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horowitzza

Cologne Sex Attacks 'Good for Us,' Anti-Refugee Protesters Say - NBC News - 0 views

www.nbcnews.com/...refugee-protesters-say-n497376

politics syrian regugees germany problems xenophobia

shared by horowitzza on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Turmoil triggered by a historic influx of refugees and migrants could boost populist politicians and the country's right-wing movements,
  • For the first time, a majority of Germans now doubt the country's policy on Europe's refugee crisis.
  • "These Muslim refugees started an area-wide terror attack, a terror attack on German women, on blonde, white women,"
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • While xenophobia and prejudice against asylum seekers is not a new phenomenon, analysts say recent events have brought them to the fore.
  • horowitzza on 18 Jan 16
     
    NEWS  EUROPE'S BORDER CRISIS  JAN 18 2016, 2:55 AM ET Cologne Sex Attacks 'Good for Us,' Anti-Refugee Protesters Say
Javier E

FC89: The Comparative Geographies and Histories of Eastern and Western Europe - The Flo... - 1 views

www.flowofhistory.com/...FC89

western europe history eastern geography

shared by Javier E on 24 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • However, the critical difference between Eastern and Western Europe has to do with waterways.  Western Europe has an abundance of navigable rivers, coastlines, and harbors along the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean, North, and Baltic Seas.  In the High Middle Ages, these fostered the revival of trade and the rise of towns, a money economy, and a middle class opposed to the feudal structure dominated by the nobles and Church.
  • Kings also opposed the nobles and the Church, so the middle class townsmen provided them with valuable allies and money.  With this money, kings could buy two things.  First of all, they could raise mercenary armies armed with guns to limit the power of the nobles.  Secondly, they could form professional bureaucracies staffed largely by their middle class allies who were both more efficient since they were literate and more loyal since they were the king's natural allies and dependant on him for their positions.  As a result, kings in Western Europe were able to build strong centralized nation-states by the 1600's.
  • Eastern Europe, in stark contrast to Western Europe, provided practically a mirror image of its historical development before 1600. Being further inland compared to Western Europe hurt Eastern Europe's trade, since the sea and river waterways vital to trade did not exist there in such abundance as they did in Western Europe. Factors limiting trade also limited the growth of a strong middle class in Eastern Europe.  This meant that kings had little in the way of money or allies to help them against the nobles.  That in turn meant that peasants had few towns where they could escape the oppression of the nobles.  Therefore, strong nobilities plus weak, and oftentimes elective, monarchies were the rule in Eastern Europe before 1600.  At the same time, the nobles ruled over peasants whose status actually was sliding deeper into serfdom rather than emerging from it.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • However, there was one geographic factor that favored Eastern Europe's rulers after 1600.  That was the fact that Eastern Europe is next to Western Europe.  As a result, some influence from the West was able to filter in to the East.  In particular, Eastern European rulers would emulate their Western counterparts by adopting firearms, mercenary armies, and professional bureaucracies.  As a result, they were able to build strongly centralized states in the 1600's and 1700's.  This was especially true in three states: Austria-Hungary (the Hapsburg Empire), Brandenburg-Prussia in Germany, and Russia.
grayton downing

BBC News - Spying row: Merkel urges US to restore trust at EU summit - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-europe-24647602

spying us crisis

shared by grayton downing on 24 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has said it is "really not on" for friends to spy on each other, referring to alleged US snooping on her phone calls.
  • The spying row threatens to overshadow EU talks on economic growth and migration to the EU. Mrs Merkel has demanded a "complete explanation" of the claims, which came out in the German media.
  • In a separate development, Italy's weekly L'Espresso reported that the US and UK had been spying on Italian internet and phone traffic.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The revelations were sourced to US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
  • Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the alleged spying on Mrs Merkel's mobile phone calls was "serious" and added: "I will support her (Merkel) completely in her complaint and say that this is not acceptable - I think we need all the facts on the table first."
  • The veteran French EU Commissioner Michel Barnier told the BBC that "enough is enough", and confidence in the US had been shaken.
  • One of the key initiatives of the European Commission is its Digital Agenda for Europe, which it says "aims to reboot Europe's economy and help Europe's citizens and businesses to get the most out of digital technologies".
Javier E

Europe, America, and Muslim Assimilation - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - 0 views

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/...a-and-muslim-assimilation.html

muslim toleration European US culture constitution

shared by Javier E on 21 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Caldwell suggests that European elites have been so guilt-ridden about their past crimes, and so intent on avoiding anything that even resembled chauvinism or bigotry, that for decades they failed to put any sustained pressure on their steadily-growing immigrant populations to eschew religious extremism or phase out illiberal cultural practices. And worse, their efforts to marginalize what they considered (and still consider) the bigoted attitudes of their countrymen didn’t actually do away with anti-immigration anxieties: They just denied them a place in the political mainstream, which meant that they’ve manifested themselves instead in extreme and counterproductive outbursts (minaret bans, the political careers of Jean-Marie Le Pen and Geert Wilders, etc.).
  • It is notable that Europe's integration problem is worst not in first generation immigrants, but in their European born children, and I think one reason they are less successfully assimilated than their counterparts in the United States is the lack of a constitutional creed that successfully inculcates the idea that they're just as French or German or Spanish as anyone else. It's also true that American culture, disseminated largely through media, is many times more powerful than what a tiny country like Denmark can marshal to informally assimilate its immigrant population, and that the heterogeneity of our country means that no single minority group feels isolated in a land that a homogeneous majority dominates. Obviously this is a rough sketch of a diverse continent that inevitably glosses over nuances, but insofar as it holds true, it helps to explain my vexation with Mr. Douthat's reluctance to declare the constitutional understanding of American citizenship superior to the cultural understanding, even if there is some wisdom to be taken from the latter
  • The invocation of the European experience seems inapt to me.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • the United States has thus far been quite good at assimilating Muslims, and the reason isn't that antagonistic populist movements have been hounding them to be more sensitive in their mosque placement, or even that elites have been studiously asking legitimate questions about how moderate imams engage radicals.
  • It is the mosque's opponents (not all of them) far more than mosque defenders who are repeating Europe's mistakes, and jeopardizing the assimilative success we've long enjoyed.
  • Javier E on 21 Aug 10
     
    Should European experience inform Cordoba House controversy?
runlai_jiang

France is the weakest of Europe's big 3 economies - Apr. 19, 2017 - 1 views

money.cnn.com/...index.html

France economy

shared by runlai_jiang on 07 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • Government debt, meanwhile, has ballooned to almost 90% of GDP, up from just 58% a decade ago.
  • The country's economic malaise is a major issue in presidential elections.
  • The French economy expanded by 1.2% in 2016, according to the International Monetary Fund. The two larger economies in Europe -- Germany and the U.K. -- posted growth of 1.8% over the same period.
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  • Two of them -- far right politician Marine Le Pen and socialist Jean-Luc Melenchon proposed radical ideas on how to improve the economy. Both oppose free trade agreements and are highly critical of the euro.
  • Europe's third biggest economy has suffered years of anemic growth, high unemployment and budget deficits, while neighbors such as Germany and the U.K. have enjoyed a stronger recovery from the global financial crisis.
  • France is also struggling to bring down its unemployment rate, which stands at roughly 10%.
  • France has relatively low income inequality and fewer of its citizens are at risk of poverty than in Germany or the U.K.
  • The percentage of GDP that the government spends on social programs and welfare is much higher in France than other major economies.
  • The generous welfare system has led to higher budget deficits, however, and the French healthcare system is in desperate need of more cash. The IMF has called for economic reforms to bring public spending under control.
Javier E

The Black Death led to the demise of feudalism. Could this pandemic have a similar effe... - 0 views

www.salon.com/...pandemic-have-a-similar-effect

pandemic black plague history lessons culture

shared by Javier E on 27 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • The plague, in combination with a host of other related and overlapping crises, delivered a death blow to Medieval Europe, ushering in a new age — the Renaissance and the rise of so-called agrarian capitalism — and ultimately setting the stage for the Industrial Revolution and the modern world.
  • the calamitous 14th century is not as far removed from our own experience as we would like to think.
  • Since the Second World War, we have experienced an unprecedented period of economic growth, and so it was for Medieval Europe on the eve of the Black Death
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  • First and foremost, the climate was changing. Sound familiar? Medieval Europe benefitted from several centuries of warmer weather, which boosted crop yields, but by the 14th century, the world was entering the so-called Little Ice Age
  • As the population grew, increasingly marginal land was turned over to agriculture, with diminishing returns, resulting in lower yields per capita and pushing the population dangerously close to subsistence levels. This left little slack in the economy to absorb a significant shock, and the 14th century would soon bring one shock after another.
  • From AD 1000, Europe's population doubled or even tripled, and the economy became increasingly commercialized, underwritten by an increasingly sophisticated financial system, as new cities and towns emerged, universities were founded across the continent, and the magnificent Gothic cathedrals surpassed the Great Pyramid at Giza as the tallest man-made structures in the world.
  • At the same time, Europe entered a prolonged period of heightened geopolitical conflict, during which a dizzying array of kingdoms, principalities, sultanates and city-states waged innumerable wars, both large and small.
  • beginning in 1311, Europe began to experience a series of crop failures across the continent in what became known as the Great Famine. Reaching a peak in northern Europe in 1315-1317, the Great Famine may have killed 5 to 10% of Europe's population
  • Cooler and wetter weather depressed agricultural yields, at a time when there was already very little slack in the food supply. This contributed to a broader economic slowdown, as yields declined and prices rose, but it also brought Europe to the edge of famine.
  • These conflicts inhibited trade between northern and southern Europe and between western Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, further slowing the European economy and incurring a massive fiscal burden that would soon ruin the European financial system and provoke uprisings in both France and England
  • Northern Italy was the heart of the financial system at this time, and a small number of very large Italian banks, often referred to as "super-companies," were lending huge sums of money across Europe
  • All available money was loaned out or tied up in investments, leaving the banks severely under-capitalized and vulnerable to insolvency in the event of a sudden large withdraw or a major default on their loans.
  • war broke out between England and France in 1294, prompting King Edward I to withdraw huge sums of money from the Riccardi of Lucca, approximately equivalent to several billion dollars today. The Riccardi simply did not have the money, and Edward seized whatever assets he could. Then, over the following decades, three more super banks, the Frescobaldi, the Bardi and the Peruzzi, all of Florence, were each ruined by successive English kings who refused to pay their debts.
  • Meanwhile, the Catholic Church, the cultural and epistemological bedrock of Medieval Europe, was facing the most significant legitimacy crisis in centuries
  • It was in the midst of this spiritual, economic and geopolitical crisis that the Black Death arrived, sweeping through Europe in 1347-1353 and upending the balance of power, almost overnight
  • We might compare this crisis of faith with the current legitimacy crisis of science in the United States. Like the scientific method, the Church was a shared way of knowing — a pathway to common understanding, which was essential to the social order of Medieval Europe.
  • he King's men attempted to arrest the elderly Pope, inadvertently killing him. Shortly thereafter, in 1305, a Frenchman, Clement V, was chosen to be the next pope, and the papacy was relocated to Avignon, France. This understandably cast a long shadow over the Holy See, and the Avignon Popes were widely disliked and distrusted. The crisis only deepened in 1378 when a second pope was elected in Rome and a third pope was briefly elected in 1409 before all three were deposed in 1417.
  • This, combined with the soaring fiscal burden of near-constant war, set off a series of uprisings, most notably the French Jacquerie of 1358 and the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The aristocracy responded with force wherever they could, but they could not turn back the clock.
  • Both of these developments substantially benefitted commoners, at the expense of the elite, particularly in England.
  • The archetypal serf was not paid for their work in the lord's fields — that was their obligation to the lord in exchange for the use of the lord's land. The modern equivalent would be if your landlord was also your boss, and in order to live in your apartment, you had to sign away your freedom and that of your children, in perpetuity.
  • Not only that, the medieval lord was also the primary unit of legal, civic and military power, often serving as the first stop for legal matters and the first defense against brigands and rival kingdoms.
  • With perhaps half the population gone, there were simply not enough peasants to work the land, and the average income of the English lord declined significantly. In response, the lord's wheat fields were increasingly turned over to livestock, or rented out to tenant farmers, who would pay the lord a fixed rent, keeping the agricultural produce for themselves.
  • The ambitious commoner could now acquire sizable tracts of land, and with the agricultural product of that land entirely at their disposal, commoners were incentivized to maximize the productivity of their land and sell the surplus at market for a profit. This transition is often referred to as the birth of Agrarian Capitalism.
  • In the wake of the Black Death, plague doctors were among the first to believe they had surpassed the knowledge of the Greek and Roman world; ironically, they were wrong, but the lower mortality of later outbreaks led many doctors to proclaim they had cured the disease, which instilled a new faith in scientific progress
  • Sumptuary laws, which restricted what commoners could wear and eat, also became common during the 14th and 15th Centuries. However, these laws do not appear to have been effective, and tensions continued to mount between the aristocracy and the wider populace, who were increasingly impatient for change.
  • Urban laborers and craftsmen also benefitted from rising wages. The average lifespan increased, and standards of living improved across the board. The shortage of skilled tradesmen even created new opportunities for urban women
  • starting in the 14th century, infantry units comprised of commoners, like the Swiss pikemen and English longbowmen, began to win a series of decisive victories against mounted knights, revolutionizing military tactics and hastening the obsolescence of the feudal aristocracy.
  • a new intellectual spirit was taking root across western Europe. Influential thinkers like John Wycliffe and Marsilius of Padua began to question the worldly authority of both the Church and the state, arguing that power rested ultimately with the populace rather than the ruler, and the unworthy ruler could lose their right to govern
  • the economic effects of the plague were nothing short of earthshattering. By killing perhaps 50% of the labor force, the Black Death drastically altered the supply of labor, land and coin. Wages skyrocketed, as labor was in short supply, and rents declined, as the plummeting population density created a surplus of land
  • seven-hundred years later, what, if anything, can we learn from this — what can the crises and consequences of the 14th century tell us about our own pandemic and the impending aftermath?
  • There will be no labor shortage in the wake of the coronavirus; quite the opposite, there will likely be a labor surplus, due to the ensuing economic contraction. As for rents, the housing market is essentially frozen as people shelter in place, and housing prices are likely to decline in a recession, but the real cost of housing relative to income is unlikely to see the kind of seismic shift experienced after the Black Death.
  • most presciently for our own time, Europe was headed for a climate catastrophe, and regardless of the Black Death, the continent would have almost certainly faced a series of demographic shocks, like the Great Plague, until considerable changes were made to the existing socio-economic system.
  • The lesson we should take from this today is not the differences between the coronavirus and the Black Death, but rather the broader similarities between the 14th century and the 21st century
  • war between China and the US still looms ever larger, socio-economic inequality is reaching record levels, trust in institutions and our established epistemology is waning, and as we enter the worst depression since the 1930s, climate change once again threatens to throw us back into the Middle Ages
  • if we continue business as usual, what happens next is likely to be much worse. The calamitous 21st century is just getting started, and a more apt parallel for the Black Death is probably yet to come
g-dragon

Invention of Paper | Chinese Inventions - 0 views

www.thoughtco.com/invention-of-paper-195265

invention paper chinese inventions High Middle Ages

shared by g-dragon on 24 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • According to ancient Chinese historical sources, a court eunuch named Ts'ai Lun (or Cai Lun) presented newly-invented paper to the Emperor Hedi of the Eastern Han Dynasty in 105 CE.
  • The historian Fan Hua (398-445 CE) recorded this version of events, but archaeological finds from western China and Tibet suggest that paper was invented centuries earlier.
  • proving that ink too was invented much earlier than historians had supposed.
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  • bark, silk, wood and leather functioned in a similar way to paper, although they were either much more expensive or heavier. In China, many early works were recorded on long bamboo strips, which were then bound with leather straps or string into books.
  • People world-wide also carved very important notations into stone or bone, or pressed stamps into wet clay and then dried or fired the tablets to preserve their words. However, writing (and later printing) required a material that was both cheap and lightweight in order to become truly ubiquitous. Paper fit the bill perfectly.
  • Early paper-makers in China used hemp fibers, which were soaked in water and pounded with a large wooden mallet. The resulting slurry was then poured over a horizontal mold; loosely-woven cloth stretched over a framework of bamboo allowed the water to drip out the bottom or evaporate, leaving behind a flat sheet of dry hemp-fiber paper.
  • One of the most common formats for early paper was the scroll. A few long pieces of paper were pasted together to form a strip, which was then wrapped around a wooden roller. The other end of the paper was attached to a thin wooden dowel, with a piece of silk cord in the middle to tie the scroll shut.
  • From its point of origin in China, the idea and technology of paper-making spread throughout Asia.
  • The Koreans also used rice straw and seaweed, expanding the types of fiber available for paper production. This early adoption of paper fueled the Korean innovations in printing, as well; metal movable type was invented by 1234 CE on the peninsula.
  • One of the most interesting repercussions of this Arab victory was that the Abbasids captured Chinese artisans - including master paper-makers like Tou Houan - and took them back to the Middle East.
  • so knowledge of this marvelous new material spread far and wide. Before long, cities from Samarkand (now in Uzbekistan) to Damascus and Cairo had become centers of paper production.
  • In 1120, the Moors established Europe's first paper mill at Valencia, Spain (then called Xativa). From there, this Chinese invention passed to Italy, Germany, and other parts of Europe. Paper helped spread knowledge, much of which was gleaned from the great Asian culture centers along the Silk Road, that enabled Europe's High Middle Ages.
  • g-dragon on 24 Oct 17
     
    This shows where paper was made and how it spread from China to Europe. It is intresting being able to trace something that helped with the European High Middle Ages to its origin so far away.
peri20042023

Moldova: Russia threatens gas supply in Europe's poorest state - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-europe-59048894

europe state russia news Culture crisis politics economics

shared by peri20042023 on 27 Oct 21 - No Cached
  • Up until now, 100% of Moldova's gas has come from Russia. But the contract to supply it expired at the end of September. Gazprom raised the price and Moldova balked at paying it.
  • If there is no deal with Russia, could Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries, buy enough gas elsewhere?
  • "It's the worst time to have a gas crisis at home," Mr Popescu admits. "The prices are higher than ever. We see this market crunch on a global scale. But we've had support.
  • peri20042023 on 27 Oct 21
     
    Popescu country is immersed in a gas crisis. But Nicu Popescu is trying to remain positive. World also in somewhat of a crisis
mcginnisca

Europe's Aid Plan For Syrian Refugees: A Million Debit Cards : Parallels : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...refugees-a-million-debit-cards

europe refugees crisis Syria Turkey aid plan

shared by mcginnisca on 27 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • The European Union is desperate to keep Syrian refugees from bolting from Turkey for Europe. But the prospects for Syrians in Turkey have been slim. Now the EU is launching its biggest aid program yet – more than $375 million aimed at a million of the neediest Syrians in Turkey.
  • a debit card that can be used to buy whatever food, medicine or clothing a family needs, or to get cash.
  • There have been cash-based aid programs before, but not on this scale. Jonny Hogg, spokesmen for the World Food Program, says this is the biggest humanitarian relief contract ever signed by the EU.
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  • Syrians in Turkey are supposed to stay where they're registered. They can rent property if they can afford it, work if they can find a job, and can be eligible for health care and education. But as a practical matter, the demand usually outstrips the supply. Turkey's Ambassador to the U.K. recently wrote that there are around 853,000 school-aged children, 310,000 of which are eligible to receive education.
sarahbalick

Exclude Hungary from EU, says Luxembourg's Asselborn - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-europe-37347352

hungary luxembourg

shared by sarahbalick on 14 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • Exclude Hungary from EU, says Luxembourg's Asselborn
  • Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn has called for Hungary to be suspended or even expelled from the European Union because of its "massive violation" of EU fundamental values.
  • "Hungary is not far away from issuing orders to open fire on refugees," he suggested.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • "becoming impatient, it is not my personal approach to show a member state the door".
  • The EU could not tolerate "such inappropriate behaviour", he said, and any state that violated such basic values "should be excluded temporarily, or if necessary for ever, from the EU''. It was "the only possibility to protect the cohesion and values of the European Union,'' he said.
  • "could not be taken seriously".
  • The head of Hungarian diplomacy described his Luxembourg counterpart as a "classic nihilist" who worked tirelessly to destroy Europe's security and culture. By way of contrast, Hungary was defending not only its own territory, but that of the EU as well, the foreign minister insisted.
  • "Only Hungarians have the right to decide who they wish to live with."
davisem

How populism could shake up Europe: A visual guide - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by davisem on 05 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Europe's populist movements are on the cusp of sweeping far-right, nationalist and euroskeptic parties into power across the continent in a series of upcoming elections
  • he revolving door swung against current Prime Minister Matteo Renzi Sunday, when voters rejected his proposed changes to the country's constitution
  • Experts say that if Grillo comes to power, he'll likely follow through on promises to call a referendum to scrap the euro, reintroduce the Italian lira, and perhaps even follow Britain out of the European Union
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  • Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) had ridden a populist wave to challenge for presidential power (albeit in a largely ceremonial role). The race had appeared close, but on Sunday Hofer conceded to left-wing independent Alexander Van der Bellen when early returns ran against him
  • Marine Le Pen, leader since 2011, has tried to "detoxify" the party founded by her father Jean-Marie of its reputation for racism and xenophobia -- and has seen its share of the vote rise to 27% in last year's regional elections
  • since the 2008 economic crisis unemployment has risen from 7.1% to around 10%, while almost a quarter of the nation's youth is now out of work.
  • The National Front leader has utilized similar tactics to the US President-elect by tapping into frustrations of the French electorate and focusing on a more nationalistic agenda to sway voters to her corner.
  • Farage was one of the chief architects of the Brexit campaign for Britain to leave the European Union
  • Formed in 2013, the anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany (AfD) was initially galvanized into action by what it saw as Merkel's bungled handling of the eurozone crisis -- specifically the multiple Greek bailouts
  • Voters in the Netherlands are set to elect a new parliament in March 2017, when the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant Party for Freedom (PVV) hopes to build on its strong showing in the past two elections
  • Wilders has run on a party manifesto focused on a so-called "de-Islamification" of the Netherlands
  • davisem on 05 Dec 16
     
    Europe is one the peak of sweeping right, nationalist and eurosceptic parties come into power in following elections, and we see some examples of countries and how the GPA, Unemployment, and others were effected.
rachelramirez

Trump worries Nato with 'obsolete' comment - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-us-canada-38635181

trump nato politics policy economics

shared by rachelramirez on 16 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Trump worries Nato with 'obsolete' comment
  • A statement by US President-elect Donald Trump that Nato is "obsolete" has caused "worry" in the alliance, Germany's foreign minister says.
  • Shares in BMW, Volkswagen and Daimler fell after he warned that cars built in Mexico, where they have invested in factories, would be taxed at 35% if exported to the US.
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  • Few expected the new transatlantic relationship to echo the warm and trusting alliance nurtured by Angela Merkel and Barack Obama, who was a vocal supporter of Mrs Merkel's refugee policy.
  • Germany's outspoken Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel retorted that the migrant crisis was the result of "faulty, interventionist American policies in the Mediterranean and Middle East".
  • though few here believe his Congress would approve the 35% tax he appears to be threatening to impose on imported vehicles.
  • "A lot of these countries aren't paying what they're supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States."
  • Mr Trump added that Nato was "very important" to him
  • Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Mr Steinmeier said the president-elect's comments had caused "worry and concern".
  • the US deployed 3,000 soldiers, 80 tanks and hundreds of armoured vehicles to Poland in a move by President Barack Obama to reassure Nato allies concerned about a more aggressive Russia.
  • At his Senate confirmation hearing last week, Mr Trump's choice for defence secretary, Gen James Mattis, had described Nato as central to US defence, and had accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to "break" the alliance.
  • Mr Trump described Mrs Merkel as Europe's most important leader but said the EU had become "basically a vehicle for Germany".
maddieireland334

Could Russia REALLY go to war with NATO? - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Russia NATO War History WWIII US

shared by maddieireland334 on 31 May 16 - No Cached
  • A new book by General Sir Richard Shirreff, NATO's deputy supreme allied commander for Europe between 2011 and 2014, evokes a potential scenario that leads to a devastating future war with Russia.
  • In his account, Russia rapidly expands its war aims by invading the Baltic States, which are NATO members, and world war ensues.
  • The latter, written at the height of the Cold War, was conceived as a "future history," supposedly looking back at the outbreak and subsequent unfolding of a full-blown NATO vs Warsaw Pact war.
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  • Russia has undoubtedly suffered economically from the global downturn in energy prices and from economic sanctions following the annexation of the Crimea, but the degree of dependence, in particular energy dependence, that Western Europe has on Russia is highly significant.
  • For example, the Nord Stream pipeline laid in international waters along the Baltic from Russia to Germany, supplies a significant -- according to EU figures, 38.7% -- proportion of Western Europe's gas needs.
  • Russia desperately needs the foreign earnings this generates
  • Consequently, while the armies and individual battles might be smaller than those in World War II, the death toll, the loss of war-making material and both sides' ability to reduce everything in their paths to rubble would make a large-scale conflict far more wide-reaching and, in terms of recovery, longer-lasting than anything we have seen before.
  • Turkey, on Russia's southern border, joined the military alliance in 1952, and since the end of the Cold War, many of Russia's former Warsaw Pact allies, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic States have signed up, too.
  • It's certainly in Putin's interests that the West cuts defense spending and has a diminished appetite for brinkmanship and it is perhaps understandable that a recently retired general should push for this to be reversed.
  • However, NATO's forces are deployed globally to a far greater extent than Russia's. And even acknowledging that Russia could achieve a temporary military advantage in, say, the Baltic, for how long and at what price?
  • the likelihood of a Kursk-style pitched battle between heavy armor is highly unlikely.
  • A real-life analysis of the Russian president's actions would suggest that he is being entirely rational and that his actions are those or an arch-realist who places the needs of his country first.
  • Such a war, employing ships, submarines and aircraft with truly global reach, would indeed be a world war and would pay scant attention to the difference between military and civilian targets: this would truly be a war among the peoples.
  • Despite Shirreff's warnings, the nightmare scenario of nuclear war is highly unlikely as neither side ultimately would wish to unleash destruction on that scale.
  • This would be total war, waged on every imaginable front, from the internet and the stock market to outer space.
maddieireland334

Europe's migrant deal with Turkey may be unraveling. But it was flawed from the start. ... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...6-82c2-a7dcb313287d_story.html

Migrant Crisis Europe Turkey Refugees

shared by maddieireland334 on 26 May 16 - No Cached
  • Growing tensions between Europe and Turkey over elements of a deal to end the refugee crisis are raising fears that the accord, signed by the two sides in March, may already be on the verge of collapse.
  • The latest sign of trouble came this week when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned European leaders that he would block the deal if the European Union refused to lift visa restrictions for Turks
  • steps
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • The agreement is based on the premise that Turkey, which hosts more than 2 million Syrian refugees, is safe for asylum seekers and that returning migrants to Turkish territory does not violate European or international law.
  • Last week, a Greek tribunal ruled that a Syrian national who had appealed his deportation from Europe could stay on the island of Lesbos. The court said there is no guarantee refugees will be provided full protection in Turkey.
  • More than 1 million refugees and migrants reached European shores in 2015 in one of the largest mass migration movements since World War II.
  • Most of the refugees had crossed the sea from Turkey to Greece to get to Europe, and E.U. leaders needed to strike a deal with the Turkish government.
  • The E.U. offered more than $6 billion in funds to help Turkey, a member of the NATO military alliance, cope with its refugee population.
  • And policymakers agreed that for every Syrian returned to Turkey under the E.U. deal, another Syrian refugee already residing in Turkey would be resettled to Europe.
  • “The management of the deal is inadequate . . . and the Greek government is reluctant to send anyone back who might have vulnerability,” Collett said. “The challenge now is predicting whether or not [the deal] will unravel.”
  • Collett’s concerns were echoed in a report released this month by a European parliamentary delegation that visited detention facilities in Turkey.
  • In Turkey, pro-government newspapers churn out anti-E.U. columns on a near-daily basis, calling on Erdogan to spurn a “hypocritical” Europe.
  • “The deal isn’t on hold,” a senior Turkish official said this week. He spoke on the condition of anonymity in accordance with government protocol. “Turkey maintains an open-door policy” toward refugees, he said.
abbykleman

Getting into bed with a bear: Turkey's snuggling up to Russia is likely to hurt it | Th... - 0 views

www.economist.com/...ngs-their-relationship-turkeys

shared by abbykleman on 22 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • abbykleman on 22 Feb 17
     
    AT ISTANBUL'S naval museum, around the corner from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's residence, reminders of one of Europe's biggest geopolitical rivalries are everywhere. A bust commemorates Hasan Pasha of Algiers, a commander in a battle in which the Russian fleet burned the Ottoman one to a crisp.
lenaurick

How some European countries are tightening their refugee policies - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

international crisis refugee politics

shared by lenaurick on 24 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • At least 12,472 refugees and migrants have arrived on Europe's shores since the beginning of 2017, according to the UN refugee agency -- only slightly less than the 12,587 Syrian refugees admitted by the US in all of last year.
  • The UK government recently announced it was halting a program to resettle lone refugee children, after 350 had been brought to Britain. Campaigners had hoped that 3,000 children would benefit from the scheme, introduced last year.
  • In November 2016, the Home Office issued new guidance barring unaccompanied refugees from Afghanistan, Yemen and Eritrea older than 12, who were living in the now-demolished "Jungle" camp at Calais in northern France, from entering the UK if they have no family there.
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  • More than 250,000 people were given refugee status in Germany in 2016, many of whom had arrived the previous year when Chancellor Angela Merkel threw the country's doors open to refugees, but there are signs that attitudes are hardening.
  • This month, Germany also deported a second tranche of asylum seekers to Afghanistan, despite the UNHCR's insistence that "the entire state ... is affected by an armed conflict." The European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) argues that "by carrying out these deportations, the Federal Ministry of the Interior is completely ignoring the security situation in Afghanistan."
  • A recent report by Amnesty International highlighted the "dire conditions" in Greek camps, citing "overcrowding, freezing temperatures, lack of hot water and heating, poor hygiene, bad nutrition, inadequate medical care, violence and hate-motivated attacks."
  • from March, Germany will begin returning asylum seekers to Greece, if that was the first safe country in which they arrived, a spokeswoman for the German Ministry for the Interior told CNN. This process was halted in 2011 due to "systemic deficiencies in the Greek asylum system."
  • If Europe cannot reliably protect its external borders, De Maiziere said in a speech, Germany will implement "appropriate national border controls against illegal immigration."
  • Italy's chief of police, Franco Gabrielli, has called for the detention and deportation of migrants, who he blames for "instability and threats" in the country. Gabrielli's comments, published in a circular on December 30, 2016, align closely with the government's position.
  • Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has adopted a zero-tolerance approach to immigrants who are unwilling to sign up to the country's way of life, telling those who "refuse to adapt and criticize our values" to "behave normally or go away."
  • The party pledges to invest in caring for refugees in the Middle East in order to reduce the number traveling to Europe.
  • The Hungarian parliament introduced a bill on February 14 that requires the police to deport any person who is in Hungary illegally, without allowing any access to an asylum procedure, according to a written statement by the NGO The Hungarian Helsinki Committee.The bill also requires all asylum applications to be automatically held in detention until their claim is processed, according to the NGO.The NGO describes the proposed changes as "extreme and flagrant violations of European Union asylum law.
Javier E

The Weekend Interview With Norman Davies: The Emperor of Vanished Kingdoms - WSJ.com - 1 views

online.wsj.com/...3918304577240984211126416.html

governance Europe integration collapse political US historical gradualism crisis

shared by Javier E on 27 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Norman Davies, Britain's pre-eminent historian of Europe. From where he sits, Europe's problem is one of failed governance. "It all started, I guess, in the 1990s, with the Yugoslav wars and the inability of the Europeans to do anything basic about a war in their backyard."
  • "I now feel that the thing that is being proved wrong is what some people call the 'gradualist fallacy'—that . . . you drive European integration forward by economic means," he says. "And it's just wrong."
  • After World War II, Europeans set about forming a union along three axes: politics, defense and economics. Britain quickly rejected political union, however, and soon enough NATO came along to become the only defense union Western Europe needed. An economic union—the European Economic Community, established in 1957—was the only remaining pillar of integration left to pursue.
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  • Europe has had only four years since the war when it didn't have its hands full—not much time to make a functioning union for 500 million people.
  • Instead, Mr. Davies says, the EU has become a vehicle by which the stronger countries promote their interests—led, for the moment, by the tag team of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "So although all the member states have to be democracies—this is one of the conditions for entry—they're not required to act democratically once they're in."
  • "It's like an avalanche, where you've got a huge frozen snowfield, which on the surface looks absolutely ideal. . . . All the changes in the ice field come from the sun shining on them, and the water melts underneath. But you can't actually see it. And you equally can't see which part of the snowfield is going to move first."
  • "A lot of this crisis is to do with a period of economic growth, limitless money, people not worrying about getting into debt—mind-sapping comfort." He adds, "Western Europeans to a large extent are still in that comfort zone, whereas East Europeans have lived through much harder times and are much more appreciative of the degree of freedom and prosperity that they have got, that 20 years ago they didn't."
  • "Europe 100 years ago was bullish," he says, and there's something in the American psyche that bears uncanny resemblance to Europeans' optimism, in the years before World War I broke out in 1914, about their peaceful, prosperous future. Does pride come before the fall? "The United States is this late-19th-century, 20th-century power which has a lot of those attitudes," he says.
  • "There are one or two people around," he says, "who might, at the meeting of the Council of Ministers, instead of doing [the] horse-trading which goes on all the time, say, 'Enough of all of this. We are all going to lose the European Union unless we do something today.'"
  • "But it happens in a second. Before the avalanche, the sun shines, it looks beautiful, and there's a sound like a gunshot, where the ice cracks. And the whole damn lot falls into the valley."
julia rhodes

U.S. Hopes Boom in Natural Gas Can Curb Putin - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...on-russia-for-natural-gas.html

natural gas putin history politics crisis

shared by julia rhodes on 06 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • The crisis in Crimea is heralding the rise of a new era of American energy diplomacy, as the Obama administration tries to deploy the vast new supply of natural gas in the United States as a weapon to undercut the influence of the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, over Ukraine and Europe.
  • The crisis has escalated a State Department initiative to use a new boom in American natural gas supplies as a lever against Russia, which supplies 60 percent of Ukraine’s natural gas and has a history of cutting off the supply during conflicts.
  • The administration’s strategy is to move aggressively to deploy the advantages of its new resources to undercut Russian natural gas sales to Ukraine and Europe, weakening such moves by Mr. Putin in future years. Although Russia is still the world’s biggest exporter of natural gas, the United States recently surpassed it to become the world’s largest natural gas producer, largely because of breakthroughs in hydraulic fracturing technology, known as fracking.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • For Russia, energy supplies are as important to keeping a hold on Ukraine and the other former countries of the Soviet Union as is the Russian Army itself. Ukraine would freeze without Russian gas, and its flow has been a considerable source of wealth and corruption in both countries. But Russia is also obligated by contract to provide natural gas to Western Europe, and Moscow remains highly dependent on Ukrainian pipelines to get it there.
  • In addition, he said, the team is helping countries develop their own natural gas resources, including in partnership with American energy giants. Halliburton has started fracking for natural gas in Poland, while Shell last year signed a contract to explore for natural gas in Ukraine. Continue reading the main story 241 Comments In the event that the U.S. gas supply is threatened, as Europe's is by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, should the United States step up its domestic fracking efforts? Share your thoughts »
Javier E

Migrants, Christianity and Europe: Diverse, desperate migrants have divided European Ch... - 1 views

www.economist.com/...grants-christianity-and-europe

christianity refugees europe

shared by Javier E on 12 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Life might be easier for European churches if a neat line could be drawn between (i) benighted lands far away, where bad things happened and co-religionists had to be supported, and (ii) the flatter, more orderly playing-field of Europe where people could expect, from the moment they arrived, to be treated as free and equal human beings, so that no group needed or deserved more help or attention than any other. For better or worse, no such line exists. The bad developments of benighted lands have arrived in Europe's heart, and European churches are having to make their choices, some of them difficult, accordingly.
jordancart33

What Germany wants in crunch EU refugee talks - The Local - 0 views

www.thelocal.de/...ny-wants-from-eu-refugees-plan

germany refugee

shared by jordancart33 on 14 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Facing the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War, ministers from EU member states are gathering to try to heal deep divisions in the bloc over migrant policy. They are expected to announce what the Union's next move will be in a press conference on Monday evening. The meeting comes after Germany - which is expecting 800,000 migrants this year - revealed it could no longer cope with the record influx in a shock decision on Sunday to reintroduce border controls. Europe's top economy had previously signalled it would throw open the country's borders to Syrian refugees but ministers explained that regions could no longer cope with the rising number of arrivals. Some observers have suggested that the move was intended to put pressure on other EU nations before Monday's crisis talks, as it will shift a heavier share of the refugee load back onto countries with external frontiers like Hungary, Greece and Italy.
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