China has halted its military cooperation with the U.S. and threatened this week to sanction American companies involved in selling arms to Taiwan. Beijing's sharp reaction came after Washington announced a $6.4 billion weapons deal to Taiwan. It is something of a role reversal. Usually, it has been the U.S. sanctioning China. But now, China is pushing back on a raft of contentious issues, from Washington's efforts to seek sanctions against Iran to President Obama's plan to meet Tibet's exiled religious leader the Dalai Lama. - NPR.org

Herman Van Rompuy. Get used to the name. He is the first President of the European Union, which with the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon by all the 27 EU member states in early November was transformed into a genuine United States of Europe. The President of Europe has not been elected; he was appointed in a secret meeting of the heads of government of the 27 EU member states. They chose one of their own. Herman Van Rompuy was the Prime Minister of Belgium. To understand Herman, one must know something about Belgium, a tiny country in Western Europe, and the prototype of the EU. Belgians do not exist as a nation. Belgium is an artificial state, constructed by the international powers in 1830 as a political compromise and experiment. The country consists of 6 million Dutch, living in Flanders, the northern half of the country, and 4 million French, living in Wallonia, the southern half. The Belgian Dutch would have preferred to stay part of the Netherlands, while the Belgian French would have preferred to join France. Instead, they were forced to live together in one state. Belgians do not like their state. They despise it. They say it represents nothing. There are no Belgian patriots, because no-one is willing to die for a flag which does not represent anything. Because Belgium represents nothing, multicultural ideologues love Belgium. They say that without patriotism, there would be no wars and the world would be a better place. As John Lennon sang “Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too.” -- BRUSSELS JOURNAL

OPINION - We in the United Kingdom woke up in a different country Tuesday. Britain is no longer a sovereign nation. At midnight Monday night, we ceased to be an independent state, bound by international treaties to other independent states, and became instead a subordinate unit within a European state. Under the Lisbon Treaty, which came into force Tuesday, the EU acquires “legal personality”, which gives it the right to sign accords and treat with other states. Until yesterday, Britain could simply walk out of the EU by abrogating the Treaty of Rome and repealing the 1972 European Communities Act. Henceforth, it will have to go through the secession procedure laid down in Lisbon. In other words, the EU gets to settle the terms on which its members are allowed to leave. Formal sovereignty has been shifted from the national capitals to Brussels. It is appalling, demeaning, disgraceful that such a thing should have been done without popular consent, and in the absence of the referendum that all three parties had promised. -TELGRAPH.com

SATIRE - Congress says that with no way to actually pay back our debts, faking a coup to eliminate financial obligations is the best plan for the U.S. economy. - THE ONION

When the European Union and Russia held their most recent summit meeting in May, the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, stunned European diplomats when he passed out copies of his book denouncing the fight against global warming — a central policy of the 27-nation bloc he was supposed to lead. In a few months he will be asked to sign the Lisbon Treaty, which aims to enhance the bloc’s role on the world stage by creating, among other things, a permanent European presidency. The treaty has finally approached ratification after years of setbacks, but Mr. Klaus, one of its fiercest critics, has warned that it will create a centralized “superstate.” - NY TIMES.com

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday announced that the United States has transferred $200 million to the Palestinian Authority in order to help ease a growing budget deficit. The transfer of aid directly to Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad's budget was an expression of confidence in his fiscal reforms, Clinton said. "The ability of the United States to provide support directly to the Palestinian Authority is an indication of the bipartisan support for the effort to secure the peace in the Middle East, as well as for the fundamental reforms that the Palestinian Authority has undertaken," she said.

Hannah Clark is no ordinary teenager and her normal life today could not have been possible without a unique, life-changing heart surgery. In 1994 when she was eight-months-old, Hannah was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy -- an inflammation of the heart muscle that impairs the heart's ability to work properly. Hannah's heart was failing and she needed a transplant. But instead of taking her own heart out, doctors added a new donated heart to her own when she was just two-years-old. The so-called "piggyback" operation allowed the donor heart to do the work while Hannah's heart rested. Then in February 2006, her doctors tried something that had never been done before: They took out the donor heart. Three years later, Hannah has no need for any drugs and has been given a clean bill of health. The operation was a success. - CNN.com

The US will not stand in Israel's way if Israel believes military action is needed to eliminate Iran's nuclear threat, Vice President Joe Biden said on Sunday, during an interview with ABC's 'This Week.' He said that Israel can determine for itself "what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else." When questioned if Israel could make that decision "whether [the US] agrees or not," Biden answered in the affirmative, noting, "Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that." - JERUSALEM POST

SATIRE - Noting that the adrenaline in outrage can spark irrational, erratic and sometimes dangerous behavior, President Barack Obama today urged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate it as a drug, like cigarettes. Mr. Obama, a smoker who said yesterday that he’s “95 percent cured” has also struggled with outrage, even showing glimpses of it when the subject of his smoking came up at his news conference. The president said today that like his smoking, he constantly struggles to control his outrage, but that he’s “99 percent cured.” - SCRAPPLE FACE.com