Slavery: Are there more people in slavery now than during the transatlantic slave trade? - Yes indeed - by Emma Beswick

Panellists at 2018's World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos present a new global fund that they hope will reduce modern slavery in identified areas by 50 per cent.

With estimates stating 40.3 million people are currently in slavery worldwide, Gary Haugen, CEO of the International Justice Mission said there are more people in slavery today than were extracted from Africa over 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade.

Haugen was one of the panellists at the World Economic Forum in Davos, presenting and discussing a new fund, led by the US and UK, whose goal is to raise $1.5 billion (€1.2 billion) combat slavery.

"The modern slavery problem is massive ... but it's more stoppable than it's ever been," added United States Senator Robert Corker, chairman of Committee on Foreign Relations.

Indeed, slavery is now illegal in all countries, yet the modern slave trade has nearly doubled in the last years, mainly in 15 countries.

Note EU-Digest: What is interesting is that the many activist who  today still loudly condemn slave trade  by European Colonial Powers of the past are remarkably silent to when it concerns today's slave trade and practices which are even more wide=spread than those of the past.  

Read more: Are there more people in slavery now than during the transatlantic slave trade? | Euronews

Morocco: Over 120 MEPs Call on EU & UNSG to Respect Morocco's Interests

Moroccan-European partnership 

Over 120 MEPs called on the European Union and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to take due account of Morocco’s strategic interests.

In a written declaration, the MEPs, who represent various political groups, stressed the strategic nature of the Moroccan-European partnership and called on the European Commission and the European Council “to encourage and support the process of democratic reforms in Morocco and to ensure the legal validity of international agreements with this strategic partner.”

Under the European neighborhood policy, Morocco has agreed with the EU on a partnership for mobility, security and migration, the MEPs recalled, noting that several reforms were undertaken by Morocco in the area of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

MEP Rachida Dati, who initiated the written declaration, sent on Thursday letters on this issue to European Council President Donald Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, High Representative and Vice President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini, the UN Chief, as well as to the 28 ambassadors of EU member states’ permanent representations in Brussels.

These letters call to preserve the “special relationship” between Morocco and the EU and to take due account of Morocco’s strategic interests.

Read more: Over 120 MEPs Call on EU & UNSG to Respect Morocco's Interests

Failed US Middle East Policies Bearing Fruit - 2,000 migrants tried to enter Eurotunnel overnight

Security crackdowns in the port of Calais have prompted more migrants to attempt the crossing underground through the Eurotunnel. The massive waves of migrants trying to get through has worried the British government.

In a desperate bid to reach England from the French port of Calais, around 2,000 migrants tried to enter the Eurotunnel overnight, according to a statement from a company spokesman on Tuesday. "Between midnight and 6:00 am," the spokesman said, the waves of migrants, many living in despair at a better future after months of living in tents at the French port, attempted the sometimes fatal bid to reach Britain through the tunnel.

"It was the biggest incursion effort in the past month and a half," said the Eurotunnel spokesman, adding that "all our security personnel, that is nearly 200 people, as well as police were called in."

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve confirmed the numbers to news agency AFP, saying "there were some arrests and it all passed off without a fuss." Local authorities, however, disputed the amount, with police saying that despite "regular incursion attempts" it was incorrect to "say that there were 2,000 migrants at the same time."

Calais officials were unable to say if anyone had been injured in their attempts to access the tunnel.
The incident did cause serious disruptions to train service in the Eurotunnel for much of Tuesday, which passengers held up for around an hour on the British side and half an hour on the French side.

Read more: 2,000 migrants tried to enter Eurotunnel overnight | News | DW.COM | 28.07.2015

EU: Poll shows majority EU citizens want refugees stopped before they cross Mediterranean - by RM

Europeans want refugees stopped at departure points

In a recent poll conducted by EU-Digest in April and May 88.89%  polled said refugees and migrants should be stopped before they make the dangerous Mediterranean crossing.

Only 11.11% said that those reaching EU shores should be processed as legal immigrants.

No one  polled felt that the EU had done an effective job so far in coping or dealing with this momentous problem

The new recently posted EU-Digest poll (May 27 thru June 27) focuses on the increased concerns surrounding the secretive Transatlantic Trade Negotiations ( TTIP) between the European Union and the USA.

Critics say this controversial trade deal presently being negotiated will remove safety standards on a large number of essential products, including agricultural products, pesticides, food and medicines, as well as dismantle financial regulations designed to prevent banks from creating another financial crisis, to mention just a few.

The agreement would also make it easier for multinationals to sue governments and could lead to significant slashes in EU regulatory laws related to environmental pollution controls and a variety of safety and health standards.


EU-Digest

Morocco: Kerry hails Morocco reforms, regional security efforts

Secretary of State John Kerry Friday pledged U.S. support for Moroccan reforms and efforts to promote regional stability, while highlighting social challenges faced by Rabat.

“Morocco is playing an important leadership role, and the United States will stand by this relationship every step of the way,” he said at the end of a North African tour.

“The 18 different agreements that Morocco signed with Mali show that Morocco is driving greater security and greater prosperity in the region,” Kerry added, speaking in Rabat alongside his Moroccan counterpart, Salaheddine Mezouar.

Those accords, signed in February during a tour of West Africa by King Mohammed VI, included an agreement to train hundreds of imams in Morocco.

Rabat is considered an important U.S. ally in combatting radical Islamist ideology, which has enjoyed a revival elsewhere in North Africa since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings that swept away decades-old dictatorships.

Morocco's agreement to train imams from nearby countries afflicted by jihadist violence, such as Mali, Tunisia and Libya, forms part of its strategy of promoting a more tolerant version of Islam.

Kerry met Moroccan Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane after flying to Rabat from Algiers on Thursday evening. He was to meet King Mohammed VI in Casablanca later on Friday before returning to Washington.

Read more: Kerry hails Morocco reforms, regional security efforts - Al Arabiya News

European Immigration: War, poverty, repression: Why so many North Africans, Syrian Somali's risk their lives to migrate to Europe - by Carol J. Williams

Human Drama On Europe's Mediterranean Sea Coast

Pope Francis lamented the mass drowning of African boat people off the Italian island of Lampedusa as "shameful" evidence of human indifference to those in despair.

President Giorgio Napolitano of Italy, where tens of thousands of desperate migrants cast up on remote shores each year, deemed the deadliest migration accident in the Mediterranean Sea this year a "massacre of innocents."

But U.N. officials tasked with protecting those fleeing their homelands put into unemotional perspective the tragic end to a boatload of migrants' dangerous gamble for a better life: an everyday occurrence.

Poverty, injustice and armed conflict have long been the instigators of African migration to Europe. And in today's ever more unstable world, where Islamic militants terrorize much of Africa and political instability grips the Arab world, the numbers willing to risk perilous sea voyages for a chance to start over in affluent Europe have exploded.

"Lives are lost every day in the most cruel of circumstances because people flee out of despair and try to cross the sea in rickety boats," said Volker Tuerk, director for international protection with the Office of U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

"Because of human misery, because of despair, for reasons of persecution in their home countries, these people have nothing else but to take an unseaworthy boat to a European haven," Tuerk said. He called on the European Union to halt overcrowded boats leaving Northern Africa and come to the aid of those who encounter peril when they do manage to set off.

The search for better jobs and higher incomes still drives much of the human tide across the Mediterranean.

But the economic migrants are now joined by swelling crowds of Syrians fleeing their civil war-racked country, by Somalis escaping lawlessness and sectarian strife, and by political refugees from the "Arab Spring," the pro-democracy movements in the Middle East that have traded authoritarian rule for near-anarchy in countries such as Libya, Egypt and Yemen.

Note EU-Digest: this tremendously serious human tragedy can not be solved by the EU alone. The ever increasing and massive immigration into Europe from North Africa, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Egypt and Syria is the direct  result of the unstable environment that exists in the area. The external and internal stakeholders in this turmoil (and we all know who they are)  should be seen as the main culprits of this drama which is growing proportionally each day. 

The positive side of this tragedy is that the EU, like America in the past, provides the only glimmer of hope for these thousands of desperate immigrants who are seeking freedom of oppression and a better life.

Europe must welcome them. 

Read more: War, poverty, repression: Why so many Africans risk their lives to migrate to Europe - latimes.com

Alternative Energy - Morocco: Kingdom of sun - Emilie Cochaud, Juliett Lacharnay , Mairead Dundas, Marina Bertsh

Solar Power

Morocco may have little to no fossil fuel resources, but the kingdom has its eyes on a brighter future. By 2020 the country plans to produce 42 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, a large portion of it thanks to energy from the sun.

With 3,000 hours of sunlight each year and high irradiation, Morocco, the North African country is perfectly placed to tap into this inexhaustible resource.

In the southern city of Ouarzazate, famous as the door to the desert, King Mohammed VI has just approved the construction of a 500 megawatt solar plant, "the biggest project known in the world today", according to Mustapha Bakkoury of the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy. It's the first of five similar projects with an estimated price tag of seven billion euros. Critics have questioned whether the cost is extraordinarily exorbitant, but Morocco is confident it has made the right choice by banking on solar power.

Read more: Morocco: Kingdom of sun - FRANCE 24

MiddleEast: Live: Clashes break out at Tunisian leader’s funeral

Tunisian police used tear gas to disperse protesters gathered outside the cemetery where the slain opposition leader Chokri Belaid is being buried on Friday, amid a deepening political crisis in the North African country.

Read more: Live: Clashes break out at Tunisian leader’s funeral - TUNISIA - FRANCE 24

North Africa: Morocco braces for lower crops

Morocco will have to import more cereals and raw sugar as drought and an unusually long cold spell have curbed crop cultivation, the head of the agriculture industry said on Friday. 

The shortage comes at a sensitive time for the North African country's $100-billion economy, which relies for 14 percent of its output on agriculture. Ahmed Ouayach, who heads the Moroccan Confederation of Agriculture, said rain shortage this year meant Morocco would import more cereals and raw sugar than in the previous year. 

Agriculture employs 40 percent of the 11-million workforce in Morocco, one of the world's biggest cereal importers, which relies heavily on rain due mostly to the predominance of subsistence and rudimentary farming. 

For more: Morocco braces for lower crops - International | IOL Business | IOL.co.za

The EU as a promoter of democracy - by David Casa

The European Union’s 27 member states each have their own form of democracy, shaped by their own history and culture.

Within the relatively integrated context of the European Union, there exists a great diversity of examples of democracy: Constitutional monarchies, executive and non-executive heads of state, unicameral and bicameral legislatures, republics, federal and non-federal states, centralized and decentralized governments, and so on. Yet despite these differences, the democratic culture and tradition of Europe remains a powerful uniting factor and is perhaps the most important factor – possibly far more important than cultural, religious or geographic proximity – underpinning European unity.

The European Parliament has also played a significant role in helping Egypt in its current transition towards democracy. The EU has pledged to contribute almost half a billion euros in financial assistance to Egypt over the next three years. This aid will be used to consolidate the process of democratisation and the rule of law in Egypt, to rehabilitate the country’s economy and to boost funding for education.

For more: INDEPENDENT online

Moroccan elections challenged by voter mistrust - by Joe Dyke

Moroccans head to the polls tomorrow for the first time since King Mohammed VI offered significant concessions towards democracy, with continued scepticism about the extent power has shifted to the people. Social activists have announced a boycott of the elections and turnout is expected to be low, with the Islamic PJD party tipped to emerge as the largest party.

With dictatorial leaders falling in nearby Libya, Egypt and Tunisia, Morocco’s elections are a testing ground both of the King’s reforming credentials and of the theory that Arab countries can achieve democracy without major change at the top.

Note EU-Digest: there are some 3.2 million Moroccans living in the European Union.

For more: Moroccan elections challenged by voter mistrust - Africa - World - The Independent

EU 'must respond to world changes'

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg of Britain, a liberal Democrat, is to call for a European response to match dramatic political change in North Africa.

In a speech in Brussels he will set out why the European Union needs a radical rethink of its policy towards the region in the wake of popular uprisings which have already toppled leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and now threaten Colonel Gaddafi's regime in Libya. Mr Clegg says the EU cannot afford to stay neutral, and he intends to use his speech at the UK's EU ambassador's residence to warn that monumental change in North Africa is as much a defining moment of the EU as for the region itself.

In his prepared speech he says: "This is a precious moment of opportunity for the region. Precious because it is the people, especially the young people, who are speaking up, and they are doing so for the most part peacefully and with dignity.

Note EU-Digest: Mr.Glegg "hits the nail right on the head",  Europe has to "put its money where its mouth is", and stop sitting on its hands or be a US lapdog or anyone's lapdog for that matter. After all, this is Europe's backyard. If it goes up in flames, Europe will also get burned.


For more: The Press Association: EU 'must respond to world changes'