Rich versus Poor: Inequality rises across the Globe: 85 richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world

The world's wealthiest people aren't known for travelling by bus, but if they fancied a change of scene then the richest 85 people on the globe – who between them control as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population put together – could squeeze onto a single double-decker bus.

The extent to which so much global wealth has become corralled by a virtual handful of the so-called 'global elite' is exposed in a new report from Oxfam today January 20. It warned that those richest 85 people across the globe share a combined wealth of Euro 1.22 trillion ( US $ 1.65 trillion), as much as the poorest 3.5 billion of the world's population.

The Oxfam report lists five key policies governments can adopt to reduce inequality and recommends that the mix of policies should be tailored to the national context. The five are: universal health and education; progressive taxation; removal of barriers to equal rights and opportunities for women; land reform and income support programs.

Read more: Inequality rises across the G20 as economic growth fails to trickle down to poorest — Oxfam America

NSA Spy Network: Obama NSA reforms receive mixed response in Europe and Brazil - by Ian Traynor, Philip Oltermann and Patrick Wintour

NSA SPY Network

Viviane Reding, vice-president of the European commission, said Obama's speech was a step in the right direction: "I am encouraged to see that non-US citizens stand to benefit from spying safeguards. In data protection we trust. I agree with President Obama [that] more work will be needed in future. I look forward to seeing these commitments followed by legislative action."

Jan-Phillip Albrecht, the German MEP who is steering through the European parliament stiffer rules on the transfer of data to the US, dismissed the White House initiative. "It is not sufficient at all," he said. "The collection of foreigners' data will go on. There is almost nothing here for the Europeans. I see no further limitations in scope. There is nothing here that leads to a change of the situation."

Claude Moraes, the British Labour MEP who authored last week's report by the European parliament on the NSA issue, was mildly more complimentary. "There is substantial acknowledgment that the NSA has caused the deepest concern and anxiety in Europe. But there will be a big pause before we can judge whether the protections will be forthcoming for EU citizens," he said.

Moraes singled out the issue of judicial redress for EU citizens in the US courts if they feel their data privacy rights have been abused. "He didn't actually give any substantial proposals in the foreign area," he said.

Read more: Obama NSA reforms receive mixed response in Europe and Brazil | World news | theguardian.com

EU-US Trade Negotiations: French senators strongly attack trade deal - What about Dutch Parliament? Asleep?

During a debate in the French Senate, all political parties harshly criticized the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), but the French government defended the potential deal, EurActiv France reports.

The minister in charge of foreign trade, Nicole Bricq, admit with regret that France was the country where the mobilisation against what they call the 'transatlantic treaty', is the strongest.

A debate, which took place in the Senate on Thursday (9 January), showed bipartisan opposition to the agreement and the government found itself somewhat isolated on the topic after facing criticism from
speakers from all political sides.

he former French interior minister, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, reminded that the idea for a partnership was first and foremost an American idea, as the US wished to rebalance the trade surplus that the EU had with the country and bring back jobs to their continent.

“The companies’ interests are not always those of the states," warned  a politician, who considers that the currency issue should have been settled before signing a trade agreement.

“We should have put in place a transatlantic snake in the tunnel in order to establish, softly, a real parity between the euro and the dollar. We cannot talk about free trade when the parity between euro and
dollar go from one to two in ten years only.”

In his opinion, this aspect should be included in the negotiations, but the minister Bricq replied it was not on the agenda.

André Gattolin, a Green MP, also strongly opposed the partnership project, said that Europe had its own identity and should preserve it.  He also put forward the impact it would have on inequality in different European countries.

“We are promised 0.5% growth but only some zones will take advantage of it like the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp,” the MP went on to say.

“As it is, this project is bad and we saw with the NSA scandal that the dice are loaded,” he added.

Jean Bizet from the centre-right opposition, UMP, expressed concern about the food and agriculture aspects of the deal and notably the milk file, as cheese imports increase in France and milk producing regions grow anxious at the end of milk quotas in 2015.

The sharpest remark came from a member of the government's socialist majority, Marie-Noëlle Lienemann.

“I am very hostile to this treaty,” she said. “We are forced to note that happy globalisation did not happen! … multinational companies are in a situation that we cannot regulate,” she added.

The MP was sceptical about the growth perspectives, too. She added that the promised growth points could be reached with a recovery policy supported by large-scale work projects.

Read more: French senators strongly attack EU-US trade deal | EurActiv

EU-US Trade Negotiations: EU sovereignty ‘at risk’ if judicial independence is surrendered to multinational corporations

More than 200 organisations across the EU, including the TUC, Greenpeace and War on Want, have written a joint letter to European and American trade negotiators demanding the removal of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process from the final treaty.

“ISDS is a one-way street by which corporations can challenge government policies, but neither governments nor individuals are granted comparable rights to hold corporations accountable,” they wrote.

Campaign groups in Britain are due to put their concerns to the Department of Business  this Wednesday, while an Early Day Motion in Parliament, signed by MPs from all parties, calls for the trade talks to be frozen until the issue is resolved.

The European Commission and the British Government insisted the deal would include safeguards to prevent misuse by corporations, thus guaranteeing the right of EU governments to “pursue legitimate public policy objectives such as social, environmental, security, public health and safety” without the risk of being sued.

ISDS has been a long-established principle of multilateral trade deals between countries and is a process designed to ensure investors are not discriminated against by governments or biased judicial systems. It allows companies who believe they have been unfairly treated to take states to a neutral arbitration panel that can award compensation for loss of earnings.

But in recent years, campaigners claim, it has been used by large multinational companies to sue governments acting in the public interest. The Slovak Republic was forced to pay $22m (£13.4m) damages after the government reversed the liberalisation of its health-insurance market.

Campaigners say the arbitration panels are unaccountable and are not likely to assess issues of national interest when making decisions.

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, who tabled the parliamentary motion, said the move would “overturn decades of laws and regulations formed through democratic processes on both sides of the Atlantic”.

Former UK Labour minister John Healey, who chairs the British parliamentary group on EU-US trade and investment, said: “It is not clear ISDSs are justified at all when the agreement will be struck between countries with some of the most advanced and stable legal systems in the world.”

Frances O’Grady, TUC general secretary, said: “These clauses could thwart attempts by a future government to bring our health service back towards public ownership.”

Charlie Kronick, senior climate adviser at Greenpeace, said the group feared ISDS provisions could be used to prevent the EU from restricting imports of US diesel made from polluting tar sands in Canada.

But EU trade spokesman John Clancy said the fears of campaigners were entirely misplaced. “The sad irony is that the many critics of investment protection and in particular ISDS are actually arguing for us to maintain the status quo which is at the heart of the problem.” He added: “The EU wants to close down such loopholes in a future EU-US deal by spelling out what is and is not possible, improving transparency and creating modern, state-of-the art investment arrangements.”

The question which remains ignored by the EU Commission and EU Parliament  is how the EU can even  negotiate with a partner like the US, where most  of the political establishment is now indirectly on the payroll of multi-national and local corporations and which has a spy-network in place which is collecting personal data not only from EU-citizens, but also is able to extrapolate strategic negotiation information from the EU-trade negotiation team wherever they may be. 

To anyone with at least some intelligence these trade negotiations have, so far, not been carried out on a level playing field and the EU better take off their "blinders" .    

EU-Digest

The Netherlands: French President François Hollande visiting Netherlands as rumors swirl about affair with actress

French President François Hollande

French President François Hollande will make a formal visit to the Netherlands on tomorrow January 20^th, the Dutch Ministry of General Affairs had announced.

Hollande’s visit, the Ministry said, will be in light of “further strengthening the ties between the Netherlands and France, with special attention to economic relations.” Hollande will visit with King Willem-Alexander and Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Hague.

President François Hollande visit to the Netherlands comes as he endures a barrage of negative publicity after his 48-year-old first lady partner journalist was admitted a week ago to Paris’ Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital for rest. 

President Hollande's Press office said she had experienced a “crisis of nerves” upon learning of the report in Closer magazine last week that the 59-year-old president has been having an affair with Movie actress Ulie Gayet, 41.

Almere-Digest

Russia Winter Olympics: Gay people should feel comfortable at the Sochi Olympics says President Putin

Gay people should feel comfortable at the Sochi Olympics but “leave children in peace,” Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

In June, Putin signed into law a bill forbidding the promotion of homosexuality to minors, sparking months of controversy ahead of the February 7-23 event in Sochi.

The law’s proponents argue that it is aimed at protecting children from harmful influences, but critics allege the move restricts freedom of speech and is part of a broader crackdown on Russia’s gay community.

Gay sex is not a crime in Russia, so gay people can “feel calm, at ease, but leave children in peace, please,” Putin said at a meeting with Olympic volunteers in the mountain village of Krasnaya Polyana, the base outside Sochi for Olympic snow sports.

The remarks come a day after Putin repeated his vow that there would be “no discrimination” at the Games. He has previously said that Russia will “do everything” to ensure a warm welcome for Sochi guests “regardless … of sexual orientation.”

Russia's Interior Ministry, which controls the police, has vowed to enforce the controversial anti-gay law at the Olympics. There will also be tight restrictions on protests, which are confined to a park in a small town that lies more than 12 kilometers from any Olympic venues.

U.S. President Barack Obama will not attend the Games, and his nomination of two gay former athletes to his country’s delegation has been widely interpreted as a comment on the Russian law.

Note EU-Digest: Let's not make a mountain out of a molehill . Gay sex is not a crime in Russia, but promoting sex  - whatever kind of sex - involving minors is not acceptable in any country.  

EU-Digest

Netherlands: Dutch business leaders slam cabinet polices, support at record low

Dutch business leaders are extremely unhappy with the current right-left coalition's policies and think the cabinet is failing to tackle the crisis.

Employers' organisation VNO-NCW questioned 471 company bosses about their attidudes to the VVD-PvdA government and current policy. In total, the cabinet scored just 4.9 out of 10 - a record low according to the Telegraaf.

Prime minister Mark Rutte was rated 5.4, well below most of his senior ministers. Top ranked minister was finance chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem from the PVDA (Labour Party) government coalition member, who scored 6.6.

Read more: DutchNews.nl - Dutch business leaders slam cabinet polices, support at record low