A quote from Michael Freund in The Jerusalem Post, 14 March 2007

Even after the International Atomic Energy Agency revealed in 2003 that Iran had been conducting a secret nuclear program for 18 years aimed at enriching uranium, Europe went ahead and expanded its trade with the mullahs. The Continent's exports to Teheran rose 29% between 2003 and 2005 to nearly 13 billion euros. [...] The sick man is Europe, and it is time we started treating it as such.

A quote from EurActiv.com, 12 March 2007

The German Presidency wants EU leaders to agree on a text for a new treaty by February 2008, which is likely to be shorter. The label ‘Constitution’ is also to be dropped, in order to avoid further referenda.

[You read it here first]

From 2003 to 2006 I worked as a civil servant in the Berchem borough of Antwerp, Flanders. Berchem is a multicultural neighbourhood with many immigrants of Turkish and Moroccan origin. My job was to promote the integration of these people and foster good relations between the different ethnic groups living in Berchem. Prior to 2003 I worked in Antwerp North, another neighbourhood with many immigrants.

During the past years I noted how radical Islamists groups began to take over the immigrant neighbourhoods. I warned for this danger in my reports to the city authorities. The latter made it clear to me that they did not like my reports. They said my reports read like “Vlaams Belang tracts.” The VB is the local anti-immigration party. When I kept reporting about what I saw happening around me I was fired.

A quote from Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal, 13 March 2007

For Muslim voters in Europe, the attractions of the Socialists are several. Socialists have traditionally taken a more accommodating approach to immigrants and asylum-seekers than their conservative rivals. They have championed the welfare state and the benefits it offers poor newcomers. They have promoted a multiculturalist ethos, which in practice has meant respecting Muslim traditions even when they conflict with Western values. In foreign policy, Socialists have often been anti-American and, by extension, hostile to Israel. That hostility has only increased as Muslim candidates have joined the Socialists' electoral slates and as the Muslim vote has become ever more crucial to the Socialists' electoral margin.

An article by Johnny Munkhammar of the Swedish think tank Timbro
 

As the EU Finance Ministers met on the 27th of February, they expressed worries about profits rising faster than wages in Europe. The conclusion was that the current global economic boom mostly benefits owners rather than workers. This led the German Finance Minister to warn of an upcoming crisis of legitimacy for the current economic and social model. The Ministers jointly stressed that wages should grow in line with productivity.

One of the most frustrating things to watch is the powerful anti-Israeli and sometimes outright anti-Semitic current that is prevalent in too much of Europe’s media. Bat Ye’or’s predictions about Arab anti-Semitism spreading in Europe as the continent’s Islamization and descent into Eurabia continues have so far proved depressingly accurate. This trend needs to be fought, vigorously, by all serious European anti-Jihadists. Not only because it is immoral and unfair to Israelis, which it is, but also because those who assist it are depriving Europeans of the opportunity to fully grasp the threat and understand the nature of the Jihad that is now targeting much of Europe as well.

A quote from Joe Gandelman at his blog, 11 March 2007

Over the past few years there have been reports of French Jews relocating or even being urged to relocate by some Jewish groups and now there’s a new twist:

French Jews are fleeing into Florida, the Miami Herald reports. And it’s providing a booming business for Florida immigration lawyers.

On International Women's Day the Norwegian evening newspaper Aftenposten Aften published an interesting article with a graph showing the degree of employment for the immigrants in Oslo, split up by gender and nationality.

A quote from Samantha Singson at lifesite.net, 8 March 2007

The EU announced on Monday that it had reached a collective European decision to oppose the [UN] resolution [calling on states to eliminate sex selected abortions and female infanticide]. They argued that in order to streamline the CSW [Commission on the Status of Women] process, it would be better to simply add the language to the final outcome document. A European NGO told the Friday Fax that in their meetings with EU officials they were briefed that some European states objected to the sex selection resolution because they opposed condemning any abortions.

André Flahaut

André Flahaut, the Belgian minister of defense, used a helicopter of the Belgian Armed Forces to go watch Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". The movie was shown in Hasselt, some 90 kilometers from Brussels. Flahaut and his socialist party are fervent promotors of the fight against global warming. The Agusta A-109 helicopter used for this trip emits 250 kg of CO₂ per kilometer. The 45 tons of CO₂ that were emitted to make this trip are well worth the good cause, aren't they?