/2019

U.S. Recognition of West Bank Settlements Will Harm Israel
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/21/us-recognition-israel-settlements-palestine

The Trump administration’s disdain for international consensus on the West Bank will encourage previously cautious governments to support BDS and Palestinian statehood.
[…]
Israeli diplomatic efforts with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have in many respects been designed to prevent unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state and have included pressure campaigns against international bodies that accept Palestine as a member, relying on a U.S. veto in the Security Council to prevent the U.N. from admitting Palestine as a full member state, and even advocating the curtailment of foreign aid to the Palestinians if they seek to use international law as a way to gain statehood.

One of the reasons this approach has been tacitly accepted by the international community is because it has been widely understood that Israel’s de facto control in much of the West Bank is temporary. The more that Israel fully rejects this notion and seeks to cement a de jure presence through some form of annexation, the harder it is for Israel to continue arguing successfully that the world community should stick to its guns when it comes to the Palestinian approach to unilaterally declaring statehood.

This would be a diplomatic nightmare of unprecedented proportions for Israel and has largely been avoided until now, because Israel has successfully argued for an international consensus that the only path to a permanent resolution is direct negotiations between the two parties. If the new Israeli position is to declare that any policies that it or the Trump administration advances are all that matters, irrespective of what anyone else thinks, and that the fundamental realities that the rest of the world accepts can be unilaterally reversed or ignored, it will be very difficult to argue that countries that want to recognize Palestine should hold off.

Similarly, Israel has successfully relegated the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign to the fringes of far-left politics and activism. But moves intended to shatter a consensus on some issues or demonstrate that it should not exist will have unintended consequences on other issues, and BDS is one of them. Israel has rightly argued that the policy of targeting Israel with boycotts and other such actions holds Israel to a fundamentally unfair and one-sided standard, and governments outside of the Arab world have largely agreed. The more that Israel argues that its own extreme positions should be adopted by everyone, the more it opens the door for adoption of extreme positions that do not benefit Israel, including BDS.

Open Borders Are a Trillion-Dollar Idea

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Tearing down all barriers to migration isn’t crazy—it’s an opportunity for a global boom.

The world’s nations, especially the world’s richest nations, are missing an enormous chance to do well while doing good. The name of this massive missed opportunity—and the name of my book on the topic—is “open borders.”

Critics of immigration often hyperbolically accuse their opponents of favoring open borders—a world where all nationalities are free to live and work in any nation they like. For most, that’s an unfair label: They want more visas for high-skilled workers, family reunification, or refugees—not the end of immigration restrictions. In my case, however, this accusation is no overstatement. I think that free trade in labor is a massive missed opportunity. Open borders are not only just but the most promising shortcut to global prosperity.

To see the massive missed opportunity of which I speak, consider the migration of a low-skilled Haitian from Port-au-Prince to Miami. In Haiti, he would earn about $1,000 per year. In Miami, he could easily earn $25,000 per year. How is such upward mobility possible? Simply put: Human beings are much more productive in Florida than in Haiti—thanks to better government policies, better management, better technology, and much more. The main reason Haitians suffer in poverty is not because they are from Haiti but because they are in Haiti. If you were stuck in Haiti, you, too, would probably be destitute.

But borders aren’t just a missed opportunity for those stuck on the wrong side on them. If the walls come down, almost everyone benefits because immigrants sell the new wealth they create—and the inhabitants of their new country are their top customers. As long as Haitians remain in Haiti, they produce next to nothing—and therefore do next to nothing to enrich the rest of the world. When they move, their productivity skyrockets—and so does their contribution to their new customers. When you see a Haitian restaurant in Miami, you shouldn’t picture the relocation of a restaurant from Port-au-Prince; you should picture the creation of a restaurant that otherwise would never have existed—not even in Haiti itself.

The central function of existing immigration laws is to prevent this wealth creation from happening—to trap human talent in low-productivity countries. Out of all the destructive economic policies known to man, nothing on Earth is worse. I’m not joking. Standard estimates say open borders would ultimately double humanity’s wealth production. How is this possible? Because immigration sharply increases workers’ productivity—and the world contains many hundreds of millions of would-be immigrants. Multiply a massive gain per person by a massive number of people and you end up with what the economist Michael Clemens calls “trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk.”

Or do we? An old saying warns, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Far lower levels of immigration already inspire vocal complaints. After presenting my basic case in Open Borders, I strive to evaluate all the common (and many not-so-common) objections to immigration. My bottom line: While open borders are undeniably unpopular, they deserve to be popular. Like every social change, immigration has downsides. Yet when we patiently quantify the downsides, the trillions of dollars of gains of open borders dwarf any credible estimate of the harms.

The simplest objection to open borders is logistical: Even the largest countries cannot absorb hundreds of millions of immigrants overnight. True enough, but no reasonable person expects hundreds of millions to come overnight, either. Instead, immigration usually begins slowly and then snowballs. Puerto Ricans have been legally allowed to move to the United States since 1904, but it took almost a century before Puerto Ricans in the United States came to outnumber the population left on the island. Wasn’t the European migration crisis an unmanageable flood of humanity? Hardly. Despite media outcry, total arrivals from 2014 to 2018 came to less than 1 percent of the population of the European Union. Many European countries—most notably West Germany during the Cold War—have swiftly absorbed much larger inflows in the past.

The standard explanation for these asymmetric public reactions is that resistance to immigration is primarily cultural and political, not economic or logistical. While West Germans welcomed millions of East German migrants, a much lower dose of Middle Eastern and African migration has made the whole EU shiver. Aren’t economists who dwell on economic gains just missing the point?

Yes and no. As a matter of political psychology, cultural and political arguments against immigration are indeed persuasive and influential. That does not show, however, that these arguments are correct or decisive. Does immigration really have the negative cultural and political effects critics decry? Even if it did, are there cheaper and more humane remedies than immigration restriction? In any case, what is a prudent price tag to put on these cultural and political effects?

Let’s start with readily measurable cultural and political effects. In the United States, the most common cultural complaint is probably that—in contrast to the days of Ellis Island—today’s immigrants fail to learn English. The real story, though, is that few first-generation immigrants have ever become fluent in adulthood; it’s just too hard. German and Dutch immigrants in the 19th century maintained their stubborn accents and linguistic isolation all their lives; New York’s Yiddish newspapers were a fixture for decades. For their sons and daughters, however, acquiring fluency is child’s play—even for groups like Asians and Hispanics that are often accused of not learning English.

Native-born citizens also frequently worry that immigrants, supposedly lacking Western culture’s deep respect for law and order, will be criminally inclined. At least in the United States, however, this is the reverse of the truth. The incarceration rate of the foreign-born is about a third less than that of the native-born.

What about the greatest crime of all—terrorism? In the United States, non-citizens have indeed committed 88 percent of all terrorist murders. When you think statistically, however, this is 88 percent of a tiny sum. In an average year from 1975 to 2017, terrorists murdered fewer than a hundred people on U.S. soil per year. Less than 1 percent of all deaths are murders, and less than 1 percent of all murders are terrorism-related. Worrying about terrorism really is comparable to worrying about lightning strikes. After you take a few common-sense precautions—do not draw a sword during a thunderstorm—you should just focus on living your life.

The most cogent objection to immigration, though, is that productivity depends on politics—and politics depend on immigration. Native-born citizens of developed countries have a long track record of voting for the policies that made their industries thrive and their countries rich. Who knows how vast numbers of new immigrants would vote? Indeed, shouldn’t we expect people from dysfunctional polities to bring dysfunctional politics with them?

These are fine questions, but the answers are not alarming. At least in the United States, the main political division between the native- and foreign-born is engagement. Even immigrants legally able to vote are markedly less likely than native-born citizens to exercise this right. In the 2012 U.S. presidential election, for example, 72 percent of eligible native-born citizens voted versus just 48 percent of eligible immigrants. Wherever they politically stand, then, immigrants’ opinions are relatively inert.

In any case, immigrants’ political opinions don’t actually stand out. On average, they’re a little more economically liberal and a little more socially conservative, and that’s about it. Yes, low-skilled immigrants’ economic liberalism and social conservatism are more pronounced, but their turnout is low; in 2012, only 27 percent of those eligible to vote opted to do so. So while it would not be alarmist to think that immigration will slightly tilt policy in an economically liberal, socially conservative direction, warning that “immigrants will vote to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs” is paranoid.

Note, moreover, that free immigration hardly implies automatic citizenship. Welcoming would-be migrants is a clear-cut blessing for them and the world. Granting citizenship is more of a mixed bag. While I am personally happy to have new citizens, I often dwell on the strange fact that the Persian Gulf monarchies are more open to immigration than almost anywhere else on Earth. According to the Pew Research Center, 76 percent of people in Kuwait—and 88 percent in the United Arab Emirates—are foreign-born. Why do the native-born tolerate this? Probably because the Gulf monarchies generously share their oil wealth with citizens—and jealously protect the value of citizenship by making naturalization almost impossible. You do not have to ignore the Gulf monarchies’ occasional mistreatment of immigrants to realize that it is much better to welcome immigrants with conditions than to refuse to admit them at all. Migrants—mostly from much poorer parts of the Islamic world—accept this deal, however unfair, exactly because they can still do far better in the Gulf than at home.

In Open Borders, I have the space to address many more concerns about immigration in more detail. What I can’t do, I confess, is address the unmeasured and the unmeasurable. In real life, however, everyone routinely copes with ambiguous dangers—“unknown unknowns.” How do we cope?

For starters, we remember Chicken Little. When people’s warnings about measured dangers turn out to be wrong or overstated, we rightly discount their warnings about unmeasured and unmeasurable dangers. This is how I see mainstream critics of immigration. Their grasp of the basic facts, especially their neglect of the tremendous gains of moving labor from low-productivity countries to high-productivity countries, is too weak to take their so-called vision seriously.

Our other response to unmeasured and unmeasurable dangers, however, is to fall back on existing moral presumptions. Until same-sex marriage was legalized in certain countries, for example, how were we supposed to know its long-term social effects? The honest answer is, “We couldn’t.” But in the absence of strong evidence that these overall social effects would be very bad, a lot of us have now decided to respect individuals’ right to marry whom they like.

This is ultimately how I see the case for open borders. Denying human beings the right to rent an apartment from a willing landlord or accept a job offer from a willing employer is a serious harm. How much would someone have to pay the average American to spend the rest of his or her life in Haiti or Syria? To morally justify such harm, we need a clear and present danger, not gloomy speculation. Yet when we patiently and calmly study immigration, the main thing we observe is: people moving from places where their talent goes to waste to places where they can realize their potential. What we see, in short, is immigrants enriching themselves by enriching the world.

Do I seriously think I am going to convert people to open borders with a short article—or even a full book? No. My immediate goal is more modest: I’d like to convince you that open borders aren’t crazy. While we take draconian regulation of migration for granted, the central goal of this regulation is to trap valuable labor in unproductive regions of the world. This sounds cruel and misguided. Shouldn’t we at least double-check our work to make sure we’re not missing a massive opportunity for ourselves and humanity?

▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/01/immigration-wall-open-borders-trillion-dollar-idea

#ouverture_des_frontières #frontières_ouvertes #économie #migrations #richesse #monde #frontières

Beating #Wall_Street Won World War II
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/28/wall-street-world-war-ii-democracy-monopoly

https://foreignpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/GettyImages-472582758.jpg

After the invasion of Poland, Americans didn’t necessarily want to intervene in Europe, but preparedness and support for military spending began to increase. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked for larger Army and Navy budgets. But to build that larger Army and Navy, massive supplies of steel, aluminum, copper, and every other material would be necessary. The control of monopolists, who wanted to restrict supplies of these metals, would have to be broken.

#etats-unis #monopoles

European Concerns Over China’s Economic Power Hold Up a Project to Build the World’s Longest Undersea Rail Tunnel Under the Baltic Sea
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/07/does-the-worlds-longest-undersea-tunnel-have-a-china-problem

btw : projet poussé par l’ex-marketeur en chef de Angry Birds

A Chinese-financed project to connect the Estonian and Finnish capitals has hit a snag as Europe ponders how to deal with Beijing’s economic heft.

A Chinese-funded project to build the world’s longest undersea rail tunnel in the Baltic Sea is being held up over concerns about its financing, making it a focal point of larger European questions about the influence of China.

The idea of building a tunnel between the Finnish and Estonian capitals of Helsinki and Tallinn is not new, but fresh concerns arose about the project after Peter Vesterbacka, a Finnish tech entrepreneur, inked a deal this year with Touchstone Capital Partners, a financial firm that invests the resources of state-owned Chinese enterprises. The deal will supply $17 billion to fund the three Chinese companies that have signed on to build and design the tunnel.

Should the project break ground, it would become the largest Chinese investment in Northern Europe and open up a slew of other opportunities to build infrastructure across the region.

In July, however, Estonian Public Administration Minister Jaak Aab said the current timeline to open the tunnel in 2024 wasn’t realistic and questioned Vesterbacka’s business plan while also raising serious concerns about the source of the private financing: China.

The tunnel controversy is playing out against the backdrop of an ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing, and greater concern about China’s growing presence across Europe. Even as individual countries cut deals, the European Union has begun to take a tougher approach to China’s rise, making an unprecedented declaration this year that Beijing was a “systemic rival” in some areas, as well as a competitor or potential partner in others. In late September, Japan and the EU also signed a major deal to build infrastructure and set development standards around the world, in what was seen as a response to Beijing’s amorphous Belt and Road Initiative. The moves came on the heels of a series of Chinese acquisitions across Europe, which sparked new EU rules that allow for closer scrutiny of foreign investments and led to an ongoing debate over updating the bloc’s procurement, competition, and industrial policies to better adjust to China’s economic pull.

“There is more strategic thinking about China now than ever before in Europe,” said Erik Brattberg, the director of the Europe program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “but there isn’t a coherent European strategy yet.”

Vesterbacka says concerns over Chinese involvement are overblown. He argues that the tunnel will be majority-owned and operated by FinEstBay, the development company he co-founded, not the Chinese investors and contractors.

“We need to do more to alleviate the fears and concerns over Chinese involvement, but I think that’s very much doable,” Vesterbacka told Foreign Policy in an interview. “The Chinese are investing in this because they see it as a good business case.”

Indeed, until Beijing entered the picture, the political will and public funds had never fully materialized for such an ambitious undertaking. So, Vesterbacka, who made his name as the former chief marketing officer at Rovio, the game-maker behind the international hit Angry Birds, decided to launch a privately funded version in 2016. Since then, Vesterbacka has moved quickly to bring the project to fruition by lining up tunnel boring companies to drill under the Baltic, developing a ticketing system for the trains, bringing private investors on board, and setting an ambitious December 2024 deadline for the 62-mile tunnel. His deal with the Chinese companies was intended to help make the project a reality.

Instead, the episode has opened up a conversation about how best to finance and build large-scale infrastructure projects and provided a window into the growing tension between geopolitics and business when it comes to China-linked projects in the European Union.

Bit by bit, despite pressure from the Trump administration, EU countries are demonstrating a willingness to engage in big projects with China. In March, Italy became the first G-7 country to sign up to the Belt and Road Initiative, joining 23 other European countries that signed memorandums of understanding with Beijing’s signature foreign-policy initiative. Meanwhile, countries such as Hungary, Greece, and Portugal continue to welcome Chinese investments in their railways, ports, and energy infrastructure, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has signaled that China will play a big part in the country’s post-Brexit economy. France and Germany are also still searching for a balance to strike in their dealings with Beijing, using tough rhetoric while still courting Chinese cash.

Border Violence Monitoring Network - Report July 2019

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The Border Violence Monitoring Network just published a common report summarizing current developments in pushbacks and police violence in the Western Balkans, mainly in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and along the Serbian borders with Croatia and Hungary.

Due tu a new cooperation with the Thessaloniki-based organisation Mobile Info Team, we were also able to touch on the Status quo of pushbacks from and to Greece.

This report analyzes, among other things:

– BiH politicians’ rhetoric on Croatian push-backs
– Whistleblowers increasing pressure on Croatian authorities
– Frontex presence in Hungarian push-backs to Serbia
– The use of k9 units in the apprehension of transit groups in Slovenia
– The spatial dispersion of push-backs in the Una-Sana Canton

Competing narratives around the legality of pushbacks have emerged, muddying the waters. This has become especially clear as Croatian president Grabar-Kitarovic admitted that pushbacks were carried out legally, which is contradictory to begin with, and that “of course […] a little violence is used.” Croatia’s tactic of de facto condoning illegal pushbacks is similar to Hungary’s strategy to legalize these operations domestically, even though they violate international and EU law. On the other side of the debate, a whistleblower from the Croatian police described a culture of secrecy and institutional hurdles, which prevent legal and organizational challenges to the practice. The role of the EU in this debate remains critical. However, despite paying lip service to the EU’s value, Brussels’ continues to shoulder the bill for a substantial part of the frontier states’ border operations.

►https://www.borderviolence.eu/wp-content/uploads/July-2019-Final-Report.pdf

#frontières #violence #push-back #refoulement #route_des_Balkans #Frontex #Subotica #Bosnie-Herzégovine #Croatie #Italie #Serbie #Hongrie #rapport

America the Mediocre – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/15/america-the-mediocre

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Americans think they’re No. 1. They’re wrong in so many ways.

For many Americans, the proposition that they live in the most powerful, richest, and most advanced society on Earth is something close to a statement of faith.

A 2017 Pew Research Center poll found that most Americans disagree only whether the United States is the best country in the world (29 percent) or one of the best (56 percent). Only 14 percent of Americans agree instead that there are other, better countries.

Elites agree, too. Forget the current president’s flag-humping rhetoric—even the cool and cerebral Barack Obama said it was “objectively” true that the United States holds “the best cards of any country on Earth.”

That might be the case in a game of geopolitical Risk, where the cards that count are military strength and overall GDP. But in ordinary life, it’s harder to make the case for America as No. 1. The rest of the world is developing and adopting policies that can make everyday life in the United States, outside of a few coastal oases, seem … old. Even backward. And the U.S. reluctance, or inability, to learn from other countries is making life worse for its citizens than it has to be—not just in the big ways, such as the disasters of American health care and student debt, but in the little, everyday ones, too.

By many measures, the United States looks like a decidedly middle-of-the pack country or even one at the bottom of the set of rich countries. Consider the classic three American goals: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” On measures indicating the quality of life, the United States often ranks poorly. The U.N. Human Development Index, which counts not just economic performance but life expectancy and schooling, ranks the United States at 13th, lagging other industrialized democracies like Australia, Germany, and Canada. The United States ranks 45th in infant mortality, 46th in maternal mortality, and 36th in life expectancy.

What about liberty? Reporters Without Borders places the United States at 48th for protecting press freedom. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index ranks the United States as only the 22nd least corrupt country in the world, behind Canada, Germany, and France. Freedom House’s experts score the United States 33rd for political freedom, while the Varieties of Democracy project puts the quality of U.S. democracy higher—at 27th.

As for happiness: The World Happiness Report places America at 19th, just below Belgium. Belgium!
[…]
That might explain one reason why the United States proves so resistant to learning from other countries. Using terms that officials since have echoed repeatedly, then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright described the United States and its role by saying, “We are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall, and we see further than other countries into the future.”
[…]

A Generation of Girls Is Missing in India – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/15/a-generation-of-girls-is-missing-in-india

https://foreignpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/GettyImages-102907255.jpg

Perched almost a mile above sea level and circled by majestic Himalayan peaks, Uttarkashi is a spot where religious pilgrims often make a pit stop before proceeding on the sacred Hindu Char Dham Yatra, the Four Abode Pilgrimage, which they believe will bring them closer to salvation. With its verdant landscape, dotted by temples and yoga ashrams, Uttarkashi is a place of breathtaking beauty.

But all is not well in this peaceful Himalayan district. Between February and April, not a single female child was born here in 216 births across the 132 villages. Local authorities, suspecting sex-selective abortions, have launched an extensive investigation, spearheaded by the district magistrate, Ashish Chauhan.
[…]
Although exact numbers of such terminations are not available, according to the first national study on abortion overall, an estimated 15.6 million abortions [▻https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2017/national-estimate-abortion-india-released ] took place in India in 2015. Although the practice is legal up to 20 weeks into a pregnancy under a broad range of criteria, an estimated 10 women die every day due to unsafe procedures. As many as 56 percent [▻http://www.hindustantimes.com/health-and-fitness/behavioural-shift-communication-can-raise-awareness-about-safe-abortions-in-india/story-nZ2t3BFyO8jZluHPj9WCwK.html ] of abortions in India are estimated to be unsafe, and about 8 to 9 percent of all maternal deaths [▻https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/56-abortions-in-india-unsafe-despite-being-legal-kill-10-women-ev ] in India are due to unsafe abortions.

It is safe to assume that a large number of the abortions that happen in India are performed because the fetus is female. Last year, an Indian government report [▻http://mofapp.nic.in:8080/economicsurvey/pdf/102-118_Chapter_07_ENGLISH_Vol_01_2017-18.pdf ] found that about 63 million women were statistically “missing” from the country’s population due to a societal preference for male children. And this problem does not just stem from sex-selective abortion. The report noted that another 21 million girls were considered “unwanted” by their families, who continue to have children until a son is born. Roughly 239,000 girls under the age of 5 died in India every year between 2000 and 2005 due to gender-based neglect, according to a 2018 study [▻https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(18)30184-0/fulltext ].
[…]
Efforts to enforce the law have also been lacking. Despite vast evidence that sex-selective abortion happens on a wide scale, it still goes largely unpunished, mostly due to ineffective and lackadaisical judicial systems. According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau, between 2002 and 2012, there were a mere 218 cases charging medical practitioners with performing ultrasounds with an intention to determine the sex of the fetus. Only 55 people were convicted.
[…]
India is already experiencing all of these problems, especially in northern states with particularly bad sex ratios. According to a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India [▻https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/survey-shows-sex-ratio-falling-further-to-896-in-3-years-to-2017/articleshow/70221462.cms ], the female sex ratio has fallen to 896 females per 1,000 males in 2015 to 2017 from 898 in 2014 to 2016. The Wire reported [▻https://thewire.in/gender/urban-sex-ratio-declining ] that according to census data, India’s national child gender ratio fell from 945 girls to 1,000 boys in 1991 to 918 in 2011. The states of Haryana, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, and Maharashtra all had a ratio even lower than 900 girls per 1,000 boys.

As Epstein, who has collected data in more than 100 countries, including the United States, told me in 2015 [▻https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/india/2015-05-22/when-bride-be-bride-buy ], “Extra males affect the social system quite dramatically. Even now, there are women being drugged and kidnapped from Bangladesh and poor Indian states because there is a shortage of young females. Take that effect and magnify it over a period of years. It’s a social disaster.”
[…]
Before it digs its own grave, India must bring back its girls.

article, on le voit, très solidement étayé ; sous #paywall (léger, contournable via navigation privée)

Iran’s Spies Are at War With Each Other – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/09/irans-spies-are-at-war-with-each-other

As international tensions rise, two different branches of the Iranian security state are increasingly butting heads.
[…]
While the U.S. “maximum pressure” campaign and growing threats of war are fueling nationalist sentiments across the political spectrum, they are also exposing the fault lines between the Rouhani administration and its Intelligence Ministry on the one hand and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its intelligence organization on the other. The infighting is mainly over which body is better positioned to protect the country—and over which aspects of the country most need protecting.

The latest fuel for infighting came on Aug. 3, when BBC Persian aired a rare and exclusive interview with Mazyar Ebrahimi, a former prisoner in Iran who was jailed on suspicion of collaborating with Israel to assassinate four Iranian nuclear scientists between 2010 and 2012. His story shed new light on the workings of the Intelligence Ministry and its relationship with the IRGC. Above all, the interview undermined the conventional belief that the Intelligence Ministry is the “good cop”—the more rational and responsible actor—to its “bad cop” hard-line rival, the IRGC intelligence unit.

Greece’s New Prime Minister Is Just as Populist as the Old One – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/08/greeces-new-prime-minister-is-just-as-populist-as-the-old-one-mitsota

After two elections and a highly charged referendum campaign, Syriza’s populist message has ceased to resonate with voters. That’s in part because ND has dominated the media. In the run-up to the vote, Syriza was almost nowhere to be found. ND not only vastly outspent the other party in terms of advertising, but it enjoyed unlimited support from newspapers and among the talking heads who dominate television coverage. ND also recruited journalists to become candidates, thus leveraging their positions in broadcasting and publishing in support of the campaign (in violation of all journalistic ethics). Syriza only managed to grab a few paltry headlines when Tsipras made personal campaign appearances.

#Grèce #élections_2019

Iran Isn’t Trying to Build a Bomb Tomorrow. It Wants Sanctions Relief. – Foreign Policy

Iran’s decision to surpass uranium enrichment limits isn’t a dangerous provocation. It’s a calculated effort to get European leaders to reinforce the nuclear deal and halt the drift toward war.
By Gérard Araud, Ali Vaez | July 2, 2019,

▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/02/iran-isnt-trying-to-build-a-bomb-tomorrow-it-wants-sanctions-relief-u

https://foreignpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/mogherini-eu-iran-zarif.jpg

On Monday, for the first time since the nuclear deal with Iran went into effect on Jan. 16, 2016, Iran has deliberately violated its terms by producing more low-enriched uranium than the agreement permits. The threshold of 300 kilograms of uranium hexafluoride—corresponding to 202.8 kilograms of enriched uranium—was designed to keep Iran at a comfortable distance from nearly 1,500 kilograms of 3.67 percent enriched uranium that would be needed for a single nuclear weapon if the uranium were to be further enriched to 90 percent.

Trump claimed that withdrawal would lead to a better deal—it has not, and chances of that are diminishing if they ever were realistic.It has been a long time coming. A little over a year ago, U.S. President Donald Trump decided to withdraw the United States from the 2015 nuclear agreement that bound Iran to carefully crafted restrictions on its nuclear program and intrusive inspections of its nuclear sites. He claimed that the Iranians were cheating—they were not, as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has consistently reported. He claimed that this action would lead to a better deal—it has not, and chances of that are diminishing if they ever were realistic.

Those Who Think the United States Can Reenter the #Iran Deal Are Fooling Themselves – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/20/democrats-who-think-the-united-states-can-reenter-the-iran-deal-are-f

It is time for Democratic candidates to come up with a realistic Plan B.

#etats-unis

Big Brother Comes to #Belgrade ▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/18...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/9240030

Big Brother Comes to #Belgrade ▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/18/big-brother-comes-to-belgrade-huawei-china-facial-recognition-vucic #surveillance #europe #china

Brexit Is for Boys – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/19/brexit-is-for-boys-boris-johnson-jeremy-hunt-michael-gove-tories

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Since 2016, the campaign to leave the European Union has been led primarily by men. The remaining candidates for prime minister are all male—and they’re not talking about the grave consequences of Brexit for women.
[…]
Without European courts and standards, it is not hard to imagine the next government of Brexiteers, in their zeal to cut red tape, trimming protections for women through deregulation. Already a minister in the department in charge of Brexit, Martin Callanan, has suggested that the U.K. “scrap” such protections, including the pregnant workers’ directive, because they are “barriers to actually employing people.”

There are also logistical problems. One collateral loss of Brexit could be the European Protection Order, which ensures that restraining orders apply across EU member states—allowing, for instance, a British woman who moves to Germany to be protected from an abusive partner there. Another is EU funding to British women’s civil society groups, including those that work to combat domestic violence. What is more, a projected 28,000 caregivers who hail from EU member states will no longer be able to work in the U.K., which means some British women will likely have to leave their jobs to look after aging relatives, according to the Department of Health. Most of all, the EU withdrawal process is a time-and resource-sucking distraction, which has stalled policymaking on issues concerning women as it has in nearly every other legislative area.

Australia Is Undermining the Freedom of Its Press – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/19/australia-is-undermining-the-freedom-of-its-press

https://foreignpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/GettyImages-1153993643.jpg

A raid on the national broadcaster is a sign of how the recently reelected conservative government intends to rule.

In early June, a police raid on the headquarters of Australia’s national broadcaster shined an unexpected spotlight on the state of press freedom in the country. Seen from afar, Australia is one of the standout parliamentary democracies in the Asia-Pacific region. It is a vociferous promoter of democratic values abroad and not the kind of place where you’d imagine police striding into the offices of the national broadcaster with warrants to sift through the confidential emails of respected journalists. Yet this is exactly what unfolded.

The raid on the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) was a response to a seven-part series published in 2017 about alleged war crimes committed by Australia’s special operations forces in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2013. A high-quality investigative series, the ABC’s reporting was expansive and well-sourced. It married the firsthand testimony of a special operator who saw soldiers “acting in a manner that [had] no regard for the value of human life” with key findings from classified defense documents. Among other unsavory activities, the leaked documents catalogued limb amputations, prisoner executions, and the killing of children by Australian troops.

Trump’s Global Gag Rule Is Killing Women, Report Says – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/19/how-trumps-global-gag-rule-is-killing-women-colombia

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The administration’s hard-line anti-abortion stance is undermining women’s rights and U.S. development aid around the world, critics say.
[…]
Profamilia lost U.S. funds it used to run its clinics after the Trump administration brought back and expanded a Ronald Reagan-era policy—formally known as the Mexico City policy, but often called the “global gag rule” by critics—that prohibits U.S. health-related aid to foreign non-governmental organizations that perform or promote abortion. The rule has such far-reaching impacts that, beyond limiting abortion access, it has also decreased access to contraception and treatment for illnesses such as HIV and tuberculosis, as organizations that have lost funding roll back or close services.

Scrambling, Profamilia tried to replace the closed clinics with mobile teams—called mobile health brigades—that set up pop-up clinics in communities for two to three days at a time for “the most basic, basic needs,” explained Royo. But it was a poor substitute: The clinics had offered extensive services, including free counseling for adolescents, and educational workshops about sexual health and reproductive rights. Teens in these communities, where teen pregnancy rates are as high as 49 percent, desperately need this information, Royo said. Otherwise, unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions could rise.

Globally, the Trump administration’s policy is contributing to a backlash against women’s and girl’s rights, according to women’s rights advocates, including Royo, and political leaders from around the world who attended Women Deliver, the world’s largest conference on gender equality, in Vancouver in early June.

“We’re seeing a pushback against women’s rights, whether it is attacks on a woman’s fundamental right to choose or violence against indigenous women and girls,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a press conference at Women Deliver, where he pledged $525 million annually for global sexual and reproductive health rights, including abortion.

China’s Rebel Cartoonist Unmasks – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/04/chinas-rebel-cartoonist-unmasks

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Badiucao’s work has brought him praise from critics — and threats from Beijing.
[…]
Badiucao has worked for years to keep his identity a secret out of fear of reprisal from the Chinese government, remaining anonymous and never allowing photos of his face to be published. He also has concealed his art from his family, with whom he has cut off contact. The documentary reveals his face for the first time.

Foreign Policy spoke with Badiucao about his art, his family, and his hope for the future. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Pendant la visite de Trump à la base navale de Yokosuka, consigne était passée de faire disparaitre toute mention du nom de l’USS John McCain. Non à cause de la collision d’il y a presque 2 ans, mais du fait de la haine personnelle de Trump à l’égard du sénateur John McCain III, aviateur de la marine dont le nom,après son décès, a été ajouté à ceux de John McCain I et II, père et grand-père et tous deux amiraux de l’US Navy comme référence au nom de baptême du navire…

Le nom a été recouvert d’une bâche, les toiles habillant les coupées ont été retirées, les marins mis en congé,…

Mais Trump n’y est, évidemment, pour rien !

Trump says he was not told of request to move USS John McCain ’out of sight’ - Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-navy/trump-says-he-was-not-told-of-request-to-move-uss-john-mccain-out-of-sight-

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he was unaware of any effort to move the USS John S. McCain that was stationed near the site of his recent speech in Japan.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to Reuters that an initial request had been made to keep the John McCain out of sight during Trump’s speech but was scrapped by senior Navy officials.
[…]
The USS John S. McCain was initially named for the late senator’s father and grandfather, who were both Navy admirals. In 2018, the Navy added Senator McCain to the official namesake of the guided missile destroyer.

Trump wrote on Twitter: “I was not informed about anything having to do with the Navy Ship USS John S. McCain during my recent visit to Japan.” The White House declined to comment.

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, said the White House wanted the U.S. Navy to move the ship “out of sight.” It cited an email between U.S. military officials.

The email to Navy and Air Force officials had a number of directives, including: “USS John McCain needs to be out of sight,” and asking officials to “please confirm” that directive “will be satisfied.”

The newspaper said a tarpaulin was hung over the ship’s name ahead of Trump’s trip and sailors were directed to remove coverings from the destroyer that bore its name.

It also said sailors assigned to the ship, who generally wear caps bearing its name, were given the day off during Trump’s visit to the nearby USS Wasp. However, the U.S. official said sailors on the ship were given the day off because of Memorial Day.

Report on illegal practice of collective expulsion on Slovene-Croatian border

Last year Slovenian police officially deported 4653 people to Croatia under the regulation of the readmission agreement. This is means that more than half of 9149 people who were processed for illegally crossing the border were handed over to Croatian police and in further expelled to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Large majority of people who were processed under the readmission agreement were denied their right to asylum procedure by Slovenian police who is still conducting systematic expulsions to Croatia under the guise of the readmission. This practice of denial of right to seek asylum has become systematic with the issue of general police instructions on end of May 2018 when official number of readmission increased dramatically. For example, in police station Črnomelj which the closest in walking distance from Velika Kladuša in May out of 379 people who were processed for illegally crossing the border 371 applied for asylum, but after the issue of police commands in June out of 412 people who crossed the border illegally only 13 officially asked for asylum. Threats, violence, abuse of power and denial of basic rights has became a common practice in other border police stations, collective expulsions to Croatia are happening daily with the knowledge and support of high police and government officials despite high risk of further violence and theft done by police in Croatia.

In this article is attached a report on collective expuslion from Slovenia and Croatia and work of civil iniciative Info Kolpa which operated a phone line to act as mediator between police and migrants in asylum procedurees. The phone line was used when migrants who contacted the phone number were on the territory of the Republic of Slovenia with the intention to seek asylum and would express a desire for the volunteers to inform the police about their location. In such cases the nearest was informed. The phone line volunteers would send the geographical location, information on people seeking asylum and a clear statement that people are in dire need of help and wish to apply for international protection in Slovenia to the regional police station. This was done via phone or an email sent to the police station in jurisdiction. Also the Office of Ombudsman in Slovenia and different NGOs involved with protection of human rights were informed. This report contains 20 such recorded cases (106 persons); in 6 cases, persons were admitted to the asylum procedure in Slovenia (27 persons); in 7 cases they were pushbacked to Croatia and then illegally expelled to Bosnia and Herzegovina (39 persons); only one person was able to initiate the procedure for international protection after extradition to Croatia and was not expelled to Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 7 cases (39 people) there is no information of what had happened with the people, as they haven’t made any contact after they were apprehended by Slovenian police.

You can find the full report in attachments along with censored police instructions and documents from Ombudsman office.

https://push-forward.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2019-05/1040845.jpg?itok=vs5CyqOL#.jpg

Pour télécharger le rapport:

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What Actually Happens When a Country Bans Abortion – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/16/what-actually-happens-when-a-country-bans-abortion-romania-alabama

https://foreignpolicymag.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/gettyimages-3403577.jpg

Romania under Ceausescu created a dystopian horror of overcrowded, filthy orphanages, and thousands died from back-alley abortions.

As lawmakers in Alabama this week passed a bill that would outlaw abortion in the U.S. state entirely, protesters outside the statehouse wore blood-red robes, a nod to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, in which childbearing is entirely controlled by the state. Hours later, the book was trending on Twitter.

But opponents of the restrictive abortion laws currently being considered in the United States don’t need to look to fiction for admonitory examples of where these types of laws can lead. For decades, communist Romania was a real-life test case of what can happen when a country outlaws abortion entirely, and the results were devastating.

Tiens, l’auteur est une femme !

Tout ça, c’est la faute aux Cubains,… et de leur entrisme sournois de longue date.
(j’ai pas tout lu,…)

Venezuelan Democracy Was Strangled by Cuba – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/14/venezuelan-democracy-was-strangled-by-cuba

Decades of infiltration helped ruin a once-prosperous nation.
[…]
During the following years, especially after Chávez’s death in 2013, Havana would continue to exert its influence over the South American nation. Cuba has become critical to keeping Maduro’s regime in place in an “oil for repression” scheme in which Havana helped the socialist leader in his power struggle with the opposition in exchange for fuel, contributing to the country’s political, social, and economic crisis today. Last year, Reuters reported that Venezuela had bought nearly $440 million worth of foreign oil and shipped it to Cuba to fulfill its commitments to Havana. The Caribbean country, along with Russia, is one of the few backers holding off the abrupt collapse of the current Venezuelan regime. The destiny of Venezuela’s democracy could lie in Cuba’s hands. A far economically and militarily stronger country has ended up ideologically conquered—and politically devastated—by a far smaller and poorer one.