Tag Archives | European Union

European Union To Ban Pesticides Linked To Mass Bee Deaths

By on May 3, 2013 in News 0

bee deaths

Via the BBC:

The European Commission will restrict the use of pesticides linked to bee deaths by researchers, despite a split among EU states on the issue. Neonicotinoid chemicals in pesticides are believed to harm bees and the European Commission says they should be restricted to crops not attractive to bees and other pollinators.

There is great concern across Europe about the collapse of bee populations. A report published by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) in January concluded that the pesticides posed a “high acute risk” to pollinators, including honeybees.

There was ferocious lobbying both for and against in the run-up to Monday’s vote. Nearly three million signatures were collected in support of a ban. Chemical companies and pesticide manufacturers have been lobbying hard – they argue that the science is inconclusive, and that a ban would harm food production.

… Read the rest

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Thatcher’s Legacy: Austerity and the Attack on the Poor and Vulnerable

By on April 11, 2013 in News 0

Mob

Via orwellwasright:

If there’s one thing the British government and its media mouthpieces can rely on it’s a general public who are quite happy to spread their propaganda for them – not since the riots of 2011 have I witnessed such a degree of slavish, unthinking  repetition of falsehoods and lies as can be seen on forums and social media networks in response to the recent wave of cuts to the welfare system. This feeling of despair at the gullibility of the general public was compounded by the response by many to the death of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher; the gushing eulogies and beautification of a woman who supported brutal dictators such as Pol Pot and Idonesia’s General Suharto, while decimating British industry. It’s as if people have lost the ability to think for themselves, finding comfort in a patently false narrative which blames the victims of savage austerity while simultaneously ignoring or excusing the crimes of the rich and powerful.… Read the rest

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The 147 People Destroying the World

By on March 30, 2013 in News 0

Richard (R.J.) Eskow writes at Alternet:

Can 147 people perpetuate economic injustice – and make it even worse? Can they subvert the workings of democracy, both abroad and here in the United States? Can 147 people hijack the global economy, plunder the environment, build a world for themselves that serves the few and deprives the many?

There must be some explanation for last week’s economic madness. Take a look:

Cyprus: The European Union acted destructively – and self-destructively – when it tried to seize a portion of the insured savings accounts of the citizens of Cyprus. They were telling anyone with a savings account in the financially troubled nations of the Eurozone: Forget your guaranteed deposits. If we need your money in order to bail out the big banks – banks which have already gambled recklessly with it – we’ll take it.

That didn’t just create a political firestorm in Cyprus. It threatened the European Union’s banking system, and perhaps the Union itself.

… Read the rest

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Romania Strikes Back

By on February 25, 2013 in News 7

In response to recent anti-immigration comments by the eurosceptic UK Independence Party, Romanian newspaper Gandul has launched a tongue-in-cheek ad campaign to promote British tourism to the eastern European country. Featuring the tag line “We may not like Britain, but you’ll love Romania!” the ads eviscerate stereotypes of British life from bland cuisine to bad weather.

   

 

The UK Independence Party – which has 12 of Britain’s 73 seats in the European Parliament – has been outspoken in opposition to immigration from eastern Europe.… Read the rest

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European Parliament Planning Cyber Propaganda Blitz Against Skepticism Of The European Union

By on February 21, 2013 in News 1

As the Telegraph reports, you never know whom you’re talking to online:

The Daily Telegraph has seen confidential spending proposals and internal documents planning an unprecedented propaganda blitz ahead of and during European elections in June 2014. The European Parliament is to spend almost £2 million on press monitoring and trawling [discussions] on the internet for “trolls” amid fears that hostility to the EU is growing.

Key to a new strategy will be “public opinion monitoring tools” to “identify at an early stage whether debates of political nature among followers in social media and blogs have the potential to attract media and citizens’ interest”.

A confidential document agreed last year said: “Parliament’s institutional communicators must monitor public conversation in real time, and have the capacity to react quickly, to join in and influence the conversation, for example, by providing facts and figures to deconstructing myths.” Training for parliament officials begins later this month.

… Read the rest

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More Signs of the EU Starting to Build Up its Own Millitary

By on December 21, 2012 in News 2

“A country cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war”.

Albert Einstein

The inevitable rise of a European army to rival those of other world super-powers appears on our collective horizon. The Telegraph reports:

Under a deal reached in Brussels yesterday, leaders of all 27 EU countries promised to “strengthen” Europe’s ability to deploy troops “rapidly and effectively” in any future crisis.

They committed to “systematically considering cooperation” across Europe whenever EU member states begin drawing up their national defence plans.

Downing Street sources said the Prime Minister was “entirely happy” with the new arrangements. Britain already has a formal treaty with France for sharing defence capabilities, such aircraft carrier capacity.

Government sources said the new agreement would pave the way for Britain to extend this collaboration beyond France to other countries.

It’s worth remembering that less than 70 years ago millitary “collaboration” between the European powers had terrible consequences. The last time a command and control centre was established in Europe it took the combined might of the American and Soviet millitary to eventually thwart its aim of world domination.… Read the rest

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Nobel Peace Surprise for Failed EU Superstate.

By on October 17, 2012 in News 2

“In the months leading up to World War II, there was a tendency among many Americans to talk absently about the trouble in Europe. Nothing that happened an ocean away seemed very threatening” – Gene Tierney

The ailing dream of a United States Of Europe has been given an unexpected boost courtesy of the Nobel Prize steering committee:

Sky news reports:

The EU has won the Nobel Peace Prize for its long-term role in uniting the continent, as the bloc faces its greatest internal crisis since it was established in the 1950s.

The 27-nation group was praised for rebuilding Europe after World War II and for its role in spreading stability to former communist countries after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.

Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said it had been crucial in the transformation of a “once torn Europe from a continent of wars to a continent of peace”.

… Read the rest

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The Euro And Austerity As A Powder Keg In Europe

By on October 10, 2012 in News 8

Via Critical Legal Thinking, excerpts from a translated interview with Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Syriza (the Coalition of the Radical Left), Greece’s new second largest political party:

I believe the European model has to be rebuilt from below. We can’t be sat­is­fied with what today is called Europe. The cur­rent crisis is not a European crisis but a global one. Europe today does not have the mech­an­isms to con­front it or con­trol the world­wide fin­an­cial attack against its peoples. Hence why Europe became a con­tin­ent where the attack of the global fin­an­cial sys­tem was fero­cious.

The [euro currency] has become a prison for the peoples of Europe, espe­cially the weak­est eco­nom­ies on the peri­phery going through the crisis. The con­tra­dic­tion is in the base on which the euro was built. The euro is a powder keg that is going to explode if we con­tinue in this dir­ec­tion.

Greece became an ultralib­eral exper­i­ment, a guinea pig.

… Read the rest

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The United States of Europe Continues its Decline…

By on October 8, 2012 in News 4

Picture: SsolbergJ (PD)

The struggling European Supertstate has demanded an extra £1 billion from a cash strapped United Kingdom. The EU’s central command centre (located in Brussels, the capital city of Belgium) is due to issue its latest demands later in the month.

From Aol.co.uk:

Brussels is to bill Britain £1bn extra because it’s blown its 2012 budget. Brussels will pitch its demand for UK taxpayer cash – £976 million, to be exact – in late October, shortly before MEPs rubber-stamp a 7% hike in the EU’s annual budget.

The move puts more pressure on the UK government’s relationship with Brussels as EU spending strays, again, beyond previous estimates.

American readers who are not familliar with the ins and outs of the EU are directed towards this excellent guide from This American Life:

This American Life: Continental Breakup

If you’re like us, when the words “European debt crisis” pop up in the news you feel a little worried, and a little like taking a nap.

… Read the rest

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Greece’s Cashless, Euro-Free Currency Working

By on March 25, 2012 in News 14

HermesReports Jon Henley in the Guardian:

In recent weeks, Theodoros Mavridis has bought fresh eggs, tsipourou (the local brandy), fruit, olives, olive oil, jam, and soap. He has also had some legal advice, and enjoyed the services of an accountant to help fill in his tax return.

None of it has cost him a euro, because he had previously done a spot of electrical work – repairing a TV, sorting out a dodgy light – for some of the 800-odd members of a fast-growing exchange network in the port town of Volos, midway between Athens and Thessaloniki.

In return for his expert labour, Mavridis received a number of Local Alternative Units (known as tems in Greek) in his online network account. In return for the eggs, olive oil, tax advice and the rest, he transferred tems into other people’s accounts. “It’s an easier, more direct way of exchanging goods and services,” said Bernhardt Koppold, a German-born homeopathist and acupuncturist in Volos who is an active member of the network.

… Read the rest

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