Britain votes in favor of Europe:Ukip leader Nigel Farage concedes DEFEAT within minutes of polls closing in historic EU referendum

Britain Remains InTthe EU

Nigel Farage conceded defeat within seconds of the polls closing in the crucial EU referendum tonight - admitting that he believed the Remain side had 'edged' the battle.

The Ukip leader made the extraordinary statement as voting came to an end at 10pm following a day in which storms and torrential rain disrupted much of the south. However, it is not thought to have deterred people from turning out to register their view at the ballot box.

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan and pro-EU Labour MP Chuka Umunna also said they were 'confident' that their side had won.

The Pound soared on the news, spiking to a year high against the dollar.

A YouGov poll for Sky News published tonight put Remain on 52 per cent and Leave on 48 per cent.

Meanwhile, more than 80 Brexit-supporting MPs have sent a letter to David Cameron urging him to stay on in Downing Street whichever way the referendum goes.

Read more: Ukip leader Nigel Farage concedes DEFEAT within minutes of polls closing in historic EU referendum after a day hit by torrential rain | Daily Mail Onlin

Germany: deranged murderer terrorist takes hostages and gets killed

Shooting in German cinema, several injured . Deranged killed by police.

For the complete report click here

Opinion: Brexit poses challenge to peace in Europe

The German government - most of its members convinced, experienced Europeans - knows this, but can't say it out loud. A bitter foretaste of what's to come for the Germans and all the other Europeans is that an issue of existential importance for all is being voted on by no one but Britain: everyone else has no say in the matter.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is especially aware of the dilemma. It knows that at least in this question, it's backed by the majority of Germans. But no matter what German ministers or the chancellor herself have to say, it's almost certain to be used against them, and against the EU, in Germanophobe Britain.

The German finance minister - who is considered a hardliner, just ask the Greeks - summarized this dilemma in one sad sentence. Asked in London in March what Germany would do if Britain left the EU, Wolfgang Schäuble said: "We would cry."

Angela Merkel has taken a public vow of silence where the Brexit is concerned. Little more is said than the repeated affirmation that of course Berlin believes Britain should be in the EU - always accompanied by the assertion that it's up to the British people to decide. When there are no microphones nearby, the chancellor takes a more concrete stance, stating that a Brexit would be "terrible."

 Tears and terror aside, the economic cost of a Brexit would be high for everyone, from London and Manchester to Paris, Berlin and Warsaw - but highest of all for Britain. Even Brexit supporters seem to suspect that leaving the EU would be economic idiocy.

So their arguments have come to target emotions instead, and the retreat to a nation of one's own - with its suggested greater self-determination and simplicity. And that's where they cross paths with their right-wing populist European brethren. Nationalists of all countries, unite - in order to separate.

But it is the political consequences of a Brexit that could truly be awful.

For all the historically illiterate talk of an EasyJet generation, the Europe that forged monetary union, and that was built upon the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Economic Community and the European Community always was, and is, a project of peace.

It was never ultimately about coal, but about cannons. This difficult trade-off is only possible if all of Europe's large states are engaged in the major everyday issues and the many small details.

Without London, the EU would find itself imbalanced. Berlin would be pushed into assuming a dominance it doesn't want and can't cope with. The German finance minister knows what that could mean - again, ask the Greeks: People no longer believe Germany is acting in Europe's interests

 In the first half of the last century, European crises resulted in war; the second half - not least thanks to the treaties of Paris, Rome and Maastricht - brought peace to an extent that in this century, it seems a given.

But it isn't. Military solutions seem acceptable once more - just look to Europe's eastern fringes. Hostile warships might one day patrol the English Channel again, not in three or five years, but perhaps 30 years from now - just because back in 2016, quite needlessly, the wrong answers were given to the wrong questions.

Yet right now, no one in the German government can say that out loud.

Britain: Brexit would make Britain the world’s most hated nation :Antony Beevor

Why is the European project facing an existential threat this week? In the recent words of European Union president Donald Tusk: “The spectre of a breakup is haunting Europe.” In perhaps the frankest admission ever to come out of Brussels, he said: “Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe, do not share our Euro enthusiasm.” Thus did he dismiss the utopian dreams of the forerunners of the EU and the subsequent “naive Euro-enthusiastic visions of total integration”.

The origins of the EU lie in the second world war, but not in the way many people on both sides of the debate assume. Brexiters try to imply that European unification descends from Napoleon and Hitler, even though membership has hardly been imposed at the point of a bayonet. At the same time, defenders of the EU like to believe that it somehow prevented a third world war, when in fact peace depends rather more on good governance. Proper democracies do not fight each other.

Because Britain was not involved at the start we do not have a clear idea of the EU’s development. Few in this country have even heard of Jean Monnet. He was an extraordinarily important Frenchman who neither went to university nor was ever elected to public office. Born into a family of cognac merchants, Monnet became the greatest behind-the-scenes fixer in modern history.Antony Beevor

It was Monnet who, while based in London in the dark days of June 1940, working on the integration of the British and French arms industries, came up with the suggestion of an Anglo-French union to continue resistance to Hitler. The idea excited both Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill, but was crushed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, who described the plan as a “marriage to a corpse”, since France was about to surrender. It was Monnet, now in the US at the behest of the British government and acting as an adviser to Franklin D Roosevelt, who persuaded the president to turn the US into the “arsenal of democracy” and to introduce the “victory plan” for the mass production of armaments to defeat Nazi Germany. And it was Monnet who, in 1943, ensured De Gaulle’s ascent to power as head of the French government in exile in Algiers, despite Roosevelt’s opposition.

That August of 1943, Monnet also decided that European states would be so enfeebled after the war that they must unite into a federation. And yet the Monnet plan, which he expounded in 1945, proposed the French takeover of Ruhr coal production to rebuild France at the expense of Germany. De Gaulle supported the idea fervently, but then resigned because the infighting of French politics failed to live up to his own impossible dream that the country’s conflicting views would become unified under his leadership.

On 2 January 1946, just before his departure, De Gaulle appointed Monnet to head the Commissariat Général du Plan. This was to provide centralised planning writ large. Monnet brought in almost the whole team from the Délégation Générale à l’Equipement National, even though it had been created by the collaborationist Vichy regime. These bright young “technocrates” from the top schools of the French administration had worked on projects to modernise France within the “new European order” of the Third Reich. After the war they were the very same people who were to run the European Coal and Steel Community, headed of course by Monnet, and then in 1958, the European Economic Community. Thus the top cadres of the European bureaucracy were not merely elitist from the start, they had little patience for democratic consultation. They knew best what was needed.

Brexit would make Britain the world’s most hated nation | Antony Beevor | Opinion | The Guardian

Suriname: Court:" Murder trial against Suriname president must continue"

Murder Trial: Will Bouterse Finally Face Justice ?

A murder trial against Suriname's president for the 1982 deaths of political opponents is expected to resume soon after a military court ruled that an amnesty law is unconstitutional.

The court ordered that the trial of President Desi Bouterse resume by the end of the month in this South American country. The trial had been on hold since April 2012, when a parliament controlled by Bouterse's party approved an amnesty law.

"This is not only important for the relatives of the victims, this ruling is important for the entire country," lawyer Hugo Essed, a counsel for the relatives, told The Associated Press. "This shows Suriname is still a country with rule of law."

Essed said he expects that Bouterse will be sentenced on charges of murder in upcoming months. However, some relatives of the victims remained unconvinced.

"We cannot start celebrating yet," Sunil Oemrawsingh told reporters. "President Bouterse and his friends are in power. We have to expect they will once again put up obstacles in an attempt to sabotage the proceedings in court."

Bouterse did not attend Thursday's hearing. His lawyer, Irvin Kanhai, told reporters he still believes that only a constitutional court can review the amnesty law.

"I will discuss this situation with my client and go in appeal if necessary," he said.

A constitutional court was supposed to verify whether the amnesty law was legitimate, but such a court was never created. Four years later, the military court announced it had waited long enough.

"There is no sight of concrete actions by the government on when the court will be operational", said Judge Cynthia Valstein-Montnor, president of the military court.

She said local laws allow any judge to determine whether a law is in breach of the constitution. Valstein-Montnor said she found the amnesty law unconstitutional because Parliament approved it when the trial was ongoing and nearing its end. She also said the law violated of several human rights treaties that Suriname had signed in the past.

Bouterse and 25 allies from his time as a military dictator in the 1980s avoided trial until November 2007 on charges stemming from the abduction and summary execution of 15 prominent political opponents, an event known locally as the "December killings."

The former strongman returned to power in 2010 when he was elected president by parliament. Two years later, lawmakers passed an amnesty law and proceedings were put on hold in a decision that outraged human rights activists.

Bouterse, who was re-elected by parliament, has accepted what he called "political responsibility" for the killings by the military of the well-known journalists, lawyers and union leaders but said he was not present when the executions took place. Witnesses in the trial have disputed that claim.


Read more: Court: Murder trial against Suriname president must continue | Daily Mail Online

Suriname: China's Stake In Suriname: Why Is Beijing Interested In This Small South American Country? - by Patricia Rey Mallén

Little is known in the outside world about Suriname, a small country on the northern coast of South America. Wedged -- along with neighbors Guyana and French Guiana -- between Brazil and Venezuela, the old Dutch colony has stayed largely quiet and under the radar throughout some of the most turbulent episodes of recent Latin American history.

Desi Bouterse: Suriname's Former Dictator elected President

But it has certainly attracted the attention of natural-resource-hungry China. Suriname is blessed with bauxite (an aluminum ore), an unspoiled rain forest, which covers 80 percent of the country, and lots of available arable land. Only about half a million people live in Suriname, a territory the size of Florida. And China wants a piece of it.

The Asian giant has slowly but surely made its way into this forgotten corner of South America, with a surge of aid and low-interest loans, as reported by the New York Times. Suriname also has a sizable Chinese population -- estimated at about 10 percent of the population -- dating back to immigrants who arrived in the 19th century, as well as a number of recent arrivals, including those in the country illegally.

“Suriname is a lucky country, such [a] small population, so much land,” said the former Chinese ambassador to Suriname, Yuan Nansheng, who served in the country from 2009 to 2013. With the change of government in China in March, Yuan was replaced by Yang Zigang. But it appears new President Xi Jinping’s government will maintain its ties with the South American country -- indeed, Surinamese officials met with Xi during his visit to nearby Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday.

Suriname may actually need China. Since its erstwhile imperial paymaster, Netherlands, shuttered an aid program benefiting its former colony in 2010, China has become the top financial provider to Suriname. Figures are hard to obtain, but the Chinese embassy lists low-income housing, assistance for shrimp farming and an upgrade of the state television network as three of its principal projects in the country. Private investment has focused on transportation, with the China Dalian International Corp. (SHE:000881) providing some $6 billion to construct a deep seaport and new highways.

The website of the Chinese embassy in Suriname lists no new developments since 2009. Thus it is unclear what new investments have been made since then. The Suriname embassy in the U.S. did not reply to requests for interviews.

However, one expenditure made by China was military aid -- the Beijing government has donated $1.6 million in material and training to Paramaribo. “We want to provide convenience to the work of the Ministry of Defense and the Surinamese Army as they carry out their mission of safeguarding the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Yuan said back in 2009.

Still, the full extent and magnitude of China’s interest in this South American country is not entirely clear. Evan Ellis, a professor of national security studies at the National Defense University in Washington, argued that it is not so much that China has a particular interest in the country, but that it is just giving Suriname the same attention it has granted to the rest of natural-resource-rich South America. “It is not a matter of zeroing in [on Suriname], but just not overlooking it like the rest of the world is doing,” Ellis said.

Read full report : China's Stake In Suriname: Why Is Beijing Interested In This Small South American Country?

Belgium - The Battle of Waterloo June 18 - 1815 - Defeat or Victory?

Battle of Waterloo - June 18 1815  Wellington

Each year on June 18 the great Battle of Waterloo is recalled in what is now Belgium. On that day in 1815, Napoleon’s French army was defeated by a multinational force commanded by the Duke of Wellington. Since then, the phrase “to meet your Waterloo” has come to mean “to be defeated by someone who is too strong for you or by a problem that is too difficult for you.”

When it comes to our spiritual lives, some people feel that ultimate failure is inevitable and it’s only a matter of time until each of us will “meet our Waterloo.” But John refuted that pessimistic view when he wrote to followers of Jesus: “Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4).

John weaves this theme of spiritual victory throughout his first letter as he urges us not to love the things this world offers, which will soon fade away (2:15–17). Instead, we are to love and please God, “And this is what he promised us—eternal life”

While we may have ups and downs in life, and even some battles that feel like defeats, the ultimate victory is ours in Christ as we trust in His power..

Read more: Defeat or Victory? | Our Daily Bread