The European Commission on Monday unveiled a "single European transport area" aimed at enforcing "a profound shift in transport patterns for passengers" by 2050.
The plan also envisages an end to cheap holiday flights from Britain to southern Europe with a target that over 50 per cent of all journeys above 186 miles should be by rail.
Top of the EU's list to cut climate change emissions is a target of "zero" for the number of petrol and diesel-driven cars and lorries in the EU's future cities.
Siim Kallas, the EU transport commission, insisted that Brussels directives and new taxation of fuel would be used to force people out of their cars and onto "alternative" means of transport.
"That means no more conventionally fueled cars in our city centres," he said. "Action will follow, legislation, real action to change behaviour."
The Association of British Drivers rejected the proposal to ban cars as economically disastrous and as a "crazy" restriction on mobility.
"I suggest that he goes and finds himself a space in the local mental asylum," said Hugh Bladon, a spokesman for the BDA.
"If he wants to bring everywhere to a grinding halt and to plunge us into a new dark age, he is on the right track. We have to keep things moving. The man is off his rocker."
Mr Kallas has denied that the EU plan to cut car use by half over the next 20 years, before a total ban in 2050, will limit personal mobility or reduce Europe's economic competitiveness.
"Curbing mobility is not an option, neither is business as usual. We can break the transport system's dependence on oil without sacrificing its efficiency and compromising mobility. It can be win-win," he claimed.
Christopher Monckton, Ukip's transport spokesman said: "The EU must be living in an alternate reality, where they can spend trillions and ban people from their cars.
"This sort of greenwashing grandstanding adds nothing and merely highlights their grandiose ambitions." Yeah good luck with that guys. Lemme know how it is going by 2050 if you are all aren't under shaira law by that time and bowing to Mecca. Continued on Page 47
First thingys come first - a genuine "market need" or other requirement(s) for such has to be identified.
Thanks mainly to 1980's-1990's changes in US-Western corporate focii towards "LEAN-N-MEAN" ECONOMIES OF SCALE[ e.g. Just-in-Time production], SOLUTIONS ARE ALREADY AT OR NEAR MARKET CAPACITIES + WILL LIKLEY REMAIN SO
BEYOND 2050.
At this time, despite the "Information/Internet Revolution", there is little or no need for US-International conglomerates to reduce their dependence or reliance on POST-FOSSIL FUEL NT.
#2
From what I am seeing the EU will go after all EU members. They will have each EU member incorporate these laws into the laws of their respective countries.
#5
NEWS KERALA > RUSSIA NOT WILLING TO LOSE "NUCLEAR SHIELD" [or give up NucEnergy] DUE TO FUKUSHIMA DISASTER.
* DAILY TIMES.PK > RUSSIA'S POPULATION FELL DURING PUTIN'S DECADE, thus in LT will contin to affect its ability to econ compete wid China + India, etc.
* SAME > URBANIZATION IN CHINA THREATENS ITS FOOD SECURITY, as per sharp steady decrease in arable land available for Agriculture.
The junior partner in the Norwegian government, the Socialist Left Party of Kristin Halvorsen, (Sosialistisk Venstreparti), plans to vote on a measure calling for military action against Israel if it decides to act against the Hamas in Gaza.
"The credibility of the world community in its confrontation with the Gadafi regime is undermined when there is no reaction against other states in the region who commit injustices against civil population. The greater world community must therefore also react against Israeli air attacks on the Gaza strip." The SV party is the fourth largest party in Norway, and the junior party in a coalition with the Norwegian Labour Party (Socialist Democrat). The SV holds 11 seats in parliament, behind Labour, with 64 seats; Progress Party (liberal), with 41 seats; and the Conservative Party, with 30 seats. Continued on Page 47
#1
ION HERRING, TOPIX > [Helge Luraas of Nowegian Institute of Int'l Affairs] NORWEGIAN EXPERT WORRIED OVER POSSIBLE FALLOUT OF LIBYA WAR | NORWEGIAN EXPERT: LIBYA NO-FLY ZONE COULD LAST FOR MONTHS OR YEARS, as enforced by NATO + UNO, + at roughly the same time that Libyuh as a sovereign State may also divide + partition into separate polities???
#2
SV party, or former Reichskommissariat Norwegen, same goals, same objectives. It is not dead, it simply slumbers. Move along will you, no surprises found here.
#7
It's just a passive-aggressive way of completely breaking NATO from the parties that were in the old days a branch of the KGB that spent decades trying to do that and failing.
[Al Jazeera] Spain's armed Basque secessionist movement ETA has said it is willing to allow international observers to verify a ceasefire it declared earlier this year.
A report in the Basque newspaper Gara on Sunday said that the group was "ready to accept an informal mechanism for verification".
An ETA statement carried by the paper said that there were now two camps, that "of those who want to put in place a scenario of freedom", and that of "those who want to maintain force and stalemate".
ETA declared a ceasefire on January 10, after more than 40 years of bloodshed, but the move was not accepted by the Spanish government.
Many in Spain view ETA's ceasefire announcement as part of an attempt to get members of its banned political wing Batasuna included on electoral lists for local and regional elections due in May and the government was dismissive of ETA's latest overtures.
Ramon Jauregui, a front man for the Spanish government, said that he was not sure what an "informal verification" meant.
Last week Spain's top court rejected an application by Sortu, a new Basque pro-independence group, to form a political party so that it can stand in local elections in May. The Spanish government had asked the court to bar the group from electoral lists in municipal elections to be held in the Northern Basque country, arguing that it is a simple "extension" of Batasuna.
Earlier in March, French police incarcerated four men in northern La Belle France on suspicion they were active ETA members, seizing arms, documents in the Basque language and computers in a raid.
ETA announced a "permanent ceasefire" in March 2006 within the framework of negotiations with Madrid. But nine months later, it set off a bomb in the carpark of Madrid-Barajas airport, killing two men.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2011 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The European Commission on Monday unveiled a "single European transport area" aimed at enforcing "a profound shift in transport patterns for passengers" by 2050.
The junior partner in the Norwegian government, the Socialist Left Party of Kristin Halvorsen, (Sosialistisk Venstreparti), plans to vote on a measure calling for military action against Israel if it decides to act against the Hamas in Gaza.
[Al Jazeera] Spain's armed Basque secessionist movement ETA has said it is willing to allow international observers to verify a ceasefire it declared earlier this year.
