EU Gun Control: The EU is miles ahead of many other countries when it comes to gun control

Firearms are dangerous and can kill you

The European Union has agreed to ban sales of the most dangerous semi-automatic firearms, and to make it much harder to legally buy other weapons in the EU.

People across the EU will now have to go through medical checks before getting a license to buy firearms. Online sales will also be limited. 

Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the European Commission, called the agreement a "milestone in gun control in the EU."

 "We have strengthened security in Europe without restricting citizens' freedom," said Anna Maria Corazza Bildt MEP, EPP Group negotiator on the Firearms Directive, while attending the LEX signing ceremony of the Firearms Directive in the European Parliament.

In short, the objective of the review of the Firearms Directive is to ensure that legally-owned firearms do not end up in the wrong hands. The revised directive closes dangerous loopholes, notably by improving common standards for deactivation, safe storage, increased traceability and better cooperation between national police forces.

"I want to reassure hunters and sport shooters throughout the union that they can continue to enjoy their activities. We are filling gaps in inadequate systems while preserving existing effective firearms legislation," said Corazza Bildt.

Member States now have 15 months to transpose the revised directive into national law.

"We now call on the Member States to transpose the directive without adding constraints and to keep the good balance found between security and citizens' freedom," the Swedish MEP, First Vice-Chair of the Internal Market Committee, concluded.

EU-Digest

Migrant Crises: Italy and France call for more integrated EU action on migrants

France's new President Emmanuel Macron called on Sunday for deeper European Union integration to tackle the migration crisis, saying bloc members had not paid enough heed to Italy's warnings about the growing burden.

Ahead of a working dinner with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, he repeated his wish to work quickly within the EU to strengthen rules to protect workers against social dumping and improve regulations on public procurement.

In a nod to Italy, which has received more than 45,000 people arriving by boat from North Africa so far this year alone, he said the EU also had to better share the burden of the high migration flows across the Mediterranean in recent years.

The EU has seen some 1.6 million refugees and migrants from the Middle East, Africa and beyond reach its shores in 2014-2016. Most first arrived in flimsy boats in Greece but now head mainly to Italy. Many have died at sea.

Read  more: Italy and France call for more integrated EU action on migrants | Reuters

Saudi Arabia - US relations: 110 Billion dollar arms deal

The US Secretary of State proudly stated the huge multi-billion dollar arms sales agreements will help Saudi Arabia deal with 'malign Iranian influence and create thousands of new jobs in the US. 

Unfortunately, it will also mean hundreds of thousands of  people killed by these weapons.

The question, obviously, which should have been asked in this case: "wouldn't a ban on all weapons sales to the war  ravaged Middle East have been  a far better way to go?: "Maybe less profitable for the US Weapons Industry, but certainly a more moral way of action".

Specially for a country which prides itself to be a "champion for peac".  

EU-Digest

Saudi Arabia: Trump's plan to create an Arab NATO with a collection of dictators, tyrants and thugs is bound to fail - by Robert Fisk

"The Savior ? "

Counter Punch reports that Donald Trump set off on Friday to create the fantasy of an Arab Nato. There will be dictators aplenty to greet him in Riyadh, corrupt autocrats and thugs and torturers and head choppers. There will be at least one zombie president – the comatose, undead Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria who neither speaks nor, apparently, hears any more – and, of course, one totally insane president, Donald Trump. The aim, however, is simple: to prepare the Sunni Muslims of the Middle East for war against the Shia Muslims. With help from Israel, of course.

The incubator of terrorism

Even for those used to the insanity of Arab leadership – not to mention those Westerners who have still to grasp that the US President is himself completely off his rocker – the Arab-Muslim (Sunni) summit in Saudi Arabia is almost beyond comprehension. From Pakistan and Jordan and Turkey and Egypt and Morocco and 42 other minareted capitals, they are to come so that the effete and ambitious Saudis can lead their Islamic crusade against “terrorism” and Shiism. The fact that most of the Middle East’s “terrorism” – Isis and al-Qaeda, aka the Nusrah Front – have their fountainhead in the very nation to which Trump is traveling, must and will be ignored. Never before in Middle Eastern history has such a “kumidia alakhta” – quite literally “comedy of errors” in Arabic – been staged.

On top of all this, they have to listen to Trump’s ravings on peace and Islamic “extremism”, surely the most preposterous speech to be uttered by a US president since he is going to have to pretend that Iran is extremist – when it is Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi Isis clones who are destroying Islam’s reputation throughout the world. All this while he is fostering war.

For Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (henceforth MbS) wants to lead his Sunni tribes – plus Iraq if possible, which is why Shia Prime Minister Abadi has been invited from Baghdad – against the serpent of “terrorist” Shia Iran, the dark (Shia) “terrorist” Alawite regime of Bashar al-Assad, the “terrorist” Shia Lebanese Hezbollah and the aggressive “terrorist” Shia Houthis of Yemen. As for the Gulf states’ own Shia minorities and other recalcitrants, well, off with their heads.

Much has been made (rightly) of MbS’s threat to ensure that the battle is “in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia”. But, typically, few bothered to listen to Iran’s ferocious reply to the Saudi threat. It came promptly from the Iranian defence minister, Hossein Dehghan. “We warn them [the Saudis] against doing anything ignorant,” he said, “but if they do something ignorant, we will leave nowhere untouched apart from Mecca and Medina.” In other words, it’s time to start building air raid shelters in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dhahran, Aramco headquarters and all those other locations dear to American hearts.

 Indeed, it’s difficult not to recall an almost identical Sunni hubris – almost four decades ago – to that of MbS today. The latter boasts of his country’s wealth and his intention to diversify, enrich and broaden its economic base. In 1980, Saddam was determined to do the same. He used Iraq’s oil wealth to cover the country in super-highways, modern technology, state-of-the-art healthcare and hospitals and modern communications. Then he kicked off his “lightning war” with Iran.

It impoverished his oil-rich nation, humiliated him in the eyes of his fellow Arabs – who had to cough up the cash for his disastrous eight-year adventure – led to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, sanctions and the ultimate Anglo-US invasion of 2003 and, for Saddam, the hangman’s noose.

Yet this leaves out the Syrian dimension. Sharmine Narwani, a former senior associate of St Antony’s College – and an antidote for all those sickened by the mountebank think-tank “experts” of Washington – pointed out this week that US support for Kurdish forces fighting under the dishonest label of “Syrian Democratic Forces” are, by advancing on Raqqa, helping to cut Syria off from Iraq. And that Kurdish forces are now reported as “retaking” Christian or Muslim Arab towns in the Nineveh province of Iraq, which were never Kurdish in the first place.

Kurds now regard Qamishleh, and Hassakeh province in Syria as part of “Kurdistan”, although they represent a minority in many of these areas. Thus US support for these Kurdish groups – to the fury of Sultan Erdogan and the few Turkish generals still loyal to him – is helping to both divide Syria and divide Iraq.

This cannot and will not last. Not just because the Kurds are born to be betrayed – and will be betrayed by the Americans even if the present maniac-in-charge is impeached, just as they were betrayed to Saddam in the days of Kissinger – but because Turkey’s importance (with or without its own demented leader) will always outweigh Kurdish claims to statehood. Both are Sunnis, and therefore “safe” allies until one of them – inevitably the Kurds – must be abandoned.

Meanwhile, you can forget justice, civil rights, sickness and death. Cholera has quite a grip on Yemen now, courtesy of the criminal bombing attacks of the Saudis – ably assisted by their American allies long before Trump took over – and scarcely any of the Muslim leaders whom Trump meets in Riyadh do not have torturers at work back home to ensure that some of their citizens wish they had never been born. It will be a relief for the fruitcake president to leave Israel for the Vatican, albeit given only a brief visitation to – and short shrift by what the Catholics believe – is a real peacemaker.

That only leaves one nation out of the loop of this glorious charivari: Russia. But be sure Vladimir Putin comprehends all too well what is going on in Riyadh. He will watch the Arab Nato fall apart. His foreign minister Lavrov understands Syria and Iran better than the feckless Tillerson. And his security officers are deep inside Syria. Besides, if he needs any more intelligence information, he has only to ask Trump.

The BBC reports that In stark contrast to the upbeat statements of Saudi officials concerning US President Donald Trump's visit to the kingdom on 20 May, many Arab Twitter users have taken a more sceptical view of the trip.

At one point on Saturday, though, the term "Trump's daughter" in Arabic was the top-trending topic worldwide on Twitter.

Many have taken to satire, posting images referencing negative comments by Mr Trump about Islam and Muslims. Their reaction comes ahead of his much-anticipated speech at the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh on Sunday.

EU-Digest

The Netherlands: The King of the Netherlands Reveals He Has Been Living a Secret Life for 20 Years - by Jamie Bland

King Willem Alexander could be flying your plane

King Willem-Alexander—aka King of the Netherlands—recently revealed his secret life as a KLM Airlines co-pilot to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.

"I find flying simply fantastic," he told the newspaper. "You can't take your problems with you off the ground.

You can completely switch off for a while and focus on something else. That, for me, is the most relaxing part of flying."

For the past 21 years the King has secretly taken flight on the commercial planes and while very few have recognized him, he's had no trouble strolling through the airport in his pilot uniform going mostly unnoticed. In fact, unless passengers recognized the royal's voice via telecom, Willem-Alexander managed to keep his hobby and second profession completely under wraps...until now.

 

"The advantage is that I can always say I am speaking on behalf of the captain and crew to welcome them on board, so I don't have to say my name," Willem-Alexander further explained to the paper. "But then, most people don't listen anyway."

So what prompted the sudden reveal? Willem-Alexander is heading to training to fly Boeing 737s—the model of plane that is replacing the current aircrafts used by the airline company.

 

While it has been awhile since the king has been taking orders, he is excited to fly the new planes.

"It also seemed nice to fly to other destinations one day, with more passengers and bigger distances. That was the real motive for training on the 737," said Willem-Alexander.

Even with the new changes and public exposure, the king plans to keep up his hobby of co-piloting twice a month.

EU-Digest

EU Military Developments: New HQ to take charge of EU military missions - by Andrew Rettman

EU Combined Military Forces Get HQ In Brussels

EU states have cleared the way for a new HQ to take charge of three military missions in a “couple of days”, as well as broader plans for joint defense.

The HQ will, in the words of 28 defence ministers adopted on Thursday (18 May), “assume responsibilities at the strategic level for the operational planning and conduct of the EU’s non-executive military missions” including “the three EU Training Missions deployed in Central African Republic, Mali and Somalia”.

Missions of a “non-executive” nature, in EU jargon, do not involve combat and cannot take decisions independently of their host nations.

EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said “the political decision is finalised” and that it would take “a couple of days” to have the new HQ “officially in place”.

An EU source said it was a matter of circulating and rubber-stamping the legal documents that would underpin the new entity.

They said the UK had, as of Monday, still objected to describing it in language that made it sound as though it was a military command structure or the start of a future EU army, but that compromise wording, which will be published shortly, had now been agreed.

The HQ will be located in a building that already houses Mogherini's military staff in Brussels, and will take over command tasks previously handled out separate locations in member states.

The EU defence ministers decided additionally on Thursday that deployment of EU “battlegroups” in the field would in future be paid for out of the EU budget and not by participating member states.

Read more: New HQ to take charge of EU military missions

Violence and religion: 'Violence more common' in Bible than Quran, text analysis reveals in "misleading study"- by Samuel Osborne

An analysis into whether the Quran is more violent than the Bible found killing and destruction occur more frequently in the Christian texts than the Islamic.

Investigating whether the Quran really is more violent than its Judeo-Christian counterparts, software engineer Tom Anderson processed the text of the Holy books to find which contained the most violence.

It took just two minutes for his software to read and analyse the three books.

 In a blog post, Mr Anderson explains: "The project was inspired by the ongoing public debate around whether or not terrorism connected with Islamic fundamentalism reflects something inherently and distinctly violent about Islam compared to other major religions."

Using text analytics software he had developed, named Odin Text, he analysed both the New International Version of both the Old and New Testaments as well as an English-language version of the Quran from 1957.

By categorizing words into eight emotions - Joy, Anticipation, Anger, Disgust, Sadness, Surprise, Fear/Anxiety and Trust - the analysis found the Bible scored higher for anger and much lower for trust than the Quran.

Further analysis found the Old Testament was more violent than the New Testament, and more than twice as violent as the Quran.

However, he adds: "First, I want to make very clear that we have not set out to prove or disprove that Islam is more violent than other religions.

"Moreover, we realize that the Old and New Testaments and the Quran are neither the only literature in Islam, Christianity and Judaism, nor do they constitute the sum of these religions’ teachings and protocols.

"I must also reemphasize that this analysis is superficial and the findings are by no means intended to be conclusive. Ours is a 30,000-ft, cursory view of three texts: the Quran and the Old and New  testament.

Note EU-Digest: the original headline of this article in the Independent is misleading and so is the study, specifically when it comes to the focus on violence, 

Case in point: has the bible ever inspired Christians to strap explosives to teenagers and have them walk into crowded market places and detonate themselves, causing their own death, and many other casualties, or inspired Christians to drive trucks or other vehicles into public gatherings and kill as many people as possible shouting "Jesus is great" ? 

On the other hand, one must also admit that in times of war, Christian nations military forces have killed millions of innocent civilians, afterwards calling the people killed by their indiscriminate bombings, "collateral damage".    

Maybe the conclusion is that evil things happen when people start interpreting religious scripture to fit their needsm and not the other way around?

Read more: 'Violence more common' in Bible than Quran, text analysis reveals | The Independent