The Netherlands - Almere, one of Europe's newest and most modern Cities celebrates it's 40th anniversary

Almere - Europe most modern city celebrates its 40th anniversary

From the moment of its establishment in 1976, Almere has been one of the fastest growing cities in Europe.

It was initially developed as a suburban area in the east of Amsterdam, however, it has grown into the status of being Holland’s most exemplary new town.

In just 40 years it has attracted over 200,000 residents and approximately 17,000 businesses.

Almere is the largest city in the province of Flevoland and now also the seventh largest city in the Netherlands.

This November Almere celebrates it's 40th anniversary.

Almere-Digest congratulates the Municipality and Citizen's of Almere!

Almere-Digest

The Netherlands: Dutch 'JFK' aims to thwart far-right's election hopes

Jesse. F.Klaver a bright and rising Dutch politician

Some refer to him as the Justin Trudeau of Dutch politics, to others there are echoes of a young John F Kennedy.

But Green party leader Jesse Klaver is on a mission to put his own stamp on the Dutch political landscape as an antidote to rising right-wing xenophobia ahead of next year's elections.

As the only child of an absentee father of Moroccan descent and a Dutch-Indonesian mother, Mr Klaver, 30, knows what it's like to grow up in The Netherlands as an outsider.

The Dutch parliament's youngest ever party leader, Mr Klaver was raised mainly by his grandparents in social housing, in a sprawling flatlands suburb of the southern city of Roosendaal.

Unlike "what certain politicians will lead you to believe, The Netherlands is an immigrant country," Mr Klaver told AFP referring to his political arch-foe, Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders.

"I am a product of that immigration," added the curly-haired, olive-skinned Klaver, who took over the party helm last year.

His campaign for the March 2017 polls will focus on stopping what Mr Klaver calls "the right-wing wind that's blowing through all of Europe".

Immigration is just one of the many topics on which he and Wilders - his adversary with the blonde-bouffant hair - frequently cross swords in the parliament's lower house in The Hague.

Next week, Mr Wilders goes on trial on charges of hate speech and discrimination for having said at a campaign rally a few years ago that he wants "fewer Moroccans" in the country.

So it's no surprise perhaps that Mr Klaver says: "I am completely, and on all aspects, in disagreement with Geert Wilders".

Mr Klaver first rose to prominence in 2009 when he was elected at only 23 to become the youngest-ever member of the influential Social and Economical Council of The Netherlands, which advises government and parliament on key policy.

Six years later, he was elected unopposed as the leader of GroenLinks (the Green-Left party), which has been haemorrhaging voters since a disastrous 2012 campaign in the previous elections.

From garnering only four seats in that vote, the latest opinion polls from the Dutch Peilingwijzer website show the party could now capture between 11 and 15 seats.

"The 'new kid on the block' has given the party new energy," the NRC Handelsblad daily wrote recently.

With Wilders's Freedom Party (PVV) and the Liberals (VVD) of Prime Minister Mark Rutte running neck-and-neck in the polls at around 25-29 seats, the young Klaver could well emerge in a "kingmaker" role in next year's elections.

He has already called for closer cooperation between Dutch leftwing parties like Labour, the progressive D66 and the Socialist Party, seeking to form a powerful bloc against any potential government led by Mr Rutte's Liberals, who will need a majority coalition to reign in the 150-seat house.

"I want my country back," says Mr Klaver.

Often compared to Canada's liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to whom Mr Klaver bears a striking resemblance, the young Dutch politician himself names John F Kennedy as his biggest inspiration.

Even his full name, "Jesse Feras Klaver" echoes the initials of the famous US president, who was shot dead in Dallas in 1963.

Kennedy "was a man who said you should stand by your norms and principles," said Mr Klaver, who has several pictures of a youthful Kennedy on his walls alongside those of his own wife and two young sons.

He subscribes to many of the ideas of celebrated French economist Thomas Piketty - the author of an unlikely bestseller on capitalism - including that globalisation has created an unequal society and an unequal concentration of wealth. And he was behind an invitation to Piketty to address the Dutch parliament in 2014.

"We need to make Europe work for everybody, not just for a small group of rich people who have been lucky and are just getting richer," Mr Klaver said.

And he is reminded every morning of his mission as he clasps his coffee mug, engraved with JFK's words: "One person can make a difference, and everyone should try".

Read more: Dutch 'JFK' aims to thwart far-right's election hopes, Government & Economy - THE BUSINESS TIMES

The Netherland: 22 'pointless' US nuclear bombs at Dutch airbase - by Bruno Waterfield

A Dutch airbase houses 22 tactical nuclear bombs which belong to the United States NATO controlled arsenal as part of the old "Cold War"  military arsenal described by the country's former Dutch Prime Minister  Lubbers as "absolutely pointless".

The revelation and criticism from Lubbers could once again reignite the European nuclear issue as Dutch opposition politicians, on both the left and right, demand that the weapons are removed.

Note EU-Digest: lf nuclear war would break out in any area, be it in Russia, EU or the US, one can expect that there will be immediate retaliation by opposing forces to wipe out the others nuclear stockpiles, such as the one in the Netherlands. For the Netherlands this would certainly mean  "Sayonara" to the world it is part of today.

Almere-Dgest

Ukraine-Netherlands:Time running out on Ukraine referendum - by Janene Pieters

The Dutch government is running out of time for finding a solution on what to do about ratifying the associatioin agreement between the European Union and Ukraine.

The deadline is November 1st. And it doesn't seem likely that a decision will be made on Friday, NU.nl reports.

"Today and in the coming days we are considerably going to talk about it", Minsiter Bert Koenders said, according to NU. "We still have a few days. We'll try to find a solution to the last moment."

Prime Minister Mark Rutte failed to find support among the opposition parties for a compromise. The compromise entails still ratifying the treaty, but also addressing the concerns of the voter majority that voted against the treaty in the Ukraine referendum in April.

The government wants a binding amendment added to the treaty which explicitly states that the treaty is not a prelude to EU membership for the Ukraine, that the Netherlands has the right to refrain from military cooperation and that extra money will not be transferred to the east European country. 

Note Almere Digest: The military component of this treaty is what most people who voted against it in the referendum are bothered by. The reason is simple: The majority of Dutch citizens don't want to continue to be part of US military adventures like the one the Netherlands is presently involved in the Middle East. A cruel and never ending war in Syria or Iraq, which is not only a total failure, but also costing the Dutch taxpayers millions of Euros, and the result of a massive flow of millions of refugees into  the EU.  

Read more: Time running out on Ukraine referendum | NL Times

The Netherlands: Dutch PM criticized for "vagueness" on Royal family tax files - by Janene Pieters

A number of parties in the Tweede Kamer - the lower house of Dutch parliament - criticized Prime Minister Mark Rutte for the "vague" manner in which he handles files on the Royal family.
 
According to the parties, Rutte was not transparent in his information and a series of incidents involving the royals is bad for support of the monarchy, NU.nl reports.

The parties point to an alleged tax deal in which the Royal family is compensated for the taxes they pay, controversial sales of art, high maintenance costs of their  Golden Carriage and the their yacht the Groene Draeck and a high allowance crown princess Amalia will receive when she turns 18.

D66 leader Alexander Pechtold accused Rutte of making the King unnecessarily vulnerable by not being open, fair and transparent" about the Royals.
Read more: Dutch PM criticized for "vagueness" on Royal family files | NL Times

The Ideal Nation State: Free Universal Health Care, Free Quality Education and a Fair Share Tax System-does it exist?

Sounds too far fetched - not at all.

When we look at Unversal Health care there are thirty-two of the thirty-three developed nations have universal health care, with the United States being the lone exception . The following list, compiled from WHO sources where possible, shows the start date and type of  system used to implement universal health care in each developed country .

Note that universal health care does not imply government-only health care, as many countries implementing a universal health care plan continue to have both public and private insurance and medical providers.

If we look at Free Quality education and live in a country where it is not free but costly, like in the US, or if you fail to qualify for fully-funded university scholarships, consider enrolling in universities that are tuition free or universities that charge low tuition fees. Countries like Finland, Austria, Norway, Germany, and Sweden offer different types of free/low tuition schemes for international students.

scholars4dev.com has compiled information and provided links to tuition-free Colleges and Universities in these countries.

According to studyinfinland.fi: There are currently no tuition fees charged in Finland, regardless of the level of studies and the nationality of the student however tuition fees for non-EU/EEA students will be introduced from autumn 2017 onwards for English-taught Bachelor’s or Master’s programmes. Doctoral level studies will remain free of tuition fees.

Updates concerning the forthcoming non-EU tuition fees and related new scholarships options can be found at www.studyinfinland.fi/tuitionfees2017.

Remember that even when there are no tuition fees, you still need to plan your finances – you are expected to independently cover all your everyday living expenses during your studies in Finland.

At the moment, scholarships there are mainly available only for Doctoral level studies and research.

There are now a number of Universities also offering online degrees/courses for free.  The first such University is University of the People which is a tuition-free, non-profit, accredited online university dedicated to opening access to higher education globally.  University of the People offers online Associates and Bachelors Degrees in Business Administration and Computer Science.

This was followed by an initiative of MIT and Harvard called edX which is a learning platform that gives students from any country the opportunity to take free online courses offered by three premier Universities in the US – Harvard, MIT, and UC Berkeley and about 50+ Universities and institutions.

Following this trend, Coursera was introduced which is an online learning platform that partners with the top universities in the world to offer online courses in many fields of study for anyone to take, for free.

Last but not least: which countries have a Fare Share Tax System? For the US one place to turn for factual information on who pays how much percent of the total in income taxes is a report posted on the American Spectator’s blog on May 6, 2015. The data come from 2014, and are reported by the Tax Policy Center, which is the creation of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, two entities not known for right-wing sentiments. According to the IRS, in 2014 the top 1% of all income earners paid 45.7% of all federal income taxes, but earned 17.1% of all income in the U.S. The top 20% paid 83.9% of all federal income taxes, after earning 51.9% of all income in America. The middle 20% of income earners – who the American Spectator claims are the true middle class in America – paid 5.9% of all federal income taxes, but earned 14.8% of all income.

In Europe The EU Commission suggests that tax policy should be geared towards meeting more general EU policy goals. Tax policy must contribute to achieving the goal established at the Lisbon European Council of March 2000 and confirmed at the Stockholm European Council in March of this year of making the Union the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010. This means that efforts must be made to achieve a durable reduction in the overall tax burden in the EU, by ensuring a balance between cutting taxes, investing in public services and sustaining fiscal consolidation. At the same time, tax policy must be fully consistent with other EU policies such economic, employment, health and consumer protection, innovation, environmental and energy policies. But in particular tax systems must allow individuals and businesses to benefit fully from the Internal Market. This implies a need to focus on eliminating the inefficiencies due to the co-existence of 15 different tax systems within the EU and on making those tax systems simpler and more comprehensible to taxpayers.\

At the recent European Commission’s “Debate on the Future of Europe” event in Luxembourg there was a comment from the audience arguing that corruption and tax evasion in some European countries was one of the root causes of the economic crisis in Europe, and it should be up to individual member states to solve their own problems:

One thing the people can do to promote changes on any of the issues listed above is to use their voting power and their brains to vote in gthose politicians who are in favor of Free Unversal Health Care, Free Quality Education and a Fair Tax System, and vote out those who do nothing else than give you promises and more promises.

It is high time for voters around the world to clean-up those political systems which have brought us non of the above,  but instead, constant warfare, environmental disasters, while they empowered corporate entities to infiltrate and manipulate prevalent political systems.

© EU-Digest  

The Netherlands: No Justice in the Netherlands - by Judith Bergman

A court in The Hague decided on October 14 that the charges of hate speech against Dutch politician Geert Wilders, for statements he made in March 2014 at a political rally, are admissible in a court of law. It thereby rejected the Wilders' appeal to throw out the charges as inadmissible in a court of law on the grounds that these are political issues and that a trial would in fact amount to a political process. The criminal trial against Wilders will begin on Monday, October 31.

While campaigning in The Hague in March 2014, Wilders argued the need for fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands. At an election meeting in The Hague, he asked those present a number of questions, one of which was "Do you want more or fewer Moroccans?" After the crowd responded "fewer" Wilders said, "We're going to organize that."

Because of the "fewer Moroccans" statements, repeated again in an interview a few days later, Wilders will be prosecuted on two counts: First for "deliberately insulting a group of people because of their race." Second, for "inciting hatred or discrimination against these people."

Wilders' defense attorney, Geert Jan Knoops, has argued that the trial amounts to a political trial against Wilders and his party, the PVV: "Sensitive issues must be judged by public opinion or through the ballot box,", Knoops said "The Prosecutor is indirectly asking for a ruling over the functioning of the PVV and its political program. The court must not interfere with this."

As a politician, Wilders can say more than an ordinary citizen, Knoops said, arguing that Wilders used his statements to point out shortcomings in the Dutch state. "It is his duty to name shortcomings. He takes that responsibility and proposes solutions." Knoops argued that the prosecutor is limiting Wilders' freedom of speech by prosecuting him for his statements.

The court's response was that although politicians are entitled to freedom of expression, they should "avoid public statements that feed intolerance" and that the trial would determine where the border lies between politicians' freedom of expression and their obligation, as the court sees it, to avoid public statements that feed intolerance.

Other politicians, notably all from the Labour Party, have uttered the following about Moroccans without being prosecuted:

    "We also have sh*t Moroccans over here." -- Rob Oudkerk, a Dutch Labour Party (PvDA) politician.
    "We must humiliate Moroccans." -- Hans Spekman, PvDA politician.
    "Moroccans have the ethnic monopoly on trouble-making." -- Diederik Samsom, PvDA politician.

The court discarded Wilders' defense attorney's argument that the failure to prosecute any of these politicians renders the trial against Wilders discriminatory. The court said that because of the different time, place and context of the statements of other politicians, they cannot be equated with the statements of Mr. Wilders and for that reason, the court considers that there has been no infringement of the principle of equality.

The statements of those other politicians, however, were, objectively speaking, far worse in their use of language ("sh*t Moroccans") and what could be considered direct incitement ("We must humiliate Moroccans"). What other time, place and context could possibly make the above statements more acceptable than asking whether voters would like more or fewer Moroccans? And what circumstances render it legitimate to call someone "sh*t" because of their ethnic origin?

It is deeply troubling that the court already in its preliminary ruling, and before the criminal trial itself has even begun, so obviously compromises its own impartiality and objectivity. To the outside world, this court no longer appears impartial. Are other European courts also quietly submitting to jihadist values of curtailing free speech and "inconvenient" political views?

The Netherlands is a party to the European Convention of Human Rights. This means that Dutch courts are obligated to interpret domestic legislation in a way compatible with the ECHR and the case law of the European Court on Human Rights. Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights states:

    1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers...

    2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.



Read more: No Justice in the Netherlands

The Netherlands: Insurance companies face 10% ceiling on premium hikes

The financial services complaints authority says insurance companies must limit premium rises to 10% following ‘dozens’ of reports about increases of 20% and more.

Two of the complaints came from Achmea and Meeus Groep customers, who were both faced with what Kifid said were ‘exorbitant’ premium hikes.  In one case Achmea raised the premiums for a general insurance package 20.22%.

In the second, the cost of moped insurance via the  Meeús Groep went up almost 174%. The premium increase in these two cases was so far-reaching that the contracts should be considered new ones, Kifid said. And because the insurance companies had not cancelled the old contracts, they remained valid and the old premiums still applied.

Changes to current contracts should be limited in terms of their financial impact and a maximum rise of 10% would be appropriate, the organisation said in a statement.

Kifid’s recommendations are not legally binding, but are usually adopted by insurers and the organisation said it expected they would fall into line about a maximum premium hike.

Americans spent $11 billion in bank fees in 2015 — here’s how to avoid them

Some 10 million U.S. households don’t use any type of bank account for their money, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. While some people who don’t use a bank say it’s because they don’t have enough money, a third of them say it’s because they have a fear of high or unpredictable account fees. They may be right to have that concern.

Banks made about $11.2 billion in fees from consumers’ overdraft and non-sufficient fund penalties in 2015, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

And just 8% of account holders (typically those with low incomes, and who also may be young) carry overdrafts and pay about 75% of all overdraft fees, according to the CFPB.

More than two-thirds of people who consistently overdraft said they would prefer to just have their transaction declined instead, according to research from the Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonprofit based in Philadelphia. But they don’t realize they could have it that way now. Since 2010, banks have been required by law to let consumers opt in to allow their accounts to be overdrafted (if they don’t, their transactions would be declined); still, according to Pew, 52% of overdrafters don’t remember opting in. Thaddeus King, an officer for Pew’s consumer banking project, said it’s also possible to revoke permission for overdrafting, which is an option some might want to consider.

Read more: Americans spent $11 billion in bank fees in 2015 — here’s how to avoid them - MarketWatch

Spain's Socialists vote to allow Rajoy minority government

The opposition Socialists in Spain have effectively voted to allow the conservatives under Mariano Rajoy to rule as a minority government.

Party leaders decided by a majority at their meeting in Madrid to abstain when Mr Rajoy puts his Popular Party (PP) government to a vote in parliament.

The country had faced the prospect of a third general election inside a year.

But the Socialists forced out their leader, Pedro Sanchez, earlier this month after he rejected abstention.

Mr Rajoy has led a caretaker administration since losing his overall majority in an election last December. A repeat election in June failed to end the impasse but strengthened his hand. 

The Netherlands: The 2017 Dutch parliamentary elections: A fragmented picture as Rutte and Wilders draw their battle lines: by Hans Vollaard

With only five months to go until the next parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, scheduled for March 2017, the country’s political parties are gearing up for the campaign. Debates over the annual budget in September gave a glimpse into the strategies of the main characters and how the main campaign themes of healthcare, migration and the economy might play out. The precise level of support each party will achieve is hard to predict due to the volatility of Dutch elections, but a fragmented parliament and a complicated coalition formation process are likely.

The elections for the Tweede Kamer, which is the most important chamber of parliament, will take place on 15 March if the present coalition government manages to serve its full term – which would be the first time this has occurred since 2002. Parties’ names and candidate lists should be registered with the Electoral Council in the coming months. The election will use a proportional representation system across a single nationwide constituency, ensuring the share of the 150 seats each party will receive is in line with the number of votes they obtain.

At present, the Tweede Kamer harbours 15 parliamentary groups, including five splinter groups. The current government relies on the support of the right-wing VVD of Prime Minister Mark Rutte (40 seats) and the centre-left PvdA (36 seats). The latter is internationally known for its Minister of Finance, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the chair of the Eurogroup (the ministers of finance of the Eurozone countries).

The recent budget debate underlined Rutte’s status as an able survivor in Dutch politics. Since becoming prime minister after elections in 2010 and 2012, he has shown sufficient flexibility to gain majority support for a series of major reforms to sustain the welfare state in the fragmented first and second chambers of parliament. Rutte now sits at the centre of the VVD’s campaign as the party looks toward 2017.

The leaders of the opposition parties will mostly be the same as in the last election in 2012, from the Animal Rights Party to the pensioners’ party, 50Plus. Only the small GroenLinks and ChristenUnie parties have changed leaders among the main players, although the PvdA still has to decide on a new leader (with its present parliamentary leader Diederik Samson one of the candidates). A new party, Denk, which split-off from the PvdA, will campaign for the sake of migrants and their descendants. On the right, two new parties are to be led by the leading faces of the referendum campaign against the EU-Ukraine Treaty which took place in April.

At present, the VVD’s main opponent is the anti-Islam and anti-EU Party for Freedom (PVV), led by Geert Wilders, which has topped some recent polls. The VVD is in favour of fiscal austerity and a (European) free market, while it also advocates tough anti-crime and anti-terrorism policies, and is strict on migration and integration. The budget debate showed how the VVD has sought to distinguish itself from Wilders and the PVV. The party has emphasised its role in steering the Netherlands through economically difficult times and has also underlined that everyone should accept Dutch norms and values: that is, that Muslims and migrants should accept, but can also enjoy the country’s constitutional freedoms.

Read more: EUROPP – The 2017 Dutch parliamentary elections: A fragmented picture as Rutte and Wilders draw their battle lines

The Netherlands: Geert Wilders PVV drops 6 percentage points in latest election popularity political poll

The ruling VVD would be the biggest party in parliament if there was a general election tomorrow, according to a new poll from Kantar TNS, formerlly TNS Nipo.

The poll gives the right-wing Liberals 27 seats in the 150 seat parliament, or 18% of the vote. Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam PVV, which was on target to win 29 seats in the September poll, has now slumped to 23.

In June, Nipo put support for the PVV as high as 36 seats, or 24% support. The middle ground is still held by the Liberal Democrats (D66), Socialists and Christian Democrats on 18 and 16 seats respectively.

Wilders who has alligned himself closely with Donald Trump, and even went to the Republican convention to openly endorse him can expect even more backlash from that decision if Trump looses in November

Almere-digest

Middle East: "A call for Peace, Forgiveness and Hope - Not for War but for Love"

While most of us in the more affluent societies around the world are enjoying, praising, and, often also bragging (to friends, family,on social media, etc.), about the pleasures of life this corrupt consumer society has brought us, let us also not forget to pray for those who are suffering and living under unimaginable conditions of despair and hopelessness.

Often, as a result of war, created by political deceit, greed and hypocrisy. Unfortunately, all this terror of war is also often caused by not only their, but also our very own Governments.

 May your prayers, however, not be one for Revenge, but for Peace, Forgiveness and Hope. Not for War. but for Love.

Check out the video: A call for Peace

Safe sea and air traffic navigation: German-Dutch pair to aid navigation around offshore wind farms - by Ivan Shumkov

German marine aids to navigation firm Sabik Offshore GmbH has partnered with Dutch aviation obstruction lights supplier Orga Aviation BV to develop and market an integrated solution for safe sea and air traffic around offshore wind farms.

This was announced on Monday by Canada’s Carmanah Technologies Corp (TSE:CMH), which is the owner of Schwerin-based Sabik Offshore.

The German firm has been supplying marine aids to navigation and ID marking solutions for offshore wind parks since 2008. During that time, Orga has often provided aviation obstruction products to complement Sabik Offshore’s solutions. Now, they will combine their offerings in a completely integrated system for wind farms that is designed, managed and marketed by Sabik Offshore, Carmanah explained.

Sabik Offshore offers temporary marking solutions during construction as well as permanent marking of offshore wind farms. Orga Aviation, in turn, provides lighting and marking solutions for both onshore and offshore wind farms.

Read more: German-Dutch pair to aid navigation around offshore wind farms - SeeNews Renewables

The Netherlands: Dutch Discontent Could Derail General Elections - by Marcel Michelson

The Netherlands is holding general elections in March 2017, the result of which will determine the make-up of the next government.

Mark Rutte, the liberal Prime Minister, is expected to lead his party for the third time and some commentators already expect a third Rutte coalition government but this time possibly not with the PVDA Labour party.

Yet the outcome could be drastically different. The Dutch government and Rutte think they have done a good job and the last annual state budget even contained some presents despite the Dutch’ tight hold on the purse strings.

But the noise in the lowlands is not about how cosy the country is, how nice the purchasing power, how decent the unemployment figures.

It is more about fraud scandals at semi-public institutions, pocket-lining local politicians, sporadic clashes with young Dutch descendants of immigrant families, and the new waves of refugees housed in special complexes all over the country.

The old political system in the Netherlands is falling apart.

For many decades, moderate religious parties in the centre held power even though they had to merge over time to keep the majority.

There were coalitions with either the labour party to the left or the liberals to the right, with a sprinkling of other smaller parties to make up the numbers.

But cooperation is not that easy anymore and the Dutch are not as happy as they seem.

In the wake of late populist politician Pim Fortuyn, shot dead in 2002 by an animal rights activist, Geert Wilders has been garnering a lot of protests votes with his anti-immigration and anti-EU stand.

Wilders has called for a Nexit, Dutch exit from the European Union, after Brexit.

He has been joined in this call by a new party; the Forum for Democracy.

Their leader Thierry Baudet wants more referenda, about the euro for instance and immigration, so that the Dutch citizens are more involved in the political process instead of the four-yearly delegation of power to parliament.

Baudet, and other politicians, are angered that the Dutch government has not implemented the result of a consultative referendum over a treaty with Ukraine.

While less than a third of the Dutch voted in the referendum in April this year, 61 per cent rejected the EU association agreement with Ukraine. The government of Mark Rutte, holding the EU presidency at that time, has so far ignored the result and thereby angered many citizens.

Immigration is also a key issue. While the Netherlands has often prided itself on its tolerance and hospitality, behind the curtains in the living room windows there are now harsher discussions.

On the one hand, Dutch youngsters from immigrant descent are held responsible for petty crimes and proselytism, while on the other hand some descendants of immigrants are demanding the Netherlands to abandon parts of its culture and traditions that hark back to the slave trade.

The annual children’s party of Sinterklaas in December, the Dutch variant on Santa Claus, has turned into an opinion battlefield due to the presence of Black Peter, black-faced helpers. For some, these helpers put the black community in a bad light and remind them of the slavery trade, while for others the blackened-faces are no more than disguises so that the children do not recognise the family members or neighbours who assist Sinterklaas, himself unrecognisable behind a large white beard, long hair and a bishop’s mitre and costume.

Another new party, Denk, is calling for a renewed balance in the Netherlands for all groups of Dutch people, irrespective of their family roots. The founders and leaders of Denk were members of the Labour Party with Turkish ancestors.

A leader of an organisation of Dutch people with Moroccan origins will also present himself on the Denk (“Think” in Dutch) list.

Denk would like better recognition of Palestine, less obstacles to private initiatives for education, Chinese, Arab and Turkish as options in basic education and a national racism register to fight racism.

With the children of the multi-cultural society in the Netherlands calling for mutual understanding and respect and the die-hard Dutch wanting to retreat in the polders behind closed borders, there is hardly a trace left of the “consensus” so dear to Dutch political tradition.

The country once known for its outward-looking attitude and knack for international trade and business seems stuck in an endless search for personal happiness in a cosy cocoon, and increasingly disconnected from the outside world.

Read more: Dutch Discontent Could Derail General Elections - EU And Immigration In Focus

Health care: Why hospital infections are a bigger threat than HIV, influenza and tuberculosis

If you're in hospital, take care - take very good care. A new study suggests the risk of hospital infections is higher than that of a number of global infectious diseases together, including HIV and flu.

You would think it was the other way around. But six healthcare-associated infections are a bigger burden on hospitals than influenza, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis together.

The big six are pneumonia, urinary tract and surgical site infections, Clostridium difficile (CDI, which results in antibiotic-associated diarrhea), neonatal sepsis and primary bloodstream infections. And they are all things you can contract while being treated for other things in hospital.

That's the conclusion of a study on Tuesday in Plos Medicine, a peer-reviewed open-access journal published by the San Francisco-based Public Library of Science.

Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) are the "most frequent adverse event in healthcare delivery worldwide," according to the World Health Organization (WHO) - with hundreds of millions of patients affected every year across the globe.

The EU and the European Economic Area face more than 2.5 million cases of hospital infections every year, the study suggests - and they are estimated to result in a burden of about as many so-called disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) - the years of a healthy life lost. The term is used to measure the impact of diseases on the health of a population.

The study is, according to its authors, "a solid first attempt" at estimating the burden of hospital infections, including the role of comorbidities, that is coexisiting multiple diseases. They stress "the need for intensified efforts to prevent and control these infections, ultimately making European hospitals safer places."

Read more: Why hospital infections are a bigger threat than HIV, influenza and tuberculosis | Sci-Tech | DW.COM | 18.10.2016

Britain - Brexit: The Worst of All Policy Ideas - by Stephan Richter

Brexit is the UK equivalent of the United States launching the Iraq War: Noble intentions perhaps, but an utterly self-defeatist move.

Come to think of it, Brexit is the worst of all policy ideas.

The whole idea militates against longstanding notions of British pragmatism. That smart school of thought always asks one simple question: What is the fastest, least cumbersome way to obtain a payoff for a policy move?

Brexit is the exact opposite of that: It is a highly complex maneuver with a very uncertain outcome and an equally uncertain payoff. In that sense, the Brexit agenda is entirely un-British.

Indeed, Brexit is such an abstract policy “idea” that it bears all the hallmarks of literally being a proverbial brain fart coming out of the obtuse minds of leftist French intellectuals.

It is well known that they have a strong penchant for trying to make the world fit their ideological predilections even against impossible odds.

What has been unknown to date is that British conservatives evidently seek to emulate those French intellectuals.

The most charitable thing one could say about Brexit is that British ultra-“sovereigntists” – sadly including Theresa May, the country’s new Prime Minister – may have noble intentions.

But these intentions are entirely naïve. They are, in fact, as laudable as the U.S. neocons’ ill-fated desire to “bring democracy to the Middle East.” Given where the Middle East is, those intentions, even if taken at face value, are at best wholly impractical and dangerously delusional.

Top British policymakers – Messrs. Johnson, Davis and Fox, the Theresa May’s “Three Musketeers” – and their supporters in the chattering class will find out a most unpleasant fact of life soon.

Many nations in the world have far more important goals to pursue than discussing the future possibility of a potential bilateral trade deal with the British government.

No matter how often British negotiators refer to the seemingly golden fact that the UK is the world’s fifth-largest economy, it won’t account for much.

In such a world, dealing with the UK is way down the agenda – as U.S. President Barack Obama made refreshingly clear during his pre-Brexit visit, when he talked about the UK finding itself at the end of a long queue for trade negotiations. 

Virtually every other nation is busy working on terrorism, finding strategies to promote employment for young people, securing pensions for old age and so forth.

Theresa May and the Brexit mastermind trio of Johnson, Davis and Fox must still believe that these are the days of Viceroy Mountbatten: London (or one of its representatives) calls – and the world jumps to attention. Not so.

Once it is understood just how badly they are overselling their case, frustration will settle in quickly.
 

Contrary to their continuing promises, they will have a very hard time to come up with any quick successes.

This is due to the very complex, interlocking logic of international trade deals – which British negotiators helped co-invent over the centuries.

Read more: Brexit: The Worst of All Policy Ideas

Fiction or Reality?: Trump's first day at the Oval Office - First briefing by the CIA, Pentagon, FBI

US Presidential Election 2016

Trump: We must destroy ISIS immediately.

CIA: We cannot do that, sir. We created them along with Turkey, Saudi, Qatar and others. 
Trump: The Democrats created them.

CIA: We created ISIS, sir. You need them or else you would lose funding from the natural gas lobby.Trump: Stop funding Pakistan. Let India deal with them.

CIA: We can't do that.  Modi will cut Balochistan out of Pak.Trump: I don't care.

CIA: India will have peace in Kashmir. They will stop buying our weapons. They will become a superpower. We have to fund Pakistan to keep India busy in Kashmir.Trump: But you have to destroy the Taliban.

CIA: Sir, we can't do that. We created the Taliban to keep Russia in check during the 80s. Now they are keeping Pakistan busy and away from their nukes. 

Trump: We have to destroy terror sponsoring regimes in the Middle East. Let us start with the Saudis.

Pentagon: Sir, we can't do that. We created those regimes because we wanted their oil. We can't have democracy there, otherwise their people will get that oil - and we cannot let their people own it.Trump: Then, let us invade Iran.

Pentagon: We cannot do that either, sir.Trump: Why not? THEY ARE OUR NEW "FRIENDS" ...

CIA: We are talking to them, sir.Trump: What? Why?

CIA: We want our stealth drone back. If we attack them, Russia will obliterate us as they did to our buddy ISIS in Syria. Besides we need Iran to keep Israel in check.

Trump: Then let us invade Iraq again.

CIA: Sir, our friends (ISIS) are already occupying 1/3rd of Iraq.Trump: Why not the whole of Iraq?

CIA: We need the Shi'ite gov't of Iraq to keep ISIS in check.Trump: I am banning Muslims from entering US.

FBI: We can't do that.Trump: Why not?

FBI: Then our own population will become fearless.Trump: I am deporting all illegal immigrants to south of the border.

Border patrol: You can't do that, sir.Trump: Why not?

Border patrol: If they're gone, who will build the wall?Trump: I am banning H1Bs.

USCIS: You cannot do that.Trump: Why?

Chief of staff: If you do so we'll have to outsource White House operations to Bangalore. Which is in India.Trump: What  the hell should I do???

CIA: Just enjoy the White House, sir! We will take care of the rest!!!

God bless America! 

Final note: "What if Hillary Clinton becomes President - Don't worry, she already knows all this from previous briefings as a member of the Presidential Cabinet".

EU-Digest

Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon Appoints Scottish Brexit Minister

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has appointed a Brexit minister to manage negotiations with the European Union as Britain begins the process of leaving.

Mike Russell, a former education secretary, was appointed, Sturgeon said, to make sure Scotland’s voice is heard “loudly and clearly” during talks.

When Britain as a whole voted to leave the European Union on June 23, Scotland as a country voted to remain, by a margin of 62 to 38, with all 32 council areas backing continued membership.

Sturgeon has secured assurances from Prime Minister Theresa May that Scotland is to be fully involved in Brexit discussions, and that May will listen to any proposals for a new arrangement for Scotland brought to her.

Scotland is seeking to establish how it could maintain the closest possible relationship with the EU while Britain leaves, with some even hopeful that a new federal arrangement could see Scotland remain a member of the bloc and part of the United Kingdom.

Such an arrangement is likely to be politically tricky, however, and the strong possibility that Scotland will leave the EU despite its citizens having voted to remain has led Sturgeon to say that a second referendum on Scottish independence is “highly likely.”

Read more: Nicola Sturgeon Appoints Scottish Brexit Minister

US Presidential Race: FBI Director James Comey closely connected to Clinton's and Washington cronyism culture

A review of FBI Director James Comey’s professional history and relationships shows that the Obama cabinet leader — now under fire for his handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton — is deeply entrenched in the big-money cronyism culture of Washington, D.C. His personal and professional relationships — all undisclosed as he announced the Bureau would not prosecute Clinton — reinforce bipartisan concerns that he may have politicized the criminal probe.

These concerns focus on millions of dollars that Comey accepted from a Clinton Foundation defense contractor, Comey’s former membership on a Clinton Foundation corporate partner’s board, and his surprising financial relationship with his brother Peter Comey, who works at the law firm that does the  big money  entangled with cronyism cClinton Foundation’s taxes.

When President Obama nominated Comey to become FBI director in 2013, Comey promised the United States Senate that he would recuse himself on all cases involving former employers.

But Comey earned $6 million in one year alone from Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin became a Clinton Foundation donor that very year.

Comey served as deputy attorney general under John Ashcroft for two years of the Bush administration. When he left the Bush administration, he went directly to Lockheed Martin and became vice president, acting as a general counsel.

How much money did James Comey make from Lockheed Martin in his last year with the company, which he left in 2010? More than $6 million in compensation.

Lockheed Martin is a Clinton Foundation donor. The company admitted to becoming a Clinton Global Initiative member in 2010.

According to records, Lockheed Martin is also a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, which paid Bill Clinton $250,000 to deliver a speech in 2010.

In 2010, Lockheed Martin won 17 approvals for private contracts from the Hillary Clinton State Department

In 2013, Comey became a board member, a director, and a Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee member of the London bank HSBC Holdings.

HSBC Holdings and its various philanthropic branches routinely partner with the Clinton Foundation. For instance, HSBC Holdings has partnered with Deutsche Bank through the Clinton Foundation to “retrofit 1,500 to 2,500 housing units, primarily in the low- to moderate-income sector” in “New York City.”

Read more: FBI director received millions from Clinton Foundation, his brother’s law firm does Clinton’s taxes | EndingFed News Network

EU Defense Cooperation: Threat or Benefit for NATO? - by Markus Heinrich

Britain has always been a somewhat half-hearted member of the EU. The country has been reluctant to hand over competences to Brussels and principally opposed to “ever closer union” — even as it was eager to widen the EU’s membership.

Has the time come for the EU to say "bye-bye NATO" ?

As a reluctant (and soon to be ex) participant in European integration, the British worldview has been, and continues to be, Atlanticist rather than European.

As a firmly Altanticist nation, Britain has been vehemently opposed to any EU military structures. It deemed NATO as the one and only framework for providing security in the Euro-Atlantic area.

But with Britain set to leave the EU some time in 2019 – based on Theresa May’s announcement that Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty will be triggered in March 2017 and the assumption that a successful exit is negotiated within the two-year time limit – a major obstacle to EU defense cooperation will be removed in the foreseeable future.

Negotiating Brexit will be a difficult and complex process that will occupy politicians and diplomats on both sides of the English Channel for some time. Even so, there are signs that the EU is determined that this will not prevent its defense agenda from progressing.

France and Germany have been leading calls for enhanced European defense cooperation (such as a permanent EU military headquarters and the sharing of military assets).

The Franco-German proposals were outlined by French defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and his German counterpart Ursula von der Leyen in September 2016.

Von der Leyen called for a European defense union – initially comprised of a core group, but open to all EU members – comparing it to a “Schengen of defense.”

The recent EU summit in Bratislava – at which Britain was not represented – saw Franco-German proposals for defense cooperation generally well received by member states. The plan is therefore not just a Franco-German objective, but is likely to enjoy wider support in a 28-1 member EU.

A concrete example of how European defense collaboration could benefit from Brexit is the European Defence Agency (EDA).

The EDA was established in 2004 to “support the Member States and the Council in their effort to improve European defense capabilities in the field of crisis management and to sustain the European Security and Defence Policy as it stands now and develops in the future.” Its three main missions are to:

1. Support the development of European defense capabilities and military cooperation

2. Stimulate defense research and technology to strengthen Europe’s defense industry

3. Act as a military interface to EU policies

An increase in the EDA’s meager budget has been vetoed in the past by Britain. With its veto gone post Brexit – and given the generally positive reception of the Franco-German proposals at the Bratislava summit – a future budget increase for the EDA is a distinct possibility. 


Read more: EU Defense Cooperation: Threat or Benefit for NATO? - The Globalist

The Netherlands - employment opportunities: Lack of qualified staff holding back Dutch companies

A  shortage of qualified staff is holding Dutch companies back as the economy recovers from the recession, according to new figures from the government statistics service. Statistics Netherlands said 7 per cent of businesses reported problems with understaffing because of a lack of suitable and experienced candidates. 

The figure is at its highest level since 2009. The problem was most acute in the IT sector, where one in six firms said there was a lack of qualified staff. In the service sector the proportion was one in 10. Overall businesses feel there are fewer obstacles to growth than in recent years, according to the survey, which recorded fewer complaints about financial restrictions or weak demand.

The number of businesses planning to take on more staff is at it highest level for years, with 8 per cent planning to add to their team in the second quarter of this year. The figure for the third quarter was 6 per cent. The total number of vacancies reported at the start of July was 155,000.

Read more: Lack of qualified staff holding back Dutch companies - DutchNews.nl

Propaganda: ′Divide Europe′: European lawmakers warn of Russian propaganda - what about propaganda from other sources?

The Russian government channels propaganda aimed at disrupting democratic values across Europe, targeting "specific journalists, politicians and individuals in the bloc," lawmakers of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee said in a resolution passed on Monday.

"The Russian government is aggressively employing a wide-range of tools and instruments, such as think tanks […], multilingual TV stations (i.e. Russia Today), pseudo-news agencies […], social media and internet trolls, to challenge democratic values, divide Europe, gather domestic support and create the perception of failed states in the EU's eastern neighborhood," the resolution said.

European lawmakers called on media representatives in the EU to compile facts on the "consumption of propaganda," worrying that "with the limited awareness amongst some of its member states, that they are audiences and arenas of propaganda and disinformation."

The resolution urged European authorities to turn the EU's Strategic Communication Task Force, an initiative mandated by the European Council aimed at dispelling propaganda, into a "fully-fledged unit" within the bloc's diplomatic office, "with proper staffing and adequate budgetary resources."

MEP Anna Fotyga, the chief rapporteur for the resolution, told DW that more needs to be done to expose the "mechanism of propaganda" directed at the bloc's member states, and more broadly the EU and the West.

However, Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT (formerly Russia Today), told DW that the resolution, in effect, targets free speech in the 28-nation bloc.

"This a rather interesting interpretation of the much-touted western values, particularly that of the freedom of speech - which in action apparently means attacking a rare voice of dissent amongst literally thousands of European media outlets," Simonyan said in an emailed statement.

"If anything is eroding public confidence in European institutions, it's that," she added.

Note EU-Digest: Good move by EU lawmakers, but propaganda is coming to the EU citizens and politicians from a variety of sources and directions - countries and industry, and the question should not only be focused on one potential culprit, but other sources as well, including, the US, China, multi- nationals, etc. If the EU lawmakers don't approach the issue in a far more broader and objective way, it unfortunately does start to smell like censorship, and that, one can only hope is not the purpose of this exercise ?

Read more: ′Divide Europe′: European lawmakers warn of Russian propaganda | Europe | DW.COM | 11.10.2016

Britain: Scientist awarded Nobel prize slams Brexit - considering renouncing British Citizenship

One of the four British scientists awarded a Nobel prize this week has said he is considering renouncing his citizenship because of Brexit.

Two of the other new laureates, all of whom now work in the US, have joined him in criticising the decision to leave the EU, with one saying it may change his mind about returning to the UK.

Michael Kosterlitz told The Times that the vote “is a very stupid, narrow-minded decision and will have disastrous long-term effects on science in UK ... I feel strongly about Brexit and do not wish to be associated with a country which is so insular and narrow-minded.”

Professor Kosterlitz, now based at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said that even if he had not left the UK, “Brexit would have had me job-hunting immediately. The idea of not being able to travel and work freely in Europe is unthinkable to me. I have kept my UK passport for visiting Europe but if the UK does not change its mind, I will not renew it and may even renounce my British citizenship and just keep my US citizenship, because the British citizenship will not be worth anything useful to me.”

He shared the prize for his discoveries in condensed matter physics with two other British scientists, Duncan Haldane and David Thouless.

Professor Haldane, now at Princeton, also criticised the decision to leave the EU, which has been hugely unpopular among scientists. He said he had considered returning to the UK but was now unlikely to do so because of the loss of grants from the European Research Council. “I was seriously considering coming back a few years ago,” he told The Guardian. “It was suggested it might be possible to get one of these euros 5 million ERC grants. That’s much better support than I can get here.

“These grants are specifically aimed at bringing established people back. Without that, it makes it more difficult for people to come back.

“I wouldn’t be going back just to kill myself eating high table dinners at a college.”

Before the vote to leave the European Union, scientists argued that freedom of movement was crucial to their profession, with research increasingly done across borders. Sir Fraser Stoddart, who won the Nobel prize in chemistry on Wednesday and is originally from Edinburgh, said that the loss of immigrant scientists would be catastrophic.

“I am extremely worried about the consequences of Brexit,” he said. “My colleagues in the UK thrive on the free movement of young people back and forth between the UK and the other 27 EU nations. If the portcullis comes down then at one fell swoop we are cutting off the vast majority of talent.

“We would go from 500 million people to 65 million. This could have dire consequences for British science, it would be sheer disaster. I hope for the country’s sake that some group of people can put a massive spoke in this wheel and stop it.”

Read more: Nobel scientist slams Brexit

EU: It is high time we stand up for our Europe - "united we stand but divided we will fall"

Our Europe is in danger. 

Nationalism, xenophobia and insularity threaten its fundamental values.

Our Europe, the most impressive political construction of modern times, cannot stand by as national governments jeopardise its democratic, economic, social, cultural and environmental model.

They have shown inertia and distrust when faced first with economic crisis, then with refugees and most recently with terrorism. Each successive threat has been worsened by a lack of cooperation and coordination between European governments.

The time has surely come for Europe’s citizens to make our voices heard, to express our desire for ever stronger unity and solidarity, for deeper political union.

Europe is not the cause of our problems, but the solution. For too long, our fate has sat in the hands of national and foreign leaders and partially discredited European institutions.

Once a symbol of peace, openness and solidarity, Europe has become synonymous with insularity, exclusion and self-absorption. And where Europeans are increasingly struggling to see their values reflected.

Let us not consign ourselves to helplessness, to a lack of confidence, to doubts and fears, to images of refugees dying at our borders because of a lack of solidarity from member states and because our leaders do not have the courage to do the right thing.

It is now urgent for us to move beyond the strictly national arena and to construct a truly European political foundation to take on the challenges of globalisation, modernity and a revived democracy through the direct elections of EU leaders and a progressive independent foreign policy which is not tied to any destructive foreign nation's policy.

Our sense of belonging to a European people, to a community of values, is too often thwarted by our inability to translate this desire into politics.  We need to continuously send messages to our political leaders, stating that Europe is our nation and that it can have no future without political union and the construction of a firm shell around a united European state with its own foreign policy.

“If we cannot dream of a better Europe, we will never construct a better Europe” Václav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic once said.. Let us show our desire for Europe to step forward.

Let us fly Europe’s flag – our flag – on our social network profiles, our web pages, our houses, our cars and bikes, everywhere!

This call is supported, among others, by VOXEurope, Fabien Cazenave, Pietro De Matteis (Federalist Party), Bernard Guetta (France Inter), Eric Jozsef (Libération), Ovidiu Nahoi (Dilema Veche, RFI Romania), Wojciech Przybylski (Eurozine), José Ignacio Torreblanca (El País), Anne Tréca, Nicolas Vadot (Le Vif), Francesco Belluscio, Mario Benvenuto, Esther Cordero, Luca Feltrin, Sabrina Paglierani, Davide Pozzo, EU-Digest

EU-Digest

Syria: The Mother Of All US Humanitarian and Foreign Policy disasters

David T. Jones writes in the Epoch Times; "The proverbial “law of holes” states, “When you find yourself in one—stop digging.”

So far as Syria is concerned, we seem unwilling to learn this lesson.

And, brutal as is the reality, the West has lost the war in Syria. Whatever our kaleidoscope of objectives has been, ranging from removal of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to support of “democratic” rebels to creation of an Aleppo ceasefire, we have failed.

There is no reason to believe al-Assad will cease military action in Syria until he has eliminated opposition—whether it be Daesh (aka ISIS/ISIL/IS) or assorted “rebel” groups of whatever political philosophy. As long as al-Assad has Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah assistance, he will prevail.

Nor is Aleppo’s ongoing humanitarian disaster going to cause a twinge by those conducting it. The fighting has continued since July 2012; various estimates suggest 30,000 dead with several hundred thousand civilians and combatants remaining in the besieged portion of the city.

However, remembering Russian casualties during World War II, e.g., siege of Leningrad (900 days; one million civilians and 300,000 military died) or Stalingrad (1.1 million total casualties; 478,000 killed), Putin may well conclude Aleppo’s losses are inconsequential—and the Western whiners are trying to play a human rights card in a military reality poker game.

Indeed, Western leaders have misplayed their opportunities from the beginning. We apparently believed the Arab Spring, starting in 2010, which swept away creaky dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, as well as forcing political change throughout the Middle East, would also evict al-Assad.

After all, al-Assad looks like a gawky ophthalmologist (his academic training) rather than presenting the visage of an iron-fisted dictator. Implicitly, we thought he would decamp with lovely wife, family, and uncounted fortune to comfortable retirement in some dictator-accepting/friendly country. But there was steel where we expected Jello; his Army stayed loyal, fought hard, and beat down various rebel groups. Al-Assad “channeled” his father who never caviled at massacring opponents.

Western leaders declined to put “boots on the ground”—removing al-Assad wasn’t initially believed to be worth body bags coming home—or even bomb his airfields and destroy his Air Force, his trump card in combating rebels. So fighting continued, and we lost the easy course of action. President Obama backed away from his personal “line in the sand” demanding al-Assad remove chemical weapons; then the Russians were able to arrange such a removal/elimination and, concurrently, seize a principal position in the struggle.

Consequently, Syrians have fled by millions. Statistics on the tragedy are politicized, but one estimate has 4.8 million refugees plus 6.6 million displaced within the country from a population of 17 million. Most refugees are in neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.

But the exodus has also disoriented Europe, which in a misplaced burst of humanitarianism opened its doors to more than a million refugees."

 The proverbial “law of holes” states, “When you find yourself in one—stop digging.”

So far as Syria is concerned, we seem unwilling to learn this lesson.

And, brutal as is the reality, the West has lost the war in Syria. Whatever our kaleidoscope of objectives has been, ranging from removal of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to support of “democratic” rebels to creation of an Aleppo ceasefire, we have failed.

There is no reason to believe al-Assad will cease military action in Syria until he has eliminated opposition—whether it be Daesh (aka ISIS/ISIL/IS) or assorted “rebel” groups of whatever political philosophy. As long as al-Assad has Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah assistance, he will prevail.

Nor is Aleppo’s ongoing humanitarian disaster going to cause a twinge by those conducting it. The fighting has continued since July 2012; various estimates suggest 30,000 dead with several hundred thousand civilians and combatants remaining in the besieged portion of the city.

However, remembering Russian casualties during World War II, e.g., siege of Leningrad (900 days; one million civilians and 300,000 military died) or Stalingrad (1.1 million total casualties; 478,000 killed), Putin may well conclude Aleppo’s losses are inconsequential—and the Western whiners are trying to play a human rights card in a military reality poker game.

Aleppo - Syria

Indeed, Western leaders have misplayed their opportunities from the beginning. We apparently believed the Arab Spring, starting in 2010, which swept away creaky dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, as well as forcing political change throughout the Middle East, would also evict al-Assad.

After all, al-Assad looks like a gawky ophthalmologist (his academic training) rather than presenting the visage of an iron-fisted dictator. Implicitly, we thought he would decamp with lovely wife, family, and uncounted fortune to comfortable retirement in some dictator-accepting/friendly country. But there was steel where we expected Jello; his Army stayed loyal, fought hard, and beat down various rebel groups. Al-Assad “channeled” his father who never caviled at massacring opponents.

Western leaders declined to put “boots on the ground”—removing al-Assad wasn’t initially believed to be worth body bags coming home—or even bomb his airfields and destroy his Air Force, his trump card in combating rebels. So fighting continued, and we lost the easy course of action. President Obama backed away from his personal “line in the sand” demanding al-Assad remove chemical weapons; then the Russians were able to arrange such a removal/elimination and, concurrently, seize a principal position in the struggle.

Consequently, Syrians have fled by millions. Statistics on the tragedy are politicized, but one estimate has 4.8 million refugees plus 6.6 million displaced within the country from a population of 17 million. Most refugees are in neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.

But the exodus has also disoriented Europe, which in a misplaced burst of humanitarianism opened its doors to more than a million refugees. "

Bottom line: Syria has become the mother of all US failed humanitarian and foreign policy disasters.

The question that Europe must answer, rather sooner than later is, can it continue to blindly walk in "lockstep" with the US, when it comes to their totally failed Middle East policies, or develop its own independent and more constructive foreign policy objectives?

EU-Digest

Income Inequality: The Reason Why Forbes Rich List Does NOT Include The Richest Families In The World

“Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.” This is a House of Rothschilds maxim, widely attributed to banking tycoon Mayer Amschel Rothschild in 1838 and said to be a founding principle for the highly corrupt banking and political system we have today.

Along with the Rockefellers, the Rothschild dynasty is estimated to be worth well over a trillion dollars. How are these powerful families linked to the ongoing crisis of global wealth inequality, why are so many people unaware of their existence, and why doesn't Forbes ever mention them in their annual list of the world's wealthiest people?

In January 2014, Oxfam announced that the richest 85 people on the planet share a combined wealth of $110 trillion. The figure was based on Forbes's rich list 2013, and it equates to 65 times the total wealth of the entire bottom half (3.5 billion) of the world's population. While some deluded commentators welcomed this as “fantastic news,” the rest of us were disgusted. Winnie Byanyima, Oxfam's executive director, said at the time: “It is staggering that in the 21st Century, half of the world's population own no more than a tiny elite whose numbers could all fit comfortably on a double-decker bus.” Two months later, following Oxfam's calculation and having published the new 2014 rich list, Forbes journalist Kasia Morena did some fact-checking.

She found that the number of billionaires owning the same as the poorest 3.5 billion had dropped from 85 to 67: which demonstrates an enormous widening of the global inequality gap in just one year. Fast-forward to 2015, and another Oxfam investigation. The anti-poverty charity warned in January that if nothing is done to tackle global wealth inequality- by forcing corporations to pay their taxes and closing off-shore tax havens, for example - the richest 1% will own more than everybody else in the world combined by 2016.

In a paper called Wealth: Having it all and wanting more, Oxfam outlined how the richest 1 percent have seen their share of global wealth increase from 44% in 2009 to 48% in 2014, and will likely surpass 50% in 2016. Winnie Byanyima again warned that the explosion in inequality is holding back the fight against global poverty at a time when one in nine people do not have enough to eat, and more than a billion people still live on less than $1.25 a day.

The organization also outlined how 20 percent of billionaires around the world have interests in the financial and insurance sectors, a group that saw their cash wealth increase by 11 percent in the last 12 months. Billionaires listed as having interests in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors saw their collective net worth increase by 47 percent, and the industry spent more than $500 million lobbying policy makers in Washington and Brussels in 2013 alone. “Do we really want to live in a world where the one percent own more than the rest of us combined?” Byanyima asked.

“The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering, and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast.” Meet The People Who Own 50% (And Counting) Of The World's Wealth Here is Forbes's (real-time) list of the 66 billionaires who (officially) own half of all global assets, and will soon own more than the rest of Earth's seven billion population combined. They range from CEOs of large corporations to oil and gas tycoons and Silicon valley entrepreneurs. The list details name, net worth, percentage change since the 2015 results, their age, industry and nationality.

Bill Gates is ranked first at $469 billion, and James Simons at #66 with the $14 billion he made from hedge funds.

But where are the world's Royal families? And more to the point, where are the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers? These two families have an unimaginable amount of wealth that surpasses the trillion mark - they are the only trillionaires in the world, and yet they are missing from Forbes's list every single year, along with the handful of other men commonly believed to own our politicians, our media, our corporations, our scientists, and even our money supply

Forbes's rich list doesn't include members of Royal families or dictators who hold their wealth through a position of power, or who control the riches of their country. In this way, the real people pulling the strings are able to work in absolute secrecy without any media attention at all (unless it is carefully-constructed positive propaganda, like this article on the philanthropy of the Rothschilds, of course).

Forbes's policy to exclude heads of state from the rich list explains why the Queen of England is absent, although nobody has the slightest idea of her wealth in any case: her shareholdings remain hidden behind Bank of England Nominee accounts. As the Guardian newspaper reported in May 2002: ‘The reason for the wild variations in valuations of her private wealth can be pinned on the secrecy over her portfolio of share investments…Her subjects have no way of knowing through a public register of interests where she, as their head of state, chooses to invest her money. Unlike [British politicians and Lords], the Queen does not have to annually declare her interests and as a result her subjects cannot question her or know about potential conflicts of interests…’

The same can be said for the Rothschilds and Rockerfellers, whose European forebears were richer than any Royal family at the time. The families are believed to have set up and own the Federal Reserve (G Edward Griffin's The Creature From Jekyll Island and this research by journalist Dean Henderson are recommended reading if you want to get deeper into this topic). Could this be why the families, whose power in manipulating global affairs for the past few hundred years cannot be underestimated, are protected by Forbes's ‘don't even go there’ policy? Retired management consultant Gaylon Ross Sr, author of Who's Who of the Global Elite, was apparently told in 1998 that the combined wealth of the Rockefeller family was approx $11 trillion and the Rothschilds $100 trillion…what might that figure have reached 17 years later?

One can hardly begin to imagine, but maybe money isn't the most important thing to your average trillionaire, anyway… “The only problem with wealth is, what do you do with it?” was a rhetorical question posed by none other than John D. Rockefeller. Well, if Aaron Russo's testimony is to be believed, all the Rockefeller riches in the world certainly won't be used to benefit the human race.

Ashley Mote, a member of the European Parliament serving British independence party UKIP, asked the following question in Brussels, and retribution was swift: “Mr President, I wish to draw your attention to the Global Security Fund, set up in the early 1990s under the auspices of Jacob Rothschild.

This is a Brussels-based fund and it is no ordinary fund: it does not trade, it is not listed and it has a totally different purpose. It is being used for geopolitical engineering purposes, apparently under the guidance of the intelligence services. I have previously asked about the alleged involvement of the European Union’s own intelligence resources in the management of slush funds in offshore accounts, and I still await a reply.

To that question I now add another: what are the European Union's connections to the Global Security Fund and what relationship does it have with European Union institutions?” This is exactly the kind of question the European public would like an answer to. Yet Mote did not receive one. Instead, the 79 year old politician was sacked from his own party, and later arrested and sent to jail for allegedly claiming false expenses during his time as an MEP.

Mote claimed throughout his trial that he was ‘targeted for being anti-Europe’, and said the money he claimed was used to pay third-party whistleblowers in a quest to uncover corruption and fight for democracy and transparency in European politics. Like everything else relating to the people who really run the show, the truth is out there… but it's almost impossible to pin down. 

Read more: The Reason Why Forbes Rich List Does NOT Include The Richest Families In The World