US Power Shift Benefits Corporate America: the Hobby Lobby Ruling impact on US and EU US trade negotiations

Last month, as you’ve probably heard, a closely divided Supreme Court ruled that corporations with religious owners cannot be required to pay for insurance coverage of contraception. The so-called Hobby Lobby decision, named for the chain of craft stores that brought the case, has been both praised and condemned for expanding religious rights and constraining Obamacare. 

But beneath the political implications, the ruling has significant economic undertones. It expands the right of corporations to be treated like people, part of a trend that may be contributing to the rise of economic inequality.

The notion that corporations are people is ridiculous on its face, but often true. Although Mitt Romney was mocked for saying it on the campaign trail a few summers ago, the U.S. Code, our national rule book, defines corporations as people in its very first sentence. 

And since the 19th century, the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are entitled to a wide range of constitutional protections. This was a business decision, and it was a good one. Incorporation encourages risk-taking: Investors are far more likely to put money into a business that can outlast its creators; managers, for their part, are more likely to take risks themselves because they owe nothing to the investors if they fail.

The rise of corporations, which developed more fully in the United States than in other industrializing nations, helped to make it the richest nation on earth. And economic historians have found that states where businesses could incorporate more easily tended to grow more quickly, aiding New York’s rise as a banking center and helping Pennsylvania’s coal industry to outstrip Virginia’s. 

The notion of corporate personhood still sounds weird, but we rely upon it constantly in our everyday lives. The corporation that published this column, for instance, is exercising its constitutional right to speak freely and to make contracts, taking money from some of you and giving a little to me.

Note EU-Digest: the above should be a clear warning to the EU not to sign any major trade agreement with the US wich has laws in place which gives profit based and not democratically run corporations the same legal rights and status as human beings.

Read more: What the Hobby Lobby Ruling Means for America - NYTimes.com

Ukraine: Dutch sending unarmed police to Ukraine crash site - by Mike Corder

The Netherlands is sending 40 unarmed military police to eastern Ukraine as part of a ramped-up effort to find the last victims of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 still at the wreckage site, Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced late Thursday.

He also is sending forensic investigators to the site to try to piece together exactly what happened when the plane was shot down a week ago, killing all 298 people on board.
U.S. officials say the Boeing 777 was probably shot down by a missile from territory held by pro-Russian rebels, likely by accident.

Rutte said the military police will help the investigators.

"They are really looking like the forensic experts," he said. "They will be extra hands and eyes to look for remaining remains and personal belongings."

His comments Thursday came hours after two military planes carrying 74 coffins landed at a military base in the Netherlands. A day earlier, the two military transport planes — one Dutch and one Australian — brought back the first 40 coffins and more flights were planned for Friday.

Thousands of people have turned out to watch the convoys of hearses drive from the Eindhoven Air Base to a military barracks in the central city of Hilversum, where the remains will be identified by an international team of experts.

The Netherlands has been given the lead in the investigation into what exactly happened to Flight 17 and is taking charge of efforts to identify the dead. This nation of 17 million was the hardest hit, with 194 of its citizens on board the plane.

Read more: Dutch sending unarmed police to Ukraine crash site - US News

EU must cut umbilical cord with the US - deal with Moscow without US handholding - by Mary Dejevsky

After a harrowing delay, the first bodies from MH17 arrived back at their point of departure on Wednesday.

The sendoff from Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, had been dignified, in contrast to most of their treatment over the previous six days. There were decent coffins, a short military ceremony and soberly dressed officials with heads bowed. A measure of order had been restored.

These arrangements, it appears, were the result of highly complicated negotiations between many parties.

There were representatives of Malaysia (because the plane was theirs); of the Netherlands (because this is where the plane had set off from, and the majority of the passengers were Dutch nationals); of the Ukrainian government (because the plane came down within its borders); of the anti-Kiev rebels (because they control the actual territory where the plane crashed); and of Russia (because it had some lines open to the rebels, if not as much real leverage as many still believe).

Add in international organisations, such as the OSCE, and the various official groups charged with investigating air disasters, plus officials from countries such as Britain that also lost nationals and which can offer particular expertise, and the picture becomes still more complex. When you consider this extensive list, however, what is striking is not just who is there, but who is not. Where, most conspicuously, is the US?

In the early days, some overheated rhetoric wafted across the Atlantic about blame for MH17, especially from Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, who loses no opportunity to rehearse her trademark denunciations of Russia. But President Obama was always more cautious, and now US intelligence officials have expressly excluded “direct” Russian involvement in what happened, while blaming Russia for “helping to create the conditions”.

For the most part, though, the US has remained on the sidelines. Where it has acted, for instance in sending aviation safety officials, it has done so without fanfare. Rather than rush to Kiev or Moscow or the Netherlands, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, has remained in the Middle East, applying his efforts to the ever more destructive conflict over Gaza.

Whether US intervention would have been welcome or not after MH17 is neither here nor there. The downing of the Malaysian plane soon turned into as much of a major international diplomatic crisis (with Russia in the dock) as it was a human tragedy many times over. Somehow, as seen from Europe, you would have expected the US to have been there.

Maybe, though, we Europeans are going to have to get used to the idea that in diplomatic and military – if not economic – terms, Europe has ceased to be special in Washington. There were already hints, during Obama’s first election campaign, that “Yes, we can!” might one day be completed with “do without Europe”.

Read more: Europe must learn to deal with Moscow without US backing | Mary Dejevsky | Comment is free | The Guardian

Netherlands mourns as bodies of MH17 plane crash victims are flown home - by Philip Oltermann

A a day of national mourning in the Netherlands

As the first coffin was lowered from the planes on the runway, silence fell over Eindhoven military airport. The only sound came from a row of flags whipping in the wind at half mast.

Almost a week after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot from the skies above Ukraine, 40 bodies arrived on Wednesday in the Netherlands, the country that bore the heaviest toll in the crash.

King Willem-Alexander, Queen Maxima and the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, joined about 1,000 relatives and friends of the victims, who gathered at the airport for a ceremony receiving the two military transport planes.

A lone trumpeter played the Last Post as troops in dress uniform saluted then carried the wooden caskets to a row of hearses. They drove from the airport under military police escort to an army barracks in the central city of Hilversum where forensic experts were waiting to begin the painstaking task of identifying the remains.
Crowds gathered on bridges along the 65-mile route to throw flowers on to the convoy of 40 hearses.

The Dutch government had declared a day of national mourning – the first since the death of Queen Wilhelmina in 1962 – and at 4.07pm a minute's silence was requested across the country.

Two-hundred and ninety-eight passengers and crew were killed when the Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpar was shot down last Thursday a week today. The Dutch victims numbered 193. In a nation of just 16 million, few have been unaffected by the disaster.

Read more: Netherlands mourns as bodies of MH17 plane crash victims are flown home | World news | The Guardian

Netherlands: Majority of Dutch population polled want the Netherlands to severe diplomatic relations with Russia

In a recent Dutch poll 58 percent of the people polled said the government should severe diplomatic relations with Russia regardless of the economic consequences .

Another 26 % said major sanctions should be imposed on Russia and 16% wern't sure what to do.

Comparing the percentage of the total Netherlands population with that of the US and the number of Dutch casualties as a result of this Russian missile shoot down of the Malaysian aircraft, the Netherlands suffered a greater loss of livespercentage wise than the US did in 9/11.

EU-Digest

Ukraine: Dutch investigators say remains of bodies from Aircraft downed and held by pro-Russian rebels not refrigerated

Dutch investigators inspected bodies recovered from downed passenger airliner MH17 which had been loaded onto a train under rebel control not far from the crash site, an AFP reporter said. Each of the train wagons carrying the corpses was opened and examined by two men wearing masks and headlights.

The stench from the wagon was overpowering and, contrary to claims that the carriages were refrigerated, there was little sign that the remains in black body bags were being chilled.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Monday that the Netherlands should head up the investigation into downed flight MH17 and that Kiev was ready to "send all bodies to Amsterdam". "We are ready for the Netherlands to take upon itself the coordination of the international investigation as the country that suffered the most," Yatsenyuk said.

Another 21 bodies have been found in the east Ukraine village where Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 17 crashed last week. All 298 people aboard were killed. Local rescue workers had piled 21 black body bags by the side of the road in Hrabove early on Monday, adds the Associated Press report. It was unclear how quickly they would be transported to refrigerated railcars in the nearby town of Torez, where the other bodies are being held.

The United Nations Security Council is expected to consider a resolution demanding that pro-Russian separatists provide "full and unrestricted access" to the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that was

The document, proposed by Australia and co-sponsored by countries like France, also calls on all actors in the region to fully cooperate in an international probe of the incident. It demands that all military activities, including by armed groups, be "immediately ceased in the immediate area surrounding the crash site to allow for security and safety of the international investigation."

US Secretary of State John Kerry laid out "extraordinary circumstantial evidence" on Sunday that Ukrainian pro-Russian rebels were behind the downing of a Malaysian jet hit by weapons obtained from Russia. US intelligence suggests that a sophisticated SA11 missile system was used to bring down flight MH17 on Thursday as it flew at some 33,000 feet over Ukraine en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur,

Kerry said. A total of 298 people on board were killed in the disaster that has shocked the world. "It's pretty clear that this is a system that was transferred from Russia in the hands of separatists," Kerry told CNN as he blitzed the Sunday television talk shows. "We know with confidence, with confidence, that the Ukrainians did not have such a system anywhere near the vicinity at that point in time.

So it obviously points a very clear finger at the separatists." The top US diplomat also slammed "grotesque" scenes at the crash site where he said rebels were hampering the investigation and the proper removal of the bodies.

Overall situation so far is chaotic with no real coordinated efforts by the West to take charge of the recovery activities and accident investigation or defensive measures to eliminate the possibility of future missile attacks from the separatist and their Russian allies.

 EU-Digest

Ukraine: NATO should not waiver : destroy Buk and other missile launchers in and around the border of Ukraine

"Come on NATO do what you are supposed to do"

A missile launcher allegedly used to destroy Flight MH17 has been smuggled across the Ukrainian border into Russia to cover up its role in the strike, Ukraine’s interior minister claimed Friday.

Amid mounting evidence that Russian-backed separatists were behind the disaster, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said “technical assistance” from Russia could not be ruled out.

In a pointed reference to Moscow, Samantha Power added that the perpetrators should not be “sheltered” by any UN member state.

In a day of claim and counter-claim, Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said a Buk mobile launch vehicle had been moved since the destruction of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 on Thursday, and that it was missing at least one rocket. He claimed the launcher had been tracked by Ukrainian intelligence agents as it passed by the town of Krasnodon in the Luhansk region.

A 13-second video showed a tarpaulin-covered vehicle being driven through a semi-rural location with green and white missiles still visible, but it was not possible to confirm the veracity of the claim.

Mr. Avakov wrote on Facebook: “To all appearance, this is exactly the Buk rocket complex which fired at the aircraft flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.”

Photographs also emerged purportedly showing a Buk battery being moved in a rebel-held area close to the crash site.

Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, dismissed suggestions that Moscow was involved in the alleged strike. The separatists also denied involvement, claiming that they did not have a weapon capable of such an attack.

However, the separatists themselves announced last month that they had seized at least one Buk missile launcher from a Ukrainian army base in Donetsk.

Ms. Power told the UN Security Council: “We assess Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 … was likely downed by a surface-to-air missile, [likely] an SA-11 [the U.S. designation for a Buk missile], operated from a separatist location in eastern Ukraine.” She added: “We cannot rule out technical assistance from the Russians.

The perpetrators must be brought to justice, they must not be sheltered by any member state of the United Nations.”

The father in a Dutch family which had lost relatives in the Russian missile shoot down of the Malaysian Airliner above Ukraine said:   "Why doesn't NATO, which never hesitates to us drone attacks on anything they find suspicious or smell of terrorism, doesn't destroy these Buck bases in and on the border of Russia". 

"What will Russia do? Probably nothing. Mr. Putin certainly can't be that stupid to risk the third world war by striking back ? - the world owes it to the victims of the crash to do something dramatic, so the perpetrators never do this again."

EU-Digest