The pandemic is landing well-aimed punches on the already bruised relationship between Britain and the European Union. A dispute over vaccine supplies threatens to bring blunt instruments of trade war down on delicate national feelings. Not in the darkest hours of Brexit negotiations did either side imagine that supply-chain management would so quickly become a matter of life and death.
At a summit later this week, European leaders will discuss a possible ban on exports to the UK from an AstraZeneca plant in the Netherlands. There is frustration in Brussels that millions of vaccine doses have gone overseas (mostly Pfizer ones) and none have come over in return. The UK responds that it cannot be blamed for moving earlier, signing better contracts and generally getting its immunising act together faster.
Tory MPs say Brussels is lashing out in jealousy. Vaccination is something Boris Johnson’s government is doing well, and the EU is floundering. That has less to do with Brexit than is claimed by triumphant ministers, but as propaganda the point is irresistible: there is nothing else to trumpet as a benefit of detachment from the continent, and winning the vaccination race resonates with voters grateful for jabs.
Read more at:
Europe's trust in Britain has gone. We're now a problem, not a partner | Brexit | The Guardian
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Showing posts with label Conflict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conflict. Show all posts
March 26, 2021
June 22, 2020
NATO: France and Turkey fracture Nato on Libya - "as Erdogan plays a dangerous game he could lose"- by Andrew Rettman
 |
| "Who cares about the EU or NATO ? Trump agrees with me" |
"The incident in the Mediterranean [Sea] was addressed in the meeting by several allies", Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said after Nato defence ministers held video-talks on Thursday (18 June).
"We have made sure that Nato military authorities are investigating the incident to bring full clarity to what happened," he said.
Turkish warships locked their weapons systems on to a French frigate called the Courbet, which was part of a Nato monitoring mission called Sea Guardian, on 10 June, according to France.
And they did it in order to slip through yet another illegal shipment of arms to Turkey's ally in the Libya civil war, the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), France said.
Note EU-Digest: Curious - Whenever, or each time we put the President of Turkey's name ,Erdogan into the "Labels" column of our blog (EU-Digest), we were posting, the blog reported an error, and we had to go back and re-post the entire content of the blog, and rewrite the "labels" removing Erdogan's name for it to work. Does this mean censorship by either some internal or external "source", or is it a real technical error? This is not the first time it happened when other sensitive issues were published.
France and Turkey fracture Nato on Libya
August 29, 2017
Poland tells EU its overhaul of judiciary in line with EU standards
Poland said on Monday that the legislative process overhauling its
judiciary is in line with European standards and called the European
Commission’s concerns about rule of law in the country groundless.
On July 26, the Commission said it would launch legal action against Poland over the reforms and gave Warsaw a month to respond to concerns that the process undermines the independence of judges and breaks EU rules.
Last month, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed into a law a bill giving the justice minister the power to replace heads of ordinary courts, but after mass street protests blocked two other bills.
Read more: Poland tells EU its overhaul of judiciary in line with EU standards
On July 26, the Commission said it would launch legal action against Poland over the reforms and gave Warsaw a month to respond to concerns that the process undermines the independence of judges and breaks EU rules.
Last month, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed into a law a bill giving the justice minister the power to replace heads of ordinary courts, but after mass street protests blocked two other bills.
Read more: Poland tells EU its overhaul of judiciary in line with EU standards
July 28, 2017
Russia Sanctions: US Senate backs Russia sanctions, setting scene for EU clash - by Andrew Rettman
US senators have backed extra Russia sanctions, setting the scene for
a clash with the EU and putting at risk a new gas pipeline.
The sanctions bill sailed through the Senate by 98 votes to two on Thursday (27 July) after having passed by 419 votes to three in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
It will become law when signed by US president Donald Trump.
A Trump spokesman told the CNN broadcaster this week that “he may veto the sanctions”, which come despite his overtures for better relations with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
But senators said he would be unwise to do that because the whopping majority in Congress would see his veto overturned.
"It’s typically not good for presidents to veto something that can be overwhelmingly overridden,” Bob Corker, a Republican senator, told press.
Chuck Schumer, a Democratic senator, said a veto would also harm Trump’s image amid ongoing investigations into his alleged collusion with Russia to sway last year’s US election.
"If the president vetoes this bill, the American people will know that he is being soft on Putin, that he’s giving a free pass to a foreign adversary who violated the sanctity of our democracy," Schumer said.
Note EU-Digest: Once again Russia has become the whipping boy for the US political establishment.
When all else fails for US politicians who usually can't even agree among themselves what day of the week it is.
Read more: Senate backs Russia sanctions, setting scene for EU clash
The sanctions bill sailed through the Senate by 98 votes to two on Thursday (27 July) after having passed by 419 votes to three in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
It will become law when signed by US president Donald Trump.
A Trump spokesman told the CNN broadcaster this week that “he may veto the sanctions”, which come despite his overtures for better relations with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
But senators said he would be unwise to do that because the whopping majority in Congress would see his veto overturned.
"It’s typically not good for presidents to veto something that can be overwhelmingly overridden,” Bob Corker, a Republican senator, told press.
Chuck Schumer, a Democratic senator, said a veto would also harm Trump’s image amid ongoing investigations into his alleged collusion with Russia to sway last year’s US election.
"If the president vetoes this bill, the American people will know that he is being soft on Putin, that he’s giving a free pass to a foreign adversary who violated the sanctity of our democracy," Schumer said.
Note EU-Digest: Once again Russia has become the whipping boy for the US political establishment.
When all else fails for US politicians who usually can't even agree among themselves what day of the week it is.
Read more: Senate backs Russia sanctions, setting scene for EU clash
January 17, 2016
EU-US Partnership: "The EU is increasingly unreliable and unpredictable" - by George Friedman
 |
| European Unity? |
George Friedman the author of this report is an American political scientist and author. A former chief intelligence officer, he is the founder of Stratfor and was its financial overseer and CEO. He recently sold his shares in Stratfor and started Geopolitical Futures, a new global analysis company.
Firstly, the US looks at Europe in the much broader context of Eurasia. So now we have a crisis that stretches from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The Chinese are in crisis, Russia is in crisis, the Middle East is in terrific crisis, and now Europe is in crisis as well. So we are looking at a situation where an area with a population of 5 billion is transforming in ways we cannot anticipate.
An American looks at this not just as Europe, but as a range of problems in general. There are many American views of Europe, but my view is that the EU has failed, but there is no clear alternative. And we see the failure in the immigration issue, which we do not regard as a major issue because it is less than 0.5% of population shift, but Europe cannot make a decision on how to handle it.
This is not an unmanageable problem. You can decide not to let anyone in, and then you take measures to prevent that, or you decide to integrate them and you do certain things to make that happen. It is Europe’s inability to make a decision that is, from the American point of view, the most problematic.
It is problematic because the United States has a partnership with Europe. As important as the EU, and very much missing from this conversation, is NATO: the stresses that exist between the countries in the European Union also become present in NATO.
So for example, we have one relationship with the French, one relationship with the British, a very different relationship with the Germans and a completely different relationship with the Poles. We can no longer think of NATO as the mechanism by which we are related to Europe.
This is not a catastrophic situation for the United States, but it poses challenges to us in the Middle East, and it poses challenges with Russia, and we are looking at the Europeans as increasingly unreliable and increasingly unpredictable.
Note EU-Digest: a most interesting and revealing report, exposing the weaknesses of the EU, including: lack of loyalty among partners, disarray among member states in the decision making process, need for a strong central leadership, ineffectiveness of NATO, and need for our own EU army. As the saying goes :"We, the EU, better fish or cut bait".
Hope you are taking note ? - EU Citizens, EU Presidency, EU Commission, EU Parliament, and foremost all you 28 self-centered EU member states governments. Don't destroy this fantastic project of democracy we call the EU, which has brought us more than 60 years of Democracy, Peace and Prosperity. We the people will hold you responsible. We can't turn the clock back. Time for action is now !
For the complete report click here: George Friedman: The EU is increasingly unreliable and unpredictable | EurActiv
December 26, 2015
Islam and the West: An Irreconcilable Conflict? - by Pat Buchanan
"I worry greatly that the rhetoric coming from the Republicans,
particularly Donald Trump, is sending a message to Muslims here ... and
... around the world, that there is a 'clash of civilizations.'"
So said Hillary Clinton in Saturday night's New Hampshire debate.
Yet, that phrase was not popularized by Donald Trump, but by Harvard's famed Samuel Huntington. His "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" has been described by Zbigniew Brzezinski as providing "quintessential insights necessary for a broad understanding of world affairs in our time."
That Clinton is unaware of the thesis, or dismisses it, does not speak well of the depth of her understanding of our world.
Another attack on Trump, more veiled, came Monday in an "open letter" in The Washington Post where four dozen religious leaders, led by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, charge "some politicians, candidates and commentators" with failing to follow Thomas Jefferson's dictum:
"I never will, by any word or act ... admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others."
Intending no disrespect to Jefferson, if you do not inquire "into the religious opinions of others" in this world, it can get you killed.
"We love our Muslim siblings in humanity," said the signers of Cardinal McCarrick's letter, "they serve our communities as doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, journalists, first responders, and as members of the U.S. Armed forces and Congress."
Undeniably true. But, unfortunately, that is not the end of the matter.
Did the worst attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor, 9/11, have nothing to do with the Islamic faith?
Did Fort Hood and the San Bernardino massacres, the London subway bombings and the killings at Charlie Hebdo, as well as the slaughter at the Bataclan in Paris, have nothing to do with Islam?
Does the lengthening list of atrocities by terrorist cells of ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Qaida, al-Shabaab and the Nusra Front have nothing to do with Islam? Is it really illiberal to inquire "into the religious opinions" of those who perpetrate these atrocities? Or is it suicidal not to?
There has arisen a legitimate question as to whether Islamism can coexist peacefully with, or within, a post-Christian secular West.
For, as the Poet of the Empire, Rudyard Kipling, wrote: "Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat."
As of 1960, the Great Wave of immigration into the United States from Southern and Eastern Europe had been halted for 35 years. And the children of these millions had been largely assimilated and Americanized.
Yet, 50 years after the Turkish gastarbeiters were brought in the millions into Germany, and Algerians and other North Africans were brought into France, no such wholesale assimilation had taken place.
Why not? Why are there still large, indigestible communities in France where French citizens do not venture and French police are ever on alert?
What inhibits the assimilation that swiftly followed the entry of millions of Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Jews into the United States from 1890 to 1920? Might it have something to do with Islam and its inherent resistance to a diversity of faiths?
Set aside faith-based terrorism and Islamist terrorism, and consider the nations and regimes of the Middle and Near East.
Iran holds presidential elections every four years, but is a Shiite theocracy where the Ayatollah is a virtual dictator. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni kingdom and home to Wahhabism, a Sunni form of puritanism.
Those ruling regimes are rooted in Islam.
And while secular America embraces expressions of religious pluralism and sexual freedom, homosexuality and apostasy are often viewed as capital crimes in Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Where Islam is the ruling faith, the Quran is secular law.
Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc saw our future on its way, even before World War II: "[I]n the contrast between our religious chaos and the religious certitude still strong throughout the Mohammedan world ... lies our peril."
Historically, Christianity came to dominate the Roman Empire through preaching, teaching, example and martyrdom. Islam used the sword to conquer the Middle and Near East, North Africa and Spain in a single century, until stopped at Poitiers by Charles Martel.
And this is today's crucial distinction: Islam is not simply a religion of 1.6 billion people, it is also a political ideology for ruling nations and, one day, the world.
To the True Believer, Islam is ultimately to be imposed on all of mankind, which is to be ruled by the prescriptions of the Quran. And where Muslims achieve a majority, Christianity is, at best, tolerated.
Nor is this position illogical. For, if there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet, all other religions are false and none can lead to salvation. Why should false, heretical and ruinous faiths not be suppressed?
Behind the reluctance of Trump and other Americans to send another U.S. army into a region that has seen wars in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan leave us with ashes in our mouths, lies a wisdom born of painful experience.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book "The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.
From: Islam and the West: An Irreconcilable Conflict? - Rasmussen Reports™
So said Hillary Clinton in Saturday night's New Hampshire debate.
Yet, that phrase was not popularized by Donald Trump, but by Harvard's famed Samuel Huntington. His "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" has been described by Zbigniew Brzezinski as providing "quintessential insights necessary for a broad understanding of world affairs in our time."
That Clinton is unaware of the thesis, or dismisses it, does not speak well of the depth of her understanding of our world.
Another attack on Trump, more veiled, came Monday in an "open letter" in The Washington Post where four dozen religious leaders, led by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, charge "some politicians, candidates and commentators" with failing to follow Thomas Jefferson's dictum:
"I never will, by any word or act ... admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others."
Intending no disrespect to Jefferson, if you do not inquire "into the religious opinions of others" in this world, it can get you killed.
"We love our Muslim siblings in humanity," said the signers of Cardinal McCarrick's letter, "they serve our communities as doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, journalists, first responders, and as members of the U.S. Armed forces and Congress."
Undeniably true. But, unfortunately, that is not the end of the matter.
Did the worst attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor, 9/11, have nothing to do with the Islamic faith?
Did Fort Hood and the San Bernardino massacres, the London subway bombings and the killings at Charlie Hebdo, as well as the slaughter at the Bataclan in Paris, have nothing to do with Islam?
Does the lengthening list of atrocities by terrorist cells of ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Qaida, al-Shabaab and the Nusra Front have nothing to do with Islam? Is it really illiberal to inquire "into the religious opinions" of those who perpetrate these atrocities? Or is it suicidal not to?
There has arisen a legitimate question as to whether Islamism can coexist peacefully with, or within, a post-Christian secular West.
For, as the Poet of the Empire, Rudyard Kipling, wrote: "Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat."
As of 1960, the Great Wave of immigration into the United States from Southern and Eastern Europe had been halted for 35 years. And the children of these millions had been largely assimilated and Americanized.
Yet, 50 years after the Turkish gastarbeiters were brought in the millions into Germany, and Algerians and other North Africans were brought into France, no such wholesale assimilation had taken place.
Why not? Why are there still large, indigestible communities in France where French citizens do not venture and French police are ever on alert?
What inhibits the assimilation that swiftly followed the entry of millions of Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Jews into the United States from 1890 to 1920? Might it have something to do with Islam and its inherent resistance to a diversity of faiths?
Set aside faith-based terrorism and Islamist terrorism, and consider the nations and regimes of the Middle and Near East.
Iran holds presidential elections every four years, but is a Shiite theocracy where the Ayatollah is a virtual dictator. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni kingdom and home to Wahhabism, a Sunni form of puritanism.
Those ruling regimes are rooted in Islam.
And while secular America embraces expressions of religious pluralism and sexual freedom, homosexuality and apostasy are often viewed as capital crimes in Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Where Islam is the ruling faith, the Quran is secular law.
Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc saw our future on its way, even before World War II: "[I]n the contrast between our religious chaos and the religious certitude still strong throughout the Mohammedan world ... lies our peril."
Historically, Christianity came to dominate the Roman Empire through preaching, teaching, example and martyrdom. Islam used the sword to conquer the Middle and Near East, North Africa and Spain in a single century, until stopped at Poitiers by Charles Martel.
And this is today's crucial distinction: Islam is not simply a religion of 1.6 billion people, it is also a political ideology for ruling nations and, one day, the world.
To the True Believer, Islam is ultimately to be imposed on all of mankind, which is to be ruled by the prescriptions of the Quran. And where Muslims achieve a majority, Christianity is, at best, tolerated.
Nor is this position illogical. For, if there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet, all other religions are false and none can lead to salvation. Why should false, heretical and ruinous faiths not be suppressed?
Behind the reluctance of Trump and other Americans to send another U.S. army into a region that has seen wars in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan leave us with ashes in our mouths, lies a wisdom born of painful experience.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book "The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.
From: Islam and the West: An Irreconcilable Conflict? - Rasmussen Reports™
September 11, 2015
Turkey- Turkish jets strike PKK in Iraq as conflict escalates
Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq overnight, a security source told Reuters on Friday, the latest in a series of daily air strikes on the militants as the conflict escalates in southeast Turkey.
The news came a day after Turkish police stopped pro-Kurdish politicians on Thursday from marching to the town of Cizre where they say 21 civilians have been killed and a humanitarian crisis
has unfolded since authorities imposed a curfew to combat PKK militants.
Read more: france 24 - Turkish jets strike PKK in Iraq as conflict escalates - France 24
The news came a day after Turkish police stopped pro-Kurdish politicians on Thursday from marching to the town of Cizre where they say 21 civilians have been killed and a humanitarian crisis
has unfolded since authorities imposed a curfew to combat PKK militants.
Read more: france 24 - Turkish jets strike PKK in Iraq as conflict escalates - France 24
July 31, 2014
Ukraine: West's Sanctions Against Russia Remain Relatively Porous - by Marcus Walker and Laurence Norman
The U.S. and Europe are stepping up their sanctions against Russia, but the restrictions remain partial and porous compared with other economic embargoes recently imposed by the West.
Bans on buying new bonds of Russian state-owned banks, or on selling some engineering technology to Russia's oil industry, are expected to hurt parts of Russia's economy.
But the measures don't touch Russia's main business with the West: the sale of natural gas and oil to Europe.
That makes the sanctions regime fundamentally different from the sweeping Western embargo that has blocked Iran from selling any oil or gas to its traditional customers in the European Union.
"The EU's core business with Russia has been left untouched," said Stefan Lehne, a scholar at Carnegie Europe, a nonpartisan Brussels think tank. Mr. Lehne said the EU is likely to adopt further sanctions against Russia, including tighter financial-sector restrictions, but that energy supplies won't be touched. "If you really restrict Russian energy exports, then you hurt the EU as much as Russia." EU leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel have said the sanctions can be scaled back if Moscow becomes more cooperative in the Ukraine conflict—or scaled up if it continues to support pro-Russia rebels there.
But few in Europe can imagine a boycott of Russian gas, which flowed West continuously even at the height of Cold War enmity. Many countries across the Continent have no way of replacing Russian gas quickly or affordably.
A sanctions regime that targets secondary economic ties such as banking, specialized engineering and weapons highlights the limits of the EU's room for maneuver. Despite doubts about the ability of the new measures to change the Kremlin's mind, experience shows international sanctions tend to escalate as the affected country finds ways to evade them. That leads to efforts to plug loopholes and tighten them.
And in this particular conflict, political and military events are intensifying rather than defusing the underlying conflict. "The Ukrainian military is showing greater capability, so Russia has to step back or double down" in supporting the rebels, said Robert Kahn, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
"So far, the signs are it's likely to double down." Sanctions can be effective when accompanied by a workable political strategy to resolve a conflict through negotiations, but sometimes the EU adopts sanctions "out of a sense that something must be done," said Mr. Lehne at Carnegie Europe. "It's possible that this will be one of the effective cases, but it's not guaranteed," he said.
Read more: West's Sanctions Against Russia Remain Relatively Porous - WSJ
But the measures don't touch Russia's main business with the West: the sale of natural gas and oil to Europe.
That makes the sanctions regime fundamentally different from the sweeping Western embargo that has blocked Iran from selling any oil or gas to its traditional customers in the European Union.
"The EU's core business with Russia has been left untouched," said Stefan Lehne, a scholar at Carnegie Europe, a nonpartisan Brussels think tank. Mr. Lehne said the EU is likely to adopt further sanctions against Russia, including tighter financial-sector restrictions, but that energy supplies won't be touched. "If you really restrict Russian energy exports, then you hurt the EU as much as Russia." EU leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel have said the sanctions can be scaled back if Moscow becomes more cooperative in the Ukraine conflict—or scaled up if it continues to support pro-Russia rebels there.
But few in Europe can imagine a boycott of Russian gas, which flowed West continuously even at the height of Cold War enmity. Many countries across the Continent have no way of replacing Russian gas quickly or affordably.
A sanctions regime that targets secondary economic ties such as banking, specialized engineering and weapons highlights the limits of the EU's room for maneuver. Despite doubts about the ability of the new measures to change the Kremlin's mind, experience shows international sanctions tend to escalate as the affected country finds ways to evade them. That leads to efforts to plug loopholes and tighten them.
And in this particular conflict, political and military events are intensifying rather than defusing the underlying conflict. "The Ukrainian military is showing greater capability, so Russia has to step back or double down" in supporting the rebels, said Robert Kahn, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
"So far, the signs are it's likely to double down." Sanctions can be effective when accompanied by a workable political strategy to resolve a conflict through negotiations, but sometimes the EU adopts sanctions "out of a sense that something must be done," said Mr. Lehne at Carnegie Europe. "It's possible that this will be one of the effective cases, but it's not guaranteed," he said.
Read more: West's Sanctions Against Russia Remain Relatively Porous - WSJ
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