industryterm:security services

Les succès et les échecs du partage de voiture - CityMinded
http://cityminded.org/talk/the-successes-and-failures-of-car-sharing-what-is-next

Vidéo et transcription d’une conférence sur le sujet du partage de l’automobile.  Tags : internetactu2net fing internetactu #consommationcollaborative

The Syrian Heartbreak | Middle East Research and Information Project
by Peter Harling , Sarah Birke

►http://www.merip.org/mero/mero041613

There was a distinctive sense of national pride in Syria. It flowed from the confidence of a civilization dating back to the times of the earliest alphabets and visible in the country’s wealth of archaeological sites, including some of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It came from the depth of local culture. It stemmed from the music of Syrian Arabic, the elegance of Syrian manners, the finesse of Syrian cuisine and the sincerity of Syrian hospitality. It proceeded from modern geopolitics, too, as Damascus carved out for itself a role bigger and bolder than its scarce resources should have allowed. In particular, and despite tremendous pressure, Damascus stood firm on the Palestinian cause, which Syrians feel more strongly about than anyone, perhaps, except the Palestinians. The regime may have been a conveniently quiescent foe for Israel, but Syria was, on the map of the Arab world, the only state still “resisting.”

Syrie : L’amnistie a été promulguée… mais où sont les prisonniers ?
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/syria-amnesty-issued-where-are-prisoners

Many supporters of the Syrian regime have welcomed the amnesty decree issued by the Syrian government on Tuesday, April 16. But while thousands of prisoners have been released, there doesn’t seem to be any trace of them.

In many instances, he said, “the security services do not acknowledge that they have the prisoners in the first place.”The government has yet to name the freed prisoners in the official media, while the opposition factions have not confirmed any releases. Other prisoners had their sentences commuted under the same decree, but there is also scarce information on these terms.

The Syrian Heartbreak | Middle East Research and Information Project
►http://www.merip.org/mero/mero041613

...

Despite belated realization of the conflict’s horrendous costs — by the end of the year, aid agencies predict, there will be 3.6 million refugees and 6 million in need inside the country, out of a population of 23 million — outside players show no sign of willingness to agree among themselves to help Syrians find a solution. Much mooted Russian-American negotiations have led nowhere, as Moscow stubbornly continues to back Asad and Washington is unwilling to offer incentives to alter that calculus. Meanwhile, countries united only by their rejection of Asad give priority to their own differing interests and rivalries as they vie to lift their clients above others within the opposition, exacerbating its fissiparous nature.

...

Syria’s all-out civil war, if it comes to that, will no doubt go down in conventional wisdom as an outburst of communal hatred inevitable within a mixed society. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the product of an international standoff and cannot be rolled back without an international tradeoff. However much Syrians suffer, the war in their country is not in their hands. It is a conflict that disfigures Syrian society more than reflects it. And that is the Syrian heartbreak.

C’est désormais officiel, il y a « des centaines » d’Européens qui combattent en Syrie dans des groupes liés à Al Qaeda (source : Charles Farr du Ministère de l’Intérieur britannique).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9956133/Syria-up-to-100-British-Muslims-fighting-in-war.html

There are “hundreds” of Europeans now fighting in Syria, some of whom are with groups linked to al Qaeda, the Home Office told MPs.
The British-born jihadis are said to have joined the fight with Jabhat al-Nusra, the country’s most militant al-Qaeda gang.

The fighters have come from range of ethnic backgrounds include young Asians, converts to Islam and men from north African backgrounds.

Je me demande s’il existe des reprises en français… (pas trouvé)

Hazem Kandil · Deadlock in Cairo · LRB 21 March 2013
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n06/hazem-kandil/deadlock-in-cairo

When you consider the central importance of the security services to the old regime, it is remarkable how well they have done so far. Not a single police officer has been charged with a single offence before or after the revolt. (...) Egypt’s infamous State Security Investigations Service was simply renamed Egyptian Homeland Security without any change in its powers. Even though repression and torture continued, Morsi never missed an opportunity to praise the patriotism of the Interior Ministry, which he claims has already been reformed.

Part of the reason Egypt’s security establishment has landed on its feet is that it has been careful to bide its time. It seems willing to refrain from full-blown ‘pacification’ until the revolutionaries come to learn that the only alternative to police repression is chaos. It hasn’t been entirely passive . It has stirred up and ambushed protesters at carefully selected times and places, engaging them in short, brutal battles and leaving dozens of bodies behind. After each incident, investigations have been carried out, unnamed ‘third parties’ blamed and the matter shelved. One such episode occurred in February last year at Port Said Stadium. Determined to punish the football fans – the Ultras – for spearheading street battles against the police, the Interior Ministry bussed in thugs from the capital and, after blocking all the stadium’s exits, unleashed them against the unsuspecting fans. In little more than an hour, 79 people were killed and at least a thousand injured. A court ruling was scheduled for 26 January this year, and a clear indictment of the security service plot was expected, especially after hints from the presidency that such a ruling might provide the legal basis for a purge and restructuring of the security apparatus. Instead, 21 civilians were sentenced to death and the police were exonerated.

Violence erupted around the country and the riot police didn’t hold back, killing fifty demonstrators and injuring hundreds more. People were further enraged by a YouTube video showing a middle-aged demonstrator called Hamada Saber being stripped naked, trampled on by police in heavy boots and dragged along the tarmac. A few days later, a young activist called Mohamed al-Guindy was allegedly tortured to death in a police station. Morsi commended the Interior Ministry’s effectiveness, and appeared on television waving his fist defiantly and threatening troublemakers with harsher measures.

For security officers, the message was clear: under the Brotherhood, they could carry on as usual. This was hardly surprising. An organisation obsessed with conspiracies cooked up by ‘enemies of Islam’, and aspiring to spread piety throughout society, is bound to appreciate a formidable police force. The security services know, then, that they have a good friend in the Brotherhood. But they’re also open to counter-offers from members of the old regime – better the devil they know, as the loyalists tell them. (...).

So while military officers have had to make tough choices, their counterparts in the security services have survived the revolution’s first wave by alternating strategically between permissiveness and repression. In this way they have managed, on the one hand, to make plain to the military the drawbacks of giving in to the revolutionaries, while, on the other, proving to the highest political bidder that security men are still perfectly capable of committing any atrocities that might be demanded of them. And it is under the shadow of these two mighty institutions that the three contenders for political supremacy have jockeyed for power.

Exclusive: Secret war on enemy within - British terror suspects quietly stripped of citizenship… then killed by drones
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/exclusive-secret-war-on-enemy-within--british-terror-suspects-quietly

The Government has secretly ramped up a controversial programme that strips people of their British citizenship on national security grounds – with two of the men subsequently killed by American drone attacks.

A report by - The International Fact-Finding Mission on Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the UNHRC | Who Profits
http://www.whoprofits.org/content/report-international-fact-finding-mission-israeli-settlements-occupied-p

Part C of the issued report, titled “Impact of Businesses”, deals with companies’ direct and indirect involvement in the occupation. It highlights the companies’ supply of services and facilities such as: construction, demolition, surveillance equipment, security services and the use of natural resources. It also mentions the “Captivity of the Palestinian financial and economic markets as well as practices that disadvantage Palestinian businesses, including through restrictions on movement, administrative and legal constraints” (P.20).

In addition, section 97 focuses on the banks’ involvement in the occupation, both physically and through various financial services. Sections 98 and 99 note Israel’s mislabelling of products from illegal settlements and companies’ withdrawal from settlements due to negative image and fear of legal consequences.

Protesters demand “fall of the regime” in Jordan | Al Akhbar English
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/protesters-demand-fall-regime-jordan

Overnight demonstrations over fuel price hikes in Jordan may have spiraled into a nation-wide revolt against the country’s regime Wednesday, according to various activist sources.

Voici quelques éléments dans le Jordan Times et ailleurs ces derniers jours pour comprendre ces protestations:
Demand for fuel overtakes supply as speculation over subsidies continues | The Jordan Times, < http://jordantimes.com/demand-for-fuel-overtakes-supply-as-speculation-over-subsidies-continue >
Per capita fuel subsidy compensation set tentatively at JD70 a year for limited-income households | The Jordan Times, < ►http://jordantimes.com/per-capita-fuel-subsidy-compensation-set-tentatively-at-jd70-a-year-for >
Gov’t endorses measures to cut spending, increase revenues, in The Jordan Times, < http://jordantimes.com/govt-endorses-measures-to-cut-spending-increase-revenues >
La colère gronde en Jordanie, après une hausse des prix du carburant | À La Une | L’Orient-Le Jour, < http://www.lorientlejour.com/category/%C3%80+La+Une/article/787581/La_colere_gronde_en_Jordanie%2C_apres_une_hausse_des_prix_du_carburan >
Protesters demand « fall of the regime » in Jordan, in Al Akhbar English, < http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/protesters-demand-fall-regime-jordan >
Political parties urge gov’t to rescind decision on fuel subsidies, in The Jordan Times, < http://jordantimes.com/political-parties-urge-govt-to-rescind-decision-on-fuel-subsidies >
Gov’t should allow private sector to import oil derivatives — economists, in The Jordan Times, < http://jordantimes.com/govt-should-allow-private-sector-to-import-oil-derivatives----economist >
Public transport fares rise as taxis protest fuel price hike, < http://jordantimes.com/public-transport-fares-rise-as-taxis-protest-fuel-price-hike >
Tweeps hold forth on gov’t decision to lift fuel subsidies, in The Jordan Times, < http://jordantimes.com/tweeps-hold-forth-on-govt-decision-to-lift-fuel-subsidies >
http://jordantimes.com/vandalism-arrests-as-fuel-riots-continue

#Jordanie
#carburant
#subvention

The Violence of the Revolution Between Legitimacy and Deviance: Syria and the Need for Corrective Action (via Angry Arab)
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/7743/the-violence-of-the-revolution-between-legitimacy-

Where does the armed opposition, or what is called the Free Army or several other names, derive its popular legitimacy when it carries out sectarian assassinations, torture, humiliation, and executions against its prisoners from amongst the [regime’s] security services and army? This was precisely what we described as brutality when it was committed by the criminal regime. Where does it derive its popular legitimacy when it speaks of a war between Sunnis and Shi’is, or Alawis, as is wished for by those that call themselves the Friends of Syria or the friends of the regime? What distinguishes the discourse of the opposition from the discourse of the regime when one of them speaks of Sunnis, Shi’is, and Alawis, while the other speaks of Salafis, Islamists, and terrorists? Both discourses operate beneath the national level, which gathers and views all as equal with respect to human rights. Both discourses indirectly call for a long-term Iraq-like divisive civil war. How can the people consider the armed opposition to be the military arm of the revolution, for which one of its principles were “one, one, one … the Syrian people are one,” and that offered the lives of its sons for the sake of building a civilian state, not a religious emirate or a Muslim Brotherhood state? If we take into consideration the external role of exporting a militant religious or Salafist discourse—that is a stranger to the moderate religious discourse of Syrian society—to the ranks of combat battalions, then this only increases the deviation of the revolution from its national level. In this view, the enemy is no longer the sectarian authoritarian Syrian regime, but rather the Alawis, the Shi’is, or other categories of people.

…et encore des milices: People’s Committees in Syria: Patrolling Local Borders
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/peoples-committees-syria-patrolling-local-borders

Faced with these threats, the youths of Mazzeh and other pro-regime regions did not sit idly by. Now they stay up at night in specific points, taking shifts to guard their neighborhoods, not having faith in the army checkpoints which often stop passers-by and search them.

The reputation of these committees is not necessarily a good one. With the beginning of the unrest in Latakia, for example, there were many complaints regarding the mayhem caused by the ordinary citizens in these committees abusing the functions of security services and the army, particularly when they often stop people, ask them for identification papers and inquire about their destinations.

Former U.S. officials say CIA considers Israel to be Mideast’s biggest spy threat - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/former-u-s-officials-say-cia-considers-israel-to-be-mideast-s-biggest-spy-t

Former U.S. officials say CIA considers Israel to be Mideast’s biggest spy threat
U.S. intelligence agents stationed in Israel report multiple cases of equipment tampering, suspected break ins in recent years; CIA officials tell the Associated Press that Israel may have leaked info that led to the capture of an agent inside Syria’s chemical weapons program.

The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv, Israel, to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone had tampered with it. He sent word to his superiors about the break-in.

The incident, described to the Associated Press by three former senior U.S. intelligence officials, might have been dismissed as just another cloak-and-dagger incident in the world of international espionage, except that the same thing had happened to the previous station chief in Israel.

It was a not-so-subtle reminder that, even in a country friendly to the United States, the CIA was itself being watched.

In a separate episode, according to another two former U.S. officials speaking to the Associated Press, a CIA officer in Israel came home to find the food in the refrigerator had been rearranged. In all the cases, the U.S. government believes Israel’s security services were responsible.

Ils sont vraiment aussi naïfs les agents de la CIA ?

Dangerous Partnership- Private Military and Security Companies and the UN (July 10, 2012)

►http://www.globalpolicy.org/multimedia/podcast/51757-dangerous-partnership-private-military-and-security-companies-an

Lou Pingeot

GPF’s report on the use of Private Military and Security Companies by the United Nations is out! This investigative report reveals that the UN has dramatically increased its use of these companies in recent years, hiring them for a wide array of “security services” and giving them considerable influence over its security policies. It also reveals that the UN has no process to vet these companies and that UN leadership has been closing its eyes to company misconduct for more than twenty years. GPF calls on the UN to reform this out-of-control system and to critically examine whether these companies really make the UN safer, or whether they might achieve the opposite effect. You can read the executive summary and the full report. This podcast features a presentation from the author Lou Pingeot.

Dangerous Partnership- Private Military and Security Companies and the UN (July 10, 2012)
►http://www.globalpolicy.org/multimedia/podcast/51757-dangerous-partnership-private-military-and-security-companies-an

GPF’s report on the use of Private Military and Security Companies by the United Nations is out! This investigative report reveals that the UN has dramatically increased its use of these companies in recent years, hiring them for a wide array of “security services” and giving them considerable influence over its security policies. It also reveals that the UN has no process to vet these companies and that UN leadership has been closing its eyes to company misconduct for more than twenty years. GPF calls on the UN to reform this out-of-control system and to critically examine whether these companies really make the UN safer, or whether they might achieve the opposite effect. You can read the executive summary and the full report. This podcast features a presentation from the author Lou Pingeot.

#sécurité_privée #Etats-Unis

Gadhafi-Era Spy Tactics
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304782404577488493816611850.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

Libya’s caretaker government has quietly reactivated some of the interception equipment that fallen dictator Moammar Gadhafi once used to spy on his opponents.

The surveillance equipment has been used in recent months to track the phone calls and online communications of Gadhafi loyalists, according to two government officials and a security official. Two officials say they have seen dozens of phone or Internet-chat transcripts detailing conversations between Gadhafi supporters.

Tripoli Escalation: New and Improved Weapons
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/tripoli-escalation-new-and-improved-weapons

In addition to the qualitative development in the nature of the clashes in the area, there is also a shift in the quality of arms. Four years ago and the clashes that followed, mortar shells were never used. This time, they were used abundantly.

This is repeated by many sides in Jabal Mohsen and from outside the area, including several security officials. They are using 82mm rounds. If one of them falls on a house, it could kill everyone inside.

Moreover, Saleh said that “the Dragunov sniper rifle is no longer satisfactory for the other side. This time, they used more modern rifles, equipped with expensive and dangerous night vision.”

Almost all kinds of traditional weapons were used in the clashes in the last two days, with the exception of heavy artillery.

Observers spoke about 12.7mm machineguns, and sometimes 14.5mm. Flare bombs were also used. All of those were not used before.

Fifty injured in attack on Saudi student protest: report
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/50-students-hurt-attack-saudi-student-protest-report

Over 50 female Saudi students were injured when security guards and Saudi police attacked a peaceful protest in a university, a local newspaper has claimed.

The 1,000-strong all-women protest, which was calling for an end to corruption and ill-treatment at the King Khaled University (KKU) in Abha, was attacked on Wednesday by security services wielding batons, the Al Watan newspaper said.

The students had begun a protest on Tuesday to criticize the university management for allowing the campus to deteriorate and against ongoing corruption in the country.

Security forces stormed the campus on Wednesday and attacked the protesters with batons, fire extinguishers, and water hoses, activists said.

UK police/spies colluded with giant construction firms to build illegal blacklist database of whistleblowers, trade-unionists - Boing Boing
http://boingboing.net/2012/03/04/uk-policespies-colluded-with.html

Today’s lead story in the Observer is a maddening and excellent investigative piece revealing that for three decades, the UK’s biggest construction companies worked with British police and spy-agencies to build illegal dossiers on whistle-blowers who complained about unsafe working conditions and trade-unionists. The victims of these investigations — thousands of them — were economically ruined as the firms conspired to keep them from being hired at any job-site, and saw to it that if they were ever hired, they were promptly fired.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/03/police-blacklist-link-construction-workers

#Monsanto Now Owns #Blackwater (#Xe | #Academi)
http://www.darkgovernment.com/news/monsanto-now-owns-blackwater-xe

(via #wikileaks)

No wonder that a company engaged in the “science of death” as Monsanto, which has been dedicated from the outset to produce toxic poisons spilling from Agent Orange to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), pesticides, hormones and genetically modified seeds, is associated with another company of thugs [Blackwater].

Almost simultaneously with the publication of this article in The Nation, the Via Campesina reported the purchase of 500,000 shares of Monsanto, for more than $23 million by the Bill and Melinda #Gates Foundation, which with this action completed the outing of the mask of “philanthropy.” Another association that is not surprising.

It is a marriage between the two most brutal monopolies in the history of industrialism: Bill Gates controls more than 90 percent of the market share of proprietary computing and Monsanto about 90 percent of the global transgenic seed market and most global commercial seed. There does not exist in any other industrial sector monopolies so vast, whose very existence is a negation of the vaunted principle of “market competition” of capitalism. Both Gates and Monsanto are very aggressive in defending their ill-gotten monopolies.

AFP : Blasts hit Egypt gas pipeline to Israel, Jordan
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gZTc5h4VQdqhke_5HnPdUsmjSvFA?docId=CNG.d62d22c93ba4c2e61fbd1288db4c679

An Egyptian pipeline delivering gas to Israel and Jordan was hit by two explosions Thursday, Egypt’s security services and state media said, the seventh time it has been attacked by militants this year.

A first blast occurred around 1:00 am (2300 GMT Wednesday) 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of the town of Al-Arish in the north of the Sinai peninsula, a security source said.

A second unexplained explosion took place near a pumping station in the same sector, the official news agency MENA said, adding that the army was deploying in the region.

C’est très étonnant, cette habitude qu’on les gazoducs égyptiens à faire boum quand votre cœur fait boum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gws6V_9pxhs

Israel government, security services websites down in suspected cyber-attack - Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-government-security-services-websites-down-in-suspected-cyber-attack

Several Israeli government websites crashed on Sunday in what appeared to be a cyber-attack by hackers. The websites of the IDF, Mossad and the Shin Bet security services were among the sites that went down, as well as several government portals and ministries.

The apparent attack comes after the international cabal of hackers known as Anonymous threatened a cyber-attack on the Israeli government’s computers in response to its interception of a Gaza-bound flotilla on Friday.

Iranian Police Seizing Dissidents Get Aid Of Western Companies - Businessweek
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-31/iranian-police-seizing-dissidents-get-aid-of-western-companies.html

The Iranian officers who knocked out Saeid Pourheydar’s four front teeth also enlightened the opposition journalist. Held in Evin Prison for weeks following his arrest early last year for protesting, he says, he learned that he was not only fighting the regime, but also companies that armed Tehran with technology to monitor dissidents like him.

Pourheydar, 30, says the power of this enemy became clear as intelligence officers brandished transcripts of his mobile phone calls, e-mails and text messages during his detention. About half the political prisoners he met in jail told him police had tracked their communications and movements through their cell phones, he says.

....

“My mobile phone was my enemy, my laptop was my enemy, my landline was my enemy,” says Shojaee, who turned to using pay phones.

Ericsson, the world’s largest maker of wireless networks, confirmed that in the fourth quarter of 2009 it sold a mobile- positioning center for customer billing purposes to MTN Irancell Telecommunications Services Co., Iran’s second-largest mobile provider.

Libyan papers show UK worked with Gaddafi in rendition operation (The Guardian)
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/04/libyan-papers-show-uk-rendition

A secret CIA document shows that British and Libyans worked together to arrange the removal of a terror suspect to Tripoli (...)

«Extraordinary renditions» à l’anglaise: destination la Libye.

Libyan papers show UK worked with Gaddafi in rendition operation | World news | The Guardian
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/04/libyan-papers-show-uk-rendition

Evidence that British intelligence agencies mounted their own “rendition” operation in collaboration with Muammar Gaddafi’s security services has emerged with the discovery of a cache of Libyan government papers in an abandoned office building in Tripoli.

A secret CIA document found among the haul shows that the British and Libyans worked together to arrange for a terrorism suspect to be removed from Hong Kong to Tripoli – along with his wife and children – despite the risk that they would be tortured. The wording of the document suggests the CIA was not involved in the planning of the rendition operation, but was eager to become engaged during its execution and offered financial support.

Other papers found in the building suggest MI6 enjoyed a far closer working relationship with Gaddafi’s intelligence agencies than has been publicly known, and was involved in a number of US-led operations that also resulted in Islamists being consigned to Gaddafi’s prisons.

Uprooted Palestinians: PA and Israel arrest Hamas supporters in West Bank
http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/2011/08/pa-and-israel-arrest-hamas-supporters.html

Palestinian Authority security agencies arrested several Hamas supporters in the West Bank on Monday morning.

Four arrests were reported in the West Bank cities of Al-Khalil, Nablus, and Ramallah. Most of those arrested had previously been held prisoner by the PA security agencies. The arrests came just a day after the Israel occupation forces carried out one of the largest arrest sweeps in Al-Khalil since 2003.