Apps Privacy Risks - 92% of Top 500 Android Apps Carry Security or Privacy Risk

About 460 of the top 500 Android applications create a security or privacy risk when downloaded to Android devices, according to new research. And that’s largely because of a lack of user education, and the fact that mobile users don’t mind sharing personal information for free apps in return.

Read more:  Infosecurity - 92% of Top 500 Android Apps Carry Security or Privacy Risk

"Dutch economy is poised to improve" - says Dutch Central Bank President Klaas Knot in Davos

The Netherlands recently kept its triple-A credit rating from Fitch, which said that the decision reflected the country’s strong underlying economic, institutional and credit fundamentals.

The rating agency kept the outlook at negative, however, because of the Netherlands’ weak economic growth prospects.

Another rating agency, Standard & Poor’s, stripped the Netherlands of its top-grade AAA rating in late November, also citing its low growth prospects.

So far that has left Germany, Luxembourg and Finland as the only members of the 17-nation euro zone with the coveted top rating from all three leading credit agencies.

Moody’s, which still rates the Netherlands triple-A with a negative outlook, will publish its next update on March 7th.

Note EU-Digest:  The Dutch economy is poised to improve after house prices stopped declining and consumer confidence rose, Dutch Central Bank President Klaas Knot said. 

“There is no need to think that the Dutch economy will structurally lag the euro zone any longer,” Knot, 46, who is also a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We will have to wait for mid-February to see whether the fourth-quarter gross domestic product numbers confirm the gradual recovery.” .

The Dutch economy, the fifth-largest in the euro area, emerged from a year of recession in the third quarter as exports benefited from a nascent recovery in the currency region. The country has gone through three recessions since the origins of the global financial crisis in 2007.

Read more: Fitch affirms Netherlands credit rating - Economic News | Ireland & World Economy Headlines |The Irish Times - Fri, Jan 17, 2014

and at: The Dutch economy is poised toimprove - Bloomberg

Data Privacy: EU justice chief accuses bloc of hypocrisy in data privacy debates

The EU needs to start protecting its own citizens from the American global spying initiatives and quit being “hypocritical” when it comes to reforming its own data protection system, said the EU’s Justice Commissioner.

Viviane Reding, a vocal critic of American cyber surveillance, lashed out against EU member states’ reaction in wake of Edward Snowden revelations, urging the bloc to protect citizens’ private information and seek more legal assurances from Washington.

“There's been a lot of hypocrisy in the debate,” Reding said at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels on Tuesday. “If the EU wants to be credible in its efforts to rebuild trust, if it wants to act as an example for other continents, it also has to get its own house in order.”

“The EU itself should also look carefully at some of its [data protection] laws. Neither the Commission, the Council, nor the European Parliament can be proud of the Data Retention Directive.”

The Directive requires telecom companies to store all telephony metadata, including geo-location data. Criticizing some aspects of the Directive, Reding said that the data “is kept for too long, it is too easily accessed and the risk of abuse is too great.”

Almere Digest   

EU Immigration Policies: Immigrants Benefit Host Nations' Economies, so Why Is Public Perception Negative? - by Anna Leijonhufvud

Immigrants seeking democracy and better life benefit economy

Almira is one of many millions of immigrants who every year cross borders in search of a better life. A year ago, she left her home village in Croatia to find work in Helsingborg, Sweden, and today she's gone to Arbetsförmedlingen, a Swedish public employment agency, to find a job. "I worked as a cleaner for a hotel, but the work is tiresome," she said. "I would want to work as a receptionist, but I don't think my Swedish is good enough yet."

Immigrants like Almira are often seen as having a negative impact on the host country, such as when they allegedly take jobs from the native-born. But as anti-immigration views have gained traction--even in government  policy in some cases, as in the U.K.--an increasingly large body of work suggests that assumptions that immigrants are harmful to a country's economy are unfounded.

"There is overwhelming evidence that migrants have a positive impact on the economy," said Peter Sutherland, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for migration and development. Sutherland was on the panel for the World Economic Forum's Open Forum session titled "Immigration: Welcome or Not?"

Also on the panel was former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who agreed with Sutherland that immigrants often bring lots of advantages with them. To make his point, Annan referred to a poster showing Albert Einstein trying to cross the border into a country with a sack of clothes on his back. The caption read: "The sack of clothes is not the only thing that the immigrant brings."

While many of the leaders speaking at the WEF appear convinced, the evidence that immigrants have a positive effect on their host countries' economies has not yet had much impact on public perception.

Editors Note: The question is why European Governments are  not making sure they change this Public perception about the benefits of immigration ? Instead they are letting populist, nationalistic politicians like Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Marie Le Pen in France and others in Europe control the debate.

EU-Digest

Netherlands - Banking Industry: Rabobank to Eliminate More Jobs in the Netherlands - by Martin van Tartwijk

Dutch lender Rabobank Group will eliminate more jobs in the Netherlands as it seeks to downsize its domestic operations and further reduce costs.

The bank said late Friday it will cut between 1,000 and 2,000 jobs in thenext several years, largely at its headquarters in Utrecht. The overhaul will also affect the Dutch activities of Rabobank's international arm, which will be integrated into the headquarters.

The move will help to reduce annual costs EUR220 million by 2016, the bank said. It follows a previously unveiled restructuring in the Netherlands that will result in 8,000 job losses and the closure of hundreds of branches.

The Dutch bank employs about 60,000 world-wide. Like other lenders, Rabobank is seeking to slash costs as it faces a stricter regulatory environment and as customers are increasingly shifting to online banking.

Read more: Rabobank to Eliminate More Jobs in the Netherlands - WSJ.com

Syria-Turkey: Kurds carve out autonomy as war rages - Erika Solomon

In the northeast corner of Syria, a pocket of stability is emerging amid the country’s raging civil war. Here the talk is of building, not bombing.

Local Kurdish leaders have launched projects to revive normal life and encourage people to stay. They are creating a regional administration, producing cheap fuel, subsidizing seeds for crops and trying to restore electricity to an area that had lost power for nearly 24 hours a day. And so far they are fighting off the forces of both President Bashar Assad and the rebels who want to oust him.

“We have no power or water. Food is short,” said Hardin, a 30-year-old teacher, shivering as cold rain began to fall at the funeral of a Kurdish fighter.

“But before, our minds and spirits were repressed. Now our dreams are becoming reality. This is the Kurdish moment. Going back to the way we were is not an option. It would be a betrayal of those who sacrificed their lives.”

The 30 million Kurds spread across Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey have been the world’s largest ethnic group without an independent homeland. Only the Kurds in Iraq, who displaced Iraqi forces in the 1990s when a U.S. and British no-fly zone was in place against Saddam Hussein, have carved out an area of real autonomy.

Now some of Syria’s 2.2 million Kurds sense an opportunity to take another step toward the long-term dream of creating an independent state of “Kurdistan.”

Recently, on the eve of peace talks in Switzerland, Kurds in Syria declared a provincial government in the area, after international powers rejected their request to send a separate delegation.

Local leaders insist they have no plans for secession but say they are preparing a local constitution and aim to hold polls early this year. This is not independence but “local democratic administration,” they say.

Read more: Kurds carve out autonomy as war rages | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR

World Inc.- Doomsday Scenario: "the alignment of NAFTA - Transpacific Partnership And EU-US Transatlantic Trade Agreement"

World Inc.,

A new era could be dawning for the world as capitalism undergoes a major re-alignment

The result will be a joyous celebration, not only on Wall Street, but also among the multi-national empires around the worldt.

Profit may finally be crowned King as all Nation states around the Globe unite into one World, Inc

"Yes, a coronation worthy of Louis XIV of France (1638-1715) “the Sun King,” who successfully increased the influence of the crown by establishing authority over the church and the aristocracy, thereby consolidating absolute monarchy in France", says the UK Progressive.

"The upcoming coronation (maybe) of King Profit, therefore, shall be the pinnacle of capitalism for there is no higher level for it to achieve beyond “absolutism.”

The date for the coronation has not yet been set, but it could be real soon, especially if the US Congress grants President Obama “fast-track” authority to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an agreement amongst 12 major Pacific nations for free trade, which is seen as very positive for multi-national businesses."

If you don't know what TPP is see it as similar to NAFTA, but on steroids,.

NAFTA might be seen as a success in terms of corporate profit but once NAFTA officially crossed the border into Mexico in 1994, all hell broke loose for the middle class folks. Mexico’s annual per capita growth became a flat-line, the lowest in the hemisphere, real wages are down, unemployment is up.

Heavily subsidized U.S. crops made Mexican crop prices drop, driving small Mexican farmers off the farm and resulting in mass unemployment.

Today some 20 million Mexicans live with food poverty, while hundreds of thousands of Mexicans have headed for the U.S. border to find “a better life”  resulting in major US immigration problems  

On the other hand, even though NAFTA has not benefitted average taxpayers in any way or form, NAFTA  has proven to be very beneficial for multi-national corporations.

They can now set up shop at will just across the US border, without any nagging and complex US environmental  and health regulations to adhere to while benefiting from dirt-cheap local wages. As Ross Perot once said when he ran for the US presidency in 1994, "you can hear the sucking sound of US jobs going to Mexico".

Consequently, also labor-wise NAFTA has been a bad deal for all the partners of the agreement, except, yes you guessed it right, the trans national corporations. 

The TTP will be granting even  greater privileges to transnational corporations than with NAFTA, fulfilling corporations wildest dreams. A Wikileaks’ secret document shows how transnationals will henceforth be able to sue governments if a country’s laws or policies get in the way of corporate profits. Yes, transnationals will have carte blanche to do whatever they want, like King Louis redux.

When a nation gets in the way of profits, no problem; transnationals can sue the government for damages to profitability as part of the so-called  investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) agreements

What would make the "Coronation" even more complete and threatening would be an agreement  between the EU-US on a TransatlanticTtrade Pact (TTIP).

It would mean opening the door for big corporations to enforce their interests against EU legislation," said EU parliamentarian Bernd Lange. "This would deprive states of crucial policy space in important fields such as health and environment." 

The EU-Commission, however,  is dangling unsubstantiated benefits of this trade agreement  including the dubious possibility that it could bring an annual windfall of 119 billion euros ($161 billion) to the 28-member bloc.

One can only hope that the EU-Parliament requests complete transparency on all the details of these ongoing negotiations and asks all theprobing and  necessary questions. They should certainly not overlook one of the most important and negative factors in these negotiations, which is that they are dealing with a partner across the table who has spied on them (NSA) and will  probably continuing to do so.

EU-Digest

European cybercop - by Jonathan Ames

The EU believes strict regulation is the path to online security, and accountants are already lining up to seize the advice work

As action heroes go, the sombre-suited members of the European Commission and their hordes of faceless Eurocrats aren’t a patch on a pumped, bloodied Bruce Willis in his sweat-soaked vest.

But the commission’s president, plucky Portuguese José Barroso, and his band of 28 fellow commissioners have cast themselves in the roles of cyber policemen to rival the follicly challenged American and his bid to save humanity in Die Hard 4.0.

Film buffs will know that Willis has to do battle with a mastermind cyber criminal who first wants to hack into the US national security systems before doing all sorts of nasty things and then, of course, taking over the world. Winning the day involves two hours of shouting, gunfire, explosions and cheeky dialogue.

Typically, the European Commission’s version is somewhat more prosaic. It involves a directive – the draft Network and Information Security Directive, to be precise.

But from where they sit in Brussels, that 48 pages of prospective legislation is no less important or indeed less impressive than detective John McClane seeing off the hacker’s henchmen by launching a police cruiser at a looming helicopter. It’s just a matter of perspective and, Europe being Europe, taste.

Also, Europe being Europe, the directive is not exactly straightforward. Confusion reigns over what it will look like in final draft, which business sectors will be affected, whether it is necessary or is just another example of Brussels legislating simply because it can and, indeed, whether it will ever come to pass in light of the forthcoming European Parliament elections.

What is relatively certain is that cyber security is an area that ultimately will be legislated for in Europe. And some suggest the global accountancy practices are already aiming to steal a march on law firms to advise multinational corporations on how to cope.

Should the legal profession battle the accountants for market share in advising on the directive?
As one lawyer comments: “We don’t go through a single day without there being a headline about cyber security, so clearly something needs to happen.”

That suggests the directive, whether in present or subsequent form, represents an opportunity. But first, lawyers must get a grip on what the draft legislation will cover. And doing so requires patience.

Read more: European cybercop | Analysis | The Lawyer

Corporate Greed: 13 Mindblowing Facts About America’s Tax-Dodging Corporations

A judicious writer avoids adjectives like “mindblowing,” especially when covering political or economic issues.
But no other word seems to describe the stunning reality of corporate taxation in modern America, which cries out for the italics-heavy, exclamation-point-driven format made famous by Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Stylistic overkill? Read these thirteen facts and you may change your mind.

1. We’re told we can’t “afford” full Social Security benefits, even though closing corporate tax-haven loopholes would pay for Obama’s “chained CPI” benefit cut more than ten times over!

Abusive offshore tax havens cost the US $150 billion in lost tax revenue every year (via FACT Coalition). That’s $1.5 trillion over the next ten years.

The “chained CPI” cut, proposed by President Obama and supported by Republicans, is projected to “save” a total of $122 billion to $130 billion over the same time period by denying benefits to seniors and disabled people.

It’s true. “Serious” politicians and pundits are demanding that ordinary people sacrifice earned benefits, while at the same time allowing corporations to avoid more than ten times as much in taxes.

2. Corporate tax rates are near their 60-year low, even though profits are at a 60-year high!

Need we say more?  (Source: Americans for Tax Fairness.)

3. Wells Fargo got $8 billion in tax breaks, even as executives at its subsidiary Wachovia avoided indictment for laundering money for the Mexican drug cartels!

 That’s right. Wells Fargo paid a negative tax rate of -1.4 percent between 2008 and 2010 while Wachovia, a Wells Fargo subsidiary, admitted to laundering more than $378 billion for Mexican drug gangs.

We’re talking about crazed killers like “El Loco” and gangs like “Los Zetas” – gangs who cut people’ heads off and toss them out onto disco dance floors or display them in the town square.

Wachovia bankers ignored repeated warnings from law enforcement officials, and continued to launder money for cartels that have murdered tens of thousands.

And yet no criminal indictments were handed down because, as a Senate investigator told Bloomberg News, “”There’s no capacity to regulate or punish them because they’re too big to be threatened with failure.”

4. Some other huge corporations paid less than nothing, too.

Pepco Holdings (-57.6% tax rate)
General Electric (-45.3%)
DuPont (-3.4%)
Verizon (-2.9%)
Boeing (-1.8%)
Honeywell (-0.7%)

(Source: Citizens for Tax Justice)

5. The amount of money US corporations are holding offshore is an estimated one trillion dollars!

Rather than tax these profits the way other countries do, corporate politicians are promoting a tax “repatriation” break that would let corporations “bring this money home” while paying even less than their currently low rates.

They tried that in 2004 and it didn’t create any jobs. In fact, corporations took the tax break and then fired thousands of people. What “repatriation” did do is line a lot of wealthy investors’ pockets. So, naturally, they want to do it again.

6. One building in the Cayman Islands is the official location of 18,857 corporations!

According to the Government Accountability Office, a five-story building called “Ugland House” is home to nearly twenty thousand corporations. That’s impressive, especially for such a small edifice. (Perhaps it has supernatural half-floors and space-time defying “mind tunnels” like the office in Being John Malkovich.)

While impressive, Ugland House’s distinction pales next to that of 1209 North Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware. According to one investigation, that address is home to 217,000 corporations.

That’s because Delaware has very generous tax rules – and, as a result, is home to more than half of all the corporate subsidiaries in the United States.That’s startling, since only 1/342th of the nation’s population lives in that state (917,092 residents, out of a national total of 313,914,040, according to the latest( census results).

7. Conservatives complain about the “official” corporate tax rate in this country, but corporations actually pay roughly one-third of the official rate in actual taxes.

The official, or “statutory,” corporate tax rate is 35 percent. But the actual rate paid by American corporations is only 12 percent, less than that paid by many middle-class Americans.  (Source: The FACT Coalition.) 

In fact, US Corporations pay less tax as a percentage of the GDP than corporations in Canada. Or Japan …

… or South Korea. Or Norway. Or Luxembourg, New Zealand, Israel, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, and Italy.  (Source: OECD StatsExtract interactive database.) 

8. Corporations used to pay 30 percent of Federal taxes, and now they pay less than 7 percent!

That’s because the corporate tax rate has plunged since Dwight D. Eisenhower was President and is now the lowest it’s been in modern history.

(Source: FACT Coalition.)

9. Big corporations paid $216 million to Congress and got $223 billion in tax breaks!

As Citizens for Tax Justice and USPIRG reported, 280 large and profitable corporations contributed $216 million to Congressional campaigns over four election cycles and got nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars in tax breaks.

That’s a terrific investment for them – a return of more than a thousand to one – but it’s a bad deal for the American people.

10. We don’t even know who owns some corporations, even though that makes it easier to evade taxes, dodge creditors, avoid paying alimony or child support, and even fund terrorism!

Here are some examples of investments that might represent a terror threat. Corporate interests are blocking disclosure rules that would help protect our national security.

11. Bank of America committed foreclosure fraud, was bailed out by the government, and then paid no taxes on $4.4 billion in profit!

That’s right. In 2010, while BofA was negotiating a sweet settlement deal for its foreclosure fraud, it paid nothing in taxes. (Source: FACT Coalition.) Zero, on $17.2 billion in offshore earnings. (Source: Americans for Tax Fairness.)

Its $4.1 billion tax break came on the heels of the bank’s taxpayer-funded bailout, immunity from prosecution for its criminal employees, and a cushy government settlement for its foreclosure fraud.

Now David Dayen reports that the bank has apparently continued to defraud customers in violation of its government settlement. Whistleblowers have stated in affidavits that they were “told to lie” to customers, continued to deceive homeowners before foreclosing on them, and flipped customers to new servicing companies to invalidate previous homeowner agreements.

12. What they call “tax reform” would actually prevent our elected representatives from giving businesses financial incentives to improve our lives!

The word “reform” is an honorable one that’s been put to some dishonorable uses lately. “Entitlement reform,” for example, is merely a euphemism for gutting Social Security and Medicare.

Similarly, corporate-backed politicians are pushing a formula for permanent corporate tax breaks and calling it “tax reform.” They insist their “reform” be “revenue neutral” and say it will “broaden the base while lowering the rate.”

Here’s an English translation: The current, unsustainably low rates for corporations would be made permanent, while eliminating many tax deductions in the name of “simplification.”

Here’s what that really means: The domestic tax credit for creating jobs? Gone. Tax breaks for protecting the environment with clean energy, rather than harming other people’s health and leaving a mess for the rest of us to clean up? Gone.

All in all we’d lose dozens of important policies that make our lives better, while permanently fixing corporate taxes at today’s cushy giveaway rates.

“Reform”? Ripoff is more like it.

13. Despite their greed, mismanagement, and freeloading, tax-dodging corporations are using shell organizations like “Fix the Debt” and “the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget” to tell ordinary Americans they have to sacrifice even more to preserve corporate wealth!

These organizations are using the heads of failed banks – people like Chase’s Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs – to dispense “advice on the economy.” That’s like getting navigation tips from the captain of the Exxon Valdez.

(Tax breaks for Exxon Mobil: $4.1 billion between 2008 and 2010. The company paid no taxes at all in 2009.)

These executives and their paid spokespeople tell the rest of us we need to “sacrifice” and “tighten our belts” so that their party can go on forever. And too often they’re treated as credible sources, rather than as corrupting influences on our public life.

It’s all true – and there are many more astonishing facts to be found in the world of corporate taxation. To fix the economy more people will need to learn about them – and demand that they be changed.

Read more: 13 Mindblowing Facts About America’s Tax-Dodging Corporations

Global Economy: DEBT MASQUERADING AS GROWTH!

The market Oracle reports: "The greatest economic, political and societal collapse in recorded history is unfolding and has been doing so ever since the final denouement of partially sound money occurred at Bretton Woods II in August 1971 – thereby allowing governments, the financial systems and elites to substitute money printed out of thin air and politically correct/corrupt legislation for sound economic policies.  This process has been unfolding for 40 years and is nearing its demise.  

Growth now is a function of expanding credit, financing government and consumer consumption and calling it GDP.  The developed world has become Something for nothing societies are like locusts they eat everything right down to its roots, including next year’s seed corn.  They will issue debt until it no longer can be sold. 

They will print money until it is no longer accepted.  This process is well established and underway (think Venezuela, Greece, Argentina, this is the future).  To illustrate the LACK of GROWTH, look at this chart of GDP from Chris Wood at CLSA and subtract the deficit:

Most economists are PREDICTING accelerating GDP growth in 2014; you sure wouldn’t come to that conclusion based upon median family incomes since 2008;  

Or the crash in PERSONAL incomes over the last year  

As you can see, the only period that compares to this CURRENT CRASH in disposable income in the last 20 years was the crash of 2007-2009.  Do you think this reflects a robust economy in 2014 as predicted by the MSM and Keynesians?  To grow the economy, we must borrow money to finance spending and report it as GDP.  DEBT MASQUERADING as GROWTH! 

Now, the developed world’s economies have been hollowed out (by runaway regulation, taxes and crony capitalism) and much of the wealth creation occurs in the emerging world.  Crony capitalists and their minions in government just attack the private sector where future growth and productivity must come from. 
 
They carve it up and destroy the future creative destruction (aka “Capitalism”) which must occur for growing middle classes and economies.  The powers that be are MINTING fire hoses of NEW money, creating at least 8000 million dollars/yen a DAY (2 million million a year or 2+ trillion per year) to support the global economy, bankrupt sovereigns and financial systems.   

Very little BAD can happen when they are printing and injecting this amount of money into the financial system and government coffers on a daily/yearly basis. “Currencies don’t float they just SINK at different rates”

Asset-backed economies provide the ILLUSION of growth in the developed world driven by currency depreciation (ASSET prices rise/reprice as the purchasing power of the currency they are denominated in sinks) and never-ending leverage to fund consumption and HIGHER ASSET prices.  This is insane behavior, but now is the last refuge of the powers that be.
 
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." 

EU-Digest

Sochi Olympics - the Netherlands: Dutch have it all to dominate the Olympic oval - by Raf Casert

Skating is in the Dutch blood

There is nothing more mythical in Dutch sports than an age-old 11-city race skating across lakes and canals in bone-numbing cold from dawn to dusk. No wonder the Netherlands is the greatest speedskating nation in the world.

And with Sven Kramer and Ireen Wust leading the way on the big Olympic oval in Sochi, they are bent on proving it again.

Time and again over the last half century, the Dutch have been top or near the top of the Olympic speedskating standings - a nation of 16.8 million defying giants like the United States, Russia or Germany. In Sochi too, the Dutch have a realistic chance of a half dozen gold medals on the big oval.

They won more long-track speedskating medals than any other nation in Vancouver, and federation sporting director Arie Koops said the only way forward is to become even more dominating.

"The goal is to improve on Vancouver. And considering our current level of form, that is a realistic goal," he told The Associated Press.

Read more: Dutch have it all to dominate the Olympic oval- by Raf Casert

Global Economy Turmoil: Nervous Markets Rattle in China, Turkey, USA, Mexico, Europe and Argentina - by Richard Barley

A trouble shared is a trouble halved, or so the saying goes. But the troubles are piling up quickly for emerging markets.

Jitters about China, the meltdown in the Turkish lira, violent protests in Ukraine and the plummeting Argentine peso—underlaid with continuing nerves about the withdrawal of U.S. monetary stimulus—have all combined to hit risk appetite. The problems aren't particularly new and don't have much in common, but the combination is proving toxic.

The biggest repercussions have been in the foreign-exchange markets, where even currencies of countries with relative fundamental strengths, such as the Polish zloty and the Mexican peso, have started to show signs of strain. Pressures have also emerged in asset classes that have so far remained resilient, such as U.S.-dollar-denominated emerging-market bonds. That will understandably make investors nervous.

But some of the concerns may ease. China is seeking to shift from an economy led by investment to one driven by consumption. This is such a vast and complex process that worries about how it is progressing will be with us for a long time yet. The small dip in China's manufacturing purchasing managers index that some cite as a key reason for the market turmoil seems just a pretext.

Ukraine and Argentina both look worrying, but their impact on global financial markets should be limited. If other Latin American or Eastern European currencies get hit, but are supported by relatively strong economies, that could make them look good value in time.

Turkey bears watching closely. The solution to the continuing selloff in the Turkish lira—which Friday hit a fresh record low of 2.33 to the dollar—seems clear: the Central Bank of Turkey needs to raise interest rates. But political turmoil means it is unwilling to do so; its interventions in support of the lira are inadequate in the meantime.

This could cause larger problems. Turkish companies have large foreign-debt exposures, and the lira's slide could cause balance-sheet strains. That suggests that the central bank will ultimately have to hike rates to avoid a bigger crisis. But the situation could get much more uncomfortable before that happens.

Meanwhile, the risk aversion in developed markets smacks of using the situation to exit some very popular and profitable bets. Southern European government bonds and stocks, hybrid securities that blend features of equity and debt and subordinated bank bonds have all had a strong start to the year; but they are also volatile. No wonder investors might take the chance to step back.

Read more: Heard on the Street: Emerging Mix Rattles Nervous Markets - WSJ.com

The Netherlands Try To Cure 'Dutch Disease': Welfare State - by Elise Hilton

Dutch River Scene

Far too few governments rein in their countries’ bloated welfare states before disaster strikes. As a result, some citizens eventually suffer the economic equivalent of a heart attack: wrenching declines in living standards as they are victimized by unsustainable programs’ endgame. Greece and the city of Detroit are only the most recent grim examples.

Many more suffer from the meager growth and barely rising incomes that result from the toxic combination of government overspending, burdensome regulations, and corrosive taxation. Much of Europe fits this category of economic stagnation.

Occasionally, however, governments stage successful retreats from welfare-state dysfunction. Canada reduced spending by over 8% of GDP in the 1990’s, and the United States reduced non-military spending by 5% of GDP beginning in the mid-1980’s – a trend sustained by center-right and center-left governments alike.

fare dependency and restore work incentives, it is worth noting – especially when that country is the Netherlands, which built one of the world’s most expansive welfare states in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Recently, the Netherlands’ King Willem-Alexander, delivering his first annual address to Parliament, said, “Our labor market and system of public services no longer fully meet the demands of the twenty-first century….The classical welfare state is slowly but surely evolving into a participation society.”

That represents a genuinely remarkable shift. From the 1960’s and 1970’s on, those writing about the Netherlands often lamented the “Dutch disease.” There were so many generous subsidies, grants, and transfer payments – aimed at everyone from the truly needy to artists unable to sell their work – that after-tax wages were often barely higher than benefits. So people rarely returned to work after they lost or left a job, or did so in the underground economy, with its unreported cash payments.

Whether one considered the Dutch welfare state humane and generous, or bloated and foolhardy, its largesse took a heavy toll on the economy. But unlike, say, the French, the Dutch have responded to their past excesses with a series of policies designed to promote a return to work in the formal labor market. Indeed, they deserve an orange-hued salute for innovative reforms that governments worldwide might usefully emulate in the interest of maintaining a targeted, effective, and affordable safety net.

For example, disability insurance has become a huge, rapidly growing problem in many countries, despite the dramatic decline in the share of workers in physically demanding and dangerous jobs like construction and manufacturing. To stem the dramatic rise in disability payments, the Dutch now require firms with high claim rates to pay more for disability insurance, thereby creating a strong incentive to ensure greater workplace safety.

But reducing disability claims (and thus payments) is only half of the equation. The other half is returning those who can do so to gainful employment. (In America, fewer than 1% of the disabled return to work.) Early intervention and informational campaigns about return-to-work options are promising possibilities. Much economic research shows that job skills deteriorate the longer one is away from work; so retraining, information, and re-entry programs are very important.

Similarly, the Dutch have embraced welfare reform, much as the United States did in 1996, when a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, and a Republican Congress agreed on time limits, as well as work and training requirements. As a result, the Dutch welfare system now requires beneficiaries to show proof of an active job search prior to eligibility; to perform work or volunteer community service while receiving benefits; and to take a job even if it requires a long commute.

America’s 1996 welfare reform grew out of initiatives in the US state of Wisconsin. And, just as Wisconsin’s reform proved to be a model that was successfully adopted nationally, so reforms in one European Union country could spur policy innovations elsewhere in the EU and around the world. And contagious successful policy reforms are precisely what Europe and most of the world need.

To see why, consider the tax rate necessary to pay for social benefits, which equals the replacement rate (the average level of benefits relative to taxpayer incomes) multiplied by the dependency ratio (the share of the population receiving the benefits). The higher the replacement rate and/or dependency ratio, the higher the tax rate needed to pay for the benefits.

What is absolutely certain is that the dependency ratio will rise virtually everywhere, owing to inexorable demographic trends. The combination of rising life expectancy, lower fertility rates, and, in some countries (including the US), the retirement of the post-World War II baby-boom generation, implies a rapid increase in the old-age dependency ratio.

The US, for example, will go from one retiree for every three workers today to a 1:2 ratio in the next three decades. Italy and Germany will have a 1:1 ratio. And the share of China’s population that will be over 65 a generation from now will be larger than in the US.

Common-sense policy reforms that ought to be adopted for their own sake, like the Dutch disability and welfare reforms, will provide a second dividend by lowering the dependency ratio. That will not be enough to maintain sound public finances indefinitely. But, by demonstrating cures to the “Dutch disease,” the Netherlands is giving all of us an invaluable lesson.

Read more: The Netherlands Try To Cure 'Dutch Disease': Welfare State | Acton PowerBlog

Netherlands: Apple rumored to be planning new European data center in Eemshaven

Apple's infrastructure team is believed to have been focused on the region as a possible expansion location for some time, according to a report from iPhoneClub.nl. The project, code named "Saturn," could bring as many as 200 new jobs to the area.

Eemshaven is a seaport in the Netherlands' Groningen province which has recently become a popular destination for international technology companies seeking an infrastructural foothold in Europe. The port is home to numerous power generating stations, including a 156-megawatt wind farm, and is also the landing point for a high-capacity transatlantic fiber optic cable managed by India's Tata Communications.

Search giant Google currently operates a 10,000 square meter facility in Eemshaven, and Microsoft has begun construction on a similarly-sized datacenter of its own in the area. Microsoft's new datacenter, which is thought to be representative of the type of facility Apple would construct, is being built at a cost of €2 billion ($2.7 billion).

Apple has been on a datacenter construction spree of late. The company completed a $1 billion facility in Maiden, North Carolia in 2012, and is currently in the process of opening similar sites in Prineville, Oregon and Reno, Nevada.

Apple will reportedly make a final decision on whether to officially add the Eemshaven site to its roster by the end of the year.

For more go to Apple Insider

Middle East: BDS leaders say Palestinian human rights are compatible with Israeli Jewish future

The American Studies Association’s (ASA) move to censure Israel sparked a deluge of pro-Israel responses claiming that the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement seeks the “destruction” of Israel.

It is a line of attack that conjures up the ghosts of the Holocaust to many Jews.

For Israel advocates, destroying Israel would mean destroying Jews’ place in the Middle East.  Cary Nelson, one of the most prominent scholarly voices against the academic boycott of Israel, distilled this type of  anti-BDS argument in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed published in response to the ASA boycott and the Modern Language Association convention.

“The fundamental goal of the boycott movement is not the peaceful coexistence of two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian, but rather the elimination of Israel,” he wrote. “One nation called Palestine would rule from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Those Jews not exiled or killed in the transition to an Arab-dominated nation would live as second-class citizens without fundamental rights.”

But a survey of some of the leading Palestinian supporters of BDS reveals a starkly different vision: that of a shared future in Israel/Palestine, where the rights of everyone are upheld.

“Freedom, justice and equality, the ultimate goals of the BDS movement, would only ‘destroy’ an unjust regime, not harm any humans. BDS categorically opposes all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, and consistently advocates for equal rights for all humans,” said Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian human rights activist and a co-founder of the global, Palestinian-led BDS movement for Palestinian rights.

“The Zionist paranoia, whether real or an Oscar-winning act, about BDS aiming to ‘remove Jewish Israelis from the region’ is clearly based on myth and a long record of Zionist ethnic cleansing and destruction of Palestinian society. Criminals always fear that their long oppressed victims will resort to the same criminal techniques if they gain power and turn the tables.”

Note EU-Digest: Human rights abuses by Israel and by Palestinian security forces in the West Bank grew during 2013, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2014.

Israeli forces killed more Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and demolished more Palestinian homes than in 2012. Israel continued to build settlements in the West Bank, violating international law. Palestinian security forces in both the West Bank and Gaza enjoyed virtual impunity from criminal prosecution despite credible allegations of torture. In Gaza, Israel and Egypt impeded rebuilding of the devastated economy by blocking virtually all exports. Israeli and Palestinian security services in the West Bank and Gaza arrested people arbitrarily and unlawfully restricted people from protesting.

“The US talked a lot about peace last year, but said precious little about the victims of Israel’s massive campaign of home demolitions in the West Bank and the Negev,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The Palestinian Authority’s security forces beat West Bank residents protesting the negotiations with Israel, and Hamas security officials threatened and abused Gaza activists calling for peaceful change.”

In the 667-page report, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries. Syria’s widespread killings of civilians elicited horror but few steps by world leaders to stop it, Human Rights Watch said. A reinvigorated doctrine of “responsibility to protect” seems to have prevented some mass atrocities in Africa. Majorities in power in Egypt and other countries have suppressed dissent and minority rights. And Edward Snowden’s revelations about US surveillance programs reverberated around the globe.
 
Read more: BDS leaders say Palestinian human rights are compatible with Israeli Jewish future | Mondoweiss

USA Politics - the Koch Brothers - Conservative Money and Influence in America

Looking inside one of the biggest political operations in the country – a sprawling network of politically active nonprofit groups backed by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch and other conservative donors showed some interesting facts.

Working with Robert Maguire, a researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics who tracks nonprofits, we calculated that a coalition of 17 groups raised at least $407 million in the 2012 election cycle. Much of that was spent on get-out-the-vote efforts and ads attacking President Obama and congressional Democrats.

Tracing the flow of money required pouring through hundreds of pages of tax returns and mapping out the connections between the groups. Much of the money was transferred to LLC subsidiaries, known as disregarded entities, that are wholly owned by the recipient groups. The network also gave millions of dollars to other outside groups allied with the GOP.

For more details on how the funds moved through the network, check out The Washington Post's visualization by clicking on the link below.

Read more in the Washington Post

Creation or evolution? - who has the answer? Maybe the answer lies in believing what you can't explain.

Pew Research recently conducted a poll examining the mindset of then American people with regard to the evolution/creation issue

One finding in particular stands out: despite 100 years of relentless brainwashing and indoctrination, just 32% of the American people believe that man evolved through entirely natural processes, with no direction or assistance from God.

Thirty-three percent of of them hold the biblical view, that man is today just as he was when he came into being at the dawn of creation, and another 24% believe that while man evolved, God was directing every step in the evolutionary advance of life.

Evolutionists and creationists have many differences, but they share one common trait: they tend to oversimplify their explanations of the process by which life began. Evolutionists are always trying to find evidence that shows the evolutionary process is a natural rule of physics.

Scientists have a bias toward believing that the atoms that make up DNA naturally fall into place if given the right environment. We are truly dealing with numbers that go far beyond our ability to comprehend. Scientists say the universe might be a few billion years old. They have no way of knowing what was going on a trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, or decillion years ago. If 1 sexoctingentillion were written out, it would be the number1 followed by 2421 zeros.

Only God could tell us what the universe was like sexoctingentillion years ago. In the battle of odds between creationism and evolution there is no way for man to determine a mathematical likelihood for either side. The laws of chance concerning the formation of complex life and the existence of a divine Creator are so astronomically large, our limited knowledge makes us unqualified to judge this contest.

The Evolutionists and Creationists often speculate on the probability of life forming on other planets. Every time a probe explores one of the planets or moons in our solar system, engineers are looking for evidence of life.

Mars is often cited as possibly having the right conditions for the formation of life. Even if Mars were a mirror copy of Earth, with perfect conditions for supporting living organisms, it would still be highly unlikely that any type of life would form on that planet.

The odds are stacked so heavily against the formation of the complex molecular structures, the discovery of living organisms in any other region of our own solar system would only serve to prove the existence of a divine Creator.

It is reckless for someone to think it is a simple feat  to have 3 billion amino acid molecules perfectly link up to form the basic genetic code of life. All scientists should find themselves forced to use the term "miracle" when assessing the odds for life forming on any planet.

In the game of chance, evolutionists are way ahead of themselves. Not only are their missing links missing, but so are a thousand other steps that would require non-living matter to form into life.

Creationists make their oversimplification error by claiming the world around us can easily be described by the information found in the Bible, which they frequently try to portray as an all-inclusive scientific document.

Also, despite the claims by some Christians, God's Holy Word is not a book of science. The Bible is factual, but because it makes such broad statements about our complex world, it is counterproductive to try to go beyond its original text.

Christians going through the Bible and gleaning out statements that appear to be scientific in nature is just not believable to non-Christians This type of activity seems noble, but it invites critics to point out how these examples seem to conflict with known scientific truths. Creationists often claim that the deep oceanic trenches are fountains of the deep that eject most of the water that comprised the Noadic Flood.

Geologists point out that the Earth's core is hot just up to its crust and these trillions of gallons of water would come out as super-heated steam. Therefore because God could have acted supernaturally at any point in history, it's dangerous to assume that any Bible passage can be explained with scientific methodology.

Both creationists and evolutionists frequently present arguments that deal with the odds of life forming by chance. While making their arguments, they often set boundaries that really should not be set. Time limits is one of the most common of these boundaries. If time before is eternal, it is not honest to establish  time windows for the occurrence of certain events.

Evolutionists fail to take into account the vast number of factors that would have prevented life from forming by chance.

If Darwinists devoted more research to the unlikelihood of the evolutionary process occurring, they would probably be more open to the existence of a divine Creator.

Every time a feature is added to an organism, the odds against its existence by chance climb all the higher. Because life would have had to scale this mountain of impossibility to get where it is now, we would have wonder how many zeros are behind the number of improbability.

We are truly dealing with numbers that go far beyond our ability to comprehend. Scientists say the universe might be a few billion years old. They have no way of knowing what was going on a trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, or decillion years ago. If a sexoctingentillion were written out, it would be the number 1 followed by 2421 zeros.

Only God could tell us what the universe was like sexoctingentillion years ago. In the battle of odds between creationism and evolution there is no way for man to determine a mathematical likelihood for either side. The laws of chance concerning the formation of complex life and the existence of a divine Creator are so astronomically large, our limited knowledge makes us unqualified to judge this contest.

When we talk about faith to believe in what you can not explain, we are not talking about blind faith in a deity that you cannot prove or disprove. This type of faith is the direct result of the working of the Holy Spirit.

The Word of God gives several examples of how the Holy Spirit is a vital factor in leading people to the truth.

"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things of the Spirit for they are foolish to him, and he cannot understand them for they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14). "You are a new creature in Christ, with the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. There are two members warring against each other. The Spirit which is quickened, or alive, and your sinful nature.

The Holy Spirit works within you, both to help you think the way God thinks and to overcome the power sin has in your flesh.

The apostle Paul tells us not to grieve for the Holy Spirit that is at work within us" (Eph. 4:30). "And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for He who comes to God must believe that he is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him" (Heb. 11:6).

With faith being given out freely to all who seek the  truth, Christians have no need to be in the business of mixing science with religion.

And with prayer, we have the ability to supernaturally win over even the most stubborn evolutionists. Creationism is harmful,  because it distracts from what is clearly a better way to understand the reality of believing that what can not be explained.

 EU-Digest

Rich versus Poor: Inequality rises across the Globe: 85 richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world

The world's wealthiest people aren't known for travelling by bus, but if they fancied a change of scene then the richest 85 people on the globe – who between them control as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population put together – could squeeze onto a single double-decker bus.

The extent to which so much global wealth has become corralled by a virtual handful of the so-called 'global elite' is exposed in a new report from Oxfam today January 20. It warned that those richest 85 people across the globe share a combined wealth of Euro 1.22 trillion ( US $ 1.65 trillion), as much as the poorest 3.5 billion of the world's population.

The Oxfam report lists five key policies governments can adopt to reduce inequality and recommends that the mix of policies should be tailored to the national context. The five are: universal health and education; progressive taxation; removal of barriers to equal rights and opportunities for women; land reform and income support programs.

Read more: Inequality rises across the G20 as economic growth fails to trickle down to poorest — Oxfam America

NSA Spy Network: Obama NSA reforms receive mixed response in Europe and Brazil - by Ian Traynor, Philip Oltermann and Patrick Wintour

NSA SPY Network

Viviane Reding, vice-president of the European commission, said Obama's speech was a step in the right direction: "I am encouraged to see that non-US citizens stand to benefit from spying safeguards. In data protection we trust. I agree with President Obama [that] more work will be needed in future. I look forward to seeing these commitments followed by legislative action."

Jan-Phillip Albrecht, the German MEP who is steering through the European parliament stiffer rules on the transfer of data to the US, dismissed the White House initiative. "It is not sufficient at all," he said. "The collection of foreigners' data will go on. There is almost nothing here for the Europeans. I see no further limitations in scope. There is nothing here that leads to a change of the situation."

Claude Moraes, the British Labour MEP who authored last week's report by the European parliament on the NSA issue, was mildly more complimentary. "There is substantial acknowledgment that the NSA has caused the deepest concern and anxiety in Europe. But there will be a big pause before we can judge whether the protections will be forthcoming for EU citizens," he said.

Moraes singled out the issue of judicial redress for EU citizens in the US courts if they feel their data privacy rights have been abused. "He didn't actually give any substantial proposals in the foreign area," he said.

Read more: Obama NSA reforms receive mixed response in Europe and Brazil | World news | theguardian.com

EU-US Trade Negotiations: French senators strongly attack trade deal - What about Dutch Parliament? Asleep?

During a debate in the French Senate, all political parties harshly criticized the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), but the French government defended the potential deal, EurActiv France reports.

The minister in charge of foreign trade, Nicole Bricq, admit with regret that France was the country where the mobilisation against what they call the 'transatlantic treaty', is the strongest.

A debate, which took place in the Senate on Thursday (9 January), showed bipartisan opposition to the agreement and the government found itself somewhat isolated on the topic after facing criticism from
speakers from all political sides.

he former French interior minister, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, reminded that the idea for a partnership was first and foremost an American idea, as the US wished to rebalance the trade surplus that the EU had with the country and bring back jobs to their continent.

“The companies’ interests are not always those of the states," warned  a politician, who considers that the currency issue should have been settled before signing a trade agreement.

“We should have put in place a transatlantic snake in the tunnel in order to establish, softly, a real parity between the euro and the dollar. We cannot talk about free trade when the parity between euro and
dollar go from one to two in ten years only.”

In his opinion, this aspect should be included in the negotiations, but the minister Bricq replied it was not on the agenda.

André Gattolin, a Green MP, also strongly opposed the partnership project, said that Europe had its own identity and should preserve it.  He also put forward the impact it would have on inequality in different European countries.

“We are promised 0.5% growth but only some zones will take advantage of it like the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp,” the MP went on to say.

“As it is, this project is bad and we saw with the NSA scandal that the dice are loaded,” he added.

Jean Bizet from the centre-right opposition, UMP, expressed concern about the food and agriculture aspects of the deal and notably the milk file, as cheese imports increase in France and milk producing regions grow anxious at the end of milk quotas in 2015.

The sharpest remark came from a member of the government's socialist majority, Marie-Noëlle Lienemann.

“I am very hostile to this treaty,” she said. “We are forced to note that happy globalisation did not happen! … multinational companies are in a situation that we cannot regulate,” she added.

The MP was sceptical about the growth perspectives, too. She added that the promised growth points could be reached with a recovery policy supported by large-scale work projects.

Read more: French senators strongly attack EU-US trade deal | EurActiv

EU-US Trade Negotiations: EU sovereignty ‘at risk’ if judicial independence is surrendered to multinational corporations

More than 200 organisations across the EU, including the TUC, Greenpeace and War on Want, have written a joint letter to European and American trade negotiators demanding the removal of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process from the final treaty.

“ISDS is a one-way street by which corporations can challenge government policies, but neither governments nor individuals are granted comparable rights to hold corporations accountable,” they wrote.

Campaign groups in Britain are due to put their concerns to the Department of Business  this Wednesday, while an Early Day Motion in Parliament, signed by MPs from all parties, calls for the trade talks to be frozen until the issue is resolved.

The European Commission and the British Government insisted the deal would include safeguards to prevent misuse by corporations, thus guaranteeing the right of EU governments to “pursue legitimate public policy objectives such as social, environmental, security, public health and safety” without the risk of being sued.

ISDS has been a long-established principle of multilateral trade deals between countries and is a process designed to ensure investors are not discriminated against by governments or biased judicial systems. It allows companies who believe they have been unfairly treated to take states to a neutral arbitration panel that can award compensation for loss of earnings.

But in recent years, campaigners claim, it has been used by large multinational companies to sue governments acting in the public interest. The Slovak Republic was forced to pay $22m (£13.4m) damages after the government reversed the liberalisation of its health-insurance market.

Campaigners say the arbitration panels are unaccountable and are not likely to assess issues of national interest when making decisions.

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, who tabled the parliamentary motion, said the move would “overturn decades of laws and regulations formed through democratic processes on both sides of the Atlantic”.

Former UK Labour minister John Healey, who chairs the British parliamentary group on EU-US trade and investment, said: “It is not clear ISDSs are justified at all when the agreement will be struck between countries with some of the most advanced and stable legal systems in the world.”

Frances O’Grady, TUC general secretary, said: “These clauses could thwart attempts by a future government to bring our health service back towards public ownership.”

Charlie Kronick, senior climate adviser at Greenpeace, said the group feared ISDS provisions could be used to prevent the EU from restricting imports of US diesel made from polluting tar sands in Canada.

But EU trade spokesman John Clancy said the fears of campaigners were entirely misplaced. “The sad irony is that the many critics of investment protection and in particular ISDS are actually arguing for us to maintain the status quo which is at the heart of the problem.” He added: “The EU wants to close down such loopholes in a future EU-US deal by spelling out what is and is not possible, improving transparency and creating modern, state-of-the art investment arrangements.”

The question which remains ignored by the EU Commission and EU Parliament  is how the EU can even  negotiate with a partner like the US, where most  of the political establishment is now indirectly on the payroll of multi-national and local corporations and which has a spy-network in place which is collecting personal data not only from EU-citizens, but also is able to extrapolate strategic negotiation information from the EU-trade negotiation team wherever they may be. 

To anyone with at least some intelligence these trade negotiations have, so far, not been carried out on a level playing field and the EU better take off their "blinders" .    

EU-Digest

The Netherlands: French President François Hollande visiting Netherlands as rumors swirl about affair with actress

French President François Hollande

French President François Hollande will make a formal visit to the Netherlands on tomorrow January 20^th, the Dutch Ministry of General Affairs had announced.

Hollande’s visit, the Ministry said, will be in light of “further strengthening the ties between the Netherlands and France, with special attention to economic relations.” Hollande will visit with King Willem-Alexander and Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Hague.

President François Hollande visit to the Netherlands comes as he endures a barrage of negative publicity after his 48-year-old first lady partner journalist was admitted a week ago to Paris’ Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital for rest. 

President Hollande's Press office said she had experienced a “crisis of nerves” upon learning of the report in Closer magazine last week that the 59-year-old president has been having an affair with Movie actress Ulie Gayet, 41.

Almere-Digest

Russia Winter Olympics: Gay people should feel comfortable at the Sochi Olympics says President Putin

Gay people should feel comfortable at the Sochi Olympics but “leave children in peace,” Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

In June, Putin signed into law a bill forbidding the promotion of homosexuality to minors, sparking months of controversy ahead of the February 7-23 event in Sochi.

The law’s proponents argue that it is aimed at protecting children from harmful influences, but critics allege the move restricts freedom of speech and is part of a broader crackdown on Russia’s gay community.

Gay sex is not a crime in Russia, so gay people can “feel calm, at ease, but leave children in peace, please,” Putin said at a meeting with Olympic volunteers in the mountain village of Krasnaya Polyana, the base outside Sochi for Olympic snow sports.

The remarks come a day after Putin repeated his vow that there would be “no discrimination” at the Games. He has previously said that Russia will “do everything” to ensure a warm welcome for Sochi guests “regardless … of sexual orientation.”

Russia's Interior Ministry, which controls the police, has vowed to enforce the controversial anti-gay law at the Olympics. There will also be tight restrictions on protests, which are confined to a park in a small town that lies more than 12 kilometers from any Olympic venues.

U.S. President Barack Obama will not attend the Games, and his nomination of two gay former athletes to his country’s delegation has been widely interpreted as a comment on the Russian law.

Note EU-Digest: Let's not make a mountain out of a molehill . Gay sex is not a crime in Russia, but promoting sex  - whatever kind of sex - involving minors is not acceptable in any country.  

EU-Digest

Netherlands: Dutch business leaders slam cabinet polices, support at record low

Dutch business leaders are extremely unhappy with the current right-left coalition's policies and think the cabinet is failing to tackle the crisis.

Employers' organisation VNO-NCW questioned 471 company bosses about their attidudes to the VVD-PvdA government and current policy. In total, the cabinet scored just 4.9 out of 10 - a record low according to the Telegraaf.

Prime minister Mark Rutte was rated 5.4, well below most of his senior ministers. Top ranked minister was finance chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem from the PVDA (Labour Party) government coalition member, who scored 6.6.

Read more: DutchNews.nl - Dutch business leaders slam cabinet polices, support at record low

European Super Markets: : Carrefour Buoyed by France, Spain - by Christina Passariello

French retail giant Carrefour reported improved fourth-quarter sales in France and Spain, two of the countries hardest hit by European's economic slowdown, but doubts remain if the turnaround is solid.

Carrefour said Thursday that fourth-quarter sales rose 3.2% on an organic basis, stripping out exchange rate fluctuations, acquisitions and disposals. On a reported basis, sales fell to €22.2 billion ($30.2 billion) for the period—down from €22.85 billion a year earlier as a result of weaker currencies in Brazil and Argentina. Carrefour competes with Tesco PLC for the title of world's second-largest retailer behind Wal-Mart Stores. 

 

Sales grew faster in France than in any quarter since 2007, Chief Financial Officer Pierre-Jean Sivignon said. Stripping out gasoline sales, sales in Carrefour's biggest market grew 1.7%. "We had good momentum in all our formats," Mr. Sivignon said, from hypermarkets to convenience stores. 

Carrefour's performance in France has been at the core of Chief Executive Georges Plassat's strategy since he took the helm of the company over a year and a half ago. The mantra in the sector is that a retailer must be strong in its home market before it can succeed abroad. Mr. Plassat has revived Carrefour in France with a clear emphasis on low-prices and store renovations.

Yet analysts fixated on the fact that the French sales increase was lower than its third-quarter comeback, when sales rose 3%. "Sales at hypermarkets were slightly disappointing," said Citigroup nalyst Alastair Johnston. Mr. Sivignon said sales in November lifted the entire fourth quarter.

In Spain, Carrefour logged 1.2% sales growth in the fourth quarter—the first time it has moved into positive territory in "many years," said Mr. Johnston. Spanish consumers significantly cut back on their shopping bills during the country's economic crisis. At the end of last year, some got extra spending money: the payment of Christmas bonuses to civil servants that were suspended in 2012—which Carrefour said boosted its sales.

Further abroad, Carrefour had stronger growth in Brazil, its second-largest market.

Sales increased 6.8%, excluding the heavy penalty of a weak Brazilian real. Carrefour opened several new stores and is considering listing its Brazilian unit on the local stock market to finance further expansion, Mr. Sivignon said. "We will grow in Brazil and an IPO is one of the items we have in our toolbox to finance expansion in the coming years," he said.

But sales in China, long Carrefour's second growth engine alongside Brazil, didn't shine. Carrefour cited a "slowing consumption environment" for its 3.1% drop in sales at stores open at least a year. "Asia saw the most disappointing performance," said Sanford Bernstein analyst Bruno Monteyne.

Read more: Carrefour Buoyed by France, Spain - WSJ.com

EU Millitary Cooperation: Finland in 200 million-euro used tank deal with the Netherlands

 The Finnish Defence Forces will upgrade its rolling stock with used tanks from the Netherlands. The new equipment will be delivered in 2015.

The military deal will see Finland purchase 100 used German made Leopard 2A6 battle tanks for 200 million euros from the Netherlands.

Finnish army officials are well-acquainted with the model, since it has been using 139 older Leopard 2A4 tanks. The vast majority of the older model tanks were acquired used from Germany between 2002 and 2004; more were purchased in 2009.

Colonel Jukka Valkeajärvi said that the newer 2A6 tank has far better performance capabilities than the older model.

“We’re talking about two completely different tanks. Roughly said, the current tank is quite good, but its performance is not quite what it should be nowadays. This 2A6 model is a 21st century tank,” Valkeajärvi added.

The army colonel would not say what would become of the older stock, as a separate decision needs to be made on its fate. Older tanks acquired from the former Soviet Union and Germany were taken out of use to make way for the Leopard 2A4 tanks.

Note: It would be fascinating to know what use Finland can have for these old Dutch tanks. Certainly not to stop Russian tank forces. Anyway, it seems the Dutch must be laughing all the way to the bank 

Read more: Finland in 200 million-euro used tank deal with the Netherlands | Yle Uutiset | yle.fi