Almere-Digest

October 15, 2019

The Netherlands: Europe's number one biking country, becoming unsafe for bikers as higher speed mopeds and scooters are also allowed on bike paths

Scooters and Mopeds,
danger on Dutch bike-paths

There are more bicycles than residents in The Netherlands, and in all the big Dutch cities up to 70% of all journeys are made by bike.

To make cycling safer and even more inviting the Dutch have also built a vast network of cycle paths.

These are clearly marked, have smooth surfaces, separate signs and lights for those on two wheels, and wide enough to allow side-by-side cycling and overtaking.

In many cities the paths are completely segregated from motorised traffic. Sometimes, where space is scant and both must share, you can see signs showing an image of a cyclist with a car behind accompanied by the words 'Bike Street: Cars are guests'.

But there is a major danger now lurking on these beautiful bike paths, Molpeds and scooters,the Dutch call them "snor fietsers", and these also include, what one biker called the "silent killers", electric scooters, who are also racing silently over these serene bike-paths, at high speeds.

Very often Scooters and Mopeds go at speeds of 50 km per hour or even more, specially when the engine is "souped up".

Also Pizza delivering persons on scooters have a reputation of always going too fast. To make matters worse, because these scooters are on the bike-path, they also don't have to wear a helmet.

In December 2017 a majority of the Dutch parliament approved a city of Amsterdam request to move mopeds and scooters from their municipality bike-paths to the open roads and highways.

Unfortunately not many, if not any, of the cities in the Netherlands, have taken any similar action as Amsterdam so far. It is also well known in the Netherlands, that local police is not very agressive, when it comes to writing out "tickets" against moped and scooter riders, who are going too fast on the bike-paths.

As one bike-rider in the city of Almere noted: how many more bikers will need to get serious accidents, before our Municipality takes any action?

EU-Digest

October 14, 2019

Poland: Poland's ruling PiS party wins most votes, according to exit polls

Poland's ruling PiS party wins most votes, according to exit polls

October 13, 2019

MODERN CULTURE: How we came to live in cursed times - by Jia Tolentino

On Twitter, people appear to identify objects and phenomena with “cursed energy” every hour of every day. It’s not just creepy images: the word has acquired new valences, has come to signify increasingly generalized feelings of anxiety and malaise. “The way I use ‘cursed’ has a connotation of being trapped, i.e. a sort of Greek Mythology Ironic Eternal Punishment vibe,” Alex Pareene, a writer for The New Republic, told me.

We must be cursed, one would think, to spend so much of our day walking around with our eyes glued to a device that provokes bad feelings. Ashley Feinberg, a writer at Slate, wrote, in an e-mail, “To me, cursed energy is about any number of bad or dystopian things finding each other and congealing into something that is somehow more stupid than the sum of its parts.” She included a link to an image of an Instagram meltdown queen appearing on a leftist reactionary podcast whose hosts are best known for denigrating #MeToo and valorizing anorexia. Sam Biddle, who writes about tech for the Intercept, told me, “I think so much of the Internet feels like hell now that it just makes sense to blame it on the devil.”

October 12, 2019

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed wins Nobel Peace Prize

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed wins Nobel Peace Prize

October 10, 2019

EU-Digest editorial: Turkey - Northern Syria - Incursion: Turkey's military operation has made one thing more clear - the world has become a far more dangerous place than it already was

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said any military operation must fully respect the UN Charter and international humanitarian law (LOL) - unfortunately nobody listens to them anymore.

EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker demanded Turkey to halt its military operation, telling Ankara the bloc would not pay for any so-called "safe zone" that might be created. Sure, he probably does not believe that statement himself !!! (LOL).

The EU's top foreign policy official, Federica Mogherini warned that "unilateral action on Turkey's part threatens concerted action by the West and Turkey and other countries to defeat ISIL".

Turkish military action, she said, risked "protracted instability in northeast Syria, providing fertile ground for the resurgence of Daesh".

Obviously this EU response had no "bite" to it, since the EU does not have its own military force, or the backing among its members to support such actions, and, unfortunately, because they still closely follow US directives, when it comes to their foreign affairs policies.

Erdogan also threatened that he would be sending back all the + 3 million refugees who were in Turkey, to the EU, if the EU continued to condemn Turkey's incursion into Syria. That obviously is the last thing the EU wants, not even having a comprehensive policy on Migration in their "back-pocket".

Chief Jens Stoltenberg of NATO (another unneeded US military relic from the past in Europe), urged Turkey to show "restraint", while acknowledging that Ankara had "legitimate security concerns".( LOL ) - as he was obviously told to say that by the US, which controls NATO.

As to the US Trump Administration- the US President, who has been rightly accused of double-crossing the Kurdish fighters, crucial in the war on ISIS, by pulling US troops out of the war-torn country,made another one of his brilliant statements and said: "the Kurds didn't help us in the Second World War; they didn't help us with Normandy”. He added the Kurds were only willing to help with “their land”, and concluded "With all of that being said, we like the Kurds.”

At least this drama is giving the President of the US a moment of relief from the ever louder cries in his country for his impeachment. Hopefully the country does not forget to get rid of him a.s.a.p.

China voiced concern over the Turkish incursion in Syria, urging Ankara to exercise restraint and calling on all parties to respect Syria's sovereignty. However deep down, "China must be laughing all the way to the bank, looking at the lunatic actions of the US Trump Administration".

Russian reactions to the incursion were more complicated: What’s already clear is that deeper divisions are likely to emerge among Russia, Iran, and Turkey, three actors that previously had mostly been united in their opposition to U.S. interests in the region. Though in recent months leaders from Moscow, Tehran, and Ankara—as the so-called Astana Group—have been working toward conflict resolution in Syria through the framework of the Russia-led Syrian constitutional committee, disagreements among them have prevented serious progress. As Turkey stages its incursion into territory previously held by U.S.-allied Kurdish forces, Russia’s reaction has been rooted in a mix of implicit apprehension and explicit platitudes about integrity and restraint. The Kremlin’s frustrations will grow as Turkey expands its attacks in a way that further risks the constitutional committee’s progress and jeopardizes Bashar al-Assad’s consolidation of power.

And so, the sad result of the U.S. decision to withdraw its troops from Syria abruptly, without prior consultation with its allies, is a guarantee that the eight-year conflict in Syria will rumble on with no end in sight.

October 9, 2019

Turkey invades Northern Syria and attacks US abandoned Kurdish allies: Civilians flee N.Syrian border towns attacked by Turkish warplanes, and artillery offensive

Reuters reports that Turkey launched a military operation against Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria today Wednesday 10/9/2019 just days after U.S. troops pulled back from the area, with warplanes and artillery striking militia positions in several towns in the border region.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, announcing the start of the action, said the aim was to eliminate what he called a “terror corridor” on Turkey’s southern border, but European countries immediately called on Ankara to halt the operation.

Thousands of people fled the Syrian town of Ras al Ain towards Hasaka province, held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The Turkish air strikes had killed two civilians and wounded two others, the SDF said.

Turkey’s lira slid 0.5%, breakingthrough what traders called a key support level of 5.85 against the dollar to its weakest level since August.

World powers fear the action could open a new chapter in Syria’s eight-year-old war and worsen regional turmoil. Ankara has said it intends to create a “safe zone” in order to return millions of refugees to Syrian soil.

"It is certainly going to be a bloody conflict," Kurdish political analyst Mutlu Civroglu said from Washington, D.C., noting that while the SDF is led by Syrian Kurds, it includes a wide range of ethnic groups. "The Arabs, the Syrian Christians, Yazidis, they are in no way going to accept a Turkish military presence in their region."

EU-Digest