EU-US Trade Negotiations: Concerns rise over US-EU trade talks - as Europe demonstrates against talks - by Andrew Walker

There are rising concerns in Europe over negotiations to liberalise trade with the United States.

The project, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, aims to remove a wide range of barriers to bilateral commerce.

Opponents are planning demonstrations and protests across Europe today October 11, with large numbers of events in Germany, France, Spain and Italy,

In Britain, events are planned in at least 15 cities and towns.

One campaigner involved in planning the day of action said she expected at least 400 local actions in about 24 European countries.

The EU and the US launched the negotiations last year and the aim is to stimulate more trade and investment, and, in the process, to produce more economic growth and employment.

One aim of the negotiations is to reduce the costs to business of complying with regulations. A firm in, say Europe, that wants to export to the US often has to comply with two sets of rules.Critics say the result of this would be lower standards of protection for workers, consumers and the environment. Food safety is a particular concern among European opponents of the negotiations.

In the EU, campaigners say that consumers could be faced with more genetically modified food, hormone treated beef and chicken meat that has been rinsed with chlorine.

Another major concern is the provisions under discussion to enable foreign investors - for example American firms investing in the EU - to sue a host government in some circumstances if they are hit by a change in policy.

That turned out to be so controversial that the European Commission decided to hold a public consultation. There were 150,000 responses which the Commission is still analyzing.

The conduct of the negotiations is also contentious. Campaigners say they are secretive and undemocratic. They also dispute TTIP advocates' claims about the economic benefits.

Overall these negotiations have proven to be extremely controversia and should not be allowed to be shoved down the throats of European Citizens.

Read more: BBC News - Concerns rise over US-EU trade talk

Global Economy: Debt risk, market turmoil threaten financial crisis - David Parkinson

Nagging debt risks, heated currency wars and renewed market turmoil are making the global economy a precarious place, six years after the financial crisis.

On the sixth anniversary of the S&P 500’s biggest one-day drop in history – a 106-point plunge on Sept. 29, 2008, that marked the beginning of one of the worst market collapses of all time – the respected annual Geneva Report on the World Economy is raising concerns about a “poisonous combination” of record and still-rising global debts and chronically slow growth. It warned that this leaves the world exposed to a heightened risk of further economic stagnation and even another potential financial crisis.

Read more: Debt risk, market turmoil threaten financial crisis - The Globe and Mail

May you live in interesting times - How Global Developments Impact On Your Life - editorial

May you live in interesting times"  -  While purporting to be a blessing, this is in fact a curse. The expression is always used ironically, with the clear implication that 'uninteresting times', of peace and tranquility, are more life-enhancing than interesting ones.

"May you live in interesting times" is also  widely reported as being of ancient Chinese origin but is really neither Chinese nor ancient, being recent and western. It certainly seems to have been intended to sound oriental, in the faux-Chinese 'Confucius he say' style, but that's as near to China as it actually gets.

The saying probably refers back to the days before the second world war when British PM Neville Chamberlain used it to described the state of the world at that time.

Tying the state of world affairs from Chamberlain's days to the present we could  probably quite appropriately use the French saying: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - the more it changes - the more it stays the same.  Or, the fact is - history repeats itself.

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The Netherlands: Kurdish Protesters Occupy Dutch Parliament

Hundreds of Kurdish protesters have occupied the Dutch Parliament building and are calling for more action to combat the Islamic State terror group.

The official Twitter feed of The Hague police says the demonstration late Monday is peaceful and that officers are in talks with the protest leaders. Police advised the public not to go to the square outside Parliament.

National broadcaster NOS posted video on its website showing chanting protesters inside the Parliament building holding a banner that said in Dutch "Stop the silence. Support Kobani," a reference to the Syrian town close to the Turkish border that was under attack Monday by Islamic State fighters.

Note EU-Digest: Hopefully Mr. Rutte called Mr.Erdogan and asked him why he is sitting on his hands instead of using all the tanks he lined up on the Turkish border facing Kobani  ?

 Read MoreKurdish Protesters Occupy Dutch Parliament - ABC News

The Netherlands: Assisted Suicide 'Out of Control' - by Nick Hallett

The number of mentally ill people who have been killed through euthanasia in the Netherlands has trebled in a single year, according to new figures.

The Daily Mail reports that in 2012, 14 people with "severe psychiatric problems" were killed by lethal injection, a figure that rose to 42 in 2013.

There had also been a 15 percent overall rise in assisted dying over the past year, with the number of cases increasing from 4,188 to 4,829.

Deaths from euthanasia have risen by a total of 151 percent in a period of just seven years, with most cases involving cancer sufferers. However, there were also 97 people who were killed by their doctors because they had dementia.

The figures do not include "terminal sedation", where the patient is sedated and then has food and fluids withdrawn. If they did, however, euthanasia would account for one in eight of all deaths in the Netherlands.

Read more: Assisted Suicide 'Out of Control' in Netherlands

ISES: The European Union Must Face the Islamic State

Diplomatic missions, think tanks, and the media are rife with analyses of the Islamic State. Assessments of how to deal with the jihadist group range from “wait and see” to “degrade and destroy,” and there are even mundane controversies about whether the entity should be called the Islamic State (IS), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or Da’esh (the movement’s Arabic acronym)—even though these names carry almost identical meanings.

The bottom line is that the self-proclaimed Islamic State, which has now taken hold in large parts of Iraq and Syria, is posing unprecedented challenges to the Western community of nations. The group is a particular threat to European states. To cope with those aspects of the situation that are specific to Europe, EU leaders must focus their efforts on five key areas: counterterrorism cooperation, the interruption of financial flows to the Islamic State, humanitarian assistance, political dialogue, and long-term policy reforms.

There are striking differences between the Islamic State’s modus operandi and that of other jihadist movements active in recent years, namely al-Qaeda from September 2001 onward and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in 2013. Three particular contrasts are discernible.

First, the Islamic State’s current military strategy—including its funding, equipment, manpower, and operational capabilities—is much more sophisticated than anything the West has witnessed from similar groups. The terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001, in Djerba in 2002, in Madrid in 2004, or in London in 2005, as tragic as they were, were one-off and localized. Some were suicide operations, while others were hit-and-run bombings. In January 2013, AQIM conducted a military surge in Mali, in an attempt to “acquire” an entire country by force and turn it into a base for further operations in the region, using captured airfields and military or communication facilities; but even that attack was very modest compared with current IS operations.

The second element that distinguishes the Islamic State from other terrorist groups is the deep roots it has developed in Western Europe, the Maghreb, and Turkey, as well as the Middle East, where it has recruited several thousand jihadists. Data show that the larger contingents come from the Middle East (5,800), the Maghreb countries (5,300), the EU (2,600 to 3,000), and Turkey (anywhere between 400 and 1,000). Numbers given by official agencies are substantially higher.

More importantly, the Islamic State’s power to attract young, underemployed, loosely indoctrinated people can be very high. The combination of recruitment circuits, networks of sympathizers, and returnees from the Middle East with a mission to recruit more jihadists produces a substantial potential for social destabilization, especially as radicalized Muslim communities tend to be geographically concentrated. What is more, this radicalization is happening in a political context in which xenophobia and extreme right-wing political parties are rising at an accelerated pace.

Thirdly: The EU’s 28 countries have a total population of 505 million. Counting citizens and immigrants, these states’ Muslim population is about 20 million. For 2,600 to 3,000 young men and women to be actively involved in jihadist movements may therefore seem almost negligible. 

This would be an erroneous assessment, in part because estimates are growing by the day.Given this context, the overwhelming aims for European governments must be to severely curtail the recruitment of European jihadists by the Islamic State, impede the recruits’ transit to Syria and Iraq, and put returnee militants under strict surveillance. Preventing jihadists from leaving Europe is also key. The European countries concerned have already revamped procedures and launched new forms of cooperation to address these tasks, but they should do more. The implications of such steps are momentous and concern many domains: freedom of movement within the EU, management of the Schengen area, counterterrorism coordination, antiterrorism legislation, regulation of political activities, and even freedom of expression.

Read more: The European Union Must Face the Islamic State

The Netherlands: Dutch Railways NS new ticketing system considered complicated and unfriendly by NS customers

A random poll by EU-Digest throughout the Netherlands shows that 68% of NS customers are unhappy with the new obligatory electronic OV Chipcard ticketing system. The new system went into effect two months ago throughout the Netherlands.

The new system did away with a paper ticketing system and replaced it with an electronic "refill" Chipcard called OV Chipcard tied into the customers bank account or credit card. The OV Chipcard can also be used on all other Public Transport in the Netherlands

Travelers find the new system complicated, riddled with technical problems and especially unfriendly to many older customers who are not tech savvy

Tourists visiting the Netherlands also complained that the ticketing system does not accept many International credit cards.

Almere-Digest