The new emerging face of "Democracy": Taking democracy for granted is a fatal flaw - by Hasan Suroor

Professor of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, David Runciman provides in his book an interesting insight to Modi’s India  and Democracy.

I am not sure that many in the Modi Government would be familiar with the name of David Runciman, professor of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University.

But this week’s crackdown on civil rights activists and dissidents is the biggest endorsement of his new book, “How Democracy Ends”, in which he lists India as among the countries where democracy is being upended in the name of protecting it from supposedly undemocratic forces. India, according to him, illustrates the threat that democracy is facing from “executive aggrandisement” and “strongmen chipping away at it while paying lip service to it”.

It represents the new emerging face of democracy where it all appears tickety-boo on the surface, but is haemorrhaging from inside. Indians might find it embarrassing that he lumps their country with such authoritarian democracies as Hungary, Poland, Turkey and the Philippines where too “strongmen” are “chipping away” at democratic institutions while paying lip service to them.

Runciman sees Narendra Modi as part of a growing cast of “ever more characterful performers” alongside Donald Trump, Recep Erdogan, and Lech Kazcynski, among others, who have converted democracy into an “elaborate performance” to engage public attention while quietly wrecking it from inside. Like them, he has developed a “personality cult” operating through networks of private interests and hardline followers .

Read more: Taking democracy for granted is a fatal flaw | National Herald

Sweden: Todays General Elections in Sweden are being held in a highly charged atmosphere

Via euronews: Sweden prepares to vote in a highly charged general election

Read the complete report at: 

http://www.euronews.com/2018/09/07/sweden-prepares-to-vote-in-a-highly-charged-general-election

Middle East - Idlib - EU: Eight EU countries call for protection of civilians in Idlib

Eight EU member states in the UN Security Council have called on Russia and Iran to maintain a previously agreed ceasefire and avoid military escalation in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib to avoid "catastrophic humanitarian consequences for civilians".

The statement was signed by the UK, France, Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, together with Germany, Belgium and Italy, who recently sat in the Council or will soon be sitting. 

Read more: Eight EU countries call for protection of civilians in Idlib

Most Americans Think Catholic Church Has A Serious Problem with Sexual Predators

The Roman Catholic Church has been making headlines recently for all the wrong reasons. Most  Americans – including Catholics -- think the church has no one to blame but itself.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 73% of American Adults think the Catholic Church has a serious problem with sexual predators among its clergy. Fifteen percent (15%) feel the media is overhyping the church’s sex problems. Another 12% are not sure.
(To see survey question wording, click here.)

Note EU-Digest: This problem could be solved quickly if the Vatican removes the celibacy laws for priests and nuns. 

For the complete report go to Rasmussen Polls 

USA -Trump Trade Wars: Southern states among hardest hit by China tariffs - by Andrew Soerge

 Exporters in manufacturing-heavy states such as Alabama, South Carolina and Kentucky are among those that stand to lose the most from a protracted trade war with China, according to a U.S. News analysis of government trade data that suggests newly erected trade barriers into the Chinese market could stifle industries shipping billions of dollars of goods into Asia's largest economy each year.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the U.S. exported nearly $130 billion in commodities to China last year, an increase of nearly $14 billion from 2016's trade total. Newly erected tariffs on some of those goods – a byproduct of a tit-for-tat trade conflict that's developed between President Donald Trump's administration and members of Chinese President Xi Jinping's regime – stand to raise prices on U.S. exports, with farmers and manufacturers, in particular, concerned about their products getting priced out of the world's second-largest economy.

"What is clear is that we are in a trade war," Daniel Ikenson, director of the Cato Institute's Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, said in a statement last week. "With very little substantive dialogue underway between the governments, matters are likely to get much worse before they get better."

The average U.S. state shipped 9 percent of its total commodity exports to China in 2017 – valued at an average of $2.5 billion. Washington, California and Texas led the way in China exports, each shipping more than $16 billion in goods to the country in 2017.

Read more: Southern states among hardest hit by China tariffs

Britain - Brexit : a menace ro society in Northern Ireland - and here is why

Read the full report here:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/04/brexit-northern-ireland-eu-human-rights-law-good-friday-agreement?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

Britain - Brexit: Theresa May should start reading the Tea Leaves as 2.6 million Leave voters have abandoned support for Brexit since referendum, major new study finds - by Benjamin Kentish

The Brexit disaster

More than 2.6 million people have abandoned their support for Brexit and now back staying in the EU, a major study has concluded.

If the huge number of Britons who have changed their mind had voted to stay in the EU in 2016, the referendum would have delivered a clear Remain verdict.

The data will add to the debate about whether the country now needs a new referendum, with millions having second thoughts about their Leave vote amid growing fears about Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal.

In a key finding that will particularly intensify pressure on Jeremy Corbyn to take a tougher stance against Brexit, the study found the overwhelming majority of those changing minds are Labour voters in seats the party currently holds.

It comes as Conservative divisions over Brexit deepened, with Theresa May attempting to slap down Boris Johnson after he wrote another article attacking her approach.

The Independent has launched its own campaign for a Final Say referendum, with almost three quarters of a million people having signed our petition demanding one so far.

Read more: 2.6 million Leave voters have abandoned support for Brexit since referendum, major new study finds | The Independent