Italy - Elections: Italian scientists speak up in support of EU - by Ersilia Vaudo Scarpetta

As Italy's elections loom amid a hike in euroscepticism, the country's scientific community is raising its voice - saying Europe's a place where they can find opportunities.

At ESTEC, the European Space Agency's research and technology centre in the Netherlands, scientists of 22 different nationalities work together to design and test satellites. And one in five is Italian.

"In other countries researchers are better paid than in Italy, so they prefer to stay at home. While in Italy those who want to do research are often forced to look for opportunities abroad," said Franco Ongaro, ESTEC Director.

Europe's a hot topic in Italy's elections, with the campaigning divided between pro-EU parties and populist movements, who accuse the block of limiting national sovereignty.

"Alone we wouldn't be as successful as we are with the 22 countries together. If we can land on a comet 500 million kilometres away after a 10-year journey, it is thanks to the alchemy of these differences, coming together to pursue common objectives," commented Ersilia Vaudo Scarpetta, Chief Diversity Officer at the European Space Agency.

Read more: Italian scientists speak up in support of EU | Euronews

The Netherlands: Hollywood in the Netherlands - by Manja van Kesteren

With its iconic canals and canal houses, windmills and fields of tulips, Dutch scenery can make for a pretty picture.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that Hollywood has stopped by a couple of times over the years.

Here are some Hollywood blockbusters that have been (partially) filmed in the Netherlands:

Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)
Ocean’s Twelve (2004)
The Fault in Our Stars (2014)
Dunkirk (2017)
The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017)

To promote film production in the Netherlands, and to attract big Hollywood productions to the country, the Netherlands Film Production Incentive was introduced in 2014. To qualify for a 35 percent cash rebate, feature films must incur at least 75 percent of their production costs within the Netherlands, and they are required to spend 100.000 euros on local production costs as well.

Since its introductio the incentive has contributed to over 200 projects, including 98 film productions from abroad. Thanks to the program, Dunkirk received a sum of 1,2 million USD, and the Hitman’s Bodyguard took home 960.000 USD.

Read more and see the film clips:The Netherlands: Hollywood in the Netherlands - by Manja van Kesteren 

The Netherlands: Turkey summons Dutch diplomat over Armenian genocide motion

The Turkish government called on the Dutch charge d‘affaires in Ankara on Saturday to express its anger at two bills proposed by the Christian Union party, the first of which would formally classify the events of 1915, when 1.5 million ethnic Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Empire, as a genocide.

 The second bill would call on a Dutch official to be present during the annual remembrance day in Armenia on April 24. At present, 23 countries, including Russia, recognize the 1915 killings as a genocide. The Turkish authorities, however, dispute the Armenian version of events, arguing that there were atrocities on both sides, and bitterly contest all charges of genocide.

 ead more: Turkey summons Dutch diplomat over Armenian genocide motion — RT Newsline

Netherlands Parliament Recognizes Armenian Genocide - but Government so far takes no action

The lower house of the Dutch parliament, local known as the Tweede Kamer, passed two resolutions on Thursday with a majority vote one recognizing the Armenian Genocide, the other calling on its foreign minister to visit Armenia in April to observe the anniversary of that crime.

According to NLTimes, both motions were submitted by ChristenUnie party parliament member Joel Voordewind. All four coalition parties supported the motions.

The Netherlands has not recognized the Genocide thus far, however, the majority of the parliament voted on Thursday to change that course and officially recognize the events of 1915 as Genocide.

Note: This is a very controversial issue which happened more than 100 years ago and the Netherlands Government would act wisely to refrain from taking any further action on the issue until more research is avaible.

EU-Digest

International tourism is booming, but not to the US - main reasons - Donald Trump Presidency and Gun violence?

Donald Trump and Gun Violence in US seen as main culprits

CNBC reported recently that international tourism is growing at its fastest clip in seven years, but the U.S. is on pace for its sharpest drop in foreign travelers since the wake of the recession.

It's a worrying trend for the travel and retail industries. International travelers tend to stay longer and spend more than their domestic counterparts.

In the first seven months of 2017, the U.S. took in 41 million international visitors, a 4 percent decline from the year-earlier period, according to the Commerce Department. That follows a more than 2 percent drop a year earlier.

It's a worrying trend for the travel and retail industries. International travelers tend to stay longer and spend more than their domestic counterparts.

Tourism and retail industry leaders recently launched the Visit U.S. Coalition, which wants backing from the Trump administration to help stem the decline. The coalition was founded by U.S. Travel, a lobbying group whose members include Marriott International and Macy's.

"Fewer visitors means fewer hotel stays, fewer meals eaten in our restaurants, fewer goods purchased in our retail stores, and fewer visits to our national attractions. It also means fewer American jobs and a loss to our economy," said Katherine Lugar, president and CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, a coalition member. "We are committed to working together with the Administration to balance a welcome message with strong security to ensure we don't fall behind to other countries."

Roger Dow, president and CEO of U.S. Travel, called some of President Donald Trump's rhetoric "not helpful" but stopped short of blaming him or his policies for the drop directly. Dow pointed to a strong dollar and competition from other nations
.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

Note EU-Digest: Many experts in the travel industry are blaming the decline on Donald Trump's continuous nationalistic remarks and hostility towards immigrants, and the increasing gun violence in America by local terrorists.

EU-Digest

The Netherlands: Dutch foreign minister resigns after lying about Put0in meeting

Dutch foreign minister Halbe Zijlstra has resigned after admitting he lied about being in Russian president Vladimir’s dacha in 2006 and hearing Putin talk about his plans for a greater Russia.

Zijlstra had been under fire since admitting on Monday that he lied about overhearing Putin define ‘Greater Russia’ as ‘Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic states,’ then adding that ‘Kazakhstan was nice to have’.

He had been due to debate the incident with MPs on Tuesday afternoon but resigned ahead of the scheduled debate.

In a short statement, Zijlstra said the lie was ‘by far the biggest mistake I have made in my political career’. ‘The Netherlands,’ he said, ‘deserves a foreign affairs minister who is above all reproach.’

Note EU-Digest: a courageous move by Halbe Zijlstra showing respect, as a politician, for Democratic values, in contrast to US President Donald Trump, who is able to lie on a daily basis and get away with it.

Read more: Dutch foreign minister resigns after lying about Putin meeting - DutchNews.nl

Sex Abuse: hyped by the Media is among, but not the most important issue the world is facing today

Life's experiences can make you bitter, hateful,  resentful or cynical if you let them. It's even worse if you trying to build a relationship with the opposite gender and you already had some share of disappointments in your life.

Sometimes it's good to go through all those things for some individuals, because sometimes you decide there and then that "I wouldn't never put anyone through what he or she put me through. " .

And sometimes it's not good at all for others because they can decide that "I will never let anyone put me through this again, therefore I will hurt them before they hurt me" and they just do that. Hurt or hurting people hurt people,

Honestly isn't that what life is all about? Maybe the best way to to label that is experience.

Unfortunately the Media, and Government, which influence the majority of the population around the world, are now all riding on the bandwagon of combating  "sexual abuse"which mainly focusses on celebrities, the Catholic Church and most recently NGO's like Oxfam.

Obviously it is important to combat sexual abuse, but it certainly  should not be on top- of the list of all the other horrors the world is facing like war, poverty and the causes of mass migration, or weapons sales.

The number of people displaced from their homes due to conflict and persecution last year exceeded 60 million for the first time in the United Nations’ history, a tally greater than the combined populations of the United Kingdom, or of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, says a new report released on World Refugee Day today.

The Global Trends 2015 compiled by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) notes that 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, an increase of more than 5 million from 59.5 million a year earlier.

The tally comprises 21.3 million refugees, 3.2 million asylum seekers, and 40.8 million people internally displaced within their own countries.

Measured against the world’s population of 7.4 billion people, one in every 113 people globally is now either a refugee, an asylum-seeker or internally displaced – putting them at a level of risk for which UNHCR knows no precedent.

In the past years Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia produce half the world’s refugees, at 4.9 million, 2.7 million and 1.1 million, respectively.

Colombia in Latin America had the largest numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs), at 6.9 million, followed by Syria’s 6.6 million and Iraq’s 4.4 million.

While the spotlight last year was on Europe’s challenge to manage more than one million refugees and migrants who arrived via the Mediterranean, the report shows that the vast majority of the world’s refugees were in developing countries in the global south.

In all, 86 per cent of the refugees under UNHCR’s mandate records were in low- and middle-income countries close to situations of conflict.

Nearly 1/2 of the world's population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — less than $1.25 a day. 1 billion children worldwide are living in poverty. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty.

Like it or not, dear feminists, you might find the sexual harassment a terrible crime , so do most most of us, but there are also other crimes, sometimes must worse than sex abuse.

Harvey Weinstein, one of Hollywood’s most revered moguls and influential kingpins, who has been sexually harassing and abusing women for nearly 30 years.is a terribly sad case but in reality that is a drop of water on a hot plate, compared to the results of wars and proxy wars, or poverty around the world.

Unfortunately those horrific events hardly ever get the attention they deserves because those problems are usually the the result of our own governments deeds and actions.

"We the people" are really the only ones who can do something about it, this destructive policy of wars has to stop and we should not get side-tracked by the smoke-screens our Governments and  media are applying to divert our attention.

EU-Digest  

The above report can be used
 only if the source is mentioned