Turkey: Saudi embassy in Turkey issues alert to citizens regarding theft of passports - by Ismaeel Naa

Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Turkey issued an alert on Monday to its citizens visiting the country regarding the safekeeping of their belongings after a spate of cases involving the theft of Saudi passports in Istanbul.

“In view after some citizens who arrived in the Republic of Turkey on tourism were stopped by authorities for not carrying their original passports, the embassy notes the necessity for citizens to hold on to their original passports with care and prevent its loss, damage or theft. Turkish security authorities request the original passport for the purpose of verifying identity, and does not accept a copy of the passport,” a statement carried by the Saudi embassy and foreign ministry on Twitter read.

Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported last week that 165 Saudi passports were stolen in three Turkish tourist areas during the past four months. According to sources who spoke to the newspaper, Saudi tourists were targeted in the neighborhoods of Taksim, Ortakoy, and Besiktas in Istanbul.

Read more: Saudi embassy in Turkey issues alert to citizens regarding theft of passports - Al Arabiya English

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Britain-Brexit: A question of identity, but more about the fact that Democracy can't be a bad thing

Read more at:
https://www.thelocal.se/20190417/opinion-brexit-is-a-question-of-identity-but-more-democracy-cant-be-a-bad-thing

EU-Editorial: Europe must embrace its new identity - by Carl Bildt

Travelling through Germany in the run-up to its federal election on September 24, one cannot help but be struck by the lingering signs of profound trauma from the 2015 refugee crisis.

Suddenly and virtually without warning, nearly a million desperate people – mostly Syrians fleeing the carnage in their homeland – flocked to Germany. And while Germany may be Europe’s most bureaucratically well-managed country, even it was overwhelmed.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s response to the crisis two years ago was to throw out the rulebook and open her country’s borders. She famously told the German people, “Wir schaffen das” (We can do it).

But German public opinion today suggests that the country has become warier of such bold gestures.

Yes, Germany did it, because there was no alternative; and many Germans are proud of their country for rising to the occasion. But most hope that such a crisis never happens again.

Read more:Europe is a continent that once exported war and turmoil, but that now wants to protect itself from its neighbors’ problems. 

One of the lessons from 2015 is that the European Union will need to develop a far stronger common foreign and security policy. The EU must replace lofty rhetoric with concrete action, while also accepting its regional and global responsibilities. Barbed wire fencing between Hungary and Serbia will not shield Europe from the effects of war in Ukraine, putsches and terrorism in Anatolia, or violent conflagrations in the Levant and Mesopotamia. And it will not help Europe manage the dramatic shift now underway in Africa, which will be home to 40% of the world’s working-age population in a few decades.

Another lesson from 2015 is that European countries must learn to redefine their national identities. The United States, Australia, and Canada have all been built on immigration, and most of us are the progeny of people from somewhere else. Indeed, there is not much left of the “first nations” in these countries. It is now entirely possible for there to be more people of Swedish descent in Chicago than in Stockholm.

For Europe to find its place in a rapidly changing world, its citizens will have to learn to tap multiple identities. One can be a proud Swede and a proud European at the same time; one can also be both German and Turkish, and derive strength from that duality. It is not disloyal to see oneself as a citizen of the world. On the contrary, it is honorable.

Such a shift in attitudes would make for a very different Europe. We would have finally moved on from ancient tribal conflicts and fears, and embraced a networked, digital future. Merkel, who will likely be elected to another four-year term as chancellor on September 24, told Germans that they “can do it.” But whether Germany and the rest of Europe will do it remains to be seen. We have our work cut out for us.

Read more: View: Europe must embrace its new identity | Euro

Identity: How Powerful Is Your Passport and how many countries can you visit with it?. - by Ricky Linn

People may be increasingly leaning on technology and personal devices to house their personal information, but a hard copy passport still carries a hefty amount of weight.

This infographic offers a glimpse into the power of the world's passports -- ranked by the travel freedom a passport holder enjoys.

EU-Digest

European Elections: "An EU of multinationals, of harmonisation – makes people uneasy. People like difference and identity." - by Jon Henley

Is EU taken over by Multi-National  Lobbyists ?

The Foire aux Fromages et aux Vins in Coulommiers, an attractive town on the undulating Brie plateau an hour east of Paris, is a fabulously French affair: a monumental marquee, hordes of happy visitors and more than 350 stalls laden with Gallic bounty.

Among the cheeses are tomme from Savoie, crottins de chèvre from Aveyron, and great roundels of brie from nearby Meaux, alongside case upon case of chablis, Pouilly-Fumé, Nuits-Saint-Georges. And today, in amiable conversation with a local cheesemaker, there is Aymeric Chauprade, academic, author, consultant, and leading candidate in the European elections for Marine Le Pen's freshly fumigated Front National.

Here's the problem, explains an immaculately suited Chauprade, who besides degrees in maths and international law has a doctorate in political science from the Sorbonne: all this – he gestures around him as the throng prods, nibbles, squeezes, swills and swallows – is at risk.

"American farmers and 'big food' will rule; our regulations and standards will count for nothing," Chauprade continues. "This is an EU that has no respect for national specificities; it's an EU of bureaucrats, of ever greater normalisation, in the service of big banks and corporations. It is not the EU we want."
Understandably, this message plays well here. But not only here.

Across the EU, insurgent parties from right and left are poised to cause major upset, finishing at or near the top of their respective national votes. As a result, rejectionist parties look set to send their largest contingent of anti-European MEPs ever to the European parliament: perhaps 25% of the assembly's 751 members. (Down from 766 in the current parliament.)

Disillusion with the EU, certainly, is at record highs across the continent. The surveys are unequivocal: 60% of Europeans "tend not to trust" the EU now, against 32% in 2007; in 20 of the 28 member states a clear majority feels the EU is going "in the wrong direction"; for the first time, Eurosceptics outnumber supporters by 43% to 40%.

"In our analysis, the real turning point came in the late 1980s, when the big industrialists started laying down the plans for the future of Europe," says Dennis de Jong, a leading MEP from the impeccably leftwing but fiercely Euro-critical Dutch Socialist party. "Until that moment, the EU seemed like a logical post-war development. But industry, not ordinary people, has driven much of what's happened since, from opening internal borders to the euro.

This EU – the EU of multinationals, of harmonisation – makes people uneasy. People like difference. They like identity."

Read more: The enemy invasion: Brussels braced for influx of Eurosceptics in EU polls | World news | The Guardian

EU Struggling with its identity

Pressure is mounting on the European Union to 'fly the flag' in Haiti, with the country seemingly becoming a test case for showcasing the bloc's revamped institutions under the Lisbon Treaty.

Herman Van Rompuy, the EU's new permanent president, has asked heads of state and government to discuss the situation at their informal summit on 11 February.

For more: EurActiv.com - EU struggles to 'fly the flag' in Haiti | EU - European Information on EU Priorities 2020

YouTube - One Europe, Nations United Eternally

To view the video on YouTube click on this link

One Europe, Nations United Eternally

"If at times we seem like a loose group of Nations without a vision for the future, don't be mistaken, or mess with us. We are linked eternally together by our cultural ties, common purpose and determination to succeed."

YouTube - American explains European Union

To view the report on YouTube click on this link

American explains European Union

Prof. Andrew Moravcsik's talk at Zurich University about "democratic deficits in the European Union"

American.com: The Birth of The New “Europeans” — by David Dabscheck

For the complete report from AMERICAN.COM click on this link

The Birth of The New “Europeans” — by David Dabscheck

Americans have long been dismissive of a concerted European identity, probably best captured by Kissinger’s biting comment, “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?” Of course the recent “No” votes on a European constitution only reinforced the view that the EU is little more than a collection of (weakly) united economies. The prospect that the bickering states of the Old World would ever be able to forge a “United States of Europe,” despite George Washington himself believing that it would one day be so, was seen as unfeasible if not downright fanciful.

The incessant focus on political and economic factors overlooks the slower moving—but much more powerful—forces of culture and identity.

Identity is more than legislation, but institutional changes since 1992 are quickly, although quietly, facilitating the emergence of Generation E, young people who are comfortable working across the EU, identify themselves as European, and believe that there are European values—often in contrast to perceived American ones. As an inherently social construct, identity can just as easily be fashioned from opposing something as from rallying around something (just ask a Canadian).