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  • Germany’s coronavirus anomaly: high infection rates but few deaths | Financial Times
    https://www.ft.com/content/c0755b30-69bb-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3
    https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fprod-upp-image-read.ft.com%2F46513784-69e8-11ea-a6ac-9122541af204?s

    In one crucial way, however, the country is proving remarkably resilient: relative to known infections, the number of deaths has so far been minuscule.

    According to data from Johns Hopkins University, there were 13,979 coronavirus infections in Germany on Thursday afternoon, more than in any other country except China, Italy, Iran and Spain.

    According to Lothar Wieler, the president of the Robert Koch Institute, German laboratories are now conducting about 160,000 coronavirus tests every week — more than some European countries have carried out in total since the crisis started. Even South Korea, which is conducting 15,000 tests a day and has been held up by virologists as an example to follow, appears to be testing less than Germany.

    “This is about capacity. The capacity in Germany is very, very significant. We can conduct more than 160,000 tests per week, and that can be increased further,” Prof Wieler told journalists this week. Test capabilities would be boosted not least in part by switching laboratories that specialise in animal health towards coronavirus checks. There was no sign that test kits were running low, Prof Wieler added.

    In the short term at least, mass testing feeds through into a lower fatality rate because it allows authorities to detect cases of Covid-19 even in patients who suffer few or no symptoms, and who have a much better chance of survival. It also means that Germany is likely to have a lower number of undetected cases than countries where testing is less prevalent.

  • Leaderless rebellion : how social media enables global protests | Financial Times
    https://www.ft.com/content/19dc5dfe-f67b-11e9-a79c-bc9acae3b654
    https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fprod-upp-image-read.ft.com%2Fd09ac932-f733-11e9-9ef3-eca8fc8f2d65?s

    The mass protests that have broken out during the past year in Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East share other important characteristics. They are usually leaderless rebellions, whose organisation and principles are not set out in a little red book or thrashed out in party meetings, but instead emerge on social media. These are revolts that are convened by smartphone and inspired by hashtags, rather than guided by party leaders and slogans drafted by central committees.

    The rallying power of social media is a crucial enabler for leaderless movements. When the Hong Kong demonstrations broke out in June, Joshua Wong — the most high-profile democracy activist in the territory — was in jail. In Moscow, a month later, the Russian government moved swiftly to arrest Alexander Navalny, a leading opposition figure, but demonstrations continued without him. In Lebanon, France and Chile, authorities have searched in vain for ringleaders.

    Across the world, demonstrators are using similar technologies to organise and spread their messages. Messaging services that offer end-to-end encryption — such as Telegram — are hard to spy on and are very popular. Facebook groups and Twitter allow amorphous protest movements to crowdsource ideas and articulate grievances.

    Social media also allows a movement in one place to take inspiration from news of revolts in another. The occupation of the airport in Barcelona last week was a tactic borrowed from Hong Kong. Hong Kong demonstrators have been seen carrying the Catalan flag. The Sudanese and Algerian uprisings this year borrowed each other’s imagery and slogans — in a similar fashion to the Arab Spring revolts of 2011.

    Après avoir dit tout le mal qu’il pensait des mouvements européens, le Financial Times semble se réjouir de l’équivalent à Hong Kong. Va comprendre ;-)

    “Be formless, shapeless, like water” has been a rallying cry of almost five months of protests that have rocked Hong Kong. The slogan, originally coined by the city’s most famous son and kung-fu movie star Bruce Lee, embodies the nimble and creative strategies of protesters who have no leader and mostly mobilise through social media.

    Hong Kong’s worst political crisis in decades, triggered by the controversial extradition bill, has evolved into a youth-led movement demanding universal suffrage. Many protesters experienced their political awakening during the pro-democracy demonstrations of 2014 now known as the Umbrella Movement — which ended in failure, with several of its leaders imprisoned.

    The protesters learnt their lesson. Now, demonstrations are largely leaderless and decentralised with activists using social media to co-ordinate and mobilise anonymously in the shadow of China’s rapidly-expanding surveillance state. Once an idea gains traction online, smaller groups spin off to co-ordinate specific actions.

    Posters are shared in Telegram chat groups to thousands of followers, who print them out and post them around the city. Crowdfunding campaigns have raised more than $15m to pay for medical bills, legal fees and advertisements in international papers. And in a city where the iPhone is ubiquitous, Apple’s Airdrop function allows information to spread rapidly at protests, where people track police movements with regularly updated live maps. GitHub pages compile video feeds from news broadcasters for supporters watching at home.

    As the movement has evolved, radical protesters also use social media to gauge public opinion, adjusting and explaining the intensity of their violence to avoid alienating moderate supporters.

    #Mouvements_sociaux #Mouvements_connectés #Emeutes_2019 #Médias_sociaux

  • The Mekong Delta: an unsettling portrait of coastal collapse | Financial Times
    https://www.ft.com/content/31bf27a4-1c0e-11ea-9186-7348c2f183af
    https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-eu.s3.amazonaws.com%2F234f1b3e-2e4c-11

    Some environmental disasters present themselves over years; others come with a bang — or a splash.

    The latter happened one day last August, when residents of Binh My, a commune in Vietnam’s lush Mekong Delta, heard a loud cracking sound. They went outside to watch a 25-metre-long chunk of the highway that runs alongside their houses collapse into the river as the asphalt gave way.

    One of Asia’s biggest wetlands is subsiding into the sea, the result in part of rising sea levels created by climate change.

    But when asked what caused the collapse, a local farmer who gave his name as Bo points to a crane mounted on a boat mid-river — about a kilometre away — that is mining sand. “They are making the bed of the river deeper and deeper,” he says, miming a scooping action.

    Researchers monitoring the Mekong say a crisis that has been building on the river for years has turned into a full-blown emergency in recent months. They blame two man-made phenomena: the mining of sand from the riverbed and the building of new dams upriver in Laos and China that are altering the river’s flow, sediment content and even its colour.

  • South Korea region seeks to tag Japanese firms as ’war criminals’ - Nikkei Asian Review
    https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/South-Korea-region-seeks-to-tag-Japanese-firms-as-war-criminals


    Il faut apprendre le coréen si on veut appendre des choses sur la participation des entreprises japonaises aux crimes de guerre. Le web de langue anglaise ne contient guère de documents, on a l’impression qu’un énorme balai nippon soit passé pour mettre à la poubelle chaque information nuisible à l’image de marque de son propriétaire.

    SEOUL — South Korea’s largest province is considering whether to stigmatize nearly 300 Japanese companies over their purported actions during World War II, by imposing an ordinance that requires schools to put alert labels on these firms’ products in their schools.

    Twenty-seven members of the Gyeonggi Province council submitted the bill last week in an attempt to give students the “right understanding on history.” If passed, schools will have to place on the items stickers that say: “This product is made by a Japanese war criminal company.”

    The move is likely further deepen a diplomatic spat between Seoul and Tokyo, which are at loggerheads over territorial issues and the legacy of Japan’s 35-year colonization of the Korean Peninsula (1910-1945).

    The list of 299 companies includes Nikon, Panasonic and Yamaha. The rule would apply to items such as projectors, camcorders, cameras and copy machines with a price tag of 200,000 won ($190) or more. Most of the companies on the list do not commonly supply products to schools — they include Tokyo Gas, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

    Both Nikon and Panasonic declined to comment for this story.
    The proposed sticker says: “This product is made by a Japanese war criminal company.” The image was captured from the Gyeonggi Provincial Council website. © Kyodo

    “Consumers have a responsibility to remember Japanese companies committed war crimes, and that they have not apologized [for their past wrongdoings],” Council member Hwang Dae-ho said in a statement. “It is a part of history education to help students remember clearly about war-crime companies who do not take social responsibility.”

    The sensitive historical issues were reopened last October when the South Korean Supreme Court ordered Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal to pay reparations to Koreans who were forced to work in Japan during the period of Japanese colonial rule. This was a reversal of a long-standing diplomatic understanding that reparations issues were settled in a 1965 accord establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries.

    The neighbors have also clashed over Seoul’s decision to disband a fund for wartime “comfort women,” which Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and former South Korean President Park Geun-hye set up in 2016. The countries also dispute the sovereignty of islands in the Sea of Japan, and in December a South Korean warship locked fire-control radar onto a Japanese patrol plane.

    Earlier this month, Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said tariffs were among measures Japan could take against South Korea should the dispute worsen. He also said steps such as halting remittances or stopping visa issuance could be taken.

    But the head of Gyeonggi Province’s education office said he was concerned about the negative impact the ordinance could have on relations between Seoul and Tokyo.

    “The [central] government should make a decision first because it can hugely affect diplomacy between South Korea and Japan,” Lee Jae-jung said in a news conference. “I think it is natural that students study on this by themselves rather than making it a rule.”

    Gyeonggi province is located in the northwest of the country, and surrounds the capital, Seoul. It has a population of more than 12 million. The council is dominated by President Moon Jae-in’s ruling Democratic Party, with its members accounting for 135 members of the 142 seats.

    #Japon #Corée #censure

  • WhatsApp voice calls used to inject Israeli spyware on phones | Financial Times
    https://www.ft.com/content/4da1117e-756c-11e9-be7d-6d846537acab
    https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fprod-upp-image-read.ft.com%2Fa5e1805e-75a7-11e9-be7d-6d846537acab?s

    A vulnerability in the messaging app WhatsApp has allowed attackers to inject commercial Israeli spyware on to phones, the company and a spyware technology dealer said.

    WhatsApp, which is used by 1.5bn people worldwide, discovered in early May that attackers were able to install surveillance software on to both iPhones and Android phones by ringing up targets using the app’s phone call function.

    The malicious code, developed by the secretive Israeli company NSO Group, could be transmitted even if users did not answer their phones, and the calls often disappeared from call logs, said the spyware dealer, who was recently briefed on the WhatsApp hack.

    WhatsApp is too early into its own investigations of the vulnerability to estimate how many phones were targeted using this method, a person familiar with the issue said.

    #israël #piraterie

    • repris par Le Monde sans #paywall

      Une faille de sécurité de WhatsApp utilisée pour installer un logiciel espion israélien
      https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2019/05/14/une-faille-de-securite-de-whatsapp-utilisee-pour-installer-un-logiciel-espio

      WhatsApp a annoncé avoir corrigé la faille, et plusieurs ONG veulent porter plainte contre l’éditeur du logiciel, NSO group.

      Une importante faille de sécurité touchant la fonction « appel téléphonique » de WhatsApp a été corrigée lundi 13 mai, a annoncé l’entreprise, propriété de Facebook. La faille pouvait permettre d’installer, à l’insu de l’utilisateur, un logiciel espion sur son téléphone, si l’utilisateur ne décrochait pas lorsqu’il recevait l’appel « infecté ».

      Difficile à détecter, la faille de sécurité en question ne pouvait être trouvée que par des équipes de haut niveau.

      Selon le Financial Times, cette faille a été exploitée pour installer les logiciels espions Pegasus de l’entreprise israélienne NSO Group, qui fournit ses logiciels aux forces de sécurité de nombreux pays dans le monde, y compris à des régimes peu ou pas démocratiques. Selon l’ONG antisurveillance Citizen Lab, un avocat militant pour la défense des droits de l’homme a été visé dimanche 12 mai par Pegasus. Le programme permet notamment de collecter la géolocalisation de sa cible, de lire ses messages et e-mails, et de déclencher à son insu le micro et la caméra de son téléphone.

      « Le groupe NSO vend ses produits à des gouvernements connus pour leurs violations répétées des droits de l’homme, et leur fournit les outils pour espionner leurs opposants et critiques », écrit l’ONG Amnesty International dans un communiqué publié ce 13 mai. « En août 2018, un employé d’Amnesty International a été ciblé par Pegasus, comme l’ont été des militants et des journalistes en Arabie saoudite, au Mexique et aux Emirats arabes unis. »

      L’ONG a annoncé qu’elle allait déposer une plainte contre le ministère de la défense israélien, autorité de tutelle de NSO Group, « qui a ignoré les monceaux de preuves liant NSO Group à des attaques contre des défenseurs des droits de l’homme. […] Tant que des produits comme Pegasus sont vendus sans contrôle effectif, les droits et la sécurité des salariés d’Amnesty International, des journalistes et des dissidents dans le monde entier sont en danger ». Plusieurs associations israéliennes ont déposé des plaintes similaires.

      Sans citer le nom de NSO Group, WhatsApp a confirmé que la faille avait été exploitée par « une entreprise privée dont il est connu qu’elle travaille avec ces gouvernements pour installer des logiciels espions sur des téléphones mobiles ». « Nous avons briefé un certain nombre d’organisations de défense des droits de l’homme à ce sujet », a déclaré WhatsApp.

      Les utilisateurs de WhatsApp – 1,5 milliard de personnes dans le monde, selon l’entreprise – sont incités à mettre à jour leur application si elle ne s’est pas faite automatiquement.

    • Israeli Firm Tied to Tool That Uses WhatsApp Flaw to Spy on Activists
      https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/technology/nso-group-whatsapp-spying.html

      SAN FRANCISCO — An Israeli firm accused of supplying tools for spying on human-rights activists and journalists now faces claims that its technology can use a security hole in WhatsApp, the messaging app used by 1.5 billion people, to break into the digital communications of iPhone and Android phone users.

      Security researchers said they had found so-called spyware — designed to take advantage of the WhatsApp flaw — that bears the characteristics of technology from the company, the NSO Group.

  • Saudis hacked Amazon chief’s phone, says security consultant | Financial Times
    https://www.ft.com/content/53a4861c-5359-11e9-91f9-b6515a54c5b1

    Mr de Becker claimed the Saudi government “has been very intent on harming Jeff Bezos since last October”, due to the Post’s “relentless coverage” of the death of Khashoggi, a critic of the kingdom.

    #arabie_saoudite #hack #vengeance

  • Jasmin Paris, une #athlète d’exception | Euronews
    https://fr.euronews.com/2019/01/18/jasmin-paris-une-athlete-d-exception

    L’exploit de #Jasmin_Paris est d’autant plus incroyable qu’elle bat de 12 heures le #record détenu par un homme et que la jeune #femme s’est arrêtée à plusieurs reprises pour tirer son lait.

    Chronique de Frédéric Plante : L’#endurance appartient aux femmes | RDS.ca
    http://www.rds.ca/en-forme/l-endurance-appartient-aux-femmes-1.6576399

    Il semble bien qu’un nivellement des genres s’opère au fur et à mesure que la distance augmente. Ça ne fera peut-être pas plaisir à bien des hommes de lire cela, mais les femmes sont mieux adaptées qu’eux aux courses de longue haleine. Et il existe plusieurs raisons pour cela.

  • #Canada trapped in China-US feud over #Huawei extradition - Nikkei Asian Review
    https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-Relations/Canada-trapped-in-China-US-feud-over-Huawei-extradition

    Canada is one of five anglophone countries with whom the U.S. shares confidential information, a group known as the “Five Eyes.” Denying an American request for extradition could be seen as giving into Chinese pressure, harming future security cooperation. Canada, which relies on the U.S. for half its imports and over 70% of its exports, cannot afford to ignore the impact on its economy, either.

    But Trudeau also faces growing concerns about Chinese retaliation if Meng is handed over. Chinese authorities have arrested two former Canadian diplomats, accusing them of jeopardizing national security, and sentenced a Canadian citizen to death for drug smuggling. Trudeau has called the death sentence arbitrary and issued a travel warning for China.

  • Opioid billionaire granted patent for addiction treatment | Financial Times
    https://www.ft.com/content/a3a53ae8-b1e3-11e8-8d14-6f049d06439c
    https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fprod-upp-image-read.ft.com%2F9a83636a-b263-11e8-87e0-d84e0d934341?s

    Purdue owner Richard Sackler listed as inventor of drug to wean addicts off painkillers
    Richard Sackler’s family owns Purdue Pharma, the company behind the opioid painkiller OxyContin © Reuters

    David Crow in New York

    A billionaire pharmaceuticals executive who has been blamed for spurring the US opioid crisis stands to profit from the epidemic after he patented a new treatment for drug addicts.

    Richard Sackler, whose family owns Purdue Pharma, the company behind the notorious painkiller OxyContin, was granted a patent earlier this year for a reformulation of a drug used to wean addicts off opioids.

    The invention is a novel form of buprenorphine, a mild opiate that controls drug cravings, which is often given as a substitute to people hooked on heroin or opioid painkillers such as OxyContin.

    The new formulation as described in Dr Sackler’s patent could end up proving lucrative thanks to a steady increase in the number of addicts being treated with buprenorphine, which is seen as a better alternative to other opioid substitutes such as methadone.

    Last year, the leading version of buprenorphine, which is sold under the brand name Suboxone, generated $877m in US sales for Indivior, the British pharmaceuticals group that makes it.

    Before the opioid crisis, the Sackler family was primarily known for its philanthropy, emerging as one of the largest donors to arts institutions in the US and UK. But the rising number of addictions and deaths has highlighted the family’s ownership of Purdue, which some members have tried to shy away from.

    It’s reprehensible what Purdue Pharma has done to our public health
    Luke Nasta, director of Camelot

    Dr Sackler’s patent, which was granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office in January, acknowledges the threat posed by the opioid crisis, which claimed more than 42,000 lives in 2016.

    “While opioids have always been known to be useful in pain treatment, they also display an addictive potential,” the patent states. “Thus, if opioids are taken by healthy human subjects with a drug-seeking behaviour they may lead to psychological as well as physical dependence.”

    It adds: “The constant pressures upon addicts to procure money for buying drugs and the concomitant criminal activities have been increasingly recognised as a major factor that counteracts efficient and long-lasting withdrawal and abstinence from drugs.”

    However, the patent makes no mention of the fact that Purdue Pharma has been hit with more than a thousand lawsuits for allegedly fuelling the epidemic — allegations the company and the Sackler family deny.

    “It’s reprehensible what Purdue Pharma has done to our public health,” said Luke Nasta, director of Camelot, an addiction treatment centre in Staten Island, New York. He said the Sackler family “shouldn’t be allowed to peddle any more synthetic opiates — and that includes opioid substitutes”.

    Buprenorphine is prescribed to opioid addicts in tablets or thin film strips that dissolve under the tongue in less than seven minutes. These “sublingual” formulations are used to stop drug abusers from hoarding a stockpile of pills they can sell or use to get high at a later date.

    The patent describes a new, improved form of buprenorphine that would come in a wafer that disintegrated more quickly than existing versions — perhaps in just a few seconds.

    The original application was made by Purdue Pharma and Dr Sackler is listed as one of the inventors alongside five others, some of whom work or have worked for the Sackler’s group of drug companies.

    “Drug addicts sometimes still try to divert these sublingual buprenorphine tablets by removing them from the mouth,” the patent application stated. “There remains a need for other . . . abuse-resistant dosage forms.”
    Recommended
    US opioid epidemic
    What next for the Sacklers? A pharma dynasty under siege

    In June, the Massachusetts attorney-general filed a lawsuit against Dr Sackler and seven other members of the Sackler family, which accused them of engaging in a “deadly, deceptive scheme to sell opioids”.

    Purdue and the family deny the allegations and Purdue said it intends to file a motion to dismiss. The company points out that OxyContin was, and still is, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

    “We believe it is inappropriate for [Massachusetts] to substitute its judgment for the judgment of the regulatory, scientific and medical experts at FDA,” it said in a recent statement to the Financial Times.

    Andrew Kolodny, a professor from Brandeis University who has been a vocal advocate for greater use of buprenorphine to battle the opioid crisis, said the idea Dr Sackler “could get richer” from the patent was “very disturbing”. He added: “Perhaps the profits off this patent should be used to pay any judgment or settlement down the line.”

    Earlier this week, Purdue donated $3.4m to boost access to naloxone, an antidote given to people who have just overdosed on opioids.

    #Opioides #Cynisme #Capitalisme_sauvage #Brevets #Sackler

  • Why so little has changed since the financial crash | Financial Times
    https://www.ft.com/content/c85b9792-aad1-11e8-94bd-cba20d67390c

    The financial crisis was a devastating failure of the free market that followed a period of rising inequality within many countries. Yet, contrary to what happened in the 1970s, policymakers have barely questioned the relative roles of government and markets . Conventional wisdom still considers “structural reform” largely synonymous with lower taxes and de-regulation of labour markets. Concern is expressed over inequality, but little has actually been done. Policymakers have mostly failed to notice the dangerous dependence of demand on ever-rising debt. Monopoly and “zero-sum” activities are pervasive. Few question the value of the vast quantities of financial sector activity we continue to have, or recognise the risks of further big financial crises.

    [...]

    Beyond #finance, it seems ever clearer that protection of intellectual property has gone too far. Also, why not shift taxation on to land? Why are we letting the taxation of capital collapse? And why are we not trying to revitalise antitrust?

    #oligarques #oligarchie

  • Land reform in South Africa is crucial for inclusive growth, by Cyril Ramaphosa | Financial Times
    https://www.ft.com/content/c81543d8-a61b-11e8-926a-7342fe5e173f

    several suggestions on when expropriation without compensation may be justified. These include, for instance, unused land, derelict buildings, purely speculative land holdings, or circumstances where occupiers have strong historical rights and title holders do not occupy or use their land, such as labour tenancy, informal settlements and abandoned inner-city buildings.

    #afrique_du_sud #terres #réforme_agraire

  • This European Border Is Still Open. But for How Long?

    The border between Austria and Slovenia runs through Armin Tement’s backyard. Literally.

    Not that you would know it. Neat rows of vines march up and down the valley like military columns with no regard for a frontier laid down by man, why here, no one can quite remember. The Slovene wine workers speak German. The Austrians speak Slovenian, or at least try.

    As for the wine, well, says Mr. Tement, 32, “it tastes exactly the same on both sides.”

    When Mr. Tement’s family started making wine back in the 19th century, there was no border here. The region of Styria, straddling what is now southeastern Austria and northeastern Slovenia, was part of the Hapsburg Empire.

    When the empire was broken up after World War I, Upper Styria became Austrian and Lower Styria became part of Yugoslavia — until the 1990s, when that country, too, was broken up and Slovenia gained its independence.

    The border, a hundred years old this year, was briefly eliminated by advancing Nazi armies, then heavily policed during the Cold War, before vanishing in all but name when Slovenia joined the European Union’s passport-free travel zone in 2007.

    “It was a great moment,” recalled Janez Valdhuber, 53, a winemaker on the Slovenian side. To celebrate, he grabbed his young children, climbed the steep vineyard opposite his house to the top where the border runs, and unfurled a European flag.

    The interrogations at the border stopped, and Mr. Valdhuber’s car trunk was no longer searched when entering Austria.

    But some worry Europe’s open borders might slowly be closing again, one checkpoint at a time.

    This month, Germany announced that at its Bavarian border, it would turn back asylum seekers registered in other European Union countries, a move reintroducing a hard border of sorts with Austria.

    Austria, now run by a conservative government in coalition with the far right, threatened to do the same on its southern border with Italy, Europe’s busiest north-south trade route. And as if to demonstrate its resolve, Austria briefly resurrected checkpoints at the Brenner Pass this month.

    The border at Spielfeld, an Austrian town with barely 1,000 inhabitants, became a stop on the migrant route in 2015, and for a few traumatic weeks that year, tens of thousands of refugees came through.

    Since then, Austrian soldiers have returned.

    They ride in military jeeps along the “Wine Route,” a winding country road that zigzags back and forth across the border. They have built a fence along a small border stretch near Spielfeld and set up makeshift checkpoints in the hills — only sporadically manned, but there — on otherwise deserted lanes.

    No one here reports having seen any refugees in more than two years, and so far the border checks are relatively rare.

    But this month, the Austrian military and police staged a high-profile military exercise, simulating another mass arrival of migrants.

    A platform was set up for the photographers. Two Black Hawk helicopters circled overhead. Two hundred students from the police academy were enlisted as “refugees.” Later, the defense ministry released a video.

    “It feels a bit like we’re backsliding into the old days,” said Marko Oraze, a member of Austria’s Slovene-speaking minority who runs the Council of Carinthian Slovenes.

    Mr. Oraze lives in Austria but gets his car fixed in Slovenia. Many of his friends commute across the border every day.

    “More and more of them are stopped at the border on their way to work,” he said.

    Some in Spielfeld applaud the tougher stance taken by Austria.

    “It’s about time,” said Walpurga Sternad, who runs a restaurant with her husband near the highway connecting Austria and Slovenia. “They should just close all the borders in Europe, go back to what we used to have,” she said, as a group of friends nodded in approval.

    Ms. Sternad remembers the day in October 2015, when some 6,000 migrants poured over the border in Spielfeld, filling the motorway and spilling into her own front yard. “It was scary,” she said. “So many people. They kept coming.”


    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/24/world/europe/austria-slovenia-border-migrants-spielfeld-schengen.html#click=https://t.co/YWlazq9xGU
    #frontières #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Autriche #Slovénie #fermeture_des_frontières #Schengen (fin de -) #militarisation_des_frontières #armée #frontière_sud-alpine

    • Anti-immigration mood drives fear of racist profiling on EU borders

      Europe’s passport-free area under pressure as calls grow for tougher migrant controls.

      Police spot checks have become a part of Fahad’s annual summer holiday when driving through the snow-topped mountains of southern Bavaria.

      “This usually happens,” said the Kuwaiti father of three, when his silver people-carrier with his wife and children was stopped by German border officers in the idyllic Alpine town of #Kiefersfelden.

      Fahad and his family had to wait for more than half an hour at the border post, until they were given a pass to drive from Austria into Germany. During the FT’s three-hour stay at the checkpoint, non-white drivers made up about 70 per cent of cars selected for further checks. Fahad was one of a few drivers with beards, while others included women wearing headscarves and motorists who at first sight did not look like white Europeans. All were waved through once their IDs were checked, vehicle boots searched and luggage examined.

      Racial profiling at Europe’s internal borders is forbidden under EU law. But with a fresh wave of anti-immigrant governments calling for tougher controls on migrant movements, there are concerns that non-white people will come under increasing suspicion when travelling in the continent.

      Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone — an area made up of 26 European states that abolished passport control at their mutual borders — has buckled under twin pressures: Europe’s biggest influx of refugees since the second world war, and a growing number of anti-immigrant governments pushing to crack down on irregular migration flows. “There is such a fear that Schengen won’t survive that countries are being given the discretion to do whatever they can to keep it alive,” said Elizabeth Collett, director of the Migration Policy Institute Europe think-tank.

      Although the number of migrants entering the EU has dropped dramatically since the height of the migration crisis in 2015, emergency powers still allow border controls across 20,000km inside the Schengen zone. Kiefersfelden, a popular skiing destination, has become one of Schengen’s pinch points: it is home to one of three emergency police controls along Germany’s 820km border with Austria.

      Every car travelling on the A12 autobahn through Kiefersfelden must pass a police border stop where officers select vehicles for extra spot checks. The cars that are picked are sent to a tented zone, where drivers and passengers must show valid ID documents.

      Border police said they are told to look for signs of undocumented migrants and people smugglers crossing into Germany from Austria. So far this year, an average of 900 illegal migrants per month have been detained on the Austro-German border, down from 1,120 per month in 2017.

      As racial profiling is outlawed, it is the responsibility of European governments to ensure their police forces carry out checks at random. Rainer Schafer, spokesman for the federal police overseeing the Kiefersfelden controls, said race and ethnicity “can be among the indicators” officers look for when deciding to pull over a vehicle for extra checks.

      “But there are no rules that we just pick out the people who look like they are coming from Africa,” he said. Other factors include registration plates (Italian or eastern European plates draw officers’ attention), blacked-out windows, and the number of passengers, he said.

      Police checks in Bavaria are expected to intensify after the region’s conservative local government last month requested tougher migration controls.

      Horst Seehofer, Germany’s interior minister, has also called on the government to break two decades of EU-wide co-operation on migration and unilaterally send people away at Germany’s internal borders. Observers fear that other Schengen countries, like Austria, could in turn erect their own emergency border controls — and that the EU’s principle of free movement of people is at risk of becoming a privilege enjoyed only by white Europeans.

      A report from La Cimade, a French non-governmental organisation, found French border police “systematically check the identity documents of people who do not have the right skin colour” on inbound trains from Italy.

      Inga Schwarz, a researcher at the University of Freiburg, said Europe’s internal border crossings are becoming “increasingly racialised spaces, constructed not only by border guards profiling according to race, but also by European citizens who witness these racialised control practices”.

      In Kiefersfelden, the majority of the non-white drivers selected for checks were tourists in people-carriers and expensive cars — mostly from the Gulf — and were waved through in less than 15 minutes. Uruj, a 27-year-old teacher from Kuwait, her husband and young daughter waited for nearly an hour in their white Mercedes.

      Although they had valid visa documents, police took away their passports and only permitted the family to continue to their holiday destination in Austria once they had obtained a car seat for their three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Wafah. Uruj, who was wearing a pink headscarf, said, “I don’t think they liked the look of us.”


      https://www.ft.com/content/fac891a6-93f9-11e8-b67b-b8205561c3fe?segmentid=acee4131-99c2-09d3-a635-873e61754
      #contrôles_frontaliers #profiling #Allemagne #Autriche #contrôle_au_faciès

    • Réfugiés : la #Slovénie veut toujours plus de #barbelés sur sa frontière avec la #Croatie

      Les autorités slovènes se veulent rassurantes : la sécurité des frontières est assurée et personne n’a d’information sur l’éventuelle réouverture massive de la « #route_des_Balkans ». Pourtant le nouveau gouvernement ne semble pas avoir l’intention d’infléchir la politique migratoire de son prédécesseur et songerait même à étendre les barbelés qui coupent la Slovénie de son voisin croate.

      Par Charles Nonne

      La question des réfugiés semble ces dernières semaines avoir déserté le débat public en Slovénie. Le contrat de coalition signé le 28 août 2018, lapidaire, dédramatise : « Nous élaborerons une stratégie migratoire exhaustive, basée sur la coopération intergouvernementale. Nous protègerons les frontières de l’espace Schengen avec davantage d’efficacité et nous démonterons les obstacles techniques [barrières et panneaux] dès que les circonstances le permettront. »

      Pourtant, les passages de la frontière se poursuivent, notamment dans la région de la Bela Krajina, au sud-est du pays, où la rivière Kolpa sépare Slovénie et Croatie. Selon la police de Novo Mesto, entre le 1er janvier et le 31 septembre 2018, plus de 2400 ressortissants étrangers auraient illégalement franchi la Kolpa, soit douze fois plus qu’en 2017.

      Fin septembre, en marge d’un déplacement dans le centre régional de Črnomelj, le nouveau ministre de l’Intérieur, Boris Poklukar, avait affirmé vouloir maintenir les barrières en l’état, tout en garantissant que la police était préparée à une augmentation des passages frontaliers. Pour la maire de Črnomelj, Mojca Čemas Stjepanovič, « pour le moment, la sécurité est garantie et nous n’avons aucune raison de nous inquiéter. » Dans les communes les plus exposées, le gouvernement a promis l’érection de nouveaux « obstacles techniques » : sur les 670 kilomètres de frontière slovéno-croate, plus de 160 sont parcourus par des barbelés et 56 par de véritables barrières.

      En Slovénie, c’est notamment les tensions à la frontière entre la Bosnie-Herzégovine et la Croatie qui préoccupent. Si le gouvernement se prépare à plusieurs scénarios, il affirme n’avoir « aucune information laissant penser à une augmentation prochaine des flux », indique le ministre Boris Poklukar. Au nord, l’Autriche a d’ores et déjà annoncé qu’elle ne diminuerait pas la surveillance de sa frontière lors des six prochains mois.

      Au-delà du strict contrôle frontalier, d’autres questions divisent : des inquiétudes pèsent notamment sur la possible installation de centres d’accueil, comme à Debeli Rtič, sur la côte slovène, et à Brežice, à 40 kilomètres de Zagreb. La directrice du bureau gouvernemental pour la prise en charge de l’intégration des migrants, Mojca Špec Potočar, a tenu à indiquer qu’« il n’y [aurait] aucune installation permanente de réfugiés. »

      La question secoue également les rangs de la coalition : l’ancienne ministre de l’Intérieur, Vesna Györkös Žnidar, « faucon » régulièrement critiqué par les défenseurs des droits de l’homme, vient de claquer la porte de son parti, le Parti du centre moderne (SMC) de l’ancien Premier ministre Miro Cerar, en raison de désaccords profonds sur les questions migratoires.

      https://www.courrierdesbalkans.fr/Slovenie-le-gouvernement-poursuit-lentement-le-renforcement-de-sa
      #fermeture_des_frontières #murs #barrières_frontalières

  • Pilot scheme seeks to produce first ‘ethical cobalt’ from Congo

    A pilot scheme to trace the world’s first “ethical cobalt” from small-scale mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo all the way to consumers of electric cars and iPhones will start this week, potentially allowing companies such as Apple to assure customers their products are free from child labour and other human rights abuses.


    https://www.ft.com/content/dcea899a-2f8c-11e8-b5bf-23cb17fd1498
    #cobalt #matières_premières #Congo #mines #commerce_équitable #éthique #Better_Cobalt #projet_pilote
    cc @albertocampiphoto

  • China signs 99-year lease on Sri Lanka’s #Hambantota port

    Sri Lanka has formally handed over its southern port of Hambantota to China on a 99-year lease, which government critics have denounced as an erosion of the country’s sovereignty.

    The $1.3bn port was opened seven years ago using debt from Chinese state-controlled entities. But it has since struggled under heavy losses, making it impossible for Colombo to repay its debts.

    In 2016, Sri Lankan ministers struck a deal to sell an 80 per cent stake in the port to the state-controlled China Merchants Port Holdings.


    https://www.ft.com/content/e150ef0c-de37-11e7-a8a4-0a1e63a52f9c
    #Chine #port #transport_maritime #Sri_Lanka #One_Belt_One_Road

  • Data visualisation mistakes — and how to avoid them
    The FT’s chart expert outlines some basic errors and simple fixes

    https://www.ft.com/content/3b59f690-d129-11e7-b781-794ce08b24dc

    https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.prod.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fcc096136-d367-11e7-ae3e

    Pakistan’s education inequality was barely noticeable in the original chart; now its bias against girls becomes the standout story © EPA

    There is a moment in Double Indemnity, the 1940s Hollywood noir classic, when you finally realise that anti-hero Walter Neff’s attempt to get away with murder will end badly. His colleague, Barton Keyes, suspects foul play in a seemingly straightforward insurance case.

    What makes it clear that Neff is up against a master logician? Keyes has outsized charts on his office walls that project a bold message: beware the intellectual power of an executive with a firm grasp of the facts.

    https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.prod.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fd6e15e9a-d12a-11e7-b781
    Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) in Barton Keyes’ (Edward G Robinson) chart-filled office

    Fast forward to 2017 and the intervening decades have not necessarily been kind to the use of charts in business. My colleague Andrew Hill wrote recently about a survey of business leaders’ preferred formats for insights: “None favoured infographics, which too often emphasise ‘graphic’ over ‘info’.”

    Pejorative connotations of the word infographic often start from this perspective as corporate designers, desperate to dress up “dull” data, veer away from facts towards aesthetics. Reclaiming the value of charts requires a fundamental rethink.

    In 2014, Unesco asked me to review graphics published in a series of reports on access to education in the Asia-Pacific region. I spent a pleasant week in Bangkok working with a knowledgable and talented team whose passion for their work was unquestionable. We spent most of our time discussing why the charts in their reports were uniformly awful.

    For example, take Figure 7, the memorably titled “Gender Parity Index of the adjusted net intake rate in primary education, 2009” from the report on Universal Primary Education.

    https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.prod.s3.amazonaws.com%2F21aaa5b6-d12c-11e7-b781
    UNESCO’s Figure 7 from Universal Primary Education: Gender Parity Index of the adjusted net intake rate, 2009

    This chart breaks one of the first rules of data visualisation. It is not self-sufficient.

    Assuming we know what the Gender Parity Index is, it is not clear what purpose the mysterious grey area in the centre is serving. Worse, this chart might injure you physically. Extended reading requires a chiropractic adjustment, thanks to the rotated labels. The liberal use of bright, saturated red matches the hue of the report’s cover but is the equivalent of UPPER CASE SHOUTING.

    How could this be turned into a useful chart?

    First, scaling. Why does the GPI start at 0.82 and finish at 1.12? There is of course just one reason — it is the default of the software used to create the chart.

    The GPI is actually a measure of gender bias in access to primary education, with a value of 1 denoting no bias (equality) between boys and girls. So we should really anchor the bars to 1 and represent deviations from this central point by pushing the values above and below 1 in opposing directions.

    This allows us to re-orient the chart, making the country labels easier to read. Simple text labels help confirm the shape and direction of the data to the reader.

    https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.prod.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa3eaaf48-d128-11e7-b781

    Next we can re-introduce the mysterious grey shaded area. It is actually Unesco’s performance target. This is essential information because it allows us to place each country’s performance in context.

    https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.prod.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb35fd52a-d128-11e7-b781

    We can bring back colour, this time to draw attention only to the countries that are not meeting the Unesco target. Distinct colours make it clear there are two different reasons for not hitting target. On-chart annotations concisely reinforce the main message.

    https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.prod.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc57652de-d128-11e7-b781

    Finally, clear titles help non-specialist readers tune in to a chart. Technical details can be relegated to the subtitle and footnotes — such as the source. It is important information, but not necessarily the first thing the reader should see.

    https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.prod.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fd54bf36c-d128-11e7-b781

    If we compare the original and the rework, it is difficult to see how we are looking at the same data. Where Pakistan was previously barely noticeable, now its bias against girls becomes the standout story.

    In fact, it is only by reworking the chart that we can see it is of any use at all. Many charts cannot be transformed in this way. Adopt a “fewer but better” mantra when it comes to incorporating them in reports.

    With well-selected charts taking care of the key questions of “what?” and “how much?”, the text in a report can focus on the follow-on questions, such as “why?” and “so what?” By conceiving words and graphics simultaneously, reports can be restructured into readable and confident narratives.

    The willingness shown by Unesco to critique and improve its materials is also important. No amount of external consulting will achieve lasting improvements in quality unless the desire to improve is at the heart of an organisation.

    This may sound deceptively straightforward but communicating with data is a skill that has fallen through gaps in academic curriculums. Few receive formal training.

    In January 2018 we are inviting readers to the Financial Times for a one-day introductory Chart Doctor workshop on effective data presentation. More details and booking information are available via Eventbrite.

    In the meantime, we would like to hear from FT readers about the business charts that rile you most. We have opened up comments below for you to upload your own favourite bad graphics. Do your worst.

    #data #statistiques #visualisation #manipulation #graphiques #cartographie #sémiologie #jacques_bertin