A Sting Exclusive: “Paris is indeed our best bet for a secure climate future”, EU Commissioner for Environment Karmenu Vella cries out from Brussels

Exclusively written for the Sting by Karmenu Vella, EU Commissioner in charge of Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries When we think of climate change the oceans are now central to our thinking and our efforts. It must be at the heart of our efforts because the ocean is the heart of our planet. We know […]

A Sting Exclusive: Paris Climate Change Summit, a defining moment for humanity, by Ulf Björnholm Head of UNEP Brussels

Written by Mr Ulf Björnholm, Head of the UNEP Brussels Liaison Office With world leaders and governments struggling to find solutions to immediate problems such as extreme poverty, terrorism, economic crisis, unemployment and migration, we now also need to collectively rise to the challenge to simultaneously counter a more long term, but equally serious, threat to […]

The UN supports Europe’s military action in Libya and the Mediterranean; Russia and China agree

Last Friday 9 October the UN Security Council and its five permanent members unanimously decided to actually trade entire nations and geographical regions between them. To this effect they authorized the European Union to employ warships in the Libyan waters to “board ships for inspection, seize and even dispose of vessels suspected of being used […]

EU to lead one more fight against climate change at G7 summit

The UN talks that are being held in the context of a 10-day climate conference in Bonn are highly crucial for the preparation of the final agreement that must be signed at the climate summit in Paris in 6 months from now. Therefore, officials from 190 nations are gathered in the German city to discuss […]

Who really cares about the 26.2 million of EU jobless?

Yesterday, Eurostat, the EU statistical service, published an update of unemployment statistics for the European Union covering the period up to December 2013. In that month 26.200 million men and women in the EU-28, of whom 19.010 million were in the euro area (EA-17), were unemployed. Eurostat estimates that “Compared with November 2013, the number […]

EU security and defence industry prepares positions for ‘producers’ and ‘customers’

The fast track sovereignty concession in the sphere of the economy, that the European Union and more so the Eurozone has recently scheduled for the coming years, with the accomplishment of the European Banking Union, was yesterday mirrored in the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy. The EU leaders who met in Brussels yesterday for […]

EU sets ambitious targets for the Warsaw climate conference

The UN climate conferences are the kind on international tribunes, where the European Union can present its opinions with pride. It’s not only that the EU has unilaterally set a target to cut down green-house emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020, but also because this programme is on track to achieve targets. On […]

Europe united in not supporting a US attack on Syria

The Lithuanian Foreign Minister, Linas Linkevičius, whose country is currently holding the rotating president of the EU Council, during the workings of last Saturday’s informal meeting of the 28 Foreign Affairs ministers in Vilnius supported so openly and provocatively the US positions on Syria, to the point that only his tiny and deeply anti-Russian country […]

Obama turns the G20 summit into warmongering platform

In an unprecedented move the American President Barack Obama asked yesterday all and each one of the G20 leaders participating in the Saint Petersburg summit to back ‘his’ war against Syria by signing a paper (joint declaration) authorising the US to use military force. This is an attempt by the US to neutralise the United […]

EU plans to exploit the Mediterranean Sea and the wealth beneath it

At a time when the Mediterranean Sea is not at its most peaceful times the European Commission presented a study which finds that the “establishment of maritime zones, including Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), in the Mediterranean would benefit the EU’s Blue Growth and wider sustainability agendas”. The study is entitled “Costs and benefits arising from […]

Is our brave new world about to burst?

“Splitting” is the magic word one hears nowadays all over the world in developed and developing counties alike, from Belgium, Spain, Scotland and Canada to Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Soudan, Libya and Turkey as if until now there were no divisions over national identity, incomes, wealth and natural endowments. Flemish, Flemish, Scots, Quebecois, Benghazies, Alawites, Kurds […]

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