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As we celebrate this year's Europe Day on May 9, we have great confidence and satisfaction in the many ways in which our partnership with the Government and people of Kenya is progressing.

Looking back over the past year, the strength of this partnership has enabled us to respond effectively to crises, most notably the stalling last summer of the Economic Partnership Agreement and more recently the impact of the drought on Kenya and its neighbours.

By working closely together, we've been able to maintain the free access of Kenyan exports to the EU, which is this country's biggest export market, despite the delays of other countries in signing the Economic Partnership Agreement. I'm also proud that the EU was the first international partner to help Kenya address the worst consequences of the drought, by supplying as much as Sh4.5 billion in funding to this country.

With more 500 million consumers, the European Union is the world's biggest single market, the world's biggest exporter and importer. The EU is also Kenya's largest trading partner. Some 26 per cent of the country's exports go to the EU including major exports such as tea, coffee, cut flowers, peas and beans.

The floriculture sector has benefited particularly strongly from its access to the EU market, which is the destination of 70 per cent of all the flowers that Kenya produces. This supports more than half a million Kenyans who depend on the floriculture sector for their livelihoods.

HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE

ALSO READ: To heal these rifts, why not try a government of national unity?

The EU is also the biggest provider of humanitarian aid in the world, and the biggest provider of development assistance in the world. In Kenya we provide about 100 million Euros a year in development assistance. The EU's partnership with Kenya cuts across all sectors and geographical areas of the country, ranging from roads, energy and entrepreneurship, to education, healthcare and agriculture.

The EU's development assistance supports the Government's Vision 2030 development strategy, focusing on four main areas: food security and resilience to climate change, sustainable infrastructure, accountability of public institutions, and agriculture and rural development. Meanwhile European companies lead the way in investing in these areas, contributing greatly to growth, jobs and tax revenues.

Most important of all for Kenya's economy is the private sector, which is the engine of inclusive growth, job-creation and long-term prosperity. This has helped create the conditions needed for private enterprises to thrive and so contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction. Kenya has built a strong foundation through a manufacturing sector that is embracing modern technology, scaling up value-added output, and creating nearly a million new jobs a year.

This is critical to absorb Kenya's rapidly rising population, to provide the country's youth with the skills they need to participate fully in the country's future. In doing so, it is also making Kenya more resilient to domestic and external shocks.

The European Union and Kenya have now travelled together on the road to greater prosperity for 40 years. This journey, and our support for Kenya's development goals, is reflected in our new Annual Report (known as the Blue Book) whose theme this year is Investing for Development. Our engagement and partnership with the Government of Kenya has contributed to this country's transformation, boosting the power of the private sector as the key driver of economic growth and structural change. We are proud to have helped Kenya graduate from a poor, low-income country to one with great prospects for even faster economic growth and shared prosperity.

Supporting the private sector and public-private partnerships in these areas improves the lives of the poor and delivers on our promise of sustainable and socially-inclusive economic development.

We also encourage the private sector to get involved in green enterprises in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda for a better world. Our policies and programmes cushion European investors in developing countries against risks, providing for up to 88 billion Euros to be invested this year in African partnerships.

ALSO READ: To heal these rifts, why not try a government of national unity?

BUDDIES

Over the past decade, the European Commission has supplied an average of 350 million Euros a year for private sector development programmes around the world. We are proud of this investment which, together with the development assistance provided directly by the EU's 28 Member States own programmes, makes the European Union the leading player in the transformation of developing countries.

Beyond economics, the European Union and Kenya are natural allies on key international issues such as migration, climate action, security and democracy. Over the past 12 months our relationship has bloomed into a full-blown partnership based on shared values and common interests. Together we are confronting emerging threats and are seeking to make the world a safer and better place for both present and future generations.

Mr Dejak is the European Union Ambassador to Kenya

See the rest here:
European Union: Full-blown partnership with Kenya - The Standard (press release)

Last summer's Brexit vote changed the political landscape of Europeand brought with it the possibility of changes to the actual landscape as well. But the latest update to the map will be a small one: a new signpost in a German rapeseed field, now the heart of the European Union.

Sleepy Gadheim is about to be right in the middle of things.

Back in March, on the same day that the British government hand-delivered to the European Union its letter triggering the two-year Brexit countdown, the German town of Gadheim woke up to surprising news. The cartographers at France's Institut Gographique National had determined that, once Britain is gone in April 2019, the geographic center of the new EU will be located on a farm outside that tiny Bavarian village. The Institute keeps track of this important matter with a "centroid" calculation: They treat the EU map like a flat sheet of cardboard (one with holes for Switzerland andsoonthe United Kingdom). Then they find the point where you could balance that cardboard on the head of a pin.

The center of Europe is a moving target.

The Institut has been tracking the center point since the European Economic Community formed in 1957. Back then, the center was near historic Besanon, on the French-Swiss border. It moved west into Auvergne when Spain and Portugal joined in 1986, but has gradually drifted east since then, as former Communist bloc countries have joined the club. It moved to the town of Westerngrund in 2013 when Croatia became an EU memberthough it did jump a quarter-mile east when Mayotte, a French possession in the Indian Ocean, joined the EU in 2014.

A bittersweet countdown begins in Bavaria.

Westerngrund is sad to be losing its most prestigious landmark. "We always knew it was a gift lent to us for a limited amount of time," the mayor told The Guardian . The town has built a little park on the spot, with an EU flag on display and a flask that contains a little soil from each member nation. There are 6,000 tourist signatures in the visitor book, and the town is still discussing putting up a sausage stand there before Brexit is finalized in two years' time.

But Westerngrund's loss is Gadheim's gain.

Gadheim is a little village of just 89 people, and falls under the jurisdiction of Jrgen Gtz, the mayor of nearby Veitshoechheim. "We thought it was an April Fool's joke at first," Gtz told the French media . He thinks his home region, with its lovely vineyards and castles, was well worth a visit even before its new geographical distinction. "There's a pretty saying: 'God kissed the Earth only once, and that's where Veitshoechheim is.' Gadheim is a part of that," said the mayor.

Explore the world's oddities every week with Ken Jennings, and check out his book Maphead for more geography trivia.

See original here:
This Tiny German Village Will Be the New Center of the EU - Cond Nast Traveler

This Global Week Ahead started with a foregone conclusion: Emmanuel Macron is the new French president. Imagine the sighs of relief. They must be heard across the European Union, and certainly within the formal office corridors of that institution.

However, it was a sell the news trading event.

Education! That key social variable showed itself as important again. It proved to be the strongest predictor of a vote for Macron. The higher the number of people with a university degree in an area, the stronger the percentage vote for Macron.

This pattern echoes the findings ofother Financial Times analysis. They looked into the predictors of the Leave vote in 2016 Brexit referendum,the 2016 U.S. presidential election and recentDutch elections. In each electoral instance, the less educated made up more of the right wing, anti-establishment voters.

Here is the rest of what happening to the globe this week.

Last week, the House voted to repeal Obamacareand replace it with the American Health Care Act. In the week ahead and beyond, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will assess the cost and coverage. This a reversal of the order usually undertaken. Also, independent effort in the Senate has begun towards a health care bill. The Senate version will be substantially different than the House bill. Then, the reconciliation fun begins. In short, dont expect this to be done for months and months.

There is a Bank of England (BoE) monetary policy meeting this week. Expect modest changes to the Bank of Englands key macro projections.While U.K. inflation is likely to reach or even exceed +3.0%, still, dont expect the BoE to hike. According to observers, the BoE will retain a bias to hike. But, the committee is not hurried to deliver, given the Brexit tremors.

This week coughs up a key data in Canadas loud housing debate about a bubble. Canada housing starts may be poised for some moderation after they hit the highest level in about five years in March and almost the highest in a decade. The Bank of Nova Scotia write about efforts to cool Ontarios and more specifically southern Ontarios including Torontos housing markets. Policy housing demand restraints may have been timed at the peak pace of demand -- and just as Canadas housing supply is rising to meet the challenges.

Over in Asia, Chinas CPI inflation rate probably is likely to track at +1.0% y/y in April. Their Inflation rate looks very soft on the consumer side. On top of that, mainland Chinese producer price inflation is likely to fall toward zero -- and possibly lower over the second half of 2017. That is a weak level of inflation.

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Key Global Macro

Ho hum. Back to macro data after an exciting French election last week!

German factory orders, industrial production and trade for March will lead up to Q1 German GDP growth. The latter is out on Friday. French trade, industrial production and Q1 nonfarm payrolls also come out.

In top of that, we will tap into U.K. industrial output and trade figures, Italian retail sales and industrial output.

The Eurozone sum of its member countries on industrial output will also be made available.

Eight U.S. Fed voting members will be speaking 10 times, all over the country and in India this week.

On Monday, Canadas housing starts came in at 214K, below the 220K number expected. Note: There is a housing bubble going on in some urban areas up there.

The Feds Bullard speaks in Florida and Mester speaks in Chicago.

On Tuesday, German industrial production should be growing +2.5% y/y.

The U.S. NFIB Small Business Optimism index comes out. It has been spiking up.

The forecast is for 103.5 from 104.7 in a prior reading.

The bi-week core CPI in Mexico should be +5.71% from 5.35% y/y. Thats a concern.

The Feds Kashkari speaks in Minneapolis, Rosengren in NY, and Kaplan in Dallas.

On Wednesday, same store retail sales in Mexico are holding up at 3.2% y/y.

Industrial Production in France could be down -0.5% y/y, whereas in Italy, it is up +1.9% y/y. Lets hope the new French President can change sentiment there.

Mario Draghi speaks to the Dutch Parliament, and in Frankfurt.

Industrial production in the U.K. is strong, at +2.8% y/y.

The unemployment rate in Greece is now 23.5%. Its a big problem.

On Thursday, interestingly, the Feds Dudley speaks in Mumbai, India

The BoE Monetary Policy Committee meets and issues a rate decision. 0.25% is the base rate, and it is not forecast to change.

U.S. initial claims for the week come out.

On Friday, the core German inflation rate, the HICP (harmonized index of consumer price inflation) comes out. The prior reading was +2.0% y/y. In Spain, it is +2.6% y/y. The tack above the 2 percent target in Spain is worth noting.

University of Michigan sentiment comes out. The prior was 97.

Read more from the original source:
The European Union Got Stronger: Global Week Ahead - Zacks.com

The head of ISIS in Afghanistan was killed in a raid by U.S. and Afghan forces last month that also resulted in the death of two American soliders, the military said Sunday.

A statement by U.S. Forces, Afghanistan confirmed that Sheikh Abdul Hasib, described as the Emir of ISIS in the Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), was killed in the April 27 raid insouthern Nangarhar province, eastern Afghanistan.

The raid that killed Hasib was carried out in the same area where the U.S. dropped the so-called "Mother of all Bombs" last month.

TWO US ARMY SOLDIERS KILLED FIGHTING ISIS IN AFGHANISTAN

The Pentagon said that more than50 U.S. Army Rangers and dozens of other partnered Afghan forces battled ISIS for over three hours in the mountain terrain. Two of the Rangers were killed and a third was wounded. Defense officials told Fox News that friendly fire was the suspected cause of the Rangers' deaths.

Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said Hasib's death marked "another important step in our relentless campaign to defeat ISIS-K in 2017."

"This is the second ISIS-K emir we have killed in nine months, along with dozens of their leaders and hundreds of their fighters," Nicholson added. "For more than two years, ISIS-K has waged a barbaric campaign of death, torture and violence against the Afghan people, especially those in southern Nangarhar."

Hasib is suspected of directing the March 8 attack on a military hospital in the Afghan capital, Kabul, that killed 50 people.

The U.S. currently estimates that around 800 ISIS fighters are based in Afghanistan.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.

Read more:
ISIS chief in Afghanistan killed in April raid, US military says

President Trumps most senior military and foreign policy advisers have proposed a major shift in strategy in Afghanistan that would effectively put the United States back on a war footing with the Taliban.

The new plan, which still needs the approval of the president, calls for expanding the U.S. military role as part of a broader effort to push an increasingly confident and resurgent Taliban back to the negotiating table, U.S. officials said.

The plan comes at the end of a sweeping policy review built around the presidents desire to reverse worsening security in Afghanistan and start winning again, said one U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The new strategy, which has the backing of top Cabinet officials, would authorize the Pentagon, not the White House, to set troop numbers in Afghanistan and give the military far broader authority to use airstrikes to target Taliban militants. It would also lift Obama-era restrictions that limited the mobility of U.S. military advisers on the battlefield.

The net result of the changes would be to reverse moves by President Barack Obama to steadily limit the U.S. military role in Afghanistan, along with the risk to American troops and the cost of the war effort, more than 15 years after U.S. forces first arrived there.

Trump is expected to make a final call on the strategy before a May 25 NATO summit in Brussels that he plans to attend.

Officials said it is unclear whether Trump, who has spoken little about the United States longest war, will look favorably upon expanding the U.S. role in Afghanistan. While he has voiced skepticism about allowing U.S. troops to become bogged down in foreign conflicts, the president has also expressed a desire to be tough on terrorism and has seemed to delight in the use of military force.

The review is an opportunity to send a message that, yes, the U.S. is going to send more troops, but its not to achieve a forever military victory, said Andrew Wilder, an Afghanistan expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Rather, its to try to bring about a negotiated end to this conflict.

[In Afghanistan, Trump will inherit a costly stalemate and few solutions]

Taliban dangers

The new strategy is a product of the U.S. militarys mounting worries that the fragile stalemate with the Taliban has been steadily eroding for years, jeopardizing the survival of an allied government and endangering a key U.S. base for combating militant groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State throughout South Asia.

Even as it moves to the presidents desk, the proposal faces resistance from some senior administration officials who fear a repeat of earlier decisions to intensify military efforts that produced only temporary improvements.

Inside the White House, those opposed to the plan have begun to refer derisively to the strategy as McMasters War, a reference to H.R. McMaster, the presidents national security adviser. The general, who once led anti-corruption efforts in Afghanistan and was one of the architects of President George W. Bushs troop surge in Iraq, is the driving force behind the new strategy at the White House.

The White House declined to comment.

The plan envisions an increase of at least 3,000 U.S. troops to an existing force of about 8,400. The U.S. force would also be bolstered by requests for matching troops from NATO nations.

But, in keeping with the Trump administrations desire to empower military decision-making, the Pentagon would have final say on troop levels and how those forces are employed on the battlefield. The plan would also increase spending on Afghanistans troubled government in an effort to improve its capacity.

The additional troops and aid spending would add to the fiscal toll of a war that already costs $23billion annually, a factor Trump advisers expect will weigh heavily in the presidents consideration of additional military actions.

In a break with the past, U.S. officials said that increases in U.S. troop levels and support to the Afghan government and military would be heavily conditioned on the ability of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who heads a fragile unity government, to weed out ineffective military commanders and reduce corruption, both of which have led some aggrieved Afghans to turn to the Taliban as a better alternative.

[U.S. watchdog finds major internal flaws hampering Afghanistan war effort]

The question at the heart of the new strategy is whether U.S. and Afghan forces, even if bolstered by new troops and authorities to target the Taliban, can create enough pressure to push the war toward a negotiated settlement. Those opposing the escalation have argued that even the Obama-era surge, which peaked at 100,000, did not result in Taliban concessions in on-again, off-again U.S.-Taliban talks begun in 2011.

That effort eventually crumbled amid U.S. government divisions and resistance from the Afghan government, which feared being cut out of the process. While Pakistan and other governments have sought to foster separate talks in recent years, progress has been scant since the 2016 death of Taliban leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in a U.S. airstrike .

Those failures, and his deep-seated desire to end the war before leaving office, led Obama to craft a plan to cut U.S. troop levels to 1,000 before leaving office. In late 2014, he also took away the militarys authority to directly target Taliban leadership, stating that the United States was no longer at war with the insurgent group.

But the Talibans advance across Afghanistan, where it has chipped away at government control of rural areas and occasionally seized a major city, eventually compelled Obama to abandon that low troop target.

Obama also loosened rules so U.S. forces could target the Taliban with airstrikes in limited situations, for example when Afghan troops faced danger of being overrun or needed support from American warplanes for major operations.

Under the steps proposed in the new strategy, U.S. aircraft would again be permitted to strike the Taliban in a broader array of situations, allowing for greater air support of Afghan offensives. The new rules would also enable U.S. military advisers to accompany conventional Afghan forces closer to the front lines, similar to the freedom they have with elite Afghan forces in a separate counterterrorism mission.

[Russia is sending weapons to Taliban, top U.S. general confirms]

Similar measures proposed last year by the outgoing U.S. military commander for Afghanistan provoked a backlash among top Pentagon leaders, but this time military leaders including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis are supportive.

Afghan losses

The new strategy comes at a critical time for Afghan forces, which have taken massive casualties and continue to suffer from corruption and poor leadership. Their vulnerability was exposed last month when a handful of Taliban militants killed 140 soldiers in an assault on a military base in northern Afghanistan.

Even proponents of the plan have modest expectations for what an enhanced military effort, given the Talibans strength, can achieve. Rather than stopping the militants from taking over additional territory, officials expect that Afghan forces will at best be able to hold the line this year and begin to recapture some key terrain from the Taliban next year.

The goal is to make incremental progress in coming years in the hope that those gains will be enough to persuade the Taliban to make concessions that will lead to peace, said a U.S. official familiar with the plan.

Daniel Feldman, who served as Obamas special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said that to achieve a sustainable resolution, security investments must be matched by actions to support political and economic stability. All of this leads back to prioritizing the launch of a viable peace process in Afghanistan and using any military decision to support that process, he said.

Wilder said that the emphasis on using military pressure to reach a political agreement made sense but that there is no guarantee it would work given the diverse objectives of key players in the war, such as the Taliban, the Afghan government, Pakistan, Iran and increasingly Russia.

Even backers of a more robust approach concede that the chances of a major peace deal to end the war are low.

If we dont achieve that, Plan B should be to prevent state collapse, which would also require additional military resources, Wilder said.

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US poised to expand military effort against Taliban in Afghanistan - Washington Post