ChikuwaQ: 281_Anti Nuke: The Japanese street artist taking on Tokyo, TEPCO and the nation’s right-wing extremists : http://t.co/bNyrsrEB7z
http://twitter.com/ChikuwaQ/statuses/346629181653798912
ChikuwaQ: 281_Anti Nuke: The Japanese street artist taking on Tokyo, TEPCO and the nation’s right-wing extremists : http://t.co/bNyrsrEB7z
US seeks defence agreement with Maldives - World Socialist Web Site
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/05/21/mald-m21.html
US seeks defence agreement with Maldives
By K. Ratnayake
21 May 2013
The US is pushing the Maldivian government to sign a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) to build military bases in the island country, which is in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It is another significant move by the Obama administration in its aggressive “pivot to Asia” to militarily encircle China in the vast Indo-Pacific theatre.
et New Zealand to increase military presence in South Pacific - World Socialist Web Site
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/05/21/paci-m21.html
New Zealand to increase military presence in South Pacific
By John Braddock
21 May 2013
New Zealand is preparing to increase its military presence in the South Pacific, in close collaboration with the Australian government. The moves further align the two regional imperialist powers with the US Obama administration’s “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific and its aggressive confrontation of China.
#asie_pacifique #etats-unis #défense #géostratégie #nouvelle-sélande #maldives
Myanmar and Israel develop military pact (Jane’s Intelligence Review)
March 1, 2000 – by William Ashton
http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/reg.burma/archives/200008/msg00005.html
Israel’s repeated denial of any military links with Myanmar are not
unexpected. Israel has never liked advertising such ties,
particularly with countries like Myanmar, South Africa and China,
which have been condemned by the international community for gross
abuses of human rights. Even Israel’s very close military ties with
Singapore are routinely denied by both sides. Yet there seems little
room for doubt that, after the 1988 takeover, Israel did start to
develop close links with the SLORC, which are continuing to grow
under the SPDC. In these circumstances, it would be surprising if
Israel was not still looking for opportunities to restore the kind
of mutually beneficial bilateral relationship that was first
established when both countries became independent modern states in
1948.
The Global Religious Landscape - Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
http://www.pewforum.org/global-religious-landscape-exec.aspx [#étude cc @baroug]
http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedImages/Topics/Religious_Affiliation/20_religionCountryMap.png 
http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedImages/Topics/Religious_Affiliation/01_groups.png
The demographic study – based on analysis of more than 2,500 censuses, surveys and population registers – finds 2.2 billion Christians (32% of the world’s population), 1.6 billion Muslims (23%), 1 billion Hindus (15%), nearly 500 million Buddhists (7%) and 14 million Jews (0.2%) around the world as of 2010. In addition, more than 400 million people (6%) practice various folk or traditional religions, including African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, Native American #religions and Australian aboriginal religions. An estimated 58 million people – slightly less than 1% of the global population – belong to other religions, including the Baha’i faith, Jainism, Sikhism, Shintoism, Taoism, Tenrikyo, Wicca and Zoroastrianism, to mention just a few. [Although some faiths in the “other religions” category have millions of adherents around the world, censuses and surveys in many countries do not measure them specifically. Estimates of the global size of these faiths generally come from other sources, such as the religious groups themselves. By far the largest of these groups are Sikhs, who number about 25 million, according to the World Religion Database. For more information, cf.
http://www.pewforum.org/global-religious-landscape-other.aspx#spotlight ]
A Global Energy Shift
By James Parker
The Diplomat
November 28, 2012
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has published the World Energy Outlook report in which a large shift in global energy production through 2030 is predicted. North America will undergo a “supply boom”, leading to lower global energy prices, following the extraction of shale gas and unconventional oil. However, these extraction processes, including oil from tar sands, raise environmental concerns. Simultaneously, in China, Japan and India the demand for natural resources will soar. This monumental shift in the world’s energy supply and demand could increase tensions in the Asia-Pacific and in the Middle East as the world’s largest economies are shifting their geopolitical focus according to their energy needs.
Olivier Desbarres curse at Singapore Construction Workers calling them Chinese Animal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgjVJXsh2Pg
Comme dit dans les commentaires :
Banking. Attracting the best & brightest minds on the planet.
Japan’s paradoxical shift to the right | Inside Story
http://inside.org.au/japans-paradoxical-shift-to-the-right
29 October 2012
A nationalist troika forming in the run-up to next year’s Japanese election poses challenges for the region, writes Tessa Morris-Suzuki
THIS has proved to be a momentous year for the Asia-Pacific region, and particularly for Northeast Asia. North and South Korea and China are all undergoing or about to undergo important transitions in leadership – transitions attracting global media attention – but relatively little has been said about Japan, which is also in a state of political flux. Yet the implications of the changing configurations of Japanese politics are profound and potentially troubling.
TWENTY-EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS. Damn.
Apple is expected to increase its semiconductor spending by 15 percent in 2012, buying $28 billion worth of semiconductors, according to IHS.
http://cdn.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4394307/Asia-Pacific-OEMS-semiconductor-spending-IHS
Climate-Linked Migration Poses Growing Humanitarian Threat - Study | Asian Development Bank
http://beta.adb.org/news/climate-linked-migration-poses-growing-humanitarian-threat-study
The report, Addressing #Climate_Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific, notes that more than 42 million people in the region were displaced by environmental disasters over the past two years alone. An undetermined number of those displaced became migrants, unable to return home or choosing to relocate to safer ground.
Pentagon Cuts and a Changing U.S. Military - Yochi J. Dreazen - International - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/pentagon-cuts-and-a-changing-us-military/250997
The new strategy is the product of a widespread view across the Pentagon’s military and civilian leadership that ground wars like Afghanistan are a thing of the past while air and naval conflicts with nations like Iran or China represent the most important threats of the future. The document explicitly said the Pentagon will shift military and financial resources away from Europe and toward the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions.
Cambodians fight illegal logging - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2011/11/2011111213059173371.html
Hundreds of protesters in Cambodia fear that within six months to a year illegal logging and government corruption could lead to the clearing of an entire forest of trees.
[...] The protected resin trees in the forest are the main income source for 80 per cent of people in the area, but with cut trees fetching tens of thousands of dollars in Vietnam and China, government corruption is putting both the economy and environment of the region at risk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh8Bt_dTei8&feature=player_embedded
Tuvalu faces drinking water emergency - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/asia-pacific/2011/10/201110364857797250.html
The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu has declared a state of emergency due to a severe shortage of freshwater,
with officials saying that some parts of the country may only have a two-day supply.
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x171fc_iron-maiden-the-rime-of-the-ancient_music
H5N1 en version mutante ? #it_has_begun
UN warns of mutant strain of bird flu virus - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/asia-pacific/2011/08/2011829165436251177.html
Food agency says new strain of H5N1 avian flu is spreading in Asia and may breach defences of existing vaccines.
S Korea troops fire at passenger plane - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2011/06/201161834356235211.html
South Korean troops have fired at a passenger airliner flying from China with 119 people on board after mistaking it for a North Korean aircraft, South Korean military and aviation officials say.
Soldiers manning a guard post on Gyodong island, off the western coast of South Korea, fired their K-2 rifles towards the jet, which was descending as it approached Seoul’s Incheon International Airport, the officials said on Saturday.
Ça donne drôlement envie d’aller à Séoul.
Une compagnie de réassurance allemande offre une orgie à ses cadres méritants lors d’un séminaire de « motivation ». Où on supposera que cette centaine de cadres sont exclusivement des hommes.
►http://www.lematin.ch/actu/monde/assurance-offre-orgie-sexuelle-cadres-meritants-409795
Le plus intéressant, c’est la technique d’identification, comptabilité, traçabilité du statut des prostituées et du labeur accompli par chacune. Ça rappelle la manière dont on gère les vaches dans les cyber-étables d’aujourd’hui.
@jean_no ça rappelle directement « Le meilleur des mondes » où chaque humain se voit affecter une couleur qui détermine son utilité et donc son statut social...
@Agnès : C’est vrai. Et l’idée était aussi dans « The Sleeper Awakes », excellent roman de H G Welles, qui fait justement partie des inspirations directes du « Meilleur des mondes ». Note : « Le meilleur des mondes » n’est peut-être pas une dystopie mais au contraire une utopie. Aldous Huxley, tout comme son frère Julian (biologiste, premier directeur de l’Unesco et inventeur du mot « transhumanisme »), croyait très fort qu’il existait sur toute la terre des gens intelligents et d’autres qui ne l’étaient pas, que les deux étaient utiles, et qu’un système de castes spécialisées et pourquoi pas, sélectionnées ou modifiées génétiquement était tout à fait souhaitable, C’était assez dans l’air du temps avant-guerre, bien sûr (Tolkien, les théories nazies,...), notamment parce qu’on comprenait de mieux en mieux la génétique.
Je crois que le meilleur des mondes reste une dystopie, et qu’Huxley se différencie sensiblement de son frère de ce point de vue. Mais c’est un peu comme s’il ne s’agissait que d’une utopie ratée, qui aurait pu réussir. Dans « Île » il présente une véritable utopie, et il reste pas mal de ces idées de division du travail rêvée, même s’il tente tant bien que mal de camoufler sa préférence pour l’intellectuel ascétique.
Dans un de ces courts essais il parle de #physiognomonie, et ça devient complètement caricatural dans ce sens là — sauf que ça ne découle pas du tout des avancées de la génétique, mais d’un aveuglement assez risible. Je pense que le garçon a pas mal évolué dans sa vie à ce sujet, mais je ne saurais pas dire où ce situe « Le Meilleur des mondes » dans cette évolution.
Dans son retour au meilleur des mondes, Huxley présente le meilleur des mondes comme une dystopie, mais le roman lui-même me semble plus ambigü - il faut cependant que je relise tout ça, mes souvenirs datent. Les frères Huxley partageaient un complexe de supériorité (quelle famille, ceci dit) et un amour de l’intelligence et de la culture (qui permet, chez eux, de hiérarchiser les humains) qui explique tout ce que l’un et l’autre ont fait à mon avis. Ils sont liés aussi à George Gurdjieff, le Raspoutine mondain des années folles, pour qui le monde se séparait en deux classes d’humains : les moutons et les aigles.
–-
La physiognomonie fait partie des pseudo-sciences qui ont eu pas mal de succès mais qui sont tombées en désuétude, parce qu’elles manquaient de méthode, mais une partie de l’éthologie recoupe la physiognomonie (comme l’astronomie peut recouper l’astrologie ou comme la psychanalyse est l’ancêtre un peu gâteux de la psychologie sociale et des neurosciences, quoi)
–-
Rien à voir, le premier essai théorique jamais écrit sur la bande dessinée s’appelle « Essai de physiognomonie », par Rodolphe Töpffer (écrit quelques années après la naissance du daguerréotype, pour situer), qui est un livre brillant sur la « littérature en estampes », le trait, l’expression et la caricature. http://books.google.fr/books?id=-YtEAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA89#v=onepage&q&f=false
Le frère il était quand même sacrément inquiétant non ? Il me semble que c’était un des prometteurs les plus zélés de l’eugénisme.
Je m’étais amusé dans un mini-mémoire à la fac à montrer que la classification physiognomonique dont parlait Huxley était en fait une des multiples resucées des trois fonctions dont Dumézil a montré qu’elles structuraient l’imaginaire indo-européen. C’est assez rigolo de voir à quel point c’est caricatural.
@Baroug : oui, c’est sûr, mais il est resté un maître à penser, par exemple, pour les gens de la revue Planète (qui a eu une influence immense sur la vie intellectuelle des sixties).
Je me suis embêté (ou amusé) à relire toute la série pour une recherche sur la cybernétique http://www.hyperbate.com/dernier/?p=12269
C’était un fatras pseudo-scientifique, littéraire, science-fictionniste, occultiste, mais bourré de bonnes choses en même temps. Pauwels était un peu la caution « hype », mais le vrai boss de Planète je pense que c’était Jacques Bergier, infiniment plus intéressant.
Malaysians outraged over branding of women - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/asia-pacific/2011/06/20116465930957388.html
Malaysian lawyers, politicians and activists have criticised the country’s police for allegedly chaining up and marking the bodies of 30 foreign women detained for prostitution.
"The police branded the detained women as though they are cattle,’’ Teresa Kok, an opposition lawmaker, said in a statement on Saturday.
"It is sickening that the police would employ such dehumanising tactics as a show of power and moral superiority over their detainees.’’
[...]
The incident triggered an outcry after local newspapers carried photos of the women bound up with a long chain and marked with either a tick or an X on their chest and forehead.
[...]
Ayub Yaakob, Penang police chief, told the New Straits Times that the situation was chaotic, with the suspects trying to escape.
He said police were forced to mark the women after some donned new clothes to try and blend in with other female patrons of the club.
Rioters torch Australian immigration centre - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2011/04/201142123712707273.html
Asylum seekers have torched nine buildings at a Sydney detention centre in a night of wild riots with a handful of protesters remaining on rooftops on Thursday as police worked to regain control.
The riots kicked off late on Wednesday at the Villawood Detention Centre with an estimated 100 detainees involved at the height of the drama.
Protesters set an oxygen cylinder alight, which led to an explosion, and nine buildings, including a medical centre and dining hall, were gutted by fire. Firefighters brought the blaze under control early on Thursday and no one was injured.
Around 400 people are held at Villawood. Many of them are asylum seekers, but the facility also houses people who have overstayed their visas.
On Thursday, seven detainees remained on the roof of one of the complex’s buildings, next to a large sign that read: “We need help.”
Immigration department spokesman Sandi Logan said he could not confirm reports the men were protesting because their visa applications had been rejected.
“But any suggestion that they’re not being informed of the progress of their claim is nonsense. ... I don’t know the motivation,” Logan said. “But it’s clearly not going to help, in terms of endearing their settlement in Australia.”
#Nuclear test ban agency has valuable #radiation monitoring #data from #Japan nuclear accident — but can’t share them
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2011/03/exclusive_governments_withhold.html
An international agency set up to monitor for nuclear tests is collecting extensive data on the levels of radionuclides in the air in and around Japan and the Asia-Pacific and transmitting this daily to its member states. The data would be of enormous public interest as it would provide a far fuller picture of the extent and spread of any current or future radioactive release from the major Japanese nuclear accident now under way. But none of these data are being released to the public, Nature has learned.
Fresh blast at Japan nuclear plant - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2011/03/20113144314279315.html
A new explosion rocked Japan’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex, sending a plume of smoke into the air and touching off fresh concerns of radioactive leak in the quake and tsunami-hit country.
After Monday’s blast, Japan’s nuclear safety agency said it could not confirm whether or not the hydrogen explosion at the plant’s No.3 reactor had led to an uncontrolled leak of radioactivity. The blast was similar to an earlier one at a different unit at the facility.