But it already seems that this will be limited to watching and listening as it is for the six existing observers: countries like Britain and Poland with long traditions of Arctic activity.

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He also meets with six people to provide spiritual direction, a practice with roots in the Christian, Buddhist and Jewish traditions that now includes more than 5, 000 U.S. practitioners from a variety of faiths, up from 400 in 1990.

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In the European elections in June, their ten-year-old party, Shooting, Fishing, Nature and Traditions, got 1.2m votes, almost 7% of the total, enough to give them six seats in the European Parliament.

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