The European Union is Proposing a Database of Real IDs, Bitcoin Wallet Addresses for Cryptocurrency Users

The European Commission is proposing the creation of a database that will hold information on users of virtual currencies, which will record data on the user's real world identity, along with all associated wallet addresses.

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Scuffle in the South China Sea #60

China is digging in its position. 

China has made it clear it will not stop building islands.

China has stated the freedom of navigation operations may end 'unfortunately.' 

China is again closing part of the South China Sea for military exercises.

China has admitted it sent H-6K bombers over the Scarborough Shoal.

Can China actually enforce an ADIZ in the South China Sea?

China will conduct regular combat air patrols over the South China Sea.

China has dismissed calls for boycotting Filipino trade over the ruling.

China is floating the island of placing nuclear reactors in the South China Sea.

China is criticizing the intra China protests against the ruling even though they are supportive of the regime.

Top admirals of the US and China met to discuss the South China Sea dispute.

Is it time for the US to take a stand on the Scarborough Shoal?

The Philippines won't sacrifice its recent ruling victory in its negotiations with China. 

Philippines declined a conditional negotiation with China.

Philippines stated its fishermen are still blocked from the Scarborough Shoal.

Japan and Vietnam both agree the ruling must be observed.

China replied Japan must not interfere with the situation in the South China Sea.

The EU's statement on the South China Sea ruling reflects on its internal divisions.

Britain, European Union Discussing Technicalities of Brexit

A European official says British Prime Minister David Cameron and European Council President Donald Tusk will meet Sunday night to discuss the technicalities of the process needed if the U.K. decides to exit the bloc in the next couple of years.

Following an EU summit on Turkey and the refugee crisis on Sunday afternoon, Cameron and Tusk will meet for pre-arranged talks to work out details of a so-called Brexit.

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Ten European Union Members Send Letter Stating Russo-German NordStream Gas Pipeline NOT in European Interests

Russia's plans to extend its gas link to Germany run counter to EU interests and risk further destabilizing Ukraine, 10 European governments said in a letter to the European Commission that called for a summit-level debate on the issue.

A group of European companies signed an agreement with Gazprom in September to expand its Nord Stream pipeline to Germany, bypassing Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Gazprom said it would halt gas deliveries to Ukraine while Kiev said it could find cheaper supplies elsewhere.

The letter, written on Thursday and signed by Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, says the project should come under the closest regulatory scrutiny and called for "an inclusive debate" at next month's EU summit.

"The position of the European Commission on the Nord Stream II project will also essentially influence the perception of the EU's common foreign and security policy among its core allies and traditional partners," the letter, seen by Reuters, said.

World leaders have been urging Moscow and Ankara to avoid any escalation of tensions following the shooting down of a Russian jet by NATO member Turkey.

Russia's relationships with the European Union and Ukraine have been volatile since the annexation of Crimea in March last year.

The Nord Stream extension to deliver increased volumes of gas straight to Germany could have serious consequences for Kiev and EU nations, the letter said.

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In the Aftermath of the Paris Attacks, European Union to Crack Down on Bitcoin

A week after the attacks in Paris, home affairs ministers from European Union countries are due to gather in Brussels on Friday 20th November for a crisis meeting to discuss methods of strengthening the region’s response to terrorism.

One crucial item on the agenda is a planned crackdown on virtual currencies and anonymous payments made online and through pre-paid cards.

According to draft conclusions of the meeting, European interior and justice ministers will urge the European Commission (the EU executive arm) to propose measures to strengthen the controls of non-banking payment methods. These include electronic/anonymous payments, virtual currencies and the transfers of gold and precious metals by pre-paid cards.

The most common virtual currency, Bitcoin, is used as an online method of making money anonymously and quickly around the world without the need for third-party verification. In addition, anonymous electronic payments can be made via pre-paid debit cards bought as gift cards in stores.

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British Leaders Threatening Exit From European Union Again

Britain's foreign secretary says the European Union must implement fundamental reform or British people would vote to leave the bloc in an upcoming referendum.

Philip Hammond told the BBC on Sunday that "the British people will not be fobbed off with a set of cosmetic alterations to the way the EU works" and that there must be "substantive legally-binding change" for Britons to vote to stay in the 28-nation bloc.

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So, the UK leaves the EU.  Scotland leaves the UK.  How fractal can we make the secession in the British Isles?  :)

However, Cameron says the Brits ought to be able to get what they want in changes to the EU so secession isn't necessary.

Great Leader of the Europeans, Merkel, has stated some sort of compromise is likely and possible to avert the Brexit.

Scuffle in the South China Sea #4

China has stated conflicts over the islands in the South China Sea could spark a war.

Chinese and American admirals have consulted over video conference.  The USS Lassen also sailed through Vietnamese and Philippine's claimed territorial waters.

The European Union has decided to side with the United States over the issue.

Here's the Economist's take on the scuffle.

Nontrivial Update: The Chinese have started flying J-11 (Su-27 knockoffs) over the islands.  There are some reports that they are based on one of the islands.

EU Court of Justice Rules Bitcoin is a Currency

The European Union’s Court of Justice (ECJ) has today ruled that Bitcoin is a currency, detailing exchanges that transfer traditional currencies into the crypto-coins for a fee are to be exempt from consumption taxes.

Under the EU rule against value added taxes (VAT) on transfers of “currency, bank notes and coins used as legal tender,” the new call presents an important boost for Bitcoin, erasing related costs for buying and using the virtual funds in Europe – one of the world’s leading trading zones.

Today’s decision concludes a long-standing discord in Europe over how best to regulate Bitcoin. The UK’s tax authorities took the position that it is a currency, while other countries, including Sweden and Germany, believe that Bitcoin is a commodity and transfers should therefore be subject to sales taxes. Poland levied a 23% VAT on all exchanges – maintaining that Bitcoin is an exchangeable product, not a currency.

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European People's Party Calling for European Union Army

The European Union's (EU's) most powerful political grouping has called for the creation of a European Army, during a meeting in Madrid.

The European People's Party (EPP) stated that EU member states must shore up their flagging common security and defence policy (CSDP) by preparing the ground for an eventual European army. A self-selected core of EU nations should surge ahead in areas such as common maritime surveillance as the first step in that direction, it said.

The EPP represents Christian Democrat parties around Europe. It forms the largest bloc in the European Parliament, holds the EU's two most powerful positions, and forms 10 EU governments including in Germany, Spain, and Poland.

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o.O Did the Devil Feel a Draft? Germany Wants to Help Turkey Become Part of the European Union

Germany is ready to help drive forward Turkey's European Union accession process, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday, extending support to Ankara in exchange for Turkish help in stemming the flow of refugees to Europe.

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No Cloning Down on the Farm in the European Union

The European Parliament today voted to ban the cloning of all farm animals as well as the sale of cloned livestock, their offspring, and products derived from them. The measure, which passed by a large margin, goes beyond a directive proposed by the European Commission in 2013, which would have implemented a provisional ban on the cloning of just five species: cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, and horses.

The supporters of the ban cited animal welfare concerns, claiming that only a small percentage of cloned offspring survive to term, and many die shortly after birth.

The ban does not cover cloning for research purposes, nor does it prevent efforts to clone endangered species.

Companies in the United States and in China are cloning livestock for breeding and for research purposes, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found no significant differences between healthy clones and healthy animals from conventional breeding. It considers meat and other products form clones to be as safe as that from other farm animals.

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EU Funds Pan-Robots to Advance Robopocalypse Bound "Factory of the Future"

No good deed goes unpunished and that goes double for robots. They may improve manufacturing efficiency, but an improvement in one place often shows up a glaring inefficiency somewhere else. In an effort to help supply logistics keep up with robotic manufacturing, the EU's Pan-Robots project is working to create warehouse robots that are faster, more efficient, and safer than both manual operations or current robotic systems.

Robots are already being used routinely in factories for manufacturing and packaging, but a factory is more than just an assembly line or a packing station. It has a logistical tail feeding from the supply warehouse to the production area, but this bit still depends on slow, costly, error-prone, manual labor to get the job done. Subsequently, it's a bit of a bottleneck as workers with forklifts try to keep up with the machine they're feeding. This problem becomes particularly acute in businesses that use a just-in-time model, where a delay anywhere along the supply route can have a cascading failure effect as each stage runs out of materials.

Many firms are trying to automate the warehouse phase of their operations with Automatic Guided Vehicles (AVG) with some success, but the Pan-Robots project sees a lot of room for improvement through the use of on-board cameras, laser scanners, 3D maps, and intelligent systems that would make them not only more efficient, but also safer.

Made up of six partners from five EU nations, Pan-Robots is an EU-funded project to the tune of €3,33 million (about US$3.6 million) to develop new technologies for the “Factory-of-the-Future” (FoF). Currently, the project is aiming at producing more advanced on-board camera systems and laser scanners to help the robots to navigate warehouses using 3D maps under the guidance of a control center.

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Juncker: Form European Union Army

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker on Sunday called for the creation of an EU army in the wake of rising tensions with Russia.

Juncker said the force could help counter new threats beyond the bloc's borders and defend European "values," in an interview with Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

"You would not create a European army to use it immediately," he was quoted as saying.

"But a common army among the Europeans would convey to Russia that we are serious about defending the values of the European Union."

He said a joint EU force would also lead to more efficient spending on military equipment and drive further integration of the bloc's 28 member states.

"Such an army would help us design a common foreign and security policy," the former Luxembourg prime minister said, but added that the force should not challenge NATO's defense role.

"Europe's image has suffered dramatically and also in terms of foreign policy, we don't seem to be taken entirely seriously."

The proposal was likely to rile opponents of deeper EU integration such as Britain but has won some support from Germany.

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Predictably, the Brits reject the proposal and others state they need more integration first.

And Jane's wonders if it might not be better to form an EU Air Force to take advantage of economies of scale given the tight budgets the Euros are imposing on their military.

A Proposed British Referendum on EU Membership Failed in Parliament

A bid to set in law a proposed British referendum on EU membership failed on Tuesday, with both parties in the coalition government blaming the other.

Put forward by Bob Neill, a backbencher in the Conservative party of Prime Minister David Cameron, the bill would have guaranteed that the next government would have to hold a referendum in 2017.

The bill passed its first hurdle earlier this month, but the parties' failure to agree means it will not go forward to a vote in the House of Commons.

Under pressure from the rising popularity of the anti-EU UK Independence Party ahead of a May 2015 election, Cameron has vowed to renegotiate the terms of Britain's membership of the bloc and then hold a referendum.

The Liberal Democrats said that their coalition partners secretly opposed the bill as it would have taken the force out of an election promise that voting Conservative is the only way to guarantee an EU referendum.

Deputy leader Malcolm Bruce said that the Conservative Party had deliberately sabotaged the bill by "adding ridiculous conditions".

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Most Spanish Eurofighters Cannot Fly

According to Spanish daily El Confidencial Digital, unnamed military sources have warned that the Eurofighter Typhoon air fleet is crippled by breakdowns, lack of spare parts and delayed inspections.

The claims come just a day after Spain announced plans to pump €10 billion ($12.7 billion) into new defence programs after six years of cutbacks as a result of the economic crisis.

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Germany is not really in any better position.

I worry NATO is America and just America.

Should France Sell the Russian Mistrals to European Union to Form Nucleus of EU Navy?

Selling warships to Russia doesn't seem like a great idea right now. But there's someone else that could buy them -- and make it a win-win for European security.

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Eurofighter has Manufacturing Defects

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EU Can't Deal With Disintegrating Members

THE demonstrations that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall came out of nowhere, says Günther Dauwen, and had consequences nobody could foresee. Observing the proceedings in Scotland last week, he wondered if something similar might be brewing. From a quiet fourth-floor office in Brussels Mr Dauwen runs the European Free Alliance (EFA), a rum assortment of 40 regional political groups, including the Scottish National Party (SNP), that seek greater autonomy, or, in some cases, independence, from existing countries. From the plains of Silesia to the beaches of Corsica, reckons Mr Dauwen, there is a growing clamour for power among Europe’s long-neglected regions. Scotland is a “beacon” for such places; that its independence referendum was achieved at all encouraged others to think “Yes, we can!”, even though the outcome was negative. In the run-up to the vote the EFA’s website nearly crashed under the weight of traffic.

Watching the streets of Edinburgh filling up with Saltire-waving Catalans, Flemings and South Tyroleans (not to mention Québécois, Kurds and Taiwanese) last week, a visitor might have been forgiven for assuming that something was stirring in Europe. Some commentators fretted about the prospect of “balkanisation” across the continent. Yet although parts of Europe may one day drift towards dissolution, and Catalonia is trying to hold a vote on its future, the Scottish effect was overdone. Pro-independence campaigners in Flanders or the Veneto will have taken heart from the Scottish campaign, but given the different constitutional arrangements of Belgium and Italy they will struggle to draw useful lessons from it. And it will take a lot more to rouse the good burghers of Bavaria or Frisia from their slumbers.

Outside Britain, the biggest impact of a Scottish vote for secession would have been felt within the European Union. Ever since it adopted “Independence in Europe!” as a slogan in 1988, EU membership has been central to the SNP’s proposition. For small nations, the prospect of staying in a giant trading block with its own foreign policy and currency makes the idea of statehood less daunting. In contrast to what is perceived as an oppressive multinational state, it may offer space for identities to flourish. Asked in 2007 if his country wanted to establish a “Greater Albania”, an Albanian official referred to the EU symbol: “Yes we do. It has a blue flag and gold stars on it.”

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Ukraine: Frogs in Winter

Despite the fact the world's press seems to have largely moved on, the situation in Ukraine is far from over.

The heaviest fighting is at the Donetsk airport. The Ukrainian forces are holding on though I have to wonder about their supplies at this point. 9 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and an APC lost to tank fire. The Ukrainians claim to have killed 50 rebels in their two attacks.

Ukraine is not going to be ready for winter. Gas supplies are low. Russia cut off supplies earlier. Hungary just cut off the backflow into Ukraine as well as GazProm's insistence. The other flows they are getting are not enough and Ukraine will be in deep trouble. Expect deep trouble for Kiev's government as the temperature drops.

Russia has repeatedly voiced demands to modify the treaty between the EU and Ukraine. The EU came out and said 'no' finally.

Russia hs opened a criminal case against Ukraine? Government officials in it? for genocide against the Russian speaking portions of Ukraine, especially the Donbass. I can only groan over this one, but, well, not only that. I have to wonder what this is being developed as the pretext for though.

Japan has further strengthened sanctions against Russia.

Ukraine's economy is burnt toast. Russia's in going down the tubes as well: the claims are this is due to the sanctions.

Even so, Poroshenko has stated Ukraine will apply for membership in the European Union in 2020.

In Order to Form an Ever More Germanic Union...

THE European Union, it is often said, long served to disguise both French weakness and German strength. It magnified France’s unabashed pursuit of its national interests and allowed Germany to pretend it did not have any. But the euro crisis has shifted power decisively to Angela Merkel’s Germany, dispelling the illusion. The recent allocation of top jobs may have killed it.

This is not apparent at first glance. No German has secured a big post (barring Martin Schulz, who stays as president of the European Parliament). This week Jean-Claude Juncker, the incoming president of the European Commission, doled out various jobs to the individuals nominated by their national governments. Günther Oettinger, the German, was put in charge of the “digital economy and society”: hardly a dazzling portfolio for a man from the club’s largest and richest member (although, of course, Mr Juncker insists that commissioners leave their passports at the door). Mr Oettinger’s work will also be overseen by a vice-president: Andrus Ansip, from tiny Estonia.

But German influence may be detected in subtler form. The best example is the economic and financial affairs commissioner. Since the euro crisis erupted it has fallen to this person to act as a fiscal watchdog, telling off euro-zone countries who fail to abide by their budget commitments. The job has been performed with gusto by two austere Finns who have held the post since 2010, acting, says one official, “as surrogate Germans”.

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