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Month: March 2021

Auszeichnung Leipziger Hauptbahnhof zum Besten in Europa gekürt

Leipzig –Der Leipziger Hauptbahnhof ist der beste Bahnhof Europas 2021. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt das „Consumer Choice Center“, das die 50 größten Bahnhöfe Europas unter die Lupe nahm. Leipzig biete Fahrgästen den besten Service. „Er bietet die größte Anzahl an inländischen Zielen und eine Vielzahl an Geschäften und Restaurants. Außerdem nutzen ihn mehrere verschiedene Bahngesellschaften, was ihm insgesamt den ersten Platz einbrachte“, urteilt die Studie.

Die Rangliste setzte sich aus Faktoren, die von der Lage und der Anbindung über das Erlebnis im Bahnhof bis hin zu nationalen und internationalen Verbindungen reichen, zusammen, heißt es. Platz zwei belegte der Wiener Hauptbahnhof vor St. Pancras in London, Amsterdam  Centraal und Moskau Kazansky.

Originally published here.

Her er Europas bedste banegårde

Selv her under Corona, hvor flytrafikken har været næsten lammet, har jernbanerne ikke overtaget opmærksomheden hos hverken politikere, presse eller forbrugere.

Joh – DSB har gjort en indsats for, at vi ikke skal sidde over for hinanden i s-togene, eller at det kræver pladsbestilling at rejse med tog over længere afstande i Danmark.

Men, hvor ofte har I set overskrifter i de store medier om katastrofale passagertal, behov for statslig hjælp for at overleve, eller at hele rejsebranchen er ved at gå konkurs på grund af tog, der ikke kan køre?

Never mind. Jeg ville bare sige, at toge slet ikke har plads i publikums bevidsthed som passagerfly. Måske fordi vi har haft toge i mange flere år end fly, og togrejser ikke skaber så meget prestige som en flyvetur til USA eller Asien.

Det samme gælder jernbane-stationerne. Lufthavne får masser af opmærksomhed, og man sammenligner lystigt deres størrelse, ny-indretning, passager-komfort osv. Hvor ofte gør man det med en banegård?

Den internationale forbruger-organisation Consumer Choice Center (CCC) gør. CCC, der har base i Bruxelles og afdelinger i 100 lande verden over, har netop offentliggjort sit ”European Railway Station Index 2021.”

Det er en sammenligning på kvalitet og service i Europas 50 største banegårde. De er blevet bedømt på en lang række kriterier inklusive antal butikker, muligheder for at købe billet, passager-information, kødannelser, udvalg af destinationer – og i disse moderne tider – Wi-Fi, opladnings-muligheder osv.

Lad det være sagt med det samme. Danmark har ikke en eneste banegård med i den europæiske Top-50. Den højest placerede er Nørreport Station i København, der lander på 51. pladsen hos CCC.

Til gengæld er de tyske banegårde helt på sporet. Tyskland har Europas bedste togstation i Leipziger Hauptbahnhof. Tyskerne har også tre stationer med i Top-10 og 15 med i Top-50.

Her er den aktuelle Top-10 over togstationer. De maksimale antal point er 139, som en banegård kan opnå i CCC’s indeks for 2021:

  1. Leipzig Hauptbahnhof – Tyskland – 116 points
  2. Wien Hauptbahnhof – Østrig – 108
  3. Pancras i London – England – 104
  4. Amsterdam Centraal – Holland – 101
  5. Moskva Kazansky – Rusland – 101
  6. Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof – Tyskland – 96
  7. München Hauptbahnhof – Tyskland – 96
  8. Kursky i Moskva – Rusland – 95
  9. Milano Centrale – Italien – 93
  10. Birmingham New Street – England – 91

Til sammenligning opnåede Danmarks største banegård – Nørreport – i alt 38 points i konkurrencen….

Originally published here.

European Commission Consultation

[EU] First phase consultation of social partners under Article 154 TFEU on possible action addressing the challenges related to working conditions in platform work

This position is in response to the 1st-phase consultation on platform work regulation by the European Commission. The Consumer Choice Center is a consumer organisation, thus not amongst the categories called upon to react to this consultation. That said, with this response we express the urgent call that the consumer point of view is very important in the regulation of platform work, and that we deserve our place in upcoming considerations of the European Commission. Given the status of organisation as a consumer group, we cannot speak in detail on the specific labour regulations. That said, regulation on one area has vertical ramifications on other sectors, meaning that the regulation of platform work has the side-effect of altering, in a positive or negative way, the availability of products and services to consumers.We therefore ask you to consider our point of view in the upcoming consultation process.

  1. Do you consider that the European Commission has correctly and sufficiently identified the issues and the possible areas for EU action?

    The European Commission has provided an extensive overview on the issue, and has contextualised the challenges associated with the issue. The quotes from the document underline this fact. “At the macro-level, not addressing the issues faced by people working through plat-forms in the EU may have repercussions for European labour markets and societies aggravating labour market segmentation and inequalities and potentially leading to a diminished fiscal base for EU governments and thus reducing the effectiveness of social security systems.”

    and

    “Overly restrictive regulation could have a stifling effect on innovation and job creation potential, especially for smaller-scale European scale-ups and start-ups and self-employed persons, depending on its scope.”

    This displays a differentiated view on the issue of platform work and the implications of incoming regulation. However, we believe that the Commission has underestimated the consumer perspective in its analysis. All actors, including platform workers themselves, are benefactors of the sharing economy — through its potential for reducing cost and efficiency, as well as thorough environmental benefits.

    Ride-sharing platforms have given the opportunity to reduce costs for all consumers in major cities, allowing market entry to a new set of consumers, i.e. those consumers who were previously unable to afford a ride in the traditional taxi market.

    This does not only apply to short rides with platforms such as Uber, Bolt, or Heetch, but also to long-distance travel through carpooling sites such as BlaBlaCar. These services have enabled a more social experience, all while being more environmentally-friendly due to the optimisation of resources.

    Other sharing economy services have provided more flexibility and work-life balance to all consumers and those who use the services, for instance through co-working spaces. Adding to that, businesses have found new opportunities, such as through the connection of smart delivery services. The European Commission should account for the added value of platform work for consumers.
  2. Do you consider that EU action is needed to effectively address the identified is-sues and achieve the objectives presented?

    EU action can help facilitate coordination between member states, particularly when a service crosses borders. For instance, an Uber crossing from one country to another. That said, we do not believe that there is a legitimate need for EU action on this topic, due to the diverse nature of sharing economy services. Member states face different challenges in the area of housing, mobility, and other consumer products and services, and therefore a blanket legislative approach would not be appropriate. Each member state should make the necessary regulatory decisions.

    This does not only apply to the question of consumer policy, but also in the realm of labour regulations. Knowing that there are different social security requirements in all member states, a regulatory alignment in one sector could excessively complicate the interior rules system of each country. Adding to that, this approach does not allow for regional specificities. For instance, the mobility sector might be burdened with a restrictive licensing system, which can only be alleviated with the introduction of a ride-sharing platform. Making it more difficult for the latter to be introduced would hurt consumers.

    If we are to follow the principles of the single market, the European Commission should uphold the legality of ride-sharing services throughout the bloc.

Facebook, Australia and the pitfalls of online regulation

“Facebook has re-friended Australia.” Those were the words of Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg to a gaggle of reporters in Canberra this week, in an ever-so-slightly smug declaration of victory in the regulatory battle between his government and the embattled social media giant.

His statement came after Facebook, having kicked up an almighty storm – and generated a great deal of bad press for itself in the process – eventually gave in and backed down from its sudden ban of all news content for Australian users. It followed Google’s example and entered into negotiations with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, among others, begrudgingly agreeing to pay to host their content on its platform, as mandated by the new Australian law.

This situation is profoundly troubling. The core of the dispute is the new law spelling out how tech giants like Facebook and Google, which host external news links on their platforms, must negotiate with the providers of that content.

Anybody can see that the idea of government-mandated negotiation doesn’t make much logical sense. If two consenting parties have a mutually-beneficial agreement where one facilitates the sharing of the other’s content, where is the role of the government to step in and demand that money changes hands?

It’s not clear what problem the Australian Government believes is being solved here. It has intervened in the market arbitrarily, making one side very happy and the other very miserable. But to what end? Worryingly, this appears to be just the latest front in a troubling new trend of governments arbitrarily meddling in an industry where innovation and productivity are booming. Sadly, governments are often inclined to do this.

California, for instance, recently won the right in court to implement its harsh net neutrality rules, the first state to come close to replicating the ill-fated far-reaching Obama-era law. Meanwhile, the European Union has declared its intention to keep tabs on big tech with a raft of new policy ideas, including annual check-ins with the European Commission about what steps companies are taking to “tackle illegal and harmful content”.

There is no easy answer to the question of how we should go about regulating the online market. The UK Government is at something of a crossroads in this area. It is currently consulting on the parameters of its new Digital Markets Unit (DMU) with the existing Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

When considering the role of the DMU, the British Government would do well to learn from the mistakes of others from around the world and seek to prioritise the interests of consumers, rather than coming down rigidly on one side of the fence and cowing to the demands of one enormous lobbying operation or another, as the Australian Government appears to have done.

The DMU, in the words of its architects and proponents, will be “a pro-competition regime”, which will mean that “consumers will be given more choice and control over how their data is used and small businesses will be able to better promote their products online”. Those stated aims – making life easier for users and paving the way for the Steve Jobs of tomorrow – seem wholly positive.

But the Government briefing also says that the DMU will implement “a new statutory code of conduct” in order to “help rebalance the relationship between publishers and online platforms”. It is too early to say whether our Government is planning to go down the same road as Australia’s, but that rhetoric sounds ominous, to say the least.

There is certainly a vacancy for the DMU to fill, but the underdog it should be propping up is not Rupert Murdoch. There is a difficult balance to be struck between maintaining an environment where the existing tech giants are able to continue innovating and elevating our standard of living, while also fostering a truly competitive environment by removing obstacles for their smaller – but growing – competitors, along with new start-ups. That is the fine line the Government must tread.

Originally published here.

Conservative Home Logo

Dowden’s latest task? Regulating the internet. Here’s what Australia can teach us about that challenge.

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden finds himself burdened with an almighty task: regulating the internet. His new ‘Digital Markets Unit’, set to form part of the existing Competitions and Markets Authority, will be the quango in charge of regulating the social media giants. Dowden, like the rest of us, is now trying to discern what can be learned by rummaging through the rubble left behind by the regulatory punch-up between Facebook and the Australian government over a new law forcing online platforms to pay news companies in order to host links to their content.

Google acquiesced immediately, agreeing to government-mandated negotiations with news producers. But Facebook looked ready to put up a fight, following through on its threat to axe all news content from its Australian services. It wasn’t long, though, before Mark Zuckerberg backed down, unblocked the Facebook pages of Australian newspapers and, through gritted teeth, agreed to set up a direct debit to Rupert Murdoch.

The drama down under has been met with a mixed response around the world, but it is broadly consistent with the trend of governments shifting towards more and more harmful and intrusive interference in the technology sector, directly undermining consumers’ interests and lining Murdoch’s pockets. The EU, for one, is keen to get stuck in, disregarding the status quo and unveiling its ambitious plan to keep tabs on the tech giants.

In the US, the situation is rather different. Some conspiracy theorists – the type who continue to believe that Donald Trump is the rightful president of the United States – like to allege that the infamous Section 230, the item of US legislation which effectively regulates social media there, was crafted in cahoots with big tech lobbyists as a favour to bigwigs at Facebook, Google, Twitter, and so on. In reality, Section 230 was passed as part of the Communications Decency Act in 1996, long before any of those companies existed.

Wildly overhyped by many as a grand DC-Silicon Valley conspiracy to shut down the right’s online presence, Section 230 is actually very short and very simple. It is, in fact, just 26 words long: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

Not only is this a good starting point from which to go about regulating the internet – it is the only workable starting point. If the opposite were true – if platforms were treated as publishers and held liable for the content posted by their users – competition would suffer immensely. Incumbent giants like Facebook would have no problem employing a small army of content moderators to insulate themselves, solidifying their position at the top of the food chain. Meanwhile, smaller companies – the Zuckerbergs of tomorrow – would be unable to keep up, resulting in a grinding halt to innovation and competition.

Another unintended consequence – a clear theme when it comes to undue government meddling in complex matters – would be that vibrant online spaces would quickly become unusable as companies scramble to moderate platforms to within an inch of their lives in order to inoculate themselves against legal peril.

Even with the protections currently in place, it is plain how awful platforms are at moderating content. There are thousands of examples of well-intentioned moderation gone wrong. In January, the Entrepreneurs Network’s Sam Dumitriu found himself plonked in Twitter jail for a tweet containing the words “vaccine” and “microchip” in an attempt to call out a NIMBY’s faulty logic. Abandoning the fundamental Section 230 provision would only make this problem much, much worse by forcing platforms to moderate much more aggressively than they already do.

Centralisation of policy in this area fails consistently whether it comes from governments or the private sector because it is necessarily arbitrary and prone to human error. When Facebook tried to block Australian news outlets, it also accidentally barred the UK-based output of Sky News and the Telegraph, both of which have Australian namesakes. State-sanctioned centralisation of policy, though, is all the more dangerous, especially now that governments seem content to tear up the rulebook and run riot over the norms of the industry almost at random, resulting in interventions which are both ineffectual and harmful.

The Australian intervention in the market is so arbitrary that it could easily have been the other way around: forcing News Corp to pay Facebook for the privilege of having its content shared freely by people all over the world. Perhaps the policy would even make more sense that way round. If someone was offering news outlets a promotional package with a reach comparable to Facebook’s usership, the value of that package on the ad market would be enormous.

Making people pay to have their links shared makes no sense at all. Never in the history of the internet has anybody had to pay to share a link. In fact, the way the internet works is precisely the opposite: individuals and companies regularly fork out large sums of money in order to put their links on more people’s screens.

If you’d said to a newspaper editor twenty years ago that they would soon have free access to virtual networks where worldwide promotion of their content would be powered by organic sharing, they would have leapt for joy. A regulator coming along and decreeing that the provider of that free service now owes money to the newspaper editor is patently ludicrous.

That is not to say, however, that there is no role for a regulator to play. But whether or not the Digital Markets Unit will manage to avoid the minefield of over-regulation remains to be seen. As things stand, there is a very real danger that we might slip down that road. Matt Hancock enthusiastically endorsed the Australian government’s approach, and Oliver Dowden has reportedly been chatting with his counterparts down under about this topic.

The humdrum of discourse over this policy area was already growing, but the Australia-Facebook debacle has ignited it. The stars have aligned such that 2021 is the long-awaited point when the world’s governments finally attempt to reckon with the tech behemoths. From the US to Brussels, from Australia to the Baltics, the amount of attention being paid to this issue is booming.

As UK government policy begins to take shape, expect to see fronts forming between different factions within the Conservative Party on this issue. When it comes to material consequences in Britain, it is not yet clear what all this will mean. The Digital Markets Unit could yet be a hero or a villain.

Originally published here.

Michael Bloomberg turns the dial on Indian health policy

By Shrey Madaan

Large sodas, alcohol, vaping devices and the Internet are just a few of the things the World Health Organization wants to keep us away from.

Lawmakers say it is safeguarding its subjects from evil elements in order to protect them. But many critics also believe Indian sensibilities are composed of graver stuff and are concerned about India’s transition to a “Nanny State”.

The Nanny State is the idea of a government or authorities behaving too protective for their constituents, i.e interfering with their personal choice and hindering their liberty and right to life. 

This is something we have seen Bloomberg Philanthropies try to establish here in India. For years, Bloomberg Philanthropies has bestowed billions of dollars to global issues close to the billionaire’s heart such as education, environment and public health, transforming Bloomberg into a sort of flamboyant private government. 

This is evident when he began the Anti-Tobacco Campaign in India, causing a drastic boom on tobacco products, laying a strong foundation for intellectual precision on imposing bans on vaping devices and persuading the Health Ministry to adopt larger health warnings on various consumer goods

Thanks to his Nanny State mission, Michael Bloomberg was named as World Health Organisation’s “Global Ambassador For Non-communicable Diseases and Injuries,” a mission funded by himself for many years.

While it’s noteworthy to appreciate Bloomberg’s recent expenditures into Covid-19 research, his prolonged mission to spread the nanny state overseas via the soft power of the WHO is not only paternalistic but derogatory as well. This emphasis on soft power and negligence towards substantive reforms highlights the inefficiency of WHO. 

Their focus on soft power is evident from foisting soda taxes, imposing bans on e-cigarettes and vaping devices in third world countries and initiating Anti-Tobacco campaigns like here in India. Because the WHO and Bloomberg put so much emphasis on these various issues, it is not too difficult to draw a line between those activities and the failure of the WHO to help contain the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in China. 

These lapses in Covid response, together with WHO detracting from its mission to safeguard us from pandemics, is a principal reason for opposing the global Nanny State expansion by people like Bloomberg. The recent channelling of funds into Indian non-profit agencies in exchange for a strong lobby against tobacco products and safer alternatives have called the credibility of Billionaire’s influence in question and has brought them under scrutiny. 

In response, the Indian government increased surveillance of non-profit groups, stating their actions to be against national interests. The Indian government tightened the scrutiny of NGOs registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). The action has been opposed by critics claiming the use of foreign funding law by the government as a weapon to suppress non-profit groups concerned about social repercussions of Indian economic growth. 

The note drafted by the Home Ministry’s Intelligence wing raised concerns about targeting Indian businesses and its aggressive lobby against them. The three-page note acknowledged Bloomberg’s intention to free India from tobacco and other products but also elaborated upon the significance of the sector bringing revenue of 5 billion dollars annually for the governments, and employment generated for millions. The note also highlighted the negative implications of aggressive lobby against the sector and how it threatens the livelihood of 35 million people. 

The steps to promoting soft power Nanny State are not only appreciated but are aided by WHO. That is where WHO is pushing us into the abyss. Instead of providing doctors and health care workers with necessary supplies and honing the health care systems, the opulence of Bloomberg has commissioned the WHO as a “Global Police” enforcing taxes and bans on a plethora of consumer products around the world. 

Bloomberg’s Nanny Missions emerged as a grim threat to the health care sector, making the current pandemic more threatening. Let us hope we do not feel the repercussions here at home. 

Originally published here.

Capx logo

Knee-jerk reactions are no way to regulate big tech

Regulation enthusiasts around the world have set their sights on big tech.

In the UK, the outlet for this newfound appetite to rein in Silicon Valley is a brand new quango called the Digital Markets Unit [DMU], set to form part of the existing Competition and Markets Authority [CMA]. Specifics about the DMU’s remit are hard to come by, but the Government says it intends to foster a ‘pro-competition regime’ as it adapts the regulatory landscape to the challenges of big tech.

Oliver Dowden, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and the minister holding the levers of power behind the DMU, is keeping his cards close to his chest. His stance remains murky, for instance, on the recent regulatory punch-up between Facebook and the Australian government. State powers down under emerged victorious after Mark Zuckerberg agreed to fork out new fees in order to host news links on Facebook.

Dowden has reportedly been chatting to his Australian counterparts – and has sent cryptic messages to the t-shirt-wearing gurus across the Atlantic (and Nick Clegg) – but has yet to come down on either side of the fence or offer any substantial hints about whether or not Britain might follow in Australia’s footsteps.

Others in Westminster appear much keener on an agenda of active hostility towards the American tech giants. Matt Hancock has already said he wants to see the UK mimic Australia’s hamstringing of social media companies by forcing them to pay news producers, calling himself a ‘great admirer’ of countries which have done so successfully.

Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak is already planning his next move. In the manner of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Dictator in a 100-metre sprint firing a gun at runners as they pull out ahead, Sunak has set his sights on the uber-successful technology industry, and wants to slow that success down by taxing it.

Not only does Sunak want to penalise tech giants for their successful business models with a new tax, he is also planning to use this year’s G7 summit in sandy Cornwall to lobby his international counterparts to do the same, with US treasury secretary Janet Yellen first in line to hear his pitch, which has the support of the Prime Minister. Companies like Amazon are already taxed for their digital services in the UK, but the chancellor views the current system as a stopgap until a global tech tax can be implemented.

This dramatic influx of punitive policies is set to do much more harm than good. Some new regulation may well be needed in this area – but there is an urgent danger that the Government will hurriedly execute a raft of headline-hungry policies which will do immeasurable damage in the longer term.

Poorly thought-out attempts to ‘level the playing field’ between old and new forms of commerce is not the area where post-Brexit Britain should be chasing a world-leading status. Instead, let’s set an example for what a modern, free economy which regulates big tech without being hostile towards it can look like. It’s not too late to keep the Digital Markets Unit’s in-house red tape production line from getting out of hand.

Originally published here.

The impending war with big tech

The last few weeks have seen a substantial ramping up of rhetoric from Westminster towards big tech. Facebook’s dramatic show of power against – and subsequent capitulation to – the Australian government over its new law obliging it to pay news outlets to host their content made for gripping viewing, and it has since become clear that senior ministers across the British government were tuning in to the action.

Matt Hancock came bursting out of the blocks to declare himself a ‘great admirer’ of countries which have proposed laws forcing tech giants to pay for journalism. Rishi Sunak has been bigging-up this year’s G7 summit, which will be held in Cornwall. From the way he is talking, it sounds like he is preparing to lead an army of finance ministers from around the world into battle with Silicon Valley.

Meanwhile, Oliver Dowden, the cabinet minister with responsibility for media and technology, indicated that he has been chatting to his Australian counterparts to learn more about the thinking behind their policymaking process. He followed that up with a series of stark and very public warnings to the businesses themselves,promising to “keep a close eye” on Facebook and Twitter, voicing his “grave concern” over the way big tech companies are operating and threatening sanctions if they step out of line.

This one-way war of words comes against the backdrop of a menacing new regulatory body slowly looming into view. The Digital Markets Unit, a quango which is set to form part of the existing Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), will be the chief weapon in the government’s armoury. As things stand, we know very little about what it is intended to achieve.

Big tech in its current form is a young industry, still struggling with teething problems as it learns how to handle owning all the information in the world. There are plenty of areas where Facebook, Google, Amazon and countless others are arguably falling short in their practices, from users’ privacy to threats to journalists, which Dowden and others have picked up on.

But the natural instinct of state actors to step in has the potential to be cataclysmically damaging. The government is running out of patience with the free market and seems poised to intervene. Countless times, haphazard central policy has quashed innovation and sent private money tumbling out of the country. Against the backdrop of the forthcoming corporation tax rise, there is a fine balance to strike between effective regulation and excessive state interference.

The nature of government interventions is that they block innovation, and therefore progress. Superfluous regulation is like a dazed donkey milling about in the middle of the road, bringing the traffic to a halt. Of course, the donkey is then given a charity collection bucket and the power to oblige passers-by to contribute a slice of their income for the privilege of driving society forwards, generating unfathomable wealth and providing us all with access to free services which have improved our quality of life beyond measure.

As the government ponders the appropriate parameters of the new Digital Markets Unit and seeks to place arbitrary limits on what big tech companies can do for the first time in the history of their existence, it should consider users’ interests first. There is a strong case to be made for shoring up the rights of individuals and cracking down more harshly on abuse and other worrying trends. But let’s not fall into the same trap as our cousins Down Under in making online services more expensive to use and passing those costs down to consumers.

As the much-fabled ‘post-Brexit Global Britain’ begins to take shape, we have a valuable opportunity to set an example for the rest of the world on how to go about regulating the technology giants. The standards we will have to meet to do that are not terribly high. In essence, all the government needs to do is avoid the vast, swinging, ham-fisted meddling which has so often characterised attempts at regulation in the past and Britain can become something of a world leader in this field.

Originally published here.

To fight human rights abuses, we should protect credible brands

In recent years, there has been welcome attention paid to how worker safety and rights are protected in countries that trade with Europe….

While most trade takes place within legal and regulated channels, there remains an entire sector of the global economy that peddles in knock-offs and illicit goods.

The threats posed by illegal trade go way beyond safety and product quality considerations. The creation of parallel supply chains that have no respect for human rights imperils our shared efforts to ensure that all humans are treated with respect and dignity. 

The European Union should level up on its efforts to expose forced child labour and harsh treatment of workers across the world by raising awareness about these activities through its anti-illicit trade policies, and by partnering up with affected brand owners to eradicate abuses and illegal trade.

Often, we lack knowledge about how specific products make it to our local stores. Let us use chocolate as an example. Labourers produce cocoa in South America and West Africa, and then it’s sent to Europe where chocolate makers turn cocoa into chocolate bars that we see on our shelves. The cases of child labour in these areas are numerous and, likely, many of these illegal practices go undetected. In Mexico, for example, products such as green beans, coffee, cucumbers, and tobacco are often produced by using child labour, some legal and some not. As of 2019, 152 million children were still in child labour. 

China’s reluctance to abide by liberal values, in this regard, is well-known. It was estimated that at least 100,000 Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities are being subjected to forced labour in China following detention in re-education camps. Cruel treatment is used to produce gloves, clothing, and consumer products that are later shipped to Europe. Illegal trade, from this perspective, is any kind of economic exchange that involves human rights abuses at any of its stages. 

Brands globally strive to achieve sustainability and enforce labour standards while parallel supply chains only exist to generate quick profits by exploiting legal loopholes and using other human beings as a means to an end. Moreover, illegal trade has been linked to terrorism and the same groups that smuggle cigarettes and goods also traffic humans and weapons.

Cigarettes are among the most illegally trafficked goods in the world. The global black market for tobacco products is large and growing, and in countries that are among the world’s largest tobacco producers such as Brazil and Malawi, the incidence of child labour is high. Children who are involved in illegal work miss out on their chance to get an education and to elevate their status in their own societies. As a result, developing regions continue to cripple with poverty.

As in the case of cocoa, gloves and other consumer goods, the only way to know for sure that what we buy was produced and shipped legally is by putting trust in specific brands. EU policies and those of member states should encourage branding and marketing of goods produced legally and in accordance with human rights conventions in order to root out parallel supply chains. Restrictive tax policies punish official retailers and open doors to criminals who disregard basic human rights and would do anything to get the profits they seek.

An effective partnership between affected brands and government bodies is the way to address abuses and illegal activities. The Achieving Reduction of Child Labour in Support of Education (ARISE) programme executed by the International Labour Organisation is a great example of such cooperation in action. Through addressing the identified social and economic factors that encourage small-scale tobacco farmers to employ children in dangerous work, it prevents and makes strides towards the elimination of child labour in supply chains.

In conclusion, illegal trade that is facilitated through parallel supply chains that abuse human rights exists because of the dynamic loopholes in place. Every government effort to stamp out some goods – such as cigarettes – out of the market by taxing them and imposing various marketing restrictions is a call for criminal groups who use child labour and forced labour to scale up their work. 

Driven by profit, criminals completely ignore basic ethical considerations and know no boundaries. While law enforcement is crucial, is it also important to make sure that consumers can readily access information about goods produced by trustworthy brands, and that those are available so there is no incentive to turn to the black market.

Originally published here.

Bloomberg’s misguided push to outlaw vaping in developing nations

Since the fallout from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a renewed focus on improving global health, and that’s been a welcome sign.

A study produced by the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that nearly three-quarters of hospitalized COVID patients were either obese or overweight. At the same time across the European Union, health ministries have put more resources into keeping their populations healthy, using education and incentive programs to encourage children and youth to exercise, eat healthy foods, and more.

Several of these initiatives have been funded and promoted by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the chief charity vehicle of American billionaire media executive Michael Bloomberg. His charity focuses on causes Bloomberg passionately has championed for years: climate change, public health, education, and the arts.

In October of 2020, Bloomberg’s charity partnered with the Brussels-Capital Region Government for an initiative on air pollution and sustainability, boosting his role as the World Health Organization’s “Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries.”

And while most of Bloomberg’s efforts to improve public health are well-intended, there are cases when the groups he funds are pursuing policies that would be detrimental to the health outcomes of ordinary people, especially when it comes to tobacco control.

Though there is a commitment to reduce tobacco use in middle and low-income countries, a significant part of Bloomberg’s philanthropic fortune has ended up going to global efforts to clamp down on novel vaping products, which do not contain tobacco, and have been proven to be instrumental in getting smokers to quit.

Across the globe, as the use of vaping devices has become more widespread, the number of daily smokers has continued to decrease, hitting low teen digits in many developed economies. This is an amazing achievement. Regardless of that, many of these charities are still dedicated to their destruction.

The conflation between vapers who use non-tobacco-containing vaping devices, mostly fabricated by small companies out of Asia and Europe, and the tobacco industry, however, has shifted the focus of these billion-dollar health efforts.

In direct competition with the all-powerful tobacco industry, independent companies have created alternative devices that are cheap, less harmful, and provide the real potential to quit. The vast majority of vapers use open-tank devices and liquids that do not contain tobacco, a point that is often glossed over in the debate.

Despite the rise of a technological and less harmful method of delivering nicotine through vaporizers, the well-funded tobacco control complex has retooled its efforts to ban vaping outright, using a series of drafted bills, gifts to health departments, and questionable foreign funding of domestic political campaigns.

This has been aided by Michael Bloomberg’s $1 billion global initiative on tobacco control.

In the Philippines, a federal investigation revealed that health regulators received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Bloomberg-affiliated charity before they presented a draft bill to outlaw vaping devices. Congressional representatives have complained that the law was presented with no debate, and came only after the large grant was received by the country’s Food & Drug Administration.

In Mexico, just this past week, it was revealed that a staff lawyer for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, one of the largest global tobacco control groups funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, drafted the law to severely restrict imports and sales of vaping devices. It is alleged that Carmen Medel, president of the health committee of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, contracted the charity to “advise” on the law, but ended up submitting a draft bill that still contained the name of the NGO lawyer who wrote the law.

This is compounded by ongoing investigations into foreign NGO influence on similar policies in India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi severed ties with the Bloomberg charity after his domestic intelligence services raised concerns.

What makes all of these efforts a tragedy is that a real victory for public health is being stifled in countries that cannot afford it.

In nations where vaping is endorsed and recommended by health authorities, such as the United Kingdom and New Zealand, real reductions in the number of smokers can be seen.

Unfortunately, though Michael Bloomberg’s charitable giving has been significant and well-intended, the groups that receive that money for tobacco control have made the deadly mistake of equating the cigarette to the real alternative of the vaping device. And that will be to the detriment of global health on a massive scale.

Originally published here.

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