• Requiem pour un tortionnaire de longue date.

    OP-ED : Ian Henderson and Repression in Bahrain : A Forty-Year Legacy- http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/04/op-ed-ian-henderson-and-repression-in-bahrain-a-forty-year-legacy

    Ian Henderson’s death announcement Apr. 15 in Bahrain brings to an end the life of a British expatriate who was the architect and supervisor of the harsh internal security policies of the al-Khalifa ruling family since the early days of independence over 40 years ago.

    Henderson’s life’s work intertwined intimately with al-Khalifa, especially with the family’s all-powerful perennial Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman, the ruler’s brother.

    The policies of discrimination, exclusion, and intolerance practiced by the Sunni minority ruling family against the Shia majority were designed and executed by Henderson and his subordinates and blessed by the prime minister. They have been grounded in fear, repression, systematic violations of human rights, and in some cases torture.

    This is the legacy that Ian Henderson has bequeathed to the people of Bahrain.

    Henderson was a British national and a colonial officer who was renowned for using violent tactics to subdue the anti-British Mau Mau movement in Kenya. After independence, the British government in 1968 removed him from Kenya and installed him in Bahrain as a security adviser to Al-Khalifa.

  • Requiem pour un tortionnaire de longue date.

    OP-ED : Ian Henderson and Repression in Bahrain : A Forty-Year Legacy- http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/04/op-ed-ian-henderson-and-repression-in-bahrain-a-forty-year-legacy

    Ian Henderson’s death announcement Apr. 15 in Bahrain brings to an end the life of a British expatriate who was the architect and supervisor of the harsh internal security policies of the al-Khalifa ruling family since the early days of independence over 40 years ago.

    Henderson’s life’s work intertwined intimately with al-Khalifa, especially with the family’s all-powerful perennial Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman, the ruler’s brother.

    The policies of discrimination, exclusion, and intolerance practiced by the Sunni minority ruling family against the Shia majority were designed and executed by Henderson and his subordinates and blessed by the prime minister. They have been grounded in fear, repression, systematic violations of human rights, and in some cases torture.

    This is the legacy that Ian Henderson has bequeathed to the people of Bahrain.

    Henderson was a British national and a colonial officer who was renowned for using violent tactics to subdue the anti-British Mau Mau movement in Kenya. After independence, the British government in 1968 removed him from Kenya and installed him in Bahrain as a security adviser to Al-Khalifa.

  • IPS – New York Nuke Waste in Limbo as Concerns Rise | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/04/new-york-nuke-waste-in-limbo-as-concerns-rise

    Asked how the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) – an independent agency established by Congress in 1974 to ensure the safe use of radioactive materials – has approached Indian Point, Brancato said, “They’ve been in lockstep with Entergy and have taken on the same positions.”

    ....

    The NRC – lauded internationally for its safety standards – has also been criticised for pandering to the interests of the commercial entities it is tasked to regulate.

    Last month, Gregory Jaczko – a former chairman of the NRC – told Nuclear Intelligence Weekly (NIW) that the 103 nuclear plants currently operating across the U.S. should be phased out for health and safety reasons.

    According to NIW, Jaczko – who regularly sparred with his four fellow commissioners while at the NRC – resigned from his post in 2012, claiming that he was a victim of a nuclear industry-backed effort to oust him from office.

    Greene said, “These (nuclear) industries and NRC staff work on (legal) cases all over the country, and they get to know each other and develop a very cordial relationship.”

    She added, “There’s a lot of familiarity… and somewhat of a revolving door between the industry and the oversight agency.”

    #porte_tournante #nucléaire

  • Mexicans Develop #Drones for Peace
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/04/mexicans-develop-drones-for-peace

    Mexican engineers have begun to work on developing unmanned aerial vehicles for scientific and commercial uses.

    Pas question de paix dans le papier mais quelques projections économiques :

    The study, published in March by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), an industry group, estimates that between 2015 and 2017, the economic impact of drone integration will be greater than 13 billion dollars and could reach 82 billion by 2025, in terms of revenues earned by manufacturers and suppliers from the sale of new products as well as “the taxes and monies that flow into communities and support the local businesses.”

    #propagande_dronesque

  • Tunisie/ Syrie. Résumé: Entre 6 et 10.000 Tunisiens auraient rejoint les rangs des combattants anti-Assad. Les recrutements se feraient par le truchement des mosquées et d’organisations caritatives. Leurs familles, qui n’apprennent qu’a posteriori le départ de l’un des leurs, recevraient jusqu’à 4000 dollars par combattant. Les autorités tunisiennes estiment qu’elles n’ont pas le droit d’empêcher un jeune de partir combattre en Syrie.

    INTER PRESS SERVICE
    News Agency

    Tunisia Now Exporting “Jihadis”
    By Giuliana Sgrena
    Friday, April 12, 2013

    http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/04/tunisia-now-exporting-jihadis

    TUNIS, Apr 6 2013 (IPS) –
    “Tunisian families have begun to dread knocks on their doors, or late-night phone calls, fearing that the messenger will bear the news that their son has been smuggled out of the country to join the “jihad” in Syria. Families here told IPS that they have no way of contacting their sons once they leave — whether by choice or coercion they will never know — for the warring nation nearly 3,000 miles away. At most, family members receive an inaudible telephone call from Libya, where the soon-to-be militants are trained, the muffled voice on the other end of the line saying a quiet and final goodbye.

    (…) There are no reliable data on exactly when young Tunisian men began rushing to join the Free Syrian Army, currently engaged in a battle to depose Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, but experts and civil society activists are agreed on one thing: the number is increasing. On Mar. 29, local sources reported that between 6,000 and 10,000 men have left the country, while the Algerian press say the number could be closer to 12,000.

    (…) The election of the moderate Islamist party Ennahda in October 2011 further raised hopes that the country would stay on track towards a more inclusive future. But beneath the moderate veneer, a strong ultra-conservative undercurrent remained, steered by Salafist-controlled mosques – like Fath, Ennassr, Ettadhamen, and the great mosque of Ben Arous located on the outskirts of Tunis – that are now serving as headquarters for the smuggling of fighters.

    (…) Charity organisations like Karama wa Horrya, Arrahma, Horrya wa Insaf, which provide basic humanitarian assistance to the poor, also play a role in this network that gathers able-bodied Tunisians, transports them to Libya and then, after a brief stop in Turkey, sends them onwards to the frontlines of the Syrian war such as the north-western border with Lebanon, and the city of Aleppo. Young fighters’ first point of contact in Syria is with the Jabhat al Nusra (meaning the ‘Support Front for the People of Syria’), considered the most aggressively militant arm of the FSA. (…)”

    #Jabhat_al_Nusra #Tunisia #Syria #Free_Syrian_Army #jihad #jihadi #Fath #Ennassr #Ettadhamen #Ben_Arous #Karama_wa_Horrya #Ennahda #Arrahma #Horrya_wa_Insaf

  • When a Tsunami Comes, Tweet | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/04/when-a-tsunami-comes-tweet

    Soon after the deadly tsunami struck Kesennuma city in the Miyagi Prefecture in Northern Japan on Mar. 11, 2011, 59-year-old Naoko Utsumi found herself on the rooftop of a community centre with only one line of communication to the outside world – the email option on her mobile phone.

    Utsumi emailed her husband who in turn emailed their son in London, more than 9,500 km away. From London, the youth sent a direct message via the micro-blogging site Twitter to the deputy governor of Tokyo who initiated an air rescue not only of his mother but of more than 400 others who had sought refuge on the rooftop, according to a new report titled Connecting the Last Mile, The Role of Communications in the Great East Japan Earthquake from Internews, an international non-governmental organisation that works on issues related to media and information dissemination.

    The report examines the role of new media, especially Internet-based formats like Twitter and Facebook, in communicating effectively in the aftermath of the tsunami.

    #réseaux #internet #mobile #sécurité_humaine #catastrophes

  • Les toilettes, un luxe pour 2,5 milliards d’humains
    http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2012/11/20/les-toilettes-un-luxe-pour-2-5-milliards-d-humains_1793089_3244.html

    Ne pas avoir de WC à disposition, c’est l’assurance d’heures de travail ou d’école perdues dans la cruelle quête d’un endroit convenable, ce sont tout à la fois des problèmes de vie quotidienne, de sécurité pour les femmes surtout, d’environnement et, bien sûr, de santé. Choléra, typhoïde, légionellose et autres maladies hydriques sont directement liés aux lacunes de l’assainissement. La diarrhée tue environ 2,2 millions de personnes par an, des enfants de moins de 5 ans pour l’essentiel, en grande majorité dans les pays pauvres.

    Globalement, les indicateurs de l’OMS et de l’Unicef se redressent. Entre 1990 et 2010, le pourcentage de gens ayant accès à des toilettes améliorées est passé de 49 % à 63 % ; 11 % au lieu de 6 % partagent soit un WC avec plusieurs autres familles, soit des toilettes publiques, tandis que le nombre d’utilisateurs d’installations de fortune sans hygiène s’est réduit de 20 % à 15 %. Enfin, ce sont désormais 15 % et non plus 25 % d’humains qui se soulagent en plein air.

    #toilettes #choléra #pauvreté

    • Ils ne peuvent pas s’en empêcher, hein : « l’assurance d’heures de travail ou d’école perdues ». L’important est donc juste d’employer sa vie et mieux encore de la conserver pour toujours mieux l’employer par accumulation de capital humain.

      Vivement que le méchant marché me propose du kebab hallal d’éditorialiste écologiste

    • @bp314
      On peut voire cette réflexion comme une pression à la rentabilité, le marché qui ne voudrait pas d’improductifs. Je pense que c’est pertinent, mais il y a plus que cela.
      J’avais pris cette mention comme un rappel des déséquilibres que provoquent cette inquiétude de l’accès aux toilettes. Cad que quant vous êtes pauvres vous avez déjà plus de difficulté à obtenir de bons résultats scolaires et un emploi stable et rémunérateur, parceque vous n’avez pas de lieu au calme pour faire vos devoirs, vous n’avez pas dans votre entourage de personnes qui puisse vous aider dans vos devoirs... et en plus vous devez vous occuper de trouver des toilettes ce qui est une perte de temps et de revenu, et physiquement stressant de devoir se retenir car la concentration en est diminué, sans parlé des maladies qu’on attrape à se retenir ou en étant en contacte des excréments, des mouches etc... C’est un obstacle de plus à la sortie de la pauvreté. Ca ne s’oppose pas à ce que tu dit @bp314, c’est juste que l’instruction et l’acces à l’emploi sont tout de même des moyens d’élévation sociale dans le monde tel qu’il est aujourd’hui.