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polixy · 4 years ago

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Confidence in Merkel is at all-time high in several countries during her last full year in office

Confidence in Merkel is at all-time high in several countries during her last full year in office;

German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives at a press conference at the Federal Chancellery in Berlin following a virtual meeting with governors of Germany’s 16 states on Aug. 27, 2020. (Omer Messinger-Pool/Getty Images)

As Angela Merkel enters the home stretch of her nearly 15-year tenure, more people express confidence in the German chancellor than in any other world leader asked about in a recent Pew Research Center survey of 14 countries. And in six of those countries, the share of adults who have confidence in Merkel is the highest on record.

This year marks the last full calendar year that Merkel will serve as the head of Germany’s federal government. Merkel announced in October 2018 that she would not seek reelection in elections planned for next year. She is closing out her tenure amid the coronavirus pandemic and widespread economic pessimism in Europe and elsewhere.

Overall, a median of 75% across the surveyed countries say they have confidence in Merkel to do the right thing regarding world affairs. That is higher than the share who say the same about French President Emmanuel Macron (63%), British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (50%), Russian President Vladimir Putin (23%), Chinese President Xi Jinping (19%) and U.S. President Donald Trump (17%). Majorities of adults express confidence in Merkel in every country surveyed except Italy, where people are divided (50% confident, 49% not confident).

This analysis focuses on confidence in German Chancellor Angela Merkel across 14 countries over time. The work builds on previous studies about confidence in Merkel compared with other world leaders and during global crises.

This study was conducted in countries where nationally representative telephone surveys are feasible. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, face-to-face interviewing is not currently possible in many parts of the world.

For this report, we used data from nationally representative surveys of 14,276 adults conducted from June 10 to Aug. 3, 2020, in 14 advanced economies. All surveys were conducted over the phone with adults in the U.S., Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK, Australia, Japan and South Korea.

Here are the questions used in this report, along with responses, and the survey methodology.

The six countries where confidence in Merkel is now at its highest level on record are the United Kingdom (where 76% have confidence in her), Canada (74%), Spain and Australia (both 72%), Japan (67%) and the United States (61%). In France and Italy, confidence in Merkel was higher prior to the eurozone crisis than it is now. And in Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea and Sweden, more people had confidence in Merkel in the years following the height of the refugee crisis than currently.

Since Merkel took office in 2005, confidence in the German chancellor has been relatively stable in much of Europe – Germany in particular – as she has helped coordinate national and international responses to the eurozone debt crisis, the refugee crisis and now the COVID-19 pandemic. A majority of Germans have expressed confidence in Merkel throughout her tenure, with around eight-in-ten (81%) doing so now. The share of Germans who express no confidence in Merkel has declined 12 percentage points in two years, from a high of 31% in 2018 to the current figure of 19%.

Notably, confidence in Merkel remains high internationally even though views of Germany have declined in several countries since 2007. In Italy, for example, the share of adults with a favorable view of Germany declined from 75% in 2007 to 53% in 2019. Still, Germany continues to be viewed much more favorably than not overall. Across 15 European countries surveyed by Pew Research Center in 2019, including Russia and Ukraine, a median of 74% had a positive view of Germany.

Views of Merkel differ by education level and, in some countries, by gender

In 12 of the 14 countries surveyed this year, those with a postsecondary education or higher are more likely to have confidence in Merkel than those with less education. In Italy, for example, 64% of those with more education have confidence in Merkel, compared with 47% of those with less education, a difference of 17 percentage points.

Views of Merkel also differ substantially by education in the UK, Australia, the U.S., South Korea, Denmark and Japan. And in Merkel’s own country, people with at least a postsecondary education are more confident in their chancellor than those with less education (88% vs. 78%, respectively) – though confidence is high among both groups.

In most countries, views of Merkel don’t differ by gender. But in Canada, Spain and South Korea, men are more likely than women to have confidence in her. The reverse is true in Germany, where 86% of women express confidence, compared with 75% of men.

In the U.S., confidence in Merkel differs widely by party

The share of Americans who express confidence in Merkel has increased from 38% in 2006 to 61% in this year’s survey. (In 2006, 38% did not offer an opinion, a share that fell to 9% this year.)

In recent years, impressions of Germany’s leader have differed by Americans’ partisan identification. Democrats and independents who lean to the Democratic Party are now much more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to say they have confidence in Merkel (76% vs. 50%). Earlier in Merkel’s tenure, Democrats and Republicans barely differed in their views.

Democrats have become much more likely to express confidence in Merkel over time. In 2006, 35% of Democrats expressed confidence in Germany’s leader, a share that has risen to about three-quarters (76%) today. By comparison, Republicans’ confidence in Merkel has changed little.

In Germany, views of country’s handling of COVID-19 are linked to confidence in Merkel

Among Germans, views of their country’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak are tied to confidence in Merkel. Those who say their country has done a good job dealing with the virus are much more likely than those who say it has done a bad job to have confidence in Merkel (87% vs. 41%, respectively).

Germany has fared relatively well during the coronavirus outbreak. The country has fewer COVID-19 deaths per capita than many other European countries surveyed. And a majority of Germans (61%) say their everyday lives have not changed too much or at all as a result of the outbreak.

The German economy has also generally held up, though data suggests a slow recovery. About half (51%) of Germans say the current economic situation is good, and they are among the most optimistic in Europe, with 47% saying that the economic situation will improve in the next year.

Germans are also very positive when rating their own country’s job dealing with the coronavirus outbreak: Nearly nine-in-ten (88%) say the country has done well. About two-thirds say both the European Union and World Health Organization have done a good job with the outbreak. However, views are not so positive toward the other two countries asked about in the survey: A majority say China has done a bad job, and 88% say the same of how the U.S. has handled the outbreak.

While Germans broadly have confidence in Merkel, there are political differences in views of the chancellor. Those with favorable views of two of the ruling coalition parties – Merkel’s own Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) – are more likely to say they have confidence in Merkel to do the right thing regarding world affairs than those who do not have favorable views of these parties.

However, supporters of Germany’s right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party are much less likely to be positive on Merkel than those who who do not support AfD. About half (51%) of AfD supporters have confidence in Merkel, compared with 86% of those who do not support the party.

Shannon Schumacher is a research associate focusing on global attitudes research at Pew Research Center.

Moira Fagan is a research analyst focusing on global attitudes research at Pew Research Center.

; Blog (Fact Tank) – Pew Research Center; https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/02/confidence-in-merkel-is-at-all-time-high-in-several-countries-during-her-last-full-year-in-office/; https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/FT_20.09.29_Merkel_feature.jpg?w=1200&h=628&crop=1; October 2, 2020 at 07:20AM

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senakim22-blog · 4 years ago

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biofunmy · 5 years ago

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Disputes roil military alliance on 70th anniversary

NATO leaders including Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron appear to be discussing President Trump’s lateness in a surfaced video. USA TODAY

LONDON – President Donald Trump abruptly canceled a news conference at a NATO leaders’ meeting in London on Wednesday after calling Canada’s leader Justin Trudeau “two-faced,” underscoring some of the political tensions that have come to the fore this year for the military alliance as it turns 70.

Trump said he was calling off the news conference “because we did so many over the past two days,” a reference to three lengthy Q&A sessions he held with reporters here. But the timing was unusual and came after Trudeau was shown in a video with other NATO leaders appearing to mock the U.S. president. That followed sharp, public exchanges between Trump and France’s President Emmanuel Macron a day earlier.

Amid the disagreements – on funding, on how best to tackle global terrorism, on how to engage with Russia – NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg wrapped up the meetings by trying to talk up NATO unity, saying that the alliance “was the most successful in history because we’ve changed as the world has changed.”

He said NATO would study ways to “further strengthen” its political dimension. The military alliance of U.S. and European countries, plus Canada was formed after World War II as a bulwark against the Soviet aggression and to guard against European militant nationalism. Its scope has since widened to include cyberattacks, border issues, climate security, terrorism and more.

On many issues, the White House and other NATO leaders diverge, not least Trump’s decision to support NATO member Turkey’s recent incursion into Syria to root out Kurdish militants that Ankara considers terrorists. Those same militants were playing a key role in the U.S.-led coalition fighting the remnants of the Islamic State group.

And taking questions after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump slammed Trudeau as “two-faced” and suggested the prime minister was upset that the president had “called him out” on the fact that Canada is not spending 2% of its GDP on defense spending, as required by NATO guidelines. “I guess he’s not very happy about it,” Trump said.

More: Trump calls Trudeau ‘two-faced’ following video of NATO leaders appearing to gossip about him

But his comments followed widely circulated video footage, recorded Tuesday night during a NATO reception at Buckingham Palace hosted by Queen Elizabeth II, that revealed world leaders on camera apparently discussing and making fun of Trump, although he wasn’t directly mentioned by name. None realized they were being overheard.

“He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top,” Trudeau could be heard saying in the video, an apparent reference to Trump’s long unscheduled Q&A session with journalists earlier Tuesday. Trudeau was seen standing in a huddle with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Britain’s Princess Anne – the queen’s daughter – was just visible behind Rutte’s left shoulder.

Asked about the video, Johnson said it was “complete nonsense.”

Trudeau told reporters that they weren’t laughing at Trump, but about the location of the next G7 summit, revealed this week to be the president’s Camp David retreat.

“I have a very good relationship with Trump,” he said.

Stoltenberg did his best to project NATO unity.

He rejected criticism from Macron that the military alliance is suffering from “brain death.” He also dismissed complaints from Trump that member states are not boosting their NATO military budgets quickly enough and insisted that the organization is adapting to modern challenges. Trump has called it “obsolete.”

“NATO is agile, NATO is active, NATO is adapting,” Stoltenberg said before chairing a meeting of the alliance’s members at a luxury hotel and golf resort outside London.

“As long as we are able to deliver substance … then NATO proves once again that we are able to respond to a shifting security landscape, and that’s the best way to also provide unity of this alliance,” the Norwegian national said.

Stoltenberg emphasized several times during his concluding news conference that “NATO is the only place where the U.S. and Europe and Canada meet every day.”

Trump in Britain for NATO meetings: Macron talks may be more important

Increasingly tense relations between President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron were on display when the subject of Islamic State fighters surfaced on the sidelines of the NATO summit in London. (Dec. 3) AP

Still, the tension threatened to undermine the credibility of the 29-nation alliance.

The meetings also cast Trump as the unlikely defender of an alliance he has repeatedly disparaged and railed against as far too dependent on U.S. funding.

“There’s an assumption among leaders that, because NATO has survived these types of crises in the past, it will brush aside this latest scare,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a foreign policy expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.

“This would perhaps be true if France and Turkey were the only problems. However, they’re not. The issue is far bigger, and heralds from the U.S. – where an unenthusiastic president is unwilling to make commitments to, or work for the betterment of, Western defense,” he added. “Macron, not unjustifiably, sees Trump as turning his back on Europe and wants NATO member states, and the EU, to wake up to this reality.”

Other NATO leaders and diplomats were also at pains to put a brave face on a series of awkward encounters as leaders gathered for discussions on a range of security issues encompassing a resurgent Russia, China’s growing military and technological prowess, trade and climate policies, and the evolving threat from international terrorism.

“If NATO has a motto, it is as Jens (Stoltenberg) says, one for all, and all for one,” Johnson said in remarks opening the meetings, referring to Article 5, the NATO principle that if any one member is attacked, all will attempt to defend it.

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Do a deal: Trump signals trade deal with China could be delayed until after election

Trudeau seems to really be enjoying this http://bit.ly/2r7qbfY

— Kim Hjelmgaard (@khjelmgaard) December 4, 2019

Royal treatment: Trump, first lady mingle with the queen, royal family NATO reception

Despite the divisions, Johnson characterized NATO as a “giant shield of solidarity.”

Macron stood by his comments, saying Wednesday that they had sparked vital discussions. “It’s allowed us to raise fundamental debates,” he said. In particular, “how to build sustainable peace in Europe.” He added that “(NATO) debates should be about other things than budgets and finances,” an apparent reference to Trump’s persistent gripes about many NATO members who haven’t met the alliance’s defense spending goals, currently 2% of GDP. Just nine members are expected to hit that level by the end of the year. The U.S. spends more on NATO than any other country.

Policy muddle: Trump temporarily breaks from his own stated Iran policy

President Donald Trump, left, and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during a NATO meeting in London, on Dec. 4, 2019. (Photo: EPA-EFE)

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thoughtfullyblogger · 5 years ago

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Άρθρο του σημαντικότερου διεθνούς περιοδικού για τις διεθνείς σχέσεις.

Οι Τούρκοι αλωνίζουν στο Αιγαίο και ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης πάει πάλι διακοπές

Greece Accidentally Steered Into a Foreign Policy Crisis Turkey is redrawing its borders in the Aegean—and the Greek government is failing to do much about it.

BY foreignpolicy.com/ | FEBRUARY 3, 2020, 4:14 PM

In late November last year, Greece was caught by surprise when Turkey announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Libyan government in Tripoli. The deal demarcated new maritime boundaries between the two countries—boundaries that now run very close to Crete, Greece’s biggest island. Turkey’s aim is to start drilling operations for natural gas in the area, in humiliating disregard of Greece’s territorial claims. The country’s traditional allies, in Washington and across Europe, have done essentially nothing to intervene.

The result has been one of the greatest diplomatic and political crises in recent Greek history, exposing the country’s international weakness. A promising path forward is available, however, to Greece’s conservative government led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis—it just needs to follow the diplomatic examples set by the leftist party Syriza when it was in power in Athens from 2015 to 2019.

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Powered By During a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump last month, Mitsotakis failed to get any commitment to take Greece’s side in the dispute with Turkey. In response, the opposition in Greece’s Parliament called the prime minister’s diplomatic foray an “unprecedented fiasco.” The problems were compounded by the conference on Libya organized by Germany in January, where Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met to discuss a possible cease-fire with the two warring Libyan sides, as well as a possible resolution to the conflict. Greece was not invited at all, despite the fact its interests are now directly involved in Libya. To add insult to injury, reports in the German tabloid Bild suggest the decisive factor may have been Turkey’s insistence that Greece not be involved in the negotiations.

It seems that Mitsotakis’s approach to diplomacy hasn’t done Greece any favors. Above all, the prime minister has been at pains to prove his reliability to his country’s more powerful allies. Speaking at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington before the recent meeting with Trump, Mitsotakis declared his support for the U.S. president’s decision to kill the Iranian commander Qassem Suleimani, even as other European countries were notably more cautious in assessing the repercussions of the strike. “We are allies with the U.S, so we stand by our allies through difficult times,” Mitsotakis said—even as the United States failed to intervene in Greece’s dispute with Turkey and Libya. Mitsotakis said he was at peace with Trump’s choices. “I understand that this particular decision was taking into consideration what is the U.S. national interest and we stand by this decision.”

The Greek government has also indulged in spasms of adventurism, which are too minor to figure in any plans the United States has for the region or to otherwise promote Greek interests on its own. Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias has suggested that Greece might soon send active personnel to Libya as part of the European Union’s Sofia mission, which enforces an arms embargo on the country’s warring sides (and their patrons), and an array of Patriot missiles to Saudi Arabia “to protect critical infrastructure,” presumably against attacks like the ones Iran is believed to have organized against the Abqaiq and Khurais oil fields last year. This marks a break with traditional Greek foreign policy, in which it seeks to remain neutral in active conflicts and maintain friendly relations with larger nearby countries like Iran and Russia.

These initiatives have predictably had no direct effect on the defense of Greece’s direct interests in the Aegean Sea. Turkey has escaped any international penalty for its unilateral diplomacy with Libya. Greece’s position seems likely to worsen in the near future as Turkey and Russia deepen their ties (despite the fact the Syrian conflict has placed them on opposite sides), with the latter reportedly considering recognizing the former’s statelet in Northern Cyprus and planning to open a military base there.

Supporters of the government in Greece have pointed a finger at Germany and Merkel, whom they accuse of fully capitulating to Turkey’s demands. They are right—up to a point. Germany’s indulgence of Turkey seems to be motivated by its own desire to limit its direct involvement in the Libya crisis—and its dependence on Erdogan to forestall future crises involving migrants from the Middle East. This has led many Greeks to claim Germany is abusing its hegemonic position in the EU to further its own interests, while disregarding its obligations to defend Europe’s existing borders.

But the government under Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party shares a considerable portion of the blame for the country’s marginalization in the Aegean. The prime minister’s diplomatic approach has accelerated, rather than impeded, this process.

Mitsotakis would have been better served if he spent his years in opposition trying to understand the Syriza-led government’s diplomatic strategy, rather than attacking it at every opportunity. Syriza didn’t hesitate to cause problems for its more powerful allies for the sake of earning their respect. When the EU planned a resolution to deepen sanctions against Russia in January 2015, the Syriza-led government demanded to know why Greece wasn’t consulted, implicitly threatening a veto. Many took it as a sign the Syriza administration was preparing to abandon Europe in favor of a deeper relationship with Russia.

But that was far from the point. In the end, Greece did sign on for the sanctions, the European commissioner thanked Greece for its positive contributions, and the Greek government had made its point: The country shouldn’t just be taken for granted. In the following years, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias successfully stewarded their country’s geopolitical power, actively participating in multiple diplomatic conferences.

Ultimately, there was nothing to be gained for Greece either in Mitsotakis’s unequivocal support for the U.S. decision to take out Iran’s Suleimani or Dendias’s announcements of ineffectual military participation in the Middle East. So what explains the decision-making? A clue is offered by Mitsotakis’s book on foreign policy, released in 2006 in Greece (a translation of his Harvard University dissertation). Its main thesis can be summed up in this passage: “the satisfaction of domestic obligations might require foreign-policy decisions that are not the most suitable from the point of view of a rational player, but which provide gains domestically”—or, to paraphrase, the country’s foreign policy should be carved with an eye on domestic politics.

Διεθνές περιοδικό αποκαλεί άχρηστο διπλωμάτη τον Μητσοτάκη κι εκείνος φεύγει πάλι για διήμερες διακοπές στην Κρήτη

Άρθρο του σημαντικότερου διεθνούς περιοδικού για τις διεθνείς σχέσεις. Greece Accidentally Steered Into a Foreign Policy Crisis…

Διεθνές περιοδικό αποκαλεί άχρηστο διπλωμάτη τον Μητσοτάκη κι εκείνος φεύγει πάλι για διήμερες διακοπές στην Κρήτη Άρθρο του σημαντικότερου διεθνούς περιοδικού για τις διεθνείς σχέσεις. Greece Accidentally Steered Into a Foreign Policy Crisis…

#foreignpolicy.com #ΚΥΡΙΑΚΟΣ ΜΗΤΣΟΤΑΚΗΣ

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eclecticstarlightblogger · 5 years ago

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Άρθρο του σημαντικότερου διεθνούς περιοδικού για τις διεθνείς σχέσεις.

Οι Τούρκοι αλωνίζουν στο Αιγαίο και ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης πάει πάλι διακοπές

Greece Accidentally Steered Into a Foreign Policy Crisis Turkey is redrawing its borders in the Aegean—and the Greek government is failing to do much about it.

BY foreignpolicy.com/ | FEBRUARY 3, 2020, 4:14 PM

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Why Pakistan Is Resuming Flights to and From China The cost of a so-called all-weather friendship.

Άρθρο του σημαντικότερου διεθνούς περιοδικού για τις διεθνείς σχέσεις. Greece Accidentally Steered Into a Foreign Policy Crisis…

#foreignpolicy.com #ΚΥΡΙΑΚΟΣ ΜΗΤΣΟΤΑΚΗΣ

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greekblogs · 5 years ago

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Άρθρο του σημαντικότερου διεθνούς περιοδικού για τις διεθνείς σχέσεις.

Οι Τούρκοι αλωνίζουν στο Αιγαίο και ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης πάει πάλι διακοπές

Greece Accidentally Steered Into a Foreign Policy Crisis Turkey is redrawing its borders in the Aegean—and the Greek government is failing to do much about it.

BY foreignpolicy.com/ | FEBRUARY 3, 2020, 4:14 PM

Trending Articles

Why Pakistan Is Resuming Flights to and From China The cost of a so-called all-weather friendship.

Άρθρο του σημαντικότερου διεθνούς περιοδικού για τις διεθνείς σχέσεις. Greece Accidentally Steered Into a Foreign Policy Crisis…

#foreignpolicy.com #ΚΥΡΙΑΚΟΣ ΜΗΤΣΟΤΑΚΗΣ

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skandaladiaplokidiafthora · 5 years ago

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Άρθρο του σημαντικότερου διεθνούς περιοδικού για τις διεθνείς σχέσεις.

Οι Τούρκοι αλωνίζουν στο Αιγαίο και ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης πάει πάλι διακοπές

Greece Accidentally Steered Into a Foreign Policy Crisis Turkey is redrawing its borders in the Aegean—and the Greek government is failing to do much about it.

BY foreignpolicy.com/ | FEBRUARY 3, 2020, 4:14 PM

Trending Articles

Why Pakistan Is Resuming Flights to and From China The cost of a so-called all-weather friendship.

Άρθρο του σημαντικότερου διεθνούς περιοδικού για τις διεθνείς σχέσεις. Greece Accidentally Steered Into a Foreign Policy Crisis…

#foreignpolicy.com #ΚΥΡΙΑΚΟΣ ΜΗΤΣΟΤΑΚΗΣ

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netakias · 5 years ago

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Άρθρο του σημαντικότερου διεθνούς περιοδικού για τις διεθνείς σχέσεις.

Οι Τούρκοι αλωνίζουν στο Αιγαίο και ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης πάει πάλι διακοπές

Greece Accidentally Steered Into a Foreign Policy Crisis Turkey is redrawing its borders in the Aegean—and the Greek government is failing to do much about it.

BY foreignpolicy.com/ | FEBRUARY 3, 2020, 4:14 PM

Trending Articles

Why Pakistan Is Resuming Flights to and From China The cost of a so-called all-weather friendship.

#foreignpolicy.com #ΚΥΡΙΑΚΟΣ ΜΗΤΣΟΤΑΚΗΣ

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crayonlead2-blog · 5 years ago

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Links 3/18/19

Patient readers, we just this instant switched on the codes for a new advertising vendor. A very much unintended and unexpected side effect is that some of you may be seeing video and other pop-ups. We were very clear in that these types of ads were not allowed. We are working to make them go away as fast as we can, because we know how much you hate them (and we do too)! –lambert

Update by Yves: The site seems to load faster with the new ads (the ads were what would slow down loading times), so once we get the popups sorted out (which thank God are appearing only on the landing page and so aren’t interfering with reading articles), this should be a net plus to readers once we get past transition issues.

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Radical plan to artificially cool Earth’s climate could be safe, study finds Grist

Fire Breaks Out At a Houston-Area Petrochemicals Terminal Bloomberg. Second in a week. Video:

The heat is deforming this metal storage tank. Some of the first responders are worried it will collapse. pic.twitter.com/Y3ZsjJ96zj

— Respectable Lawyer (@RespectableLaw) March 18, 2019

Leave the oil in the ground, and this doesn’t happen…

The Fed has exacerbated America’s new housing bubble FT

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Some county treasurers have flouted Iowa gift law for years Bleeding Heartland

Corporations Are Co-Opting Right-To-Repair Wired

Brexit

What will it take to push May’s Brexit deal over the line FT. The arithmetic: “To overturn her 149-vote deficit, she would have to win over at least 75 MPs. The most plausible route starts with the DUP’s 10 MPs. If they backed her deal, then some 50 of the nearly 70 Tory Eurosceptics who voted against it last week may change sides. Then Mrs May would need a further 15 Labour MPs, in addition to the five Labour and former Labour MPs who backed her last week.”

Northern Ireland’s farmers urge DUP to back Brexit deal FT

Around 40 Tory Rebels Told Theresa May: We’ll Vote For Your Brexit Deal If You Quit Buzzfeed

Labour likely to back public vote on UK PM’s deal, says Corbyn Reuters

Brexit by July 1 unless UK votes in EU election: Document Politico

The Irish Backstop: Nothing has changed? It has actually (PDF) Lord Bew and Lord Trimble, Policy Exchange. Bew is a Professor of Irish Politics. Trimble is a former First Minister of Northern Ireland and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Well worth the clickthrough to read the entire PDF. Here is the final paragraph:

All of this suggests that a backstop that functions for more than a short period of time – and the DUP has indicated in Parliament that it could live with a short backstop – is likely to be an extremely unstable affair. If it does not negotiate a trade deal with the UK in the next year or so, the EU is also likely to become increasingly aware that the Protocol will give it nothing but grief as it gets sucked into the Northern Ireland quagmire. In this quagmire, the UK Government (which has the support of the majority of the population in Northern Ireland and which pays the subvention which subsidises the entire society), holds most of the cards.

Politico’s London Playbook calls their report “a ringing endorsement of the tweaks to the backstop agreed by Theresa May in Strasbourg this month.” Readers?

NORMAN LAMONT: History will never understand Tory MPs if they kill off Brexit Daily Mail

Brexit will mark the end of Britain’s role as a great power WaPo. Surely Suez did that?

Macron calls for ‘strong decisions’ after violent Yellow Jacket protests Politico

Among the Gilets Jaunes LRB

Syraqistan

Months after saying US will withdraw, now 1,000 troops in Syria to stay Jerusalem Post but US denies report it is leaving up to 1,000 troops in Syria Channel News Asia. And what about the mercs?

Saudi Crown Prince’s Brutal Drive to Crush Dissent Began Before Khashoggi NYT

A Palestinian Farmer Finds Dead Lambs in His Well. He Knows Who’s to Blame Haaretz

Algeria After Bouteflika Jacobin

North Korea

Investing in resource-rich North Korea seems like a good idea — but businesses find there’s a catch Los Angeles Times

Picking Up the Pieces After Hanoi Richard Haass, Project Syndicate

New Cold War

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How Russia Gets To Build Its Most Controversial Pipeline Riddle

Trump Transition

The Pentagon’s Bottomless Money Pit Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone. How are they gonna pay for it?

Government withholds 84-year-old woman’s social security, claims she owes thousands for college WISH-TV

737 Max

Flawed analysis, failed oversight: How Boeing, FAA certified the suspect 737 MAX flight control system Seattle Times

737 MAX disaster pushes Boeing into crisis mode Phys.org

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

All the Crime, All the Time: How Citizen Works NYT

Global Mass Surveillance And How Facebook’s Private Army Is Militarizing Our Data Forbes

More Than a Data Dump Harpers. Why Julian Assange deserves First Amendment protection.

Democrats in Disarray

Establishment Democrats Are Undermining Medicare for All Truthout. As I kept saying with my midterms worksheets, the liberal Democrat leadership’s #1 priority is to prevent #MedicareForAll, and to that end they shifted the center of gravity of the electeds against it. Now we see this strategy born out in falling sponsorship numbers.

Even a Vacuous Mueller Report Won’t End ‘Russiagate’ Stephen Cohen, The Nation. “[T]he Democrats and their media are now operating on the Liberty Valance principle: When the facts are murky or nonexistent, ‘print the legend‘.”

Venture capitalist Steve Case spreading funding to Middle America with “Rise of the Rest” CBS

Class Warfare

What’s Wrong with Contemporary Capitalism? Angus Deaton, Project Syndicate

Bill McGlashan’s firing exposes hypocrisy in impact investing Felix Salmon, Axios

The College Admissions Ring Tells Us How Much Schoolwork Is Worth New York Magazine

How Parents Are Robbing Their Children of Adulthood NYT

‘Filth, mold, abuse’: report condemns state of California homeless shelters Guardian

Wall Street Has Been Unscathed by MeToo. Until Now. NYT

What the Hell Actually Happens to Money You Put in A Flexible Spending Account? Splinter

‘Super bloom’ shutdown: Lake Elsinore shuts access after crowds descend on poppy fields Los Angeles Times. “Desperate for social media attention, some visitors have trampled through the orange poppy fields, despite official signs warning against doing so.” Thanks, influencers!

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.

This entry was posted in Guest Post, Links on March 18, 2019 by Lambert Strether.

About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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Source: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/03/links-3-18-19.html

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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polixy · 4 years ago

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How people in 14 countries view the state of the world in 2020

How people in 14 countries view the state of the world in 2020;

2020 has been a year unlike any in recent memory. And a survey conducted by Pew Research Center in 14 countries over the summer – as the coronavirus outbreak spread around the globe – tells us much about people’s thoughts and concerns amid the pandemic. Here are some highlights from the survey, including how people see their own country’s response to the virus and how they view the economic and political implications of COVID-19.

The coronavirus has changed everyday life for many around the world. A median of 58% of adults across the surveyed countries say their life has changed a fair amount or a great deal due to the outbreak.

In most countries, people give their governments high marks when it comes to responding to the virus. A median of 73% across the surveyed nations say their country has done a good job, with people in Denmark, Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and South Korea especially positive. However, fewer than half of adults in the United States (47%) and United Kingdom (46%) say the same.

There is less consensus on whether the pandemic has brought people together or created divisions. A median of only 46% say their country is now more united than before the outbreak. This includes only 18% of Americans, by far the lowest share in any surveyed country.

People in other countries see the U.S. response to the pandemic negatively. A 13-country median of just 15% say the U.S. has done a good job of dealing with the outbreak. By contrast, half or more of adults in nearly all 13 countries rate the World Health Organization and European Union favorably on their coronavirus response. Relatively few think China has handled the pandemic well, although it still receives considerably better reviews than the U.S. in most countries.

In the U.S., views of China have continued to sour amid the pandemic. Around eight-in-ten Americans (78%) say the Chinese government’s initial handling of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan is at least a fair amount to blame for the global spread of the virus. Half of Americans say the U.S. should hold China accountable for its role in the outbreak, even if it means worsening bilateral relations.

A clear majority of Americans (73%) also say the U.S. should try to promote human rights in China, at the expense of bilateral economic relations. The same percentage (73%) holds an unfavorable view of China, a 15-year high.

Many people believe the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak could have been mitigated in their country with more international cooperation. A median of 59% across the surveyed countries say this, including a 58% majority in the U.S.

However, nearly eight-in-ten in Denmark (78%) express skepticism that more international cooperation would have led to fewer coronavirus cases in their country. Clear majorities in Australia (59%) and Germany (56%) say the same. In these same countries, roughly nine-in-ten or more say their own government handled the coronavirus outbreak well.

People in most surveyed nations embrace cooperation with other countries when dealing with major international issues. A median of 58% say their country should take other countries’ interests into account when dealing with major international issues, even if it means making compromises. Majorities hold this view in 10 of 14 countries polled.

Views are more divided in Italy and Denmark. And in Australia and Japan, half of adults or more say their nation should follow its own interests, even when other countries strongly disagree.

These findings are in line with a pre-coronavirus Pew Research Center survey conducted in 12 of the same 14 countries in 2019. That survey showed robust public support for the idea of nations cooperating, rather than competing, on the world stage.

A median of 81% across 12 countries supported nation-states acting as members of a global community that works together to solve problems, while 17% said countries should act as independent nations that compete with others and pursue their own interests, the 2019 survey found.

Despite the pandemic, many Europeans see global climate change as the greatest threat to their country. This is the case in countries including France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The spread of infectious disease is the top concern in South Korea, Japan, the U.S. and the UK. And in two countries, Australia and Denmark, cyberattacks from abroad are seen as the greatest threat. People in the surveyed countries are less concerned with the threat of global poverty, conflicts between nations or ethnic groups, or mass migration.

The share of people with a positive view of the economy has fallen sharply over the past year in all countries surveyed in 2019 and 2020. And in most countries surveyed both this year and during the last major economic downturn, views of current economic conditions are at or below where they were at the start of the Great Recession.

Relatively few people in the surveyed countries believe things will get better in the next year. A median of 46% expect economic conditions to worsen in their country over the next 12 months, while 35% think the economic situation in their country will improve and 19% think it will stay the same.

People in many nations name China, not the U.S., as the world’s leading economic power. A median of 48% across the surveyed countries say this, while 34% say the U.S. is the global economic leader.

South Korea and Japan – the two nations geographically closest to China among those surveyed – are the only countries where the U.S. is the most common choice for the leading economic power.

Overall, ratings have not changed significantly in most countries since 2019, despite drastic economic challenges spurred by the coronavirus pandemic.

Views of the U.S. have declined in many countries over the past year. Positive views of the U.S. are at or near an all-time low in most countries for which trends are available. Three exceptions are South Korea, Italy and Spain, where people viewed the U.S. more negatively in 2003 – before the start of the Iraq War – than they currently do.

Men, those on the ideological right and European supporters of right-wing populist parties tend to have more favorable views of the U.S. than other people surveyed. (Those on the right generally viewed the U.S. more favorably than those on the left even during President Barack Obama’s tenure.)

President Donald Trump is generally seen more negatively than other major world leaders, with a median of 83% expressing no confidence in him on world affairs.

Out of the six leaders included in the survey, German Chancellor Angela Merkel receives the highest marks, followed by French President Emmanuel Macron. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gets mixed reviews, while ratings for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are overwhelmingly negative.

The leader with the most negative ratings, however, is Trump. Only 16% across the surveyed nations express confidence in him as he seeks reelection.

Jacob Poushter is an associate director focusing on global attitudes at Pew Research Center.

J.J. Moncus is a research assistant focusing on global attitudes research at Pew Research Center.

; Blog (Fact Tank) – Pew Research Center; https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/23/how-people-in-14-countries-view-the-state-of-the-world-in-2020/; https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/FT_20.09.22_GlobalStateofWorld_feature.png?w=1200&h=628&crop=1; September 23, 2020 at 01:05PM

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newssplashy · 6 years ago

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World: Amid the Trumpian chaos, Europe sees a strategy: Divide and conquer

More important, for the long term, they have begun to believe that underneath the presidential narcissism, sarcasm and bluster there is a strategy.

But Trump’s European tour has still rattled many on the Continent and in Britain, who have watched from a distance the chaos he creates on a daily basis in the United States but had not been directly exposed to it until this week.

More important, for the long term, they have begun to believe that underneath the presidential narcissism, sarcasm and bluster there is a strategy: to undercut European solidarity in NATO and the European Union so the United States can exercise its economic and military power to shape relations with individual countries, just as China and Russia seek to do.

The atmospherics have been awful. Trump happily broke protocol at NATO and in Britain, skipping appointments with other leaders, forcing changes in the agenda, scolding other leaders, calling an early news conference to get onto morning television programs in the United States, making unfounded claims about agreements and giving an interview to the British mass-market tabloid The Sun that deeply embarrassed his host, Prime Minister Theresa May.

But Europeans are now convinced that Trump has an agenda that is inimical to their interests, said François Heisbourg, a French political analyst. “Europeans realize that he’s not just a temperamental child, but that he wants to dismantle the multilateral order created 70 years ago that he believes limits American power.”

European leaders had already taken into account the disrupter Trump, said Tomas Valasek, director of Carnegie Europe, a foreign policy think tank. “We’re not in the dark about him, but we’ve never dealt with this sort of political animal before,” Valasek said. “This is a new ballgame and we’re learning how to play it. We’re not necessarily more effective, but we’re getting wiser."

Different leaders have tried different strategies with Trump, from the “buddy-buddy” approach of President Emmanuel Macron of France and May, to the cooler attitude of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. “But we found that none of this matters,” Valasek said. “He’ll treat you like a competitor one way or another. He wants to pit countries against one another and use U.S. power and wealth against the others for his advantage.”

The frustration sometimes comes out in meetings. At the NATO meeting, for instance, Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen of Denmark told Trump that Danes had suffered as many casualties per capita as the United States had in Afghanistan, and that blood mattered more than money.

“In direct and clear speech, I have made it clear to him that Denmark’s contribution cannot be measured in money,” Rasmussen said afterward.

The personal distaste could also be measured in body language, when European leaders made little effort to engage with Trump, chatting to one another while Trump walked along with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a semiauthoritarian outsider.

“Trump is becoming politically toxic in Western Europe,” Valasek said. “No one wants to be seen smiling with him after being berated on Twitter. Even more, Trump’s insults and his unpopularity among European voters make it harder for European leaders to do what he wants them to do, like increase military spending, even when they think they should do it.”

After Trump split with the Europeans on issues like climate change and the Iran nuclear deal, Valasek said, “leaders don’t want to be associated with anything he wants; it’s the kiss of death.”

They are also fearful of his populism, his support for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, or Brexit, and his affinity with their political adversaries, who share his nationalist, anti-immigration message.

Yet, Europe faces a dilemma with Trump, as Sigmar Gabriel, the former German foreign minister, said in an interview with Der Spiegel. “The truth is, we can’t get along with Trump and we can’t get along without the U.S.,” Gabriel said. “We therefore need a dual strategy: clear, hard and, above all, common European answers to Trump. Any attempt to accommodate him, any appraisal only leads him to go a step further. This must be over. From trade to NATO.”

He continued: “We cannot delude ourselves anymore. Donald Trump only knows strength. So we have to show him that we are strong.”

How to do that, however, is less clear, since Europe’s security dependence on the United States is both obvious and will not change soon, despite European talk of more money for a joint European defense.

The problem is visible not just in Germany but in Spain, distant from Russia. Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s new Socialist prime minister, outraged the leftist lawmakers who helped put him in office when he pledged to raise his country’s military spending to 2 percent from the current 0.9 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

John C. Kornblum, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany who still lives there, said “the real problem is that postwar Europe seems not to have regained a sense of purpose and direction.”

“It cannot formulate self-confident and achievable goals,” Kornblum continued, “and above all seems unable to stand up for itself against the criminals of the world” — including former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s and President Vladimir Putin of Russia now.

The European nations’ great accomplishments — Continental peace and social welfare — have led them “to become self-righteous in their pride about them, but in reality these steps forward were only possible within an American bubble,” Kornblum said.

And now Trump has called them out on it and “spoken the unspeakable,” Kornblum said, and it is both unwelcome and uncomfortable.

If nothing else, Trump’s apparent willingness to turn over the table has gotten the attention of Western allies, creating a sense of urgency to meet the spending goals, and not everyone drew back in alarm.

The French newspaper Le Monde, for example, was relaxed. “Once again, Donald Trump brought on the show, but the damage was limited,” the newspaper said. “The NATO summit, which threatened to become a psychodrama because of the American president’s caprices, wound up reinforcing the alliance. The Europeans are ready to pay more for their defense, and the U.S. reaffirmed its military commitment to its historic allies.”

But the big question is whether any amount of spending would actually satisfy Trump, or whether his real attempt is to divide NATO and the European Union, both Heisbourg and Valasek said. Trump mixes his threats about more trade tariffs if the European Union does not come to better terms with his threat to withhold security from those same countries.

Of course, Trump also uses and misuses the figures he chooses. He often says that the United States pays for 90 percent of NATO, or sometimes he says 70 percent, when the latter figure is really about 67 percent, and includes the percentage of global military spending.

In fact, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, of the $603 billion the United States spends on defense, only about $31 billion goes to Europe. That number is increasing. But the European countries of NATO are spending about $239 billion and rising, even if their spending is not very efficient or coordinated.

Similarly, Trump likes to cite a $151 billion trade deficit with the European Union. But that figure is for goods only — not for services, which represent nearly 80 percent of the economy, where the United States has a small trade surplus with Europe.

For Heisbourg, Trump the businessman is simply “monetizing American power.” As Trump recently said, he regarded the European Union “possibly as bad as China, just smaller.” He sees Germany as dominating the bloc, and Germany, for which he has a special animus, as “the weak link in an organization vulnerable to linkage between trade and security,” Heisbourg said.

The same is true of Trump’s support of Brexit, on display again Friday in Britain. Trump’s view is that “if you have a soft Brexit and stick with the European Union too closely, it doesn’t work for me, so goodbye, you’re on your own,” said Pierre Vimont, a former French ambassador to Washington. “For Trump there are no allies and no enemies, just partners or not, and the U.S. will deal with them separately. And the Europeans have no key to answer this new U.S. foreign policy.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/07/world-amid-trumpian-chaos-europe-sees_14.html

#News

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studentofrhetoric-blog · 8 years ago

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Part 1, Tuesday, April 25th, 2017

International News:

--- "Turkey's military said it killed around 70 militants in operations on Tuesday in Iraq's Sinjar and northern Syria, as it stepped up a campaign against groups affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The military made the announcement in an official statement. Differences over Syria policy have caused friction between the United States and Ankara. Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters, part of a militia backed by Washington in the fight against Islamic State in Syria, to be a terrorist organization."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-turkey-iraq-military-idUSKBN17R27Z?il=0

--- "A man was shot dead on Tuesday at a political demonstration in Venezuela's western state of Lara, bringing to 26 the number of deaths since protests against the socialist government began a month ago. The state prosecutor's office said Orlando Medina, 23, died immediately from a gunshot to the head on a street in the town of El Tocuyo in the early hours during a protest. In a month of chaos since Venezuela's opposition began protests against President Nicolas Maduro, 15 people have died in violence around demonstrations and 11 others in night-time lootings, the state prosecutor's office said. Political activists and Venezuelan media have reported more deaths, but those have not been confirmed. With near-daily demonstrations by both opponents and supporters of Maduro, there have been fatalities on both sides, as well as one National Guard sergeant killed during a protest. The prosecutor's office did not specify the political allegiance of Tuesday's victim, though media in Lara said he was an opposition sympathizer. "Any death hurts, government or opposition," chief state prosecutor Luisa Ortega said in a speech. He said that four fatalities were adolescents and 437 people had also been injured...Nearly 1,500 people have been arrested, with 801 still detained as of Tuesday, rights group Penal Forum said."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-idUSKBN17R1VR?il=0

--- "Two foundations tied to Germany’s ruling coalition parties were attacked by the same cyber spy group that targeted the campaign of French presidential favorite Emmanuel Macron, a leading cyber security expert said on Tuesday. The group, dubbed "Pawn Storm" by security firm Trend Micro, used email phishing tricks and attempted to install malware at think tanks tied to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Feike Hacquebord said. Hacquebord and other experts said the attacks, which took place in March and April, suggest Pawn Storm is seeking to influence the national elections in the two European Union powerhouses. "I am not sure whether those foundations are the actual target. It could be that they used it as a stepping stone to target, for example, the CDU or the SPD," Hacquebord said. The mysterious cyber spying group, also known as Fancy Bear and APT 28, was behind data breaches of U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Merkel’s party last year, Hacquebord said. Other security experts and former U.S. government officials link it to the Russian military intelligence directorate GRU. Hacquebord and Trend Micro have stopped short of making that connection. Russia has denied any involvement in the cyber attacks."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-cyber-idUSKBN17R273?il=0

--- "Iran's supreme leader called on presidential candidates on Tuesday to champion economic self-sufficiency, further distancing himself from Hassan Rouhani's policy of opening to the West and seeking foreign investment. Allies of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who aim to reclaim the presidency for their hardline faction, hope voters will punish the pragmatist President Rouhani for the slow pace of economic recovery despite the lifting of sanctions under a nuclear deal, the hallmark of his first term. "The candidates should promise to focus on national capabilities and domestic capacities to resolve the economic issues ... rather than looking abroad," Khamenei was quoted as saying by state TV as saying on Monday. Rouhani's main hardline rival in the May 19 election, influential cleric Ebrahim Raisi, has promised to create over 1.5 million jobs a year if elected. Another candidate, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, has promised to create 5 million jobs per year. "We should bring manufacturing enterprises back to production ... and for this we do not need to look to foreigners," Raisi, a close ally of Khamenei, said in the city of Birjand."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-election-khamenei-idUSKBN17R1V7?il=0

--- "Pope Francis made a surprise appearance at a TED talk conference on Tuesday, urging powerful leaders "to act humbly" and said he hoped technological innovation would not leave people behind. The 18-minute video was filmed in Vatican City and broadcast to the audience at the annual TED 2017 conference in Vancouver. "The more powerful you are, the more your actions will have an impact on people, the more responsible you are to act humbly," said the pontiff, while seated at a desk. "If you don't, your power will ruin you, and you will ruin the other." The comments echoed Francis' frequent themes to not ignore the plight of immigrants, the poor and other vulnerable people. Speaking in Italian with subtitles, Francis urged solidarity to overcome a "culture of waste" that had affected not only food but people cast aside by economic systems that rely increasingly on automation."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-canada-tedtalk-idUSKBN17S08Z?il=0

--- "The U.S. military started moving parts of its controversial THAAD anti-missile defense system to a deployment site in South Korea on Wednesday amid high tensions over North Korea's missile and nuclear programs. The earlier-than-expected move prompted protests by hundreds of local residents and was denounced by the frontrunner in South Korea's presidential election on May 9. A spokesman for Moon Jae-in said the decision "ignored public opinion and due process" and demanded the deployment be suspended until the next administration was in place and had made its policy decision. The United States and South Korea last year agreed to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to counter the threat of missile launches by North Korea. However the move has angered China, which says the advanced system will do little to deter the North while destabilizing the regional security balance. South Korea's defense ministry said some elements of THAAD were moved to the site on what had been a golf course in the south of the country. "South Korea and the United States have been working to secure an early operational capability of the THAAD system in response to North Korea's advancing nuclear and missile threat," the ministry said in a statement. The battery is expected to be operational by the end of the year, it added."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-usa-thaad-idUSKBN17R2VA?il=0

Domestic & International News:

--- "A Chinese court on Tuesday sentenced a U.S. citizen to three-years and six-months in prison for espionage but then ordered she be deported, her lawyer said, in a case that has added to U.S.-China tension. Sandy Phan-Gillis, who has Chinese ancestry and is a naturalized U.S. citizen, was arrested in March 2015 while about to leave mainland China for the Chinese-ruled, former Portuguese colony of Macau, and had been held without charges since then. She had plead guilty during a trial in the southwestern city of Nanning and was not planning to appeal, lawyer Shang Baojun told Reuters. "She will probably be exported to the U.S. soon, but we do not know the exact date yet," Shang said, adding that she was being held in a police station in the meantime."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-usa-rights-idUSKBN17R1LV?il=0

--- "Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn likely broke the law by failing to get permission to be paid for a trip to Russia in 2015, the leaders of a House of Representatives committee said on Tuesday. During the visit, Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who advised Donald Trump's presidential campaign, dined with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "General Flynn had a duty and an obligation to seek and obtain permission to receive money from foreign governments," Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told reporters. "It does not appear to us that that was ever sought, nor did he ever get that permission." The oversight panel is looking into whether Flynn fully disclosed payments from Russian, Turkish or other foreign sources...Representative Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the oversight panel, said it also appeared as if Flynn had not fully disclosed the payments after the fact as required, saying a failure to do so would be a felony."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-flynn-idUSKBN17R2B0?il=0

--- "Mexico's government on Tuesday said it would fight any measures in a U.S. tax overhaul that broke international trade rules, and threatened to review cross-border cooperation on migration and security if upcoming negotiations founder. Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said Mexico was watching to see if plans by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to shake up taxation included a levy on remittances sent home by Mexican workers or the imposition of tariffs on Mexican goods. "If they are put forward, we'll have to act with absolute firmness, using all the political, diplomatic and obviously legal means at our disposal," he told a session of the foreign relations committee of the lower house of Congress."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-politics-idUSKBN17R2CD?il=0

Domestic News:

--- "The threat of a U.S. government shutdown this weekend appeared to recede on Tuesday after President Donald Trump backed away from a demand that Congress include funding for his planned border wall with Mexico in a spending bill. In remarks to conservative news media outlets that were confirmed by the White House, Trump said on Monday evening he may wait until Republicans begin drafting the budget blueprint for the fiscal year that starts on Oct. 1 to seek funds for the wall. Trump's fellow Republicans control both chambers of Congress but the current funding bill, which has to be passed by Friday night, will need 60 votes to clear the 100-member Senate, where Republicans hold 52 seats and so will have to get some Democratic support. Democratic leaders had said it would not get it if funds for the wall were included. The news about Trump's comments helped fuel a rise in U.S. Treasury debt yields. Even if the fight over wall funding is over, Republicans and Democrats still have some difficult issues to resolve over the next day or two. With his demand for the inclusion of wall funding, Trump had been running the risk of being blamed by Democrats for a partial shutdown of the government that would start on Saturday. The president, whose approval ratings have slid since he took office, will be marking 100 days in the job on that day."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-budget-idUSKBN17R27T?il=0

--- "Two former U.S. officials, intelligence director James Clapper and deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, will testify next month in a Senate investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Senate Judiciary Committee said on Tuesday. Four congressional committees are investigating the issue after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered hacking of the Democratic political groups to try to sway the election toward Republican Donald Trump. Moscow has denied any such meddling. Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, and Yates, the former deputy attorney general, will testify on May 8 before the subcommittee on crime and terrorism, Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley said in a statement."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN17R1JQ?il=0

--- "The Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday approved President Donald Trump's choice for U.S. Trade Representative, bringing Robert Lighthizer a step closer to taking office as U.S. trade disputes with Canada and Mexico heat up. The panel also voted to approve a legal waiver for Lighthizer from a 1995 law that prohibits people who did work on behalf of foreign governments from serving as the top U.S. trade negotiator. Lighthizer did work on behalf of the Brazilian agriculture agency in the late 1980s and assisted a colleague with work for a Chinese electronics industry group in 1991. Lighthizer's nomination now moves to the full U.S. Senate for approval. If confirmed, he will represent the Trump administration in its planned renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The U.S. Commerce Department on Monday announced 20 percent anti-subsidy duties on Canadian softwood lumber imports amid a long-running unresolved trade dispute between the United States and its second-largest trade partner."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-lighthizer-idUSKBN17R20S?il=0

--- "More than a dozen state prosecutors urged President Donald Trump in a letter on Tuesday not to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, which commits the United States, along with 200 other countries, to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in an attempt to slow global warming. With the letter, attorneys general from 12 states as well as the District of Columbia and American Samoa have joined a chorus of voices, including major fossil fuel energy companies as well as environmental advocates, condemning the idea of exiting the agreement, which the Republican president has criticized in the past. "Climate change, if left unchecked, will lead to global environmental dislocation and disaster on a scale we likely cannot imagine," the prosecutors wrote, urging the president to "maintain and reconfirm the United States' commitment to this groundbreaking agreement."...Tuesday's letter was signed by top prosecutors from Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-environment-paris-accord-idUSKBN17R2RU?il=0

--- "U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday will order a review of national monuments created over the past 20 years with an aim toward rescinding or resizing some of them - part of a broader push to reopen areas to drilling, mining and other development. The move comes as Trump seeks to reverse a slew of environmental protections ushered in by former President Barack Obama that he said were hobbling economic growth - an agenda that is cheering industry but enraging conservationists. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told reporters on Tuesday Trump's executive order would require him to conduct the review of around 30 national monuments and recommend which designations should be lifted or resized over the coming months. He said he would seek feedback from Congressional delegations, governors and local stakeholders before making his recommendations. "I am not going to predispose what the outcome is going to be," Zinke said. Rescinding or altering a national monument designation would be new ground for the government, he said. "It is untested, as you know, whether the president can do that," Zinke said. The monuments covered by the review will range from the Grand Staircase in Utah created by President Bill Clinton in 1996 to the Bears Ears monuments created by President Barack Obama in December 2016 in the same state, covering millions of acres of land overlying minerals, oil and gas."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-interior-monuments-idUSKBN17S03N?il=0

--- "U.S. President Donald Trump will not agree to a Democratic demand that subsidies for Obamacare be included in a must-pass spending bill in Congress, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said on Tuesday. Asked in an interview on CNN if Trump would back putting the Obamacare payments in the legislation to the keep the government open past Friday, Mulvaney said: "No." He said the White House had offered to include the Obamacare subsidies if Democrats agreed to funding for a wall on the border with Mexico. "We made it very clear early on that yeah, OK if you want to talk about those payments to the insurance companies, we'll trade you a dollar for dollar on bricks and mortar for the wall, but they said no to that and we agreed to put that off for another day ...," he said."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-budget-obamacare-idUSKBN17S05Z?il=0

--- "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai on Tuesday said the top U.S. telecommunications regulator will launch a "comprehensive review" of regulations that restrict consolidation among media companies, potentially opening the door to a new wave of deals among broadcasters and newspapers. At a speech to broadcasters in Las Vegas, the FCC chief said the commission will vote on May 18 to start the review. He noted that close to 1,000 pages of media regulations are on the books. He vowed to "aggressively" modernize the FCC’s rules and "cut unnecessary red tape and give broadcasters more flexibility." He said the review will include revising the government's' media ownership rules, "including one dating back to 1975," adding that the review will cover rules pertaining to traditional broadcasters, newspapers and cable and satellite carriers. Pai said the ownership review will be a "much more fact-based discussion." Revising or ending a cross-ownership ban could be a big win for newspaper companies and broadcasters. Many Democrats strongly oppose relaxing the rules, saying it would lead to major companies controlling a growing number of media outlets."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fcc-media-idUSKBN17R2W7?il=0

--- "U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Tuesday that trade disputes with Canada over lumber and dairy products illustrate a need to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Asked at a White House news briefing if he thought the disputes showed a need to rework NAFTA, he said, "I think it does because ... if NAFTA were functioning properly, you wouldn't be having these kinds of ... very unfortunate developments back-to-back, so in that sense it shows that NAFTA has not worked as well as it should."Ross said imposition of anti-subsidy duties on Canadian softwood lumber imports announced on Monday would raise the costs of new U.S. houses by a small amount."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-canada-trade-ross-idUSKBN17R2J0?il=0

--- "The U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue as secretary of agriculture, leaving all but one of President Donald Trump's Cabinet positions filled. Lawmakers voted 87 to 11 in favor of Perdue, who takes office as the agricultural community grapples with the key issues of trade and immigration. The nomination earlier passed the Senate Agriculture Committee with only one vote in opposition, although some Midwestern senators raised concerns that Perdue was not from a major agricultural production stay. Trump nominated Perdue, 70, in January but progress on his confirmation was slow, with media reports suggesting that undoing his various business entanglements caused delays in the ethics filings. Trade is seen as critical to reviving a moribund farm economy, where incomes have been falling with lower grain prices. Farm incomes in 2016 are expected to have hit their lowest levels since 2009." Perdue did not file his disclosure forms until mid-March, and the Senate panel backed him later that month."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-perdue-idUSKBN17Q2BS?il=0

--- "The United States on Tuesday expressed "deep concern" over Turkish air strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq and said they were not authorized by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.The raids in Iraq's Sinjar region and northeast Syria killed at least 20 in a campaign against groups linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against Turkey for Kurdish autonomy. Turkey is part of the U.S.-led military coalition fighting militants in Syria."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-turkey-usa-idUSKBN17R2H2?il=0

#international affairs #domestic affairs #source: reuters

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newssplashy · 6 years ago

Link

More important, for the long term, they have begun to believe that underneath the presidential narcissism, sarcasm and bluster there is a strategy.

“In direct and clear speech, I have made it clear to him that Denmark’s contribution cannot be measured in money,” Rasmussen said afterward.

He continued: “We cannot delude ourselves anymore. Donald Trump only knows strength. So we have to show him that we are strong.”

John C. Kornblum, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany who still lives there, said “the real problem is that postwar Europe seems not to have regained a sense of purpose and direction.”

And now Trump has called them out on it and “spoken the unspeakable,” Kornblum said, and it is both unwelcome and uncomfortable.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

via World News In A Splash

#IFTTT #World News In A Splash

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newssplashy · 6 years ago

Text

World: Amid the Trumpian chaos, Europe sees a strategy: Divide and conquer

More important, for the long term, they have begun to believe that underneath the presidential narcissism, sarcasm and bluster there is a strategy.

“In direct and clear speech, I have made it clear to him that Denmark’s contribution cannot be measured in money,” Rasmussen said afterward.

He continued: “We cannot delude ourselves anymore. Donald Trump only knows strength. So we have to show him that we are strong.”

John C. Kornblum, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany who still lives there, said “the real problem is that postwar Europe seems not to have regained a sense of purpose and direction.”

And now Trump has called them out on it and “spoken the unspeakable,” Kornblum said, and it is both unwelcome and uncomfortable.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/07/world-amid-trumpian-chaos-europe-sees.html

#News

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newssplashy · 6 years ago

Link

More important, for the long term, they have begun to believe that underneath the presidential narcissism, sarcasm and bluster there is a strategy.

“In direct and clear speech, I have made it clear to him that Denmark’s contribution cannot be measured in money,” Rasmussen said afterward.

He continued: “We cannot delude ourselves anymore. Donald Trump only knows strength. So we have to show him that we are strong.”

John C. Kornblum, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany who still lives there, said “the real problem is that postwar Europe seems not to have regained a sense of purpose and direction.”

And now Trump has called them out on it and “spoken the unspeakable,” Kornblum said, and it is both unwelcome and uncomfortable.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

via World News In A Splash

#IFTTT #World News In A Splash

0 notes