The European Political Newspaper

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“In October 2014, a few months after European Union sanctions had been decreed against Russia in reaction to the situation in Ukraine, we already thought that missing the Russian partner was a mistake both in a political context in Syria and on an economical level for our agriculture, and we would pay for it dearly,” the letter says, according to the Independent.

The author of the letter is the former Minister of Justice of France Rachida Dati, who was also supported by MPs from France, Italy and Germany. In their letter deputies remind that in July 2014, the EU sanctions were imposed against Alexander Bortnikov, Head of the FSB and Mikhail Fradkov, Director of FIS.

“The US has also imposed sanctions, mainly economic ones, to Russia, but they have never gone as far as jeopardising their security co-operation with the heads of the intelligence service. So, why are we putting so much effort into this, at the expense of our own security?” the letter says.

The MPs call for lifting the sanctions because the visa ban create additional risks during the fight with terrorism in Europe.

“The attacks in Paris and Brussels sadly reminded us that this co-operation is far from being optimal, even within the EU. If we continue to weaken our cooperation with Russia in this field, we are participating in putting our citizens in danger,” the letter says.

In December 2015, the EU prolonged economic sanctions against Russia over crisis in Ukraine. The sanctions include measures targeting sectorial and economic cooperation, asset freezes and visa bans on 149 individuals and 37 entities, who, according to the EU, were responsible for actions against Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

 

 

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There is little doubt over what Gibraltar will vote in the upcoming referendum on the U.K’s EU membership on June 23rd.

The only poll published in Gilbraltar suggests a turnout of 85% with more than 88% favoring EU membership. Locally, there is both motivation and strong opinions.

Local unions, business organizations, and civic groups openly support Remain. Their main concern is the free circulation of people and goods.

A big share of Gibraltar’s service force are Spaniards; the Rock depends on this workforce for nearly all labor-intensive services, including tourism, insurance, online gambling, ship bunkering, and financial services. Locals are also afraid of losing their thousands of daily visitors, who come to shop, gamble, simply visit, or for business.

In turn, Spanish workers fear their level of pay may decrease and their social security contributions may be compromised in the event of Brexit, Gibraltar Chronicle reports.

Spain’s foreign minister José Manuel García-Margallo has already made clear that the Spanish government will ask for shared sovereignty over Gibraltar if Brexit prevails, El Pais reports.

(Gibraltar Chronicle, El Pais)

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Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ Share on LinkedIn+var sbFBAPPID = '457641991045477';The volume of world defence market rose to $65 billion in 2015, surpassing the 2014 figures by more than 10%, the consulting company IHS Inc. said in its Global Defence Trade Report. HIS estimates it is one of the sharpest surges in the global arms trade in last 10 years, which is provoked by the increase in arms purchases by Saudi Arabia. During 2015, the total value of import of arms of the kingdom increased by 50%, reaching an estimated level of $9,3 billion. Furthermore, demand for weapons also increased in the Middle East and countries of the South-Eastern Asia.

 

The surge in weapon purchases by Saudi Arabia was provoked mainly by two factors: Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen, and confrontation with its regional rival Iran. In the past year, according to Bloomberg, the kingdom acquired Eurofighter Typhoon jets, F-15 warplanes and Apache helicopters, as well as precision-guided weapons, drones and surveillance equipment. However, analysts warn it will not it be a long-standing trend, as a drop in oil prices, which is unlikely to rise in the next three years, will push Saudi Arabia to cut back on procurements.

In February, the European Parliament has adopted a resolution calling for an EU-wide arms embargo against Saudi Arabia over its operation in Yemen, until alleged breaches of international humanitarian law in this war-torn country have been investigated.

At present, the top 5 largest arms importers, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, are India (14% of global arms imports), China (4,7%), Australia (3.6 per cent), Pakistan (3.3 per cent), Vietnam (2.9 per cent), whereas the five largest exporters in 2010–14 were the United States, Russia, China, Germany and France.

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“We offer our deepest condolences to the victims of the horrendous shooting in Florida on Saturday night. This was an attack on our freedom, it is an affront to what we stand for, to all our values,” stressed Mina Andreeva, deputy spokesperson of the European Commission while opening Monday’s midday press briefing in the Berlaymont building in Brussels.

“Today our thoughts are with the families of those who lost their loved ones and the EU will continue to promote and defend our shared values of equality and non-discrimination,” concludes Andreeva.

Previously, High Representative / Vice-President Federica Mogherini remarked on Sunday that the attack that claimed so many lives is “a tragedy not only for the American people, but for the whole world as all the massacres of people killed for their faith, for their sexual orientations, for their beliefs, in many countries are.”

“We stand together in solidarity with the people of America, and especially with the LGBTI community which this hateful terror attack targeted,” adds Mogherini, offering clear support to the LGBTI community on behalf of the EU. “As the European Union, we are committed to keep ensuring cooperation of our services on all levels, and standing proudly together. We share the same values of equality and non discrimination. And together we will continue to promote and defend those values.”

By these statements, the European Commission condemned Saturday’s Pulse Orlando nightclub attack when a gunman wielding an assault-type rifle opened fire, killing at least 50 people and wounding many. Since early Sunday, officials and public figures from across the world, are expressing condemnation and shock over the Florida mass shooting.

The shooter, Omar Mateen, 29, a US citizen of Afghan descent, was killed in an exchange of fire with the police after taking hostages at the club.

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With two weeks left before U.K’s referendum on EU membership polls are getting attention, but are hardly illuminating.

Two polls were published on Sunday, one by the Sunday Times, one by The Observer.

The Sunday Times polls has Leave 1% ahead (YouGov); the Observer has Remain 2% in the lead (Opinium). On Friday, the Independent published a poll (ORB) that gave Leave a resounding 10% lead (ORB: 55-45%); the Independent poll did not allow undecided voters to weigh in the result and was an online poll.

Telephone polls favor Remain; internet polls either favor Leave or have the two sides neck-and-neck. The discrepancy of results between the two methodologies is smaller but remains significant. The debate on methodology is heated because of polling failure during the general elections.

All polls find there will be extremely high participation, BBC reports; some polls suggest that Leave has more motivated voters likely to show up on Election Day, France 24 reported on Friday.

And at least three polls suggest that for those who support Leave immigration is the most important issue, followed by the economy.

(BBC, The Independent, Sunday Times, France 24, Reuters)

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The global number of nuclear warheads dropped last year, though none of the nine nuclear powers showed any signs of giving up their atomic weapons, an arms watchdog said Monday.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says in its annual report on June 13 that there were 455 fewer nuclear warheads at the start of 2016 among nine nuclear states than a year earlier.

It said the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea had a total of 15,395 nuclear warheads at the start of 2016, including 4,120 that were deployed operationally.

It said the total number of nuclear warheads in those countries at the start of 2015 was 15,850.

Of those 4,120 were deployed warheads, meaning warheads placed on missiles or on bases with operational forces. All of those warheads were deployed by the U.S., Russia, Britain and France, SIPRI said.

The institute said global nuclear arsenals have been shrinking since their Cold War-peak of nearly 70,000 warheads in the mid-1980s, mainly due to sharp cuts in Russian and U.S. nuclear forces.

“At the same time, both Russia and the USA have extensive and expensive nuclear modernization programs under way,” SIPRI said.

Countries with much smaller nuclear arsenals have started to deploy new delivery systems or announced their intention to do so, the report said, highlighting China, India and Pakistan.

It said that Israel, which neither confirms nor denies having nuclear weapons, is testing “a long-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile.”

North Korea is believed to have built up to 10 warheads, but it remains unclear whether the reclusive communist country has produced or deployed any operational weapons, SIPRI said.

“North Korea claims to have designed and built a nuclear warhead that is sufficiently compact and robust for delivery by a ballistic missile,” the report said. “However, there is no open-source evidence to indicate whether it has actually done so.”

SIPRI is a Stockholm-based independent think tank, partly funded by the Swedish government. Created in 1966, its research is focused on global security, arms control and disarmament. (with AP, Reuters)

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Darius Vâlcov, Minister of Finance

 

Dan Șova, Minister of Transport

 

Dan Voiculescu, media mogul, senator, head of the Conservative Party

 

Dan Diaconescu, journalist, TV presenter, businessman, media mogul and founder of the now defunct People’s Party – Dan Diaconescu

 

Elena Udrea, Minister of Regional Development and Tourism, 2014 presidential candidate

 

George Becali, former MEP, businessman

 

Marian Vanghelie, Mayor of Bucharest’s 5th Sector, the city’s poorest district

 

Gheorghe Nichita, Mayor of Iași

 

Nicușor Constantinescu, President of Constanța County Council

 

Radu Mazăre, Mayor of Constanța

 

Sorin Oprescu, Mayor of Bucharest

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Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has canceled his visit to Brussels, as well as separate talks with American officials after reports in a pro-government newspaper that the EU and U.S. ambassadors to Serbia are fueling street protests against his rule.

Serbia is in a deep economic crisis. To comply with the terms of the IMF deal, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic’s new government – which is still being formed after an April 24 election – must cut a public sector which now employs 750,000 people, more than 10 percent of Serbia’s total population.

Vucic, a former ultranationalist turned pro-EU reformer, was scheduled to travel later this month to Brussels for the formal opening of EU membership talks and to the U.S. on an inaugural Air Serbia flight to New York where he was to hold bilateral talks with American officials.

The cancellation comes amid increasing pressure by Russia, a traditional Serb Slavic ally, against Serbia joining the EU and NATO. Vucic made an unannounced visit to Russian President Vladimir Putin last month which resulted in calls by Moscow to “include people who are determined to maintain and strengthen further relations between Serbia and Russia” in the new Serbian government.

Vucic’s office did not immediately return calls from the Associated Press on official details of the cancellation.

Belgrade’s Informer daily, which is close to Vucic and is considered his mouthpiece, said last week that the U.S. ambassador Kyle Randolph Scott and EU envoy Michael Davenport are actively working on “radicalizing” street protests against his rule, trying to trigger “chaos” in the country.

Both the European Commission and Scott vehemently denied they have anything to do with recent street protest by thousands in Belgrade against the shady demolitions in an area of the capital marked for a United Arab Emirates-financed real estate project which is supported by Vucic.

The citizens’ protests have become a challenge to Vucic, who faces accusations of autocratic rule despite promising to take Serbia toward EU integration.

Vucic is to meet the U.S. and EU ambassadors later Monday. (with AP, Reuters)

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On Sunday Venezuela switched time zone to save on energy; and the people are on the brink of facing famine.

The government has reduced access to food and electricity and the government is taking a series of increasingly desperate measures to address public discontent.

Since last week, access to electricity is rationed to four hours a day. In addition, public servants have a two-day week (Monday, Tuesday). Changing time zone was the latest, but not the most desperate of measures.

The electricity problem is accentuated by the worst drought of the last forty years that has reduced water in the country’s hydroelectric power stations.

With a 70% reduction in international oil prices, the country’s finances have all but collapsed. Last week the government announced a 30% rise of the minimum wage to 15,000 Bolivar. But, this is not expected to have a huge impact as the country is experiencing 180,9% inflation. Officially, 15.000 Bolivar correspond to approximately €35; in reality this is more €13.

Food shortages are getting acute.

In 2014, shortages were triggered by a policy of food subsidies, which motivated people to massively engage in contraband trade with Colombia. Given a sinking economy, Venezuelans would sell subsidized food and fuel on the border to make ends meet. It was then, in May 2014, that Maduro introduced food rationing. But as people were going around to buy the same amount of food from place to place, rationing became more sophisticated.

Venezuela now uses biometric measures to ration food (fingerprints).  But, now people are going hungry, with crowds looting stores.

Last week the regional government of Villalobos asked citizens to stay at home for their own security. In the capital Caracas looting is spreading out in various neighborhoods by people shouting “we are hungry.”

Supermarkets are expected to run out of food stock by the end of the first week of May, according to the Venezuelan Chamber of Food.

People stand in line for hours to purchase basic goods.

(Huffington Post, Reuters, PanAm)

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Berlin does not want Tel Av to “instrumentalize” its alliance key and is rethinking its unconditional support Der Spiegel reports.

One of the first tangible policy effects is that Tel Aviv can no longer count on German support to avoid the labelling of settlers’ products in the West Bank, Ytnews reports.

A free press daily, Israel Hayom, came with a story in February quoting Angela Merkel in a meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister. Obviously leaked by Benjamin Netanyahu, the leak claimed the German Chancellor would not push forward with a two-state solution at this point in time, forgetting to mention that she was also highly critical of Israeli settlement policy.

Israel now has a population of 350,000 settlers, spread across 125 settlements in the West Bank. The policy consensus in Berlin is apparently that this policy undermines a two-state solution. The majority of the Israeli cabinet is openly opposing the two-state framework and is heading towards a direction that many in Germany compare to South Africa’s apartheid regime.

Both the German Foreign Ministry and the Chancellor’s advisors now believe Israel has taken the Chancellor’s pledge to support the security of the Jewish State as a diplomatic carte blanche.

Unconditional is being withdrawn.

Former ambassador to Israel and current foreign ministry political director, Andreas Michaelis, is apparently opposing accommodating to requests habitually made by Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration. And the chancellor’s advisor, Christoph Heusgen, is on the record supporting EU policy on labeling settler products.

Berlin is not the only traditional ally skeptical of current Israeli government policy. US Secretary John Kerry said in December 2015 in Washington that the “two-state solution” is becoming just a “throwaway phrase.”

Last week, Israel’s intelligence Minister Katz admitted that under the Obama administration Israel can no longer depend on a US veto in the UN Security Council, which is a key component of Israel’s national security. “With the current administration, we cannot be sure of that,” he said.

The Obama administration has used the Security Council veto once in seven years, to veto a resolution against Israeli settlements.

(AP, DPA, Der Spiegel, ynet, Jerusalem Post)

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German and other European security officials accuse Russian media of launching what they call an “information war” against Germany. By twisting the truth in reports on Germany’s migrant crisis, the officials told Reuters, Russia hopes to fuel popular anger, weaken voters’ trust in leaders such as Chancellor Angela Merkel, and feed divisions in the European Union so that it drops sanctions against Moscow.

Russian officials deny their country is mounting a campaign against Germany. “These accusations are atrocious,” one Russian official told Reuters, pretending that on the contrary Moscow is the victim of an “indiscriminate information war” being waged from Germany.

Relations between the two countries are now at their lowest. Russia is using propaganda and made-up stories in order to discredit the West and its institutions.

Thus, in January, the Russian media fabricated a story about the alleged rape case of a 13-year-old German-Russian girl. She told police she had been kidnapped in Berlin by Muslim immigrants, who raped her while she was held for 30 hours. The story was widely spread by the Russian media and provoked a huge wave of indignation.

The story triggered widespread outrage in Russia after the country’s most watched television network, state-run Channel One, gave the rape allegation prominent place in a January 16 report by its Berlin correspondent, Ivan Blagoy.

Blagoy’s report quoted the girl’s relatives as saying that police had refused to launch criminal proceedings in an attempt to cover up the case, and had pressured the girl to say the sex was consensual.

Russian immigrant communities in Berlin and other German cities organized rallies to voice their anger. On January 23, some 700 people protested in front of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office, holding banners that read “Our children are in danger” and “Today my child, tomorrow yours.”

The flagrant deceit of the so-called “Lisa affair” shocked the German public. Russia had employed similar disinformation tactics in the war against Ukraine, but never in Germany. The German government accused the Russian media of “biased reporting” in the particular case of the girl, or on events such as the Ukraine crisis and reports on Russia’s neighbouring states and an alleged rape case involving a German-Russian girl.

The Berlin public prosecutor’s office later said a medical examination showed she had not been raped.

The case stirred concern among senior German officials that Russia was trying to erode public trust in Merkel using immigration, an issue that has already cost her support and caused tensions in the European Union.

At a meeting in Moscow on March 23, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov irritated his German counterpart by raising again the case of the girl.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was upset when Lavrov raised the issue again. “I can only hope that such incidents and difficulties, as we had in that case, aren’t repeated,” he told Reuters afterwards.

German and European officials say Russia’s aim is two-fold: To exaggerate the problems the migrant crisis is causing Germany and to push Germany to relax its backing for European sanctions on Russia over Moscow’s interference in Ukraine. While EU governments last month extended asset freezes and travel bans on Russians and Russian companies, there is less consensus on whether to prolong more far-reaching sanctions on Russia’s banking, defence and energy sectors from July.

Both sides agree on one point: relations between the two countries are at their lowest point since the early days of the Cold War. Russia’s campaign against Europe uses “trolls” who produce online hate speech and sow discord and doubt about news events. There are dozens of examples of Russian reporting on the migrant crisis that it says are clear cases of deliberate disinformation.

Moscow rejects the idea of any coordinated campaign. One Russian official told Reuters there was a German media campaign to paint Russia in a bad light and “demonize” it.

The Kremlin is also using far-right parties in Europe to sow discord among the EU countries. Thus Russia is using the Front National, the third largest political force in France, and other anti-EU parties as a vehicle to lobby its political interests in Europe. Marine Le Pen, whose party came first in European elections in May 2014 with 25 % of votes and obtained even more in the recent French local elections, has made no secret of her sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin. She also obtained a loan from a Russian bank.

One other example of ties with Moscow is the UK Independence Party, commonly known as UKIP, whose leader Nigel Farage’s appears very frequently on state-owned Russia Today and who is very criticised for his expression of open admiration for Vladimir Putin.

Also, the Italian Northern League’s leader, Matteo Salvini calls the euro a “criminal currency” and wants to demolish the Brussels consensus that has dominated European politics since the end of World War Two. Matteo Salvini is also an open admirer of Vladimir Putin and a friend of Marine Le Pen.Sigmar Gabriel, an SDP member and Germany’s Economy Minister, said recently that the EU should try to lift sanctions on Russia by this summer. Before the EU’s Ukraine-related sanctions, Russia accounted for 4% of German trade; that has fallen to 2.4%.

Merkel, though, has refused to ease the sanctions, insisting that Russia first needs to comply with an agreement to enforce a ceasefire, pull back heavy weapons, exchange prisoners, and hold internationally monitored local elections in eastern Ukraine. (with Reuters, AP)

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Another document leak upset the world. On Monday Greenpeace gave to German media 240 pages of secreted US documents concerning the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a controversial free trade agreement between USA and the EU.

The TTIP has been discussed for three years now. However, it is highly unpopular throughout Europe and attracted huge criticism from environmental agency because, among other things, it may open the strictly regulated European food market to less controlled and hormone-enhanced American products.

American President Barack Obama was in Germany last week specifically to promote the TTIP, with hopes to sign the treaty before he leaves office in January. However, this leak can make American’s hopes crumble.

So far all the talks and the documents surrounding the TTIP were not released to the public. The Greenpeace leak is the first time official documents are made public. German media Süddeutsche Zeitung and German networks ARD, NDR and WDR checked with officials who worked on the TTIP and they confirmed the authenticity of the documents obtained by Greenpeace.

In the first batch of the documents (available here) it has emerged that US officials were blocking European car exports into the USA in order to put pressure on the EU to remove the strict measures on food health that are a constrain to American export into Europe.

In the USA gene-manipulated and hormone-treated food is usually sold to the public until proven dangerous for consumers, while in Europe is the other way around. Products can’t be sold unless they are certified as safe by the authorities.

In addition to this, the documents leaked also showed that the US blocked EU demand to have public arbitration panels to handle corporate lawsuits. The US wants to keep the panels private.

 

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New rules that slash roaming charges for using mobile phones in other European countries have come into effect on 1 May, putting an end to overcharging from phone companies.

For several years the European commission has been battling with the big mobile providers to force through cuts to the cost of making cross-border calls and using data in another country. Following lengthy negotiations, the EU announced in October last year that it will ban these charges from June 2017. Until then, the EU has put a cap on the amount operators can charge.

That means roaming charges in the EU will fall by at least a third starting immediately. From June next year, roaming charges in the EU will be abolished completely.

This applies to cost of making calls, sending texts and using data within the European Economic Area; that is the 28 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

The most an operator will be able to add to what you would pay domestically is five euros cents for a call, two cents for a text and five cents for each megabyte of data. Incoming voice calls will incur a charge of one cent per minute.

This applies to cost of making calls, sending texts and using data within the European Economic Area; that is the 28 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

The roaming charges have event entered UK’s Brexit campaign, with prime minister David Cameron posting on Twitter: “EU roaming charges now down to near-zero; gone entirely next year. Consumers are better off remaining in the EU.”

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The Australian businessman Graig Wright revealed on Monday he is the founder of Bitcoin to three media outlets: The Economist, the BBC, and GQ.

The revelation comes following a raid by the Australian Taxation Office in December 2015 at his home. The businessman is negotiating how much he owes in overdue tax since 2009, when the first Bitcoin transaction took place.

His claim on Monday leaves little room for doubt, as he provided technical proof to back up his claim, including the cryptographic keys to the first ten Bitcoins created by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.

Bitcoins are created by solving difficult mathematical problems, a process referred to as “mining.” The solving involves immense computer processing power with the difficulty of the problems adjusted to maintain a steady production of currency, thereby ensuring there is not Bitcoin oversupply and, therefore, devaluation. Miners can then sell their coins.

Wright’s claims were confirmed by key members of the Bitcoin project.

The first transaction in Bitcoin took place in January 2009. The project was founded on state-of-the art cryptography involving top names in the field, led by Hal Finney.

Gavin Andresen, scientist, and Jon Matonis, an economist, at the Bitcoin Foundation also confirmed the identity of the project’s owner.

The digital cash system currency is favored by organized crime and was recently forbidden in technology-savvy Estonia.

Money, bitcoin wallets, and bags of amphetamines lie on a table at the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in Wiesbaden, Germany, 29 February 2016. EPA/ALEXANDER HEINL

There are approximately 15,5 million Bitcoins exchanged online, each costing €392. There is no registry of their owners who therefore remain anonymous and their transactions virtually untraceable.

 

Craig Steven Wright, 47, is an Australian computer scientist and pioneer in e-business.

Wright worked in information technology for various companies and he designed the architecture for possibly the world’s first online casino, Lasseter’s Online in 1999.

He was also the CEO of the technology firm Hotwire Preemptive Intelligence Group, which planned to launch Denariuz Bank, the world’s first Bitcoin-based bank, though it encountered regulatory difficulties with the Australian Tax Office in 2014.

Wright is also the founder of a cryptocurrency company DeMorgan Ltd, as well as the founder of the cybersecurity and computer forensics company Panopticrypt Pty Ltd.

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Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ Share on LinkedIn+var sbFBAPPID = '457641991045477';Some 200 U.S. soldiers will arrive in Moldova for more than two weeks of exercises, in a show of U.S. military strength in the region.

The Moldovan defense ministry said the troops will arrive Monday from Romania in dozens of armored vehicles for the exercises.

Moldova’s pro-Russian opposition says it will stage protests against the May 3-20 joint exercises.

Some 165 Moldovan troops and peacekeepers will take part in the exercises in the country of 3.5 million located between Romania and Ukraine.

The U.S. embassy said medical treatment and evacuation, field maintenance, and basic demolitions will be among the training exercises, which mark ongoing cooperation with the U.S.

Moldova joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program in 1994. Less than 20 percent of Moldovans want to join the military alliance.

Russia has had about 1,500 soldiers stationed in Moldova’s breakaway eastern region of Transdniester since a cease-fire deal brought an end to the separatist conflict there in 1992.

About 380 of those Russian soldiers are deployed under an international peacekeeping mandate while the rest are soldiers from Russia’s 14th Guards Army. (with AP, AFP)

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Egypt’s journalists’ syndicate called for the dismissal of the interior minister and an immediate sit-in at its headquarters in downtown Cairo on Monday, to protest the police detention of two journalists on its premises the night earlier.

After an emergency meeting early Monday morning, the group called for the “open-ended” sit-in to run through a Wednesday general assembly meeting and World Press Freedom day on May 3.

It described the police’s entry into the building as a “raid by security forces whose blatant barbarism and aggression on the dignity of the press and journalists and their syndicate has surprised the journalistic community and the Egyptian people.” Some senior syndicate members have said the raid was heavy-handed, involving dozens of officers and resulted in a security guard being injured.

Police denied they entered the building by force and said only eight officers were involved, who they said were acting on an arrest warrant for the two journalists — who were accused of organizing protests to destabilize the country. Unauthorized demonstrations in Egypt are effectively banned.

“The Ministry of Interior affirms that it did not raid the syndicate or use any kind of force in arresting the two, who turned themselves in as soon as they were told of the arrest warrant,” the ministry said in a statement.

The two journalists, Amr Badr and Mahmoud el-Sakka, are government critics who work for a website known as January Gate, also critical of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s government.

It was unclear what size any sit-in at the syndicate could achieve; the area surrounding the building has been barricaded by police and dozens of officers backed by armed troops have been preventing entry at both ends of the street. Hundreds of undercover police have been deployed across central Cairo in order to prevent any protests.

A day earlier, police prevented hundreds of workers from holding a meeting at the building to commemorate International Workers’ Day, prompting independent trade union leaders to urge the government to allow them freedom of assembly.

The syndicate has invited the trade union leaders to join the sit-in to denounce the “raid” and protest restrictions on freedom of assembly for labor organizers. It said the move was illegal and violated its charter, which forbids police from entering the building without the presence of a syndicate official, and is urging police to end their “siege” of the building and stop preventing journalists from entering.

The journalists’ syndicate has been a rallying point for demonstrations in the past, and was blocked in a similar manner ahead of planned anti-government protests last Monday.

The building drew particular attention because it was from there that some 2,000 demonstrators gathered last month to protest el-Sissi’s decision to hand over two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia. Police fired tear gas and arrested dozens to break up the protests, the first significant wave of street demonstrations since the former army chief became president in 2014.

A second round of mass demonstrations over the issue planned for last Monday were stifled by a massive security presence, with hundreds of arrests and only small flash mobs managing to assemble, drawing tear gas and birdshot from the riot police.

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Labour Day in Turkey was marred by bloody attacks against the police, street violence and arrests across Turkey.

Two attacks targeting the police took place in the southeast and one attack against civilians was averted in Ankara. Violent street fighting and arrests took place in Istanbul.

Two police officers died and 19 were wounded following a bomb blast in front of a police HQ in Gaziantep, southeast Turkey on Sunday. The powerful blast shuttered windows across the quarter.

The Chief Public Prosecutor soon imposed a media ban on pictures and video footage from the scene of the blast.

Also on Sunday, three Turkish soldiers were killed and 14 wounded in the border town of Nusaybin.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but it is linked with an ongoing conflict with the Kurdish minority since December 2015. Following the collapse of a two year long seize fire with the banned Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), there is an ongoing conflict in southeast Turkey.

Meanwhile, 24,500 police officers patrolled the streets of Istanbul where violent clashes took place all Sunday.

Police in Ankara detained four suspects on Saturday evening, carrying Iraqi and Syrian passports. The men were trying to infiltrate the May 1st rally and the police believe they were planning an attack.

(CNN Turk, Anadolu, Reuters, AFP, AP, dpa)

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The ALDE group organised and hosted a hearing on 27 April about the proposed EU Directive on Digital Content, named Contract for the Supply of Digital Content. The purpose of the hearing was to discuss and explain aspects of the proposed regulation on the Digital Single Market. The European Commission published two proposals on 9 December 2015 concerning digital content under the European Commission’s Impact Assessment.

The framework for this action is the strategy published in May 2015, called A Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe. In this note, the Commission noted the need for “better access for consumers and businesses to online good and services”. The next phase should be the approved within the year, however is still not clear how exactly this law will work and what exactly it will cover.

The hearing of the ALDE group was called to try to clarify some of these aspects. The hearing was hosted by MEPs Antanas Gouga and Jean-Marie Cavada and had the opening remarks of Simona Constantin, Member of the Cabinet of Věra Jourová, DG of Consumers Right.

Constantin explained some of the main reasons behind regulating digital content at European level. She noted that digital content is fast growing area, with an estimated value of 9 to 11€ billion over the past 12 months. Currently 1 in 3 internet users enjoy digital content, however many experience problems related to access or terms and conditions and only 10% of the customers receive a remedy or a compensation for their problems.

In addition to this, Constantin noted how several Member States have already started to deploy their own national laws on the subject. However, each of this law is different from the other, potentially leading to confusion and overlapping. Thence, she concluded, the need for a more unified law at European level.

However, during the hearings, representatives of several different organisations questioned the panel over the exact extent of the measures. Most of the representatives were from different industries that would be potentially effected by the new law, like TV channels and videogames, and all of them asked whether or not their field was included or not in the new EU Directive on Digital Content, showing a degree of uncertainty in the scope and description of this new directive.

Some of the question may have been for very specific cases, however they shows how unclear the Commission and the Parliament worked on this issue. At the hearing it was explained that one principle was to look at future developments, trying to create something that will be valid in future as well, in a sector that moves at increased speed and with few certainties. Given that the Directive may not be approved before December, maybe the Commission should try to clarify more the content of the Directive, to avoid doubts and perplexities like the ones the arose during the hearing.

 

 

 

 

 

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Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla announced that Puerto Rico’s government will not make nearly $370 million in bond payments due Monday after a failure to restructure or find a political solution to the U.S. territory’s spiraling public debt crisis.

Garcia said Sunday that he had issued an executive order suspending payments on debt owed by the island’s Government Development Bank, a default that will likely prompt lawsuits from creditors and could be a prelude to a deadline to a much larger payment due July 1.

The governor said Puerto Rico can’t pay the bonds without cutting essential services. Governor Padilla is scheduled to address Puerto Rico’s 3.5 million people at 5 p.m. EST (2100 GMT).

Puerto Rico, a tropical paradise in an economic hell, faces a $70 billion debt bill it knows it cannot pay, a staggering 45 percent poverty rate and a shrinking population as its U.S. citizens flee to the mainland.

Island officials spent the weekend trying to negotiate a settlement that would have avoided the default but apparently came up short. The development comes as Congress has so far been unable to pass a debt restructuring bill for Puerto Rico.

“Let me be very clear, this was a painful decision,” Garcia said in a speech. “We would have preferred to have had a legal framework to restructure our debts in an orderly manner.”

The Government Development Bank had $422 million in payments due Monday. Puerto Rico will pay $22 million interest and it reached a deal Friday to restructure about $30 million, leaving it short $370 million.

The administration also will be paying about $50 million in other debt payments due Monday owed by various other territorial agencies.

Nearly all the bonds are held by a variety of U.S. hedge funds and mutual funds.

Garcia said Puerto Rico’s government could not make the payment without sacrificing basic necessities for the island’s 3.5 million residents, including keeping schools and public hospitals open.

“We will continue working to try to reach a consensual solution with our creditors,” he said. “That is one of our commitments. But what we will never do is put the lives and safety of our people in danger.”

Puerto Rico has been suffering through more than a decade of economic decline since Congress phased out tax cuts that had made the island a center for pharmaceutical and medical equipment manufacturing. Garcia’s predecessors and the island legislature borrowed heavily to cover over budget deficits, causing a debt spiral that has already prompted several smaller defaults.

Creditors have accused the government of exaggerating the crisis to avoid upcoming payments of more than $1 billion due July 1 that includes general obligation bonds, which are guaranteed by the constitution.

Economists have warned that a default of this magnitude could cause Puerto Rico to lose access to capital markets and make the situation worse as the government faces the much larger payment due July 1.

Garcia lashed out at Congress for failing to pass a bill that would create a control board to help manage the island’s $70 billion debt and to oversee some debt restructuring. He said it has been held up by “internal partisan and ideological divisions” in the House of Representatives.

The Congress is in recess until the week of May 9th. (with AP, Reuters)

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The Turkish military has reportedly hit Islamic State positions in Syria with artillery and drone attacks, killing 63 militants.

The state-owned Anadolu Agency said Monday the strikes took out multiple rocket launchers and gun positions.

Four drones deployed from the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey took part in the operation and killed 29 militants. The remaining 34 IS fighters were “neutralized” by rockets and shelling from Turkey, according to the agency.

The AP was unable to immediately verify the report.

The offensive started on Sunday when four rockets fired from Syria hit the Turkish border town of Kilis and wounded eight people.

The wider province of Kilis borders territory contested by IS militants, anti-government Syrian rebels and Kurdish factions.

The Turkish army typically responds to fire from Syria in line with its rules of engagement.

In the past year, Turkey has also witnessed suicide bombings linked to the IS as well as attacks linked to Kurdish militants.

The latest came Sunday, when a car bomb detonated outside a police station in the southern city of Gaziantep, near Syria. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for that attack but anti-terrorism units raided 20 Gaziantep addresses overnight in search for suspects.

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