European Union

Drowned Syrian toddler was denied asylum in Canada: report

September 3, 2015 by Nasheman

A Turkish police officer carries a young boy who drowned in a failed attempt to sail to the Greek island of Kos. Photograph: Reuters

by Tamar Pileggi, The Times of Israel

The toddler whose body washed up on a Turkish beach Wednesday was a Syrian-Kurdish refugee whose family was desperately trying to reach North America, even though Canada had rejected their request for asylum.

The image of a policeman cradling the body of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi on a Turkish beach has triggered horrified reactions as the tragedy of Europe’s burgeoning refugee crisis hits home.

Aylan drowned along with his mother and five-year-old brother and at least a dozen others when the overloaded boat they were traveling in capsized during an attempt to reach the Greek Island of Kos. Images of Aylan lying face down in the surf at one of Turkey’s main tourist resorts sparked horror across the globe, with many demanding Europe ease the path for the thousands of refugees fleeing war.

Another 15 people were rescued from the boat, including the father of the family, Abdullah. According to the report, he said he now wishes to return to bury his family in their hometown.

Canadian legislator Fin Donnelly told The Canadian Press that a Vancouver-area woman had sought to sponsor the mother and two children but that her request was turned down by immigration officials.

The Ottowa Citizen quotes Aylan’s aunt, who immigrated to Vancouver over two decades ago, as saying that the Kurdi family’s privately funded refugee application had been rejected by Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Department in June, due to the catch 22-like dilemma displaced Syrians face.

Like thousands of other refugees in Turkey, they were not registered as refugees by the UN refugee agency, and the Turkish government does not to grant exit visas to unregistered refugees without valid passports.

“I was trying to sponsor them, and I have my friends and my neighbors who helped me with the bank deposits, but we couldn’t get them out, and that is why they went in the boat. I was even paying rent for them in Turkey, but it is horrible the way they treat Syrians there,” Teema Kurdi said.

Aylan and his family were traveling on a tiny boat built for four people but thought to have been carrying 15 refugees. The family is believed to be from the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani to have fled to Turkey last year to escape Islamic State extremists.

While the escalating migrant crisis has exposed deep divisions in the EU’s policy, the plight of Syrian refugees took center stage on the Canadian campaign trail this week, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper insisting that he would do more to help if his Tories are re-elected.

Harper has come under fire for not welcoming more Syrians fleeing their country’s deadly conflict. Canada agreed to resettle 20,000 refugees, but, as of late July, had only welcomed 1,002, according to government figures.

“As long as we have organizations like ISIS or the so-called Islamic State, creating literally millions of refugees and threatening to slaughter people all over the world, there is no solution to that through refugee policy,” Harper said. “We have to take a firm and military stance against ISIS and that’s what we’re doing.”

Canada joined the US-led coalition fighting the extremist group in November 2014, adding airstrikes on targets in Syria the following year.

‘Humanity washes ashore’ goes viral as photos capture horror of war, plight of refugees

September 3, 2015 by Nasheman

#KiyiyaVuranInsanlik

A Turkish police officer stands next to the body of the young boy. Photograph: Reuters

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

A series of heartbreaking photos showing a young boy—believed to be a refugee from Syria—washed up on the beach in Turkey after a failed attempt to cross the sea to Greece is being shared and discussed across the world on Wednesday after many media outlets decided to publish the images as a way to confront Europeans—and humanity at large—with a “stark reminder” that “more and more refugees are dying in their desperation to flee persecution and reach safety.”

A Turkish police officer carries a young boy who drowned in a failed attempt to sail to the Greek island of Kos. Photograph: Reuters

Under the social media hashtag #KiyiyaVuranInsanlik (which translates from the Turkish as “humanity washes ashore”), the photos have spurred a global outcry surrounding the plight of those families and individuals who have become victims to the “callous indifference” of western nations and what international aid groups have decried as a broken system for the world’s ballooning refugee population.

As the Guardian reports:

The full horror of the human tragedy unfolding on the shores of Europe was brought home on Wednesday as images of the lifeless body of a young boy – one of at least 12 Syrians who drowned attempting to reach the Greek island of Kos – encapsulated the extraordinary risks refugees are taking to reach the west.

The picture, taken on Wednesday morning, depicted the dark-haired toddler, wearing a bright-red T-shirt and shorts, washed up on a beach, lying face down in the surf not far from Turkey’s fashionable resort town of Bodrum.

A second image portrays a grim-faced policeman carrying the tiny body away. Within hours it had gone viral becoming the top trending picture on Twitter under the hashtag #KiyiyaVuranInsanlik (humanity washed ashore).

The two images described can be see here and here. (Warning: these images are graphic and may be distressing to view.)

Though only one young life out of the nearly three thousand people estimated to have died so far this year while attempting to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea, the pictures of the young boy appear to have captured the collective sorrow of those sickened by a world in which children—with or without their families—are forced to face such dangers in order to escape the threats of war and impoverishment that have made their homelands unlivable.

(Editor’s note: Despite agreeing with the sentiment that such images should be seen as a way for the general public to be confronted with the horrors wrought by endless war, a global assault on human rights, and the scourge of poverty and statelessness that results, Common Dreams has decided not to publish the images on our pages given their ubiquity elsewhere and in deference to the unidentified child’s family and anyone who may be needlessly traumatized by viewing such images.)

Responding to the impact the photo was having, Justin Forsyth, CEO of Save the Children, told the Guardian the “tragic image of a little boy who’s lost his life fleeing Syria is shocking and is a reminder of the dangers children and families are taking in search of a better life. This child’s plight should concentrate minds and force the EU to come together and agree to a plan to tackle the refugee crisis.”

Explaining why it published the un-edited photos prominently on its homepage, the UK-based Independent said it made the decision “because, among the often glib words about the ‘ongoing migrant crisis,’ it is all too easy to forget the reality of the desperate situation facing many refugees.”

While dramatic images of desperate refugees “emerge almost every day,” the newspaper continued, “the attitude of Europe’s policymakers and much of the public have continued to harden.”

In an open letter to “anyone who ever talked down the refugee crisis,” the Independent‘s sister publication, i100, went further on the necessity of the general public seeing the photos. Addressed to a cross-section of individuals and groups of people who have framed the plight of refugees seeking asylum in Europe as a “migrant crisis”—specifically [British Prime Minister] David Cameron, Theresa May, Nigel Farage, the Daily Express, protesters in Germany, Katie Hopkins, Philip Hammond, anyone who has ever written a disparaging comment on a Mail Online article, police in Hungary, the governments of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia, the people of Britain, Czech police, tourists in Kos, Tony Abbott, cartoonists, Ukip MEPs and people on Twitter—the letter chastises those who have disparaged and dehumanized those desperate enough to make the journey while “spreading anti-migrant and anti-refugee sentiment” across Europe and beyond. It states:

Some of you have hauled refugees off trains and written numbers on their arms.

Some of you have simply built a wall.

Somehow you’ve lost sight of the simple fact that our fellow humans are in dire need of help, having fled death and destruction in their homelands only to face an even more perilous journey into Europe.

Somehow you’ve stopped seeing refugees, and they are refugees, for what they are, and tried to deny them the assistance they are legally, and morally, entitled to.

But it has to end, and end now. It has to end because people are dying in their thousands, because Europe’s reputation as a champion of human rights is disintegrating, because if we don’t act now we will regret it for the rest of our history.

“Enough is enough,” the letter concluded. “Attitudes have to change. See the human and not the imagined danger that anything is under threat apart from these people’s lives. A refugee crisis unlike any other since the Second World War is unfurling on our doorstep and now is the time to help people who need it the most.”

Despite the distressing and repetitive imagery, the social media conversation surrounding the images continues on Twitter and other platforms.

EU calls emergency meeting in September for refugee crisis

August 31, 2015 by Nasheman

About 2,500 asylum seekers have died crossing the Mediterranean and trying to reach Europe this year. (AFP/File)

by Andolu Ajansi

The European Union has called for an emergency meeting on September 14 to discuss solutions to the escalating refugee crisis facing the 28-nation bloc.

Luxembourg, which holds EU’s rotating presidency, called for an emergency meeting of interior ministers from the 28 EU member states in Brussels Sunday.

“The situation of migration phenomena outside and inside the European Union has recently taken unprecedented proportions,” Luxembourg said in a statement late on Sunday.

The interior ministers will discuss policies on how to return refugees back to their home country and to prevent human trafficking.

The announcement came three days after 71 refugees, believed to be from Syria, were found dead last Thursday in an abandoned lorry on a highway in Austria near the Hungarian border.

Around 2,500 refugees and migrants have died or gone missing trying to reach Europe this year alone, according to the United Nations.

Backed by popular mandate, Greece submits new deal for dignity and debt relief

July 10, 2015 by Nasheman

Meanwhile, dueling rallies are taking place in Athens on Thursday and Friday

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reportedly told the Greek Parliament on Thursday to brace for ‘compromise’. (Photo: Martin Schulz/flickr/cc)

by Deirdre Fulton, Common Dreams

The Greek government on Thursday evening approved a package of specific reform measures it will present to foreign creditors in an effort to break an impasse that has raised questions about austerity and democracy across the European continent.

While details were not immediately made public, early news reports suggested the reform plan could include “punitive” measures such as at least €12 billion of cuts and tax increases—all in exchange for debt relief.

According to the Guardian:

Parliament is expected to endorse the package after a frantic few days of negotiation that followed a landmark referendum last Sunday in which Greek voters backed the radical leftist Syriza government’s call for debt relief.

Syriza, which is in coalition with the rightwing populist Independent party, is expected to meet huge opposition from within its own ranks and from trade unions and youth groups that viewed the referendum as a vote against any austerity.

Panagiotis Lafazanis, the energy minister and influential hard-leftist, who on Wednesday welcomed a deal for a new €2bn gas pipeline from Russia, has ruled out a new tough austerity package.

Lafazanis represents around 70 Syriza MPs who have previously taken a hard line against further austerity measures and could yet wreck any top-level agreement.

As the Guardian‘s Helena Smith argued: “The irony has not been lost on anyone… that after the Greeks’ resounding rejection of further biting austerity at the weekend, prime minister Alexis Tsipras has with lightning speed now agreed to put his name to the most punitive austerity package any government has been asked to implement during the five years of economic crisis in Greece.”

Indeed, the UK’s Telegraph adds that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras “has now reportedly told his parliament to brace themselves for ‘compromise’.”

Still, “[t]he concession would allow Mr. Tsipras to sell the deal as a face-saving measure after the Greek people delivered a ‘No’ to the previous bail-out terms, which provided no explicit promise to debt relief,” Telegraph journalist Mehreen Khan wrote on Thursday.

Tsipras and his Syriza government have long said that easing the country’s debt would restore “dignity” to impoverished Greeks.

The new proposal will be studied on a technical level by the so-called Troika—the European Central Bank, the European Union, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—on Friday, followed by further discussions among Eurozone finance ministers on Saturday and a full EU summit on Sunday.

It is not yet clear how these stakeholders will respond to Greece’s pitch. European Council president Donald Tusk said Thursday that any “realistic proposal from Athens needs to be matched by realistic proposal from creditors on debt sustainability to create [a] win-win situation”—suggesting he, like the IMF, supports the idea of debt relief.

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was in Bosnia on Thursday, continues to rule out slashing the face value of Greece’s government debt, saying a so-called “haircut” on Greek loans was out of the question.

The BBC‘s Hugh Schofield argues that “at this dramatic juncture Greece looks to France as its last remaining hope.”

Schofield continues:

As one by one other EU governments have accepted the likelihood of an impending Greek departure, France cleaves to the imperative of compromise.

On Wednesday, even as Mr Tsipras addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Prime Minister Manuel Valls was telling a debate in the French National Assembly that keeping Greece in the EU was of “utmost geostrategic and geopolitical importance” and that a deal was “within grasp”.

Reporting from Athens, the Guardian‘s Smith adds: “Officials here are saying that all hope now rests with the French connection. Paris has dispatched a team of technocrats to help finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos draft the new proposal in an effort to ensure it is as convincing as can possibly be.”

Meanwhile, dueling rallies are slated to take place in Athens on Thursday and Friday, amidst ongoing negotiations between Greek officials and foreign creditors over debt relief and austerity, and ahead of the weekend meetings that could decide Greece’s future in the Eurozone.

Declaring “We’re staying in Europe,” Greeks who favor a harsh, Troika-proposed bailout deal—albeit at the cost of more cuts and austerity—will converge outside Parliament at 7:30 pm local time on Thursday.

The following day—same time, same place—”No” supporters, who won a landslide victory in Sunday’s referendum, will hold an anti-austerity rally under the slogan “Hands off democracy.”

A Guardian analysis published Thursday offers an indication of who might be in attendance at each demonstration. The Guardian‘s interactive map shows that while last week’s vote indeed reflected divisions between the old and young, it also split along class lines, with the nation’s poor voting overwhelmingly against the austerity package, and rich people voting “Yes.”

Greek banks running out of cash as EU leaders meet

July 7, 2015 by Nasheman

Cash reserves start to run dry as ECB tightens controls and Greek PM Tsipras meets with EU creditors.

Greek banks are starting to run out of cash, with the ECB raising charges on collateral the banks require to present for funds [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Greece’s banks are quickly running out of cash, as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras takes his latest bailout proposal to the country’s eurozone creditors, days after Greek voters overwhelmingly rejected their latest bailout offer.

Officials on Monday announced that the banks would remain closed until Thursday, as the European Central Bank (ECB) slowly tightened a noose on its funding.

The daily withdrawal limits were to remain unchanged at 60 euros ($66) per account daily.

Al Jazeera’s John Psaropoulos, reporting from Athens, said Greek banks were now operating “under siege”, with one major Athens bank only able to keep its ATMs open on Monday after two major companies deposited their payrolls in cash.

“The banks are living day-to-day and hand-to-mouth,” Psaropoulos said.

“They believe they have enough to keep going until Wednesday, possibly Thursday, but only under the capital controls (withdrawal limits).”

The ECB has maintained its emergency liquidity lifeline for Greek banks, however it raised charges on collateral the banks require to present for funds, effectively devaluing the banks’ assets and making them less able to borrow against their collateral.

“The situation is becoming financially worse, not just more politically difficult,” our correspondent said.

Greece last week defaulted on a $1.8bn repayment to the International Monetary Fund, and on Sunday, in a referendum, the Greek people voted to say “no” to Europe’s bailout deal.

Rapid negotiations

Tsipras on Tuesday must persuade Europe’s other 18 leaders, many of whom are exasperated after five years of the Greek crisis, to open rapid negotiations for a major new loan to rescue his country.

He spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel regarding the new proposals ahead of Tuesday’s hastily arranged emergency summit of the eurozone countries in Brussels.

Germany and France, whose economies together account for nearly half of the eurozone, on Monday asked Greece to make detailed proposals to revive bailout talks, a day after the referendum that decisively rejected creditors’ demands for further austerity.

Late on Monday, a Greek government source said that Tsipras had spoken to ECB chief Mario Draghi in efforts to reopen banks with assistance from the Frankfurt-based lender.

Tsipras also spoke to IMF chief Christine Lagarde “on the need to find a viable solution dealing with the real problems of the Greek economy”, the source said.

Lagarde said the IMF was “ready to assist Greece if requested to do so”, despite the June 30 default.

European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker said on Tuesday that while he did not want Greece to leave the eurozone, in a so-called Grexit, the Greek people had voted on a deal that “no longer existed”.

“We have to put a very large ego away and deal with the situation we face,” Juncker said.

Tsipras insists that instead of a Grexit, Greece’s creditors will now finally have to talk about restructuring the country’s massive 240 billion euro ($267bn) debt to them.

EU border agency won't prioritize saving migrants' lives

April 23, 2015 by Nasheman

The European Union border agency chief dismissed the idea of dedicating the agency to search and rescue to prevent maritime refugee tragedies.

A migrant cries during a candlelight vigil to commemorate migrants who died at sea in Sliema, outside Valletta, April 22, 2015. | Photo: Reuters

by teleSUR

Saving refugees’ lives in the Mediterranean cannot be a priority for maritime patrols, the head of Frontex, the European Union border agency, has told the Guardian.

As the E.U.prepares to meet for an emergency summit Thursday over the immigrant ship wreck crisis, which saw some 800 people drowned over the weekend, Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri refused to turn the Triton border patrol off Italy’s coast into a search and rescue mission.

He also dismissed E.U. proposals to head off human traffickers around Libya.

Leggeri told the Guardian, “Triton cannot be a search-and-rescue operation. I mean, in our operational plan, we cannot have provisions for proactive search-and-rescue action. This is not in Frontex’s mandate, and this is in my understanding not in the mandate of the European Union.”

Thursday’s meeting has been called in light of a string of maritime disasters, in which vessels overloaded with asylum seekers have sunk in the Mediterranean.

This year, the problem has intensified, with 50 times more immigrant fatalities this year than by the same point last year.

Addressing this, Francois Crepeau, the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights of immigrants said Wednesday that rich countries should agree to implement a plan to accept a million refugees from Syria and Africa in the next five years, to put an end to the Mediterranean disasters.

“We know that a great number of Syrians, in particular, are going to leave those countries and if we don’t foresee an official mechanism for them, they will resort to the smugglers,” the professor of law at the University McGill in Montreal, Canada, told the Guardian.

Meanwhile in Kenya, the African Union called for regional and global urgent action to halt the disturbing surge of migrant deaths, who predominantly set out from from sub-Saharan region of the continent.

“The trafficking of people and irregular immigration cannot be resolved by one country alone. It requires urgent global and regional action,” said the president of the A.U., Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, who sent her condolences to the families of the victims.

An EU proposal to send warships to the Libyan coast to combat oil and arms smugglers, which, they say, encourage more migrants to take to the seas in hopes of being rescued and taken to Europe, has been criticized as insensitive and xenophobic.

Almost 100 families evicted daily in Spain – statistics

March 7, 2015 by Nasheman

An anti-eviction activist helps remove a family’s belongings during their eviction in Madrid February 16, 2015 (Reuters / Susana Vera)

by RT

At least 95 families were evicted every day in Spain in 2014, fresh statistics say as Spaniards struggle to meet mortgage payments. Home foreclosures have become a stark symbol of the 7-year economic crisis, with 2014 seeing a further rise in numbers.

The number of foreclosures on all types of residences, including holiday homes, offices and farms, reached 119,442 last year, almost 10 percent higher than in 2013, according to data from the National Statistics Institute.

Image from ine.es

Foreclosure procedures on main residences rose to 34,680 families in 2014, an increase of 7.4 percent over the previous year.

Andalusia, Catalonia and Valencia were the worst-affected regions.

Evictions have become a symbol of the economic crisis Spain has been struggling with since 2008. Most of them were connected to mortgages taken out during property booms in 2006 and 2007.

The situation has provoked nationwide protest. Campaigners often rally outside homes in an attempt to prevent residents from having to spend the night in the street. They are calling on the country’s authorities to make more housing available, or allow vacant housing following developers’ bankruptcies to be used.

Spain has seen a six-year recession, with unemployment reaching 23.7 percent by January 2015, a decline from the 25.93 registered in January 2014. Still this year’s result is second only to Greece in the eurozone, where the jobless rate stands at 25.7 percent.

Separate estimates show it might take the country over a decade to bring unemployment back to the pre-crisis level.

Evictions are the main topic for Spain’s political parties in their electoral campaigns. The country’s government introduced several temporary changes to help the most vulnerable households avoid evictions. In Spain residents are liable for mortgages, even after their homes are returned to banks.

In December, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said that 2014 was “an economic renaissance” for the country, as figures were expected to show GDP grew 1.4 percent.

“2012 was a year of budget cuts for our country, 2013 a year of reforms, 2014 of an economic renaissance, and 2015 will be a year of an economic takeoff,” TASS quotes Rajoy talking to his conservative Popular Party.

EU court orders Hamas removed from terror list

December 18, 2014 by Nasheman

Court delays implementing the ruling to allow appeals, drawing ire from Israeli PM Netanyahu and praise from Hamas as a ‘human rights’ victory.

by Barak Ravid, Haaretz

The General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg accepted the petition by Hamas in which it sought to have itself removed from the EU’s list of terrorist organizations.

The court postponed implementing the ruling for three months to allow for the EU commission or one of the EU’s 28 member states to petition the decision, which drew praise from Hamas and condemnation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The hearing in the European court was technical and procedural, and did not stem from a change in the EU’s position regarding Hamas.

Although Foreign Ministry officials in Jerusalem played down the importance of the EU decision, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked it vociferously.

Netanyahu said Israel is not satisfied with EU explanations that removing Hamas from the list of terrorist organizations is solely a technical matter.

“The burden of proof is upon the European Union, and we expect them to immediately put Hamas back on the list, as anyone understand that it is an inseparable part of it,” said Netanyahu. “Hamas is a murderous terrorist organization, which states in its charter that its goal is to destroy Israel. We will continue to fight in with determination and strength so that it will never achieve its goal.”

A senior Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, tweeted that the court decision is “a legal victory for Palestinian rights.” According to the Twitter post, the decision rights an injustice done to the Hamas movement, “which is a national liberation movement.”

The Palestinian terrorist group asserted in its petition that the decision to put it on the EU terror list was carried out without giving it an opportunity for a hearing and without sufficient evidence being presented. The European court accepted the petition based on the precedent of a similar case of the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka.

The court ruled in its decision that most of the evidence used to put Hamas on the list of terrorist organizations were from open sources – mainly press publications. The court made it clear that the ruling does not say anything substantial about the status of Hamas or the character of the organization’s operations.

Likewise, the three-month postponement also means that Hamas assets within the EU will remain frozen as well as sanctions against its members. During this period EU institutions or member states will be able to appeal the ruling or make a new decision within the council of EU foreign ministers, which would define Hamas as a terror organization based on stronger evidence.

The EU ambassador in Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, met Wednesday with the director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, who expressed great disappointment from the EU court’s decision, and demanded the EU act swiftly to reclassify Hamas as a terrorist organization.

The ambassador made it clear in the meeting that there is no change in EU policy regarding recognizing Hamas as a terrorist organization, and that the EU intends to use all means to reinstate the group on the terrorist list. The ambassador also stressed that the court’s decision has no immediate validity, and that there will be no change regarding freezing Hamas funds in Europe.

The EU also issued a special statment in response to the court ruling.

“This legal ruling is clearly based on procedural grounds and it does not imply any assessment by the Court of the substantive reasons for the designation of Hamas as a terrorist organisation,” read the statement. “It is a legal ruling of a court, not a political decision taken by the EU governments. The EU continues to uphold the Quartet principles.”

The statement continued, “The EU institutions are studying carefully the ruling and will decide on the options open to them. They will, in due course, take appropriate remedial action, including any eventual appeal to the ruling. In case of an appeal the restrictive measures remain in place.”

Danish parliament to vote on Palestine recognition

November 25, 2014 by Nasheman

by Andrew Rettman, EUobserver

Brussels: Danish MPs are to vote on a resolution instructing the government to recognise Palestine, but Denmark’s foreign minister says the time is not right.

The motion was introduced by deputies from three small left-wing parties: the Red-Green Alliance; the Socialist People’s Party; and Greenland’s Inuit Ataqatigiit.

“The parliament directs the government to recognise Palestine as an independent and sovereign state within pre-1967 borders and, by extension, [to] provide the state of Palestine with full diplomatic rights”, the draft text says.

The Danish assembly is to hold a first debate on 11 December and to vote on a final text in early January.

Holger K. Nielsen, one of the MPs behind the initiative, doesn’t fancy its chances.

“I don’t think we’ll get a majority, but at least we’ll have a good discussion”, he told EUobserver on Monday (24 November).

He noted that if it does get through, the government is not legally obliged to comply but would find it “impossible” to say No in political terms.

Nielsen, a former foreign minister, said he was “inspired” by Sweden’s recent decision to recognise Palestine.

He added that EU recognitions could be “a tool” to help restart peace talks: “It would give the Palestinians a better position in the negotiations, or, at least, a less unequal position”.

But Denmark’s current foreign minister, Martin Lidegaard, disagrees.

“The positions of member states [on Palestine recogntion] are evolving. This, in my view, makes sense as the peace process is not showing any progress”, he told this website.

“Denmark will also come to recognise Palestine, but the timing has to be right”.

He urged the EU to take joint steps against Israeli settlements instead.

“Israel continues to, unacceptably, expand the illegal settlements and thus de facto undermines the possibilities for a two-state solution”, he said.

“The chances of bringing together the EU and actually influencing the conflict would be greater if we consider further action against the settlements”.

For its part, Israel says settlements are “not a hurdle” to peace.

It also says European recognitions harm the peace process.

Michal Weiler-Tal, a spokeswoman for Israel’s EU embassy, told EUobserver: “Recognition at this stage without direct talks between the two sides only pushes them further apart … it [sends] the wrong message – that negotiations are futile”.

“This damages the EU image in Israeli public opinion”.

The Danish resolution comes amid a series of similar votes in Europe.

The British, Irish, and Spanish parliaments recently urged their governments to recognise Palestine.

The European Parliament will vote on Thursday, while French MPs are to vote on Friday or next Tuesday (2 December).

Echoing Lidegaard, one EU diplomat told this website that even if other EU governments follow Sweden it is unlikely to have much impact.

“There was a lot of excitement back in the 1980s when [the late Palestinian leader] Arafat was threatening to proclaim a unilateral declaration of independence [UDI]”, the diplomat said.

“More than 130 countries have now recognised Palestine. But little has changed on the ground, and the whole UDI issue has lost significance”.

Russia to lose $40bn due to Western sanctions: Russian Finance Minister

November 25, 2014 by Nasheman

Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov

by Press TV

Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov says Moscow will be losing around USD 40 billion (32 billion euros) per annum due to the Western sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine.

“We are losing around $40 billion per year due to geopolitical sanctions,” Anton Siluanov said on Monday.

The Russian minister also said that his country is “losing some $90 to $100 billion per year due to oil prices falling 30 percent.”

On Sunday, Russian President Valdimir Putin criticized the United States and the European Union (EU) for imposing sanctions against Russia and certain people close to him, calling the move a “systemic mistake.”

“The Americans made a systemic mistake by believing that I have personal business interests because of ties to people they put on their sanctions list,” Putin said.

Also on Saturday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of seeking a “regime change” in Russia through its sanctions against Moscow.

The United States and the European Union (EU) have imposed a series of sanctions against Russian figures in recent months as they accuse Moscow of destabilizing Ukraine. Moscow, however, rejects the accusation, saying it is concerned about Kiev’s violent attacks on the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine.

YH/HJL/HRE