Agora Dialogue A marketplace for ideas

Depuis quelques mois, fleurissent en France des boutiques de vente de dérivés du cannabis et plus particulièrement des produits riches en cannabidiol, le CBD. Nicolas Authier The Conversation Les vendeurs l’appellent le « cannabis légal » : une formule pour dire le faux, lourde de sens et de conséquences. En effet, cette dénomination se veut rassurante pour les usagers mais incite probablement aussi à la consommation de ces produits. Elle laisse croire qu’il y aurait un cannabis légal non dangereux et un cannabis ... Read More »

Washington (CNN) – Despite opposition from the US Congress, Turkey is set to receive its first F-35 Joint Strike Fighters on Thursday during a ceremony in Fort Worth, Texas, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Ryan Browne “Lockheed Martin will hold a rollout ceremony for Turkey this Thursday in Fort Worth, and the two jets will follow-on to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona at a later date,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Mike Andrews told CNN. “Turkish F-35 pilots and maintainers have arrived ... Read More »

Nearly 70 million people globally are now forcibly displaced from their homes and 25.4 million of them are refugees. More people are fleeing conflict and catastrophe than at any other time in history. Ian Smith Brisbane Times The Middle East, South-East Asia, Central America and Africa are all melting pots of enormous unrest. The movement of so many people impacts every country in the world. In danger, people will do the natural thing and look after their families by searching ... Read More »

Everything to know about Turkey’s elections… Istanbul, Turkey (CNN)Turkish voters head to the polls Sunday in transformative elections that will usher in a new system of government, giving sweeping new powers to whoever wins the presidency. By Gul Tuysuz, CNN Recep Tayyip Erdogan is used to winning elections — he served as Turkey’s prime minister for three terms from 2003 and then as president since 2014. He narrowly won a referendum last year that will scrap the role of prime ... Read More »

African states are increasingly confronted by maritime crime and insecurity. One way to address the security of a country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) could be unmanned surface vessels, which are being developed at a… Arie Egozi – defenceWeb To protect the natural resources in the EEZ, which stretch 200 nautical miles from a country’s coastline, countries need almost constant presence in the open seas. One option is unmanned surface vehicles (USVs). Israel recently discovered huge reservoirs of natural gas in the ... Read More »

The world’s biggest waste importer is no longer buying. So where’s all that trash going to go? Eric Roston Bloomberg Few people consider used plastic to be a valuable global commodity. Yet China has imported 106 million tons of old bags, bottles, wrappers and containers worth $57.6 billion since 1992, the first year it disclosed data. So when the country announced last year that it finally had enough of everybody else’s junk, governments the world over knew they had a problem. They just didn’t know exactly ... Read More »

It’s known as the “privacy paradox”: people say they want to protect their data privacy online, but often do little to keep it safe. Why? Authors: The Conversation We propose that it’s because people find data difficult to own – and things we don’t own, we tend not to protect. This is a question of psychological, not legal, ownership, which is more powerful in explaining why we care for things we… Owning data is not like owning a car. If ... Read More »

President Trump’s decision to impose a 25 percent tariff on imported steel from multiple countries will raise consumer prices for lots of products. And one of them is gasoline. Merrill Matthews The Hill The fracking boom has allowed energy companies to drill in places that had never been considered viable or profitable. Once production begins, the crude oil and natural gas have to be transported from the well to the refinery, a phase referred to as “midstream.” That’s where the ... Read More »

The Hungarian parliament has passed new legislation that criminalises lawyers and activists who help asylum seekers. BBC Anyone “facilitating illegal immigration” will face a year in jail. Viktor Orban’s government has dubbed the legislation the “Stop Soros law”, after the billionaire philanthropist it accuses of supporting Muslim migrants. The vote in Budapest came hours after a number of European Union leaders agreed to hold crisis talks on how to overhaul asylum rules. Hungary says immigration… Hungary passes ‘Stop… Read More »

The rapid depreciation in the value of the Turkish Lira since the beginning of 2018 is the product not only of the collapse of any remaining vestiges of investor confidence in the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan but a… Gareth H. Jenkins Turkey Analyst BACKGROUND: When the AKP first took office in November 2002, the Turkish economy was already rebounding from the currency collapse of February 2001 and subsequent sharp recession. The Economic Stabilization Program that the outgoing administration ... Read More »

The United States is leaving the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, which Ambassador Nikki Haley called “an organization that is not worthy of its name.” WASHINGTON – Associated Press Hurriyet It’s the latest withdrawal by the Trump administration from an international institution. Haley said Tuesday the U.S. had given the human rights body “opportunity after opportunity” to make changes. She lambasted the council for “its chronic bias against Israel” and lamented the fact that its membership includes accused human rights abusers such ... Read More »

Kombo Yannick is one of the many African asylum seekers who are braving the longer Latin America route to the US. by Walker Dawson, Caron Creighton & Carlos Mureithi Al-Jazeera Tijuana, Mexico – Kombo Yannick, a 30-year-old pastor from Cameroon, waited in line with about 100 other asylum seekers at the US-Tijuana border on a chilly afternoon in late December. He and his wife had been in Tijuana for two days, and were speaking with an aid worker about where to find a bed ... Read More »

De facto leader in Bucharest tells POLITICO the EU needs to show Romania more respect. Carmen Paun Politico BUCHAREST — Just don’t call him Kaczyński. Liviu Dragnea, president of Romania’s ruling Social Democrats (PSD), may be running the country without being prime minister, like Poland’s Jarosław Kaczyński. And fears are rising at home and in Brussels that he is steering his country in the same “illiberal” direction as Poland and Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. The man himself dismisses talk of any similarity with ... Read More »

Today, if all goes to plan, I will step through the imposing metal gates of Şakran high security prison in Turkey. And there is nowhere else in the world I would rather be. Salil Shetty, Amnesty International I am in Turkey to attend tomorrow’s trial of our jailed Amnesty Turkey honorary chair, Taner Kılıç, in Istanbul. But before the hearing begins I have travelled to the seaside city of Izmir where I have been granted permission to visit Taner for ... Read More »

Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s the Korean Conflict was the most challenging aspect of American history to understand, even with a father who was a decorated veteran of that conflict. Tsarizm Father would not infrequently reminisce about his buddies with him there, yet was not detailed or talkative about battles or events he witnessed in other Korean locales. Now my dad is gone, yet a growing bond and understanding of his past are becoming tangible as I let ... Read More »

BRUSSELS is urging EU member states, companies and organisations to ensure preparations for a “no-deal” Brexit are underway amid concerns Britain has made “no substantial progress” on the Irish border issue. Simon Osborne Express Draft conclusions for next week’s major EU summit warn contingency planning for a hard exit in March 2019 must be accelerated across the bloc. The document says: “The European Council renews its call upon member states and all stakeholders to step up their work on preparedness ... Read More »