USA:70 Percent of Adults Don't Want Donald Trump to Run in 2024: Poll

The poll, conducted by Marquette University Law School of 1,000 adults nationwide and released on Thursday, found that more than 70 percent of respondents don't want to see Trump mount another run for the White House.

The poll also took a look at potential 2024 presidential matchups. The former president also didn't fare much better in that area either, according to The Hill. In a look at a possible rematch of the 2020 election, the poll had President Joe Biden besting Trump by 10, 43-33. Nearly 70 percent of people who responded to the poll also have an unfavorable opinion of the former president.

Read more at: 70 Percent of Adults Don't Want Donald Trump to Run in 2024: Poll

EU: France sets out an ambitious programme for its presidency of the European Union

France took over the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union on Saturday with an ambitious programme for a "powerful" and "sovereign" Europe, but this is likely to be disrupted by the new outbreak of COVID-19 and the April presidential elections.

At midnight (23:00 GMT on Friday), France took over from Slovenia, which had held the presidency of the EU Council since 1 July, and will be replaced in the second half of the year by the Czech Republic.

As a symbol of this handover, the Eiffel Tower and the Elysée Palace were lit up at the same time in blue, the colour of Europe.

Read more at: France sets out an ambitious programme for its presidency of the European Union | Euronews

USA -Poll President Trump approval rating : Trump Ends Historically Unpopular Presidency With 34% Approval - by Gregory Korte

President Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped to 34% in a Gallup poll released Monday, the low point of a presidency that already had the weakest average approval rating of any of his predecessors since the survey began in the 1940s.

The new Gallup numbers, based on a poll that began just before the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, show Trump’s approval rating falling 12 percentage points since before the Nov. 3 election.

The drop mirrors other polls that show a significant loss of support in the final two weeks of his presidency, which included not only the riot he egged on but the unprecedented second impeachment. The RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Trump with a 39.8% approval rating, down 4 percentage points since the Capitol attack.

Read more at: Trump Ends Historically Unpopular Presidency With 34% Approval - Bloomberg

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

France: Far-right Marine Le Pen to run for president again.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen has confirmed that she will run for president for a third time in an effort to defeat incumbent Emmanuel Macron. Macron is facing unpopularity amid strikes and the yellow vest movement.

Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/france-far-right-marine-le-pen-to-run-for-president-again/a-52034080

USA: More dark clouds are gathering over Donald Trump's credibility as the President of the USA

Even though the US President is not openly showing much anguish over the troubles surrounding his Presidency, it is becoming very apparent that his credibility to govern the US is more and more in doubt.

Specially in light of the recent court verdicts against many of his close associates, and damaging daily press reports, including :

David Pecker, CEO of National Enquirer Publisher, Granted Immunity in Michael Cohen Case

Sessions hits back at Trump: DOJ won't be 'improperly influenced'

The only reason that Trump hasn’t been indicted is that he’s the president

Embattled Trump Startles Israel by Demanding 'Higher Price' for His Delusional Achievements on Jerusalem

Bottom-line, this is not a pleasant time in the history for the United States.  Who would have thought that after the Republican President Nixon was impeached, that another Republican President possibly faces the same fate as Richard Nixon did and,  as a consequence, had to resign on August 9, 1974.

copyright: the above report can be copied
 only if the source - EU-Digest- is mentioned.

EU-Digest 

USA: Republicans are in Turmoil:And Trump Feels the GOP Heat on Putin, But Will It Linger? Doub!ful - they have too much to lose and no backbone

America in Crises Mode - Presidential Historian Gil Troy says: "Donald Trump has committed “a crime against the American people” - by Chauncey DeVega

This in-depth report on Donald Trump is from an interview by Salon Magazine of Gil Troy, a professor at McGill University in Montreal, and the author of numerous books, including "The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s," "The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction" and "Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents."

Donald Trump is president of the United States by title and law. He is not president of all Americans. Trump cares only about his voters and the most enthusiastic part of his "base." He is a political cult leader. Nothing seems to matter to him but the adoration and power that comes from his followers.

Public opinion polls and other research have shown that Trump's supporters are driven by racism, sexism, Christian nationalism and nativism. They hold authoritarian values and hold America's democratic norms in contempt. All that matters is winning: Democracy be damned.

Donald Trump is also enabled by the Republican Party and a right-wing media machine that has empowered this assault. Political scientists, historians and others have already begun to assess Trump's presidency. The consensus: At this early point in his tenure, Trump already ranks among the worst presidents in United States history. As I have already suggested, perhaps there should be an asterisk next to his name in future accounts of this political moment, a gesture of shame and apology to the world and the American future.

How will history remember those Republicans and other conservatives who voted Trump into office and continue to back him? How has Trump defiled the presidency? Is it possible for Trump to pivot back to the normal standards of the office? Is there still a place for moderation and incrementalism in American politics during a time of crisis and extreme polarization?

In an effort to answer these questions, I recently spoke with historian Gil Troy. He is a professor at McGill University in Montreal and the author of numerous books, including "The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s," "The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction" and "Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents."

How was Donald Trump able to win the 2016 election?

I think we have to divide your question into two parts. One, how was Donald Trump able to win? And two, how was Hillary Clinton able to lose? I think the more we read about that Clinton campaign we see all the opportunities she missed. Ultimately, she proved herself both in 2008 and 2016 to be just a terrible, terrible candidate.

We forget that she went into the 2016 campaign with popularity ratings of about 65 percent when she had been secretary of state -- then she just allowed herself to get taken to the cleaners by Donald Trump's. She did not have an effective message. During the campaign, I spoke to groups of people in the United States and elsewhere. I would say to them, “Donald Trump promises to make America . . .” And people yelled, “Great again!”

Even if they all hated Donald Trump, they would yell it. Hillary Clinton had no core message. There was also a kind of a conscious decision on the part of the Hillary Clinton campaign that they were not going to win because of Bill Clinton.

They didn't consult one of the great geniuses of modern American politics who understands how to speak to the frustrated white working-class people of America. We saw how that played out in those states which were so crucial to Trump's victory.

On the Trump side of this question there was a little bit of luck. He was running against the legacy of an incumbent president who’s been in office for eight years; he was also blessed to have Hillary Clinton as an opponent. But I really think we have to give him credit for being one of the great salesmen of our age, who was able to tap into the high amounts of frustration out there in many parts of America.

I was among the first people who tried to sound the alarm on national radio and TV about the likelihood of Trump winning. I highlighted how he is entertaining and a master communicator. We knew what he stood for. Hillary Clinton had no clear and simple message. 

Absolutely. We started talking about Donald Trump in the summer of 2015. He understood that notoriety in today's celebrity culture counts. Let's be honest. For the last 30 or 40 years, to a wide swath of the American people, Trump is a brand that means quality, success and understanding how to work the system.

In assessing Trump as a president and a candidate, is he smarter than he appears? Or is he just a useful idiot for the Republican Party, the Koch brothers and other gangster capitalists, Christian nationalists and the like?

I think he's smarter than people think. He also worked harder than many people are aware of. For example, Trump would watch clips of himself on television and he got better at using the medium.

And you saw that play out brilliantly in the Republican debates. He understood that it was about the stage. But it was also really about the studio and how to speak to the viewer sitting at home. Also, I do think there's a certain substance in terms of his political strategy and presentation.

When people go, “Oh, he's so foolish, he’s alienating people,” well, he's alienating people who aren't going to vote for him at all. He also is taking something from the Ronald Reagan playbook. I think there are many different ways in which he is not like Ronald Reagan at all, but Ronald Reagan loved being underestimated.

When people would dismiss him as an actor, Reagan had a great comeback, which was, "I don't know how you could do this politics thing without having been in show business." But Reagan knew that once they were calling him a mere actor, it would mean they wouldn't be taking his message seriously, and they also wouldn't be taking his constituents seriously.

When we see the degree to which the Democrats have spent time treating anyone who votes for Trump or says anything positive about Trump as a buffoon, as a racist, as a sexist, as a pig — how are you going to convince those people to vote for you? And there are millions of Americans who were able to vote for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and then vote for Donald Trump.

You have to be thinking about how you get those people.

Trump has channeled the politics of hatred and resentment to win the White House and maintain control over his voters. In all, he is a symptom of a much bigger problem. But in terms of Trump as a leader, do you think it is still possible for him to pivot?

First of all, it's definitely possible.

We forget, first of all, how steep the learning curve is, how complicated the job is, and how much presidents really do change. Also, the greatest problem for every American president is just the constant barrage of external stimuli from internal scandals to politics to just stuff that happens that you don't anticipate. For a historian to say it's impossible for him to pivot, he's never going to change, wouldn't be an accurate reading of human beings, the history of the American presidents or the history of leadership.

On the other hand, I think many of us have been predicting a turn toward political maturity, a turn toward nation-building, a turn toward unity. That has not happened. That's why I really emphasize the degree to which Trump has not been like Reagan.

Trump has not shown that ability. As you say, he's playing to his base and by playing to his base, he’s using the politics of resentment and the presidency itself as a wedge. That is very disturbing,

I had an off-the-record meeting with a bunch of Republican congressmen. It was supposed to be nonpartisan so I was very carefully avoiding politics.

At one point they turned to me and one of them from the Deep South — who was as red as you can find in his voting record — says to me, “Well, what do you think about our president?”

I said, “Look, I don't want to get into partisanship tonight. I don't want to get into the politics of this particular issue. But as a historian of the American presidency, I really have a lot of reverence for the office and for the Lincolnian role of the president as someone who brings out the better angels of our nature. Franklin Roosevelt also talked about the presidency being a pre-eminent place of moral leadership. By that criterion, Donald Trump has not even tried and has certainly not met the standard of any of his predecessors."

There was a moment of silence and the congressman looks at me and says, “You can say that again.”

I really cannot think of a president who came into office — now in office for over a year — and is dedicated to not using the role of president as the civic high priest of America. Who has not tried to be the healer, who's not trying to be the one who transcends divisions, but in fact is the one who makes divisions.

I don't want to be categorical because there certainly have been moments every now and then. For example, there was the Florida mass shooting, when he tried to play that presidential role. But we see how quickly even there Trump goes into judgmental mental mode. He goes into demagogic mode. He goes into wedge mode rather than healing mode. Let's be honest, that's what won him the presidency and has now become his political mode.

One of the things [that] is also fascinating about Trump is that we really have never had such an amateur.

Trump really comes from a different universe, a different world, the business world and in particular the family business world. That is one of the dynamics that people sometimes miss in trying to understand what's going on with this presidency.

Donald Trump inherited this divided country — and he’s only so far made an angrier and more divided [country] and that's a crime. It is a crime against the American people and it is a crime against the American presidency.

There have been many moments when Trump could have exercised presidential leadership and elevated himself in the eyes of the public and world. But he keeps failing in that moment because, except for rage, he seems to lack genuine human emotion.

Donald Trump comes very much from a place of not having much empathy. He was born on third base and thought he hit a triple.

Consider the presidential inauguration. It is always a sacred moment when you transcend the partisan divides, heal the divisions of the presidential campaign and then the American people are willing to look at you in a new light.

Reflect on Trump's "American carnage" inauguration speech for a moment. There was no poetry or beauty there. It really is one of the most divisive, polarizing and just atonal, un-lyrical inaugural speeches in American history. There is a certain lack of grace in the man. But again, is it celebrity Trump or real Trump? I think he's been playing that role for so long on the public stage that he may not even know who the real Donald Trump is anymore.

As those of us who follow professional wrestling would say, in many ways Donald Trump is "living the gimmick." He is a person who actually starts to believe his persona; the fictional character is real. Where does the person begin and the celebrity end? These stories usually don't end well. This word is overused, but can Donald Trump's rise to the presidency be correctly described as "unprecedented?"

The degree to which you have the president of United States running against the country's institutions -- including the Constitution -- is problematic and probably unprecedented. But there is something else going on as well: One of the things that Donald Trump is teaching us is that the Constitution works.

It's much easier for me right now as an American historian to explain to my students the separation of powers than it was a year-and-a-half ago.

What is the place of incrementalism or of pursuing the virtues of moderation in this moment? Is that even possible in this type of political environment?

I wrote a book in 2008 about why moderates make the best presidents. Before the book was accepted, I received a wonderful rejection from one editor who said, “I read your thesis, I completely agree,” but his lament explains why no one is going to buy the book. He was quite accurate. I was trying to make a countercultural argument that we actually do need moderation. Clearly, there are so many structures now that mitigate against that. You start with the internet, the news media and how no one even tries to be objective in the way that Walter Cronkite did back in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Then you get the partisan gridlock. In Capitol Hill you get the death of the kinds of relationships that we used to see between an Orrin Hatch and Teddy Kennedy, for example.

To get to the core of your question, there’s no place for incrementalism in that kind of hyper-partisan "all or nothing" politics. American politics often was about big moves but also little compromises.

How would you counsel Republicans and other conservatives who know that Trump is a disaster for America but for whatever reason stay silent, only complain in private, or if they are elected officials decide to vote with him or otherwise provide cover? How will history judge them?

I would tell them that history can be very kind but it can also be very, very harsh. I think when we write the history of this time we will find the people who stood up and said "no" and we’ll also find the Democrats who said, “Wait a minute, we are going too far.” We’ll also find the Democrats who said, “Wait a minute, we have to work together.” The addiction to Fox News and MSNBC and making headlines is also worsening the situation.

It took 20 years, but there are many people who are finally embarrassed by the degree to which they enabled Bill Clinton and an environment in the White House that was truly a hostile environment for women. I’m someone who, in the late 1990s, when I did criticize Bill Clinton, was called all kinds of awful names. I was just simply saying, “Wait a minute. What message are my women students getting by the way Bill Clinton treated Monica Lewinsky? With the way many of the men around Bill Clinton facilitated that?” Now I’m equally critical of Donald Trump, and we need those consistent voices, because life isn’t just about partisanship and politics. Ultimately, we have to be thinking about how we build a society together and nurture the ability to disagree amicably and civilly.

We have our cultural problems. We have family breakdown. We have social divisions. We have political gridlock. We have a president who makes too many Americans feel marginalized and not welcome.

I’m not denying any of the anguish and trouble in the country. But there are many, many more success stories on the American streets, in the American home, in American offices, in American universities, and even in Washington, D.C., than we’ll read about and notice on CNN or The New York Times. We should be grateful for that, even as we go through a very difficult passage in our politcs. 

Presidential historian Gil Troy: Donald Trump has committed “a crime against the American people” - Salon.com

EU: President Juncker to propose merger of EU Commission and Council presidencies

Could the next Spitzenkandidaten process elect a single president for two jobs?

Five months after European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker first proposed combining the Commission and Council presidencies as part of his State of the European Union speech and a week after the European Parliament’s vote to retain the lead candidate – or  Spitzenkandidaten – process, the Commission appears ready to seriously consider the proposal.

“Europe would function better if we were to merge the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council,” Juncker told the European Parliament during his annual address in Strasbourg last September, adding, “Europe would be easier to understand if one captain was steering the ship.”

The move would transform the EU leadership and consolidate authority around a single figure who would campaign for the post, Juncker is expected to outline the scenarios for EU institutional changes over the coming years at this week’s College readout.

What is expected this week is a draft plan that will include the option of combining the presidencies of the EU executive body and the national government leaders.

Note EU-Digest: Good idea, if it also provides for a universal European election for the Presidency  and is open to candidates from different political parties. 

 Read more: Juncker to propose merger of EU Commission and Council presidencies

EU: Portugal's FM to become next Eurogroup president

The Eurogroup meeting on Monday elected Portuguese finance minister Mario Centeno as president of the Eurogroup.

The new president will take office as of Jan 13, 2018 and will serve a two and a half year term.

He is the first minister from a southern eurozone economy to hold the elected role and first Eurogroup meeting under the presidency of Mario Centeno will take place on Jan 22, 2018.

Mario Centeno has been the finance minister of Portugal since November 2015.

Read more: Portugal's FM to become next Eurogroup president - World - Chinadaily.com.cn

USA - as the drama unfolds: President Donald Trump is the most powerful cornered animal in the world - by L,Douglas

Trump lashes out by creating a chaos of conflicting claims to distract attention away from real allegations. It is all too effective

For all his inconstancy of character, Trump is a master manipulator. He rose to political prominence by slandering President Obama. He rode the birther myth as far as it would go – before brazenly jettisoning it with the insistence that it was all the handiwork of Hilary Clinton.

Now once again, he seeks to buoy his political fortunes by attacking Obama. Perhaps what is so striking about the tweets is not their desperation, but their cynicism. In exclaiming “This is McCarthyism!”, Trump said something deeply revealing – only about himself. McCarthyism was never in the first instance about wiretapping. It was about defaming public officials with charges of treason without a shred of evidence. Sounds familiar, no?

Equally revealing was Trump’s tweet: “I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!” As Trump well knows, a good lawyer can make a case out of anything.

In the 1970s, after the Justice Department accused the Trump Corporation of racially discriminatory rental policies, Trump hired Roy Cohn. This was a man who, as a young lawyer, had assisted Joseph McCarthy’s red-baiting. On Trump’s behalf, Cohn countersued the government for $100m, a tactic Trump absorbed and has practiced throughout his career: when on the defensive, attack.

Concerned about congressional investigations into contact between his campaign and the Russians? Make a groundless charge of wiretapping against Obama and insist that the allegations be included in the investigations.

Cohn’s countersuit did not prevail, nor will Trump’s charges against Obama stick. But that is not the point. The point is to distract attention away from real allegations by creating a chaos of conflicting claims. And in this regard the strategy is all too effective. If there is something extraordinary about Trump it is how low he is willing to go.

Trump spokesperson Sarah Huckabee was undoubtedly correct when she observed that “if this [the wiretapping] happened … we have … seen … a huge attack on democracy itself.” But if it didn’t, we have witnessed an attack on democracy no less ominous. It is an attack at once concerted and ongoing.

It’s hard to know where it goes from here. Perhaps Trump will turn his attention to a more traditional enemy: not a perceived political rival but a nation allegedly threatening American interests. Not an Australia, but a North Korea or Iran or even China. No better way to drown the voices of dissent than by pounding the martial tattoos of the war drum. Or maybe he will continue to tilt at his fellow Americans.

Since his election a scant six weeks ago, Trump has defamed a great newspaper, a federal judge, and a former president. He has attacked whole institutions, pillars of American democracy. He appears willing to hold a great constitutional order hostage to his narcissism and political insecurities.

One wishes to echo words of Joseph Welch who famously asked of Joe McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

Read more: President Donald Trump is the most powerful cornered animal in the world

US Presidential Elections: Ben Carson: the US president should not be a Muslim - by Martin Pengelly

Religiously, the concept of the separation of church and state has practically no hold in Islamic thinking. The idea is entirely foreign to most Islamic orthodoxy, and even if a political party were secular in name, they dare not forsake the basic tenets of Islam.

In his NBC interview, Carson was asked: “So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the constitution?”
“No,” he said, “I don’t, I do not.”

Article VI of the US constitution states: “No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

The first amendment to the constitution begins: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”

Carson, a Christian, is a member of the Seventh Day Adventist church. In October, he will publish a new book, written with his wife Candy Carson and entitled A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties.

Note EU-Digest:  At least Ben Carson had the courage to make this statement and make clear that Islam is inherently and by definition inconsistent with the separation of church and state. With very few exceptions (Turkey) religiously, the concept of the separation of church and state has practically no hold in Islamic thinking.

The idea is entirely foreign to most Islamic orthodoxy, and even if a political party were secular in name, they dare not forsake the basic tenets of Islam.

Read more: Ben Carson says no Muslim should ever become US president | US news | The Guardian

EU Parliament: Conservatives propose Muslim for European Parliament President

The conservative ECR group has proposed Sajjad Haider Karim, who in 2004 became the first British Muslim MEP, to be the next European Parliament President. However, the candidacy appears to be a long shot.

Sajjad Karim, nominated as European Parliament Presidential candidate by the European Conservatives and Reformists’ group (ECR), has written to the leaders of all the main groups in the European Parliament seeking their backing.

He said that the image of the EU in the world had been tainted by the recent European elections, with the rise of extremist parties.

“I ask the group leaders: is it not now time to reinstate our values of tolerance, acceptance and diversity”, writes Karim, who was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, of Pakistani descent.  He adds he is relying on a track record of 20 years experience, as an elected public official, 10 of which have been served here in the European Parliament.

“I have served diligently working across groups and political divides always seeking consensus and delivery,” writes Karim, who was elected in 2004 for the Liberal Democrats, but joined the Conservative Party in November 2007.

Read more: Conservatives propose Muslim for European Parliament President | EurActiv

Turkey: President Gül signals candidacy for Turkish presidency

Turkish President Abdullah Gül has hinted he is prepared to challenge Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in presidential elections next summer, according to the Guardian.

Asked during an exclusive weekend interview with the Guardian whether he would seek a second term, Gül said it was too early to make a decision. When pressed, he declined to rule out his candidacy, saying he was keeping "all options open."

After the article was published, Presidency Press Consultant Ahmet Sever said Gül had said nothing different from his previous statements about his candidacy for the 2014 presidency elections. Sever said the article's headline hinting at a battle for presidency between Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was the writer's own observation.

Gül insisted Erdoğan was a friend, not a rival, and dismissed talk of policy rifts over his more inclusive stance on issues such as alcohol use and when Muslim women may wear the headscarf.

Read more: POLITICS - President Gül signals candidacy for Turkish presidency

Iran Election: Moderate Cleric In Lead

Moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani is holding a comfortable lead in Iran's presidential election based on early results, figures released by the country's interior ministry show.

Mr Rouhani - one of six candidates approved by the Guardian Council to run in the election - has a share of just over 50% of the vote, with nearly 17m out of 28m votes counted.

It gives the former nuclear negotiator an early wide margin over Tehran Mayor Mohammad Ghalibaf, former military commander Mohsen Rezaie and chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. The other two candidates were further back.

The winning candidate needs to get more than 50% of the vote to avoid a second-round run-off in a week's time.

Read more: Iran Election: Moderate Cleric In Lead

Czech Republic: Leftist former prime minister elected new Czech president

Leftist former prime minister Milos Zeman won the Czech Republic’s first direct presidential election, beating a conservative opponent, results showed on Saturday.

Zeman, 68, was leading by 55.1 to 44.9 percent over Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, who is from a centuries-old aristocratic family, results from 98.3 percent of voting districts showed.

Economic forecaster Zeman, a member of the Communist Party before the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, will take the Czechs closer to the European mainstream. Outgoing President Vaclav Klaus is strongly Eurosceptic.

Czech presidents do not wield much day-to-day power but represent the country abroad and appoint prime ministers, central bankers and judges.

Zeman served as Social Democrat prime minister in 1998-2002 under a power-sharing deal with Klaus’s right-wing party that critics saw as a breeding ground for corruption.

Read more: Leftist former prime minister elected new Czech president - CZECH REPUBLIC - FRANCE 24

Russia: One Hundred Days of Putin - "a leader who brought Russia back from chaos to stability"

Vladimir Putin

As Russia marks 100 days since the return of Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin on Tuesday, there is one thing that his supporters and leaders of the unprecedented protests against his rule agree on – the former KGB officer hasn’t changed in the slightest.

“In essence, nothing has altered as far as Putin’s politics go,” former United Russia lawmaker and Public Chamber member Sergei Markov told RIA Novosti. “Putin said more than once that he would continue to carry out the same policies that voters are familiar with - that’s why they elected him for a third term.”

Markov’s views were echoed in part by opposition figure Ilya Yashin, who served a short jail sentence this summer over attempts to establish an Occupy-style protest camp in downtown Moscow.

Note EU-Digest: regardless of some of the critique against Mr. Putin it must be recognized that Russia did not fall apart in chaos, has achieved stability and made great progress in many areas as a result of the strong leadership qualities of Mr. Putin following the break up of the Soviet Union.

Read more: One Hundred Days of Putin | Features, Opinion & Analysis | RIA Novosti

Merkel backs German opposition’s choice for president

Chancellor Angela Merkel bowed to political pressure on Sunday and agreed to support former East German rights activist Joachim Gauck for the presidency, averting a fight with opposition parties that might have distracted her from tackling the euro zone crisis.

Ms. Merkel confirmed her support for Mr. Gauck at a press conference in the Chancellery in Berlin two days after Christian Wulff, her hand-picked choice for president in 2010, resigned in a scandal involving financial favours.

The announcement paves the way for Mr. Gauck, a 72-year old Protestant pastor who was a leading figure in the peaceful protest movement that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, to be confirmed in the ceremonial post by Germany’s Federal Assembly in the coming weeks.

Mr. Gauck was one of a number of pastors who supported the protests that ultimately brought down the East German regime, setting the stage for the reunification of Germany in 1990.
When Mr. Gauck was 11, his father was arrested by communist authorities and sent to the Gulag in Siberia.

For more: Merkel backs German opposition’s choice for president - The Globe and Mail

US Presidncy: Life after the White House: What’s on the former president’s iPad?

Doing the dishes, making coffee for his wife, and reading the Wall Street Journal on his iPad. That's what day-to-day life is like these days for former President George W. Bush, according to his wife, Laura.

In an exclusive interview with Deborah Roberts for Yahoo! News and ABC News at the Women's Conference 2010, former first lady Laura Bush talked about life post-White House and her husband's upcoming book, "Decision Points."

For more: Life after the White House: What’s on the president’s iPad? | The Upshot Yahoo! News

Belgium takes over the EU presidency

Belgium launched its six-month presidency on Thursday with a one big idea: Cross-border economic government anchored in new pan-national taxes. The country wants to explore new sources of revenue to finance European-level projects.

One of those revenue streams could come from a portion of the income from new types of taxes currently up for debate in Europe, including levies on banks, a tax on financial transactions, or even a bloc-wide carbon tax.
But there is a major roadblock to the plan: Major opposition from the United Kingdom.

For more: Belgium takes over the EU presidency | www.english.rfi.fr