USA: More bad news for Donald Trump as Raphael Warnock keeps his Senate seat.for Georgia

While Walker's campaign was consumed with controversy from the beginning, Warnock's once-sizable lead dramatically narrowed later in the year. In the Nov. 8 midterm election, Warnock and Walker came in just below the necessary 50% vote threshold required to win the race outright, forcing a Dec. 6 runoff. 

And the resuli is in, Herschel Walker lost and  Raphael Warnock keeps his Senate seat. 

Read more at: https//www.cnn.com

USA: Senate acquits Trump of inciting riot at U.S. Capitol, ending his 2nd impeachment trial - "but his real troubles have only begun"

The U.S. Senate voted 57-43 at Donald Trump's impeachment trial, falling short of the 10 more votes needed to convict him for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol.

Nick Akerman, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, described Trump's legal exposure as: "Extremely serious. On the tax, the mortgage fraud [laws] and the matter in Georgia, where he's on tape."

Read more at: Senate acquits Trump of inciting riot at U.S. Capitol, ending his 2nd impeachment trial | CBC News

US Presidential Elections: As Biden gains ground, Trump again accuses Democrats, without evidence, of trying to 'steal' election

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden gained more ground on President Donald Trump in the battleground states of Georgia and Pennsylvania on Friday, edging closer to the White House hours after Trump falsely claimed the election was being "stolen" from him.

Read more at: As Biden gains ground, Trump again accuses Democrats, without evidence, of trying to 'steal' election | CBC News

US Presidential Elections: Georgia's most populous county stopped counting ballots at 10:30 p.m. - by Jeva Lange

It's bedtime in Georgia! In Fulton County — the state's most populous county, which includes Atlanta — officials said they would stop counting mail-in ballots at 10:30 p.m., with the plan of resuming in the morning, NBC News reports. Hey, that's fine, it's not like we're in the middle of an incredibly contentious election or anything!

The count in Fulton County had already been delayed earlier in the evening, after a pipe burst near a room where some of the ballots were being held. Because the region is home to a tenth of all Georgians, the further hold-up will affect when the whole state is able to report its final tally. Trump leads in the Peach State as of 11 p.m. ET with 63 percent reporting, although his margin is expected to narrow or potentially flip, since mail-in ballots are projected to skew blue, especially in Atlanta.

Read more at: Georgia's most populous county stopped counting ballots at 10:30 p.m.

EU: Germany tells the East: Speed up reform or you will lose your population – by Georgi Gotev

Germany’s minister of state for Europe delivered a blunt message to a gathering of the Eastern Partnership, organised in the Georgian Black Sea city of Batumi on Thursday (11 July): unless reforms in Eastern Europe speed up, its young people will leave to find a better life in Western Europe.

Michael Roth spoke at the Batumi International Conference, dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the Eastern Partnership, an EU initiative covering Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Some of these countries, Georgia in particular, see themselves as frontrunners and want to go beyond this framework, with a view to eventual EU accession.
Roth explained the enlargement fatigue currently felt in the EU.

“Many people in the EU are totally exhausted, confronted by so many crises: Brexit, transatlantic relations totally under pressure, migration, the rise of nationalism and populism. Many people are not really happy with enlargement,” the German minister said.

Read more at: Germany tells the East: Speed up reform or you will lose your population – EURACTIV.com

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Moldovia: Russia Prepares Economic Retaliation Over Moldova's EU Deal

As Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova move ever nearer to Europe, much to Russia's dismay, the board of the Eurasian Economic Commission assembled Wednesday with plans to discuss imposing "protective measures" on trade with Moldova.

While the results of Wednesday's meeting are yet unknown — the Commission's press office said that they will be revealed Thursday — Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister, Igor Shuvalov, said last week that the topic was on the board's agenda, ITAR-Tass reported.

The underlying issue is the same one that inspired months of anti-government protests in Ukraine, culminating in the ouster of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russia's annexation of Crimea and the ongoing separatist insurgence in the country's east that has claimed hundreds of lives: an association agreement with the European Union.

Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have all signed association agreements with the EU, but on July 2 the Moldovan parliament became the first and only one of the three to ratify it, immediately drawing the attention of top Russian officials.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev declared shortly after that Russia must respond "in the very near future" by decisions reached with Belarus and Kazakhstan, its fellow Eurasian Economic Commission and Customs Union members, ITAR-Tass reported.

Read more: Russia Prepares Economic Retaliation Over Moldova's EU Deal | Business | The Moscow Times

Eastern Europe: Defying Russian warnings, Moldova and Georgia head for EU pact

Undeterred by the conflict triggered by Ukraine's swing towards Europe, the former Soviet republics of Moldova and Georgia will sign a trade and political pact with the European Union this month with Russia warning both countries against the move.

The two small countries - Moldova has a population of just over 3.5 million and Georgia 4.5 million - see the signing of an association agreement as the crucial step towards mainstream Europe, leading to eventual membership of the powerful EU trading bloc.

But, as has been shown by their regional neighbor Ukraine, Russia sees their westward move further away from Moscow's sphere of influence as a geo-political setback that could threaten its markets too.

Last November, Russia persuaded a now-ousted Ukrainian leader to pull out of an identical pact with the EU. 

When protests then chased him from office, Russia, in a backlash, annexed Crimea, and armed pro-Russian separatist groups sprang up in Ukraine's east and the battle there is still raging.

How Russia - which went to war with Georgia in 2008 - will react now remains the big unknown but officials have warned of "possible consequences".

Read more: Defying Russian warnings, Moldova and Georgia head for EU pact - Yahoo News

Russia: Putin's Playbook - "Soft Annexation" - The Strategy Behind Russia's Takeover of Crimea -by Uri Friedman

President Vladimir Putin

It seemed like a classic example of euphemistic bureaucrat-speak when, on Friday, U.S. officials referred to the deployment of Russian troops in Crimea as an "uncontested arrival" rather than an invasion.

But terminology matters here. Take the word "uncontested": The southern peninsula of Crimea, which the Soviet Union transferred to Ukraine in 1954 and which now hosts the Russian military's Black Sea Fleet, is the only region in the country where ethnic Russians are a majority (60 percent of a population of 2 million). And a good number of them favor closer relations with, if not outright annexation by, Moscow; according to one recent poll, 42 percent of Crimean residents want Ukraine to unite with Russia.

That doesn't mean there aren't Ukrainian nationalists or Kremlin opponents in Crimea—there certainly are—but it does mean many people in the autonomous republic, spooked by the ouster last week of Ukraine's pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych, welcome Russian military intervention.

Or take the word "arrival": If this is an invasion, it's a disorienting and not yet fully formed one. There were the shadowy, Russian-speaking gunmen who fanned out across Crimea on Friday, seizing government buildings and airports. And then there was the series of seemingly orchestrated events on Saturday:

Crimea's freshly minted prime minister pleading for Russian help; Russia's lower house of parliament urging Vladimir Putin to "stabilize" Crimea, the Russian president obliging; the upper house swiftly granting him the authority to use force in Ukraine. Putin is pledging to make his next move soon, as his military masses and the White House fumes. All told, we're now witnessing what Reuters is calling the "biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cold War."

So what should we call the worrying developments in Ukraine? And what is Putin thinking?

Back in 2008, Thomas de Waal, an expert on the South Caucasus, argued that Putin's greatest legacy is something de Waal called "soft annexation," which, at the time, was underway in Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The idea, expressed in various forms over the years, is that Russia is pulling political, economic, and military levers—all of which fall short of traditional invasion—to exploit ethnic conflicts in countries that used to be in its orbit. And the goal is to leverage these tensions, which are often relics of the Soviet Union's messy consolidation and collapse, to gain influence in former Soviet states, while preventing these countries from moving closer to the West.

Read more: Putin's Playbook: The Strategy Behind Russia's Takeover of Crimea - Uri Friedman - The Atlantic

Europe's new climate policies creating a wood pellet business boom in the US and Canada

US wood pellets reducing EU greenhouse gas emissions

The wood pellet industry is enjoying a speedy, zero-to-80 growth surge across the United States and Canada.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in factories – some of them converted from old lumber mills – in coastal plain forests from Virginia to Louisiana and Maine.

They are serving a market created, almost overnight, by new environmental policies that are driving European electric utilities to burn imported wood in their boilers instead of coal.

This came about as the European Union adopted aggressive targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. They created incentives for electric utilities to cut back on their use of coal and will require renewable sources to provide 20 percent of all energy by 2020. Wind and solar power are also a part of this equation. 

European power companies are looking to close the gap with biomass – primarily with imported wood pellets. Biomass use in Great Britain, 3 million tons last year, is expected to grow tenfold over the next five years.

Britain’s biggest carbon emitter is the Drax Group, a Yorkshire utility that operates the largest power plant in western Europe. Drax is converting half its plant from coal to wood pellets. Coal is one-third the price of pellets, but Drax CEO Dorothy Thompson said her company is responding to renewable-energy credits and a British carbon tax, introduced this year at $7 a ton, that will grow by 2020 to more than $60 a ton.

In Europe, the United Kingdom is the No. 1, importer bringing in 855,000 metric tons (mt) from Canada last year and another 475,000 mt from the U.S. While Canadian pellets dominate the U.K. market, the U.S. is the biggest supplier to the Netherlands and Belgium. Denmark and Sweden receive the most pellets from Russia.

While the EU power market has gotten much attention, the heating market comprises 40 percent of the EU pellet market, with no subsidy required, because Pellets are 30 percent cheaper than heating oil. Currently, 90 percent of Canadian exports are being shipped from western ports and going through the Panama Canal, but an effort is underway to organize the smaller pellet producers in eastern Canada to pool resources and product to develop export facilities in the east.

The bottom-line is that the consumer marketfor pellets  in the EU has grown into a very stable market, It is no longer seasonal and some people even prefer to buy pellets in the summer months.

The annual increase each year in the EU has hovered around 700,000 tons of pellets for the past few years, but is projected to exceed 1 million tons in 2013, based on the sales of boilers and stoves. Italy is showing the most rapid growth currently, having added over 1 million pellet stoves in recent years. Consumption is expected to exceed production in both Austria and Germany this year, which will add to import demand.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/08/17/4244134/european-climate-policy-drives.html#storylink=cpy

In the foreseeable future the US and Canada seem to be well poised to meet these European demands.

Maryland-based Enviva LP the US’s biggest pellet maker, opened its Ahoskie mill in 2011 and a second one in Northampton County this year. Together, they produce 865,000 tons of pellets annually to be shipped out of the port at Chesapeake, Va.

In 2015, Enviva expects to start exporting an additional million tons from a planned $40 million terminal at the Wilmington port. The company is scouting sites for two new pellet mills in southeastern North Carolina, one of them in Sampson County.

At the same time, California-based International Woodfuels has said it will produce 285,000 tons a year from a planned pellet mill in Wilson County and a new export terminal at the Morehead City port.

Eastport in Washington County, Maine, near the Canadian border, which is planning a $120m wood-pellet factory, is one of the areas which seems especially well positioned to benefit from this European "craving" for wood pellets.

Chris Gardner, the director of the Eastport Port Authority says, "Eastport is the closest port on the US East-Coast to the European heartland. We can get European consumers their wood pellets before anyone else in the US".

The pellet industry is a "green industry" and not harmful to the environment as it is founded on a climate-friendly, carbon-neutral rationale.

All forests use photosynthesis to soak up carbon dioxide. This stored-up carbon is released into the air when wood pellets are burned, but wood is called a renewable fuel because that carbon eventually is recaptured by new trees that grow in place of the old ones.

The wood pellet industry can certainly become a win-win proposition for everyone.

EU-Digest

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/08/17/4244134/european-climate-policy-drives.html#storylink=cpy

Russia : "The West's Flawed 'Civilization Burden"' - by Robert Shlegel

The winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, or PACE, ended last week. After attending the session, I am convinced more than ever that the West's general attitude toward Russia hasn't changed.

Russia and most former Soviet republics are regularly criticized and subjected to monitoring on human rights violations and are a favorite target for PACE reports. Meanwhile, Western countries, along with the Baltic states, love to play the role of judges and protectors of human rights. They love to play the missionary role of torchbearers of true democracy who bring "civilization" to most former Soviet republics. And we are fed up with it.

That attitude was perfectly illustrated in the PACE report titled "On Freedom of the Media in Europe," which was presented during the latest session. As the title indicates, the report should have been devoted to all of Europe, yet for some unknown reason, the author focused for the most part on problems in Turkey. Of course, the report would not have been complete without mention of Russia and other former Soviet republics, but it somehow finished up without a reference to a single country in "old" Europe. The attitude of the speaker toward "developing countries" was made clear in a regular meeting held to make corrections and amendments to the report.

After hearing the report, the representatives of the "enlightened powers" thanked the speaker for his thorough and objective work. I am sure their bias is not based in malice. It is simply that these reports fit comfortably into their self-serving worldview, which holds that they live in civilized, advanced countries and that somewhere, far away in the East, live primitive people who must be educated in the modern concepts of democracy, rule of law and freedom.

The problem is that the world has changed dramatically in recent years, and a model of behavior that might have been tolerated in the 1990s now elicits nothing but laughter and irritation. I am certain that if the politicians of Western democracies do not find a new, respectful attitude toward Russia and do not change their patronizing tone and language, there will be a complete breakdown in communications and rising tension and irritation between the former Soviet republics and the West. Moreover, there will be a loss of global leadership that will be difficult to restore. 

Read more: The West's Flawed 'Civilization Burden' | Opinion | The Moscow Times

Georgia: Georgian tycoon expects NATO entry after poll victory

The billionaire who is likely to become Georgia's next prime minister said on Tuesday he was confident the former Soviet republic would soon join NATO.

Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose opposition coalition won a parliamentary election last week, also responded to accusations that he might let Georgia be drawn back into Moscow's orbit by underlining that relations with the West would be a priority.

"We are striving towards Europe and Georgia will definitely be able to become a member of NATO soon," Ivanishvili said after talks with President Mikheil Saakashvili.

"We talked about foreign policy, our visions and so forth. The foreign policies declared by both sides - that Europe and the Euro-Atlantic space represent our strategies - are in accord," he said.

The two rivals looked reserved as they shook hands at the presidential administration building in the capital Tbilisi, their first meeting since the October 1 election.

Read more: Georgian tycoon expects NATO entry after poll victory - World Updates | The Star Online

Russia backs EU, not U.S., role in Georgia

Reuters

Russia backs EU, not U.S., role in Georgia

Moscow welcomes the work of EU monitors in Georgia, deployed in the Caucasus state a year ago after the Russian invasion, but is opposed to the United States having a role, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.Under a peace deal brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the European Union has sent 240 unarmed monitors to Georgia to oversee a fragile ceasefire. Georgia now wants the United States to join the monitoring.

"The presence of EU monitors on Georgian territories bordering South Ossetia and Abkhazia is an important stabilizing factor and we support such a presence," Lavrov told state-run television channel Vesti-24.

Georgia Times: Opposition to invigorate their protest

For the complete report from the GeorgiaTimes.info click on this link

Opposition to invigorate their protest

Georgian opposition which has been holding large-scale ralliesin favor President Mikheil Saakashvili's resignation since April 9 announces plans to widen their protests and move to periphery. This was recently stated by Movement For United Georgia leader Eka Beselia at a public meeting near the parliament, News Georgia reports. The number of protesters had drastically dropped over the last month resulting in the opposition leaders call for reorganization.

BBC NEWS : Georgia mutiny suspect shot dead

For the complete report from the BBC NEWS click on this link

Georgia mutiny suspect shot dead

Georgian police have shot dead a man suspected of playing a key role in a mutiny at a military base earlier this month, the interior ministry has said. Gia Krialashvili was killed in a shoot-out with police as they tried to arrest him in a western suburb of Tbilisi, it said. Two other suspects were wounded. All three men have military backgrounds and are suspected of masterminding the brief mutiny at Mukhrovani on 5 May.

Civil.Ge: Georgia - Saakashvili: ‘Shame on Eurovision’

For the complete report from Civil.Ge click on this link

Georgia - Saakashvili: ‘Shame on Eurovision’

President Saakashvili of Georgia said that organizers of Eurovision song contest denied the Georgian entry for “political motives.” Georgia withdrew from Eurovision after the organizer, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), told Georgia to revise the lyrics of its entry, ‘We Don't Wanna Put In’. Meanwhile, Georgia organized its music festival Tbilisi Open Air-Alter/Vision, or an alternative to Eurovision. The "Saakashvili festival", which will feature twenty acts from ten countries, opens on Friday evening. Organizers said originally the festival was planned for June, but decided to move it forward to coincide with Eurovision in Moscow.

Note EU-Digest: This once again is pure immature behavior of President Saakashvili, which the world has now seen many times over when he does not get his way. Unfortunately this kind of behavior reflects negatively on Georgia as a nation.

BBC NEWS: Anti-government clash in Georgia

Mikhael Saskashveli with body guards

For the complete report from BBC NEWS click on this link

Anti-government clash in Georgia

Anti-government protesters and police have clashed in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, over the alleged beating of a local journalist. Riot police used batons to force back some protesters who tried to enter a police compound by climbing over a fence, the interior ministry said. These were the first clashes between protesters and police since anti-government demonstrations began on 9 April. Although attendance at daily rallies has dwindled, tension in the city has risen, said the BBC's Tom Esslemont in Tbilisi.

The clash came a day after Georgian authorities said they had thwarted an army mutiny.

CSM: Georgia-The Unstable NATO Ally Seeing Red: As it blames Russia for 'mutiny' - by Fred Weir

For the complete report from the csmonitor.com click on this link

Georgia-The Unstable NATO Ally Seeing Red: As it blames Russia for 'mutiny' - by Fred Weir

It looked like a recipe for political crisis even before a Georgian tank battalion apparently mutinied on Tuesday: • Nearly a month of rolling street demonstrations have virtually shut down the central area of the capital, with thousands of protesters daily demanding the resignation of Georgia's president, Mikhail Saakashvili. • Russian troops have been massing in the past week barely an hour's drive away in South Ossetia. • NATO-sponsored war games that Moscow furiously opposes are set to begin on Wednesday.Georgi Khutsishvili, chair of the International Center on Conflict and Negotiation in Tbilisi, says there are no "pro-Russian" forces, either among the opposition in Tbilisi's streets or within the Georgian army. "Our authorities are always seeing Moscow's hand in things," he says. "But I cannot imagine that any Georgian army battalion could revolt on Russian orders. I completely exclude this. Whatever happened, it must be explained by internal factors." Experts say the Kremlin appears increasingly concerned over the damage to Russia's fragile dialogue with NATO, begun with high hopes barely a month ago. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last week called on the Western alliance to cancel the "shortsighted" war games, and ordered Russian officials not to attend a NATO council meeting slated for Thursday.

Note EU-Digest: It is high time the EU distance itself from this very precarious situation in Georgia, mainly created by the unstable leadership of Mikhail Saakashvili

Boston.com/NYT/BBC: Georgia president refuses to resign, lauds democracy

For the complete report from the The Boston Globe/NYT/BBC click on this link

Georgia president refuses to resign, lauds democracy

A day after tens of thousands of people rallied to demand his resignation, President Mikheil Saakashvili declared yesterday that he would not give up power but said he would do nothing to interfere with continuing protests against his government.Saakashvili offered to begin discussions with opposition leaders to try to lower tensions and to agree on changes to the constitution and government. He emphasized that the peaceful nature of the rally on Thursday proved that Georgia was developing well as a democracy.

BBC reports that his main error, opposition parties say, was to lead the country into war with Russia last year and plunge the country into what they call a crisis.Up to 60,000 people attended Thursday's opposition rally in the capital. Hundreds remained in the city centre overnight. The BBC has discovered evidence that Georgia may have committed war crimes in its attack on its breakaway region of South Ossetia in August. Eyewitnesses have described how its tanks fired directly into an apartment block, and how civilians were shot at as they tried to escape the fighting. Research by the international investigative organization Human Rights Watch also points to indiscriminate use of force by the Georgian military, and the possible deliberate targeting of civilians.

The Georgian Times: Georgia - Tinatin, the “Best Kept Secret for Much Too Long”…

For the complete report from The Georgian Times click on this link

Georgia - Tinatin, the “Best Kept Secret for Much Too Long”…

Tinatin's music career began in 1998 when she auditioned with Professor Luigi Alva at La Scala and was offered a place at the Academy. At 14, she began classical vocal lessons with renowned Maestro Gocha Bezhuashvili, who has worked with La Scala, The Metropolitan Opera and Covent Garden. In the summer of 1998, Tinatin was invited to open the 1st Festival of Russian Films in Cannes and was then asked by the Mayor of Nice to close the annual Carnival of Flowers with her version of Jacques Brel's "Quand On Na Que L'Amour." Tinatin is currently working on two literary projects, fiction and non-fiction. Her songs are top hits on UK Radio stations and in clubs. Catapulting into mainstream success with a current dance/club hit in the UK, “Thinking of Someone Else,” Tinatin is adding final touches to her debut album with a number of the industry's top producers and scribes.

EU-Digest/Radio Free Europe: Georgia, Ukraine Told They Do Not Meet Standards For NATO Membership - by Liz Fuller

For the complete report from Radio Free Europe click on this link

Georgia, Ukraine Told They Do Not Meet Standards For NATO Membership - by Liz Fuller

The NATO foreign ministers' decision on December 2 not to offer Membership Action Plans to Georgia and Ukraine should not have surprised anyone. Nor should their reaffirmation of the provision enshrined in the final document of the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest that those two countries will at some unspecified future date join the alliance. But the fact remains -- and was stressed by both NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- that both Georgia and Ukraine still fall short of basic NATO standards in terms of both political reform and military readiness.

Note EU-Digest:
There also is absolutely no need to admit Albania and Croatia into NATO. As a matter of fact the EU should also insist for reasons of unity and conformity that those EU nations which already are in NATO should be grouped under a single EU unbrella possibly as proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy re: EU Elite Defence Force.