Greece: Putin Arrives In Greece On First Visit To EU This Year

Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Greece on his first visit to the European Union this year as the bloc weighs whether to extend sanctions against Russia amid continuing tensions over Moscow's intervention in Ukraine.

Putin arrived in Athens on May 27 to begin a two-day visit. He is due to meet Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras for energy and investment talks later in the day.

Putin's visit -- his first to the EU since December -- comes as the bloc's leaders are to discuss next month whether to renew sanctions on Russia's banking, defense, and energy sectors that expire in July.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said on May 27 that the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) economic powers have agreed that sanctions imposed against Russia over its actions in Ukraine must be extended next month.

“The G7 has agreed on the vital importance of sanctions rollover in June,” Cameron said following a two-day G7 summit in Japan. “Ukraine is the victim of Russian-backed aggression. We must never forget that fact.”
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on May 27 floated the possibility of a "step-by-step" reduction of EU sanctions against Russia if there is progress on implementing peace accords on Ukraine.

"I hope that by the end of June there will be progress and then we can see if we can reduce the sanctions step by step, or if we stay with the measures we have right now," Steinmeier told reporters in Tallinn.

Read more: Putin Arrives In Greece On First Visit To EU This Year

The US Presidency:A Psychologist Analyzes Donald Trump’s Personality - by Dan P. McAdams

The Next US President ?

In 2006 Donald Trump  made plans to purchase the Menie Estate, near Aberdeen, Scotland, aiming to convert the dunes and grassland into a luxury golf resort.

He and the estate’s owner, Tom Griffin, sat down to discuss the transaction at the Cock & Bull restaurant. Griffin recalls that Trump was a hard-nosed negotiator, reluctant to give in on even the tiniest details.

But, as Michael D’Antonio writes in his recent biography of Trump, Never Enough, Griffin’s most vivid recollection of the evening pertains to the theatrics. It was as if the golden-haired guest sitting across the table were an actor playing a part on the London stage.
 
“It was Donald Trump playing Donald Trump,” Griffin observed. There was something unreal about it.

The same feeling perplexed Mark Singer in the late 1990s when he was working on a profile of Trump for The New Yorker. Singer wondered what went through his mind when he was not playing the public role of Donald Trump. What are you thinking about, Singer asked him, when you are shaving in front of the mirror in the morning? Trump, Singer writes, appeared baffled. Hoping to uncover the man behind the actor’s mask, Singer tried a different tack: “O.K., I guess I’m asking, do you consider yourself ideal company?”

“You really want to know what I consider ideal company?,” Trump replied. “A total piece of ass.”

I might have phrased Singer’s question this way: Who are you, Mr. Trump, when you are alone? Singer never got an answer, leaving him to conclude that the real-estate mogul who would become a reality-TV star and, after that, a leading candidate for president of the United States had managed to achieve something remarkable: “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.”

Is Singer’s assessment too harsh? Perhaps it is, in at least one sense. As brainy social animals, human beings evolved to be consummate actors whose survival and ability to reproduce depend on the quality of our performances. We enter the world prepared to perform roles and manage the impressions of others, with the ultimate evolutionary aim of getting along and getting ahead in the social groups that define who we are.

More than even Ronald Reagan, Trump seems supremely cognizant of the fact that he is always acting. He moves through life like a man who knows he is always being observed. If all human beings are, by their very nature, social actors, then Donald Trump seems to be more so—superhuman, in this one primal sense.

Many questions have arisen about Trump during this campaign season—about his platform, his knowledge of issues, his inflammatory language, his level of comfort with political violence. This article touches on some of that. But its central aim is to create a psychological portrait of the man. Who is he, really? How does his mind work? How might he go about making decisions in office, were he to become president? And what does all that suggest about the sort of president he’d be?

Trump’s personality is certainly extreme by any standard, and particularly rare for a presidential candidate; many people who encounter the man—in negotiations or in interviews or on a debate stage or watching that debate on television—seem to find him flummoxing. In this essay, I will seek to uncover the key dispositions, cognitive styles, motivations, and self-conceptions that together comprise his unique psychological makeup.

Trump declined to be interviewed for this story, but his life history has been well documented in his own books and speeches, in biographical sources, and in the press. My aim is to develop a dispassionate and analytical perspective on Trump, drawing upon some of the most important ideas and research findings in psychological science today.
 
Read the full report : A Psychologist Analyzes Donald Trump’s Personality - The Atlan

Belgium: putting the house back in working order

Belgium facing a somewhat uncertain future as they are trying to put the country back in working order after the terrorists attacks.

To read the complete report click here

France - strikes hit fuel supplies: Here is where France is hit hardest by fuel shortages

With 2,400 petrol stations across France either empty or running out of fuel, here's a look at which parts of the country are the most affected.

Key points 

- 2,400 petrol stations empty or running low

- PM warns the French not to panic

- Total says 509 of its 2,200 stations empty or running low

- Read also: What can the French do if there's no fuel?

Authorities have tried to quell all talk of any fuel shortages, but 2,400 petrol stations out of 12,000 petrol stations around the country - that's one fifth - had either run out of fuel or were running very low.

And as the map below shows, it's looking extremely grim.

French oil giant Total said 54 percent of its stations in Brittany, 46 percent in Normandy, and 43 percent in the Pays-de-la-Loire region are totally or partially out of fuel.

In Nantes it’s proving almost impossible to find fuel. Posters announcing that pumps are empty greet motorists at almost every station. It’s a similar case in Vannes, where almost all stations are out of fuel.  

Read more: Here is where France is hit hardest by fuel shortages - The Local

Austrian election: Unity call after close defeat for far right

Austria's new president has vowed to listen to the people's "fear and anger" after his far-right opponent narrowly missed out on a landmark victory.

Independent Alexander Van der Bellen beat the Freedom Party's Norbert Hofer by just 31,000 votes among the 4.64 million cast in Sunday's election.

The victor accepted there was a "rift" but said: "We are two sides of the same coin. Together we make up Austria."

Mainstream European politicians expressed relief at the result.

Read more: Austria election: Unity call after close defeat for far right - BBC News

Turkey: elects new AKP leader also designated as new PM

Turkey's Yildirim elected new AKP chief, set to be prime minister Binali Yildirim was elected the new leader of Turkey’s ruling AK Party at a special convention on Sunday in a move that is likely to consolidate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powerbase. http://f24.my/1qCHQp0

Refugee Centers in Europe: "Turkey only sending lower qualified people to Europe"

The German weekly "der Spiegel" reported that most of the Syrian Refugees passed through to the EU, as part of the new agreement between Turkey and the EU,are either very poorly qualified or sick.

Prior to the deal between Turkey and the EU, when the UNHCR was handling the selection, the nunber of skilled and highly qualified people entering the EU was far higher.

"Now that Turkey is doing the selecting, the refugee election process has become quit nebulous", says the German advocay group Pro-Asyl.

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