Russia - Putin enacts law banning ‘undesirable’ NGOs

Russian President Vladimir Putin officially enacted a controversial law banning “undesirable” non-governmental organisations, the Kremlin said Saturday, in a move condemned by human rights groups and the United States.

The law allows authorities to bar foreign civil society groups seen as threatening Russia’s “defence capabilities” or “consitutional foundations” and go after local activists working with them, the Kremlin statement said.

Supporters presented the law as a “preventative measure”, necessary after the wave of Western sanctions put in place over the Ukraine conflict.

Under the law, passed by the Russian parliament this week, authorities can ban foreign NGOs and go after their employees, who risk up to six years in prison or being barred from the country.

It also allows them to block the bank accounts of the organizations until the NGOs “account for their actions” to the Russian authorities.

Lawmakers cited the need to stop “destructive organisations” working in Russia, which could threaten the “value of the Russian state” and stir up “colour revolutions”, the name given to pro-Western movements seen in some former Soviet republics over the last several years.

Note EU-Digest : The move by the Russian government might also be a reaction to the CIA recently announced sweeping changes to how it operates, in the biggest shake-up in the US intelligence agency’s 70-year history. Ten new mission centres and the re-assignment of thousands of spies. The new units or ‘mission centres’ are intended to focus on specific challenges or geographical areas.

Insiders say competition between agencies whitin the CIA has led to intelligence hoarding and the re-organization aims to increase the flow of information which previously fell through bureaucratic cracks. Under the current structure spies and analysts are kept separate.

It is not clear when the changes will be implemented but the re-organization is likely to take several years.

Read more: france 24 - Putin enacts law banning ‘undesirable’ NGOs - France 24

Poland: Conservative Duda wins Poland's presidential vote

Conservative challenger Andrzej Duda has won Poland's presidential election and ousted the incumbent in a runoff vote, according to official results.

Duda, a right-wing member of the European Parliament, won with 51.55 percent of the vote, the State Electoral Commission said on Monday.

President Bronislaw Komorowski, allied with the ruling pro-business Civic Platform, garnered 48.45 percent in the second round of voting on Sunday, with a turnout was 55.34 percent.

Duda, a 43-year-old lawyer with experience in the government, will be take office in August.
Poland's president is the head of the armed forces, and can propose and veto legislation. In foreign policy, the president's role is chiefly ceremonial.

Read Conservative Duda wins Poland's presidential vote - Al Jazeera English

Spain set for change as voters look to oust traditional parties in local polls

Voters across Spain are casting ballots in regional and municipal elections with an outcome likely to mark the end of the country’s dominant two party system.

The electorate are said to be tired of corruption and economic malaise and look set to vote for smaller parties and political mavericks.

Sitting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his Popular Party are expected to lose majorities in most of the 10 regions they control.

The Socialists, led by Pedro Sanchez, are unlikely to benefit from the suspicion in which the current government is held with the public looking to go further by voting for Podemos and Ciudadanos (Citizens Party), the new kids on the block.

The battle for the capital Madrid symbolises the mood in Spain with the Popular Party in real danger of losing a majority it has held for two decades.

Likewise in Barcelona where an anti-eviction campaigner is on course to to upset the formally dominant Convergence and Union Party.

Read more: Spain set for change as voters look to oust traditional parties in local polls | euronews, world news

Suriname Elections: (Poll) Party President Bouters,former dictator and convicted drug fugitive,seems to have upper hand

Desi Bouterse the colorful dictator-turned-president who has ruled Suriname ( a former Dutch colony) on and off since 1980, is looking to consolidate power when the small South American country holds general elections on Monday.

A convicted drug trafficker who has been a coup leader and an international fugitive, Bouterse is seeking to dispense with his alliance with one-time nemesis Ronnie Brunswijk and preside over the first non-coalition democratic government in Suriname's history. 

Bouterse's National Democratic Party (NDP) formed a government after the last elections in 2010 by forging a motley mega-coalition, returning him to power for the second time since his 1980-1987 military government.

But after the coalition fell apart, the NDP decided to go it alone this time, buoyed by strong standings in opinion polls.

The party needs to win at least 26 seats in the 51-member National Assembly to govern alone, and 34 seats to re-elect Bouterse -- the president is chosen by a two-thirds majority of parliament.

The main opposition is the V7, a coalition of six parties that accuses Bouterse of massive corruption and has a broad ethnic base in the racially diverse country whose 500,000 people have roots in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.

The third main group, and possible power-broker, is the Alternative Combination alliance led by Brunswijk, a former guerrilla leader who fought a civil war against Bouterse's military government before teaming up with his former foe in 2010.

The party's base are the Maroons, the descendants of fugitive slaves who set up settlements in the Surinamese interior.

The smallest country in South America, Suriname was colonized by the British and Dutch and gained independence from the Netherlands in 1975.

Five years later, a group of sergeants led by Bouterse overthrew prime minister Henck Arron and installed a military government.

Whether in his dictator's fatigues and sunglasses or his sharp president's suit, Bouterse, 69, has loomed large over the country's politics ever since.

His regime put down two counter-coups and rounded up and executed 15 opponents in 1982, an event known as the "December killings."

Bouterse stepped down in 1987, but returned to power in 1990 in a second bloodless coup.

After leaving power a second time, Bouterse was indicted and court-martialed for the December killings, but his coalition passed a controversial amnesty law in 2012 that aborted the trial.

The president and his family have faced a host of other legal woes, adding to the country's reputation for drug running, money laundering and graft.

The Netherlands convicted him in absentia of cocaine smuggling in 1999, but he remained free because Suriname does not extradite its citizens.

Earlier this year, a Dutch court rejected his third bid to have the conviction overturned.

In March, a US court sentenced his son Dino, who had served as his father's top counter-terrorism official, to 16 years in prison on charges of trying to aid and arm Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and conspiring to import cocaine into the United States.

Bouterse has shrugged off these scandals and bolstered his popularity with expanded social welfare programs, free university education and lavish spending on infrastructure projects such as bridges, schools and housing.

The V7, formerly known as the New Front, accuses him of corruption and populism, and warns the tab for these projects will hurt when it arrives.

It also blames the NDP for an energy crisis it says was caused by shady deals with US-based aluminum giant Alcoa for the Afobaka hydroelectric dam, which generates most of the mineral-rich, upper-middle-income country's power.

In all, seven parties and four coalitions are vying for the ballots of 350,000 registered voters, who will also elect their district and local representatives.

Polls open at 7:00 am (1000 GMT) and close 12 hours later.

The first, partial results are expected at 10:00 pm, with a projection of the full results early Tuesday.

EU-Digest

Turkey: Upcoming Elections - Dark Clouds Over Turkey

With two weeks to go before a crucial parliamentary election in Turkey, tensions are rising and some critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fear a new crackdown is starting to ensure that his Justice and Development Party wins.

That kind of brute manipulation of the political process would be a serious mistake, further weakening the country’s battered democracy and tainting whatever victory might emerge.

After more than a decade of amassing power as Turkey’s leader, Mr. Erdogan could be on the verge of realizing his dream of changing the Constitution to make the president, rather than the prime minister, the leading political authority. His party, known as A.K.P., would have to win 330 seats in Parliament on June 7 — a three-fifths majority — to take a proposed constitutional change to a referendum.

The party won only 326 seats in the last election in 2011, and on Friday Reuters reported that the most recent poll by the research firm Konda suggests that support for A.K.P. has declined. 

Mr. Erdogan has a long history of intimidating and co-opting the Turkish media, but new alarms were set off this week when criminal complaints were filed against editors of the Hurriyet Daily News and its website over a headline Mr. Erdogan had objected to.

Read more: Dark Clouds Over Turkey - NYTimes.com

Suriname: Four International Delegations to Monitor Elections in Suriname on May 25, 2015

Suriname President Desi Bouterse

At least four international organizations confirmed today their presence in the elections in the Republic of Suriname (a former Dutch Colony), set for May 25, in which President Desire Delano Bouterse is favorite to continue his "management" of the political party he leads.

According to the Suriname electoral authorities, the list of observers includes 11 members of the Caribbean Community, 20 from the Union of South American Nations, 24 from the  Organization of American States and five from the European Union.

Read more: Prensa Latina News Agency - Four International Delegations to Monitor Elections in Suriname

Burqa : Women’s rights overlooked in the name of racial “tolerance” .

If there’s a hierarchy in the hallowed halls of our nation’s tertiary institutions whenever a potential clash of ideology arises, it goes something like this: Muslims and then women. In that order.

This is an environment in which even the most passionate of women’s advocates can be rendered mute by a suggestion they are engaging in anti-Islam rhetoric.

An environment in which the very same people who will argue at length about how female pop stars are coerced into wearing skimpy clothing due to the patriarchy will shy away from a frank discussion about the pressures brought to bear on other women to wear a burqa, niqab or hijab.

Analysing the archaic double-standards and obstacles faced by women across the world is all well and good until you risk offending the sensibilities of Muslim men. And let’s face it, it is only ever the men.

When was the last time you heard a Muslim woman seriously claim to be offended that anyone would dare to suggest she should sit where she wants? Or wear what she chooses? Somehow it’s always a man who steps forward to defend a woman’s “right” to be treated as a second-class citizen.

Last October freelance journalist Alison Bevege wrote an opinion piece for The Daily Telegraph in which she detailed how she was not permitted to sit in the front of the room at a public meeting in Sydney organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir.

“Like Mississippi blacks in the 1950s sent to the back of the bus for the colour of their skin, I was segregated due to my gender,” she observed.

Which is pretty much how events unfolded at the University of Western Sydney last Thursday night when men and women were asked to sit apart at an event organized by the Muslim Students’ Association.

Note EU-Digest : With all respect for anyone's religious believes, but Islam really could do with a face-lift the Christian had back in the 1500's when Martin Luther told the Catholic Pope that he was not God's representative on earth, that God lives within us and not above us, and that Women and Men are both equal in God's eyes.

Women’s rights overlooked in the name of racial “tolerance” | Herald Sun