Archive News & Video for 2013

Juin 2013: Palestinian children tortured, used as shields by Israel: U.N.
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/20/us-palestinian-israel-children-idUSBRE95J0FR20130620

A United Nations human rights body accused Israeli forces on Thursday of mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields.

Palestinian children in the Gaza and the West Bank, captured by Israel in the 1967 war, are routinely denied registration of their birth and access to health care, decent schools and clean water, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said.

“Palestinian children arrested by (Israeli) military and police are systematically subject to degrading treatment, and often to acts of torture, are interrogated in Hebrew, a language they did not understand, and sign confessions in Hebrew in order to be released,” it said in a report.

[…]

Most Palestinian children arrested are accused of having thrown stones, an offence which can carry a penalty of up to 20 years in prison, the committee said. Israeli soldiers had testified to the often arbitrary nature of the arrests, it said.

Insight : How European courts are dismantling sanctions on Iran | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/15/us-iran-nuclear-courts-insight-idUSBRE96E0LS20130715

Les pays européens de plus en plus déboutés par leurs propres tribunaux quant au bien-fondé des sanctions contre l’Iran.

In the years-long campaign to tie a web of sanctions around Iran and stall its nuclear program, the European Union may just have met its biggest obstacle: its own law courts.

.. Europe’s governments (...) have frozen their assets, refused visas and banned companies in the European Union from doing business with them. But dozens of those targeted have challenged the restrictions in court and some are beginning to win, embarrassing Europe’s policymakers and causing alarm in the United States.

(...)

At the heart of the issue is the refusal by EU governments to disclose evidence linking their targets to Iran’s nuclear work. Doing so in court, they say, may expose confidential intelligence, undermining efforts to combat the program.

The courts have effectively rejected that argument, saying that if a case is to be made, evidence must be presented. Lawyers for the Iranians argue there simply is no evidence that proves any link to the nuclear program - a view supported by British judges who did review some secret material this year.

(...)

“The chairman of the court asked the EU lawyers, ’can you show me the evidence?’. And they said ’no, it’s Iran, and you must presume there is evidence’,” Zaiwalla [& Co, a London law firm which has successfully represented Iran’s Bank Mellat in litigation against sanctions imposed by the EU] said.

“The judge was very upset and said ’this is a court of law and you cannot assume things’.”

In its January 29 judgment, using dense legal language, the General Court said the council of EU governments was “in breach of the obligation to state reasons and the obligation to disclose to the applicant ... the evidence adduced against it”.

(...)

While the net of sanctions may have only been cut in a few places at this stage, dozens of other cases are in the pipeline. The concern among EU officials is that if a few more knots are untied, the entire sanctions netting could start to unravel.

(...)

Et encore,

UK top court ruling threatens Western sanctions against Iran- ▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/19/us-iran-sanctions-idUSBRE95I19120130619

Western government sanctions against Iran suffered a big setback on Wednesday when Britain’s top court ruled that the government was wrong to have imposed sanctions on the biggest Iranian private bank over alleged links to Tehran’s nuclear program.

En français ▻http://fr.news.yahoo.com/la-justice-britannique-annule-les-sanctions-contre-mellat-190231420.h

#USA tap .5 billion communications/month in #Germany - makes its biggest ally in #Europe a target similar to China:
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/30/us-usa-germany-spying-idUSBRE95T04B20130630 #NSA #surveillance

U.S. bugged EU offices, computer networks: German magazine | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/29/us-usa-eu-spying-idUSBRE95S0AQ20130629

The United States bugged European Union offices and gained access to EU internal computer networks, according to secret documents cited in a German magazine on Saturday, the latest in a series of exposures of alleged U.S. spy programs.

Der Spiegel cited from a September 2010 “top secret” document of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) which it said fugitive former #NSA contractor Edward #Snowden had taken with him and which the weekly’s journalists had seen in part.

The document outlines how the #NSA bugged offices and spied on EU internal computer networks in Washington and at the United Nations, not only listening to conversations and phone calls but also gaining access to documents and emails.

The document explicitly called the EU a “target”.

#union_européenne

Peru peasant squads rally against U.S. firm’s $5 billion gold mine | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/28/us-peru-mining-politics-idUSBRE95R0XP20130628

Forty years ago, peasants in rural Peru banded together as “ronderos” - Spanish for “people who make the rounds” - to curb cattle rustling.

Today, squads of these ronderos are working toward a different aim - thwarting an American mining company’s planned $5 billion gold mining project that they contend would spoil lakes vital to the local population high in the Andes.

Operating according to Andean customs, the squads act as a de facto judicial system in places where public institutions are weak and policing is scant. They have become potent political players in remote provinces, weighing in on disputes over natural resources and causing headaches for the central government.

Immolation in Riyadh exposes plight of Arab stateless in Saudi Arabia | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/26/us-saudi-immolation-poverty-idUSBRE95P0RX20130626

When a watermelon seller set himself on fire in Riyadh last month, it may not have set off an Arab Spring, but it did call attention to a rarely discussed issue - the plight of stateless Arabs living in the world’s top oil exporter.

Quand les pays du Golfe, lire Bahreïn, sortent de la logique de l’économie de rente. Déficit et endettement ne sont pas loin

Bahrain parliament approves 11 pct rise in 2013 budget spending | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/25/bahrain-budget-idUSL5N0F02MJ20130625

Bahrain’s 2014 spending plan was raised by 164.5 million dinars from last November’s initial finance ministry proposal, to 3.71 billion dinars.

Parliament approved the 2013-2014 budget plan on Monday. Demands within parliament for extra spending, especially to raise public sector salaries by 15 percent, a measure opposed by the cabinet, had delayed approval for several months.

In the end, parliament passed the plan without the public sector pay hike, but it added rises in pension payments for both public and private sector retirees, and higher subsidies for food and other items, to the plan, Almahmood said.

The plan was supported by 23 deputies, while seven rejected it and 10 were absent, he said. Finance ministry officials were not available to comment.

[...]
Bahrain expanded its original 2012 expenditure plan by nearly 19 percent in September 2011 after protesters, inspired by revolts elsewhere in the Arab world, took to the streets of Manama demanding political reforms.

The International Monetary Fund warned in May that the island needed to reform its public finances in the medium term to avoid its debt burden becoming unsustainable.

[...]
The actual deficit in 2012 widened sevenfold to 227 million dinars, though it was still smaller than the government’s original projection.

The oil price which the country needs to balance its budget reached a critical level of $115 per barrel in 2012, making Bahrain vulnerable to any sustained decline in oil prices, the IMF said.

The country relies on output from the Abu Safa oilfield shared with Saudi Arabia - which supports Bahrain’s Sunni rulers politically - for some 70 percent of its budget revenue. Analysts believe Manama’s share of the oil could be raised if its budget runs into trouble.

The IMF expects Bahrain’s fiscal deficit to widen to as much as 8.6 percent of gross domestic product in 2018 from 4.2 percent forecast for this year.

Analysis - Al Qaeda’s Syria rift may lead to open conflict among jihadis | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/us-syria-crisis-qaeda-analysis-idUSBRE95N0U020130624

Trouble has been brewing since April over what Syria’s Nusra Front regards as a power grab by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq. Now, Baghdadi’s insistence that he will keep fighting as head of a united jihadi brigade in Syria, defying orders from al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahri, has brought the two groups close to turning on each other.

“Tension is increasing, it is about to reach boiling point. Both sides are saying they are right. A clash between them could occur soon and if it happens, it will be ugly,” said a senior rebel commander in Damascus who is following the dispute.

...

In April Baghdadi announced his Islamic State of Iraq was merging with the Nusra Front, which has staged some of the deadliest attacks on Assad’s forces.

This apparently unilateral move opened up bitter and public rifts with the Nusra Front leadership - which resisted what it saw as his bid for overall power - and with Zawahri, the global al Qaeda leader who instructed him to put the merger on hold in an apparent attempt to settle the row.

Baghdadi dismissed the demand from Zawahri, who has headed al Qaeda since U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. The merged Islamic state of Iraq and Levant “is staying as long as we have a pulse and an eye that blinks... We will not compromise over its existence,” Baghdadi responded earlier this month.

“After consultation I decided to (follow) the order from God over the order that opposes it,” he added in an audio message.

Nusra fighters, other rebels and Islamic sources reacted by saying Baghdadi had effectively severed his al Qaeda links.

“He rejected the ruling of Sheikh Zawahri and therefore he is no longer a brother of al Qaeda,” said a senior Nusra commander. “After Sheikh Zawahri ruled in our favor, the State (Islamic State of Iraq and Levant) is illegitimate.”

Dakar fashion week takes stand against skin bleaching:
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/senegal-fashion-bleaching-idINDEE95N09B20130624

Friends don’t let friends use corticosteroid !

(Il y a un mois) Selon l’Observatoire syrien des Droits de l’Homme, entre la moitié et le tiers des tués en Syrie seraient alaouites.
▻http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/14/syria-death-toll-120000_n_3272610.html

At least 94,000 people have been killed during Syria’s two-year conflict, but the death toll is likely to be as high as 120,000, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday.

The group said that at least 41,000 of those confirmed killed were Alawites, the sect of President Bashar al-Assad.

Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Observatory, said that the Alawite death figures were confirmed by eight different Alawite sources in coastal cities and in Homs.

À rapprocher de l’affirmation du même observatoire, cité le mois suivant, selon laquelle 43% des tués sont des soldats ou combattants du régime :
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/144656

Comme tout le monde, j’ai du mal à admettre ces chiffres, et je pensais qu’il s’agissait d’une citation erronée (ou inventée) de cet Observatoire, mais là on a deux citations différentes sur des informations différentes mais concordantes.

Ami lecteur, si tu as d’autres sources, je suis vraiment preneur, parce qu’en dehors de ces deux billets (eux-mêmes cités comme uniques sources par Wikipédia…), je n’ai rien trouvé d’autre.

Pendant qu’en France, le PS tape sur les autoentrepreneurs et protègent la président du FMI, les conservateurs allemands s’outragent :

(Reuters) - German outrage over a U.S. Internet spying program has broken out ahead of a visit by Barack Obama, with ministers demanding the president provide a full explanation when he lands in Berlin next week and one official likening the tactics to those of the East German Stasi.

▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/11/cnews-us-usa-security-germany-idCABRE95A0T820130611

U.S. #surveillance revelations deepen European fears of Web giants | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/07/europe-surveillance-prism-idUSL5N0EJ3G520130607?irpc=932

German data commissioner calls monitoring “monstrous”

European Commission says must enact new law speedily

* Security expert says solution is European dot.com industry

Resistance Seen in EU to Blacklisting Hezbollah
▻http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-245700

All 27 EU member states must agree for Hezbollah to be added to the list. U.K. officials have said they hope for a final EU decision in June.

“My guess is it’s going to take some time” to reach a decision, said one EU diplomat briefed on the discussions. “There is no unanimity yet” on blacklisting Hezbollah, the person added, citing “big doubts” among a handful of member states.

Two other diplomats said about six countries appeared reluctant, including Finland, Austria and Ireland, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. Sweden has also traditionally been cautious.

[…]

One of the main concerns is the clarity of evidence linking Hezbollah to the Burgas attacks, which even some officials from member states in favor of blacklisting say appears circumstantial. The new Bulgarian government’s caution about whether to include Hezbollah on the terror list has also weighed on discussions, several diplomats said.

Quand Fabius annonçait le revirement de la France sur le classement du Hezbollah comme organisation terroriste, il avait cité l’affaire Bulgare, alors qu’on savait déjà très bien que l’accusation s’était effondrée avec la compromission de l’ancien ministre de l’intérieur. C’est désormais officiel : Bulgaria now says Hezbollah’s role in bus bombing unproven
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/05/us-bulgaria-hezbollah-idUSBRE9540DM20130605

The new Socialist-led government backed away from charges by its center-right predecessor that the Shi’ite Muslim militant group had carried out the attack that killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian bus driver in the Black Sea city of Burgas.

“It is important that the (EU) decision be based not only on the bombing in Burgas because I think the evidence we have is not explicit,” Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin, whose government took office last week, told national state radio BNR.

Il y a à peine deux semaines, Fabius et ses évidences :
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/141144

« Comme il y a en plus d’autres éléments qui concernent ce qui c’est passé en Bulgarie et dans d’autres endroits, nous considérons que c’est un point qui devrait faire l’accord de l’ensemble des européens », a poursuivi Laurent Fabius. Il faisait allusion à l’attentat anti-israélien du 18 juillet 2012 à Bourgas, en Bulgarie, qui avait fait sept morts - cinq Israéliens, l’auteur présumé de l’attentat et un Bulgare. A Sofia, le gouvernement de l’époque avait imputé la responsabilité de l’attentat au Hezbollah.

L’escroquerie de la recherche pharmaceutique commence à se voir :

“Despite the more than $50 billion that U.S. pharmaceutical companies have spent every year since the mid-2000s to discover new medications, drugmakers have barely improved on old standbys developed decades ago. Research published on Monday showed that the effectiveness of new drugs, as measured by comparing the response of patients on those treatments to those taking a placebo, has plummeted since the 1970s. ’While experts agree that tougher trials and similar factors explain some of the decline in drugs’ reported effectiveness, something real is going on here,’ said Olfson. ’Physicians keep saying that many of the new things just aren’t working as well,’ and therefore prescribe antidepressant drugs called tricyclics (developed in the 1950s) instead of SSRIs (from the 1980s), or diuretics (invented in the 1920s) for high blood pressure instead of newer anti-hypertensives.’”

▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/03/health-drugs-effectiveness-idUSL2N0EC1E720130603

New drugs trail many old ones in effectiveness against disease | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/03/us-drugs-effectiveness-idUSBRE95213D20130603

Selon une étude récente du journal « Health Affairs », les nouveaux médicaments ne représentent le plus souvent pas un progrès par rapport aux anciens- et c’est même le contraire qui est vrai. (Chapeau à la #revue_prescrire )

(Le premier réflexe de Reuters est de s’inquiéter pour #Pharma, cette dernière faisant part de... sa confiance absolue en ses médicaments)

Malgré les plus de 50 milliards de dollars que les entreprises pharmaceutiques étasuniennes ont dépensé chaque année depuis le milieu des années 2000 pour découvrir de nouveaux médicaments, les fabricants de médicaments ont à peine amélioré les vieux médicaments développés il y a plusieurs décennies.

Une recherche publiée lundi a montré que l’efficacité de nouveaux médicaments, mesurée en comparant la réponse des patients prenant ces traitements par rapport à ceux prenant un placebo, a chuté depuis les années 1970.

Bien que cela soit déjà de mauvaises nouvelles pour les sociétés pharmaceutiques et de biotechnologie, les conséquences pour l’industrie pharmaceutique pourraient s’aggraver sous la loi de santé du Président Barack Obama. La loi a créé un institut de recherche indépendant pour comparer l’efficacité de différents traitements pour la même condition.

De cette façon, les patients ainsi que les assureurs privés et les programmes gouvernementaux tels que Medicare peuvent cesser de payer pour les traitements moins efficaces.

Lorsque la revue Prescrire a évalué en 2011 les nouveaux médicaments, seulement 17 parmi les 984 développés depuis 2001 ont été jugés "un réel progrès" ou meilleurs. Et un sondage aupres de 184 médecins experts dans 15 spécialités publié le mois dernier dans la revue Nature Reviews Drug Discovery a montré que les médecins étaient plus susceptibles de noter les médicaments vieux de plus de dix ans comme « transformateurs ».

(...)

La nouvelle étude publiée dans la revue "Health Affairs" a examiné 315 essais cliniques qui comparaient un médicament à un placebo et qui avaient été publiés dans quatre des principales revues médicales du monde (BMJ, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet et New England Journal of Medecine) de 1966 à 2010.

Les médicaments visaient toute la gamme des affections humaines, des maladies cardio-vasculaires et les infections au cancer, les troubles mentaux et les maladies respiratoires. Dans les premières années, les médicaments battaient facilement le placebo : Ils étaient, en moyenne, 4,5 fois plus efficaces, (...). Mais la ligne de tendance a inexorablement décliné, ont constaté le Dr Mark Olfson de l’Université de Columbia et le statisticien Steven Marcus de l’Université de Pennsylvanie.

Dans les années 1980 les médicaments étaient moins de quatre fois plus efficaces , dans les années 1990, deux fois plus efficaces, et dans les années 2000, seulement 36 pour cent plus efficaces que le placebo.

(...)

"Leurs résultats sont assez convaincants", a déclaré le Dr Aaron Kesselheim de la Harvard Medical School, qui a aidé à mener l’enquête sur les médicaments « transformateurs », mais n’a pas participé à cette étude. "Il semble que les choses vont dans la même direction, avec les nouveaux médicaments, ceux-ci ayant relativement moins d’efficacité."

Les experts ne s’entendent pas sur le pourquoi, mais les soupçons vont du processus réglementaire américain à la biologie de base.

(...)

L’industrie du médicament dit qu’elle n’est pas inquiète. (...) "Nous croyons que la valeur substantielle de nos produits continuera à être démontrée" [a dit Burkholder de PhRMA].