position:correspondent

Liban : 11 morts et 100 blessés depuis le début des affrontements - Le Point
http://www.lepoint.fr/monde/liban-11-morts-et-100-blesses-depuis-le-debut-des-affrontements-22-05-2013-1

Onze personnes, dont deux soldats, ont été tuées et plus de cent autres blessées en trois jours de combats à Tripoli, dans le nord du Liban, lors de heurts entre des partisans et opposants au régime syrien, a indiqué mercredi une source de sécurité. Durant la nuit de mardi à mercredi, les tirs ont atteint des quartiers loin de la zone de front, opposant de manière récurrente les habitants sunnites de Bab el-Tebbaneh, favorables aux rebelles, et les alaouites de Jabal Mohsen, qui défendent le régime de Bachar el-Assad.

Clashes in Lebanon’s Tripoli kill 11 | Al Akhbar English
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/clashes-escalate-lebanons-tripoli-killing-11

Eleven people – including at least two officers – were killed and dozens were wounded in fighting in Tripoli, as violence escalated Wednesday on the fourth day of clashes in the northern Lebanese city.

“The death toll is up to 11 and the numbers of wounded were reported to be at least 70 and went up to 130,” an Al-Akhbar correspondent in Tripoli said.

رسالة الشمال : إخراج الجيش من كل دوائر التــوتر
http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/183529

ثمة خشية من أن يكون الهدف يتعدى تفجير طرابلس أو حتى مناطق عكار بين طرفين سياسيين، ليكون جوهره دفع الجيش الى إخلاء مراكزه في طرابلس، وتحويل عناصر الازمة الراهنة الى عنصر تفجير مباشر ينقل الازمة من المراوحة الى دائرة الخطر المباشر. فهل المطلوب أن يأتي الرد على أحداث القصير ودور حزب الله فيها استهداف الجيش ما دام أطراف النزاع في الشمال اتخذوا على ما يبدو قرار المواجهة؟ وهل يمكن أن يكون الهدف إشغال المؤسسة العسكرية في لحظة مفصلية في مواجهات داخلية؟ وماذا بمقدور الجيش أن يقوم به من خطوات تتعدى تنفيذ إعادة انتشاره في المدينة، لتكون في صلب المعالجة الجذرية لوضع شائك، تتشابك فيها المعطيات الإقليمية والدولية وتتصارع على أرض طرابلس؟

وهنا لبّ الكلام السياسي حول الجيش. هناك من يحمّل السلطة السياسية مسؤولية عدم تأمين مظلة سياسية للجيش في أكثر اللحظات دقة، ومن يحمّل في المقابل الاطراف السياسيين مسؤولية رمي خلافاتهم في حضن الجيش، وسط أسئلة عن دور القوى السياسية العاقلة شمالاً في كبح جماح الهادفين الى تسريع وتيرة الفتنة الداخلية. لكن الوقت لم يعد ملائماً لتحميل المسؤوليات ما دام الانفجار الكبير قد وقع. ولعل أكثر ما يجب التوقف عنده سياسياً في الوقت الراهن هو دور السلطة التنفيذية، في ظل حكومة مستقيلة.

Saudi religious police boss condemns Twitter users

The sheikh’s comments echo those of the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in April who used his sermon - seen by millions on TV - to warn that Twitter was a threat to national unity, our correspondent says.

New mob killing in Egypt’s Sharqiya : Son of Brotherhood leader beaten to death

Son of Brotherhood party leader beaten to death by revengeful mob in Egypt’s Nile Delta city of Zagazig for shooting two men over online post.
(...)
Lasheen’s son, Youssef, was accused of shooting a 28-year-old man merely for insulting his father in a Facebook post for his affiliation with the FJP. An auto rickshaw (tok tok) driver in his 40s was accidentally gunned down too.

The revengeful mob, including members of both men’s families, dragged Lasheen’s son to the street and used bladed weapons while assaulted him, according to Al-Ahram’s daily correspondent. The assistants then left him for dead in the street.

Youssef was taken to the hospital, where he succumbed to the fatal injuries.

The police forces were completely absent from the scene until dawn on Friday, where only two policemen were dispatched to Lasheen’s house after the end of the melee, according to Al-Ahram’s correspondent.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/70623/Egypt/Politics-/New-mob-killing-in-Egypts-Sharqiya-Son-of-Brotherh.aspx

#violence

Farming apps: Virtual fields | The Economist

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/04/farming-apps?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/virtualfields

Virtual fields
Apr 30th 2013, 9:11 by C.S.-W.

DESPITE the stereotype of slack-jawed farmers bumbling around fields, farming is and always has been rooted in careful analysis of data. From deducing the best conditions to achieve bumper crop yields to keeping track of the bounty from their hectares of arable land, farmers have to deal with as much information as some City traders.

http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/2013/04/blogs/schumpeter/20130504_wbp503.jpg

#agriculture #alimentation

Diabetes in Mexico: Eating themselves to death | The Economist

http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2013/04/diabetes-mexico?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/eatingthemselvestodeath

Eating themselves to death Apr 10th 2013

MEXICO has long been a country that derives extraordinary pleasure from eating and drinking—and it hasn’t minded the consequences much either. Gordo or gorda, meaning “chubby”, is used by both wives and husbands as a term of endearment. Pudgy kids bear proudly the nickname gordito, as they tuck into snacks after school slathered with beans, cheese, cream and salsa.

#alimentation #santé #mexique

PressTV - CNN spreads lies against Iran, Syria: Ex-correspondent
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/04/01/296014/cnn-lies-about-iran-syria-exreporter

An outspoken investigative journalist and former CNN correspondent has once again stressed that the US-based network is engaged in spreading Western propaganda against Iran and Syria.

More about Amber Lyon on :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_Lyon

Chicago Says It Will Close 54 Public Schools - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/education/chicago-says-it-will-close-54-public-schools.html

By STEVEN YACCINO and MOTOKO RICH
Published: March 21, 2013

CHICAGO — After weeks of uncertainty, principals at 54 public schools here officially learned from city officials on Thursday that their schools would close, with 11 more to share space with other schools. The closings represent the largest group of campuses to be shut down at one time by a city in recent memory.

#états-unis #éducation

Shia Muslims in Saudi Arabia keep the protest movement alive

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/saudi-arabia/130315/shia-muslims-saudi-arabia-protest-movement

Demonstrations continued in the city of Qatif but got little publicity because foreign journalists are banned from reporting there. Correspondent Reese Erlich, on assignment for GlobalPost and NPR, managed to get into Qatif, meet with protest leaders and become the first foreign journalist to witness the current demonstrations. This is his account:

QATIF, Saudi Arabia — Night has fallen as the car rumbles down back roads to avoid the Saudi Army’s special anti-riot units. To be stopped at any of the numerous checkpoints leading into Qatif, would mean police detention for a Western journalist and far worse for the Saudi activists in the car. They would likely spend a lot of time in jail for spreading what Saudi authorities deem “propaganda” to the foreign media.

In Saudi Arabia all demonstrations are illegal, but here in Qatif residents have defied the ban for many months. At least once a week the mostly young demonstrators march down a street renamed “Revolution Road,” calling for the release of political prisoners and for democratic rights.

The anti-riot units deploy armored vehicles at strategic locations downtown. The word on this night is that if demonstrators stay off the main road, the troops may not attack.

James Moore: Bang the Drum Loudly: The Failed Journalism That Sent America to War in Iraq
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/bang-the-drum-loudly-the-_b_2908061.html

The timing was a thing of pure political beauty. President George W. Bush was only a few days away from speaking to the United Nations’ General Assembly about Iraq’s renewed efforts to acquire banned weaponry. And, in a month, the president was going to Congress to seek a resolution approving of a war against Iraq. A Sunday morning story, September 8, 2002, in the New York Times made the U.N. speech and the congressional debate much easier for the White House.

Under the headline, “Threats and Responses: The Iraqis; U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts,” a 3,603 word story by Michael R. Gordon and Judith Miller detailed the administration’s case against Saddam Hussein related to weapons of mass destruction.

(...)

Of course, that’s not the way journalism really works. Otherwise, reporters could easily be replaced with stenographers and people to read and publish e-mail news releases. Actually, if Miller had spoken to one of the various scientific organizations when she wrote the first story, including the leading groups in her own country, she would have learned there was almost no chance the tubes were going into a centrifuge. Her list of interview subjects needed to include contradictory voices and opinions on the uses of the aluminum tubes. There was certainly plenty of them out there.

(...)

Miller and Gordon’s inability to find a divergent opinion in a city full of political minds, scientists, and think tanks, has remained a perplexing mystery among their colleagues.

The White House had mixed up journalists’ ambitions with misleading intelligence and brewed up a myth that yielded a powerful national belief in its illusion.

(...)

Afghanistan, February 2013: Anti-Taliban Militias
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/03/afghanistan-february-2013-anti-taliban-militias/100468

Recently, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai ordered U.S. forces to leave Wardak province, partly in response to U.S.-funded militias in the region accused of “torturing, harassing, and murdering” ordinary civilians. The U.S. has been training and funding tribal militias in Afghanistan for years, hoping to emulate the success of a similar strategy in Iraq.

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/afghan030613/s_a01_0loghar8.jpg
Farzad Akbari, the 12-year-old son of anti-Taliban militia commander Farhad Akbari, in Afghanistan’s volatile Logar province, host to a large number of armed groups and Taliban crossing over from Pakistan. Farzad’s father is grooming him to take control of the militia should he be killed. “The danger (of the Taliban) is real and it’s important I understand how the world works,” says Farzad. (© Vikram Singh)

Instances of abuse are common and well documented.

Afghanistan: Rein in Abusive Militias and Afghan Local Police
►http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/09/12/afghanistan-rein-abusive-militias-and-afghan-local-police
#milices #enfants #photographie

Utiliser #simcity pour diagnostiquer les problèmes de trafic d’une ville réelle - Gamasutra
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/MikeRose/20130219/186896/Using_SimCity_to_diagnose_my_home_towns_traffic_problem.php

Mike Rose de Gamasutra a utilisé le nouveau SimCity pour recréer sa ville natale de Northenden en Angleterre afin de comprendre ses problèmes de trafic et comment la circulation y est un goulot d’étranglement. Un exercice qui ne prouve rien, estime l’auteur. Mais peut-être qu’en des mains plus expertes... Tags : internetactu internetactu2net fing #citelabo (...)

#villelegere #jeu_vidéo #simulation

Une critique de la chaine Al-Jazeera et de son évolution, alors qu’elle va désormais être diffusée aux Etats-Unis

Al Jazeera Criticized for Lack of Independence after Arab Spring - SPIEGEL ONLINE

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/al-jazeera-criticized-for-lack-of-independence-after-arab-spring-a-883343.ht

A prominent correspondent who, until one year ago, used to report in Beirut for the network, says: “Al-Jazeera takes a clear position in every country from which it reports — not based on journalistic priorities, but rather on the interests of the Foreign Ministry of Qatar,” he says. “In order to maintain my integrity as a reporter, I had to quit.”

Critics say that the emir now essentially trusts only his own people: The network’s director general is now a relative of the emir, as is the head of the advisory board. They are seemingly required to follow political guidelines laid down by the palace — instead of serving the interests of viewers. Thanks to its oil wealth, Qatar is blessed with the world’s second highest per capita income, and it’s a key geo-political player with a clear agenda.

U.S. Plans Base for Surveillance Drones in Northwest Africa http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/us/us-plans-base-for-surveillance-drones-in-northwest-africa.html?_r=1&

L’intervention française au Mali permet à l’AFRICOM de poursuivre (1) son quadrillage du continent africain selon la stratégie du nénuphar [« Lily pads »] (2, 3)

The immediate impetus for a drone base in the region is to provide surveillance assistance to the French-led operation in Mali. “This is directly related to the Mali mission, but it could also give Africom a more enduring presence for ISR,” one American military official said on Sunday, referring to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

(1) http://blog.emceebeulogue.fr/post/2012/08/21/Expansion-militaire-de-l-Empire-Am%C3%A9ricain-en-Afrique

(2) http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0810/p06s02-wosc.html

(3) ►http://www.elcorreo.eu.org/Le-Pentagone-cree-une-nouvelle-forme-de-guerre-La-strategie-du-nenuphar

#AFRICOM #Lily-pads #Drones

How much water is needed to produce food and how much do we waste? | News | guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-much-water-food-production-waste#data

As much as 50% of all food produced in the world ends up as waste every year according to figures from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. But how much water is needed to produce it?

#eau #alimentation #agriculture

pff, le chocolat plus gourmand que le bœuf

La campagne d’Amérique de la chaîne qatarie Al Jazeera | Rue89
http://www.rue89.com/2013/01/04/la-campagne-damerique-de-la-chaine-qatarie-al-jazeera-238303

La vision me semble un peu optimiste sur le rôle de la chaîne. J’ai moi-même mis en avant le changement qu’elle avait provoquée dans la scène médiatique internationale (Ce que la chaîne Al-Jaira a vraiment changé, http://blog.mondediplo.net/2006-11-07-Ce-que-la-chaine-Al-Jazira-a-vraiment-change

Mais, depuis les révolutions arabes, et notamment à partir des événements en Libye, elle a abandonné une partie de son professionnalisme pour le soumettre totalement aux engagements internationaux du Qatar, que ce soit sur le Bahreïn ou sur la Syrie. ON trouvera ci-joint l’entretien avec le correspondant à Berlin de la chaîne, démissionnaire comme un nombre non négligeable de ses confrères.

Suliman : ’Al Jazeera plays the piper, but Qatar calls the tune’ http://www.dw.de/suliman-al-jazeera-plays-the-piper-but-qatar-calls-the-tune/a-16477490

C’est une des raisons pour lesquelles elle sera maintenant bien accueillie aux Etats-Unis

L’enlèvement de Richard Engel sent mauvais : la version de NBC est totalement improbable.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/22/richard-engel-s-kidnapping-a-behind-the-scenes-look.html

He says the kidnappers were members of the shabiha, a government militia loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, who talked of exchanging the crew for four Iranians and two members of the Lebanese Shiite paramilitary group Hizbullah being held by FSA rebels.

The NBC version, though, omits much and is at odds with what security sources involved in the freeing of the group say happened. Declining to be named for this article, they say the abduction and rescue of the TV crew “wasn’t as clean cut as stated.” They say the network is at pains to present the incident in the best possible light, masking a series of basic security lapses that may have contributed to the capture of Engel and his production team.

First, the sources say the gunmen who seized the crew may also have included rogue members of the rebel FSA–something top FSA commanders are keen to obscure. According to one source, “NBC’s security advisers were convinced that there was some FSA involvement in this and contacted wealthy Syrian-American donors of the rebel group, pointing out that Richard had been supportive of the uprising against Assad. They urged them to put pressure on the FSA. They really screwed down on them.” Top FSA commanders were alarmed and promised to help.

The disclosure that rogue FSA fighters may been involved in the abduction of the NBC crew will alarm Western correspondents working in Syria, who have to rely on FSA rebels for their safety in a particularly testing war zone of constantly shifting frontlines.

The proliferation of fringe armed groups, some with criminal and smuggling backgrounds, and Jihadist militias, especially in the Syrian province of Idlib, where the NBC crew was kidnapped, and in Aleppo, where they’d been for several days before the abduction, is making the conflict zone especially dangerous for reporters. So too is the fragmentation of the FSA when it comes to command and control.

Ce qui n’empêche pas France 24 de s’aligner sur une dépêche AFP qui reprend sans distance les élucubrations de Engel :

Selon M. Engel, leurs ravisseurs ont été entraînés en Iran et recrutés par le Hezbollah libanais, et voulaient échanger les journalistes contre quatre agents iraniens, deux individus libanais et d’autres personnes capturées par les rebelles syriens.

« Ils voulaient nous emmener dans une place forte du Hezbollah en Syrie (...) On était en route quand on couru vers un poste de contrôle tenu par des rebelles » syriens, a-t-il précisé.

UN Gives Journalism Prize to Investigation Exposing UN Responsibility for Cholera – And Still Won’t Accept Responsibility | Relief and Reconstruction Watch
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/un-gives-journalism-prize-to-investigation-exposing-un-responsibility-for-chol

Tonight, in a ceremony presided over by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, BBC correspondent Mark Doyle and producer Piers Scholfield will be presented with an award from the U.N. Correspondents Association (UNCA). The award, one of many to be handed out, is described by the UNCA as being for “the best coverage of the United Nations and its agencies.” Certainly by “best” they do not mean the most flattering. The BBC radio documentary that earned Scholfield and Doyle the prize was an investigation into the source of the cholera outbreak in Haiti, which over the past two years has killed over 7,800 and sickened over 625,000. A host of scientific evidence, as well as on the ground reporting, including by Doyle and Scholfield, has pinpointed a U.N. military base as the source of the outbreak.

(...)  Yet despite the U.N.’s pledge to support this plan, the U.N. has failed to ever accept responsibility for the epidemic.

#haïti #choléra #nations_unies #UN

Carly has autism and knows what she is talking about better than anyone else. Rather than trying to put it in words myself, let me quote her here, regarding the growing conversation about violence and diagnosis on the spectrum. As I have already said it numerous time, developmental issues do not lead to violence. Asperger’s certainly does not. The mechanism of violence is certainly known and it is a complex behavior that needs triggers - as well as safeguards, like for any behavior. We all have the ability to have violent behaviors, but most of us also have the regulation to control them that is not impaired or incapacited most of the times.

Mass shooting and mass murder are extremely violent behaviors that are not explained by conditions that have nothing to do with those mechanisms.

https://www.facebook.com/carlysvoice/posts/10151181586142749

BBC News - ’World’s first toilet theme park’ opens in South Korea
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20258175

The Korean city of Suwon has opened what it says is “the world’s first toilet theme park”.

The Restroom Cultural Park has a museum displaying Roman style loos, European-style bedpans, and ancient Korean flush toilets, as well as fun facts about human waste and a sculpture garden dedicated to squatting figures.

The BBC’s Seoul correspondent Lucy Williamson visited the park to explore South Korea’s fascination with the art and routine of the water closet.

Avec une vidéo (et l’accent britannique qui va bien…)

Vu par le Guardian , http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/09/south-korea-toilet-theme-park

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2012/11/9/1352462985754/The-Toilet-Culture-Park-i-006.jpg

Citation du fondateur Sim Dae-Juck, ancien maire de Suwon et fondateur du parc-musée, décédé en 2009.

Sim probably spoke for many when he said the toilet was also a place for serious contemplation.

“The toilet is not merely a place for excretion. It can save humankind from diseases,” he reportedly told delegates at a meeting of the World Toilet Association, which he founded in 2007.

“A place of relaxation and purging, the toilet is a place for introspection. The toilet is also a central living place that possesses culture.”

Un article du New York Times , avec le racisme ordinaire, les Palestiniens ne pleurent pas leurs morts comme “nous”

’Palestinians have such limited lives that they have less to lose than Israelis’ — NYT’s Rudoren
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/11/gazans-have-aspiration-to-martyrdom-and-have-such-limited-lives-that-the

Wolf Blitzer
http://angryarab.blogspot.fr/2012/11/wolf-blitzer.html

Wolf Blitzer of CNN has been dispatched to Israel to cover the conflict. But why does not CNN tell viewer that this guy started his journalism career by writing for the publication of the Israeli lobby? Can you imagine if a CNN correspondent is covering Gaza but had previously worked for Hamas mouthpiece? Can you imagine the uproar? So Blitzer was on the air and he reported that he saw “trauma” on the face of a child in Israel who heard sirens.

Ze’ev Barak sur Wikipedia :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Blitzer

In the mid-1970s, Blitzer also contributed to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as the editor of their monthly publication, the Near East Report. While at AIPAC, Blitzer’s writing focused on Middle East affairs as they relate to United States foreign policy.

2 journalists killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza | Maan News Agency
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=540287

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Two Palestinian journalists were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City Tuesday evening, after media buildings were hit by Israeli warplanes two days in a row.

Mahmoud al-Koumi and Husam Salameh , both working for al-Aqsa TV, were killed in the airstrike on a car near al-Wihda towers in the city.

Two others were injured in the strike, medics said.

Palestinian press freedom group Mada said the journalists were traveling in an Al-Aqsa TV car marked with a press sign.

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
►http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=539867

20:45 Third journalist killed in new Israeli airstrike on Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

Israël ne tue pas que « des gazaouites » : elle tue des Palestiniens en général, y compris en Cisjordanie.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/11/20121119194625198412.html

Palestinians have taken to the streets across the West Bank in protest at Israeli air attacks on the Gaza Strip, leading to one death in the southern city of Hebron.

A second person died on Monday of wounds sustained from an earlier protest.

Protests broke out in Hebron’s Old City after which Palestinian protesters were pushed back into the centre of the city by Israeli security forces.

According to witnesses, Hamdi al-Falah, 17 years old, was shot four times by Israeli troops.

“He was going to his house, there were clashes nearby and he might have been protesting. He got shot once in the leg, one in the arm, one in the chest and one in his head,” a Hebron resident told Al Jazeera.

Ma télé, pour « témoigner » des effets psychologiques effroyables de la guerre que les Palestiniens mènent contre les civils israéliens, m’a montré cette image édifiante : une jeune soldate israélienne en pleine crise de nerf, pointant soudainement le ciel et hurlant de plus belle, au moment même où la caméra s’approche d’elle.

Allons bon : une soldate en uniforme, ce coup-ci. Ils ne font même pas semblant. Vous n’avez pas retrouvé ce jeune acteur très sympathique qui interprétait un « activiste gay » ces derniers mois ? Il était beaucoup plus convaincant.

Je vous dis ça, parce qu’il apparaît, à la lecture de ce billet d’Angry Arab, qu’il s’agit d’un axe de communication coordonné par Israël : Fox News on Gaza
http://angryarab.blogspot.fr/2012/11/fox-news-on-gaza.html

If Israeli bombs are not incinerating children in Gaza, one would have found Fox News coverage of Gaza to be rather comical. The correspondent today was trying hard to transmit a fake sense of panic among all Israelis. He was screaming: missiles are falling indiscriminately everywhere, he said. And then added: and there is total destruction. This air-conditioner in this room is now totally gone. Such is the power of the Gaza missiles on Israel.

Climate of Doubt | Frontline | PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt

http://sphotos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/c0.0.403.403/p403x403/426195_10151098885886641_312937519_n.jpg

FRONTLINE explores the massive shift in public opinion on climate change.

un #film #documentaire sur la campagne anti-#science de déni du #changement_climatique menée avec succès par les #lobbys « free-market conservatives » : leurs objectifs, leurs méthodes, leurs modes de financement #anonyme…

#etats-unis avec même du #ayn_rand