The world has witnessed an unprecedented day of protests against ACTA. Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered in dozens of cities around the globe to protect what is left of the freedom of expression on the internet. Peter Bradwell, a campaigner for the Open Rights Group told RT that the treaty's biggest danger is in giving too much power to uncontrolled private interests.

He launched sharp attacks against the bailout conditions, calling them "a programme of aggression against workers and against the national interest."

"Austerity did not create wealth. The country needs the rope around its neck to be removed so that it can breathe, live and work," the unionist said, calling for a revision to the minimum wage of 485 euros gross.

"Net salary is at 432 euros, while the poverty line is at 434 euros, and that concerns currently ... 400,000 workers" in Portugal, he said.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Edward Spannaus, editor of the Executive Intelligence Review, to share his opinion on this issue.

The following is a transcript of the interview:

Press TV: We have Spain, Greece, Portugal, you name it, most European countries are going bankrupt. I mean, just what has caused the crisis in the eurozone?

Spannaus: Well they are bankrupt but it is not the countries that are bankrupt, it is the international banking system, the whole monetary system is bankrupt because the system has been destroyed by speculations, by derivatives and by the collapse of real production.

Protesters in Athens are clashing with police, some throwing stones and Molotov cocktails. Greece's coalition government managed to agree on a new austerity deal their creditors demanded.

But Eurozone finance ministers say they want to see concrete action before the second bailout worth 130 billion Euros can be handed over. The Greek Parliament is expected to vote on Sunday. But a junior coalition member says he will not back the new plan.

RT talks to Max Keiser, financial analyst and host of the Keiser Report.

So here’s a theory. Netanyahu and his camp followers here do not really want a war now. They just want it understood that they can dictate whether there is one or not. And when. In other words, they want to show who is boss (it’s not like we don’t know).

These are strange times for those of us who follow the debate about a possible war with Iran. It is clear that the Israeli government and its neoconservative camp followers here in the United States are increasing pressure on President Obama to either attack Iran or let Israel do it (in which case, we would be forced to join in). But the idea of another Middle East war is so outlandish that it seems inconceivable it could actually occur.

Full Credit to Uppity Serf for finding this...

The faces of the police as they're drenched by hoses are unmissable!! They're cold, frozen, drenched and thoroughly fed up.

You've just got to laugh. :)

Greek police want EU and IMF officials behind bars

Greece’s largest police union has threatened to issue a symbolic warrant for the arrest of key EU and IMF officials.

http://rt.com/news/line/2012-02-10/#id26309

Striking Brussels firemen soak cops, PM office (VIDEO)

When the Belgian government decided to pour cold water on the country’s firefighters and increase their retirement age, the men struck back with the same method…literally.

http://rt.com/news/firemen-belgium-hose-police-013/

Protesters have clashed with police in the Greek capital Athens, amid anger over fresh austerity measures approved under pressure from Eurozone ministers.

Demonstrators threw rocks and petrol bombs at police, who responded with tear gas. The clashes came after trade unions began a 48-hour strike.

"Since you are continuing this destructive policy, we warn you that you cannot make us fight against our brothers. We refuse to stand against our parents, our brothers, our children or any citizen who protests and demands a change of policy," said the union, which represents more than two-thirds of Greek policemen.

"We warn you that as legal representatives of Greek policemen, we will issue arrest warrants for a series of legal violations ... such as blackmail, covertly abolishing or eroding democracy and national sovereignty.

Almost 1000 acres of maize found to have been ground with genetically modified seeds have been destroyed throughout Hungary, deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar said. The GMO maize has been ploughed under, said Lajos Bognar, but pollen has not spread from the maize, he added.

Unlike several EU members, GMO seeds are banned in Hungary. The checks will continue despite the fact that seek traders are obliged to make sure that their products are GMO free, Bognar said.
During the invesigation, controllers have found Pioneer Monsanto products among the seeds planted.

British and Qatari troops are directing rebel ammunition deliveries and tactics in the bloody battle for Homs, according to an Israeli website known for links to intelligence sources.

Greece has reached a tentative agreement on new austerity cuts demanded by creditors to release a (euro) 130 billion ($173 billion) bailout

Arab League Report Shows that Syria Has Been Mischaracterized

While the Western media act like the Syrian government is wantonly and indiscriminately killing its own people without provocation, an independent investigation has found a different reality on the ground.

Specifically, over 160 monitors from the Arab League – comprised of both allies and mortal enemies of Syria – toured Syria and published a report on January 27th showing that the situation has been mischaracterized.

Initially, the report noted general cooperation by the Syrian government.

Read more...

Armed Terrorist Groups also know in the Westen World as Peaceful Protesters are killing everyday innocent Civilians and Army Members. Schools are burning everyday. This is School number 1951 that has been burned by them.

That's enough, we can't take it anymore." That was the popular chant coming from protesters in Athens yesterday during the latest 24-hour general strike against the country's austerity measures. Teachers and doctors joined bank employees to demonstrate against a new round of expected cuts as the cash-strapped country continued to negotiate new reductions in spending to help keep the economy afloat.

French President Sarkozy drains hundreds of millions from taxpayers to support his rock star lifestyle while demanding strong austerity measures in France, Greece and the rest of Europe.

U.K. Home Affairs Committee has issued a call to Internet Service Providers clamp down on “violent extremists” by censoring to “extremist” websites.

Widespread protests sweep Europe in opposition to the anti-democracy bill ACTA as politicians attend government functions wearing Anonymous masks in protest.

Arising out the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist who invented dynamite, the Nobel Prize is universally recognized as the most prestigious award in the fields of peace-making, economics, chemistry, physics, medicine and literature. How about an international award – without the gold medal, the diploma and the money – for hypocrisy?

Such an award could be called the Lebon Prize (reversing Nobel).

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) -- Romania's government has collapsed following weeks of protests against austerity measures, the latest debt-stricken government in Europe to fall in the face of raising public anger over biting cuts. Emil Boc, who had been prime minister since 2008, said Monday he was resigning "to defuse political and social tension" and to make way for a new government. Thousands of Romanians took to the streets in January to protest salary cuts, higher taxes and the widespread perception that the government was not interested in the public's hardships in this nation of 22 million.

Following Poland's lead, the Czech Prime Minister, Petr Necas has announced that the government there will suspend the ACTA ratification process until the country has had more time to analyze the agreement. This follows a "wave of protests" across Europe, in which this agreement, that everyone assumed was going through with no questions asked, has suddenly generated significant public interest:

Freezing temperatures claimed more victims in Ukraine, Poland, France and Italy. French authorities on Sunday found the body of a homeless man who had frozen to death, bringing to at least 306 the number of cold-related deaths reported across the continent.

Transport was badly disrupted, with people stuck in cars and trains blocked by snow and ice, amid warnings that the freezing temperatures will continue into the week.

China today announced it has banned its airlines from paying European Union charges on carbon emissions, escalating a global dispute over the cost of combating climate change.

The charges are aimed at curbing emissions of climate-changing gases but governments including China, the U.S. and Russia oppose them.

The ratings agency Fitch warned in December that the conflict could spiral into a global trade dispute.

France and Germany has controversially told Greece it should place state revenues into a separate fund so it can pay off its crushing debt - to avoid bankruptcy and prevent the crash of the single currency.

Widespread Protests Are Starting to Turn the Tide Against Anti-Democratic Bill

The widespread protests against the anti-democracy bill ACTA by the Polish people have forced Poland’s prime minister to stall – or perhaps even back out – of the treaty. As TechDirt notes:

Following the growing protests about ACTA in Europe, as well as signs of US meddling, Poland’s prime minister is making it clear that Poland will not ratify ACTA for the time being, leading to speculation that the EU may not actually join ACTA.

“…the pressure for the necessary transformation will have to come … in the form of a two-front movement: one front building the worldwide boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and the second front concentrating on making support of Israel a national scandal in the US and therefore a domestic voting issue.”

Exhaust fumes and ground-level (tropospheric) ozone increase the risk for premature birth, according to a study by a team of researchers at Umeå University in northern Sweden.

The study, carried out in Stockholm - a city with comparatively low exhaust emissions - showed that ozone and fumes affect the foetus more than if the mother were a smoker.

Previous studies carried out in more polluted global cities has previously shown that the risk for premature birth is heightened. The Umeå study now reveals that even ground-level ozone poses a danger to pregnancy, according to a report in the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) daily.

The plunging mercury has put a stop to rail services to the far north of Sweden on Sunday with rail operator SJ explaining that it was just too cold to guarantee safety.

"It is due to the cold. The trains can be left stationary on the line," said Anders Edgren at SJ's press office.

Services between Luleå and Narvik in Norway suffered disruption on Saturday and SJ has announced that night train services from Gothenburg and Stockholm to Kiruna and Luleå have been cancelled on Sunday.

"The trains can be left standing and evacuations would take too long. It gets cold fast and we can't guarantee travellers' safety," Edgren explained.

The U.S. is touted as having a great democracy. Everything good–either real or imagined—is supposedly due to their principles of democracy. Seldom do American politicians or members of the public define or clarify what those principles include.

America’s founding fathers, who were familiar with the democracies of the classical Greeks, distrusted democracy.

How can it be a democracy when shadowy figures control events?

Europeans should ask why they are to pay for an American-Israeli adventure in Iran during a time of unprecedented austerity, political analyst Chris Bambery told RT. Iran says it will definitely stop oil exports to "certain" European countries, while the decision to cut supplies to further EU states is still in discussion. This comes as Tehran's response to an EU oil embargo that was set to come into force on July 1.
**Notes that Israel has a nuclear programme, which it denies, but we know to exist.

“Russia and China were the only permanent Security Council members opposing the draft, reminding others that it was not their place to intervene in another country’s domestic affairs.”

Under international law, it’s illegal. Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said

In response, US envoy Susan Rice said she was “disgusted” by vetoes “prop(ping) up desperate dictators.” French ambassador Gerard Araud said “history will judge (Assad supporters) harshly.”

by Philip Giraldi

Americans should be concerned about what is happening in Syria, if only because it threatens to become another undeclared war like Libya but much, much worse. Calls for regime change have come from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who several weeks ago predicted a civil war.

That is indeed likely if the largely secular and nationalist regime of Bashar al-Assad falls, pitting Sunni against Shia against Alawite. Indigenous Christians will be caught in the meat grinder. Ironically, many of the Christians in Damascus are Iraqis who experienced the last round of liberation in their own country and had to flee for their lives.

Anyone unmoved by that isn’t human. No one could write it who didn’t experience war’s horrors firsthand, and scream Say NO! Say NO! No More.

Written almost 65 years ago, wars rage daily. Millions more lives expired. Perhaps no one will listen to other Borcherts until no one’s left to hear, if “You do not say NO” now.

FOX news is now reporting an actual timeline for the up coming attack on Iran by Israel. America is backing it.

Panetta concerned Israel months from striking Iran

It is also widely known that Israel sought clearance from Secretary of Defense Gates to bomb Iran in July 2008 and were turned away. Any future attack by Israel will clearly suggest U.S. permission, whether it is given in fact or not. David E. Sanger, “U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site,” The New York Times, January 11, 2009.

Here's why:

Video - Nigel Farage - Feb. 1, 2012

Transcript is inside - Runs 2 minutes.

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George Soros explains why his hedge fund bought $2 billion of MF Global Italian bonds - and why he would buy even more, were he still running the fund. The reason: Deflation.

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The chances of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement becoming law in Europe dwindled suddenly on Friday, after Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said he was suspending ACTA's ratification in his country.

A group of European regulators has written to Google Inc calling on it to halt the introduction of its new privacy policy, saying it needs to investigate whether the proposals sufficiently protect users' personal data.

The UPI published a story ‘Monsanto to Pull GM Operation from Britain’ was removed from the UPI website.

We were able to locate the UPI story on another website (dated February 3, 2012), which says that Monsanto is leaving Britain due to opposition against GMO crops and that it is selling off its crop-breeding centers in France, Germany and the Czech Republic.

The UPI story may have been based on an article published by the Daily Mail in 2003 that states only the GMO wheat growing operations would be closing in the UK, France, Germany and the Czech Republic, citing government research about contamination concerns. As NaturalNews reported, the Daily Mail was actually displaying the published date as February 2, 2012:

That's all there is.....

The IMEU shares the following op-ed from the University of Pennsylvania’s school newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian, as well as a link to today’s press briefing with Ali Abunimah and Anna Baltzer who discuss the first-ever national BDS Conference, which will bring together supporters of the movement this weekend at UPenn. The op-ed, written by UPenn graduate Max Blumenthal, is in response to Alan Dershowitz’s scheduled visit to the campus which aims to counter the UPenn BDS Conference. This is the first media result of the IMEU’s newly launched outreach to student groups on campuses across the country.

Michael Brown — Communications Director, IMEU

Extreme winter weather costs 160 lives in Europe

Britain condemned Israeli settlements as “deliberate vandalism”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was in London recently.

The British Prime Minister David Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg today met the Palestinian Authority ‘President’ Mahmoud Abbas on his visit to London.

Cameron said that ‘time was running out’ for the two-state solution which was why the ‘settlement issue’, or ‘facts on the ground’, was so important. Clegg went further and condemned ‘continued settlement building in the strongest possible terms’ because

The eurozone cannot survive in its current form – that is the alarming prediction of top economists and politicians of all political hues, among them the former Chancellors Alistair Darling, Nigel Lawson and Norman Lamont.

Danny Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College and former member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, added: "The fundamental problem that has not been addressed is that there is no growth plan for Greece. Even if you give them a new loan, they have no means of paying it back."

This is awesome. If you're rushed for time, just watch the final 90 seconds. Irish Journalist Vincent Browne shows the ECB how they roll in Eirinn. The ECB's Klaus Masuch gets a well-deserved earful.

Memo to Erin Burnett - This is how one demonstrates journalistic integrity.

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In Ukraine on Wednesday the emergency ministry said that death toll had now reached 43 after 13 people died overnight. Most of the victims so far have been homeless people who froze to death on the streets, but at least seven have died in their homes. Another 720 people suffering from hypothermia or frostbite have required hospital treatment.

Poland's interior ministry said Wednesday morning that a further five people had been found dead in the previous 24 hours, bringing the death toll attributed to the freezing winter weather to 27.

Plummeting winter temperatures have claimed dozens of lives across Central and Eastern Europe as the region battles a big freeze that is expected to worsen over the next few days. At least 50 people have died, mainly in Ukraine and Poland, as an icy continental weather front from Siberia has dragged temperatures to as low as -27 degrees Celsius, and forecasters in Poland have said that thermometers could hit -30 later in the week. The cold weather has even travelled as far south as Bulgaria where temperatures in the capital Sofia fell to -20, the lowest in 50 years.

Temperatures in the town of Sevlievo, northern Bulgaria, plunged Wednesday morning to minus 31.4 C, a record low, which made the region one of the hardest hit by the severe cold spell in Eastern Europe.

Yet another cold record for this winter was set in Kiutaköngäs near Kuusamo, where the temperature plunged to -38.7 degrees Celsius on Wednesday morning.

The record temperature was registered around 8am. One hour later, the cold had eased to a mere -35 degrees.

Other parts of northern Finland are also experiencing record cold. In Naruska, Salla, the mercury dropped to -36.8 degrees Celsius in the early hours of Wednesday. It was not much warmer in Taivalkoski, chilled to a cool -36.6 degrees.

From Facebook to Google, websites are tracking your every move to deliver 'personalised advertising'. But now regulators have hit back.
Parker said the UK was now responsible for more complaints over advertising than the rest of Europe put together. "They say that British people don't complain. They don't complain face-to-face... but they don't mind complaining remotely. Now far more than half of all the complaints made to advertising regulatory bodies in all 27 EU member states are made by the UK public to us, it's 60-65 per cent."

An economic nightmare is descending on Europe. With each passing month, the economic numbers across Europe get even worse. At this point it is becoming extremely difficult for anyone to deny that Europe is plunging into a full-blown economic depression. In fact, some parts of Europe are already there.

On January 16th, middle class Sicilians began a popular uprising appropriately called the ‘Pitchfork Movement’…’Movimento Dei Forconi’.

There are shades of the Occupy movement within it, but the core is not dissatisfied unemployed youth with no property or businesses to lose.

They are middle aged and older. They know that what they have left has been targeted by their own elites to bear the economic pain.

The other difference is size. Sicily’s five million people, their grass roots people, have occupied themselves.

So of course the story caught my eye and I then checked the mainstream media sites to look at what I was sure to be some great video. Wrong! So far, there is almost nothing.

Unemployment in the 17-nation eurozone ended 2011 at 10.4 per cent, a new record high for the single currency since its launch at the start of 1999, official figures showed today.

The highest unemployment rate remains in Spain, where 22.9 % of the working population were without work, though Greece is nearing with 19.2 % rate. The lowest rate in the eurozone is Austria's 4.1 %.

With its enormously disproportionate power (financed by American taxpayers), Israel has consistently violated international law, UN resolutions, and human rights conventions.

Israel initiated almost all of its wars and is virtually always the instigator of renewed bouts of violence. For example, while many Americans have been led to believe that the 2008-09 Israeli assault on Gaza was defensive, in reality, Israel was the party that first violated the ceasefire.

The Israeli military, which possesses at least 100 nuclear weapons, is rated the 3rd-5th most powerful in the world. It is far more powerful than any other military in the region. Palestinians have little beyond small, minimally armed militias.

by Alison Weir / CNI

Turkey has defied Western calls to ban Iranian crude imports, saying Ankara will not go along with the EU and US sanctions on Iranian oil.

A Turkish Energy Ministry spokesman said on Monday, “We are not bound by EU or US decisions.”

On Sunday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu ruled out the possibility of Ankara complying with the unilateral sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic, saying Turkey is currently trying to facilitate talks between Tehran and Western nations on Iran's nuclear program.

Today’s war propagandists have figured out a way to make the issue of American interests, as opposed to Israeli interests, go away, and that is by policing the language of the debate.

Our current leaders have made Israeli Judaism just a post-traumatic syndrome, while they lead us to self-destruction.
One very well informed and courageous Israeli who thinks the answer is “Yes” is Merav Michaeli, a radio and television presenter who also writes for Ha’aretz. She is completely without fear when it comes to telling it like it is.

John Gunther Dean American Ambassador reportedly a target of an Israeli assassination plot. Published in The Nation.

In the wake of the accusation by Chas Freeman that his nomination to lead the National Intelligence Council was derailed by an “Israeli lobby,” a forthcoming memoir by another distinguished ambassador adds stunning new charges to the debate. The ambassador, John Gunther Dean, writes that over the years he not only came under pressure from pro-Israeli groups and officials in Washington but also was the target of an Israeli-inspired assassination attempt in 1980 in Lebanon, where he had opened links to the Palestine Liberation Organization.

This is interesting. Kader Arif, the "rapporteur" for ACTA, has quit that role in disgust over the process behind getting the EU to sign onto ACTA. A rapporteur is a person "appointed by a deliberative body to investigate an issue." However, it appears his investigation of ACTA didn't make him very pleased:

I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament's demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly...

Think filing for bankruptcy is the only way to get debt discharge? Think again, at least in Greece. While previously we have reported that Greek courts had written off "untenable" debts of unemployed Greeks owed to local banks, Kathimerini describes a landmark case which may have profound implications for the indebted country, in which a fully employed woman has had the bulk of her debt written off.

From Kathimerini: "In what could turn out to be a significant ruling for Greeks suffering from the economic crisis, a court in Hania, Crete, has become the first in the country to order that the majority of the debt owed to banks by someone still in full employment be wiped out...

Stephen Lendman, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Partnering with America has consequences. Europe's paying by shooting itself in the foot...

An economic nightmare is descending on Europe. With each passing month, the economic numbers across Europe get even worse. At this point it is becoming extremely difficult for anyone to deny that Europe is plunging into a full-blown economic depression. In fact, some parts of Europe are already there. In Spain the overall unemployment rate is over 22 percent, and in Greece one out of every five retail establishments has already been closed down. All over Europe, economic activity is rapidly slowing down, unemployment is skyrocketing and bad debts are unraveling. It isn’t even going to take a default by a nation such as Greece or a collapse of the euro to push Europe into an economic depression.

No real change can occur in the undeniable reality of the ruthless oppression practiced on all Palestinians by Zionist Israel without US support. So, how do we change the subservient attitudes of 70% compromised American Congress?

Here is what Ali Abunimah, wrote this weekend in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Despite all the decades that have passed and make up more than half a century, the Cuban fruit has not fallen into Yankee hands.

Current news from Spain, France, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, England, the Malvinas and several other parts of the planet are serious and all foretell political and economic disaster due to the foolhardiness of the United States and its allies.

Actors and politicians call on Supreme Court to stop "persecution"
From performing artists and politicians to labor leaders and writers, a massive crowd held a rally outside the Supreme Court on Sunday in support of High Court Judge Baltasar Garzón, who has gone on trial on two occasions during the past two weeks.

Holding placards with Garzón's image under the slogan "Against the crimes of shame," the estimated several thousand people demanded that the top court stop its "persecution" of Garzón.

"The Garzón case is quickly becoming the Dreyfus case of the 21st century," said UGT secretary general Cándido Méndez, referring to the 19th-century French case of Alfred Dreyfus, immortalized by Émile Zola in his open letter, J'accuse.

The European Union needs a 'whole system change' to recover from the debt crisis it is facing as its economic troubles are an outcome of 'corrupt capitalism,' an economic expert tells Press TV.

“It [The EU and Greece in particular] needs a whole change of the system,” said British economic commentator Shabbir Razvi in a recent interview, adding that, it requires 'bold steps.'

The outlook for the European economy turned a shade darker yesterday after new figures showed that Spain's jobless total had surged beyond the five million mark for the first time since modern records began, with the unemployment rate rising to 22.9 per cent.

The increase to 5,273,600 in the final quarter of 2011 means 1.5 million households now have no wageearners. The dismal figures also reinforced Spain's position as the country with Europe's worst unemployment rate.

But after five years of relentlessly rising dole queues, perhaps the most shocking figure of all is that 48.6 per cent of its under 24-year-olds are now out of work. Since 2008, the youth unemployment total has almost tripled, to nearly 900,000.

The United States appears to be using a strategy in Syria that it has perfected over the years, having succeeded most recently in Libya: arming small paramilitary groups loyal to U.S. interests that claim to speak for the local population; these militants then attack the targeted government the U.S. would like to see overthrown — including terrorist bombings — and when the attacked government defends itself, the U.S. cries “genocide” or “mass murder,” while calling for foreign military intervention.

DAVOS, Switzerland — About 100 Occupy protesters gathered in front of the town hall in this Eastern Switzerland resort where the World Economic Forum is being held.

Some held placards with slogans such as "If voting would change anything, it would be illegal" and "Don't let them decide for you, Occupy WEF."

A small group of protesters are camped in igloos in Davos to call for more help for the needy.

The depiction of Iran as a nuclear nightmare and as a global threat is only a saga manufactured by Washington in order to smother a voice so overpoweringly critical of the myriad morbid policies of a government whose American dream is dead and gone.

There’s a real sense in which, more than any other part of the former colonial world, the Middle East has never been fully decolonised. Sitting on top of the bulk of the globe’s oil reserves, the Arab world has been the target of continual interference and intervention ever since it became formally independent.

In what is likely a long overdue move, Iran has finally decided to give Europe a harsh lesson in game theory. Instead of letting Euro-area politicians score brownie points at its expense by threatening to halt imports and cut off the Iranian economy, the Iranian government will instead propose a bill calling for an immediate halt to oil deliveries to Europe.

(Interviewed by Louis James, Editor, International Speculator)

L: So Doug, a lot of readers are concerned about what's going on in Europe. Is this the beginning of the proverbial "it?" Or can the Eurozone be saved?

Doug: In brief, the answers are "yes," then "no" – and a "good riddance" to both the Eurozone and the euro. But most people think the old order should be maintained at almost any cost. That would include George Soros, who recently penned an article called Does the Euro Have a Future?

Ireland is soon to have a law similar to Sopa passed that would give music and movie companies the power to force Irish ISPs to block access to sites suspected of having copyright infringing material on them.

Irish citizens won't have a chance to lobby their democratic representatives because there won't be a vote on the law -- snappily named "S.I. No. of 2011 European Communities (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2011" -- in the Irish Parliament. Instead the law is being enacted by ministerial order because it is being prepared in the form of a Statutory Instrument.

The law could mean that judges can order Irish ISPs -- such as Eircom and UPC -- as well as mobile networks to block access to social networking sites where an individual user has shared infringing material.