On 5 April 2010 the new EU Visa Code became applicable, concerning short-stay visas (for 90 days). The Visa Code affects third-country nationals, who want to travel to the 22 EU states and the three non-EU members of the Schengen area, without internal border controls. More than 10 million visas were issued in 2008.
People light candles and lay flowers in front of the Poland’s embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania, Saturday, April 10, 2010, after Polish President Lech Kaczynski died in a plane crash. Kaczynski, his wife and some of the country’s highest military and civilian leaders died on Saturday when the presidential plane crashed as it came in for a landing in thick fog in western Russia, killing 96.(AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
[Note: The latest book by Anouar Majid, We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades against Muslims and Other Minorities (University of Minnesota Press, 2009) provides a provocative thesis, suggesting that we examine the issue of Muslim minorities in contemporary Europe through the prism of history, specifically the treatment of the Moors (los Moros) in Spain. Here is a sample of his argument (from pp. 3-4).] FOUND IN We Are All Moors
Mavi Boncuk
EU president: Herman Van Rompuy opposes Turkey joining
The poetry-loving favourite to become the first president of Europe, Herman Van Rompuy, is also a hard-line opponent of Turkey’s bid to join the European Union because it is an Islamic country. Speaking five years ago, as an opposition politician, Mr Rompuy, a Christian Democrat, argued that Muslim Turkey could not be considered a candidate for EU membership.