The European Council has re-elected Charles Michel as President. His second term of 2.5 years starts on June 1, 2022 and ends on November 30, 2024. Michel was also reappointed President of the Euro Summit for the same period.

He is the third full-time President of the European Council since the post was created by the Lisbon Treaty on 1 December 2009.

Web page of Charles Michel, President of the European Council

Photos and videos by Charles Michel

biography

Imagine if there was someone out there in the world who was your mirror image.

Someone who looked exactly like you, but was a total stranger.

That’s how twin brothers George Skrzynecky and Lucian Poznanski lived their entire lives… as strangers.

The twins hail from Germany and were born in 1946 after their mother Elizabeth, who was a Polish, Catholic, was freed from a labor camp at the end of World War II, according to the BBC.

She became ill after giving birth and was unable to care for them so she had to give them up for adoption. The brothers were then sent to Poland and adopted into different homes.

Myths and facts about the 'state kidnappings' after the allowance affair: this is what it really is - Follow the Money - Platform for investigative journalism

Myths and facts about the 'state kidnappings' after the allowance affair: that's how it really is

MARGOT SMOLENAARS

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A true fiery soul has passed away.

Most of us knew Ole Bergmann as a warm-hearted, humorous and utterly wise man. There was not much Ole did not know about.

He worked in adoption for more than 35 years and was for a number of years director of DanAdopt, and until he passed away, he was secretary of the Nordic umbrella organization Nordic Adoption Council. Ole fought for what he loved until the day he died.

Ole was well-liked by everyone. He was a true Nordic voice. He could talk to everyone, no matter where they came from, yes he could even sing in Finnish.

His sudden death has shocked all colleagues both here at home and in the Nordics, and he leaves a huge void. His commitment to adoption was incomparable.

Overview

A conspiratorial protest movement known as #SaveTheChildren swept across the United States, Canada, the UK, and Europe in the summer and early autumn of 2020, inspiring hundreds of in-person marches and demonstrations. The stated goal of the #SaveTheChildren campaign was to raise awareness around the horrors of “child sex trafficking,” a commonly misrepresented (although very real) problem in the United States and globally. However, much media coverage of this new movement initially failed to recognize that #SaveTheChildren was inspired by outlandish and debunked claims popularized by the online QAnon conspiracy movement; chiefly, the false notion that a “cabal” of politicians and celebrities participate in the satanic, ritual sexual abuse of children worldwide. By using social media to amplify misleading statistics and other misinformation, the #SaveTheChildren conspiracy movement contributed to an explosion of fear and anger surrounding child sex trafficking in the United States, and the proliferation of radical, conspiratorial beliefs that had previously been relegated to a relatively small, online community of conspiracy theorists.

Background

Sex trafficking – defined under U.S. law as “trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion” – is a real, troubling but commonly misunderstood problem. While the QAnon community’s understanding of the term “child sex trafficking” evokes the misleading image of children being kidnapped by strangers and then transported across statelines or international borders to be sold for sex, most real cases of sex trafficking of minors involve teenagers who are pushed to commercial sex work due to extreme poverty, abuse, or other devastating circumstances.1 In its 2020 “Trafficking in Persons 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AAyNGhatfQXdo_lX7u2d1zHrpagg-Xd_/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bqmm_E-rWi8PXYjfkZKLnURYWO2ARjfV/view?usp=sharing

WASHINGTON DC — Since the Russian offensive inside Ukraine commenced on February 24, the Ukrainian military has cultivated the image of a plucky little army standing up to the Russian Goliath. To bolster the perception of Ukrainian military mettle, Kiev has churned out a steady stream of sophisticated propaganda aimed at stirring public and official support from Western countries.

The campaign includes language guides, key messages, and hundreds of propaganda posters, some of which contain fascist imagery and even praise Neo-Nazi leaders.

Behind Ukraine’s public relations effort is an army of foreign political strategists, Washington DC lobbyists, and a network of intelligence-linked media outlets.

Ukraine’s propaganda strategy earned it praise from a NATO commander who told the Washington Post, “They are really excellent in stratcom — media, info ops, and also psy-ops.” The Post ultimately conceded that “Western officials say that while they cannot independently verify much of the information that Kyiv puts out about the evolving battlefield situation, including casualty figures for both sides, it nonetheless represents highly effective stratcom.”

Key to the propaganda effort is an international legion of public relations firms working directly with Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to wage information warfare.

Abstract

The right to personal identity begins with the right to life. Therefore, the notion of individual identity and personality has been encouraged. Whenever there is question of adoption, and in particular about inter-country adoption, all the different elements that constitute the identity of the child, including not only name, nationality and family relations, but also cultural environment, must be taken into account. This chapter deals with children’s right to identity, guiding principles/policies, understanding the surrendering process, feedback from recognized adoption agencies in India and information tips for older adoptees.

A member of Congress from North Carolina has called on the Biden administration to expedite the adoption process for Ukrainian children. In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Rep. Deborah Ross urged the federal government to expand and streamline the adoption process. “We must take concrete steps to bring orphans in critical danger to safety in our country,” the Wake County Democrat wrote. “Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has created a dire humanitarian crisis, leading millions of people to flee their homes,” Ross said. “However, children without families have been left behind with no means to evacuate Ukraine’s war-torn cities, making them particularly vulnerable to the resource constraints and violence rampant throughout Ukraine.” She added Russian advances could block adopted children from coming to the United States, noting that President Vladimir Putin banned American adoptions from Russia nearly a decade ago. The call for an expedited process came as Ukraine fights to halt an invasion by Russian forces. Hundreds of Ukrainian people have been killed by Russian bombs, while millions have hidden in underground shelters or fled the nation, the Associated Press reported.

In the letter, Ross urged the federal government to appeal to the Ukrainian government and gain permission for the U.S. embassy in Warsaw, Poland, to issue expedited visas for Ukrainian children already in the adoption process with U.S. families. Since the war began, more than 2 million people have fled to Poland, which borders parts of western Ukraine, according to the AP. Ross said the federal government should also work with Ukraine to allow families in the adoption process to attend court at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, D.C., instead of in Ukraine. She added that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services should work with the State Department to “streamline humanitarian parole applications in conjunction with normal visa-issuing procedures.” “To be clear, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security should by no means compromise vetting standards for organizations that work with orphans or prospective parents in the interest of moving children out of Ukraine quickly,” Ross said. “I ask that the federal government maintain all necessary protocols to ensure unaccompanied children do not face trafficking, exploitation, or abuse.” The Friday letter came nearly a week after Ross shared concerns about the safety of orphans stranded by the war. “With everything going on, we really have to highlight this and show that we can make a difference in these children’s lives,” she told MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin. “There are loving families in the United States who are ready to welcome them.”

The European Adoption Consultants (EAC) is a business that was set up in 1991 by then President George H.W. Bush and Bill Barr, his Attorney General.

This agency has been caught numerous times in its 41-year history trafficking children by fooling parents in poor countries with financial incentives, like promising an education for their children abroad, and then placing them in Christian orphanages where American families will pay a high price to adopt the children.

These families willingly buy these children because in most cases they have been lied to, stating that the children were either orphans, or that their parents did not want them, when the truth was that these children were kidnapped for financial gain.

CNN actually did an investigation on the EAC in 2017, interviewing parents who had been lied to about their adopted children, and then found out from the children themselves that they had parents back in their home country who loved them. This is still up on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jeuSgtFepwE

I am certainly not a fan of CNN, nor Anderson Cooper and his known ties to the CIA, but this is undoubtedly one of the best investigative reports they have ever done, even if it was politically motivated.