Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/29/2011

According to the European Commission, if Scotland were to secede from the United Kingdom, it would be granted seven seats on the European Council of Ministers. The remainder of the UK would see its representation on the body drop from 29 to 27 seats. Which is interesting — the UK and Scotland separately would be allocated five more seats than if they remained together. Is this an incentive for divorce?

In other news, a fifteen-year-old Afghan girl was locked in a basement toilet for five months in her husband’s house after she resisted her in-laws’ attempts to force her into prostitution.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez says that he thinks the United States may be behind his cancer, and may have also caused the cancers afflicting other Latin American political leaders.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JP, Kitman, Nick, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

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Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.