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Friday, 7 November 2014

The European Union Times


Posted: 06 Nov 2014 02:13 AM PST


The legacies of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning will be enshrined in bronze by a sculptor who is offering a fourth empty chair alongside the trio to anyone who has the courage to side with them, stand up and change things.
At least, that’s the plan for Italian sculptor Davide Dormino, who is looking to build life-size bronze statues of the three individuals. In a new Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign that just recently went live, Dormino and project creator Vaughan Smith are asking for 100,000 pounds, or roughly $159,000, to construct these “monuments to courage.”
“There is no room for compromise today and art is called upon to make choices and show a direction,” the art project author says in the Kickstarter video. “I want to create a life-size bronze statue of Julian Assange, Manning and Edward Snowden standing on three chairs with an empty fourth chair next to them. It is not a simple homage to individuals, but to courage and to the importance of freedom of speech and information.”


Dormino goes on to explain the point of including an empty chair alongside Snowden, Assange, and Manning, saying it will give people a chance to promote the idea that other people should speak up like the other three. Notably, the entire display will not be bound to a specific country. Instead, it will travel around the world, and the Kickstarter page states funds will be used for transporting and installing the piece.
Earlier this year, Dormino elaborated on his thoughts regarding the empty chair in a conversation with Grey Magazine.


“It’s an invitation to take sides and stand up for the ones who have the courage to change things,” he said. “The three of them are considered traitors, who offended the world because they told the truth. They are standing on three chairs, and a fourth one next to them is empty.”
“It almost looks like an execution, but the person who will stand on the fourth chair will do so because he/she has something to say … The fourth chair stands for our conscience, which tells us which side we want to stand on.”


Snowden, of course, first came to the public’s attention after leaking troves of National Security Agency documents detailing the federal government’s extensive surveillance programs. Just last month, a statue of the former NSA contractor was placed in New York City’s Union Square for two hours before the artist and his work was removed for failing to have the proper license.
Assange’s WikiLeaks, meanwhile, came to prominence after leaking sensitive diplomatic cables as well as for generally releasing secret documents and classified information from anonymous sources. One of its most notable sources was Chelsea Manning, who served as an intelligence analyst during the Iraq War under her birth name, Bradley.
Manning supplied WikiLeaks with numerous classified documents, including field reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs and State Dept. diplomatic cables.
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Posted: 06 Nov 2014 02:01 AM PST
Lt. Gen. Frederick ”Ben” Hodges
US Army Europe’s commander Lt. Gen. Frederick “Ben” Hodges has described Russia as a very real threat, saying his country is ready to defend its allies in Europe.
“So we are going to work very hard to make sure that all of our allies are confident that the rest of the alliance will be there if ever needed,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
“That’s going to continue,” Hodges added.
The general made the comments at the USAREUR change-of-command ceremony in Germany.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a pivotal time in the history of US Army Europe and NATO. Next week is the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain,” he said.
Hodges explained that USAREUR played a decisive role in achieving that result, and his command and its partners now face a “resurgent Russia that has illegally annexed Crimea and which threatens our friends and allies.”
The incoming commander also claimed that the threat from Russia would require a trained, ready and resilient USAREUR to assure our allies and to “deter Russia from further encroachment.”
Russia’s actions have created ambiguity, he told reporters following the ceremony.
“They twist the law. They use legal instruments to create uncertainty. I am sure that Russia’s No. 1 priority is to fracture our great alliance,” the general was quoted as saying by Stars and Stripes.
On Monday, the top US general in Europe, Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, also announced that American troops should remain in Europe and additional rotational forces are also needed as the region is threatened by “revanchist Russia.”
There are currently about 67,000 American troops in Europe.
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Posted: 06 Nov 2014 01:58 AM PST


Immigrants who came to live in Britain from outside Europe cost the public purse nearly £120 billion over 17 years, a new report has shown.
The major academic study also found, however, that recent immigration from Europe, driven by the surge in arrivals from eastern European, gave the economy a £4.4 billion boost over the same period.
Experts from University College London also said native Britons made a negative contribution of £591 billion over the 17 years, because of the country’s massive deficit.
The report analysed figures from 1995 to 2011, during most of which the Labour government was pursuing vigorously pro-immigration policies.
It found that migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) made a negative contribution to the public purse of £117.9 billion because they consumed more in public expenditure, including NHS costs, welfare hand-outs and education – than they contributed in taxes.
The report, to be published in the Economic Journal, said the non-EEA group, largely made up of immigration from countries such as India, Pakistan and African Commonwealth countries, contributed less because families tended to have more children and lower employment rates.
“Immigrants from non-EEA countries … contribute less than they receive,” the 50-page study concluded.
The native population made a negative contribution in 12 years during the period, running to £591 billion in total, as the British economy ran at a deficit.
Immigrants from within the EEA, which is the European Union plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein – took out more than they paid in during only seven of the 17 years.
It meant European migrants made an overall positive contribution to the British economy of £4.4 billion over the period.
Since 2000 European migrants were 43 per cent less likely than native Britons to receive benefits or tax credits, and 7 per cent less likely to live in social housing, the report said.
The authors – whose research has previously been criticised by the right of centre think-tank Civitas and by MigrationWatch UK, which campaigns for tighter immigration laws – emphasised their findings on the contribution of European migrants and gave less prominence to the findings on the costs of non-EEA immigration.
Professor Christian Dustmann, of UCL’s Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration, and a co-author of the report, said: “A key concern in the public debate on migration is whether immigrants contribute their fair share to the tax and welfare systems.
“Our new analysis draws a positive picture of the overall fiscal contribution made by recent immigrant cohorts, particularly of immigrants arriving from the EU.”
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch, said the report confirmed the huge cost of immigration.
“As for recent European migrants, even on the authors’ own figures – which we dispute – their contribution to the Exchequer amounts to less than £1 a week per head of population,” he said.
David Green, director of Civitas, said the new report suffered from a “shallow focus” which “misses out some vital costs”.
Between 1995 and 2011 the foreign-born population in the UK doubled from 3.5 million to about 7 million.
The non-EEA population grew from 2.8 million to 4.6 million during the period. Of those, in 2011, just over two million were not working, either because they were unemployed or for other reasons such as retirement or childcare.
At the same time the number of European immigrants in this country grew at a far higher rate, tripling from 723,000 to 2.3 million.
That huge surge was mainly due to the previous Labour government’s decision not to impose controls on the eight eastern Europeans, including Poland, which joined the EU in 2004.
The method used in the new report to work out the “net fiscal contribution” of different groups calculated how much they cost in terms of government funds, such as medical expenses, schooling their children and the welfare state.
The total was then deducted from their overall contribution to the public purse, including income tax, National Insurance, VAT, council tax and business rates.
Meanwhile a separate study published by the Office for National Statistics exposed the full extent of language ghettoes in this country.
New analysis of the 2011 Census showed that around 90 per cent of elderly Bangladeshi-born women living in the UK cannot speak English.
And almost four in 10 Chinese-born migrants who settled in the UK more than 30 years ago had no English.
David Hanson, the shadow immigration minister, said: “This report shows that immigration since 2001 has contributed to the public finances as well as to the economy.
“However the impact of different kinds of immigration varies and the system needs to be fair – so we need stronger border controls to tackle illegal immigration and stronger action against employers who use immigration to undercut local wages and jobs, but we should welcome international university students who bring in billions.”
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