Ivory Coast, support for recovery and democracyThe EU supports the efforts of Côte d’Ivoire for a return to stability and recovery, notably as relates to national democracy and security; food and health services and the economy. The EU Council intends to provide full support. “The turmoil after the presidential elections in Côte d’Ivoire at the end of 2010 resulted in civil war and the arrest of former President Laurent Gbagbo in April. The crisis has left the country with a complex political situation and urgent humanitarian aid needs”, the Council stated in a release. The most pressing objectives, according to the EU body, are “the restoration of security and law and order, the re-launch of the economy and securing the food supply. More than one million people are internally displaced, and at least 130 000 have fled into neighbouring Liberia and Ghana”. “Food and medicine are short, agriculture and food production must get going again, and clinics and hospitals must be reopened”. The EU “supports the efforts of Côte d’Ivoire for a return to stability and recovery”. The EU and its member states have already mobilised a total of 60 million euros in humanitarian aid. “Another 180 million euros have been pledged in development assistance, primarily for agriculture. Other important areas to be covered are stability and recovery of the country, the national reconciliation process and reform of the security sector and demobilisation”.EMCDDA and Europol report on online drug traffickingA total of “41 new psychoactive substances were officially notified for the first time to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and Europol in 2010”, states the EMCDDA-Europol report released May 11 in Lisbon, that hosts the seat of the EU drugs agency. “A record number of new drugs were officially reported in 2010, considerably up on 2009 and 2008”. Experts conveyed their concern over the diffusion of synthetic cannabinoids, synthetic cathinones, synthetic derivatives of well-established drugs, as well as one plant-based substance. EMCDDA-Europol guard the so-called ‘Spice’ phenomenon, better known as “legal marijuana”. The Report underlines the dangers linked to Internet illegal drug marketing, aimed at preventing the dealers’ exposure. EMCDDA Director Wolfgang Götz and Europol director Rob Wainwright, highlighted the need to anticipate future challenges and emerging threats by improving our capacity for investigative forensic analysis and research at European level together with Europol. Wainwright added: “Organised crime groups are increasingly active in producing and distributing drugs which can be associated with ecstasy. Together with our law-enforcement partners in the EU, Europol is determined to combat this phenomenon”.Kroes (Commission): tools for online translationA Eurobarometer survey published May 11 confirms that English is the most commonly used language. Accordingly, “90% of Internet surfers in the EU prefer to access websites in their own language, 55% at least occasionally use a language other than their own”, in which case it is English; while Spanish, German and French are less used. As many as “44% of respondents feel that they miss interesting information because web pages are not in a language that they understand”, while only 18% of EU internet users buy online in another language. The results, states the EU Commission, “underline the need for investment in online translation tools, so that EU Internet users are not excluded from finding information or products online because they lack the language skills”. Currently the European Commission manages 30 different research projects working at the interface of language and digital content, supported by 67 million of EU funding and “the new projects submitted this year will get an additional 50 million”. Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice President for the Digital Agenda, said: “If we are serious about making every European digital, we need to make sure that they can understand the web content they want”. The research highlights also shows that on average one out of two Internet users in twenty-three Member States uses a language other than their own to read online. However this figure hides great variations as between 90 and 93% of Greeks, Slovenes, Luxembourgers, Maltese and Cypriots indicated they would use other languages when online, but only 9% of UK citizens, 11% of Irish, 23% of Czechs and 25% of Italians said they would do so.
