Politico: Euroskeptics in free fall at European Parliament

In the latest blow, Ludovic de Danne, the secretary-general of the Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), one of the two main anti-EU groups in Parliament, was dismissed last week in what he described to French media as an “inevitable divorce,” partly due to his alleged role in the group’s recent problems with its finances and corruption allegations. [...]

And in a twist, even the Euroskeptics’ success on Brexit has worked against them in the European Parliament: the other main anti-EU group of MEPs, the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD), now stands to lose 20 of its members from the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) when Britain leaves the EU in 2019. Without UKIP, the EFDD would fall short of the minimum of 25 MEPs required to form a group in Parliament, and may have to disband. [...]

The populist Alternative for Germany party is expected to win seats in Germany’s parliamentary election later this month and other anti-EU parties like the National Front in France and the Populist Party for Freedom in the Netherlands made gains in their national legislatures, even though they fell well short of their targets. In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) is expected to make a strong showing in parliamentary election next month. [...]

But in the European Parliament, the weakening of Euroskeptics suggests that pro-EU leaders have had at least some success in imposing their cordon sanitaire  — essentially an effort to choke off the anti-EU groups and deny them influence in policymaking. Leaders have also sought to keep the Euroskeptics off balance by pushing for investigations into alleged corruption, including misuse of Parliament funds for national political purposes. [...]

France’s National Front is in the midst of an investigation by OLAF, the EU’s anti-fraud agency, and the Paris prosecutor involving allegations of “breach of trust,” “organized fraud,” “forgery and use of forged documents,” and “undeclared work.” The investigation will determine whether some assistants in the group were paid by the Parliament to carry out non-parliamentary work.[...]

Last year, the Parliament suspended payment of some €90,000 to a think tank linked to Nigel Farage’s UKIP because of suspicions that it accepted donations from firms and individuals, only to pay the money back using cash from the Parliament by awarding them contracts that far exceeded the amount they had donated.

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Al Jazeera: Is the 'war on terror' failing?

The topic of terrorism has been at the forefront of world politics for many years. Attacks on Western soil dominate the news for weeks after they happen, and the Iraq and Syria wars against ISIL are regularly centre stage on TV screens.

The subject was on the agenda at the recent BRICS conference in China, and will debated at the upcoming UN General Assembly.

This week it has catapulted back into the spotlight for an obvious reason, the 16th anniversary of 9/11.

The September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States have largely defined US foreign policy since, and affected lives throughout the world.Almost 3,000 people were killed when hijackers flew airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. The attacks triggered a series of events - including new wars, immigration policies, and prejudices.

What will it take to defeat terror?

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Politico: EU’s biggest problem: Over-powerful national governments

To speak frankly, the real problem in the EU is the European Council, which far too often wields the veto that undermines the decisions taken by the European Commission and the Parliament.

Revising the EU’s treaties to address this can no longer be taboo. The EU’s structure needs to change if we want more democracy and better balance in how we function.

The Commission must adopt extraordinary measures to overcome this stalemate. The Parliament is ready to throw its institutional and democratic weight behind this battle for change. Confronted with a sluggish Council, the Commission and Parliament should work together to establish an alliance to strengthen democracy.

We stand for an EU that is more independent from national governments and directly empowered by European citizens through the concept of the Spitzenkandidaten process — whereby a directly elected European Parliament has a greater say over the appointment of the European Commission president and his Collegium of Commissioners, increasing the accountability of the EU institutions. [...]

The Hungarian and Polish governments want to transform their democracies into illiberal regimes. We cannot turn a blind eye to countries that diminish the rule of law in Europe. The Commission should be prepared to act, using all tools foreseen in the treaties. The credibility of European democracy depends on its commitment to its fundamental values. No compromise on them should be allowed.

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Haaretz: Israel's High Court Strikes Down Exemption of ultra-Orthodox From Military Service

An expanded nine-justice panel of the court headed by outgoing Supreme Court President Miriam Naor ruled eight to one, with Justice Noam Sohlberg dissenting. The decisive majority of justices agreed with the position of the petitioners, the Movement for Quality Government, that the law perpetuates inequality between secular youths who are required to enlist in the army and religious youth who are exempt. [...]

The hope of meeting the enlistment targets set by existing the law are growing less and likely every year, said the court. As a result, the law’s goal of reducing inequality in the burden of military service is not being met, wrote Naor. Not only do the data not change the conclusions about the failure of the law to reduce inequality they only validate and strengthen the claims against the law, she added. [...]

MK Menachem Eliezer Moses (United Torah Judaism) said: “The High Court of Justice once again proves how cut off the it is from Jewish tradition and how deep is its hatred for anything dear to those who study Torah and the guardians of religion. The High court continues time after time to intervene scandalously in the Knesset’s decisions.  We have had enough and the time has come to return [the High Court] to its natural proportions.” [...]

Interior Minister Arye Dery, head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, was swift to condemn the ruling, saying it “again proves the serious disconnect between the Supreme Court and the Jewish people, who have known through all generations that what holds us together against persecution and evil decrees was Torah study.

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The New York Times: The Ever-Changing Business of ‘Anti-Aging’

The only real solution to aging is, of course, death, but our central mode of dealing with that inevitability is to delay and deny it. “In an era in which people actually live longer and longer,” Susan Sontag wrote in the 1972 essay “The Double Standard of Aging,” “what now amounts to the latter two-thirds of everyone’s life is shadowed by a poignant apprehension of unremitting loss.” In this culture, to age is to be erased — to be deemed irrelevant, disappear from magazine covers and popular films and get tucked away into facilities, managed and cared for. For women, it also means being turned from a coveted object into a disposable one. We spend our lives fighting our own disappearance. [...]

These campaigns framed women as desperate, waiting helplessly for a product to save them from the humiliation of age. The past few decades, though, plunged us into a very different way of thinking — the Golden Age of “anti-aging.” The ads shifted from cautionary tales to stories of inspiration, in which plucky women successfully race against time to take charge of their own looks. Social shaming was sublimated into an aggressive personal narrative. Militarized language became chic: Advertisements started instructing women to “tackle,” “combat” and “fight against” aging, to stage an “intervention” on their skin. Revlon’s Age Defying makeup told the consumer, of her advancing age: “Don’t deny it. Defy it.” In this model, age is a war waged on a woman’s face, and it can never be won — only “slowed” or prevented from “advancing,” like an occupying force. [...]

Marketers are adapting accordingly. Allure’s anti-anti-aging campaign is just one part of a bigger cultural wave, advancing past the combative mode and toward the assuaging language of personal acceptance. In 2007, Dove — always ahead of the curve in “empowering” marketing trends — introduced a product line called Pro-Age with a campaign featuring models in their 50s and 60s. (The double entendre in “Pro-Age” is masterful: It sounds as if it’s about embracing the advancing years, while also hinting that you wouldn’t want to age like some amateur.) These days, the beauty industry is preparing to transcend the wrinkle entirely: The new scheme is obsessed with coding products as all-natural, eco-friendly and wellness-promoting elements of “self-care.”

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Associated Press: Photographers respond to Trump's comments on Sweden

During a rally in Florida in February, Trump said that terrorism was growing in Europe, and "look what's happening last night in Sweden." But the comment baffled many Swedes because there had been no extraordinary trouble that night in Sweden, a country welcoming to immigrants. Trump later tweeted more comments attacking Sweden's immigration protocols.

Publisher Max Strom commissioned "Last night in Sweden" in an effort to present a more diverse and multi-faceted portrait of the country.

"We felt we had to react because we didn't recognize Sweden at all in his words," photographer and publisher Jeppe Wikstrom told The Associated Press before the opening of the exhibition.

The photos, all taken after 6 p.m. in the spring, present a diverse portrait of Sweden, from an elderly couple in their sauna to a group of scouts from Syria practicing music.

The crowdfunded book hits the shelves on Tuesday, with the first copy sent to the White House and the next ones to all members of U.S. Congress.

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MapPorn: % of Africans who can Read, 2015

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MapPorn: Homicide Rates by city in South America

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Politico: Czech center left realigns with ‘pork-and-cabbage’ voters

The Social Democrats — who head a three-party ruling coalition — suffered a heavy blow when Andrej Babiš’ populist ANO movement outperformed them in a number of key regions in 2016. The ČSSD’s share of the vote slipped to 15.4 percent from more than 20 percent, and its support now stands at 12-14 percent in polls.

Now, in an effort to reclaim lost ground in October’s parliamentary election, the party is trying to capitalize on domestic anti-European and anti-immigrant sentiment, which Babiš and President Miloš Zeman continue to successfully exploit. [...]

This threatens to exacerbate a growing East-West divide in the EU, as the four Central European nations move toward a two-speed Union in which they take the slow lane. This specter was raised by Zeman last week when, in response to the European Court of Justice’s rejection of Slovakia and Hungary’s challenge to the migrant quotas, he said: “If worse comes to worse, then it would be better to forego EU subsidies than open the door to migrants.” [...]

According to a poll by the CVVM institute conducted in spring, 61 percent of Czechs are against accepting additional refugees, while nearly three in four said migrants pose as great a threat to national security as ISIS. The country has so far accepted only 12 of its allocated quota of 2,691 immigrants.

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