Agrégateur de flux

Avis au titre de l'article 218, paragraphe 11, TFUE
Droit institutionnel
Le traité de Marrakech sur l’accès des déficients visuels aux œuvres publiées peut être conclu par l’Union seule

Avis au titre de l'article 218, paragraphe 11, TFUE
Institutionelles Recht
Der Vertrag von Marrakesch über den Zugang zu veröffentlichten Werken für Sehbehinderte kann von der Union allein abgeschlossen werden

Avis au titre de l'article 218, paragraphe 11, TFUE
Law governing the institutions
The EU, acting on its own, may conclude the Marrakesh Treaty on access to published works for persons who are visually impaired

Avis au titre de l'article 218, paragraphe 11, TFUE
Intézményi jog
The EU, acting on its own, may conclude the Marrakesh Treaty on access to published works for persons who are visually impaired

Refugees are often used as scapegoats, but the success stories of Germany’s refugees paint a very different picture.

Angela Merkel has come under fire from many directions for her so-called ’open door‘ refugee policy. But apart from the usual suspects – domestic and foreign right-wing politicians, groups and parties – criticism has come from moderates as well.

Merkel is by no means an infallible stateswoman. She doesn’t get it right all the time. But her decision to allow more than one million refugees into Germany when others refused to take them is up there with greatest humanitarian acts in history. So how is it possible that it has made her life so difficult? And will it cost her a fourth term as German chancellor?

Those who oppose her may argue that she should not have made that decision so unilaterally; that more than a million is too many; that the right thing to do is not always the right thing to do. Perhaps. But has the result been so catastrophic for Germany?

The pressures – economic and cultural – have been well documented. The success stories have been publicised, but not to the same degree. But these success stories are vital in forming public attitudes towards refugees.

Upon hearing of a country taking so many refugees, many people ask how they will be cared for, housed, fed, clothed and educated. And how much this will cost. But this question is often based on the assumption that these million refugees will be forever dependent on German taxpayers.

“Merkel’s decision to allow more than one million refugees into Germany is up there with greatest humanitarian acts in history”

Providing the refugees’ basic needs has indeed been a burden on the German taxpayer. But it is an investment in Germany’s future labour force. There are many highly-educated people among the refugees, bringing with them skills and experience that make them valuable human capital that can be readily absorbed by the German labour market.

To help bring this about, Germany has introduced legal measures requiring migrants to integrate into German society. These include the first-ever integration law, designed to make it easier for asylum-seekers to gain access to the German labour market. The German government has also promised to create 100,000 new working opportunities for asylum seekers.

According to a study by the Federal Employment Agency’s Institute for Employment Research, 50,000 refugees found work between September 2015 and September 2016. By September 2016, 30,000 were already earning enough to make them subject to social security contributions.

While these figures are still low, and statistics never tell the full story, they do show progress. The gloomy picture some like to paint is not accurate. With an ageing population and a marked labour shortage, Germany must do something if it wishes to remain Europe’s largest economy. This is not only a question of economics, but of geopolitics.

But it is often not big-picture statistics that shape public perceptions; rather the actions of individuals. There are many positive stories to tell.

Muhannad M., a Syrian refugee in the town of Minden, returned €150,000 that he found in a second-hand cupboard he had been given.

Yusra Mardini, a teenager who left Syria when her house was destroyed in the country’s civil war, swam for three hours in the Aegean Sea pushing a sinking dinghy to safety, saving the lives of nineteen people. Settling in Berlin, she swam for the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 Rio Games, winning the first heat of the women’s 100m butterfly. She is currently studying, working to change people’s perception of refugees and hopes to compete in Tokyo in 2020. Perhaps, one day, she will win a gold medal for Germany.

“It is often not big-picture statistics that shape public perceptions but the actions of individuals”

Taking in these refugees is a success in another sense too. Their gratitude to a country that helped them in their time of need will surely have a positive impact on how their friends and relatives in their home country view Germany and, by extension, the West. This comes at a time when positive bonds between the West and the Muslim world are more important than ever.

Of course the picture is not all rosy. Recent events have shown that Merkel’s policy also brings with it security risks and cultural challenges. Dismissing any anti-refugee argument as racism is not only over-simplistic but also a form of intolerance, as many people have legitimate concerns. Lessons of the past must be learned, integration given priority, and security services given the tools and resources they need.

Integrating Germany’s refugees will be challenging, it will cost money, and it will take a long time. In the shorter term, Merkel’s opponents will benefit from her refugee policy. But if the policy is properly managed, it is Germany that will benefit in the longer term.

And it is a policy that could cement Merkel’s legacy as one of Germany’s great leaders: one who looked ahead, beyond her own term of office – making her a rarity in the politics of today.

IMAGE CREDIT: Number 10

The post Behind the headlines, Merkel’s refugee policy is working for Germany appeared first on Europe’s World.

Albanie : réforme de la justice, cannabis et pataquès politique
Réforme de la justice en Albanie : trois élus limogés en raison de leur passé criminel
Albanie : au final, le Parlement plébiscite la réforme de la justice
Albanie : justice, intégration européenne, clientélisme
Albanie : démission surprise du ministre de la Justice
Albanie : l'interminable cavale du « Pablo Escobar des Balkans »
Comment le cannabis a subjugué l'Albanie et sa classe politique

/ Courrier des Balkans, Société, Défense, police et justice, Albanie

Albanie : réforme de la justice, cannabis et pataquès politique
Réforme de la justice en Albanie : trois élus limogés en raison de leur passé criminel
Albanie : au final, le Parlement plébiscite la réforme de la justice
Albanie : justice, intégration européenne, clientélisme
Albanie : démission surprise du ministre de la Justice
Albanie : l'interminable cavale du « Pablo Escobar des Balkans »
Comment le cannabis a subjugué l'Albanie et sa classe politique

/ Courrier des Balkans, Société, Défense, police et justice, Albanie

Controversy has been growing in Croatia as increasing numbers of doctors have been declining to carry out abortions, citing a law that allows them to refuse on moral or religious grounds.

To receive the Brussels Briefing in your inbox every morning, register for a free FT account here and then sign up here.

 

Read more

La sécheresse qui sévit en Afrique de l'est a fortement contribué à faire baisser les récoltes et à faire grimper les prix des produits alimentaires pour atteindre des niveaux inhabituellement élevés, a souligné mardi l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture (FAO).

Le Haut-Commissariat des Nations Unies aux droits de l'homme (HCDH) s'est dit préoccupé par le nombre élevé de décès signalés dans la province du Kasaï central, en République démocratique du Congo (RDC), qui, si cela est confirmé, suggère un usage excessif et disproportionné de la force par les soldats congolais.

Quatre mois jour pour jour après la signature de l'Accord de Conakry, qui visait à baliser le retour à la stabilité politique et institutionnelle en Guinée Bissau, l'impasse perdure dans ce pays d'Afrique de l'Ouest, a constaté mardi devant le Conseil de sécurité, le Représentant spécial du Secrétaire général, Modibo Ibrahim Touré.

It is 1967. What would become known as the Six Day War has begun and Menachem Begin, invited by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to join an expanded emergency cabinet, has an idea.

There is a meeting in the basement shelter of the Knesset and the news is announced that Jordan has decided to join Egypt and Syria in battle. Begin and Labor Minister Yigal Allon suggest that the reaction to Jordan's shelling of Israel should be the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem, lost in the 1948 War following a UN ceasefire. Begin urges quick action before a similar ceasefire again leave the city divided.

Moshe Dayan opposes the idea based on the human cost of expected house-to-house fighting in addition to the potential damage to Christian and Muslim holy places -- leading to a world-wide outcry against Israel and opposition to Israeli control over Christian and Muslim holy places. Instead, Dayan suggests it would be enough to just surround the Old City and wait for it to fall.


Allon responds that the Jordanian lines were crumbling and Israel could go in. More to the point, it is essential for there to be a Jewish presence both deep within the Old City and on the Temple Mount itself.

In the end, a 4am news report from the BBC that the UN is planning to declare a ceasefire leads to another meeting where it is agreed to recapture the Old City. [Source: The Prime Minsters, by Yehuda Avner, p157-9]

The rest is history.

---
The issues then have not changed over the years when discussing the step of moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The Israeli reaction has.

The question of Congressional legislation to move the embassy came up during the 1984 presidential campaign. Democrats Walter Mondale and Gary Hart both came out in favor of the bill introduced by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynnihan, while President Reagen threatened to veto such a bill.

The response of an Israeli Foreign Ministry official at the time was less warm: "I'm very leery of trying to tread on a Congressional debate and an argument between the President and Congress, a constitutional problem of who runs foreign policy."

A decade later, in May 1995, news about what would become enacted that November as the Jerusalem Embassy Act, did not excite Israelis either. Prime Minister Rabin, suggested the Likud was behind it with the aim of "torpedoing" peace negotiations. Foreign Minister Peres tried to distance Israel from the bill, saying there was "no need for our involvement."

Fast-forward to today. During his presidential campaign, Trump made a point of talking about moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

And now he is the President.
Again, it is not so simple.

Moshe Feiglin, founder and chairman of the Zehut party, was interviewed the day after the elections -- and he predicted that once moving the embassy became a very real possibility, Netanyahu would not be any more enthusiastic or outspoken than past Israeli officials. See the video below, starting at 1:03:




Events seem to justify Feiglin's pessimism.

This past Friday, Marc Zell, chairman of Republicans overseas Israel indicated that the Israeli government did in fact have cold feet:

Jerusalem Embassy delay not due to #Trump. Sadly Israeli government is dragging feet. Time to grow a backbonehttps://t.co/r6JMcKH4ub— Marc Zell (@GOPIsrael) January 27, 2017He followed up on his criticism the following day:

Now if Bibi @netanyahu would only give the green light to the Embassy move. That's also a Great Idea. https://t.co/mCN0fuYmiy— Marc Zell (@GOPIsrael) January 28, 2017Zell even went so far as to imply that once Israel indicated its approval, plans for the embassy move could proceed right away

As soon as the Israeli PM gives the green light https://t.co/qbewReVugz— Marc Zell (@GOPIsrael) January 28, 2017

But when Haaretz published an interview with him the same day:
The co-chair of the Republicans Overseas organization in Israel, Marc Zell, says that recent foot-dragging by Donald Trump's White House on moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, is happening at Israel’s request.

Zell told Haaretz, citing both Israeli and U.S. sources, that “Trump has been unequivocally in favor of moving the embassy and remains so” but “he is proceeding cautiously because of concerns raised by Israeli officials.”...Zell used Twitter again -- this time to walk back what he said:
Well I didn't quite put it that way. However it would be a shame to miss this historic opportunity. https://t.co/E0B7m5O1Ve— Marc Zell (@GOPIsrael) January 28, 2017For his part, Netanyahu came out out Sunday with an apparent response to Zell:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced support on Sunday for moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem but mentioned no time frame, after a Republican activist accused Israel of pressing the Trump administration to delay the pledged step.Even in welcoming the idea, Netanyahu appears cautious.

Now as in 1967, a mix of of the threat of Arab violence and world disapproval appears to be the issue.

Back then, there was no time to delay, as the threat of a missed opportunity was very real. Then again, who today is as blunt and influencial as Menachem Begin?

The question is how much time does Israel really have to take Trump up on his offer, before he too decides to put the offer on the back burner or take it off the table altogether.

After all, at heart -- Trump is a businessman, and even now, Trump appears more wary about the idea

-----
If you found this post interesting or informative, please it below. Thanks!

Technorati Tag: Israel and Donald Trump and Jerusalem and Netanyahu.

In our series of letters from African journalists, Sudanese columnist Yousra Elbagir explains what it is like to live in a country subject to US sanctions.

The US Navy's George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group (GHWBCSG) has commenced strike missions in Iraq and Syria in support of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR).

BAE Systems has officially named its new floating dry dock at its San Diego shipyard in the US, as part of a wider effort to enhance its naval ship repair capabilities.

The US Navy's Independence-class littoral combat vessel USS Coronado (LCS 4) has successfully completed a seven-day voyage repair availability period in Singapore.

South Korean K11 Assault Rifle with Integrated Grenade Launcher

(Own report) - In the run-up to the Munich Security Conference this weekend, leading German foreign policy experts are calling on the EU to reposition itself on the world stage, replacing the United States as the West's "torchbearer." Since Washington's change of government, the United States no longer "qualifies as the symbol of the West's political and moral leadership," according to Wolfgang Ischinger, Chair of the Munich Security Conference. It is therefore up to Europe "to make up for this loss." Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold a programmatic speech at this weekend's conference, focusing on the future relationship between the EU and the USA. In anticipation of the looming power struggle, in the German capital, the EU is already being warned not to allow itself to be torn apart by outside rivals. Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Roth cautioned against "special deals" being made between individual EU countries and the new Trump administration. If there is sufficient coherence necessitating, for example, majority decisions in foreign policy, "we Europeans" could become an "impressive political and military power," Ischinger cajoled.

The amount of attention lone wolf terrorism has received over the last few years begs the question of whether or not specific types of lone wolves (and there are several) can be compared to a terrorism profile system based on statistical analysis of some characteristics.

The conclusion that no one type of lone wolf personality exists misses the mark because it asks the wrong question. Instead, sort out lone wolves into categories based on ideology, target type, age, business setting of attack, and socio-economic status. Next, perform statistical tests to find statistically significant and substantive relationships between those variables that are both theoretically valid and useful. Such efforts to craft a terrorist lone wolf profile portfolio is found in the empirical part of my new book Corporate Security Crossroads: Responding to Terrorism, Cyberthreats and other Hazards in the Global Business Environment.

To introduce this terrorism profile portfolio system, let’s compare two prominent lone-wolf terrorists: Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, who assaulted a gay discotheque in Orlando Florida in 2016, and Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) in Los Angeles in 1968 during California’s presidential primary.

The empirical testing identifies several statistically significant and substantive relationships between the variables (i.e. attributes) tested. I will discuss three sets of relationships in this article. In tests, Ideology, Target-Type, and Business-Type were dependent variables for the bivariate analysis performed and independent variables that represented other lone wolf terrorist attributes were regressed on those variables. The political ideology spectrum includes: (1) uber-leftist/anarchist, (2) Jewish extremist, (3) Islamist extremist, (4) solitary issue, (5) nationalist, and (6) uber-rightist lone wolves.

The first relationship or profile trait illuminated is Ideology-Age. The results suggest that a lone wolf’s political ideology has a weak to moderate but significant association with terrorist age. In other words, when the spectrum of lone-wolf terrorist political ideology is examined, the results suggest that lone wolf terrorists broken down by political ideology can be distinguished by age. At the same time, it should be noted for some perpetrators like Jared Lee Loughner who shot U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AR) and other “high profile” persons, ideology cannot be discerned because of a perpetrator’s psychopathy. In those cases, the political ideology category was left blank.

Omar Mateen was an Islamist extremist who carried out his Sig Sauer MCX rifle and pistol attack at the club when he was 30 years of age or below. That fits the profile of “Islamist extremist” lone wolves, primarily found in the United States, Western Europe, and Canada, who were mostly found to be thirty years old or younger. By contrast, Sirhan Sirhan was a “nationalist” lone wolf who murdered Senator Kennedy in the Ambassador Hotel with a “Saturday Night Special” Iver-Johnson .22 revolver in Los Angeles in 1968 when he was 24 years old. Even though the percentage of lone wolf “nationalists” who were 30 years old or younger is much lower than the percentage found for “Islamist extremist” lone wolves, Sirhan’s age is consistent with a significant number of lone wolf “nationalists” of that age.

The second relationship or profile trait found is Ideology-Business Setting, where a weak but statistically significant relationship is found. That data category is broken down into direct attacks against business, indirect business attacks where the primary target is not a business establishment, and attacks with no business involvement. Mateen’s assault against the Pulse discotheque was a direct attack on a business. While the majority of lone-wolf attacks did not focus on business targets, “Islamist” lone-wolves had a higher rate of such attacks than did other lone-wolf types considered. Still, what made this attack unusual is that “Islamist” lone wolves usually had comparatively little focus on commercial interests. At the same time, RFK’s murder by Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel is also somewhat unusual with the “nationalist” lone wolf profile for venue because the Ambassador Hotel was an indirect target of attack. The results suggest “nationalist” lone wolves did not carry out a high percentage of such indirect business attacks.

The third relationship profile trait is Ideology-Target Type. It is found that a statistically significant relationship that is weak in strength exists between those two variables. Omar Mateen’s attack against a civilian target is consistent with the substantial percentage of “Islamist” extremist lone wolf attacks against civilian targets—a rate larger than the percentage of those types of attacks against government targets. In contrast, Sirhan Sirhan assaulted a government target in Senator Robert Kennedy, which is consistent with two important findings about “nationalist” lone wolves. First, lone wolf “nationalists” had the highest percentage of government target attacks compared to other lone-wolf types. Second, lone wolf “nationalists” had the second highest percentage of attacks that involved “high profile” government targets after “uber-leftist/anarchist” lone wolves. For both of these lone wolves, one a nationalist and the other an uber-leftist/anarchist, it seems plausible the ideology types they represent would focus rage and similar sentiments against the reification of the cause or movement most hated.

There are several metrics that comprise this lone-wolf terrorist profile system—this article describes only three of those metrics. The first is its “Age-Ideology” metric that reflects the relationship between lone wolf age and political ideology. Omar Mateen and Sirhan Sirhan’s age profiles are consistent with its basic contours. The ages of both terrorists fit within the two categories of 30 years old or less or and over 30 years old; both categories capture the observations of age chronicled for the data set.

The “Ideology-Business Setting” metric is the second metric under consideration. Sirhan Sirhan’s attack on Senator Robert Kennedy in the Ambassador Hotel fits fairly well with the “Ideology-Business Setting” metric, reflecting the relationship between target-type and setting of attack. That is because while “nationalist” lone wolves have a notable rate of indirect attacks against commercial interests as their primary targets are singled out for attack, that rate is still low.

The Mateen case is also unusual because of his preference for a direct attack on a business target, which is rare for lone wolves in general, and only slightly more common for Islamist and uber-leftist anarchist lone-wolves. Still, the Matten case is consistent with the occasional interest Islamist lone wolves have in targeting businesses. It is possible this provides some evidence of what some scholars call the broad all-encompassing nature of the eschatological struggle between the West and Islamic extremists. However, this particular attack with narrow focus against the Pulse discotheque most likely reflected Mateen’s personal rage against homosexuals, a rage inextricably bound up with his own personal struggles.

Both Omar Mateen and Sirhan Sirhan’s personal profile are a good fit with the empirical findings that serve as the basis for the third metric, “Ideology-Target.” For Mateen, an attack against a civilian target like the Pulse discotheque is consistent with broader findings about lone-wolf Islamist preference for civilian targets, even though most civilian targets those types of lone wolves choose for direct attackdo not involve commercial interests.

In closing, it appears these two lone-wolves have personal characteristics that dovetail well with some of the basic characteristic parameters associated with political ideology this terrorist profile portfolio system establishes and describes. It is my hope that in the future, with richer data sets and additional testing, new relationships between variables will appear to give this basic framework additional depth, flexibility, and utility for counterterrorism policymakers.

The post Lone Wolf Terrorism: Beyond the Quest for Personality Type Congruence appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.