East of the sun and west of the moon
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| Kazakhstan |
Former Commerce Secretary Gary Locke at the Almaty Airport in Kazakhstan. He was there to speak at the
2018 Eurasian Media Forum after a flight from Seoul to Almaty [Playbook Power Briefing, May 23, 2018]
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| HUNGARY |
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| GERMANY |
GERMAN ANGST: Nearly 75 percent of German elites are worried about
Trump’s stance on trade, according to a fresh survey of
some 500 political and business movers and shakers. About 70 percent worry
about their country’s growing dependence on China. At the same time, more than
80 percent say the opportunities in China outweigh the risks. Translation:
Germans are antsy as ever.
What Germans aren’t worried about: I asked around.
Some responses to my unscientific poll so far: Russia, defense spending,
manners, the World Cup and deodorant.
MORE GERMAN ANGST: Turns out German economics professors are the most jittery
of all. An open letter from 154 of them this week (we mentioned it in Tuesday’s Playbook),
in which they flay both Macron’s and Juncker’s proposals for European reform,
offers an insight into why the hoped-for eurozone reform isn’t likely to get
much traction. Their main objection to ideas such as a deposit insurance or a
European monetary fund can be summed up as a moral hazard. Putting aside the
irony of Germans worrying about a moral hazard in others, the impact of the
letter in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, the voice of Germany’s conservative
establishment, shouldn’t be underestimated. While the letter surprised
some foreign economists,
it probably shouldn’t have.
GERMANY’S ‘ALTERNATE UNIVERSE’ EXPLAINED: To understand
why so much of the German establishment doesn’t really care what the rest of
Europe thinks when it comes to how they run their economy, look no further than
this helpful FT graphic.[ POLITICO Brussels Playbook, May 24,2018]
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| IRELAND |
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| THAILAND |
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| JAPAN |
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| READ |
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| PORTUGAL |
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| MONTENEGRO |
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| MOLDOVA |
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| NETHERLANDS |
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| ITALY |
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| MALTA |
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| SPAIN |
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| NORWAY |
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| MACEDONIA |
MACEDONIA A NAME AWAY FROM NATO? Macedonia's Defense
Minister Radmila Sekerinska discusses the possibility in a POLITICO Pro Q&A with your Morning D correspondent: "A
long-simmering dispute with Greece over what Macedonia calls itself is one of
the lingering issues preventing the former Soviet republic from joining NATO.
"'We're negotiating in good faith with Greece with some
progress,' Macedonia's Defense Minister Radmila Sekerinska said in an
interview. 'So, now is the time to actually move forward.'
"Athens objects to Macedonia's name because Greece has a
northern province called Macedonia, and some fear Macedonia may harbor
territorial ambitions. The objections have, in part, prevented Macedonia from
joining the alliance, which it has officially worked towards since 1993.
"Sekerinska recently visited Washington to promote
Macedonia's continued effort, meeting with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and
other top U.S. officials."
Meanwhile, Macedonia and Greece's foreign ministers race to resolve the
name dispute, writes Reuters. [POLITICO's
Morning Defense, May 14, 2018]
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| POLAND |
REALITY
TEST: A sit-in protest in the lobby of Poland’s
parliament of half a dozen mothers and their disabled children enters its third
week today, POLITICO’s man in Warsaw Michał Broniatowski wrote in to report.
The women, who are unable to work because they must care for their children
full time, want their benefits increased to the equivalent of €100 from the
current €25. President Andrzej Duda visited them to express his support, but
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki met them and said their demands could not be
met. Michał tells us it’s a reality check for a government that has taken pride
in solving the problems of the impoverished masses. [POLITICO
Brussels Playbook, May 2, 2018]
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| UNITED KINGDOM |
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| RUSSIA |
Google services fail as the Telegram block enters Week Two ⛔️
On April 23, Russian Internet users reported mass
disruptions to almost all services offered by Google — from
the main search engine to the company’s reCAPTCHA (which distinguishes human
users from bots). The outages started after Russia’s federal censor added
another 118 Google IP addresses to the country’s Internet blacklist over the
weekend.
After a wave of complaints from the public, Roskomnadzor
issued several
statements on Monday denying that it has blocked
Google’s online services. The agency says the Google
disruptions are the result of problems with the traffic filtering systems
operated by Russian Internet providers. Roskomnadzor specifically says it
hasn’t blocked YouTube, Gmail, the Web version of Google Play, Google Drive,
and reCAPTCHA.
The Russian Association of Motor Insurers says its
sales of third-party insurance plummeted on Monday when Google’s reCAPTCHA
stopped working reliably on its website.
[The Real Russia. Today. April 23]
Russia's “counter-sanctions” take shape 🇺🇸🇷🇺
a)
🤔 Dummies or saboteurs?
The majority shareholder of VSMPO-AVISMA, the world's largest titanium producer,
says the State Duma’s plans for new “counter-sanctions”
against the West were written
by “saboteurs.” Mikhail Shelkov told the
magazine RBC that his only question about the lawmakers who drafted the
counter-sanctions is whether they’re acting as saboteurs knowingly or
unknowingly. The draft law, Shelkov says, “needs further development and
reflection.”
VSMPO-AVISMA exports more than 70 percent of its product, and its
clients include the corporations Boeing and Airbus. The State Duma’s
counter-sanctions would allow the Russian government to halt cooperation in the
aircraft industry and ban the export of titanium. Lawmakers are expected to
vote on a first reading of the draft legislation in mid-May.
On April 24, a committee in the Federation Council largely
endorsed the State Duma’s proposed counter-sanctions options, though the
senators are askingthat the bill be amended
to spare all
“reasonably priced, vitally necessary” American pharmaceuticals from a
potential boycott.
a)
⛔️ No
playing by the Yanks' rules
Andrey Isayev, the first deputy head of United Russia, says the
State Duma’s counter-sanctions would impose criminal penalties
on individuals and steep fines on businesses in
Russia that observe sanctions enacted by the United States. “From our
perspective, this activity is criminal, and therefore no sanctions imposed by
the U.S. Congress or U.S. president will operate on Russian soil within Russian
jurisdiction,” Isayev told the news agency RIA Novosti.
[The Real Russia. Today. April 24]
Pipe down, Syria 🇸🇾🇷🇺
Riyad Haddad, Syria’s ambassador to Russia, says Moscow started
supplying Damascus with S-300 long-range
surface-to-air missile systems at least a month ago, though
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said as recently as April 23 that the
Kremlin still hasn’t reached a decision about the weapon. Speaking to Interfax, an unnamed
“military-diplomatic source” also refutedHaddad’s claim.
Why are we
talking about the S-300 again? In 2010, Russia tentatively
agreed to supply Syria with the S-300, but the deal collapsed under Israeli
pressure. On April 14, 2018, following a recent allied airstrike on Syria, the
Russian Defense Ministry said it might revive the idea of sending S-300 systems
to Damascus. Israel has promised to destroy any defense systems that fire on
its aircraft. After the April 14 attacks, Russian officials claimed that Syrian
air defense intercepted most of the U.S. cruise missiles fired at Syrian
targets. Washington denies this. There are no reports that Syria used S-300
systems in its response to the allied airstrikes. [The
Real Russia. Today. April 25]
Teachers raise income by working more. Thanks, Putin. 👩🏫
As Vladimir Putin’s May 2012 executive orders promised,
Russian school teachers are now earning more. According
to a new
study, however, they’re also working a lot more. The
Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
found that the percentage of teachers working double shifts to raise their
income grew from 7.3 percent in 2014 to 13.8 percent in 2017.
In May 2012,
Putin ordered the government to raise teachers’ salaries to the average income
level in their region. In 2017, Russian teachers earned on average almost
420,000 rubles ($6,750) a year — 19,200 ($310) more than a year before. Critics
argue that income is rising because more teachers are working multiple
shifts. [The Real Russia. Today. April 25]
 |
| WHIMSEY |
Colombia once sued a
Costa Rican coffee maker for using a slogan that implied that Juan Valdez, a
fictional character that Colombia uses to sell its coffee, drinks Costa Rican
coffee.[ POLITICO's Morning Tax, April 3, 2018]
NOTE: The news sources here vary. Not all sources have the same credibility, but in an effort to share some different perspectives, they are included here. This compendium itself cannot claim to be unbiased. Please take into consideration where these different perspectives originate in assessing their value. Thank you
NOTE: I have no official connection to any organization from which information is shared.. Occasionally, I post informational material and/or an opportunity to donate or join as a "community service" announcement. These again are shared for their varying perspectives.
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