The Netherlands: Dutch PM Rutte to visit Trump for talks on trade. As to US Defense requests : "NO WAY JOSE" - by Mike Corder

"No Way Jose"

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is visiting U.S. President Donald Trump next week, but said Friday he can't yet give the president a response to American requests for assistance in Syria and the Strait of Hormuz.

Rutte will meet Trump at the White House next Thursday to discuss bilateral relations, international trade and defense and security cooperation, the Dutch government announced.
But Rutte said the visit comes too soon for him to say whether the Netherlands will agree to U.S. requests for assistance in Syria and the Gulf, because his government is still discussing them.

"I can't have a conversation with the American president about it if the procedures in the Netherlands have not been completed," Rutte said. "So that is not a point we are putting on the agenda."

He said that if Trump raises the issue, "I will tell him we are carefully evaluating it."

Last month, acting U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said after a meeting in Brussels that NATO allies gave him no firm commitments that they will participate in a global effort to secure international waterways against threats from Iran.

Since then, Dutch media, citing unnamed sources, have reported that the government in The Hague is considering sending a frigate to the Gulf. Rutte declined to give details of possible Dutch involvement, saying no decision has been made.

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, said Tuesday that Washington will move ahead with plans to build a coalition of nations to monitor and deter Iranian threats against commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf area and in a busy waterway between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa.

Note EU-Digest: Donald Trump created the problem with Iran, which has stirred up unrest within the Middle East, after the US stepped out of the Iran Nuclear Treaty. Hopefully PM Rutte of the Netherlands will tell Trump during his visit to the White House, that as to Trump's request for Dutch troops in Syria, or Dutch Navy support in the Persian Gulf, the answer is " NO WAY JOSE".   

Read more: Dutch leader to visit Trump for talks on trade, defense - San Antonio Express-News

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France: Macron hails common European defence on Bastille day

Bastille Day: Macron hails common European defence in July 14 message 

Read full report at: 

https://www.euronews.com/2019/07/14/bastille-day-macron-hails-european-defence-in-july-14-address

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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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