Turkey: - Egypt: The Slow Slide Toward Dictatorship Taking Place in Egypt and Turkey

Supporters of the governments of Egypt and Turkey have become adept at telling the world that under presidents Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan respectively, these countries are making progress toward more open and just
political systems.

In reality, they are nothing more than tin-pot dictatorships.< Over the weekend, Egyptian authorities detained, questioned, and deported my friend and colleague Michele Dunne as she sought to enter Egypt at the invitation of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs.

Michele, who is the most well-respected Egypt analyst in Washington, has not been shy in her criticism of the Egyptian government.

Not to be outdone, yesterday the Turks arrested 27 people including journalists, TV producers, and police commanders on terrorism charges. All of the detainees are either members or suspected members of the Gulen movement.

Fethullah Gulen and his followers were at one time allied with Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, working together, for example, to subordinate the armed forces to civilian leaders, though at the expense of the rule of law and due process.

Note EU-Digest: the economies of both Egypt and Turkey have also taken a hit and are expected decline even more. The number of unemployed has also steadily increased in both countries.

 read more: The Slow Slide Toward Dictatorship Taking Place in Egypt and Turkey - Defense One

Turkey media arrests: Erdogan rejects EU criticism of Turkey curbing Press Freedom

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lashed out at the European Union after it criticised the mass arrest of opposition journalists at the weekend.

"The EU should mind its own business and keep its own opinions to itself," Mr Erdogan said, denying that the raids had infringed press freedom.

EU leaders have said the arrests were incompatible with "European values".

At least 24 journalists said to have close links with a US-based cleric are being held for plotting to seize power.

Sunday's raids targeted the Zaman newspaper and Samanyolu TV channel, which are described as close to Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, the spiritual leader of the Hizmet movement.

A former ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mr Gulen - who lives in self-imposed exile - is accused of running a "parallel state" within Turkey.

Read more: BBC News - Turkey media arrests: Erdogan rejects EU criticism

EU-Digest Poll on Ukraine election by pro-Russian dissidents shows 50% consider the election legitimate

The latest EU-Digest Poll open to all its readers from the 14th of November  through the 14th of December on the political legitimacy of Ukraine's recent  pro-Russian dissident election showed  the following results.(see illustration)

On the question if the Russian Ethnic population had the right to self determination 50% of those polled said they did.

This month poll, open through January 15, 2015, focuses on torture.

Is torture an acceptable method to extract information during interrogations of suspects?

This poll question is being asked in light of a report from the US Senate Intelligence Committee on the CIA's interrogation techniques after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which details the methods the agency used against terrorism suspects.

The report says the techniques were ineffective, a point the agency disputes.

EU-Digest

Oil Industry - Royal Dutch Shell and other energy giants say they are for climate reform but finance the lobby to kill reform- by Lee Fang

Several fossil fuel interests are here at the United Nations climate negotiations, putting on their best public face in support of reducing carbon emissions. Despite the lofty rhetoric, with some pledging to lead the way in reducing carbon pollution, the same corporate actors are also fueling efforts to block any substantive reforms.

It’s been called the “Jekyll and Hyde Approach to Climate Change.” In other words, businesses are boosting their brand by appearing to support climate reforms, while working to block policies to achieve these goals at very same time.

Republic Report talked to several corporate lobbyists and business representatives at the summit this week about their ties to pressure groups working to block action on carbon reduction in the United States.

The Edison Electric Institute, a lobbying group that represents utility companies, many of which rely on coal-based power plants, is indicative of this approach. The group claims that it is “committed to addressing the challenge of climate change” and says its member companies, including American Electric Power, Duke Energy, Xcel Energy, and others, “have undertaken a wide range of initiatives over the last 30 years to reduce, avoid or sequester GHG emissions.”

But EEI doesn’t just support both sides of the aisle, they support both sides of the moral spectrum on climate change. Brian Wolff, the executive vice president of the group, told us that his organization is a dues-paying member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that recently released a slew of anti-environmental template legislation to express support for abolishing the EPA, delaying greenhouse gas-related regulations, and undercut the federal government’s ability to enforce climate change rules, including on power plants.

“There are benefits of having stakeholder engagement,” Wolff contends. “We’re involved with many Republican, Democrat organizations,” said Wolff at an event in Lima sponsored by the European Union pavilion. Wolff told us that he sent a staffer to a recent ALEC conference to see “what is going on there and the action coming up,” but said he could not recall if his representative voted to approve ALEC’s new bills focused on climate change.

Shell Oil plays from a similar script. Shell, also a member of ALEC, was revealed recently in a Bloomberg News investigation to be a donor to a campaign in California to attack the state’s landmark climate law, AB32.

Read more: The fossil fuel industry’s Jekyll-and-Hyde trick: Back climate reforms while quietly financing lobby to kill them - Salon.com

Germany: Ifo think tank optimistic about German growth

Germany's Ifo economic institute has said the German economy will pick up steam next year and beyond. In its 2015 outlook, the think tank argued growth would be based on increased domestic consumption.

Germany's gross domestic product will expand by 1.5 percent next year, the Munich-based Ifo institute said Thursday as it presented ts 2015 outlook, revising an earlier estimate of just 1.2 percent growth.

The think tank appeared more optimistic than most of the country's other leading economic institutes, which predicted the German economy would grow by no more than 1.3 percent next year.

Ifo, for its part, argued the stronger pickup would ride on a wave of consumer confidence that had fueled domestic consumption.

Read more: Ifo think tank optimistic about German growth | Business | DW.DE | 11.12.2014

Nederland in onstuimig weer: Als Nederland een bedrijf was zouden we al lang failliet zijn - door: Robert Jan Blom

Het gaat niet al te best met Nederland

Het is om kriegelig van te worden: we zitten nu op zo’n 750.000 werklozen oftewel  8,5 procent van de beroepsbevolking. Bekendebedrijven als Halfords en Mexx worden failliet verklaard, met vele werklozen tot gevolg.

De ene na de andere bank laat weten afscheid te nemen van nog eens enkele duizenden werknemers. KPN kondigt  alweer een afslankingsoperatie aan. En de politici? Zij houden stug vol dat de crisis voorbij is.

Waarom? Omdat u op achttien maart 2015 naar de stembus moet voor de provinciale statenverkiezingen.

Wie alert is, weet dat het pover gesteld is met de financiële gezondheid van ons land. Natuurlijk: een land kan niet echt failliet gaan.

Maar als je een koele cijferaar op onze statistieken zou loslaten, laten we zeggen een private equity aasgier die een vijandig bod op de bv Nederland overweegt, tot welke conclusie zou hij dan komen? Ten eerste zou hij vaststellen dat Nederland Inc. onder een torenhoge schuldenlast zucht. Ten tweede zou hij bijkans worden bedolven onder uit allerlei kasten tuimelende lijken.

Tot zijn verbazing zou hij concluderen dat Nederland overeind wordt gehouden door vrijwilligers die eigenlijk normaal betaald zouden moeten krijgen.

Klik hier voor volledig artikel: Als Nederland een bedrijf was zouden we al lang failliet zijn - FaillissementsDossier.nl

The Internet: Europe vs. U.S. tech companies - by Levi Sumagaysay

“We recognize that innovation improves our lives, but we want a level playing field.” says Ramon Tremosa i Balcells, a European Parliament lawmaker from Spain who backed the resolution calling for a breakup of Google.

The Wall Street Journal writes that as Europe feels increasingly threatened by the success — or dominance — of American tech companies, it is causing bigger and bigger headaches for those companies.

The call for the breakup of Google is just one example. There’s also the U.K.’s proposed “Google tax,” a 25 percent tax on profit made in the U.K. but then is shifted elsewhere. Another high-profile issue: Europe’s “right to be forgotten” ruling, which centers on Europeans’ strong views on the right to privacy and requires Google and other search engines to scrub search results on a case-by-case basis.

(Recently, there have even been calls to extend that ruling to the companies’ search websites outside Europe.) And the revelations about American government spying using Internet giants’ technology hasn’t helped, either.

Quartz notes that in France, the term GAFA, which is an acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, is sometimes used to express resentment over these companies’ influence.

Besides Europe’s concern about American tech companies’ effect on its economy, the Journal cites two other big themes that surround the Europeans’ discontent: The region’s proclivity for regulation vs. Silicon Valley’s disdain for it, and what is effectively a tug of war for control of the Internet.

Read more: Quoted: on Europe vs. U.S. tech companies | SiliconBeat