Displaying items by tag: Europe

The German foreign minister has announced extra aid to improve conditions at refugee camps. He warned of growing instability, and urged warring parties to overcome their differences and support the UN-backed government. Berlin will provide 3.5 million euros to Libyan authorities to improve conditions at refugee camps in the country. The money is expected to complement relief funds provided by Germany aimed at easing Europe's migration crisis. It is Germany’s goal, to work with the Libyans to resist the instability that has arisen from the absence of established structures. Meanwhile the UNHCR said that Libya must release refugees held in detention centres. Germany called the three rival Libyan authorities to overcome their differences through dialogue and said that conflicting parties should abide by UN-brokered agreements signed in 2015, which established the government of national accord led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.

Experts from Microsoft, Audi and others gathered with UN leaders and academics to debate the pros and cons of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Geneva. ‘AI is probably the most significant technology we will ever create,’ said Peter Diamandis, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Experts discussed the huge unleashed potential of AI that can heal healthcare, make travel safe, and boost wealth. There is a desire to harness AI for good, but also a stark warning that AI also has the power to harm. Weapons already in service are capable of selecting targets, and there are no technical boundaries to machines making(?) decisions to take a human life. Automation of the battlefield lowers the threshold for the use of deadly force and transparency, meaning that accountability in the use of force is needed to keep these AI tools in check.

Since 2012 the German birth rate has been increasing. In 2014 the Huffington Post reported petitions circulating to warn the public about the threat to the midwifery profession. They called on expectant families to put pressure on the German government’s health minister to come up with a solution to the massive increases in insurance rates on midwives, especially those who assist in birth. The July 2017 German Intercessors newsletter requests prayer for midwives’ working conditions. ‘Anyone looking for a midwife before childbirth must expect many refusals. More and more freelance midwives are leaving the profession. They cannot afford the unbelievably high contributions for personal liability insurance, even though subsidies are now provided by the state.’ The midwife association is asking for a fund to cover liabilities for self-employed midwives. Full-time salaried midwives have another problem; their working conditions allow them no time to rest.

Disillusioned with protectionism and the US government’s rejection of low-carbon economic models, the European Union hopes that China will stick with the climate change agreements made during the summit in in Brussels. China has a very big air-pollution problem, especially in Beijing. Also the policy for China’s domestic economic development is very clearly a green economy policy. Preventing dangerous climate change is a key priority for the EU. Europe is working hard to cut its greenhouse gas emissions substantially, while encouraging other nations and regions to do likewise. Key EU targets for 2020 are a 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions compared with 1990; 20% of total energy consumption from renewable energy; and 20% increase in energy efficiency.

During the Herrnhut Consultation, we had a strong focus on praying for revival in Germany and Europe. Here is an encouraging word. Eric Metaxas notes some trends that point to an increased spiritual hunger among Europeans and asks: “Has the demise of Christianity in Europe been greatly exaggerated? There are some encouraging signs of life.”

“It’s become customary to refer to Europe as “post-Christian.” But this is an overstatement—and it obscures large differences in religious practices across the continent: For instance, Poles are far more likely to attend church on a weekly basis than Scandinavians—and even more likely than Americans. Still, it’s difficult to dispute the idea that Christianity’s influence in Europe, on both a personal and societal level, is in decline.

But a pair of recent stories suggests that this may be changing.

The first story was a column in the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper. The headline read “Our politicians are more devout than ever—so it’s time we started taking their faith seriously.”

In it, Nick Spencer, whose just-released book is entitled “The Mighty and the Almighty: How political leaders do God,” notes that rather than European politics becoming a “God-free zone,” one of the “most striking trends of the last generation or so is how many Christian politicians have risen to the top of the political tree.”

Whereas in the thirty-five years following the end of World War II, only one Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, could be described as “devout,” since then, at least three of his successors—Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, and now Theresa May—could be described that way.

And it’s not only Britain. As Christianity Today recently told readers, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christianity is “deep,” “genuine,” and “important” to her life.

Even in France, the country that invented and institutionalized modern secularism, what the French call “laïcité,” Catholicism has become a kind of “X Factor” in the upcoming presidential elections.

And that brings me to the second story. In the most recent issue of the Jesuit magazine, America, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry told readers that a few years back, he noticed that “Whenever I was less than five minutes early for Mass, I had to go to the overflow room.” His church “was filled to the gills every Sunday, with young families and children most of the time.”

He decided to see how widespread this phenomenon was, so he visited parishes all over Paris and found the same thing: Sunday high Mass is packed in most parishes in Paris. The same is true in France’s second largest city, Lyon. It’s even true, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent, in his family’s home village.

What was once a revival that “you could fleetingly smell in the air,” has become more tangible, nowhere more so than in the movement called La Manif Pour Tous, “protest for all.” La Manif got 200,000 people in Paris alone to march in protest against legalizing same-sex marriage.

This in turn spawned other Christian movements in a country that supposedly had moved beyond that sort of thing. What these movements share is an opposition to liberalism, which in the French context means “a drive for ever-greater individual liberty.” As Gobry writes, “Liberalism, in this view, is responsible for sexual depravity and the culture of death,” and “leads both to abortions and to quasi-slaves in third world factories making disposable consumer items of questionable worth.”

While French Christianity still has a ways to go, what Gobry describes brings to mind the “cloud as small as a man’s hand . . . rising from the sea” Elijah’s servant saw in 1 Kings 18. Secularism has left Europeans “in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Let us pray that God sends much-needed rain to both sides of the Atlantic.”

Eric Metaxas, Breakpoint Daily, May 2, 2017

Last Monday In Rome, thousands of Italians marched against abortion and euthanasia at their annual March for Life. Participants included Cardinal Raymond Burke, Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan, and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former Apostolic Nuncio to the USA. The march is ‘taking on a life of its own,’ said a commentator. There were various groups of priests, Franciscan friars, youth groups, families, a group of bagpipers from Tradition, Family, Property, the Italian branch of Rachel's Vineyard, and many other Christian organisations. The march ended with a rally at which abortion survivor Gianna Jessen urged pro-lifers to be ‘unashamed of Jesus’.

One in eight young people seeking asylum in the UK are from the impoverished Balkan state of Albania. There is little to do in Skenderbeu, a remote town in the mountains where jobs are few and poverty rife. Edison sees only one way out: ‘I want to go to England for a better life. I’ll do any work. My brother and my friends have already gone. I’m jealous. This is my dream.’ His brother left the town four years ago, one of hundreds of boys from this region - some as young as thirteen - whose families pay thousands of pounds to people-smugglers to take them to Britain. Every family seems to have at least one relative in London, many of whom end up working illegally on building sites or in car washes. The little town survives on money sent from Britain. Officials estimate youth unemployment in Albania could be as high at 80%.

Brussels, which he called a ‘hellhole,’ the European Union, which he called ‘a vehicle for Germany,’ and NATO, which he called ‘obsolete,’ welcomed President Trump on Wednesday. Security was tight after the Manchester terrorist attack on Monday, with police brought in from all over Belgium and some neighbouring countries. The two-day visit was studded with deliberately brief meetings and only modest substance. This was a chance for President Trump to meet and greet about thirty European leaders, and for them to try to get him to understand more fully the importance of the EU and NATO in keeping the peace. They hope for praise and support from Mr Trump, who has aligned himself more with the critics of the EU.

Italy's coastguard reports that at least 34 migrants (some of them children) have drowned off the Libyan coast. The overcrowded boat was carrying about 500 migrants when it listed, sending about 200 people into the water, and triggering a frantic search for survivors. Good weather has prompted an increase in the number of migrants leaving Libya for Italy. The waters are busy with Italian and Libyan coastguard boats, humanitarian vessels, and even scavenger boats hoping to recover abandoned equipment. An NGO reported a Libyan coastguard vessel firing gunshots as it conducted a rescue. The boat was already carrying migrants, presumably picked up from other vessels, who panicked and threw themselves overboard, only to be shot at. ‘We cannot say whether and how many dead there were,’ the 25-year-old captain, named Jonas, was quoted as saying. ‘We had to be careful not to get a bullet ourselves. We are speechless against this crude violence.’

The Russian media is repeatedly criticised for the use of misleading images, false narratives, misrepresentation, suppression and fabricated news stories when it comes to Ukraine. A regular claim has been that the Ukrainian army is committing ‘genocide’ against Russian-speakers who state that they strongly desire Russia to ‘protect’ them against Kiev. The media battle between the two countries has not gone away: neither has spasmodic cross-border fighting, regardless of ‘ceasefires’. On 15 May, a decree banned access to the country's most popular social networking sites and other Russian-based web businesses. This was described as a ‘national security measure’, part of economic sanctions against Russia, which annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has sent weapons, equipment, and troops to support and fuel the separatist side in the war in eastern Ukraine.