Hungary PM claims EU migrant quota referendum victory - but is it a victory ?

Hungarian PM Viktor Orban has declared victory in a referendum on mandatory EU migrant quotas, despite a low turnout that appeared to render it invalid.

Nearly 98% of those who took part supported the government's call to reject the EU plan.

But only 43% of the electorate voted, short of the 50% required to be valid.

Note EU-Digest: The Hungarian referendum was declared void and illegal because voter participation was 43 %, well below the allowed 50 % threshold and in reality a vote of no- confidence for the PM because the opposition had told their supporters to abstain from voting.

Read more: Hungary PM claims EU migrant quota referendum victory - BBC News

Christianity: China on Track to Have World's Largest Christian Population by 2030 - by Brandon Showalter

Despite the increasing persecution of Christians in China, the Communist country is on track to have the largest Christian population in the world by 2030, according to Rodney Pennington who studies religious trends for OMF International.

"We are overjoyed with what the Lord has already done in China," said Pennington, vice president for mobilization of OMF, a missions organization, in an interview with The Christian Post on Tuesday. "But that doesn't mean the task is finished."

By 2030 "China will almost certainly have the most evangelical Christians," he said, "and that will greatly shape the global evangelical Church in the coming years.

That said, Pennington emphasized that there are still many needs in China, especially in areas like discipleship, cross-cultural outreach and ministering to children and youth."

"While 200 million Chinese believers by the year 2030 may seem ambitious, it certainly gives us a strong goal to pray toward," he added.

Yu Jie, a Chinese Christian and democracy activist, said in an essay published in the August edition of First Things that Chinese Christians are known to say "the greater the persecution, the greater the revival." If recent reports are correct, the persecution has indeed been great but the revival has been, in Yu's words, a "gushing well or geyser."

The exponential growth of the Christian faith in China can be traced back to two moments in modern Chinese history, according to Yu.

Those two moments were the launch of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution in 1966 and the Tienanmen Square massacre in 1989. Millions of innocent people lost their lives in those events, and as a result many people have stopped believing in Marxism-Leninism and Maoist ideology, Yu said.

The director of the Center of Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University, Fenggyang Yang, noted in an essay published in Slate magazine that Protestantism has been growing in China by more than 10 percent every year. In 1980 there were approximately 3 million Christians in China. By 2010 that number had risen to 58 million. He suggests that by 2025, there could be 255 million Christians.

Even with the impressive growth of Christianity, China is still officially an atheist country.

In April, CP reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping told his Communist Party members that they must be "unyielding Marxist atheists" who will command Christians and other religious groups in the country.

Since 2014, the Communist regime has been targeting Christians and demolishing churches, deeming the buildings "illegal." The government has demolished more than 200 churches and removed over 2,000 crosses in China's Zhejiang province in an effort to limit Christianity's influence in the region.

Human rights attorneys who provide legal support to churches in China have also been subjected to gruesome torture and forced to confess on television that they have disturbed the peace, and jeopardized national security.

While some churches have been allowed to operate under strict state surveillance, many others, especially house churches and ministry organizations not registered with the government, are heavily oppressed.

Yu noted that there are three times as many illegal house churches as state-sponsored ones, and that repression is particularly bad in Wenzhou, "China's Jerusalem" in Zhejiang province, where an estimated 15 percent of the population is Christian.

Despite the crackdown on Christianity in his native country, Yu said he is not unsettled.

"Neither the dead hand of Communism, nor the cynical imitation of Confucianism, nor capitalism, nor democracy, nor any earthly thing will determine the fate of my land," he said.

Read more: China on Track to Have World's Largest Christian Population by 2030

Middle East - Syria: 30 FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS (ISRAELI, US, TURKISH) KILLED IN MISSILE ATTACK IN ALEPPO

Reports have been appearing in various pro-government media outlets since September 20 that some Russian warships, deployed in Syria’s coastal waters, hit with missiles a foreign-led military operations room near Aleppo city, killing 30 Israeli, US, Turkish, Saudi, Qatari and British officers.

The military operations room was allegedly located in the western part of Aleppo province in the middle of Sam’an mountain. It was set up by foreign intelligence services in order to coordinate operations of various militant group against the Syrian government forces in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib.

While there are no doubts that various ‘opposition’ and terrorist groups in Syria are trained, supplied and managed by foreign intelligence services (mostly US, Turkish and Saudi), the pro-government sources have not provided video or photo evidences in order to confirm this report. The Russian Ministry of Defense has not commented on the issue.

Read more: 30 FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS (ISRAELI, US, TURKISH) KILLED IN MISSILE ATTACK IN ALEPPO | The Millennium Report

Turkey and the Kurds: Violence Is Not the Answer - by Alon Ben-Meir

Turkey’s President Erdogan has claimed that military operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) will continue until “the very last rebel is killed.”

What is puzzling about this statement is that after more than 30 years of violence that has claimed the lives of over 40,000 Turks and Kurds, Erdogan still believes he can solve the conflict through brutal force.

However, he is fundamentally mistaken. The Kurds’ long historical struggle is not only embedded in their psyche, but also provides the momentum for their quest for semi-autonomy. That mindset will endure until a mutually accepted solution is found through peaceful negotiations.

Read more: Turkey and the Kurds: Violence Is Not the Answer - The Globalist

EDF: EU plan to beef up military prompts battle of words over Nato - by Rob Cameron

Britain remains firmly opposed to any move towards creating an EU army, Sir Michael Fallon said, as it would simply undermine Nato.

And yet it wasn't on the agenda when EU defence ministers met in Slovakia and barely anyone is talking about the idea. There are no plans for legions of Eurotroops decked out in helmets emblazoned with yellow stars on a blue background.

It's difficult, indeed pointless, to oppose something that doesn't exist and isn't being suggested. But that's the problem with the argument over the EU's future military capabilities; for now it's a battle of semantics, a war of words.

Instead the official agenda here in Bratislava spoke of "the EU Global Strategy and its synergies and sequencing with the Commission-led EDAP".

France and Germany presented proposals that would include joint development of military hardware such as helicopters and drones, expanding the EU's peace-keeping missions and, most contentiously of all, establishing a permanent joint European military HQ.

Germany insists that the idea has nothing to do with a European army.

"It is not aimed against Nato," said Defence Minister Ursula Von der Leyen. "On the contrary, we need a strong Europe and whatever strengthens Europe in defence also strengthens Nato."

And those words were underlined by Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who told reporters at the meeting that there was "no contradiction between strong European defence and a strong Nato". The importance lay in avoiding duplication, he said.

Yet when he stepped out of the meeting, the UK defence secretary said that 12 countries had spoken and half were against the EU military headquarters, including Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. The BBC couldn't immediately verify that.

But for Sir Michael Fallon there's already much to dislike.

Note EU-Digest: In all this one should ask what business it is of Britain, after BREXIT, to question  anything the EU contemplates or plans to do.  Hopefully the EU political leadership will make it clear to Britain they can't have their cake and eat it also.


Read more: EU plan to beef up military prompts battle of words over Nato - BBC News

Global Competitiveness: 'The Netherlands rises again in global competitiveness ranking'

The Netherlands is the most competitive country within the European Union, the NRC said on Tuesday, quoting the latest Global Competitiveness Index by the World Economic Forum.

The ranking puts the Netherlands in fourth place behind Switzerland, the US and Singapore, a rise of one place over last year’s ranking, the NRC said.

The ranking is not yet available on the forum’s website. Germany was in fourth place last year.

The Netherlands thanks its high ranking to its healthcare, education system, efficient infrastructure, and focus on innovation and technology, the paper quotes the report as saying.

Read more: 'The Netherlands rises again in global competitiveness ranking' - DutchNews.nl

USA: The Political Rhetoric of Perpetual War - by Robert Crawford

To start with a quick overview of our present situation. Most of you are familiar with this recent history; yet, it bears repeating. For 15 years now, since 2001, the US has been at war.

The longest single battlefield has been the war in Afghanistan and in neighboring Pakistan Tribal Areas. It has spanned two administrations. The Taliban remains undefeated and is gaining ground and war lords pursue their own political and military agendas.

The 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, now almost universally acknowledged to be one of the greatest military mistakes in recent times, has virtually destroyed a country that had been created by the imperial powers during WWI. Warfare between a Shia dominated Iraqi government and the Sunnis—now mostly controlled by ISIS—has become a struggle for territory and cities. This war has been internationalized.

The Syrian civil war, which has become another international war, continues its rising death toll and propels the greatest refugee crisis since WWII.

The U.S., British and French air war on Gadhafi’s Libya in 2011 has resulted in another failed state, ongoing civil war, and more U.S. and allied bombing.

Insurgencies in Yemen, Somalia, northern Nigeria, along with military attempts to suppress them continue to cause huge numbers of civilian casualties and further displacement. These conflicts have also been internationalized.

Since 2006, the Israeli siege of Gaza and the essentially one-sided warfare against Hamas, culminating in the brutal assault of 2014, has caused extraordinary suffering. The government-backed settler land grab in the West Bank makes the prospects of a just peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians more remote. In all these wars, civilians are the primary victims.

As you know, the US is neck deep in this descent into perpetual and proliferating warfare. Historian Andrew Bacevich calls it America’s WWIV. Despite repeated military failures and negative unanticipated consequences, the US still pursues the illusion that it can shape the contemporary Middle East through a combination of drone warfare, bombing, Special Operations and other covert actions. It continues to invest heavily in the militaries of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and other U.S. allies.

American military dominance (which must be distinguished from effectiveness) is the most fundamental fact of today’s international order. The U.S., after all, maintains a projection of global power with hundreds of thousands troops stationed abroad” who occupy or use “some 761 ‘sites’ in 39 countries”—what critic Chalmers Johnson called “an empire of bases.”

Anyone with eyes wide open must come to this topic with more questions than answers—to say nothing about the burden of grief and even despair that many of us carry. I continue to struggle with both the questions and the difficult emotions.

For those of us hoping for a more peaceful world and a more peaceful American foreign policy, the core political question—what is to be done?—is perplexing. As long as American soldiers are not dying in significant numbers, Americans, for the most part, seem uninterested—and certainly uniformed—about US wars and their consequences. The corporate controlled media are no help; instead, they do everything possible to hinder understanding and serious debate. Historical amnesia is a particularly American affliction. Each of these obstacles are serious problems we need to confront.

My topic, here, is the political rhetoric of the 2016 presidential election. Even though it is a small part of the puzzle, the rhetoric of the presidential candidates reveals a great deal about the historical moment and the larger forces that shape this nation’s perpetual wars.

My first contention is that there is an ideology of militarism that dominates our political culture and it is being perpetuated by both the Democratic and Republican nominees for president, despite their significant differences.

We know or should know how militarist ideology exploits our fears of terrorism, and perpetuates the illusion that our safety depends on the worldwide projection and use of military power.

We know or should know that this ideology was developed and honed throughout the Cold War and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the national security establishment had to find a new enemy to justify its continued rule.

We know or should know that militarism is an ideology that denies its own contributions to the continual escalation of violence in the Middle East and to terrorist attacks in the West.

Note EU-Digest: What is probably most amazing, reading the above report, is that the EU member states don't need to be geniuses to figure out that something in the equation related to their US servitude, when it comes to US foreign and military policies, has not only been a complete failure, but also a financial drain on their budgets. Europe, and specially the EU needs to seriously start thinking about developing its own more independent foreign policy and stop supporting US military adventures whereever they may occur.  

Read more: The Political Rhetoric of Perpetual War