USA: Trump has made US politics ridiculous - E.J. Dionne Jr

The most corrosive aspect of Donald Trump’s presidency is its rousing success in making our politics ridiculous.

The political class (yes, including columnists) is obsessed with his most unnerving statements, especially on Twitter. These are analyzed as if they were tablets from heaven or the learned pronouncements of a wise elder.

Various kinds of strategic genius are ascribed to Trump. He’s getting us to focus on this because he doesn’t want us to focus on that . He’s shifting attention away from a Republican health-care bill that breaks a litany of his campaign vows. Maybe he posted that video of his imagined wrestling match with the CNN logo because he realized that in attacking MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, he strayed from his central, anti-CNN message.

Read more: Trump has made our politics ridiculous - The Washington Post

Turkey Election Fraud: Turkey’s opposition to challenge the referendum’s result at the ECHR

425 KM Protest March from Ankara to Istanbul

Turkey’s leading opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is challenging the April 16^th constitutional referendum result at the European Court of Human Rights.

The referendum grants the President of Turkey, Recep Tayip Erdogan unprecedented power. The “Yes” campaign secured a 51,4% share of the vote, leaving Turkey politically polarized.

The leading opposition Republican Party (CHP) protests that the Turkish Supreme Election Board (YSK) decided to accept unstamped voting papers on the night of the vote, “unless it can be proved that they were brought from outside the voting room.”

CHP’s leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu signed a legal petition on Tuesday, on the occasion of the 20th day of his justice march in the northwestern province of Kocaeli. The 68-year-old Kılıçdaroğlu has organized a 425km march, which started on June 15 in Ankara and is heading to Istanbul.

The march protests the imprisonment of CHP lawmaker Enis Berberoğlu, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for revealing the supply of Turkish arms to Syrian militant Islamists.

The spokesperson of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Mahir Ünal, accused CHP of trying to create a “legitimacy crisis.” Ünal said he was confident that the ECHR would rule in line with Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Board (YSK).

Read more: Turkey’s opposition to challenge the referendum’s result at the ECHR

The Netherlands - Migration: Family is the biggest reason for migration to the Netherlands

People joining their families was the biggest reason for migration to the Netherlands in 2015, the Dutch statistics service announced on Monday. The CBS says that a third of the 159,000 people who migrated to the country in 2015 came to join family members already here. In 2003, half came for this reason, although since the number of migrants has increased, this figure was 36,655 compared with 51,920 in 2015. There was a dramatic rise in asylum-related migration in 2015, to almost 27,000, but more people actually moved to the Netherlands for work that year, and almost 20,000 came to study. Most of those joining their families came from Poland, Syria, Germany, India and the UK in 2015. The figures exclude people of Dutch nationality moving to the country.

Read more at DutchNews.nl: Family is the biggest reason for migration to the Netherlands http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/07/family-is-the-biggest-reason-for-migration-to-the-netherlands/

People joining their families was the biggest reason for migration to the Netherlands in 2015, the Dutch statistics service announced on Monday. The CBS says that a third of the 159,000 people who migrated to the country in 2015 came to join family members already here.

In 2003, half came for this reason, although since the number of migrants has increased, this figure was 36,655 compared with 51,920 in 2015.

There was a dramatic rise in asylum-related migration in 2015, to almost 27,000, but more people actually moved to the Netherlands for work that year, and almost 20,000 came to study.

Most of those joining their families came from Poland, Syria, Germany, India and the UK in 2015. The figures exclude people of Dutch nationality moving to the country. 

 Read more: Family is the biggest reason for migration to the Netherlands - DutchNews.nl

Brexit: Prolonging Brexit talks ‘should not be excluded’, says key EU power broker - by Sarantis Michalopoulos

The complexity of the Brexit negotiations means extending the talks by one year should not be excluded, according to the spokesperson of the European People’s Party (EPP), the leading power broker in the EU institutions.

The declaration by Romanian MEP Siegfried Mureșan, spokesperson of the European People’s Party (EPP), is the first time the EU’s leading centre-right political family publicly admits that Brexit talks may have to be prolonged.

If that extension eventually materialises, it would be a major concession to the government of UK Prime Minister Theresa May which only managed to kick off negotiations on 19 June, one year after the historic referendum on EU membership.

Read more: Prolonging Brexit talks ‘should not be excluded’, says key EU power broker – EURACTIV.com

Brexit Britain: falling pound, border fears and a frightened workforce

A year after Britain voted to leave the EU the pound is at least ten percent weaker, the economy is shaky and may be headed for a downturn and Theresa May’s minority government is weak after losing its majority in parliament after June’s general election.

There’s also the worrying possibility that a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland could unravel the Good Friday Peace Agreement.

The uncertainty is infectious.

In her first policy position after the two year long Brexit negotiations started earlier this month, May set out her plan for the rights of the three million or so EU citizens living in the UK. They will only qualify for “settled” status after five consecutive years living in Britain.

But this has not gone far enough to reassure many EU officials including Guy Verhofstadt, the Brexit co-ordinator for the European Parliament.

A report by the consultancy firm Deloitte released on June 27th suggests that 47 percent of highly skilled EU workers are now considering leaving Britain.

One of them is Joana Ferreira, a dentist who works in a private practice on the outskirts of London, and who arrived from Portugal four and a half years ago.

“I’m just worried about the living conditions, really,” said Ferreira. “Am I going to be able to work? Am I going to get a normal salary, like everyone? Am I going to be kicked out of the country? I don’t know, nobody knows!”

Joana and her husband have a three year old daughter who was born in Britain and they had planned for her to grow up in the country.

“I just feel very insecure of what’s going to happen in the future. I really want to know more so I can plan. Because at the moment, I cannot plan anything in my life,” she said.

Joana’s employer Smita Mehra, the managing director of The Neem Tree practice, is also worried as 60 percent of the staff at the four practices she manages are non-British EU nationals.

Read more: Brexit Britain: falling pound, border fears and a frightened workforce | Euronews

The Netherlands: Quarter of IT firms in the Netherlands have staff shortages

One in four information technology firms in the Netherlands say their production has been down since April because they are short of staff, the national statistics office CBS said on Tuesday.

The IT sector has been most affected by the tight jobs market since the first quarter of 2015 when one out of every nine IT companies had staffing problems. Until then the mining sector (gas, oil) had the biggest need for employees.

There were 12,300 job vacancies in the IT sector in the first quarter of 2017, equating to 6.3% of the national total, the CBS said. The catering sector (hotels, restaurants, cafés) report an 11.3% shortage, industry 9.9% and construction 7.6%.


Read more: Quarter of IT firms in the Netherlands have staff shortages - DutchNews.nl

G20: Merkel takes aim at Trump ahead of stormy G20 summit

Merkel said that discussions at the July 7-8 gathering of world leaders in Hamburg would be difficult given Trump's climate scepticism and "America First" stance, but that she was determined to seek a clear commitment for the Paris accord against global warming and a pledge against protectionism.

When Trump announced in early June he would withdraw from the Paris deal, "we knew that we could not expect discussions to be easy" at the G20 summit, 

 

Merkel told the German parliament"The differences are obvious and it would be dishonest to try to cover that up. That I won't do," she said, adding that the US exit from the 2015 Paris pact had made Europe "more determined than ever" to make the accord a success.

Without naming names, she also warned that "those who think that the problems of this world can be solved with isolationism or protectionism are terribly wrong" and pledged to seek a "clear signal for open markets and against sealing off" at the summit.

Read more: Merkel takes aim at Trump ahead of stormy G20 summit | SBS News