EU Banking Industry - Credit and Debit Cards: EU backs cap on bank card transaction fees

It is estimated some 760 million payment cards are used throughout the EU with the average amount spent around 49 euros.

The new rules could come into force by the end of the year and will apply to both cross-border and domestic card-based payments which costs businesses around Europe an estimated 10-billion euros a year.

Some consumer groups have expressed fear that banks may try to claw back some of the costs through other charges.

Note EU-Digest: Good job EU Parliament ! Lets hope US Banks will also be forced to cut their charges for debit and credit card transactions by the US Congress, but it is not likely. Using an a debit card in the US at a location different from the one issued by your bank will incur from $1.50 to $ 3.00 per transaction. Charges for using your US Credit card for purchases or cash withdrawals will range between 3 to 8% of the transaction amount.

Read more: EU backs cap on bank card transactions | euronews, economy

Middle East: Protection of Christians in the Middle East must become an international priority

The Middle East, the cradle of Christianity and human civilization, has been swept by a wave of extremism, while its interfaith and civilizational contradictions have become sharply aggravated.

Normal life and the very existence of many religious communities have been put under threat.

Since the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring, Russia has urged the world community to prevent religious extremists from hijacking the processes of change. Russia has been advocating settling the crises by political and diplomatic means and promoting the long overdue reforms via national dialogue.

We spoke for a search for peace and accord between all religious groups, including various denominations of Islam and Christianity.

A dramatic situation has taken shape in Syria, which has historically been a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. Its life was based on a unique model of peaceful and mutually respectful co-existence of various religious communities. Now this model is being destroyed as a result of connivance with extremists and attempts to use them in the struggle against President Assad.

Terrorist groups are engaging in an orgy of violence in Syria and Iraq, which is being accompanied by the destruction of dozens of Christian churches, including ancient shrines, and by a Christian exodus.

Jihadists are perpetrating heinous crimes on the lands of “the caliphate” and are forcibly imposing obscurantist views by killing Christians, including clergymen, burning them alive, selling them into slavery, robbing them of their property, driving them from their lands or taking them hostage. It is hard to find words in reaction to the brutal massacre of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians that has been perpetrated in Libya recently.

The Christian exodus from the Middle East is likely to have the most negative influence on the structure of Arab societies and the preservation of the historical and spiritual legacy that is important for all humankind.

Note EU-Digest: Can only happen if Muslim Nations, including Saudi Arabia, accept democracy with all its "trimmings"; freedom of expression, religion, equal rights for women and men, in fact democratic secularism, as the main pillar of their political thinking. Similar to what Turkey did after Ataturk created the Turkish Republic.

Read more: Protection of Christians in the Middle East must become an international priority — RT Op-Edge

Dutch VVD-PVDA Coalition Government In Deep Trouble After Resignation of Justice Minister, Secretary, in Drug Payoff

Dutch Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten and his state secretary, Fred Teeven, have resigned after "misleading" or as a parliamentarian said "for blowing smoke" to members of parliament over a 2001 compensation payment to a convicted drug trafficker.

Mr Opstelten had said the trafficker was paid less than he actually was for money wrongly confiscated by the state. He also said details of the payment - authorized by Mr Teeven as the prosecutor during that time - had been lost, but it turned not to be so.

The resignations are a blow to the conservative party VVD as it faces an election.

Mr Opstelten and Mr Teeven are both from the conservative wing of the party which governs the Netherlands together with the labor party, and is faces a challenge from Geert Wilders' far-right Freedom Party in provincial elections this month.

The resignations are also expected to place a strain on the Conservatives coalition with the Labour party, which has been very critical of Mr Opstelten and Mr Teeven.

This tidal wave of political unrest in the VVD-PVDA coalition could very well be"the straw that breaks the camels back" of the Dutch Government..

EU-Digest

Dutch jihadists should die before returning to Netherlands says Dutch P.M Mark Rutte

NL Times writes that Prime Minister Mark Rutte thinks it is better if Dutch jihadists who traveled to join the fight in Syria and Iraq die there instead of returning to the Netherlands. He said this in the RTL election debate last night.

This statement met opposition from all the other party leaders involved in the debate, with the exception of Geert Wilders (PVV), who was absent due to illness.

Alexander Pechtold (D66) called Rutte’s (VVD) position “unworthy of a Prime Minister” and stated that Rutte was expressing the ideas of Wilders by endorsing the position. “I find that you really can not say: go die in the desert” Pechtold thinks that the Netherlands should bring returned jihadists to justice.

Note Almere Digest: "Come on Mr. Pechtold, stop playing the "goodie-goodie man' - you don't win elections that way. 

Specially not against Mark Rutte, who is fighting for his political life and Geert Wilders, who is willing to say or lie about anything to show he is a "true" nationalist who only has the interest of the people and his country at heart."

Almere-Digest

Middle East : Iraq - Islamic State thugs destroy Iraq's ancient city of Hatra

The Islamic State group has destroyed the ancient Iraqi fortress city of Hatra, Kurdish and Iraqi officials said Saturday, just two days after "bulldozing" the ruins of Nimrud and weeks after smashing artefacts in the Mosul museum.

Speaking from Mosul, Kurdistan Democratic Party official Said Mamuzini told the Kurdish news site Rudaw that militants from the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, had begun looting and destroying the site with shovels
.
"The city of Hatra is very big and many artefacts of that era were protected inside the site,” he said. “ISIS has already taken away all the ancient currencies from the city that are in gold and silver."
Iraqi officials from the tourism and antiquities ministry confirmed the reports.

Read more: Middle East - Islamic State militants destroy Iraq's ancient city of Hatra - France 24

Prison Occupancy: Nearly A Third Of All Female Prisoners Worldwide Are Incarcerated In The United States

According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, nearly a third of all female prisoners worldwide are incarcerated in the United States of America. There are 201,200 women in US prisons, representing 8.8 percent of the total American prison population.

China comes a very distant second to the United States with 84,600 female prisoners in total or 5.1% of the overall Chinese prison population. Russia is in third position – 59,000 of its prisoners are women and this comes to 7.8 percent of the total.

Across the world, 625,000 women and children are being held in penal institutions with the female prison population growing on all five continents.

Read more and for Inphographic: Nearly A Third Of All Female Prisoners Worldwide Are Incarcerated In The United States [Infographic]

EU-US Trade Pact Negotiations: Will US Chlorine Chicken and Genetically modified foods end up on European dinner tables?

Famous TV Chef Jamie Oliver

Famous TV Chef Jamie Oliver who is popular around the world has warned that a new trade deal presently being negotiated between the EU and America will open the door in Europe to inferior US food products, including beef pumped up with growth hormones, banned additives and pesticides.

There are also concerns that GM crops and food produced in the USA, which have not been through more strict vetting procedures in Europe, could be forced on to dinner plates of Europeans

The campaigner and chef held talks this week with British Business Secretary Vince Cable to outline his ‘massive concerns’ that the deal could seriously undermine European food and farming

"If Europe signs this TTIP deal we are signing our own death sentence, because it is hardly news that the United States faces epidemic health problems linked to poor diets and hormone infected food. Nearly two out of every five Americans today are obese as a result of the bad and polluted food they consume and Europe must not go down that same road", said a EU parliamentarian. 

When EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, who is negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership" (TTIP) between the EU and US on behalf of the EU 28 member states  was asked if chlorine chicken and genetically modified foods would end up on the plates of European consumers if the agreement is signed, she said: "No, that's a myth. we have high standards of consumer protection in the EU that will not be compromised by a trade agreement. Genetically modified foods are not allowed in Europe, hormone-treated meat is also taboo here, and chlorine-treated chickens are prohibited.

Hopefully the EU Commission and Parliament will keep a watchful eye that the EU does not fall for the "sweet talk" of the Americans. Remember they are mainly carrying out the objectives of their multi-national corporate sponsors in these crucial EU-US negotiations.

EU-Digest