“Europe” on The Daily Caller

The debate over global warming is alive and well, but the European Trading Scheme (ETS), Europe’s carbon market, has been declared “dead.” With the price of European carbon allowances plummeting, Johannes Teyssen, CEO of Germany’s E.ON, says, “I don’t know a single person in the world that would invest a dime based on ETS signals.” (more)

Greece’s economic and political unraveling could not be coming at a worse moment for President Obama. The crisis has the potential to send shock waves not simply through Europe but also through global financial markets on the very eve of the U.S. presidential election. Those shock waves could stop in its tracks the modest healing in the U.S. labor market that President Obama is hailing as one of his administration’s major achievements. (more)

Vladimir Putin is back. Freshly re-installed as Russian president, the world’s most intimidating camera hog is raising Western hackles by blowing off the latest G8 summit. He’s also fueling a new round of antagonistic U.S. press. It goes without saying that life under Putin would appall and depress the average American. But Putin’s American critics, invariably demanding a tougher Russia policy than the one president Obama has adopted, are completely missing the point. (more)

The race is on to use Europe’s rejection of fiscal austerity as a cudgel to beat Republicans. “Economic austerity is a dangerous, self-defeating intellectual fad,” Eugene Robinson thunders. “Perhaps I should say that’s what it was, given Sunday’s election results in Europe. Perhaps I should also say good riddance.” (more)

Reports of a Eurozone recovery continue to make news. Austerity is doing what it’s supposed to do. Default is being avoided. We just need to give another push to get over the hump. However, just like raising the U.S. deficit ceiling, all these measures are doing is further impoverishing the working class subjects of each country. (more)

“Privacy” is getting a lot of attention in Washington and Brussels these days. On March 26, the Federal Trade Commission released its new framework for U.S. privacy law in a report that outlined “best” industry practices (and thus future litigation directions) for businesses that collect and use personal information for business and advertising purposes. In February, the White House issued a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights and directed the FTC to enforce the rights and the Commerce Department to convene industry and consumer stakeholder groups to develop additional voluntary “codes of conduct” that would help protect privacy while respecting innovation and economic growth. And, back in January, the European Union proposed its first complete overhaul of E.U.-wide privacy law since Europe’s 1995 Data Protection Directive broke new ground by establishing a single, omnibus privacy policy to govern all data about all individuals in all contexts (except for national security and law enforcement). Given all this action, it could turn out to be pretty important to the Internet, information technology companies and consumers whether the world goes American or European on privacy. (more)

The markets appear to be a game of three halves at the moment.The US markets are resilient with equities holding their highs, Europe is gently slipping but the leader is currently China where equity markets have tanked over the past few days. (more)

The Dutch like their euthanasia — but sure are sensitive when a prominent person describes the horrors that medicalized killing has unleashed. Latest example: Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum criticized Dutch euthanasia in an interview with James Dobson, stating in part: (more)

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. and Europe are trying to stop Iran, the world’s third-biggest oil exporter, from selling crude. Iran’s response is to threaten to disrupt shipments from the entire Middle East. (more)

With rumors swirling around Washington about the possibility of the U.S. bailing out Europe, despite our own debt troubles, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum addressed the issue in an interview with The Daily Caller’s Ginni Thomas. (more)

The world risks sliding into a 1930s-style slump unless countries settle their differences and work together to tackle Europe’s deepening debt crisis, the head of the International Monetary Fund has warned. (more)

American CEOs’ projections for the next six months of economic growth have been largely consistent since last quarter, tempered by concerns over the European debt crisis and uncertain economic policies in the States, according to Business Roundtable’s Q4 Economic Outlook survey, even as Congress has failed to trim the federal budget deficit. (more)

Stocks closed sharply lower Monday after doubt emerged that last week’s historic agreement to bind the budgets of European countries more closely together will solve the region’s financial crisis. (more)

Tuesday night’s CNN debate offered Republican presidential contenders the opportunity to prove they are ready to navigate the murky waters of international affairs. The primary season’s twelfth debate focused entirely on national security and quickly set a tone that was in stark contrast to the “rah-rah” atmosphere of the previous debates. The crowd of Washington insiders and think tank employees offered a much more subdued response to the candidates than the primary voters who have been filling the debate halls to this point. But boisterous crowd reactions were not the only things missing from Tuesday night’s debate. There were also some notable geographic and political voids in the debate’s content: (more)

The United States said Tuesday it would no longer provide data to Russia on conventional weapons and troops in Europe, citing non-compliance by Moscow with a two-decade old treaty that governed the information exchange. (more)

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said during CNBC’s Republican presidential debate that he would not bail out Italy’s struggling economy even if that nation’s debt problems threatened to sink the entire European financial system. (more)

The mass immigration of Muslims into Western Europe over the last four decades or so was a project of elite mainstream politicians, most of them left-wing, who never consulted the electorate on whether they thought this project was a good idea or not. Motivated by a multicultural sensibility (and, in most cases, an invincible ignorance about Islam), these politicians felt compelled not to try to integrate these newcomers, but encouraged them, rather, to preserve their cultural values, however at odds they might be with Western ideas of freedom and equality. For many years there was little organized public resistance to the increasing Islamization of Europe. But then, around a decade ago, things reached a breaking point. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The International Monetary Fund says the global financial system faces more challenges than at any point since the 2008 financial crisis. (more)

It’s been described as one of the most telegraphed downgrades in sovereign debt rating history, but did Standard & Poor’s have some sort of ulterior motive when it moved the U.S. debt from AAA to AA+? (more)

Federal health officials said during a Tuesday webinar that some Americans traveling abroad in Europe are being exposed to outbreaks of the measles and reentering the United States infected with the virus. (more)