publishedmedium:the new york times

  • The Era of Data Sovereignty is upon us!
    https://hackernoon.com/the-era-of-data-sovereignty-is-upon-us-7b9f447cf211?source=rss----3a8144

    But who is going to be the ‘Amazon of Data’?If this is the information age, where is the information getting traded?Fifty Years of Commerce in Three SentencesBoxstores like Walmart had their heyday in an era when it was convenient to shop for all manner of goods in a common marketplace. Similarly, the successes of Amazon and Upwork was to create common (virtual) marketplaces for disparate goods and services. Today, where data is so highly valued, there is a wide open need for a common data marketplace.Data is Already Being SoldData is already being bought and sold. However, it’s largely happening in an opaque way. This is tied up with the complications of who owns the data. Indeed, recent years have seen increasing concerns about #privacy violations such as the New York Times report of the (...)

    #data-sovereignty #internet-of-things #blockchain #unification

  • The New Zealand shooting put the media’s Islamophobia problem on display yet again
    https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-saeed-new-zealand-shooting-islamophobia-media-20190315-story.html

    Take, for example, language that is used to describe Muslims.

    In the immediate aftermath of the Christchurch massacre, there were descriptions of the mosque and its worshipers as “peaceful” — by the media as well as by well-intentioned, horrified onlookers around the world.

    The use of the term “peaceful” seems, at face value, benign, but it is a term that insinuates that Muslims and mosques, by near default, are violent unless we categorize and prove them to be otherwise. Muslims, themselves, have adopted the language of “Islam means peace” as a means of protection against violence and accusations of dual loyalty. The choice that is given to Muslims is one that defaults violence: We are either violent or we are against violence.

    The 11 worshipers killed at the Tree of Life synagogue in October 2018 were not called “peaceful worshipers.” The Sutherland Springs Church, which saw 26 of its congregants killed in 2017, wasn’t called a “peaceful church.”
    But the acceptability and normalization of Islamophobia goes beyond that: It’s when a black, visibly Muslim woman in Congress has her own party partake in an Islamophobic campaign against her, a campaign that hinged on the assumption that Muslims, by default, are anti-Semitic.

    It’s when those who have spent a large part or the entirety of their careers fear-mongering about Muslims are rewarded by prestigious institutions with Ivy League fellowships or columns in the New York Times.

    It’s when a former U.S. President gets up in front of tens of thousands of fellow party members and demands a loyalty test from Muslim Americans whose vote he is trying to collect for his candidate wife.

    It’s when an editor of one of the most respected journalistic institutions in this country casually tweets about “halting and repatriating Middle Eastern mass migration to Europe to keep it safe.” And then does something similar four years later in a piece about how maybe the fascists have a point about “enforcing the borders.”

    There is “good” Islamophobia — it’s not all Fox News, Ben Shapiro and right-wing chatrooms.

    There is Islamophobia we accept, as though it is simply a known truth, because we accept the foundational premise of Muslims having a propensity toward violence, toward not being loyal to “our values” — that there is something, a now New York Times columnist once called, “the tantrum of Islam.”

  • Michel Wieviorka pour le NYT

    Opinion | There Really Is a French Exception - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/opinion/macron-gilets-jaunes-debate.html


    Ian Langsdon/EPA, via Shutterstock

    But will the government rise to the occasion created by the Gilets jaunes movement?
    […]
    But it’s worth noting that the government hardly set up any meetings or direct exchanges with the Gilets jaunes as such. Instead of reaching out to them, Mr. Macron preferred to engage with local officials or other ordinary citizens.

    Nor has the great debate spawned any real representatives among the Gilets jaunes — a vacuum that makes concrete negotiations difficult. The movement’s very nature contributed to this, of course, since time and again the Gilets jaunes themselves pushed back against any attempt to structure or formalize their efforts. For a brief moment there seemed to be an impulse to create a political party from the movement or at least let emerge some official spokespeople. But that no longer seems remotely possible.

    Mr. Macron, even when faced with the breakdown of the political system itself, has continued to tackle problems from the top down and without resorting to intermediaries. Instead of moving away from this vertical approach, he has exploited it. His only credible political opponents now are parties at the extremes, on the far left (Jean-Luc Mélenchon and La France Insoumise) and the far right (Marine Le Pen and le Rassemblement National). According to polls, the president’s party is leading the race for the European elections.

    Was all this a strategic calculation? Quite probably. In any event, the situation today is a far cry from auguring the renewal of this democratic system. The most that has emerged so far is a handful of proposals from civil society — for example, the program for a greener economy jointly put forward by Nicolas Hulot, a former environment minister, and Laurent Berger, the head of France’s leading (and reformist) union, the Confédération française démocratique du travail (the French Democratic Confederation of Labor).

    France, unlike other countries, has been fortunate enough to experience a popular upheaval that has raised serious economic, social and institutional questions. Elsewhere — in Britain, the United States, Italy, Poland, Hungary — the discontent immediately lapsed into populism, nationalism or withdrawal. But if the French government doesn’t adequately address the legitimate, or at least reasonable, concerns of the Gilets jaunes, it runs the risk of pushing them, as well as other French people, toward the pitfalls France has avoided so far.

  • Boeing 737Max, l’enchaînement des modifications marginales aboutit à une catastrophe (deux catastrophes ?) Sous la pression de la réduction des coûts, un bricolo dans le logiciel de contrôle de vol a été introduit et de ne pas en informer les pilotes (il aurait fallu les faire repasser au simulateur de vol pour les habiliter au nouveau système…)

    After a Lion Air 737 Max Crashed in October, Questions About the Plane Arose - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/world/asia/lion-air-plane-crash-pilots.html


    Boeing’s 737 Max is the latest version of a plane that first went into service half a century ago.
    Credit : Matt Mcknight/Reuters

    But Boeing’s engineers had a problem. Because the new engines for the Max were larger than those on the older version, they needed to be mounted higher and farther forward on the wings to provide adequate ground clearance.

    Early analysis revealed that the bigger engines, mounted differently than on the previous version of the 737, would have a destabilizing effect on the airplane, especially at lower speeds during high-banked, tight-turn maneuvers, Mr. Ludtke said.

    The concern was that an increased risk of the nose being pushed up at low airspeeds could cause the plane to get closer to the angle at which it stalls, or loses lift, Mr. Ludtke said.

    After weighing many possibilities, Mr. Ludtke said, Boeing decided to add a new program — what engineers described as essentially some lines of code — to the aircraft’s existing flight control system to counter the destabilizing pitching forces from the new engines.

    That program was M.C.A.S.
    […]
    The F.A.A. would also determine what kind of training would be required for pilots on specific design changes to the Max compared with the previous version. Some changes would require training short of simulator time, such as computer-based instruction.

    I would think this is one of those systems that the pilots should know it’s onboard and when it’s activated,” said Chuck Horning, the department chairman for aviation maintenance science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

    That was not the choice that Boeing — or regulators — would make.

    The F.A.A. Sides With Boeing
    Ultimately, the F.A.A. determined that there were not enough differences between the 737 Max and the prior iteration to require pilots to go through simulator training.

    While the agency did require pilots to be given less onerous training or information on a variety of other changes between the two versions of the plane, M.C.A.S. was not among those items either.
    […]
    At least as far as pilots knew, M.C.A.S. did not exist, even though it would play a key role in controlling the plane under certain circumstances.

    Boeing did not hide the modified system. It was documented in maintenance manuals for the plane, and airlines were informed about it during detailed briefings on differences between the Max and earlier versions of the 737.

    But the F.A.A.’s determination that the system did not have to be flagged for pilots gave pause to some other regulators.

    Across the Atlantic, the European Aviation Safety Agency, the European Union’s equivalent of the F.A.A., had qualms, according to a pilot familiar with the European regulator’s certification process.

    At first, the agency was inclined to rule that M.C.A.S. needed to be included in the flight operations manual for the Max, which in turn would have required that pilots be made aware of the new system through a classroom or computer course, the pilot said. But ultimately, he said, the agency did not consider the issue important enough to hold its ground, and eventually it went along with Boeing and the F.A.A.

    • Après avoir tergiversé devant l’énormité de l’enjeu, la FAA a suspendu les vols et Boeing annonce cesser les livraisons. Deux par jour ! comme le dit l’article, il va falloir pousser les murs à Renton…

      Boeing gèle les livraisons des B 737 MAX : près de 2 avions par jour sont concernés !
      https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/industrie/aeronautique-defense/boeing-gele-les-livraisons-des-b-737-max-pres-de-2-avions-par-jour-sont-co


      Crédits : © POOL New / Reuters

      Boeing annoncé la suspension des livraisons de ses avions moyen-courriers 737 MAX, qui ont été interdits provisoirement de vol dans le monde après deux accidents récents d’appareils de ce type, l’un d’Ethiopian Airlines, l’autre de Lion Air. Mais l’avionneur continue la production en espérant implémenter la solution à ses problèmes une fois qu’elle sera validée.

      Ce jeudi, en début de soirée en France, au lendemain de l’immobilisation totale de la flotte de B 737 MAX qui a suivi l’accident d’Ethiopian Airlines le 10 mars dernier dans des circonstances similaires à celles observées lors du crash de Lion Air en octobre, Boeing a annoncé la suspension des livraisons de ses appareils moyen-courriers.

      « Nous suspendons la livraison des 737 MAX jusqu’à ce que nous trouvions une solution », a déclaré à l’AFP un porte-parole, ajoutant que l’avionneur américain poursuivait en revanche leur production en écartant l’éventualité de réduire les cadences.

      Il va falloir trouver de la place. Boeing construit 52 B737 MAX par mois, quasiment deux par jour.

      « Nous sommes en train d’évaluer nos capacités », c’est-à-dire de savoir où les avions sortis des chaînes d’assemblage vont être stockés, a-t-il admis.

      Boeing entend donc continuer à assembler les avions et introduire la solution à ses problèmes une fois que ces derniers auront été clairement identifiés et que la façon de les résoudre validée.

    • Ça ne s’arrange pas pour Boeing et la FAA qui a délégué une grande partie de la certification de la nouvelle version à …Boeing.

      Flawed analysis, failed oversight: How Boeing, FAA certified the suspect 737 MAX flight control system | The Seattle Times
      https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/failed-certification-faa-missed-safety-issues-in-the-737-max-system-im


      A worker is seen inside a Boeing 737 MAX 9 at the Renton plant. The circular sensor seen at bottom right measures the plane’s angle of attack, the angle between the airflow and the wing. This sensor on 737 MAX planes is under scrutiny as a possible cause of two recent fatal crashes.
      Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times

      Federal Aviation Administration managers pushed its engineers to delegate wide responsibility for assessing the safety of the 737 MAX to Boeing itself. But safety engineers familiar with the documents shared details that show the analysis included crucial flaws.

      As Boeing hustled in 2015 to catch up to Airbus and certify its new 737 MAX, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) managers pushed the agency’s safety engineers to delegate safety assessments to Boeing itself, and to speedily approve the resulting analysis.

      But the original safety analysis that Boeing delivered to the FAA for a new flight control system on the MAX — a report used to certify the plane as safe to fly — had several crucial flaws.

      That flight control system, called MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), is now under scrutiny after two crashes of the jet in less than five months resulted in Wednesday’s FAA order to ground the plane.

      Current and former engineers directly involved with the evaluations or familiar with the document shared details of Boeing’s “System Safety Analysis” of MCAS, which The Seattle Times confirmed.

      The safety analysis:
      • Understated the power of the new flight control system, which was designed to swivel the horizontal tail to push the nose of the plane down to avert a stall. When the planes later entered service, MCAS was capable of moving the tail more than four times farther than was stated in the initial safety analysis document.
      • Failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded, thereby missing the potential impact of the system repeatedly pushing the airplane’s nose downward.
      • Assessed a failure of the system as one level below “catastrophic.” But even that “hazardous” danger level should have precluded activation of the system based on input from a single sensor — and yet that’s how it was designed.

      The people who spoke to The Seattle Times and shared details of the safety analysis all spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their jobs at the FAA and other aviation organizations.

      Both Boeing and the FAA were informed of the specifics of this story and were asked for responses 11 days ago, before the second crash of a 737 MAX last Sunday.
      […]
      Delegated to Boeing
      The FAA, citing lack of funding and resources, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes.

      Early on in certification of the 737 MAX, the FAA safety engineering team divided up the technical assessments that would be delegated to Boeing versus those they considered more critical and would be retained within the FAA.

      But several FAA technical experts said in interviews that as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the process. Development of the MAX was lagging nine months behind the rival Airbus A320neo. Time was of the essence for Boeing.

      A former FAA safety engineer who was directly involved in certifying the MAX said that halfway through the certification process, “we were asked by management to re-evaluate what would be delegated. Management thought we had retained too much at the FAA.

      There was constant pressure to re-evaluate our initial decisions,” the former engineer said. “And even after we had reassessed it … there was continued discussion by management about delegating even more items down to the Boeing Company.

      Even the work that was retained, such as reviewing technical documents provided by Boeing, was sometimes curtailed.
      […]
      Inaccurate limit
      In this atmosphere, the System Safety Analysis on MCAS, just one piece of the mountain of documents needed for certification, was delegated to Boeing.

      The original Boeing document provided to the FAA included a description specifying a limit to how much the system could move the horizontal tail — a limit of 0.6 degrees, out of a physical maximum of just less than 5 degrees of nose-down movement.

      That limit was later increased after flight tests showed that a more powerful movement of the tail was required to avert a high-speed stall, when the plane is in danger of losing lift and spiraling down.
      […]
      After the Lion Air Flight 610 crash, Boeing for the first time provided to airlines details about MCAS. Boeing’s bulletin to the airlines stated that the limit of MCAS’s command was 2.5 degrees.

      That number was new to FAA engineers who had seen 0.6 degrees in the safety assessment.
      […]
      System failed on a single sensor
      The bottom line of Boeing’s System Safety Analysis with regard to MCAS was that, in normal flight, an activation of MCAS to the maximum assumed authority of 0.6 degrees was classified as only a “major failure,” meaning that it could cause physical distress to people on the plane, but not death.

      In the case of an extreme maneuver, specifically when the plane is in a banked descending spiral, an activation of MCAS was classified as a “hazardous failure,” meaning that it could cause serious or fatal injuries to a small number of passengers. That’s still one level below a “catastrophic failure,” which represents the loss of the plane with multiple fatalities.
      […]
      Boeing’s System Safety Analysis assessment that the MCAS failure would be “hazardous” troubles former flight controls engineer Lemme because the system is triggered by the reading from a single angle-of-attack sensor.

      A hazardous failure mode depending on a single sensor, I don’t think passes muster,” said Lemme.

      Like all 737s, the MAX actually has two of the sensors, one on each side of the fuselage near the cockpit. But the MCAS was designed to take a reading from only one of them.

      Lemme said Boeing could have designed the system to compare the readings from the two vanes, which would have indicated if one of them was way off.

      Alternatively, the system could have been designed to check that the angle-of-attack reading was accurate while the plane was taxiing on the ground before takeoff, when the angle of attack should read zero.

      They could have designed a two-channel system. Or they could have tested the value of angle of attack on the ground,” said Lemme. “I don’t know why they didn’t.

      The black box data provided in the preliminary investigation report shows that readings from the two sensors differed by some 20 degrees not only throughout the flight but also while the airplane taxied on the ground before takeoff.

      No training, no information
      After the Lion Air crash, 737 MAX pilots around the world were notified about the existence of MCAS and what to do if the system is triggered inappropriately.

    • VF

      Crashs de 737 MAX : la justice américaine se saisit du dossier
      https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/03/19/crashs-de-737-max-la-justice-americaine-s-en-mele_5438002_3210.html


      Les Boeing 737 Max sont collés au sol à Phoenix, dans l’Arizona (Etats-Unis).
      Matt York / AP

      La justice américaine a décidé de faire la lumière sur les relations entre Boeing et les autorités fédérales chargées de certifier ses appareils 737 MAX, à la suite de deux accidents qui ont fait 346 morts à moins de cinq mois d’intervalle.
      Le 11 mars, soit au lendemain de la tragédie du vol d’Ethiopian Airlines, la justice a assigné au moins une personne impliquée dans le développement du programme 737 MAX à fournir des documents, incluant des lettres, des courriels ou d’autres messages, révèle le Wall Street Journal lundi 18 mars, qui cite des sources proches du dossier.
      […]
      L’affaire « prend un tour entièrement nouveau avec l’enquête criminelle », a réagi Scott Hamilton, expert aéronautique chez Leeham Company. « Contrairement à la France, où les enquêtes criminelles sont habituelles quand il y a un accident d’avion, c’est très, très rare aux Etats-Unis », souligne-t-il, se souvenant d’un seul précédent, celui de ValuJet. Le 11 mai 1996, l’accident d’un DC-9 de cette compagnie en Floride avait fait 110 morts.

      Parallèlement, le département américain des transports mène une enquête sur le processus d’approbation par le régulateur du transport aérien (FAA) des 737 MAX, a également dévoilé le WSJ dimanche. Il se penche en particulier sur le système de stabilisation de l’avion destiné à éviter le décrochage, dit « MCAS » (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System).
      […]
      Des documents disponibles sur le site de la FAA montrent que le 737 MAX a été certifié comme une variante du 737 NG, son prédécesseur. Autrement dit, il n’a pas été inspecté dans son intégralité, la FAA estimant qu’il n’était pas nécessaire d’examiner certains systèmes. Cela n’est pas inhabituel dans l’aéronautique s’agissant d’un avion qui n’est pas entièrement nouveau.

      Plus gênant, selon des sources concordantes, le régulateur, confronté à des coupes budgétaires et manquant d’expertise, a délégué à des employés de Boeing la certification du MCAS. Or ce système a, lui, été spécialement conçu pour le 737 MAX, afin de compenser le fait que ce nouvel aéronef dispose de moteurs plus lourds que ceux équipant le 737 NG et qu’il présentait, de ce fait, un risque plus élevé de décrochage.

      Note que l’explication fournie est au minimum rapide, voire carrément fausse (cf. supra, la modification des moteurs (plus gros) a surtout entrainé un changement de leur position – surélévation et déplacement vers l’avant - ce qui modifie fortement le centrage de l’avion)

      Et la Chambre s’y mettrait aussi…

      Peter DeFazio, le président de la commission parlementaire des transports à la Chambre des représentants, envisage, lui, de lancer une enquête sur la certification du 737 MAX, selon des sources parlementaires, ajoutant que des auditions publiques de responsables de la FAA ne sont pas exclues.

    • Washington lance un audit sur la certification du Boeing 737 MAX
      https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/industrie/aeronautique-defense/washington-lance-un-audit-sur-la-certification-du-boeing-737-max-811302.ht

      [La] secrétaire américaine aux Transports, Elaine Chao, a annoncé mardi qu’elle avait demandé à ses services de vérifier la procédure de certification du Boeing 737 MAX par l’aviation civile américaine. Par ailleurs, un nouveau patron a été nommé à la tête de la FAA, la direction de l’aviation civile américaine. Boeing a également [re]manié l’équipe dirigeante de l’ingénierie.

      Confirmant des informations de presse, le ministère américain des Transports (DoT) a indiqué mardi avoir lancé un audit sur le processus de certification du Boeing 737 MAX 8 par la Federal Administration Agency (FAA), la direction générale de l’aviation civile américaine, après les accidents de Lion Air fin octobre 2018 et d’Ethiopian Airlines le 10 mars denier, faisant au total 346 morts. Dans les deux cas, le 737MAX, un avion mis en service en mai 2017, était flambant neuf. Dans les deux cas, ils se sont écrasés peu après le décollage après avoir connu des montées et des descentes irrégulières lors de la phase de montée.
      […]
      Par ailleurs, Donald Trump a annoncé mardi son intention de nommer Steve Dickson, un ancien pilote de chasse et pilote de ligne, à la tête de la FAA. Steve Dickson doit être nommé comme administrateur de la FAA pour une période de cinq ans et comme président du Comité des services du trafic aérien au département du Transport. Steve Dickson, qui a pris récemment sa retraite, a une longue expérience du transport aérien puisqu’il était responsable de la sécurité et des services opérationnels au sein de la compagnie américaine Delta Airlines. Il était en outre instructeur. En tant que pilote de ligne, il a l’expérience des avions moyen-courriers : Airbus A320, Boeing 727, 737, 757. Steve Dickson était également, au début de sa carrière, pilote sur l’avion de combat F-15.

      La division d’aviation commerciale de Boeing a selon Reuters remanié l’équipe dirigeante de l’ingénierie. John Hamilton, qui occupait les fonctions de vice-président et d’ingénieur en chef, va se concentrer uniquement sur le rôle d’ingénieur en chef, a déclaré le PDG de la division d’aviation commerciale, Kevin McAllister, dans un email envoyé aux employés. Lynne Hopper, jusque-là en charge de l’unité test et évaluation, est nommée vice-présidente de l’ingénierie, a-t-il ajouté.

      La réorganisation va permettre à Hamilton de « focaliser toute son attention sur les enquêtes en cours sur l’accident », écrit McAllister, soulignant que des changements étaient nécessaires alors que l’avionneur américain « dédie des ressources supplémentaires » à ces enquêtes.

    • Boeing a le droit de faire voler ses 737 MAX (pour les stocker ailleurs qu’à Seattle)
      https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/industrie/aeronautique-defense/boeing-a-le-droit-de-faire-voler-ses-737-max-pour-les-stocker-ailleurs-qu-

      Malgré l’interdiction des vols des 737 MAX la direction de l’aviation civile américaine a autorisé à Boeing à les faire [voler] pour parquer quelque part les avions assemblés qui ne pourront plus être stockés sur le site de production de Seattle, faute de place.

      Les Boeing 737 MAX peuvent reprendre les airs sans attendre les conclusions de l’enquête de l’accident d’un appareil de ce type d’Ethiopian Airlines, faisant 157 victimes à bord le 10 mars. Mais sans passagers à bord. Si les vols reprennent effectivement, ce sera uniquement pour aller parquer quelque part les appareils qui sortent de la chaîne d’assemblage et qui ne pourront plus être stockés sur le site de production de Renton, près de Seattle. Si Boeing a interrompu les livraisons, l’avionneur a maintenu la production dans le but d’introduite la solution à ses problèmes sur tous les avions stockés et livrer rapidement ces derniers.

      Selon les autorités américaines, de telles dispositions ont été accordées à Boeing par la Federal Administration Agency (FAA), la direction générale de l’aviation civile, lorsque cette dernière a interdit les vols des 737 MAX la semaine dernière. « La FAA a décidé d’interdire les opérations, mais n’a pas retiré le certificat de navigabilité de l’avion qui aurait décrété que l’avion n’était pas en mesure de voler », a expliqué surpris à La Tribune, un expert européen des questions de sécurité. En attendant, si Boeing décidait de faire voler ses avions pour aller les parquer ailleurs qu’à Renton, la décision pourrait en surprendre plus d’un. Comment pourrait-on autoriser un avion cloué au sol pour des raisons de sécurité reprendre les airs avec des pilotes à bord ?

      Avec une cadence de production de 52 appareils par mois, l’avionneur est confronté au défi du stockage de ces avions qu’il ne peut pas livrer aux compagnies aériennes. Selon nos informations, Boeing a des solutions pour absorber deux mois de production, soit plus de 100 appareils.

      (note, les chapeaux des articles sont rédigés au lance-pierre, il y manque des mots ou des bouts de mots…)

  • Opinion | Two Women, Heroes for Our Age - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/opinion/hathloul-sotoudeh-iran-saudi-arabia.html

    They are women who bravely challenged misogyny and dictatorship, one in Iran, the other in Saudi Arabia. Those two nations may be enemies, but they find common cause in their barbaric treatment of women — and since they are trying to squelch and smother these two women, we should shout their names from the mountaintops.

    Nasrin Sotoudeh, 55, is a writer and human rights lawyer who for decades has been fighting for women and children in Iran. Her family reports that this week she was sentenced to another 33 years in prison, on top of a five-year sentence she is now serving, plus 148 lashes.

    Loujain al-Hathloul, 29, a leader of the Saudi women’s rights movement, went on trial Wednesday after months of imprisonment and torture, including floggings, sexual harassment, waterboarding and electric shocks.

    Her sister Alia al-Hathloul told me that Loujain was finally presented with the charges against her, which included communicating with human rights organizations and criticizing the Saudi “guardianship” system for women.

    I previously suggested that Hathloul should get the Nobel Peace Prize, and she has now been nominated for it. So let me revise my proposal: Hathloul and Sotoudeh should win the Nobel together for their courageous advocacy of women’s rights before rival dictators who share one thing: a cruel misogyny.

    I know I’ll get notes from people who harrumph that the problem is simply Islam. That’s too glib, but it is fair to say that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei together tarnish the global image of Islam more than any army of blasphemers could.

    “This sentence is beyond barbaric,” the U.S. State Department said of Sotoudeh’s reported sentence. Quite true. But the State Department refuses to be equally blunt in denouncing Hathloul’s torture and imprisonment; that’s because it sees the Saudis as allies and the Iranians as enemies.

    What the Trump administration doesn’t seem to understand is this: If you care about human rights only in countries that you despise, you don’t actually care about human rights.

    Alia al-Hathloul said that her sister was ordered to sign a letter requesting a royal pardon, and did so, and that the torture appears to have ended. I’m hoping that the crown prince is looking for a way to climb down from his brutal mistreatment of the women’s rights activists and will eventually grant the pardon that she “requested.”

    Meanwhile, Iran seems to be cracking down harder. Amnesty International reports that Iran arrested more than 7,000 dissidents last year and that the 38-year combined sentence for Sotoudeh, if true, is the harshest imposed against a human rights defender in Iran in recent years. Iran state media suggested that she had been given a shorter sentence, but Sotoudeh and her family have much more credibility than Iran’s government.

    “The shockingly harsh sentence against her is a signal of just how unnerved the Iranian authorities have become,” Kumi Naidoo, the secretary general of Amnesty International, told me. He noted that women’s rights activists in Iran have become bolder, sometimes waving their head scarves on a stick and posting videos on social media.

    “With this cruel sentence, the Iranian authorities appear to be seeking to make an example of Nasrin Sotoudeh and to intimidate other women’s rights defenders,” he said.

    Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, was separately sentenced in January to six years in prison, for posting updates about his wife’s case on Facebook. The couple has two children, a 12-year-old son named Nima and a 19-year-old daughter named Mehraveh. Hadi Ghaemi of the Center for Human Rights in Iran said that relatives may now have to raise Nima and Mehraveh.

    “My dearest Mehraveh,” Sotoudeh once wrote her daughter from prison, “you were my main motivation for pursuing children’s rights. … Every time I came home from court, after having defended an abused child, I would hold you and your brother in my arms, finding it hard to let go of your embrace.”

    #femmes #héros #arabie_saoudite #iran

  • Endeavor Returns Money to Saudi Arabia, Protesting Khashoggi Murder - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/business/endeavor-saudi-arabia.html

    There was much to celebrate last spring when Ariel Emanuel, the chief executive of the talent agency Endeavor, helped throw a splashy Hollywood party for Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

    The soiree, with guests including the Disney chief executive Robert A. Iger, the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the former N.B.A. star Kobe Bryant, took place as Saudi Arabia’s government investment fund was completing an agreement to invest $400 million in Mr. Emanuel’s firm. The deal was meant to finance Endeavor’s growth, while diversifying Saudi Arabia’s economy via the talent agency’s work in sports, events, modeling and television and film production.

    Less than a year after the star-studded party, Endeavor and Saudi Arabia have gone through a messy breakup, set in motion by the murder last October of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

    In recent weeks, Mr. Emanuel’s firm returned the $400 million investment, effectively severing Endeavor’s relationship with Saudi leaders, according to two people with knowledge of the transaction.

    It is one of the few instances of a major company halting business with the wealthy kingdom to protest its agents’ assassination of a journalist.

    #arabie_saoudite #lobbying

  • The Top 25 Songs That Matter Right Now - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/07/magazine/top-songs.html

    It usually takes a while — a decade or two — before we can look back at a particular era of American life and see it as something coherent, something whose every aspect is marked by one overarching mood. It takes a certain amount of hindsight to notice how all the wildly different reactions people had to the moment were still, in the end, reactions to the same thing; all the different poses they adopted were still being struck against the same backdrop.

    But this era — this year, and the last one, and one or two before that — might be an exception. There’s an oddly strong in-the-moment consensus on how everyone is feeling these days, and it is not good. At some point it became a routine conversational tic for all sorts of people, of all sorts of persuasions, to express, with an incredulous gesture, that things feel a bit grueling and frantic lately, don’t they? Musicians are no exception. “Life is pretty tumultuous right now for all of us,” said the crossover country star Kacey Musgraves, while accepting a Grammy for the Album of the Year. The Swedish singer Robyn acknowledges that “pop at the moment is depressing” in an interview midway through this issue. “The music kids are listening to is heavy! Maybe it’s hard to be positive and optimistic at the moment.”

    L’air du temps en chansons version USA 2018.

    #Musique #2018

  • Is This the Greatest Photo in Jazz History? - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/nyregion/thelonius-monk-charlier-parker.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

    A friend gave Bob Parent a tip: be at the Open Door on West 3rd Street on Sunday.

    Mr. Parent, a photographer with a knack for showing up at the right time and place, didn’t need much encouragement. He arrived at the jazz club early in the evening of Sept. 13, 1953. It was unseasonably cool for late summer. The New York Times front page detailed the marriage of Senator John F. Kennedy and the glamorous Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, R.I. The Brooklyn Dodgers had just clinched the pennant in Milwaukee.

    The show that night was billed as the Thelonious Monk Trio. Monk, 35, was already a prolific composer and piano innovator, yet it would take a decade for his brilliance to be fully appreciated by mainstream America. The trio was rounded out by Charles Mingus, 31, on standup bass and the youngster Roy Haynes, a 28-year-old hotshot drummer everyone called “Snap Crackle.”

    With Monk, Mingus and Haynes, he had certainly booked a top-shelf trio, reason enough to make the trip downtown. The word on the street that afternoon — and what a savvy Bob Parent already knew — was that there was a good chance Charlie Parker would sit in with the trio.

    #Musique #Jazz #Photographie

  • What Really Makes a Difference in Vaccination Rates? - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/upshot/vaccination-social-media-state-policies.html

    Social media companies face increasing scrutiny for amplifying fringe anti-vaccine sentiment amid measles outbreaks in several states like Washington. In response, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest recently made headlines by announcing initiatives to reduce vaccine misinformation on their platforms.

    But the focus on anti-vaccine content on social media can obscure the most important factor in whether children get vaccinated: the rules in their home states, which are being revisited in legislative debates across the country that have received far less attention.

    #Médias_sociaux #Fake_news #Vaccins #Politique_USA #Vaccination

  • Footage Contradicts U.S. Claim That Maduro Burned Aid Convoy - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/world/americas/venezuela-aid-fire-video.html

    Les conservateurs américains et Donald Trump pris en flagrant délit de fake news.

    Du bon journalisme de la part du New York Times, qui veut certainement redresser la barre et faire oublier son rôle de pourvoyeur de récits des faucons qui ont précédé la Guerre d’Irak.

    Une véritable manière d’éviter une intervention militaire que le journalisme basé sur les faits...

    CÚCUTA, Colombia — The narrative seemed to fit Venezuela’s authoritarian rule: Security forces, on the order of President Nicolás Maduro, had torched a convoy of humanitarian aid as millions in his country were suffering from illness and hunger.

    Vice President Mike Pence wrote that “the tyrant in Caracas danced” as his henchmen “burned food & medicine.” The State Department released a video saying Mr. Maduro had ordered the trucks burned. And Venezuela’s opposition held up the images of the burning aid, reproduced on dozens of news sites and television screens throughout Latin America, as evidence of Mr. Maduro’s cruelty.

    But there is a problem: The opposition itself, not Mr. Maduro’s men, appears to have set the cargo alight accidentally.

    Unpublished footage obtained by The New York Times and previously released tapes — including footage released by the Colombian government, which has blamed Mr. Maduro for the fire — allowed for a reconstruction of the incident. It suggests that a Molotov cocktail thrown by an antigovernment protester was the most likely trigger for the blaze.

    At one point, a homemade bomb made from a bottle is hurled toward the police, who were blocking a bridge connecting Colombia and Venezuela to prevent the aid trucks from getting through.

    But the rag used to light the Molotov cocktail separates from the bottle, flying toward the aid truck instead.

    Half a minute later, that truck is in flames.

    The same protester can be seen 20 minutes earlier, in a different video, hitting another truck with a Molotov cocktail, without setting it on fire.

    #Fake_News #Vénézuela #Donald_Trump #Guerre

  • Opinion | This Is the Truth About Vaccines - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/opinion/vaccines-autism-flu.html

    Vaccinations save lives, protect our children and are one of our greatest public health achievements. As public health officials, our role is to advance the health of the American people. This must include championing vaccinations.

    Diseases like polio, measles, diphtheria and rubella were once common in the United States, afflicting hundreds of thousands of infants, children and adults, and killing thousands each year. Some older Americans may remember the fear associated with polio outbreaks and the era of iron lungs and leg braces — a time when swimming pools and movie theaters closed over concerns about the spread of the crippling disease. Others may recall the heartbreaking wave of rubella in the 1960s that resulted in thousands of newborn deaths, with thousands more born blind, deaf or with other lifelong disabilities.

    We cannot let America be faced with these fears again. For those of us who have treated critically ill children with vaccine-preventable diseases, we know firsthand the devastation to the child — and to the family and community — of a death, limb amputation or severe brain damage that could have been avoided by a simple vaccination.

    Consider measles. The World Health Organization estimates that measles vaccination prevented more than 21 million deaths worldwide since 2000. Although routine childhood vaccination for measles remains high in the United States (greater than 91 percent for preschool children), localized dips in vaccination coverage have resulted in a recent resurgence of measles in parts of the country. A total of 17 measles outbreaks affecting more than 370 individuals have been confirmed in 2018 alone, and 10 states are already reporting cases this year. Unfortunately, many more communities are at risk for outbreaks because of areas with low vaccine coverage.

    #Vaccination #Santé_publique

  • Muslim, Jewish leaders show support for Ilhan Omar comments | Watch News Videos Online
    https://globalnews.ca/video/5027615/muslim-jewish-leaders-show-support-for-ilhan-omar-comments

    Muslim and Jewish leaders showed their support for Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on Wednesday, saying the resolution by Democrats against anti-Semitism doesn’t go wide enough and called on them to equally condemn anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and several other forms of discrimination.

    Democrats Put Off Anti-Semitism Resolution After Fierce Backlash - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/us/politics/anti-semitism-resolution.html

    Senator Bernie #Sanders, the Vermont independent who is again running for the Democratic presidential nomination, took the opposite tack and suggested House Democratic leaders were trying to tamp down legitimate discussion of the conduct of the Israeli government.

    #etats-unis #israel

  • The Mystery of the Exiled Billionaire Whistle-Blower - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/magazine/the-mystery-of-the-exiled-billionaire-whistleblower.html

    From a penthouse on Central Park, Guo Wengui has exposed a phenomenal web of corruption in China’s ruling elite — if, that is, he’s telling the truth.

    By Lauren Hilgers, Jan. 10, 2018

    阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

    On a recent Saturday afternoon, an exiled Chinese billionaire named Guo Wengui was holding forth in his New York apartment, sipping tea while an assistant lingered quietly just outside the door, slipping in occasionally to keep Guo’s glass cup perfectly full. The tycoon’s Twitter account had been suspended again — it was the fifth or sixth time, by Guo’s count — and he blamed the Communist Party of China. “It’s not normal!” he said, about this cycle of blocking and reinstating. “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t need anyone.”

    Guo’s New York apartment is a 9,000-square-foot residence along Central Park that he bought for $67.5 million in 2015. He sat in a Victorian-style chair, his back to a pair of west-facing windows, the sunset casting craggy shadows. A black-and-white painting of an angry-looking monkey hung on the wall to Guo’s right, a hat bearing a star-and-wreath Soviet insignia on its head and a cigarette hanging from its lips. Guo had arrived dressed entirely in black, except for two silver stripes on each lapel. “I have the best houses,” he told me. Guo had picked his apartment for its location, its three sprawling balconies and the meticulously tiled floor in the entryway. He has the best apartment in London, he said; the biggest apartment in Hong Kong. His yacht is docked along the Hudson River. He is comfortable and, anyway, Guo likes to say that as a Buddhist, he wants for nothing. If it were down to his own needs alone, he would have kept his profile low. But he has a higher purpose. He is going to save China.

    Guo pitches himself as a former insider, a man who knows the secrets of a government that tightly controls the flow of information. A man who, in 2017, did the unthinkable — tearing open the veil of secrecy that has long surrounded China’s political elite, lobbing accusations about corruption, extramarital affairs and murder plots over Facebook and Twitter. His YouTube videos and tweets have drawn in farmers and shopkeepers, democracy activists, writers and businesspeople. In China, people have been arrested for chatting about Guo online and distributing T-shirts with one of his slogans printed on the front (“This is only the beginning!”). In New York, Guo has split a community of dissidents and democracy activists down the middle. Some support him. Others believe that Guo himself is a government spy.

    Nothing in Guo’s story is as straightforward as he would like it to seem. Guo is 47 years old, or 48, or 49. Although he has captured the attention of publications like The Guardian, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, the articles that have run about him have offered only hazy details about his life. This is because his biography varies so widely from one source to the next. Maybe his name isn’t even Guo Wengui. It could be Guo Wugui. There are reports that in Hong Kong, Guo occasionally goes by the name Guo Haoyun.

    When pressed, Guo claims a record of unblemished integrity in his business dealings, both in real estate and in finance (when it comes to his personal life, he strikes a more careful balance between virility and dedication to his family). “I never took a square of land from the government,” he said. “I didn’t take a penny of investment from the banks.” If you accept favors, he said, people will try to exploit your weaknesses. So, Guo claims, he opted to take no money and have no weaknesses.

    Yet when Guo left China in 2014, he fled in anticipation of corruption charges. A former business partner had been detained just days before, and his political patron would be detained a few days afterward. In 2015, articles about corruption in Guo’s business dealings — stories that he claims are largely fabrications — started appearing in the media. He was accused of defrauding business partners and colluding with corrupt officials. To hear Guo tell it, his political and business opponents used a national corruption campaign as a cover for a personal vendetta.

    Whatever prompted Guo to take action, his campaign came during an important year for China’s president, Xi Jinping. In October, the Communist Party of China (C.P.C.) convened its 19th National Congress, a twice-a-decade event that sets the contours of political power for the next five years. The country is in the throes of a far-reaching anti-corruption campaign, and Xi has overseen a crackdown on dissidents and human rights activists while increasing investment in censorship and surveillance. Guo has become a thorn in China’s side at the precise moment the country is working to expand its influence, and its censorship program, overseas.

    In November 2017, the Tiananmen Square activist Wang Dan warned of the growing influence of the C.P.C. on university campuses in the United States. His own attempts to hold “China salons” on college campuses had largely been blocked by the Chinese Students and Scholars Association — a group with ties to China’s government. Around the same time, the academic publisher Springer Nature agreed to block access to hundreds of articles on its Chinese site, cutting off access to articles on Tibet, Taiwan and China’s political elite. Reports emerged last year that China is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars quarterly to purchase ads on Facebook (a service that is blocked within China’s borders). In Australia, concerns about China’s growing influence led to a ban on foreign political donations.

    “That’s why I’m telling the United States they should really be careful,” Guo said. China’s influence is spreading, he says, and he believes his own efforts to change China will have global consequences. “Like in an American movie,” he told me with unflinching self-confidence. “In the last minutes, we will save the world.”

    Propaganda, censorship and rewritten histories have long been specialties of authoritarian nations. The aim, as famously explained by the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, is to confuse: to breed a combination of cynicism and gullibility. Propaganda can leave people in doubt of all news sources, suspicious of their neighbors, picking and choosing at random what pieces of information to believe. Without a political reality grounded in facts, people are left unmoored, building their world on whatever foundation — imaginary or otherwise — they might choose.

    The tight grip that the C.P.C. keeps on information may be nothing new, but China’s leadership has been working hard to update the way it censors and broadcasts. People in China distrusted print and television media long before U.S. politicians started throwing around accusations of “fake news.” In 2016, President Xi Jinping was explicit about the arrangement, informing the country’s media that it should be “surnamed Party.” Likewise, while the West has only recently begun to grapple with government-sponsored commenters on social media, China’s government has been manipulating online conversations for over a decade.

    “They create all kinds of confusion,” said Ha Jin, the National Book Award-winning American novelist born in China’s Liaoning Province, and a vocal supporter of Guo. “You don’t know what information you have and whether it’s right. You don’t know who are the informers, who are the agents.”

    Online, the C.P.C. controls information by blocking websites, monitoring content and employing an army of commenters widely known as the 50-cent party. The name was used as early as 2004, when a municipal government in Hunan Province hired a number of online commenters, offering a stipend of 600 yuan, or about $72. Since then, the 50-cent party has spread. In 2016, researchers from Harvard, Stanford and the University of California-San Diego estimated that these paid commenters generated 448 million social-media comments annually. The posts, researchers found, were conflict averse, cheerleading for the party rather than defending it. Their aim seemed not to be engaging in argument but rather distracting the public and redirecting attention from sensitive issues.

    In early 2017, Guo issued his first salvos against China’s ruling elite through more traditional channels. He contacted a handful of Chinese-language media outlets based in the United States. He gave interviews to the Long Island-based publication Mingjing News and to Voice of America — a live event that was cut short by producers, leading to speculation that V.O.A. had caved to Chinese government pressure. He called The New York Times and spoke with reporters at The Wall Street Journal. It did not take long, however, before the billionaire turned to direct appeals through social media. The accusations he made were explosive — he attacked Wang Qishan, Xi Jinping’s corruption czar, and Meng Jianzhu, the secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, another prominent player in Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. He talked about Wang’s mistresses, his business interests and conflicts within the party.

    In one YouTube video, released on Aug. 4, Guo addressed the tension between Wang and another anti-corruption official named Zhang Huawei. He recounted having dinner with Zhang when “he called Wang Qishan’s secretary and gave him orders,” Guo said. “Think about what Wang had to suffer in silence back then. They slept with the same women, and Zhang knew everything about Wang.” In addition, Guo said, Zhang knew about Wang’s corrupt business dealings. When Zhang Huawei was placed under official investigation in April, Guo claimed, it was a result of a grudge.

    “Everyone in China is a slave,” Guo said in the video. “With the exception of the nobility.”

    To those who believe Guo’s claims, they expose a depth of corruption that would surprise even the most jaded opponent of the C.P.C. “The corruption is on such a scale,” Ha Jin said. “Who could imagine that the czar of anti-corruption would himself be corrupt? It is extraordinary.”

    Retaliation came quickly. A barrage of counteraccusations began pouring out against Guo, most published in the pages of the state-run Chinese media. Warrants for his arrest were issued on charges of corruption, bribery and even rape. China asked Interpol to issue a red notice calling for Guo’s arrest and extradition. He was running out of money, it was reported. In September, Guo recorded a video during which he received what he said was a phone call from his fifth brother: Two of Guo’s former employees had been detained, and their family members were threatening suicide. “My Twitter followers are so important they are like heaven to me,” Guo said. But, he declared, he could not ignore the well-being of his family and his employees. “I cannot finish the show as I had planned,” he said. Later, Guo told his followers in a video that he was planning to divorce his wife, in order to shield her from the backlash against him.

    Guo quickly resumed posting videos and encouraging his followers. His accusations continued to accumulate throughout 2017, and he recently started his own YouTube channel (and has yet to divorce his wife). His YouTube videos are released according to no particular schedule, sometimes several days in a row, some weeks not at all. He has developed a casual, talkative style. In some, Guo is running on a treadmill or still sweating after a workout. He has demonstrated cooking techniques and played with a tiny, fluffy dog, a gift from his daughter. He invites his viewers into a world of luxury and offers them a mix of secrets, gossip and insider knowledge.

    Wang Qishan, Guo has claimed, is hiding the money he secretly earned in the Hainan-based conglomerate HNA Group, a company with an estimated $35 billion worth of investments in the United States. (HNA Group denies any ties to Wang and is suing Guo.) He accused Wang of carrying on an affair with the actress Fan Bingbing. (Fan is reportedly suing Guo for defamation.) He told stories of petty arguments among officials and claimed that Chinese officials sabotaged Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared in 2014 en route to Beijing, in order to cover up an organ-harvesting scheme. Most of Guo’s accusations have proved nearly impossible to verify.

    “This guy is just covered in question marks,” said Minxin Pei, a professor at Claremont McKenna who specializes in Chinese governance.

    The questions that cover Guo have posed a problem for both the United States government and the Western journalists who, in trying to write about him, have found themselves buffeted by the currents of propaganda, misinformation and the tight-lipped code of the C.P.C. elite. His claims have also divided a group of exiled dissidents and democracy activists — people who might seem like Guo’s natural allies. For the most part, the democracy activists who flee China have been chased from their country for protesting the government or promoting human rights, not because of corruption charges. They tell stories of personal persecution, not insider tales of bribery, sex and money. And perhaps as a consequence, few exiled activists command as large an audience as Guo. “I will believe him,” Ha Jin said, “until one of his serious accusations is proved to be false.”

    Pei, the professor, warns not to take any of Guo’s accusations at face value. The reaction from the C.P.C. has been so extreme, however, that Pei believes Guo must know something. “He must mean something to the government,” he said. “They must be really bothered by this billionaire.” In May, Chinese officials visited Guo on visas that did not allow them to conduct official business, causing a confrontation with the F.B.I. A few weeks later, according to The Washington Times, China’s calls for Guo’s extradition led to a White House showdown, during which Jeff Sessions threatened to resign if Guo was sent back to China.

    Guo has a history of cultivating relationships with the politically influential, and the trend has continued in New York. He famously bought 5,000 copies of a book by Cherie Blair, Tony Blair’s wife. (“It was to give to my employees,” Guo told me. “I often gave my employees books to read.”) Guo has also cultivated a special relationship with Steve Bannon, whom he says he has met with a handful of times, although the two have no financial relationship. Not long after one of their meetings, Bannon appeared on Breitbart Radio and called China “an enemy of incalculable power.”

    Despite Guo’s high-powered supporters and his army of online followers, one important mark of believability has continued to elude him. Western news organizations have struggled to find evidence that would corroborate Guo’s claims. When his claims appear in print, they are carefully hedged — delivered with none of his signature charm and bombast. “Why do you need more evidence?” Guo complained in his apartment. “I can give them evidence, no problem. But while they’re out spending time investigating, I’m waiting around to get killed!”

    The details of Guo’s life may be impossible to verify, but the broad strokes confirm a picture of a man whose fortunes have risen and fallen with the political climate in China. To hear Guo tell it, he was born in Jilin Province, in a mining town where his parents were sent during the Cultural Revolution. “There were foreigners there,” Guo says in a video recorded on what he claims is his birthday. (Guo was born on Feb. 2, or May 10, or sometime in June.) “They had the most advanced machinery. People wore popular clothing.” Guo, as a result, was not ignorant of the world. He was, however, extremely poor. “Sometimes we didn’t even have firewood,” he says. “So we burned the wet twigs from the mountains — the smoke was so thick.” Guo emphasizes this history: He came from hardship. He pulled himself up.

    The story continues into Guo’s pre-teenage years, when he moved back to his hometown in Shandong Province. He met his wife and married her when he was only 15, she 14. They moved to Heilongjiang, where they started a small manufacturing operation, taking advantage of the early days of China’s economic rise, and then to Henan. Guo got his start in real estate in a city called Zhengzhou, where he founded the Zhengzhou Yuda Property Company and built the tallest building the city had seen so far, the Yuda International Trade Center. According to Guo, he was only 25 when he made this first deal.

    The string of businesses and properties that Guo developed provide some of the confirmable scaffolding of his life. No one disputes that Guo went on to start both the Beijing Morgan Investment Company and Beijing Zenith Holdings. Morgan Investment was responsible for building a cluster of office towers called the Pangu Plaza, the tallest of which has a wavy top that loosely resembles a dragon, or perhaps a precarious cone of soft-serve ice cream. Guo is in agreement with the Chinese media that in buying the property for Pangu Plaza, he clashed with the deputy mayor of Beijing. The dispute ended when Guo turned in a lengthy sex tape capturing the deputy mayor in bed with his mistress.

    There are other details in Guo’s biography, however, that vary from one source to the next. Guo says that he never took government loans; Caixin, a Beijing-based publication, quoted “sources close to the matter” in a 2015 article claiming that Guo took out 28 loans totaling 588 million yuan, or about $89 million. Guo, according to Caixin, eventually defaulted. At some point in this story — the timeline varies — Guo became friends with the vice minister of China’s Ministry of State Security, Ma Jian. The M.S.S. is China’s answer to the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. combined. It spies on civilians and foreigners alike, conducting operations domestically and internationally, amassing information on diplomats, businessmen and even the members of the C.P.C. Describing Ma, Guo leans back in his chair and mimes smoking a cigarette. “Ma Jian! He was fat and his skin was tan.” According to Guo, Ma sat like this during their first meeting, listening to Guo’s side of a dispute. Then Ma told him to trust the country. “Trust the law,” he told Guo. “We will treat you fairly.” The older master of spycraft and the young businessman struck up a friendship that would become a cornerstone in Guo’s claims of insider knowledge, and also possibly the reason for the businessman’s downfall in China.

    Following the construction of Pangu Plaza in Beijing, Guo’s life story becomes increasingly hard to parse. He started a securities business with a man named Li You. After a falling-out, Li was detained by the authorities. Guo’s company accused Li and his company of insider trading. According to the 2015 article in Caixin, Li then penned a letter to the authorities accusing Guo of “wrongdoing.”

    As this dispute was going on, China’s anti-​corruption operation was building a case against Ma Jian. In Guo’s telling, Ma had long been rumored to be collecting intelligence on China’s leaders. As the anti-corruption campaign gained speed and officials like Wang Qishan gained power, Ma’s well of intelligence started to look like a threat. It was Guo’s relationship with Ma, the tycoon maintains, that made officials nervous. Ma was detained by the authorities in January 2015, shortly after Guo fled the country. Soon after Ma’s detention, accounts began appearing in China’s state-run media claiming that Ma had six Beijing villas, six mistresses and at least two illegitimate sons. In a 2015 article that ran in the party-run newspaper The China Daily, the writer added another detail: “The investigation also found that Ma had acted as an umbrella for the business ventures of Guo Wengui, a tycoon from Henan Province.”

    In the mix of spies, corrupt business dealings, mistresses and sex scandals, Guo has one more unbelievable story to tell about his past. It is one reason, he says, that he was mentally prepared to confront the leaders of the Communist Party. It happened nearly 29 years ago, in the aftermath of the crackdown on Tiananmen Square. According to Guo, he had donated money to the students protesting in the square, and so a group of local police officers came to find him at his home. An overzealous officer fired off a shot at Guo’s wife — at which point Guo’s younger brother jumped in front of the bullet, suffering a fatal wound. “That was when I started my plan,” he said. “If your brother had been killed in front of your eyes, would you just forget it?” Never mind the fact that it would take 28 years for him to take any public stand against the party that caused his brother’s death. Never mind that the leadership had changed. “I’m not saying everyone in the Communist Party is bad,” he said. “The system is bad. So what I need to oppose is the system.”

    On an unusually warm Saturday afternoon in Flushing, Queens, a group of around 30 of Guo’s supporters gathered for a barbecue in Kissena Park. They laid out a spread of vegetables and skewers of shrimp and squid. Some children toddled through the crowd, chewing on hot dogs and rolling around an unopened can of Coke. The adults fussed with a loudspeaker and a banner that featured the name that Guo goes by in English, Miles Kwok. “Miles Kwok, NY loves U,” it said, a heart standing in for the word “loves.” “Democracy, Justice, Liberty for China.” Someone else had carried in a life-size cutout of the billionaire.

    The revelers decided to hold the event in the park partly for the available grills but also partly because the square in front of Guo’s penthouse had turned dangerous. A few weeks earlier, some older women had been out supporting Guo when a group of Chinese men holding flags and banners showed up. At one point, the men wrapped the women in a protest banner and hit them. The park was a safer option. And the protesters had learned from Guo — it wasn’t a live audience they were hoping for. The group would be filming the protest and posting it on social media. Halfway through, Guo would call in on someone’s cellphone, and the crowd would cheer.

    Despite this show of support, Guo’s claims have divided China’s exiled dissidents to such an extent that on a single day near the end of September, two dueling meetings of pro-democracy activists were held in New York, one supporting Guo, the other casting doubt on his motivations. (“They are jealous of me,” Guo said of his detractors. “They think: Why is he so handsome? Why are so many people listening to him?”) Some of Guo’s claims are verifiably untrue — he claimed in an interview with Vice that he paid $82 million for his apartment — and others seem comically aggrandized. (Guo says he never wears the same pair of underwear twice.) But the repercussions he is facing are real.

    In December, Guo’s brother was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for destroying accounting records. The lawsuits filed against Guo for defamation are piling up, and Guo has claimed to be amassing a “war chest” of $150 million to cover his legal expenses. In September, a new set of claims against Guo were made in a 49-page document circulated by a former business rival. For Ha Jin, Guo’s significance runs deeper than his soap-opera tales of scandal and corruption. “The grand propaganda scheme is to suppress and control all the voices,” Jin said. “Now everybody knows that you can create your own voice. You can have your own show. That fact alone is historical.” In the future, Jin predicts, there will be more rebels like Guo. “There is something very primitive about this, realizing that this is a man, a regular citizen who can confront state power.”

    Ho Pin, the founder of Long Island’s Mingjing News, echoed Jin. Mingjing’s reporters felt that covering Guo was imperative, no matter the haziness of the information. “In China, the political elite that Guo was attacking had platforms of their own,” Ho said. “They have the opportunity, the power and the ability to use all the government’s apparatus to refute and oppose Guo Wengui. So our most important job is to allow Guo Wengui’s insider knowledge reach the fair, open-minded people in China.” Still, people like Pei urge caution when dealing with Guo’s claims. Even Guo’s escape raises questions. Few others have slipped through the net of China’s anti-corruption drive. “How could he get so lucky?” Pei asked. “He must have been tipped off long before.”

    At the barbecue, a supporter named Ye Rong tucked one of his children under his arm and acknowledged that Guo’s past life is riddled with holes. There was always the possibility that Guo used to be a thug, but Ye didn’t think it mattered. The rules of the conflict had been set by the Communist Party. “You need all kinds of people to oppose the Chinese government,” Ye said. “We need intellectuals; we also need thugs.”

    Guo, of course, has his own opinions about his legacy. He warned of dark times for Americans and for the world, if he doesn’t succeed in his mission to change China. “I am trying to help,” he told me. “I am not joking with you.” He continued: “I will change China within the next three years. If I don’t change it, I won’t be able to survive.”
    Correction: Jan. 12, 2018

    An earlier version of this article misidentified the name of the province where the Chinese government hired online commenters in 2004. It is Hunan Province, not Henan.

    #Chine #politique #corruption #tireurs_d_alarme

  • An Interview with Ryszard Kapuscinski: Writing about Suffering
    https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jii/4750978.0006.107/--interview-with-ryszard-kapuscinski-writing-about-suffering?rgn=mai

    Wolfe:

    Were you trained as a journalist? Kapuscinski: No, never. I started in journalism in 1950 — I was 18, just finishing secondary school, and the newspaper people came to ask me to work. I learned journalism through practice.

    Wolfe: How would you describe your genre?

    Kapuscinski: It’s very difficult to describe. We have such a mixture now, such a fusion of different genres… in the American tradition you would call it New Journalism. This implies writing about the facts, the real facts of life, but using the techniques of fiction writing. There is a certain difference in my case, because I’m trying to put more elements of the essay into my writing… My writing is a combination of three elements. The first is travel: not travel like a tourist, but travel as exploration, as concentration, as a purpose. The second is reading literature on the subject: books, articles, scholarship. The third is reflection, which comes from travel and reading. My books are created from a combination of these three elements.

    Wolfe:When did the idea of Aesopian writing enter into the genre, the idea of putting layers into official texts?

    Kapuscinski: Well, this is not a new thing — it was a nineteenth-century Russian tradition. As for us, we were trying to use all the available possibilities, because there wasn’t any underground. Underground literature only began in the 70s, when technical developments made it possible. Before that, we were involved in a game with the censors. That was our struggle. The Emperor is considered to be an Aesopian book in Poland and the Soviet Union. Of course it’s not about Ethiopia or Haile Selassie — rather, it’s about the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The First Secretary at the time was named Gierek, and he was very much the emperor with his court, and everybody read the book as being about him and the Central Committee.

    Wolfe: But you didn’t write explicitly about the Central Committee.

    Kapuscinski: No, but of course the authorities knew what it was about, and so it had a very small circulation, and it was forbidden to turn it into a film or a play. Aesopian language was used by all of us. And of course, using this language meant having readers who understood it.

    Cohen: The other day we were discussing the crisis of readership, and wondering whether people were still capable of doing the double reading, of taking apart a text that has been written in a complicated way.

    Kapuscinski: The limitation of sources under the Communists had a very political effect on reading. People had just one book, and nothing else — no television or other diversions — so they just read the same book very carefully several times. Readership was high, and very attentive. It was people’s only source of knowledge about the world. You have to understand that the tradition of Russian literature — and Russians are great readers — is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart. This is the most intimate relationship between literature and its readers: they treat the text as a part of themselves, as a possession. This art of reading, reading the text behind the text, is missing now.

    Cohen: When did you first arrive on the African continent?

    Kapuscinski:My first trip to Africa came when the first countries south of the Sahara became independent, in 1958. Ghana was the first African country I visited. I wrote a series of reports about Nkumrah and Lumumba. My second trip was just two years later, when I went to cover the events surrounding the independence of the Congo. At that time, I was not allowed to go to Kinshasa — it was Leopoldville at that time — but I crossed the Sudan-Congo border illegally with a Czech journalist friend, since there was nobody patrolling it. And I went to Kisangani, which was called Stanleyville then.

    Cohen: Were you in Leopoldville during the actual transfer[1]?

    Kapuscinski:No, afterwards. It was a moment of terrible international tension. I remember the atmosphere of danger: there was the expectation that the Congo might begin a new world war. I say this today and people just smile. But that’s why everybody was so nervous: Russians were going there, Americans were going there, the French, the United Nations… I remember one moment at the airport in Kisangani, thinking that Soviet planes were coming — all the journalists were there, and we all expected it to happen.

    Cohen: At that time, in the early 1960s, there weren’t more than three regular American journalists covering Africa.

    Kapuscinski:There were very few, because most correspondents came from the former colonial powers — there were British, French, and a lot of Italians, because there were a lot of Italian communities there. And of course there were a lot of Russians.

    Wolfe: Was there competition among this handful of people?

    Kapuscinski: No, we all cooperated, all of us, East and West, regardless of country, because the working conditions were really terrible. We had to. We always moved in groups from one coup d’état to another, from one war to another… So if there was a coup d’état of leftist orientation in some country I took my Western colleagues with me and said “look, let them come in,” and if there was one of rightist orientation they took me, saying “no, he’s okay, give him a visa please, he’s going with us, he’s our friend,” and so on. I didn’t compete with the New York Times, for example, because the Polish press agency is a small piece of cake, not important. And because conditions were so hard. For example, to send the news out, there was no e-mail, nothing: telex was the only means, but telex was very rare in Africa. So if somebody was flying to Europe, we gave him correspondence, to send after he arrived. I remember that during the period leading up to independence in Angola in 1975, I was the only correspondent there at all for three months. I was in my hotel room when somebody knocked on my door - I opened it, and a man said, “I’m the New York Times correspondent.” The official independence celebration was going to be held over four or five days, and a group of journalists from all over the world was allowed to fly in, because Angola was closed otherwise. So he said, “I’m sorry, but I’m the new man here, and I heard you’ve been here longer, and I have to write something from Angola, and this is the article I have to send to the New York Times. Could you kindly read it and correct things which are not real?” And he brought a bottle of whiskey. And whiskey was something which was absolutely marvelous, because there was nothing: no cigarettes, no food, nothing…The difference at that time, in comparison with today, was that this was a group of highly specialized people. They were real Africanists, and not only from experience. If you read articles from that time in Le Monde, in the Times, you’ll find that the authors really had background, a knowledge of the subject. It was a very highly qualified sort of journalism — we were all great specialists.

    Woodford: Professor Piotr Michalowski[2] says that when he was growing up in Poland, people lived through your reports in a very special way: they were like a big, exotic outlet, given the state of world politics. People of all ranks and stations followed these adventures. When you went back, did regular Poles, non-educated people, also want you to tell them about what it was like to see these things?

    Kapuscinski:Yes, very much so. They were very interested in what I was writing. This was a unique source of information, and Africa held incomparably greater interest for them at that time than it does now. People were really interested in what was going on because of the international context of the Cold War.

    Wolfe: What did the Poles know about Africa?

    Kapuscinski: They had very limited knowledge. This was very typical of the European understanding of Africa, which is full of stereotypes and biases. Nevertheless, there was a certain fascination with Africa. Maybe it has something to do with our literature: we have Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, for example, and Conrad is considered in Poland as a Polish writer. The similarity between Africa and Poland - and this is an argument I have always had with people in Africa - is that we were also a colonized country. We were a colony for 130 years. We lost independence at the end of the 18th century, and only regained it in 1918, after the First World War. We were divided between three colonial powers - Russia, Prussia, and Austria. There’s a certain similarity of experience. I’ve often quarreled with African friends about this. I’ve asked, “How long were you colonized?” "Eighty years," they’ve answered, and I’ve responded, “We were colonized 50 years longer, so what can you say about colonialism? I’ll tell you what colonial experience is.” And they’re shocked. But though there is a similarity of experience, the common people are not conscious of this.

    Wolfe: At the end of the Copernicus Lecture, you said that you wrote Imperium because it was important to bring a Polish way of seeing things to your topic. How did you come to a sense that there was a Polish way of seeing things? Did it emerge from your experiences in Africa, or in relationship to Russia?

    Kapuscinski: It developed in relation to Russia in particular. Our history, the history of Polish-Russian relations, is very tragic, very harrowing. There has been a lot of suffering on our side, because Stalin killed all our intelligentsia. It wasn’t just that he killed 100,000 people, it was that he purposely killed the 100,000 who were our only intelligentsia… When I started writing Imperium, I had a problem with my conscience, because if I wrote strictly from the point of view of this Polish experience, the book would be completely unacceptable and incomprehensible to the Western reader…So I had to put aside our Polish experience, and to find an angle, an objective way of writing about Russia.

    Wolfe: Isn’t there something inherently difficult in writing about suffering? How does one go back and forth between a sense of causation in daily suffering on the one hand, and an understanding of the purges as a social phenomenon, on the other? How does one attempt to understand the cultural propensity of Russians to suffer?

    Kapuscinski: There is a fundamental difference between the Polish experience of the state and the Russian experience. In the Polish experience, the state was always a foreign power. So, to hate the state, to be disobedient to the state, was a patriotic act. In the Russian experience, although the Russian state is oppressive, it is their state, it is part of their fabric, and so the relation between Russian citizens and their state is much more complicated. There are several reasons why Russians view the oppressive state positively. First of all, in Russian culture, in the Russian Orthodox religion, there is an understanding of authority as something sent by God. This makes the state part of the sacred… So if the state is oppressive, then it is oppressive, but you can’t revolt against it. The cult of authority is very strong in Russian society.

    Wolfe: But what is the difference between Soviet suffering and something like the battle of the Marne, the insanity of World War I and trench warfare?

    Kapuscinski: It’s different. In the First World War, there was the sudden passion of nationalism, and the killing took place because of these emotions. But the Soviet case is different, because there you had systematic murder, like in the Holocaust. Ten or 12 million Ukrainian peasants were purposely killed by Stalin, by starvation, in the Ukrainian hunger of 1932-3…It was a very systematic plan… In modern Russia, you have no official, formal assessment of this past. Nobody in any Russian document has said that the policy of the Soviet government was criminal, that it was terrible. No one has ever said this.

    Woodford: But what about Khrushchev in 1956?

    Kapuscinski: I’m speaking about the present. Official Russian state doctrine and foreign policy doesn’t mention the Bolshevik policy of expansion. It doesn’t condemn it. If you ask liberal Russians - academics, politicians - if Russia is dangerous to us, to Europe, to the world, they say: “No, it’s not dangerous, we’re too weak, we have an economic crisis, difficulties with foreign trade, our army is in a state of anarchy…” That is the answer. They are not saying: “We will never, ever repeat our crimes of expansionism, of constant war.” No, they say: “We are not dangerous to you, because right now we are weak.”

    Cohen:

    When Vaclav Havel was president of Czechoslovakia, he was asked whether the state would take responsibility for the deaths, the oppression, the confiscations of the previous governments of Czechoslovakia, and he said “yes.” The same questions were asked in South Africa of the Mandela government. And I think Poland is now struggling with how much responsibility the government will have to take for the past. But the Russian official response has been that Stalin can be blamed for everything.

    Kapuscinski:This is a very crucial point: there is a lack of critical assessment of the past. But you have to understand that the current ruling elite is actually the old ruling elite. So they are incapable of a self-critical approach to the past.

    Polish-born journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski worked as an African correspondent for various Polish periodicals and press agencies from 1958 to 1980. In his book Imperium (Granta Books, 1994), he turns a journalist’s eye onto the Russian state, and the effects of authoritarianism on everyday Russian life. Kapuscinski delivered his November, 1997 Copernicus lecture: "The Russian Puzzle: Why I Wrote Imperium at the Center for Russian and East European Studies. During his visit, he spoke with David Cohen (International Institute); John Woodford (Executive Editor of Michigan Today ); and Thomas Wolfe (Communications). The following is an excerpted transcript of their conversation.

    Sei Sekou Mobutu seized control of the Congo in 1965. After the evolution, the name of the capital was changed from Leopoldville to Kinshasa, and in 1971 the country was renamed Zaire, instead of the Congo. return to text

    Piotr Michalowski is the George D. Cameron Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations and Languages at the Unversity of Michigan.

    Kapuscinski, more magical than real

    What’s the truth about Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski
    https://www.newstatesman.com/africa/2007/02/wrong-kapuscinski-african

    https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Kapu%C5%9Bci%C5%84ski

    #presse #littérature #reportage

  • Eyes on the Sea: Companies Compete for Australian Maritime Surveillance Contract - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/03/04/world/europe/04reuters-australia-airshow-security.html

    Major global defense contractors want to sell Australia on cutting-edge technology such as high-altitude, solar-electric powered drones and optionally manned aircraft to keep an eye on the oceans.

    Airbus SE, Italy’s Leonardo SpA, Northrop Grumman Corp and Lockheed Martin Corp are among the companies that have expressed interest in providing Australia’s Department of Home Affairs with such equipment, showcased at the Australian International Airshow last week.

    The four companies said they have responded to a request for information issued late last year; the next step, after the government responds, would be to submit proposals.

    The final contracts could be worth several hundred millions dollars depending on the scope, according to two industry sources who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

    The country is looking to replace 10 Bombardier Inc Dash 8 maritime patrol turboprops that began service more than a decade ago.

    Australia has the world’s third-largest economic exclusion zone behind France and the United States, and the world’s largest maritime search and rescue region, covering about 10 percent of the Earth’s surface.

    Australia faces smuggling of people, drugs and weapons; illegal fishing; and search and rescue at sea, making it an ideal market for sophisticated aerial surveillance technology.

    What works for large merchant ships or naval formations may not work for a tiny wooden vessel moving at slow speed with no electronic signature,” said James Goldrick, a retired rear admiral in the Royal Australian Navy and former border protection commander.

    The government aims to have all of the new equipment operating by 2024, the department said when it announced the request for information in late October.

    #surveillance_maritime
    #lutte_contre_l'immigration_clandestine

  • Opinion | Jared and the Saudi Crown Prince Go Nuclear? - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/opinion/sunday/saudi-arabia-jared-kushner-nuclear.html

    Why on earth would America put Prince Mohammed on a path to acquiring nuclear weapons? He is already arguably the most destabilizing leader in an unstable region, for he has invaded Yemen, kidnapped Lebanon’s prime minister, started a feud with Qatar, and, according to American intelligence officials, ordered the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

    ##armes#nucléaire #arabie_saoudite #etats-unis

  • Under Peace Plan, U.S. Military Would Exit #Afghanistan Within Five Years - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/us/politics/afghanistan-military-withdrawal.html

    #Taliban negotiators deeply oppose the proposal for American counterterrorism troops to remain in Afghanistan for up to five years, and officials were unsure if a shorter period of time would be accepted by the militants’ rank and file.

    #etats-unis #paix

  • ‘Austerity, That’s What I Know’: The Making of a Young U.K. Socialist - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/world/europe/britain-austerity-socialism.html

    The general election of 2017 exposed the starkest generation gap in the recent history of British politics. Young voters broke dramatically for the Labour Party, whose socialist leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has promised to rebuild the welfare state and redistribute wealth. Hardened against the centrists of their parents’ generation, they have tugged the party to the left, opening up rifts that are now fracturing Labour.

    #austérité #jeunes #gauche #grande-Bretagne

  • Despite Putin’s Swagger, Russia Struggles to Modernize Its Navy - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/02/21/world/europe/21reuters-russia-military-insight.html

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f08c-xdQeP4

    President Vladimir Putin calls improving the Russian navy’s combat capabilities a priority.

    The unfinished husks of three guided-missile frigates that have languished for three years at a Baltic shipyard show that is easier said than done.

    Earmarked for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the frigates fell victim to sanctions imposed by Ukraine in 2014 after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, prompting Kiev to ban the sale of the Ukrainian-made engines needed to propel them.

    With Moscow unable to quickly build replacement engines for the Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, construction stopped. Russia is now cutting its losses and selling the three ships to India without engines.

    The navy’s problems stem largely, but not exclusively, from the Ukrainian sanctions. There are also problems, for different reasons, with new equipment for the army and air force.

    The picture that emerges is that Russia’s armed forces are not as capable or modern as its annual Red Square military parades suggest and that its ability to project conventional force is more limited too.

    • L’annonce du contrat avec l’Inde (20/11/2018) ne dit pas un mot des turbines…

      India signs contracts to purchase 4 Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates from Russia
      https://thedefensepost.com/2018/11/20/india-russia-4-admiral-grigorovich-project-11356-frigates


      Russia’s Admiral Grigorovich (Project 11356) frigate at Yantar Shipyard

      India has signed contracts to purchase four Admiral Grigorovich-class (Project 11356) stealth frigates from Russia, Russia’s Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation said on Tuesday, November 20.

      Contracts were signed for the construction of Project 11356 frigates for the Indian Navy. This is yet another important event in developing Russian-Indian military and technical cooperation,Tass- reported the Federal Service as saying.

      The agreement for four ships was first brokered in 2016.

      India’s Ministry of Defence signed a $950 million deal with Russia to purchase two Admiral Grigorovich frigates which will be built in Russia’s Baltic Coast Yantar Shipyard, Janes reported on October 29. As of last month negotiations over price and transfer of technology were still ongoing for the two ships to be built in Goa Shipyard.

      The new agreement between Russian state exporter Rosoboronexport and Goa Shipyard Limited for two ships is for $500 million, although a government official said that includes only the “_foreign content,” including material, design and assistance, Hindustan Times reported. The final cost of the two ships has yet to be determined, according to the report.

      According to the Indian defense ministry, the deal includes transfer of technology and the frigates will be outfitted with India’s BrahMos supersonic cruise missile system.

      Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates are armed with A-190 100mm artillery guns, strike missile and air defense systems, including Kalibr and Shtil complexes and torpedo tubes, according to Tass. They can perform against surface ships and submarines as well as air targets.

      The ships will be delivered to India beginning in 2026.

      BrahMos is a supersonic medium-range liquid-fuelled ramjet-powered cruise missile that can be launched from sea, land and air. It is a two-stage missile, with a solid-fueled first stage to bring it to supersonic speed. Surface-launched missiles can carry a 200-kg warhead, while the air-launched variant can carry a payload of 300 kg.

      It is manufactured in Hyderabad by BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture between India’s DRDO and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroeyenia.

  • China Uses DNA to Track Its People, With the Help of American Expertise - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/business/china-xinjiang-uighur-dna-thermo-fisher.html

    Collecting genetic material is a key part of China’s campaign, according to human rights groups and Uighur activists. They say a comprehensive DNA database could be used to chase down any Uighurs who resist conforming to the campaign.

    Police forces in the United States and elsewhere use genetic material from family members to find suspects and solve crimes. Chinese officials, who are building a broad nationwide database of DNA samples, have cited the crime-fighting benefits of China’s own genetic studies.

    To bolster their DNA capabilities, scientists affiliated with China’s police used equipment made by Thermo Fisher, a Massachusetts company. For comparison with Uighur DNA, they also relied on genetic material from people around the world that was provided by Kenneth Kidd, a prominent Yale University geneticist.

    On Wednesday, Thermo Fisher said it would no longer sell its equipment in Xinjiang, the part of China where the campaign to track Uighurs is mostly taking place. The company said separately in an earlier statement to The New York Times that it was working with American officials to figure out how its technology was being used.

    Dr. Kidd said he had been unaware of how his material and know-how were being used. He said he believed Chinese scientists were acting within scientific norms that require informed consent by DNA donors.

    China’s campaign poses a direct challenge to the scientific community and the way it makes cutting-edge knowledge publicly available. The campaign relies in part on public DNA databases and commercial technology, much of it made or managed in the United States. In turn, Chinese scientists have contributed Uighur DNA samples to a global database, potentially violating scientific norms of consent.

    Cooperation from the global scientific community “legitimizes this type of genetic surveillance,” said Mark Munsterhjelm, an assistant professor at the University of Windsor in Ontario who has closely tracked the use of American technology in Xinjiang.

    #Génomique #DNA_database #Chine #Surveillance #Consentement

  • Do We Write Differently on a Screen? | The New Yorker
    https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/do-we-write-differently-on-a-screen

    But, before that, I published my first short novel, “Tongues of Flame.” I continued to write fiction by hand and then type it up. But, at least, once it was typed, you could edit on a screen. What a difference that was! What an invitation to obsession! Hitherto, there was a limit to how many corrections you could make by hand. There was only so much space on the paper. It was discouraging—typing something out time after time, to make more and more corrections. You learned to be satisfied with what you had. Now you could go on changing things forever. I learned how important it was to keep a copy of what I had written first, so as to remember what I had meant in the beginning. Sometimes it turned out to be better than the endlessly edited version.

    We had personal computers at this point, but I still wrote fiction by hand. The mental space feels different when you work with paper. It is quieter. A momentum builds up, a spell between page and hand and eye. I like to use a nice pen and see the page slowly fill. But, for newspaper articles and translations, I now worked straight onto the computer. Which was more frenetic, nervy. The writing was definitely different. But more playful, too. You could move things around. You could experiment so easily. I am glad the computer wasn’t available when I started writing. I might have been overwhelmed by the possibilities. But once you know what you’re doing, the facility of the computer is wonderful.

    Then e-mail arrived and changed everything. First, you would only hook the computer up through your landline phone a couple of times a day, as if there were a special moment to send and receive mail. Then came the permanent connection. Finally, the wireless, and, of course, the Internet. In the space of perhaps ten years, you passed from waiting literally months for a decision on something that you’d written, or simply for a reaction from a friend or an agent, to expecting a reaction immediately. Whereas in the past you checked your in-box once a day, now you checked every five minutes.

    And now you could write an article for The Guardian or the New York Times as easily as you could write it for L’Arena di Verona. Write it and expect a response in hours. In minutes. You write the first chapter of a book and send it at once to four or five friends. Hoping they’d read it at once. It’s impossible to exaggerate how exciting this was, at first, and how harmful to the spirit. You, everybody, are suddenly incredibly needy of immediate feedback. A few more years and you were publishing regularly online for The New York Review of Books. And, hours after publication, you could know how many people were reading the piece. Is it a success? Shall I follow up with something similar?

    While you sit at your computer now, the world seethes behind the letters as they appear on the screen. You can toggle to a football match, a parliamentary debate, a tsunami. A beep tells you that an e-mail has arrived. WhatsApp flashes on the screen. Interruption is constant but also desired. Or at least you’re conflicted about it. You realize that the people reading what you have written will also be interrupted. They are also sitting at screens, with smartphones in their pockets. They won’t be able to deal with long sentences, extended metaphors. They won’t be drawn into the enchantment of the text. So should you change the way you write accordingly? Have you already changed, unwittingly?

    Or should you step back? Time to leave your computer and phone in one room, perhaps, and go and work silently on paper in another. To turn off the Wi-Fi for eight hours. Just as you once learned not to drink everything in the hotel minibar, not to eat too much at free buffets, now you have to cut down on communication. You have learned how compulsive you are, how fragile your identity, how important it is to cultivate a little distance. And your only hope is that others have learned the same lesson. Otherwise, your profession, as least as you thought of it, is finished.

    Tim Parks, a novelist and essayist, is the author of “The Novel: A Survival Skill” and “Where I’m Reading From: The Changing World of Books.”

    #Ecriture #Ordinateur #Edition

  • For a Black Mathematician, What It’s Like to Be the ‘Only One’ - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/us/edray-goins-black-mathematicians.html

    Fewer than 1 percent of doctorates in math are awarded to African-Americans. Edray Goins, who earned one of them, found the upper reaches of the math world a challenging place.

    #recherche #mathématiques #racisme