The European Union Times |
- UK faces millions more migrants as Turkey and its 75 Million people on brink of joining EU
- Not Another “Last Chance” at Paris! A history of “Last Chances” of Global Warming
- China issues high pollution alert in Beijing over heavy smog
- China wants to mix Kung Fu with Football just like in the movie Shaolin Soccer
- Rubio wants to side with Turkey and ISIS in confronting Russia
Posted: 30 Nov 2015 03:38 AM PST
The daunting prospect of millions of Turks moving to Britain arose after EU leaders tabled a deal in exchange for help stemming the flood of migrants into Europe. They are offering the huge country £2billion in cash, visa-free travel for its citizens and speeded up membership talks if it clamps down on people trafficking and migration across its borders. The deal was expected to be signed off by political leaders at a summit in Brussels last night, European Council president Donald Tusk said. The plan, spearheaded by German chancellor Angela Merkel, will make Muslim-dominated Turkey the EU’s 29th member state. The deal has provoked anger and prompted fears that Europe’s doors will be left wide open to Islamic extremists. UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: “This isn’t just a deal to deal with migration across the Mediterranean. What Merkel is proposing is that we fast track Turkey as members of the EU. “What that will mean is 75 million people who will have freedom of movement to come to the rest of Europe and to this country.” Speaking to Dermot Murnaghan on Sky News yesterday Mr Farage added: “A recent reputable poll showed that eight per cent of the Turkish population are Islamic State sympathisers. We must be literally mad.” Source |
Posted: 30 Nov 2015 03:07 AM PST
On the eve of a global climate summit in Paris, activists across the US marched in support of new environmental initiatives, calling for meaningful discussions and decisive actions from world leaders at the “last chance” conference. More than 5,000 people flocked to City Hall in New York to take part in an environmental gathering there. “The climate is changing. It’s our fault, and we have to get to work on this now,” celebrity scientist Bill Nye told NY Daily News. “The most important greenhouse gas has almost doubled in less than two centuries,” he said. “As long as we each focus only on our individual decisions and their short-term consequences, we will act like renters, not owners of this Earth.” On a local level, activists in the Big Apple want the city to use 100 percent clean, renewable energy by 2030. Environmental activists have also held a demonstration in front of the White House in Washington DC, urging US President Barack Obama, who is attending the conference in Paris, to adopt binding targets for emissions reduction. Protesters also want industrial polluters to aid developing countries cope with preventing climate change. As part of the global environmentalist movement, the activists also call for a lower target cap for global temperature increase – from 2 degrees Celsius to 1.5 degrees. Holding signs reading ‘keep it in the ground,’ activists called for the increased usage of renewable energy sources and less reliance on traditional fossil fuels. Over on the West Coast, a few hundred people gathered outside Los Angeles’ city hall. “Unlike previous climate summits, Paris is the ‘last chance’ for a meaningful international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas pollution in time to avoid irreversible climate disruption,” organizers said in a statement. With all that said, you have got to watch the above video of “last chances”. It’s quite hilarious! Source |
Posted: 30 Nov 2015 02:40 AM PST
China has raised the air pollution alert level to its second-highest for the capital city of Beijing, calling on residents to stay indoors. Authorities issued an “orange level” alert in Beijing on Sunday after pollution readings reached 17 times the level deemed safe by the World Health Organization. The declaration of the orange level will mandate air polluting factories and industrial plants to reduce or shut down production. It also bans heavy-duty trucks from the capital’s roads. According to the air pollution monitor that is operated by the US Embassy in Beijing, the intensity of the poisonous, tiny particles known as PM2.5 reached over 400 micrograms per cubic meter in some of areas. This is while the World Health Organization considers 25 micrograms per cubic meter as a safe level. Air pollution, which has reportedly reduced visibility to a few hundred meters in some places, poses a threat to the health of those living and working in the capital and other cities in northern China. According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the smog will remain high across northern China for another two days. The problem is perennial in the Asian country’s northeast, which is home to many heavy industries including coal mining. Locals in the area usually burn coal to heat homes in the winter, pumping more pollutants into the air. Humidity and the lack of wind exacerbates the pollution and contribute to the prolongation of the smog. China has a four-tier color-coded air pollution warning system, with red representing the highest response level. The second dangerous level is represented by orange, which is followed by yellow and blue. No red alert, however, has been issued so far in Beijing. Summit in France Chinese President Xi Jinping is due to address climate change talks that will kick off in the French capital, Paris, later on Monday. He is one of 150 world leaders, including from, India, Russia and the US, who will attend the United Nations‘ two-week summit. The summit will be held in an area protected by some 2,800 police and troops. Hopes are high that the summit would not fail like the previous such meeting six years ago in Copenhagen. Source |
Posted: 30 Nov 2015 02:15 AM PST
A Chinese martial arts school has introduced a new twist to a classic sport, opening a football academy which will combine Shoalin kung fu with football in a bid to produce more skilled footballers in China just like in the 2001 Chinese movie Shaolin Soccer which was a huge success back then for the Chinese film industry. Tens of thousands of young Shaolin students train at the historic Shaolin Tagou Martial Arts School in Dengfeng, China, every year. This year the training takes on a different nature as the school puts 100 of its best students into a government-backed academy that will combine Shaolin kung fu training with football coaching. The goal is to develop better footballers on a national level by training students who are already physically and mentally adept through the school’s kung fu training. Zhang Wenshen, the director of the government sports bureau in Henan, said, “this is a bold attempt by the province to bring Shaolin kung fu into soccer to deepen football reform and promote the Chinese martial art.” The new academy has three senior football coaches responsible for training the young athletes as well as other coaches. Source |
Posted: 30 Nov 2015 02:08 AM PST
Turkey strives for a resurgence of the Ottoman Empire. Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio told Fox News earlier this week if push comes to shove the United States must side with Turkey in a confrontation with Russia. “They are a member of the NATO alliance,” Rubio said, “and if we were not to come to Turkey’s defense in any instance, it would undermine the NATO alliance and that is something we need to understand.” “This is a critical moment,” Rubio continued. “If Russia believes they can respond and retaliate against Turkey and NATO is not going to do anything about it, what they are basically doing is making the argument NATO is no longer viable, that it is a feckless alliance. So it is important for us to be very clear that we will respond and defend Turkey as they come under assault by the Russians. Otherwise the entire NATO alliance comes into question.” In other words, according to Rubio, the United States and NATO must support Turkey’s regional ambitions, including Erdogan’s desire to reestablish the Ottoman Empire and a caliphate. Erdogan’s New Ottoman Empire Erdogan’s desire to resurrect the Ottoman Empire is hardly a secret. Earlier this year during the Turkish elections his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) marched under the banner “Yeniden Dirilis, Yeniden Yukselis,” meaning, “Resurrection Again, Rising Again.” During the election campaign “AK Party luminaries took to the stage to invoke the greatness of the Ottomans, a legacy they promised the New Turkey would revive under the leadership of the Great Leader Erdogan,” writes Adnan R. Khan. Erdogan plans to rewrite Turkey’s Constitution and transform the country from a parliamentary democracy into a presidency. “His grip on power would be assured and most experts agree he would use that power to expand his project of reclaiming Turkey’s historical role as leader of the world’s Sunni Muslims.” On November 1 the AK Party won a parliamentary majority after two suicide bombers killed 102 people at a peace rally. The pre-election attack resulted in opposition parties canceling their political campaigns and thus ensuring an overwhelming AK Party victory. Syria and Iraq are key to realizing this Ottoman resurgence. “Turkey’s goal is to try and revive the Ottoman Empire that was earlier divided into provinces. There were the provinces of Damascus, Mosul, Aleppo, Jerusalem, Beirut, and so on, and it is this main goal that’s leading to the wish to divide Syria and Iraq into emirates or provinces that would exist under the protectorate of the empire and in its interests,” claims Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi. DIA Plan for an Islamic Principality This plan dovetails with a Defense Information Agency scheme to create an Islamic protectorate in Syria. “If the situation unravels [in Syria] there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria… and that is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime,” the recently declassified documents from 2012 states. Rubio knows the score. He sits on the Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations and the Select Committee on Intelligence. He also knows Turkey supports and funds the Islamic State. Turkish support for the terrorist army is admitted by numerous experts on the Middle East, the Kurds, the Iraqis and even Vice President Joe Biden. “All along there’s always been the idea that Turkey was supporting ISIS in some way,” former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Wesley Clark said recently. “Someone’s buying that oil that ISIS is selling, it’s going through somewhere, it looks to me like it’s probably going through Turkey, but the Turks haven’t acknowledged that.” “Let’s be very clear: ISIS is not just a terrorist organization, it is a Sunni terrorist organization. It means it blocks and targets Shia, and that means it’s serving the interests of Turkey and Saudi Arabia even as it poses a threat to them,” Clark said. The financial ruling elite want the secular states of the Middle East—Iraq, Libya and Syria—dismantled and the resultant ethnically balkanized mini-states fully under the control of Sunni overlords. A new corporatized Sykes-Picot arrangement has an ideal partner in Turkey, a NATO partner with a modern military backed up by the rhetoric of American politicians like Marco Rubio. Source |