On Friday evening, officials met in Brussels to continue discussions on the list of approved countries the 27 member states of the European Union will reopen their borders to on July 1.
Among the fourteen countries currently listed are Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. All three countries have large diaspora communities in Europe, members of which regularly travel back to the Maghreb during the summer period. With Eid al-Adha fast approaching, the possibility of passing the celebration with family will no doubt be a source of joy for many in both Europe and the Maghreb.
The other countries on the list are Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, and Uruguay.
The EU deemed key European partners including the United States, Russia, and Turkey, not to have the virus sufficiently under control and excluded them from the list. Chinese visitors will be authorized to visit Europe on the condition that China opens its borders to European citizens.
European states will officially adopt this list, which remains subject to modification, on Monday.
Tourism in the Maghreb
Tourism is of vital importance to the economies of Morocco and Tunisia with the industry accounting for approximately 20% and 15% of GDP in 2018, respectively. In 2019, Morocco welcomed a record-breaking 13 million visitors.The vast majority of tourists who visit Morocco and Tunisia are European.
By contrast, tourism remains relatively underdeveloped in Algeria. Last year 2.5 to 3.5 million people visited Algeria, but the majority, according to the tourism ministry, were Algerians living abroad.
Prior to COVID-19, Algeria announced plans to increase tourism to the country. The country hopes to welcome five million tourists per year by 2025, focusing on wealthier visitors seeking out luxury experiences and adventure tourists. The country also plans to expand the port in Algiers to allow for cruise ships to dock and to develop at least one resort along the Mediterranean coast.
Under the country’s plans to expand tourism, which will target both European travelers and those from further afield including the United States, China, and Canada, tourism’s share of GDP will triple to 4.5% by 2025. This remains considerably less than the contribution tourism makes to the GDP of Morocco and Tunisia.
Uncertainty remains for Moroccansand Algerians
Whilst Tunisia reopened its borders earlier today, Morocco and Algeria are yet to confirm a reopening date. Like Tunisia, both countries closed their borders in mid-March in an attempt to stop the importation of the virus from abroad. The state of emergency declared in Morocco, as a result of coronavirus, is in place until at least July 10.
While Morocco has yet to make an official announcement, Bladi reports that British Ambassador to Morocco Thomas Reilly tweeted earlier this week the borders would reopen on July 10. The tweet is no longer available.
Moroccan sources have indicated that the borders are likely to reopen after the 10th, however no date has been set.
There has been no indication from the Algerian government as to when its borders will reopen to tourists.
On June 16, Amnesty International released a report by its Security Lab after testing eleven contact-tracing apps intended to assist governments in finding COVID-19 infections. Three countries stood out as having produced “alarming mass surveillance tools”: Bahrain, Kuwait, and Norway all used methods that the NGO considers “dangerous for human rights.”
“Bahrain, Kuwait and Norway have run roughshod over people’s privacy, with highly invasive surveillance tools which go far beyond what is justified in efforts to tackle COVID-19,” the head of Amnesty’s Security Lab stated. “Privacy must not be another casualty as governments rush to roll out apps.”
Norway stops app
Out of the three countries, one has already halted the use of its app. The Norwegian government made the decision hours after Amnesty International published the report. “The Norwegian app was highly invasive and the decision to go back to the drawing board is the right one,” Amnesty stated on their website.
The Norwegian app, Smittestopp, had not yet seen wide implementation but the invasive nature of the app’s design had prompted Norwegian data agency Datatilsynet to issue a warning. The agency said it would no longer allow Norway’s Institute of Public Health to access data generated by the app.
Camilla Stoltenberg, director of Norway’s public health institute, disputed the privacy claims and warned that the contact tracing app was needed in order to halt the local spread of coronavirus. “The pandemic is not over,” Stoltenberg stressed. The director’s concerns did not stop the government from halting the app and removing the data of its 600,000 users.
Privacy issues
The central issue with the Norwegian app is similar to those regarding Bahrain and Kuwait’s apps, as well as those of apps in development for the governments of France and the UK. The apps feature a constant stream of data reported on users and uploaded to a national database, allowing the government to know where its citizens are at all times.
A similar issue arose with Qatar’s contact-tracing app, which similarly captured and shared GPS data. Outside sources could have accessed this data as a security vulnerability had the potential to expose the information to over one million Qataris. Qatari officials say they have since fixed the issue.
The Bahraini and Kuwaiti apps both record GPS data into a centralized database instead of using a method based on Bluetooth, which would only activate when the user is in close proximity with an infected person. But Bluetooth is far from a flawless technology, prompting countries like France and the UK to opt for a similar method to that of Bahrain and Kuwait.
Surveillance
Amnesty International fears that governments could misuse the wealth of data recorded by the apps. Bahrain attempted to provide a positive incentive to stay home by using its app’s data to produce “Are You Home?” The national television show would offer families prizes for staying home during Ramadan, verified using data from the BeAware Bahrain contact-tracing app.
While the show’s idea to provide positive incentives for COVID-19 adherence is commendable, the use of a public health database for such entertainment is not. Allowing anyone but the most qualified public health experts to access the recorded data highlights the potential for abuse.
Bahrain also published online data that revealed much about the demographics and personal details of people infected by COVID-19.
The Kuwaiti app used similarly centrally recorded data with vulnerabilities for potential abuse. The Kuwaiti app even used proximity reports between phones and Bluetooth bracelets to ensure people carried their phones with them.
After Norway’s quick response to Amnesty International’s analysis, the question remains as to what action Bahrain and Kuwait will take to prevent misuse of their contact-tracing apps.
Governments across the MENA region, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE, have shut down shisha cafes as they attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus.
In Europe, where shisha bars are also closed due to government-mandated shutdowns, a number continued to operate illegally. Government officials in both Germany and the United Kingdom caught out illegal shisha cafe operators when health authorities identified the cafes as the source of new coronavirus outbreaks.
Earlier this month in the town of Gottingen in Lower Saxony, 36 people contracted coronavirus after visiting an illegally operated shisha cafe. A further 310 entered quarantine as a result of contact with those infected.
Perfect for spreading the virus
The communal nature of shisha, with the pipe being passed among groups, makes it a natural conduit for coronavirus. Health experts have suggested that the threat is heightened by the fact that only the mouthpiece is changed between use by one group of customers and the next.
The pipe and base remain the same between customers, furthering the risk of the virus spreading via particles from a contaminated user. The details of the spread of coronavirus during shisha use remain slightly unclear and further research is needed to understand in precise detail how the device contributes to the spread of the virus. Doctors remain sure, however, that the device is susceptible to spreading the virus.
Health experts have also suggested that the large exhalations of smoke clouds may also contain virus particles with the risk being particularly high when smoking in an enclosed space. The bouts of coughing that often accompany shisha smoking present a further risk.
Established health concerns
The case against reopening shisha bars is being expanded by some to include a discussion of the health impacts of smoking shisha.
Prior to COVID-19 concern was growing over the health impacts of shisha with studies showing that smoking shisha for one hour can be as harmful as smoking 100 cigarettes. The practice has also been linked to increased rates of diabetes and obesity.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has previously stated that smokers are more likely to suffer from severe forms of coronavirus if they fall ill. As a result of the impact of smoking on the lungs, smokers are unable to fight the virus as effectively as non-smokers.
Despite the health concerns, the number of daily shisha smokers remained high prior to COVID-19. Arab News estimates there are 100 million daily smokers with 15% of 13-15 year olds in Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and Yemen smoking shisha.
The use of charcoal for heating shisha is a further cause for concern as it releases carbon monoxide. In enclosed bars and spaces this can lead to poisoning of staff and patrons. Last year, a shisha cafe in Tooting, in South London, was forced to close after the residents in the flats above, including young children, suffered carbon monoxide poisoning.
Carbon monoxide poisoning occurs when the colorless and odorless gas enters the bloodstream. As a result of mixing with haemoglobin, the blood is no longer able to carry oxygen and this causes the body’s cells and tissues to die.
Fortunately, all those in Tooting recovered, but the incident further highlights the risks of shisha. As coronavirus restrictions begin to ease and cafes reopen, there is space for broader discussions about the future of shisha cafes.
Racists in Europe must have breathed a sigh of relief over the weekend. Thousands rallied across the continent in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and against police brutality, but few even mentioned that the EU is showing a similar disdain and disregard for Black lives at its borders.
In the US, the legacy of slavery is obvious and noticeable on a daily basis, as the victims of American slavery are part of the country’s society. In Europe, the victims of centuries of oppression and slavery are hidden away, kept from even entering the world’s most prosperous region and claiming even a fragment of the results of their ancestors’ labor.
When European empires stretched across the globe, as recently as 70 years ago, colonizers constantly reminded their subjects of their “mother country” in Europe. Now that these countries no longer profit from them, the descendants of the colonized, often separated by only a single generation, are considered unwelcome foreigners, with no right to enter the continent that their ancestors’ suffering helped build.
In a case of incredible projection, Europeans who once invaded countries to extract resources now accuse poor migrants of trying to “profit from and exploit” Europe’s welfare system that their ancestors helped build as much as Europeans did.
Europeans remain shocked and incredulous in the face of US racism but remain blind to their own similar or often even worse treatment of those that do not have the right immigration papers.
Anti-racism protests
European leaders were quick to express their condemnation of the brutal murder of George Floyd and some even highlighted similar forms of racism in Europe. The continent’s continued complicity in the daily deaths and suffering of its own colonial victims did not receive any attention.
Just in the one week since the anti-racism protests spread across the EU, dozens of Black people experienced their own silent and unreported “I can’t breathe” moment as they drowned in the Mediterranean.
Many have commented on the apparent lack of accountability for police violence in the US, but if George Floyd had been a drowning migrant, those who called for the officer to stop could have been prosecuted, as saving a migrant’s life during sea crossings is a crime in several EU countries. All sense of human decency appears to have been abandoned in the concerted effort to ensure Europe’s wealth is never shared with its colonial victims that helped create that wealth.
Countries such as Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy that have extracted untold amounts of wealth from their colonial subjects now accuse the descendants of their victims of exploiting them, with no apparent sense of shame whatsoever. “Let them die because this is a good deterrence,” is how a UN rapporteur described the European strategy.
FRONTEX
In order to avoid a confrontation with Europe’s colonial past, the EU has set up a paramilitary force in control of concentration camps, advanced military hardware, mobilized a $350 million budget, and granted an unspoken license to kill. Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency is Europe’s version of a militarized police force, conveniently hidden from citizens’ view and used to commit daily human rights violations.
Black migrants in Europe are not even considered worthy of human rights, if they are not lucky enough to already be in possession of a European passport. Those unfortunate people in dangerously overcrowded boats in the Mediterranean are all structurally denied their human right of asylum (Article 33 of the Geneva Convention on Refugees.)
They are similarly denied the human right to not experience inhuman and degrading treatment (Article 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) and the right to leave any country (Article 13.2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.)
By keeping migrants away from European shores, the EU is ensuring it does not have to recognize the rights of those attempting the dangerous journey and instead putting that responsibility on regimes it knows will not uphold them.
Europeans have some of the most powerful passports on earth and can travel virtually unimpeded, but apparently see no moral problem in the fact that others are barred from entering their territory.
Deal with the devil
Increased scrutiny of FRONTEX has not changed Europe’s ways, instead it has changed its methods to avoid responsibility. Europe has made deals with oppressive regimes in Turkey and Libya that exchange large amounts of euros to move the structural and continuing death toll of Black people away from European coasts and towards those of North Africa.
The move has led to Libyan coast guard and European ships forcing migrants back to African shores, Libyan concentration camps full of migrants, and a reemergence of slave auctions in Libya.
But another devil with whom European politicians are making a deal is the anti-immigration voting bloc that they aim to appease. Politicians employ many of the brutal strategies to keep former colonial subjects out because of fear of losing support from Europe’s anti-immigrant voters. Far from a fringe group, they constitute enough political power to make even left-wing politicians approach the topic with caution.
Many on Europe’s right claim the continent is doing enough to help Africa through development aid. But the decreasing development budgets of EU countries stand in stark contrast with the net outflow of over $16.3 trillion of wealth extracted from developing countries to developed ones since 1980.
American law enforcement disgracefully kills an average of 1,000 Black people every year, while the EU’s tally in 2019 was 1,283. Its immigration policies killed 2,299 in 2018. The number of recorded deaths has gone down only because rescue ships are no longer searching for migrants and therefore not recording the death toll.
Since 2014, ships have found at least 19,164 migrants dead in the Mediterranean, all simply human beings trying to exercise their human right to claim asylum in Europe.
While Europeans protests in solidarity with America’s anti-racist movements, perhaps they should take a deep look at their own structural and continuing murder of their former colonial subjects in an effort to keep “them” away from Europe’s shores.
Europe needs to stop wagging its finger at others and perhaps take a deeper look into the structural racism and xenophobia that keeps Europe rich at the cost of Black lives, which, unlike those in the US, are lost far away from cameras and moral outrage.
Belgium has faced international criticism for its high COVID-19 death-rate, but Belgian scientists claim that the rest of the EU are under-counting or under-reporting fatalities.
Professor Steven van Gucht, head of Belgium’s scientific COVID-19 response team has been under fire from both national and international actors for using a counting method that the British Health Foundation describes as the “fairest way to compare COVID-19 deaths internationally.”
Van Gucht has felt the pressure from Belgium’s business community and political leadership who have urged him to change the method of counting, “but we refused,” van Gucht told Deutsche Welle. Infection rates appear to be slowing in Europe, allowing for a deeper look into the numbers behind the pandemic’s impact on Europe.
Excess Deaths
It now appears that Belgium is one of the few European countries that has accurately reported the scale of the crisis on its citizens, while most have downplayed their numbers. “Official covid-19 death tolls still under-count the true number of fatalities,” the Economist concluded when they compared “excess deaths,” the increase in deaths compared to a five-year average.
In Belgium, this April saw the most deaths since the country was under Nazi occupation. While many other countries will have reached similar milestones they have not been revealed because of the structural under-reporting by national leaders.
Despite the scrutiny and mistrust surrounding COVID-19 data from China and Iran, data presented by the “revered ladies and gentlemen” that rule Europe have received no such scrutiny. That was a mistake, new data reveals, as most European leaders appear to have downplayed thousands of deaths in their countries.
Systematic under-reporting
Between March 14 and May 15, Britain’s government reported 45,298 coronavirus-related deaths, while the true number appears to stand at 59,100, meaning that Boris Johnson’s government is not reporting almost one in every four deaths.
The Dutch “intelligent lock-down” apparently has been supported through less than complete numbers, as Prime Minister Mark Rutte has only reported 60% of the country’s death-toll, ignoring 3,745 fatalities out of a total death-toll of 9,405 between March 16 and May 17.
In Italy almost half of all COVID-19 deaths have not been reported as such, with the country’s official tally standing at 12,178 deaths between February 26 and March 31, while the real number appears to be 24,031. Based on the data provided by the Economist, besides Belgium, only France and Spain come close to reporting their actual numbers.
Why it matters
This systematic misinformation could have dire consequences as citizens do not see the true scale of the tragedy that has befallen their country, and will not hold their leaders to account.
The patchwork of different approaches across Europe appears to have developed a perverse competition over which country ‘outperformed’ the others, creating an incentive to downplay numbers.
As an example, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has been enjoying rising popularity for himself and his center-right party. Instead of facing criticism for the country’s failure to prevent the deaths of over 9,000 citizens in a single month, the Dutch appear to have been lulled into a false sense of confidence in their elected leaders.
As a result a government that failed to adequately prepare and wasted valuable time in implementing lock-downs will likely not face any political ramifications.
Little criticism has emerged over the government’s decision to allow a large-scale festival in the country’s southern provinces while Italy was already implementing its first lockdown in Lombardy. Within a month it became clear the decision had led to a large outbreak in the country’s south.
Weeks later the Dutch PM still upheld that the country was in the “containment phase” and was touting “herd immunity” as a strategy even as thousands had already become infected. On March 21, Dutch health officials were shipping patients to northern provinces as hospitals in the south were flooded by COVID-19 patients in need of intensive care.
Consequences
By the end of March the number of cases was doubling every week and health officials announced that 2,400 intensive care beds would be needed, more than double the Dutch total capacity of 1,150.
Because the true death-rate was never revealed, the government’s failure to prepare adequately for a pandemic after a decade of its own austerity-led reductions in hospitals and medical staff never became a political issue.
While any attempt to misinform the public is roundly highlighted and mocked whenever Donald Trump engages in it, the misplaced reverence for European leaders has created a dangerous precedent where leaders are not being held to account for similar acts.
The false sense of confidence in Europe’s leaders could easily mean that even a second wave of infections will not lead to any significant criticism or consequences for the national leaders who used distorted data to justify a rush to reopen the economy.
Russia and China have echoed the European Union’s sentiments, reiterating that the US is in no position to use the Iran nuclear deal as a platform for imposing a permanent weapons embargo on Iran. In a May 27 letter, to the UN Security Council, and U.N. chief Antonio Guterres made public today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the US position as “ridiculous and irresponsible.”
“This is absolutely unacceptable and serves only to recall the famous English proverb about having one’s cake and eating it,” Lavrov wrote.
Last week, US Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft said a draft resolution would soon be introduced to the Security Council calling for a permanent arms embargo on Iran, as it has violated the conditions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Despite no longer being part of the accord, Craft and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have both intimated that reintroducing UN-backed weapons sanctions, under the basis of the JCPOA agreement, is currently a top US priority.
Top Chinese and European Union diplomats have also questioned the Trump administration’s call for a snapback to pre-JCPOA sanctions. All permanent Security Council members — Russia, China, the US, France and UK — have a right to veto resolutions.
“The United States, no longer a participant to the JCPOA (nuclear deal) after walking away from it, has no right to demand the Security Council invoke a snapback,” Wang told the Security Council and Guterres in a letter on June 7.
On June 9, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell Frontelles agreed, stating, “the United States has withdrawn from the JCPOA, and now they cannot claim that they are still part of the JCPOA in order to deal with this issue from the JCPOA agreement.”
“They withdraw. It’s clear. They withdraw,” he stressed.
The US unilaterally pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) accord
between the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, China, Russia and Iran in 2018. Under the 2015 plan Iran promised to limit sensitive nuclear activities, in return for an easing of sanctions. However the agreement began to unravel when Trump pulled out of the deal under his “maximum pressure” campaign, and re-imposed stringent US economic sanctions.
Under the JCPOA, which is enshrined in a UN resolution, if Iran violates the terms of the accord, sanctions, including an arms embargo, can be reinstated. Iran has violated the terms of the nuclear deal since the US pulled out, but Lavrov, Wang, and Borrell argue that the US has waived its rights to push for renewed sanctions since pulling out of the accord.
“A party which disowns or does not fulfil its own obligations cannot be recognized as retaining the rights which it claims to derive from the relationship,” Lavrov explained, invoking 1971 International Court of Justice precedent.
Dubai State Security arrested Danish crime boss Amir Faten Mekky in a “sting operation” carried out in the early hours of June 4, United Arab Emirates authorities revealed today.
A joint task force, including Dubai Public Prosecution and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, raided the 23-year-old gangster’s residence after spending gathering intelligence to confirm his identity.
Mekky entered the United Arab Emirates using a fake passport on November 14, 2018, the Dubai Media Office said, but it is unclear what prompted the security services to suddenly zero in on the dangerous criminal.
The arrest comes six months after the sensational arrest of “Angels of Death” gang leader Radwan Al-Taghi in Dubai last December. Dubai says its security forces are currently investigating Mekky and are ready to hand him over to “the relevant authorities,” although it is unclear which country he could be extradited to.
Mekky is a high-profile Dutch crime lord with a long criminal history. He has eluded European authorities for years over his drug trafficking and money laundering activities and is wanted by INTERPOL for murder.
Despite holding Danish nationality, Mekky’s criminal activity was based in Malmo, Sweden’s third-largest city. He has faced a “handful” of murder charges over recent years, stemming from Malmo gang feuds, Swedish daily newspaper Expressen reports.
The same source says Mekky is wanted in connection with two gangland murders and a number of explosions carried out in Spain by the “Los Suecos” (Swedes) gang, which he allegedly heads.
“The high-profile arrest sends a clear message that Dubai will not tolerate international criminal activities even if the crimes have not been committed in the UAE. It also emphasized the UAE’s commitment to fulfilling its responsibilities towards combating transnational crime,” the Dubai Media Office said.
