LEADERS across the EU are on alert as violent protests erupt across major European capitals, following fears concerning the economic impact of severe and lengthy coronavirus lockdowns.

Emmanuel Macron imposed a second national lockdown in France last night, declaring that a sudden and “brutal brake” on virus transmission was needed. However, the French President acknowledged the threat of violence and riots exploding on French streets against the lockdown measures, saying that he would take "full responsibility for the reactions this the lockdown will cause". There are growing fears that the number of violent anti-lockdown protests recently seen in Italy and Spain will follow in France.

The shooting on Monday evening has claimed four lives, one of the suspected attackers was killed, authorities confirmed. Earlier in the day, it was reported that two people had been arrested in the city of St Poelten in connection with the Vienna attacks.

It's been confirmed that the attack in Vienna had an Islamist motive, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said, adding that his country will find the people behind the attack.

"It is not about a dispute between Christians and Muslims or between Austrians and migrants. It is about a struggle between civilisation and barbarism," Kurz added.

On Monday evening, Austrian media reported that shots were fired at a synagogue in the center of Vienna, leaving several people injured and, according to conflicting reports, either one or seven people dead. Vienna police confirmed that the shooting took place and "there are persons injured", however, without providing additional details.

Vienna police confirmed on Monday that the shooting took place "in the Inner City district" and added that "there are persons injured" without, however, providing additional details.

Police called on people to "KEEP AWAY from all public places or public Transport".

Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer has said that special forces have been on a hunt for “presumed terrorists” who wrought havoc in Vienna, killing at least one, describing the attackers as “heavily armed” and “mobile.”
“We have brought several special forces units together that are now searching for the presumed terrorists,” Nehammer told Austrian broadcaster ORF.

He added that the manhunt is no longer limited to the area around the Stadttempel, Vienna’s Jewish synagogue dating back to the 1820s, near which multiple attacks unfolded on Monday evening.

At least seven people are thought to have been killed with several others injured in multiple gun and suspected suicide attacks near a synagogue in Vienna.

A huge manhunt is currently underway for several attackers armed with rifles with police confirming shootings at six different locations, starting near the synagogue at 8pm local time.

One attacker is thought to have 'blown themselves up' during the rampage with another arrested and one shot dead by police. A police officer is also thought to have been shot and seriously injured.

A young Muslim man burst into Saint Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna on Saturday morning shouting “Islamic slogans” until he was subdued and arrested by police.

Security officials cordoned off the cathedral and the surrounding area after the incident in preparation for Sunday’s Christian feast of All Saints’ Day.

Vienna City Police Command reported that the 25-year-old Afghan man made a “confused impression” on the police but that no weapons or questionable objects were found on his person or in the church building during a search. Nonetheless, the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism was alerted and is carrying out an investigation of the case.

Saturday’s incident followed a disturbance on Thursday at Vienna’s St. Anthony of Padua church, when a mob of nearly 50 young Turkish Muslims entered the church and began kicking the pews and confessionals.

Spain has been gripped by violence as anti-lockdown protesters clash with police in multiple cities, including Madrid and Barcelona, over the state and regional governments’ move to toughen Covid-19 restrictions.

Protesters torched garbage containers and erected makeshift barricades on Gran Via, and reportedly smashed several store fronts elsewhere in central Madrid on Saturday night.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, together with colleagues from Poland and Lithuania, is investigating the real reason for the closure of the borders by Belarus. This was announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba on the air of Freedom of Speech show, reports RBC Ukraine.

"They did not close it (the border. - 112 International) with Russia. We are now consulting with Poland and Lithuania. If it turns out that the reason was not Covid, but big politics, we will react. We are now looking into this decision," Kuleba said.

The Minister recalled that Belarus announced closure of the border with three neighboring countries - Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania. In Minsk, the official reason for this decision was referred to "the current epidemic situation in neighboring countries."

Since the weekend, Poland saw several vicious attacks against churches and harassment of Catholics attending mass, but now Polish patriots and right-wing groups have created a defense group to defend Catholics against left-wing aggression.

At a press conference organized in front of Warsaw’s Holy Cross Church, Robert B?kiewicz, the head of the Independence March Association, announced that Poland is currently facing a neo-Bolshevik revolution, according to Interia.pl.

He stated that patriotic groups will not allow those "against civilization" to attack Catholics. He said he and groups he is aligned with were establishing a "Catholic and civic" self-defense group which will be known as the “National Guard”.

As France was described as the eye of the storm in the confrontation between secular societies and Islamist terrorism in the wake of recent attacks, Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson accused the liberal left of allowing Islamism to grow and flourish across Europe.

In a scathing commentary on the latest terrorist attack in Nice, France, where three churchgoers were brutally murdered on Thursday, Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson has accused the liberal left leaders of the West of treacherous behaviour, incompetence, and unrealistic worldview, which, according to him, led to the rise of Islamist terror.

"Terrorism is on the rise in Europe again. We must fight back against this with force. We must protect our communities and citizens", Åkesson said in a Twitter clip.

Some 50 young people with a Turkish background have rushed into the St Anthony of Padua Church in the Austrian capital of Vienna and staged a rampage there, Austrian media reported.

According to the Kurier newspaper, the incident took place on late Thursday, with the young Turks kicking benches and a confessional, as well as shouting "Allahu Akbar!"

A priest called the police but the assaulters had left the site before the officers arrived. The regional department of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism believes that the group of radical Turkish extremists, which is operating in the area, is behind the incident.

Both Interior Minister Karl Nehammer and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz have condemned the incident.

Having dumped treaties, insulted leaders and formed unlikely alliances, Donald Trump has upset many in Europe as US president. But a Joe Biden election win could present its own issues, in particular for Britain’s Boris Johnson.

If Joe Biden does overcome Donald Trump in the US election, then from Wednesday next week until the moment he’s handed the keys to the Oval Office on January 20, 2021, he’d better hit the phones hard – because there are a few bruised egos out there that need to feel loved.

For a Biden victory would not only mean a tremendous pivot in the US, where clearly there are a lot of fences – and the issue of one big wall – to mend, but a complete reboot on the relationships with key historical allies across the Atlantic.

I don't think anyone questions that there are major realignments under way in the globe, from the emergence of "The Quad" or what I've been calling the "Quadruple Entente", to BREXIT, the increased tensions between the USA and China, and now, between Russia and the E.U., and for the latter, one may conveniently substitute "Germany" for the E.U., that is, at least according to this article by Tom Luongo shared by V.T.(a big thank you for doing so):

Health authorities in Sweden have refused to follow the rest of Europe by imposing new coronavirus lockdown measures on their population, arguing that those beset by loneliness and misery of being isolated have suffered enough.

Despite Sweden mirroring other countries on the continent with rising coronavirus infections, the government has held firm in refusing to lockdown its population, weighing the untold misery and health impacts of isolation against the threat of COVID-19.

It finally looks like the four-and-a-half-year saga of Brexit is coming to an ignominious end. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the final bluff of the incompetent bureaucrats in Brussels, walking away from trade talks while leaving the door open.

But that door is only open if the EU is willing to crawl in on its knees and give the UK what it wants, a minimal free trade deal, Canada-style, which was offered by then President of the European Council Donald Tusk.

The EU played hardball giving zero ground for four years while undermining the UK from within its own political and bureaucratic structures. It was as transparent as it was cynical, but it couldn’t sway the British people and that gave Johnson the political will to just say no.

THIS WEEK the British-based bank HSBC closed down two accounts linked to the new racial nationalist political party Patriotic Alternative — a personal account belonging to one of PA’s leaders Laura Towler, and the party’s official business account.

H&D understands complaints are being made to the relevant banking oversight authorities.

HSBC is the sixth largest bank in the world and the largest in Europe. It was founded in 1865 as the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, making its initial fortune from opium trading.

Protesters defied curfew and attacked police vehicles in Italy’s third-largest city of Naples. The anger was sparked by the governor’s call for a new lockdown after the spread of Covid-19 hit a new daily record.

Chanting “Freedom!” the angry crowds marched through the city streets on Friday night, with some hurling bottles, smoke bombs and other projectiles at the officers. Others attempted to erect barricades using garbage containers and set some of them on fire. Police deployed tear gas as they tried to disperse the rioters.

Videos posted on social media show groups of people attacking police vehicles, forcing the officers to leave the scene.

The Campania region, which includes Naples, announced it would go into lockdown on Friday as the number of COVID-19 cases [test positives] soared.

Demonstrators threw flares and other missiles at police who responded with tear gas.

There were unconfirmed reports protestors stormed local government offices.

Jakub Wondreys posted a video of the disorder on Twitter with the caption: “Big anti-regional government COVID-19 restrictions protests are happening right now in Naples, Italy.

A former chief executive of Russian oil company Rosneft has accused one of Europe’s oldest banks of conspiring with New York brokers in a kickback scheme that caused him to lose more than half of his $150 million investment portfolio.

Sergei Bogdanchikov accused banking group Edmond de Rothschild of steering his funds to a pair of New York firms that he says lost money on bad investments and charged inflated fees to kick commissions back to the bank. The bank also used the now-defunct Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca to form shell companies to hide the scheme, according to a lawsuit Bogdanchikov filed in New York state court on Wednesday.

When the European Union speaks as a superior, Russia wants to know: Can we do any business with the EU?"

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, is the world’s foremost diplomat. The son of an Armenian father and a Russian mother, he’s just on another level altogether. Here, once again, we may be able to see why.

Let’s start with the annual meeting of the Valdai Club, Russia’s premier think tank. Here we may follow the must-watch presentation of the Valdai annual report on “The Utopia of a Diverse World”, featuring, among others, Lavrov, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, Dominic Lieven of the University of Cambridge and Yuri Slezkine of UCLA/Berkeley.

Brussels’ chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has claimed that it is the UK’s and the EU’s “common responsibility” to agree on a deal and stop a clean-break, no-deal Brexit.

Just last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson had declared that negotiations with the EU had failed over the bloc’s intransigence on issues like anti-competition rules and fishing, and that the UK should prepare for a no deal.

However, Mr Johnson did not officially withdraw from trade talks, instead his proxies stating in the following days that negotiations could restart if Europe were willing to compromise. EU insiders interpreted the prime minister’s threat of no deal as mere bluster, with one saying that “if the UK would really not care about having a new deal, it would have left the table long ago”.

Talks recommenced in London on Thursday, with Mr Barnier telling Reuters: “I think it’s very important to be back at the table.”

Police fired pepper spray at hundreds of demonstrators in Warsaw as they opposed a court ruling almost completely banning abortion in the country.

Several hundred people gathered in front of Poland’s Constitutional Court and marched towards the residence of the Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the country’s ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS), to protest a court decision that essentially outlaws abortion.

Police used pepper spray to disperse the crowd. In response, the protesters threw rocks and attempted to break through the cordon around the house.

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, is the world’s foremost diplomat. The son of an Armenian father and a Russian mother, he’s just on another level altogether. Here, once again, we may be able to see why.

Let’s start with the annual meeting of the Valdai Club, Russia’s premier think tank. Here we may follow the must-watch presentation of the Valdai annual report on “The Utopia of a Diverse World”, featuring, among others, Lavrov, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, Dominic Lieven of the University of Cambridge and Yuri Slezkine of UCLA/Berkeley.

It’s a rarity to be able to share what amounts to a Himalayan peak in terms of serious political debate. We have, for instance, Lieven – who, half in jest, defined the Valdai report as “Tolstoyian, a little anarchical” – focusing on the current top two, great interlocking challenges: climate change and the fact that “350 years of Western and 250 years of Anglo-American predominance are coming to an end.”

Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany will be completed and become operational in early 2021.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak announced the following:

“Nord Stream 2 will go operational by the end of 2020.”

“One of the ships that can be used to finalize it is now in the Far East. Some time will be required for extra preparations.”

Earlier after the Swiss-based pipe-laying firm Allseas pulled out of the project in response to threatened US sanctions, Novak said Russia is able to complete pipeline construction on its own — without help from foreign contractors.

When operational, it’ll deliver 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually to Germany and other European countries annually.

Washington could be organizing a color revolution and mass protests in Moldova like the ones that have already gripped Belarus and Kyrgyzstan. The Moldovan elections are scheduled for November 1 and have eight presidential candidates participating. The main rivals however are current President Igor Dodon, considered “pro-Russian,” and former Prime Minister Maia Sandu, considered “pro-European.”

There is a combination of internal and external factors at play in Moldova, something that has come to typically define the post-Soviet space. There is constant internal instability when considering the breakaway region of Transnistria, weak statehood, many conflicting ideological interest groups, and active attempts to get Moldova into the NATO and EU sphere of influence. This is what makes Moldova at high risk of experiencing a color revolution after the upcoming presidential elections if Dodon is re-elected.

The story is very apocryphal now, but it holds that in 146 BC, Rome capped off the Third Punic War by sacking Carthage and salting the earth so that nothing would ever grow there again. It probably never happened, which is sort of a shame, because it’s an excellent metaphor for European activity on Africa’s Mediterranean Coast.

Wherever Europe’s attention turns in northern Africa, that region is the worse for it. In recent years, this has meant Libya, where the destruction of the Libyan government during the 2011 NATO intervention there is now set to give way to direct European Union intervention.

NATO was quite pleased with its 2011 handiwork, which saw Moammar Gaddafi removed from power and quickly killed. The assumption was that this would lead to an orderly transition of power. Instead it led to a civil war that’s continued to tear the country apart ever since.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dropped a bombshell on Tuesday, warning that Russia might halt all dialogue with the European Union. Mr. Lavrov offered no explanation for what was probably the most severe public statement on the EU of his career. Perhaps he was reacting to extended talks he recently held with EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell — talks that, by all appearances, did not go well.

Naturally, the EU will respond to his statement with great displeasure and indignation, but Lavrov’s comment was actually rooted in a process that began long before the current crisis, all the way back to when Russian-EU relations looked positively upbeat and promising.

The United States and Poland closed a nuclear power deal potentially worth $18 billion as the Central European country seeks to reduce its reliance on coal and Russian natural gas.

While the deal is not yet final, there is a pretty good chance that Warsaw will pick the U.S. over its main competitors on the international nuclear energy scene, namely China and Russia.

“We are hopeful that the ultimate decisions that are made by Poland ... over a period of time will result in them choosing U.S. technology,” Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told reporters as quoted by Reuters.

In a week when several major oil and gas reports were released, most notably the IEA World Energy Outlook 2020 and OPEC’s World Oil Outlook, a regional conflict is now on the brink of spiraling out of control.

The toxic combination of a military confrontation between Azerbaijan and Armenia, supported by Turkey and Russia respectively, and the confrontational stance that Ankara is taking in the East Med conflict are threatening to upend European energy supplies.

EMMANUEL MACRON confirmed that the EU would launch a devastating energy embargo against the UK if Boris Johnson refuses to give in on fisheries.

Emmanuel Macron reacted furiously to Boris Johnson's claims that trade talks are "over" between the UK and EU. Mr Macron has played hardball in the talks on fisheries, insisting on Thursday that French fishermen would "not be sacrificed" for the sake of a deal. However, if the UK leaves the EU without a deal then French fishermen could faced being banned from British waters.

The ruling coalition government of the Netherlands is moving forward on allowing children 12 and younger to legally end their own lives in the form of state-sanctioned assisted suicide.

Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said he will draft legislation to change current rules to allow for kids to legally undergo doctor-assisted suicide with parental consent.

In an October 13 letter he wrote to the Dutch parliament, de Jonge cited a study that “shows that there is a need for active termination of life among doctors and parents of incurably ill children, who are suffering hopelessly and unbearably and will die within the foreseeable future.”

De Jonge claims the new rules are designed to help a small “group of terminally ill children who agonize with no hope, and unbearable suffering.”

The new Dutch rule that de Jonge is drafting will lift possible prosecution doctors could face if they take additional actions, such as sedative euthanasia.

European Union leaders regret Turkey’s decision to send a natural gas exploration ship to contested waters in the Mediterranean, the bloc’s chairman said on Friday, reiterating that the EU would consider its options in December.

“We plan a summit in December. And we have planned, indeed, to tackle again and to assess the situation in the eastern Mediterranean and in Turkey,” European Council President Charles Michel told a news conference after an EU summit in Brussels.

“We deplore the unilateral actions and provocations by Turkey,” Michel said.

A Zionist-led war on a Palestinian cultural festival in Rome has exposed the fragility of the Italian political system when it comes to the conversation on Palestine and Israel. The sad truth is that, although Italy is not often associated with a "powerful" pro-Israel lobby as is the case in Washington, the pro-Israel influence in Italy is just as dangerous.

The latest episode began on September 24, when the Palestinian community in Rome announced plans to hold ‘Falastin – Festival della Palestina’, a cultural event that aims at illustrating the richness of Palestinian culture in all of its grandeur. The idea behind it is not to simply humanize Palestinians in the eyes of ordinary Italians, but to explore commonalities, to cement bonds and to build bridges. However, for Israel’s allies in Italy, even such unthreatening objectives were too much to bear.

London’s talks with Brussels to establish a trade deal have been deadlocked over the past few months. The situation grew increasingly complicated after the UK passed the Internal Market Bill in September, which the EU claims violates the Brexit conditions the sides earlier negotiated.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has cautioned the EU that unless it makes fundamental changes to its approach towards post-Brexit trade negotiations with the UK, London might choose a no-deal scenario.

"I have concluded that we should get ready for January 1 with arrangements that are more like Australia's based on simple principles of global free trade", the British prime minister said.

EU hauliers are threatening to freeze out the UK from trading opportunities, a British haulage boss has warned, adding that the risk to the country's supply chains could be significant.

Populist senator Matteo Salvini sported a “Trump 2020” mask in Italian parliament on Tuesday ahead of remarks that he was set to deliver to the Senate.

“Greetings from the Senate, my speech in half an hour,” tweeted Salvini on Tuesday. “Good evening, friends.”

While immigration may not be the primary issue gripping the continent at present, thanks to Covid-19, populist attitudes are now embedded in the national conversation, though those of a liberal persuasion may be loath to admit it.

The liberals are rubbing their hands with glee. They told us it wouldn’t last, that it would never take a hold and that, in the end, everyone would see things their way. But the idea that right-wing populism is dead is both misguided and premature. Because the bugbear of Europe’s political elite is actually stronger than ever.

Sure, the faces we associate with populism, such as Italy’s Matteo Salvini and the UK’s Nigel Farage, may not be plastered all over our newspapers or television screens like they were just a year or two ago, but the reason for that is the ideas they represented and trumpeted across the European political stage have taken root.

By handing out a €6.5 billion fine against Gazprom, Warsaw has obviously and massively miscalculated because it did not only antagonize the Russian energy company as was intended, but also European partners of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, which the Polish government obviously had not considered.

Even leaders within the European Union were shocked at the huge fine that Poland is attempting to impose against Nord Stream 2.

By handing out a €6.5 billion fine against Gazprom, Warsaw has obviously and massively miscalculated because it did not only antagonize the Russian energy company as was intended, but also European partners of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, which the Polish government obviously had not considered. Even leaders within the European Union were shocked at the huge fine that Poland is attempting to impose against Nord Stream 2.

Surprise, surprise, the European Commission (EC) had a “Roadmap on Vaccination” ready months before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.

The Roadmap should lead to a “commission proposal for a common vaccination card / passport for EU citizens by 2022”.

Last updated during the third quarter of 2019, the 10-page document was followed, on September 12th, by a “global vaccination summit” jointly hosted by the EC and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The U.S. has imposed new sanctions on Iran which will make ANY trade with the country very difficult:

[T]he Trump administration has decided to impose yet further sanctions on the country, this time targeting the entirety of the Iranian financial sector. These new measures carry biting secondary sanctions effects that cut off third parties’ access to the U.S. financial sector if they engage with Iran’s financial sector. Since the idea was first floated publicly, many have argued that sanctioning Iran’s financial sector would eviscerate what humanitarian trade has survived the heavy hand of existing U.S. sanctions.
Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of campaign funds and the lobby provides those. The move is also designed to preempt any attempts by a potentially new administration to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran:

Polls taken in seven European countries reveal they massively favor Biden there, by 67 percent to 14 percent for the incumbent. It just shows that continent’s ignorance of the US, and will make Americans more likely to vote Trump.

As an American who’s lived in Europe for the majority of my adult life (if Brexit Britain can still be described as being part of that continent), I am constantly amazed at how little people over here understand us Yanks and our country.

I am not sure whether that’s because of some underlying contempt from the old countries towards our still comparatively young nation, or a resentment of how America has overtaken them all to become the world’s leader, or just some snobbery about our supposed loudness, or arrogance, or cultural deficiencies. Or perhaps it's simply that Europeans tend, perhaps with the exception of the Brits, to be much more left-leaning than most Americans.

By strengthening the presence of warships from non-Black Sea NATO members in the Black Sea, the military bloc is attempting to demonstrate its dominance in the region and the Alliance’s desire to neutralize and pressurize Russia’s influence in the area. Moscow’s Black Sea influence significantly increased after Crimea’s 2014 reunification with Russia. NATO’s military presence in the Black Sea is significantly strengthening, especially as warships in the area increased by 33% from January to September compared to the same period time last year. In 40% of cases, these ships are equipped with high-precision long-range weapons. This can be seen as a NATO attempt to intimidate Russia.

Polish authorities have fined Russia's Gazprom a whopping and unprecedented $7.6 billion (or 6.5 billion euros) for constructing the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany.

While Poland anti-trust authorities have claimed Nord Stream 2 is fundamentally a politically motivated attempt to punish Polish consumers while increasing European dependence on on Russian imports, Germany has stood by the project even amid the Navalny poisoning affair which has strained its relations with Russia over the past month.

Poland's Office of Competition and Consumer Protection decision seeks to legally force the six companies jointly building and financing the project to cancel their contracts, despite the gas pipeline being in its final phase of development. This includes European investors OMV, Wintershall, Engie, Shell and Uniper.

INTRACTABLE disagreements over British fishing waters hit a new and jaw-droppingly bizarre low today when the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier basically claimed our North Sea cod and mackerel were ardent Remainers. I'm not kidding.

Tensions remain high in the Eastern Mediterranean as two NATO allies, Turkey and Greece, are seeking a way out of the standoff triggered by Ankara's seismic vessel Oruç Reis engaging in gas exploration in the disputed waters. Egyptian researcher Mohammad Fawzi has shed light on the brewing conflict and the balance of power in the region.

Oruç Reis's dispatch to waters claimed by Athens, Ankara and Nicosia last month came in response to the 6 August Greek-Egyptian agreement demarcating exclusive economic zones (EEZ) in the Eastern Mediterranean between the two powers. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis hailed the accords, adding that they had brought to naught the November 2019 memorandum of understanding between Turkey and Tripoli which delineated the sea in the interests of Ankara and the Government of National Accord (GNA).

George Soros and his allies in the European parliament are currently celebrating a victory at the European Court of Human Rights against Hungary and its Prime Minister Viktor Orban after the ruling that the country's law that forced its Central European University out of Hungary contradicts the EU law.

This is only the latest of attacks on the Eastern European country and its leader mounted by Europe's various leftist parties and EU institutions in their ongoing crusade against the so-called illiberal states, which is how they describe Christian right-of-centre governments of countries such as Poland and Hungary.

A European Commission report on staff diversity within European Union institutions has accused the EU of being too white and not having enough representation from minority communities.

The report has stated that while ethnic minorities make up at least 10 per cent of the population in the European Union, the number of ethnic minorities within EU institutions is far lower.

As a result, the European Commission has vowed to launch an investigation into the ethnic profiles of its own employees to set possible quotas for its recruitment policy, Le Figaro reports.

Russia will respond to possible additional restrictions on the access of its goods to the EU market, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. He was speaking at a meeting with the members of the Association of European Businesses (AEB).

Lavrov recalled that the European Commission had prepared a report on significant distortions in the economy of the Russian Federation for the purpose of trade defense investigations.

"The document is openly biased, fraught with additional restrictions on the access of Russian goods to the EU market, which, of course, will not remain unanswered, as you understand," the minister said.

One of the more diabolical aspects of the protracted COVID ‘crisis’ in countries like the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, is the intellectually dishonest claim that Coronavirus in their countries is somehow different from the Coronavirus in other western countries.

It’s like there are two parallel universes now. While the Anglosphere continues to ramp-up its emergency ‘pandemic’ measures and mandatory mask and quarantine policies, their Scandinavian counterparts like Sweden, Norway or Denmark have already returned to life as normal; no masks on public transport (although Norway just introduced a new rule today advising masks on crowded carriages), no obsessive social distancing rules, no snap lockdowns, and certainly no draconian laws and threats of £10,000 fines made by government leaders, or holding the country hostage until a wonder vaccine arrives in the spring. The contrast couldn’t be more extreme.

The French president is showing signs that he’s willing to follow the path first forged by General De Gaulle, who kicked US forces out of France and pulled the country out of NATO to preserve sovereignty and independence.

It was a remarkable statement from a modern European leader. During a visit to Lithuania this week, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “We, some countries more than others, gave up on our strategic independence by depending too much on American weapons systems. We cannot accept to live in a bipolar world made up of the US and China.”

After UK trade talks with the EU reached deadlock on several contentious issues such as fishing rights, Britain signed a fisheries framework agreement with Norway on 30 September, hailed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel as an indication the country is on a “constructive path”.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reportedly hoping to pressure French President Emmanuel Macron to concede to UK demands regarding fishing rights as the price for a post-Brexit trade and security deal with the EU at a crunch meeting with the European commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday, reports The Guardian.

As the Brexit endgame moves ever closer, the EU says it will sue the British government over its intention to breach the Withdrawal Agreement. But it’s a hollow threat borne out of exasperation over the UK’s tactics.

As the European Union launches legal proceedings against the UK over its stated intention to breach the agreement, in reality the bullies of Brussels are simply trying to pile on the pressure until a deal is finalized or we leave without one.

Hollow threats are a go-to weapon in the EU arsenal.

Eva Hamilton, the former CEO of Sweden’s public television broadcaster SVT, has claimed that no one in Sweden likes U.S. President Donald J. Trump and that Swedes view him as dangerous.

Ms Hamilton made her comments on Friday on Swedish television after reports revealed that President Trump had tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus along with First Lady Melania Trump.

She told the presenters of TV4’s Nyhetsmorgon programme that the infection could end up benefitting the U.S. leader going into next month’s presidential election.

“I think he’s going to win this. Assuming he survives,” Hamilton said, according to Nyheter Idag.