company:the associated press

  • A firsthand report of ‘inhumane conditions’ at a migrant children’s detention facility | PBS NewsHour
    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/a-firsthand-report-of-inhumane-conditions-at-a-migrant-childrens-detention-faci

    Editor’s Note: After our broadcast, CPB responded to our request for comment with the following statement:

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) leverages our limited resources to provide the best care possible to those in our custody, especially children. As DHS and CBP leadership have noted numerous times, our short-term holding facilities were not designed to hold vulnerable populations and we urgently need additional humanitarian funding to manage this crisis. CBP works closely with our partners at the Department of Health and Human Services to transfer unaccompanied children to their custody as soon as placement is identified, and as quickly and expeditiously as possible to ensure proper care.

    All allegations of civil rights abuses or mistreatment in CBP detention are taken seriously and investigated to the fullest extent possible.

    The Associated Press details grave conditions inside a Texas migrant detention facility where 250 infants, children and teenagers were being held without adequate food, water or sanitation during a recent visit. Warren Binford, a law professor at Willamette University, joins William Brangham to share her firsthand account, what Border Patrol agents think and what’s next for these children.

    #états-unis #migrations #enfants #camps_de_concentration

  • Venezuela la crise est telle que les homicides baissent de 20% : les criminels n’ont plus les moyens de s’acheter des balles. Certains songent même à émigrer.

    In Venezuela, criminals feel the pinch of an economic crisis
    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/venezuela-criminals-feel-pinch-economic-crisis-n1010696


    A masked gangster who goes by the nickname “El Negrito” poses for a portrait with his gun inside his gang’s safe-house in the Petare slum of Caracas, Venezuela, on May 13, 2019.
    Rodrigo Abd / AP

    The feared street gangster El Negrito sleeps with a pistol under his pillow and says he’s lost track of his murder count. But despite his hardened demeanor, he’s quick to gripe about how Venezuela’s failing economy is cutting into his profits.

    Firing a gun has become a luxury. Bullets are expensive at $1 each. And with less cash circulating on the street, he says robberies just don’t pay like they used to.

    For the 24-year-old, that has all given way to a simple fact: Even for Venezuelan criminals it’s become harder to get by.

    If you empty your clip, you’re shooting off $15,” said El Negrito, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition he be identified only by his street name and photographed wearing a hoodie and face mask to avoid attracting unwelcomed attention. “You lose your pistol or the police take it and you’re throwing away $800.

    Officials of President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist administration stopped publishing statistics charting crime trends long ago.

    But in something of an unexpected silver lining to the country’s all-consuming economic crunch, experts say armed assaults and killings are plummeting in one of the world’s most violent nations. At the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, a Caracas-based nonprofit group, researchers estimate homicides have plunged up to 20% over the last three years based on tallies from media clippings and sources at local morgues.

  • L’Iran serait-il derrière les sabotages de pétroliers aux Émirats Arabes Unis ?
    https://www.ouest-france.fr/monde/iran/l-iran-serait-il-derriere-les-sabotages-de-petroliers-aux-emirats-arabe

    Ces attaques ont provoqué une montée des tensions dans le Golfe, au moment où Donald Trump mettait une nouvelle fois en garde l’Iran contre tout passage à l’acte contre les intérêts américains.

    L’Iran veut la guerre, et elle organise donc des sabotages sans intérêt stratégique particulier. Et comme nous, en Occident, sommes particulièrement bien équipés pour analyser les faits et gestes des pays inférieurs du reste du monde, nous titrons que l’Iran veut la guerre, et qu’elle organise des sabotages sans intérêt stratégique particulier.

    Ah. On raconte en conclusion que ce sont peut être les « alliés » de l’Iran, là, ceux qui se font zigouiller au Yémen avec des armes occidentales et françaises, qui seraient peut-être responsables de ces sabotages...

    Avertissement sans frais ou raid commando qui a en partie échoué ? Difficile à dire. Tout comme, il serait imprudent de blâmer Téhéran pour cette action pour le moins concertée. C’est pourtant ce que font des fonctionnaires US qui accusent les Iraniens « ou leurs alliés » d’être derrière ces attaques

  • What’s Really Going On in #Kashmir? - Antiwar.com Original
    https://original.antiwar.com/reese_erlich/2019/03/08/whats-really-going-on-in-kashmir

    I learned from my hosts that a number of major rivers flow through Kashmir, a vital source of drinking water, irrigation and hydroelectric power for both countries. Whatever country controls the water has a major impact on the entire region.

    Many years ago US water expert David Lilienthal wrote, "No army, with bombs and shellfire could devastate a land as thoroughly as Pakistan could be devastated by the simple expedient of India’s permanently shutting off the sources of water that keep the fields and the people of Pakistan alive.”

    A 1960 treaty allows Pakistan to use most of the water, but India has consistently tried to take back as much as it can.

    Prof. Ahmad said Kashmir also occupies an important geopolitical location in an area that borders India, Pakistan and China. The country that dominates Kashmir has “strategic leverage” in the region, he said.

    [...]

    When India gained independence in 1947, a bitter struggle broke out. India was to become a predominantly Hindu country while Pakistan was overwhelmingly Muslim. A Hindu maharaja ruled over the principality of Kashmir, which was mostly Muslim. The maharaja brought Kashmir into India. A war broke out; India took control of land containing the majority of the Kashmiri population and Pakistan took the thinly populated remainder. The countries fought two more wars over Kashmir in 1965 and 1999.

    Indian leaders have continuously argued that Kashmir is legally part of India. The opposition to India’s rule is fueled by Pakistan, they claim, and is dominated by Muslim terrorist groups. They further assert that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are happy with Indian rule.

    In reality, the people of Kashmir have never acceded to Indian occupation. Human rights groups, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, have accused the Indian military of detention without trial, torture and murder. Indian repression has resulted in 100,000 civilians deaths between 1989-2011, according to Pakistani media. The Associated Press estimates 70,000 deaths between 1989 to the present.

    In 1989, Kashmiris launched an armed rebellion against Indian rule. Indian authorities claimed that the Kashmiris were armed by Pakistan and led by Muslim extremist groups. But the movement’s leading organization, the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, was secular. As Ahmad explained, the movement contained both secular and religious components, much like the Arab Spring of 2011.

    The key element, he said, was that the 1989 uprising “was entirely indigenous. It was a mass uprising.”

    The mid-1990s saw the rise of conservative political Islamist groups sponsored by the Pakistani military and intelligence services, which sought to control the Kashmiri movement for their own interests.

    The Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM), for example, has bombed civilians and engaged in plane hijacking. It took credit for the suicide explosion that killed the Indian soldiers last month. JEM adheres to a right-wing ideology based on political Islam, and an extremist interpretation of Sharia law.

    India accuses the Pakistani government of supporting and giving sanctuary to the JEM. “If the Pakistani state is not supporting them,” conceded Prof. Ahmad, “it’s certainly not stopping them. That’s unfortunate because it allows India to portray the struggle as dominated by terrorists.”

    #Inde #Pakistan #eau

  • Undercover agents target cybersecurity watchdog who detailed Israeli firm NSO’s link to #Khashoggi scandal
    Haaretz.Com
    https://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/.premium-undercover-agents-target-watchdog-who-detailed-israeli-firm-nso-s-

    Operatives with fake identities are pursuing members of #Citizen_Lab, the group that uncovered the connection between Jamal Khashoggi’s murder and Israel’s surveillance company #NSO
    The Associated Press | Jan. 26, 2019 | 4:19 PM

    The researchers who reported that Israeli software was used to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s inner circle before his gruesome death are being targeted in turn by international undercover operatives, The Associated Press has found.

    Twice in the past two months, men masquerading as socially conscious investors have lured members of the Citizen Lab internet watchdog group to meetings at luxury hotels to quiz them for hours about their work exposing Israeli surveillance and the details of their personal lives. In both cases, the researchers believe they were secretly recorded.

    Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert described the stunts as “a new low.”

    “We condemn these sinister, underhanded activities in the strongest possible terms,” he said in a statement Friday. “Such a deceitful attack on an academic group like the Citizen Lab is an attack on academic freedom everywhere.”

    Who these operatives are working for remains a riddle, but their tactics recall those of private investigators who assume elaborate false identities to gather intelligence or compromising material on critics of powerful figures in government or business.

    Citizen Lab, based out of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, has for years played a leading role in exposing state-backed hackers operating in places as far afield as Tibet , Ethiopia and Syria . Lately the group has drawn attention for its repeated exposés of an Israeli surveillance software vendor called the NSO Group, a firm whose wares have been used by governments to target journalists in Mexico , opposition figures in Panama and human rights activists in the Middle East .

    In October, Citizen Lab reported that an iPhone belonging to one of Khashoggi’s confidantes had been infected by the NSO’s signature spy software only months before Khashoggi’s grisly murder. The friend, Saudi dissident Omar Abdulaziz, would later claim that the hacking had exposed Khashoggi’s private criticisms of the Saudi royal family to the Arab kingdom’s spies and thus “played a major role” in his death.

    In a statement, NSO denied having anything to do with the undercover operations targeting Citizen Lab, “either directly or indirectly” and said it had neither hired nor asked anyone to hire private investigators to pursue the Canadian organization. “Any suggestion to the contrary is factually incorrect and nothing more than baseless speculation,” NSO said.

    NSO has long denied that its software was used to target Khashoggi, although it has refused to comment when asked whether it has sold its software to the Saudi government more generally.

    The first message reached Bahr Abdul Razzak, a Syrian refugee who works as a Citizen Lab researcher, Dec. 6, when a man calling himself Gary Bowman got in touch via LinkedIn. The man described himself as a South African financial technology executive based in Madrid.

    “I came across your profile and think that the work you’ve done helping Syrian refugees and your extensive technical background could be a great fit for our new initiative,” Bowman wrote.

    Abdul Razzak said he thought the proposal was a bit odd, but he eventually agreed to meet the man at Toronto’s swanky Shangri-La Hotel on the morning of Dec. 18.

    The conversation got weird very quickly, Abdul Razzak said.

    Instead of talking about refugees, Abdul Razzak said, Bowman grilled him about his work for Citizen Lab and its investigations into the use of NSO’s software. Abdul Razzak said Bowman appeared to be reading off cue cards, asking him if he was earning enough money and throwing out pointed questions about Israel, the war in Syria and Abdul Razzak’s religiosity.

    “Do you pray?” Abdul Razzak recalled Bowman asking. “Why do you write only about NSO?” ’’Do you write about it because it’s an Israeli company?" ’’Do you hate #Israel?"

    Abdul Razzak said he emerged from the meeting feeling shaken. He alerted his Citizen Lab colleagues, who quickly determined that the breakfast get-together had been a ruse. Bowman’s supposed Madrid-based company, FlameTech, had no web presence beyond a LinkedIn page, a handful of social media profiles and an entry in the business information platform Crunchbase. A reverse image search revealed that the profile picture of the man listed as FlameTech’s chief executive, Mauricio Alonso, was a stock photograph.

    “My immediate gut feeling was: ’This is a fake,’” said John Scott-Railton, one of Abdul Razzak’s colleagues.

    Scott-Railton flagged the incident to the AP, which confirmed that FlameTech was a digital facade.

    Searches of the Orbis database of corporate records, which has data on some 300 million global companies, turned up no evidence of a Spanish firm called FlameTech or Flame Tech or any company anywhere in the world matching its description. Similarly, the AP found no record of FlameTech in Madrid’s official registry or of a Gary Bowman in the city’s telephone listings. An Orbis search for Alonso, the supposed chief executive, also drew a blank. When an AP reporter visited Madrid’s Crystal Tower high-rise, where FlameTech claimed to have 250 sq. meters (2,700 sq. feet) of office space, he could find no trace of the firm and calls to the number listed on its website went unanswered.

    The AP was about to publish a story about the curious company when, on Jan. 9, Scott-Railton received an intriguing message of his own.

    This time the contact came not from Bowman of FlameTech but from someone who identified himself as Michel Lambert, a director at the Paris-based agricultural technology firm CPW-Consulting.

    Lambert had done his homework. In his introductory email , he referred to Scott-Railton’s early doctoral research on kite aerial photography — a mapping technique using kite-mounted cameras — and said he was “quite impressed.

    We have a few projects and clients coming up that could significantly benefit from implementing Kite Aerial Photography,” he said.

    Like FlameTech, CPW-Consulting was a fiction. Searches of Orbis and the French commercial court registry Infogreffe turned up no trace of the supposedly Paris-based company or indeed of any Paris-based company bearing the acronym CPW. And when the AP visited CPW’s alleged office there was no evidence of the company; the address was home to a mainly residential apartment building. Residents and the building’s caretaker said they had never heard of the firm.

    Whoever dreamed up CPW had taken steps to ensure the illusion survived a casual web search, but even those efforts didn’t bear much scrutiny. The company had issued a help wanted ad, for example, seeking a digital mapping specialist for their Paris office, but Scott-Railton discovered that the language had been lifted almost word-for-word from an ad from an unrelated company seeking a mapping specialist in London. A blog post touted CPW as a major player in Africa, but an examination of the author’s profile suggests the article was the only one the blogger had ever written.

    When Lambert suggested an in-person meeting in New York during a Jan. 19 phone call , Scott-Railton felt certain that Lambert was trying to set him up.

    But Scott-Railton agreed to the meeting. He planned to lay a trap of his own.

    Anyone watching Scott-Railton and Lambert laughing over wagyu beef and lobster bisque at the Peninsula Hotel’s upscale restaurant on Thursday afternoon might have mistaken the pair for friends.

    In fact, the lunch was Spy vs. Spy. Scott-Railton had spent the night before trying to secret a homemade camera into his tie, he later told AP, eventually settling for a GoPro action camera and several recording devices hidden about his person. On the table, Lambert had placed a large pen in which Scott-Railton said he spotted a tiny camera lens peeking out from an opening in the top.

    Lambert didn’t seem to be alone. At the beginning of the meal, a man sat behind him, holding up his phone as if to take pictures and then abruptly left the restaurant, having eaten nothing. Later, two or three men materialized at the bar and appeared to be monitoring proceedings.

    Scott-Railton wasn’t alone either. A few tables away, two Associated Press journalists were making small talk as they waited for a signal from Scott-Railton, who had invited the reporters to observe the lunch from nearby and then interview Lambert near the end of the meal.

    The conversation began with a discussion of kites, gossip about African politicians, and a detour through Scott-Railton’s family background. But Lambert, just like Bowman, eventually steered the talk to Citizen Lab and NSO.

    “Work drama? Tell me, I like drama!” Lambert said at one point, according to Scott-Railton’s recording of the conversation. “Is there a big competition between the people inside Citizen Lab?” he asked later.

    Like Bowman, Lambert appeared to be working off cue cards and occasionally made awkward conversational gambits. At one point he repeated a racist French expression, insisting it wasn’t offensive. He also asked Scott-Railton questions about the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and whether he grew up with any Jewish friends. At another point he asked whether there might not be a “racist element” to Citizen Lab’s interest in Israeli spyware.

    After dessert arrived, the AP reporters approached Lambert at his table and asked him why his company didn’t seem to exist.
    He seemed to stiffen.

    “I know what I’m doing,” Lambert said, as he put his files — and his pen — into a bag. Then he stood up, bumped into a chair and walked off, saying “Ciao” and waving his hand, before returning because he had neglected to pay the bill.

    As he paced around the restaurant waiting for the check, Lambert refused to answer questions about who he worked for or why no trace of his firm could be found.

    “I don’t have to give you any explanation,” he said. He eventually retreated to a back room and closed the door.

    Who Lambert and Bowman really are isn’t clear. Neither men returned emails, LinkedIn messages or phone calls. And despite their keen focus on NSO the AP has found no evidence of any link to the Israeli spyware merchant, which is adamant that it wasn’t involved.

    The kind of aggressive investigative tactics used by the mystery men who targeted Citizen Lab have come under fire in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal. Black Cube, an Israeli private investigation firm apologized after The New Yorker and other media outlets revealed that the company’s operatives had used subterfuge and dirty tricks to help the Hollywood mogul suppress allegations of rape and sexual assault.

    Scott-Railton and Abdul Razzak said they didn’t want to speculate about who was involved. But both said they believed they were being steered toward making controversial comments that could be used to blacken Citizen Lab’s reputation.

    “It could be they wanted me to say, ’Yes, I hate Israel,’ or ’Yes, Citizen Lab is against NSO because it’s Israeli,’” said Abdul Razzak.
    Scott-Railton said the elaborate, multinational operation was gratifying, in a way.

    “People were paid to fly to a city to sit you down to an expensive meal and try to convince you to say bad things about your work, your colleagues and your employer,” he said.

    “That means that your work is important.”

  • 10/2017 :

    Les « attaques acoustiques » qui, selon les responsables américains, seraient à l’origine des symptômes ressentis en 2016 par des diplomates américains, correspondent à des sons produits par des insectes selon des experts cubains – ACTU DIRECT
    https://actudirect.com/cuba/attaques-acoustiques-a-cuba-des-cigales-et-des-criquets-responsables

    1/2019 :

    Selon une étude de chercheurs de l’université de Californie, de Berkeley aux Etats-Unis, et de Lincoln en Angleterre, l’étrange crissement serait en réalité le fait… de criquets.
    https://www.marianne.net/monde/le-champ-de-force-evoque-par-des-diplomates-americains-tombes-malades-cuba

    #Cuba #Etats-Unis

    • Recording of “sonic attacks” on U.S. diplomats in Cuba spectrally matches the echoing call of a Caribbean cricket | bioRxiv (pdf accessible)
      https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/01/04/510834

      Abstract
      Beginning in late 2016, diplomats posted to the United States embassy in Cuba began to experience unexplained health problems including ear pain, tinnitus, vertigo, and cognitive difficulties which reportedly began after they heard strange noises in their homes or hotel rooms. In response, the U.S. government dramatically reduced the number of diplomats posted at the U.S. embassy in Havana. U.S. officials initially believed a sonic attack might be responsible for their ailments. The sound linked to these attacks, which has been described as a high-pitched beam of sound, was recorded by U.S. personnel in Cuba and released by the Associated Press (AP).

      Because these recordings are the only available non-medical evidence of the sonic attacks, much attention has focused on identifying health problems and the origin of the acoustic signal.

      As shown here, the calling song of the Indies short-tailed cricket (Anurogryllus celerinictus) matches, in nuanced detail, the AP recording in duration, pulse repetition rate, power spectrum, pulse rate stability, and oscillations per pulse. The AP recording also exhibits frequency decay in individual pulses, a distinct acoustic signature of cricket sound production. While the temporal pulse structure in the recording is unlike any natural insect source, when the cricket call is played on a loudspeaker and recorded indoors, the interaction of reflected sound pulses yields a sound virtually indistinguishable from the AP sample.

      This provides strong evidence that an echoing cricket call, rather than a sonic attack or other technological device, is responsible for the sound in the released recording. Although the causes of the health problems reported by embassy personnel are beyond the scope of this paper, our findings highlight the need for more rigorous research into the source of these ailments, including the potential psychogenic effects, as well as possible physiological explanations unrelated to sonic attacks.

  • Airbnb to remove listings in Jewish West Bank settlements - Israel News - Haaretz.com
    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/airbnb-to-remove-listings-in-jewish-west-bank-settlements-1.6662443

    Home-renting company Airbnb Inc said on Monday that it had decided to remove its listings in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, enclaves that most world powers consider illegal for taking up land where Palestinians seek statehood. In response, Israel’s Tourism Minister Yariv Levin instructed the ministry to restrict the company’s operations across the country.
    A statement on Airbnb’s website said: “We concluded that we should remove listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.” 
    It did not say when the decision, which according to Airbnb affects some 200 listings, would take effect. 
    Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan called on Airbnb hosts harmed by the decision to file lawsuits against the company in accordance with Israel’s anti-boycott law and said he’ll turn to senior U.S. officials to check if the company’s decision violated the anti-boycott laws “that exist in over 25 states.”
    He said that “national conflicts exist throughout the world and Airbnb will need to explain why they chose a racist political stance against some Israeli citizens.”

    The Yesha Council of settlements said in response that “a company that has no qualms about renting apartments in dictatorships around the world and in places that have no relationship with human rights is singling out Israel. This can only be a result of anti-Semitism or surrendering to terrorism – or both.”

    Levin demanded Airbnb cancel its “discrimantory” decision, saying it was a “shameful and miserable decision.”
    Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that Airbnb should have included East Jerusalem and should have said settlements “are illegal and constitute war crimes.” He added: “We reiterate our call upon the UN Human Rights Council to release the database of companies profiting from the Israeli colonial occupation.”

    Airbnb came under Palestinian criticism for such listings, which some find misleading for failing to mention the property is on occupied land claimed by the Palestinians.
    The Palestinians say that by contributing to the settlement economy, Airbnb, like other companies doing business in the West Bank, helps perpetuate Israel’s settlement enterprise. 
    “There are conflicting views regarding whether companies should be doing business in the occupied territories that are the subject of historical disputes between Israelis and Palestinians,” the Airbnb statement said. 
    The statement continued: “In the past, we made clear that we would operate in this area as allowed by law. We did this because we believe that people-to-people travel has considerable value and we want to help bring people together in as many places as possible around the world. Since then, we spent considerable time speaking to various experts. We know that people will disagree with this decision and appreciate their perspective.”
    Oded Revivi, mayor of the West Bank settlement of Efrat and a representative of Yesha, described the Airbnb decision as contrary to its mission, as stated on the website, of “help(ing) to bring people together in as many places as possible around the world”. 
    Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and began building settlements soon after.
    While Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the settler population in east Jerusalem and the West Bank has ballooned to almost 600,000. The Palestinians claim these areas as parts of a future state, a position that has wide global support.
    Airbnb said that as part of their decision-making framework, they “evaluate whether the existence of listings is contributing to existing human suffering” and “determine whether the existence of listings in the occupied territory has a direct connection to the larger dispute in the region.”
    The Associated Press contributed to this report

    #BDS

  • 56,800 migrant dead and missing : ’They are human beings’

    One by one, five to a grave, the coffins are buried in the red earth of this ill-kept corner of a South African cemetery. The scrawl on the cheap wood attests to their anonymity: “Unknown B/Male.”

    These men were migrants from elsewhere in Africa with next to nothing who sought a living in the thriving underground economy of Gauteng province, a name that roughly translates to “land of gold.” Instead of fortune, many found death, their bodies unnamed and unclaimed — more than 4,300 in Gauteng between 2014 and 2017 alone.

    Some of those lives ended here at the Olifantsvlei cemetery, in silence, among tufts of grass growing over tiny placards that read: Pauper Block. There are coffins so tiny that they could belong only to children.

    As migration worldwide soars to record highs, far less visible has been its toll: The tens of thousands of people who die or simply disappear during their journeys, never to be seen again. In most cases, nobody is keeping track: Barely counted in life, these people don’t register in death , as if they never lived at all.

    An Associated Press tally has documented at least 56,800 migrants dead or missing worldwide since 2014 — almost double the number found in the world’s only official attempt to try to count them, by the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration. The IOM toll as of Oct. 1 was more than 28,500. The AP came up with almost 28,300 additional dead or missing migrants by compiling information from other international groups, requesting forensic records, missing persons reports and death records, and sifting through data from thousands of interviews with migrants.

    The toll is the result of migration that is up 49 percent since the turn of the century, with more than 258 million international migrants in 2017, according to the United Nations. A growing number have drowned, died in deserts or fallen prey to traffickers, leaving their families to wonder what on earth happened to them. At the same time, anonymous bodies are filling cemeteries around the world, like the one in Gauteng.

    The AP’s tally is still low. More bodies of migrants lie undiscovered in desert sands or at the bottom of the sea. And families don’t always report loved ones as missing because they migrated illegally, or because they left home without saying exactly where they were headed.

    The official U.N. toll focuses mostly on Europe, but even there cases fall through the cracks. The political tide is turning against migrants in Europe just as in the United States, where the government is cracking down heavily on caravans of Central Americans trying to get in . One result is that money is drying up for projects to track migration and its costs.

    For example, when more than 800 people died in an April 2015 shipwreck off the coast of Italy, Europe’s deadliest migrant sea disaster, Italian investigators pledged to identify them and find their families. More than three years later, under a new populist government, funding for this work is being cut off.

    Beyond Europe, information is even more scarce. Little is known about the toll in South America, where the Venezuelan migration is among the world’s biggest today, and in Asia, the top region for numbers of migrants.

    The result is that governments vastly underestimate the toll of migration, a major political and social issue in most of the world today.

    “No matter where you stand on the whole migration management debate....these are still human beings on the move,” said Bram Frouws, the head of the Mixed Migration Centre , based in Geneva, which has done surveys of more than 20,000 migrants in its 4Mi project since 2014. “Whether it’s refugees or people moving for jobs, they are human beings.”

    They leave behind families caught between hope and mourning, like that of Safi al-Bahri. Her son, Majdi Barhoumi, left their hometown of Ras Jebel, Tunisia, on May 7, 2011, headed for Europe in a small boat with a dozen other migrants. The boat sank and Barhoumi hasn’t been heard from since. In a sign of faith that he is still alive, his parents built an animal pen with a brood of hens, a few cows and a dog to stand watch until he returns.

    “I just wait for him. I always imagine him behind me, at home, in the market, everywhere,” said al-Bahari. “When I hear a voice at night, I think he’s come back. When I hear the sound of a motorcycle, I think my son is back.”

    ———————————————————————

    EUROPE: BOATS THAT NEVER ARRIVE

    Of the world’s migration crises, Europe’s has been the most cruelly visible. Images of the lifeless body of a Kurdish toddler on a beach, frozen tent camps in Eastern Europe, and a nearly numbing succession of deadly shipwrecks have been transmitted around the world, adding to the furor over migration.

    In the Mediterranean, scores of tankers, cargo boats, cruise ships and military vessels tower over tiny, crowded rafts powered by an outboard motor for a one-way trip. Even larger boats carrying hundreds of migrants may go down when soft breezes turn into battering winds and thrashing waves further from shore.

    Two shipwrecks and the deaths of at least 368 people off the coast of Italy in October 2013 prompted the IOM’s research into migrant deaths. The organization has focused on deaths in the Mediterranean, although its researchers plead for more data from elsewhere in the world. This year alone, the IOM has found more than 1,700 deaths in the waters that divide Africa and Europe.

    Like the lost Tunisians of Ras Jebel, most of them set off to look for work. Barhoumi, his friends, cousins and other would-be migrants camped in the seaside brush the night before their departure, listening to the crash of the waves that ultimately would sink their raft.

    Khalid Arfaoui had planned to be among them. When the group knocked at his door, it wasn’t fear that held him back, but a lack of cash. Everyone needed to chip in to pay for the boat, gas and supplies, and he was short about $100. So he sat inside and watched as they left for the beachside campsite where even today locals spend the night before embarking to Europe.

    Propelled by a feeble outboard motor and overburdened with its passengers, the rubber raft flipped, possibly after grazing rocks below the surface on an uninhabited island just offshore. Two bodies were retrieved. The lone survivor was found clinging to debris eight hours later.

    The Tunisian government has never tallied its missing, and the group never made it close enough to Europe to catch the attention of authorities there. So these migrants never have been counted among the dead and missing.

    “If I had gone with them, I’d be lost like the others,” Arfaoui said recently, standing on the rocky shoreline with a group of friends, all of whom vaguely planned to leave for Europe. “If I get the chance, I’ll do it. Even if I fear the sea and I know I might die, I’ll do it.”

    With him that day was 30-year-old Mounir Aguida, who had already made the trip once, drifting for 19 hours after the boat engine cut out. In late August this year, he crammed into another raft with seven friends, feeling the waves slam the flimsy bow. At the last minute he and another young man jumped out.

    “It didn’t feel right,” Aguida said.

    There has been no word from the other six — yet another group of Ras Jebel’s youth lost to the sea. With no shipwreck reported, no survivors to rescue and no bodies to identify, the six young men are not counted in any toll.

    In addition to watching its own youth flee, Tunisia and to a lesser degree neighboring Algeria are transit points for other Africans north bound for Europe. Tunisia has its own cemetery for unidentified migrants, as do Greece, Italy and Turkey. The one at Tunisia’s southern coast is tended by an unemployed sailor named Chamseddin Marzouk.

    Of around 400 bodies interred in the coastal graveyard since it opened in 2005, only one has ever been identified. As for the others who lie beneath piles of dirt, Marzouk couldn’t imagine how their families would ever learn their fate.

    “Their families may think that the person is still alive, or that he’ll return one day to visit,” Marzouk said. “They don’t know that those they await are buried here, in Zarzis, Tunisia.”

    ——————

    AFRICA: VANISHING WITHOUT A TRACE

    Despite talk of the ’waves’ of African migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean, as many migrate within Africa — 16 million — as leave for Europe. In all, since 2014, at least 18,400 African migrants have died traveling within Africa, according to the figures compiled from AP and IOM records. That includes more than 4,300 unidentified bodies in a single South African province, and 8,700 whose traveling companions reported their disappearance en route out of the Horn of Africa in interviews with 4Mi.

    When people vanish while migrating in Africa, it is often without a trace. The IOM says the Sahara Desert may well have killed more migrants than the Mediterranean. But no one will ever know for sure in a region where borders are little more than lines drawn on maps and no government is searching an expanse as large as the continental United States. The harsh sun and swirling desert sands quickly decompose and bury bodies of migrants, so that even when they turn up, they are usually impossible to identify .

    With a prosperous economy and stable government, South Africa draws more migrants than any other country in Africa. The government is a meticulous collector of fingerprints — nearly every legal resident and citizen has a file somewhere — so bodies without any records are assumed to have been living and working in the country illegally. The corpses are fingerprinted when possible, but there is no regular DNA collection.

    South Africa also has one of the world’s highest rates of violent crime and police are more focused on solving domestic cases than identifying migrants.

    “There’s logic to that, as sad as it is....You want to find the killer if you’re a policeman, because the killer could kill more people,” said Jeanine Vellema, the chief specialist of the province’s eight mortuaries. Migrant identification, meanwhile, is largely an issue for foreign families — and poor ones at that.

    Vellema has tried to patch into the police missing persons system, to build a system of electronic mortuary records and to establish a protocol where a DNA sample is taken from every set of remains that arrive at the morgue. She sighs: “Resources.” It’s a word that comes up 10 times in a half-hour conversation.

    So the bodies end up at Olifantsvlei or a cemetery like it, in unnamed graves. On a recent visit by AP, a series of open rectangles awaited the bodies of the unidentified and unclaimed. They did not wait long: a pickup truck drove up, piled with about 10 coffins, five per grave. There were at least 180 grave markers for the anonymous dead, with multiple bodies in each grave.

    The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is working with Vellema, has started a pilot project with one Gauteng morgue to take detailed photos, fingerprints, dental information and DNA samples of unidentified bodies. That information goes to a database where, in theory, the bodies can be traced.

    “Every person has a right to their dignity. And to their identity,” said Stephen Fonseca, the ICRC regional forensic manager.

    ————————————

    THE UNITED STATES: “THAT’S HOW MY BROTHER USED TO SLEEP”

    More than 6,000 miles (9,000 kilometers) away, in the deserts that straddle the U.S.-Mexico border, lie the bodies of migrants who perished trying to cross land as unforgiving as the waters of the Mediterranean. Many fled the violence and poverty of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador or Mexico. Some are found months or years later as mere skeletons. Others make a last, desperate phone call and are never heard from again.

    In 2010 the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team and the local morgue in Pima County, Ariz., began to organize efforts to put names to the anonymous bodies found on both sides of the border. The “Border Project” has since identified more than 183 people — a fraction of the total.

    At least 3,861 migrants are dead and missing on the route from Mexico to the United States since 2014, according to the combined AP and IOM total. The tally includes missing person reports from the Colibri Center for Human Rights on the U.S. side as well as the Argentine group’s data from the Mexican side. The painstaking work of identification can take years, hampered by a lack of resources, official records and coordination between countries — and even between states.

    For many families of the missing, it is their only hope, but for the families of Juan Lorenzo Luna and Armando Reyes, that hope is fading.

    Luna, 27, and Reyes, 22, were brothers-in-law who left their small northern Mexico town of Gomez Palacio in August 2016. They had tried to cross to the U.S. four months earlier, but surrendered to border patrol agents in exhaustion and were deported.

    They knew they were risking their lives — Reyes’ father died migrating in 1995, and an uncle went missing in 2004. But Luna, a quiet family man, wanted to make enough money to buy a pickup truck and then return to his wife and two children. Reyes wanted a job where he wouldn’t get his shoes dirty and could give his newborn daughter a better life.

    Of the five who left Gomez Palacio together, two men made it to safety, and one man turned back. The only information he gave was that the brothers-in-law had stopped walking and planned to turn themselves in again. That is the last that is known of them.

    Officials told their families that they had scoured prisons and detention centers, but there was no sign of the missing men. Cesaria Orona even consulted a fortune teller about her missing son, Armando, and was told he had died in the desert.

    One weekend in June 2017, volunteers found eight bodies next to a military area of the Arizona desert and posted the images online in the hopes of finding family. Maria Elena Luna came across a Facebook photo of a decaying body found in an arid landscape dotted with cactus and shrubs, lying face-up with one leg bent outward. There was something horribly familiar about the pose.

    “That’s how my brother used to sleep,” she whispered.

    Along with the bodies, the volunteers found a credential of a boy from Guatemala, a photo and a piece of paper with a number written on it. The photo was of Juan Lorenzo Luna, and the number on the paper was for cousins of the family. But investigators warned that a wallet or credential could have been stolen, as migrants are frequently robbed.

    “We all cried,” Luna recalled. “But I said, we cannot be sure until we have the DNA test. Let’s wait.”

    Luna and Orona gave DNA samples to the Mexican government and the Argentine group. In November 2017, Orona received a letter from the Mexican government saying that there was the possibility of a match for Armando with some bone remains found in Nuevo Leon, a state that borders Texas. But the test was negative.

    The women are still waiting for results from the Argentine pathologists. Until then, their relatives remain among the uncounted.

    Orona holds out hope that the men may be locked up, or held by “bad people.” Every time Luna hears about clandestine graves or unidentified bodies in the news, the anguish is sharp.

    “Suddenly all the memories come back,” she said. “I do not want to think.”

    ————————

    SOUTH AMERICA: “NO ONE WANTS TO ADMIT THIS IS A REALITY”

    The toll of the dead and the missing has been all but ignored in one of the largest population movements in the world today — that of nearly 2 million Venezuelans fleeing from their country’s collapse. These migrants have hopped buses across the borders, boarded flimsy boats in the Caribbean, and — when all else failed — walked for days along scorching highways and freezing mountain trails. Vulnerable to violence from drug cartels, hunger and illness that lingers even after reaching their destination, they have disappeared or died by the hundreds.

    “They can’t withstand a trip that hard, because the journey is very long,” said Carlos Valdes, director of neighboring Colombia’s national forensic institute. “And many times, they only eat once a day. They don’t eat. And they die.” Valdes said authorities don’t always recover the bodies of those who die, as some migrants who have entered the country illegally are afraid to seek help.

    Valdes believes hypothermia has killed some as they trek through the mountain tundra region, but he had no idea how many. One migrant told the AP he saw a family burying someone wrapped in a white blanket with red flowers along the frigid journey.

    Marta Duque, 55, has had a front seat to the Venezuela migration crisis from her home in Pamplona, Colombia. She opens her doors nightly to provide shelter for families with young children. Pamplona is one of the last cities migrants reach before venturing up a frigid mountain paramo, one of the most dangerous parts of the trip for migrants traveling by foot. Temperatures dip well below freezing.

    She said inaction from authorities has forced citizens like her to step in.

    “Everyone just seems to pass the ball,” she said. “No one wants to admit this is a reality.”

    Those deaths are uncounted, as are dozens in the sea. Also uncounted are those reported missing in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. In all at least 3,410 Venezuelans have been reported missing or dead in a migration within Latin America whose dangers have gone relatively unnoticed; many of the dead perished from illnesses on the rise in Venezuela that easily would have found treatment in better times.

    Among the missing is Randy Javier Gutierrez, who was walking through Colombia with a cousin and his aunt in hopes of reaching Peru to reunite with his mother.

    Gutierrez’s mother, Mariela Gamboa, said that a driver offered a ride to the two women, but refused to take her son. The women agreed to wait for him at the bus station in Cali, about 160 miles (257 kilometers) ahead, but he never arrived. Messages sent to his phone since that day four months ago have gone unread.

    “I’m very worried,” his mother said. “I don’t even know what to do.”

    ———————————

    ASIA: A VAST UNKNOWN

    The region with the largest overall migration, Asia, also has the least information on the fate of those who disappear after leaving their homelands. Governments are unwilling or unable to account for citizens who leave for elsewhere in the region or in the Mideast, two of the most common destinations, although there’s a growing push to do so.

    Asians make up 40 percent of the world’s migrants, and more than half of them never leave the region. The Associated Press was able to document more than 8,200 migrants who disappeared or died after leaving home in Asia and the Mideast, including thousands in the Philippines and Indonesia.

    Thirteen of the top 20 migration pathways from Asia take place within the region. These include Indian workers heading to the United Arab Emirates, Bangladeshis heading to India, Rohingya Muslims escaping persecution in Myanmar, and Afghans crossing the nearest border to escape war. But with large-scale smuggling and trafficking of labor, and violent displacements, the low numbers of dead and missing indicate not safe travel but rather a vast unknown.

    Almass was just 14 when his widowed mother reluctantly sent him and his 11-year-old brother from their home in Khost, Afghanistan, into that unknown. The payment for their trip was supposed to get them away from the Taliban and all the way to Germany via a chain of smugglers. The pair crammed first into a pickup with around 40 people, walked for a few days at the border, crammed into a car, waited a bit in Tehran, and walked a few more days.

    His brother Murtaza was exhausted by the time they reached the Iran-Turkey border. But the smuggler said it wasn’t the time to rest — there were at least two border posts nearby and the risk that children far younger travelling with them would make noise.

    Almass was carrying a baby in his arms and holding his brother’s hand when they heard the shout of Iranian guards. Bullets whistled past as he tumbled head over heels into a ravine and lost consciousness.

    Alone all that day and the next, Almass stumbled upon three other boys in the ravine who had also become separated from the group, then another four. No one had seen his brother. And although the younger boy had his ID, it had been up to Almass to memorize the crucial contact information for the smuggler.

    When Almass eventually called home, from Turkey, he couldn’t bear to tell his mother what had happened. He said Murtaza couldn’t come to the phone but sent his love.

    That was in early 2014. Almass, who is now 18, hasn’t spoken to his family since.

    Almass said he searched for his brother among the 2,773 children reported to the Red Cross as missing en route to Europe. He also looked for himself among the 2,097 adults reported missing by children. They weren’t on the list.

    With one of the world’s longest-running exoduses, Afghans face particular dangers in bordering countries that are neither safe nor welcoming. Over a period of 10 months from June 2017 to April 2018, 4Mi carried out a total of 962 interviews with Afghan migrants and refugees in their native languages around the world, systematically asking a series of questions about the specific dangers they had faced and what they had witnessed.

    A total of 247 migrant deaths were witnessed by the interviewed migrants, who reported seeing people killed in violence from security forces or starving to death. The effort is the first time any organization has successfully captured the perils facing Afghans in transit to destinations in Asia and Europe.

    Almass made it from Asia to Europe and speaks halting French now to the woman who has given him a home in a drafty 400-year-old farmhouse in France’s Limousin region. But his family is lost to him. Their phone number in Afghanistan no longer works, their village is overrun with Taliban, and he has no idea how to find them — or the child whose hand slipped from his grasp four years ago.

    “I don’t know now where they are,” he said, his face anguished, as he sat on a sun-dappled bench. “They also don’t know where I am.”

    https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/global-lost-56800-migrants-dead-missing-years-58890913
    #décès #morts #migrations #réfugiés #asile #statistiques #chiffres #monde #Europe #Asie #Amérique_latine #Afrique #USA #Etats-Unis #2014 #2015 #2016 #2017 #2018
    ping @reka @simplicissimus

  • At least 56,000 migrants have died or gone missing since 2014: AP | News | Al Jazeera
    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/11/56000-migrants-died-missing-2014-ap-181101072428378.html

    At least 56,800 refugees and migrants have died or gone missing since 2014, almost double the number recorded by the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), an investigation by the Associated Press news agency has said.

    The IOM’s tally, which mainly focuses mostly on migrants heading to Europe, stood at 28,500 as of October 1.

    The Associated Press reported on Thursday that an additional 28,300 people had either died or gone missing according to data it compiled from international groups, forensic records, missing persons reports, death records, and interviews with migrants and refugees.
    WATCH: What is the world doing for migrants? (25:00)

    As an example, the AP said that when 800 people died in an April 2015 shipwreck off the coast of Italy, Italian investigators had pledged to identify them and find their families. More than three years later, under a new populist government, funding for this work was being cut off.

    Beyond Europe, the AP said information on the fate of migrants was even more scarce.

    Little was known about the toll in South America, where migration among Venezuelans was among the world’s biggest today. Or in Asia, the leading region for migration.

    “No matter where you stand on the whole migration management debate ... these are still human beings on the move,” said Bram Frouws, the head of the Mixed Migration Centre, which surveyed more than 20,000 migrants and refugees since 2014.

    #migrations

  • As homeless camp grows, #Minneapolis leaders search for a solution

    A large homeless camp has formed outside Minneapolis inhabited mostly by Native Americans. The city has responded by tending to people within the camp and planning a temporary shelter site rather than displacing them.

    When a disturbed woman pulled a knife on Denise Deer earlier this month, she quickly herded her children into their tent. A nearby man stepped in and the woman was arrested, and within minutes, 8-year-old Shilo and 4-year-old Koda were back outside sitting on a sidewalk, playing with a train set and gobbling treats delivered by volunteers.

    The sprawling homeless encampment just south of downtown Minneapolis isn’t where Ms. Deer wanted her family of six to be, but with nowhere else to go after her mother-in-law wouldn’t take them in, she sighed: “It’s a place.”

    City leaders have been reluctant to break up what’s believed to be the largest homeless camp ever seen in Minneapolis, where the forbidding climate has typically discouraged large encampments seen elsewhere. But two deaths in recent weeks and concern about disease, drugs, and the coming winter have ratcheted up pressure for a solution.

    “Housing is a right,” Mayor Jacob Frey said. “We’re going to continue working as hard as we can to make sure the people in our city are guaranteed that right.”

    As many as 300 people have congregated in the camp that took root this summer beside an urban freeway. When The Associated Press visited earlier this month, colorful tents and a few teepees were lined up in rows, sometimes inches apart and three tents deep. Bicycles, coolers, or small toys were near some tents, and some people had strung up laundry to air out.

    Most of the residents are Native American. The encampment – called the “Wall of Forgotten Natives” because it sits against a highway sound wall – is in a part of the city with a large concentration of American Indians and organizations that help them. Some have noted the tents stand on what was once Dakota land.

    “They came to an area, a geography that has long been identified as a part of the Native community. A lot of the camp residents feel at home, they feel safer,” said Robert Lilligren, vice chairman of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors.

    The encampment illuminates some problems that face American Indians in Minneapolis. They make up 1.1 percent of Hennepin County’s residents, but 16 percent of unsheltered homeless people, according to an April count. It’s also a community being hit harder by opioids – with Native Americans five times more likely to die from an overdose than whites, according to state health department data.

    One end of the camp appeared to be geared toward families, while adults – some of whom were visibly high – were on the other end. In the middle, a group called Natives Against Heroin was operating a tent where volunteers handed out bottles of water, food, and clothing. The group also gives addicts clean needles and sharps containers, and volunteers carry naloxone to treat overdoses.

    “People are respectful,” said group founder James Cross. “But sometimes an addict will be coming off a high.... We have to deescalate. Not hurt them, just escort them off. And say ’Hey, this is a family setting. This is a community. We’ve got kids, elders. We’ve got to make it safe.’”

    With dozens of people living within inches of each other, health officials also fear an outbreak of infectious diseases like hepatitis A. Medical professionals have started administering vaccines. In recent weeks, one woman died when she didn’t have an asthma inhaler, and one man died from a drug overdose.

    For now, service agencies have set up areas for camp residents to get medical care, antibiotics, hygiene kits, or other supplies. There’s a station advertising free HIV testing, a place to apply for housing, and temporary showers. Portable restrooms and hand-sanitizing stations have also been put up.

    But city officials know that’s not sustainable, especially as winter approaches. At an emergency meeting on Sept. 26, the City Council approved a plan to use land that’s primarily owned by the Red Lake Nation as the site for a “navigation center,” which will include temporary shelters and services.

    Because buildings need to be demolished, that site might not be ready until early December, concerning at least one council member. But Sam Strong of the Red Lake Nation said it’s possible the process could be expedited. Once camp residents are safe for the winter, finding more stable, long-term housing will be the goal. Several families have already been moved to shelters.

    Bear La Ronge Jr. moved to the encampment after he got full custody of his three kids and realized they couldn’t live along the railroad tracks where he’d been staying. Over several weeks, he watched the tent city grow, and wishes the drug users would be removed.

    “This place is so incorporated with drugs, needles laying everywhere,” Mr. La Ronge said. He pointed to a cardboard box outside his tent that contained toys. “I wake up every morning and look in my toy box and there’s five open needles in there because people walk by and just drop their needles in my kids’ toys. So I need to go somewhere else.”

    Angela Brown has been homeless for years. She moved to the tent city with her 4-month-old daughter, Raylynn, when it seemed to be her last option.

    “I’d rather be getting a house. I don’t like being dirty, waking up sweaty,” Ms. Brown said as she cradled her daughter.

    She said she did laundry at the camp and took showers, and living there was OK. But she was worried about her daughter, especially with winter coming.

    https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2018/0927/As-homeless-camp-grows-Minneapolis-leaders-search-for-a-solution?cmpid=TW
    #peuples_autochtones #camps #USA #Etats-Unis #SDF #sans-abri #logement #hébergement

  • AP : Trump 2020 working with ex-Cambridge Analytica staffers
    https://apnews.com/96928216bdc341ada659447973a688e4

    A company run by former officials at Cambridge Analytica, the political consulting firm brought down by a scandal over how it obtained Facebook users’ private data, has quietly been working for President Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election effort, The Associated Press has learned. The AP confirmed that at least four former Cambridge Analytica employees are affiliated with Data Propria, a new company specializing in voter and consumer targeting work similar to Cambridge Analytica’s efforts before (...)

    #CambridgeAnalytica #DataPropria #Facebook #algorithme #élections #manipulation #électeurs #données #BigData #publicité (...)

    ##publicité ##profiling

  • https://scontent.fham1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/41956122_10160896489275204_3723059080181317632_n.jpg?_nc

    En 1933, le ministre allemand de la propagande, Josef Goebbels, a été invité à une conférence à Genève. Le photographe du Magazine Life , Alfred Eisenstadt , est également arrivé sur les lieux et a commencé à photographier goebbels.
    Le ministre a coopéré, a souri, et a même demandé à Eisenstadt s’il voulait qu’il soit dans une position spéciale.
    Puis les deux nazis sont venus à lui et ont murmuré que le photographe est juif.
    Eisenstadt, qui devint plus tard l’un des plus grands photographes du monde, a immortalisé le moment où Goebbels découvre qu’il est juif.
    Depuis lors, cette image a été appelée « les yeux de la haine. »

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Eisenstaedt

      à Londre, 1932

      [...]

      Early life

      Eisenstaedt was born in Dirschau (Tczew) in West Prussia, Imperial Germany in 1898.[3] His family was Jewish and moved to Berlin in 1906. Eisenstaedt was fascinated by photography from his youth and began taking pictures at age 14 when he was given his first camera, an Eastman Kodak Folding Camera with roll film. He later served in the German Army’s artillery during World War I and was wounded in 1918. While working as a belt and button salesman in the 1920s in Weimar Germany, Eisenstaedt began taking photographs as a freelancer for the Pacific and Atlantic Photos’ Berlin office in 1928. The office was taken over by the Associated Press in 1931.

      Professional photographer

      Eisenstaedt became a full-time photographer in 1929 when he was hired by the Associated Press office in Germany, and within a year he was described as a “photographer extraordinaire.”[4] He also worked for Illustrierte Zeitung, published by Ullstein Verlag, then the world’s largest publishing house.[4] Four years later he photographed the famous first meeting between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Italy. Other notable early pictures by Eisenstaedt include his depiction of a waiter at the ice rink of the Grand Hotel in St. Moritz in 1932 and Joseph Goebbels at the League of Nations in Geneva in 1933. Although initially friendly, Goebbels scowled at Eisenstaedt when he took the photograph.[5]

      In 1935, Fascist Italy’s impending invasion of Ethiopia led to a burst of international interest in Ethiopia. While working for Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, Alfred took over 3,500 photographs in Ethiopia, before emigrating to the United States, where he joined Life magazine, but returned in the following year to Ethiopia to continue his photography.[6]

      Eisenstaedt’s family was Jewish. Oppression in Hitler’s Nazi Germany caused them to emigrate to the U.S.[7] They arrived in 1935 and settled in New York, where he subsequently became a naturalized citizen,[8] and joined fellow Associated Press émigrés Leon Daniel and Celia Kutschuk in their PIX Publishing photo agency founded that year. The following year, 1936, Time founder Henry Luce bought Life magazine, and Eisenstaedt, already noted for his photography in Europe,[4] was asked to join the new magazine as one of its original staff of four photographers, including Margaret Bourke-White and Robert Capa.[7] He remained a staff photographer from 1936 to 1972, achieving notability for his photojournalism of news events and celebrities.[2]

      Along with entertainers and celebrities, he photographed politicians, philosophers, artists, industrialists, and authors during his career with Life. By 1972 he had photographed nearly 2,500 stories and had more than 90 of his photos on the cover.[9] With Life’s circulation of two million readers, Eisenstaedt’s reputation increased substantially.[4] According to one historian, “his photographs have a power and a symbolic resonance that made him one of the best Life photographers.”[10] In subsequent years, he also worked for Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Town & Country and others.[10]

      [...]

  • Hurricane Maria’s uncounted disaster

    Thousands of people were killed by Hurricane Maria. But the Puerto Rican government has only publicly identified 64 victims.

    An investigation by Quartz, Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism, and the Associated Press has identified 487 victims of Maria. It is the most extensive record yet of who died and why. Many families say that the real cause of death was government inaction.

    Explore the database of victims in English and Spanish here.

    https://qz.com/1390559/how-many-people-died-in-hurricane-maria-an-investigation

    #Puerto_Rico #hurricane #désastre #deaths #emergency #inaction #US #Health #Maria

  • Bishops bloodied, churches besieged in #Nicaragua crackdown - The Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/bishops-bloodied-churches-besieged-in-nicaragua-crackdown/2018/07/27/3f4a0440-9152-11e8-ae59-01880eac5f1d_story.html

    A pro-government mob shoved, punched and scratched at Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes and other Catholic leaders as they tried to enter the Basilica San Sebastian. “Murderers!” people shouted. An auxiliary bishop was slashed on the arm with some sort of sharp object.

    The ugly scene in the normally sleepy town of Diriamba, an hour’s drive south of Nicaragua’s capital, was a dramatic example of how rapidly a wave of unrest has soured relations between the Roman Catholic Church and beleaguered President Daniel Ortega.

    The church has tried to play a mediating role between Ortega’s Sandinista government and protesters who have increasingly demanded his ouster amid demonstrations and clashes in which about 450 people — most of them protesters — have been slain.

    Instead it finds itself increasingly targeted by Ortega and his backers, reviving a hostility between the Sandinista base and the church establishment that burned hot during the 1980s but seemed to have been overcome in recent years, when the former guerrilla commander had formed a sort of alliance with once-critical bishops.
    […]
    Through his verbal attacks, Ortega is “telling his followers, especially the (pro-government gangs), ‘You can go ahead and beat up priests and bishops and vandalize church buildings without any punishment,’” Gooren said.

  • Vietnamese activist gets 14-year sentence for documenting chemical spill
    https://news.mongabay.com/2018/02/14-year-sentence-for-vietnamese-activist-over-chemical-spill-protests/?n3wsletter

    On Tuesday, a Vietnamese court sentenced Hoang Duc Binh to 14 years in prison for activism related to a chemical spill that resulted in a massive fish kill in 2016. The sentence appears to be the harshest so far in a series of punitive measures the Vietnamese government has taken against citizens protesting or blogging about the spill.

    “Hoang Duc Binh was convicted of abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the state, organization and people and opposing officers on duty, lawyer Ha Huy Son said,” the Associated Press reported on February 6.

    News reports gave conflicting accounts of the exact activities that landed Binh in trouble with authorities. The Associated Press reported that Bihn had livestreamed video of fishermen marching to file a lawsuit over the spill. “During last February’s livestream on Facebook, Binh commented that the fishermen were stopped and beaten by authorities. Son said Binh told the court that he made the comments, but he denied committing a crime because what he said was true. The court said his comments were untrue and slandered authorities,” the Associated Press reported.

    #Vietnam #pollution #activisme #environnement #répression #liberté_d'expression

    • Vietnam urged to drop charges against human rights defenders and environmental activists

      Vietnam should drop all charges against rights campaigners Le Thu Ha, Nguyen Bac Truyen, Nguyen Trung Ton, Nguyen Van Dai, Pham Van Troi, and Truong Minh Duc and release them immediately, Human Rights Watch said today. The People’s Court of Hanoi is scheduled to hear their case on April 5, 2018.

      The six activists were charged with “carrying out activities that aim to overthrow the people’s administration” under article 79 of the penal code.

      “The only crime that these activists have committed is to campaign tirelessly for democracy and defend victims of human rights abuses,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “The Vietnamese government should thank them for their efforts to improve the country instead of arresting and putting them on trial.”


      https://www.ifex.org/vietnam/2018/04/04/charges-environmental-activists

  • Doctors identify brain abnormalities in #Cuba attack patients
    https://apnews.com/bbed1d7f6f1a4320a7e60abfdce67d4d

    Doctors treating the U.S. Embassy victims of mysterious, invisible attacks in Cuba have discovered brain abnormalities as they search for clues to explain the hearing, vision, balance and memory damage, The Associated Press has learned.

    It’s the most specific finding to date about physical damage, showing that whatever it was that harmed the Americans, it led to perceptible changes in their brains. The finding is also one of several factors fueling growing skepticism that some kind of sonic weapon was involved.

    Medical testing has revealed the embassy workers developed changes to the white matter tracts that let different parts of the brain communicate, several U.S. officials said, describing a growing consensus held by university and government physicians researching the attacks. White matter acts like information highways between brain cells.

    Loud, mysterious sounds followed by hearing loss and ear-ringing had led investigators to suspect “sonic attacks.” But officials are now carefully avoiding that term. The sounds may have been the byproduct of something else that caused damage, said three U.S. officials briefed on the investigation. They weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly and demanded anonymity.

    #substance_blanche

  • Breaking silence, Lebanese PM’s brother backs resignation
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/breaking-silence-lebanese-pms-brother-backs-resignation-51170615

    Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s older brother broke his silence Wednesday over the premier’s mysterious resignation, saying he supports his brother’s decision to step down over the growing demands and actions of Hezbollah.

    In a statement from Bahaa Hariri’s office sent to The Associated Press, he accuses Hezbollah of seeking “to take control of Lebanon.” He also expressed gratitude to Saudi Arabia for “decades of support” for Lebanon’s national institutions.

  • Saudi barred Yemeni president from going home, officials say - The Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/saudi-led-coalition-closes-yemen-ports-aden-attack-kills-17/2017/11/05/aa9923cc-c289-11e7-9922-4151f5ca6168_story.html

    Le président yéménite (et ses fils) retenu contre son gré en #Arabie_Saoudite, alors que cette dernière mène théoriquement sa guerre contre les #Houthis en son nom (silence radar dans les MSM français).

    CAIRO — Saudi Arabia has barred Yemen’s president, along with his sons, ministers and military officials, from returning home for months, Yemeni officials tell The Associated Press, a sign of how much the leader-in-exile has been deeply weakened in a war fought in his name by the Saudi-led coalition against rebels in his country.

    The officials said the ban was prompted by the bitter enmity between President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and the United Arab Emirates, which is part of the coalition and has come to dominate southern Yemen, the portion of the country not under rebel control. Hadi and much of his government have been in the Saudi capital Riyadh for most of the war.

    #Yemen #E.A.U

  • Cuba mystery grows: New details on what befell US diplomats
    https://www.apnews.com/697536f065e6470eaa5ccfc35061e7ce

    The blaring, grinding noise jolted the American diplomat from his bed in a Havana hotel. He moved just a few feet, and there was silence. He climbed back into bed. Inexplicably, the agonizing sound hit him again. It was as if he’d walked through some invisible wall cutting straight through his room.

    Soon came the hearing loss, and the speech problems, symptoms both similar and altogether different from others among at least 21 U.S. victims in an astonishing international mystery still unfolding in Cuba. The top U.S. diplomat has called them “health attacks.” New details learned by The Associated Press indicate at least some of the incidents were confined to specific rooms or even parts of rooms with laser-like specificity, baffling U.S. officials who say the facts and the physics don’t add up.

    None of this has a reasonable explanation,” said Fulton Armstrong, a former CIA official who served in Havana long before America re-opened an embassy there. “It’s just mystery after mystery after mystery.
    […]
    The investigation into all of this is still under way. It is an aggressive investigation,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Thursday. “We will continue doing this until we find out who or what is responsible for this.

    In fact, almost nothing about what went down in Havana is clear. Investigators have tested several theories about an intentional attack — by Cuba’s government, a rogue faction of its security forces, a third country like Russia, or some combination thereof. Yet they’ve left open the possibility an advanced espionage operation went horribly awry, or that some other, less nefarious explanation is to blame.

    Aside from their homes, officials said Americans were attacked in at least one hotel, a fact not previously disclosed. An incident occurred on an upper floor of the recently renovated Hotel Capri, a 60-year-old concrete tower steps from the Malecon, Havana’s iconic, waterside promenade.

  • New York eyes ’textalyzer’ to bust drivers
    http://www.kolotv.com/content/news/New-York-eyes-textalyzer-to-bust-drivers-436658803.html

    New York state is set to study the use of a device known as the “#textalyzer” that would allow police to determine whether a motorist involved in a crash was texting while driving.

    Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that he’s directing the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee to examine the technology, as well as the privacy and constitutional questions it could raise.

    In a statement provided exclusively to The Associated Press, Cuomo says that despite the state’s ban on using hand-held cellphones while driving, some motorists insist on putting themselves and others at risk.

    The device is called the “textalyzer” because of its similarity to the Breathalyzer, which is used to identify drunk drivers.

    Privacy advocates have questioned whether the technology’s use would violate personal privacy.

  • Record Numbers Of Venezuelans Seek Asylum In The U.S. Amid Political Chaos

    Some 8,300 Venezuelans applied for U.S. asylum in the first three months of 2017, which, as the Associated Press points out, puts the country on track to nearly double its record 18,155 requests last year. Around one in every five U.S. applicants this fiscal year is Venezuelan, making Venezuela America’s leading source of asylum claimants for the first time, surpassing countries like China and Mexico.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/political-chaos-sends-record-number-of-venezuelans-fleeing-to-us_us_
    #asile #migrations #réfugiés #réfugiés_vénézuéliens #USA #Etats-Unis #Venezuela

    • Colombie : violence et afflux de réfugiés vénézuéliens préoccupent l’UE

      La Colombie est confrontée à deux « situations humanitaires », en raison de l’afflux de réfugiés fuyant « la crise au Venezuela » et d’"un nouveau cycle de violence" de divers groupes armés, a dénoncé le commissaire européen Christos Stylianides.

      https://www.courrierinternational.com/depeche/colombie-violence-et-afflux-de-refugies-venezueliens-preoccup
      #Colombie

    • Half a million and counting: Venezuelan exodus puts new strains on Colombian border town

      The sun is burning at the Colombian border town of Cúcuta. Red Cross workers attend to people with dehydration and fatigue as hundreds of Venezuelans line up to have their passports stamped, covering their heads with clothing and cardboard to fashion what shade they can.

      https://www.irinnews.org/feature/2018/03/07/half-million-and-counting-venezuelan-exodus-puts-new-strains-colombian-bor

    • Venezuelans flee to Colombia to escape economic meltdown

      The Simon Bolivar bridge has become symbolic of the mass exodus of migrants from Venezuela. The crossing is also just one piece in the complex puzzle facing Colombia, as it struggles to absorb the increasing number of migrants prompted by its neighbour’s economic and social meltdown.

      Up to 45,000 migrants cross on foot from Venezuela to Cúcuta every day. The Colombian city has become the last hope for many fleeing Venezuela’s crumbling economy. Already four million people, out of a population of 30 million, have fled Venezuela due to chronic shortages of food and medicine.

      http://www.euronews.com/2018/03/26/colombia-s-venezuelan-migrant-influx

    • Venezolanos en Colombia: una situación que se sale de las manos

      La crisis venezolana se transformó en un éxodo masivo sin precedentes, con un impacto hemisférico que apenas comienza. Brasil y Colombia, donde recae el mayor impacto, afrontan un año electoral en medio de la polarización política, que distrae la necesidad de enfrentarla con una visión conjunta, estratégica e integral.


      http://pacifista.co/venezolanos-en-colombia-crisis-opinion

      via @stesummi

    • Hungry, sick and increasingly desperate, thousands of Venezuelans are pouring into Colombia

      For evidence that the Venezuelan migrant crisis is overwhelming this Colombian border city, look no further than its largest hospital.

      The emergency room designed to serve 75 patients is likely to be crammed with 125 or more. Typically, two-thirds are impoverished Venezuelans with broken bones, infections, trauma injuries — and no insurance and little cash.

      “I’m here for medicine I take every three months or I die,” said Cesar Andrade, a 51-year-old retired army sergeant from Caracas. He had come to Cucuta’s Erasmo Meoz University Hospital for anti-malaria medication he can’t get in Venezuela. “I’m starting a new life in Colombia. The crisis back home has forced me to do it.”

      The huge increase in Venezuelan migrants fleeing their country’s economic crisis, failing healthcare system and repressive government is affecting the Cucuta metropolitan area more than any other in Colombia. It’s where 80% of all exiting Venezuelans headed for Colombia enter as foreigners.

      Despite turning away Venezuelans with cancer or chronic diseases, the hospital treated 1,200 migrant emergency patients last month, up from the handful of patients, mostly traffic collision victims, in March 2015, before the Venezuelan exodus started gathering steam.

      The hospital’s red ink is rising along with its caseload. The facility has run up debts of $5 million over the last three years to accommodate Venezuelans because the Colombian government is unable to reimburse it, said Juan Agustin Ramirez, director of the 500-bed hospital.

      “The government has ordered us to attend to Venezuelan patients but is not giving us the resources to pay for them,” Ramirez said. “The truth is, we feel abandoned. The moment could arrive when we will collapse.”

      An average of 35,000 people cross the Simon Bolivar International Bridge linking the two countries every day. About half return to the Venezuelan side after making purchases, conducting business or visiting family. But the rest stay in Cucuta at least temporarily or move on to the Colombian interior or other countries.

      For many Venezuelans, the first stop after crossing is the Divine Providence Cafeteria, an open-air soup kitchen a stone’s throw from the bridge. A Roman Catholic priest, Father Leonardo Mendoza, and volunteer staff serve some 1,500 meals daily. But it’s not enough.

      One recent day, lines stretched halfway around the block with Venezuelans, desperation and hunger etched on their faces. But some didn’t have the tickets that were handed out earlier in the day and were turned away.

      “Children come up to me and say, ’Father, I’m hungry.’ It’s heartbreaking. It’s the children’s testimony that inspires the charitable actions of all of us here,” Mendoza said.

      The precise number of Venezuelan migrants who are staying in Colombia is difficult to calculate because of the porousness of the 1,400-mile border, which has seven formal crossings. But estimates range as high as 800,000 arrivals over the last two years. At least 500,000 have gone on to the U.S., Spain, Brazil and other Latin American countries, officials here say.

      “Every day 40 buses each filled with 40 or more Venezuelans leave Cucuta, cross Colombia and go directly to Ecuador,” said Huber Plaza, a local delegate of the National Disasters Risk Management Agency. “They stay there or go on to Chile, Argentina or Peru, which seems to be the preferred destination these days.”

      Many arrive broke, hungry and in need of immediate medical attention. Over the last two years, North Santander province, where Cucuta is located, has vaccinated 58,000 Venezuelans for measles, diphtheria and other infectious diseases because only half of the arriving children have had the shots, said Nohora Barreto, a nurse with the provincial health department.

      On the day Andrade, the retired army sergeant, sought treatment, gurneys left little space in the crowded ward and hospital corridors, creating an obstacle course for nurses and doctors who shouted orders, handed out forms and began examinations.

      Andrade and many other patients stood amid the gurneys because all the chairs and beds were taken. Nearby, a pregnant woman in the early stages of labor groaned as she walked haltingly among the urgent care patients, supported by a male companion.

      Dionisio Sanchez, a 20-year-old Venezuelan laborer, sat on a gurney awaiting treatment for a severe cut he suffered on his hand at a Cucuta construction site. Amid the bustle, shouting and medical staff squeezing by, he stared ahead quietly, holding his hand wrapped in gauze and resigned to a long wait.

      “I’m lucky this didn’t happen to me back home,” Sanchez said. “Everyone is suffering a lot there. I didn’t want to leave, but hunger and other circumstances forced me to make the decision.”

      Signs of stress caused by the flood of migrants are abundant elsewhere in this city of 650,000. Schools are overcrowded, charitable organizations running kitchens and shelters are overwhelmed and police who chase vagrants and illegal street vendors from public spaces are outmanned.

      “We’ll clear 30 people from the park, but as soon as we leave, 60 more come to replace them,” said a helmeted policeman on night patrol with four comrades at downtown’s Santander Plaza. He expressed sympathy for the migrants and shook his head as he described the multitudes of homeless, saying it was impossible to control the tide.

      Sitting on a park bench nearby was Jesus Mora, a 21-year-old mechanic who arrived from Venezuela in March. He avoids sleeping in the park, he said, and looks for an alleyway or “someplace in the shadows where police won’t bother me.”

      “As long as they don’t think I’m selling drugs, I’m OK,” Mora said. “Tonight, I’m here to wait for a truck that brings around free food at this hour.” Mora said he is hoping to get a work permit. Meanwhile, he is hustling as best he can, recycling bottles, plastic and cardboard he scavenges on the street and in trash cans.

      Metropolitan Cucuta’s school system is bursting at the seams with migrant kids, who are given six-month renewable passes to attend school. Eduardo Berbesi, principal of the 1,400-student Frontera Educational Institute, a public K-12 school in Villa de Rosario that’s located a short distance from the Simon Bolivar International Bridge, says he has funds to give lunches to only 60% of his students. He blames the government for not coming through with money to finance the school’s 40% growth in enrollment since the crisis began in 2015.

      “The government tells us to receive the Venezuelan students but gives us nothing to pay for them,” Berbesi said.

      Having to refuse lunches to hungry students bothers him. “And it’s me the kids and their parents blame, not the state.”


      #Cucuta

      On a recent afternoon, every street corner in Cucuta seemed occupied with vendors selling bananas, candy, coffee, even rolls of aluminum foil.

      “If I sell 40 little cups of coffee, I earn enough to buy a kilo of rice and a little meat,” said Jesus Torres, 35, a Venezuelan who arrived last month. He was toting a shoulder bag of thermoses he had filled with coffee that morning to sell in plastic cups. “The situation is complicated here but still better than in Venezuela.”

      That evening, Leonardo Albornoz, 33, begged for coins at downtown stoplight as his wife and three children, ages 6 months to 8 years, looked on. He said he had been out of work in his native Merida for months but decided to leave for Colombia in April because his kids “were going to sleep hungry every night.”

      When the light turned red, Albornoz approached cars and buses stopped at the intersection to offer lollipops in exchange for handouts. About half of the drivers responded with a smile and some change. Several bus passengers passed him coins through open windows.

      From the sidewalk, his 8-year-old son, Kleiver, watched despondently. It was 9:30 pm — he had school the next morning and should have been sleeping, but Albornoz and his wife said they had no one to watch him or their other kids at the abandoned building where they were staying.

      “My story is a sad one like many others, but the drop that made my glass overflow was when the [Venezuelan] government confiscated my little plot of land where we could grow things,” Albornoz said.

      The increase in informal Venezuelan workers has pushed Cucuta’s unemployment rate to 16% compared with the 9% rate nationwide, Mayor Cesar Rojas said in an interview at City Hall. Although Colombians generally have welcomed their neighbors, he said, signs of resentment among jobless local residents is growing.

      “The national government isn’t sending us the resources to settle the debts, and now we have this economic crisis,” Rojas said. “With the situation in Venezuela worsening, the exodus can only increase.”

      The Colombian government admits it has been caught off guard by the dimensions — and costs — of the Venezuelan exodus, one of the largest of its kind in recent history, said Felipe Muñoz, who was named Venezuelan border manager by President Juan Manuel Santos in February.

      “This is a critical, complex and massive problem,” Muñoz said. “No country could have been prepared to receive the volume of migrants that we are receiving. In Latin America, it’s unheard of. We’re dealing with 10 times more people than those who left the Middle East for Europe last year.”

      In agreement is Jozef Merkx, Colombia representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is taking an active role in helping Colombia deal with the influx. Central America saw large migrant flows in the 1980s, but they were caused by armed conflicts, he said.

      “Venezuelans are leaving for different reasons, and the mixed nature of the displaced crisis is what makes it a unique exodus,” Merkx said during an interview in his Bogota office.

      Muñoz said Colombia feels a special obligation to help Venezuelans in need. In past decades, when the neighboring country’s oil-fueled economy needed more manpower than the local population could provide, hundreds of thousands of Colombians flooded in to work. Now the tables are turned.

      Colombia’s president has appealed to the international community for help. The U.S. government recently stepped up: The State Department announced Tuesday it was contributing $18.5 million “to support displaced Venezuelans in Colombia who have fled the crisis in their country.”

      Manuel Antolinez, director of the International Committee of the Red Cross’ 240-bed shelter for Venezuelans near the border in Villa de Rosario, said he expects the crisis to get worse before easing.

      “Our reading is that after the May 20 presidential election in Venezuela and the probable victory of President [Nicolas] Maduro, there will be increased dissatisfaction with the regime and more oppression against the opposition,” he said. “Living conditions will worsen.”

      Whatever its duration, the crisis is leading Ramirez, director of the Erasmo Meoz University Hospital, to stretch out payments to his suppliers from an average of 30 days to 90 days after billing. He hopes the government will come through with financial aid.

      “The collapse will happen when we can’t pay our employees,” he said. He fears that could happen soon.

      http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-venezuela-colombia-20180513-story.html

    • The Venezuelan Refugee Crisis : The View from Brazil

      Shadowing the Maduro regime’s widely condemned May 20 presidential election, Venezuela’s man-made humanitarian crisis continues to metastasize, forcing hundreds of thousands of families to flee to neighboring countries. While Colombia is bearing the brunt of the mass exodus of Venezuelans, Brazil is also facing an unprecedented influx. More than 40,000 refugees, including indigenous peoples, have crossed the border into Brazil since early 2017. The majority of these refugees have crossed into and remain in Roraima, Brazil’s poorest and most isolated state. While the Brazilian government is doing what it can to address the influx of refugees and mitigate the humanitarian risks for both the Venezuelans and local residents, much more needs to be done.


      As part of its continuing focus on the Venezuelan crisis, CSIS sent two researchers on a week-long visit to Brasilia and Roraima in early May. The team met with Brazilian federal government officials, international organizations, and civil society, in addition to assessing the situation on-the-ground at the Venezuela-Brazil border.

      https://www.csis.org/analysis/venezuelan-refugee-crisis-view-brazil
      #Boa_Vista #camps_de_réfugiés

    • Le Brésil mobilise son #armée à la frontière du Venezuela

      Le président brésilien Michel Temer a ordonné mardi soir par décret l’utilisation des forces armées pour « garantir la sécurité » dans l’Etat septentrional de Roraima, à la frontière avec le Venezuela.

      Depuis des mois, des milliers de réfugiés ont afflué dans cet Etat. « Je décrète l’envoi des forces armées pour garantir la loi et l’ordre dans l’Etat de Roraima du 29 août au 12 septembre », a annoncé le chef de l’Etat.

      Le but de la mesure est de « garantir la sécurité des citoyens mais aussi des immigrants vénézuéliens qui fuient leur pays ».
      Afflux trop important

      Plusieurs dizaines de milliers d’entre eux fuyant les troubles économiques et politiques de leur pays ont afflué ces dernières années dans l’Etat de Roraima, où les services sociaux sont submergés.

      Michel Temer a ajouté que la situation était « tragique ». Et le président brésilien de blâmer son homologue vénézuélien Nicolas Maduro : « La situation au Venezuela n’est plus un problème politique interne. C’est une menace pour l’harmonie de tout le continent », a déclaré le chef d’Etat dans un discours télévisé.

      https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/9806458-le-bresil-mobilise-son-armee-a-la-frontiere-du-venezuela.html

      #frontières #militarisation_des_frontières

    • The Exiles. A Trip to the Border Highlights Venezuela’s Devastating Humanitarian Crisis

      Never have I seen this more clearly than when I witnessed first-hand Venezuelans fleeing the devastating human rights, humanitarian, political, and economic crisis their government has created.

      Last July, I stood on the Simon Bolivar bridge that connects Cúcuta in Colombia with Táchira state in Venezuela and watched hundreds of people walk by in both directions all day long, under the blazing sun. A suitcase or two, the clothes on their back — other than that, many of those pouring over the border had nothing but memories of a life left behind.

      https://www.hrw.org/video-photos/interactive/2018/11/14/exiles-trip-border-highlights-venezuelas-devastating

    • Crises Colliding: The Mass Influx of Venezuelans into the Dangerous Fragility of Post-Peace Agreement Colombia

      Living under the government of President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuelans face political repression, extreme shortages of food and medicine, lack of social services, and economic collapse. Three million of them – or about 10 percent of the population – have fled the country.[1] The vast majority have sought refuge in the Americas, where host states are struggling with the unprecedented influx.
      Various actors have sought to respond to this rapidly emerging crisis. The UN set up the Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela, introducing a new model for agency coordination across the region. This Regional Platform, co-led by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), has established a network of subsidiary National Platforms in the major host countries to coordinate the response on the ground. At the regional level, the Organization of American States (OAS) established a Working Group to Address the Regional Crisis of Venezuelan Migrants and Refugees. Latin American states have come together through the Quito Process – a series of diplomatic meetings designed to help coordinate the response of countries in the region to the crisis. Donors, including the United States, have provided bilateral assistance.


      https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports/2019/1/10/crises-colliding-the-mass-influx-of-venezuelans-into-the-dang

      #rapport

  • Trump Intensifies His Attacks on Journalists and Condemns F.B.I. ‘Leakers’ - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/us/politics/white-house-sean-spicer-briefing.html

    Reporters from The Times, BuzzFeed News, CNN, The Los Angeles Times, Politico, the BBC and The Huffington Post were among those shut out of the briefing. Aides to Mr. Spicer admitted only reporters from a group of news organizations that, the White House said, had been previously confirmed.

    Those organizations included Breitbart News, the One America News Network and The Washington Times, all with conservative leanings. Journalists from ABC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Fox News also attended.

    Reporters from The Associated Press and Time magazine, who were set to be allowed in, chose not to attend the briefing in protest of the White House’s actions. The Washington Post did not send a reporter to the session.

    Still, the Committee to Protect Journalists, which typically advocates press rights in countries with despotic regimes, issued an alarmed statement on Friday about Mr. Trump’s escalating language.

    “It is not the job of political leaders to determine how journalists should conduct their work, and sets a terrible example for the rest of the world,” said the group’s executive director, Joel Simon. “The U.S. should be promoting press freedom and access to information.”

    Mr. Trump, in his attack on the news media at the conservative gathering, complained at length about the use of anonymous sources in news stories, charging that some reporters were fabricating unnamed sources to level unfair charges against him.

    “They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name,” Mr. Trump said. “Let their name be put out there.”

    At another point, he said, “A few days ago, I called the fake news the enemy of the people because they have no sources — they just make it up.” He added that his “enemy of the people” label applied only to “dishonest” reporters and editors.

    #journalisme #USA #Trump

  • 2月18日のツイート
    http://twilog.org/ChikuwaQ/date-170218

    Top story: Bill Chizek Photography - Me and My Crazy Mind www.thecrazymind.com/2016/08/bill-c…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 08:11:35

    Top story: BuzzFeed Edit News www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/helpi…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 05:53:08

    Top story: The Associated Press on Twitter: "BREAKING: Trump administration con… twitter.com/ap/status/8326…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 03:24:58

    Top story: Pentagon Finds It Has No Records Approving Mike Flynn’s Russian-TV P… www.wsj.com/articles/penta…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 01:02:40

    RT @KeiYamamoto0905: 例の中日新聞記事についての公開質問状にかんして、上野千鶴子さんから高谷幸さんへの回答。 人口減少か大量移民か? ちづこのブログNo.113 / WAN ウィメンズアクションネットワーク @wansmt wan.or.jp/article/show/7… posted at (...)

  • 1月18日のツイート
    http://twilog.org/ChikuwaQ/date-170118

    Top story: Sienná - interview - Me and My Crazy Mind www.thecrazymind.com/2014/09/sienna…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 06:58:15

    Top story: Health Law’s Repeal Could Raise Costs and Number of Uninsured, New R… www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 04:52:44

    Top story: The Associated Press on Twitter: "BREAKING: Russian President Vladim… twitter.com/AP/status/8213…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 02:37:30

  • AP changes style on ‘illegal immigrant’ – Poynter

    http://www.poynter.org/2013/ap-changes-style-on-illegal-immigrant/209045

    Via @fil qui a vraiment l’oeil partout

    The Associated Press is changing its Stylebook entry on the term “illegal immigrant,” the news cooperative announced Tuesday. The new entry reads in part:

    illegal immigration Entering or residing in a country in violation of civil or criminal law. Except in direct quotes essential to the story, use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant. Acceptable variations include living in or entering a country illegally or without legal permission.

    In a statement, AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll says the change came, in part, because of ongoing work at AP dedicated to “ridding the Stylebook of labels.”

    Immigration is just one area where AP is doing such work, Carroll says in the statement. Now it recommends “Saying someone was ’diagnosed with schizophrenia’ instead of schizophrenic, for example.”

    #migrations #réfugiés #vocabulaire #terminologie #mots #sémiologie
    #migrants_illégal