You are currently browsing the EU Australia Online archives for December, 2011.
When the leaders of two NATO countries engaged in the Libyan campaign went to Libya after the death of Muammar al-Gaddafi (picture), speculation arose as to whether they’d be receiving rewards.
Writer – Daniel Roche … Read More »
Silvio Berlusconi, the mercurial former Italian Prime Minister, forced from office under gathering clouds of scandal in mid-November, says he is “still on trackâ€, not out of the political game. … Read More »
Scientists engaged with the LHC collider in Geneva ended 2011 with a cautious disclosure, that they may have seen signs of the Higgs boson – an hypothetical energy field that would further explain the composition of matter. … Read More »
A coordinated pre-Christmas swoop by European police saw 112 arrests in connection with child abuse material on the Internet.
The operation was based on intensive work, breaking into a file sharing network, a kind of set-up highly resistant to surveillance. … Read More »
The Australian government announced this year (27.9.11) that women in the armed forces will be allowed to serve in any frontline combat roles by 2016.
While women are prominent in many roles already, as senior officers, crew members on warships, air force pilots, and soldiers in Afghanistan, the move excited debate over security and safety issues for all troops, with two sexes in the ranks. … Read More »
Street protests in Russia for better standards of democracy have continued to spread to more places in the country and to grow, one Moscow crowd estimate getting up to 100 000.
A prime resource for the movement is that they can focus on a single, high-profile target, the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, as he campaigns for election as President on 4.3.12. … Read More »
The push will be on in the New Year to extend the powers of the European Union, in the hope of it dealing better with challenges like the debt crisis.
More in the short-term, with the threat of a general recession, new efforts will be focused on setting up the permanent guarantee fund, the European Stability Mechanism, by mid-year; and on the possible issue of joint European bonds, guaranteed by governments in a group.
Disputes will go beyond immediate action, to wider ideas of what “Europe†should be, whether a collection of states, or a closer union more on the federal plan.  … Read More »