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Brexit: U.K. Parliament Wins Power to Trigger Departure From European Union Variety Britain's Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that only Parliament has the power to trigger the country's exit from the European Union, not the government, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Theresa May but probably not impeding the withdrawal process. To leave ... Brexit is opportunity to pull Europe closer together, EU's top negotiator Guy Verhofstadt saysTelegraph.co.uk Factbox: Impact on banks from Britain's vote to leave the EUReuters 'Brexit' Talks Can't Start Without Parliament, UK Supreme Court RulesNew York Times CNN -The Independent -Indiatimes.com all 1,206 news articles »

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Brexit: U.K. Parliament Wins Power to Trigger Departure From European Union - Variety

A few days before his inauguration as U.S. president, Donald J. Trump took aim at the United States most important allies. In an interview co-published by Germanys Bild and The Times of London on January 15, Trump disparaged NATO as obsolete, chastised German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her governments openness to asylum seekers, and seemed to advocate the breakup of the European Union, calling it a vehicle for Germany. Those comments came two days after a different bombshell: on January 13, Anthony Gardner, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to the EU, said that officials from Trumps transition team had called EU leaders and asked which EU country would be leaving next.

Trumps words marked an extraordinary departure from the norms of the postwar transatlantic relationship. For decades, the United States and the EU have been each others most important foreign policy partners, tightly bound by a thicket of alliances and institutions, joined at the hip in promoting liberal democratic values, and trading and investing with each other at unprecedented levels. Particularly in light of the uncertainties surrounding the United Kingdoms exit from the EU, Trumps comments shocked many observers who support the transatlantic relationship and the broader liberal order it guarantees.

Might Trumps attacks backfire by encouraging EU countries to unify against him? A number of European leaders have suggested as much. We Europeans have our fate in our own hands, Merkel said on January 16, in a forceful response to Trumps comments. Others have echoed French Finance Minister Michel Sapin, who said on January 17 that the more [Trump] makes this sort of statement, the more Europeans close ranks.

Unfortunately for supporters of the European project, Sapins prediction is unlikely to hold. Instead of unifying the EU, Trumps apparent Euroskepticism may undermine it by stirring up popular anger against internal enemies: the faceless EU technocrats and disdained national elites who seem disconnected from the day-to-day problems of most European people.

Peter Macdiarmid /

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Trump Takes Aim at the European Union - Foreign Affairs

NGO Monitor reports that dozens of anti-Israel BDS projects are being financed by the European Union each year.

Published: January 23rd, 2017

Flag of the European Union. Photo Credit: public domain

The European Union is funding dozens of projects that are dedicated to the destruction of Israel, according to a new report by the NGO Monitor.

The report, published Monday, says the European Union is the single largest donor to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the Arab-Israeli conflict, accounting for NIS 28.1 million in 2012-2014 to politicized Israeli NGOs alone.

In contrast to the stated objectives, the EU funds a number of highly biased and politicized NGOs that exploit the rhetoric of human rights to promote anti-Israel BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions) and lawfare campaigns, inflammatory rhetoric, and activities that oppose a two-state framework.

One of the grants titled Performing Arts: A Pathway Towards Self Expression and Democracy amply demonstrates this situation. In 2014, during their participation in the EUs Cultural Program, all twelve beneficiaries of this grant initiated a group statement calling for a cultural and academic boycott of Israel in short, participation in BDS.

A total of 42 of the 180 grantees funded by the EU reportedly support the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, the NGO Monitor found in its latest research. Some have received more than one grant, in fact, a phenomenon known as double dipping.

Moreover, 29 out of 100 European Union grants administered through the organizations regional funding programs that are designated for Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, direct funds to groups that actively promote BDS, the NGO Monitor reported.

Nine BDS-supporting organizations were the recipients of the EUs Partnership for Peace Program a program designated for joint projects involving Israeli as well as Palestinian Authority organizations, meant to build trust and understanding between societies in the region.

About the Author: Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.

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NGO Monitor Reports: European Union Funding Dozens of BDS Groups - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

BRUSSELS The European Union is considering testing banks' defenses against cyber attacks, EU officials and sources said, as concerns grow about the industry's vulnerability to hacking.

Cyber attacks against banks have increased in numbers and sophistication in recent years, with criminals finding new ways to target banks beyond trying to illicitly obtain details of their customers' online accounts. Last February $81 million was taken from the Bangladesh central bank when hackers broke into its system and gained access to the SWIFT international transactions network.

Global regulators have tightened security requirements for banks after that giant cyber fraud, one of the biggest in history, and in some countries have carried out checks on lenders' security systems.

But complex cyber attacks have kept rising, as revealed in November by SWIFT in a letter to client banks and by the theft of 2.5 million pounds ($3 million) from Tesco Plc's banking arm in the first mass hacking of accounts at a Western lender.

Banks "are struggling to demonstrate their ability to cope with the rising threat of intruders gaining unauthorized access to their critical systems and data," a report of the European Banking Authority (EBA) warned in December.

The next step from European regulators to boost security could be an EU-wide stress test.

The European executive commission is assessing additional initiatives to counter cyber attacks, a commission official told Reuters. "These include cyber-threat information sharing or penetration and resilience testing of systems."

The European Central Bank announced last year it would set up a database to register incidents of cyber crime at commercial banks in the 19-country euro zone. But exchanges of information among national authorities on cyber incidents remains scant.

The Commission is studying whether EU-wide tests would help step up security, a source at the EU executive said. This would be in addition to controls already carried out by national authorities.

EBA, which is in charge of stress-testing the bloc's banks, is expected to detail in summer the checks it intends to conduct in the next exercise planned in mid 2018.

EBA tests banks' capital cushions and can conduct checks on specific issues. Last year it monitored risks caused by fines, as EU lenders faced sanctions from U.S. regulators.

An EBA official said cyber security was on the agency's radar but no decision had been made on a possible stress test. The body's chairman, Andrea Enria, has urged EU states to stress-test their financial institutions for cyber risks.

Lloyds Banking Group is working with law enforcement agencies to trace who was behind a cyber attack that caused intermittent outages for customers of its personal banking websites almost two weeks ago, according to a source familiar with the incident. Lloyds said it would not speculate on the cause of the attack. No customers suffered any losses.

BLOCKCHAIN

As European banks keep relying on digital infrastructure that is "rigid and outdated", according to EBA, regulators are considering new technologies that could boost security.

Blockchain, the technology behind the most successful virtual currency, Bitcoin, is being closely monitored in Brussels "to establish the advantages and possible risks" but also to weigh possible moves to enable blockchain where it is hindered, the Commission source said.

More than 1 billion euros have been invested in blockchain startups, a World Economic Forum report said.

The EU agency for network and information security (ENISA) said in a report last week the technology offered new opportunities and could cut costs, but may also pose new cyber security challenges, mostly caused by its decentralized network.

U.S. telecom sector could be on the brink of a major consolidation under President Donald Trump's likely more merger-friendly administration, said JP Morgan Securities, which now sees a 90 percent chance of T-Mobile US being involved in a strategic transaction in the next five years.

LONDON Lloyds Banking Group is working with law enforcement agencies to trace who may be behind a cyber attack that caused intermittent outages for customers of its personal banking websites almost two weeks ago, according to a source familiar with the incident.

TOKYO Main Japanese lenders of Toshiba Corp have agreed to not call in some of their loans early for now even as recent downgrades of the troubled firm's credit ratings violate some provisions in debt agreements, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

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As attacks grow, EU mulls banking stress tests for cyber risks - Reuters

By Sebastian Mallaby

Special To The Washington Post

Germany's foreign minister reports "astonishment and agitation." The French president protests indignantly about unsolicited "outside advice." Even Secretary of State John Kerry sees behavior that is "inappropriate." Then President-elect Donald Trump's weekend interview, in which he casually predicted the breakup of the European Union, has certainly attracted attention.

But despite the consternation, there is some truth in Trump's message. The EU, he observed, is dominated by Germany. "People, countries want their own identity," he said.

The most obvious vindication of Trump's warning comes from Britain, whose prime minister, Theresa May, has just laid out her plans for a hard break with the European Union. May could have interpreted June's Brexit referendum differently, seeking the "Norway model" of continued membership in the EU's Single Market even while withdrawing from the EU's political structures. But, to paraphrase Trump, the prime minister evidently believes that Britain must have its own identity.

She is determined to curb EU migration, even though migrants contribute positively to the economy; she wants out of the European Court of Justice, even though that court has upheld British commercial interests in the past. Combined, these two positions rule out continued Single Market membership. The EU is losing its second-biggest economic power.

Britain has always been a semi-attached member of the European Union, so the malaise at the heart of continental Europe is even stronger evidence that Trump is on to something. Ironically, all the pressures that are commonly wheeled out to explain Trump's election are far more evident on the other side of the Atlantic: sluggish growth, poor prospects for workers, a backlash against migrants, disaffection with elite governance.

Americans may feel that their recovery since the financial crisis has been anemic. But, adjusted for inflation, the U.S. economy has actually grown by a cumulative 12 percent since 2008. In contrast, the 28 countries in the European Union managed combined growth of just 4 percent. And in the subset consisting of the eurozone minus Germany, output actually fell. Even though the strong dollar may help Europe this year, most of the Mediterranean periphery has suffered a lost decade.

Naturally, this horrible performance has taken an enormous human toll. The unemployment rate in the euro area stands at 9.8 percent, more than double the U.S. rate. Unemployment among Europe's youth is even more appalling: In Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus and Portugal, more than 1 in 4 workers under 25 are jobless. America's ability to put its economic house in order after 2008 shows that there was nothing foreordained about this. Europe has suffered an optional catastrophe. It has a lost generation to match its lost decade.

The decisions that delivered this destruction were made overwhelmingly in Germany, just as Trump seems to suspect.

Angela Merkel, the country's sober, deliberate and altogether un-Trumpian chancellor, systematically slow-walked measures that could have accelerated Europe's recovery. Budget stimulus, bank recapitalizations and, at least early on, monetary policy were sluggish because of German resistance. At some points in this process, Merkel was protecting German taxpayers, which is both reasonable and yet at the same time supportive of Trump's view that national interests beat euro cohesion.

At other points Merkel has been protecting nothing more vital than Germans' phobia of even modest public borrowing and inflation -- and never mind the plight of Mediterranean youth.

Merkel's cautious leadership of Europe has sown the seeds of a populist backlash. This has been a surprisingly long time coming: For several years after the onset in 2010 of the euro crisis, austerity and mass unemployment did remarkably little to turn voters against establishment leaders. But a recent Italian poll suggests that, if an election were held today, the anti-globalization and anti-euro Five Star Movement would take as many votes as the leading establishment party.

In France, polls have the anti-EU Marine Le Pen as the joint front-runner in this spring's presidential election.In Merkel's Germany, support for the anti-migrant AfD party has jumped from about 5 percent in 2013 to 16 percent now.

If you take Trump literally, his recent comments on Europe were exaggerated and confused. Populists may be on the rise, but we are a long way from a crackup of the European Union; and to denigrate Merkel for opening her country to "illegals," when what she did was welcome refugees, many of whom were fleeing a war fueled by U.S. vacillation, is infuriating and obtuse.

But if you take Trump seriously rather than literally -- to borrow the wonderful distinction made by Salena Zito in the Atlantic -- then it has to be admitted that the new president has a point here. Europe is in deep trouble. It is time for its leaders to recognize that incremental policies are failing the continent's people.

Sebastian Mallaby is a Post contributor and Paul A. Volcker senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is author of "The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan."

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A MELTING POINT: Trump says European Union is in trouble - Lowell Sun