*Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Europe risks again being sidelined, as in the final hours of the UN climate talks in December, unless the bloc speaks with one voice at future talks, the incoming climate commissioner warned on Friday (15 January). "There are very important lessons from Copenhagen. In the last hours, China, India, Russia, Japan each spoke with one voice, while Europe spoke with many different voices," Denmark's Connie Hedegaard, the presumptive new 'climate action' chief, told MEPs during her job hearing in the European Parliament....She also backed the EU's promise to upgrade its 20 percent carbon reduction target to 30 percent. "I very much hope that by Mexico of course we could go to 30 percent," she said, referring to the next UN climate conference at the end of 2010.By the end of the grilling, she had very clearly won over the chamber, with deputies joking with her about whether she would be taking a bicycle to work from now on."I go as often as I can by bike in Copenhagen ...but there are just not that many bike lanes in Belgium. I have to study the security situation, but my husband gave me a bike helmet for Christmas," Ms Hedegaard said.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Europe risks again being sidelined, as in the final hours of the UN climate talks in December, unless the bloc speaks with one voice at future talks, the incoming climate commissioner warned on Friday (15 January).
"There are very important lessons from Copenhagen. In the last hours, China, India, Russia, Japan each spoke with one voice, while Europe spoke with many different voices," Denmark's Connie Hedegaard, the presumptive new 'climate action' chief, told MEPs during her job hearing in the European Parliament.
...She also backed the EU's promise to upgrade its 20 percent carbon reduction target to 30 percent. "I very much hope that by Mexico of course we could go to 30 percent," she said, referring to the next UN climate conference at the end of 2010.
By the end of the grilling, she had very clearly won over the chamber, with deputies joking with her about whether she would be taking a bicycle to work from now on.
"I go as often as I can by bike in Copenhagen ...but there are just not that many bike lanes in Belgium. I have to study the security situation, but my husband gave me a bike helmet for Christmas," Ms Hedegaard said.
The problem was that China did not want to do anything, and the US did not want to do anything without China; the only pressure is that neither wanted to be seen as being the "official" obstacle, so they negotiated together a face-saving announcement.
The EU might have decided to take a tough line and say that this was not a real agreement of anything, refusing to sign, but it's not obvious that it would have helped prod negotiations any further. Right now there is widespread perception that nothing was achieved and negotiations must go on, and there is only one framework that exists to get something done: the one already set up by Europeans... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Dacian Ciolos was subject to EC hearings today, Friday, in the European Parliament, after being designated Agriculture Commissioner. During hearings, he supported the need to continue the direct payments' system, but on reformed criteria. He supports the second Common Agricultural Policy (PAC) pillar, because the agriculture is closely connected with the rural environment and believes that here are the solutions to develop agriculture in the new member states ant solutions to fund small farms. The hearing concluded in the applause of the participants.
The Bulgarian government is set to announce on Friday (15 January) that Ms Jeleva did not break Bulgarian law in failing to declare her stake in Global Consult, a privatisation firm, when she became an MEP in 2007, the New Europe newspaper reports A document signed by Bulgarian deputy justice minister, Lyudmila Petrova, and published by the paper on Thursday states that the Prevention and Exposure of Conflict of Interests Act only came into force on 1 January 2009, meaning that Ms Jeleva was under no obligation to disclose the information when she was elected. The EU parliament's legal services are currently studying other papers in the case ahead of the plenary session in Strasbourg next week. MEPs have also asked the EU commission to reveal if its internal audit of Ms Jeleva revealed any irregularities....Senior members of the Socialist group in the EU parliament have already begun to switch their focus from Ms Jeleva's financial declaration to the question of merit."Apart from the financial story, she had the weakest presentation, way below the necessary standards," Austrian centre-left MEP Hannes Swoboda said in the Wiener Zeitung newspaper on Friday."I fear that a second hearing will be worse than the first," the leader of the Socialist group, German MEP Martin Schulz, said on Thursday. "Her performance showed beyond doubt that she is incompetent."
The Bulgarian government is set to announce on Friday (15 January) that Ms Jeleva did not break Bulgarian law in failing to declare her stake in Global Consult, a privatisation firm, when she became an MEP in 2007, the New Europe newspaper reports
A document signed by Bulgarian deputy justice minister, Lyudmila Petrova, and published by the paper on Thursday states that the Prevention and Exposure of Conflict of Interests Act only came into force on 1 January 2009, meaning that Ms Jeleva was under no obligation to disclose the information when she was elected.
The EU parliament's legal services are currently studying other papers in the case ahead of the plenary session in Strasbourg next week. MEPs have also asked the EU commission to reveal if its internal audit of Ms Jeleva revealed any irregularities.
...Senior members of the Socialist group in the EU parliament have already begun to switch their focus from Ms Jeleva's financial declaration to the question of merit.
"Apart from the financial story, she had the weakest presentation, way below the necessary standards," Austrian centre-left MEP Hannes Swoboda said in the Wiener Zeitung newspaper on Friday.
"I fear that a second hearing will be worse than the first," the leader of the Socialist group, German MEP Martin Schulz, said on Thursday. "Her performance showed beyond doubt that she is incompetent."
Parliamentarians from across the political spectrum said they were disappointed by the Liberal Dutch politician's vague answers, apparent unwillingness to back pro-consumer lines on a number of issues and considerable knowledge gaps in key areas of the policy. UK Conservative MEP Malcolm Harbour criticised Ms Kroes for not showing enough ambition to tackle abuses in the telecoms market. "I thought you would be more challenging, given your reputation," he said, with others citing wishy-washy responses to questions on digital copyright law....The industry committee's political co-ordinators met after the three-hour grilling, with Austrian centre-right MEP Paul Rübig subsequently saying the panel had agreed to a second, closed-door meeting in Strasbourg next week to clarify her position on the key issues.
Parliamentarians from across the political spectrum said they were disappointed by the Liberal Dutch politician's vague answers, apparent unwillingness to back pro-consumer lines on a number of issues and considerable knowledge gaps in key areas of the policy.
UK Conservative MEP Malcolm Harbour criticised Ms Kroes for not showing enough ambition to tackle abuses in the telecoms market. "I thought you would be more challenging, given your reputation," he said, with others citing wishy-washy responses to questions on digital copyright law.
...The industry committee's political co-ordinators met after the three-hour grilling, with Austrian centre-right MEP Paul Rübig subsequently saying the panel had agreed to a second, closed-door meeting in Strasbourg next week to clarify her position on the key issues.
Britain should give up trying to punch above its weight internationally and stop routinely deploying troops to world trouble spots, the chairman of the parliamentary committee that oversees the intelligence services said yesterday. Kim Howells told The Independent that the succession of British deaths in Afghanistan proved the time had come to abandon the pretence that the UK could be at "the very, very sharp end" of United Nations military operations.Mr Howells, a former Foreign Office minister, called for a fundamental rethink of the nation's place on the world stage.
Britain should give up trying to punch above its weight internationally and stop routinely deploying troops to world trouble spots, the chairman of the parliamentary committee that oversees the intelligence services said yesterday.
Kim Howells told The Independent that the succession of British deaths in Afghanistan proved the time had come to abandon the pretence that the UK could be at "the very, very sharp end" of United Nations military operations.
Mr Howells, a former Foreign Office minister, called for a fundamental rethink of the nation's place on the world stage.
A BNP member who spent a decade building up a cache of weapons in a bedroom hideaway was jailed for 11 years today. Bus driver Terrance Gavan manufactured highly dangerous firearms and explosives at the home where he lived with his mother in Batley, West Yorkshire. Police discovered 54 improvised explosive devices including nail bombs and a booby-trapped cigarette packet at the address, as well as 12 firearms.
A BNP member who spent a decade building up a cache of weapons in a bedroom hideaway was jailed for 11 years today.
Bus driver Terrance Gavan manufactured highly dangerous firearms and explosives at the home where he lived with his mother in Batley, West Yorkshire.
Police discovered 54 improvised explosive devices including nail bombs and a booby-trapped cigarette packet at the address, as well as 12 firearms.
The German government's integration commissioner, Maria Boehmer proposed the initiative this week, saying it would ensure that the public service sector better mirrored the country's population. "In Germany, one in five residents has an immigrant background. It is, therefore, important that immigrants are appropriately represented in the public sector," Boehmer said in Berlin on Thursday. But Germans politicians - both from Boehmer's own conservative Christian Democratic Party (CDU) as well as from the center-left opposition - have opposed the measure. "A quota is not compatible with our constitutional and legal culture," Olaf Scholz, deputy head of the Social Democratic Party's (SPD) parliamentary group told daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. "The goal of having more immigrants in public service jobs is a good one - but a quota is inappropriate," he added.
The German government's integration commissioner, Maria Boehmer proposed the initiative this week, saying it would ensure that the public service sector better mirrored the country's population.
"In Germany, one in five residents has an immigrant background. It is, therefore, important that immigrants are appropriately represented in the public sector," Boehmer said in Berlin on Thursday.
But Germans politicians - both from Boehmer's own conservative Christian Democratic Party (CDU) as well as from the center-left opposition - have opposed the measure.
"A quota is not compatible with our constitutional and legal culture," Olaf Scholz, deputy head of the Social Democratic Party's (SPD) parliamentary group told daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.
"The goal of having more immigrants in public service jobs is a good one - but a quota is inappropriate," he added.
Pope Benedict XVI's planned visit to Rome's main synagogue on Sunday has sharply divided Italian Jews, with some angered by his moves to push World War II Pope Pius XII toward sainthood. Some Jews and historians have accused Pius of not doing enough to stop the Holocaust.
Pope Benedict XVI's planned visit to Rome's main synagogue on Sunday has sharply divided Italian Jews, with some angered by his moves to push World War II Pope Pius XII toward sainthood.
Some Jews and historians have accused Pius of not doing enough to stop the Holocaust.
The Casalese were brought to international attention thanks to Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah. Saviano was condemned to death by the Casalese and since lives under escort.
While the sentence has a strong symbolic sense, the Casalese continue to be the major criminal force at large in the Neapolitan area with strong roots throughout Italy and abroad. Two of the bosses condemned are still at large.
