Germany: German coalition talks reach breakthrough: A look at what comes next

The all-nighter appears to have focused minds: Germany's two biggest political parties — the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) — announced on Friday morning that they had made a breakthrough in their exploratory talks, paving the way to formal coalition negotiations and, if all goes to plan, another iteration of the grand coalition.

The new agreement represents an important stage victory in the marathon negotiations for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who would certainly prefer a grand coalition to the other two options currently on the table: heading an unstable minority government, or a new election.

Should the negotiations with the SPD fail, a new election could well usher in the end of Merkel's time in office, as her CDU attempts to revive its fortunes following its worst election results ever. Her party took 32.9 percent in September's election, a drop of 8.6 percentage points on the 2013 result. This has resulted in much self-reflection in the party, along with speculation that Merkel's era was drawing to a close — and even debate about potential successors.

Read more: German coalition talks reach breakthrough: A look at what comes next | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 12.01.2018

USA - Shithole: Trump’s 'Shithole Countries' Comments: What He Meant - by Ryan Teague Beckwith and Maya Rhodan

President Donald Trump’s “shithole countries” comments ricocheted around the world, spurring criticism from U.S. allies, rebuttals from Americans with roots in those countries and condemnation from some in his own party.

Lost in the furor over his “shithole” comment is the argument that Trump was making at the time.

The White House held the meeting to discuss a bipartisan immigration deal that would help undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children who got relief under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, foreign nationals who fled manmade and natural disasters and received temporary protected status (TPS) in the U.S. and immigrants seeking to come to the U.S. through a diversity lottery.

That’s a lot to unpack, so we’ll walk through these one at a time. But here’s the short version: If you are upset about Trump calling African nations “shithole countries” and disparaging Haitians, you probably won’t like what he was proposing either.

Note EU-Digest: The new Yorker wrote: "President Trump’s credibility as a world leader has been, to borrow his vulgarity, shot to shit. With one word—just the latest in a string of slurs about other nations and peoples—he has demolished his ability to be taken seriously on the global stage. “There is no other word one can use but ‘racist,’ ” the spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said at a briefing in Geneva. “You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as ‘shitholes,’ whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome.”

We can not agree more: Donald Trump is a disgrace for America. 

Read more: Trump’s 'Shithole Countries' Comments: What He Meant | Time

Sharia Law - Islam: Greece limits Islamic Sharia law courts for Muslim minority

Greek lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly backed legislation to limit the purview of Islamic religious courts over the nearly 120,000-strong Muslim minority in the region of Western Thrace.

Islamic religious courts will only be able to rule in family law matters such as divorce, child custody and inheritance if all parties agree, under the new law supported by major parties.

Regular Greek law will apply in cases where all parties do not agree to a religious court settling a dispute.

Greece is the only EU country that has Islamic religious courts.

State-appointed clerics, known as muftis, have resolved family law matters among Muslims in Western Thrace under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne between Turkey and Greece following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Among other things, the treaty involved a population exchange of some 2 million people between Turkey and Greece, except for on some Aegean islands, the Greek Orthodox community in Istanbul and the largely Turkish-speaking Muslim community in Western Thrace.

The Greek Orthodox and Muslim minorities were given certain minority language, cultural and religious rights under the treaty.

But in a strange twist of history, the Muslims of Greece fell under Islamic law while Turkey moved to a secular legal system in the Turkish Republic.

The Muslims in the northeastern corner of Greece near the border with Turkey are mostly ethnic Turks, although there is also a Bulgarian-speaking Pomak community.

Turkey has long taken an interest in what it deems Turkish-ethnic brothers in Western Thrace, drawing accusations from Greece that Ankara is interfering in its affairs.

Greece has been reluctant to change the law around Muslim family matters, fearful that it could prompt Turkey to request changes to the Lausanne Treaty.

Note EU-Digest: To allow Sharia, or any other religious law to function on a parallel status with local and national laws in EU member States is ridiculous and creates more problems than it solves.   

Read  more: Greece limits Islamic Sharia law courts for Muslim minority | News | DW | 10.01.2018

USA - Evangelicals: Trump policies and Christian teachings don't tally up, say Church of England leaders — by Carlos Barria

Another senior church leader in Britain has joined a chorus of voices speaking out against the “uncritical support” evangelical Americans have for Donald Trump. To them, the US president’s policies simply don’t tally up with the religion’s teachings.

Paul Bayes, a senior Church of England bishop, told the Guardian that he believed “self-styled evangelicals” who support Trump are evoking God in a way that contradicts his message of helping the poor.

“Some of the things that have been said by religious leaders seem to collude with a system that marginalizes the poor, a system which builds walls instead of bridges, a system which says people on the margins of society should be excluded, a system which says we’re not welcoming people any more into our country,” said Bayes. “Whenever people say those kinds of things, they need to be able to justify that they’re saying those things as Christians, and I do not believe it’s justifiable.”

His comments follow those of Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury. “I really genuinely do not understand” why conservative evangelical Americans support Trump, he said last month.

In his Christmas sermon, Welby, without naming Trump, also criticized “populist leaders that deceive.”

In the US, 80% of self-identified white evangelical Christians said they voted for Trump in the 2016 election, according to the Pew Research Center.

Reads more: rump policies and Christian teachings don't tally up, say Church of England leaders — Quartz

The Netherlands: New income requirements for residence as a highly skilled migrant in the Netherlands - by Pim Bouwmeester

The Netherlands sets a minimum salary for Dutch citizens based on age, the so-called Wettelijk Minimum Loon. Usually this minimum wage changes every January 1 and halfway through each year. This minimum wage applies if you are working in the Netherlands as a Dutch citizen or if you are working on your partner’s residence permit. Of course an employer can pay you more, but this is the legal minimum.

For further details and scales click on this link: New income requirements for residence as a highlyskilled migrant in the Netherlands

Climate Change: The media is bad at covering climate change and worse at covering solutions

While President Trump has turned bashing the mainstream media into a form of performance art, sometimes the press does deserve some constructive criticism. For example, look no further than the media’s inadequate coverage of climate change and potential solutions—inadequate, at least, according to a new report by the watchdog group Public Citizen. The group looked at news stories from a number of major U.S. news outlets to see how–or if–they covered what many consider to be the greatest threat to national security. More specifically, the group looked at whether the media was able to connect dramatic weather events–which the world had plenty of in 2017–to climate change. It found a “decidedly low” number of pieces that mentioned climate change in relevant contexts–such as drought, floods, and disease. Instead, the term “climate change” most often occurred in stories about record heat, but not issues like wildfires, record rain fall, or hurricanes, tropical storms, and flooding.

In fact, Public Citizen found that just 4% of the many stories discussing hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, or Nate made the connection to climate change.

Not only is the media barely mentioning climate change in context, but coverage of potential solutions to climate change is even more scanty–only 9% of all pieces mentioned solutions. Reporting on ways to possibly slow or even reverse climate change are critical now, particularly in light of the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, roll back U.S. climate policy, and promote coal.ML

Read more: Report: The media is bad at covering climate change and worse at cover

Hungary ‘should be kicked out of EU’ - by Armend Nimani

Europe’s cultural divisions deepened yesterday after Luxembourg called for Hungary to be kicked out of the EU because of the country’s hard stance on Muslim refugees and migrants.

The row has further poisoned relations between liberal western European countries and eastern Europe three days before a crucial summit on the future of the EU after Britain’s vote to leave in June.
Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg’s foreign minister, demanded the suspension or expulsion of Hungary over its authoritarianism and anti-migrant razor wire fences on its Balkan borders.

“We cannot accept that the EU’s fundamental values are being massively violated,” he told the German newspaper Die Welt.

“Anyone, like Hungary, who builds fences against refugees fleeing war or breaches press freedom and the independence of the justice system should be temporarily, or if needed, for ever excluded from the EU.”

Note EU-Digest: If the EU would do this they should include Poland in the process - unfortunately it does not have the power and guts to do so.

Read more: Hungary ‘should be kicked out of EU’ | World | The Times & The Sunday Times