On December 14th, after a single reading, the EU Parliament passed the Data Retention directive. 378 parliamentarians voted in favour of the Directive, 30 abstained and 197 voted against.

Lech Kaczynski, conservative, closely related to Peace and Justice party, led by his twin brother Jaroslaw, former mayor of Polish capital Warsaw and professor of law at University of Warsaw, has taken the office of Polish president, after swearing an oath before the National Assembly (joined houses of Sejm and Senate).

Cases of the H5 type of the avian flu have been discovered in Romanian and Ukrainian fowl. Romania has banned hunting in parts of the country and Ukrainian troops have moved from house to house in villages rounding up chickens, ducks and geese for a mass cull.

Yesterday, December 1, 2005, the election for the “Greatest Belgian” (“De Grootste Belg”) was won by Father Damien (Joseph De Veuster). Runners up were Dr. Paul Janssen, founder of Janssen Pharmaceutica, and Eddy Merkx, a cyclist.

Members of the WTO have made statements in preparation of the next WTO meeting in December.

Despite heavy snowing, tens of thousands of workers and supporters marched today in Ljubljana, Slovenia in the largest demonstration since the country’s independence in 1991 to protest against the government programme of economic reforms, including privatisation of public services, tax cuts for businessmen and the abolition of the lower value added tax rate for items like food and books.

Angela Merkel has been elected the first female chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany; she succeeds Gerhard Schröder after his seven years as head of government.

The European Commission is to tell Bulgaria and Romania that they can still join the EU in 2007 if they speed up reforms and root out corruption.

Live wild bird imports to any European Union state may be banned when EU agriculture ministers meet to discuss the bird flu threat on Tuesday.

At a press conference Monday, Lance Armstrong announced his intention to retire from professional cycling after going for his 7th Tour de France title in July 2005.

After three rounds of voting, including one re-run, mass protests, accusations and reports of corruption and election fraud from international observers, legal challenges, changes to the electoral system, threats of separatism, accusations of Russian manipulation, and probable Dioxin poisoning, Ukraine today swore in it’s third post Soviet president, Viktor Yushchenko today in Parliament climaxing many weeks of extraordinary behaviour and activity.

Prague Mayor Pavel Bém this week received a close up view of the notorious taxi drivers which frequent his city when he went undercover for a ride and was overcharged by 500%.
The gauntlet was …