EU-US relations: US faith-based conservative EU lobbyists billionaires funding EU culture war - by Michael Bird and Blaz Zgaga

The number of faith-based conservative EU lobbyists in Brussels is growing and the Roman Catholic Church is itself a big spender.

But US billionaires, some of whom are friends of American president Donald Trump, are also paying anti-abortion groups in Europe tens of millions of dollars to influence policy and law.

The US groups have not scored any big wins yet.

But they are acting in concert and they are just getting started, European MPs who work on sexual and reproductive health have warned.

And the culture war is broader, with women's rights, LGBTI rights, embryonic research, and euthanasia also involved in the clash of values.

Some 21 religious think-tanks, NGOs, and other entities currently spend €2.1m to €3.1m a year lobbying the European Parliament and European Commission on these fronts, according to the EU transparency register. 

Read more: US billionaires funding EU culture war

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Saudi Arabia: Two dual US - Saudi citizens and ten Saudi citizen supportive of women's rights arrested

Saudi Arabia arrests 12 supportive of women's rights, including 2 dual U.S.-Saudi citizens

Read more at: 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/saudi-women-rights-arrests-us-1.5086928

Saudi Arabia: Saudi King Hopeful Over Sunday's Summit With Trump - really ?

High level diplomacy or just plain hypocracy?

Saudi King Salman on Monday expressed hope a "historic" summit to be held Sunday between Arab and Muslim nations and US President Donald Trump will enhance ties and promote tolerance.

The summit will be one of three forums held during a visit by Trump, who is making Saudi Arabia his first overseas stop since assuming office in January.

Trump has frequently been accused of fueling Islamophobia but aides described his decision to visit Saudi Arabia as an effort to reset relations with the Muslim world.

Along with the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), at least 18 other Muslim nations have been invited to the summit, including Turkey, Azerbaijan, Niger and Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population.

Saudi Arabia's regional rival Iran is not invited.

Salman told a cabinet meeting in the Red Sea city of Jeddah that the meeting "comes in light of the challenges and sensitive situations that the world is going through".

According to the official Saudi Press Agency, "he expressed his hope that this historic summit will establish a new partnership in the face of extremism and terrorism and spreading the values of tolerance and coexistence" while enhancing security.

Note EU-Digest: Amazing that Donald Trump has chosen Saudi Arabia for his first foreign visit. We can only suspect that the image of being warmly greeted by such a strong representation of Sunni Muslim kings, emirs and presidents is a potential bonanza for a U.S. leader beleaguered by domestic troubles.  

The fact that Saudi Arabia has been the cradle of "terrorist awakening",  from where Saudi born terrorists like Ben Laden became the main instigators of the 9/11 NY World Trade Center attack, and many other evil deed's does not  seem to bother Donald Trump, or, unfortunately as it did not really bother any other US President before him, including President Obama.

As one foreign EU diplomat stationed in Ankara  noted. "Donald Trump, or any US President for that matter, will sell their soul to the devil, in order to complete a series of arms deals for the US weapons industry, and with these recent sales to Saudi Arabia totaling more than $100bn.- they will also gladly even dance with the devil. 

This Saudi visit by Trump has only 10% to do with diplomacy and 90% for showing US gratitude to the Saudi's. for their continued support of the US weapons industry. It can also be classified as "brown nosing" the Saudi's. 

And this brown nosing the Saudi and keeping a blind eye about their lack of respect for human rights is certainly not only limited to the US, but also indulged in by many other Nations around the world, including quite a few in the EU.

It is high time this hypocracy stops, because it has become so flagrant that no-one takes this nonsense serious anymore.

Read more: Saudi King Hopeful Over Sunday's Summit With Donald Trump

Middle East: Saudi Arabia: From the Eyes of an Insider - by Mona Eltahawy

Nothing prepared me for Saudi Arabia. I was born in Egypt, but my family left for London when I was seven years old. After almost eight years in the United Kingdom, we moved to Saudi Arabia in 1982.

Both my parents, Egyptians who had earned PhDs in medicine in London, had found jobs in Jeddah, teaching medical students and technicians clinical microbiology.

The campuses were segregated. My mother taught the women on the female campus and my father taught the men on the male campus.

When an instructor of the same gender wasn’t available, the classes were taught via closed-circuit television, and the students would have to ask questions using telephone sets.

My mother, who had been the breadwinner of the family for our last year in the United Kingdom, when we lived in Glasgow, now found that she could not legally drive. We became dependent on my father to take us everywhere.

As we waited for our new car to be delivered, we relied on gypsy cabs and public buses.

On the buses, we would buy our ticket from the driver, and then my mother and I would make our way to the back two rows (four if we were lucky) designated for women.

The back of the bus. What does that remind you of? Segregation is the only way to describe it.

The campuses were segregated. My mother taught the women on the female campus and my father taught the men on the male campus.

When an instructor of the same gender wasn’t available, the classes were taught via closed-circuit television, and the students would have to ask questions using telephone sets.

My mother, who had been the breadwinner of the family for our last year in the United Kingdom, when we lived in Glasgow, now found that she could not legally drive. We became dependent on my father to take us everywhere.

It felt as though we’d moved to another planet whose inhabitants fervently wished women did not exist. I lived in this surreal atmosphere for six years.

In this world, women, no matter how young or how old, are required to have a male guardian – a father, a brother, or even a son – and can do nothing without this guardian’s permission.

Yes, this is Saudi Arabia, the country where a gang rape survivor was sentenced to jail for agreeing to get into a car with an unrelated male and needed a royal pardon; Saudi Arabia, where a woman who broke the ban on driving was sentenced to ten lashes and, again, needed a royal pardon.

Note EU-Digest: Democracy and women's rights - still a major stumbling block in country which considers itself the cradle of Islam. 
 
Read moreSaudi Arabia: From the Eyes of an Insider - The Globali

EU celebrates March 8 International Women's Day in Turkey

EU Supports Turkish Women's fight  against gender inequality

On the occasion of the International  Women's Day, the Delegation of the European Union to Turkey reiterates its support to women in Turkey in fighting gender inequalities, a key issue in Turkey's development agenda and its EU accession process. 

The EU Delegation is organizing between 5-9 March 20 events, revolving around the theme of "Women's Rights and the European Union" in Ankara, Antalya, Bursa, Denizli Edirne, Erzurum, Eskişehir, Gaziantep, İstanbul, İzmir, Kayseri, Kocaeli, Konya, Mersin, Samsun, Sivas, Şanlıurfa, Trabzon and Van with the aim of promoting gender equality and generating public awareness through panel discussions, seminars and film  screenings.

In Ankara, the Chargé d'affaires a.i. of the EU Delegation, Béla Szombati, will deliver a keynote speech at an event entitled "Being WOMAN in Bold Letters" on March 6, 2015 at the Yunus Emre Cultural Centre in Ankara. The event, which starts at 15:00, will  lso feature a classical music performance by FeminIstanbul and a pantomime show for children.

Read more: EU celebrates March 8 International Women's Day in Turkey

Turkey: Murder of Student Ozgecan Aslan inTurkey causes Uproar and Focus on Women’s Rights - by RM

The burned body of Turkish female student Ozgecan Aslan discovered on Feb. 13 in a riverbed in the Tarsus district of Mersin in Turkey has enraged people from all walks of life around Turkey.

This has resulted in many demonstrations around the country, where both women and men have expressed their anger and called for justice and equal women's rights in the culturally male dominated Turkish environment.

Female empowerment still lags in most Muslim countries including Turkey. Despite the progress made there in regard to women during the 20th century through the efforts by its first President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey now faces attempts at going backwards again by defining women’s role as mainly domestic.

Even recently elected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that women and men cannot be equal because it “goes against the laws of nature.”

The sheer size of Turkey’s protests, however, are perhaps the most important indication yet of how much Muslim women today are challenging traditional male dominance based on the old interpretations of gender roles within Islam.

Almere-Digest