EU-Mercosur deal: Is the agreement a threat to European agriculture? - by Sofía S.Manzanaro

Twenty years after negotiations began, the European Union and the South American trade bloc Mercosur reached a free-trade agreement on Friday. Deemed "historic" by European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker, both sides currently trade over €88 billion in goods and €34 billion in services each year.

However, the treaty has not satisfied all member states. While French President Emmanuel Macron said it was a "good agreement" that met key French demands, other factions in France did not agree.

France is the EU's largest farming power. French farmers' groups and environmentalists have regularly raised concerns about the risk of a surge in South American agricultural exports to Europe. In addition, critics argue there are lower standards for produce in the Mercosur countries and insist that they would oppose the deal unless they see proper traceability and good livestock practices in the beef sector.

"We won't have an accord at any price. The story isn't finished," agriculture minister Didier Guillaume told lawmakers on Tuesday.

Read more at: 
EU-Mercosur deal: Is the agreement a threat to European agriculture? | Euronews

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USA: Trump administration to approve pesticide that may harm bees

Trump administration to approve pesticide that may harm bees

Read more at:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/12/bees-pesticide-trump-epa-approves-sulfoxaflor?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

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USA - Radical Right Wing Social Media group to meet today at secretive right-wing social media summit at White House, hosted by US President Donald Trump

Unfortunately :"Facisme is 
alive and well in the US"

Radical right-wing media personalities will be at the White House on Thursday (7/11) for a social media summit hosted by President Donald Trump to tackle perceived anti-conservative bias on online platforms.

The attendee list is being kept secret by the White House, but a range of right-wing activists, both online and offline, have announced they will be attending.

These include Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe, who has attempted to plant fake stories in the Washington Post to undermine its credibility, and radio host Bill Mitchell who has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory.

While Facebook and Twitter are reportedly still waiting for their invites, President Donald Trump has invited a cartoonist accused of creating “a blatantly anti-Semitic” illustration to  this Social Media Summit at the White House.

The Guardian a British newspaper noted in an Op-Ed : "Donald Trump borrows from the old tricks of fascism". 

Artist Ben Garrison, whose work often display alt-right themes and is a favorite of the popular pro-Trump Reddit community The_Donald, tweeted a picture Friday of his invitation to the White House for the summit the following week.

Donald Trump wrote in one of his Tweets today: "A big subject today at the White House Social Media Summit will be the tremendous dishonesty, bias, discrimination and suppression practiced by certain companies. We will not let them get away with it much longer. The Fake News Media will also be there, but for a limited period."

The president has previously accused Google of rigging its search results against him, giving greater prominence to negative stories about him while suppressing positive articles from conservative news organizations.

Google denied the allegation, which was not substantiated by independent research.

The media figures attending the White House summit on Thursday will be sharing stories of "how they have been affected by bias online" according to a press secretary.

One of the individuals invited to the summit, Ben Garrison, had been accused of drawing an antisemitic cartoon portraying frequent Jewish liberal philanthropist George Soros as a puppetmaster.

Read more at: Trump hosts secretive right-wing social media summit at White House | Science

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Funerals: Make your final farewell a more "Eco-Friendly" one

Graveyards: A toxic pollution problem

Link TV  recently reported on how toxic graveyards really are.

Yes indeed, death is a messy business. In America alone, 1.6 million tons of cement and over 870,000 gallons of embalming fluid — commonly containing formaldehyde — are buried along with 2.5 million caskets every year.

“What you have here is a landfill … a toxic landfill,” says Glen Ayers of the Green Burial Committee as he looks around a traditional graveyard in Massachusetts.

Proponents of natural burial want to reduce the pollution and resource waste associated with funerals, which also includes burying masses of hardwood and steel.

One solution is to use eco-friendly biodegradable coffins made out of cardboard or even banana leaves. Campaigners also hope to increase the number of natural burial sites, where plots blend in with the natural surroundings.

There are currently fewer than 40 in the US.

Maybe it is time for people to start writing in their "final will and testament" that they want their "final farewell" to be a more eco-friendly one....and you will be doing a good deed for humanity, even after you have died.

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EU-USA relations: The EU must wake-up to the fact that the "erraticly" acting US Trump Administration is not a friend of the EU, and must act accordingly

"I am the greatest - Trust me it's real"

Donald Trump is "inept," "insecure" and "incompetent," a UK government official reported Saturday to CNN.
And many  diplomats stationed in Washington, although they are not openly saying it, consider the British Ambassador  hit the nail right on the head.

Mr. Trump’s order to attack Iran recently in retaliation for its downing of a spy drone, and his abrupt reversal minutes before American forces carried it out, have intensified global doubts about the president’s judgment and the power wielded by the United States.

The appearance of erratic decision-making “adds to the confusion of his allies and adversaries,” said Nigel Sheinwald, a former British ambassador to Washington who once conducted hostage negotiations with the Iranian government. But it is also part of “a continuing picture of American uncertainty about the use of power,” Mr. Sheinwald said. “It is the leitmotif that runs throughout U.S. history.”

If leaders of Britain, France and Germany — America’s main European allies — saw Mr. Trump’s aborted attack as a point of no return for his own reputation, or for the United States’ global standing, they did their best to hide it.

The public response of Western politicians has been largely cautious, sometimes confused — but only implicitly critical..

Another sore point for the EU is that the United States is also intensifying its trade fight with the European Union over aircraft subsidies, proposing new tariffs on EU goods worth $4 billion.

The tariffs, announced late Monday by the United States Trade Representative, cover 89 products including meat, cheese, pasta, fruits, coffee and whiskey.

They could be added to a list of EU exports worth $21 billion that the USTR said in April would be subject to tariffs.

The threat to target more European goods comes just days after the United States and China agreed to resume talks on a trade deal. President Donald Trump said he would hold off imposing new tariffs on China.

Washington has also been locked in a dispute with the European Union for years over two of the world's biggest airplane manufacturers — Boeing (BA) and Airbus.

It is high time the EU starts calling a spade a spade and, starts playing hard-ball with the US. They have a lot of cards they can play and should not scare away from doing so.

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German - US relations: Germany rejects US demand for ground troops

Syria: Germany rejects US demand for ground troops.

It was also reported recently that the Netherlands will also not provide ground troops as requested by the US for Syria. 

Polls in Europe show that there is very little "appetite" in Europe for more, or additional military involvement in Syria or anywhere else in the Middle East, specially since the US pulled out of the multi-national nuclear agreement with Iran, and as such, created more unrest in the region.

The Netherlands will not provide ground troops for the new US mission in Syria, defence minister Ank Bijleveld told news agency ANP on Friday, following the weekly cabinet meeting.

Read more at DutchNews.nl:

Read more at
https://p.dw.com/p/3LkP3

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Women's Soccer world cup: U.S. Wins Record Fourth World Cup Title against Holland 2-0 - by Andrew Das

Tthe United States, who needed more than an hour to solve a tenacious defensive effort by the Netherlands. Rapinoe broke the dam with a penalty kick in the 61st minute, and Lavelle sealed the victory with a driving run up the center in the 69th.

It was the second straight World Cup title for a dozen of the American players, who claimed their first championship in Canada four years ago. It also cemented their status as the gold standard in women’s soccer, even as Europe — led by teams like the Netherlands — mounts a sustained assault on their crown.

The Netherlands was the only team to hold the United States off the scoreboard in the first half in France but they, like all the other teams before them — Thailand, Chile, Sweden, Spain, France and England — could not hold them off forever.

Dutch Goal Keeper Van Veenedaal, who almost singlehandedly kept the game scoreless in the first half with several diving, sprawling saves, was named the tournament’s outstanding goalkeeper. Rapinoe won the Golden Boot as the top scorer as well as the Golden Ball as the tournament’s outstanding player.

Read more at: U.S. Wins Record Fourth World Cup Title - The New York Times

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