country:russia

Iran circles wagons as Trump’s B Team beats war drum
Posted on May 9, 2019 by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR - Indian Punchline
▻https://indianpunchline.com/iran-circles-wagons-as-trumps-b-team-beats-war-drum

https://indianpunchline.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Rouhani.jpg

If there can be a lethal game of Russian roulette in international politics, this is it — what just began on May 8, the first anniversary of the United States’ withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal of July 2015.

Iran exercised “strategic patience” for one full year, as President Hassan Rouhani noted, upon the request from the five remaining signatories of the nuclear deal — Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. That period has run out.

Not only have the five powers failed to persuade the Trump administration to retract from its decision, but Washington has gone on a warpath of sanctions and deployment of a formidable strike group to the Persian Gulf.

On the other hand, the five big powers couldn’t ensure that Iran got the full benefits out of the nuclear deal as envisaged under the nuclear deal, despite its full compliance with the terms of the deal, which has been acknowledged repeatedly by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Only Russia and China observed the commitments given to Iran as signatories, while the three European powers merely paid lip service.

Against this sombre backdrop, Rouhani announced on Wednesday that if the remaining signatories fail to provide Iran with the merits stated under the deal in the next 60 days, Tehran will stop complying with its nuclear undertakings in consequent phases. For a start, Iran will cease to observe the capping on the volume of enriched uranium and heavy water reserves that it is permitted to hold.

After 60 days, if Iran’s grievances are not still addressed, it will no longer observe the restrictions on the 3.6 percent level of uranium enrichment and will resume work on its heavy water reactor at Arak. Iran has underlined that it is not withdrawing from the nuclear deal but is only taking reciprocal measures as provided under articles 26 and 32 of the agreement regarding the eventuality of one or more of the six powers failing to observe the treaty. Rouhani has specified Iran’s concerns particularly in the oil industry and the banking sector, which Washington has targeted with sanctions.

Rouhani said that after 120 days from now, even if Iran starts enriching uranium beyond the 3.6 level and resumes work in Arak, it will give yet another 60 days for negotiations before taking additional unspecified (which could be by the yearend). Meanwhile, Iran will react strongly against any move by the western powers to approach the UN Security Council for reimposition of the old UN sanctions. (...)

#Iran

Why Russia is the big winner of the Iran deal fallout - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/05/08/why-russia-is-big-winner-iran-deal-fallout

Iran announced Wednesday that it would stop complying with certain elements of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal, in 60 days if the remaining signatories did not find a way to make the deal more economically beneficial to Iran.

[...]

“We urge the Iranians to think very long and hard before they break that deal,” Jeremy Hunt, British foreign secretary, said Wednesday, referring to Iran’s threat to hold onto excess uranium and heavy water stockpiles. “Today, nothing would be worse than Iran, itself, leaving this accord,” French Defense Minister Florence Parly told France’s BFMTV.

U.S. sinks Arctic accord due to climate change differences - diplomats - Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1SD13W

https://s3.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20190507&t=2&i=1384504549&w=1200&r=LYNXNPEF460Q6#.jpg

The United States has refused to sign an agreement on challenges in the Arctic due to discrepancies over climate change wording, diplomats said on Tuesday, jeopardising cooperation in the polar region at the sharp edge of global warming.

With Arctic temperatures rising at twice the rate of the rest of the globe, the melting ice is creating potential new shipping lanes and has opened much of the world’s last untapped reserves of oil and gas to commercial exploitation .

A meeting of eight nations bordering the Arctic in Rovaniemi in Finland on Tuesday was supposed to frame a two-year agenda to balance the challenge of global warming with sustainable development of mineral wealth.

But sources with knowledge of the discussions said the United States balked at signing a final declaration as it disagreed with wording that climate change was a serious threat to the Arctic.

It was the first time a declaration had been cancelled since the Arctic Council was formed in 1996.

Russia’s Payback Will Be Syria’s Reconstruction Money – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/05/russias-payback-will-be-syrias-reconstruction-money

https://foreignpolicymag.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/gettyimages-890107312.jpg

But international donors—and Bashar al-Assad—aren’t playing along yet.
[…]
Almost four years later, with rebels having mostly abandoned calls for regime change and losing large swaths of their enclaves, Russia has achieved most of its short- and medium-term goals in Syria. A growing number of signs suggest Moscow is now shifting focus to another objective: The Kremlin would like Syria to provide it a financial windfall.
[…]
Russian analysts say Moscow had originally envisaged a sect-based power-sharing arrangement, modeled on Lebanon, between the Syrian government and several opposition groups as the political panacea for the conflict. But Russia could neither convince the regime nor the rebels to compromise and abandoned the plan. Now it has reduced its ambitions and is focused on using its leverage with Assad to agree on a constitutional committee whose members have been appointed by the regime, the opposition, and representatives of Syrian civil society.

Max Suckov, a Russia analyst, said Moscow would achieve little more in terms of a political settlement. “Russia is not very hopeful about a political settlement which satisfies all Syrian actors,” he said. “I think Russia has accepted that Syria will continue to be a centralized state, but that certainly makes it difficult to convince the EU to pay for reconstruction.”

From Sri Lanka to Indonesia, more mothers are becoming suicide bombers – and killing their children too | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/3008808/sri-lanka-indonesia-more-mothers-are-becoming-suicide-bombers-and

5 May, 2019 Amy Chew - The deadly new phenomenon sees women radicalised by IS ideology taking their children’s lives and their own in pursuit of martyrdom
Experts say the rise in the radicalisation of married couples is endangering entire families

IAs night fell on blood-soaked Sri Lanka following the carnage of Easter Sunday last month, police knocked on a door in an upscale neighbourhood – the home of two of the suicide bombers.
They were greeted by Fatima Ibrahim, the pregnant wife of bomber Ilham Ibrahim
. On seeing the police, she ran inside and detonated an explosive device, killing herself, her unborn child and her three sons aged five, four and nine months. Three police officers also died in the blast.
In a similar case in March, anti-terror police arrested a suspected pro-Islamic State (IS)
bomb-maker, Abu Hamzah, in Indonesia
. When they went to his home to arrest his wife, Solimah, who had helped him make the bombs, she blew herself up, killing her two-year-old child.

From Sri Lanka to Indonesia, a deadly new phenomenon is emerging – women, radicalised by IS ideology, are killing themselves and their children in their pursuit of martyrdom.

Female suicide bombers have always featured in the annals of jihadism, going back to the Chechen Islamists in Russia known as Black Widows, but filicide by female radicals brings a dangerous new dimension to terrorism.

“We did not have this in al-Qaeda,” said Sofyan Tsauri, former member of al-Qaeda Southeast Asia. “In Islam, jihad for a woman is to take care of the household, nurturing and educating the children, not taking up arms.”

For these women, the maternal instinct to protect their children is supplanted by the quest for a “swift passage” into heaven, according to Nasir Abbas, a Malaysian former leader of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah (JI) and once the most-wanted jihadist in Southeast Asia.

He later switched sides and is now involved in deradicalisation efforts and other initiatives to counter violent extremism in Indonesia.

“These [female suicide bombers] believe protecting their children means protecting them from turning into infidels when they are gone,” he told This Week in Asia .

“In their twisted belief, they are convinced their children will also enter into heaven if they die with them [or] carry out the same act [of suicide bombing].”

A significant development pointing to this new phenomenon took place when a family of six bombed three churches in Surabaya in May 2018. The perpetrators were a father, mother and four children aged between nine and 18, according to Nasir and the Indonesian police.

The father, a wealthy businessman named Dita Oepriarto, strapped bombs on his wife and two daughters, who detonated them at a church. He made his two sons ride a motorbike laden with bombs into another church, where they blew themselves up.

Dita then drove his car, filled with explosives, into a third church. In the space of 10 minutes, the entire family was dead. Dita’s younger son, 16-year-old Firman Halim, was seen crying inconsolably during dawn prayers at a mosque some two hours before the attack.

“It is believed that the night before the bombings, the father told the children to prepare to die,” said Rizka Nurul, a researcher with the Institute for International Peace Building (IIPB), Indonesia’s first private deradicalisation organisation.

The rise in the radicalisation of married couples is proving to be a danger to the lives of their children.

“Children are in grave danger if both their parents are convinced that they must wage jihad … to atone for their sins in this lifetime by carrying out terror attacks,” said Nasir, the former JI leader. “The parents believe in bringing their children with them to heaven.”

Women are capable of being more radical and militant than men, according to researchers in the field of countering violent extremism.

“[This is] because women use their hearts. They can be more dangerous as they are more willing to sacrifice, compared with men who tend to be more rational as they consider costs and benefits,” said the IIPB’s Rizka.

Such was the case with Solimah, who blew herself up in her home following the arrest of her husband, Abu Hamzah. During interrogation, he told investigators his wife was much more radical than him.

The couple are believed to have been radicalised online by reading the teachings of Indonesia’s foremost IS ideologue, Aman Abdurrahman, who is currently on death row for inciting others to commit terror attacks in Indonesia.

Many of these women are believed to be radicalised by their husbands and accede to their teachings as a mark of obedience to their spouse.

“I am not surprised by [the suicide of the woman in the Sri Lanka blast] as she lives in a terrorist group’s environment,” said Ani Rufaida, lecturer in social psychology at Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama Islamic University.

“In my prior research of wives of terrorists, most express obedience to their husbands. Only a small number of wives could reject the extreme ideology of their husbands, but they face consequences, for example, being separated from their husband,” she said. “Extremist groups require total obedience from the wife.”

In a chilling development, some radicalised Indonesian women are requesting a suicide vest as dowry from their husbands-to-be, according to former JI leader Nasir. “These women plan to carry out suicide bombings after they are married. Several of them have been arrested,” he said.

A counterterrorism official told This Week in Asia that a woman who requested such a vest was arrested in Klaten, Central Java, last March.

Countering this phenomenon requires both a soft and hard approach, according to Nasir. “The deviant teaching of terror networks needs to be [made] public. We need to have continuous deradicalisation and counter violent extremism programmes,” he said, adding that this would help dismantle terror networks
and detain their members before attacks were carried out.

Indonesia through its National Counter-Terrorism Agency (BNPT) has established a deradicalisation programme for inmates, which works to rehabilitate their ideas about Islam through counter-narratives by religious leaders and psychologists, and equips them with skills they can use when they are eventually reintegrated into society. BNPT also focus on countering violent extremism on university campuses.

Analysts say getting former militant leaders to work with universities and the police in deradicalisation makes these programmes more effective, as they have unparalleled insight into the minds of attackers.

Another ex-JI member, Ali Fauzi, the younger brother of two executed Bali bombers, started his own NGO called the Circle of Peace, which is deeply involved in countering violent extremism and deradicalisation.

Women must now be a specific focus of these programmes and other community efforts to prevent radicalisation, analysts say.

A recent Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) report called for more women to be recruited by Indonesia’s counterterrorism police squad, Detachment 88, given the increasing number of female militants.

“The percentage of women in the police generally remains woefully low, just over 8 per cent,” it said.

Better programmes are also needed for pro-IS female detainees. There are currently 15 such women in detention, some of whom were involved in violence. According to IPAC, understanding the backgrounds and motivations of these women is essential for a more targeted rehabilitation programme.

“IS may have reluctantly accepted women as combatants, but they are now encouraged to take part in operations,” the report said. “It is easy to dismiss the competence of Indonesian terrorists, but as long as they continue to subscribe to IS ideology, they remain a serious threat.”

#Sri_Lanka #Indonésie #terrorisme #religion #islam #asie #daech

Tom Stevenson reviews ‘AngloArabia’ by David Wearing · LRB 9 May 2019
▻https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n09/tom-stevenson/what-are-we-there-for

It is a cliché that the United States and Britain are obsessed with Middle East oil, but the reason for the obsession is often misdiagnosed. Anglo-American interest in the enormous hydrocarbon reserves of the Persian Gulf does not derive from a need to fuel Western consumption . [...] Anglo-American involvement in the Middle East has always been principally about the strategic advantage gained from controlling Persian Gulf hydrocarbons, not Western oil needs. [...]

Other parts of the world – the US, Russia, Canada – have large deposits of crude oil, and current estimates suggest Venezuela has more proven reserves than Saudi Arabia. But Gulf oil lies close to the surface, where it is easy to get at by drilling; it is cheap to extract, and is unusually ‘light’ and ‘sweet’ (industry terms for high purity and richness). It is also located near the middle of the Eurasian landmass, yet outside the territory of any global power. Western Middle East policy, as explained by Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was to control the Gulf and stop any Soviet influence over ‘that vital energy resource upon which the economic and political stability both of Western Europe and of Japan depend’, or else the ‘geopolitical balance of power would be tipped’. In a piece for the Atlantic a few months after 9/11, Benjamin Schwarz and Christopher Layne explained that Washington ‘assumes responsibility for stabilising the region’ because China, Japan and Europe will be dependent on its resources for the foreseeable future: ‘America wants to discourage those powers from developing the means to protect that resource for themselves.’ Much of US power is built on the back of the most profitable protection #racket in modern history.

[...]

It is difficult to overstate the role of the Gulf in the way the world is currently run. In recent years, under both Obama and Trump, there has been talk of plans for a US withdrawal from the Middle East and a ‘#pivot’ to Asia. If there are indeed such plans, it would suggest that recent US administrations are ignorant of the way the system over which they preside works.

The Arab Gulf states have proved well-suited to their status as US client states, in part because their populations are small and their subjugated working class comes from Egypt and South Asia. [...] There are occasional disagreements between Gulf rulers and their Western counterparts over oil prices, but they never become serious. [...] The extreme conservatism of the Gulf monarchies, in which there is in principle no consultation with the citizenry, means that the use of oil sales to prop up Western economies – rather than to finance, say, domestic development – is met with little objection. Wearing describes the modern relationship between Western governments and the Gulf monarchs as ‘asymmetric interdependence’, which makes clear that both get plenty from the bargain. Since the West installed the monarchs, and its behaviour is essentially extractive, I see no reason to avoid describing the continued Anglo-American domination of the Gulf as #colonial.

Saudi Arabia and the other five members of the Gulf Co-operation Council are collectively the world’s largest buyer of military equipment by a big margin. [...]. The deals are highly profitable for Western arms companies (Middle East governments account for around half of all British arms sales), but the charge that Western governments are in thrall to the arms companies is based on a misconception. Arms sales are useful principally as a way of bonding the Gulf monarchies to the Anglo-American military. Proprietary systems – from fighter jets to tanks and surveillance equipment – ensure lasting dependence, because training, maintenance and spare parts can be supplied only by the source country. Western governments are at least as keen on these deals as the arms industry, and much keener than the Gulf states themselves. While speaking publicly of the importance of fiscal responsibility, the US, Britain and France have competed with each other to bribe Gulf officials into signing unnecessary arms deals.

Control of the Gulf also yields less obvious benefits. [...] in 1974, the US Treasury secretary, William Simon, secretly travelled to Saudi Arabia to secure an agreement that remains to this day the foundation of the dollar’s global dominance. As David Spiro has documented in The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony (1999), the US made its guarantees of Saudi and Arab Gulf security conditional on the use of oil sales to shore up the #dollar. Under Simon’s deal, Saudi Arabia agreed to buy massive tranches of US Treasury bonds in secret off-market transactions. In addition, the US compelled Saudi Arabia and the other Opec countries to set oil prices in dollars, and for many years Gulf oil shipments could be paid for only in dollars. A de facto oil standard replaced gold, assuring the dollar’s value and pre-eminence.

For the people of the region, the effects of a century of AngloArabia have been less satisfactory. Since the start of the war in Yemen in 2015 some 75,000 people have been killed, not counting those who have died of disease or starvation. In that time Britain has supplied arms worth nearly £5 billion to the Saudi coalition fighting the Yemeni Houthis. The British army has supplied and maintained aircraft throughout the campaign; British and American military personnel are stationed in the command rooms in Riyadh; British special forces have trained Saudi soldiers fighting inside Yemen; and Saudi pilots continue to be trained at RAF Valley on Anglesey. The US is even more deeply involved: the US air force has provided mid-air refuelling for Saudi and Emirati aircraft – at no cost, it emerged in November. Britain and the US have also funnelled weapons via the UAE to militias in Yemen. If the Western powers wished, they could stop the conflict overnight by ending their involvement. Instead the British government has committed to the Saudi position. As foreign secretary, Philip Hammond pledged that Britain would continue to ‘support the Saudis in every practical way short of engaging in combat’. This is not only complicity but direct participation in a war that is as much the West’s as it is Saudi Arabia’s.

The Gulf monarchies are family dictatorships kept in power by external design, and it shows. [...] The main threat to Western interests is internal: a rising reminiscent of Iran’s in 1979. To forestall such an event, Britain equips and trains the Saudi police force, has military advisers permanently attached to the internal Saudi security forces, and operates a strategic communications programme for the Saudi National Guard (called Sangcom). [...]

As Wearing argues, ‘Britain could choose to swap its support for Washington’s global hegemony for a more neutral and peaceful position.’ It would be more difficult for the US to extricate itself. Contrary to much of the commentary in Washington, the strategic importance of the Middle East is increasing, not decreasing. The US may now be exporting hydrocarbons again, thanks to state-subsidised shale, but this has no effect on the leverage it gains from control of the Gulf. And impending climate catastrophe shows no sign of weaning any nation from fossil fuels , least of all the developing East Asian states. US planners seem confused about their own intentions in the Middle East. In 2017, the National Intelligence Council described the sense of neglect felt by the Gulf monarchies when they heard talk of the phantasmagorical Asia pivot. The report’s authors were profoundly negative about the region’s future, predicting ‘large-scale violence, civil wars, authority vacuums and humanitarian crises persisting for many years’. The causes, in the authors’ view, were ‘entrenched elites’ and ‘low oil prices’. They didn’t mention that maintenance of both these things is US policy.

#etats-unis #arabie_saoudite #pétrole #moyen_orient #contrôle

The Race to Develop the Moon | The New Yorker
▻https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/06/the-race-to-develop-the-moon

https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5cc34b613e22812e9dda2bbd/16:9/w_1200,h_630,c_limit/190506_r34241.jpg

The guiding laws of space are defined by the Outer Space Treaty, from 1967, which has been signed by a hundred and eight countries, including all those with substantial space programs. “Laws that govern outer space are similar to the laws for the high seas,” Alain Berinstain, the vice-president of global development at the lunar-exploration company Moon Express, explained. “If you are two hundred miles away from the continental shelf, those waters don’t belong to anybody—they belong to everybody.” Moon Express describes the moon as the eighth continent. The company, which is based in Florida, is hoping to deliver its first lander to the moon in 2020; on board will be telescopes and the Celestis cremains. “If you look down at the waters from your ship and see fish, those fish belong to everybody,” Berinstain continued. “But, if you put a net down and pull those fish onto the deck of the ship, they’re yours. This could change, but right now that is how the U.S. is interpreting the Outer Space Treaty.”

Individual countries have their own interpretations of the treaty, and set up their own regulatory frameworks. Luxembourg promotes itself as “a unique legal, regulatory and business environment” for companies devoted to space resources, and is the first European country to pass legislation similar to that of the U.S., deeming resources collected in space to be ownable by private entities.

It’s not difficult to imagine moon development, like all development, proceeding less than peacefully, and less than equitably. (At least, unlike with colonization on Earth, there are no natives whose land we’re taking, or so we assume.) Philip Metzger, a planetary physicist at the University of Central Florida, said, “I’m really glad that all these countries, all these companies, are going to the moon. But there will be problems.” Any country can withdraw from the Outer Space Treaty by giving a year’s notice. “If any country feels it has a sufficient lead in space, that is a motivation to withdraw from the treaty,” he said.

So there is a tacit space race already. On the one hand, every national space agency applauded the success of the Chang’e-4 lander. The mission had science partnerships with Germany, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, and Sweden. NASA collaborates with many countries in space, sharing data, communications networks, and expertise. Russian rockets bring American astronauts to the International Space Station. When, in response to economic sanctions, the head of the Russian space agency said that maybe the American astronauts could get to the I.S.S. by trampoline, the comment was dismissed as posturing. Still, NASA has contracted with Boeing and SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, to begin taking astronauts to the I.S.S. this year—which means the U.S. will no longer rely on Russia for that. Russia and China say they will work together on a moon base. NASA used to collaborate with the China National Space Administration; in 2011, six months after members of NASA visited the C.N.S.A., Congress passed a bill that effectively prohibited collaboration.

It’s natural to want to leave the moon undisturbed; it’s also clear that humanity will disturb it. But do we need to live there? Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, envisages zoning the moon for heavy industry, and Earth for light industry and residential purposes. Bezos’s company Blue Origin is developing reusable rockets intended to bring humans reliably back and forth from space, with the long-term goal of creating manufacturing plants there, in zero gravity. Earth would be eased of its industrial burden, and the lower-gravity conditions would be beneficial for making certain goods, such as fibre-optic cables.

“There’s the argument that we’ve destroyed the Earth and now we’re going to destroy the moon. But I don’t see it that way,” Metzger said. “The resources in space are billions of times greater than on Earth. Space pretty much erases everything we do. If you crush an asteroid to dust, the solar wind will blow it away. We can’t really mess up the solar system.”

#Espace #Communs #Tragédie_communs #Idéologie_californienne #Géopolitique

Upgraded Russian SPY PLANE makes maiden flight over US nuclear & military sites – report — RT World News
▻https://www.rt.com/news/457679-russian-spy-plane-us

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A Russian Tu-214ON spy plane has reportedly made a reconnaissance tour over the southwestern US, taking a glimpse at an array of military bases as well as nuclear and chemical weapons depots as part of the #Open_Skies treaty.

The Drive reported, citing FlightRadar 24 tracking service data, that the newest version of the Tu-214 observation aircraft graced US skies after taking off from Rosecrans Air National Guard Base in St. Joseph, Missouri on Thursday.

The flight reportedly lasted six hours and saw the surveillance aircraft fly over a series of US defense and storage facilities scattered over the territory of West Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. The plane is reported to have flown over the Kirtland Air Force Base, which hosts the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center and functions as a nuclear storage site. In Colorado, the plane passed over the Pueblo Chemical Depot, one of the last two sites in the US with chemical munitions and materials.

The flight itself had been authorized by the US under the Treaty on Open Skies, which allows its signatories to conduct short inspections of each other’s territory. The treaty was signed in 1992, but did not come into force until 2002. The US and Russia are among its 34 members.

The Russian Defense Ministry has not commented on the details of the mission. Earlier, Sergey Ryzhkov, head of the Russian Center for Reduction of Nuclear Threat, announced that the Tu-214ON would be conducting surveillance from Missouri Airport between 22 April and April 27. Under the treaty, the flight has to be monitored by US specialists on board the plane.

Washington eventually greenlighted the Tu-214ON flyover after initially refusing to certify the Russian “spy eye,” claiming that its digital surveillance equipment was more advanced than Moscow had declared and might manipulate digital data. After some back-and-forth, the US approved the plane for the flights over its territory in September last year.

Tu-214ON is an updated version of the regular Tu-214. Its cockpit can fit two more people, which allowed the manufacturer to install more modern electronics. Its range has increased to a reported 6,500km (4,040 miles). The aircraft boasts three sensor arrays that include a digital photo camera, an infrared camera, and a TV camera complete with a sideways-looking synthetic aperture radar.

The Giant Soviet Pipeline System That’s Full of Tainted Crude - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-26/the-giant-soviet-pipeline-system-that-s-full-of-tainted-crude

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i8zLMU.ZW8W0/v1/1200x767.jpg

Russia’s giant Soviet-era oil pipeline is a vital piece of Europe’s energy infrastructure, carrying crude to refineries across the region. This week it’s been hit by probably the biggest crisis in its 55-year history: both branches of the #Druzhba pipeline have been closed due to the presence of contaminated crude oil that can cause serious damage to refineries.

What is the Druzhba pipeline?
The Druzhba, or Friendship, pipeline system is a Soviet-era behemoth, originally designed to carry crude from the USSR to allied countries in eastern Europe. The line starts at Almetyevsk in the Republic of Tatarstan, a town that was founded in 1953 as an oil-processing center for the giant Romashkino oil field, then the mainstay of the Soviet oil industry. It’s now also a major pipeline junction, where conduits from the Volga-Urals region, West Siberia and the Caspian Sea meet.

The Druzhba pipeline carries oil westwards to Mozyr in Belarus, where it splits into two branches. One continues westwards across Poland and into Germany. It delivers crude to refineries at Plock and Gdansk in Poland and Schwedt and Leuna in Germany. A southern branch crosses Ukraine to Uzhgorod on the border with the Slovak Republic, where it again splits. One leg delivers crude to the Szazhalombatta refinery near Budapest in Hungary. The other supplies refineries in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The total length of the line, including all its branches, is around 5,500 kilometers (3,420 miles).

Construction of the system began in 1960 and the line was put into operation in October 1964.

A spur line from Unecha in Russia that crossed Belarus to an export terminal on the Baltic Sea at Ventspils in Latvia was completed in 1968, but was closed in 2002 after Russia halted crude exports through Latvia, following the construction of its own Baltic export terminal at Primorsk. A new spur line from Unecha, bypassing Belarus to a second Russian Baltic export terminal at Ust-Luga, came into operation in March 2012.

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/o7fkea4dbuz8y64/20190427_Drujba.png

The importance of Druzhba
Druzhba can carry between 1.2 million and 1.4 million barrels of crude a day, according to the International Association of Oil Transporters, with the possibility of boosting that to around 2 million barrels. It forms a vital source of supply for the refineries along its route in Poland, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

During 2018, the Druzhba network was used to deliver about 1 million barrels a day of Russian crude to those five countries, with a further 500,000 barrels a day pumped to Ust-Luga for export by sea.

While most of the refineries along its length can source at least some of their crude requirements via other routes, Druzhba has provided most of their feedstock and most were designed specifically to process the Russian Urals crude delivered through the pipeline.

The #contamination
Europe’s oil refineries stopped accepting piped deliveries of Urals crude from Russia this week after flows were found to be contaminated with abnormally high levels of organic chlorides that, when refined, become hydrochloric acid that can damage the plants.

The issue was first raised by Belarus and has also affected supplies from the Russian port of Ust-Luga, according to a person familiar with the matter.

There are no signs that shipments from Novorossiysk or Primorsk, two other Russian tanker-loading facilities, have been disrupted.

Russia’s government has blamed a private storage terminal in the center of the country for the problem. It will now take two weeks to ensure uncontaminated crude is flowing along the entire length of the pipeline.

The millions of barrels tainted crude will need to blended with larger quantities of unblemished oil to get the impurities down to safe levels, a task that might some weeks or months.

Organic chlorides are generally not present in crude oils, but are used to dissolve wax and during cleaning operations at production sites, pipelines or tanks.

#drujba #pipelines #oléoducs

Bien garder à l’esprit - Pour mesurer ce qu’est réellement l’administration Trump :

In recent months, the Trump administration has taken a hard line, refusing to agree to any UN documents that refer to sexual or reproductive health, on grounds that such language implies support for abortions. It has also opposed the use of the word “gender”, seeing it as a cover for liberal promotion of transgender rights.

UN waters down rape resolution to appease US’s hardline abortion stance | Global development | The Guardian

▻https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/apr/23/un-resolution-passes-trump-us-veto-threat-abortion-language-removed

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c6fb855c40adcde5048082785d92bc62c67ec110/92_0_3331_1998/master/3331.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&s=e35f572622075de16ce35a4b0e1dac0d

The UN has backed a resolution on combatting rape in conflict but excluded references in the text to sexual and reproductive health, after vehement opposition from the US.

The resolution passed by the security council on Tuesday after a three-hour debate and a weekend of fierce negotiations on the language among member states that threatened to derail the process.

The vote was carried 13 votes in favour. China and Russia abstained. On Monday, the US had threatened to veto the resolution but it is understood that last minute concessions on Tuesday morning got the US on side.

Other omissions included calls for a working group to review progress on ending sexual violence.

#viol #crime_de_guerre #crime_contre_l_humanité

MH17: Der EGMR drückt sich vor einer Entscheidung (►https://www.hei...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/8899205

MH17: Der EGMR drückt sich vor einer Entscheidung

Turkey’s Policy in the Balkans: More than Neo-Ottomanism

There is a fundamental misperception with regard to Turkey’s relationship with the Balkans. Turkey is not external to the region, the way Russia is for instance. Its history and geographic location make it a part of southeast Europe. Millions of Turks have their family roots in what was once known as ‘Turkey-in-Europe.’ This includes the founder of the republic, the Salonika-born Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Ties run deep at the political, economic, and societal levels.

All those connections have drawn Turkey to the Balkans, especially after the end of the Cold War. The notion that Turks are now coming back does not hold. Closer engagement in the region started under President Turgut Özal in the early 1990s. But back then, Turkey balanced between bilateralism and multilateralism. It invested in economic and security ties with friendly countries such as Albania, Macedonia, Romania and Bulgaria while adhering to NATO as its response to the wars in ex-Yugoslavia. What changed under the Justice and Development (AK) Party, notably over the past decade, is the switch to bilateralism. That is understandable given the cracks in relations between Ankara and the West. All the same, it is concerning since it is coinciding with the push against the EU and NATO by Russia, which leverages history, religious identity and anti-Western rhetoric to legitimize its actions.

Pundits and politicians often use ‘Neo-Ottomanism’ to describe Turkey’s forays. The label can be often misleading. Yes, Turkish President Recep Erdogan praises the Ottoman Empire and its legacy, domestically and beyond Turkey’s borders. But so did his predecessors in office. Within the country, liberals and Islamist conservatives alike all rediscovered the Ottomans from the 1980s onwards in questioning the Kemalist political order. The government has been reaching out to Balkan Muslims through TIKA, the Turkish developmental agency, and the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) for decades.

Neo-Ottomanism is therefore the packaging, not the substance. Turkey’s objective is not to recreate the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. That is far beyond the country’s resources and capacity. The region is gravitating in economic, social, institutional and political terms to the West. What we have instead is Erdogan using the Balkans to make a case that he is the leader of the wider (Sunni) Muslim community in Europe and the Middle East. The main audience is his electorate in Turkey and only secondly Muslims abroad. The pre-election rally he held in Sarajevo in the run-up to last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections is a case in point.

But Turkish policy in the Balkans cannot be reduced to the promotion of Islamic solidarity. Erdogan’s main achievement is the fact that he has built relations with leaders from countries that are majority non-Muslim. In October 2017, for instance, he was welcomed in Serbia by President Aleksandar Vucic. The visit gave some credence to complaints by Bosniaks (Slavic Muslims) that Turkey loves to talk brotherhood in Bosnia but when it comes to investing money it goes for Serbia. Similarly, Erdogan has strong links to Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, who hosted the EU-Turkey summit a year ago. Bulgaria and Serbia are interested in hosting an extension of the TurkStream gas pipeline, a joint Russo-Turkish venture. Greece’s Alexis Tsipras also received the red carpet treatment during his latest visit to Turkey where he discussed ideas on decreasing tensions in the Aegean.

Despite its quest for strategic autonomy, Turkey is still partnering with Western institutions. In addition, Ankara has been supportive of the Prespa Agreement and newly renamed North Macedonia’s accession to NATO, its quarrels with the U.S. and other key members of the Alliance notwithstanding. Collectively, EU members Romania, Bulgaria and Greece account for the bulk of Turkish trade with southeast Europe, with the Western Balkans trailing far behind. Greece and Bulgaria see Turkey as key to stemming the flow of asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and further afield. They are highly supportive of the EU-Turkey deal on migration from March 2016, renewed last year.

Does the authoritarian system built by Erdogan pose an ideological challenge in the Balkans? Perhaps yes. For instance, pressure on governments to close educational institutions and surrender, without due process, members of the Fethullah Gülen community, which is implicated in the coup attempt in July 2016, undermine the rule of law. At the same time, the authoritarian drift observed in the Balkans is an indigenous product. It is not imported from Vladimir Putin’s Russia nor from Turkey under its new ‘sultan’.

▻https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/turkeys-policy-balkans-more-neo-ottomanism-22835

#néo-ottomanisme #Turquie #Balkans

Double standards in Assange’s arrest (▻http://www.globaltimes.cn/con...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/8869968

Double standards in Assange’s arrest

#China #politics #international ......

“The US accusations of violating #press #freedom and cracking down on #dissenters are always against #non-Western countries. If #WikiLeaks targeted countries like #China, #Russia and #Iran, the US and its major #allies will cheer in chorus and label #Assange a #hero who opposes #autocracy”.

[...]

Russia cashes in as European oil refiners pay for U.S. sanctions - Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-urals-analysis-idUSKCN1RO0DR

Initially, Europeans gravitated to heavy, sour Venezuelan oil when sanctions on Iran hit in early November but then Washington also placed sanctions on the Latin American country in late January in a bid to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

#pétrole #raffineries #sanctions #états-unis #europe #russie

Glenn Greenwald sur Twitter : “The ACLU’s point is vital: if the US can force the arrest and then extradite foreigners like Assange on foreign soil for publishing docs, what prevents China or Iran or, you know, Russia for doing the same to US journalists who publish secrets about them?” / Twitter
▻https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1116317804716797952

#exceptionalism

Libya Is on the Brink of Civil War and a U.S. Citizen Is Responsible. Here’s What to Know
▻https://news.yahoo.com/libya-brink-civil-war-u-145012004.html

Who are Haftar’s international backers?

Officially, they are few and far between. Every major state condoned the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), and Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj. But in reality, some “were also having parallel conversations with different actors and that enabled those actors to disregard the legal process and go with the military process,” says Elham Saudi, co-founder of London-based NGO Lawyers for Justice in Libya (LFJL).

Those states include Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which want to curb the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya; Russia, which has treated wounded soldiers and reportedly printed money on behalf of Haftar; and France, which views him as key to stabilizing Libya and slowing the flow of migrants into Europe. Italy, which also wants to prevent migration through Libya, has fallen out with France over its tacit support of Haftar. “Nominally, of course, they’re on the same side, that of the U.N.-backed government,” says Joost Hiltermann, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the International Crisis Group. “But in reality Italy and France are on opposite sides of this.”

[...]

... no state has threatened sanctions or acted to affirm the legitimacy of the internationally-backed government in Tripoli. As such, Haftar has interpreted their warnings as an amber, rather than a red light, according to International Crisis Group. For LFJL’s Saudi, the current crisis is the “natural culmination” of the international community’s inconsistency and failure to affirm the rule of law in Libya. “The international agenda has been pure carrot and no stick,” she says. “What is the incentive now to play by the rules?”

#Libye “#communauté_internationale” #droit_international

Record High #Remittances Sent Globally in #2018

Remittances to low- and middle-income countries reached a record high in 2018, according to the World Bank’s latest Migration and Development Brief.

The Bank estimates that officially recorded annual remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries reached $529 billion in 2018, an increase of 9.6 percent over the previous record high of $483 billion in 2017. Global remittances, which include flows to high-income countries, reached $689 billion in 2018, up from $633 billion in 2017.

Regionally, growth in remittance inflows ranged from almost 7 percent in East Asia and the Pacific to 12 percent in South Asia. The overall increase was driven by a stronger economy and employment situation in the United States and a rebound in outward flows from some Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the Russian Federation. Excluding China, remittances to low- and middle-income countries ($462 billion) were significantly larger than foreign direct investment flows in 2018 ($344 billion).

Among countries, the top remittance recipients were India with $79 billion, followed by China ($67 billion), Mexico ($36 billion), the Philippines ($34 billion), and Egypt ($29 billion).

In 2019, remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries are expected to reach $550 billion, to become their largest source of external financing.

The global average cost of sending $200 remained high, at around 7 percent in the first quarter of 2019, according to the World Bank’s Remittance Prices Worldwide database. Reducing remittance costs to 3 percent by 2030 is a global target under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10.7. Remittance costs across many African corridors and small islands in the Pacific remain above 10 percent.

Banks were the most expensive remittance channels, charging an average fee of 11 percent in the first quarter of 2019. Post offices were the next most expensive, at over 7 percent. Remittance fees tend to include a premium where national post offices have an exclusive partnership with a money transfer operator. This premium was on average 1.5 percent worldwide and as high as 4 percent in some countries in the last quarter of 2018.

On ways to lower remittance costs, Dilip Ratha, lead author of the Brief and head of KNOMAD, said, “Remittances are on track to become the largest source of external financing in developing countries. The high costs of money transfers reduce the benefits of migration. Renegotiating exclusive partnerships and letting new players operate through national post offices, banks, and telecommunications companies will increase competition and lower remittance prices.”

The Brief notes that banks’ ongoing de-risking practices, which have involved the closure of the bank accounts of some remittance service providers, are driving up remittance costs.

The Brief also reports progress toward the SDG target of reducing the recruitment costs paid by migrant workers, which tend to be high, especially for lower-skilled migrants.

“Millions of low-skilled migrant workers are vulnerable to recruitment malpractices, including exorbitant recruitment costs. We need to boost efforts to create jobs in developing countries and to monitor and reduce recruitment costs paid by these workers,” said Michal Rutkowski, Senior Director of the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice at the World Bank. The World Bank and the International Labour Organization are collaborating to develop indicators for worker-paid recruitment costs, to support the SDG of promoting safe, orderly, and regular migration.

Regional Remittance Trends

Remittances to the East Asia and Pacific region grew almost 7 percent to $143 billion in 2018, faster than the 5 percent growth in 2017. Remittances to the Philippines rose to $34 billion, but growth in remittances was slower due to a drop in private transfers from the GCC countries. Flows to Indonesia increased by 25 percent in 2018, after a muted performance in 2017.

After posting 22 percent growth in 2017, remittances to Europe and Central Asia grew an estimated 11 percent to $59 billion in 2018. Continued growth in economic activity increased outbound remittances from Poland, Russia, Spain, and the United States, major sources of remittances to the region. Smaller remittance-dependent countries in the region, such as the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, benefited from the sustained rebound of economic activity in Russia. Ukraine, the region’s largest remittance recipient, received a new record of more than $14 billion in 2018, up about 19 percent over 2017. This surge in Ukraine also reflects a revised methodology for estimating incoming remittances, as well as growth in neighboring countries’ demand for migrant workers.

Remittances flows into Latin America and the Caribbean grew 10 percent to $88 billion in 2018, supported by the strong U.S. economy. Mexico continued to receive the most remittances in the region, posting about $36 billion in 2018, up 11 percent over the previous year. Colombia and Ecuador, which have migrants in Spain, posted 16 percent and 8 percent growth, respectively. Three other countries in the region posted double-digit growth: Guatemala (13 percent) as well as Dominican Republic and Honduras (both 10 percent), reflecting robust outbound remittances from the United States.

Remittances to the Middle East and North Africa grew 9 percent to $62 billion in 2018. The growth was driven by Egypt’s rapid remittance growth of around 17 percent. Beyond 2018, the growth of remittances to the region is expected to continue, albeit at a slower pace of around 3 percent in 2019 due to moderating growth in the Euro Area.

Remittances to South Asia grew 12 percent to $131 billion in 2018, outpacing the 6 percent growth in 2017. The upsurge was driven by stronger economic conditions in the United States and a pick-up in oil prices, which had a positive impact on outward remittances from some GCC countries. Remittances grew by more than 14 percent in India, where a flooding disaster in Kerala likely boosted the financial help that migrants sent to families. In Pakistan, remittance growth was moderate (7 percent), due to significant declines in inflows from Saudi Arabia, its largest remittance source. In Bangladesh, remittances showed a brisk uptick in 2018 (15 percent).

Remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa grew almost 10 percent to $46 billion in 2018, supported by strong economic conditions in high-income economies. Looking at remittances as a share of GDP, Comoros has the largest share, followed by the Gambia , Lesotho, Cabo Verde, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Togo, Ghana, and Nigeria.

The Migration and Development Brief and the latest migration and remittances data are available at www.knomad.org. Interact with migration experts at ▻http://blogs.worldbank.org/peoplemove

▻http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2019/04/08/record-high-remittances-sent-globally-in-2018?cid=ECR_TT_worldbank_EN_EXT
#remittances #statistiques #chiffres #migrations #diaspora

#Rapport ici :

https://i.imgur.com/dIgQYKO.png https://i.imgur.com/YHr41Gv.png

ping @reka

Russia Is Tricking #GPS to Protect Putin – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/03/russia-is-tricking-gps-to-protect-putin

Researchers at a Washington-based think tank have noticed that a funny thing happens whenever Russian President Vladimir Putin gets close to a harbor: The GPS of the ships moored there go haywire, placing them many miles away on the runways of nearby airports.

According to a new report by security experts with the group C4ADS, the phenomenon suggests that Putin travels with a mobile GPS spoofing device and, more broadly, that Russia is manipulating global navigation systems on a scale far greater than previously understood.
[…]
The Russian emphasis on electronic warfare extends to Putin’s personal security detail, which has embraced GPS spoofing as a way to protect the Russian leader against drone attacks. But the use of that spoofing technology can also be tracked and provides an unprecedented look at the effectiveness and scale of Russian electronic warfare capabilities.

Putin’s bodyguards are using what on its face is a counterintuitive approach to prevent assassination attempts by drone. The GPS spoofer that travels with Putin impersonates civilian GPS signals and provides the receiver with false coordinates for local airports. It chooses the coordinates of local airports because commercial drones typically come preprogrammed with safety mechanisms that make them automatically land or shut down when they enter the airspace of an airport.

In theory, drones operating near Putin will shut down or automatically land when they come within range of the spoofer. Fear of assassination by drone is a realistic one: Last year, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro survived an attempt on his life that involved using drones to target him with explosives.

But Russia’s use of spoofing technology is having some surprising side effects. In September 2016, Putin traveled to the Kerch Strait along with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to inspect progress on a $4 billion bridge to the Russian mainland and meet with workers. While the two Russian leaders were there, the automatic identification systems of nearby ships—systems that rely in part on GPS—started reporting their locations as the Simferopol Airport about 125 miles away.

Two years later, Putin returned to Kerch to lead a convoy of construction vehicles across the newly constructed bridge. Again, ships in the area reported strange location information, showing up at the Anapa Airport in mainland Russia.

#GPS-spoofing #AIS-spoofing

Debris from India’s anti-satellite test could put the space station at risk, says NASA - MIT Technology Review
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/613256/debris-from-indias-anti-satellite-test-could-put-the-space-station

https://cdn.technologyreview.com/i/images/astronauts-space-station-nasa.jpg?sw=1200

The blast destroyed a satellite but also created 400 pieces of debris, threatening the safety of astronauts on the International Space Station, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said.

The controversial launch: Last week India announced it had shot down one of its own satellites, thus joining the group of four “space powers” (including Russia, China, and the US). It seems to have been an attempt at a show of strength ahead of an upcoming election this month.

The impact: Unfortunately, by breaking up the satellite, India added significantly to the growing problem of space junk. Bridenstine said that the 400 pieces of debris included about 60 trackable pieces that are at least 10 centimeters in size, the New York Times reported. It’s also put people in danger, he said. The satellite itself was destroyed at the fairly low altitude of 180 miles (300 kilometers) but 24 of the pieces of debris have reached a point higher than the ISS, which orbits at an altitude of 254 miles (408 km).

Strong words: “That is a terrible, terrible thing, to create an event that sends debris at an apogee that goes above the International Space Station,” Bridenstone said in a recorded meeting with NASA staff yesterday. “That kind of activity is not compatible with the future of human spaceflight. It’s unacceptable and NASA needs to be very clear about what its impact to us is.”

#Espace #Militarisation #Communs #Débris

#Ukraine: Escalating Pressure on Crimean Tatars

23 Activists Arrested on ‘Terrorism’ Charges

https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/styles/1070w/public/multimedia_images_2017/kurbedinov.jpg?itok=u8vnOym3#.jpg

Russia’s arrest on March 27 and 28, 2019 of 23 Crimean Tatar activists was an unprecedented move to intensify pressure on a group largely critical of Russia’s occupation of the Crimean Peninsula, Human Rights Watch said today. Russian authorities should drop the charges, release the activists, and, until they are freed, immediately give them access to their lawyers.

The detainees, all men, are being held on suspicion of participating in a “terrorist organization,” several of their lawyers told Human Rights Watch.

“The sweeping arrests in Crimea aim to portray politically active Crimean Tatars as terrorists as a way to silence them,” said Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This has been their approach for several years, and it should stop. These men should be released at once.”

▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/02/ukraine-escalating-pressure-crimean-tatars
#Crimée #anti-terrorisme (well...) #résistance #répression
ping @reka @simplicissimus

A Very Incomplete List of Sinister Things Vladimir Putin/Russia/‘the Russians’ Have Been Accused of Doing | The Grayzone
▻https://thegrayzone.com/2019/03/27/a-very-incomplete-list-of-sinister-things-vladimir-putin-russia-the-rus

https://thegrayzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/20180224_LDD002_0.jpg

Incomplète mais pas courte.

#compilation #propagande #épouvantail #MSM #Russie

U.S. approved secret nuclear power work for Saudi Arabia | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-nuclear-idUSKCN1R82MG

The Trump administration has quietly pursued a wider deal on sharing U.S. nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia, which aims to build at least two nuclear power plants. Several countries including the United States, South Korea and Russia are in competition for that deal, and the winners are expected to be announced later this year by Saudi Arabia.

Perry’s approvals, known as Part 810 authorizations, allow companies to do preliminary work on nuclear power ahead of any deal but not ship equipment that would go into a plant, a source with knowledge of the agreements said on condition of anonymity. The approvals were first reported by the Daily Beast.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said in the document that the companies had requested that the Trump administration keep the approvals secret.

“In this case, each of the companies which received a specific authorization for (Saudi Arabia) have provided us written request that their authorization be withheld from public release,” the NNSA said in the document. In the past, the Energy Department made previous Part 810 authorizations available for the public to read at its headquarters.

A Department of Energy official said the requests contained proprietary information and that the authorizations went through multi-agency approval process.

Many U.S. lawmakers are concerned that sharing nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia could eventually lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

#arabie_saoudite #nucléaire

#russia’s #internet Crackdown
▻https://hackernoon.com/russias-internet-crackdown-a03a762584a6?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---4

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*xXLTxJenzdHsXdit9UXLFA.jpeg

President Putin sees his country’s control of the internet as an important step for Russia’s technological autonomy away from his rivals the United States and China. For scores of protestors, however, this is a step too far.Photo by Tom Grimbert (@tomgrimbert) on UnsplashNew LawFor many, especially in the West, it comes as no surprise: Vladimir Putin, Russia’s autocratic leader, seems to be taking his rule, and policies, into an even greater authoritarian direction than in previous years, with his lawmakers trying to put through a new bill which, if successfully implemented, will reduce internet #freedom within the country.In retaliation to this, activists have begun a number of demonstrations against the new legislation. They see it as their government’s attempt to curb open criticism of (...)

#cybersecurity #politics

India says it has just shot down a satellite in space - MIT Technology Review
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/613228/india-says-it-has-just-shot-down-a-satellite-in-space

https://cdn.technologyreview.com/i/images/ap19086266413659.jpg?sw=1200

C’en est fini de la démilitarisation de l’espace.

Je suis en train de finir la trilogie de SF par Liu Cisun, et comme toujours, la SF nous montre comment cela peut nous conduire au pire.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the successful test in a live television broadcast to the nation, saying it now made India a space power, Reuters reports.

Bullseye: “Some time ago, our scientists, shot down a live satellite 300 kilometers away in space, in low Earth orbit,” Modi said in an hour-long statement that was broadcast on all national TV stations. Ajay Lele, at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, told Reuters that it was likely the satellite was destroyed using a missile that carried no warhead.

Exclusive club: India is only the fourth country to have successfully shot down a satellite. The US, Russia, and China have all done so in the past. The US and Russia both did so in the 1980s, and China conducted its first successful test in 2007.

Debris threat: China’s 2007 test was condemned as irresponsible when it happened as it created a massive cloud of debris of almost 3000 pieces that were big enough to be tracked by NASA. Many thousands more were too small to see. Even small pieces of debris can be hazardous for other satellites or the International Space Station. We do not yet know what has happened to the remnants of India’s satellite.

Security fears: The satellite test comes as India is gearing up for an election and is approaching the period during which the government is not allowed to make any policy statements designed to swing votes. Issues of national security are exempt, however, and this week’s display of strength comes against the backdrop of rising tensions with neighboring Pakistan.

#Guerre #Espace #Militarisme #Communs

Electoral Interference: USA vs USSR/Russia on Vimeo
▻https://vimeo.com/319490133

The map displays known instances of U.S. and Soviet/Russian electoral interference from 1946 through 2000.

The underlying data comes from:
Dov H. Levin 2016. “Partisan Electoral Interventions by the Great Powers: Introducing the PEIG Dataset” Conflict Management and Peace Science Early View. The dataset is available by request: dovhlevin.com/datasets

The audio includes speeches from:
– Harry Truman, “A Public Man Must Live in the Present” (1955)
– Ronald Reagan, “Evil Empire” speech (1983)
– George H.W. Bush in response to shoot-down of Iranian passenger flight by US Navy (1988)

Visualization by Will Geary. Made with code using Processing.

#élection #de_quoi_j'me_mêle #visualisation