Christian Bishop Investigates Islam with Yusuf Estes

Exit poll: Ruling Dutch coalition punished in local election

March 18, 2015

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch voters dealt a blow to Prime Minister Mark Rutte's reform agenda for the final two years of his second term in office Wednesday, with a provincial election exit poll showing he will soon struggle to cobble together a majority in Parliament's upper house.

The results appeared to be a ballot box punishment for years of austerity measures by Rutte, even as those reforms seem to be bearing fruit with the Dutch economy now showing strong signs of recovery.

According to an Ipsos poll carried out for national broadcaster NOS, Rutte's Liberal Party lost 3.8 percentage points of its vote compared to provincial elections four years ago. The vote is significant because provincial aldermen elected Wednesday will, in turn, choose a new Senate on May 26.

The exit poll, with a margin of error of two percent, suggested that the Liberals could lose four of their 16 seats in the 75-seat Senate. Rutte's junior coalition partner Labor fared far worse, shedding 7.3 percentage points of its vote or six of its 14 seats.

The Christian Democrats were running neck and neck with Rutte's Liberals and the centrist Democrats 66 also registered strong gains. Labor Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem called it a disappointing result for his party.

"We have asked a lot of people in recent years. In part that was unavoidable because we came into office at the deepest point of the (financial) crisis," he told NOS. He conceded that it would now be tough to push through reforms.

Rutte's two-party coalition already lacks a majority in the Senate and relies on three opposition parties — known as the constructive opposition — to help pass new laws. But the exit poll suggested that even that ad-hoc coalition will soon no longer command a majority in the upper house, putting in question the government's ability to push legislation through both houses of parliament.

The Freedom Party of anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders edged lower and was forecast to lose one of its 10 Senate seats. Elections for the lower house of parliament are not due until May 2017.

UK ambassador: "Canakkale is impassable"

18 March 2015 Wednesday

U.K. ambassador to Turkey, Richard Moore, has said that "Canakkale is impassable" on the 100th anniversary of Turkey's Martyrs’ Day.

The British ambassador tweeted the Turkish-language phrase on Wednesday, adding: "All the parties fought bravely but it was the Turks who won the deserved victory."

The Gallipoli campaign is regarded as a heroic war of defense by Turks but a catastrophe for Australians and New Zealanders -- grouped in the famous "Anzac" units -- who were fighting on behalf of Britain.

Around 13,000 New Zealanders and 50,000 Australians fought during the war and at least 2,700 New Zealanders and 8,700 Australians were killed. Ottoman forces lost almost 60,000 soldiers. Around 1,700 Indian soldiers, fighting for the British crown, also lost their lives.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/156718/uk-ambassador-canakkale-is-impassable.

Prince Harry will train with Australian army next month

March 17, 2015

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Prince Harry will be embedded in Australian army units on the north, west and east coasts of the country during the British royal's hectic four-week secondment to the Australian defense forces next month before he ends his decade-long military career, officials said Tuesday.

Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, who is Australia's Defense Force Chief, said that Captain Harry Wales, as he is known in the British Army, will be embedded with a number of Australian army units and regiments in the cities of Sydney, Darwin and Perth.

"We have prepared a challenging program that will see Capt. Wales deploy on urban and field training exercises, domestic deployments, as well as participate in indigenous engagement activities," Binskin said in a statement.

"While all our units are highly capable, we have selected those units that best utilize Capt. Wales' skill sets and give him some experience of the diverse range of capability we have within the ADF," he said.

The Australian tour is an extension of prince's regular British army duties, he said. The fourth in line to the British throne will also attend centenary commemorations of the World War I Gallipoli campaign in Turkey on April 25.

In a statement confirming he would leave the army in June, Harry said that leaving the army had been "a really tough decision" but he was excited about the future. "From learning the hard way to stay onside with my Color Sergeant at Sandhurst, to the incredible people I served with during two tours in Afghanistan — the experiences I have had over the last 10 years will stay with me for the rest of my life," he said. "For that I will always be hugely grateful."

Neil James, chief executive of the Australian Defense Association think tank, said the prince would likely be attached at an armed reconnaissance helicopter squadron in the northern city of Darwin and possibly an aviation unit supporting a commando regiment in the east coast city of Sydney.

The west coast city of Perth is the base of the elite Special Air Service Regiment which extensively uses helicopters in training exercises, James said. Tropical Darwin is also a training hub for U.S. Marines and the base of a predominantly Aboriginal infantry regiment, the North-West Mobile Force, better known as NORFORCE.

No more soldier prince: UK's Harry to leave army in June

March 17, 2015

LONDON (AP) — It's a soldier's life no more for Britain's Prince Harry.

Royal officials said Tuesday that the 30-year old prince will leave the armed forces in June after 10 years of service that included two tours of duty in Afghanistan. Harry's final army duties will include a four-week assignment in April and May with the Australian Defense Force. The prince will spend time in Darwin, Perth and Sydney and attend centenary commemorations of the World War I Gallipoli campaign in Turkey.

Harry said that leaving the army had been "a really tough decision" but he was excited about the future. In a statement, Harry said he felt "incredibly lucky" to have had the chance to serve in the armed forces.

"From learning the hard way to stay onside with my Color Sergeant at Sandhurst, to the incredible people I served with during two tours in Afghanistan — the experiences I have had over the last 10 years will stay with me for the rest of my life," he said. "For that I will always be hugely grateful."

Harry, who is fourth in line to the British throne, graduated from Sandhurst officers' academy in 2006 and joined the Household Cavalry as an armored reconnaissance troop leader. He served in Afghanistan as a battlefield air controller for 10 weeks in 2007-2008 until a media leak cut his tour short.

Keen to return to the front lines despite fears he would be a top Taliban target, Harry retrained as a helicopter pilot and served in Afghanistan in 2012-2013 as an Apache co-pilot gunner. Most recently he has served as a staff officer in the army's London headquarters, playing a big role in bringing the Invictus Games — an international sports competition for wounded troops — to Britain.

Kensington Palace said that after leaving the army Harry will volunteer with the British military's Recovery Capability Program, which helps wounded service members, "while actively considering other longer-term employment opportunities."

Harry was the first British royal to see combat since his uncle, Prince Andrew, who flew Royal Navy helicopters during the 1982 Falklands War. His older brother Prince William also attended Sandhurst before training as a Royal Navy search-and-rescue helicopter pilot. He has since left the navy to become an air-ambulance pilot.

Harry has often seemed more comfortable as a soldier than in his royal duties, although he has been visibly energized by his work with charities for wounded veterans. "It's very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army. Everyone's wearing the same uniform and doing the same kind of thing," Harry said in an interview after returning from Afghanistan in 2013.

Cyprus president to seek removal of Central Bank chief

March 16, 2015

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus' president said Sunday that he will seek to have the bailed-out country's embattled Central Bank chief removed from her post over a perceived conflict of interest.

President Nicos Anastasiades met late Sunday with Central Bank Governor Chrystalla Georghadji to contain the damage from a debacle that has shaken public trust in the institution. It also threatens to erode Anastasiades' personal credibility as he tries to nurse the country back to financial health.

Georghadji is in breach of her contract because her husband's law firm represents the former head of a defunct lender, who's embroiled in a legal battle with the Central Bank, government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said.

Christodoulides said the president "has no other choice" but to ask the attorney general to initiate legal proceedings aimed at Georghadji's dismissal. "The president of the republic regrettably notes that trust in the Central Bank, as well as in himself, has been gravely degraded," Christodoulides said.

Anastasiades can't fire the Central Bank chief, who answers to European Central Bank boss Mario Draghi. Christodoulides said that the Cypriot president has already informed Draghi of his intentions. Anastasiades appointed Georghadji a year ago following the resignation of her predecessor, Panicos Demetriades, after the Cypriot president accused him of botching the country's bailout negotiations with international creditors a year earlier.

Cyprus received a 10 billion euro financial rescue package in March 2013 that pulled it back from the brink of financial meltdown. But a core demand from international creditors was to seize uninsured deposits in the eurozone country's top two banks to prop up the largest lender, while shutting down the smaller one.

The government spokesman said responsibility rests on Georghadji's shoulders because the president wouldn't have appointed her had she informed him of her husband's connection to former Laiki Bank chief Andreas Vgenopoulos.

Georghadji emerged from the meeting with Anastasiades saying that she would carry on with her duties and that the "matter is closed as far as I'm concerned." "There's a constitution and laws that must be respected and which protect the independence of this office," Georghadji said.

State Broadcaster CyBC reported that the Central Bank governor's husband, Andreas Georghadjis, said his law office would stop representing Vgenopoulos and accused individuals he didn't name of using "hypocritical tactics" to undermine the Central Bank and his wife. Georghadjis said the Cypriot president knew that Vgenopoulos was his client two years before appointing his wife.

The matter dates back to October when Anastasiades publicly criticized Georghadji for not disclosing that her daughter worked for her estranged husband's law office, prompting a revision of her contract and assurances that the matter would be resolved.

But things boiled over again during a tumultuous parliamentary ethics committee meeting last week when a Central Bank executive board member alleged that Georghadji had obtained a list with the names of lawmakers with overdue loans at the Bank of Cyprus.

The board member, Stelios Kiliaris, suggested that Georghadji could use the information as leverage against detractors and get them to back off from conflict of interest accusations. Kiliaris, who has since resigned, went as far as to say that Georghadji had a vested interest having her estranged husband's law firm win the case against Vgenopoulos because she and her family would stand to gain millions.

Georghadji denied the allegations, insisting that she only sought the list as part of her supervisory duties and that she had no intention of holding the information over anyone.

Sweden raises military spending amid concerns over Russia

Stockholm (AFP)
March 12, 2015

Sweden said on Thursday it would raise defense spending by 6.2 billion kronor (677 million euros, $720 million) and bring back troops to a "strategic" Baltic island amid concerns over Russia's military resurgence.

The country's left-wing government said most of the money, to be spent between 2016 and 2020, would go towards modernizing ships that could detect and intercept submarines.

"We want to strengthen our ability to hunt submarines," Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist said at a press conference.

The announcement came a few months after a week-long search for a suspected Russian submarine in the waters off Stockholm was called off despite members of the public reporting five sightings of suspicious vessels in a week.

The Swedish military's failure in October to find what it would only refer to as "a foreign vessel" -- but which was believed by most experts to be Russian -- raised questions over the country's military spending after years of cutbacks in the post-Cold War era.

The extra funds would also be used to re-establish a permanent military presence on the island of Gotland, between southern Sweden and Latvia, for the first time in 10 years.

The country's largest island "is of high strategic value for Sweden and all of the Baltic Sea," Hultqvist said.

The government wants 150 troops to be stationed on Gotland, Swedish media reported.

The United States on Monday began to deploy 3,000 troops on a three-month exercise in the Baltic to reassure Russia's nervous neighbors.

Operation Atlantic Resolve would see major NATO forces working alongside their allies in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia -- former Soviet republics now members of the Western alliance, military officials said.

The search last year in Stockholm's archipelago, involving battleships, minesweepers and helicopters, stirred up Swedes' memories of Cold War cat-and-mouse games with suspected Soviet submarines along Sweden's long, rugged coastline.

Together with a series of alleged airspace violations by Russian jets over the last year, it helped bolster public support for NATO membership in the non-aligned country.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Sweden_raises_military_spending_amid_concerns_over_Russia_999.html.