Married to Geertrui Windels and father of four (Peter, born in 1980; Laura, 1981; Elke, 1983; and Thomas, 1986), Herman Van Rompuy is a man well-known for his wisdom, passion for reading and philosophy.

Herman Van Rompuy is A MAN OF PROFOUND FAITH and A FIRM BELIEVER IN CATHOLIC DOCTRINE. He often goes on RELIGIOUS RETREATS in the Abbey of Affligem (Flemish Brabant) to renew his faith, read and meditate. From the beginning of his political career Herman Van Rompuy was known as a 'MAN OF ETHICS', A CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT OF THE 'OLD SCHOOL'.

In the Daily Telegraph, Daniel Hanan, conservative MEP writes:- "Our new president, Herman Van Rompuy, has wasted no time in revealing the magnitude of his aspirations. At his first press conference, he announced that he wanted the EU to return to 'THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL AGENDA'. He hailed 2009 as 'THE FIRST YEAR OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE': a reference to the wrong-headed G20 agenda. He went on to describe the Copenhagen climate summit as 'ANOTHER STEP TOWARDS THE GLOBAL MANAGEMENT OF OUR PLANET'. So much ambition – and the chap hasn't even taken office yet."

The climate-change sceptic, who sparked fury recently by claiming homophobia did not exist, also questioned the Church's political leanings. The broadside, in a local newspaper in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit, last night provoked outrage from political opponents – and the Bishop of Leicester.

The Right Reverend Tim Stevens said he was "surprised and saddened" at the attack. He also said Mr Helmer had failed to express his "extraordinary view that the earth is cooling" when he took up an invitation to debate climate change in Leicester Cathedral.

The Bishop was responding to a letter in the Leicester Mercury, in which Mr Helmer referred to the children's writer GP Taylor's decision to join the Catholic Church, "SAYING THAT 'THE C OF E IS A SINKING SHIP THAT HAS BECOME THE SPIRITUAL ARM OF NEW LABOUR'".

Open Europe's Mats Persson was quoted in Saturday's Telegraph saying, "This appointment is part of a very deliberate French strategy TO CHALLENGE THE ANGLO-SAXON MODEL IN GENERAL AND THE PROMINENCE OF THE CITY OF LONDON IN PARTICULAR." Belgian financial paper Trends notes that "the nomination of a Brit at the head of European diplomacy is good news for France and Germany, because it removes Britain from the race for one of the big economic portfolios."

It reports that "Germany might be interested in Trade, but also in Energy or Industry, in order to protect its industry from the impact of Brussels. France, meanwhile, covets the portfolio of Internal Market for its candidate Michel Barnier, on the condition that Barroso does not separate financial markets from it." According to the weekend FT, Downing Street has fiercely denied any deal, amid claims from the Conservatives that Barnier could use his position to pursue a French agenda, stifling the single market and IMPOSING NEW REGULATIONS ON THE CITY OF LONDON.

Saturday's Times reported that Gordon Brown had rejected advice from Lord Mandelson to seek one of the big economic posts in the European Commission for Britain once it was clear that Tony Blair could not succeed in becoming Europe's first president. A ministerial source was quoted saying, "WE HAVE ENDED UP WITH TWO GARDEN GNOMES. It is the lowest common denominator... Gordon Brown has allowed himself to be pushed around by Barroso, who wanted Ashton in there so that he can dominate the stage himself."

In its second report on the potentially defective building materials, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said its investigation also has found a "possible" link between health problems reported by homeowners and higher-than-normal levels of HYDROGEN SULFIDE gas emitted from the wallboard COUPLED WITH FORMALDEHYDE, which is commonly found in new houses.

The commission, along with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, continues to study the POTENTIAL HEALTH EFFECTS, AND THE LONG-TERM IMPLICATIONS OF THE CORROSION. "We can say that we believe that there's a number of different chemicals that when brought together can be related to some of these irritant health effects that we've been getting reports of," said CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson. "But we're still working toward that exact nexus."

The suspect building materials have previously been found by state and federal agencies to emit "volatile sulfur compounds" and produce a rotten-egg odor. HOMEOWNERS COMPLAIN THE FUMES ARE CORRODING COPPER PIPES, DESTROYING TVS AND AIR CONDITIONERS, BLACKENING JEWELRY AND SILVERWARE, AND MAKING THEM SICK. The federal government says China is assisting with the investigation.

Lack of disclosure has been a key complaint of green activists who have often alleged that many household cleaners contain toxic ingredients. Equally important, these environmental do-gooders have charged that some supposedly green products contain ingredients that are either unsafe or suspected of having strong health effects on people. As SC Johnson is the first major consumer products company to take this step, its move puts huge pressure on Clorox, Colgate-Palmolive and Procter-Gamble to make similar information available online to consumers.

All offer product lines specifically targeting the green market. And all will have to come clean, pronto. Call it the Wal-Mart Effect. The country's largest retailer announced July 15 it will institute a new policy requiring all of its product suppliers to calculate the environmental costs of their products. These costs will then be tabulated into an easy-to-understand green rating. Wal-Mart plans to post these ratings next to the price tags on products.

This policy change amounted to a green gun pointed at the head of consumer products companies that had, until now, refused to disclose ingredients. While Wal-Mart did not explicity say it would publish ingredients, such a disclosure would be an inevitable outcome of the green-rating process and a way to differentiate products.

Current US laws do not mandate full transparency on ingredients of cleaning products. Manufacturers have long claimed that revealing ingredients would release key trade secrets and make it easy to ascertain chemical formulas for these products. Environmental groups have long made claims that this exclusion for products that are used in so many homes has allowed cleaning and beauty products companies, in particular, to foist unhealthy products on unsuspecting Americans.

The hoax has its roots in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an instrument of the United Nations Environmental Program, for whom global warming was the open sesame to achieving a one-world-government by scaring nations into signing a treaty that would control their use of energy, the means of producing it, and require vast billions to be sent to less developed nations in exchange for "emitting" greenhouse gases. ENERGY IS CALLED "THE MASTER RESOURCE" because, if you have lots of it, you can call your own shots. If you don't, you are condemned to live in the dark and keeping people in the dark about the global warming hoax was essential.

So, around November 20, some enterprising individual hacked into the computers of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU), making off with thousands of emails and documents that demonstrate the level of collusion and deception being practiced by its scientists. It's a climate hoax expose and makes revelations that some are calling a "little blue dress" while others are comparing it to the Pentagon Papers. IT HAS ALSO BEEN DUBBED "CLIMATEGATE."

As James Delingpole wrote in the Telegraph, one of England's leading newspapers, "Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organized resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more" was revealed in the 61 megabites of confidential files released on the Internet for anyone to read.

THE CONSPIRATORS HAD A VISCERAL HATRED FOR SCIENTISTS WHO CHALLENGED THEIR PHONY STATISTICS and climate data, but they also agonized over the difficulties of hiding a long established climate cycle such as the Medieval Warm Period. At one point it was left out of a graph that famously became known as "the hockey stick" because it depicted a ludicrous sudden rise in warming, ignoring the previous natural cycle.

At the heart of the revelations were the intense efforts to ensure that NO LEGITIMATE SCIENTIST, particularly those dissenting from the various IPCC reports, WOULD BE ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS. Peer review is an essential element in science as it permits other scientists to examine and test the data being put forth to substantiate a new interpretation or discovery.

The IPCC reports were the basis by which popular media such as National Geographic, Time and Newsweek magazines could spread the lies about dramatic "global warming", passing them off to an unsuspecting and scientifically illiterate general public. At the same time, the lies were integrated then into school curriculums and maintained by Hollywood celebrities, politicians and others, duped or deliberately ignorant. TO THIS DAY, OTHERWISE LEGITIMATE NEWS MEDIA OUTLETS CONTINUE TO TRUMPET AND REPEAT ABSOLUTE NONSENSE ABOUT "GLOBAL WARMING" LIKE BRAIN-DEAD PARROTS.

Now that Hadley CRU and its conspirators have been exposed, there truly is no need to hold a December UN climate change conference in Copenhagen; one in which nations would be required to put limits on "greenhouse gas emissions" even though such gases, primarily carbon dioxide, have nothing to do with altering the Earth's climate.

And that is why you are going to hear more about "climate change" and far less about "global warming." Hidden in such discussions, intended to justify legislation and regulation, is that THE EARTH'S CLIMATE HAS ALWAYS AND WILL ALWAYS CHANGE. The East Anglia CRU charlatans have been exposed. Most certainly, the United Nations IPCC should be disbanded in disgrace. IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM OF HOAXES RIGHT BESIDE THE PILTDOWN MAN AND THE LOCH NESS MONSTER.

The House has passed its version and now the Senate has voted to bring its version to the floor for debate. That tells us what we need to know about the so-called moderate Democrats in the Senate. If the people in Louisiana and other states don't rise up against Mary Landrieu and the other Senators who are selling out their constituents then this will truly be just the beginning. They will continue to violate their oaths of office and vote for every bill Obama and Harry Reid tell them to vote for, regardless of the Constitutional implications.

As for the health care bills themselves, the bottom line remains the same. THESE BILLS ARE NOT REALLY ABOUT HEALTH CARE AT ALL. They are an all out assault on the Constitution of the United States and are designed TO TRANSFER POWER TO THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT that will impact and in some cases virtually destroy the Constitutional rights of Americans to make their own choices when it comes to health care and even to protect their own privacy.

Senior citizens will receive the initial and most devastating impact. The fact that seniors have been paying taxes for years to provide Medicare coverage when they retire is ignored. Massive cuts in Medicare will take place including the elimination of such programs as Medicare Advantage that many seniors have to have in order to make ends meet. This is a direct strike against the contractual obligations that the Federal government has with citizens of the United States.

In addition, if you want to keep your private coverage, it must be approved by the Federal government. If it is not, or if any changes are made to your coverage, or if you decide to change employment you will be forced to accept the public option. If you refuse to do so you will be taxed by the government. THIS IS NOT REALLY A TAX, IT IS A FINE, but it is called a tax so that you can be denied the provisions of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment under the Constitution. In other words, you will not be able to appeal the penalty and by the way, all of this will be under the control of the Internal Revenue Service. IF YOU REFUSE TO GET INSURANCE AND FAIL TO PAY THE "TAXES" FOR THIS REFUSAL, YOU CAN BE PUT IN FEDERAL PRISON.

Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and INTEREST RATES THAT ARE SURE TO CLIMB BACK TO NORMAL as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed. Even as Treasury officials are racing to lock in today's low rates by exchanging short-term borrowings for long-term bonds, THE GOVERNMENT FACES A PAYMENT SHOCK SIMILAR TO THOSE THAT SENT LEGIONS OF OVERSTRETCHED HOMEOWNERS INTO DEFAULT ON THEIR MORTGAGES.

With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government's tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The potential for rapidly escalating interest payouts is just one of the wrenching challenges facing the United States after decades of living beyond its means.

The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is always fair game for criticism and second-guessing, usually over interest rate actions. But this year the criticism is much broader as Congress responds to WIDESPREAD PUBLIC ANGER THAT THE FED BAILED OUT WALL STREET BUT NOT ORDINARY AMERICANS, and with unemployment in double digits.

Former Fed chairman William McChesney Martin Jr famously said that the central bank's job was to yank away the punchbowl just when everybody is starting to party. And while Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has signalled the Fed will keep interest rates low for now, a round of higher rates inevitably will come. The Fed finds itself both the punchbowl keeper and the punching bag. Imagine the outcry when it does begin to crank up rates — perhaps just ahead of next year's midterm elections.

Many economists and Fed watchers say congressional efforts to rein in the Fed's powers could interfere with the central bank's ability to help guide the fragile economy to recovery. The Fed's very independence AND ITS UNIQUE ABILITY AMONG US INSTITUTIONS TO CREATE MONEY OUT OF THIN AIR enabled it to act quickly to stabilize the nation's financial system after it froze up last September after the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers investment house, Fed backers say.

The surface-to-surface Agni II missile is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to targets around 2,000 km (1,200 miles) away, officials said. "It was tested after sunset and we are awaiting results," said a defense official, who asked not to be identified. The missile was test launched from Wheeler's Island, off India's east coast in Orissa state.

Its range can be increased to 3000 km (1,900 miles) by reducing the load. It is 65 feet long and can carry a payload of one tonne.

The 30 countries in the OECD had shown no economic growth in the second quarter, but recorded growth of 0.8 per cent in the third quarter. For the biggest seven economies, GDP grew by 0.7 per cent between July and September. YET THE UK ECONOMY FAILED TO GROW, registering a drop in GDP of 0.4 per cent.

This came as separate upbeat figures indicated that the eurozone was continuing to climb out of recession. The eurozone's dominant service sector grew at its fastest pace in two years in November, with Markit's Index of activity rising to 53.2 in November, from 52.6 in October, to reach its highest since November 2007. Any figure over 50 shows that the sector is growing, rather than shrinking.

Markit's purchasing managers index (PMI) is made up of surveys of about 2,000 businesses, ranging from cafes to banks. Earlier data showed Germany's industrial and services sectors picking up again, while France powered forward with its services PMI cruising to its highest level since October 2006. However, ANALYSTS REMAINED CAUTIOUS ABOUT THE OUTLOOK FOR THE EUROZONE. Colin Ellis, European economist for Daiwa Securities, said: "The PMIs are still a useful and timely indicator of activity, but we remain cautious about putting too much weight on them — and still think that euro area GDP growth could fall back in the fourth quarter from the expansion posted in the third quarter."

As part of the Vatican's investigation thousands of documents have been collected and examined by officials from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Among them is the testimony of Tobiana Sobodka, a Polish nun of the Sacred Heart of Jesus order, who worked for Pope John Paul in his private Vatican apartments and at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo near Rome.

Sister Sobodka said: "Several times he (Pope John Paul) would put himself through bodily penance. "We would hear it – we were in the next room at Castel Gandolfo. You could hear the sound of the blows when he would flagellate himself." The flagellation is also confirmed by another bishop who has given testimony. Emery Kabongo was a secretary for Pope John Paul. "He would punish himself and in particular just before he ordained bishops and priests," he said.

Self flagellation is sometimes used by devoted Catholics as it reminds them of the whipping endured by Christ at the hands of the Romans before he was crucified. It is still common in the Philippines and Latin America, some members of strict monastic orders and some members of the lay organisation Opus Dei. The late Polish pope's beatification is expected to take place sometime next year, perhaps in April, to coincide with the fifth anniversary of his death or in October to coincide with his election in 1978.

If the American president has an urgent matter to discuss with the European Union in the future, whom will he call? Naturally someone in Berlin, London or Paris, as usual - BUT CERTAINLY NO ONE IN BRUSSELS. In a rare show of unanimity at last week's EU summit, Europe's big three, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, none of whom are particularly enthusiastic Europeans, made sure that there would be no challenge to their power from Brussels.

On Thursday evening, the bloc's leaders chose Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy to be the first permanent president of the European Council and EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton, who is British, to be the EU's first high representative for foreign and security policy. The choice is "an expression of what is currently possible in the EU," says Martin Schulz, the Socialist leader in the European Parliament, in a resigned tone. And that still isn't much.

A president like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and a foreign minister like former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer would have boosted Europe's standing on the global stage. BUT THAT APPROACH WAS PRECISELY WHAT THE MAJOR POLITICIANS AVOIDED, out of fear that having heavyweight politicians in the EU jobs would THREATEN THEIR OWN STATUS AS GLOBAL PLAYERS.

One could also say Van Rompuy is the lowest common denominator. And, together with Barroso and Ashton, A GUARANTEE THAT THINGS WILL STAY MORE OR LESS THE SAME IN EUROPE. Deals will still be thrashed out behind closed doors in the future. THERE IS LITTLE RISK OF A "NEW EUROPE."

But flu cases are still rising in some states, including Maine and Hawaii, and it is too soon to know whether activity will surge again, said Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "Influenza is unpredictable, and it is so early in the year to have this much disease. We don't know if these declines will persist, what the slope will be, whether we'll have a long decline or it will start to go up again," she said Friday.

The news came as scientists in Norway announced that they had detected A MUTATED FORM OF THE SWINE FLU VIRUS in two patients who died of the flu and in a third who was severely ill. It is the most recent report of mutations in the virus that is being watched closely for any change that could make it more dangerous. In a statement, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health said the mutation "could possibly make the virus more prone to infect deeper in the airways and thus cause more severe disease," such as pneumonia.

Scientists have been analyzing the H1N1 virus from "a number of patients as part of the surveillance of the pandemic flu virus" and have detected several mutations, the statement said. While the existence of mutations is normal, and most "will probably have little or no importance... one mutation has caught special interest." THE TWO PATIENTS WHO HAD THE MUTATION AND DIED were the first swine flu fatalities in Norway. The third patient found to have the mutated form of the virus also became severely ill. "Based on what we know so far, it seems that the mutated virus does not circulate in the population, but MIGHT be a result of spontaneous changes which have occurred in these three patients," the statement said.

He told the BBC that his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, had effectively been "held hostage and they killed their hostage." Through Hermitage Capital, Bill Browder campaigned against corruption at some of Russia's largest companies. Russian officials say they are investigating Mr Magnitsky's death.

In 2005 Mr Browder was banned from Russia as a threat to national security, after allegations that his firms evaded tax, but Mr Browder says his company was targeted by criminals trying to seize millions of pounds worth of his assets. Mr Browder says he was punished for being a threat to corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.

Since then, a number of Mr Browder's associates in Russia - as well as lawyers acting for his company - have been detained, beaten or robbed. Before the accusations of tax evasion were raised, for many years Mr Browder had been one of the most outspoken defenders of the Russian government and its then-president Vladimir Putin.