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Europe set to trial biometrics at land, sea and air borders
Non-EU nationals are to be asked to provide their facial, fingerprint images – and even iris scans – at numerous border locations across the European Union, as part of a “smart borders” package now being implemented.
According to euobserver, half-dozen major airports will be included initially, although at this stage passengers can refuse to give the data.
Draft internal EU documents (subject to change) say the program is to start in March and run until September.
It is understood that the following airport locations will be used: Arlanda (Sweden), Charles de Gaulle (France), Frankfurt (Germany), Lisbon (Portugal), Madrid (Spain), and Schiphol (Netherlands) as participating airports.
According to euobserver, Frankfurt and Schiphol will ask between four to ten fingerprint sets. Madrid will ask for four and Charles de Gaulle eight. Arlanda, Charles de Gaulle, and Madrid airports will Read more…
The European Union and the US will begin formal talks on a free-trade agreement, paving the way for the biggest trade deal in history
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso made the announcement following President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.Biometric IDs A Step Toward EU – Ukraine Visa Simplicity
Biometric IDs in Ukraine appear to be on the way in. A draft law there providing for the creation of a unified state register of every Ukrainian citizen has passed fist scrutiny there. Reportedly a measure to beef up border security between Ukraine and the EU, citizens traveling abroad may feel a bit like Big Brother is watching via a built-in proximity chip keeping tabs on each citizen.
Officials in favor of the new Biometric IDs claim this document standard will go a long way toward preventing IS fraud, helping out the border control end of travel in the country. Claiming accessibility for all relevant European services and institutions, proponents say the action plan for visa liberalization is the central reason for the new initiative.
With the EU planning to Read more…
Why Is the U.S. Bankrolling IMF’s Bailouts in Europe?
humanevents
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund held their spring meeting April 14 to 18 in Washington, D.C. Both financial titans were created after World War II to foster economic cooperation and development around the globe. With 16.2% of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shares, the United States is the largest shareholder among the 187 nations who belong to the fund—even though its managing director has always been a European.
Remote to most Americans, the IMF has been in the headlines recently because of its role as one of the financial rescuers of three European nations whose economies collapsed last year. Under Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (the former French finance minister, who is considered the leading Socialist candidate for president of France in 2012), the IMF has joined with the European Union to sculpt bailout packages for Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. Coupled with loans from the EU, the price tags on the bailout packages come to $157 billion for Greece, $122 billion for Ireland, and most recently, $116 billion for Portugal.
Obviously, these are quite substantial packages for the three economically devastated countries. They will become very relevant to U.S. taxpayers when they realize that, because we are the largest single contributor to the organization, and with Spain and Italy now Read more…
EU to ban cars from cities by 2050
The European Commission on Monday unveiled a “single European transport area” aimed at enforcing “a profound shift in transport patterns for passengers” by 2050.
The plan also envisages an end to cheap holiday flights from Britain to southern Europe with a target that over 50 per cent of all journeys above 186 miles should be by rail.
Top of the EU’s list to cut climate change emissions is a target of “zero” for the number of petrol and diesel-driven cars and lorries in the EU’s future cities.
Siim Kallas, the EU transport commission, insisted that Brussels directives and new taxation of Read more…
Djibouti evicts US vote group ahead of election
Djibouti’s government has kicked out an American election monitoring group less than a month before the nation’s presidential election, a vote opposition politicians are boycotting because they say the president is repressing dissent.
Djibouti is a tiny East African nation that hosts the only U.S. military base in Africa. Situated on the Gulf of Aden between Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Yemen, the city-state is a major shipping hub in a volatile region.
The country is nominally democratic, but events leading up to the April 8 presidential election appear to show a hardline approach by President Ismail Omar Guelleh at a time when democracy movements are upending administrations.
Democracy International, a U.S. group that works on democracy and governance programs, was halfway through a two-year, $2.2 million U.S. government-funded contract when it was accused of assisting opposition politicians and barred from the country earlier this month. Read more…
Britain’s coming crunch with Europe
It did not take David Cameron long to realize that there were three parties in his coalition. A few months into government, the Prime Minister worked out that only half of the policies he was enacting came from the shared agenda drawn up when the Tories and LibDems got together. The other half comes from the EU. Or, more specifically, the Civil Service machine, which is busy implementing various EU Directives, often passed many years ago. Cameron is trying to put the brakes on this process.
As I say in my News of the World column, this has led to much frustration in Whitehall. And dismay: the Civil Service remembers how easily Labour waved through EU regulation and the piles of fat that Whitehall likes to pile on top of the EU regulation. Labour would claim that the EU rules were actually its idea, so as not to lose face. Only in government is it clear how far power has slipped; Cameron wants to claw it back.
Oliver Letwin has been tasked with stopping Whitehall from being a breeding ground for new regulations. Cameron jokingly refers to Letwin as a ‘contraceptive’, because it’s his job to stop these regulations being conceived – usually after a little European foreplay. It’s a huge task. The problem is that Read more…
“War Without Borders”: Washington Intensifies Push Into Central Asia
By Rick Rozoff
A recent editorial on the website of Voice of America reflected on last year being one in which the United States solidified relations with the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
One or more of the five nations border Afghanistan, Russia, China and Iran and several more than one of the latter. Kazakhstan, for example, adjoins China and Russia.
The U.S. and Britain, with the support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, invaded Afghanistan and fanned out into Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in October of 2001, less than four months after Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan founded the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to foster expanding economic, security, transportation and energy cooperation and integration in and through Central Asia. In 2005 India, Iran and Pakistan joined the SCO as observers and Afghan President Hamid Karzai has attended its last five annual heads of state summits. [1]
Now the U.S. and the NATO have over 150,000 troops planted directly south of three Central Asian nations.
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are also on the Caspian Sea, a reservoir of oil and natural gas whose dimensions have only been accurately determined in the past twenty years and where American companies are active in hydrocarbon projects.
After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Pentagon and its NATO allies deployed military forces to, in addition to Soviet-constructed air bases in Afghanistan, bases in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The first two countries Read more…
Ireland’s Titanic Bailout at Risk, Iceland looms ahead
The announcement by Brian Cowen that he was resigning as the leader of the Fianna Fail party, but is going to stay on as Taoiseach (Prime Minister) until the March 11 election, has put the Irish bailout into question. The November bailout of the Irish economy consisted of a series of different financing packages being combined into a larger total.
The first funds available under the bailout were provided by the raiding of the Irish retirement fund by its bankers. The next steps were to be funded by the EU and IMF funding sources, once the people of Ireland were legally subjected to the bailout requirements. The bailout never made it to a full vote before the collapse of the Fianna Fáil party.
This leaves Ireland in the unique position of being able to reclaim its future, by denying its past. The citizens of Ireland have not accepted the bailout. The coalition is not expected to be able to put the matter to a vote before the election.
“All we know is we are going to get an election on or before March 11 but that is about it,” said Micheal Marsh, professor of politics at Trinity College Dublin, calling the events of the past week “bizarre.” Read more…
Europe faces a new crisis
Yevgeny Kryshkin
The European Union is facing a new phase of the economic crisis. This depressing forecast was made by a report on the World Economic Situation and Prospects-2011 presented by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Our commentary is by Yevgeny Kryshkin.
Despite the fact that the EU has taken tough austerity measures and is planning to cut the budget deficit, it is risking another economic recession. This opinion was expressed by the authors of the report. They emphasize that a repeated recession in the EU countries and stagnation in the U.S. and Japan may trigger another wave of a global economic crisis.
This pessimistic assessment is based on the state of affairs in the economies of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, the four countries that were most affected. Greece and Ireland managed to avert a collapse of their financial systems. However, this required incredible joint efforts by all EU member states. Ireland alone received 85 billion euro and with serious risks. Stabilization loans from the International Monetary Fund and the EU are being used to cover budget deficits and support banks. Nevertheless, neither Ireland nor Greece has solved the problems that they faced last year. Here is an opinion from an expert at the Institute of Europe, Vladislav Belov.
“The situation is developing according to the prior scenario. Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland have taken austerity measures to reduce the budget deficit through cutting government spending, the salaries of public servants and social expenses, and increasing taxes. At the same time, France and Germany are making attempts to consolidate their efforts. However, the problem has not been solved yet. As before, there is a danger of default, as far as the Euro-zone goes,” Vladislav Belov said.
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