What Has Europe... etc?

Surprise, surprise, there's some disquiet within the EU at the moment; I don't know how these muppets ever thought such a project would work.  For muppets read delusional and traitorous b@st@rds.

Poland isn't happy; the Czech Republic isn't happy; neither is Hungary nor Slovakia.  And those are just the governments.  Germany is squabbling with France over Sarkozy's proposal to create a designated EU humanitarian relief fund (The European Union Natural Disaster Rapid Relief Fund - EUNDRRF.  Is anyone managing to keep track of all these abbreviations?)

I think the only government not making waves at the moment is our own - perhaps Cameron, like Blair, sees himself as a future President.  Let's see what he does with the EU's proposal to raise the British contribution to their budget to £10.3bn by 2013.

EU Foreign Minister, Cathy Ashton, is to speak on behalf of the EU at the UN.  Apparently Cameron won a 'concession' here - she'll only be allowed to speak in the General Council and not the Security Council.  It always goes the same way - give a centimetre and they take a kilometre.

Speaking of kilometres, road pricing across Europe, "for the sake of the environment", seems to be on the cards but that shouldn't come as a surprise given the number of surveillance cameras already lining our roads.

I think I've already mentioned Italy's proposal to extend expulsion (aka deportation) to EU nationals as well as the Roma in France but it's worth repeating if only to draw attention to the way politicians play with words.

Scotland and Norway aren't too happy either.  They're threatening Iceland with legal action over mackerel fishing rights.

It pays to riot in the EU says Evans-Pritchard and I think he has a point. Ireland, which abided by the rules, is paying more for its borrowings than Greece, which did not.

Thanks to Open Europe for this link.  Five activists from the group Désobéissance Civile Belgique occupied a crane in the centre of Brussels to protest against the Lisbon Treaty, which they said "rejects the European member states and has been ratified without consulting the citizens". They attached a banner to the crane criticising the "antidemocratic movement" of the EU. They also argued that no referendum has been held on the euro and that EU President Herman Van Rompuy was elected without elections.  Good for them - that's five more up a crane in Brussels than there are in Great Britain.

Open Europe also reports that the EU wants to set up a database to fight "radicalisation", noting that it should target not just terrorists, but also the far left, the far right, and anti-globalisation activists

My eye and Betty Martin  "EU citizens favour stronger European economic governance. 75% of  Europeans are in favour of giving the EU a stronger role in the co-ordination of member states' economic and budgetary policies."

The German Constitutional Court has strengthened the ECJ and Lisbon Treaty.   "EU decisions may only be checked if European institutions seriously overstep their powers" .  I wonder what 'Common Purpose' is in German?

This looks promising:  86m euros and 750 'citizens'  could "launch a devastating cyber attack on the EU."     It's time to raid the piggy-bank, folks.

Other Sources:
New Europe
Euractiv
EU Observer
Heise.de
Open Europe

What Has Europe... etc?

Lest We Forget

The Law Commission has just published a report recommending the repeal of "at least" 1500 of Labour's laws.  They also recommend that no further crimes should go on to the statute book without Parliamentary scrutiny.

Most of the new offences were slipped into law on the say-so of quangocrats without being debated in Parliament, it found...
...Since Tony Blair came to power in 1997, the commission said, more than 3,000 such crimes had been created.
New crimes brought in since 1989 fill three volumes of the criminal law record, Halsbury's Statutes of England and Wales, taking up 3,746 pages.
All the crimes established in the 637 years between 1351 and 1988 fill only one volume.

It's too early for celebrations - there's no word yet from the government about what it intends to do about this. The report confirms what many of us have been complaining about, that quangocrats and lobbyists make the rules and our waste-of-space MPs don't do their proper job of representing us.   Shame on anyone who voted for a sitting MP without properly vetting their expenses and voting record first.

Source

You can have this for good measure too. It's a reminder about who have been the muppets here - clue: it wasn't Mandelson and it wasn't the Labour govt if their near-30% support is anything to go by:



Cross-posted

Lest We Forget

Reason for the Army intervention in Afghanistan

The reason we are in Afghanistan. This is why the troops were sent in, at 2001.

The Opium Supply dropped to 7 hectares. ( from Wikipedia no less)

Of course how long has this trade been going on for? over 150 years, since before 1845, Look up Lord Palmerston, Queen Victoria and the Opium wars.

On July 27, 2000, the Taliban again issued a decree banning cultivation.[98] By February 2001, production had been reduced from 12,600 acres (51 km2) to only 17 acres (7 ha).[99] When the Taliban entered North Waziristan in 2003 they immediately banned cultivation and punished those who sold it.[citation needed]Another source claims opium production was cut back by the Taliban not to prevent its use but to increase its price, and thus increase the income of Afghan poppy farmers and tax revenue.[100]The Taliban's top drug official in Nangarhar, Mullah Amir Mohammed Haqqani, said the ban would remain regardless of whether the Taliban received aid or international recognition. "It is our decree that there will be no poppy cultivation. It is banned forever in this country," he said. "Whether we get assistance or not, poppy growing will never be allowed again in our country."[99]

Who buys the Afghani Crop? Someone must buy it,? And they must have a lot of power to influence what goes on

12600 hectares of Opium is sold to one or maybe two people/organisations, and those organisations have a vested interest in keeping that supply.

You can figure out who is behind it, by looking up the references shown about the Opium wars and Lord Palmerston.

The price of opium is related to the price of Gold, See the Hong Kong Market rates for 1977.

Reason for the Army intervention in Afghanistan