Official name	Medjå / Grong
Settlement type	Village
Pushpin map	Nord-Trøndelag
Pushpin label position	bottom
Pushpin map caption	Location in Nord-Trøndelag
Coordinates display	inline,title
Coordinates region	NO
Coordinates type	type:city
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision name	Norway
Subdivision type1	Region
Subdivision name1	Trøndelag
Subdivision type2	County
Subdivision name2	Nord-Trøndelag
Subdivision type3	District
Subdivision name3	Namdalen
Subdivision type4	Municipality
Subdivision name4	Grong
Timezone1	CET
Utc offset1	+01:00
Timezone1 dst	CEST
Utc offset1 dst	+02:00
Area footnotes
Area total km2	1.48
Population as of	2011
Population total	1059
Population density km2	716
Postal code type	Post Code
Postal code	7870 Grong
Elevation m	29
Elevation footnotes

Medjå or Grong is a village which serves as the administrative center of the municipality of Grong in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located along the river Namsen, at the confluence with the river Sanddøla. The Nordlandsbanen railway line runs along the eastern part of the village, stopping at Grong Station. The European route E6 highway runs through the western edge of the village. Grong Church, the main church for the area, is also located in this village. The village has a population (2011) of 1,059. The population density is .

References

Category:Grong Category:Villages in Nord-Trøndelag

{|align=right |

name	Mary
title	Crown Princess of Denmark;Countess of Monpezat
imgw	175px
spouse	Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark
issue	Prince ChristianPrincess IsabellaPrince VincentPrincess Josephine
full name	Mary Elizabeth ''née'' Donaldson
father	John Dalgleish Donaldson
mother	Henrietta Clark Horne
birth date	February 05, 1972
birth place	Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
religion	Lutheran, ''prev.'' Presbyterian

|- | |}

Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat, (Mary Elizabeth; ''née'' Donaldson; born 5 February 1972 in Hobart, Australia) is the wife of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark. Frederik is the heir apparent to the throne of Denmark, which means that at the time Frederik inherits the throne, Mary will automatically assume the feminine form of his title and rank, becoming Queen consort of Denmark.

The couple met at the Slip Inn, a pub in Sydney, when the prince was visiting Australia during the 2000 Summer Olympics. Their official engagement in 2003 and their marriage the following year were the subject of extensive attention from Australian and European news media, which portrayed the marriage as a modern "fairytale" romance between a prince and a commoner.

Early life

Mary Elizabeth Donaldson was born the youngest of the four children of mathematician and Professor John Dalgleish Donaldson (born 5 September 1941) and his first wife, Henrietta "Etta" Clark Donaldson, née Horne, (12 May 1942 – 20 November 1997), who had emigrated from Scotland to Australia in 1963. She was named after her paternal and maternal grandmothers, Mary Dalgeish and Elizabeth Gibson Melrose.

Mary has three older siblings:

Jane Alison Stephens (a pharmacist) (b. 26 December 1965);

Patricia Anne Bailey (an intensive care nurse) (b. 16 March 1968);

John Stuart Donaldson (a geologist, b. 9 July 1970).

Henrietta Donaldson, Mary's mother, was executive assistant to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Tasmania. In 2001, four years after her death, Mary's father, Professor John Donaldson remarried. His second wife is English author and novelist Susan Elizabeth Donaldson, née Horwood, known by pseudonym Susan Moody.

Mary was born and raised in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.

As a girl, Mary was heavily involved in sports and other extracurricular activities both at school and elsewhere. She studied piano, flute, clarinet and played basketball and hockey. Her early love of horses led her to ride competitively as a teenager, on her horse, Diana.

Education

Mary began primary school in Clear Lake City, now Houston, Harris County, Texas, while her father was working there. On returning to Hobart she attended Sandy Bay Infants School, Waimea Heights Primary School and then Taroona High School in Tasmania. She attended Waimea Heights Primary School from 1978 to 1982.

She completed her secondary education at Taroona High School and Hobart Matriculation College. For the last two years of her secondary education Mary attended Hobart College from which she graduated.

She studied at the University of Tasmania for five years. From 1989 to 1994 Mary completed a combined degree in Commerce and Law (BCom, LLB) at the University of Tasmania. Between 1994 and 1996, Mary attended a graduate program and qualified with certificates in advertising from The Advertising Federation of Australia (AFA) and direct marketing from the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA).

Languages

The Crown Princess's mother tongue is English and Danish is her second language. She studied French during her secondary education. In 2002, she briefly taught English in Paris. Upon meeting Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark she studied Danish as a foreign language at Studieskolen in 2003.

Career

While studying in Tasmania, Mary reportedly had a joint business interest in a company called Kingcash, with Brent Annells, with whom she had a seven-year relationship in the 1990s.

Biographies detail that she worked for Australian and global advertising agencies after graduating in 1995. Upon graduation Mary moved to Melbourne to work in advertising. She became a trainee in marketing and communications with the Melbourne office of DDB Needham, taking a position of account executive. In 1996, Mary was employed by Mojo Partners as an account manager. In 1998, six months after her mother's death, she resigned and travelled to America and Europe. In Edinburgh, she worked for three months as an account manager with Rapp Collins Worldwide; then, in early 1999, she was appointed as an account director with the international advertising agency Young & Rubicam in Sydney.

In June 2000, Mary moved to a smaller Australian agency, Love Branding, working for a short time as the company's first account director. However, in the (Australian) spring of 2000 until December 2001, she became sales director and a member of the management team of Belle Property, a real estate firm specialising in luxury property. In the first half of 2002 Mary taught English at a business school in Paris but, on moving to Denmark permanently, she was employed by Microsoft Business Solutions (5 September 2002 – 24 September 2003) near Copenhagen as a project consultant for business development, communications and marketing.

Courtship and engagement

Mary Donaldson met Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark at the Slip Inn during the 2000 Summer Olympics on 16 September in Sydney. Frederik was very romantic, and he did not want her to know that he was a prince instantly, so he introduced himself as "Fred". He surprised her when he identified himself as the Crown Prince of Denmark at the height of their courtship. They conducted a long-distance relationship by phone, email and letter and Frederik made a number of discreet visits to Australia. On 15 November 2001 the Danish weekly magazine ''Billed Bladet'' named Mary as Frederik's girlfriend. Mary moved to Europe in December 2001 and, while she was working as an English tutor in Paris, she visited Denmark privately and was photographed attending weddings and christenings of friends with Frederik. Mary and Frederik were photographed during 2003 at various private outings in Denmark. On 24 September 2003 the Danish court announced that Queen Margrethe II intended to give her consent to the marriage at the State Council meeting scheduled for 8 October 2003.

Frederik presented Mary with an engagement ring featuring an emerald-cut diamond and two emerald-cut ruby baguettes. Both of them became officially engaged on 8 October 2003.

Marriage

Mary Donaldson and Crown Prince Frederik married on 14 May 2004 in Copenhagen Cathedral, in Copenhagen. Mary wore a wedding gown designed by Danish designer Uffe Frank and had a small bridal party which included her two sisters and her friend Amber Petty, a radio announcer on commercial radio in Australia. Frederik was supported by his brother Prince Joachim. Three of Mary's nieces, Erin and Kate Stephens and Madisson Woods, were flower girls; Frederik's nephew Prince Nikolai of Denmark and first cousin once removed, Count Richard von Pfeil und Klein-Ellguth were pageboys. The wedding was celebrated in Copenhagen and at Fredensborg Palace. The couple reportedly spent their honeymoon in Africa.

The Danish Folketing (parliament) passed a special law (Mary's Law) giving Mary Donaldson Danish citizenship upon her marriage, a standard procedure for new foreign members of the royal family. Mary was previously a dual-citizen of Australia and the United Kingdom. Formerly a Presbyterian, Mary became Lutheran. Shortly before entering the royal family, Mary signed a marriage agreement similar to those of her father-in-law and her former sister-in-law. The agreement was subsequently updated in late 2006. The details of these have never been made public, but it can be assumed that they deal with financial matters, royal status and custodial rights to the children in the event of a divorce.

The Crown Princess and her family currently reside at Frederik VIII's Palace, one of the four palaces that make up the Amalienborg Palace complex. From May 2004 to mid-December 2010, they resided at The Chancellery House, a side building at Fredensborg Palace.

Children

On 15 October 2005, Mary gave birth to Prince Christian Valdemar Henri John at Copenhagen University Hospital. Frederik was present at the birth. The infant was healthy, weighing 3.5 kg (7.7 lbs) and measuring 51 cm (20 ins). His name was announced at the christening on 21 January 2006 at Christiansborg Palace Chapel in Copenhagen. He is second in the line of succession to the throne, after his father.

On 21 April 2007, Princess Isabella Henrietta Ingrid Margrethe was born, at 3.350 kg and 50 cm long. She was christened at Fredensborg Palace chapel on 1 July 2007 and is third in line to the throne.

On 6 August 2010, it was announced that the Crown Princess was pregnant with twins. The Crown Princess reportedly said that the pregnancy was a surprise, but another report claimed Mary wanted more children; and that the pair have denied suggestions the pregnancy resulted from fertility treatment. In late 2010, the family appeared in the German edition of Vogue in a series of official portraits showing the couple and their children, including pictures of Mary in profile with the pregnancy being obvious. The Crown Princess was admitted to hospital on January 8, 2011, in preparations for the birth of the twins. The Crown Princess gave birth to a baby boy—whom her husband Frederik joked about calling Elvis, as the "King of Rock and Roll" had the same birthday—at 10:30 am local time (weight 2.674 kg., length: 47 cm), and a baby girl at 10:56 am (weight: 2.554 kg., length: 46 cm.), on January 8. Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary left the hospital with their newborn twins on 14 January 2011. The names were made public at their royal christening on Thursday, 14 April 2011, which took place at the Church of Holmen in Copenhagen. The twins are called Prince Vincent Frederik Minik Alexander and Princess Josephine Sophia Ivalo Mathilda.

Royal life

Following the wedding, the couple embarked upon a summer cruise of mainland Denmark aboard the royal yacht ''Dannebrog'', and then to Greenland and later the 2004 Athens Olympics. In 2005, during the celebrations for the 200th anniversary of Hans Christian Andersen, the royal family was involved in related events throughout the year. Frederik and Mary marked it in London, New York and in Australia, where Mary was made Honorary HCA Ambassador to Australia in the Utzon Room of the Sydney Opera House. In 2005 the royal family visited Faroe Islands.

Since becoming Crown Princess of Denmark, Mary has made a number of international visits and Frederik and Mary participated in the reburial ceremonies for Empress Maria Feodorovna in Denmark and Saint Petersburg. In November 2009, Mary made a surprise visit to Danish soldiers in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. One of the Crown Princess's stops was FOB Armadillo.

In the context of immigrant issues in Denmark, Mary has visited the disadvantaged migrant areas of Vollsmose (2006), Gellerup (2007), and Vilborg (2010), and has participated in integration projects and to teach the Danish language to refugees. As patron of the Danish Refugee Council Mary visited Uganda (2008) and East Africa (2011) and supports fundraising for the region.

Mary has played an active role in promoting an anti-bullying program based on an Australian model through the auspices of Denmark's Save the Children.

Mary is also involved in a new campaign to raise awareness and safe practices among Danes about skin cancer through The Danish Cancer Society.

In September 2007 Mary formally established the Mary Foundation, with capital from public and private donations, to advance cultural diversity and encourage a sense of the right to belong and contribute to society for those who are socially isolated or excluded.

Mary was voted Woman of the Year 2008 by a Danish magazine, ''Alt for damerne''. The Princess donated her cash reward to charity.

She was interviewed by Parade Magazine (USA) and television programs of Andrew Denton (Australia) and USA Today (USA).

As a native English-speaker, Mary's main priority from the time of her engagement was to master the Danish language. Mary has acknowledged that this was a challenge for her in several interviews at the time of her engagement and marriage.

Fashion

Mary is also an active patron of Denmark's third-highest-earning export industry, the fashion industry.

The princess, who has been compared to Diana, Princess of Wales, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, is often pictured wearing Danish and international fashion garments.

She has been named one of the world's most fashionable people in Vanity Fair's annual International Best-Dressed List and has posed and given interviews for magazines including ''Vogue Australia'' (where she used pieces of foreign designers, such as Hugo Boss, Prada, Louis Vuitton or Gaultier, and Danish designers, as Malene Birger and Georg Jensen), ''Dansk'' (Danish Magazine, dedicated to Danish fashion), German Vogue (where was photographed between pieces of Danish modern art in Amalienborg Palace). Mary also posed for other magazines during her life as a royal, such as Women's Weekly Australia magazine (to which she spoke in several occasions about her life as a royal and her family) and Parade Magazine.

Her elegance was praised by designer Tommy Hilfiger.

Patronages

Since 2004 Crown Princess Mary has steadily worked to establish her relationships with various organisations, their issues, missions, programmes and staff. Mary's patronages range across areas of culture, the fashion industry, humanitarian aid, support for research and science, social and health patronages and sport (golf and swimming). The organisations for which she is patron have reported positive outcomes through their relationship with Mary and there are various reports in the Danish media and on some of the websites of the organisations themselves about Mary being quite involved in her working relationship with them. Mary is currently involved in supporting anti-obesity programs through the World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe.

Mary's current patronages include cultural organisations, the Danish fashion industry humanitarian aid, research and science, social, health and humanitarian organisations and sporting organisations.

Crown Princess Mary is also the Honorary Life Governor of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute based at the Garvan Institute/St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, a member of the International Committee of Women Leaders for Mental Health and a member of various sporting clubs (riding, golf and yachting). In June 2010, it was announced that Crown Princess Mary has become Patron of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, "to support the agency’s work to promote maternal health and safer motherhood in more than 150 developing nations". Mary lends her support to a number of other 'one-off' Danish causes, industry events and international conferences.

Mary Foundation

On 11 September 2007 Crown Princess Mary announced the establishment of the Mary Foundation at the inaugural meeting at Amalienborg Palace. The initial funds of DKK 1.1 million were collected in Denmark and Greenland and donated to Frederik and Mary as a wedding gift in 2004. Crown Princess Mary is the chairwoman of eight trustees. The Mary Foundation aims to improve lives compromised by environment, heredity, illness or other circumstances which can isolate or exclude people socially.

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

5 February 1972 – 9 May 2004: ''Miss'' Mary Elizabeth Donaldson

9 May 2004 – 14 May 2004: ''Her Excellency'' Mary Elizabeth Donaldson

14 May 2004 – 29 April 2008 ''Her Royal Highness'' The Crown Princess of Denmark

29 April 2008 – present: ''Her Royal Highness'' The Crown Princess of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat

Her official title in Danish is ''Hendes Kongelige Højhed Kronprinsesse Mary af Danmark, Grevinde af Monpezat''. The title of Countess of Monpezat is not a substantive title, which means that Mary is not ''the'' Countess of Monpezat, but rather ''Countess Mary of Monpezat'', a count's wife.

Danish honours and decorations

''See also : List of honours of the Danish Royal Family by country''

Knight of the Order of the Elephant (R.E.)

Commemorative 75th Birthday Medal of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort (Em.11.jun.2009.)

Commemorative 70th Birthday Medal of Her Majesty The Queen (Em.16.apr.2010.)

Commemorative Ruby Jubilee Medal of Her Majesty the Queen (Em.14.jan.2012)

Foreign decorations

She was awarded:

: Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern Cross of Brazil : Grand Cross of the Order of Stara Planina : Grand Cross of the Order of Beneficence : Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Olav : Commander Grand Cross of the Order of the Polar Star

Arms

With the marriage in 2004, the Crown Princess Mary was honoured with the Order of the Elephant, and her father John Dalgleish Donaldson with the Order of the Dannebrog. In accordance with the statutes of the Danish Royal Orders, both the Crown Princess and her father were granted a personal coat of arms, this for display in the Chapel of the Royal Orders at Frederiksborg Castle. The main field of the Crown Princess' coat of arms is or tinctured and shows a gules MacDonald eagle and a Sable tinctured boat both symbolising her Scottish ancestry. The chief field is azure tinctured and shows two gold Commonwealth Stars from the Coat of arms of Australia, and a gold rose in between, depicted as her personal symbol. Above the shield is placed the heraldic crown of a Crown Prince of Denmark.

The coat of arms of her father is almost identical to that of the Crown Princess, but a gold infinity symbol is depicted (symbolising his career as an Australian mathematician), instead of the gold Rose. Above his shield is instead placed a barred helmet topped with a gules rampant lion, which is turned outward. The lion is derived from the Scottish coat of arms and also from the arms of Tasmania and Hobart. Both coats of arms were approved in 2006 and placed in the Chapel of the Royal Orders in 2007.

The Crown Princess' coat of arms and its details have yet to be published on the Crown Princely couple's official website.

References

External links

Category:Danish princesses Category:People from Hobart Category:1972 births Category:Living people Category:Knights of the Elephant Category:Crown Princesses of Denmark Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav Category:Australian people of Scottish descent Category:House of Monpezat Category:Danish people of Australian descent Category:Naturalised citizens of Denmark Category:Countesses of Monpezat Category:Danish people of Scottish descent Category:Grand Crosses of the Order of Beneficence (Greece) Category:Commanders Grand Cross of the Order of the Polar Star Category:Grand Crosses of the Order of Stara Planina Category:University of Tasmania alumni

bg:Мери-Елизабет Доналдсън ca:Maria Elisabet Donaldson cs:Mary Elizabeth Donaldson da:Kronprinsesse Mary de:Mary Donaldson et:Mary (Taani kroonprintsess) es:María de Dinamarca fo:Mary (krúnprinsessa) fr:Mary Donaldson ko:덴마크 왕세자빈 마뤼 hr:Marija (danska prijestolonasljednica) id:Mary, Putri Mahkota Denmark is:María krónprinsessa Dana it:Mary di Danimarca hu:Mária dán királyi hercegné nl:Mary Donaldson ja:メアリー (デンマーク王太子妃) no:Mary av Danmark nn:Mary av Danmark pl:Maria Elżbieta (księżna duńska) pt:Maria Isabel, Princesa Herdeira da Dinamarca ro:Mary Donaldson ru:Мэри (кронпринцесса Дании) simple:Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark sh:Mary, krunska princeza od Danske fi:Mary (Tanskan prinsessa) sv:Kronprinsessan Mary av Danmark th:เจ้าหญิงแมรี มกุฎราชกุมารีแห่งเดนมาร์ก zh:玛丽 (丹麦王储妃)

Marc Scott Emery (born February 13, 1958) is a Canadian cannabis policy reform advocate, a politician, and media publisher as well as a former cannabis seed seller. He is currently serving a five year sentence in a United States federal prison for selling cannabis seeds.

Recent judicial history

He is formerly a retailer of cannabis seeds for cultivation, having started Marc Emery Direct Marijuana Seeds in 1995, which he ran until it was closed by a raid by Vancouver police acting on the request of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on July 29, 2005.

US Government officials have described Emery as a drug dealer for his efforts to sell marijuana seeds in Canada and abroad. He was the publisher of ''Cannabis Culture'' magazine, a founding member of the Freedom Party of Ontario, the Marijuana Party of Canada and the BC Marijuana Party, founder of the Iboga Therapy House and founder of Pot TV. He ran for mayor of the city of Vancouver in 1996, 2002 and 2008.

Emery was taken into custody on September 28, 2009, and held at the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam, BC, to await extradition to the USA. On November 18, 2009, Emery was released on bail, pending the Canadian Minister of Justice signing the extradition order; and on May 10, 2010, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson signed the order and ordered Emery to surrender to authorities, which he did that same day.

On May 10, 2010, Justice Minister Nicholson ruled Emery be extradited to the United States. He faces 5 years in the US penal system. The possibility exists Emery may be allowed to serve all or part of his sentence in Canada. US authorities have not rejected this option, should Canada make such a formal request.

On May 20, 2010, Emery was extradited to the United States. On May 24, he appeared in a Seattle courtroom and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana.

On June 3, officials at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac, Washington gave Emery an official citation for allowing his wife, BC Green Party Director-at-Large Jodie Emery, to record a message from him over the phone, claiming it broke the prison's rule forbidding third-party calls. Emery was locked in a Segregated Housing Unit (SHU) for three weeks.

On September 10, 2010 in a Seattle court room, Marc Emery was sentenced to 5 years in prison. US district court judge Ricardo Martinez sentenced Emery, stating there was no question his actions were criminal and that Emery ensured others broke the law by selling them the seeds. The court noted Emery claimed on his website to have made some $3 million a year from selling seeds from his Vancouver headquarters. Emery donated almost all of the money generated from his seed sales to marijuana policy reform efforts. Emery's claims that his arrest was political were disputed by the prosecution. On November 19, 2010 Marc Emery was transferred to the D. Ray James Correctional Facility in Folkston, GA. He has since been transferred to FCI Correctional Institution in Yazoo City, MS to serve the rest of his sentence.

Early career

At the age of 9 he started a business from his parents' home called Stamp Treasure, buying and selling stamps by mail order. Two years later he started another mail-order business called Marc's Comic Room.

He dropped out of high school in 1975 at age 17 to purchase a used book store on Richmond Street in downtown London, Ontario which he renamed City Lights Bookshop. Emery operated the store for 17 years, selling it in 1992.

Shortly after opening the store, Emery began a three-year fight against the London Downtown Business Association for extracting mandatory fees from all core area shops for beautification and other programs.

Emery also ran an emergency garbage service in London for three weeks during a municipal garbage strike in 1986.

He first became politically active with the Libertarian Party of Canada, and ran for the Canadian House of Commons under that party's banner in the 1980 federal election. He received 197 votes in London East, finishing fourth.

Emery later left the Libertarians and became a London-area organiser for the Unparty. In 1983 Robert Metz, who had worked with Emery since 1980, was made president of the Unparty and later that year announced the Unparty would change its name to the Freedom Party of Ontario, which continues to be a registered political party in the Province of Ontario. Emery served as the Freedom Party's Action Director from 1984 to 1990.

In 1984, Emery, the Freedom Party, and the No Tax for Pan-Am Games Committee (founded by Emery and Metz) successfully campaigned against London's bid for the 1991 Pan American Games, saying the city would lose millions.

Emery ran as a candidate of the Freedom Party in the rural constituency of Middlesex, near London, in the 1987 provincial election. He received 499 votes for a distant fifth-place finish.

In 1986 and 1987, Emery defied Ontario's Sunday shopping laws, finally facing eight charges after opening for eight Sundays in a row. In March 1988, he spent four days in jail after being convicted on the first of the charges and then refusing to pay the fine.

He also campaigned against London's by-law prohibiting sidewalk signs.

After resigning from the Freedom Party in 1990, Emery rented the London Regional Art & Historical Museum (now called Museum London) for his first pro-pot rally.

In 1991, Emery was convicted for selling copies of 2 Live Crew's rap CD As Nasty As They Wanna Be which had been deemed obscene and banned in Ontario. He was given one year probation, but immediately after sentencing he began selling marijuana-related literature and High Times Magazine, all in violation of Canadian law.

Emery invited local police to his store to arrest him, and even sold copies of the banned marijuana grow books right outside the London Ontario police station, but the police refused to charge him or interfere. He also sponsored visits from marijuana luminaries such as Ed Rosenthal, Steven Hager, Jack Herer and Paul Mavrides.

Much of this early period of Emery's life is featured in the 1992 documentary film ''Marc Emery: Messing Up the System'' scripted by London writers Chris Doty and Jason Rip., and a play called ''Citizen Marc: The Adventures of Marc Emery''. The play was directed by John Gerry which opened in London on January 27, 2006. Emery was in attendance for the premiere. Doty committed suicide in the days that followed. The play won the Brickenden Awards for Best Ballyhoo, Best Actor and Best Director.

Marijuana seed business

Emery moved to Vancouver, British Columbia in March 1994, and founded a store called Hemp BC on July 7. His store played a major part in expanding Canada's then very small and underground industry in cannabis-related paraphernalia. Bongs and pipes are illegal in Canada under section 462.2 of the Criminal Code, and were not readily available in Canada at the time. Emery imported and wholesaled a variety of bongs, pipes and other cannabis-related items, and encouraged other people to open their own "Hemp Stores" across Canada.

In late 1994, a court challenge sponsored by Emery convinced an Ontario judge to overturn the Canadian prohibition on marijuana and drug-related literature, making it legal for ''High Times Magazine'' and marijuana grow books to be sold in Canada once more.

Emery began selling marijuana seeds in late 1994, after attending the High Times Cannabis Cup and being inspired by a Dutch seed store named Sensi Seeds. In early 1995 he launched ''Cannabis Canada Magazine'', which was renamed ''Cannabis Culture Magazine'' in 1998.

In December 1995, Emery and his seed business were featured on the front page of the ''Wall Street Journal'', leading to a deluge of media attention. One month later, in January 1996, Hemp BC was raided by Vancouver police who seized Emery's bongs and seeds and charged him with selling marijuana seeds and "promoting vaporizers." He was later convicted and given a $2200 fine, $500 for each of four counts of selling marijuana seeds and $200 for vaporizer promotion.

Emery re-opened his store the next day, and continued to sell paraphernalia and marijuana seeds. By 1997 he had expanded his store to include a Grow Shop, a Legal Assistance Centre, and the Cannabis Cafe, which featured a custom-built vaporizer built into every table.

On October 12, 1997, Marc Emery was featured on ''CNN Impact'' in an episode called "Canada Cannabis." The announcer referred to Emery as the "Prince of Pot" and the label stuck. This drew major international media attention to Emery and his Hemp BC store once more.

The Vancouver police returned on December 16, 1997, once again emptying his store of seeds and paraphernalia, as well as taking the vaporizers out of the Cannabis Cafe. Police claimed to have seized about $1.6 million worth of marijuana-related merchandise, plus tens of thousands of marijuana seeds.

Emery was jailed but not charged with any seed or paraphernalia offences but he was charged and convicted of "assaulting a police officer" because he spat on a police officer while they were forcibly removing protestors from in front of the store. In a later interview, Emery stated "I was found guilty and fined two hundred dollars. My defence was that it was justifiable as they were assaulting my employees. We have video tape of them kicking, shoving objects at, using a truncheon, and pulling on the hair of David Malmo-Levine and Ian Roberts. I wanted to show my disgust in a non-violent way, and to draw the police toward me and away from my employees."

Emery was also banned from returning to the 300 block of West Hastings, where his businesses were located.

Emery re-opened Hemp BC the next day but then sold the store to his manager shortly thereafter, who suffered repeated raids during 1998 and then had her business license revoked by the city.

Emery's seed business was raided again at its office location on April 30, 1998, and Emery was charged with selling marijuana seeds. Another raid on September 2, 1998, saw Emery jailed overnight again and his seeds confiscated, but no charges were laid. He was convicted from the April raid in 1999, and given a $2000 fine.

In August 1998, Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen had told the ''New York Times'' that Hemp BC was "going to be toast by September."

Court documents showed that four American navy undercover agents attempted to buy marijuana and smoke it at the Cannabis Cafe. The documents showed the Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents worked in a joint operation with Vancouver police in April 1998.

Emery was convicted on charges of selling marijuana seeds in 1998, and received a $2000 fine. He switched his walk-in marijuana seed business to mail-order only, and continued to publish ''Cannabis Culture'' magazine. In early 2000 he was expanding again, with the establishment of Pot-TV, a marijuana-related video channel.

In 2001, Emery was a featured presenter at Idea City, an annual gathering of notable Canadians organized by Moses Znaimer.

In November 2002, then US Drug Czar John Walters visited Vancouver to give a speech at a luncheon sponsored by the Vancouver Board of Trade. Emery bought a table for himself and other local cannabis activists, and heckled Walters as he spoke about the need for Canada to embrace the "War on Drugs."

From 1998 until his arrest in 2005, Emery paid provincial and federal taxes as a "marijuana seed vendor" totalling nearly $600,000.

Emery has described himself as a "major financial backer of almost every pro-pot effort in North America and many more around the world." He claims that he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in election campaigning for the Canadian Marijuana Party, BC Marijuana Party and the Vancouver Marijuana Party. He also claims to have funded numerous marijuana activist groups, paid for several major legal challenges to aspects of Canada's cannabis laws, and made large donations to various pro-pot ballot initiatives in US states such as California, Nevada, Alaska and Arizona, plus financially backed pro-cannabis activities in New Zealand, Australia, Russia and elsewhere around the world.

Media and documentaries

Over his career, Emery has been covered in many newspaper articles and media appearances, including features in the front page of the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, CNN TV, and CNN Radio News, ABC News, the USA Today, the Hindustan Times of India the National Enquirer, Rolling Stone Magazine, CBC Newsworld, Forbes Magazine, Vancouver Magazine, 60 Minutes, the New York Times and more.

Emery is featured in the 2007 CBC documentary film "Prince of Pot: The US vs. Marc Emery", and CBC Doc Zone episode "Cannabiz." He also appears in the 2007 documentary "Living Luminaries: The Serious Business of Happiness", a 2007 documentary called The Union: The Business Behind Getting High, a 2005 documentary called "Escape to Canada" and the 2007 documentary "The Naked Queen".

Emery also appeared in the 2007 comedy documentary "Super High Me" and was featured in a December 2008 episode of National Geographic Explorer called Marijuana Nation, and two National Geographic specials in 2009, one called "Inside Marijuana", the other called "Super Weed".

Emery's earlier career is featured in the 1992 documentary "Marc Emery: Messing up the System".

Emery's history of political activism, both before and since his involvement in the cannabis prohibition issue, was the subject of the in-depth documentary "The Principle of Pot", which was released in 2010.

Marijuana political parties

In 2000 he was a founding member of the Marijuana Party of Canada, a political party running to fully legalize (not just decriminalize) cannabis. In 2001 he helped found the British Columbia Marijuana Party (BCMP), which he currently leads.

Emery ran for the Canadian House of Commons as a Marijuana Party Candidate in the 2000 federal election, and finished sixth out of ten candidates in Vancouver Centre with 1,116 votes. Liberal Hedy Fry won the riding.

The BCMP placed fifth in the 2001 provincial election and was only a few hundred votes short of fourth place. Emery himself received 905 votes in Vancouver-Burrard, finishing fourth against BC Liberal Lorne Mayencourt.

Emery has been the BC Marijuana Party's president since its founding, and also became party leader in 2003, when Leader Dana Larsen resigned to join the NDP.

In the 2005 British Columbia election, Emery ran for the BC Marijuana in Fort Langley-Aldergrove against provincial Solicitor General Rich Coleman, but was defeated.

On July 30, 2008, Emery announced he was running for mayor of Vancouver in the November election, and MLA in the upcoming by-election for the constituency of Vancouver-Fairview which remains vacant after Gregor Robertson won the Vision Vancouver nomination to run for mayor.

Iboga Therapy House

In 2002, Emery founded the Iboga Therapy House, an ibogaine-assisted detoxification therapy program located on BC's Sunshine Coast. Emery and his staff offered free ibogaine therapy to volunteer heroin and cocaine addicts with a plant-based alkaloid called ibogaine, which eliminates withdrawal symptoms and helps produce the mental change needed to quit using.

Emery's Iboga Therapy House treated almost 60 people before he stopped funding in 2004, at a cost Emery states of over $2000 per person. The Iboga Therapy House became a non-profit society in 2005 and continues to offer ibogaine therapy as an independent organization.

Tokers Bowl

For four years, from 2002 to 2005, Emery sponsored the Vancouver Tokers Bowl, a four-day marijuana-judging event and cannabis party with 200 guests.

Summer of Legalization Tour

In 2003, when the prohibition of cannabis in Canada was in limbo due to court decisions that struck down the marijuana laws because of flaws in the government's medicinal marijuana program, Emery launched "the Summer of Legalization" tour, travelling to 18 cities across Canada to openly smoke marijuana in front of police stations and demonstrate that marijuana was currently legal in Canada, as featured in the documentary ''Escape to Canada''.

Jailed in Saskatoon

On August 19, 2004, Emery was sentenced to 92 days in jail in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Emery had been convicted of trafficking because a witness saw him pass a joint in March 2004. Emery's supporters held an ongoing daily vigil outside the courthouse until he was released. On October 18 he was released from the Saskatoon correctional centre after serving 61 days of his sentence.

Federal NDP turned Provincial Green Party supporter

In federal politics, Emery has been a public supporter of the New Democratic Party since in 2003 Jack Layton supported the legalization of marijuana. In November 2003, Layton was a guest on Emery's ''Pot TV'' program. During the 20-minute interview, Emery urged marijuana activists to support the NDP in the 2004 federal election.

He endorsed Svend Robinson's candidacy in Vancouver Centre during the 2006 federal election campaign, and obtained permission from a judge to have his bail conditions varied so that he could campaign for the NDP candidate.

In the 2009 BC provincial election, Emery supported the Green Party of British Columbia. His wife, Jodie Emery, was the BC Green candidate in Vancouver-Fraserview.

2005 arrest and extradition proceedings

On July 29, 2005, Canadian police, acting on a request from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), simultaneously raided the BC Marijuana Party Bookstore and Headquarters in Vancouver and arrested Emery for extradition to the United States outside a local storefront in the community of Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia where he was attending a HempFest.

American authorities charged Emery and co-defendants Gregory Keith Williams, 50, of Vancouver, BC and Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek, 34, of Vancouver, BC with "'Conspiracy to Distribute Marijuana", "Conspiracy to Distribute Marijuana Seeds" and "Conspiracy to Engage in Money Laundering". Even though all the alleged offenses occurred in Canada, Canadian police did not lay any charges.

The day of Emery's arrest, American DEA Administrator Karen Tandy admitted reasons behind the arrest were politically motivated by releasing the following statement, which praised blows dealt to the legalization movement:

Today's DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group -- is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement.

His marijuana trade and propagandist marijuana magazine have generated nearly $5 million a year in profits that bolstered his trafficking efforts, but those have gone up in smoke today.

Emery and his organization had been designated as one of the Attorney General's most wanted international drug trafficking organizational targets -- one of only 46 in the world and the only one from Canada.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery's illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.

Emery was freed on a $50,000 bail and prepared to fight extradition in the courts.

International protests and rallies

On September 10, 2005, about seven weeks after Emery's arrest, over 40 demonstrations were held around the world to protest his impending extradition to the United States. Locations included Moscow, Prague, Wellington, Sydney, Mexico City, Paris, and London.

On September 19, 2009, rallies were held in over 100 cities around the world in support of Marc Emery and opposition to his extradition to the USA. Locations included New York, London, Paris, Edmonton, Oslo, Lima, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Houston and many more.

On May 22, 2010, rallies and protests in support of Marc Emery were held in over 80 cities representing a dozen countries. Nations with rallies included Australia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, the Philippines, Denmark and Ireland. There were 40 participating cities across Canada and another two dozen across the USA.

Worldwide "Support Marc Emery" rallies are planned for September 18, 2012. So far over 80 cities have confirmed their participation.

Proceedings and guilty plea

Emery and his two associates, all charged in the United States with drug and money laundering offences, each faced a minimum 10-year sentence and the possibility of life imprisonment if convicted there.

On January 14, 2008, Emery had agreed to a tentative plea-bargain with U.S. authorities. The terms of the agreement were a 5-year prison term to be served in both Canadian and U.S. prisons. In return, he demanded the charges against his friends Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams be dropped.

(An appeal court judge ruled on March 7, 2008 in a similar case that a one-month jail sentence and probation constituted an adequate sentence for the crime of marijuana seed selling in Canada. This could possibly have been used to Emery's advantage in his fight against extradition.)

On March 27, 2008 the plea-bargain deal collapsed because of the refusal of the Canadian Conservative government to approve its side of the arrangement.

In late 2008, an extradition hearing was scheduled for June, 2009. However, before those hearings Emery agreed to plead guilty to one charge of drug distribution and accept a five-year sentence in the USA.

On September 21, 2009, Emery entered his guilty plea, and on September 28, he was incarcerated in a British Columbia prison awaiting extradition to a US federal prison to serve the five year sentence. There is a 30 day appeal period before extradition.

Emery was granted bail on November 18, after seven weeks in the pre-trial centre, to await the Justice Minister's decision on the extradition order.

While Emery was imprisoned, his supporters held a permanent vigil outside the prison with tents and banners for 45 days, ending when Emery was released on bail.

On September 10, 2010, Emery was sentenced to 5 years in prison minus time served.

Until April 2011 Emery was held by the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the D. Ray James Correctional Institution in Folkston, Georgia.

On April 20, 2011, Emery was transferred to Yazoo City Prison in Mississippi.

Business license

Emery says he has been having troubles with the City of Vancouver, as he has been refused a license renewal for his Vancouver businesses on West Hastings Street. This comes despite his having made thousands of dollars worth of renovations as requested.

Personal life

On July 23, 2006, Marc Emery married Jodie Joanna Giesz-Ramsay (now Jodie Emery). Jodie Emery works as an editor on ''Cannabis Culture'' magazine. She works with her husband as a political activist seeking the end of marijuana prohibition and also seeks the repatriation of her husband back to Canada. She ran as a candidate for the BC Green Party in the May 2009 election, coming in third, losing to Liberal Party member Kash Heed. She is the BC Green Party's Policing and Crime Critic, and was elected as a Director-At-Large at the 2010 BC Green Party Annual General Meeting.

See also

Cannabis Culture Magazine

British Columbia Marijuana Party

Pot TV

Brian Taylor (British Columbia politician)

References

External links

Cannabis Culture Home Page

Pot TV Network

Free Marc Home Page

No Tax for Pan Am (Toronto, 2015), featuring Marc Emery's 1984 campaign literature and video

Marc Emery on his libertarian activism in "The triumph of ideas"

Marc Emery on abortion

Bill St. Clair on Marc Emery

Smoke Out America

New York Times Profile of Marc Emery

Marc Emery, Canada's Prince of Pot (article)

Marc Emery's autobiography and Appeal to Society, "My message to you"

Image gallery for activism to keep Marc Emery free.

Globe and Mail: 'Prince of Pot' ties the knot

Downloadable audio interview with Free Talk Live

A Modern Day Thoreau

http://www.youtube.com/user/JodieEmery - YouTube channel of jodie Emery which Marc Emery Frequents

Related video

The Principle of Pot

The Prince of Pot

Marc Emery addresses Western Standard readers

Prince of Pot: The USA vs. Marc Emery aired October 23, 2007 on CBC Newsworld

Canada - The Prince Of Pot - 52min sec - 11 September 2008, www.journeyman.tv (Ref: 4144)

Profile and Interviews regarding Emery's extradition, CBC News: The Hour, November 10, 2005; Retrieved December 28, 2005

Trailer for Escape to Canada documentary about the Summer of Legalization in which Emery played a critical role

Category:Canadian libertarians Category:Libertarian Party of Canada candidates in the 1980 Canadian federal election Category:Marijuana Party of Canada candidates for the Canadian House of Commons Category:1958 births Category:Living people Category:Canadian cannabis activists Category:People from London, Ontario Category:British Columbia Marijuana Party politicians

cs:Marc Emery es:Marc Emery eo:Marc Emery no:Marc Emery ru:Эмери, Марк

Name	Nigel Farage
Honorific-suffix	MEP
Office	Europe of Freedom and Democracy President
Term start	1 July 2009 (de facto)
Predecessor	(post established)
Office	Leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party
Term start	5 November 2010
Predecessor	Jeffrey Titford
Term start1	27 September 2006
Term end1	27 November 2009
Predecessor1	Roger Knapman
Successor1	Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Office2	Member of the European Parliament for South East England
Term start2	15 July 1999
Birth date	April 03, 1964
Birth place	Kent, England, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Party	UK Independence Party
Spouse	Gráinne Hayes (1988-1997, divorced)Kirsten Mehr (1999-present)
Children	4
Alma mater	Dulwich College
Religion	Church of England
Website	Nigel Farage MEP
Footnotes	}}

Nigel Paul Farage (, ; born 3 April 1964, Farnborough,Kent), is a British politician and is the Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), a position he also held from September 2006 to November 2009. He is a Member of the European Parliament for South East England and co-chairs the Eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Democracy group.

Farage is a founding member of the UKIP, having left the Conservative Party in 1992 after they signed the Maastricht Treaty. Having unsuccessfully campaigned in European and Westminster parliamentary elections for UKIP since 1994, he gained a seat as an MEP for South East England in the 1999 European Parliament Election — the first year the regional list system was used — and was re-elected in 2004 and 2009. Farage describes himself as a libertarian and rejects the notion that he is a conservative.

In September 2006, Farage became the UKIP Leader and led the party through the 2009 European Parliament Election in which it received the second highest share of the popular vote, defeating Labour and the Liberal Democrats with over two million votes. However he stepped down in November 2009 to concentrate on contesting the Speaker John Bercow's seat of Buckingham in the 2010 general election.

At the 2010 General Election, Farage failed to unseat John Bercow and received only the third highest share of the vote in the constituency. Shortly after the polls opened on 6 May 2010, Nigel Farage was injured in an aircraft crash in Northamptonshire. The two-seated PZL-104 Wilga 35A had been towing a pro-UKIP banner when it flipped over and crashed shortly after takeoff. Both Farage and the pilot were hospitalised with non-life-threatening injuries.

In November 2010, Farage successfully stood in the 2010 UKIP leadership contest, following the resignation of its leader, Lord Pearson of Rannoch. Farage was also ranked 41st (out of 100) in ''The Daily Telegraph'''s Top 100 most influential right-wingers poll in October 2009, citing his media savvy and his success with UKIP in the European Elections. Farage was ranked 58th in the 2010 list compiled by Iain Dale and Brian Brivati for the Daily Telegraph.

Background

Farage was educated at Dulwich College before joining a commodity brokerage firm in London. He ran his own brokerage business from the early 1990s until 2002. In his early 20s Farage was diagnosed with testicular cancer but made a full recovery.

Farage has been married twice. He married Gráinne Hayes in 1988, with whom he had two children: Samuel (1989) and Thomas (1991). In 1999 he married Kirsten Mehr, a German national, by whom he has two more children, Victoria (born 2000) and Isabelle (born 2005).

Farage has also penned his own memoirs, entitled "Fighting Bull." It outlines the founding of UKIP and his personal and political life so far.

Political career

Conservative Party

Active in the Conservative Party from his school days, Farage left the party in 1992 when John Major's government signed the Treaty on European Union at Maastricht.

UKIP and the European Parliament

Farage became a founding member of UKIP in 1993.

He was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 and re-elected in 2004 and 2009. Farage is presently the leader of the thirteen-member UKIP contingent in the European Parliament, and co-leader of the multinational eurosceptic group, Europe of Freedom and Democracy.

UKIP party leadership

On 12 September 2006, Farage was elected leader of UKIP with 45% of the vote, 20% ahead of his nearest rival. He pledged to bring discipline to the party and to maximise UKIP's representation in local, parliamentary and other elections. In a PM programme interview on BBC Radio 4 that day he pledged to end the public perception of UKIP as a single-issue party and to work with allied politicians in the Better Off Out campaign, committing himself not to stand against the MPs who have signed up to that campaign (ten in all at this moment).

At his maiden speech to the UKIP conference on 8 October 2006, he told delegates that the party was "at the centre-ground of British public opinion" and the "real voice of opposition". Farage said: "We've got three social democratic parties in Britain — Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative are virtually indistinguishable from each other on nearly all the main issues" and "you can't put a cigarette paper between them and that is why there are nine million people who don't vote now in general elections that did back in 1992."

At 10pm on 19 October 2006, Farage took part in a three-hour live interview and phone-in with James Whale on national radio station talkSPORT. Four days later, Whale announced on his show his intention to stand as UKIP's candidate in the 2008 London Mayoral Election. Farage said that Whale "not only has guts, but an understanding of what real people think". However Whale later decided not to stand and UKIP was represented by Gerard Batten. He stood again for UKIP leadership in 2010 after his successor Lord Pearson stood down. On the 5th November 2010 it was announced Farage had won the leadership contest.

Westminster elections

Farage had unsuccessfully contested UK parliamentary elections for UKIP five times, both before and after his election as an MEP in 1999. Under the 2002 European Union decision to forbid MEPs from holding a dual mandate, if he was ever elected to the House of Commons, he would have to resign his seat as an MEP.

When he contested the Bromley & Chislehurst constituency in a May 2006 by-election, organised after the sitting MP representing it, eurosceptic Conservative Eric Forth, died, Farage came third, winning 8% of the vote, beating the Labour Party candidate. This was the second-best by-election result recorded by UKIP out of 25 results, and the first time since the Liverpool Walton by-election in 1991 that a party in government had been pushed into fourth place in a parliamentary by-election on mainland Britain.

2010 UK General election

On 4 September 2009 Farage resigned as leader of UKIP to concentrate on his campaign to become Member of Parliament for Buckingham at Westminster in the 2010 general election. He later told Times journalist Camilla Long that UKIP internal fights took up too much time.

He stood against Buckingham MP John Bercow, the newly elected Speaker of the House of Commons, despite a convention that the speaker, as a political neutral, is not normally challenged in his or her bid for re-election by any of the major parties.

On 6 May, on the morning the polls opened in the election, just before eight o'clock Farage was involved in a light aircraft crash, suffering injuries described as non-life-threatening. A spokesperson told the BBC that "it was unlikely Mr Farage would be discharged from hospital today [6 May] Although his injuries were originally described as minor, his sternum and ribs were broken, and his lung punctured. The Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) report said that the aeroplane was towing a banner, which caught in the tailplane, forcing the nose down.

Farage came third with 8,401 votes. Bercow was re-elected, and in second place with 10,331 votes was John Stevens, a former Conservative MEP who campaigned as an independent accompanied by "Flipper the Dolphin" (a reference to MPs flipping second homes).

On 1 December 2010, the pilot of the aircraft involved in the accident was charged with threatening to kill Farage. He was also charged with threatening to kill an AAIB official involved in the investigation into the accident. In April 2011, Justin Adams was found guilty of making death threats. The judge said the defendant was "clearly extremely disturbed" at the time the offences happened adding "He is a man who does need help. If I can find a way of giving him help I will."

Alternative Vote referendum, May 2011

Farage declared himself personally in favour of the Alternative Vote system of May 2011, saying first-past-the-post is a "nightmare" for UKIP. However, the party's stance has to be decided by its central policy making committee.

Controversies and whistleblowing

Copyright infringement

In 1999 the BBC spent four months filming a documentary about his European elections campaign but didn't show it. Farage, then head of UKIP's South East office, asked for a video and got friends to make illegal copies which were sold for £5 through the UKIP magazine. Surrey Trading Standards investigated and Farage has admitted the offence.

Expenses disclosure

In May 2009, ''The Guardian'' reported that Farage had said in a speech to the Foreign Press Association that over ten years as a member of the European Parliament he received £2 million of taxpayers' money in staff, travel, and other expenses on top of his £64,000 a year salary.

The former Europe Minister, Denis MacShane, said that this showed that Farage was "happy to line his pockets with gold". Farage called this a "misrepresentation", pointing out that the money had been used to promote UKIP's message, not salary, but he welcomed the focus on the issue of MEP expenses, claiming that "[o]ver a five year term each and every one of Britain's 78 MEPs gets about £1 million. It is used to employ administrative staff, run their offices and to travel back and forth between their home, Brussels and Strasbourg." He also pointed out the money spent on the YES campaign in Ireland by the European Commission was "something around 440 million", making the NO campaign's figure insignificant in comparison.

Jacques Barrot

On 18 November 2004, Farage announced in the European Parliament that Jacques Barrot, the French Commissioner designate, had been barred from elected office in France for 2 years, after being convicted in 2000 of embezzling £2 million from government funds and diverting it into the coffers of his party. He claimed that French President Jacques Chirac had granted Barrot amnesty. Although initial BBC reports claimed that, under French law, it was illegal even to mention the conviction, the prohibition in question only applies to French officials in the course of their duties. The president of the Parliament, Josep Borrell, enjoined him to retract his comments under threat of "legal consequences". However, the following day it was confirmed that Barrot had received an 8 month suspended jail sentence in the case, and that this had been quickly expunged by the amnesty decided by Chirac and his parliamentary majority. The Commission's president, Jose Manuel Barroso admitted that he had not known of Barrot's criminal record when appointing him as a Commission vice-president. The Socialist and Liberal groups in the European Parliament then joined UKIP in demanding the resignation of Barrot for failing to disclose the conviction during his confirmation hearings.

José Manuel Barroso

During the spring of 2005, Farage requested that the European Commission disclose where the individual Commissioners had spent their holidays. The Commission did not provide the information requested, on the basis that the Commissioners had a right of privacy. The German newspaper ''Die Welt'' reported that the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso had spent a week on the yacht of the Greek shipping billionaire Spiro Latsis. It emerged soon afterwards that this had occurred a month before the Commission under Barroso's predecessor Romano Prodi approved 10.3 million euro of Greek state aid for Latsis' shipping company. It also became known that Peter Mandelson, then a member of the Commission, had accepted a trip to Jamaica from an unrevealed source.

Farage persuaded around 75 MEPs from across the political divide to back a motion of no confidence in Barroso, which would be sufficient to compel Barroso to appear before the European Parliament to be questioned on the issue. The motion was successfully tabled on 12 May 2005, and Barroso appeared before Parliament at a debate on 26 May 2005. The motion was heavily defeated. A Conservative MEP, Roger Helmer, was expelled from his group, the European People's Party - European Democrats (EPP-ED) in the middle of the debate by that group's leader Hans-Gert Poettering as a result of his support for Farage's motion.

Joseph Daul

In January 2007, the French farmers' leader Joseph Daul was elected the new leader of the European People's Party–European Democrats (EPP-ED), the European Parliamentary grouping which then included the British Conservatives. The UK Independence Party almost immediately revealed that Daul had been under judicial investigation in France since 2004 as part of an inquiry into the alleged misuse of public funds worth €16 million (£10.6 million) by French farming unions." It was not suggested that Daul had personally benefited, but was accused of "complicity and concealment of the abuse of public funds." Daul accused Farage of publicising the investigation for political reasons and threatened to sue Farage, but did not do so though the court dropped all charges against him.

Prince Charles

Prince Charles gave a speech to the European Parliament on 14 February 2008, in which he called for EU leadership in the war against climate change. During the standing ovation that followed, Farage was the only MEP to remain seated and went on to describe the Prince's advisers as "naïve and foolish at best." Farage continued: "How can somebody like Prince Charles be allowed to come to the European Parliament at this time to announce he thinks it should have more powers? It would have been better for the country he wants to rule one day if he had stayed home and tried to persuade Gordon Brown to give the people the promised referendum [on the Treaty of Lisbon]." The leader of the UK Labour Party's MEPs, Gary Titley, accused Farage of anti-Royalism. Titley said: "I was embarrassed and disgusted when the Leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, remained firmly seated during the lengthy standing ovation Prince Charles received. I had not realised Mr Farage's blind adherence to right wing politics involved disloyalty and discourtesy to the Royal Family. He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself and should apologise to the British people he represents."

Herman Van Rompuy

After the speech of Herman Van Rompuy on 24 February 2010 in the European parliament, Farage—to protests from other MEPs—addressed the first long-term President of the European Council saying that he has the "charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of low grade bank clerk". Farage questioned the legitimacy of Van Rompuy's appointment asking "Who are you? I'd never heard of you, nobody in Europe had ever heard of you", he also asserted that Van Rompuy's "intention is to be the quiet assassin of European democracy and of European nation states." In the same speech he also referred to Belgium, the home of Van Rompuy, as a "non-country". Van Rompuy commented afterwards, "There was one contribution that I can only hold in contempt, but I'm not going to comment further." After refusing to apologise for behaviour that was, in the words of the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, "inappropriate, unparliamentary and insulting to the dignity of the House", Farage was reprimanded and had his right to ten days' allowance (expenses) rescinded.

The President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, said after his meeting with Farage:

I defend absolutely Mr Farage's right to disagree about the policy or institutions of the Union, but not to personally insult our guests in the European Parliament or the country from which they may come. [. . .] I myself fought for free speech as the absolute cornerstone of a democratic society. But with freedom comes responsibility - in this case, to respect the dignity of others and of our institutions. I am disappointed by Mr Farage's behaviour, which sits ill with the great parliamentary tradition of his own country. I cannot accept this sort of behaviour in the European Parliament. I invited him to apologise, but he declined to do so. I have therefore - as an expression of the seriousness of the matter - rescinded his right to ten days' daily allowance as a Member.

Questioned by Camilla Long, Farage declared of his speech "it wasn't abusive, it was right."

European economic governance

He spoke of the EU being "German-dominated" in a speech at the European-Parliament on 18 November 2011.

Views on the euro

From taking office as a UKIP MEP in 1999, Farage has often voiced opposition to the "euro project". His argument is that "a one size fits all interest rate" cannot work for countries with structurally different economies, often using the example of Greece and Germany to emphasise contrast. He predicted the need for 'bailouts' before European Commission and European Central Bank officials admitted that these steps would be necessary. Specifically, Farage predicted that Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain would all require such assistance. To date, Spain is the only predicted country that has not asked for a 'bailout'. Although Spain and Italy have both had indirect assistance from the ECB, whereby secondary government bonds are bought by the central bank, they are prohibited from purchasing new bonds. Farage warns: "You can ignore the markets if you want to, but in time the markets will not ignore you". Farage also reinforces Germany's argument that Italy "should never have joined the euro".

Farage predicts that if the situation continues it will lead to violence due to the people's inability to "determine their own futures through the ballot box" as it will become the only "logical" tool to enable them to escape from their "economic prison" i.e. the Eurozone. He proclaims "I can only hope and pray that the euro project is destroyed by the markets before that really happens."

Farage strongly opposes the use of 'bailouts' and claims that "buying your own debt with tax payers money" will not solve the problem and that, "if we do, the next debt crisis won't be a country", "it will be the European Central Bank itself".

Electoral performance

Nigel Farage has contested several elections under the United Kingdom Independence Party banner:

Itchen, Test and Avon, European Parliament Election 1994 - 12,423 votes, representing 5.2% of total votes cast

Eastleigh by-election, 1994 - 952, 1.4%

Salisbury, 1997 general election - 3,332, 5.7%

European Parliament election, 1999 - elected member for South East England from party list

Bexhill and Battle, 2001 general election - 3,474, 7.8%

European Parliament election, 2004 - elected member for South East England from party list

South Thanet, 2005 general election - 2,079, 5.0%

Bromley and Chislehurst by-election, 2006 - 2,307, 8.0%

European Parliament election, 2009 - elected member for South East England from party list.

Buckingham, 2010 general election - 8,410, 17.4%

Footnotes

References

2002 Amnesty law

Penal Code, articles L133-9, L133-10, L133-11

External links

Nigel Farage MEP ''Official website''

Nigel Farage ''Profile at European Parliament website''

UKIP MEPs ''Official website of the UK Independence Party in the European Parliament''

Europe of Freedom and Democracy ''Political group in the European Parliament''

Category:1964 births Category:Living people Category:United Kingdom Independence Party politicians Category:Members of the European Parliament for English constituencies Category:Critics of the European Union Category:People from Farnborough, London Category:People educated at Dulwich College Category:Leaders of the United Kingdom Independence Party Category:British libertarians Category:UK Independence Party MEPs Category:MEPs for the United Kingdom 1999–2004 Category:MEPs for the United Kingdom 2004–2009 Category:MEPs for the United Kingdom 2009–2014 Category:Survivors of aviation accidents or incidents Category:Testicular cancer survivors

br:Nigel Farage cs:Nigel Farage cy:Nigel Farage de:Nigel Farage et:Nigel Farage el:Νάιτζελ Φάρατζ es:Nigel Farage eo:Nigel Farage fr:Nigel Farage it:Nigel Farage nl:Nigel Farage no:Nigel Farage pl:Nigel Farage ro:Nigel Farage simple:Nigel Farage fi:Nigel Farage sv:Nigel Farage