Almere-Digest

December 12, 2018

Engeland: Populisten hebben met het doordrukken van Brexit Engeland's ekonomie in grote moeilijkheden gebracht

Het moet toch hopenlijk in de EU tot de ingezetenen en politici van de bij de EU aangesloten lidstaten zijn doorgedrongen dat eenheid macht betekend en verdeeltheid catastrofe.

Vooral als we zien hoe de "moedige" Theresa May nu langs de Europese lidstaten loopt te bedelen om "water bij de wijn te doen", wat betreft de Brexit overeenkomst met de EU.

Notabene het Brexit drama, die de Engelsen zich door ,nationalistische populisten, zoals Nigel Farage en Boris Johnson hebben laten inluizen en die nu in geen velden of wegen te bekennen zijn terwijl Engeland ten onder gaat.

Een duidelijk omschreven 2e referendum is waarschijnlijk de enige redding voor Engeland.

Hopenlijk laten de ingezetenen van de EU zich voor en tijdens de Europese Parlements verkiezingen in mei 2019 niet om de tuin leiden door nationalistische en populistische politici en andere onrust kraaiers.

We hebben zeer zeker geen nieuwe dramas als Brexit meer nodig.

Almere-Digest

Time Magazine Person of the year Award: : Khashoggi,murdered by Saudi Arabia and jailed journalists named Time's 'Person of the Year'

Time magazine on Tuesday named a group of journalists, including a slain Saudi Arabian writer and a pair of Reuters journalists imprisoned by Myanmar’s government, as its “Person of the Year,” in a cover story headlined “The Guardians and the War on Truth.”

The honor went to a series of journalists including Reuters journalists Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, who the government of Myanmar convicted on Sept. 3 under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act in a case seen as a test of democratic freedoms in Myanmar.

Also honored was Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Khashoggi was killed two months ago at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul when he went there to collect documents for his forthcoming marriage.

The 95-year-old magazine also honored Maria Ressa, the founder of the Philippine news site Rappler that has been a frequent critic of that nation’s President Rodrigo Duterte, and the staff of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, where a gunman shot and killed five people in June.

Time said it chose to honor journalism at time when the practice critical democracy is under threat both from governments and technological advances. Its annual distinction is intended to recognize the person, group, thing or idea that had the greatest influence on world events that year.

Read more: Khashoggi, jailed journalists named Time's 'Person of the Year'

December 11, 2018

Britain: British PM delays vote on Brexit

British PM Theresa May delays parliament vote on Brexit

December 10, 2018

Global warming:USA, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait block key climate study at the COP24 meeting

U.S., Russia, Kuwait and Saudis block key climate study at COP24

December 9, 2018

France: French Protests fueled by populists and Russian backed internet bloggers as extremists put centrism to the torch - by Max Boot

France: Extreme Right-Wing Populists cheered on by the Kremlin

Weekend after weekend, French President Emmanuel Macron is dealing with sometimes violent protests from a populist movement known as the gilets jaunes (yellow vests). The protesters were galvanized by a plan to raise gasoline taxes, but they are still out in the streets even though the gas tax increase has been suspended. Now they’re demanding, among other things, default on the public debt, exit from the European Union and NATO, and less immigration. I’m dealing with a piece of the online fallout — and in the process learning a dispiriting lesson about how hard it is for a political leader to pursue a moderate path in an age of extremes.

On Dec. 3, amid pictures of burning cars and tear gas in Paris, I woke up to find incessant Twitter criticism of an article I’d written. This was hardly shocking; I’m attacked online all the time. What surprised me was that I was being attacked for a Commentary article published 18 months earlier, shortly after Macron’s election. I posted it on Twitter on June 15, 2017, with the headline: “To defeat populism, America needs its own Macron — a charismatic leader who can make centrism cool.”

This tweet has now earned me a torrent of online abuse. Sean Davis, the co-founder of a pro-Trump website, tweeted: “This 2017 column is a riot.” The right-wing actor James Woods retweeted the article with the gloating tag line: “Twitter is beautiful.” Left-wing journalist Glenn Greenwald apparently thought my article was so ridiculous he retweeted it without any comment at all. Breitbart’s former London editor wrote: “This aged well, didn’t it, @maxboot?”

I asked the information warfare expert Molly McKew what was going on. She replied: “Major Russian info campaign on the Yellow Jackets/Vests protests, so you just kicked the wrong hornets. Over the weekend all the ‘Syria’ accounts were tweeting about how French had snipers on the rooftops to shoot the demonstrators.” The Hamilton 68 website, which tracks Russian disinformation online, confirmed that two of the top Russian hashtags were “giletsjaune” and “France.” Among the Russians cheerleading the protests online is the notorious fascist and pro-Putin ideologue Alexander Dugin. Meanwhile, Russian state media outlets such as RT were hyping chaos in Paris as if it were a “color” revolution.

BuzzFeed reports that the “yellow vests” emerged out of “Anger Groups” that popped up on Facebook to channel the grievances of “fed up” rural, working-class French people — the Gallic version of President Trump’s deplorables or the tea party. Just as in the United States, their online propaganda included a great deal of misinformation. Activists circulated a picture of cars stranded on a highway, claiming it showed German motorists who had abandoned their cars to protest fuel taxes. In fact, the picture was likely of a traffic jam in China. Another popular meme claimed that a 2016 government decree had invalidated the French constitution and that everything that has happened since, including the gas tax, is illegitimate.

There is no evidence that I have seen that Russia social media ignited the protests, but they certainly added fuel to the fire.

But Macron’s desire to curb global warming (the goal of the higher gas tax), his support for the European Union and NATO, his unabashed elitism (he once worked for the Rothschild investment bank, a bogeyman for anti-Semites), and his clashes with Trump have made him a target of the far right, too. Trump himself applauded the protests, falsely claiming they are chanting, “We want Trump.” The right would like to see Marine Le Pen take over; the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The Kremlin would prefer either one to a centrist who will stymie its designs to divide Europe.

Read more: In France and online, extremists put centrism to the torch - The Washington Post

December 8, 2018

United Nations - "US and Israel get a black eye at the UN": In blow to U.S. administration and Israel, UN fails to pass anti-Hamas resolution - by Amir Tibon and Noa Landau

The resolution condemning Hamas, which was presented by the U.S. before the UN General Assembly on Thursday, fell short of the required two-thirds majority and failed to pass.

The resolution condemning Hamas, which was presented by the U.S. before the UN General Assembly on Thursday, fell short of the required two-thirds majority and failed to pass.

Read more: In blow to U.S. administration and Israel, UN fails to pass anti-Hamas resolution - U.S. News - Haaretz.com