Economics issues that big thinkers say need the world's attention in 2021 - by Don Pittis

In news, big stories crowd out important but lesser stories. One classic example was that on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, two literary lions — C.S.Lewis and Aldous Huxley — died as well, but they were virtually ignored.

This year, the COVID-19 pandemic has stolen the thunder from other important economic issues that deserve greater attention in 2021. Here is a by-no-means exhaustive list.

Read more at: Economics issues that big thinkers say need the world's attention in 2021 | CBC News

Press distances themselves from Trump claims: Fox News, Other Murdoch Outlets Begin Diverging From Trump As Presidency Slips Away - by Joe Walsh

Fox News interrupted White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Monday to fact-check her untrue voter fraud allegations, the latest instance of Fox and other members of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire — once key allies of President Donald Trump — pushing back on Trump’s baseless refusal to accept defeat and priming viewers for a post-Trump future.

After McEnany baselessly suggested in a press conference Monday afternoon that President-elect Joe Biden’s supporters are willfully engaging in voter fraud, anchor Neil Cavuto cut her off and said she has no evidence, saying, “I can’t in good countenance continue showing you this.”

Read more at: Fox News, Other Murdoch Outlets Begin Diverging From Trump As Presidency Slips Away

USA: Republican Convention: Coronavirus: Media to be barred from Trump election nomination

 A Republican National Convention spokeswoman gave coronavirus health guidelines as the reason, the Associated Press reports.

Delegates are due to gather in North Carolina to formally renominate President Donald Trump.

The 336 delegates will meet on 24 August in the city of Charlotte.

Read more at:
Coronavirus: Media to be barred from Trump election nomination - BBC News

US Right Wing Press: Carnage,’ ‘radicals,’ ‘overthrow the government’: How Fox and other conservative media cover the protests - by Paul Farhi and Elahe Izadi

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Conservative news outlets and pundits covering the protests erupting across the country this week have mostly emphasized images of destruction and chaos, blaming “organized” elements for the mayhem and framing President Trump’s calls for a military response as necessary to gain order.

Echoing Trump, some were quick to attribute the violence, without much evidence, to “antifa,” the loosely knit faction of far-left activists known for physically confronting far-right radicals that Trump attempted to designate a domestic terrorist organization on Sunday.

“Unfortunately, far-left radicals unleashed this carnage, this destruction across American cities,” asserted Sean Hannity, Fox News’ most popular primetime opinion host, on Monday night. His colleague, Laura Ingraham, went so far as to call it an attempt to “overthrow” the government.

Read more at: Carnage,’ ‘radicals,’ ‘overthrow the government’: How Fox and other conservative media cover the protests - The Washington Post

USA - Trump flip flops again: Trump Says He Will Place Hold on WHO Funds Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the World Health Organization has made mistakes amid the coronavirus pandemic and he plans to place a "very powerful hold" on funding the group.

They actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it," Trump said at the White House coronavirus task force briefing. "And they were wrong.

They've been wrong about a lot of things. They had a lot of information early … They seem to be very China-centric. We have to look into that, so we're going to look into it."

Trump said that WHO receives "vast amounts of money from the United States," adding it pays for the largest portion of the organization's funds. He said the organization "called it wrong."

"They missed the call," Trump said. "They could've called it months earlier. They would've known. They should've known, and they probably did know. So we'll be looking into that very carefully."

Read more at: Trump Says He Will Will Place Hold on WHO Funds Amid Coronavirus Pandemic | National News | US News

Are Elections outcome decided by the press? Most people polled Say Media, Not Russians, Tilting the Election

Most voters aren’t buying the story that the Russians are trying to manipulate the election for Donald Trump but think the U.S. media is trying to swing things for Hillary Clinton.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 56% of Likely U.S. Voters believe it’s more likely that many in the media are working to get Clinton elected president. Just 26% disagree and say it’s more likely that the Russian government is working to get Trump elected. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Ninety-one percent (91%) of voters supporting Trump think it’s more likely that most in the media are trying to help Clinton. Only 20% of Clinton supporters agree; 56% of her voters believe it’s more likely the Russians are trying to help Trump. But one-in-four Clinton voters (24%) aren’t sure which is more likely.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of all voters think the United States’ worsening relationship with Russia is bad for America.

Only 12% think it’s good for this country, while 20% say it will have no impact. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided. These findings are unchanged from June of last year when both President Obama and then-Republican front-runner Jeb Bush were pushing for tougher sanctions against Russia over the continuing political crisis in Ukraine.

WikiLeaks disclosures in recent days have highlighted the close working relationship between the Clinton campaign and journalists at several major news organizations including the New York Times and CNN.

Democrats say the Russians are behind the WikiLeaks releases; WikiLeaks says that isn’t true. Fifty percent (50%) of voters said in July that they expected most reporters to help Clinton.  Just 11% thought they were more likely to help Trump.

Read more: Most Say Media, Not Russians, Tilting the Election - Rasmussen Reports™

Confronting the deplorable: A look at media sensationalism - by Matthew Raskob

A political firestorm was ignited last Friday night. At an LGBT fundraiser in New York City, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton remarked that “half of Trump’s supporters” could be put “into what I call the basket of deplorables.” These people, she asserted, are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic” and she excoriated Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, for embracing and empowering them. The appetite of the mercurial and sensationalistic press for conflict was whetted and reporters went to work forthwith depicting the comment in the worst possible light. Clinton’s frank words were soon circulated ad nauseam, accompanied by professions of astonishment that a candidate for public office would dare portray a segment of America as bigoted. Forgotten was the rest of her speech, in which she went on to express empathy for those Trump supporters who are motivated by economic and social distress. Ignored was the fact that Clinton had used virtually the same words on at least one prior occasion. Her opponents saw their chance and pounced gleefully, declaring that Clinton had unfairly denigrated millions of hard-working, patriotic Americans — at an exclusive fundraiser, no less.

This comment and the reactions it precipitated provide copious opportunities for deliberation and reflection. Consider, for instance, that when Donald Trump vilifies entire groups of American based upon their color or creed, it is often brushed off as mere showmanship and further evidence of an unconventional candidate’s authenticity. When Hillary Clinton makes a blunt assertion about a portion of Trump’s supporters, on the other hand, it is a scandalous indiscretion that reveals deep-seated disdain for the unpretentious, industrious inhabitants of Middle America. Consider that a few outspoken sentences uttered by Clinton have garnered hours of coverage on cable news and prominent placement in every newspaper and blog. In contrast, Trump’s plethora of scandals and disturbing pronouncements languished in relative obscurity. For instance, are Clinton’s remarks really more newsworthy than the Trump Foundation’s illegal gift to Florida’s Attorney General, who shortly thereafter dropped an investigation into Trump University? Should they really concern us more than Trump’s recent threat to fire upon Iranian patrol boats shadowing U.S. naval vessels in the Persian Gulf?

What I believe is most interesting to explore, however, is what the entire contretemps reveals about our collective inability to come to grips with the role bigotry plays in our politics. Almost immediately after Clinton inelegantly placed half of Trump’s supporters in “the basket of deplorables,” political journalists breathlessly began to opine upon what this slip portended for her political fortunes. Rarely, if ever, was there any discussion of the veracity of her comments. This is indeed unfortunate, for Clinton made the point the media and far too many voters have failed to grasp. Donald Trump, his platform, and some of his most ardent proponents are anything but mainstream. This has been disregarded by the press, which has overwhelmingly chosen to treat Donald Trump like a mainstream politician, albeit one with a colorful style. Alarmingly, voters have followed the media’s lead. While Trump’s favorability ratings may be the lowest of any major party presidential candidate in history, they are only slightly lower than those of Hillary Clinton. In another disturbing development, Republicans and a good deal of independents have lined up behind Trump as they would for any ordinary Republican nominee.

However inconvenient it may be for the prim and proper gatekeepers of political discourse to admit, Donald Trump’s campaign is based upon ethnic, religious, and racial animus of the vilest sort. Lest we forget, Trump owes his prominence within the Republican Party today to his active role in questioning the citizenship and legitimacy of the first African-American president. He launched his campaign by defaming Mexican-Americans as drug dealers, murderers, and rapists, and later pledged to ban all Muslims from the United States. Part of the movement that has sprung up around Trump is a motley crew of neo-fascists, Islamophobes, anti-Semites, and longstanding white supremacists who, eager for a rebrand, have collectively christened themselves the “alt-right.” At Trump’s rallies, the bigotry, racism, and xenophobia of the mogul’s diehard supporters are on full display. Numerous incidents of violence against protesters have occurred, and attendees habitually join in hateful chants encouraged by the nominee himself.

Read more: Confronting the deplorable: A look at media sensationalism | The Mac Weekly | Macalester's Independent Student Newspaper

Israel: Has Israel Effectively Colonized the United States?- by Badruddin Khan

We normally think of colonizers as large countries, and the colonized as smaller and weaker nations. But this is not always the case. Colonization does not require occupation. It merely requires the subjugation of the colonized. With ambition, superior information and calculation, and the right mindset, smaller nations can (and have in the past) colonized and dominated larger and nominally more powerful countries.

India was successfully colonized by tiny Britain in the 18th century. The vehicle for colonization was the East India Company. It was only after the Indian mutiny that Britain acted directly and sent in troops to establish the British Raj. For the next 200 years India was drained of its wealth, its economy was restructured to support England’s needs and global ambitions, and its people militarized to fight and die on behalf of the British crown. The Indian leaders who remained were willing participants in this venture; those who felt otherwise were destroyed or marginalized.

In a similar vein, Israel today is in the process of colonizing the United States, which is vital to its global projection and exercise of power. The steps Israel is taking are visible to all (as was the case with British designs on India) and yet it is remarkably difficult to connect the dots while such a takeover is in process. Or, to do anything about it.

It means total control of what matters. The British were interested in Indian wealth, and a standing army of Indians willing to die for their wars. They couldn’t care less about India’s internal petty politics that did not directly or indirectly impact their mission. An effective “divide and conquer” strategy pit Indians against each other and discouraged any kind of coordinated response, or sedition. The British leveraged their “outsider advantage” to objectively collect data with which to calculate and coordinate which Indian princes to support in battles, and which to connive with. Like pieces on a chessboard, Indian leaders exhausted themselves through internal battles, and were prevailed to seek cover provided by the British. Small amounts of leverage can change outcomes (as the Israeli lobby AIPAC has shown, in its path to dominating Congress and regional/local US politics), and over the years the British were able control and align India to the British crown. Less than 10,000 English controlled colonial India, which at that time had a population of 300 million.

It is instructive to note that while there were relatively few white Englishmen, a class of local “brown sahibs” was developed, to actually run things. This elite class was educated in English ways, and rewarded monetarily and through social stature. Britain was too small a country to ultimately matter by itself, but by leveraging India the English could pursue their global ambitions. India was the “Jewel in the (British) Crown”.

Today, Israel has effective control of US policy in the Mideast, and similar goals. Much has already been written about Israel’s control of Congress. Israel is now edging towards control over the US Executive Branch, with both presidential candidates supported by billionaires whose #1 agenda is Israel (Saban and Adelson). The Supreme Court will be one-third Jewish, and justices have community ties and families. As Israel demonstrated through its successful intimidation of Judge Goldstone, jurists are human and everyone has their price.

Israel’s “occupation force” in the US has long included AIPAC as well as the dense network of community organizations at the State and local levels. Through relationships that have been developed over years and with unlimited funds at their disposal, the “Israel Lobby” ensures that votes go the right way, and that opponents are squashed when Israel demands unity. In 2003 at the onset of George Bush’s Iraq war this occupation force was multiplied through the inclusion of Christian Zionists.

Critics of the Israel Lobby are marginalized by whatever means available, including being called anti-Semitic. The Lobby has been effective in securing massive aid packages for Israel even though Israel’s per-capita GDP exceeds that of several European nations. Israeli insiders permeate the US government, and it is US policy that there be “no light” between the countries so that where Israel is concerned there is no debate. Israel’s top priorities are the top priorities of the US. There are of course instances where this does not happen (such as, Iran) but the direction points to a tighter colonial noose in the years ahead.

Read more: Has Israel Effectively Colonized the United States?

Media: Rigging the Coverage of Syria – by Gareth Porter

The Press: Rigging the Coverage
 - what you see is not what you get

Coverage of the breakdown of the partial ceasefire in Syria illustrated the main way corporate news media distort public understanding of a major foreign policy story. The problem is not that the key events in the story are entirely unreported, but that they were downplayed and quickly forgotten in the media’s embrace of themes with which they were more comfortable.

In this case, the one key event was the major offensive launched in early April by Al Nusra Front — the Al Qaeda franchise in Syria — alongside U.S.-backed armed opposition groups. This offensive was mentioned in at least two “quality” U.S. newspapers. Their readers, however, would not have read that it was that offensive that broke the back of the partial ceasefire.

On the contrary, they would have gotten the clear impression from following the major newspapers’ coverage that systematic violations by the Assad government doomed the ceasefire from the beginning.

Corporate media heralded the ceasefire agreement when it was negotiated by the United States and Russia in February, with the Los Angeles Times (2/3/16) calling it “the most determined diplomatic push to date aimed at ending the nation’s almost five-year conflict.” The “partial cessation of hostilities” was to apply between the Syrian regime and the non-jihadist forces, but not to the regime’s war with Nusra and with ISIS.

The clear implication was that the U.S.-supported non-jihadist opposition forces would have to separate themselves from Nusra, or else they would be legitimate targets for airstrikes.
But the relationship between the CIA-backed armed opposition to Assad and the jihadist Nusra Front was an issue that major U.S. newspapers had already found very difficult to cover (FAIR.org, 3/21/16).
U.S. Syria policy has been dependent on the military potential of the Nusra Front (and its close ally, Ahrar al Sham) for leverage on the Syrian regime, since the “moderate” opposition was unable to operate in northwest Syria without jihadist support.

This central element in U.S. Syria policy, which both the government and the media were unwilling to acknowledge, was a central obstacle to accurate coverage of what happened to the Syrian ceasefire.

This problem began shaping the story as soon as the ceasefire agreement was announced. On Feb. 23, New York Times correspondent Neil MacFarquhar wrote a news analysis on the wider tensions between the Obama administration and Russia that pointed to “a gaping loophole” in the Syria ceasefire agreement: the fact that “it permits attacks against the Islamic State and the Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate, to continue.”

MacFarquhar asserted that exempting Nusra from the ceasefire “could work in Moscow’s favor, since many of the anti-Assad groups aligned with the United States fight alongside the Nusra Front.” That meant that Russia could “continue to strike United States-backed rebel groups without fear … of Washington’s doing anything to stop them,” he wrote.

On the same day, Adam Entous of the Wall Street Journal reported that Obama’s “top military and intelligence advisers don’t believe Russia will abide by a just-announced ceasefire in Syria and want to ready plans to increase pressure on Moscow by expanding covert support to rebels fighting the Russia-backed Assad regime.”

For two of the country’s most prominent newspapers, it was thus clear that the primary context of the Syria ceasefire was not its impact on Syria’s population, but how it affected the rivalry between powerful national security officials and Russia.

Note EU-Digest: not only the Syria news is rigged by the media, but also most of the news, depending on who pays the salaries of the journalists writing the story, and the policies of the corporate media conglomerate they work for .

Read more: Rigging the Coverage of Syria – Consortium

Europe's Refugee And Political Crises: Will the US Own Up to Its Role In the Destabilization Of The World?

EU  relationship with USA

Until last summer, the refugee crisis in Europe was quietly and intentionally hidden from most Americans' view.

It took 3,771 deaths in the Mediterranean last year - and a photograph of a lifeless, drowned Kurdish child named Aylan Kurdi - for coverage to hit the American press.

By that time, 3,000 people were arriving every day to Lesbos, and many thousands more to the other Greek islands.

The irony of this ignorance should be obvious: the United States stands at the center of this disastrous situations given their military involvement in the Middle East and arouind the world, which has resulted in refugees being out of their homes, over mountains, around border crossings, through Turkish prison cells and onto crowded, dangerous boats.

From Libya to southern Afghanistan, US interventions and occupations have led to further destabilization, violence and, in almost all cases, civil wars.

A longer trail of complicity that stretches back to the four decades of economic and military support that the United States has given to the Arab dictatorships challenged in the 2011 Arab Spring, and to similar support given in that same time period to a number of insurgencies that dovetailed with US foreign policy objectives.

 One such group, the insurgency of the Afghan Mujahideen, fought a decade-long guerrilla war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

Those who came to fight in Afghanistan from abroad, many of whom received US military and economic support either from Congress or the CIA, hatched a postwar strategy of insurgency across the Arab and Muslim world, which resulted in a civil war in Algeria that took 120,000 lives. Meanwhile, other smaller rebellions caused significant fighting across the Maghreb, in northern Pakistan, Yemen, Chechnya, Albania and beyond.

The group now known to the world as ISIS was created in this period by a Jordanian Mujahideen veteran named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Originally launched in Jordan, the all-but-failed organization was given a second lease on life in post-invasion Iraq, where a destabilized and fractured society made fertile soil for the hyper-sectarian ideology of Zarqawi, who helped turn anger at the US occupation into a civil war against Shiites.

The sectarian state originally put in power in Iraq by the United States escalated divisions in the country, helping fuel the other side of the 2005-2006 civil war while pushing a large, disenfranchised Sunni population further toward the open arms of groups like ISIS.

A focus of the US "surge" in 2007 was working with Sunni militias to turn against this tide, but that strategy only lasted until the Iraqi state took control of the Sahwa program (Awakening Councils, or Sons of Iraq) as US troops withdrew and quickly dismantled them.

Against a backdrop of electricity shortages, water contamination and continued political destabilization, ISIS, which had by then entered into the north of Syria to take advantage of the civil war there, re-entered the picture with its dramatic capturing of Fallujah, Ramadi and other key points in Iraq's Anbar Province.

ISIS may be the most menacing face of Syria's civil war, but the multifaceted war includes a range of other groups, most notable the Assad regime itself, but also groups like the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army, a "moderate" group originally formed by deserters from the regime's military. And while a civil society-based revolutionary movement continues to defend the small spaces it has been able to hold, a pipeline of US, Gulf and European money providing various factions with weapons that have helped prolong the bloodshed has helped shatter the hopes and dreams of those who first took to the streets in 2011. Though the US Congress recently canceled the public program backing such rebels, the much larger CIA program remains in operation.

Alongside the US funding, US allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have pumped weapons, logistical equipment and soldiers into Syria to support various factions fighting in the civil war, mainly those linked with the Supreme Military Council of Syria, which includes the Free Syrian Army and other anti-ISIS, anti-Assad groups. These groups, as well as the Kurdish peshmerga (from Iraq but often fighting in Syrian Kurdistan) and the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), are often supported by bombings of the US, EU (NATO) countries, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Canada and Turkey.

On the other side of that war, Russia and Iran have sustained financial and political support to the four-decade-old Assad regime, helping defend its authoritarian police state from an array of forces fighting against it. In October 2015, Russian air support joined in the fight to secure Russia a seat at the negotiation table and to bolster Assad's position in power. Though Russia announced in mid-March that it would begin withdrawing forces as a long-needed cease-fire takes effect, fighting targeting Islamist groups unaffected by the cease-fire continues in Aleppo, Syria's largest city and its financial center.

Popular protests have exploded in almost every corner of the world, drawing comparisons to the revolutionary period of 1968. It's hard to analyze this wave of uprisings and protest without crediting the revolutions in the Arab world as the first spark that caught.

Those who inspired the world now face a severe wave of repression, with Syria as one of the most shocking examples. Over 11 percent of the population has been killed or injured since the start of the revolt, and over 20 percent have fled the country. Syria has become the single largest source of refugees in the world. The second largest? Afghanistan.

The Arab allies of the United States, fully involved in the war, have taken in an astoundingly small number of refugees from Syria, with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in last place, with zero. The United States, with its massive economy and "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" rhetoric, pledged last year to take in a mere 10,000 refugees for fiscal year 2016 - that's .015 percent. So far, that number has only reached a little over 1000.

Considering the extent to which US money has been spent killing people and destroying infrastructure in these countries -- for each of the 1,700 Syrian refugees accepted into the country last year, the United States spent an estimated $375,000 financing and arming various factions in the civil war -- it's far beyond an oversight that the United States' borders are almost impossible for refugees from the region to enter. Even those who worked as interpreters for US soldiers in Iraq regularly make the dangerous crossing to Greece, unsupported by the governments they risked their lives to assist.

The reality is that the United States is politically unwilling to help. Its wars of political and economic self-interest have always centered on a US perception of success and have always utilized a rhetoric of liberation to achieve long-sought foreign policy objectives. It has left those whose lives have been turned upside down across the Middle East -- the people it claimed to be liberating when it invaded their homes -- to fend for themselves in Europe or drown in the picturesque waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

The message of the US is now crystal clear: "Your liberation only matters when we need to justify our wars."

Unfortunately the EU will pay, as it already is experiencing, a heavy price for blindly following, agreeing and participating in these disastrous US adventures in the Middle East and other places around the world.

This is not anti-Americanism, it is a statement of fact, which most cowardly corrupt politicians  and the corporate controlled press don't dare to mention.

Where are the European politicians who dare to speak out? It is high time for a EUXIT out of this destructive US embrace,  before this fragile European Union completely falls apart.

EU-Digest

Russian Debt Crises: Russia’s in the red - by Sean Guillory

On 5 April, in the town of Iskitim in Novosibirsk oblast, four masked debt collectors broke into the home of Natalia Gorbunova, beat her husband and 17-year-old son, and then raped her in front of them.

Gorbunova had taken a 5,000 rouble ($75) microloan from two companies, Money Now and Money Quickly, in 2014. She couldn’t make the payments.

But how could she? According to them, Gorbunova now owned them 240,000 roubles ($3,586). The beating and rape weren’t the loan sharks’ first resort. They’d been threatening her family on the phone for two years. A week before the collectors raided Gorbunova’s home, they tried to assault her son, but he managed to get away. The identity of the assailants is still unknown. The cops are scrambling to find them.

Many in the foreign press have noted that revelations of Vladimir Putin’s connections to the Panama Papers weren’t reported in Russia’s federal media. But the reality is that for most Russians who are struggling to stave off constant harassment, threats, and outright violence from predatory lenders,

Putin’s alleged two billion dollars matters far less in their immediate daily life. It’s a reminder of the old Russian adage that “God is high above and the Tsar is far away.”

Nevertheless, federal media did report the crime against Gorbunova and her family. National broadcaster NTV even has a topic page devoted to debt collector violence. Indeed, there is growing public concern — in 2015, the amount of outstanding personal debt rose by 25% to 870 billion roubles ($13 billion).

Collector violence is even getting the attention of the Tsar and his minions. For example, Investigative Committee head Aleksandr Bastrikin has taken the Gorbunova case under his personal control.


Russia’s usually lackadaisical politicians have also been jolted into some action. Several have spoken out about the need to reign in debt collectors, and in Kemerovo oblast, Governor Aman Tuleev and his regional legislature banned collectors outright. (Collection agencies quickly denounced the move as “populism” and the Justice Ministry said that the law was a blow to “economic freedom”.)

The Duma has passed the first reading of a bill that restricts debt collectors’ activities and their interactions with debtors, prohibits harassment, threats and violence, and raises fines by ten times to two million rubles.

A week ago, even Putin spoke out and demanded an end to the lawlessness, threats, and psychological and physical abuse by “quasi-collectors”.

Read more: Russia’s in the red | openDemocracy

Terrorism and the Press: Politicians duck the blame for terrorism and Press lets them get away with it - never asking any real questions

The Press: Say not, See Not, Hear Not

It is amazing listening to news stations during any terrorist attack. They report "blow by blow" all the gruesome and horrific details endlessly.

CNN in particular, turns these sad events into an endless nauseating soap opera with infinite and at times totally insignificant detail.

Questions are asked about why the most wanted man in Europe was able to elude the police for so long, even though he was living in his home district of Molenbeek in Brussels.

Television and newspapers ask nervously about the chances of Isis carrying out another atrocity aimed at dominating the news agenda and showing that it is still in business.

The reporting of the events in Brussels is in keeping with that after the January (Charlie Hebdo) and November Paris attacks and the Tunisian beach killings by Isis last year, or the killings in Ankara and Istanbul 

For several days there is blanket coverage by the media as it allocates time and space far beyond what is needed to relate developments. But then the focus shifts abruptly elsewhere and Isis becomes yesterday’s story, treated as if the movement has ceased to exist or at least lost its capacity to affect our lives.

The outpouring of official grief that commonly follows any atrocity, such as the march of 40 world leaders through the streets of Paris after the Charlie Hebdo killings last year, is used to help neuter any idea that the political failures of these same leaders might be to a degree responsible for the slaughter.

After all, such marches are usually held by the powerless to protest and show defiance, but in this case the march simply serves as a publicity stunt to divert attention from these leaders’ inability to act effectively and stop the wars in the Middle East which they had done much to provoke.

But it its not only the US which deserves the blame. By taking up the cause of the Syrian and Libyan opposition and destroying the Syrian and Libyan states, France and Britain opened the door to Isis and should share in the blame for the rise of Isis, terrorism and creating the refugee crises in Europe.

By refusing to admit to or learn from past mistakes, the West Europeans did little to lay the basis for the current, surprisingly successful “cessation of hostilities” in Syria, which is now considered by the public at large almost entirely as a Russian achievement. 

Once again the question can be asked - which major News Agency has shown the courage to sit down with any important political leader and ask them some serious investigative questions, like: "why have you made such a mess in the Middle East , or, "what is being done to stop weapon dealers from selling their weapons and munition around the world at will ", or, "how come the former US Bush Administration  is not taken into a criminal court  for war crimes ", or, "why is the West propping up the Egyptian military dictatorship, or, "why is the military industrial complex industry selling  weapons and aircraft to despotic and undemocratic nations like Saudi-Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and Somalia", or, "why can't the UN declare the Middle East region a nuclear free zone", or, "what are the requirements to be a member of NATO, when we see that one of their member states (TURKEY) does not respect freedom of the Press, throws investigative reporters in jail, or takes over newspapers when they don't follow the party line" - and the list goes on and on.
Barton Gellman of the Washington Post says that for journalists just getting basic information from any governmen tagency has become very difficult: “Besides the actual risk of prosecution . . . there’s an investigative issue that very much relates to the ability to do national security journalism now. Almost everything you want to write about these days, if you are writing about diplomacy, or intelligence, or defense, is classified; everything indeed, except the boiler plate press release and the tightly controlled  news conference, is classified."

Unfortunately, that is just the way how most governments operate these days.  Today there is more classified information which can not be accessed than there is open-source information on the planet.

Bottom-line, political clarity and honesty is a "Fata Morgana" when it comes to getting it from Governments. Consequently distinguishing  "fiction"    today is the new reality.

EU-Digest

USA - Donald Trump 2016: Europeans are obsessed with the brash real estate mogul - by Nicholas Vinocur

Since the real estate mogul made a shocking surge to the top of the Republican presidential polls in the U.S., Europe has fixated on the unapologetic showman, churning out a steady stream of news coverage and commentary.

The Continent has its share of outrageous personalities on the political right of center: Britain’s Nigel Farage, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, France’s family Le Pen. But Trump fits many perceived European stereotypes of America: excess, vulgarity, ignorance, superficiality, love of wealth, to name a few.

“Trump represents the America that we love to hate,” said Marie-Cécile Naves, a sociologist and author of “Le nouveau visage des droites américaines” (“The New Face of the American Right”). “He is our negative mirror image, a man we see as brutal, who worships money and lacks culture — someone who lets us feel a bit superior about being European.”

In Europe’s capitals, feelings of superiority sometimes translate as concern for an ignorant American public that Trump, described by Britain’s Observer newspaper as a “malign buffoon,” is supposedly exploiting. “His constituency is ignorance,” the Observer wrote on Aug. 9 in an unsigned editorial. “In this, he is heir to a long, inglorious American tradition.”

In France, editorialist Alexandre Vatimbella called him a “provocative clown” whose brand of populism was dangerous for democracy, while Germany’s newspapers have reached a consensus around the label “Großmaul,” or loudmouth.

Read more: Donald Trump 2016: Europeans are obsessed with the brash real estate mogul

The Media: Stop giving PR lip service to ISIS/ IS - They Are Enemies of Humanity - Not A Marketable Product - by RM

ISIS Psychopathic Derelicts Execute Innocent Civilians

It is amazing and questionable why the Media in general goes to such great length in providing ISIS or IS with all this free publicity and PR.

The Islamic State is a Fata Morgana, and all the stories about its legality are bogus. Unfortunately the cruel crimes committed by these psychopathic derelicts are a reality.

But sadly, not much has been done to curb the ability of these fanatic criminals to project a (deluted) image which continues to attract numerous individuals to their cause.  An image which indirectly is reinforced by the publicity the media provides them.

Twitter, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, who all have the means to track our whereabouts and activities should at least also be able to use those same capabilities to track these Enemies of Humanity and bar them from using their services to recruit followers and spout their nonsense.

As to the general corporate controlled press, they should, in this particular case at least, forget their profit motives for once. Stop giving these Enemies of Humanity the time of day in your news reports.

EU-Digest

The Netherlands: Dutch jihadi bride: 'Is she a victim or a suspect?' - by Harriet Alexander, and Anna Mees

She was a blonde-haired, blue eyed Catholic girl whose family was a pillar of the Dutch town of Maastricht. He was a smiling, bicycle-riding Dutch former soldier - a man considered such an asset to his country he was encouraged to try out for their elite special forces.

And yet the marriage of Sterlina Petalo and Omar Yilmaz was, for their families, anything but a cause for celebration.

Yilmaz, 26, was one of the most high-profile Europeans to become a jihadi, travelling to Syria to live in the Islamic State and fight on behalf of the extremists. He gloried in the teenage fantasy of war - posting a series of Instagram photos of himself pouting at the camera on a motorbike, amid bombed-out buildings in his combat fatigues, AK47 slung nonchalantly over his shoulder. Miss Petalo was a recent convert to Islam, who fell in love with Yilmaz after seeing him on television, picturing him as a Robin Hood figure.

Last week their story took a remarkable twist when it was revealed that Miss Petalo had in fact returned to her hometown - after her mother travelled to the Turkish-Syrian border to bring the 19-year-old home from the jihadist-held city of Raqqa.

“Sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” said her mother, Monique Verbert. “She rang me and said 'Take me home.’ But she could not leave Raqqa without help.”

The pair arrived back in the Netherlands on Wednesday, said Annemarie Kemp, a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office. Clad in a niqqab, with only her eyes showing, the teenager - who has changed her name to Aicha - was photographed being driven through the town on her way to custody.

“Upon her arrival, Aicha was detained at once on suspicion of crimes threatening state security,” said Ms Kemp.

Miss Petalo is being held in a police cell - the prosecutor, Roger Bos, ruled on Friday that she should be detained for questioning for three more days. Mrs Verbert, 49, an administrator for BP, argued that her daughter’s flight to Syria was little more than teenage infatuation. Today Monday November 24 the court will decide whether to press charges.

Note EU-Digest: Every civilized human being should condemn the violence and terror IS is using to instill fear and terror in the areas where they operate. In that same breath one should also condemn social media and the International Press for publicizing these horrific scenes of barbarism, including the decapitation of body parts. This is pure commercially based sensationalism, which can only lead to popularizing these horrific acts in the minds of susceptible young people - case in point Ms Petalo who acted upon her teenage fantasy of a "glorified" war and followed this "insanely obsessed man" into certain disaster. 

Kudos to her mother for taking the proper action to bring her daughter back to reality and safety.    
Read more: Dutch jihadi bride: 'Is she a victim or a suspect?' - Telegraph

Ukraine Conflict: Nine News journalist detained in Ukraine

A dozen armed men stopped the Nine News Europe correspondent and his TV crew as they tried to enter the besieged eastern Ukrainian town of Slovyansk, a flashpoint in the worsening Ukrainian crisis.
"Very tense on outskirts of Slovyansk," Stefanovic tweeted overnight.

"We were just held by a dozen armed separatists. Wanted our armour and told to delete pictures."
Stefanovic says the stand-off lasted for around 30 minutes and the troops spoke to them in Russian before releasing them unharmed.

"It was very threatening," he told Nine News this morning.

More than 30 pro-Russian rebels were killed and dozens wounded in Monday's military assault on Slovyansk, which also claimed the lives of four Ukrainian soldiers.

Rebel fighters included several from Russia and Chechnya as well as Crimea, annexed by Moscow in March, according to Ukrainian officials.

Read more: Nine News journalist detained in Ukraine

France: Francois Hollande Asked: 'Do You Think Your Private Life Has Made France An International Joke?'

British journalists poured scorn on French reporters earlier this month when Hollande gave his first press conference following allegations of an affair were made public - accusing them of being too afraid to ask probing questions.

And during a joint press conference between David Cameron and Hollande at an RAF airbase today, The Daily Telegraph's senior political correspondent, Christopher Hope, went for the jugular with this question.

"Monsieur le Président. I know this is a very sensitive subject for you. Do you think your private life has made France an international joke? Are you still having an affair with Julie Gayet? And do you wish she was here?"

Hollande, who scrunched up his face at the personal question, told Hope: "I'm afraid I would decline to answer."

The question was controversial with some. Axelle Lemaire, a French Socialist politician, said it was "disrespectful and discourteous for a UK journalist to ask President Hollande about his private life in such a way". She added: "Is that journalist a joke?"

Lemaire, who represents French citizens living in London, dismissed the argument that the grilling was justified on the basis of a free press.

She told the Daily Mail's political editor on Twitter: "Nothing to do with free press. You were scandalized when Closer showed photos of the Duchess of Cambridge. Double standard?"

Read more: Francois Hollande Asked: 'Do You Think Your Private Life Has Made France An International Joke?'

Eurosceptism: The British media is in love with the Euromyth

The invented tales about European Union policy have the ability to amuse and terrify the public. But Catherine Bearder, a Liberal Democrat MEP for South East England, explains why she has launched her Euromyth Buster campaign to make sure fact is not substituted for fantasy.  Let’s face it, is it any surprise people in the UK get exasperated by the European Union?

They are swamped with erroneous tales of alleged devious directives and barmy plans from ‘meddling Brussels bureaucrats’.

I have my favourites. There was the ‘fear’ sparked amongst the European male population after the story of the German man who claimed to have been made impotent by Euro coins. And even the rational were left reeling at news the EU was proposing to liquefy corpses and flush them down the drain.

You can take two stances: ignore, and let the drivel seep into the public subconscious, in the way grossly exaggerated tales of bendy bananas managed. Or, go armed with the truth, tackle myth-making when it crops up in the media and query suspected fabrication.

When a headline screams ‘EU disgrace’ or ‘look at what them lot are doing now’ (insert exclamation mark for extra anger), stick your hand up and question detail.

It is a relentless job, but one which those of us who believe in an effective place in the union must do. Rebutting falsehoods uttered about the European Union has become a full time job. The European Commission has introduced a policy of tackling negative coverage it regards as being distorted… or, just plain wrong. It gets hit hard, often because many UK tabloids seem to forget their journalistic duty to contact the commission for a comment on many of their stories.  I struggle to imagine other scenarios in which that would be the case. If a local newspaper is running a story criticising a council plan, they go to the Town Hall for comment.

If a police initiative is being scrutinized, a leading officer is asked for a quote. If a school is cutting classes, the headteacher or education authority is called upon to speak up. I took part in a radio debate last month, during which one caller said she wanted Britain out of the EU because it preached holocaust denial to school pupils.

The most surprising part was the polite acceptance of the viewpoint from the presenter. No attempt was made to question what was clearly rubbish. Those who pour scorn on our place in Europe are not keen for a frank and straightforward debate on the facts.

Read more: The British media is in love with the Euromyth | New Europe

Global warming: Climate change coverage by the media diminishing as Earth continues to heat up - by Antonia Zerbisias

Even as dust storms rolled over Phoenix, fires ravaged Texas, tornadoes flattened towns like Goderich, Ont., and rivers flooded many regions, mentions of climate change in newspapers and on broadcast media in North America decreased substantially.

According to the Virginia-based news aggregator DailyClimate.org, coverage dropped by 20 per cent from 2010 and by more than 40 per cent from 2009.

Last year at least 7,140 journalists and opinion writers published some 19,000 stories on climate change, as opposed to more than 11,100 reporters who filed 32,400 stories in 2009. “Particularly noticeable was the silence from the nation’s editorial boards: in 2009, newspapers published 1,229 editorials on the topic. Last year, they published less than 580 — half as many, according to DailyClimate.org’s archives.”

Robert J. Brulle, a professor of sociology and environmental science at Philadelphia’s Drexel University says:  “It’s not in politicians’ interest to talk about it because, to really deal with climate change, we really have to change the way we live, especially in America. Nobody wants to hear that.” 

Note EU-Digest:  Could it also be that the press around the world has been somewhat silenced because they have been "charmed"  by interest groups and lobbyists from the energy and natural resources sector ? Published statistics show that these efforts have been mainly led by forces from the oil, gas, electric utilities and nuclear energy industries, which regularly pump the vast majority of  their political campaign contributions into conservative coffers. 

In the US, since the 1990 election cycle, interest groups from the energy and natural resources sector have contributed more than two-thirds of their campaign contributions to Republican/conservative candidates. 

Open secrets.com recently published a list of the top contributors (2011- 2012) in the energy field.  Red showing the contributions made to politically conservative forces and blue the amounts donated to more moderate political forces supporting efforts to curb global warming by reducing green house gasses and additional investment in alternative energy resources.

Contributor	Amount
Exxon Mobil	$872,694
National Rural Electric Cooperative Assn	$761,200
Koch Industries	$652,400
Exelon Corp	$591,494
Murray Energy	$502,433
Chevron Corp	$467,996
FirstEnergy Corp	$384,300
Dominion Resources	$359,295
Duke Energy	$346,951
Southern Co	$325,976
Mewbourne Oil Co	$310,000
Alliance Resource Partners	$309,850
Valero Energy	$296,700
American Electric Power	$290,000
Edison Electric Institute	$277,825
DTE Energy	$276,750
National Mining Assn	$276,250
NextEra Energy	$268,400
Energy Future Holdings Corp	$260,675
Occidental Petroleum	$248,089

For more: Climate change coverage by the media diminishing as Earth continues to heat up - thestar.com

The Press: Murdoch's empire is turning gangrenous

The momentum behind the phone hacking scandal is starting to spread from the News of the World (NotW) and infect other tectacles of Rupert Murdoch’s empire. Renault, for example, have not just pulled advertising from the ex-newspaper, but from all his "Corporate News Empire".

And now anti-Murdoch campaigners in America are starting to sniff blood. Their target: Les Hinton, current publisher of the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by NI’s parent company News Corporation. Mr Hinton was executive chairman of News International while Coulson edited News of the World.

After playing down the disclosures for years as the work of a few rotten apples, the abrupt Murdoch move—announced Thursday by his son, James—represented a tacit acknowledgement that the critics were right: The paper's very culture was corrupt. “It was shocking,” says Sarah Ellison, a Vanity Fair contributing editor covering the story. “But when you think about it for two minutes, it's purely cynical.

It's a way of sacrificing something Murdoch doesn't care about to save what he does care about, including Rebekah Brooks , his prized News International editor in London. They seem to be sacrificing lower-level people in order to save the people who are in charge.” Brooks was very much in charge as News of the World editor during much of the misconduct, but it is the paper's 200 employees who are now losing their jobs.

For more: Murdoch's empire is turning gangrenous - here and in the US | Left Foot Forward