China--Germany relations: Germany meeting wirh China on Ukraine, climate change, and trade.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said direct talks between world leaders was more important than ever after high-level talks with China's Premier Li Qiang in Berlin onTuesday.

Scholz said keeping the communication lines open was more vital that ever.

"Direct dialogue, face-to-face talks, a real exchange — all this is even more important than usual in these extraordinary times full of global challenges and crises," said Scholz.

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

Christians and war in Ukraine: Isn't it time Christians world-wide stop sitting on their hands, and do something about ending this bloody war ?

Y,es indeed, why have all the practising Christians, knowing that the President of the EU, Ursula  van der Leyen, Vladimir Putin President of Russia, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, and Joe Biden, President of the US, who are all also Christians, not listened to their inner voice, instead of listening to politcal arguments about continuing this deadly war, mainly by  corrupt politicians, financed by the arms industry, and still do nothing about it ?

Indeed,  amazing, whatever Christian denomination you belong to: Protestant, Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox, Jehova, 7 day Adventists, should keep in mind, specially this December, as Chtistians, celebrating the birth of their saviour, Jesus Christ, and sing about peace on earthn,  continue sitting on their hands, while watching the continuing carnage in Ukraine. What a hypocritical posture.

Could Chtistians therefore just for once, unite as one, and be instrumental in getting all ihe parties involved in this bloody conflict around one table, without strings attached, to end this nightmare?

https://www.eu-digest.com

As the cost of living soars, defending the living standards of workers and their families has become the primary concern of trade unions.

  On Friday, European Union energy ministers will meet in emergency session, to discuss measures to mitigate high energy prices and the state of preparedness for the winter. They must take decisive steps to tackle this crisis: immediate action is needed to support families unable to buy food or heat their homes.

Read more at: https://socialeurope.eu/trade-unions-on-the-frontline-in-the-cost-of-living-crisis

Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Biden heads to high-stakes NATO summit amid showdown with Putin over Ukraine

President Joe Biden headed to Europe Wednesday as he tries to keep NATO allies and other European partners united against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine.

With fighting lasting nearly a month -- and Ukrainian forces unexpectedly holding Russia to a standoff -- Biden and other world leaders will seek to speed an end to the conflict.

Read more at: Biden heads to high-stakes NATO summit amid showdown with Putin over Ukraine - ABC News

Ukraine: Who will blink first? - by Eric Patterson

The crisis in Ukraine becomes more dangerous by the day. It is not clear whether Russia will bite off another large chunk of the country, as it did when Joe Biden was vice president in 2014. But two things are clear. The first is that Vladimir Putin’s Russia continues its aggressive offense, forcing other countries to step back or respond. The second is that the Russian president sees his U.S. counterpart as weak and current U.S. foreign policy as scattered and unprincipled.

Much of Eastern Europe is already under tremendous stress. Belarus, which shares a border with Ukraine and is backed by Russia, is pushing thousands of Asian migrants to the Polish border. Poland and three NATO countries, including the U.K., have sent military engineers and troops to fortify the border. Russia’s controversial Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline will give Russia even more power to turn off the heat in Western Europe, as climate idealists in Berlin and Paris shut down their own nations’ nuclear and coal plants. Russia’s air force and navy routinely stray over international boundaries—and not by accident.

Putin’s rise to power came as Russia’s economy was in turmoil, as NATO had expanded to Russia’s borders (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), and as Russia’s global influence was on the wane. As Putin and his cronies began to rebuild the nation as an oligarchy, they felt routinely disrespected by the West. A notable example of this is that Putin believes President Barack Obama lied to him when choosing to topple Libya’s dictator.


Read more at: Who will blink first? | WORLD

US Joe Biden and China Xi Jinping: What they want from talks

US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are holding a virtual summit as tensions between the two superpowers deepen.

The competing nations surprised many last week by issuing a joint declaration to address climate change, at talks in Glasgow, Scotland.

But growing concerns of a military confrontation over Taiwan have thrown their differences into sharp relief.

Read more at: Joe Biden and Xi Jinping: What they want from talks - BBC News

Belarus: EU readies fresh sanctions against Belarus in wake of journalist's arrest

EU foreign ministers met in Lisbon on Thursday to determine new economic sanctions against Belarus after it arrested a dissident journalist aboard an intercepted passenger jet on the weekend.

The incident caused international outrage against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko — whose disdain for democratic norms and human rights has made his country a pariah in the West.

Belarusian state media reported that Lukashenko personally ordered the flight to be intercepted.

Read more at EU readies fresh sanctions against Belarus in wake of journalist's arrest | CBC News

Middle East: Egypt and Turkey to hold two days of talks in normalisation push

Egypt and Turkey will hold two days of political consultations in Cairo on Wednesday and Thursday as part of a push to mend ties between the regional rivals, the two countries said.

Read more at: Egypt and Turkey to hold two days of talks in normalisation push | Reuters

US and China trade angry words at high-level Alaska talks - BBC News

Chinese officials accused the US of inciting countries "to attack China", while the US said China had "arrived intent on grandstanding".

Relations between the two superpowers are at their most strained for years. The US pledged to raise contentious issues such as Beijing's treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

Rea more at: US and China trade angry words at high-level Alaska talks - BBC News

Russia: Human Rights Abuses: Russian police detain around 200 people, including leading opposition figures, at Moscow meeting

The detentions come amid a crackdown on anti-Kremlin sentiment, following the arrest and imprisonment of opposition politician Alexei Navalny who returned to Russia in January after recovering from a nerve agent poisoning in Siberia.

The Moscow forum, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, was a gathering of municipal deputies from all over he country, Andrei Pivovarov, the event’s organiser and executive director of Open Russia, a British- sed group founded by exiled former oil tycoon and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, told radio station Echo Moskvy.

Russian police detained around 200 people, including several prominent opposition figures, at a meeting of independent and opposition politicians in Moscow on Saturday, the interior ministry said.

Read more at: Russian police detain around 200 people, including leading opposition figures, at Moscow meeting | Reuters

Turkey: Erdogan announces Syria summit with Putin, Merkel, Macron on 5 March

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced he would hold a summit with his Russian, French and German counterparts on 5 March to discuss the situation in Idlib province, the last rebel stronghold in northwestern Syria.

Read more at:
https://www.euronews.com/2020/02/22/france-and-germany-urge-syria-summit-amid-fears-of-bloodbath-in-idlib

NATO marks 70 years with mutual suspicion and insults

After weeks of watching supposed allies trade allegations of betrayal and of insulting each others' troops, delegates to the NATO Summit in London this week might be wondering who their friends are these days.

But bitter as the recriminations have been, there's an even bigger cloud hanging over the summit: doubts about the fundamental principle of trust upon which NATO was built 70 years ago.

For decades, the 29 countries making up NATO have been reassured by the treaty's ironclad guarantee of mutual defence in Article Five of its founding charter: "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all."

But in the era of U.S. President Donald Trump, governments now have doubts about the United States' commitment to Article Five. The mutual defence clause has only ever been invoked once — by Canada on behalf of the U.S. in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.


Read more at: NATO marks 70 years with mutual suspicion and insults | CBC News

N.Korea-US relations: North Korea says no interest in Trump summit until 'hostile policy' removed

A senior North Korean official said on Wednesday that the United States must drop its “hostile policy” towards Pyongyang in order to restart stalled denuclearisation talks, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui told reporters after meeting Russian officials in Moscow it would be “impossible” to hold another summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump if he maintains his current stance towards the North.

“To negotiate with the United States going forward, we would be able to discuss nuclear issues again when it withdraws all of its hostile policy against us,” Choe said, according to Yonhap.

Note EU-Digest: Looks like the "Great Dealmaker" failed again !

Read more: North Korea says no interest in Trump summit until 'hostile policy' removed - Reuters

Finland: Putin -Trump Meeting:US ambassador: Trump-Putin meeting ‘isn’t a summit’ – by Quint Forgey

President Donald Trump’s highly anticipated meeting on Monday in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin is just that — only a meeting, the U.S. ambassador to Russia said Sunday.

“It isn’t a summit. I’ve heard it called a summit. This is a meeting,” Jon Huntsman said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“In fact, it’s the first meeting between the two presidents,” Huntsman added. “They’ve had some pull-asides, one at the G-20 in Hamburg and the other at the APEC Ministerial in Da Nang, Vietnam, but this is really the first time for both presidents to actually sit across the table and have a conversation.”

Read more: US ambassador: Trump-Putin meeting ‘isn’t a summit’ – POLITICO

Russia - US Relations: White House confirms Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will meet

The Russian president was invited when US President Donald Trump telephoned to congratulate him on his election victory in March. The time and place of the encounter have yet to be agreed.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed the call in a press briefing on Monday.

"As the president himself confirmed on March 20, hours after his last call with President Putin, the two had discussed a bilateral meeting in the 'not-too-distant future' at a number of potential venues, including the White House," Sanders said. The administration had no further comment on the matter, she said.

The Kremlin's foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters on Monday that Trump had suggested meeting at his official presidential residence and workplace in the US capital: "When our presidents spoke on the phone, Trump suggested having the meeting in Washington at the White House,"

Ushakov said. "This is quite an interesting, positive idea," he added.

Read more: White House confirms Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will meet | News | DW | 02.04.2018

Belgium: NATO Frantically Tries to Trump-Proof President’s First Visit to Bruxelles HQ

NATO UNDER STRESS

ForeignPolicy.com reports NATO is scrambling to tailor its upcoming meeting to avoid taxing President Donald Trump’s notoriously short attention span. The alliance is telling heads of state to limit talks to two to four minutes at a time during the discussion, several sources inside NATO and former senior U.S. officials tell Foreign Policy. And the alliance scrapped plans to publish the traditional full post-meeting statement meant to crystallize NATO’s latest strategic stance. 
 
On May 25, NATO will host the heads of state of all 28 member countries in what will be Trump’s first face-to-face summit with an alliance he bashed repeatedly while running for president. NATO traditionally organizes a meeting within the first few months of a new U.S. president’s term, but Trump has the alliance more on edge than any previous newcomer, forcing organizers to look for ways to make the staid affair more engaging. 

“It’s kind of ridiculous how they are preparing to deal with Trump,” said one source briefed extensively on the meeting’s preparations. “It’s like they’re preparing to deal with a child — someone with a short attention span and mood who has no knowledge of NATO, no interest in in-depth policy issues, nothing,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They’re freaking out.”

Still, despite these changes, experts are wary of how Trump will react to NATO meetings and their long-winded, diplomatic back-and-forth among dozens of heads of state, which can quickly balloon into hours of meandering discussions. One former senior NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described these meetings as “important but painfully dull.”

Rank-and-file diplomats always try to push for shorter, more efficient meetings at NATO. “It’s not so unusual that they strain to try to keep it interesting and short and not dragged down into details,” said Jim Townsend, who served as the Pentagon’s top NATO envoy until January. But what is unusual is the president. 

“Even a brief NATO summit is way too stiff, too formal, and too policy heavy for Trump. Trump is not going to like that,” said Jorge Benitez, a NATO expert with the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank. 

Another change: NATO traditionally publishes a formal readout, known as a declaration, after each major meeting or summit. While they’re often lathered in diplomatic drivel, declarations signal new strategies and key policy shifts that come out of closed-door meetings, giving direction to allies and the NATO bureaucracy — and showcasing alliance unity toward rivals like Russia, a former senior NATO official told FP.

This year, NATO has scrapped plans to publish a full formal meeting declaration. One NATO official said that’s because it’s not a full summit, like past major NATO gatherings in Warsaw in 2016 or Wales in 2014. “It’s not necessary to have another full declaration, as it’s not a full summit,” the official said. “This meeting is just much more focused.”

But behind closed doors, other officials are giving a different reason. NATO isn’t publishing a full declaration “because they’re worried Trump won’t like it,” another source said.

Experts say a declaration could be invaluable to European allies still struggling to get a read on Trump’s stance on Europe. Four months into office, Trump hasn’t clarified U.S. policy toward Europe — he cheered Brexit and appeared to endorse anti-Europe candidate Marine Le Pen in the recent French elections — let alone toward NATO.

Trump rattled NATO allies during the campaign by slamming the alliance as “obsolete” and openly praising Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since he became president, top administration officials, including Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Vice President Mike Pence, traveled to Brussels to soothe Europeans’ nerves and reiterate customary U.S. commitments to the 68-year-old alliance. Meanwhile, Trump declared in April during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg that the alliance is “no longer obsolete.”

But the president’s erratic policy shifts and surprise Twitter storms on other international issues have NATO jittery, a former senior NATO official told FP. (Trump offered a taste of this during his awkward meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in March, where he refused to shake her hand; German officials also said he handed her a fake “bill” for overdue NATO payments, though the White House swiftly denied those claims.)

“People are scared of his unpredictability, intimidated by how he might react knowing the president might speak his mind — or tweet his mind,” the former official said.

Ultimately, to keep Trump on board, NATO will probably set out to sell those recent changes as a concession to Washington, even though “98 percent of the changes NATO undertook are because of Russia, not because of Trump,” Benitez said.

That might secure Trump a happy ending to this first meeting, but could spell more trouble down the road.  “They may give Trump credit, but privately many allies feel they’re being bullied into it,” Benitez said. “Trump’s approach to NATO is poisoning the relationship.”  One former NATO official said the agenda meant to mollify Trump appeared to amount to repackaging what NATO was already doing — increasing its defense spending and continuing to support U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and the counter-Islamic State campaign — in a new wrapper for the president.

“They think they’re fine because they’re going to put old wine in new bottles,” one former senior U.S. official told FP. Whether Trump buys it remains to be seen 

"NATO's overall state of mind", an EU parliamentarian said , "is panicky, for fear, not only to avoid stepping on the toes of their self-glorifying "Trumpland" leader, but  also the ever increasing  and likely possibility that the EU is on the verge of developing its own independent military force, which won't be a tool of US foreign policy anymore."  

Given the context of the above story, not all, however, is bad for NATO.  

An interesting report recently came out, produced by NATO and the Millennium Project, which is quite practical in nature and worth reading: "Identification  of  Potential Terrorists and Adversary Planning" , edited by Theodore J. Gordon, Elizabeth Florescu, Jerome C. Glenn and Yair Sharan .

EU-Digest

China - US Relations: China's President Xi Jinping arrives in Florida for Trump talks -

His plane landed at West Palm Beach where he was greeted by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

The heads of the world's two major  economies will hold the bilateral at Mr Trump's Mar-a-Lago retreat.

The American leader is expected to press his counterpart for action on North Korea, and Mr Xi to seek assurances on Taiwan.

Mr Trump tweeted last week that the summit "will be a very difficult one".

Some protesters lined the streets to voice their opposition to China's policy in the South China Sea.
Mr Xi and his wife, folk singer Peng Liyuan, will attend a welcome banquet at the Mar-a-Lago estate on Thursday evening with the US president and first lady, Melania Trump.

The bilateral will conclude with a working lunch on Friday.

Read more: China's President Xi Jinping arrives in Florida for Trump talks - BBC News

USA-China: Trump meeting with China President Xi Jinping - by Linette Lopez

Jinping will meet with US President Donald Trump in Florida on Thursday. It is arguably the most highly anticipated meeting in global economics.

The two men, as leaders of the first and second largest economies in the world, literally have the fate of the entire global economy in their hands.

And they couldn't be any more different.

From his first moments on the campaign trail, Trump has bellicosely accused China of being a currency manipulator (not true) and said that trade between the US and China has been unfairly tilted in China's favor.

Then, before his inauguration Trump made a massive misstep of speaking with the President of Taiwan, tacitly recognizing it as a sovereign nation and violating the one-China policy the US has held since the 1970s.

Xi Jinping, on the other hand, is a man of few words or expressions. While Chinese state media has not held back its dislike of Trump's China bullying, Xi himself has said little of Trump's administration. After Trump called Taiwan, China's foreign ministry spokesman, Lu Kang did grant a rare, long interview with NBC in which he said in no uncertain terms that the one-China policy was not to be messed with.
 
"Because this issue touches upon China's core interest by no means is this something that could be negotiated or used as a bargaining chip," Lu said. "One China policy 100%."

With Trump, though, very little is predictable. Consider his tenor toward Angela Merkel, the leader of one of the US's most important allies and a key trading partner. After basically accusing her of hiding behind the European Union to exploit trade agreements with the U.S., he then reportedly handed her a bill for NATO expenses. The White House has denied that last part, but the rest all happened in front of cameras. 

Read more: Trump meeting with China President Xi Jinping - Business Insider

The Russian Connection? Exclusive: Tillerson plans to skip NATO meeting, visit Russia in April - by Arshad Mohammed and John Walcott

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to skip a meeting with NATO foreign ministers next month in order to stay home for a visit by China's president and will go to Russia later in April, U.S. officials said on Monday, disclosing an itinerary that allies may see as giving Moscow priority over them.

Tillerson intends to miss what would have been his first meeting of the 28 NATO allies on April 5-6 in Brussels so that he can attend President Donald Trump's expected April 6-7 talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, four current and former U.S. officials said.

Skipping the NATO meeting and visiting Moscow could risk feeding a perception that Trump may be putting U.S. dealings with big powers first, while leaving waiting those smaller nations that depend on Washington for security, two former U.S. officials said.

Trump has often praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Tillerson worked with Russia's government for years as a top executive at Exxon Mobil Corp, and has questioned the wisdom of sanctions against Russia that he said could harm U.S. businesses.

A State Department spokeswoman said Tillerson met today with foreign ministers from 26 of the 27 other NATO countries -- all but Croatia -- at 


Read more: Exclusive: Tillerson plans to skip NATO meeting, visit Russia in April - sources | Reuters

France: Hollande: The European left will make no concessions to Turkey – by Cécile Barbière

At a meeting of Europe’s centre-left leaders on Saturday (12 March), François Hollande called for more effective controls on the EU’s external borders in order to protect the freedom of movement within the bloc.

Paris hosted a meeting of 17 national leaders in Paris on 12 March, ahead of the upcoming European summit on the refugee crisis, which will be held in Brussels on Thursday and Friday this week (17 and 18 March).

Alexis Tsipras, whose country is on the front line of the refugee crisis, was also invited to the mini-summit of centre-left leaders, a first for the radical left Greek prime minister.

“Alexis Tsipras joined us,” Hollande confirmed. “I wanted this meeting of the left to be opened to others, and Tsipras was invited and accepted. He considers himself a member of this family of the European left,” he added.

But as a critic of French policy, particularly on social issues, the Greek leader chose to keep a certain distance from this European meeting. According to the official programme, Greece was only an “observer state” at the meeting, not a full “participant”.

Read more: Hollande: The European left will make no concessions to Turkey – EurActiv.com