Europeans Fight U.S. Trade Deal With Fear of McHospitals, Fracking Under Eiffel Tower (and they should)-by Leo Cendrowicz

It will afflict Europe with American abominations on an almost Biblical scale: cheap and dirty food, toxic waste, mind-numbing movies and television, gas-guzzling cars, all while scrapping healthcare and erasing labour rights.

That, at least, is how angry European activists are painting a planned trade deal between the European Union and the United States. A legion of horrors has been evoked about an agreement known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, which is currently under negotiation.

Dozens of groups have sprung up to oppose the planned pact, like Stop TTIP (whose website describes the deal as “a corporate coup that will put power and money into the hands of corporations and away from the elected government.”) and No TTIP (“TTIP would lock in the privatization of our public services, erode government protection for people and the environment and threaten a new round of unjust economic reforms forced on the poor”).

U.S. and E.U. officials are currently in New York this week for their ninth round of talks to hammer out the details of deal. But on Sunday, tens of thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Berlin, Brussels, Vienna, Madrid, Helsinki, Warsaw, Prague and other cities in simultaneous colorful demonstrations against TTIP.

Europe’s anti-TTIP campaigners characterize the plans as a diabolical plot to allow the likes of McDonalds to take over hospitals, Exxon to frack under the Eiffel Tower, and Google to take over parliaments. “It’s the most contested acronym in Europe,” admits Cecilia Malmström, the E.U. trade commissioner, who is in charge of the European side of the negotiations.

Work on TTIP will continue for the moment. Planned for over a decade before its formal launch in 2013, the negotiations are expected to last at least another two years. But the real test will come when the ratification process begins in European and American legislatures – some 898 amendments have so far been proposed in the European Parliament’s TTIP wish list.

 If anger continues to swell, it could dilute TTIP or derail it completely. If that happens, TTIP’s many opponents would celebrate. Whether their interests would be served by the trade pact’s demise is another matter. But even TTIP’s supporters accept that in its current form, the agreement has become a lightning rod for almost every European discontent.

Read more: Europeans Fight U.S. Trade Deal With Fear of McHospitals, Fracking Under Eiffel Tower - The Daily Beast

GM Foods: EU Commission proposes GM opt-out for member states "why not total ban?"

The European Commission has proposed a new law which would allow individual EU countries to restrict or prohibit imported genetically modified (GM) crops – even if they have been approved by the bloc as a whole. The US says the move is "not constructive."

According to EU Food Safety Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, the plan would "grant member states a greater say as regards the use of EU-authorized GMOs in food and feed on their respective territories."

It will now go to the European Parliament and member states for further consideration. There is concern that giving nations the opportunity to opt out from EU laws goes counter to many EU initiatives which traditionally seek a common stance on EU policies.

The proposal – which covers human food and animal feed – comes as a knock to the US, which wants Europe to fully accept its GM crops as part of an EU-US free trade deal.

Note EU-Digest: This EU Commission proposal is not a solution - the EU must ban the use of genetically modified foods throughout the EU period.

Read more: EU Commission proposes GM opt-out for member states — RT News

Mercury in Vaccines: Anti-vax group defends comparing immunisation withThimerosam additive to rape

In a press release issued recently, one that almost no mainstreain Australia m media sources have bothered to report, it was announced that Dr. Brian Hooker had finally received documents from the CDC through a Freedom of Information Act that revealed the CDC had access to data linking Thimerosal in vaccines to autism, non-organic sleep disorders, and speech disorders.

Two members of Congress helped Dr. Hooker draft his letter to the CDC, after having spent nearly 10 years submitting over 100 Freedom of Information Acts to no avail.

This information is very damaging to the CDC, which has stated for years that there are no studies linking the mercury of Thimerosal in vaccines to autism.  

In another recent testimony given by the CDC in the November 2012 Congressional Hearing on Autism, they claimed there are no studies linking Thimerosal to autism. Thimerosam however is still used today in the flu shot that is administered to pregnant women and infants.

An Anti-vaccination group in Australia has defended an advert which appears to compare immunising children with being raped. The Australian Vaccination Skeptics Network posted an image of a woman with a man threateningly holding his hand over her mouth on its Facebook page earlier today.  

This information, so far, has been completely blacked out of the mainstream media.

EU-Digest

′Turkey is shooting itself in the foot′- by Thomas Seibert

urkey has rarely launched rhetorical attacks on so many different international players in such a short time. The pope came in for his share, as did the European Parliament.

Then it was Austria's turn, before Germany, France, Russia and the USA were also all verbally assaulted - in a series of foreign office statements issued at the rate of almost one a minute - for the positions they have taken in the debate on the correct word to give to the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman authorities one hundred years ago.

In the case of Germany, Ankara stressed that the Turkish people would neither forgive nor forget the words of President Joachim Gauck, who has spoken of an Armenian genocide. At the same time, the Turkish government warned the German parliament in Berlin against passing a planned resolution that also speaks of a genocide against the Armenians from 1915 to 1917.

The presidents of the USA, Russia and France - Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and Francois Hollande - drew Ankara's ire because they also mentioned the massacre. And Obama didn't even use the "G-word" out of consideration for his country's important NATO ally.

Read more: ′Turkey is shooting itself in the foot′ | News | DW.DE | 26.04.2015

Armenia: Turkey and Armenia Host Clashing Centennial Memorials - by Noah Rayman

Commemorations of two 1915 events—the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey and the Turkish stand at Gallipoli—have caused tension More than 60 leaders and representatives from around the world converged on the Armenian capital on Friday to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of a period during which more than 1 million Armenians were killed in Turkey. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President François Hollande both attended the ceremony, while the White House dispatched Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

The anniversary of the 1915 killings, in what was then the eastern edge of the Ottoman Empire, has coincided with a surge in international awareness. In the past month, global icons ranging from Pope Francis to Kim Kardashian (who has Armenian ancestry) have ruffled Turkish feathers by shedding light on the killings and using the term “genocide,” which the Turkish government rejects. And as world envoys gather in Yerevan, similar ceremonies will be held in cities around the world.

On April 24, 1915, the Ottomans rounded up Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul in the beginning of what historians widely consider a genocidal act of bloodshed. In an article years later about a violent Armenian campaign for vengeance, TIME Magazine described the killings - click on the link below for the complete report

Note EU-Digest: One hundred years now this argument between Armenia and Turkey has been going on.

If anyone would take the time to study the history or even review the basic facts available in the two countries archives (Turkey allows you to look at theirs - Armenians don't so far).

In this case, where the waters are still murky, our fellow European,  the President of Germany, the Pope and many other leaders should  have checked all the facts, before making any rash statements on the issue or mentioning the word genocide.

Indeed terrible atrocities took place on both sides - but the figure of 1.5, constantly quoted, mainly by Armenians, as to the number of Armenian victims is fictitious. There were not even that number of Armenians living in the whole of Turkey at that time.

Hopefully some time soon some independent forum (UN) can come up with a realistic answer to what now seems to have become a profitable venture for the Armenians and a very sad, but time consuming issue for everyone else.

Read more: Turkey and Armenia Host Clashing Centennial Memorials | TIME

EU: Has Europe’s migration policy capsized? - Shiulie Ghosh

European nations have been accused of putting the lives of thousands of migrants at risk, as unprecedented numbers make the sea crossing from north Africa.

Amnesty International said the EU is "turning its back on its responsibilities" by scrapping rescue operations.

It’s estimated that more than 10,000 migrants have set off for their preferred destination of Italy in April alone, crammed aboard overcrowded old boats and rafts.

On Friday, an Italian coast guard ship docked in Sicily, carrying another 300 migrants, rescued off the coast of Libya. Most were from Somalia, Nigeria and Eritrea, with a small group from Syria.

Hundreds of others are reported to have died this week as their boats capsized or ran into difficulties, although there is no accurate figure.

The UN said the latest loss of life is "...a human rights tragedy, not a natural tragedy,” and one that needs to be addressed through a "…comprehensive human rights-based approach, that is the shared responsibility of all countries."

European Commission spokeswoman, Natasha Bertaud, admitted the situation had become grave, but added: "We do not have a silver bullet or any kind of panacea that is going to make the situation go away … and no amount of finger-pointing is going to change that."

So should the European Union take more responsibility for migrants heading to its shores?
Or does there need to be a broader policy to spare migrants from falling into the hands of smugglers?

Read more: Has Europe’s migration policy capsized? - Al Jazeera English

Middle East: Sales of US arms fuels the wars of Arab states - by Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper

To wage war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is using F-15 fighter jets bought from Boeing. Pilots from the United Arab Emirates are flying Lockheed Martin's F-16 to bomb both Yemen and Syria. Soon, the Emirates are expected to complete a deal with General Atomics for a fleet of Predator drones to run spying missions in their neighborhood.

As the Middle East descends into proxy wars, sectarian conflicts and battles against terrorist networks, countries in the region that have stockpiled American military hardware are now actually using it and wanting more.

The result is a boom for American defense contractors looking for foreign business in an era of shrinking Pentagon budgets — but also the prospect of a dangerous new arms race in a region where the map of alliances has been sharply redrawn.

Read more: Sales of US arms fuels the wars of Arab states