SOURCE: PEPE ESCOBAR, ASIA TIMES
All roads seem to lead to Rome as Italy expresses its love for China’s Belt and Road Initiative...

President Xi Jinping is due to arrive in Italy for an official visit on March 22. The top theme of discussion will be the New Silk Road, or the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

A day earlier, in Brussels, the EU is to debate a common strategy related to Chinese investments in Europe.

A substantial part of the EU is already linked de facto with BRI. That includes Greece, Portugal, 11 EU nations belonging to the 16+1 group of China plus Central and Eastern Europe and, for all practical purposes, Italy.

And yet it takes an undersecretary in the Italian economic development ministry, Michele Geraci, to tell the Financial Times that a memorandum of understanding supporting BRI will be signed during Xi’s visit, for all (White House) hell to break loose.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has been invited to address a joint meeting of US Congress in the beginning of April, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in a press release.

"It is my honor as Speaker, on behalf of the bipartisan leadership of the House of Representatives and the Senate, to extend to you an invitation to address a Joint Meeting of the two houses of Congress… at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, April 3, 2019", Pelosi wrote in her letter to Stoltenberg on Monday.

Stoltenberg will be visiting Washington, DC to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the NATO alliance.

A recent European Union (EU) announcement about national ID's will destroy millions of people's privacy and create a near global biometric database.

An article in State Watch News revealed that the EU has agreed to create a MANDATORY national biometric ID card.

"Measures being negotiated as part of the EU's 'Security Union' are moving ahead swiftly, with the Council and Parliament reaching provisional agreements on new rules for immigration liaison officers, the EU's Visa Code and the introduction of mandatory biometric national identity cards; and the Council agreeing its negotiating position on the new Frontex Regulation."

Earlier this week the Nepal government announced their plans to roll-out a national biometric ID card that will affect 30 million people.

Last month, I wrote an article warning people about the global effort to restrict everyone's right to travel. But what is happening across Europe and Asia should send chills down everyone's back.

The political turmoil has been ongoing in Venezuela since late January, when opposition figure Juan Guaido declared himself the interim president, leading to recognition by the United States and its allies. Russia, China, Mexico, and Turkey have said that they recognise Nicolas Maduro as the only legitimate president.

On Tuesday, the European Parliament is holding a plenary session in Strasbourg to discuss the developments in the Venezuelan political crisis.

British PM Theresa May has agreed to a “legally binding” deal with the EU around the Northern Ireland ‘backstop’ to secure Brexit, and will put that to a vote in the Parliament on Tuesday. Talks with EU leaders are ongoing.

During the negotiations on Monday with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Strasbourg, May secured legally binding changes that “strengthen and improve” the original Brexit agreement, her Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington told reporters Monday evening.

British lawmakers have the choice to “vote for this deal or plunge the country into a political crisis,” said Lidington, noting that the EU has made clear this will be “the only deal on the table.”

The successor of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has rejected French President Emmanuel Macron’s vision of the European Union (EU), rejecting a more centralised EU.

The Christian Democratic Union leader, known by her initials AKK in Germany given her tongue-twister name, presented her own vision of the future of the European Union which differs greatly from the proposal of President Macron and would see increased cooperation but not down the path of an EU superstate Die Welt reports.

“Europe needs a strategy to promote convergence, which intelligently links national and European approaches,” Kramp-Karrenbauer said and added support for an “EU innovation budget” to fund research and technological development.

British MPs are holding an important vote to determine the fate of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement elaborated by the government after the previous plan was rejected by lawmakers in January.

If there is no agreement on the divorce plan with the EU, Parliament will be holding a vote on a no-deal Brexit on Wednesday. If this option is also rejected, a vote on extending the Article 50 period beyond 29 March will take place on Thursday.

Whenever there is talk of redrawing borders between geopolitical entities, these precipitate or come as the consequence of a major war. Such is the scenario now in the central and west Balkans, as the Serbian government led by Vucic’s Progressive Party, proposes a redrawing of the de-facto map, that would see a land-swap. There is nothing war-like in Vucic’s proposal, rather his proposal hopes to cool-off the present Greater Albanian escalation. But the debate surrounding it reveals that the US plans to further hack Serbia down in size, as punishment for continued defiance. Russia, on the other hand, entirely supports all of Belgrade’s initiatives and right to defense. Moreover, this is a serious arms race presently underway.

During his time as Prime Minister (1997-2007), Mr Blair presided over a wave of pro-Europe policies, which included devising ways to shift the British currency from the Pound to the Euro, although he admitted in 1999 that the proposal would likely fail in a referendum.

Former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has been secretly advising French President Emmanual Macron on how to stymie the UK's attempts to leave the European Union (EU), the Telegraph has revealed.

Mr Blair apparently shared his beliefs with officials in Paris that if the EU continues to refuse concessions then eventually the British parliament will relent and accept a customs union arrangement that would keep London tethered to Brussels, or, that they may even cancel Brexit altogether.

An alternative to what Europe could and should be exists to the one Emmanuel Macron described last week. If there is a need for a rebirth, then let it be of the sovereignty of the people, of enlightenment against the obscurantism of money and religion.

In Europe, the time has come to speak the only truly international language capable of motivating peoples widely diverse in history, languages and culture. It is the language of common good, of its defence and its extension, of living together, of rebuilding after 30 years of ransacked rights and public services, and free and undistorted competition. It is a language for peace, in the face of frenzied belligerent, anti-Russian, warlike Nato provocations.

There is urgency, for we are threatened by a system of production and exchange that is destroying not only the Earth but also the human beings who live on it. Has the time not come for solidarity that will save us from the impending ecological disaster?

Italian children have been told not to turn up to school unless they can prove they have been properly vaccinated.

The deadline follows months of national debate over compulsory vaccination.

Parents risk being fined up to €500 (£425; $560) if they send their unvaccinated children to school. Children under six can be turned away.

The new law came amid a surge in measles cases - but Italian officials say vaccination rates have improved since it was introduced.

Under Italy's so-called Lorenzin law - named after the former health minister who introduced it - children must receive a range of mandatory immunisations before attending school. They include vaccinations for chickenpox, polio, measles, mumps, and rubella.

Swedish terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp recently warned Sweden against taking back not only ISIS terrorists, but also their wives and children, who he said also pose a security risk: "Some of them have learned how to kill... their identities will forever be linked to their time with ISIS..." (Image source: Victoria Henriksson/Wikimedia Commons)

Sweden's new government, which was finally formed in January after months of delay, is introducing policies that will lead to more immigration into Sweden -- despite the main governing party, the Social Democrats, having run for office on a promise to tighten immigration policies.

Recent unrest there now threatens France, with possibly another migration wave on the way.

After surviving several assassination attempts by French partisans of Algérie Française , Charles de Gaulle in March 1962 signed a peace agreement ending French sovereignty over Algeria. The war for Algerian independence had been long and vicious, marked by terrorism and torture. Everyone who mattered in French politics believed in 1954 that Algeria was an integral part of France, to be defended at all cost. But by 1962, their view had changed. With cold realism, de Gaulle remarked of the conflict, now in its seventh year, “As for France, it will be necessary for her now to interest herself in something else.”

Russia will conduct an observation flight over the territory of Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg (Benelux) under the Treaty on Open Skies on March 11-15, the acting head of the Russian Defence Ministry’s National Nuclear Risk Reduction Centre, Ruslan Shishin, said on Monday.

"As part of the implementation of the international Treaty on Open Skies, Russia plans to perform an observation flight using a Russian An-30B surveillance aircraft over the Benelux territory", Shishin said, adding that the flight would occur on March 11-15.

Shishin also said that a joint US-Norwegian mission will conduct a surveillance flight over the territory of Russia under the treaty on March 11-16.

“Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough.”

— MARIO DRAGHI JULY 26TH 2012
No quote better defines Mario Draghi’s seven-plus years as the President of the European Central Bank than that quote. Draghi has thrown literally everything at the deflationary spiral the Euro-zone is in to no avail.

What has been enough has been nothing more than a holding pattern.

Tens of thousands of people braved cold weather on Friday in Algiers to demand President Abdelaziz Bouteflika step down, as rallies against the ailing leader's re-election bid spread across Algeria for a third consecutive week.

The protest, which coincided with International Women's Day, saw an even larger crowd pour onto the streets of the capital compared with the previous mass gatherings.

In what has become a habit since February 22, the mostly young demonstrators chanted slogans against the 82-year-old president, his brother and "le pouvoir", or the powers that be - a vague term Algerians use to refer to the shadowy clique of politicians, high ranking military officials and oligarchs who they believe have been running the country.

Ebba Busch Thor, leader of the Swedish Christian Democrats (KD), has slammed the mass migration policies of the Swedish government, saying they have made women less secure.

The conservative leader slammed the left-wing establishment, saying it had largely failed on feminist issues despite supporting a supposed feminist-oriented policy in an op-ed for Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

“Above all, the issue of women’s insecurity must be addressed — and it is acute,” she wrote.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is speaking out about Italy’s reported willingness to sign onto the People’s Republic of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, telling Breitbart News that reports of the Italians’ openness to joining the Communist Party of China program is “stunningly naive.”

Rubio’s comments come in the wake of reports that Italy is signing onto the Belt and Road Initiative of Chinese president Xi Jinping later this month, which would make Italy the first G-7 nation to join the program.

Nicky Morgan yesterday became the most senior Tory yet to say the PM must go if she loses the crunch Commons vote. MPs are expected to give her deal a drubbing tomorrow night.

This year’s EU election will be the “last chance” to kill populism, Guy Verhofstadt has warned, calling for sovereignty-destroying “reform” which would transfer national powers to Brussels.

In an interview with five influential establishment newspapers from across the continent on Tuesday, the veteran MEP and Brussels’ Brexit coordinator gave his backing to the vision of a federal EU superstate unveiled by Emmanuel Macron earlier this week.

A “centrist, pro-European reformist political force” needs to take charge in Brussels following May’s EU elections, Verhofstadt said, stating that the French president’s call “for the revival of Europe” must be “one of the key points of reference” for politicians aligned to this cause.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore has branded British politicians “cowards” for failing to push their voters into a re-run of the 2016 referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union.

Speaking at the Climate Change Leadership summit in Porto, Portugal, the 70-year-old Democrat took aim at the (in)famous “Breaking Point” poster unveiled by Brexit campaign leader Nigel Farage at the height of the campaign, showing a huge column of illegal migrants pouring through the continent’s borders in late 2015.

“One of the most powerful posters in the ‘Brexit’ campaign was one that showed an endless line of refugees saying, ‘The EU failed’,” Gore told his hosts — although, in fact, the legend read “The EU has failed us all”.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is speaking out about Italy’s reported willingness to sign onto the People’s Republic of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, telling Breitbart News that reports of the Italians’ openness to joining the Communist Party of China program is “stunningly naive.”

Rubio’s comments come in the wake of reports that Italy is signing onto the Belt and Road Initiative of Chinese president Xi Jinping later this month, which would make Italy the first G-7 nation to join the program.

A lawyer and expert on racism warned that it might be difficult to charge the “KKK” group with racial discrimination under existing Swiss legislation as they apparently didn’t target any specific race or ethnicity and only donned their attire during a carnival.

Swiss authorities have launched an investigation into the actions of a group of people who were spotted marching around the town of Brunnen while dressed as members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) during this week’s carnival, the local 20 Minuten newspaper reports.

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban’s Fidesz Party faces expulsion from the European People’s Party, the largest bloc in the European Union parliament. The bloc also includes Germany’s Christian Democrats and the Christian Social Union. Sputnik talked about it with Vávra Suk, editor-in-chief of the Swedish Nya Tider newspaper.

Based on his 20-year-long studies on integration and assimilation, Ruud Koopmans, a professor of sociology at Humboldt University in Berlin, has arrived at the conclusion that Muslims are more difficult to integrate than other immigrant groups.

Professor Ruud Koopmans suggested than no Western country has managed to successfully integrate Muslims. In an interview with the Danish newspaper Berlingske, he stressed that despite individual pattern breakers, the overall picture and the general trend are discouraging.

"For anyone who takes facts and data seriously, it is undeniable that Muslims are much worse at integration than other groups of immigrants, no doubt about that. There is also no doubt that in most other groups of immigrants, we see great progress from one generation to the next. Although it's not completely absent in Muslims, the change is much slower," Koopmans told Berlingske.

"Retreating into nationalism offers nothing; it is rejection without an alternative. And this is the trap that threatens the whole of Europe: the anger mongers, backed by fake news, promise anything and everything". Macron, 2019.

President Macron's audacious letter to the EU28 published by fawning newspapers, presumably a free opinion piece, should count as election spending, it was his pitch for a fast track federal Europe that very few want.

It was his free election leaflet ahead of the EU elections in May.

It was also his pitch to be crowned the new leader of the EU, as a wounded Merkel stands down.

Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the NATO Supreme Allied Commander-Europe, argued that the US needs to send even more troops and warships to Europe to “stay ahead of Russia.”

Even though Russia’s military spending is actually scheduled to decrease in the next few years, Gen. Scaparrotti argued that the “growing” Russian threat justified even more US spending on Europe. This has, of course, been a common argument for Pentagon officials, and is why the US such a massive number of troops in Eastern Europe in the first place.

“I’m not comfortable yet with the deterrent posture that we have in Europe in support of the National Defense Strategy,” Scaparrotti told SASC Chair Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., adding:

“Of concern is my intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capacity given that increasing and growing threat of Russia. I need more ISR.”

Representatives of the Syrian authorities are not invited to the third international donor conference on Syria in Brussels, a EU source told Sputnik on Monday.

The Brussels conference, devoted to mobilizing financial aid for the war-torn country, will be held on March 12-14. The second conference on Syria, which was held in Brussels last April with the participation of representatives from 57 countries, managed to mobilize $4.4 billion in financial aid for Syria for 2018 and $3.4 billion for 2019-2020.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is known to be one of the most vocal anti-immigration advocates in Europe and has categorically opposed the idea of accepting refugees from other European countries under migrant resettlement schemes proposed by the European Union.

The Hungarian government will not abandon its anti-migration stance after the European People's Party called on Budapest to stop its anti-EU rhetoric, spokesman Zoltan Kovacs wrote in a tweet on Wednesday.

"We listen to other opinions, including (EPP group leader Manfred) Weber's," Kovacs said. "But more important than party discipline are the defence of European Christian values and stopping migration. On this, we cannot yield."

Hungary’s Viktor Orbán could face expulsion from the European Parliament’s centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) political group.

The EPP is set to discuss Orban and his Fidesz party on 20 March. The EPP is the parliament’s largest group but has been wrangling over Orban’s increasingly populist and anti-EU rhetoric.

In a response Viktor Orbán called those seeking his party’s ouster from the group “useful idiots”, saying in an interview that their efforts would only serve the interests of the left.

A video with the title “It has gone too far” by the police in the Swedish no-go zone Rinkeby/Järva has been viewed over 2 million times in the past few days.

Unfortunately it’s not because the police finally have said something based and accurate. On the contrary – it’s extra everything of the same nonsense as usual.

The reason they made the video is because two “boys” in the multi-cultural zone were trying to shoplift pastries at a local grocery store – and pulled out guns when they got caught.

The Polish government is reconsidering whether to exhume human remains at a World War II-era site where Jews were burned alive by Polish neighbors, though the country’s chief rabbi says the work would violate Judaism’s prohibition on disinterment under most circumstances.

Authorities will weigh “various circumstances” in deciding if exhumations should go forward in the town of Jedwabne, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told private broadcaster Polsat News.

During the German Nazi occupation of Poland, Poles killed at least 340 Jews on July 10, 1941. Most of the victims were locked inside a barn that was set on fire.

Some Poles want the massacre site excavated to uncover possible evidence that Germans ordered Polish villagers to do the killings. The work was started in 2001 and stopped by the justice minister after several days due to Jewish objections.

With numerous political crises gripping Europe, 28 newspapers across the EU yesterday published something we all could have done without: a heartwarming letter about unity and progress from none other than Emmanuel Macron.

“Citizens of Europe,” the embattled French president begins, in the characteristically arrogant style for which he has become known, before delving into the Brexit conundrum and the European Union’s crisis of legitimacy.

Brexit, Macron tells us, is a “symbol” of the “danger” the EU finds itself in. Another way to look at it might be that Brexit is a symbol of how broken the European project actually is. But wait, he’s getting to that: The EU, he continues, has “failed to respond to its peoples’ need for protection from the major shocks of the modern world.”

The Polish government is reconsidering whether to exhume human remains at a World War II-era site where Jews were burned alive by Polish neighbors, though the country's chief rabbi says the work would violate Judaism's prohibition on disinterment under most circumstances.

Oskar Lafontaine, leader of the Left in the Saarland Parliament and former SPD chairman, has vehemently defended the controversial gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 and the purchase of Russian natural gas by Germany in a Facebook post.

Lafontaine cites US security adviser and Stratfor founder George Friedman as saying: It is a trivial realization that the United States would have a problem if German technology and Russian commodities came together. (…) The main goal of [the US is] for over a century is to prevent a German-Russian alliance. Of course, the US wants to drive a wedge between Germany and Russia.Therefore, US President Donald Trump now wants to prevent the purchase of environmentally friendly gas and instead sell Germany his “polluting fracking gas.”

Therefore, there is a “lying campaign” of Das Bild and other “quality media” and relevant well-known “Atlanticists” among the CDU and the Greens.

The top U.S. commander in Europe on Tuesday declared that American and NATO troops could not yet mount a credible deterrence against Russian aggression, noting that the Kremlin’s efforts to modernize its armed forces are eroding the United Sates’s military advantage in Europe.
Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) head and NATO’s supreme allied commander, identified a lack of manpower, naval capability shortfalls, and inadequate intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capacity as reasons why American and NATO troops are unable to handle the credible deterrence against Russian aggression.

The general’s comments came as he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee about American military activities in Europe, telling lawmakers the United States needs to follow in the footsteps of American rival Russia and modernize its force.

Italy is planning to formally back China’s multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It would become the first G7 nation to join the ambitious project which promises to significantly boost global trade.

Rome is preparing to sign a memorandum of understanding to officially support the project, championed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, by the end of March, according to Michele Geraci, undersecretary in Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development as quoted by FT.

If Zionist fascists today join forces with Europeans to fight Islam and Muslims under the guise of fighting terror, then we should stand up together and defend ourselves against this kind of racism to save the last of democracy.

The head of the German federation of industries has claimed the British are “lost” and has thrown doubt on Berlin’s backing for a short Brexit extension, claiming an “economy can live better with bad conditions than with uncertainty”.

Dieter Kempf, the chairman of the Bundesverbandes der Deutschen Industrie, said the 100,000 companies he represents and their 8 million employees have prepared for a no-deal scenario in March, not in May.

Speaking in the wake of the British prime minister’s suggestion that the UK could request a two-month Brexit delay, Kempf told the Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad that he felt no relief at the apparent U-turn by Theresa May.

A report from Norwegian media has revealed that over the last year, around 70 percent of those convicted for violent crimes in Oslo have been immigrants.
Oslo courts have seen a total of 140 individuals convicted of violent crimes and then sentenced in the last year. Two out of three of those convicts have been revealed to be migrants, Norwegian broadcaster TV2 reports.

According to Statistics Norway, the number of immigrants as a part of the total population of Oslo is 33 percent, meaning that in violent crime, immigrants are vastly overrepresented.

Globalist French President Emmanuel Macron has made a direct address to the over 500 million people who live in the European Union, calling on them to support his vision of a more centralised and powerful “project” European Union which, he believes, could even entice the United Kingdom into cancelling Brexit.

The plea to voters to back an enhanced European Union which would take more control over its member nation states comes just months before the continental power bloc holds elections to select Members of the European Parliament for the next five-year term.

Sputnik has discussed with Jan Oberg, director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, French President Emmanuel Macron's open letter envisaging steps that could lead to a "European Renaissance” in the lead up to May's European elections and Brexit.

The Hungarian government is warning that the EU’s unelected executive and Germany’s Angela Merkel want to take away national governments’ power to control their own borders and turn Europe into “a continent of immigrants”.

State Secretary for International Communications and Relations Dr Zoltán Kovács warned that plans to reform and expand the role of the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) were an attempt to “infringe on the sovereignty of member-states” by taking border control out of national governments’ “competence” and handing it to the supranational body.

To support his claims about the European elite’s intentions, he quoted arguably the bloc’s most influential player, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany:

U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reapers have been flying unarmed reconnaissance missions from Poland since May, but it wasn’t until this month that the drones became fully operational.

Air Forces in Europe christened a new set of facilities at Miroslawiec Air Base, Poland, March 1 to help accommodate the Air National Guardsmen and contractors operating Reapers there.

“In addition to the completion of these projects, another important change is the remotely piloted aircraft here are now operated by both contractors and U.S. military personnel,” said Brig. Gen. Greg Semmel, Air National Guard assistant to the commander of Air Forces Europe, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The Christian Democrat parties from Belgium and Luxembourg want to kick Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban out of their European Union EPP umbrella group. The move could impact European elections in May. The Luxembourg and two Belgian member parties wrote to the presidency asking for Orban’s Fidesz to be excluded because the Hungarian leader “has been acting in striking contradiction” with EPP values, AP reports.

Russia may be forced to deploy missiles capable of striking the entire European continent if the United States deploys such weapons in the region, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said during remarks at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC.

"We are very much concerned that after the decision of the United States to withdraw from INF, missiles could be deployed on the territory of European allies," Antonov said on Monday. "We will be forced to deploy our missiles, and here you will see that the whole territory of European countries will be covered."

US Unable to Down Advanced Russian Missiles - STRATCOM Chief
Russian Ambassador to the United States also said that the United States and Russia are destined to cooperate in combating terrorism.

The Bank of England has warned that families and businesses across the EU will have higher borrowing costs and financial turmoil as authorities have no prepare for a no-deal Brexit. This comes as Emmanuel Macron has sparked a vicious backlash for claiming Brexit was the result of an “irresponsible lie” and saying the situation represents the worst crisis since the Second World War. In the French president’s letter to the ‘Citizens of Europe’, published in a number of publications across the continent and in the UK, he said: “Who told the British people the truth about their post-Brexit future?"

THERESA May is expected to make an eleventh hour trip to Brussels this weekend to finalise an updated Withdrawal Agreement, but furious Brexiteers have said the tight timetable does not leave them enough time to look over the deal.

Mr Macron was accused of presenting a “french wish list” for the EU by designing a future for the bloc that suits Paris’ “own image”, without much regard for its other members. In the memo, which was published in 24 languages, the French President called for new EU institutions, as well as a common defence strategy, to protect the bloc. But the radical proposals, designed as the starter pistol for Mr Macron’s European Parliament elections campaign, weren’t to the taste of the entire bloc.

Estonia’s liberal opposition Reform Party won Sunday’s general election, while the Euroskeptic ERKE doubled its support.

Estonians voted in a tight general election that saw the ruling Center Party face off against the neoliberal Reform Party and Euroskeptic EKRE.

Former MEP Kaja Kallas’s center-right Reform Party won 28.8 percent of the vote, ahead of Ratas’s Center Party on 23 percent. The far-right EKRE doubled its previous election result to win 17.8 percent of the vote. EKRE has come out strongly against EU-mandated refugee quotas, and has called for a referendum on EU membership.

The Finnish Police investigates a video published recently in social media by the vigilante group ‘Soldiers of Odin’ that announces a “hunt” for rapists and pedophiles.

The video, which is subtitled in English and Arabic, and has since been deleted from both Facebook and Vimeo, shows a group of masked men dressed in dark, armed with bats and chains march onwards to the camera amid winter darkness, accompanied by heavy metal music.

One of them, who acts as a spokesperson, announces that “The pedophile hunting season has been opened!”

The Foundation was founded in the 1980s by George Soros, a vocal proponent of globalism and open borders, and is now trying to portray Poland’s drive for sovereignty as a threat to the entire European Union.

The Stefan Batory Foundation, a Polish NGO established by billionaire globalist George Soros and a group of Polish opposition leaders in the 1980s, has issued a paper calling on EU authorities to step up their antagonism towards the ruling party Law and Justice in Poland, saying that the entire survival of the Union depends on it.

"The battle for the rule of law in Poland sets a precedent and is effectively a battle for the survival of the EU", the document reads, defining the EU as a community in which each member nation's laws abide to a "similar standard".

Authored by Emma R. via The Voice Of Europe,

The Finnish Police investigates a video published recently in social media by the vigilante group ‘Soldiers of Odin’ that announces a “hunt” for rapists and pedophiles.

The video, which is subtitled in English and Arabic, and has since been deleted from both Facebook and Vimeo, shows a group of masked men dressed in dark, armed with bats and chains march onwards to the camera amid winter darkness, accompanied by heavy metal music.

One of them, who acts as a spokesperson, announces that “The pedophile hunting season has been opened!”

The speaker points out that their target are the “sex tourists who have invaded our country” and “hunt our children”. And explains that the Soldiers of Odin are going to take justice into their own hands, since “the authorities and the politicians do nothing”.

In a diplomatic tit-for-tat the Netherlands on Monday recalled its ambassador to Iran after members of its diplomatic staff at its embassy in Tehran were expelled, Foreign Minister Stef Blok announced on Monday.

"[We] Have decided to recall the ambassador in Tehran for consultations," Blok said in a tweet. "The decision follows the expulsion of two Dutch embassy staff. That is unacceptable."

Though the immediate reasons for this latest spat between the two countries remains unclear, tensions have heightened after the European Union first began accusing Iran of "assassination attempts" and state-sponsored "terrorist plots" in Europe.

Last month Iran slammed EU charges as "groundless" — charges which Dutch officials had helped push into the open in tandem with other European leaders.

Longtime Automatic Earth friend Alexander Aston talks about finding himself at Oxford at a point in time when the British themselves appear overcome by a combo of utter confusion and deadly lethargy, and one can only imagine what it must be like for ‘foreigners’ residing in Albion, who face large potential changes to their lives and know there’s not a thing they can do about it, not even vote.

I like the observation that the entire British political system, the place where decisions are made, is the size of a small village. That’s a visual we can all relate to. It’s a physical limit as well as a mental one. I’m all for sovereignty and self-determination, but how’s that going to work if you can’t even see the boundaries of your own territory?

Guys, it’s 4 weeks to D-Day today. How about we call off the landing, get a few pints instead, and talk? First round’s on me.

Recently released figures also cast large shadows over Germany’s formidable manufacturing sector, with industrial output much lower than expected. In November, industrial output fell by 1.9%, while the year-on-year decline was 4.7%. These figures, the worst since the end of the 2008 crisis, are understandably giving rise to fears among investors and analysts of a nearing recession.

The main US intelligence officer, Den Kouts, announces the new Balkan bloodthirsty this year, and sees the Serbs and Albanians as the main actors.
If this happens, he says, Russia's President Vladimir Putin will be guilty. The report of the US National Security Agency for 2019, which deals with security risks around the world, envisages an armed conflict in the Western Balkans. Given that it is said that Russia will initiate it (in order to halt the progress of the countries of the region towards NATO and the EU) by encouraging interethnic tensions, it is clear that they first of all considered Serbs and Albanians, because among these two nations tensions are most definitely the most prominent.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday that the alliance’s enlargement to the east was not a provocation against Russia, dismissing such assessments as the concept of spheres of influence that should be left behind.

The statement was made at the GLOBSEC public event in Slovakia, which hosted talks of the Bucharest Nine group — the countries of NATO's eastern flank — earlier in the day.

"It is up for the 29 allies and an applicant country to decide if and when to join. No one else has a say because often I hear If Ukraine joins, If North Macedonia joins, if Georgia joins, that is a provocation against Russia, it is an aggressive action against Russia … This concept is totally wrong because I strongly believe every nation has the right to decide its own path, and NATO totally respects that regardless whether they work for membership in NATO or they say we are neutral," Stoltenberg said.

Experts say the move sends a signal that the West won't tolerate Russia's expanding military footprint in the region. However, an 80-year-old treaty could limit the alliance's scope for action.

The background to this is an incident in the Kerch Strait at the end of November. Russian ships off the coast of the Crimean peninsula — which was annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014 — seized two Ukrainian Navy boats and a tug by force of arms. Deborah Sanders of King's College London told DW that Europe reacted "quite slowly" to the incident in the Kerch Strait via diplomatic channels, so a "more military" approach was chosen, meaning an increased naval presence. Sanders, an expert on defense and security in the region, said the US had taken on an informal leadership role, the aim being to send a clear signal to Moscow that the Black Sea is not Russian waters. She pointed out that the balance of power in the Black Sea has shifted in Russia's favor, and that Kyiv is worried about a blockade of Odessa, the country's most important port. Since the annexation of Crimea, the Ukrainian navy has been stationed in Odessa.

An image of a Muslim woman wearing a hijab was recently published on a digital advertising board at the entrance to the Swedish City of Gävle.

“It is true that the board was vandalised on Friday, and completely destroyed during the weekend”, says Johan Adolfsson, director of communications at Gävle Municipality.

“We select people who have been nominated by the residents to represent those who live in Gävle. Suzan Hindi is one of the 100 Gävle residents nominated for the campaign”.

Agents of the National Police have arrested an immigrant for sexual assault at a juvenile center in Palma in Mallorca, where the youth was detained after arriving in a boat to the island.

The events occurred when the young man, of Moroccan origin, showed up totally naked and grabbed a 24-year-old social worker, pushing her into a bathroom, when the girl began to scream and narrowly managed to escape from her attacker.

Once the Police became aware of the facts, they went to the juvenile center and proceeded to arrest the refugee for sexual assault.

Hungary’s foreign affairs minister has warned that Europe will be weakened if it abandons families in favour of mass migration.

“Europe will be strong if it becomes a Europe of families, because if the Europe of migrants is realised, then it will be weak,” Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said during a conference in Budapest on Thursday.

The minister’s comments during the event, entitled Europe’s Future: Family or Migration, comes after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced a series of family-friendly economic policies earlier in February.

The European Commission on Thursday addressed suggestions in a Hungarian government information campaign that Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and billionaire investor George Soros seek to flood the country with migrants, Reuters reports. The Commission published a report debunking the assertions on billboards and full-page newspaper ads. The report rejected Hungarian assertions that the EU executive arm wanted to introduce refugee resettlement quotas, stating that refugee resettlement “is and will always be on a purely voluntary basis.”

Albanian police used teargas to disperse hundreds of opposition protesters who tried to prevent ruling Socialist MPs from entering parliament.

THERESA May has been handed another Brexit blow after influential minister George Eustice resigned over opposing a possible extension to Article 50.

The agriculture minister took a swipe at the Prime Minister’s handling of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union stating “parliament is now in direct control”. The Tory MP indicated the motions passed this week in the Commons meant the EU would now be “dictating the terms” of negotiations and the country was now in danger of being “humiliated”.

A radio caller has insisted that Italy is ready to follow Brexit Britain out of the European Union. Speaking on talkRADIO, the caller, known as Geoff, whose wife is Italian, claimed the whole of Italy is “watching” what Britain is doing. He said: “We are very lucky, myself and my wife, to own a second home in Calabria in Italy, my wife is Italian.

France and Germany sought to create a European rail giant, but their push was blocked by the European Commission, which feared the project would harm competition in the bloc. Now, Berlin and Paris want to revise EU competition rules - raising concerns among smaller member states.

About 17 EU member states have forged a coalition against a joint Franco-German push for easing restrictions on free competition in the union.

According to a letter seen by the Polish Rzeczpospolita newspaper, this coalition includes the Baltic States, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Sweden.

They are said to have warned European Council President Donald Tusk against the "growing risk of protectionism" and possible shifts in balance of power in economic matters post-Brexit.