FREEZING COLD-NWO ENVIROMENT NUTS ARE SCAMMERS

CURRENCY NEWS
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1379498494&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1379498463&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1378953907&play=1
CRISIS JUST BEGGINING
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1379424998&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1379374089&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1379247740&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1378789469&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1379438998&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1378738025&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1378722594&play=1

HOMESCHOOLERS ARRESTED
http://www.infowars.com/homeschoolers-arrested-in-new-york-slavery-returns-to-amerika/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDyDtYy2I0M&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bOl0EC74Cg&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFwv8AvDgqw&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ_2pmphV7o&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVRSrA8d4fM&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdwYDxruKMg&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WQZALgChFg&feature=player_embedded

Homeschoolers Arrested in New York: Slavery Returns to Amerika
Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com January 6, 2009

In a move designed to send a message to parents, a Montgomery County, New York, couple were arrested and ticketed for homeschooling their children and failing to register their them with the school district.News report on couple arrested for home-schooling.Richard Cressy, 47, and Margie Cressy, 41, both of the town of Glen, never registered their four children or their home-schooling curriculum with the local school district, said the Sheriff’s Office, reports WRGB, a CBS affiliate in Albany, New York.The Superintendent of the Fonda-Fultonville Central School District confirmed the four children, ranging in age from 8 to 14, had not been registered with the school district for the last seven years.The couple may lose custody of their children. The case has been turned over to the Montgomery County District Attorney and the Child Protective Unit.On his radio show today, Alex Jones said the arrest and demand that parents turn their offspring over to the state is like a scene out of Planet of the Apes. In the cult classic, apes hunt humans and intern them in a slave gulag. Police and the CPS are acting like apes on the hunt. Jones pointed out that there is no law in New York criminalizing homeschooling and the arrest was predicated on a color of law regulation.Local and state governments around the country have moved to criminalize homeschooling and force children to attend dangerous public schools. In 2008 in California, an appeals court ruled that parents do not have a constitutional right to home-school their children.

Germany’s mandatory education laws are based on Hitler’s Reichsculpflicht Gesetz (federal compulsory attendance laws) which were passed in 1938. Earlier this year, a German couple asked for asylum in the United States after the German government ruled that homeschooling their children was illegal. Uwe Romeike and his family moved to Tennessee after the state threatened to fine him and take away his children. Romeike, an evangelical Christian, objects to German school textbooks containing language and ideas that conflict with his family’s values.Provisions in the California Education Code require persons between the ages of six and eighteen to be in public full-time day school, or a private full-time day school or instructed by a tutor who holds a valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught.The 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles argued that keeping the children at home deprived them of situations where they could interact with people outside the family.In other words, that court ruled that parents have no right to decide who their children interact with socially and that decision will be left to the state and bureaucrats.The ruling dramatically affects more than 200,000 homeschooled children in California.The California educational system is notorious for its pro-homosexual curriculum. Children attending California government schools are taught explicitly to avoid discriminatory attitudes and practices toward homosexuals in accordance with state laws that fund revised curriculum and unspecified tolerance programs, writes Julie Foster.In addition to tolerance programs, public education emphasizes sex eduction (teaching children how to be promiscuous) and suicide and death education.

A study conducted in 2002 revealed that public schools are infested with drugs. Half of all teens — and 60 percent of high school teens — report that drugs are used, kept, or sold at their schools. Students at these schools are three times more likely to smoke, drink, or use illicit drugs than students whose schools are substance-free, according to the study.According to officials in New York and California, parents have no right to protect their children from drugs or shelter them from sexual and social brainwashing contrary to their values.As noted by Michael Farris, chairman and general counsel of the Home School Legal Defense Association, judges around the country are responding to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).In the 2002 case of Beharry v. Reno, one federal court said that even though the convention was never ratified, it still has an impact on American law,Farris explained on the LifeSiteNews website.The fact that virtually every other nation in the world has adopted it has made it part of customary international law, and it means that it should be considered part of American jurisprudence.The CRC was adopted by the United Nations in 1989 but not ratified by Congress. If passed, it would have a negative impact on domestic law and practice in the United States. Article VI of our Constitution makes treaties – and remember, conventions are viewed as treaties – the supreme law of the land. The CRC would be treated as superior to laws in every state regarding the parent-child relationship. This would include issues regarding education, health care, family discipline, the child’s role in family decision-making, and a host of other subjects,writes Michael Smith for The Washington Times.Many believe under Obama the treaty will eventually be signed and legally binding for millions of parents in the United States.Article 29 of the CRC limits the right of parents and others to educate children by requiring that all such schools support both the charter and principles of the United Nations and a list of specific values and ideals (for instance, the principle of world government, the demonstrably bogus climate change agenda, population reduction, in short the entire globalist program).Every conceivable sphere of human activity is being analyzed and then planned for so that it will come under the ultimate control of the United Nations. It is becoming a world legislature, world court, world department of education, world welfare agency, world planning center for industry, science and commerce, world finance agency, world police force, and world anything else anyone might want — or might not want, wrote Ezra Taft Benson in An Enemy Hath Done This.The Copenhagen summit on climate change revealed that the United Nations is a front organization for the global elite and its transparent humanist facade will be done away with after world government is established. The United Nations, by and large, is a debating club for leaders and dictators of impoverished third world nations.Charlotte Iserbyt, who served as Senior Policy Adviser in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education during the Reagan administration, has documented how public education is designed to dumb down children and prepare them for socialism, that it is to say a world government dictated by an elite who are not socialist in the commonly held sense of the word. For the elite, socialism is the perfect control mechanism.

Charlotte Iserbyt describes the role of public education.As the late Antony C. Sutton noted, socialism is the most inefficient way to run a society ever conceived by man. It has come to the United States only because it is very much in the interest of the global financial elite to obtain total control of society and the world.Only a dumbed down population, with no memory of America’s roots as a prideful nation, could be expected to willingly succumb to the global workforce training planned by the Carnegie Corporation and the John D. Rockefellers,Iserbyt notes.
Iserbyt cites Rowan Gaither, who wrote that foundations, agencies, especially Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford use their grant-making power to so alter life in the United States that we can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union, that is to say a global authoritarian government employing the ruse of socialism to control and manage billions of people.Millions of people now understand the globalist agenda and are actively removing their children from the brainwashing and social conditioning – in addition to violence and drug addiction – factories known as public schools.New York and California, operating under the color of law, are attempting in a feeble manner to intimidate home school parents. In order for the CRC and the globalist agenda to work, future generations must be reduced to non-thinking and irrational jellyfish capable of only following orders. The elite are in the process of organizing and formulating a huge planetary Borg Hive. The Endgame is eugenics and a massive culling of the herd. This can only be done if humanity is reduced to a condition of thoughtless slavery.As Alex Jones said on his radio show today, government is a cult and they want to force you to join. In order to do this, they are turning our children into little Manchurian candidates.

January 6th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 242

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnaping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

I WONDER IF THIS 3 MONTH SUSPENTION OF THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT TILL MARCH 1,10 IS TO LET THE USA DOLLAR COLLAPSE SO USA,CANA AND MEXICO CAN BLEND A CURRENCY (THE AMERO) IN.WE WILL SEE WHAT HAPPENS IN THE NEXT 3 MONTHS.

Paris wants pan-European carbon tax
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today JAN 7,10 @ 09:12 CET

France intends to push for a tax on carbon emissions across the European Union, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday (6 December), a week after his country's top court struck down an attempt to introduce just such a tax domestically.Mr Sarkozy also wants to see carbon tariffs slapped on products entering the EU from countries with weaker environmental legislation.We will not accept goods that fail to conform to our environmental standards, the French leader told a group of businessmen in Cholet, French media reports.In future we will levy a climate tax at Europe's borders.Any carbon tariff move is likely to meet with stiff resistance from other EU member states, particularly the more free-trade oriented nations, who would view such a levy as a form of protectionism.When an EU carbon tax imposed at the borders of the bloc was first mooted at a meeting of European environment ministers last July, the idea was given a frosty reception, particularly by Germany.Mr Sarkozy's words come just a week after his flagship carbon tax was struck down by the country's top court as unjust and counterproductive to the fight against climate change.

The Constitutional Court last Wednesday (30 December) ruled that the law, announced in September and originally due to enter into force from 1 January, had included so many loopholes that some 93 percent of industrial greenhouse gas emissions would have been exempt.The judges found that this placed the overwhelming burden of the tax, set at €17 per tonne of CO2 emitted, on households instead of industry.The opposition Socialists as well as the Green Party and some 70 percent of the population were opposed to the law, which would have increased household gas bills and the cost of petrol significantly.In response, the French government is to present a re-edited version of the bill on 20 January, taking into consideration the court's objections.On Tuesday, French finance minister Christine Lagarde said that the new law would would involve a progressive tax, with different brackets similar to income taxation.Left-wing opponents of carbon taxes have argued that they are stealth attempts at introducing flat taxation under the guise of helping the environment.Paris hopes the new bill will enter into force on 1 July.

STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES

LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

ITS FREEZING COLD AROUND THE WORLD,THE NWO ENVIROMENTAL CONTROLLING NUT CASES ARE AT THE DECEPTION OF CLIMATE SCAMS,TO FUND THEIR WORLD GOVERNMENT.

Britain digging out after heavy snow, cold snap By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer – JAN 7,10

LONDON – People across Britain dug out Thursday after some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades, as forecasters warned the cold snap brought by an Arctic weather system would continue through next week.The storm shut airport runways, closed roads and led to train delays across the country, with the worst-hit areas receiving a foot and a half (50 centimeters) of snow.About 4,000 people were without electricity in southern England, and drivers faced difficult journeys on icy roads. Major airports including London's Heathrow and Gatwick were open, but hundreds of flights were canceled due to snow and ice.At least two people were killed in road accidents, and a man's body was found under the ice of a frozen pond at a country club in Frimley Green, southwest of London. Police said they were investigating.Many rail services were delayed or canceled, and a Eurostar train from Brussels to London was stuck for two hours in the Channel Tunnel because of a technical problem. The company said it was investigating the cause of the fault, which followed a series of breakdowns last month blamed on dry, powdery snow getting into the trains' engines.

Several thousand schools remained closed across Britain, from Scotland to southern England.Weather service the Met Office said Britain was experiencing its longest cold snap since 1981. The temperature fell to minus 17.7 degrees Celsius (0 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight in the village of Benson in southern England.Richard Young, Chief Forecaster at the Met Office, said strong east to northeasterly winds will pick up across many areas later Friday, making it feel bitterly cold.The cold has driven a surge in demand for heating fuel. Authorities on Thursday urged power suppliers to switch temporarily from gas to other fuels such as coal and asked major customers to cut back on gas usage. The measure, known as a gas balancing alert, has only been used twice before — in March 2006 and on Monday.Some sought to nurture the plucky British spirit. The Royal Society of Chemistry said it would award a 300 pound ($475) prize to the person it deemed the most dauntless traveler during the freeze.The society said the prize would recognize outstanding fortitude and resolution or selflessness in the face of meteorological adversity.The award commemorates the centenary of the start of Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Antarctic voyage. Scott reached the South Pole in January 1912, but perished with four companions on the return trip. The society named its award the Cherry Prize after Apsley Cherry-Garrard, a survivor of Scott's expedition who recorded the trip in a book, The Worst Journey in the World.The society said it was inviting accounts and pictures of people who had showed particular pluck, selflessness, and patience until Jan. 21.

Midwest bracing for heavy snow, wind chills of -50 By MICHAEL CRUMB, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jan 7, 6:35 am ET

DES MOINES – Snow was piled so high in Iowa that drivers couldn't see across intersections and a North Dakota snowblower repair shop was overwhelmed with business as residents braced Thursday for heavy snow and wind chills as low as 50 below zero.Frigid weather also was gripping the South, where a rare cold snap was expected to bring snow and ice Thursday to states from South Carolina to Louisiana. Forecasters said wind chills could drop to near zero at night in some areas.
Dangerously cold wind chills were anticipated in the Midwest overnight, including as low as 35 below in eastern Nebraska, minus 45 in parts of South Dakota and negative 50 in North Dakota, according to National Weather Service warnings.Another 10 inches of snow was expected in Iowa, buried in December by more than 2 feet of snow, while up to 9 inches could fall in southeast North Dakota that forecasters warned would create hazardous zero-visibility driving conditions. Wind gusts of 30 miles per hour were expected in Illinois — along with a foot of snow — while large drifts were anticipated in Nebraska and Iowa.Joe Dietrich said he had to turn away dozens of customers this week from his snowblower repair shop in Bismarck, N.D.

My building is only so big and I can only take so many, Dietrich said.The weather hasn't let up since sweeping into the eastern U.S. earlier this week. Five straight days of double-digit subzero low temperatures, including negative 19, were recorded by the National Weather Service office in Chanhassen, Minn., a Twin Cities suburb.

It's brutally cold, definitely brutal, meteorologist Tony Zaleski said.Several deaths have been blamed on the cold. An 88-year-old woman died of hypothermia Tuesday in her unheated Chicago home, an Alzheimer's sufferer died after wandering into his yard in Nashville, Tenn., and a homeless man was found dead in a tent in South Carolina, authorities said. Kansas City police said a man involved in a multi-car pileup Wednesday died after jumping a barrier wall in the dark, apparently to avoid sliding cars, and falling about 80 feet.In the South, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear declared a state of emergency in Perry County on Wednesday after water line breaks left areas without water.Freeze warnings covered nearly all of Florida with temperatures expected to drop into the 20s overnight. Freezing iguanas were seen falling out of trees in Florida; experts say the cold-blooded reptiles become immobilized when the temperature falls into the 40s and they lose their grip on the tree.Schools in parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri and Oklahoma were among those expected to cancel classes because of weather, while major roads in South Dakota, North Carolina and Virginia were closed.Salt had no effect on the Twin Cities' ice-rutted streets, and the deep snow left over from a Christmas storm has hardened into rock-hard blocks. The conditions helped business at Roger's Master Collision, an auto-body repair shop in Plymouth, Minn.A lot of people sliding on the ice, then hitting the snowbanks. They're frozen up pretty hard, said store manager Kirk Suchomel, estimating the shop is averaging 15 repair estimates a day.I'm sure we're going to stay busy.In Iowa, officials in Des Moines warned that a $3 million annual snow removal budget would likely be exhausted with this week's storm. Another 10 inches of snow was forecast overnight — on top of the more than 28 inches of snow that fell there in December.Public Works Director Bill Stowe said the city would tap a $6 million road maintenance fund to cover snow clearing for the rest of the season. Snow that had been plowed into tall piles at intersections was set to be dumped into a lake.It can be a half-million dollar operation, depending on the amount of snow, Stowe said.

China freeze to continue as power use, food prices rise
Thu Jan 7, 2:36 am ET

BEIJING (AFP) – More regions of China faced power shortages, food prices rose and the government warned of crop damage as a cold front kept its icy grip on the country Thursday with more chilly weather forecast.A vast swathe of the country -- from the interior southwest to its northeastern seaboard -- has seen unprecedented spikes in electricity and coal use as residents sought to keep warm, China National Radio reported.State-run Xinhua news agency quoted power grid officials saying China did not face an energy crunch, but concern appeared to be rising over the situation, which echoed a severe 2008 power shortage caused by cold weather.A historic cold wave in January of that year virtually paralysed China, bringing record low temperatures, transport chaos, fuel shortages and power outages across large parts of the nation.As demand strained power grids, several provinces and regions have begun rationing electricity or imposed other restrictions, state media reported, although few details of the measures were given.The affected areas included Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Hunan provinces, as well as the municipalities of Chongqing and Shanghai, Xinhua said.Agriculture ministry officials said Wednesday food prices were rising as transportation crimped delivery and the cold weather damaged crops.Prices for vegetables had increased as much as 10 percent in recent days in some areas, while the winter wheat industry -- accustomed to years of rising temperatures -- was threatened, the officials said, according to Xinhua.The extreme cold weather conditions this winter pose a new challenge for the winter wheat crop, Zhou Puguo, an official with the ministry's crop division, was quoted as saying.

He however insisted that China did not face a crop crisis.China has endured an unusually early and cold winter, reaching its height over the past week with heavy snow across the north of the country and rare snowfalls further south.A weekend snowstorm was Beijing's heaviest in decades, and Wednesday's low of minus 16.7 degrees Celsius (two degrees Fahrenheit) was the lowest in the capital since 1971.The China Meteorological Administration on Thursday forecast more snow for parts of northern and northwestern China over the next several days.Meanwhile normally warmer southern parts of the country would see temperatures below freezing, accompanied by sleet, it said.

EU staff pay dispute ends up in court HONOR MAHONY
06.01.2010 @ 16:19 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission Wednesday (6 January) said it would take member states to court for blocking a standard pay rise due to EU civil servants.Gathering for a first meeting of the new year, EU commissioners waved through a decision to take the matter to the European Court of Justice.The commission has confirmed its decision to take action before the court to ask for the annulment of the council decision, said a spokeswoman. She added that the commission has asked for a quick decision by the court. The legal move came after member states in late December voted to halve a planned 3.7% annual increase in pay to 1.85%, as ordinary EU citizens are having to tighten their belts in the face of the worst economic crisis in several decades. Gross monthly salaries for EU commission staff run from 2,550 euros for a secretary to almost 18,000 euros for a head of department.

The annual pay adjustment for EU staff, agreed by governments in 2004, is an automatic mechanism and is based on the average of the pay for civil servants in eight member states, including France, Germany, the UK and Italy, in the previous year. The commission has sought to emphasize the legal nature of the dispute which has been going on for several weeks.We are talking here about the respect of agreed rules. It is not an issue where political discretion is at play, said the spokeswoman.But the pay rise has grated in a year which has seen IMF bailouts and street protests in EU states as the full effects of the downturn are felt. Countries such as the UK, which opposed the wage hike, argued that it sent the wrong message to citizens.According to a German government spokesperson quoted by Spiegel Online, the rules should be subject to a critical review.It is precisely in times of crisis that political sensibilities should also play a role,he said on Wednesday. EU civil servants however counter that the same mechanism is likely to lead to a cut in pay when wages - which will be based on 2009 pay scales - are next up for discussion at the end of 2010. The public spat between the EU institutions and member states has been something of an embarrassment coming at the end of a year which saw protracted internal divisions over the bloc's new Lisbon Treaty.

EU parliament staff

However, the staff protests - to date not too disruptive - may not be over. EU parliament staff could get in on the act next week.Scaling back their talk of a full-scale strike, some parliament officials say they are still planning to hinder the MEP hearings of EU commissioner nominees.What we've decided is to organise protest meetings, which would disrupt hearings, including the [Catherine] Ashton hearing, Tom Morgan, of the Syndicat Général du Personnel des Organisations Européennes representing around 500 staff, told EUobserver. The keenly awaited hearing of the EU foreign policy chief is one of the first to take place, on 11 January.The pay activists plan protests in front of the hearing room to preventing people from getting in so the hearings cannot take place.They say they want more public support from parliament chief Jerzy Buzek if their protest is to be called off. We want something which is a little more concrete and public. We want the European Parliament to commit to signing up to the commission's court case.However, it is unclear how many officials will actually support the protest, although all of the parliament's six unions favour next week's action.A spokesman for Mr Buzek said that the president has been vocal in saying the letter of the law governing the pay rise must be obeyed.Any disruption to the hearings timetable could potentially delay the investiture of the next European Commission, which has been in caretaker status since 1 November following delays in ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.The hearings of 26 commissioners have been packed into two weeks with a vote on the entire college pencilled in for 26 January. Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso has been keen to get the new commission up and running, with the current delay bad for the EU's image but also causing a backlog in major decisions and policy initiatives.

European parliament selling unused body scanners
VALENTINA POP 06.01.2010 @ 20:46 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The European Parliament is putting its six unused full body scanners up for sale, just as several EU states are buying such devices for their airports in the aftermath of a failed bomb attack on a US flight departing from Amsterdam.Last year, the machines became a bit of an embarrassment for the EU legislature when MEPs found out that their own institution had purchased them in 2005.In October 2008, lawmakers had opposed a bill allowing the use of full body scanners in the EU, unaware of the six unused devices lying around in the basement.

The controversial machines were bought for €725,730 as a precaution measure after the 2001 al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.In April last year, the plenum decided to put them up for sale. The tendering procedures are set to kick off next week, after publication in the EU's official journal. The process should be wrapped up by 26 February, according to the parliament's secretary general, Klaus Welle, in a letter seen by Germany's Sueddeutsche newspaper.A parliament spokeswoman said that the selling process took almost a year due to the complex financial regulation procedures applying to both acquisitions and sales of the institution's assets.The bidders will have to have a clean record and prove that they are financially sound, Marjory van den Broeke added. Regarding potential criticism that the EU legislature is selling the devices just as several EU governments are considering introducing mandatory full body scans in airports, Ms van den Broeke said that there was no room for comparison.The Parliament is not an airport, she stressed.Despite the fact that they are not state of the art, the six machines are unlikely to have trouble in finding a buyer.Amsterdam's main airport Schiphol, where the thwarted bomber boarded on Christmas Day, announced it will buy 60 new scanners to boost security. It already employs 15 such devices. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered a study of the possible use of full-body scanners amid growing worldwide security concerns, the interior minister said Wednesday. French lawmakers discussed the introduction of scanners in 2008, but the idea of deploying them was dropped amid privacy concerns.In the UK, full body scans will be introduced within three weeks at Heathrow airport in London and will be carried out on a random basis, home secretary Alan Johnson said on Tuesday.The beefed-up security strategy will rely just as much on spotting unusual behaviour among passengers, the deployment of more sniffer dogs and installing sophisticated explosives-detection equipment in all airports by the year's end.

The scanners themselves aren't the magic bullet here, Mr Johnson said. In Brussels, the EU commission will also examine the issue on Thursday (7 January) with national aviation security experts.If security concerns persist, MEPs might prove more flexible this time around in approving an EU-wide roll-out of such devices. Back in 2008, they called the graphic imagery provided by the machines a virtual strip search.We think that the [EU] parliament in the next round will approve the body scanners,Schiphol Group chief operating officer Ad Rutten said last week in the wake of the US incident.

Belgium to step up security at EU summits
VALENTINA POP Today JAN 7,10 @ 09:19 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Belgian authorities on Wednesday (7 January) said they will step up security at EU summits after being embarrassed by Greenpeace activists who breached the system in December to stage a surprise protest.From now on, there will be two ways in: One for heads of government and another for the rest of their delegations,said Belgian interior ministry spokeswoman Margaux Donckier, according to AFP.She added that the breach had highlighted a system that has not evolved at the same rate as the [enlarged] EU and in which protocol was given priority over security.Eleven Greenpeace activists carrying false VIP accreditations were arrested in December after jumping out of three limousines to the astonishment of waiting leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.One of them unfolded a banner reading EU save Copenhagen in reference to the global climate change summit which was ongoing in the Danish capital. Other Greenpeace activists managed to repeat the stunt one week later in Copenhagen, at a gala dinner hosted by the Danish queen. They were held under arrest for 20 days, causing a heated debate in Denmark as to whether the punishment was too harsh.A report into the Brussels events published by the Belgian interior ministry blamed a certain routine of security officials and a policy that was outdated. Global action plans will from now on be drafted for each high-level meeting, strengthening co-operation between police, the security staff of the building hosting the event and the bodyguards of the various delegations.

Restrictions will be placed on the size of the national delegations, the report adds, in reference to some leaders who like to travel with dozens of aides and ministers when joining EU summits. The first meeting under the new rules will take place on 11 February, when the 27 leaders are set to discuss a new 10-year economic strategy for the bloc. A regular spring council is scheduled for 25-26 March. From July on, when Belgium takes over the rotating presidency of the EU, currently held by Spain, Brussels will also host more meetings with foreign leaders, increasing pressure on security arrangements.

Galileo contracts give boost to delayed project
ANDREW WILLIS Today JAN 7,10 @ 17:33 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Union's much-delayed satellite navigation system, Galileo, received an important boost on Thursday (7 January) with the awarding of several key contracts to European companies. With a combined value of over €1 billion, the contracts to build and launch the first wave of satellites will enable the roll-out of Galileo's services from 2014, said EU transport commissioner Antonio Tajani in Brussels. With this and the upcoming awards for the remaining procurement packages, we are concluding a critical phase of the Galileo programme, he explained. We can now focus on the actual roll-out and demonstrate to European citizens that Europe's own satellite navigation system is firmly underway.Galileo is the EU's answer to the US Global Positioning System (GPS), widely deployed in a broad range of navigational devices such as those used by drivers to find street directions. Under Thursday's announcement, German space technology company OHB-System AG edged out larger rival EADS Astrium to secure the €566 million contract to build the first 14 of a maximum of 32 satellites needed for the system. With the first satellites set to roll off the production line in the second half of 2010, the commission said the two companies would continue to compete for the remaining production tenders. French company Arianespace was awarded a €397 million contract to launch the satellites, to be carried out using Russian-built Soyuz rockets. System support to pull the whole project together will be provided by Italy's Thales Alenia Space, under a contract valued at €85 million.

History of setbacks

The important deals, to be signed by the companies and the European Space Agency on behalf of the commission in the coming weeks, will be welcomed by EU and member state officials working on the Galileo project, whose history has been dogged by both financial and political hiccups.Having overcome initial US concerns that the rival project could be used to attack its armed forces, the project suffered a major setback in 2007 when the public-private partnership designed to develop and run the European initiative collapsed. A subsequent decision by member states to finance Galileo solely from the public purse helped save the project, but also substantially increased the cost to the taxpayer, initially pencilled in at €1.8 billion but now likely to run closer to €5 billion. Despite the greater than anticipated strain placed on public coffers, EU governments expect the project to reap considerable gains for the European economy. Insisting that the project was currently in line with spending forecasts, Mr Tajani refused to rule out the possibility of an eventual overrun. I cannot tell you that we will not run over cost because of the increase in the price of the rocket launchers,he told journalists. The EU has been keen to stress Galileo's role in complementing rather than competing with existing satellite navigation systems.We want Galileo to be an international system, said Mr Tajani, stressing its compatibility with the US's GPS and the ongoing discussions with other countries including Russia and China.

Latvia backs Iceland in debt wrangle
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today JAN 7,10 @ 17:36 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Latvia has sided with Iceland's president in the country's debt dispute with the UK and the Netherlands, saying that threats against Reykjavik in the wake of the president's refusal to sign a bill scheduling debt repayment to London and the Hague would never happen if the debtor had been France instead.Is this reaction due to the fact that Iceland is a small country? It is difficult to imagine that similar comments would be heard if, for example, such a step had been taken by the French president, said Latvian foreign minister Maris Riekstins, denouncing the exaggerated response of some European politicians.London and the Hague have hinted that they may block Iceland's EU accession or obstruct the IMF's $10 billion rescue package for the country. On Tuesday (5 December), Iceland's president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, refused to sign a bill passed by the Althingi, the country's parliament, that would see Reykjavik pay back London and the Hague the €3.8 billion they spent to compensate British and Dutch savers who lost money the previous October when their accounts with the online savings account Icesave were frozen following the collapse of the parent company, Landsbanki.Mr Grimsson made the move following a series of protests against the bill and a petition signed by a quarter of the small country's electorate. The government has called a referendum on the legislation for 20 February.Fitch, the international rating agency, responded by downgrading Iceland's long-term foreign currency credit rating to junk status. Standard and Poor's has also threatened a down-grading.The government has scrambled to limit the damage caused by the president's decision. On Wednesday, finance minister Steingrimur Sigfusson spoke to the UK and Netherlands to try to calm the situation and telephoned his Swedish counterpart on Thursday. Reykjavik has also announced that the minister would meet with the Norwegian and Danish finance ministers on Friday to try to convince them to maintain lines of credit.The country's left-wing government tried to assure markets that Iceland remained creditworthy: Despite the president's decision, the government of Iceland remains fully committed to implementing the bilateral loan agreements and thus the state guarantee provided for by the law, the government said in a statement.

The pro-EU coalition also worries that the dispute is rapidly unravelling its plans to join the bloc. Perceptions that Brussels has sided with the Netherlands and the UK, both EU member states, in the dispute have caused popular support for European adhesion to plummet.Iceland had offered a payment schedule to the British and Dutch governments, but limited to what the country was able to pay. This would amount to an upper limit of four percent of growth in GDP in the case of the UK and two percent in the case of the Netherlands. If the economy did not grow, the country would hold back its payments and after 2024 what remained of the debts would be written off.London and the Hague however refused Iceland's offer, forcing the Icelandic government to narrowly pass a bill that would schedule repayment of the entirety of sums - worth around 40 percent of Iceland's GDP - and without such conditions. Estimates suggest that every household will have to contribute around €45,000. Icelandic critics of the deal say it puts the interests of UK and Dutch creditors ahead of domestic social programmes at a time when public spending is a vital part of the country's recovery and compare the repayment schedule to the reparations Germany was forced to pay after the First World War.Separately, in an unusual move, British and Dutch anti-poverty campaigners, normally focussed on hardship in third-world countries, have rallied behind the Icelandic president.

Jubilee Debt Campaign, the UK-based ecumenical charity that works toward the cancellation of developing country debts, and Both Ends, a Dutch development NGO, has accused London and the Hague of putting the north Atlantic island in the same position as many nations in Africa, forced to cut domestic social expenditure in order to pay back huge debts to creditors.The UK campaign group cheered Mr Grimmson's move:Iceland's president was correct to assert that states in debt have rights that trump the rights of creditors to bleed their economies dry.They argued that the British and Dutch governments share responsibility for not effectively regulating Icesave along with other banks. Instead, [they] have decided to make the ordinary people of Iceland bear sole responsibility for the faults of the bankers.

Iceland has only two choices: to pay its creditors on whatever terms they demand, or to default and see its economy sent into tail spin by unaccountable economic institutions,said the group's director, Nick Dearden.The two groups are calling for independent arbitration of the Icesave dispute by the United Nations or the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague.