EU-DIGEST

Secret plot to let 50 million African workers into EU - by Nick Fagge

More than 50 million African workers are to be invited to Europe in a far-reaching secretive migration deal, the Daily Express can reveal today.  A controversial taxpayer-funded “job centre” opened in Mali this week is just the first step towards promoting “free movement of people in Africa and the EU”. Brussels economists claim Britain and other EU states will “need” 56 million immigrant workers between them by 2050 to make up for the “demographic decline” due to falling birth rates and rising death rates across Europe. The report, by the EU statistical agency Eurostat, warns that vast numbers of migrants could be needed to meet the shortfall in two years if Europe is to have a hope of funding the pension and health needs of its growing elderly population.

Labels: Africa, EU, Immigration

Out of Africa: a growing threat to Europe from al-Qaeda's new allies - by David Sharrock

Intelligence sources and Western diplomats have told The Times that a new force – an Algerian group calling itself al-Qaeda in the Land of Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) – aims to create an arc of influence throughout North Africa by spreading Osama bin Laden’s “brand” through a fusion of disparate fundamentalist groupings. Ernst Uhrlau, the head of the German foreign intelligence agency, said recently: “We are watching the activities of al-Qaeda in North Africa with great concern. A handful of groups have become ensconced there, largely unobserved, and are strengthening bin Laden’s terrorist network. What is evolving there brings a completely new quality to the jihad on our doorstep.” In Tunisia this week the French President echoed this nervousness. “Who could believe that if tomorrow, or after tomorrow, a Taleban-type regime were established in one of your countries in North Africa, Europe and France could feel secure?” President Sarkozy asked.

Note EU-Digest: It is amazing that most of these alarming reports about terrorism all seem to originate from conservative circles in the US, Britain,France and probably soon also Italy, after Berlusconi took power again. Fear mongering in these circles seems to be their hidden agenda to curb civil liberties and use force to establish a foothold in those countries which have large reserves of natural gas and oil. All we have to do is look at Iraq to see what arguments were used to attack that country and the results following the invasion. We were all fooled then, lets us not fall for the same nonsense again.

Labels: Africa, Conservatives, EU, Middle East, Terrorism

A New Asian-African Alliance? China supports Sudan's Economic Growth - by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach

"You have heard about the Asian tigers. Now, there is an African lion ... and it is beginning to roar!" Politically, Sudan's emergence as an "African lion," with the helping hand of China as well as India and Malaysia, may give rise to the notion of a new configuration of economic alliances between Asia and Africa. As several Sudanese have noted, their experience with China has established Sudan as the gateway for that Asian giant to Africa, and several other nations have begun similar economic cooperation deals. Why African nations may be turning to China, and other Asian economies, for help, should be obvious: if the U.S. and Europeans continue to hesitate to work with Sudan, or worse still, to impose sanctions on it, on hoked-up grounds of human rights concerns, then, as former Finance Minister Hamdi put it, the nation will "go east." It should, in his view, deal with the U.S. and Europe, with a policy of "splendid neglect," and let these potential trade partners be on the losing end, as Sudan continues to double its GDP. If India and China need Sudan's food and minerals, let them be in on the growth process.

Regarding the U.S., which has dealt with Sudan through sanctions and little else, Hamdi stressed that sanctions were hurting the U.S. itself, and lamented the backward thinking of officials at the State Department, and "even worse," the Treasury Department, with whom he had had dealings. Most damaging to relations have been the conditionalities posed for relations, conditionalities which include "globalization, privatization, liberalization, women's rights," the works. But, at the same time, this does not mean that the "go east" faction is intent on boycotting the West entirely; were the Europeans to seek cooperation on an equal basis, and use their embassies as "investment bureaus," decent relations could ensue, to the benefit of all parties. As the Merowe Dam project shows, Sudan needs high tech products which Europe can deliver. If the Europeans accept political constraints imposed by London and Washington, then, as it was suggested in the conference, private companies, like the Italian APS, should step forward. Government cooperation is not to be ignored, if the will is there. Bruno Calzia, special advisor to the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, said that Italy was eager to help develop the country's food producing potential. He pointed to the historic visit of Gen. Omar al-Bashir to Rome last autumn, as indicative of what can be achieved.

Labels: Africa, Asia, World Economy

Labels: Africa, EU

Drugs Flowing to Europe Via West Africa - by Dulue Mbachu

Since 2004, seizures of Europe-bound cocaine in Africa have risen fivefold, reaching a record 5.7 metric tons in the first nine months of last year, according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, or UNODC. Virtually all the drugs seized in Africa in the first nine months of 2007 came from West Africa, according to a U.N. report on drug trafficking. They include 2.4 metric tons seized in Senegal in June, 1.5 metric tons taken in Mauritania between May and August, and smaller quantities in Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, Benin and Guinea.

Labels: Africa, Drug Traffic, EU

China outwits the EU in Africa - by Bernt Berger

While China's business-first approach is undermining EU efforts to boost sustainability and governance standards, its investments have benefited African economies. China has increasingly regarded Africa as an opportunity, while Europe has long regarded the continent as a burden. In truth, both external development approaches are lacking, and neither can competently deal with rising issues on the continent alone.

China needs to consider the political dimensions of development. Focusing only on trade relations and government support can stand in the way of sustainable development, especially if governments remain ineffective and unwilling to reform. The EU, for its part, must revise its trade relations with Africa (including its own agricultural subsidies) and consider their crucial impact on locally owned development.

Labels: Africa, China, EU, Trade and Development

Kenya: EU Trade Deal to Fast-Track Drive for a Regional Common Market - by Allan Odhiambo

The interim trade agreement that East African Community (EAC) member states are set to sign with Europe will help fast track economic integration in the region, senior government officials said. Mr David Nalo, Kenya's Trade and Industry permanent secretary, told the Business Daily that pursuit of joint deals with a major player such as the EU should prompt EAC member states to harmonise their operations in key areas such as tariff regime.

Labels: Africa, EU, Kenya

Africa, Europe cosy up on migration, progress - by Axel Bugge

At an African Union (AU) summit in Ghana, where leaders debated integration similar to that achieved by the EU, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called on Europe and Africa to develop partnerships in energy and climate change. Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, whose country took over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU on Sunday, said it was “incomprehensible” that Africa and Europe had not had a permanent, institutional dialogue. “This hurts Europeans and Africans,” Socrates told AU leaders at their summit — the first to invite the leader of the rotating EU presidency state to speak.

Labels: Africa, EU, Immigration

Labels: Africa, China, EU

Euro becomes currency of choice for cocaine traffickers - Victoria Burnett

MADRID: The euro has become the currency of choice for Latin American cocaine traffickers as the drug's popularity among Europeans has soared and the value of the currency against the dollar has risen, a top U.S. anti-narcotics official said Thursday. Karen Tandy, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said that Europe's appetite for drugs was increasingly being supplied from West Africa, which has emerged with alarming speed as a major shipping hub for cocaine, heroin and synthetic drugs from all over the world.

In an interview in Madrid, where she was attending an international anti-narcotics conference held by the U.S. drug agency and the Spanish government, Tandy and other agency officials said cocaine traffickers had shifted their focus from the U.S. market toward Europe, which is gripped by a cocaine craze similar to that experienced in North America in the 1980s. Comment EU-Digest: "Action is required by the EU Commission and the member states."

Labels: Africa, Drug Traffic, euro

European Cocaine and Narcotics Problems Increase: Africa may be new 'drug hub

Africa is threatening to become the world's newest drug nightmare as Colombian narcotics barons scheme to turn the continent into a hub for shipping cocaine to Europe, the head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration said on Tuesday. In an exclusive interview, DEA administrator Karen Tandy said drug interdiction officials are also very worried about Africa's new role as a weigh-station for Europe-bound heroin from southwest Asia, particularly Afghanistan.

"Africa will be, in terms of a drug hot bed, one of our worst nightmares if we don't get ahead of that curve now," Tandy said on the sidelines of a major international anti-drug conference being held in Madrid by the DEA and Spain.

Lured by Europe's voracious appetite for cocaine, the strong value of the euro and lax law enforcement structures in poor countries of Africa, Latin American drug trafficking networks are "setting up shop" in nations such as Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau and Ivory Coast in the west of the continent and Kenya in the east, Tandy and other DEA officials said in the interview. Comment EU-Digest: The EU Commission should put this problem high on their agenda and the EU member states should increase Airport and Seaport drug controls for people, aircraft and ships coming from the Afican continent.

Labels: Africa, Cocaine, EU

Engineers Consider Europe-Africa Train - Danie Woolls

TARIFA, Spain — Engineers have dreamt of it for a quarter-century: linking Europe and Africa at the spot where the two very different worlds gaze at each other across a strip of choppy water. Now, after seemingly endless studies that turned up more than one nasty geological surprise, a project for a high-speed rail tunnel connecting the continents is gathering momentum, raising the prospect of an engineering marvel on par with the Panama Canal or the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France.

Labels: Africa, EU, Trains, Tunnel