Late last month Uppsala University was found guilty of discrimination against Swedes by the Swedish Supreme Court (Högsta domstolen). Three years ago, the university refused to enroll Cecilia Lönn and Josefine Milander in its Law Faculty even though they had better grades than thirty other students with a foreign background.

A quote from EUobserver.com, 8 January 2007

Scotland would not automatically become a member of the European Union if it became independent, the European Commission has said. [...] “The situation is unprecedented and therefore negotiations would be needed. Things would have to be discussed and negotiated,” [the commission’s representative in Scotland, Neil] Mitchinson said amid a continuing public debate in Scotland on its independence from London. [...] Lorand Bartels, a law lecturer at Edinburgh University, warned that accession talks with Brussels would probably mean that Scotland would have to adopt the euro – a legal obligation for all new EU entrants. [...]

A quote from the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, 9 January 2007

More than half of ethnic Norwegian women under age 25 choose abortion if they get pregnant, according to a new study. [...] Eskild’s study marked the first time that researchers tracked the incidence of abortions and births among ethnic Norwegian women. [...] “It’s very surprising that it’s more common for women under 25 to have an abortion than it is to carry out their pregnancy,” Eskild told newspaper Aftenposten.

There is some commotion in the Netherlands following a report in The [London] Times (6 January) that Dutch troops in Afghanistan have found a new way of beating the Taliban. They invite them round to tea. The Dutch blog Het Vrije Volk points out that the Taliban are guilty of mass murders, gang rapes and other hideous crimes. As U.S. President George W. Bush said: “If you harbor a terrorist, if you support a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist, you’re just as guilty as the terrorists.” That, however, is not how the Dutch government sees it.

A quote from [the Neo-Nazi organisation] Unite against Fascism, 8 January 2007

Unite Against Fascism Demonstration
London Coliseum
At the performance of Giselle
Friday 12th January, 12 noon

[...] The rise of Nazism involved such infamy as [...] the flight from Nazi territory of thousands of artists, [...]. We are calling on all those who have an appreciation for the arts, music, and dance to demand that [...] Simone Clarke should be removed from her position.

At what point does continual self-assurance become continual self-delusion? Perhaps that is the true 'tipping point' now being reached in our Europe:

Good thing the anti-monarchistic Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) didn't take over power in the city of Antwerp after the last local elections, because that certainly would have hurt Belgium's reputation abroad…

Today the Norwegian social-democratic Minister of Work and Integration Bjarne Håkon Hanssen officially opened the «Sami Finger Posts», created to help the teaching of the Sami alphabet in Norwegian schools. He did this by going back to school at Slemdal skole to learn the Northern Sami alphabet in a class of twelve year olds.

If any of our readers is considering a visit to the Netherlands in the near future they had better be quick. Very quick, because the country is going to be flooded over in the coming months. Three years ago, on February 22, 2004, The Observer (the Sunday edition of al-Guardian) published an article “Now the Pentagon tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us,” warning that in 2007 violent storms caused by global warming will smash the Dutch coastal barriers. The paper announced that in 2007 large parts of the Netherlands will become “uninhabitable” and that cities like The Hague, which contains the residences of the Dutch Queen, Parliament and Government, will be “abandoned.” Those of you who wish to visit the Mauritshuis Museum and see Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, hurry.

The French Conseil d’Etat, the highest administrative court in France, forbids private charities from distributing pork soup to the homeless. On Friday night the high court ruled that offering soup containing pork meat or lard is an act of racism because some of the homeless might be Muslims or Jews whose religion forbids the consuming of pork. The court said distributing pork soup threatens public order because it could spark angry reactions.