Breaking News - Trump, hacking en Putin, Propaganda en nepnieuws en de "overbodige" NAVO

In deze regelmatige "Breaking News" post - met een knipoog naar de waan van de dag van "breaking" nieuwsberichten  - verwijs ik naar artikelen, interviews en andere berichten uit Nederlandse en internationale bronnen, die "breaking news" van context en kleur kunnen voorzien.

In this frequent "Breaking News" section - with a wink and nod to the ever "important" breaking news  - I highlight articles, interviews and other publications from international and Dutch sources, that offer a context to the many breaking news items we all are bombarded with:

Politiek 
In Defense of Populism - Michael Krieger/Liberty Blitzkrieg: een lofzang op het concept van populisme bezien vanuit een meer afstandelijk standpunt: "I am comfortable stating that I’m a firm supporter of populist movements and appreciate the instrumental role they’ve played historically in free societies. The reason I like this term is because it carries very little baggage. It doesn’t mean you adhere to a specific set of policies or solutions, but that you believe above all else that the concerns of average citizens matter and must be reflected in government policy" (zie ook Breaking News van 16 december, 2016 met andere meningen over populisme)

Economie
Cashless society makes bank statements longer - The Financial Times: De wet van de onbedoelde gevolgen: we betalen minder met contanten uit 'efficiency" overwegingen, maar de bnaken klagen nu dat ze meer kleinde betalingen moeten rapporteren. Het gevolg is meer papierverbruik door de langere bankafschriften.

Political risk means all 2017 investment bets are off - Gillian Tett/The Financial Times: Door de komende verkiezingen dit jaar in Nederland, Frankrijk en Duitsland, verwacht columnist Tett nog meer onzekerheid in de politiek en dus ook een toename van de risico's voor beleggers.
he coming year full unpredictabilities will only create more risk for investors, according to this veteran Financial Times columnist.

Europa
Is Europe Disintegrating? - Timothy Garton Ash/The New York Review of Books: Garthon Ash, nog immer een groot aanhanger van de EU, plaatst hier zeven boekbesprekingen van Europa-kritische observeerders. Garthon Ash probeert daar tegen in te brengen dat de liberale linkse en rechtse partijen in actie moeten komen met beleid en aantrekkelijke ideeen om de ontevreden kiezers naar zich toe te trekken. Alleen als dat laatste lukt, kan ook de nog naamloze huidige periode van onrust en chaos, een, neem ik aan, positieve naam krijgen.

Amerika en de Russen
Russia's Hacking Discussion Is Too Important for Partisanship - Anna Borshchevskaya/Forbes: In dit artikel wordt door deze Rusland deskundige bij de thinktank "The Washington Institute for Near East Policy", Putin's gedachtengang tegenover het Westen uitgelegd, namelijk dat hij niet alleen het Westen wantrouwt, maar ook ervan verdenkt om overal regimeverandering in te willen voeren in het Midden Oosten, in Oekraine en wellicht ook in Rusland. Kortom, hij vindt propaganda en hacken een geoorloofd middel tegenover de VS en het Westen.

The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model - Rand Corporation: Het Russische propaganda model wordt hier uitgebreid toegelicht van de inval in Georgie tot in de Krim en tegenover de NAVO landen. Het is gebaseerd op het aanbieden van valse informatie door vele verschillende kanalen en op die manier slaagt Rusland erin....

Pandora's Box of NSA Spying Program Now Moves to Europe

(Pandora by Dante Rosetti)

Who had heard a month ago of Edward Snowden? Who knew a month ago, what  the consequences would be of publishing articles in a newspaper with Snowden's disclosures about NSA's Prism spying program? Well, it's a month later since Snowden opened Pandora's box and here are a number of quotes by European top officials in today's New York Times article Outrage in Europe Grows Over Spying Disclosures :"we cannot accept this kind of behavior between partners and allies" (French President Hollande, who also suggested to delay any new trade talks with the U.S.); "the spying has reached dimensions that I did not think were possible for a democratic country.... the U.S. has lost all balance - George Orwell is nothing by comparison" (Elmar Brok, the German chairman of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee); "I'm deeply worried and shocked."  (Martin Schultz, the German President of the European Parliament.)

I'm adding a quote by the Dutch minister of Interior Affairs, Ronald Plasterk, who while stating that this matter is for the European Union rather than the Dutch, to take up with the U.S. , also said: "these kind of actions by the U.S. would not be acceptable for the Dutch intelligence agencies as this is contrary to Dutch law."

What has caused all this European outrage? Over the  weekend, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported in How the NSA targets Germany and Europe on further revelations by Snowden , specifically that the U.S. has been spying on Germany, and on European Union diplomats and officials. Because Der Spiegel article is so all-encompassing, I will quote extensively from this article:

" The documents prove that Germany played a central role in the NSA's global surveillance network -- and how the Germans have also become targets of US attacks. Each month, the US intelligence service saves data from around half a billion communications connections from Germany.......

No one is safe from this mass spying -- at least almost no one. Only one handpicked group of nations is excluded -- countries that the NSA has defined as close friends, or "2nd party," as one internal document indicates. They include the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. A document classified as "top secret" states that, 'The NSA does NOT target its 2nd party partners, nor request that 2nd parties do anything that is inherently illegal for NSA to do.' "