KTFA:
BACKDOC: WHAT DID I SAY LAST NIGHT ABOUT PATTERNS? MMMM
VIETNAM DID THE SAME THING! PRIVATIZATION!
PATTERNS!
ACTIONS MEAN THINGS! HEE HEE DOC IMO
Dnari131: Iran must privatize car industry, president says
Reuters
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attend a news conference with Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann in Tehran .
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BACKDOC: WHAT DID I SAY LAST NIGHT ABOUT PATTERNS? MMMM
VIETNAM DID THE SAME THING! PRIVATIZATION!
PATTERNS!
ACTIONS MEAN THINGS! HEE HEE DOC IMO
Dnari131: Iran must privatize car industry, president says
Reuters
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attend a news conference with Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann in Tehran .
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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attend a news conference with Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann …
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's car industry must be privatized to meet the government's goal of turning it into a global competitor, the president said on Tuesday, sending a strong signal of his intention to open up the country's economy to world markets.
Hassan Rouhani said Iranian carmakers, which form the second biggest sub-sector of the economy behind oil, should cooperate closely with foreign companies to improve the quality of their products.
"The car industry must be completely privatized, it must be competitive," Rouhani said in a televised address to an international carmakers' conference in Tehran.
The state currently controls roughly half of the sector.
Rouhani's allies made gains in parliamentary elections on Friday that should give the president more scope to push through ambitious plans to modernize Iran's economy.
The large but outdated car sector is one of the most attractive industries to foreign investors, who have flocked to Tehran since international sanctions were lifted in January following Iran's nuclear deal with world powers.
France's PSA Peugeot Citroen <PEUP.PA> signed a joint venture agreement with Iran's largest carmaker Iran Khodro in January. The two companies had an existing relationship that was suspended in 2012 due to sanctions.
"Our manufacturers must be world-class, and we will cooperate with foreign companies so our manufacturers have a presence in world markets," Rouhani added.
(Reporting by Sam Wilkin; editing by John Stonestreet)
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Mountainman: So The UK....Could be (The HAND) that "ROCKS" the CRADLE.......REMEMBER......They Also are Apart of EXECUTIVE ORDER 13303.......Concerning The USA Oversight of IRAQ.......So the (POUND) may be the (FINAL) "FORCED" Blow to "COMPLETE" the (ACCIDENT) that Unravels The EURO......and OPENS the "Doors" to EUROPE'S/UK'S {NEW REALITY}.......IMO
Thunderhawk: Backdoc Alert
'Brexit' could deal major economic, political blow to EU
The European Union could lose its second-largest economy if the UK decides to leave, taking a potentially major economic and political blow at a time when the EU already faces slowing economic growth and an ongoing refugee crisis.
The UK is scheduled to hold a referendum on June 23 asking voters whether they want Britain to remain a part of the to the 28-nation economic bloc. If there is a vote in favor of the so-called Brexit, the EU would lose about $3 trillion in GDP. The move would also be unprecedented, since no country has left the EU.
"There would be a very big impact," said Mark Fleming-Williams, economic analyst at Stratfor Global Intelligence, a geopolitical advisory firm. "We've seen the markets' fear come down on the pound. Sterling has been dropping significantly in the last month. I think as the vote gets closer, it will probably extend to the euro."
The British pound has fallen more than 5 percent against the dollar this year, hitting its lowest levels in more than six years. The euro, meanwhile, is down about 3 percent against the dollar in the last 12 months (though it's near flat so far in 2016) as the European Central Bank carries on with its quantitative easing program.
"It will clearly have some adverse effect on the EU," said Howard Archer, chief European and UK economist at IHS Global Insight, a Colorado-based research firm. "Things are pretty fragile right now."
"It will certainly add to uncertainty and concerns over the situation," Archer said.
The EU and the UK have had a long and tumultuous relationship over the years. Britons who favor an exit claim the EU infringes on UK sovereignty. Nonetheless, the UK is heavily dependent on the EU, as 45 percent of UK exports go to European countries, Fleming-Williams said.
The economic partnership works both ways. Countries including Ireland and Germany could take an economic hit from a British exit, Fleming-Williams said.
"The UK is responsible for 32 percent of Ireland's imports," he said. "Germany is obviously very reliant on its exports. The UK is the third-biggest receiver of German exports."
The damage from a UK departure wouldn't be limited to the EU's economy. In fact, "the detriment to the EU is likely to be more political than economic or financial," said Nicholas Dungan, senior fellow of the Future Europe Initiative at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. "Depending on the result, Britain has a lot of fences to mend."
A Brexit also could lead to a rise in protectionist policies in the EU, or trade policies that restrict trade between countries through tariffs on imported goods and tax cuts on local businesses, for example. Traditionally, the UK has been a voice within the bloc that favors more liberal trade policies.
"There's quite a good balance between protectionist lobby vs. free trade lobby," Stratfor's Fleming-Williams said. "The UK leaving would shift that balance."
The EU would also lose a "much more outside perspective when global issues are being discussed," Atlantic Council's Dungan said.
The U.S. and the UK, aside from being closely linked because of their history, are close trading partners. Last year, the UK ranked fifth in U.S. exports, importing $56.35 billion worth of U.S. goods, according to the Commerce Department.
Nonetheless, the impact of a Brexit on the U.S. likely would be limited, said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James. "I wouldn't expect it to be a huge drag on [U.S.] growth, but it certainly isn't helpful."
Atlantic Council's Dungan doesn't expect an adverse effect on the U.S. economy, either.
"There's a tendency to think that the UK plays an intermediate role between the U.S. and the EU. This is simply not true," he said. "One good example of this is GE buying half of Alstom."
General Electric bought the French multinational's power business for approximately $14 billion, after the deal was approved by the EU.
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Thunderhawk: INVASION !!!
Backdoc Alert
Greece further strained as refugees try to enter from Macedonia
It was a scene of a type that could become all too common in coming months: Thousands of increasingly desperate people backed up at the frontier between Greece and Macedonia on Monday, stymied in their efforts to reach Germany. A group of angry asylum seekers busted through a razor-wire fence. Armed police officers fired tear gas as frenzied crowds chanted, "Open the border!"
Less than a week after Austria and nine other European countries took steps to stem the flow of refugees from Greece toward Germany and other prosperous countries, the spasm of violence on Greece's northern border brought to life the perils of the European Union's inability so far to settle on a common policy to address the migration crisis.
War in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and repression and economic hardship across the Middle East and Africa continue to compel large numbers of people to strike out for Europe. Germany continues to signal that it will accept legitimate refugees, especially from Syria. As the weather grows warmer and the sea crossing from Turkey to Greece safer, the number of people arriving is expected to spike, putting a huge strain on Greece, which in effect is becoming a giant holding center for migrants who cannot go forward because of the new border restrictions, but will not or cannot go back.
An estimated 7,000 migrants are at the border with Macedonia, and camps and refugee housing in Athens are full or nearly so.
"What's happening is that Greece is being turned into a sort of a Lebanon, where institutions are overwhelmed by the mere numbers of people, and there isn't a strategy to deal with it," said Wolfango Piccoli, a president of Teneo Intelligence, a London-based advisory firm.
If Europe does not reach an accord soon on how to deal with the situation, "Greece could look like a large-scale Calais Jungle, where there is no exit for migrants, the authorities are unable to cope and the migrants live in miserable conditions," he added, referring to a vast camp known as "the Jungle" that the French authorities began to dismantle amid angry protests on Monday.
Greece, already struggling under its long economic slump and budget austerity imposed by the European Union, has requested emergency aid from the bloc to help it deal with the migrant crisis. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said on Sunday that Greece could not be required to shoulder the burden on its own.
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"Do you seriously believe that all the euro states that last year fought all the way to keep Greece in the eurozone, and we were the strictest, can one year later allow Greece to, in a way, plunge into chaos?" she said in an appearance on the public broadcaster ARD.
But Ms. Merkel is under intense political pressure at home over her insistence on welcoming people with legitimate asylum claims, and without much support from other European governments. While officials in Brussels have joined Ms. Merkel in decrying unilateral steps by countries along the migrant trail to limit the flow of people, it is not clear whether European Union leaders can reach some sort of accommodation before spring brings a new surge of migrants and the potential for more violence of the sort that broke out on Monday
The police used stun grenades and migrants threw stones in the clashes on the frontier with Macedonia, which recently closed its border with Greece to thousands of Afghans after reclassifying them as economic migrants rather than refugees.
That move, which denied Afghans the right to apply for asylum, was effectively a response to an Austrian decision that put a daily cap on the number of people allowed into the country and that left thousands of Afghans with nowhere to go. It also promoted fear among Syrians and Iraqis, who worried that they might also be unable to travel farther north if similar restrictions were imposed.
What started as a peaceful protest on Monday by people, mostly Iraqis, who have a legitimate claim on crossing but have been held up — some for over a week — by the recent intermittent closing of the border on the Macedonian side, quickly escalated to a riot.
"It started as a peaceful protest. People were walking on the railway line and ran up to the border singing and chanting, 'Open the border,'" said Gemma Gellie, a member of Doctors Without Borders who works at the migrant camp in Idomeni.
When the protesters reached a razor-wire fence on the Macedonian border, they pushed part of it over, prompting the Macedonian police to turn people away violently, and throw tear gas canisters over the border and onto the Greek side.
"Some of these people have fled war, and seeing gas and hearing explosions was brought back their most terrifying memories," Ms. Gellie said. "They were beyond distressed."
The Balkans have served as the main passageway for migrants, most of whom hope to reach Germany, which has accepted far more asylum seekers than any other country. Germany's warmer welcome has led to tensions with other European countries, and last week Austria and nine Balkan states agreed to put in place several measures to reduce the flow of refugees. The effect has been a rapid buildup of migrants in Greece."We estimate that we will have a number of people trapped in our country which will be between 50,000 and 70,000," the minister for migration, Ioannis Mouzalas, told the Greek TV channel Mega.
Mr. Mouzalas said that he believed that those numbers would be reached in the coming month, and that 22,000 migrants were already in the country.
Greece is the most popular entry point into Europe for hundreds of thousands of refugees from Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. More than 111,000 migrants have already arrived in the country this year, far ahead of the pace of last year, according to the International Organization for Migration.
More than 400 migrants have died this year while trying to cross the Mediterranean, the organization reported, including 321 on the heavily traveled route between Turkey and Greece. NATO has agreed to patrol those waters to combat trafficking of migrants, but it is not clear whether the presence of naval vessels will deter the flow of people.
The sporadic imposition of border controls by countries including Austria, Denmark and Sweden over the past few months has dealt a serious blow to the Schengen agreement, a cornerstone of European integration that allows the free movement of people across much of the bloc's internal borders.
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Thunderhawk: Golden Thread: What is the Reason for Russia, China, Iran Partnership
The common "golden thread" connecting China, Iran and Russia is their principled insistence that borders, national sovereignty and independence are inviolable principles, F. William Engdahl notes, adding their commitment to these fundamental values of the UN Charter may save the world from self-destruction.
Washington is obviously not happy about the emerging triple alliance of Iran, China and Russia; the US' cunning policy-makers have repeatedly tried to drive a wedge between the powers, but these attempts have failed.
"If the intent of the Obama Iran strategy was to woo the great Persian nation to the West in a complex geopolitical game, and turn her against Russia, China and the emerging Eurasian Century being constructed around China's One Belt, One Road project, it is emerging as another colossal failure," American author, researcher and risk strategic consultant F. William Engdahl writes in his article for New Eastern Outlook.
Regardless of Washington's intrigues, the "newly-sanction-free" Iran has rushed to establish close ties with its Eurasian neighbors.
"One week after Chinese President Xi Jinping's historic visit to post-sanctions Iran, where the two countries signed major trade agreements including bringing Iran fully into the emerging strategic New Economic Silk Road and Maritime Road blueprint, China launched a new maritime shipping route to Iran. Two days before that, the first freight train departed China for the Islamic Republic," the researcher continues.
Beijing and Tehran envisage the construction of the new high-speed rail infrastructure that will break Iran's economic isolation, paving the way for the upcoming Eurasian economic boom, Engdahl underscores.
In addition, Iran is likely to be invited to full membership status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) later this year.
Remarkably, the six full members of the SCO occupy territory that accounts for 60 percent of the Eurasian continent and a quarter of the world's population.
"During [Sino-Iranian] talks in Tehran on January 26… Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, told Xi Jinping that Iran will continue its policy of bolstering ties with the 'East,' lauding China's 'independent' stance in global issues," the researcher points out.
Furthermore, Ayatollah Khamenei added that the Western political establishment has failed to win hearts and minds of the Iranian people.
"Westerners have never obtained the trust of the Iranian nation. The government and nation of Iran have always sought expanding relations with independent and trustful countries like China," Iran's Supreme leader stressed, as quoted by the researcher.
The nations have kicked off a series of bold infrastructural projects engaging Pakistan and Iraq in their fold.
"These Iranian, Chinese, Iraqi and Pakistani infrastructure developments have enormous geopolitical implications for the future of the Eurasian landmass, a space enclosing almost three billion people, almost half the world's population, with vast natural resources, educated work forces and world class scientists from Russia to China to Iran and beyond," the strategic risk consultant highlights.
Indeed, Russia plays an important role in the "golden triangle" of major emerging Eurasian powers. Therefore Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stressed in one of his statements, largely neglected by the Western media sources, that Tehran would never forget those who stood by it during the harsh period of sanctions, referring in particular to Russia and China.
Moreover, Tehran and Moscow have reached an agreement regarding the supplies of new generation S-300 missile systems. The Iranian leadership is expecting the completion of deliveries of the improved Russian missile defense system in the first half of 2016.
The partnership of Iran, China and Russia is based on mutual trust and respect.
"The common golden thread binding the three great Eurasian cultures and nations — China, Iran, Russia — is their principled insistence that, as with individual human beings, so with nations, borders and national sovereignty are inviolable principles… Their growing cooperation based on respect for national sovereignty may just save the world from self-destruction. That would be to the good," Engdahl concludes.
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Mountainman: Oh MY GOODNESS.......It's The 9th INNING (BASES) are "LOADED"......TWO BALLS,TWO STRIKES,TWO OUTS....And WHO will be the "ONE" to {HIT}.....A "HOME RUN" Here.....HURRY PLEASE!!!!.....We Are About (OUT) of "TIME"........The FANS are SCREAMING......."NOW,NOW"........
Here It COMES......."LOOK".......THE NEW GLOBAL REALITY/NEW VALUES is The "ONLY" SWING that (COUNTS)....={IMPLEMENTATION}...or It's (GAME OVER).......IMO
Thunderhawk: TRIPLE PLAY
EU's Tower of Babel may fall while leaders distracted
It's little wonder the European Union can't find common solutions to Europe's urgent problems when its main members are having such different national conversations.
Like the biblical Tower of Babel, Europe's ambitious construction is in danger of toppling because its peoples are not speaking the same political language.
Tune in to Germany and the fierce debate is all about how to cope with an influx of a million migrants, whether to limit the numbers and, in some quarters, how to stop them coming.
Switch to France and you're listening to a nation that thinks it is at war, still living under a state of emergency and in shock after last November's attacks by Islamist militants that killed 130 people in Paris.
Flip to Britain and the talk is all of national sovereignty and a possible Brexit in the build-up to a June referendum that might end the country's schizophrenic membership of the EU.
Look east to Poland and people are arguing over the new government's moves to curb the media and the constitutional court, over who may have been a Communist informer 40 years ago, and over the perceived Russian threat to eastern Europe today.
Around central Europe the discussion is about how to resist German pressure to take in a share of refugees.
Turn south and the Italians and Portuguese are engrossed in domestically focused debates about how to revive economic growth despite the EU's budgetary corset while cleaning up legacy bank problems. Spain meanwhile is preoccupied by Catalan separatism, political paralysis and the risk of a breakup of the country.
When those countries' leaders come to Brussels, they often cannot even agree what they should be discussing.
For the last two EU summits, Britain wanted the focus to be on its demands for a renegotiation of its membership terms to give Prime Minister David Cameron a "new settlement" he can sell in a June 23 referendum on whether to stay in the bloc.
He secured a deal on Feb. 19, but many fellow leaders were frustrated at having to spend time on what they see as side issues and rhetorical formulations when their house is on fire.
"Everyone in the room and corridors was rather irritated that here we are dealing with some rather obscure issues of child benefits indexation, while we have real problems in Syria, member states closing borders, major issues we should really be on instead of this," a diplomat involved in the talks said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, fighting for her political life against domestic critics of her open door for refugees, wanted the EU to concentrate on urgent measures to secure Europe's external borders, register migrants, send home rejected asylum seekers and share out refugees among EU states.
Desperate to find a common "European solution" to the migration crisis, she has forced yet another European summit on March 7 with Turkey, days before three German regional elections in which anti-immigration rightists could make big gains.
French President Francois Hollande, for his part, goes to Brussels seeking more cooperation against terrorism and support for military action against Islamic State in Syria and Libya.
His prime minister, Manuel Valls, irked German officials by using a trip to the Munich Security Conference to criticize Merkel's welcome for refugees and declare that Europe could not take any more migrants.
Waning authority
Unlike many past European crises, where disagreements could be postponed or salami-sliced into gradual steps that turned a political dispute into a technocratic process, there is no obvious way to delay or defuse the migration issue.
Events on the ground are moving faster than the EU's ability to manage them. Governments along the main Western Balkans migration route, under pressure from populist forces, are resorting to beggar-thy-neighbor solutions.
Austria, a key transit country, unilaterally imposed daily caps on migrant entries and asylum applications in mid-February.
In a sign of the waning authority of Brussels and Berlin, Austria brought together 10 central European and Balkan states last week - meeting without Germany, the EU authorities or Greece, the main arrival point for migrants - to coordinate national measures to choke off the northward flow of migrants.
As boatloads of migrants defy winter seas daily to cross from Turkey, that lockdown is rapidly turning Greece, the EU's most economically enfeebled state, into a giant refugee camp.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has warned his country will not become "a warehouse of souls" and said he will hold up other European business if Athens' partners do not share the burden.
EU countries have largely ignored the quotas of refugees they agreed last year to take in, and Hungary is now planning a referendum on whether it should have to accept any.
Britain and France are keeping their heads down rather than helping Merkel, Europe's most experienced and respected leader.
Cameron won't take any refugees already in Europe for fear that public hostility to migration could cost him the referendum. Hollande too fears fuelling support for far-right populist Marine Le Pen if he offers Berlin more assistance.
Barring an improbable halt to arrivals from Turkey in the coming weeks, the most likely next step is that Europe's 26-nation Schengen zone of passport-free travel will be officially suspended for two years to pre-empt a disorderly collapse.
A major achievement of EU cooperation on a continent scarred for centuries by wars will be put into an induced coma to prevent it dying immediately. The result will likely be long lines at borders that had all but disappeared two decades ago.
At that point, Germany, with or without Merkel, will probably have to impose its own curbs on new migrants.
While Europe's weak and divided leaders remain distracted by internal debates, the union that provided the framework for post-World War Two prosperity will start to unravel.
[Reuters]
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EU ‘May Face Fate of the Tower of Babel’ Due to Chaos, Weak Leadership
European leaders have no common agenda for the resolution of the current refugee crisis, with each country focused on its internal problems and unable to pursue common goals.
The inability of EU countries to coordinate their policies may undermine the unity of the European Union and lead to the collapse of the whole of Europe, Paul Taylor wrote for Reuters.
"Like the biblical Tower of Babel, Europe's ambitious construction is in danger of toppling because its peoples are not speaking the same political language," the journalist wrote.
According to the legend, described in the Old Testament, God decided to confuse the builders of the Tower and gave them new languages so that they were unable to understand each other and finish the construction of the building.
From Taylor's point of view, the current leaders of the EU countries are experiencing similar problems: they adhere to different points of view on the most pressing European issues.
Many previous European disagreements could have been either forgotten or gradually dealt with. However, the opportunity to put aside the current migration crisis simply does not exist, the journalist wrote.
"Events on the ground are moving faster than the EU's ability to manage them," Taylor argued. "While Europe's weak and divided leaders remain distracted by internal debates, the union that provided the framework for post-World War Two prosperity will start to unravel," he concluded.
Europe has been beset by a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their home countries to escape violence and poverty. The growing refugee influx has caused a fierce debate in European countries about how to cope with crisis.
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Merkel Calls for EU's Schengen System to Be Fully Restored
The European Union's borderless Schengen system must be returned to normal, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday.
The issue will be discussed at the EU summit on March 7, Merkel added.
"Germany supports the decision taken at the last European Council on February 18 on the resumption of the [normal] functioning of Schengen and the completion of policy constraints. Refugees don't have the right to choose the country in which they want to be granted asylum," Merkel told reporters.
The very existence of the Schengen Area has been put into question by the difficulties Europe has faced in managing a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their home countries to escape violence and poverty. EU border agency Frontex recorded some 1.8 million illegal border crossings into the European Union in 2015.
In response to the growing number of migrants reaching their territories, some European states, such as Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovenia, have built fences, while other states, including Austria and Germany, have toughened their migration policies and reinstated border controls.
In January, European Council President Donald Tusk stated that the Schengen area, which protects the free movement of people and goods throughout the European Union, may face collapse if Europe fails to control the migrant crisis.
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DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's car industry must be privatized to meet the government's goal of turning it into a global competitor, the president said on Tuesday, sending a strong signal of his intention to open up the country's economy to world markets.
Hassan Rouhani said Iranian carmakers, which form the second biggest sub-sector of the economy behind oil, should cooperate closely with foreign companies to improve the quality of their products.
"The car industry must be completely privatized, it must be competitive," Rouhani said in a televised address to an international carmakers' conference in Tehran.
The state currently controls roughly half of the sector.
Rouhani's allies made gains in parliamentary elections on Friday that should give the president more scope to push through ambitious plans to modernize Iran's economy.
The large but outdated car sector is one of the most attractive industries to foreign investors, who have flocked to Tehran since international sanctions were lifted in January following Iran's nuclear deal with world powers.
France's PSA Peugeot Citroen <PEUP.PA> signed a joint venture agreement with Iran's largest carmaker Iran Khodro in January. The two companies had an existing relationship that was suspended in 2012 due to sanctions.
"Our manufacturers must be world-class, and we will cooperate with foreign companies so our manufacturers have a presence in world markets," Rouhani added.
(Reporting by Sam Wilkin; editing by John Stonestreet)
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Mountainman: So The UK....Could be (The HAND) that "ROCKS" the CRADLE.......REMEMBER......They Also are Apart of EXECUTIVE ORDER 13303.......Concerning The USA Oversight of IRAQ.......So the (POUND) may be the (FINAL) "FORCED" Blow to "COMPLETE" the (ACCIDENT) that Unravels The EURO......and OPENS the "Doors" to EUROPE'S/UK'S {NEW REALITY}.......IMO
Thunderhawk: Backdoc Alert
'Brexit' could deal major economic, political blow to EU
The European Union could lose its second-largest economy if the UK decides to leave, taking a potentially major economic and political blow at a time when the EU already faces slowing economic growth and an ongoing refugee crisis.
The UK is scheduled to hold a referendum on June 23 asking voters whether they want Britain to remain a part of the to the 28-nation economic bloc. If there is a vote in favor of the so-called Brexit, the EU would lose about $3 trillion in GDP. The move would also be unprecedented, since no country has left the EU.
"There would be a very big impact," said Mark Fleming-Williams, economic analyst at Stratfor Global Intelligence, a geopolitical advisory firm. "We've seen the markets' fear come down on the pound. Sterling has been dropping significantly in the last month. I think as the vote gets closer, it will probably extend to the euro."
The British pound has fallen more than 5 percent against the dollar this year, hitting its lowest levels in more than six years. The euro, meanwhile, is down about 3 percent against the dollar in the last 12 months (though it's near flat so far in 2016) as the European Central Bank carries on with its quantitative easing program.
"It will clearly have some adverse effect on the EU," said Howard Archer, chief European and UK economist at IHS Global Insight, a Colorado-based research firm. "Things are pretty fragile right now."
"It will certainly add to uncertainty and concerns over the situation," Archer said.
The EU and the UK have had a long and tumultuous relationship over the years. Britons who favor an exit claim the EU infringes on UK sovereignty. Nonetheless, the UK is heavily dependent on the EU, as 45 percent of UK exports go to European countries, Fleming-Williams said.
The economic partnership works both ways. Countries including Ireland and Germany could take an economic hit from a British exit, Fleming-Williams said.
"The UK is responsible for 32 percent of Ireland's imports," he said. "Germany is obviously very reliant on its exports. The UK is the third-biggest receiver of German exports."
The damage from a UK departure wouldn't be limited to the EU's economy. In fact, "the detriment to the EU is likely to be more political than economic or financial," said Nicholas Dungan, senior fellow of the Future Europe Initiative at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. "Depending on the result, Britain has a lot of fences to mend."
A Brexit also could lead to a rise in protectionist policies in the EU, or trade policies that restrict trade between countries through tariffs on imported goods and tax cuts on local businesses, for example. Traditionally, the UK has been a voice within the bloc that favors more liberal trade policies.
"There's quite a good balance between protectionist lobby vs. free trade lobby," Stratfor's Fleming-Williams said. "The UK leaving would shift that balance."
The EU would also lose a "much more outside perspective when global issues are being discussed," Atlantic Council's Dungan said.
The U.S. and the UK, aside from being closely linked because of their history, are close trading partners. Last year, the UK ranked fifth in U.S. exports, importing $56.35 billion worth of U.S. goods, according to the Commerce Department.
Nonetheless, the impact of a Brexit on the U.S. likely would be limited, said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James. "I wouldn't expect it to be a huge drag on [U.S.] growth, but it certainly isn't helpful."
Atlantic Council's Dungan doesn't expect an adverse effect on the U.S. economy, either.
"There's a tendency to think that the UK plays an intermediate role between the U.S. and the EU. This is simply not true," he said. "One good example of this is GE buying half of Alstom."
General Electric bought the French multinational's power business for approximately $14 billion, after the deal was approved by the EU.
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Thunderhawk: INVASION !!!
Backdoc Alert
Greece further strained as refugees try to enter from Macedonia
It was a scene of a type that could become all too common in coming months: Thousands of increasingly desperate people backed up at the frontier between Greece and Macedonia on Monday, stymied in their efforts to reach Germany. A group of angry asylum seekers busted through a razor-wire fence. Armed police officers fired tear gas as frenzied crowds chanted, "Open the border!"
Less than a week after Austria and nine other European countries took steps to stem the flow of refugees from Greece toward Germany and other prosperous countries, the spasm of violence on Greece's northern border brought to life the perils of the European Union's inability so far to settle on a common policy to address the migration crisis.
War in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and repression and economic hardship across the Middle East and Africa continue to compel large numbers of people to strike out for Europe. Germany continues to signal that it will accept legitimate refugees, especially from Syria. As the weather grows warmer and the sea crossing from Turkey to Greece safer, the number of people arriving is expected to spike, putting a huge strain on Greece, which in effect is becoming a giant holding center for migrants who cannot go forward because of the new border restrictions, but will not or cannot go back.
An estimated 7,000 migrants are at the border with Macedonia, and camps and refugee housing in Athens are full or nearly so.
"What's happening is that Greece is being turned into a sort of a Lebanon, where institutions are overwhelmed by the mere numbers of people, and there isn't a strategy to deal with it," said Wolfango Piccoli, a president of Teneo Intelligence, a London-based advisory firm.
If Europe does not reach an accord soon on how to deal with the situation, "Greece could look like a large-scale Calais Jungle, where there is no exit for migrants, the authorities are unable to cope and the migrants live in miserable conditions," he added, referring to a vast camp known as "the Jungle" that the French authorities began to dismantle amid angry protests on Monday.
Greece, already struggling under its long economic slump and budget austerity imposed by the European Union, has requested emergency aid from the bloc to help it deal with the migrant crisis. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said on Sunday that Greece could not be required to shoulder the burden on its own.
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The Libya Gamble: Hillary Clinton, 'Smart Power' and a Dictator's Fall
"Do you seriously believe that all the euro states that last year fought all the way to keep Greece in the eurozone, and we were the strictest, can one year later allow Greece to, in a way, plunge into chaos?" she said in an appearance on the public broadcaster ARD.
But Ms. Merkel is under intense political pressure at home over her insistence on welcoming people with legitimate asylum claims, and without much support from other European governments. While officials in Brussels have joined Ms. Merkel in decrying unilateral steps by countries along the migrant trail to limit the flow of people, it is not clear whether European Union leaders can reach some sort of accommodation before spring brings a new surge of migrants and the potential for more violence of the sort that broke out on Monday
The police used stun grenades and migrants threw stones in the clashes on the frontier with Macedonia, which recently closed its border with Greece to thousands of Afghans after reclassifying them as economic migrants rather than refugees.
That move, which denied Afghans the right to apply for asylum, was effectively a response to an Austrian decision that put a daily cap on the number of people allowed into the country and that left thousands of Afghans with nowhere to go. It also promoted fear among Syrians and Iraqis, who worried that they might also be unable to travel farther north if similar restrictions were imposed.
What started as a peaceful protest on Monday by people, mostly Iraqis, who have a legitimate claim on crossing but have been held up — some for over a week — by the recent intermittent closing of the border on the Macedonian side, quickly escalated to a riot.
"It started as a peaceful protest. People were walking on the railway line and ran up to the border singing and chanting, 'Open the border,'" said Gemma Gellie, a member of Doctors Without Borders who works at the migrant camp in Idomeni.
When the protesters reached a razor-wire fence on the Macedonian border, they pushed part of it over, prompting the Macedonian police to turn people away violently, and throw tear gas canisters over the border and onto the Greek side.
"Some of these people have fled war, and seeing gas and hearing explosions was brought back their most terrifying memories," Ms. Gellie said. "They were beyond distressed."
The Balkans have served as the main passageway for migrants, most of whom hope to reach Germany, which has accepted far more asylum seekers than any other country. Germany's warmer welcome has led to tensions with other European countries, and last week Austria and nine Balkan states agreed to put in place several measures to reduce the flow of refugees. The effect has been a rapid buildup of migrants in Greece."We estimate that we will have a number of people trapped in our country which will be between 50,000 and 70,000," the minister for migration, Ioannis Mouzalas, told the Greek TV channel Mega.
Mr. Mouzalas said that he believed that those numbers would be reached in the coming month, and that 22,000 migrants were already in the country.
Greece is the most popular entry point into Europe for hundreds of thousands of refugees from Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. More than 111,000 migrants have already arrived in the country this year, far ahead of the pace of last year, according to the International Organization for Migration.
More than 400 migrants have died this year while trying to cross the Mediterranean, the organization reported, including 321 on the heavily traveled route between Turkey and Greece. NATO has agreed to patrol those waters to combat trafficking of migrants, but it is not clear whether the presence of naval vessels will deter the flow of people.
The sporadic imposition of border controls by countries including Austria, Denmark and Sweden over the past few months has dealt a serious blow to the Schengen agreement, a cornerstone of European integration that allows the free movement of people across much of the bloc's internal borders.
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Thunderhawk: Golden Thread: What is the Reason for Russia, China, Iran Partnership
The common "golden thread" connecting China, Iran and Russia is their principled insistence that borders, national sovereignty and independence are inviolable principles, F. William Engdahl notes, adding their commitment to these fundamental values of the UN Charter may save the world from self-destruction.
Washington is obviously not happy about the emerging triple alliance of Iran, China and Russia; the US' cunning policy-makers have repeatedly tried to drive a wedge between the powers, but these attempts have failed.
"If the intent of the Obama Iran strategy was to woo the great Persian nation to the West in a complex geopolitical game, and turn her against Russia, China and the emerging Eurasian Century being constructed around China's One Belt, One Road project, it is emerging as another colossal failure," American author, researcher and risk strategic consultant F. William Engdahl writes in his article for New Eastern Outlook.
Regardless of Washington's intrigues, the "newly-sanction-free" Iran has rushed to establish close ties with its Eurasian neighbors.
"One week after Chinese President Xi Jinping's historic visit to post-sanctions Iran, where the two countries signed major trade agreements including bringing Iran fully into the emerging strategic New Economic Silk Road and Maritime Road blueprint, China launched a new maritime shipping route to Iran. Two days before that, the first freight train departed China for the Islamic Republic," the researcher continues.
Beijing and Tehran envisage the construction of the new high-speed rail infrastructure that will break Iran's economic isolation, paving the way for the upcoming Eurasian economic boom, Engdahl underscores.
In addition, Iran is likely to be invited to full membership status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) later this year.
Remarkably, the six full members of the SCO occupy territory that accounts for 60 percent of the Eurasian continent and a quarter of the world's population.
"During [Sino-Iranian] talks in Tehran on January 26… Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, told Xi Jinping that Iran will continue its policy of bolstering ties with the 'East,' lauding China's 'independent' stance in global issues," the researcher points out.
Furthermore, Ayatollah Khamenei added that the Western political establishment has failed to win hearts and minds of the Iranian people.
"Westerners have never obtained the trust of the Iranian nation. The government and nation of Iran have always sought expanding relations with independent and trustful countries like China," Iran's Supreme leader stressed, as quoted by the researcher.
The nations have kicked off a series of bold infrastructural projects engaging Pakistan and Iraq in their fold.
"These Iranian, Chinese, Iraqi and Pakistani infrastructure developments have enormous geopolitical implications for the future of the Eurasian landmass, a space enclosing almost three billion people, almost half the world's population, with vast natural resources, educated work forces and world class scientists from Russia to China to Iran and beyond," the strategic risk consultant highlights.
Indeed, Russia plays an important role in the "golden triangle" of major emerging Eurasian powers. Therefore Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stressed in one of his statements, largely neglected by the Western media sources, that Tehran would never forget those who stood by it during the harsh period of sanctions, referring in particular to Russia and China.
Moreover, Tehran and Moscow have reached an agreement regarding the supplies of new generation S-300 missile systems. The Iranian leadership is expecting the completion of deliveries of the improved Russian missile defense system in the first half of 2016.
The partnership of Iran, China and Russia is based on mutual trust and respect.
"The common golden thread binding the three great Eurasian cultures and nations — China, Iran, Russia — is their principled insistence that, as with individual human beings, so with nations, borders and national sovereignty are inviolable principles… Their growing cooperation based on respect for national sovereignty may just save the world from self-destruction. That would be to the good," Engdahl concludes.
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Mountainman: Oh MY GOODNESS.......It's The 9th INNING (BASES) are "LOADED"......TWO BALLS,TWO STRIKES,TWO OUTS....And WHO will be the "ONE" to {HIT}.....A "HOME RUN" Here.....HURRY PLEASE!!!!.....We Are About (OUT) of "TIME"........The FANS are SCREAMING......."NOW,NOW"........
Here It COMES......."LOOK".......THE NEW GLOBAL REALITY/NEW VALUES is The "ONLY" SWING that (COUNTS)....={IMPLEMENTATION}...or It's (GAME OVER).......IMO
Thunderhawk: TRIPLE PLAY
EU's Tower of Babel may fall while leaders distracted
It's little wonder the European Union can't find common solutions to Europe's urgent problems when its main members are having such different national conversations.
Like the biblical Tower of Babel, Europe's ambitious construction is in danger of toppling because its peoples are not speaking the same political language.
Tune in to Germany and the fierce debate is all about how to cope with an influx of a million migrants, whether to limit the numbers and, in some quarters, how to stop them coming.
Switch to France and you're listening to a nation that thinks it is at war, still living under a state of emergency and in shock after last November's attacks by Islamist militants that killed 130 people in Paris.
Flip to Britain and the talk is all of national sovereignty and a possible Brexit in the build-up to a June referendum that might end the country's schizophrenic membership of the EU.
Look east to Poland and people are arguing over the new government's moves to curb the media and the constitutional court, over who may have been a Communist informer 40 years ago, and over the perceived Russian threat to eastern Europe today.
Around central Europe the discussion is about how to resist German pressure to take in a share of refugees.
Turn south and the Italians and Portuguese are engrossed in domestically focused debates about how to revive economic growth despite the EU's budgetary corset while cleaning up legacy bank problems. Spain meanwhile is preoccupied by Catalan separatism, political paralysis and the risk of a breakup of the country.
When those countries' leaders come to Brussels, they often cannot even agree what they should be discussing.
For the last two EU summits, Britain wanted the focus to be on its demands for a renegotiation of its membership terms to give Prime Minister David Cameron a "new settlement" he can sell in a June 23 referendum on whether to stay in the bloc.
He secured a deal on Feb. 19, but many fellow leaders were frustrated at having to spend time on what they see as side issues and rhetorical formulations when their house is on fire.
"Everyone in the room and corridors was rather irritated that here we are dealing with some rather obscure issues of child benefits indexation, while we have real problems in Syria, member states closing borders, major issues we should really be on instead of this," a diplomat involved in the talks said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, fighting for her political life against domestic critics of her open door for refugees, wanted the EU to concentrate on urgent measures to secure Europe's external borders, register migrants, send home rejected asylum seekers and share out refugees among EU states.
Desperate to find a common "European solution" to the migration crisis, she has forced yet another European summit on March 7 with Turkey, days before three German regional elections in which anti-immigration rightists could make big gains.
French President Francois Hollande, for his part, goes to Brussels seeking more cooperation against terrorism and support for military action against Islamic State in Syria and Libya.
His prime minister, Manuel Valls, irked German officials by using a trip to the Munich Security Conference to criticize Merkel's welcome for refugees and declare that Europe could not take any more migrants.
Waning authority
Unlike many past European crises, where disagreements could be postponed or salami-sliced into gradual steps that turned a political dispute into a technocratic process, there is no obvious way to delay or defuse the migration issue.
Events on the ground are moving faster than the EU's ability to manage them. Governments along the main Western Balkans migration route, under pressure from populist forces, are resorting to beggar-thy-neighbor solutions.
Austria, a key transit country, unilaterally imposed daily caps on migrant entries and asylum applications in mid-February.
In a sign of the waning authority of Brussels and Berlin, Austria brought together 10 central European and Balkan states last week - meeting without Germany, the EU authorities or Greece, the main arrival point for migrants - to coordinate national measures to choke off the northward flow of migrants.
As boatloads of migrants defy winter seas daily to cross from Turkey, that lockdown is rapidly turning Greece, the EU's most economically enfeebled state, into a giant refugee camp.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has warned his country will not become "a warehouse of souls" and said he will hold up other European business if Athens' partners do not share the burden.
EU countries have largely ignored the quotas of refugees they agreed last year to take in, and Hungary is now planning a referendum on whether it should have to accept any.
Britain and France are keeping their heads down rather than helping Merkel, Europe's most experienced and respected leader.
Cameron won't take any refugees already in Europe for fear that public hostility to migration could cost him the referendum. Hollande too fears fuelling support for far-right populist Marine Le Pen if he offers Berlin more assistance.
Barring an improbable halt to arrivals from Turkey in the coming weeks, the most likely next step is that Europe's 26-nation Schengen zone of passport-free travel will be officially suspended for two years to pre-empt a disorderly collapse.
A major achievement of EU cooperation on a continent scarred for centuries by wars will be put into an induced coma to prevent it dying immediately. The result will likely be long lines at borders that had all but disappeared two decades ago.
At that point, Germany, with or without Merkel, will probably have to impose its own curbs on new migrants.
While Europe's weak and divided leaders remain distracted by internal debates, the union that provided the framework for post-World War Two prosperity will start to unravel.
[Reuters]
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EU ‘May Face Fate of the Tower of Babel’ Due to Chaos, Weak Leadership
European leaders have no common agenda for the resolution of the current refugee crisis, with each country focused on its internal problems and unable to pursue common goals.
The inability of EU countries to coordinate their policies may undermine the unity of the European Union and lead to the collapse of the whole of Europe, Paul Taylor wrote for Reuters.
"Like the biblical Tower of Babel, Europe's ambitious construction is in danger of toppling because its peoples are not speaking the same political language," the journalist wrote.
According to the legend, described in the Old Testament, God decided to confuse the builders of the Tower and gave them new languages so that they were unable to understand each other and finish the construction of the building.
From Taylor's point of view, the current leaders of the EU countries are experiencing similar problems: they adhere to different points of view on the most pressing European issues.
Many previous European disagreements could have been either forgotten or gradually dealt with. However, the opportunity to put aside the current migration crisis simply does not exist, the journalist wrote.
"Events on the ground are moving faster than the EU's ability to manage them," Taylor argued. "While Europe's weak and divided leaders remain distracted by internal debates, the union that provided the framework for post-World War Two prosperity will start to unravel," he concluded.
Europe has been beset by a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their home countries to escape violence and poverty. The growing refugee influx has caused a fierce debate in European countries about how to cope with crisis.
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Merkel Calls for EU's Schengen System to Be Fully Restored
The European Union's borderless Schengen system must be returned to normal, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday.
The issue will be discussed at the EU summit on March 7, Merkel added.
"Germany supports the decision taken at the last European Council on February 18 on the resumption of the [normal] functioning of Schengen and the completion of policy constraints. Refugees don't have the right to choose the country in which they want to be granted asylum," Merkel told reporters.
The very existence of the Schengen Area has been put into question by the difficulties Europe has faced in managing a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their home countries to escape violence and poverty. EU border agency Frontex recorded some 1.8 million illegal border crossings into the European Union in 2015.
In response to the growing number of migrants reaching their territories, some European states, such as Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovenia, have built fences, while other states, including Austria and Germany, have toughened their migration policies and reinstated border controls.
In January, European Council President Donald Tusk stated that the Schengen area, which protects the free movement of people and goods throughout the European Union, may face collapse if Europe fails to control the migrant crisis.
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Thunderhawk: 7 Facts about Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A_sLVZFw6V0#t=0
Just some info to keep behind your ear……may come in handy someday
Blessings ThunderHawk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A_sLVZFw6V0#t=0
Just some info to keep behind your ear……may come in handy someday
Blessings ThunderHawk
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