Ad astra per aspera
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Despite an intensive lobbying effort on the part of European Jewish groups, the European Parliament has endorsed the Goldstone report, the UN's official investigation into the bombardment of the Gaza Strip in January 2009, a report that accuses Israel of war crimes and calls for the prosecution of Israeli officials in The Hague.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Wednesday (10 March) sought to draw a line under her stormy first 100 days in office by giving a wide-ranging speech to MEPs outlining her vision for future European foreign policy. The keenly-anticipated address emphasized the importance of the EU pulling together on foreign policy or facing the alternative of other powers - notably Asian powers - taking a leading role in world affairs instead.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Wednesday (10 March) sought to draw a line under her stormy first 100 days in office by giving a wide-ranging speech to MEPs outlining her vision for future European foreign policy.
The keenly-anticipated address emphasized the importance of the EU pulling together on foreign policy or facing the alternative of other powers - notably Asian powers - taking a leading role in world affairs instead.
Citing senior figures in the EU Parliament, German agency DPA reported that Commission president Barroso had attempted to have commissioner Piebalgs represent the commission during a symbolic address by EU top diplomat Ashton to MEPs on Wednesday. The commission said the report was "tittle tattle"
Speaking in front of the European Parliament in a debate on foreign policy on Wednesday, EU High Representative Catherine Ashton said Europe must do more to defend its interests and values on the global stage. "Europe's wider international credibility depends on getting our neighborhood right," Ashton told parliamentarians in Strasbourg, adding "if we pull together we can safeguard our interests. If not, others will make decisions for us." Ashton was referring to emerging global economic powers like China and India, which she said would lead to a decline in Europe's influence abroad if it continued on its current course.
Speaking in front of the European Parliament in a debate on foreign policy on Wednesday, EU High Representative Catherine Ashton said Europe must do more to defend its interests and values on the global stage.
"Europe's wider international credibility depends on getting our neighborhood right," Ashton told parliamentarians in Strasbourg, adding "if we pull together we can safeguard our interests. If not, others will make decisions for us."
Ashton was referring to emerging global economic powers like China and India, which she said would lead to a decline in Europe's influence abroad if it continued on its current course.
British peer blames plight on Brussels turf wars over shape and powers of a new European diplomatic serviceBritain's new EU foreign and security policy chief, Lady Ashton, used the platform of the European parliament today to hit back at the chorus of criticism that has enveloped her first three months in the job.In a combative performance outlining early views on how to make EU foreign policy more effective, the Labour peer signalled the start of "assertive leadership" and blamed the turf wars raging in Brussels over the shape and powers of a new European diplomatic service for her plight.
Britain's new EU foreign and security policy chief, Lady Ashton, used the platform of the European parliament today to hit back at the chorus of criticism that has enveloped her first three months in the job.
In a combative performance outlining early views on how to make EU foreign policy more effective, the Labour peer signalled the start of "assertive leadership" and blamed the turf wars raging in Brussels over the shape and powers of a new European diplomatic service for her plight.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have warned that member states could opt out of EU foreign policy unless they get a fair share of power in its new diplomatic corps. "The eventual lack of [member states'] involvement in shaping and implementing policies could lead to the loss of their interest in EU foreign policy and could even result in a widening gap between EU and national policies," the group of four countries said in a policy paper circulated in Brussels late last month.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have warned that member states could opt out of EU foreign policy unless they get a fair share of power in its new diplomatic corps.
"The eventual lack of [member states'] involvement in shaping and implementing policies could lead to the loss of their interest in EU foreign policy and could even result in a widening gap between EU and national policies," the group of four countries said in a policy paper circulated in Brussels late last month.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU commission on Tuesday (9 March) proposed to widen an existing "European heritage" label for sites related to the bloc's common history to all 27 member states "The European heritage label will help increase public awareness of our common yet diverse cultural heritage and stimulate cultural tourism," EU culture commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said at a press conference.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU commission on Tuesday (9 March) proposed to widen an existing "European heritage" label for sites related to the bloc's common history to all 27 member states
"The European heritage label will help increase public awareness of our common yet diverse cultural heritage and stimulate cultural tourism," EU culture commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said at a press conference.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU's next ambassador to Washington has defended the controversial manner in which his appointment was made. Speaking in Brussels on Tuesday (9 March) at an event organised by the Hanns Seidel Foundation, a German think tank, Joao Vale de Almeida said his surprise nomination for the post was due to the "need to appoint" somebody to head up the EU's most important delegation as soon as possible.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU's next ambassador to Washington has defended the controversial manner in which his appointment was made.
Speaking in Brussels on Tuesday (9 March) at an event organised by the Hanns Seidel Foundation, a German think tank, Joao Vale de Almeida said his surprise nomination for the post was due to the "need to appoint" somebody to head up the EU's most important delegation as soon as possible.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Defendants' rights to proper translation when involved in a criminal case in an EU member state whose language they do not speak are facing yet another delay due to an inter-institutional power struggle. The cause is noble: ensuring minimum common EU standards for defendants when they do not speak the language of the country.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Defendants' rights to proper translation when involved in a criminal case in an EU member state whose language they do not speak are facing yet another delay due to an inter-institutional power struggle.
The cause is noble: ensuring minimum common EU standards for defendants when they do not speak the language of the country.
The US has added Greece to a list of 35 countries whose citizens can enter the country without a visa, in a decision coinciding with the Greek leader's visit to Washington. Twenty three EU countries are now on the list, but not Poland, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria.
A spokesman for Italian PM Berlusconi has said that EU law on granting "subsidiary protection status" lay behind a decision to deny protection to the family of murdered Russian spy Litvinenko. The family has alleged that Mr Berlusconi's friendship with Russian PM Putin is the real reason.
The centre-right EPP group in the EU parliament has blocked a draft resolution demanding implementation of the "Goldstone report" accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza due to Jewish lobbying, Haaretz reports. A new resolution urging Hamas and Israel to investigate abuses is likely to pass instead.
French Prime Minister François Fillon on Tuesday night denied any tension with President Nicolas Sarkozy, after a government source leaked a rumour to French media that their relationship was undergoing a new phase of mutual "irritation". "The truth is that the duo the president of the Republic and I have formed for almost three years is one that surprises, and I would almost say bothers, people", Fillon said in an interview on TV channel France 2's nightly news bulletin. Fillon said he was on "stable" terms with Sarkozy, and noted that they had "succeeded in building a relationship of trust".
French Prime Minister François Fillon on Tuesday night denied any tension with President Nicolas Sarkozy, after a government source leaked a rumour to French media that their relationship was undergoing a new phase of mutual "irritation".
"The truth is that the duo the president of the Republic and I have formed for almost three years is one that surprises, and I would almost say bothers, people", Fillon said in an interview on TV channel France 2's nightly news bulletin.
Fillon said he was on "stable" terms with Sarkozy, and noted that they had "succeeded in building a relationship of trust".
On March 14 and 21, French voters go to the polls to elect 1,880 regional representatives. The Socialist Party currently holds all but two of the 22 regions in Metropolitan France and is campaigning to extend its domination, while President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP aims to regain ground.
LONDON (Reuters) - TheLabour party will remain the largest in parliament, but fall short of an overall majority after an election expected on May 6, an opinion poll showed Wednesday. The daily poll in the Sun newspaper indicated the Conservatives would win 36 percent of votes at the election, down three percentage points from Tuesday's poll.
LONDON (Reuters) - TheLabour party will remain the largest in parliament, but fall short of an overall majority after an election expected on May 6, an opinion poll showed Wednesday.
The daily poll in the Sun newspaper indicated the Conservatives would win 36 percent of votes at the election, down three percentage points from Tuesday's poll.
But equally I cannot believe Labour will be the largest party either.
Guardian - Jonthan freedland - The Innocent smoothies of politics are still the party of the rich
It is pointless to bang on about Tories' accents, double (or quadruple) barrels and schooling if these are somehow offered as criticisms in themselves. They are relevant only as evidence of a much more important fact, one that has been assiduously concealed: that for all the window-dressing and air-brushing, the Conservative party in Britain remains what it has always been - the party of the landed and moneyed interest. This is why the revelations about Michael Ashcroft are so damaging, because they play into a pre-existing - indeed, a centuries-old - perception that the Tories are the party of the well-off, looking out for the well-off.Of course there are process questions - what did Cameron and Hague know and when did they know it - but the heart of the matter remains simple: the Conservatives' deputy chairman is a billionaire hell-bent on influencing who writes the laws and sets the taxes of this country, but equally determined not to pay his share.
This is why the revelations about Michael Ashcroft are so damaging, because they play into a pre-existing - indeed, a centuries-old - perception that the Tories are the party of the well-off, looking out for the well-off.Of course there are process questions - what did Cameron and Hague know and when did they know it - but the heart of the matter remains simple: the Conservatives' deputy chairman is a billionaire hell-bent on influencing who writes the laws and sets the taxes of this country, but equally determined not to pay his share.
Just weeks ahead of regional elections - which Silvio Berlusconi himself called an "important national test" of his support - the Italian Prime Minister's People of Freedom (PDL) party finds itself in a state of chaos. After a court confirmed that the PDL had missed a deadline to submit its list for the regional assembly in Lazio, Italy's third largest region, Berlusconi held a press conference on Wednesday during which he attacked and blamed the opposition for the pre-election fiasco. "The behavior of the left has been and remains anti-democratic and wretched, while we have behaved in the opposite way," a pugnacious and visibly fatigued Berlusconi told reporters.
Just weeks ahead of regional elections - which Silvio Berlusconi himself called an "important national test" of his support - the Italian Prime Minister's People of Freedom (PDL) party finds itself in a state of chaos.
After a court confirmed that the PDL had missed a deadline to submit its list for the regional assembly in Lazio, Italy's third largest region, Berlusconi held a press conference on Wednesday during which he attacked and blamed the opposition for the pre-election fiasco.
"The behavior of the left has been and remains anti-democratic and wretched, while we have behaved in the opposite way," a pugnacious and visibly fatigued Berlusconi told reporters.
The Italian Parliament approved a law on Wednesday that would protect Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, left, and his cabinet from the results of trials that are currently under way, on the grounds that the trials would impede their ability to govern. Mr. Berlusconi's cabinet advanced the measure after Italy's Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional a law that granted immunity from prosecution to the prime minister and other senior office holders.
Remember the "ricin plot" where there was no ricin, where the recipe which Kamel Bourgass had could not have produced ricin and where his plan, to smear it on doorknobs and car door handles wouldn't have killed anyone as the poison needs to be either injected, ingested or inhaled to work? It was the first real "terror plot" post-9/11 in this country, came two months before the invasion of Iraq (in the context of which it was used by Colin Powell during his now notorious presentation to the UN), and the press coverage was massive in both response and in its hyperbole, the government doing its best to help it along by not bothering to inform anyone until Bourgass' trial was over that there had been no ricin after all.You would then expect a case where ricin actually was found to provoke a similar media response. After all, while ricin is not the most deadly of potential "biological/chemical" warfare poisons, it is still usually deadly when used "properly", as in the assassination of Georgi Markov, a cold war precursor to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
The US and Russia are currently negotiating a successor to the START nuclear disarmament treaty. But continued American plans for a missile shield in Europe have proven to be a major stumbling block. President Obama's vision of a nuclear-free world is in danger. There is good news on the disarmament front: US President Barack Obama is fine-tuning a new nuclear strategy. As White House officials said last week during a meeting between Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, he plans to reach a decision by April. The new strategy could include the scrapping of "thousands of nuclear weapons," and even a commitment by the United States not to develop any new nuclear weapons. In addition, what may be the final round of Russian-American talks on the further reduction of strategic offensive weapons started on Tuesday in Geneva. The successor for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is "almost 100 percent complete," says a Moscow negotiator. "We have agreed on the number of launch systems and the warheads, as well as the inspection and destruction of the nuclear payloads. All problems have been solved."
The US and Russia are currently negotiating a successor to the START nuclear disarmament treaty. But continued American plans for a missile shield in Europe have proven to be a major stumbling block. President Obama's vision of a nuclear-free world is in danger.
There is good news on the disarmament front: US President Barack Obama is fine-tuning a new nuclear strategy. As White House officials said last week during a meeting between Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, he plans to reach a decision by April. The new strategy could include the scrapping of "thousands of nuclear weapons," and even a commitment by the United States not to develop any new nuclear weapons.
In addition, what may be the final round of Russian-American talks on the further reduction of strategic offensive weapons started on Tuesday in Geneva. The successor for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is "almost 100 percent complete," says a Moscow negotiator. "We have agreed on the number of launch systems and the warheads, as well as the inspection and destruction of the nuclear payloads. All problems have been solved."
Who could have imagined? Wait this is important. Someone is wrong on the Internet.
Fishsubsidy.org today publishes a list of 42 convictions of fishing vessel owners that have also received EU subsidies under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). The study, which focuses on two major EU fishing nations, Spain and France, involves matching records of court convictions with data on EU fisheries subsidy payments. Between them, the 36 law-breaking vessels received 13,510,418 euro in EU subsidies between 1994 and 2006. Illegal fishing contributes to the overfishing of valuable fish stocks, many of which are at dangerously depleted levels. While previous studies have shown that many EU fisheries subsidies have directly contributed to the overfishing of fish stocks, this is the first study that draws the link between subsidies and illegal fishing. While there is no obligation to take criminal behaviour into account when deciding which vessels should get subsidies, EU Member States are free to consider this information. There is little evidence that any of them are.
Illegal fishing contributes to the overfishing of valuable fish stocks, many of which are at dangerously depleted levels. While previous studies have shown that many EU fisheries subsidies have directly contributed to the overfishing of fish stocks, this is the first study that draws the link between subsidies and illegal fishing. While there is no obligation to take criminal behaviour into account when deciding which vessels should get subsidies, EU Member States are free to consider this information. There is little evidence that any of them are.
Medvedev's administration is in charge of creating the new party, the Moscow-based newspaper reported today, without saying where it got the information. Anatoly Chubais, first deputy prime minister under the late President Boris Yeltsin, may become a leader of the as yet unnamed party, Trud said. Vladislav Surkov, Medvedev's first deputy chief of staff and chief political strategist, gave his backing to the creation of the party, Trud said. The party will contest national parliamentary elections in 2011, the newspaper said. Putin's United Russia controls 70 percent of seats in the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, and dominates government at all levels from the exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea to Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean. Chubais, the chief architect of Russia's state-asset selloff in the 1990s, now heads state-run Russian Nanotechnologies Corp. In 2004, he quit as co-chairman of the opposition Union of Right Forces party. Medvedev's new party will be business-oriented, Trud said. The president has made modernization of Russia's oil-dependent economy a priority and repeatedly called for an overhaul of the political system he inherited from Putin, his predecessor in the Kremlin.
Vladislav Surkov, Medvedev's first deputy chief of staff and chief political strategist, gave his backing to the creation of the party, Trud said. The party will contest national parliamentary elections in 2011, the newspaper said.
Putin's United Russia controls 70 percent of seats in the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, and dominates government at all levels from the exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea to Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean.
Chubais, the chief architect of Russia's state-asset selloff in the 1990s, now heads state-run Russian Nanotechnologies Corp. In 2004, he quit as co-chairman of the opposition Union of Right Forces party.
Medvedev's new party will be business-oriented, Trud said. The president has made modernization of Russia's oil-dependent economy a priority and repeatedly called for an overhaul of the political system he inherited from Putin, his predecessor in the Kremlin.
Ochen' interesno.... "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
