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France Has Chosen the EU: Next Challenges for President Elect Macron

Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron won the second round of the presidential election on 7 May. The first official results from the Interior Ministry show that Macron received around 62 percent of the vote, versus 34 percent for nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen. This victory can be seen as a breath of fresh air for Europe, as had Le Pen prevailed in Sunday’s vote, she could have helped set in motion the bloc’s crumbling, even if her most radical proposals, such as holding a referendum on France’s Eurozone membership, would have been difficult to implement.

Le Pen’s performance in the election suggests that although Euroskepticism is strong in France, the prospect of leaving the bloc still frightens more voters in the country than it attracts. Nevertheless, the fact that the National Front secured 34 percent of the vote means that the economic and financial risk will continue to be of primary concerns among the most part of the citizens. Macron has a formidable task ahead of him. His presidency will test whether a centrist, pro-European leader can govern France and whether an inexperienced politician can perform better than the professional politicians his campaign criticized.

As far as domestic reforms are concerned, overhauling France’s economy is vital to the Macron plan. In the next five years he wants to make budget savings of €60bn (£51bn; $65bn), so that France sticks to the EU’s government deficit limit of 3% of GDP (total output). Public servants would be cut in number by 120,000 – through natural wastage. Concerning the Labour market, he would not scrap France’s famed 35-hour work week, but he would try to introduce further flexibility around a basic legal framework of labour rights and rules, allowing firms to negotiate deals with their staff on hours and pay.  He would try to introduce further flexibility around a basic legal framework of labour rights and rules, allowing firms to negotiate deals with their staff on hours and pay. On immigration, he aims at creating a 5,000-strong force of EU border guards, make fluency in French the main qualification for obtaining French nationality and give all religious leaders comprehensive training in France’s secular values.

However, some of Macron’s proposals, especially those aimed at further liberalizing France’s economy, reducing the public sector and introducing more flexible labor laws, will meet with resistance from some parts of French society, including unions and student groups. If En Marche! fails to win a majority in the National Assembly in the country’s legislative elections next month, the president will have an even harder time enacting domestic reform. His predecessors Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande found it difficult to introduce economic reforms even with control of the legislature because of opposition, not only from the public but also from their own parties at times.

On Europe, preserving France’s alliance with Germany, will be a priority for the next administration in Paris, and for Berlin as well. The two countries will probably be on the same page on the Brexit issue, defending the indivisibility of the European Union’s single market and ensuring that the United Kingdom doesn’t get too favorable a trade deal from the bloc. They will also work together to increase defense and security cooperation across the European Union, focusing on protecting its external borders, Macron is also a critic of Russian policy and backs EU sanctions put in place after the Ukraine crisis.

Still, Germany and France will have plenty of room for disagreement, especially where the Eurozone is concerned. Paris, broadly speaking, is willing to tolerate inflation and a cheap euro to keep Europe’s exports competitive. France also tends to take a flexible stance on deficit and debt targets, while espousing protectionism to defend vulnerable sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, against external competition. Many of these ideas go against Germany’s interests. For example, Macron has already proposed creating a separate budget for the Eurozone, financed by jointly issued debt, to pay for investment programs across the currency area. He also wants more shared responsibility within the eurozone and believes Germany’s big trade surplus has to be rebalanced.

There are many challenges ahead for the new President, and it is going to be a long way to go. Most of his success both nationally and internationally will depend on the French Assembly’s support and on the reestablishment of the traditional strong alliance with Germany.

US Issues Travel Alert for Europe

On 1 May, the United States State Department issued a travel alert for Europe, stating that US citizens should be aware of a continued threat of terrorist attacks across the continent.

In the alert, the US State Department cited recent attacks in France, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Russia, stating that the so-called Islamic State (IS) group and al-Qaeda “have the ability to plan and execute terrorist attacks in Europe.” The alert went on to say that malls, government facilities, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, airports and other locations are all possible targets for attacks.

On Monday, a State Department official disclosed that the latest alert was not prompted by a specific threat, but rather recognition of the continuing risk of attacks, particularly ahead of the summer holidays.

The State Department’s previous travel alert for Europe, which had been issued ahead of the winter holiday season, expired in February. This latest alert expires on 1 September 2017.

French Presidential Election: Macron Secures Win

On Sunday, 7 May, Emmanuel Macron was elected French president with a business-friendly vision of European integration, defeating Marine Le Pen, who threatened to take the country out of the European Union (EU). Mr Macron’s win will also bring huge relief to European allies who had feared another populist upheaval, following Britain’s vote last year to leave the EU.

With virtually all votes counted, Mr Macron won 66 percent of the vote against just under 34 percent for Ms Le Pen – a gap wider than the 20 or so percentage points that pre-election surveys had suggested. However it was a record performance for the National Front (FN) party of Ms Le Pen, effectively underlying the scale of the divisions that Mr Macron now faces.

Mr Macon will officially be sworn into office on Sunday 14 May.

The Middle East’s Thriving Illegal Organ Trade

“I exploit people, that’s what I do… Some of my clients would have died anyway.”

Trade in illegal organs is a booming business in Lebanon as desperate Syrian refugees resort to selling body parts to support themselves and their families, according to a report by the BBC. A trafficker who brokers deals from a coffee shop in Beirut, identified as Abu Jaafar, said while he knew his business was illegal, he saw it as helping people in need.

Since the Syrian conflict began in 2011, at least 1.5 million people have moved to Lebanon, where they make up around a quarter of the country’s population. Many have no legal right to work and families are forced to find other ways to pay for food, shelter and healthcare. According to a report published in June, some 70 percent of refugees in Lebanon are living below the poverty line.

“Those who are not registered as refuges are struggling,” Jaafar said, “what can they do? They are desperate and have no other means to survive but to sell their organs.” Jaafar said in the last three years he has arranged the sale of organs from some 30 refugees. “They usually ask for kidneys, yet I can still find and facilitate other organs,” he said. “They once asked me for an eye, and I was able to acquire a client willing to sell his eye.”

The Middle East is becoming a hotspot in international organ trade, where the influx of refugees desperate to earn money is providing a new market for brokers, shifting focus from China and the Philippines, according to the BBC report. Most refugees aren’t allowed to work under Lebanese law, and many families barely get by. Among the most desperate are Palestinians who were already considered refugees in Syria, and so are not eligible to be re-registered by the UN refugee agency when they arrive in Lebanon. They live in overcrowded camps and receive very little aid.

Across the Middle East there’s a shortage of organs for transplant, because of cultural and religious objections to organ donation. Most families prefer immediate burial.

A similar story came to light from Iraq in 2016.

According to a different BBC report, gangs in the country are offering up to $10,000 US for a kidney, and have been increasingly targeted the country’s poor. Almost a quarter of the country’s population live in abject poverty – according to World Bank statistics – and some destitute families are actively seeking out organ traders.

“The phenomenon is so widespread that authorities are not capable of fighting it,” Firas al-Bayati, a human rights lawyer, told the BBC. “I have personally dealt over the past three months with 12 people who were arrested for selling their kidneys. And poverty was the reason behind their acts.”

Under Iraqi law only relatives are allowed to donate organs their organs to one and other. The trafficking of organs is strictly prohibited, with penalties ranging from three years in prison to death.

In January 2017, it was revealed that IS has been recruiting foreign doctors to harvest the internal organs from their own dead fighters and living hostages, including children abducted from minority populations in Syria and Iraq. The organs are then sold on the black market in the worldwide human organ trafficking trade in order to fund their terror operations.

After 6 Years, US Troops End Search for Kony

US Special Forces announced on 26 April that they will being pulling out of the Central African Republic (CAR), where they deployed in 2011 in a bid to hunt the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) warlord Joseph Kony. The move, which was first announced in March, will se US troops pulling out of the country’s eastern region, where they have been helping Ugandan forces track down rebels from the feared LRA.

During a telephone briefing in mid-April, General Thomas Waldhauser, head of the US military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM), disclosed that “the time has come to move forward because the organization itself is really in a survival mode.”

In 2010, the US passed a law to deploy around 100 Special Forces to work with regional armies in hunting down Kony. While it is withdrawing, despite the rebel leader remaining at large, Kony’s power has much diminished. His current whereabouts remain unknown but his forces have been hit by a constant stream of defections, deaths and surrenders of both foot-soldiers and commanders. Small LRA groups continue to carry out attacks, mostly on villages in the border regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), CAR, South Sudan and Sudan.

Joseph Kony

For the past three decades, rebel commander Kony has sowed terror across four African countries, evading capture by US and Ugandan soldiers. The former Catholic altar boy became one of Africa’s most notorious rebels at the head of his LRA, combining religious mysticism with an astute guerrilla mind and bloodthirsty ruthlessness.

A member of Uganda’s northern Acholi ethnic group, Kony attended primary school before taking up arms in and around 1987. He would follow in the footsteps of another rebel, Alice Auma Lakwena, a former prostitute who is believed to have been either his cousin or aunt. Lakwena, who died in exile in Kenya in early 2007, believed that she could channel the spirits of the dead. She also told her followers that the holy oil she gave them could stop bullets.

Kony has claimed that the Holy Spirit has issued orders to him on everything from military tactics to personal hygiene, terrifying his subordinates into obedience.

Kony’s insurgency claimed to be fighting to overthrow the Ugandan government and impose a regime based on the Bible’s Ten Commandments. He claims that it was launched to defend the Acholi people against Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who seized power from northern military rulers at the head of a rebel army in 1986. The insurgency has killed more than 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children who were forced to become sex slaves, soldiers and porters. Despite widespread northern resentment against President Museveni, Kony’s policy of abductions soon lost him the support of local groups, who suffered during the government’s brutal war against the LRA. While Kony, who is thought to be in his 50s, has said that he has not committed any atrocities, ex-LRA abductees say that they were forced to maim and kill friends, neighbours and relatives and participate in gruesome rites such as drinking their victims’ blood.

During the 1990s, the LRA conflict split into neighbouring countries after the Sudanese government in Khartoum began backing the group in retaliation for Uganda’s support of southern Sudanese rebels battling for independence. When Sudan signed a peace deal with the southern rebels in 2005, support for the LRA effectively dried up, after and after being force into the neighbouring DRC by the Ugandan army, Kony agreed to peace talks. In 2005, the self-proclaimed prophet, and four of his deputies, were the first people to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity. This move however impacted attempts to reach a peace agreement. Negotiations dragged on and, amidst mutual distrust and anxiety over the ICC warrant, Kony repeatedly failed to turn up to sign the deal. Since the 2005 indictment, only one commander, Dominic Ongwen, is currently on trial while the three others are believed to have been killed.

In late 2011, following growing pressure from US campaigners, President Barack Obama deployed US Special Forces troops to help regional armies track down Kony. While in March the following year, Kony surged to unexpected worldwide prominence as a result of a hugely popular Internet video, the Kony2012 film, which called for his capture, popular interest quickly waned and despite the increased pressure, after more than thirty years in the bush, Kony remain a master of evasion. He has ditched satellite telephones in favor of runners to communicate and has lived off wild roots and animals.