Global Energy Supplies: Europe needs an energy policy independent of US interference

It is no secret to the world that the US government has been obstructing the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline for many years by imposing all types of political and economic sanctions on related parties. The stake is high behind the US' suppression of the project, because the pipeline could enable more cheap gas supplies from Russia to Europe, depriving US suppliers of a prime export market.

Whether the Nord Stream 2 will promote energy cooperation between Russia and Europe, or become a trigger of tensions across the Atlantic will remain to be seen. While the US doesn't really care about Europe's energy security, Washington won't tolerate anything that threatens its energy trade.

What the US government wants is to preserve its global hegemony in the energy sector. The US energy hegemony is one of the important pillars of American global hegemony. So, the US will do everything in its position to ensure global energy supply patterns are in line with its global geopolitical power play. If the energy cooperation between Russia and Europe were allowed to unfold without any complications, it is conceivable that many things would be out of the control of the US.

If anything, the energy crisis is another example demonstrating why Europe needs to have the ability to independently form its own political and economic policies including energy security. Europe needs to be clear that its interests are not the same as the US', and it cannot completely follow the US lead on many issues, or it will end up hurting itself.

Read more at: GT Voice: Europe needs an energy policy independent of US interference - Global Times

EU-Turkey relations, Politics versus Reality: Why hasn't the EU lifted travel ban on Turkey?

Beginning with July 1, The European Union opened its borders to visitors from 15 countries. The full list of the first 15 countries ranges from Algeria to Uruguay, from Georgia to South Korea, from Serbia and Montenegro to New Zealand, from Morocco to Canada. Europe will open its borders to China as well, provided China opens up to travelers from the EU. 

European doors will remain closed to travelers from the United States, Brazil, and Russia, due to the rate of the spread of coronavirus. Turkey, a candidate member of the EU, which performed well above the EU average in the Covid-19 struggle, however, is among those countries that the travel ban from and to the EU will remain in effect. 

Given the success of the Turkish Covid-19 strategy, the disappointment expressed by the spokesperson of the Turkish Foreign Ministry for the decision was not unexpected.  

Indeed, Turkey’s coronavirus statistics, for instance, in comparison to EU member Sweden, are much better. The Turkish population is almost nine times as much as Sweden, but the number of cases per 1 million is 2,370 in Turkey, while the figure stands at 6,777 in Sweden. The death rate in Turkey is 60.8 per 1 million in Turkey, and 528.1 in Sweden. Even in comparison to Germany, which has roughly the same population as Turkey and is lauded for a successful Covid-19 strategy, Turkey seems to be doing as well as Germany. The number of total confirmed cases in Germany is some 200,000 and in Turkey is some 195,000.  

The reason for Turkey’s exclusion from the EU’s reopening can be explained by political reasons instead of public health concerns.

Read more at:

Why hasn't the EU lifted travel ban on Turkey?

USA - a thoroughly corrupt political process: Billionaires got $565 billion richer during the coronavirus pandemic

American billionaires are now nearly 20% richer — by $565 billion,to be exact — than they were at the start of the coronavirus pandemic,according to a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies

Six billionaires, including Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Tesla's Elon Musk, and Zoom's Eric Yuan, have seen their net worths grow by more than $2billion each since March, according to the think tank's analysis of Forbes' Billionaires List.

The coronavirus crisis has been an economic disaster for the rest of America, as an end unprecedented 42.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the past 11 weeks.

Note EU-Digest: This is another major problem facing America, and has resulted in the overwhelming influence Corporate America has on the political environment of the US and beyound. What's been happening with White House and Congressional politics could only be described as a thoroughly corrupt process, with the blessings of a Supreme Court dominated by justices hand-picked to protect the same process.

Read more at:
Billionaires got $565 billion richer during the coronavirus pandemic - Business Insider

Netherlands population getting more diverse; To hit 18 million by 2031 - by Janene Pieters

The Dutch population will continue to grow in the coming decades to over 18.4 million people by 2060, according to the latest prognosis by Statistics Netherlands. The 18 millionth inhabitant is expected in 2031. By 2040 almost a quarter of the Dutch population will be elderly, and by 2060 just over a third will have their roots in the outside world, according to the stats office.

The population of the Netherlands is growing because more people move to the Netherlands than move away, and because of the increasing lifespan. "In the coming years, more children will also be born, but that will not be sufficient in the long run to compensate for the increasing number of deaths", Statistics Netherlands writes. According to the current forecast, from the end of the 2030s more residents will die each year than are born.

Over the past two decades, the Dutch population grew by 1.5 million people. 86 percent of this increase involve people with a migration background. People immigrating to the Netherlands for work or study increased sharply over the past en years. And more recently, the Netherlands also saw a mass increase in asylum migrants. Though immigration from tradition countries of origin like Morocco, Turkey and Suriname decreased.

In the coming decades, the number of Netherlands residents with a migration background will increase, while the residents with a Dutch background will decrease, Statistics Netherlands expects.

This year 23 percent of the population have a migration background, by 2060 this will increase to 34 percent. "Both now and in the future, more than half of those with a migration background were born in the Netherlands, with at least one parent born abroad."

The number of elderly residents will also increase in the coming decades, due to the high birth rates immediately after the Second World War and in the 1950s and '60s. Another factor is that lifespan increased over the paEU-Digestst years and continues to rise. According to the prognosis, the proportion of the population aged 65 and older will increase from 18 percent in 2017 to 24 percent in 2040.

According to Statistics Netherlands, this prognosis has a level of uncertainty. Migration fluctuates from year to year, which means there is great uncertainty in the prognosis of immigration and emigration on the short term. Birth and mortality rates are easier to predict in the short term, but uncertainty increases in the long term. Taking these uncertainties into account, the Dutch population will be between 17.2 million and 19.7 million people in 2060.

Note  EU -Digest: Bottom line: the Netherlands needs more immigrants, obviously this immigration stream needs to be far better controlled and administered than it is presently done. New citizens should also be required to swear their alliance to the Netherlands/EU during a special Public ceremony in presided over by a Judge, when inducted as citizens of the Netherlands/EU and agree not to serve in any other military force, except that of the Netherlands or the common EU defense force.

Read more: Netherlands population getting more diverse; To hit 18 million by 2031 | NL Times

US Political System: A week that reveals how rotten today’s Republican Party (US Political System) is - by Jennifer Rubin

Disaster: level explosive

President Trump has had more-scandalous weeks. He has had weeks with more bombshell bad-news stories. But no week has matched this one in revealing the moral and intellectual rot at the center of the GOP. Pandemic intellectual dishonesty and celebration of uncivilized conduct now permeate the party and its support in the conservative ecosystem. Consider what we saw and learned this week:

• Trump in Saudi Arabia disclaims any concern for human rights.
• Trump bullies NATO allies in public (and physically shoves one leader).
• Trump’s budget is built on a rickety scaffold of math errors, economic nonsense and fantasyland predictions.
• Trump’s advisers defend massive cuts to the safety net, coupled with huge giveaways to the rich.
• The Congressional Budget Office score, which the House did not require before voting on a mammoth health-care bill, confirms that GOP leaders falsely claimed they protected people with preexisting conditions.
• Trump’s lawyers contemptuously swat away a request for information relating to his receipt of foreign monies, finding that it is too impractical to abide by his own promise and the Constitution.
• Trump has nothing but praise for thuggish autocrats, including Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
• Trump continues to pursue a Muslim ban, repeatedly struck down by the courts as bigotry disguised under the cloak of national security.
• A GOP congressional candidate, conclusive evidence suggests, attacks a reporter and apparently lies about it (he later apologizes for actions he denied less than 24 hours earlier), but party leaders do not repudiate him or demand that he withdraw.
• Jared Kushner, the beneficiary of egregious nepotism, now is a focus of the FBI’s Russia investigation, bringing a once-in-a-lifetime scandal one step closer to the presidency.
• Sean Hannity is forced to stop propagating a detestable hoax about a young man’s murder; Fox News after a week withdraws the original false report without much explanation or an apology.

This is the state of the GOP (and the US political system) — a refuge for intellectual frauds and bullies, for mean-spirited hypocrites who preach personal responsibility yet excuse the inexcusable.

Note EU-Digest: One can not only blame the Republicans for this political mess, but must also include Democrats and voters in general for creating it.   This is not business as usual, it is the recipe for disaster and the collapse of Western Democracy as we know it.

Read more: A week that reveals how rotten today’s Republican Party is - The Washington Post

Global Political Outlook: The world in 2017: Trump's long shadow and other events to watch

USA: The main thing to watch in 2017 in the US and in the world is the Von Trump family presidency, as dad and the kids likely won't even wrestle with policy issues, because of their supreme confidence in their own grasp of issues like the Middle East and nuclear arms.

It would be great if the shock of the Trump presidency sparked genuine grassroots interest in fixing American's dysfunctional democracy -  only about 55 per cent of eligible voters bothered to go to the polls in 2016 and democracy is retarded by serial maladies, from gerrymandered electorates to state-driven voter suppression to the role of lobbyists to big political donations.

As for US-Russian relations, the fallout from Vladimir Putin's alleged interference in the US elections will likely play out in the first months of the Trump administration, as Trump himself encounters resistance from his own Republican camp on sweeping it under the carpet.

China: One thing to watch in 2017 will be the political jostling and manoeuvring that will heat up ahead of a key Chinese leadership reshuffle at the 19th Party Congress to be held towards the end of the year. All eyes will be on any signalling of a potential future successor to President Xi Jinping, though speculation continues to firm that Xi plans to defy party convention and remain in power beyond the end of his second five-year term in 2022.

Taiwan looks set to pass a marriage equality bill allowing same-sex couples to wed, a move overwhelmingly backed by popular sentiment. Despite a stagnating economy and strained cross-strait relations, becoming the first Asian jurisdiction to legalise same-sex marriage will reinforce its reputation as one of the region's most progressive, vibrant and confident democracies.​

The South China Sea will remain the region's flashpoint with growing concern about the potential for conflict. Incoming US President Donald Trump has already raised questions about the "One China" policy after making a telephone call to Taiwan's leader. What happens in the strategic waters of the South China Sea, where most of Australia's trade passes, will depend on how Trump sets the parameters with China's thin-skinned communist rulers in 2017

Europe: Worst-case scenarios seem to have popped up quite a lot recently, which is a worry, because the worst-case scenario for Europe in 2017 is the effective collapse of the European Union. Under the continuing threat of terrorist attacks and the pressure of incoming refugees from Africa and the Middle East, politics is turning insular. Nationalism is on the rise.

On the eastern front, European states will continue to openly flirt with Russia, or bristle with worry about Donald Trump's commitment to NATO and their security.

Key elections will test whether the mood is merely grim or actually apocalyptic. Geert Wilders' anti-Islam, anti-immigration party will threaten to seize a share of power in the Netherlands, and the National Front's Marine Le Pen is likely to go head-to-head with social and economic conservative Francois Fillon in the French presidential race.

Italy may also go to the polls, with the anti-euro Five Star party in rude electoral health.

Then later in the year, Angela Merkel faces a tough fight to prove Germany's political centre can still command a majority.

Meanwhile, Britain will continue to tie itself in knots over what Brexit is going to involve, and how on earth it can actually be turned from a radical idea into a not-complete-debacle.

Oh, and, Eurovision is in Kiev this year. That's going to be weird..

The world in 2017: Trump's long shadow and other events to watch

Resolution 2017- Help Clean-up Global Plutocracy:: Breaking Through Power: It's Easier Than We Think

This has become the New Normal: Don't accept it

 "When a small group of people rules a society the political system is considered an oligarchy; when only money and wealth determine how a society is controlled, the political system is a plutocracy.

This is basically the situation we have today in the US, Russia, China, EU and many other countries in the world.

From the standpoint of a democratic society, both oligarchy and plutocracy are inherently unjust and corrupt.

Of course there are variations in the degrees of authoritarianism and cruelty that each system exercises over the communities it relies upon for workers and wealth. Scholars have resorted to using phrases like “benign dictatorships” or “wise rulers” or “paternalistic hierarchies—“ to describe lighter touches by those few who impose their rule over the many.

Thomas Paine simply called them tyrannies. People, families, and communities can only take so much abuse before they rise up to resist. The job of the rulers is always to find that line and provide the lowest level of pay, security, housing, consumer protection, healthcare, and political access for society so that they can extract and hoard the greatest amount of wealth, power, and immunity from justice for themselves. In many ways, the majority of Americans live in a democracy of minimums, while the privileged few enjoy a plutocracy of maximums.

In a plutocracy, commercialism dominates far beyond the realm of economics and business; everything is for sale, and money is power. But in an authentic democracy, there must be commercial-free zones where the power of human rights, citizenship, community, equality, and justice are free from the corrupting influence of money. Our elections and our governments should be such commercial-free zones; our environment, air, and water should never fall under the control of corporations or private owners. Children should not be programmed by a huckstering economy where their vulnerable consciousness becomes the target of relentless corporate marketing and advertising.

American history demonstrates that whenever commerce dominates all aspects of national life, a host of ills and atrocities have not just festered and spread, but become normal—enslavement, land grabs, war, ethnic cleansing, serfdom, child labor, abusive working conditions, corrupt political systems, environmental contamination, and immunity from the law for the privileged few. History also shows that whenever there have been periods when enough of the country organizes and resists, we see movements of people and communities breaking through power. Progress is made. Rights are won.

Education and literacy increase. Oppression is diminished. It was in this manner that people of conscience abolished the living nightmare imposed by the laws and whips of white enslavers. The nation moved closer to promises of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” expressed in the Declaration of Independence. We won more control over our work, our food, our land, our air, and our water. Women secured the right to vote. Civil rights were elevated and enforced. Public schools, improved environments, workplace collective bargaining, and consumer protections did not spontaneously evolve; they were won by people demanding them and breaking through power.

These moments of great progress are expressed in terms of new legislation, regulations, and judicial decisions that directly benefit the life, liberties, and pursuit of happiness of most Americans. From the abolition of slavery to the introduction of seat belts, great social gains have been achieved when people mobilize, organize, and resist the power of the few. The problem is that these liberating periods of humanitarian and civilizational progress are of shorter duration than the relentless commercial counterforces that discourage and disrupt social movements and their networks of support. Some commentators have used the bizarre term “justice fatigue” to describe the pullback that often occurs when communities of resistance are faced with increased surveillance, infiltration, harassment, and arrest. A more accurate term is repression.

Concentrated power in the hands of the few really should matter to you. It matters to you if you are denied fulltime gainful employment or paid poverty wages and there are no unions to defend your interests. It matters to you if you’re denied affordable health care. It matters to you if you’re gouged by the drug industry and your medication is outrageously expensive. It matters to you if it takes a long time to get to and from work due to lack of good public transit or packed highways. It matters to you if you and your children live in impoverished areas and have to breathe dirtier air and drink polluted water and live in housing that is neglected by your landlord. It matters to you if your children are receiving a substandard education in understaffed schools where they are being taught to obey rather than to question, think and imagine, especially in regards to the nature of power.

If you’re a little better off, it matters to you when your home is unfairly threatened with foreclosure. It matters to you when the nation is economically destabilized due to Wall Street’s crimes, and your retirement account evaporates overnight. It matters to you if you can’t pay off your large student loans, or if you can’t get out from under crushing credit-card debt or enormous medical bills due to being under-insured. It matters to you if you are constantly worried about the security of your job, or the costly care of your children and elderly parents.

“We live in a beautiful country,” writes historian Howard Zinn. “But people who have no respect for human life, freedom, or justice have taken it over. It is now up to all of us to take it back.” To better assess what it specifically takes to do just that, it is important to understand how the people profiting from plutocratic forces strategically and regularly dominate old and new circumstances with powerful controlling processes".

With elections coming up in in Europe and other countries of the world in 2017- don't ever believe it is too difficult for you as one person to make a difference.  Speak out, join an advocacy group, or even organize one yourself. Go to political meetings of your choice and ask questions.

Politicians need your vote and will listen to you, specially if their political career depends on it.Politicians will usually also tell you everything you want to hear, and will even lie through their teeth, as long as you give them your vote. Check their voting record and compare it to their promises.  You will notice that most of what they told you before they never materialized. Question them about it in Public.

In Europe these questions could be : "why is Europe spending millions of euros fighting loosing wars in the Middle East.  What is done to improve education, Why has the care for the elderly declined so dramatically?" 

Or people in the US could ask: "why do we still have an outdated voting system, How come military spending figures are kept secret, etc etc".

Believe it or not, your future and that of your children stands or falls based on your involvement as a Citizen. Sitting at home and watching "pre-cooked" news by the corporate owned media or wondering what kind of dog food is better for your dog won't get you anywhere.

Most of the above quoted text comes from an easy-to-read compact book by Ralph Nader, called "Breaking Through Power" - You can order it on line and certainly will find it most fascinating as the world around you becomes more bizarre by the minute.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and an active and involved 2017 - hope you will take-off those slippers and use them to start slapping your politicians into shape and making them listen more attentively to you and what your needs are.

EU-Digest

Britain: British views on Migration Classing With Those of The EU

Theresa May is driving a wedge between the UK and the EU on migration http://flip.it/m8gUBr

The Netherlands: Geert Wilders says the Netherlands needs a leader like Donald Trump - Really ?

There will be a lot of people who There will be a lot of people who ‘whine, scream and yell’ if Donald Trump becomes president of the US but in the end it will ‘all be fine’, PVV leader Geert Wilders told BNR radio on Monday.

Wilders is in the US to attend the four-day Republican convention, at which Trump is expected to be named Republican candidate for the presidency.

Trump, Wilders said, is ‘someone who is good at getting himself heard’ and who focuses on ‘the interests of his own people’. ‘He will be a real American leader, who might not always be the best one from a European perspective, but one who defends gthe interests of his own people.

Note EU-Digest: Democracy only works in a country if the majority  people who vote are not ignorant and being able to separate the empty slogan populists from the true politicians. We can only hope this will be the case in the US in November and in the Netherlands next year. 

There will be a lot of people who ‘whine, scream and yell’ if Donald Trump becomes president of the US but in the end it will ‘all be fine’, PVV leader Geert Wilders told BNR radio on Monday. Wilders is in the US to attend the four-day Republican convention, at which Trump is expected to be named Republican candidate for the presidency. Trump, Wilders said, is ‘someone who is good at getting himself heard’ and who focuses on ‘the interests of his own people’.

Read more at DutchNews.nl: Geert Wilders says the Netherlands needs a leader like Donald Trump http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2016/07/93300-2/

Read more: Geert Wilders says the Netherlands needs a leader like Donald Trump - DutchNews.nl

Euroskepticism’s empty promises - not able to spell out their alternatives to European integration

With so much effort aimed at dismantling the European project, it is time to ask the Euroskeptics to spell out their alternatives to European integration. Of course, many conservative and libertarian Euroskeptics, such as Daniel Hannan, stress that their goal is not to destroy political cooperation on the continent, or even to return to protectionism.

What they want is to return to a Europe made up of sovereign, democratic and self-governing nation states that are cosmopolitan and open to trade, investment, and, to a large degree, to immigration.

Boris Johnson, for example, famously identified himself as being “about the only politician … who is actually willing to stand up and say that he’s pro-immigration.” The EU, argue the skeptics, is neither a necessary nor sufficient guarantee of such openness. The EU, they say, is a distortion that opens market and migrant flows within Europe, while jealously guarding itself against competition from overseas.

Born out of the ashes of World War II, the aim of the European integration project was to make war between Europe’s leading nations impossible. It would do this by tying them together economically and politically, in what should have become a European federal state.

The EU’s critics like to emphasize that the premise is outdated, and that the animated policy debates in the 1940s and 1950s are now obsolete. As L.P. Hartley’s proverbial quote goes, the past is a foreign country — they do things differently there.

In reality, any alternative to being strong and united as one in Europe, is doomed to eventualy  backfire, 

Unfortunately many shortsighted Euroskeptics seem to believe that "charity starts at home".

Read more: Euroskepticism’s empty promise – POLITICO

Europe and US political alignment: Sanders, Trump, and Political Europeanization - by Ned Resnikoff

In nearly eight years since the start of the 2008 financial crisis, European politics has witnessed a remarkable surge in left-wing anti-capitalism and right-wing nationalism. With the 2016 presidential election, this ideological shift has arrived on American shores. Its heralds are the two expected victors in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

Each of these candidates represents a particular political tradition that was, until recently, alien to national elections in the United States. Trump, whose disregard for the pieties of evangelical conservatism sets him apart from other GOP hard-liners, fits neatly into a European mold. His blend of hardline nationalism and ideological flexibility is similar to that of European right-wing populists such as Britain’s Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and France’s Marine Le Pen of the National Front.

Trump, however, falls to the right of his closest European analogues. Both Farage and Le Pen, for example, have publicly distanced themselves from Trump’s call for a temporary ban on all Muslim immigration. Farage, in particular, said that Trump had gone "too far" with the proposal.

Sanders appears to be a more distinctly American type, a veteran of civil rights marches and the 1960's student movement. But his platform and ideology would be right at home among the moderate social democrats of Scandinavia. His calls for progressive taxation, a stronger labor movement, and an expansive public health care system are already commonplace to the point of banality in Sweden and Denmark — to say nothing of Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and other strong Western European states.

To his critics in the U.S., Sanders is a radical who threatens to ride a wave of popular discontent to upend the political establishment — as Greece’s Syriza and Spain’s Podemos parties have. But a closer European analogue to Sanders might be Jeremy Corbyn, the old-school trade unionist who seized control of Britain’s Labour Party amidst the collapse of the centrist wing.

European-style candidates are resonating with voters now because political parties in the U.S. are facing some of the same pressures as those in Europe.

Most obviously, American political parties have become more polarized. Whereas European parties have almost always tended to be defined by a shared political program, America’s peculiar constitutional system birthed sprawling coalitions with interests that frequently overlapped for members on different sides of the aisle. But that changed in the aftermath of the civil rights era, when the Republican Party succeeded in capturing the South and began moving further to the right.

Democrats eventually began their own leftward drift, albeit at a slower pace; by 2005, political scientists found that even the most conservative Democrat in Congress was nowhere near as right-wing as the most liberal Republican. The two parties had become ideologically discrete, much like the parties in parliamentary system

Read more: Sanders, Trump, and Political Europeanization | Al Jazeera America

Political Mismanagement : 10 Economic, Political and Social Global Forecasts Indicate Troubled Times Ahead In 2016 - by RM

The legacy of a totally failed Middle East Policy

As a wise man once said "Without Freedom Of Speech There Are Only Official Lies"

Below links to 10 reports which indicate that the overall state of our globe in 2016 does not look very rosy.  Click on the headline to get the report.

 

European economies face harsh headwinds from China

Is the EU imploding?The Europe Question In 2016

Toward Global Disaster: Chaos and Intervention in the Middle East

Global Economy: Soros: It's the 2008 crisis all over again

Middle East: Where Will this War Frenzy Lead?

EU Presidency: ′Turbulent times′ as Netherlands takes over EU presidency

USA: To understand Donald Trump, look to Europe

Global Economy Catching China's Cold

China: Don't blame the economy for China's latest market meltdown

US Economy: Could the American economy tank in 2016?

Change however lies in the hands of the people, and if politicians have made life worse rather than better for you - get rid of them. Don't sit on the sidelines staring at your navel or pointing your finger at others.   

After all : "The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by its private citizens" - Alexis de Tocqueville

EU-Digest

Dutch love democracy, dislike politics - by Graeme Kidd

Roughly 93 percent of the Netherlands thinks that democracy is the best possible form of government, and 95 percent think it is important to live in a democratically governed nation, a new survey from the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) revealed. Released on Friday, the report also found that 73 percent of people living in the country have a negative view of politics there.

“The main reasons put forward for dissatisfaction were that politicians do not listen and simply do what they want, that citizens have too little say and that politicians talk too much and act too little; or else they were dissatisfied with current policy at the time of the survey,” the research noted. Citizens are wanting to have a greater say through more public debate and the collection of public opinion information about democracy itself.

The SCP quoted one 30-year-old man as saying, “Generally Democracy as a state form works well, it is unfortunately the politicians that make a mess of it.”

Some 22 percent support more direct democracy where people vote on many referenda as oppose to representative politics, with 45 percent wanting to vote on a selection of referenda chosen by elected representatives. “This would seem to suggest that at least a proportion of the Dutch public see direct democracy mainly as a way of adding to or improving representative democracy rather than as an alternative to it,” the report noted.

The research was carried out by Dr. Diana den Ridder and Prof. Paul Dekker, and published under the title, “More Democracy, Less Politics?” The report was commissioned by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relation to gauge the perception of the Dutch public into democracy and politics.

They also found that while people in the Netherlands deeply value equal treatment by the courts, opinion is divided about whether or not that exists. At the same time, 90 percent value both a free press and freedom to oppose government, with 70 percent saying they are satisfied with both.

Read more: Dutch love democracy, dislike politics - NL Times

What's the greatest risk to Turkey's economy? - by Barın Kayaoğlu

Any one of the following problems would ring alarm bells  for an emerging market: a slowing economy,rising inflation,distrustful  citizens exchanging local currency deposits for dollars whenever possible, rising tide of violence scaring away foreign  tourists and hurting hard currency reserves and concerned foreign  investors eyeing the exit because of a bearish stock exchange and a possible hike in interest rates by the US Federal Reserve.

The Turkish currency, which had an average value of 1.90 to the dollar, is likely to decline further and surpass the three-lira threshold soon. “Never mind three, it could even be tr/dolar-3-lira to the dollar,”  wrote Mert Yildiz, a senior economist at the prestigious economic and  financial analysis firm Roubini Global Economics.

According to one  report, because the AKP has used dollar figures to boast of its role in  the “Turkish economic miracle,” the bleeding in the lira means Turkey could lose its place in the G-20, the group representing the world’s top 20 economies.

<a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/08/turkey-economy-political-uncertainties-greatest-risk.html">Read more: What's the greatest risk to Turkey's economy? - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East</a></div>

Read more: What's the greatest risk to Turkey's economy? - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

Greece: Which Side Are You On, Jeroen Dijsselbloem? - by David Lizoain

Just over a hundred years have passed since the greatest failure of European social democracy. The workers’ movement was unable to halt the needless slaughter of World War I. First, Jean Jaures was assassinated, silencing his powerful anti-militarist voice. Soon after, the German SPD voted to authorize war credits for the Kaiser. Proletarian internationalism gave way to social patriotism.

Between the collapse of the Second International during the war and the divergent responses to the Russian Revolution, a rift opened up between socialists and communists in Europe that persists until this day.

Representatives of these two political traditions now find themselves at odds in a Eurogroup presided by Jeroen Dijsselbloem of the Dutch PvdA. The backdrop is one where events in the Balkans have the capability of triggering a much bigger conflict. And once more a situation has arisen where ultimatums issued by the strong against the weak run the risk of only making the conflagration worse.

The key points of disagreement are not technical but political. The eventual size of Greece’s primary surplus, for instance, is important for economic but also symbolic reasons. The real issue is what sort of Europe will emerge out of the ongoing negotiations.

One possible outcome is a deepening of a Europe split on debtor-creditor lines, organized in a manner that leads to an ever-increasing divergence between the core and the periphery. This is a Europe divided into those who give charity and those who beg for alms, as opposed to a Europe with automatic mechanisms of solidarity. This is a Europe acting as a potent incubator for mutual recriminations and rapid breakdowns in good will.

Merkel, Rajoy, and Passos Coelho all favour this outcome. In spite of their different national circumstances, they are united in their preference for a hard line on account of shared preferences and a shared project. The ties that bind them are ideological.

Many social democrats too are reproducing the debtor-creditor fault line. In the midst of the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, with democracy being hollowed out, with inequality on the rise, and with the far right on the march, social democracy is once more unable to act as a cohesive European actor. And the rise of Syriza has exposed its internal contradictions.

Read more: Which Side Are You On, Jeroen Dijsselbloem?

Global Economy: The Politics Of Economic Stupidity - by Joseph Stiglitz

In 2014, the world economy remained stuck in the same rut that it has been in since emerging from the 2008 global financial crisis. Despite seemingly strong government action in Europe and the United States, both economies suffered deep and prolonged downturns. 

The gap between where they are and where they most likely would have been had the crisis not erupted is huge. In Europe, it increased over the course of the year.

Developing countries fared better, but even there the news was grim. The most successful of these economies, having based their growth on exports, continued to expand in the wake of the financial crisis, even as their export markets struggled. But their performance, too, began to diminish significantly in 2014.

In 1992, Bill Clinton based his successful campaign for the US presidency on a simple slogan: “It’s the economy, stupid.” From today’s perspective, things then do not seem so bad; the typical American household’s income is now lower. But we can take inspiration from Clinton’s effort. 

The malaise afflicting today’s global economy might be best reflected in two simple slogans: “It’s the politics, stupid” and “Demand, demand, demand.”

Read more: The Politics Of Economic Stupidity

"Politiek Nederland is in feite een kruidenierszaak": Het onpolitieke van de politiek in Nederland - door Arnold J. van der Kluft

De
enige kritisch theoreticus in Nederland die enigszins als “publieke
intellectueel” beschouwd kan worden, Willem Schinkel, heeft rondweg
gezegd en geschreven dat alle politieke partijen in Nederland op D66
willen lijken. Zoals Unilever ooit een stuk of tien, twaalf
margarinemerken in de schappen hield, zo heeft D66 merken variërend van
een goed-christelijke variant als de ChristenUnie tot en met de
proletig-protofascistische PVV in het schap van de Tweede Kamer. Als het
er op aankomt zijn ze allemaal voor privatisering van openbare
voorzieningen en als hervorming aangeduide afbraak van opgebouwde
sociale verworvenheden – of het nu de AOW is of het fenomeen algemeen
bindende CAO. Slechts twee partijen vallen buiten deze consensus, de
Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij en de Partij voor de Dieren. Door
constructieve oppositie te zijn bij het huidige kabinet heeft de SGP
zich inmiddels ook aan D66 geconformeerd. De groene, overwegend
vrouwelijke, diervriendelijke partij blijft als enig buitenbeentje over.
De meeste mensen houden zich nu eenmaal aan de margarinemerken van D66,
of ze keren zich af van wat “de politiek” heet. Terecht, omdat “de
politiek” allang niet meer om verschillende mogelijkheden van vormgeving
van de maatschappij gaat. Het ging in Nederland meestal al om tienden
van procenten, nu is zelfs dat niet meer zo – het gaat er nu vooral om:
wie scheldt er het netst of het onnetst op de “allochtoon” – een woord
dat ik nog in “de politiek” geïntroduc - See more at:
http://www.krapuul.nl/overig/blog/833747/het-onpolitieke-van-de-politiek-in-nederland/#sthash.OqKgAES8.dpuf

De
enige kritisch theoreticus in Nederland die enigszins als “publieke
intellectueel” beschouwd kan worden, Willem Schinkel, heeft rondweg
gezegd en geschreven dat alle politieke partijen in Nederland op D66
willen lijken. Zoals Unilever ooit een stuk of tien, twaalf
margarinemerken in de schappen hield, zo heeft D66 merken variërend van
een goed-christelijke variant als de ChristenUnie tot en met de
proletig-protofascistische PVV in het schap van de Tweede Kamer. Als het
er op aankomt zijn ze allemaal voor privatisering van openbare
voorzieningen en als hervorming aangeduide afbraak van opgebouwde
sociale verworvenheden – of het nu de AOW is of het fenomeen algemeen
bindende CAO. Slechts twee partijen vallen buiten deze consensus, de
Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij en de Partij voor de Dieren. Door
constructieve oppositie te zijn bij het huidige kabinet heeft de SGP
zich inmiddels ook aan D66 geconformeerd. De groene, overwegend
vrouwelijke, diervriendelijke partij blijft als enig buitenbeentje over.
De meeste mensen houden zich nu eenmaal aan de margarinemerken van D66,
of ze keren zich af van wat “de politiek” heet. Terecht, omdat “de
politiek” allang niet meer om verschillende mogelijkheden van vormgeving
van de maatschappij gaat. Het ging in Nederland meestal al om tienden
van procenten, nu is zelfs dat niet meer zo – het gaat er nu vooral om:
wie scheldt er het netst of het onnetst op de “allochtoon” – een woord
dat ik nog in “de politiek” geïntroduc - See more at:
http://www.krapuul.nl/overig/blog/833747/het-onpolitieke-van-de-politiek-in-nederland/#sthash.OqKgAES8.dpuf

De enige kritisch theoreticus in Nederland die enigszins als “publieke intellectueel” beschouwd kan worden, Willem Schinkel, heeft rondweg gezegd en geschreven dat alle politieke partijen in Nederland op D66 willen lijken.

Zoals Unilever ooit een stuk of tien, twaalf margarinemerken in de schappen hield, zo heeft D66 merken variërend van een goed-christelijke variant als de ChristenUnie tot en met de proletig
protofascistische PVV in het schap van de Tweede Kamer.

Als het er op aankomt zijn ze allemaal voor privatisering van openbare voorzieningen en als hervorming aangeduide afbraak van opgebouwde sociale verworvenheden – of het nu de AOW is of het fenomeen algemeen bindende CAO. Slechts twee partijen vallen buiten deze consensus, de Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij en de Partij voor de Dieren. Door constructieve oppositie te zijn bij het huidige kabinet heeft de SGP zich inmiddels ook aan D66 geconformeerd.

De groene, overwegend vrouwelijke, diervriendelijke partij blijft als enig buitenbeentje over. De meeste mensen houden zich nu eenmaal aan de margarinemerken van D66, of ze keren zich af van wat “de politiek” heet. Terecht, omdat “de politiek” allang niet meer om verschillende mogelijkheden van vormgeving van de maatschappij gaat.

\Het ging in Nederland meestal al om tienden van procenten, nu is zelfs dat niet meer zo – het gaat er nu vooral om: wie scheldt er het netst of het onnetst op de “allochtoon” – een woord dat ik nog in “de politiek” geïntroduceerd heb zien worden. Toen ging het er om krakers en actievoerders v/m in de Amsterdamse Nieuwmarktbuurt verdacht te maken: dat waren geen autochtone buurtbewoners. Menigeen moest een woordenboek ter hand nemen om te kijken waar dit over ging. Veertig jaar geleden. -

Klik hier voor het volledige verslag - Het onpolitieke van de politiek in Nederland | Krapuul

Torture USA: “Corrupt, toxic and sociopathic”: Glenn Greenwald unloads on torture, CIA and Washington’s rotten soul - by Elias Isquith

It took years until the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report — which shows not only that the CIA’s torture regime was larger and more vicious than understood, but that the agency repeatedly lied about it to the White House and Congress — was finally released to the public.

But it only took hours before President Obama was once again urging the nation to look forward, not back. “Rather than another reason to refight old arguments,” read a White House statement, “I hope that today’s report can help us leave these techniques where they belong — in the past.” When members of the media asked whether that meant the White House considered torture to be ineffective, as the report claims, an anonymous official said Obama would not “engage” in the ongoing “debate.” On the issues of rape, waterboarding and induced hypothermia, apparently, reasonable minds can differ.

Glenn Greenwald, the Intercept’s Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and longtime critic of the war on terror, disagrees. “There’s no debate,” he told Salon. “Everything that we did,” he continued, “in terms of how we treated detainees, has [long] been viewed as morally vile and inexcusable and criminal.”

Greenwald has little doubt, however, that Washington will turn torture into yet another partisan squabble. It’s the go-to move, he says, when America’s political and media elite decide they’d rather look the other way. “That’s just the ritual Washington engages in,” Greenwald said.

Speaking with Salon from his home in Brazil (or at least we assumed as much, given the barking in the background) Greenwald discussed what surprised him about the summary, what we still don’t know, why expressions of shock and horror from Congress are disingenuous, how President Obama is culpable, too, and why America’s leaders are “sociopathic.” Our conversation is below(click on link below)  and has been edited for clarity and length.

Read more: EXCLUSIVE: “Corrupt, toxic and sociopathic”: Glenn Greenwald unloads on torture, CIA and Washington’s rotten soul - Salon.com

Turkey - Mine disaster: PM Erdogan 'now with blood on his hands' under pressure after deadly mine explosion

The prime minister's critics mobilized even as the search for survivors and victims of the coal mine accident in the western town of Soma gathered speed.

Opposition parties and unions called rallies against the government in several cities across Turkey. In some regions, students have gone on strike. The DISK union spoke of the "massacre" of the workers in Soma - a term that has made the rounds.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government has declared three days of national mourning and sent Energy Minister Taner Yildiz to Soma to coordinate rescue operations. The minister had little to do but to announce the ever-rising number of casualties. "We're losing hope," he admitted on Wednesday (14.05.2014) morning.

PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan "blood on his hands"

The government stands accused mainly of having neglected the supervision of the coal mines in the wake of their privatization over the past few years. There are not enough state inspectors for the mines and mere weeks ago, Erdogan's ruling AKP party rejected a motion by the opposition to look into security deficiencies at the Soma mine.
Government opponents claim 22 people have died in fires in the coal mine since September 2012.

Erdogan's government faces allegations that it risked the health and lives of miners as a result of unilateral employer-friendly policies. Energy Minister Yildiz inspected the Soma mine last year, and praised investments in costly security systems for the employees that, it turns out, were insufficient.

"This is what it comes down to: The government ignored all warnings concerning the Soma mine, and the workers are paying the price," Murat Yetkin, a well-respected editorial writer, said on the website of Turkey's "Radikal" newspaper on Wednesday.

On Turkish social networks, people have been calling for the respective government ministers to step down. Several spontaneous demonstrations were reminiscent of the anti-government protests last year in Istanbul's Gezi Park.

In the city's Levent business district, students and other protesters waving black flags demonstrated in front of the Soma-Holding mine operator's offices and sprayed the word "murderers" on the building in blood-red paint. Students gathered for protests at Ankara University, and more demonstrations were planned for the evening. The CHP opposition party has demanded a special session of parliament, while several unions called for nationwide strikes and protests on Thursday.

Note EU-Digest: in most democratic countries after an accident of this magnitude has taken place the PM and the minister of the ministry governing the industry where such a major accident has happened would step-down. This is not the case in Turkey, where instead of stepping down, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who now has blood on his hands, is even planning to run for President in the next Presidential elections.


Read more: Erdogan under pressure after deadly mine explosion | Europe | DW.DE | 14.05.2014

Saudi Arabia - Islam: Imams exploiting politics in sermons should be fired - says Ministry of Islamic Affairs

JEDDAH - SAUDI ARABIA

The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Call and Guidance is in the process of imposing penalties on imams and preachers who discuss political issues and matters of creed or those who implicitly or explicitly defame specific individuals or states. Such penalties may include dismissal from job if violations are repeated, say sources.

The ministry has emphasized the fact that their role is confined to preaching and providing guidance in religious spheres and that some of them have given written undertakings pledging that they would not inflame public sentiment by discussing politics during Friday sermons.

The sources said there is a committee at the ministry entrusted with following up on such violations and reporting preachers who have taken advantage of their position to influence public opinion.

The ministry statement follows an incident on Friday at Al-Ferdaous Mosque in Al-Nahda district, Riyadh, where an Egyptian worshipper protested against a preacher denouncing Abdul Fattah El-Sisi, defense minister and army chief of Egypt.

Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Abdulaziz, a former Imam and Preacher, said that mosques are sanctified areas of worship. He said imams should follow the instructions given to them by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs.

The prayer against El-Sisi, according to one report, prompted the Egyptian to question the preacher, while he was giving the Friday sermon. This infuriated other worshippers who tried to push the Egyptian out of the mosque.

Imams exploiting politics in sermons face the sack | Arab News — Saudi Arabia News, Middle East News, Opinion, Economy and more.