The Netherlands: Edith Schippers fails and hands over cabinet talks to new chief negotiator

Efforts to form a new Dutch cabinet took a new turn on Monday when Edith Schippers, who has led the talks so far, said she wanted to hand the job over to a new negotiator.

Read more at DutchNews.nl: Edith Schippers hands over cabinet talks to new chief negotiator http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/05/edith-schippers-hands-over-cabinet-talks-to-new-chief-negotiator/

Tjeenk Willink

Efforts to form a new Dutch cabinet took a new turn today, Monday, May 29, when Edith Schippers, who has led the talks so far, said she wanted to hand the job over to a new negotiator.

Tjeenk Willink (75) helped negotiate previous cabinets in 1994, 1999 and 2010. 

He is also a friend of the former queen Beatrix and one of her closest advisors. 

In her final report, handed over to parliament today Monday, May29,  Schippers said there were objections to every potential coalition and that this meant she had completed her task. Tjeenk Willink, who has said he is willing to take on the job, must start by asking different combinations of parties to the negotiating table immediately, the former health minister said.

The results of the election have created a complicated situation, Schippers said. ‘The result demands a formation process which will take time. Parties have to take a step towards the others because there are wide differences in policy.’

However, Schippers refused to talk of deadlock. ‘Standpoints have been taken but they could change in the next phase,’ she said. The Netherlands has been without a government since March 15 when the general election was held. Two attempts to form a new government have failed so far.

The VVD emerged as the biggest party with 33 seats, followed by the anti-immigration PVV on 20, and CDA and D66 on 19. The big parties have all ruled out working together with Geert Wilders’ PVV unless he takes back discriminatory comments about Moroccans.

Read more: Edith Schippers hands over cabinet talks to new chief negotiator - DutchNews.nl

Monaco Grand Prix: Sebastian Vettel wins his first Monte Carlo race since 2001

Lewis Hamilton had a mountain to climb if he wanted to taste victory in Monte Carlo and close his gap on Sebastian Vettel, who is at the top of the championship standings.

It did not work out for the Brit and once again Vittel was the big winner.  

2017   Monaco Grand Prix    -  Formula One World Championship

May 28  -  Circuit de Monaco  -  78 laps  -  162 miles

Leaderboard - Final		Points	Time/Lag	Avg. mph
1	Sebastian Vettel - Ferrari	25	1:44:44.340	149.105
2	Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari	18	+3.145 Sec	149.03
3	Daniel Ricciardo - Red Bull	15	+3.745 Sec	149.016
4	Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes	12	+5.517 Sec	148.974
5	Max Verstappen - Red Bull	10	+6.199 Sec	148.958

 EU-Digest

US Political System: A week that reveals how rotten today’s Republican Party (US Political System) is - by Jennifer Rubin

Disaster: level explosive

President Trump has had more-scandalous weeks. He has had weeks with more bombshell bad-news stories. But no week has matched this one in revealing the moral and intellectual rot at the center of the GOP. Pandemic intellectual dishonesty and celebration of uncivilized conduct now permeate the party and its support in the conservative ecosystem. Consider what we saw and learned this week:

• Trump in Saudi Arabia disclaims any concern for human rights.
• Trump bullies NATO allies in public (and physically shoves one leader).
• Trump’s budget is built on a rickety scaffold of math errors, economic nonsense and fantasyland predictions.
• Trump’s advisers defend massive cuts to the safety net, coupled with huge giveaways to the rich.
• The Congressional Budget Office score, which the House did not require before voting on a mammoth health-care bill, confirms that GOP leaders falsely claimed they protected people with preexisting conditions.
• Trump’s lawyers contemptuously swat away a request for information relating to his receipt of foreign monies, finding that it is too impractical to abide by his own promise and the Constitution.
• Trump has nothing but praise for thuggish autocrats, including Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
• Trump continues to pursue a Muslim ban, repeatedly struck down by the courts as bigotry disguised under the cloak of national security.
• A GOP congressional candidate, conclusive evidence suggests, attacks a reporter and apparently lies about it (he later apologizes for actions he denied less than 24 hours earlier), but party leaders do not repudiate him or demand that he withdraw.
• Jared Kushner, the beneficiary of egregious nepotism, now is a focus of the FBI’s Russia investigation, bringing a once-in-a-lifetime scandal one step closer to the presidency.
• Sean Hannity is forced to stop propagating a detestable hoax about a young man’s murder; Fox News after a week withdraws the original false report without much explanation or an apology.

This is the state of the GOP (and the US political system) — a refuge for intellectual frauds and bullies, for mean-spirited hypocrites who preach personal responsibility yet excuse the inexcusable.

Note EU-Digest: One can not only blame the Republicans for this political mess, but must also include Democrats and voters in general for creating it.   This is not business as usual, it is the recipe for disaster and the collapse of Western Democracy as we know it.

Read more: A week that reveals how rotten today’s Republican Party is - The Washington Post

Middle East: Egypt strikes Libya after deadly bus attack against Coptic Christians

Egypt's president says his air force struck bases in Libya where militants who waged a deadly attack against Christians have been trained, but gave no details.

Senior officials said that the bases are in eastern Libya. They said the warplanes on Friday targeted the headquarters of the Shura Council in the city of Darna, where local militias are known to be linked to al-Qaeda.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi says Egypt will strike at any bases that train militants who wage attacks in Egypt, wherever they may be. He also directly appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump to take the lead in the fight against global terror.

In a televised address just hours after at least 28 Coptic Christians, including two children, were killed by militants south of Cairo, el-Sissi said "I direct my appeal to President Trump: I trust you, your word and your ability to make fighting global terror your primary task."

He also repeated calls that countries that finance, train or arm extremists be punished.

Read more: Egypt strikes Libya after deadly bus attack against Christians - World - CBC News

Saudi Arabia: Solar phenomena above Islam’s Kaaba expected on first day of Ramadan

The National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics in Egypt has announced that the first day of this year’s Ramadan, which is set to take place on Saturday, will witness something unique: the sun will rise perpendicularly over the Kaaba at 12:18 local Mecca time, during the noon prayer.

The institute added on that at 12:18 on Saturday, the shadow of the Kaaba will disappear, and the direction of the sun at any point in the world will be the exact direction of the Qiblah, the direction where Muslims must pray toward the Kaaba.

The department in charge of researching the Sun’s activities at institute said in a statement on its official Twitter account that the elevation angle of the sun at the time of the Zuhr prayer will be 89.93 degrees above the Kaaba, that is only 0.07 degrees away from being 100% vertical at 90 degrees.

This phenomenon occurs twice a year: the first will be on May 27 and the second on July 15. However, what is special this year is that it coincides with the first noon prayer of Ramadan. 

EU-Digest

EU-Belgium-NATO: Trump meets with EU officials and scolds world leaders at NATO ceremony in Brussels

"Manneken Pis," Bruxelles most famous fountain

President Trump criticized leaders at a dedication ceremony at the new NATO headquarters in Brussels, May 25, saying they need to increase financial contributions to combat "the threat of terrorism."

"America instead of haggling over money", say most European politicians," must not forget that Europe is on the front-line of the American defense in case of an attack from the Russians. That should be worth every cent the US invests into Europe's defense."

In his speech to NATO leaders, President Trump also said  NATO must focus on terrorism and that “nations owe massive amounts of money” on defense.

Thursday’s NATO meeting was scheduled to allow Trump and leaders of NATO states to take the measure of each other. The 27 other members had hoped to relieve anxiety that arose during Trump’s campaign, when he questioned why the United States was spending its own money to defend Europe, called NATO “obsolete” and ill-equipped to deal with terrorism, and threatened to withdraw if other members failed to pay their “fair share.”

Moreover, though the White House had sent recent signals that the United States would stay in NATO’s mutual defense pact, known as Article 5, Trump made no mention of it as he stood next a monument dedicated to the only time the article had been previously invoked: during the terror attacks on September 11, 2001.

Donald Trump did vow, however, to crack down on leaks that prompted Manchester police to withhold information from the United States about the investigation into this week’s bombing.

Earlier during the day Mr. Trump met with EU President Tusk and other EU officials. 

After the meeting at the EU headquarters in Brussels ended, Tusk, who presides over the European Council said:  "I am not 100% sure that we can say today ... that we have a common position, common opinion, about Russia," but Tusk added that both parties remain critical of Russia's military incursions into neighboring Ukraine.

Tusk also said "some issues remain open" with Trump, including climate change and trade policy.

EU members have long questioned Trump's warm comments toward Putin, who has backed many anti-EU candidates in elections throughout the continent. And countries such as France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have expressed concerns about similar Russian hacking and disinformation campaigns to undermine elections in their countries.

Trump's meeting with Tusk, who presides over the European Council, and Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, preceded talks with leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The Trump Brussels stop came in the middle of Trump's first foreign trip as president, one that began with visits to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Rome. Trump is spending nine days away from Washington, which is still reeling from a spate of recent revelations related to Trump's links to Russia.

Trump's first foreign trip as president came a week after the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to look into possible ties between Trump campaign associates and Russians who sought to influence the 2016 presidential campaign.

The U.S. intelligence community has accused Moscow of orchestrating a high-level campaign of cyberattacks, propaganda and fake news to try and influence the 2016 election, though the president and his aides have denied any collusion.


EU-Digest

NATO under pressure from Trump will symbolically join anti-′Islamic State′ Saudi backed coalition

NATO TO JOIN WITH SAUDI BACKED ISLAMIC COALITION

Several NATO sources on Wednesday said that the strategic military alliance would join the US-Saudi led coalition against the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" (IS) armed group.

The decision is expected to be formally announced on Thursday at the meeting of NATO leaders in Brussels, the sources said.

The leak was made public hours after NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg called on the alliance to do more to combat terrorism, following the suicide bomb attack at Manchester Arena that killed 22 people.

Diplomats said the decision comes under pressure from President Trump and is mainly political and symbolic, because all 28 NATO members already contribute to the coalition fighting to retake areas of Iraq and Syria from the extremist group. Some, like Germany, only taking part in support roles such as reconnaissance and logistics.

For America, the lessons of the European tragedy are there to be learned. There is only one solution to the problem of terrorism and it doesn’t involve going abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

The EU must withdraw all its troops from the Middle East – a possibility that doesn’t bear the economic consequences it once did, given the creation of new technologies that make domestic oil production and alternative energy far easier.

For the US the message is that spending billions of dollars defending and sustaining the Saudi monarchy and the Gulf states – some of the most repressive regimes in the world, is throwing money down the drain, and for what?

The interventionists( Republicans and Democrats alike) declare that America’s role as a “global leader” represents the defense of our values. But really, does a regime that beheads “infidels” represent American or European values? Indeed, there is basically no operative difference between the internal rule of the ISIS “caliphate” and the Saudi Kingdom. Yet we are obsessed with destroying the former and cuddling up to the latter.

It’s not too late for the Europeans, who were forced to sleep in a bed they did not make for themselves, to finally step out of that bed, and focus on cleaning-up the ISIS mess at home by themselves, with plans and strategies of their own. 

EU-Digest