Good news from Greenland: 18 Greenpeace activists arrested

An example of excellent police work:

Police on Saturday arrested 18 Greenpeace activists who climbed aboard an oil rig off Greenland's coast to protest deepwater drilling in the Arctic.
The rig is operated by the Scottish oil group Cairn Energy and drilling has temporarily been suspended due to the protest. Cairn last month won permission to drill up to seven oil exploration wells off the Arctic island's west coast.
Police spokesman Morten Nielsen said activists from Britain, Finland, Sweden, Italy and the Netherlands, among other countries, are being taken to Nuuk, the semiautonomous Danish territory's capital, where they will be questioned.
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Greenland's government has called the Greenpeace action a publicity stunt that comes at the expense of Greenland's "legitimate right" to develop its economy.
Earlier this week, two Greenpeace activists were arrested under the rig, hanging just a few meters from the drill-bit. The protest prevented Cairn from starting drilling for four days.
Greenpeace says it has received a legal summons from Cairn's lawyers for having cost the company up to $4 million for every day it could not drill and could face substantial fines for the security breaches. The lawsuit will be heard Monday in a Dutch court.

Read the entire piece here

PS
Let´s hope that the Dutch court will be as effective as the police in Greenland!

Earth Day: Bollywood fights climate change

Bollywood is intent on beating Hollywood when it comes to fighting climate change. "In lieu of the impending climate crisis, IIFA (the International Indian Film Academy) has been a firm supporter of the environment" and has "taken several initiatives over the years to curb the ever-expanding issues that threaten it", Bollyspice.com reports. Already in 2007 IIFA "launched the concept of a `Green carpet`, replacing the traditional red carpet rolled out at all award shows".
(Hard to beat! NNoN)
Now IIFA is joining the United National Environment Programme in celebrating the "World Environment Day". Indian super star, former Miss World Priyanka Chopra is the top name in the UNEP/Bollywood campaign this year.

Could it be that Ms. Chopra is discussing climate change and global warming with an UNEP representative on this video?:

Compared with Hollywood, the Bollywood approach to fighting climate change seems to be somewhat more down-to-earth, as you can see from this educational video (it is only partially in English, but I think you will get the point):

"Savita bhabhi tells us why she loves Copehagen and why she has recently won an award for contributing to the solution for Climate Change."

Is an Egyptian style popular uprising likely in China?

             It is possible that we are going to see more of this in China

An Egyptian style popular uprising in China has so far failed to materialize. However, things could easily change. Max Fisher has written an interesting article about China´s dilemma in the latest issue of the Atlantic:

Despite their failures, democratic activists are still pressing, subtly subverting the state and spreading their message, and the Chinese government is taking them very seriously. International NGOs and journalists now say that the government crackdown is frighteningly reminiscent of 1989, which culminated with troops killing either hundreds or thousands of civilians at Tiananmen Square. As China increases its repressive measures, it may well quell the activists, but also risks upsetting, by its brutality, many of the urban Chinese who are otherwise indifferent.

China's dilemma is the same one experienced by autocratic regimes across the globe: a too-successful crackdown risks creating only more dissent, which will require even stronger crackdowns, initiating a violent cycle in which both the state and the population are neither willing nor able to back down. Such a cycle, if it continues unabated, has only two foreseeable endpoints: the collapse of the regime, which would be disastrous in a country as large, diverse, and militarized as China; or, more likely, the reversion of the state back to the violently repressive dictatorship of the 1970s. In other words, if the conflict between the state and its people continues to escalate, then the state is forced either to pursue the harshest possible campaign against it people, as it has in the past, or to abdicate.

This dark scenario may sound unlikely -- it's possible that the activists will simply give up, and the country's growing middle class will accept repression -- but, outside of the large coastal cities where Westerners travel, it is already underway. In the large, Northwestern province of Xinjiang, where reporters of any nationality are rarely allowed, the Chinese government has spent the last two years strangling basic civil rights and tightening markets. This process began after a spate of 2009 protests there, and has only increased since. A similar process has begun in Inner Mongolia, a province to the east, where security forces have waged a steady campaign of violence against dissenters.Read the entire article here

PS
I do not fully agree with Fisher, when he says that there are only two "foreseeable endpoints": the collapse of the regime, which would be disastrous in a country as large, diverse, and militarized as China; or, more likely, the reversion of the state back to the violently repressive dictatorship of the 1970s.
There is - at least in theory - a third option: A development in a more democratic direction could be introduced by a more enligthened communist leadership.

What Trichet wants: An EU finance ministry leading to a federal European state

The outgoing president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet has, in a speech he gave in Germany, suggested that the eurozone could in the future have its own finance ministry:

"Would it be too bold, in the economic field , with a single market, a single currency and a single central bank, to envisage a ministry of finance of the union?"

Of course, Trichet knows that the creation of an EU "finance ministry" is not going to be possible. Harvard and LSE professor Niall Ferguson here explains why.
PS
In the same speech, Trichet also stated his ultimate goal for Europe (which he shares with many of the present political leaders, who do not dare to say it publicly, because they know that the vast majority of  Europeans do not want it):

I think that [eventually] a confederation of sovereign states of a new type, with new institutions to manage the interdependence of today and tomorrow, would be fully in line with such a heroism of reason.

Of course, Trichet´s concept,"a confederation of sovereign states" does not make any sense. A confederation can not consist of sovereign states. Gobachev tried to transform the Soviet Union to a Union of Sovereign States, but we know where that led. So, what Trichet actually wants, is to transform the present somewhat diffuse EUSSR to a more formal federal EUSSR.   
(image by EU photo service)

German chancellor Merkel is not telling the truth about the euro

On March 18 the chairman of the Eurogroup, Luxembourg´s PM Jean-Claude Juncker made the following statement:

The euro is stable and not in crisis, Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker said Friday.
There are debt problems in some member states, Luxembourg's prime minister said at a conference here organized by the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament.
"The crisis is not a euro crisis," Juncker insisted.

Now, German chancellor Angela Merkel has repeated what Juncker said in March:

The euro isn't in crisis, although markets are uncertain whether struggling euro-zone economies can become competitive, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday.
"We don't have a problem with the euro as such," Merkel said in a speech during a two-day visit to Singapore.
"It is a stable currency particularly vis-a-vis the dollar. It is quite strong--sometimes too strong for us as an exporting nation," she said through an interpreter. "We have problems with certain member states and their debts."
The root of the euro-zone "debt problem" is "a competitiveness problem because the competitiveness of the member states in the euro area is too disparate and some of them too weak," she said. To "overcome this crisis," she said. "we need to boost competitiveness and we need to put fiscal responsibility right at the heart of our efforts."

Read the entire article here

Looking at the euro from a very narrow angle you may - as Merkel and Juncker do - be able to pretend that there is no euro crisis. But, of course, both Merkel and Juncker know that the reality of the euro co-operation is quite another matter. Without the euro, the problems of  Greece, Ireland and Portugal would not be Eurogroup problems. When you, as a result of a political decision, squeeze countries, which are economically, culturally and politically in a totally different situation, into a common currency area - without having a common finance and economic policy (which would mean a federal European state that voters do not want), you end up having a crisis.

Therefore, Merkel, Juncker, and all the other leaders, who maintain that there is no euro crisis, are dishonest and deserve to be punished for it at future elections.

"Rich" nations still ready to pay billions for fighting non-existent climate change

                                             Flashback, Copenhagen 2009

The world´s "rich" nations continue to pledge billions of dollars to help "poor" nations "fight" imaginary human caused "climate change":

Earthquake-hit Japan and many other rich nations are reaffirming pledges to give $US30 billion from 2010-12 to help poor nations fight climate change despite budget cuts.

Climate aid has totalled $US16.2 billion since January 2010, according to submissions to the United Nations by a May deadline. Poor nations have said much of the cash is from existing programmes and is not new as promised.
Donors were led by Japan, the European Union and the United States.

"Aid is definitely coming through the pipeline," said Liz Gallagher, an expert at the E3G environmental think-tank in London

Read the entire article here

PS

You may remember that the mega size money transfer deal (100 billion USD a year by 2020) was brokered by president Obama and other leaders at the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 as a "compensation" for not being able to agree on anything else. It was one of the most weird - and expensive - pledges in recent years, particularly when one knows that many of the "rich" donors are living on borrowed money. In spite of all this, these same leaders now continue pledging the money they do not have for fighting something that does not exist. Fortunately, much of the money seems to be coming from "existing programmes". Still, the whole thing is an enormous waste of taxpayers´ money.

EU Commission - private jet travel, luxury five-star resorts, parties and expensive presents

              This is the preferred way of transportation for the EU elite


Finally, the truth about the lifestyle of the EU(SSR) elite is beginning to come out.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports:

The Bureau’s latest investigation reveals that the European Commission has spent millions of taxpayers’ money on private jet travel, luxury five-star resorts, parties and expensive presents.
Our investigation shows that Commissioners were travelling by private jet and handing out gifts of Tiffany jewellery to guests as Europeans faced budget cuts and IMF bailouts.

Here are some of  the bureau´s findings:

Over €7.5m was spent on private jet travel for Commissioners between 2006-2010.

President Barroso and eight assistants ran up a bill of €28,000 for a four night stay at the New York Peninsula Hotel, where the delegation stayed in suites costing on average €780 per night.

Over €300,000 was spent on events the EU described as “cocktail parties” in 2009. One bill totalled €75,000 for an event subsidised by the EU’s Research Executive Agency in Amsterdam, boasting a “night filled with wonder like no other…state-of-the-art technology, challenging art, combined with trendy cocktails, surprising performances and top DJs”.

Luxury spending
In 2009 the Commission also held away-days for officials and their families at resorts in Papua New Guinea and Ghana. On one occasion a Vietnamese delegation flew 44 staff to the five-star Palm Garden Resort for an event to “facilitate internal co-operation”.

Read the entire piece here

PS
One can only wonder, why the numerous Brussels MSM correspondents have not reported about these things already long ago. Well, the reason is pretty obvious: Their own opulent lifestyle is in danger, if they would start to dig a little deeper in the Brussels manure.