by Robert Whitcomb | Aug 31, 2016 | News
British Prime Minister Theresa May made it clear on Aug. 31 that her Conservative government would not hold a referendum or otherwise back off on the plan, approved by the electorate for the United Kingdom, for her country to leave the European Union.
The Guardian paraphrased her as saying that much as Britain may want access to the single European market but with no free movement of labor, that is not, and never will be, on offer from Brussels.
By promising to push ahead so firmly with no second referendum and no early general election, May has given comfort to the hardline cabinet Brexiteers, the news service said.
To read The Guardian’s article, please this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Aug 26, 2016 | News
A U.N. body called the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination asserts that politicians helped fuel a surge in racist hate crimes during and after Britain’s referendum campaign on whether to leave the European Union.
The panel said many prominent politicians share the blame for the outbreak of xenophobia and intimidation against ethnic minorities.
“Many politicians and prominent political figures not only failed to condemn it but also created and entrenched prejudices, thereby emboldening individuals to carry out acts of intimidation and hate towards ethnic or ethno-religious minority communities and people who are visibly different,” it said.
More than 3,000 allegations of hate crimes were made to British police – mainly regarding harassment and threats – in the week before and the week after the June 23 vote, up 42 percent from the rate in 2015.
To read the piece on this in The Guardian, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Aug 2, 2016 | News
Jane’s Defense Weekly looks at the European Union’s expansion of military operations to counter new threats from Islamic terrorists and Russia. The article starts:
“Over the past two years the EU’s military operations have increased considerably, with the latest counter-migrant mission in the Mediterranean illustrating its growing ambitions to protect the continent’s security. Tim Ripley reports on the expanding mission set that is putting the organisation to the test at all levels, politically, operationally, and tactically.”
To read the full story in Jane’s Defense Weekly, hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 19, 2016 | News
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union has “thrown a spanner in the works” of its global economic growth forecast.
The IMF’s 2017 growth forecast for the U.K. has been slashed to 1.3 percent from 2.2 percent and this year’s has been cut to 1.7 percent from 1.9 percent.
The IMF’s global growth forecast for 2017 has also been revised down, to 3.4 percent from 3.5 percent.
To read the BBC story on this, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 15, 2016 | News
The United Kingdom’s new prime minister, Theresa May, pushed for U.K. unity in Edinburgh on July 15 on her first visit as Britain’s premier. While 51 percent of voters in the U.K. as a whole backed its exit from the European Union, 62 percent of Scots voting favored remaining.
The vote triggered calls among Scottish nationalists for another referendum on whether Scotland should leave the U.K.
“I want to get the best possible deal for the whole of the United Kingdom out of our negotiations for the U.K. leaving the E.U.,” the new premier said.
Questioned about another plebiscite on Scotland leaving the U.K., two years after Scots voted to remain part of the kingdom, the Conservative leader said: “As far as I’m concerned, the Scottish people had their vote.”
But she also signaled some flexibility on Scotland’s demands to be allowed to chart a somewhat different course than the rest of the U.K. in dealing with Europe.”I want the Scottish government to be fully engaged in our discussions and our considerations, and I will listen to any options that they bring forward.”
To read more, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 11, 2016 | News
In this video, Bloomberg columnist Clive Crook presents some ideas on how the European Community can discourage other nations from following the United Kingdom’s exit.
To watch the video, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 11, 2016 | News
The European Union has approved a new agreement on how consumer data must be transferred with the United States. This brings to an end months of delay caused by fears about U.S. surveillance.
The so-called Privacy Shield, the new commercial data-transfer pact, had been tentatively agreed to by the E.U. and U.S. in February. It comes into effect July 11.
The E.U.’s top court had struck down the previous data-transfer agreement, Safe Harbor, because of fears of intrusive U.S. surveillance. This left such big U.S. companies as Google, Facebook and MasterCard in legal limbo.
To read The Guardian’s story on this, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 6, 2016 | News
The United Kingdom’s apparent decision to leave the European Union could be very bad news for China. The U.K. has been its biggest economic ally in the E.U. Further, Chinese investments in the U.K. itself may suffer. The British have long pushed within the E.U. for freer trade with China while other members have feared being economically overwhelmed by cheap imports from China.
“The U.K. leadership always said they would be the guys pushing for China’s interests in the West and the European Union,” a Western diplomat in Beijing not authorized to be quoted by name in foreign media told The Washington Post. “This is quite bad news for China.”
To read The Post story, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jun 30, 2016 | News
The European Union may not seem democratic but it is, mostly.
Amanda Taub writes in The New York Times:
“{W}hile defenders of the European Union have evidence to show that the bloc is democratic, this misses the point. Democracy, after all, is about more than elections. It’s also about accountability: whether the government is responsive to the citizenry.
“Yes, the European Union has elections (and, yes, like the United States, participation has been less than 50 percent for many cycles). But, in a functioning democracy, popular will is also expressed through mechanisms other than marking ballots.
“The European Union, perhaps in part because it was designed by technocrats rather than developing organically, does not account for or often even allow those mechanisms. And this is why, for many Europeans, the body does not feel {editor’s emphasis} democratic.”
To read the whole New York Times story, please hit this link.
