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January 16, 2018

EU: Four Predictions on the Future of Europe by US Think Tank Carnegie Europe - by Jan Techau

At the end of all this madness, what is the EU going to look like? This is a question heard a lot these days, in one form or another. Most observers sense that these are extraordinary times for Europe, and that political realities might look very different rather soon. And while it is impossible to predict how the greatest political project in history will transform under existential pressures from both within and outside, all of these pressures point in a certain direction when it comes to Europe’s future.

Let’s start by saying that there will never be an end to all this madness. Human affairs never reach an end point, some sort of magic equilibrium of all driving forces at which those affairs can be frozen and preserved. In European integration parlance, this means that there is no such thing as finalité politique, that old canard.

The EU serves a purpose, and its workings and its setup will be adapted as this purpose changes. Again and again. So instead of looking at some imaginary final outcome that will be outdated the moment it is reached, let’s look at the forces that shape the union.

Ultimately, it is the needs of Europeans that build the EU. Yes, political leadership and a good helping of civic boldness on behalf of the European citizenry are necessary as well, neither of which is in ample supply these days. But fundamentally, the EU either serves the needs of the day or it gets into crisis. Such a moment has been reached today. And the current crisis that Europeans are both observing and undergoing is nothing but the readjustment of a project that no longer serves the needs of the day properly, and therefore needs renovation.

What makes this moment different from earlier existential crises is that the direction of integration is more diffuse now than in the past. Some needs point toward more integration, but others perhaps point toward less. I am convinced that in the long term, the net result will be more integration. But it will not be wholesale “ever closer union,” the aim enshrined in the EU’s treaties. It will be something a little more diffuse.

The biggest overwhelming need is that Europeans will have to react to the harsh winds of political globalization in the future. Political globalization is more than just the economic globalization that has been talked about endlessly in the last decade. It is a quest for political order on a planet that has outgrown its merely regional structure. It will drag the Europeans out of their cozy, U.S.-subsidized corner of comfort, in which liberal order, pluralism, political stability, and the absence of major conflict were somehow taken for granted.

Read more: Four Predictions on the Future of Europe - Carnegie Europe - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

January 15, 2018

Christianity under threat: ‘Worst Year Yet’: The Top 50 Countries Where It’s Hardest to Be a Christian: by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra

For decades, North Korea has clearly been the world’s worst persecutor of Christians. But now, another nation nearly matches it.

Open Doors recently released its 2018 World Watch List (WWL), an annual ranking of the 50 countries where it is most dangerous to follow Jesus. Approximately 215 million Christians now experience high, very high, or extreme levels of persecution; that means 1 in 12 Christians live where Christianity is “illegal, forbidden, or punished,” according to Open Doors researchers.

Kim Jung-un’s country hasn’t moved from the No. 1 spot on the list for 16 years in a row. “With more than 50,000 in prison or labor camps, such a ranking is little surprise for the totalitarian regime that controls every aspect of life in the country and forces worship of the Kim family,” Open Doors reported.

But rivaling it this year is Afghanistan, which ranked No. 2 by less than a point. North Korea’s total score was 94 (on a 100-point scale), pushed above Afghanistan’s 93 by a 0.6 difference in their 

Open Doors recently released its latest World Watch List (WWL). The annual list ranks the top 50 countries "where Christians face the most persecution," aiming to create "effective anger" on believers' behalf.

“This year, the threshold was higher for a country to make the list, indicating that worldwide levels of persecution have increased,” stated Open Doors in announcing its analysis of the "significant trends" in 2014 that drove persecution higher worldwide, "even in places where it has not been reported in the past."

So while countries such as Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) fell significantly in rank on this year's watch list (Sri Lanka dropped 15 spots to No. 44, and the UAE dropped 14 spots to No. 49), their level of persecution dropped only slightly from last year's list (by four points and two points, respectively, on a 100-point scale). 

Bahrain, Morocco, and Niger—were removed from the list this year, the level of persecution in each remained virtually the same from 2013 to 2014.

Overall in 2014, pressure on Christians increased in 29 countries, decreased in 11, and remained stable in 7. Three countries—Mexico, Turkey, and Azerbaijan—were added to the watch list this year. 

To get the complete report click go to: https://www.opendoorsusa.org/2018-world-watch-list-report/

Read more: ‘Worst Year Yet’: The Top 50 Countries Where It’s Hardest to Be a Christian | News & Reporting | Christianity Today

January 14, 2018

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

January 12, 2018

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

Image result for Cartoon Shtface TrumpPresident 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

January 10, 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

January 9, 2018

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