North Sea Oil and gas industry leaders warn: slump in investment could devastate North Sea - by Mark Williamson

Oil and gas firms will slash investment in the North Sea by around 80 per cent in coming years following the oil price slump potentially leaving parts of the area abandoned, industry leaders have warned.

The cuts in spending could result in billions of barrels resources going unrecovered including 1.7 billion held in existing fields, it is feared.

The warning follows publication of the latest survey of North Sea firms by Oil & Gas UK. This shows the fall in the oil price since June is taking a heavy toll on the area, where firms have radically cut their investment plans over the last year.

The industry body found the UK North Sea industry spent £5.3bn more than it got from oil and gas sales last year, the worst result since the 1970s. The tax take for the UK Government fell by 40 per cent to £2.8bn, the lowest level in more than 20 years.

Oil & Gas UK found annual investment in projects like bringing new fields into production is set to fall from a record £14.8 billion last year to just £2.5bn in 2018.

With the industry facing greater uncertainty than ever, Oil & Gas UK said a number of projects that have been approved may yet be cancelled.

Malcolm Webb, chief executive of Oil & Gas UK, said the survey painted a bleak picture of conditions in an industry that supports hundreds of thousands of highly skilled jobs. Many of these are in Scotland.

Read more: Oil and gas industry leaders warn: slump in investment could devastate North Sea | Herald Scotland

The Netherlands: Europol chief says more cooperation needed to counter terror - by Mike Corder

Intelligence and law enforcement agencies across the European Union have to cooperate better to fight against the threat of terrorism, the head of EU police organization Europol said Monday.

Speaking at a meeting with foreign journalists in the Netherlands, Europol Director Rob Wainwright said his organization can help track extremists, their arms and cash across borders as the continent ramps up its counter terror operations in the aftermath of the deadly attacks this year in Paris
and Copenhagen.

Europol has built up a database of about 3,000 people who traveled to fight in Syria and Iraq — though Wainwright says the number is likely much higher.

Read more: Europol chief says more cooperation needed to counter terror

Greece: No feelgood victory for Germany in debt clash with Greece

Germany's 7-1 drubbing of Brazil in the football World Cup last summer was uncomfortable to watch, even for jubilant Germans whose cheers turned to sheepish smiles as the goals piled up.

The bailout extension deal that Germany and its European partners clinched with Greece on Friday after weeks of public jousting between the countries had a similar feel.

In the end, it looked like a total triumph for the Germans, who forced Alexis Tsipras, Greece's new leftist prime minister, to swallow virtually all of their demands.

But it was not a feel-good victory, nor one that bodes well for a single currency bloc struggling to emerge from a half-decade of financial and economic crisis, and increasingly threatened by populist political forces on the right and left.

Read more:  ekathimerini.com | No feelgood victory for Germany in debt clash with Greece

Crime in trhe EU: The Netherlands Falls Victim to Violent Crime - by Sierra Rayne

With the recent news that the Dutch goverment will be prosecuting Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom, for hate speech once again, even a cursory review of what is happening in the Netherlands reveals why Wilders is so concerned. His nation is becoming unrecognizable and deteriorating rapidly.

Over the past 20 years, the violent crime rate has increased an astounding 83 percent in the Netherlands. Almost all of this increase took place before 2005 -- indeed, since 2005 there has been a slight decline in the Dutch violent crime rate, but the levels are still astronomical compared to those seen in the early to mid-1990s.

Between 1993 and 1995, the Dutch unemployment rate increased sharply but the violent crime rate was essentially unaffected. From 1995 to 2011, the unemployment rate fell from 7.1 percent to just 2.5 percent, and the violent crime rate exploded upwards. Since 2008, the jobless rate has increased rapidly, but the violent crime rate has declined modestly -- albeit still at nearly twice 1993 levels.

Real per capita GDP has fallen 5 percent since 2008, and violent crime also declined, whereas from 1993 to 2005 the real per capita GDP increased by almost 30 percent while the violent crime rate also increased 111 percent. 

Attempting to assign causation for an increasing violent crime rate on increased per capita wealth generation would be inconsistent with the general experience among wealthy nations over this time frame (aka, invalid).

Changes in income inequality also won't explain the massive increase in the Dutch violent crime rate during the last two decades. The income shares for the top 10 percent and top 1 percent have hardly changed over this period.

What has changed in a consistent manner with the Dutch violent crime rate is the percentage of population that is classified as "international migrant stock"

Read more: Blog: The Netherlands Falls Victim to Violent Crime

Greece: Syriza declares war at home on Greece's 'oligarchs'

International attention on Greece since the Syriza party took over has focused on the leftist government's fight against austerity.

But Panagiotis Nikoloudis (65), a supreme court prosecutor and specialist on economic crime, is leading another battle declared by Syriza: one on the home front, against some of the wealthy businessmen who dominate Greek political and economic life.

Speaking to parliament last week, Nikoloudis denounced an elite that included a "handful of families who think that the state and public service exists to service their own interests."

"Such businessmen influence politicians and state officials abuse their control of the media to unfairly win state
contracts, change regulations to their advantage or escape prosecution for illegal conduct," he said.

As a non-political outsider with a clean record, Nikoloudis is a popular appointment among Greeks who believe corruption is deeply embedded in society.

He has a reputation for action, and says the financial intelligence unit, which he led until now, developed a system of audits that identified over 20,000 people whose assets do not match their tax declarations.

Read more: Syriza declares war at home on Greece's 'oligarchs' - Independent.ie

NATO : The Problem: We Europeans must face up to our own security challenges - by Natalie Nougayrede

The return of war to the European continent has come as a profound, if delayed, shock to the west. No one, just a year ago, could have imagined that it would come to this. A Europe struggling with its financial and economic woes is caught off guard by Ukraine’s turmoil and Russia’s role in that. Now, we have the immediate flashpoint in eastern Ukraine, which the Minsk declaration announced by the leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia, aims to address. And then there is the long view, the wider picture to be grasped: and that concerns Europe’s future and its long-term security.

For what we are witnessing is a truly a defining moment for how the continent may look like in the 21st century, in a context where the transatlantic bond is significantly weakened. The key question revolves around how Europe will deal in the future with ensuring a stable security architecture on its territory, capable of preventing more bloodshed and thus ensuring it can defend its interests in a changing world. There are far more, and far deeper, unknowns here than in how the ceasefire will hold out in eastern Ukraine.

Note EU-Digest: Yes indeed,  Europe needs to look at its own defense. Even though it might sound completely ridiculous, an obligatory EU - wide military conscription program which mixes up conscripts from EU countries and stations them around the EU would not only solve the problem of putting together an integrated EU defense force, but also by the sheer fact of mixing the conscripts from different EU member states together in a united  military force create a strong base for unity in the EU on a long term basis.   

Read more: We Europeans must face up to our own security challenges | Natalie Nougayrede | Comment is free | The Guardian

Surveillance: 9 Ways You're Being Spied On Every Day

Casinos. Banks. Airports. We all know there are public places where we're being watched, ostensibly for crime-prevention purposes. But with the advancement of digital technologies, "Big Brother's" reach has gotten way wider, recording our movements—and our conversations—in a surprising amount of places.

"Big Brother is becoming more and more intrusive in our private lives and until something is done to scale it back or eliminate it, it's only going to get worse," says David Bakke, Money Crashers tech expert.

Read more: 9 Ways You're Being Spied On Every Day