor camps for building roads and other projects. What is coming to light now — and causing a major debate in Germany over the past few weeks — is the active involvement by Nazi Germany’s civil servants in the annihilation of Jews. For decades, bodies like the Foreign Ministry and the Finance Ministry managed to make the public believe they had been relatively “clean” during the Nazi years.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)
Comment: After being covered up for over sixty years, these revelations have clearly not been published by accident. To read the book that prompted their release, click here.

December 8, 2010

Ex PM Blair Recalled To Iraq War Inquiry
Tony Blair has been recalled to appear at Britain's inquiry into the Iraq War for the second time. The former Prime Minister is likely to give evidence at a public hearing in late January. It is thought Sir John Chilcot and his panel were concerned about gaps and possible inconsistencies in his evidence. Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time of the invasion, cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell and Lord Turnball, his predecessor, have also been asked to return. Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, is among those the panel has asked to submit written evidence.
Read article on the Sky News website
Comment: Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General at the time of the 2002 invasion of Iraq, openly stated in 2004 that it was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter. Significantly, therefore, CNN reports that a total of 33 African nations now want Blair and former U.S. President George W. Bush to be prosecuted for the invasion. We fully support these calls. To read about the Complaint we submitted to the International Criminal Court in 2003, charging Blair, Bush and others with causing injury to and the death of millions of people through the ‘business with disease’, war crimes and other crimes against humanity, click here.

December 7, 2010

MEPs demand independent probe into Polish air disaster
MEPs have demanded an independent investigation into the Smolensk air disaster which killed Polish president Lech Kaczynski. Some of the victims' relatives gathered in Brussels for a hearing, organised by the ECR group, into the accident in parliament on Tuesday. The hearing comes eight months after the April 10 air crash in Smolensk, western Russia, which killed president Kaczynski and 95 other Poles as they landed for a World War II memorial ceremony.
These included the chief of the Polish general staff and other senior Polish military officers, the president of the National Bank of Poland, Poland's deputy foreign minister, Polish government officials and 12 members of the Polish parliament. The probe has been carried out by Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK).
Read article at theparliament.com

December 3, 2010

Angela Merkel warned that Germany could abandon the euro
German chancellor said to have made comments during an EU summit dinner in Brussels at the end of October
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has warned for the first time that her country could abandon the euro if she fails in her contested campaign to establish a new regime for the single currency, the Guardian has learned. At an EU summit in Brussels at the end of October that was dominated by the euro crisis and wrangling over whether to bail out Ireland, Merkel became embroiled in a row with the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, according to participants at the event's Thursday dinner.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)

December 2, 2010

Economists spell out disaster for the euro
European Union leaders must brace themselves for the collapse of the euro within three years following the debt crisis, leading international economists warned last night. A £72billion EU bailout of debt-stricken Ireland – including around £6billion in loans and guarantees from Britain – is destined to fail, according to a report from two influential think-tanks. And the growing financial turmoil will lead to weaker economies in Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain leading to an exodus from the euro.
Read article in the Daily Express (UK)

December 2, 2010

Campaigners call for halt to 'privileged access' to EU
Campaigners have repeated their call for the European commission to halt the "privileged access" granted to the executive to "big business." The demand comes amid growing concern about the ongoing failure to introduce a mandatory register for the thousands of lobbyists in Brussels. At present, a register exists but it is purely voluntary, leading to claims that it is "totally ineffectual."
Read article at theparliament.com
Comment: Operating outside the basic principles of freedom and democracy, the Brussels EU – by definition – is a dictatorship. The power of the people to determine their government has been transferred to corporate interests. To learn the facts about the roots of the Brussels EU, click here.

November 30, 2010

Brussels says first ever citizens' petition does not count
The entry into force of the EU's new citizens' initiative (ECI) - a petition procedure under the Lisbon Treaty allowing European citizens to demand action in a particular area - is likely to be welcomed by a legal battle between Greenpeace and the EU institutions. The environmental NGO has successfully collected the required 1 million signatories in a petition calling on the EU to ban GMOs, but officials from both the European Commission and the European Parliament say the move is premature. "We've always said that we take their opinion very seriously but it's not an ECI as the legislation is not yet in place," Michael Mann, the commission's administration spokesman, told this website on Tuesday (30 November). "Strictly speaking, they would have to do it all over again," he added. "The Greenpeace view that the petition counts as the Lisbon Treaty is in place doesn't stand up to legal scrutiny." A European Parliament official concurred. "We may end up going to court on this," the contact said.
Read article at euobserver.com
Comment: Unfortunately, it is anything but surprising that the Brussels EU is ignoring the voices of its citizens in connection with the so-called citizens’ initiative. Having previously called for curbs on citizen petitions, it is already abundantly clear that the real intention of the Brussels EU is to replace democracy with dictatorship. To learn more about this construct, and how it was designed as a dictatorship under the control of the Oil and Drug Cartel, click here.

November 29, 2010

US lethal injection drug faces UK export restrictions
Business Secretary Vince Cable has restricted the export of a drug used to execute prisoners in the United States. The decision, which reverses the UK government's previous position, came amid a legal battle over sodium thiopental manufactured in Europe. Mr Cable's lawyers had told the High Court they couldn't stop exports because the drug had legitimate uses. However, he changed that position after seeing evidence that the drug was only being exported for use on death row.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
Comment: Whilst the legal action before the British courts has not definitively established the source of the sodium thiopental being exported to the U.S. for use in executions, U.S. officials have now admitted they obtained it from Britain. Thus far, however, they have refused to explain precisely how it got to the U.S. or who supplied it to them. Significantly, therefore, in California, a San Francisco judge has now ordered state officials to explain how they obtained fresh stocks of sodium thiopental given that is no longer available in the U.S. With the pharmaceutical industry already having been proven to have supplied the chemicals that killed tens of thousands of prisoners at the Auschwitz WWII concentration camp, it is high time that all modern-day drug companies selling drugs for use in executions are publicly exposed.

November 26, 2010

Euro slides as Portugal bailout pressure builds
Portugal is under pressure to accept an EU bailout in order to stop the eurozone debt contagion spreading to Spain, according to German press reports that pushed the euro to a two-month low.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

November 26, 2010

EU rescue costs start to threaten Germany itself
The escalating debt crisis on the eurozone periphery is starting to contaminate the creditworthiness of Germany and the core states of monetary union. Credit default swaps (CDS) measuring risk on German, French and Dutch bonds have surged over recent days, rising significantly above the levels of non-EMU states in Scandinavia. "Germany cannot keep paying for bail-outs without going bankrupt itself," said Professor Wilhelm Hankel, of Frankfurt University.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

November 25, 2010

Desperate fight to save the euro
Survival crisis for the single currency as fears of further bailouts rise in Spain, Portugal and Belgium
The euro plunged further into crisis yesterday as investors sold off Spanish, Portuguese and Belgian government bonds in record numbers on renewed fears that those nations would follow Greece and Ireland into the financial emergency ward, undermining confidence in the single currency. The spreading contagion suggests that the markets now view the break-up of the euro as a realistic possibility, and that "shock and awe" efforts to shore up individual economies with huge bailouts have not succeeded in insulating their neighbours from infection.
Read article in The Independent (UK)

November 24, 2010

Merkel Sees Troubles for Euro
BERLIN—German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered an unusually negative assessment of Europe's effort to overcome its debt crisis, warning that the region's common currency was in an "exceptionally serious situation." The remarks, delivered in a speech to a German employers' association, accelerated a selloff in the euro, which hit its lowest level in two months.
Read article in the Wall Street Journal (USA)

November 19, 2010

Europe’s Dirty Secret: Financial Elite Looting Public Treasuries
In a revealing admission concerning the relationship between capitalist governments and international financial interests, the Financial Times on Tuesday wrote of “Europe’s dirty secret.” The newspaper editorialized against the plan of the European Union, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund to loan Ireland tens of billions of euros in order to guarantee in full the investments of international bankers and bondholders in the country’s failing banking system. Under the plan, Ireland will effectively surrender sovereignty over its economic policy to the EU and the IMF and agree to claw back the latest bailout of the global financial elite by imposing a new and even more savage round of attacks on the wages and living standards of the working class.
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website

November 17, 2010

Bid to ban export of 'execution' drug
An attempt will be made at the High Court today to prevent a British company exporting a drug which could be used in the execution of US prisoners. Solicitors representing two clients on Death Row and human rights group Reprieve are challenging Business Secretary Vince Cable's refusal to ban the overseas sale of sodium thiopental. The strong painkiller is given as the first of a cocktail of three drugs used in US state lethal injections. London-based solicitors firm Leigh Day & Co, acting for prisoners Edmund Zagorski and Ralph Baze, argue that Mr Cable's refusal was wrong in law. Leigh Day says the case arises from the state execution in Arizona of Jeffrey Landrigan on October 25.
Read article in The Independent (UK)
Comment: Archimedes Pharma, a British pharmaceutical company, is suspected to be the source of the sodium thiopental used in the execution of death-row prisoners in the US. Despite being fully aware of this, Vince Cable, the UK government’s Business Secretary, has steadfastly refused to use his powers under the UK’s Export Control Act to place an immediate ban on it being sold to the US for use in executions. As such, with the pharmaceutical industry already having been proven to have supplied the chemicals that killed tens of thousands of prisoners at the Auschwitz WWII concentration camp, some might argue that these and other possible links between the modern-day industry and executions are anything but surprising.

November 13, 2010

Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says
WASHINGTON — A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad. The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

November 9, 2010

90 per cent of EU budget 'materially affected' by irregularities, report finds
More than nine tenths of the EU's budget last year, spending that totalled £94 billion, was "materially affected" by irregularities that included the improper award of contracts worth over £4 billion, Europe's Court of Auditors has found. The findings come amid a heated debate over the size of the EU budget for next year and demands from the European Commission and Parliament to defy national austerity programmes by increasing Brussels spending by six per cent despite 16 years of critical reports by auditors.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

October 28, 2010

British company link to drug used in execution
The suspected source of the drug used in the execution of death-row prisoners in the US has been identified as a British company in Berkshire. Archimedes Pharma – which is based in Reading and describes itself as a "fast-growing specialty pharmaceutical business marketing a portfolio of products to specialist prescribers" – confirmed last night that it did produce the drug sodium thiopental. But it denied it was involved in the export of the drug to the United States. The company's directors are now under pressure to disclose the identity of all third parties that may have supplied the state of Arizona, which yesterday used a lethal injection to put to death the convicted murderer Jeffrey Landrigan.
Read article in the Independent (UK)
Comment: Nuremberg Pharma Tribunal records clearly show that the deadly medical experiments conducted in Auschwitz and other WWII concentration camps were contracted by the pharmaceutical divisions of IG Farben Cartel members Bayer and Hoechst. The “drugs” injected into tens of thousands of innocent inmates were previously untested chemicals patented by Bayer and other IG Farben firms. Most of the victims died during these cruel experiments. Those who survived were frequently sent to the gas chambers. Even the pellets for the gassing – Zyklon B – were provided by subsidiaries of IG Farben. As such, viewed in this historical light, some might argue that suspected links between the modern-day pharmaceutical industry and the supply of drugs used to execute prisoners are anything but surprising.

October 24, 2010

Germany's foreign ministry was complicit in Holocaust, study says
Germany's foreign ministry was far more involved in the murder of millions of Jews than previously thought, according to a government study. The findings contradict claims that the ministry disapproved of the Nazis.
Read article on the Deutsche Welle website (Germany)
Comment: The former German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has admitted the fact it had taken 60 years since the end of WWII to begin the inquiry that led to the publication of this study is "incredible." To learn what, finally, triggered the release of the German government’s report, click here.

October 12, 2010

EU commission guilty of 'maladministration'
The European ombudsman has said the commission is guilty of maladministration in an "access to documents" case. The case involves the long-running action initially raised by Friends of the Earth Europe which requested access to correspondence between the car industry and former EU industry commissioner Günter Verheugen.
Read article at theparliament.com

October 6, 2010

Hitler's Nuremberg Laws End Convoluted Journey at National Archives
Original Nazi Documents Returned to Govt. Hands, Displayed Publicly for First Time
Martin Dannenberg, an Army intelligence officer, was sitting in a German beer hall in April 1945 when a local man approached him, asking for help getting out of the war-torn country. In exchange, he promised him something that would be highly valuable to the Americans. Intrigued, Dannenberg followed the man he called Uncle Hans to a bank vault in the town of Eichstatt, where he found a swastika-embossed envelope containing four of the most symbolic records from the war: original copies of the Nuremberg Laws. The laws, which were signed by Adolf Hitler 75 years ago last month, outlawed marriages and sex between Jews and citizens of "German blood;" stripped Jews of their German citizenship; and established the swastika as the official flag of the Third Reich. They established the legal underpinnings for marginalization of Jews and ultimately set into motion the Holocaust, historians say.
Read article on the ABC News website (USA)
Comment: The placing of the Nuremberg Laws in the U.S. National Archives is a timely reminder that Walter Hallstein, founding president of the European Commission and key architect of the ‘Brussels EU’ had, in 1939, openly called for their imposition in the Nazi-occupied countries as a top priority. Following his career as a prominent law professor under the Nazis, Hallstein held the post of EU Commission President from 1958 to 1967. To learn more about Hallstein and the Nazi roots of the ‘Brussels EU’, click here.

October 1, 2010

Trapped in the eurozone
For Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain, defaulting on their debt is no longer unthinkable
Only a brave person, or an appropriately paid official, would be optimistic about the future of the eurozone at present. Austerity has spread and there is a risk of long-term stagnation with high unemployment across Europe. Social tensions are on the rise, and frictions among member states will probably intensify. A taste of things to come was given by the marches and strikes organised by trade unions across the continent this week.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)

September 29, 2010

Europe on strike over austerity measures
Europe has gone out on strike as protesters took to the streets of Spain, Belgium, Italy and Greece to demonstrate against tough austerity measures.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

September 29, 2010

EU lobby register blasted as wildly inaccurate
The European Commission has attracted fresh criticism over its fledgling EU lobby register, with new analysis suggesting that data for five out of the top 15 entries is likely to be inaccurate.
Read article at euobserver.com

September 28, 2010

EU commission under fresh attack over ex-commissioners
The European commission has been urged to block the new jobs for former commissioners Charlie McCreevy and Günter Verheugen because of their alleged conflicts of interest. The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation in the EU (Alter-EU) has called for the introduction of a three year "cooling-off" period for former commissioners. The demand follows the controversy surrounding six former commissioners who have taken up employment in the private sector. On Tuesday, Alter-EU published documents which it says show that the commission's existing checks are "inadequate and fail to prevent conflicts of interest."
Read article at theparliament.com

EU urged to adopt mandatory register for lobbyists
The EU has been urged to introduce a mandatory register of interests for the thousands of lobbyists in Brussels. Addressing a seminar in parliament on Tuesday, Jane Mittermaier, of Transparency International, said this was "vitally important" in order to promote openness in the EU institutions. At present a register does exist for the estimated 3000 lobbyists in Brussels but it is voluntary, meaning lobbyists have the freedom to register their interest or not.
Read article at theparliament.com

September 23, 2010

Campaign launched to 'close revolving door' of ex-EU commissioners
An alliance of lobby groups have launched an online campaign aimed, it says, to curtail the practice of former EU commissioners taking potentially lucrative jobs in the private sector as soon as they leave office. They cite the case of former industry and enterprise commissioner Günter Verheugen who is said to be one of the six commissioners from the previous executive who have moved into private sector jobs and which "might entail conflicts of interest.” The German, who was also vice president of the commission, is not alone. Out of 13 commissioners that left in February 2010, others also took jobs in the private sector soon after leaving their EU posts.
Read article at theparliament.com

September 20, 2010

"Manufacturing Dissent": the Anti-globalization Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites
Under contemporary capitalism, the illusion of democracy must prevail. It is in the interest of the corporate elites to accept dissent and protest as a feature of the system inasmuch as they do not threaten the established social order. The purpose is not to repress dissent, but, on the contrary, to shape and mould the protest movement, to set the outer limits of dissent. To maintain their legitimacy, the economic elites favor limited and controlled forms of opposition, with a view to preventing the development of radical forms of protest, which might shake the very foundations and institutions of global capitalism. In other words, "manufacturing dissent" acts as a "safety valve", which protects and sustains the New World Order. To be effective, however, the process of "manufacturing dissent" must be carefully regulated and monitored by those who are the object of the protest movement.
Read article by Michel Chossudovsky on the Centre for Research on Globalization website

September 20, 2010

Lack of transparency 'endemic' in EU institutions
A group of Brussels-based lobby organisations say a lack of transparency is becoming "endemic" among EU institutions. The alliance say that European commission proposals would "substantially restrict" the number of documents made available to the public. ClientEarth, Transport & Environment, the European Environmental Bureau and BirdLife International say the documents include those containing environmental and other information relevant to EU policies. The attack comes as ClientEarth said it was suing the commission and the council over EU regulations regarding public access to documents.
Read article at the parliament.com

September 15, 2010

EU bid for more rights at UN suffers surprise defeat
The European Union suffered a defeat at the United Nations on Tuesday (14 September) in its attempt to win most of the rights enjoyed by fully-fledged UN members after other regional blocs said it was unfair that Europe would get a boost in its standing at the global body but not them. A UN General Assembly resolution that sought to allow European Council President Herman Van Rompuy to address the UN chamber - no differently from US President Barack Obama or Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmedinejad - was narrowly defeated after a majority of nations voted to delay debate on the matter. The resolution would also have awarded the EU, which currently only carries observer status at the UN, the right to make proposals and submit amendments, the right of reply, the right to raise points of order and the right to circulate documents.
Read article at euobserver.com
Comment: Countries in other regions of the world are becoming increasingly aware of the EU’s game plan for the 21st Century - namely, on behalf of the Oil and Drug Cartel, to take control over the whole world. To learn about the Nazi roots of the Brussels EU, click here.

September 14, 2010

'Majority' of Britons want to quit EU
A new YouGov poll shows a clear majority of British people would choose to leave the EU in a referendum.
Read article at the parliament.com

September 10, 2010

EU commission 'interfered' in run-up to Lisbon vote
New data allegedly shows how the European commission "interfered" in the run-up to last year's Irish referendum on the Lisbon treaty. The data was collated by Open Europe, a UK-based eurosceptic think-tank, which campaigns for British withdrawal from the EU. It says the statistics reveal how the executive "sought to sell the Lisbon treaty, especially to Irish journalists" via a series of meetings, seminars and other events. Stephen Booth, a researcher with Open Europe, said, "There was clearly a concerted effort to reach all Irish media before the referendum, which makes a mockery of the commission's claim that it would not interfere in what was a national referendum."
Read article at theparliament.com
Comment: On Friday, 2nd October 2009, the people of Ireland voted - for the second time in less than eighteen months - on the so-called ‘Lisbon Treaty’.
Previously, in June 2008, they had voted a decisive ‘No’ to this undemocratic treaty, thus mirroring the decisions of the French and Dutch electorates who had voted against the EU Constitution - with which the treaty shares 96 percent of its content - in 2005. Following unlawful political interference from the EU Commission; widespread threats and lies to the Irish electorate - including propaganda that a ‘No’ vote would condemn Ireland to economic isolation; corporate interference from the likes of Ryanair (who spent half a million euros campaigning for a ‘Yes’), Intel (who spent several hundred thousand) and multi-billion euro drug company Pfizer (who openly warned of a “flight of capital” from Ireland if it voted ‘No’) - plus, not least of all, the blatant sweeping away of Ireland’s guidelines on media impartiality, it is difficult to come to any conclusion other than that the second vote was subject to widespread interference.

September 8, 2010

Nuremberg is valid precedent for Iraq trials
Recently in Dublin, anti-war protesters threw eggs and shoes at Tony Blair. During a TV interview, he showed a flash of exasperation when asked to explain why people thought that he was a war criminal. His annoyance at the question is little consolation for the thousands of families who lost loved ones during that illegal war. Blair should be tried under principles established for the Nuremberg trials, together with former president George W Bush and his advisers who orchestrated the Iraq war. The Nuremberg Principles, a set of guidelines established after World War II to try Nazi party members, were developed to determine what constitutes a war crime. Those principles could also be applied today, when judging the conditions that led to the Iraq war and in the process to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, many of them children, and to the devastation of a country’s infrastructure.
Read article by Dr Cesar Chelala, MD, PhD, in the Gulf Times (Qatar)

September 5, 2010

Mafia cash in on lucrative EU wind farm handouts - especially in Sicily
An ill wind is blowing over Italy's green revolution, as the Mafia seek to capitalise on generous grants for renewable energy. They rise up high above the sun-scorched countryside, looking out over hilltop villages, palm trees, neatly-tended vineyards and olive groves. But for all their promises of a clean, green future, Italy's windfarms have now acquired a somewhat dirtier whiff - as the latest industry to be infiltrated by the country's mobsters. Attracted by the prospect of generous grants designed to boost the use of alternative energies, the so-called "eco Mafia" has begun fraudulently creaming off millions of euros from both the Italian government and the European Union.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: Regular visitors to our websites may recall that, in 2008, we asked whether the Mafia has taken over in Brussels. With the mafia allegedly now cashing in on lucrative EU funding, some may argue that the answer to this question is no longer in any doubt.

September 3, 2010

EU accused of trying to 'control' journalists
The EU has been accused of launching an expensive drive to "control" European journalists. It comes after the publication of new data which, it is claimed, shows the extent to which the EU goes to entertain, train and 'inform' journalists. The statistics reveal that more than €8m was spent by the EU on journalists last year alone.
Read article at the parliament.com

September 2, 2010

Former EU commissioner 'in clear breach of code of conduct'
The European commission's ethical committee will be asked to rule on claims that the institution's former vice president Günter Verheugen is guilty of a conflict of interest. The case concerns the German official's decision to launch a lobbying consultancy, "the European Experience company", after he left his EU post. Friends of the Earth Europe say that his new role is a "clear breach" of the rules set up by the code of conduct for EU commissioners. It says he failed to notify the commission of the new company as former commissioners are required to do when they leave office.
Read article at the parliament.com

August 26, 2010

EU popularity plunges right across the bloc
People's confidence in the the European Union has dropped to record lows in most countries amid a placid response to the rising unemployment and the troubles of the eurozone, a Eurobarometer published on Thursday (26 August) shows. Fewer than half of Europe's citizens (49 percent) think that their country has benefited from EU membership – a seven-year low - while trust in the bloc's institutions has dropped to 42 percent, six points down compared to autumn 2009. The survey was carried out in May, at the peak of the sovereign debt crisis affecting Greece and the whole eurozone and amid hikes in unemployment all across the continent. The EU's image worsened dramatically in Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Italy and Luxembourg – where confidence in EU institutions fell by 10 to 18 percent compared to the previous year.
Read article at euobserver.com
Comment: Astonishingly, despite the severe blow that this survey dealt to the bloc’s credibility, the European Commission is attempting to present the results as an endorsement for concentrating even more powers in the Brussels EU. For example, it is claiming that 75 percent of citizens in the EU said they were in favour of "stronger European economic governance," with EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding even pretending that "the clear majority for enhanced European economic governance shows that people see the EU as a decisive part of the solution to the crisis". In reality, however, the question asked in the survey didn't even include the term "European economic governance", nor did it make any specific reference to the EU's role in overseeing national economies. Instead, it merely included a vague reference to "stronger coordination of economic and financial policies among all EU member states". Clearly, therefore, with the Commission now desperately engaging in spin to massage even the results of its own surveys, there can be no doubt that we are witnessing the beginning of the end for the Brussels EU.

August 17, 2010

Oettinger under fire for failing to disclose side activities
EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger is under fire as public prosecutors in Stuttgart examine whether he lied in his declaration of interests about secondary sources of income. Oettinger is the only commissioner to have changed his declaration – and he has been forced to do so twice. EurActiv Germany reports. Charges were made against Oettinger by German management consultant Andreas Frank. According to stern.de, prosecutors are checking whether he lied in his affidavit, as that would constitute a criminal offence. Each of the EU's 27 commissioners has to make a declaration of his or her external activities before taking office. Oettinger has made this declaration three times to date, yet the third attempt still contains gaps.
Read article at euractiv.com
Comment: No stranger to controversy, Oettinger is well known in Germany for having given a eulogy in which he openly praised the Nazi lawyer Hans Filbinger. Instead of describing Filbinger as the Nazi criminal that he was, Oettinger attempted to portray him as an opponent of the Nazi regime. Nevertheless, despite knowing full well that Oettinger had seemingly attempted to revise the history of Filbinger’s Nazi past, German Chancellor Angela Merkel still went on to nominate him as Germany’s European Commissioner, which led to his becoming European Commissioner for Energy in 2010.

August 16, 2010

Mankind is using up global resources faster than ever
The growing world population and increasing consumption has pushed the world into ‘eco-debt’ a month earlier this year, according to the latest statistics on global resources. Think tank the New Economics Foundation (NEF) look at how much food, fuel and other resources are consumed by humans every year. They then compare it to how much the world can provide without threatening the ability of important ecosystems like oceans and rainforests to recover. This year the moment we start eating into nature's capital or ‘Earth Overshoot Day’ will fall on 21st August, a full month earlier than last year, when resources were used up by 23rd September.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

August 14, 2010

Fury as EU envoy to the US says: I speak for Britain
Europe’s desperate power grab was illustrated last night after the new EU ambassador to Washington suggested he will speak for Britain in America. Joao Vale de Almeida, formally installed in his job this week, said he could advise on foreign and military policy. He is the first EU ambassador to be appointed after the Lisbon Treaty gave the EU sweeping new foreign policy powers. The Portuguese-born diplomat said he would be “leading the show” among European representatives in Washington and had “a wider mandate” than any of his predecessors. Asked about former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s famous question: “When I want to talk to Europe, who do I call?’’ Mr Vale de Almeida said: “In this area code, you call me.”
Read article in the Daily Express (UK)

August 13, 2010

British Medical Experts Seek Kelly Suicide Inquest, London's Times Reports
A group of leading U.K. medical experts want a full inquest into the death of David Kelly, a Ministry of Defence scientist named by Tony Blair’s government as the source of a leak saying the official dossier justifying the Iraq war had been “sexed up,” according to a letter published in the London-based Times today.
Kelly, a former weapons inspector, was found dead in a wood near his home in 2003 after the government disclosed he was the source of a leak expressing anger within the intelligence service over the way Iraqi arms data had been used to justify the Anglo-American invasion that toppled President Saddam Hussein.
The group, including two coroners and an intensive care specialist, said in their letter it was “extremely unlikely” that Kelly had bled to death from a slit wrist.
Read article at Bloomberg.com
Comment: Some reports suggest that Kelly had been writing a book exposing highly damaging government secrets before his mysterious death and was intending to reveal that, weeks before the British and American invasion, he had warned British Prime Minister Tony Blair there were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq. The reports also suggest Kelly was planning to lift the lid on his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

August 11, 2010

EU envoy to US flaunts new powers
The EU's new ambassador to the US, Joao Vale de Almeida, has underlined the new powers conferred on EU envoys by the Lisbon Treaty while taking up his post in Washington. In a series of interviews to US-based press on Tuesday (10 August), the ambassador noted that he is empowered to speak on behalf of EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy, EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso and EU member states.
Read article at euobserver.com
Comment: Whilst Joao Vale de Almeida and the Brussels EU elite may pretend they are representing the interests of European citizens, it is becoming increasingly clear that EU countries are less than comfortable with the new division of power that has been created under the EU’s Lisbon Treaty. The following comment from the above article, by an unnamed veteran EU diplomat, is particularly notable in this respect: "What you see in the big emerging countries and in the US, is that each [EU] country defends its privileged relationship. When you talk to the Chinese or to the Indians they say: 'Yes, we have this EU summit once a year. But for the rest of the time, each of your countries comes and says the EU is not important'."

August 6, 2010

Google accused of betraying internet golden rule in net neutrality row
Google, the internet giant, has been accused of betraying one of the most widely accepted "laws" of the internet called net neutrality; the principle that everyone has equal access. The firm has admitted that it has been in talks with the US communications provider Verizon and even agreed an outline plan on how internet traffic should be carried over networks. However, many have already voiced fears that if the plan becomes public, it could serve as a blueprint for how to carve up the internet and sell the best performance to the highest bidder.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: Internet freedom advocates have described this plan as the "doomsday scenario" that "marks the beginning of the end of the internet as you know it". In short, the Google/Verizon pact potentially sets the stage for a corporate takeover of the Internet that could, in future, restrict your freedom to learn about cutting-edge research in natural health, the pharmaceutical business with disease and the Nazi roots of the Brussels EU. To learn about the campaign to protect internet freedom and net neutrality, click here.

August 4, 2010

Blair must be arrested
Having helped destroy other nations far away, our former prime minister — “peace envoy” to the Middle East — is now free to profit from the useful contacts he made while working as a “servant of the people”. Tony Blair must be prosecuted, not indulged like Peter Mandelson. Both have produced self-serving memoirs for which they have been paid fortunes; Blair's, which has earned him a £4.6m advance, will appear next month. Now consider the Proceeds of Crime Act. Blair conspired in and executed an unprovoked war of aggression against a defenceless country, of a kind the Nuremberg judges in 1946 described as the "paramount war crime". This has caused, according to scholarly studies, the deaths of more than a million people, a figure that exceeds the Fordham University estimate of deaths in the Rwandan genocide. In addition, four million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes and a majority of children have descended into malnutrition and trauma.
Read article by John Pilger in the New Statesman magazine (UK)
Comment: We share the sentiments of John Pilger on this issue and continue to call for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be held responsible for war crimes in Iraq. To read about the Complaint we submitted to the International Criminal Court in 2003, charging Blair and others with causing injury to and the death of millions of people through the ‘business with disease’, war crimes and other crimes against humanity, click here.

July 30, 2010

UK former deputy PM doubted Iraq WMD intelligence
Britain's deputy prime minister at the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq said on Friday he had doubts about intelligence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, describing some of it as "tittle tattle." John Prescott, who was deputy to Tony Blair during his entire tenure in power, said he thought the intelligence on WMD prior to the war was not "very substantial." Prescott also told an inquiry in London into Britain's role in the conflict that the government's top lawyer had come under great pressure to say whether military action was legal and had not been "a happy bunny."
Read news report at reuters.com

July 27, 2010

Iraq inquiry: Former UN inspector Blix says war illegal
The UN's former chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has said it is his "firm view" that the Iraq war was illegal.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)

July 15, 2010

EU to be given prominent UN role
The EU is to be given similar rights and powers to a fully fledged nation state in the United Nations general assembly. The proposals, following the introduction of the Lisbon Treaty and an increase in foreign policy power, will mean that Europe's desk will be moved from the margins, where it sits with organisations such as Nato's parliamentary body, near to the centre of the UN's assembly chamber. Baroness Ashton, the EU foreign minister or "High Representative", will be given a special seat alongside a new European UN ambassador with "the right to speak in a timely manner, the right of reply, the right to circulate documents, the right to make proposals and submit amendments (and) the right to raise points of order".
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: If the Oil and Drug Cartel that controls the Brussels EU gets its way, this latest development will become a stepping stone towards the cementing of its economic and political conquest of the world. Significantly, therefore, long before the Lisbon Treaty had even been drafted, the Cartel was already trying to export the political construct of the Brussels EU worldwide as a model to expand its control over other continents. As a result, for example, the architects of the African Union (AU) have not hidden the fact that the AU is being modeled on the European Union – with almost identical institutional structures, including a so-called “AU Commission.” Likewise, in 2009, leaders of East Asian countries announced that they had laid the groundwork for an EU-style bloc that will cover half the world’s population. These plans echoed similar proposals outlined by Australian prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2008.

July 7, 2010

New EU mass surveillance project revealed
Statewatch, the civil liberties body that monitors the EU, has gained access to Council of Ministers Conclusions that reveal that Brussels now wants law enforcement agencies in its member countries to build lists of political activists as part of a 'systematic data collection'. Those responsible in the member countries for acquiring the information on 'agents of radicalisation' have been sent by the EU a 'data compilation instrument' that includes a list of 70 questions they are requested to answer. This involves discovering who the targeted activists socialise with, family members, psychological traits, religious affiliation, activities, economic status, and, very revealingly, 'oral comments' - presumably ascertained through phone taps - they have made on political issues (Guardian, June 8, 2010).
Read blog entry by Marc Glendening on the Democracy Movement website (UK)

July 7, 2010

So Much for the European Project
Europe was supposed to have arrived. With the final approval of the Lisbon Treaty last year, the European Union sported a new, consolidated government. Europe's political elite believed it had answered Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's derisive question: what is the phone number for Europe? But continental politics remains chaotic and European nations are tottering economically. The European Union's future is now at risk. The question no longer is whether the EU can match the United States, but whether it can survive.
Read article by Doug Bandow in the American Spectator (USA)

June 30, 2010

Iraq inquiry: secret documents showing Tony Blair’s frustration published
Tony Blair’s irritation and frustration at being told that going to war in Iraq would be illegal have been made public with the unprecedented release of top secret Government documents. On one note, written six weeks before the March 2003 invasion, the then-prime minister scrawled “I just do not understand this” alongside a warning from Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, that military force would be illegal without a fresh United Nations resolution.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

June 30, 2010

Diplomat questions Blair's handling of Bush in runup to Iraq war
Lord Jay tells Chilcot inquiry Tony Blair gave commitments to US president about British involvement
Britain's senior diplomat at the time of the Iraq war has questioned how Tony Blair conducted his dealings with the then US president, George W Bush, in the runup to the conflict, during this morning's session at the Chilcot inquiry in central London. Lord Jay of Ewelme, who was head of the Foreign Office as permanent secretary there between 2002 and 2006, told the inquiry that the former prime minister gave commitments about Britain's support for the war in advance that he would not have given himself. His evidence also disclosed that there was internal debate and conflict within the Foreign Office about the legality of the war and that its senior legal advisers were strongly opposed to the conflict without a second UN resolution.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)

June 29, 2010

Most Germans want to ditch the euro
A majority of Germans wants to scrap the euro and bring back the old currency, the deutschemark, according to a new poll published on Tuesday.
Read AFP news report in the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)

June 29, 2010

Britain's Iraq War Inquiry Resumes
Britain's Iraq war inquiry began again on Tuesday after suspending its hearings for the country's general elections. Former U.N. inspector Hans Blix is among those called to appear before the five-member panel in the coming weeks.
Read article on the Voice of America news website (USA)

June 29, 2010

Sir John Chilcot asks lawyers: Was Iraq war legal?
An official verdict on the legality of the Iraq war crept closer today after the Chilcot inquiry called for international lawyers to submit their views on the conflict. Resuming public hearings after a break for the general election, Iraq Inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot issued an “open invitation” to legal experts to give their judgments on the US-UK invasion in 2003.
Read article in the London Evening Standard (UK)
Comment: Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General at the time of the US-UK invasion of Iraq, openly stated in 2004 that it was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter. We share this opinion and continue to call for former U.S. President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be held responsible for the deaths of more than one million people in Iraq and put on trial for genocide and other crimes against humanity.

June 18, 2010

Medvedev Says He ‘Cannot Rule Out’ Collapse of Euro
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says he can’t rule out the collapse of the euro as the European Union struggles to contain the sovereign debt crisis.
Read article at businessweek.com

June 14, 2010

EU instrument for spying on 'radicals' causes outrage
Civil rights watchdogs and MEPs have attacked new EU plans to gather data on people who voice or share "radical messages" in a bid to pre-empt terrorist attacks.
Read article at euobserver.com
Comment: Operating outside the basic principles of freedom and democracy, the Brussels EU – by definition – is a dictatorship. The power of the people to determine their government has been transferred to corporate interests. For anybody who is still in any doubt as to the Brussels EU’s real intentions, click here for an analysis of the truth behind some of its claims.

June 10, 2010

Former Nuremberg prosecutor chides U.S., China, Russia
Kampala, Uganda -- One of the attorneys who prosecuted Nazi war criminals at the end of World War II cautioned the United States, Russia and China on Wednesday over their opposition to the final inclusion of "crimes of aggression" in the mandate for the International Criminal Court. "Crimes of aggression" were initially included in the court's Rome Statute of 1998, but unlike the other three crimes put under the tribunal's jurisdiction -- genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes -- crimes of aggression were not defined and jurisdictional conditions were not set. A review conference, which began May 31 in Kampala and continues through Friday, hopes to accept a proposal that will finally give the court what it needs to try cases of crimes against aggression. But the United States, Russia and China have balked. "A country should not commit crimes for its own benefit thinking no one will question it," said Benjamin Ferencz, a former chief prosecutor during the 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal that brought top Nazi war officials to justice. "This is the time all nations in the world should come in full support of the crime of aggression to be part of crimes tried by ICC so that we put to past impunity and open a new chapter to accountability," he said.
Read article at cnn.com
Comment: CNN reports that a total of 33 African nations now want former U.S. President George W. Bush and his close ally former British Prime Minister Tony Blair prosecuted for their invasion of Iraq in 2002. In particular, attorneys for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir are urging the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, to indict Bush and Blair for lying to the world regarding the existence of weapons of mass destruction to support the invasion.

June 10, 2010

The future's bright, the future's orange?
The winning party in the Dutch elections, the VVD, has some interesting things to say about the EU on its website. Its leader, Mark Rutte, is favourite to become the country's new PM and may prove to be an interesting ally for EU reformers, depending on how much the VVD's rhetoric is watered down by coalition arrangements. The party's website reads: The VVD doesn’t want a "European superstate". We want a Europe that functions. Therefore, we don’t need a Constitution, but an EU which limits itself to its core tasks and offers solutions for the 21st century. The solutions of the former century were about agriculture and regional subsidies. In this century it is about climate and energy, asylum and migration flows and fighting terrorism. Therefore we need to go back to what we have: the current Treaties (the Treaty of Nice).
Read article on the Open Europe blog (UK)

June 10, 2010

World Bank sees 'double-dip' recession for parts of Europe
A double-dip recession is possible in several European countries if investors lose faith in efforts to control debt, the World Bank said on Thursday. Government finances in high-income countries in Europe, France, the US and the UK are currently on an “unsustainable path,” said Andrew Burns, the World Bank’s manager of global macroeconomics.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

June 8, 2010

UK monitors suspected radicals as part of European surveillance project
Police keep tabs on activists from across the political spectrum, documents obtained by EU civil liberties NGO reveal
The UK is taking part in a European surveillance programme which is designed to gather personal information about suspected "radicals" from across the political spectrum. Confidential documents reveal how an initiative to gather data on "radicalisation and recruitment" in Islamic terrorist groups has been expanded to incorporate other organisations. Political activists who have no association with terrorism could now find themselves monitored by authorities mandated to discover information about their friends, family, neighbours, political beliefs, use of the internet and even psychological traits.
Read article in The Guardian (UK)
Comment: For further information on the rise of the EU’s surveillance state, click here.

June 8, 2010

MEPs back web search history plan
More than 300 European MEPs are backing a plan that would force search engines such as Google to store details of web searches for up to two years. Two MEPs drew up the plan to help authorities develop an "early warning system" against paedophiles and sex offenders who were using the internet. However, civil liberties groups immediately criticised the proposals, which would represent a major increase in the monitoring of online activity.
Read article in The Independent (UK)

May 26, 2010

Ordinary people were misled over impact of the euro, says Herman Van Rompuy
Europe's "man in the street" was misled for years over the vast political and economic implications of the creation of "Euroland", Herman Van Rompuy has admitted. The EU's president told a selected audience of civil servants and businessmen that the Greek debt crisis and euro zone bailout had come as a nasty shock to ordinary Europeans. He said the public was not made aware of the full social and economic implications of the currency before it was created.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

May 24, 2010

Babies' DNA In Secret Vaults
Blood samples from millions of newborn babies are being stored without their parents’ knowledge, it emerged yesterday. The massive DNA files can be consulted by a range of organisations including the police, coroners and medical researchers, without having to ask the children’s families. In a sinister example of Britain’s slide into a Big Brother society, hospitals have admitted storing the blood samples of four million newborns during routine heel-prick tests.
Read article in the Daily Express (UK)

May 21, 2010

Merkel and Cameron disagree on EU treaty change
UK Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday (21 May) rejected the the idea of a new EU treaty change to accommodate German chancellor Angela Merkel's vision of stronger economic co-ordination in the EU. "There is no question of agreeing to a treaty that transfers powers from Westminster to Brussels. Britain is obviously not in the eurozone and is not going to be joining, so it wouldn't agree to any treaty that drew us further into the euro area," Mr Cameron said on Friday (21 May) during a joint press conference with Ms Merkel in Berlin.
Read article at euobserver.com

May 20, 2010

German action on euro crisis could trigger EU referendum in Britain
Demand for new single currency rules raises possibility of Lisbon Treaty being renegotiated
Germany today stepped up its rhetoric against financial markets, throwing its weight behind a global tax on bank transactions and proposing a radical shift in the rules governing the single currency by insisting struggling eurozone countries be allowed to restructure their debt. Following Greece's debt emergency and with the euro in the throes of its worst crisis of confidence, Berlin also tabled a nine-point plan rewriting the euro regime to include legally enshrined budget deficit ceilings in all 16 member countries. The German demands, in a finance ministry paper obtained by the Guardian, could require the EU's Lisbon Treaty to be renegotiated, presenting David Cameron with a dilemma over whether this would trigger an EU referendum in Britain.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)

May 20, 2010

Cannes hears call for ‘war criminals’ Bush, Blair to face trial
CANNES, France — Director Ken Loach, in Cannes with his Iraq war film, called Thursday for the "war criminals" George W. Bush and Tony Blair to be tried for launching the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. "We have to keep pursuing Blair, Bush and the others until we have them in the dock," he said as he arrived for a red carpet premiere of his film "Route Irish" which is in the running for the festival's Palme d'Or top prize. "It's certainly true that the people who started the war, who are war criminals, have not been called to account," said Loach, whose new work probes the murky world of private security contractors in Iraq.
Read article on the Raw Story website (USA)

May 14, 2010

Ex-commissioners face conflict of interest accusations
Transparency International, an international NGO which fights corruption, expressed "strong concern" after four former commissioners in the Barroso I executive had accepted positions in the private sector. A fierce integrity debate flared up when Benita Ferrero-Waldner of Austria, who held the external relations portfolio in the Barroso I Commission, Germany's Günter Verheugen (enterprise and industry), Ireland's Charlie McCreevy (internal market) and Bulgaria's Meglena Kuneva (consumer protection), assumed corporate jobs.
Read article at euractiv.com
Comment: To read the Transparency International press release, click here.

May 12, 2010

Estonia’s Adoption of Euro Advances, Despite Concerns From Central Bank
FRANKFURT — The European Commission on Wednesday recommended that Estonia be allowed to adopt the euro next year despite a critical report from the European Central Bank. The divergent views evoked a similar split a decade ago over Greece’s readiness to join the euro zone, which is now struggling with a sovereign debt crisis set off by Greece.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

May 6, 2010

Several EU member states 'on brink of financial meltdown'
Senior Spanish MEP Alejo Vidal-Quadras has said that not only Greece but other member states are "on the brink" of financial meltdown. Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, Vidal-Quadras said the EU faced "the biggest challenge" in its history. The Spanish centre-right deputy said, "We are on the brink of the abyss.”
Read article at theparliament.com

May 3, 2010

Huge National Debts Could Push Euro Zone into Bankruptcy
Greece is only the beginning. The world's leading economies have long lived beyond their means, and the financial crisis caused government debt to swell dramatically. Now the bill is coming due, but not all countries will be able to pay it.
Read article in Der Spiegel (Germany)

April 29, 2010

The Euro Trap
Not that long ago, European economists used to mock their American counterparts for having questioned the wisdom of Europe’s march to monetary union. “On the whole,” declared an article published just this past January, “the euro has, thus far, gone much better than many U.S. economists had predicted.” Oops. The article summarized the euro-skeptics’ views as having been: “It can’t happen, it’s a bad idea, it won’t last.” Well, it did happen, but right now it does seem to have been a bad idea for exactly the reasons the skeptics cited. And as for whether it will last — suddenly, that’s looking like an open question.
Read article by Paul Krugman in the New York Times (USA)

April 27, 2010

Belgium heading for elections as government collapses
Belgian King Albert II accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Yves Leterme's five-month-old government yesterday (26 April), plunging the country into a crisis as it prepares to assume the rotating presidency of the EU.
Read article at euractiv.com

April 22, 2010

European big business admits to lobbying Washington, but not Brussels
Many of Europe's biggest corporations are avoiding registering their lobbying activities in Brussels even as they admit to the scale of their operations in Washington where registration of lobbyists is required by law, according to a new study. As a result of the different registry frameworks between the two legislative capitals - in Brussels, the European Commission's lobby registry is a voluntary affair - European big business on the whole is able to make it appear that it is engaged in much more lobbying in Washington than in Brussels. This is the conclusion of a new study by lobbying watchdogs that analyses what the EU's 50 biggest corporations say they are spending on influencing policy.
Read article at euobserver.com
Comment: The ‘Brussels EU’ is controlled by corporate interests and it is now a matter of public record that multinational corporations have engaged in successful long-term lobbying strategies to shape European Union policy making in their favour. As a result of these activities, the EU’s risk assessment process has been rigged to benefit multi-trillion dollar business interests – especially those of the chemical, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries – at the expense of public health.

April 21, 2010

Google releases list of government censorship requests
Internet search giant Google has revealed that Brazil's government has made the most requests for information or censorship. However figures for China, which censors great swathes of online information, have not been revealed. Google could not include requests made by Beijing because the information is regarded as a state secret. Instead, Brazil tops the list, with 3,663 data requests between 1 July and 31 December 2009. The US made 3,580 and the UK came third with 1,166.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: To see Google’s list of government censorship requests, click here.

April 21, 2010

Citigroup says only ‘United States of Europe' will save euro
A Citigroup note to clients has warned that the eurozone is likely to fall apart unless the European Union's member states fuse both on the fiscal and political level. "Europe needs to stand up and decide if it is going to be a ‘United States of Europe' or a ‘patchwork quilt' of independent states," reads a note by Tom Fitzpatrick, chief technical analyst at Citigroup in New York, first seen by Bloomberg. The financial services firm, the largest in the world and one of America's big four banks, says that if such integration is not on the cards, the euro area is "doomed" even if the current Greek crisis is resolved.
Read article at euobserver.com
Comment: Fitzpatrick’s choice of words here are highly significant. Largely hidden from the people of Europe, a so-called “Action Committee for the United States of Europe” was founded by the wheeler-dealer Jean Monnet on 13 October 1955. The meetings of this clandestine committee began in January 1956 and were held in private. The ultimate goal, as stated at the committee’s inception, was “to arrive by concrete achievements at the United States of Europe.” Notably, therefore, the longest serving member of the committee’s Executive Committee was the German Kurt Georg Kiesinger, who sat on it between January 1956 and May 1965. Kiesinger had been a member of the Nazi Party during WWII and had worked in the Nazi Foreign Ministry's radio propaganda division. Playing a key role in the luring of Britain into the Brussels EU, meetings of the “Action Committee for the United States of Europe” were held throughout the 1960s and did not conclude until after 1973 when plans for the dictatorial ‘Brussels EU’ project were already well advanced. To learn more, read chapter 4 of ‘The Nazi Roots of the Brussels EU’.

April 15, 2010

A perfect symbol of the EU: the 18 MEPs who will claim full salaries and perks without taking their seats
Eighteen MEPs will, as predicted by this blog eleven months ago, start claiming full salaries and allowances without taking their seats.
Read Daniel Hannan's blog entry on the Daily Telegraph website (UK)

April 10, 2010

President Kaczynski is killed in a plane crash: Poland's tragedies continue
Poland has suffered more than is any country’s right. Its story is one of repeated occupations, partitions and tyrannies. Seventy years ago, almost to the day, 21,768 Polish army officers, intellectuals and senior civil servants were murdered by the Soviet NKVD in the forest near Katyn: an attempt by Stalin to decapitate Poland by liquidating its elite. For years, the crime went unacknowledged: Western governments, reluctant to face up to the reality of the regime to which they had allied themselves, went along with the pretence that the massacre had been carried out by the Nazis. This morning, a few miles from Katyn, another decapitation occurred. A Russian plane crashed near Smolensk, carrying the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, and dozens of senior Polish officials.
Read Daniel Hannan's blog entry on the Daily Telegraph website (UK)
Comment: President Kaczynski was one of only two EU leaders who bravely stood up for democracy and delayed signing the Lisbon Treaty – the Brussels EU ‘Enabling Act’ – for as long as possible. Following Ireland’s voting ‘No’ in a referendum on the treaty in June 2008, Kaczynski spoke out publicly and stated that he could not accept attempts by other EU states to bully Ireland into approving it. A courageous opponent of the Brussels EU dictatorship, both Poland and Europe will be the worse without him.

April 8, 2010

US and Russian leaders hail nuclear arms treaty
US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, have signed a landmark nuclear arms treaty in the Czech capital, Prague. The treaty commits the former Cold War enemies to each reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 - 30% lower than the previous ceiling. Mr Obama said it was a key milestone, but only the "first step on a longer journey" of nuclear disarmament. Mr Medvedev said the deal would create safer conditions throughout the world. If ratified by lawmakers in both countries, the treaty will replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) of 1991, which expired in December.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)

April 7, 2010

New survey says NGOs continue to be most trusted institutions
A new survey says that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) continue to be the most trusted institutions in Europe. The poll, of almost 5000 people in 22 countries, says that NGOs command trust among 62 per cent of the public – higher than the figures for business, government or the media. Of the four, public trust in the media is the lowest, according to the survey.
Read article at theparliament.com

April 4, 2010

Airline passenger conversations to be monitored under EU project
Airline passengers could have their conversations and movements monitored under a European Union project aimed at tackling terrorism.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

March 23, 2010

Journalist accuses Tony Blair of 'war crimes'
Irish journalist David Cronin has told of his decision to try to make a "citizen's arrest" on former UK prime minster Tony Blair. The 39-year-old Dubliner attempted a citizen's arrest on Blair as he arrived at parliament on Monday for a hearing on Palestine.
Read article at theparliament.com

March 23, 2010

Buzek suggests electing EU commissioners
Jerzy Buzek, the Polish president of the European Parliament, has suggested that future EU commissioners should compete in Europe-wide elections to get a "democratic mandate".
Read article at euractiv.com
Comment: All modern democracies around the world have one principle in common: their power derives from the people. However, this is not so with the “Brussels EU”. The “government” of this construct – the 27-member EU Commission – is appointed on behalf of corporate interests. No man or woman in Europe today has the right to vote for it or to terminate its rule. As such, the “Brussels EU” is undeniably a dictatorship. To learn the facts about the “Brussels EU”, click here.

March 20, 2010

Germany admits it had Nazi spies after WW2
The German spy service has admitted that it employed about 200 former Nazi criminals for at least 15 years after the end of World War Two. Some had been involved in massacres in Poland and Russia, others were Gestapo torturers; all found a berth in the West German intelligence service.
Read article in the Irish Independent (Ireland)

March 18, 2010

EU firms 'exporting torture equipment', Amnesty says
Euro MPs have heard claims that EU companies are exporting equipment used for torture despite legislation aimed at preventing such trade. Amnesty International has published a report detailing the claims, and was briefing the European Parliament's Sub-Committee on Human Rights. The equipment includes thumb-cuffs and devices that give electric shocks. Amnesty said firms from Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain and Italy were among those trading the items.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)

March 11, 2010

France accused of 'dragging its heels' on nuclear disarmament
France has been lambasted for "dragging its heels" in committing to nuclear disarmament issues. Gareth Evans, co-chairman of the International Commission on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, said Paris "appears determined not to commit to a nuclear-free world." Calling on the French to give a "clear commitment" to disarmament, the former Australian foreign minister said that failure to reach international agreement on such issues could have "serious" political ramifications.
Read article at theparliament.com
Comment: In order to protect its multi-billion euro global markets, the Oil and Drug cartel must not only eliminate any internal resistance within Europe. It must also take decisive action to defend its global investment markets around the world. Significantly, therefore, the leading export nations of the Cartel are also the leading military and nuclear powers in Europe, whose governments – including France – are committed to defending its interests at any price.

February 27, 2010

Wads of cash and free ski trips on the EU gravy train
Campaigners last night stepped up demands for a crackdown on the European Union gravy train after new revelations emerged about how ­taxpayers’ money is routinely squandered. Astonishing new details about Euro MPs’ expenses included hundreds of pounds handed out in brown envelopes to their visitors to cover food and travel with no receipts needed.
Read article in the Daily Express (UK)

February 27, 2010

Silvio Berlusconi 'avoiding justice', demonstrators say
Ten of thousands of Italians have demonstrated in Rome against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, over what they say are attempts to evade justice. Mr Berlusconi is on trial in two corruption cases. But legislation being discussed in parliament would in effect stop him going to court. The protesters accuse the PM of seeking to undermine the legal system.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)

February 25, 2010

Greece wants Nazi gold returned as 50,000 strikers take to streets
Greece has touched Germany's rawest nerve by accusing the EU powerhouse of not fully compensating it for gold stolen by the Nazis during the Second World War. The incendiary comments came as some 50,000 Greeks took to the streets of Athens to protest over austerity plans aimed at wrenching the country out of a debt crisis that has shaken the eurozone.
Read article in The Scotsman (Scotland/UK)

February 22, 2010

Dutch to pull troops out of Aghanistan following government collapse
Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende said on Sunday (22 February) that his country's troops are likely to be pulled out of Afghanistan by the end of this year, a move he said may prompt other wavering states - including EU members - to think about doing the same. "If nothing else will take its place, then it ends," Mr Balkenende told Buitenhof, a domestic current affairs television programme, reports Reuters. The centre-right leader was speaking a day after his government collapsed over the issue. The Labour Party quit the the coalition on Saturday, saying it could not agree to a Nato request to extend the Dutch mission beyond 2010. The Netherlands is among the top ten contributors to Afghanistan. Twenty-one of its soldiers have been killed there. Currently, there are around 2000 Dutch troops the dangerous Afghan province of Uruzgan. They are due to start leaving the country in August.
Read article at euobserver.com

February 14, 2010

MEP’s spending spree forces paybacks, but the names are being kept secret
Concerns are mounting that the EU could soon face an expenses scandal that could dwarf the ongoing saga of British MPs, that caused widespread public outrage, leading some British lawmakers to go into hiding. It was recently discovered that undisclosed MEPs had repaid more than €3.4 million in “wrongly claimed” expenses. European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek is refusing to disclose the identities of the errant members, according to the Daily Telegraph, who have seen a letter where he says that: “Such delicate and sensitive matters must be treated with the utmost caution – avoiding undue haste that can unnecessarily and unjustly cause irreparable harm to members’ reputations.” It is being asked why the European Parliament, with its commitment to transparency, seeks to shield these members. Mats Persson, the director of the Open Europe think tank, said: “If the European Parliament was serious about cleaning up its act it would name and shame the MEPs who have misused their allowances and conned the taxpayer, just as the UK Parliament is currently doing.”
Read article on the New Europe website

February 10, 2010

EU President's secret bid for economic power
The new President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, is using the financial crisis sweeping the eurozone to launch an audacious grab for power over national budgets, leaked documents reveal.
Read article in The Independent (UK)

February 10, 2010

Secret papers could contradict Iraq evidence: Chilcot
Tens of thousands of secret documents could contradict evidence given by members of the Blair government to the inquiry into the Iraq war, its chairman, Sir John Chilcot, has suggested as the former prime minister lashed out at the hunt for a ''scandal'' and a ''conspiracy'' over his controversial decision to back the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Sir John disclosed that the panel was examining far more documents than previously thought. He said the papers would form the core of the inquiry and show ''what really went on'' in the build-up to the start of the conflict. He said that the inquiry team would examine the documents ''over the next few months'', adding: ''That will enable us to see where the evidence joins together and where there are gaps.''
Read article in the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)

February 8, 2010

German minister calls for Lisbon treaty EU army
German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle has called for the EU to proceed with plans for a European army under the Lisbon Treaty, which he dubbed “the beginning and not the end” of a common security and defence policy.
Read article in the Irish Times
Comment: The assurance given to Ireland prior to its second vote on the Lisbon Treaty, in October 2009 – that its traditional military neutrality would not be compromised by voting “Yes” – was entirely worthless. For, despite all the claims to the contrary, not one single word of the treaty had been changed since Ireland voted “No” in its first referendum in June 2008. Moreover, any hope for a potential democratic process within the EU about a decision to go to war – or even veto it – are an illusion. The leading export nations of the Oil and Drug Cartel are also the leading military and nuclear powers in Europe. Their governments are committed to defending the interests of the Cartel at any price.

February 7, 2010

Russia should consider joining the EU and NATO, says Medvedev’s institute
According to a paper released on 3 February by the Institute of Contemporary Development (INSOR), a think tank headed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia will join NATO and the EU, reduce its military, reintroduce gubernatorial elections and four-year presidential terms and disband its Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service, news agencies reported.
Read article on the New Europe website

February 6, 2010

Memo 'shows Blair Iraq war deal with Bush'
The leader of Plaid Cymru's MPs has said he has a memo showing Tony Blair and George Bush struck a secret deal to invade Iraq a year before the 2003 war. Elfyn Llwyd told the BBC's Straight Talk he had written to Iraq Inquiry chair Sir John Chilcot to say he would be prepared to hand the document over. He said the memo, which is marked "Top Secret and Confidential" contradicted statements made by Mr Blair. Mr Blair previously told the inquiry he made no "covert" deal with Mr Bush.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)

February 6, 2010

Blix: Straw 'gave incorrect answers' to Iraq inquiry
Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw gave some incorrect answers to the UK's Iraq war inquiry, former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has said. Mr Blix told the BBC he was "puzzled" by some of the evidence that Mr Straw gave to the panel. He said that Mr Straw had been incorrect to suggest, in 2002, that UN weapons inspectors were not being allowed access to certain sites.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)

February 5, 2010

Damning report hits out at EP expenditure
A damning report by a member of the European Parliament's own budgetary control committee is set to question the very fundamentals of the institution's budgetary discharge procedure, with its author coming under considerable pressure from the institutions's bureau as a result. Still in the process of being finalised, the report's rapporteur - Belgian Green MEP Bart Staes - told EUobserver the document ultimately asks one simple question: Is it correct that parliament should sign off on its own accounts? While the council of ministers, representing member states, also has to approve parliament's expenditure, a gentleman's agreement means scrutiny is kept to a bare minimum.
Read article at euobserver.com

February 3, 2010

US blames Lisbon Treaty for EU summit fiasco
The US State Department has said that President Barack Obama's decision not to come to an EU summit in Madrid in May is partly due to confusion arising from the Lisbon Treaty. State department spokesman Philip J. Crowley told press in Washington on Tuesday (2 February) that the treaty has made it unclear who the US leader should meet and when. "Up until recently, they [summits] would occur on six-month intervals, as I recall, with one meeting in Europe and one meeting here. And that was part of – the foundation of that was the rotating presidency within the EU. Now you have a new structure regarding not only the rotating EU presidency, you've got an EU Council president, you've got a European Commission president," he said.
Read article at euobserver.com
Comment: As a result of the Lisbon Treaty, the ‘Brussels EU’ now has a total of four presidents: the rotating EU presidency (currently held by Spain); the EU Council president (Herman Van Rompuy); the European Commission president (José Manuel Barroso); and the European Parliament president (Jerzy Buzek). So who’s really in charge? To learn the facts about the ‘Brussels EU’, click here.

February 2, 2010

Iraq to sue U.S., Britain over depleted uranium bombs
Iraq's Ministry for Human Rights will file a lawsuit against Britain and the U.S. over their use of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq, an Iraqi minister says. Iraq's Minister of Human Rights, Wijdan Mikhail Salim, told Assabah newspaper that the lawsuit will be launched based on reports from the Iraqi ministries of science and the environment. According to the reports, during the first year of the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq, both countries had repeatedly used bombs containing depleted uranium. According to Iraqi military experts, the U.S. and Britain bombed the country with nearly 2,000 tons of depleted uranium bombs during the early years of the Iraq war. Atomic radiation has increased the number of babies born with defects in the southern provinces of Iraq. Iraqi doctors say they' have been struggling to cope with the rise in the number of cancer cases -- especially in cities subjected to heavy U.S. and British bombardment.
Read article in the Tehran Times (Iran)

February 2, 2010

Iraq inquiry: Tony Blair ‘lied’ and misled Parliament, claims Clare Short
Tony Blair 'lied' to his Cabinet and misled Parliament over the war in Iraq, Clare Short, the former international development secretary has said. Giving evidence before the Chilcot Committee into the war, she repeatedly accused the former prime minister of personally “misleading” and “conning” her, and of being “deceitful” with Cabinet, Parliament, and the public. Miss Short claimed that Mr Blair broke the ministerial code by misleading Parliament, and accused Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general who gave the “green light” to war, of failing to tell the Cabinet the truth of his reservations about the legality of an invasion.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

January 30, 2010

Chilcot War Inquiry: Professor to launch 'Nuremberg' war crimes prosecution against Blair
Plans to bring a war crimes prosecution against Tony Blair based on last week’s bombshell evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry have been launched by a leading law professor. The move could see Mr Blair follow former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic into a dock in The Hague. Professor Bill Bowring says the revelation that the Government rejected Foreign Office warnings not to invade Iraq means there is a good chance Mr Blair can be ‘investigated, at the very least’ for war crimes.
Read article in the Daily Mail (UK)

January 30, 2010

Tony Blair accused of putting war with Iran on the electoral agenda
Former prime minister slammed for trying to shift focus onto threat from Tehran during appearance at Chilcot inquiry
Tony Blair has been accused of warmongering spin for claiming that western powers might be forced to invade Iran because it poses as serious a threat as Saddam Hussein. Sir Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Iran, accused Blair of trying to make confrontation with Iran an electoral issue after the former prime minister repeatedly singled out its Islamic regime as a global threat in his evidence to the Iraq war inquiry yesterday. Blair said many of the arguments that led him to confront the "profoundly wicked, almost psychopathic" Saddam Hussein seven years ago now applied to the regime in Tehran.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)

January 29, 2010

Ridiculously Generous
MEPs on the European Parliament's Budget Committee voted on Wednesday to award themselves an extra €1,500 and to hire an additional 150 staff. MEPs say they're in desperate need of more money because the Lisbon Treaty is now in force which means more work for them. In total, MEPs can already cash in on some £360,000 year in pay and allowances. For most people this seems like an incredibly generous amount - but not for the MEPs themselves apparently. The increase will cost taxpayers an extra €13.3 million a year and send the EP's total annual budget past the €1.6 billion mark.
Read blog entry on the Open Europe blog at blogspot.com

January 29, 2010

Bush decided UN backing not necessary, says Blair
United Nations backing for the Iraq war would have made "life a lot easier", Tony Blair said today. But the former prime minister said US President George Bush decided the UN Security Council's support "wasn't necessary".
Read article in the Independent (UK)

January 29, 2010

Protesters call for Blair to face war crimes charges
In the shadow of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and surrounded in all directions by monuments to the British establishment, protesters called Friday for Tony Blair to face war crimes charges as the former prime minister gave evidence to the Iraq inquiry. "Blair lied, thousands died!" and "Tony Blair! War criminal!" chanted the few hundred who had gathered under gray and damp early morning skies, separated from the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre by chain-link fencing and dozens of police officers. Some protesters donned rubber Blair masks and posed behind bars, their hands covered in theatrical blood representing those killed during the war in Iraq. Many said they wanted to see Blair put on trial at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Read article at cnn.com

January 23, 2010

David Kelly post mortem to be kept secret for 70 years as doctors accuse Lord Hutton of concealing vital information
Vital evidence which could solve the mystery of the death of Government weapons inspector Dr David Kelly will be kept under wraps for up to 70 years. In a draconian – and highly unusual – order, Lord Hutton, the peer who chaired the controversial inquiry into the Dr Kelly scandal, has secretly barred the release of all medical records, including the results of the post mortem, and unpublished evidence. The move, which will stoke fresh speculation about the true circumstances of Dr Kelly’s death, comes just days before Tony Blair appears before the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War. It is also bound to revive claims of an establishment cover-up and fresh questions about the verdict that Dr Kelly killed himself.
Read article in the Daily Mail (UK)
Comment: Dr David Kelly died days after being exposed as the source of a controversial BBC story on the Iraq war, which alleged that evidence against Iraq had been "sexed up" by the British Government in order to justify the 2003 invasion. Some reports suggest that Dr Kelly, 59, had been writing a book exposing highly damaging government secrets before his mysterious death. Significantly, therefore, convinced that the original verdict of suicide is unsafe and should be overturned, six senior doctors have recently begun legal action in an attempt to force a new inquest into Kelly’s death.

January 21, 2010

EU commission 'embassies' granted new powers
The EU has converted 54 out of the European Commission's 136 foreign delegations into embassy-type missions authorised to speak for the entire union. The move follows the coming into force last year of the Lisbon Treaty, which has the creation of a new EU diplomatic corps as one of its main provisions. All 136 commission delegations were renamed "EU delegations" on 1 January. But only the 54 placements were at the same time quietly given fresh powers in line with their new names.
Read article at euobserver.com

January 21, 2010

Klaus, Kaczynski say Lisbon should not enhance EU centralisation
Prague - The Lisbon Treaty should not open path to radical unification and centralisation of the EU, the Czech and Polish presidents, Vaclav Klaus and Lech Kaczynski, agreed at their meeting in Prague today, they told reporters. They said the EU should remain an association of states, it should not transform into a superstate.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)

January 20, 2010

Kaczynski: Poland, CR should make EU more democratic
Poland and the Czech Republic should strive for the European Union to be more democratic, Polish President Lech Kaczynski told CTK yesterday ahead of his state visit to Prague starting on Thursday. "The aristocratic republic which the European Union is should be a little bit democratised," Kaczynski said. He said mainly Germany and France, which Britain joins from time to time, make decisions on what is going on in the EU 27. "Real decision-making should be further developed," he said.
Read article at praguemonitor.com (Czech Republic)

January 13, 2009

Iraq Inquiry: Lord Goldsmith 'materially' changed legal advice in days before war
Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, "materially" changed his advice on the legality of military action against Saddam Hussein in the final days before the 2003 invasion, the Iraq war Inquiry has been told. Lord Turnbull, who was the Cabinet Secretary at the time, said there were important differences between the final legal opinion Lord Goldsmith presented to the Cabinet and an earlier version he gave privately to Tony Blair.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

January 13, 2010

Big tobacco distorted EU treaty, scientists say
One of the biggest tobacco manufacturers in the world led a group of chemical, food, oil, pharmaceutical and other firms in a successful long-term lobbying strategy to shape European Union policy making in their favour, a new study says. After trawling through some 700 internal documents from British American Tobacco (BAT), academics at the University of Bath and University of Edinburgh say they have found evidence that the cigarette giant in the mid-1990s teamed up with the European Policy Centre, the prominent Brussels think-tank, to create a front group to ensure that the EU framework for evaluating policy options emphasised business interests at the expense of public health. According to the study, published in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal and funded by the Smoke-Free Partnership and Cancer Research UK, BAT constructed a policy network of a series of major corporations, including Shell, Zeneca, Tesco, SmithKline Beecham, Bayer and Unilever, to mount a multi-year lobby campaign aiming at shaping the EU's impact assessment system.
Read article at euobserver.com

January 12, 2009

Dutch inquiry says Iraq war had no mandate
An inquiry into the Netherlands' support for the invasion of Iraq says it was not justified by UN resolutions. The Dutch Committee of Inquiry on Iraq said UN Security Council resolutions did not "constitute a mandate for... intervention in 2003". The inquiry was launched after foreign ministry memos were leaked that cast doubt on the legal basis for the war. The Netherlands gave political support to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but has denied having any military role. The report demolishes the Dutch case for supporting the invasion, says the BBC's Europe correspondent Jonny Dymond. It could also be taken to reinforce the international case against the Iraq war, he says.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)