European Council - Successful EU-Africa Summit

The 4th EU-Africa Summit, April 2 - 3, 2014 brought together more than 60 EU and African leaders, and a total of 90 delegations, to discuss the future of EU-Africa relations and reinforce links between the two continents. In the summit declaration, leaders highlighted the close nature of EU-Africa relations and the shared values of democracy, respect for human rights, the rule of law and good governance as well as the right to development.

Leaders recognised the importance of peace and security as essential prerequisites for development and prosperity. In particular, they confirmed their commitment to enhancing political dialogue on international criminal justice and universal jurisdiction. Leaders also gave their support to the African aspiration and commitment to ensuring peace and stability in Africa and agreed to support African capabilities in this area through any available means, with a particular focus on capacity-building. Both continents agreed to strengthen common effort to fight international terrorism and to combat the spread.

Leaders pledged to pursue policies to create jobs and stimulate long-term growth on both continents. In particular the two continents agreed to cooperate more closely in the field of maritime policy. The EU also underlined its commitment to continuing to support African countries in the preparation of climate-resilient and low-emission development strategies. Leaders on both sides highlighted the importance of ensuring prudent and transparent management of respective natural resources, and responsible mineral sourcing.

The summit declaration also underlines the importance of encouraging greater investment and economic development within and between countries in both continents, alongside developing transport, access to drinking water and to sustainable and affordable energy.  successful

Read more: European Council - EU-Africa summit 2014

Ecology, Ethics, Anarchism seen through the eyes of Noam Chomsky - by Javier Sethness

There can be little doubt about the centrality and severity of the environmental crisis in the present day. Driven by the mindless "grow-or-die" imperative of capitalism, humanity's destruction of the biosphere has reached and even surpassed various critical thresholds, whether in terms of carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, freshwater depletion, or chemical pollution. Extreme weather events can be seen pummeling the globe, from the Philippines - devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in November of last year - to California, which is presently suffering from the worst drought in centuries.

As Nafeez Ahmed has shown, a recently published study funded in part by NASA warns of impending civilizational collapse without radical changes to address social inequality and overconsumption. Truthout's own Dahr Jamail has written a number of critical pieces lately that have documented the profundity of the current trajectory toward anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) and global ecocide: In a telling metaphor, he likens the increasingly mad weather patterns brought about by ACD to an electrocardiogram of a "heart in defibrillation."

Rather than conclude that such distressing trends follow intrinsically from an "aggressive" and "sociopathic" human nature, reasonable observers should likely associate the outgrowth of these tendencies with the dominance of the capitalist system, for, as Oxfam noted in a January 2014 report, the richest 85 individuals in the world possess as much wealth as a whole half of humanity - the 3.5 billion poorest people - while just 90 corporations have been responsible for a full two-thirds of the carbon emissions generated since the onset of industrialism.

As these staggering statistics show, then, the ecological and climatic crises correspond to the extreme concentration of power and wealth produced by capitalism and upheld by the world's governments. As a counter-move to these realities, the political philosophy of anarchism - which opposes the rule of both state and capital - may hold a great deal of promise for ameliorating and perhaps even overturning these trends toward destruction. Apropos, I had the great good fortune recently to interview Professor Noam Chomsky, renowned anarcho-syndicalist, to discuss the question of ecological crisis and anarchism as a remedy. Click on the link below for a transcript of our conversation.

Read more: Noam Chomsky: Ecology, Ethics, Anarchism

Global Economy: Yes, the stock market is rigged - by Timothy Noah

An entertaining CNBC clip currently rocketing through social media networks shows William O’Brien, president of BATS Global Markets, having conniptions over Michael Lewis’s claim (in his new book, Flash Boys) that the markets are rigged. Now that O’Brien has finished reading Lewis’s book, I recommend that he pick up David W. Maurer’s 1940 classic, The Big Con.

The Big Con (not to be confused with a 2007 book with the same title by journalist Jonathan Chait) is an affectionate catalog of the elaborate confidence games played during the golden age of the grift – a period that began in the late 19th century and ended with the Great Depression. In the book, Maurer describes a big con called “the wire” that will be familiar to anyone who’s ever watched the 1973 movie The Sting (which drew heavily on Maurer’s research):

It was a racing swindle in which the con men convinced the victim that with the connivance of a corrupt Western Union official they could delay the race results long enough for him to place a bet after the race had been run, but before the bookmakers received the results.

In essence, the mark was invited to profit by receiving, illegally, information a few minutes before it was available to anyone else. (What the victim didn’t know was that the Western union office and the gambling den were both fakes.) This is, more or less, what Wall Street’s high-frequency traders and the proliferating exchanges that serve them do: they manipulate the speed at which market information travels so that a lucky few can benefit financially from privileged early access at the expense of everybody else.

They do this not by slowing down the rate at which the information travels, but by speeding it up. In this instance, the acquisition of privileged information is perfectly legal. Also, the privileged access is real, making the dupe not the trader who seeks it but anybody who lacks it.

The rap against Lewis’s book is that he exaggerates the degree to which any of this affects the ordinary investor. And it’s true that any lone day trader who logs onto his E*Trade account expecting to outperform the big institutional investors should have his head examined. But Lewis makes clear in Flash Boys that it took many very intelligent bankers (and consequently many investors) several years to figure out why their computer terminals went blooey when they attempted futures trades. Prices were changing in mid-transaction, seemingly in response to orders they were still keying in. If that isn’t a rigged market, what is?

Lewis’s book describes an insane competition to provide the shortest fiber-optic link to market information (and therefore shave off a few crucial millionths of a second). The process leads to, among other travesties, the drilling of dedicated tunnels through mountains and under rivers in rural Pennsylvania. In Lewis’s view, this arms race can’t be regulated away. His book’s hero, Brad Katsuyama, fights it by creating a new exchange, IEX Group, that slows down all trades sufficiently to put all buyers and sellers on a level playing field.

Perhaps Lewis is right that the market is better-positioned than the government to solve this particular problem, in which case good luck to Katsuyama and anyone who might set up a similarly un-rigged shop. The advent of a market-based “slow investment” movement comparable to the “slow food” movement advocated by Berkeley restaurateur Alice Waters and writer Michael Pollan would certainly be welcome. (Something like it seems to have worked out pretty well for Warren Buffett.)

But Flash Boys, along with Lewis’s previous The Big Short, conveys a larger message that the financial markets, with their “dark pools” and ever-more-abstruse financial instruments, are rapidly losing the transparency necessary for them to work properly – a problem the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation only partially addresses. As enthralling as Lewis’s new narrative is, his message that the markets are rigged won’t surprise anyone (except, apparently, the enraged William O’Brien). Financial regulators’ foremost task right now is to drag American finance into the sunlight in every way that it can.

That Wall Street will fight them every step of the way merely confirms how rigged the game really is.

Read more: Yes, the stock market is rigged | MSNBC

EU-Turkish Relations: Erdogan victory puts icy Turkey-EU relations in deep freeze - by Luke Baker

Sunday's resounding victory by the ruling AK Party in Turkey's local elections, undiminished by what some call an authoritarian turn by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, is likely to put already cool relations between Ankara and Brussels in the chiller.

After months of revelations of high-level corruption and the furore caused by the government's blocking of Twitter and YouTube, Turkey finds itself at sharp odds with the European Union, which it has been negotiating to join since 1999.

Too much has been invested in the process to call talks off - trade, energy and infrastructure links make it as hard to break off as to push ahead. But the EU is very unlikely to nudge Ankara's accession hopes along until Erdogan shows he is prepared to protect civil liberties, justice and the rule of law - and govern like a mainstream European prime minister.

As if to underline that point, the European Commission delivered a terse statement within hours of final results showing AKP won 46 percent of the nationwide vote, a significantly higher tally than many expected.

"Following the overall worrying developments which have taken place over the past three months,  Turkey ... now urgently needs to re-engage fully in reforms in line with European standards," a Commission spokeswoman said.

"It also needs to reach out to all citizens, including those which are not part of the majority vote, in order to build the strongest possible engagement on reforms needed to make progress on EU accession."

There is scant evidence Erdogan is listening, or feels he needs to. As leader of a country of nearly 75 million people which acts as an energy and trade hub and an anchor in an often unstable region, he sees Turkey as holding an upper hand. He might be right, but he could also be terribly wrong.

His attitude to EU membership since coming to power has been summed up as "Europe needs Turkey more than we need them". That self-confidence will only have been reinforced by Sunday's results, which give him a powerful  mandate.

"He'll be feeling 500 feet tall today, which makes him ruthless and able to do anything', said Amanda Paul, a Turkey expert at the European Policy Centre, a Brussels think-tank.

"It's a lot of power in the hands of a man who has become increasingly unpredictable and authoritarian," she said, suggesting it would have an impact on EU relations.

Read more: Erdogan victory puts icy Turkey-EU relations in deep freeze | Reuters

The Netherlands - Food quality: "Meat safety in Netherlands cannot be guaranteed" - by Karin Bosteels

Consumers cannot derive too much safety from meat that is offered for sale in the Netherlands. That is the remarkable conclusion of the newest report from the Dutch Research Board for Safety.

Companies believe economic reasons to weigh out on the safety of a product, that is the damning conclusion of the "Risks in the meat chain" report", published by the Dutch Research Board for Safety. It appears that hygiene rules are often ignored, because of a lack of education or a lack of time. 

Meat fraud is ever-present, the Board stated. Meat can suddenly change composition on paper and waste meat can be "turned into" meat for human consumption all of a sudden. The horse meat security has not been guaranteed because of this fraud sensitivity, the Board says clearly.

The Netherlands do have an official office that has to assure food safety, called the Nederlandse Voedsel- en Warenautoriteit, but it has "under-performed a lot".

The Research Board believes this to be the result of "constant reorganizations and cutbacks", leaving little means to actually have an impact on the meat industry. "This is why the NVWA has lost authority", a claim to which the organization stated that it is working on "structural improvements of its oversight capabilities".

 Read more: "Meat safety in Netherlands cannot be guaranteed" | Retail Det

Turkey: AKP faces tough test in Turkey's local polls - by Osman Kaytazoglu

Turkey is going to the polls in local elections on March 30. The vote comes amid allegations of government corruption and bribery, debates about a so-called "parallel state", and with government moves to block Twitter and YouTube heavily criticized.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party [AKP] have come out of each general election since the party was first elected to power in 2002 with more votes than before, securing nearly 50 percent of the vote in 2011 general elections.

But this election may represent the AKP’s biggest challenge to date, and is being described as a litmus test for upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. The main parties fielding candidates are Erdogan’s AKP, the main opposition party Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the pro-Kurdish Justice and Development Party (BDP).

The local elections first garnered attention with anti-government Gezi Park protests in June 2013, when thousands of people descended on a park in central Istanbul against the municipality’s gentrification plans.

The elections have been dominated by a new scandal that began on December 17 last year, when three AKP cabinet ministers’ children were arrested on corruption charges, and several government figures were implicated in graft probes.

Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republic People’s Party (CHP), has tried to make sure the graft probe remains at the centre of the election process. "The state’s conscience woke up on December 17," CHP leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, said, referring to when the first arrests were made.

Erdogan blamed rival Fethullah Gulen, the US-based head of the Gulen movement, for the recent controversies, and their feud has dominated the headlines. Erdogan described the Gulen movement as "a threat to national security" and called the Gulen movement "a terrorist organisation".

Recent opinion polls show that people are confused about the public AKP-Gulen feud. While 60 percent of Turkish people believe the corruption allegations are true, 57 percent also think that the graft probe is a coup attempt targeting Erdogan.

Ahead of the polls, various audio recordings have also leaked, with the latest reportedly showing top government and security officials discussing launching military operations into Syria. The Turkish government banned Twitter and YouTube over these leaks.

Read more: AKP faces tough test in Turkey's local polls - Europe - Al Jazeera English

Turkey: Move to block YouTube ahead of elections points to growing censorship

The Turkish authorities’ move today to block access to YouTube on the eve of Sunday’s elections, and not long after they restricted access to Twitter, smacks of a wider pre-meditated crackdown on freedom of expression, Amnesty International said.

According to media reports, Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs cited national security concerns when it sought an administrative order to block the video-sharing platform – allegedly to prevent further circulation of a taped recording of discussions between senior Turkish officials on Syria.

“The Turkish government appears to be itching for pretexts to close down websites because of their capacity to mobilize dissenting opinion and broadcast embarrassing material,” said Andrew Gardner, Amnesty International's researcher on Turkey.

“Coming just days before Turkey goes to the polls and in the wake of Prime Minister Erdoðan’s strident criticism of YouTube, this is clearly nothing more than a crude attempt at government censorship that will only generate deeper distrust and frustration.

“Even if the Turkish authorities have legitimate concerns about some of the content that might appear, it is completely disproportionate to enforce a blanket YouTube ban in the entire country. Access to YouTube must be restored immediately and the authorities must stop blocking sites that expose abuses and provide a platform for dissenting views.”

Read more: Turkey: Move to block YouTube ahead of elections points to growing censorship | Amnesty International