The Netherlands: Counter-Islamification Wilders Will Fly To USA To Support Trump - by Oliver JJ Lane

Donald Trump and Geert Wilders:
 "Birds of a feather flock together"

Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) founding leader and member of parliament, Geert Wilders, has said he will speak at the United States Republican convention in the summer in support of likely party candidate Donald Trump.

Geert Wilders, who is presently facing charges of inciting hatred and discrimination against Moroccans in his native Netherlands is a prominent leader in the European counter-jihad movement and has praised the Trump candidacy for its unaccommodating stance on Muslim mass migration.

Speaking out after Ted Cruz and John Kasich stood down from the Republican candidate race and left Mr. Trump as the only credible candidate earlier this week, Mr. Wilders said of Mr. Trump: “He has guts, a lot of good ideas and speaks to broad groups in society”, reports Rotterdam’s largest newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.

Of the coming race against the candidate most likely to lead the Democrat Party into the 2016 election, Mr. Wilders said: “Clinton may well win in the primaries, but she is incredibly unpopular with the ordinary man and woman in the U.S. I give Trump a good chance”.

Reflecting on the rise of right wing populist politics on both sides of the Atlantic, including the seemingly all-conquering Mr. Trump and the likely victory of anti mass migration candidate in this month’s Austrian presidential elections, Mr. Wilders remarked:

“The patriotic spring in the U.S., Europe and Netherlands is unstoppable, trust me”.

Mr. Wilders called for Europe to close its borders to Muslim migrants in November, shortly before Mr. Trump called for a temporary halt on Muslim migration to the United States. Clearly impressed, Mr. Wilders said at the time: “I hope [Donald Trump] will be the next US President. Good for America, good for Europe. We need brave leaders”.

The PVV leader takes a keen interest in the United States, and was present at the Garland Draw Mohammed Competition attack in 2015. Although he is a veteran campaigner himself, he has been taking clear hints from Mr. Trump’s forthright campaigning style, channeling the famous slogan by remarking “Make the Netherlands Great Again!” last month.

Looking forward to the 2017 elections in the Netherlands, Mr. Wilders said: “On March 15, 2017 we will return the Netherlands to the Dutch”.

Note Almere Digest : Donald Trump  and Geert Widera are probably not as stupid as they appear to be, because they have a very good understanding of what stupid people want to hear.

Read more: Counter-Islamification Wilders Will Fly To USA To Support Trump

The Netherlands: Dutch may set up fund to help journalists arrested abroad -

MPs want to set up a special fund to help Dutch journalists facing legal action abroad in countries where press freedom is under pressure, public broadcaster NOS said on Tuesday. The call, made on the UN’s World Press Freedom Day, would ensure there was money available to help journalists pay for legal costs.

Journalists currently receive consular help if they run into difficulty abroad but not necessarily financial assistance to pay their legal bills. Dutch columnist Ebru Umar is currently unable to leave Turkey because she faces legal action in connection with several tweets about president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Netherlands is supporting her legally. ‘Journalists can be prosecuted into the financial ground by authoritarian regimes,’ D66 parliamentarian Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, who proposed setting up the fund, said.

Meanwhile Umar has told the NRC that prime minister Mark Rutte has made her promise to have personal security when she returns to the Netherlands if it proves to be necessary. Umar, a Dutch national of Turkish descent, was arrested in late April while on holiday in the Aegean resort of Kusadasi.

She told state broadcaster Nos that police had come to her door and questioned her over ‘a few Tweets’. The Metro columnist spent the night in custody before being released but was ordered to stay in the country.

Read more: Dutch may set up fund to help journalists arrested abroad - DutchNews.nl

The Netherlands: Dutch MPs visiting Kurdistan assess Netherlands’ part in ISIS war- by Judit Neurink

A Dutch parliamentary delegation visited Erbil, the Kurdish capital this week where they saw the Netherland’s contribution to the war against the Islamic State (ISIS) through helping the Peshmerga forces and whether to decide later this year to extend the mission.

“It is great to see how Dutch military are contributing directly to the fight of the Peshmerga against ISIS,” said Social Democrat parliamentarian Michiel Servaes. “We know that explosives cause most of the victims, so it’s great that in this way you can literally save lives.”

The Netherlands has trained Peshmerga troops and supplied equipment such as radios, bomb disposal equipment, helmets and vests.

Currently Dutch military trainers are training a group of female Kurdish combatants who impressed the MPs on their visit.

Part of the training includes first aid administration. “Again we contribute to save lives, as we hear that too many die for lack of knowledge how to treat the wounded,” Servaes said.

The delegation, representing all but one of the Dutch parties in the parliament, members of the Foreign Affairs and Defence committees, met with different Kurdish high officials and visited the Kurdistan parliament.

A trip to Baghdad was cancelled because of the ongoing unrest and the storing of the Iraqi parliament by protestors.

The delegation was told by their Kurdish hosts that it takes too long for the Dutch military help especially bomb disposal equipment to reach the troops, Joel Voordewind of the Christian Union stated. “They waited six months for the radios to arrive. And for the explosive’s clearing materials, recently a tender has been published, while we know that some seventy percent of the wounded are the result of those devises.”

Servaes explained that they were in Kurdistan to see the work of the Dutch military mission a year after the parliamentary defense committee decided to send deploy them to the war against ISIS by helping local forces.

The delegation found the outcome of the mission’s work satisfactory and will decide whether it will be extended.

Servaes of the Social Democrats said meanwhile, that as the Kurdish forces have reversed the initial ISIS advance and the group weakened, it is time to start thinking about after ISIS.

“The Kurds are almost done against ISIS, and there are signs ISIS is internally collapsing. We have to think how to prevent a vacuum,” he said. “We have to change over to stabilisation policies, to make the recaptured areas liveable again, especially for the Sunni communities. So that we will not have another ISIS.”

This, he said, includes solving the continued disputes between Erbil and Baghdad as well as internal Kurdish political impasse. “I think internationally the pressure should be increased on Baghdad to break the impasse.”

“I gave off the message, that although the Kurds do justly get support from the international community, they must realise that they should focus on internal issues too, like the expired term of Kurdish president and keeping Goran from the political process.” Servaes added.

The Dutch delegation told the Kurdish government that they recognize the external threat posed to the region, but in the meantime it was important for Kurdish parties to “put their act together” in order for the international support to continue.



Read more: Dutch MPs visiting Kurdistan assess Netherlands’ part in ISIS wa

Dutch PM talks to Dutch/Turkish journalist trapped in Turkey about local security concerns - by Janene Pieters

Ebru Umar - security dangers

Dutch Prime Minster Mark Rutte spoke to Ebru Umar about security for her when she returns to the Netherlands, the Turkish-Dutch journalist said to NRC. According to Umar, she and the Prime Minister are both concerned about her safety, especially after the break in at her home in Amsterdam last week.

Umar was arrested in Turkey last week Saturday because of insulting tweets about Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. She was released, but cannot leave turkey until a decision was made on whether or not she will be prosecuted.

According to Umar, she is being threatened on social media, mostly by Turkish-Dutch who feel she insulted Erdogan. In a column she wrote last week, Umar blamed the Turkish-Dutch for her arrest and compared them to fascist.

“I think those who have it on their conscious would love it if I need security. There is no greater deprivation of freedom than security”, she said to NRC.

The government information service would not comment on Umar’s comments to broadcaster NOS. A spokesperson for Rutte stated that they do not disclose information on individuals’ security.

Read more: Dutch PM talks to journalist trapped in Turkey about security concerns - NL Times

EU - US Trade Negotiiations: Greenpeace Netherlands releases TTIP documents

TTIP: ggiving multi-national corporations more power

Today (May 2, 2016) Greenpeace Netherlands releases secret documents of the EU-US TTIP negotiations. On www.ttip-leaks.org the documents will be made available for everyone to read, because democracy needs transparency.

Sylvia Borren, Executive Director Greenpeace Netherlands noted:.
  
“These documents make clear the scale and scope of the trade citizens of the United States and the European Union are being asked to make in pursuit of corporate profits. It is time for the negotiations to stop, and the debate to begin.

Should we be able to act when we have reasonable grounds to believe our health and wellbeing is at risk, or must we wait until the damage is done?

Were our governments serious in Paris when they said they would do what was necessary to protect the planet, and keep climate change under 1.5 degrees?

Environmental protection should not be seen as a barrier to trade, but as a safeguard for our health, and the health of future generations.

We call on citizens, civil society, politicians and businesses to engage in this debate openly and without fear. We call on the negotiators to release the latest, complete text to facilitate that discussion, and we ask that the negotiations be stopped until these questions, and many more have been answered. Until we can fully engage in a debate about the standards we and our planet need and want”

The documents that Greenpeace Netherlands has released comprise about half of the draft text as of April 2016, prior to the start of the 13th round of TTIP negotiations between the EU and the US (New York, 25-29 April 2016).

As far as we know the final document will consist of 25 to 30 chapters and many extensive annexes. The EU Commission published an overview stating that they have now 17 consolidated texts. This means the documents released by Greenpeace Netherlands encompass 3/4 of the existing consolidated texts.[1]
Consolidated texts are those where the EU and US positions on issues are shown side by side.

This step in the negotiation process allows us to see the areas where the EU and US are close to agreement, and where compromises and concessions would still need to be made. Of the documents released by Greenpeace Netherlands, in total 248 pages, 13 chapters offer for the first time the position of the US.

To make sure the documents were not fake, the documents were studied by both Greenpeace Netherlands and Rechercheverbund NDR, WDR und Süddeutsche Zeitung, a renowned German investigative research partnership which analysed them and compared them to existing documents.

The Rechercheverbund, which consists of different German media outlets, has covered, amongst other big stories, the Snowden leaks and the recent Volkswagen emissions scandals.

First conclusions made following review of the report reveal that there are four aspects are of serious concern.

1) Long standing environmental protections appear to be dropped
2) Climate protection will be harder under TTIP 
3) The end of the precautionary principle
4) Opening the door for corporate takeover 

TTIP is really only about giving multi-national corporations more power and to slowly but surely dismantle European laws on Privacy, Pollution, GMO, Pesticides , Food additives, Healthcare, Insurance, Finance and the list goes on and on. 

Let us keep in mind the EU is a market of more than 500 million people with the worlds no one GNP.  Obviously a juicy fruit to pick, and eventually destro,y by our "treasured corporate friends" across the "big pond" .

 Read more Greenpeace Netherlands releases TTIP documents | Greenpeace International

Almere-Digest

May Day Celebrations Europe: National issues highlighted in Europe’s May Day rallies

May Day celebrations turned sour in Istanbul as Turkish police fired tear gas and sprayed water cannon at anti-government protesters.

They were prevented from entering the main Taksim Square which was closed by the authorities.
A man was killed in an accident after being run over by a police truck
.
Security was tight with some 15,000 police deployed, following two terrorist attacks in the city this year blamed on ISIL.

In Paris the events were marked by opposition to the French government’s labour reforms, aimed at freeing up the hiring and firing of workers to tackle chronic unemployment.

One young protester in the Place de la Bastille echoed the feelings of many: “liberalising the labour market is not democratic and social progress,” he said.

Many countries had their own particular theme. In Germany unions called on people to oppose xenophobia , right-wing extremism and a divided society.

The main rally took place in Stuttgart, where the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was holding its congress – and on Sunday, voted to back an election manifesto saying Islam was incompatible with the constitution.

Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella paid tribute to people killed at the workplace, laying a wreath at the headquarters in Rome of the government agency for insurance against work-related injuries. Last year saw a 16 percent increase in fatal injuries at work.

Rome’s San Giovanni Square is also the venue for a traditional May Day concert. The organisers dedicated this year’s event to Italian student Giulio Regeni, murdered in Egypt.

Left-wing party leaders joined thousands in Madrid as Spain’s two main unions highlighted low pay, workers’ rights and social exclusion – targeting the outgoing conservative government eight weeks before parliamentary elections.

Moscow staged its traditional rally in Red Square – while thousands of Russian communists also marched, nostalgic for the Soviet past as they called for a return to state-controlled resources.

Read more: National issues highlighted in Europe’s May Day rallies | euronews, world news

EU-ISLAM: Leading German politician Volker Kauder suggests mosques should come under state control

Should Mosques in the EU come under state control?

Volker Kauder an influential politician from Angela Merkel’s ruling CDU party suggested all mosques in Germany should be subject to state supervision in light of what he sees as a threat from extreme Muslims.

Volker Kauder, who heads the conservative parliamentary grouping in Germany’s lower house, used his twitter account air his views on controlling mosques and radical imams.

Kauder says that Germany was constituted as a secular state and that sermons delivered in some mosques donot conform with that concept.

The Berliner Zeitung newspaper on Friday quoted him as saying religion does not stand above the state, but rather the state over religion.

Kauder’s remarks came just before a meeting of the right-wing Alternative for Germany(AfD) party, which has drafted an anti-Islamic manifesto.

Some analysts see his remarks as an attempt win back voters from the radical right-wing AfD party.

Germany is home to around four million Muslims.

The foreign-born Muslim population in Germany is primarily made up of Turkish immigrants, but also includes many born in Kosovo, Iraq, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Morocco and now also Syrians. The roughly 3 million foreign-born Muslims in France are largely from France’s former colonies of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

A Pew Research study done last year predicts that the  Muslim share of Europe’s total population (EU and non EU states)  has been increasing steadily. In recent decades, the Muslim share of the population throughout Europe grew about 1 percentage point a decade, from 4% in 1990 to 6% in 2010.

This pattern is expected to continue through 2030, when Muslims are projected to make up 8% of Europe’s population.

Research Center survey conducted this spring found that majorities in France, Britain and Germany had favorable views of Muslims. Opinion was on balance favorable in Spain while negative views prevailed in Italy and Poland. Views about Muslims are tied to ideology. While 36% of Germans on the political right give Muslims an unfavorable rating, just 15% on the left do so. The gap between left and right is also roughly 20 percentage points in France and Italy. And significant differences are found in the UK as well.

On January 2015, the total population of the EU was around 508.2 million people of which 14 million were Muslim immigrants.


EU-Digest