http://www.ft.com

  • Western female jihadis deploy ‘soft-power’ of Isis online - FT.com
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2d8b020c-5792-11e4-8493-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3HZqOkv89

    They may be yearning for the lifestyles of early Muslims, but their language is that of tech-savvy teenagers, with slang and emoticons interspersed with Arabic religious terms spelt out in English letters. Ms Havlicek describes it as “a kind of jihadi subculture cool”, with the Arabic words inserted to provide a sense of authenticity and being “part of the gang”.
    Muhajirah Amatullah describes herself on Twitter as “just a random Muhajirah [emigree to the Islamic state] /wife/mother who has access to the internet. I pose no threat to your National Security: D Chillax!”

  • #Confessions of a white Oxbridge male
    Simon Kuper
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/82ce89ec-5967-11e4-9546-00144feab7de.html#axzz3HTWMLu00

    I feel very little sense of achievement. I didn’t get here on merit. I was born to be a minor establishment functionary

    (...)

    My #caste produces the #opinions that most British people are expected to swallow. However, the one topic we seldom discuss honestly is our own rule. So let me try to describe how it looks from up here.

    (...)

    Perry quotes the American writer John Scalzi, who “thought that being a straight white male was like playing the computer game called Life with the difficulty setting on ‘Easy’”.

    (...)

    Our basic ideology is: trust in the system. (...)

    Our caste is always changing, just enough to make sure that everything stays the same. Lately we’ve learnt to lament the suffering of the disadvantaged. (I’m told that even younger members of the kleptocratic Angolan #elite have mastered this rhetoric.) Indeed, many of the most stirring attacks on inequality and sexism are now produced by Oxbridge males – but then we produce most attacks on most things in Britain.

  • Ukraine, Russia and Europe’s bloody borders - FT.com
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2c168540-5dc3-11e4-897f-00144feabdc0.html

    Somebody born in Lviv in 1914, who died in 1992 and never moved out of the city, would have lived in five different countries during the course of a lifetime. In 1914, Lviv, then called Lemberg, was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire; by 1919 it was part of Poland and became Lwow; in 1941 it was occupied by the Germans; after 1945, the city was incorporated into the Soviet Union; and then in 1991 it became part of newly independent Ukraine.
    Most of these changes were accompanied by warfare and bloodshed. So when it was suggested last week that, a few years ago, Russian president Vladimir Putin had proposed to Donald Tusk, then Polish prime minister, that Ukraine should be partitioned once again – with Russia claiming the eastern territories, and Poland Lviv and other parts of western Ukraine – there was an uproar.
    (…)
    But there are other influential voices who think that even tacitly accepting that Europe’s borders can once again be redrawn by military force would be a disastrous mistake. Carl Bildt, who has just stepped down as Sweden’s foreign minister, puts it bluntly: “The borders of Europe are more or less all drawn in blood through centuries of brutal conflict.” Allowing these borders to be redrawn, he thinks, would be an invitation “for the blood to start flowing again”.
    (…)
    If the dismemberment of Ukraine began in earnest, others might be tempted to join in. Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, referred to in some other EU capitals as a “mini-Balkan Putin”, has made clear he regards the loss of two-thirds of Hungarian land after the first world war as a tragedy. Parts of historic Hungary now lie across the border in Ukraine – as well as in Slovakia, Serbia and Romania. If Ukraine really began to fall apart, even some Poles might be tempted by the idea of the return of Lviv.
    (…)
    The Russians argue that it is actually the west that started this dangerous process with Nato’s intervention in the Kosovo war of 1999, and the subsequent recognition in 2008 of Kosovo as an independent state. That process remains controversial, even within the EU. But Kosovo, unlike Crimea, was not incorporated into a neighbouring country. It was a province of the former Yugoslavia that sought independence. Within that process, the border between Serbia and Kosovo remained unaltered. The Kosovo war also took place in the context of the many years of fighting that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia.
    However, the Balkan wars of the 1990s are relevant to Ukraine in one sense. They revealed how much blood can flow once Europe’s borders begin to crumble.

    Éditorial de Gideon Rachman

    lien du FT fourni par le copier/coller http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2c168540-5dc3-11e4-897f-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz3HRrTsAIZ

  • Obama’s Faustian pact with the Saudis
    By Edward Luce
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/bdae33de-44de-11e4-ab0c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3EiyXfUdv

    Mais toujours cet époustouflant crédit accordé aux dirigeants occidentaux qui décrédibilise l’ensemble de l’article : une association de #malfaiteurs est présentée comme une « erreur » de la part de la partie occidentale.

    The Saudis are as hostile to Islamic democracy as they are to its secular variety. Both challenge the House of Saud’s legitimacy.

    Yet signs of the Arab street’s alienation keep spreading. The Middle East leads the world in terms of its youth bulge. For growing democracies, such as India, armies of young workers offer a potentially huge dividend. But for stagnant economies, such as Egypt and Pakistan, they spell demographic nightmare. By continuing to suffocate freedom at home and next door, the Saudis only multiply the supply of recruits for groups such as Isis. This is a trade-off the west cannot afford.

    #Saoud #Etats-Unis

  • ‘War’ and ‘peace’ factions split Ukraine politics - FT.com
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/37164582-3ce1-11e4-871d-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl

    Since the ceasefire, two camps have materialised – a “party of peace” around President Petro Poroshenko, and the “party of war” associated with Arseniy Yatseniuk, prime minister, and Yulia Tymoshenko, the former premier.
    The divisions may partly reflect competing ambitions ahead of the October 26 parliamentary poll, which is intended to sweep away remaining vestiges of the Yanukovich era.
    Some even suggest Mr Poroshenko and Mr Yatseniuk are in a calculated “good cop, bad cop” act. They may aim to signal to Mr Putin, who is facing deepening western sanctions and a potential backlash over Russian soldiers’ corpses returning from Ukraine, that he is better to deal with Mr Poroshenko than allow the “war” faction to gain ground.
    But the split became concrete last week after Mr Yatseniuk pulled out of talks to stand on the president’s party list in the elections. He unveiled his own “Popular Front” party, including commanders of some volunteer battalions in east Ukraine. These are composed partly of far-right activists who came to the fore when the winter protests turned violent.
    Speaking separately at a weekend conference in Kiev, the two leaders differed sharply in tone. Mr Poroshenko admitted the peace process had its doubters. “But from day to day, more people start to believe that we will be successful [on] this very difficult [path],” he said.
    Mr Yatseniuk said Ukraine could never trust a Russian president whose “goal is to take the entire Ukraine”.

    Intéressante analyse. Une des clés pour expliquer le report de l’application de l’accord d’association avec l’UE ?

    Sur les copains d’extrême-droite de Iatseniouk, voir la jolie brochette pointée hier http://seenthis.net/messages/293493

  • Adam Curtis - NOW THEN (BBC blogs)
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/NO-FUTURE

    ALADDIN is the name of an incredibly powerful computer network that is based in a tiny town called East Wenatchee - it’s in the middle of nowhere in Washington State in North America.

    Aladdin guides the investment of over $11 trillion of assets around the world.

    This makes it incredibly powerful. Aladdin is owned by a company called Blackrock that is the biggest investor in the world. It manages as much money as all the hedge-funds and the private equity firms in the world put together. And its computer watches over 7% of all the investments in the world.

    (...) its aim is to not change the world - but to keep it stable. Preventing any development thats too risky. And when you are moving $11 trillion around to do that -it is a really important new force.

    But it’s boring. And there is no story. Just patterns.

    (...) It is the modern world of power - and it’s incredibly boring. Nothing to film, run by a cautious man who is in no way a wolf of Wall Street. It’s how power works today. It hides in plain sight - through sheer boringness and dullness.

    No wonder we find it difficult to tell stories about it.

    Une promenade dans le monde du #secret, de la #surveillance, de l’analyse booléenne, d’#ELIZA, du #big_data et de la #prédiction, où l’on voit un vieux sujet de Duncan Campbell (le futur découvreur d’Echelon), l’histoire d’Ethel Voynich (fille de George Boole), et bien d’autres merveilles des archives de la BBC.

    et au final ce montage d’Adam Curtis
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p023kq11

    • un article du Financial Times (11 juillet 2014) met en garde contre le pouvoir de ce logiciel Aladdin :

      BlackRock’s Aladdin : genie not included - FT.com
      http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/300145d2-0841-11e4-acd8-00144feab7de.html

      Aladdin has been described as BlackRock’s “central nervous system” but what is less well-known is that the operating platform also acts as the brains at some 60 other financial firms which altogether handle a whopping $14tn worth of assets.

      At banks, investment managers and trading outfits around the world, Aladdin’s genie is hard at work analysing portfolios, running stress test scenarios and generally employing BlackRock’s “collective intelligence” to perform a whole host of financial functions.

      (...) the increasingly significant role that Aladdin and its 25m lines of code plays in the wider financial markets has, with notable exceptions, largely been overlooked. (...)

      A brief look at the history of the financial markets is enough to provide cause for concern. Black-Scholes, Intex (a program used to analyse mortgage bonds), Gaussian Copulas and Value-at-Risk (VaR) models spring readily to mind as examples of formulas and software that were lauded as cutting-edge risk management tools, but proved to be fraught with their own dangers.

      #algorithme #finance

  • Saudi Arabia arrests 88 over ‘imminent attack’ - FT.com
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/80bcd8bc-32ab-11e4-a5a2-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=crm/email/201493/nbe/MiddleEast/product&siteedition=intl#axzz3CIUWNJGX

    Saudi Arabia has arrested 88 people suspected of planning what the interior ministry says was an “imminent attack” amid rising concerns over the threat from Sunni jihadis in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
    The arrests of the suspected al-Qaeda affiliates, which had been planned for many months, were announced on the same day that it emerged a gas pipeline had been set alight in a clash between security forces and gunmen near the Shia town of Awamiya in the country’s eastern province.

  • Frilosité

    Le président de la banque HSBC, M. Douglas Flint, a identifié un nouveau péril qui menacerait l’industrie financière. Financial Times, 5 août.
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5160331a-1bb9-11e4-adc7-00144feabdc0.html (#paywall)

    Le président de HSBC a mis en garde contre le « danger croissant » que représente la réticence des employés à prendre des risques par crainte d’être sanctionnés pour leurs erreurs. (...) Ses commentaires, qui reflètent une inquiétude largement répandue dans le secteur quant aux effets de la réglementation sur la performance des entreprises, constituent l’une des rares prises de position publiques d’un dirigeant sur cette question délicate. Auparavant, des banquiers avaient déjà critiqué l’environnement réglementaire, souvent sans grand succès. En 2011, le président-directeur général de Barclays, M. Bob Diamond, avait déclaré devant une commission parlementaire britannique que le temps « des remords et des excuses » était révolu ; moins d’un an plus tard, il était congédié dans le cadre du scandale de la manipulation du Libor.

  • Évidemment, si les journaux syriens commençaient à demander si ce ne serait pas une bonne idée de « frapper la Turquie », ou « frapper le Qatar », « frapper Paris », etc (tous ces gens qui ont financé et armé leurs ennemis), ce serait scandaleux. Ici, Kevin-avec-Reuters se demande benoîtement s’il ne faudrait pas « frapper le régime syrien » en même temps qu’on « frapperait » ISIS. Oui, tiens, hein, je pense tout haut, rien de plus…

    Les Etats-Unis peuvent-ils frapper l’Etat islamique en Syrie, mais pas Assad ?
    http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/monde/les-etats-unis-peuvent-ils-frapper-l-etat-islamique-en-syrie-mais-pas-assad

    Une intervention aérienne contre l’EI pose la question suivante : faut-il également en profiter pour frapper le régime syrien, comme les Occidentaux ont envisagé de le faire à plusieurs reprises ? Cette option semble peu plausible, puisqu’elle serait assimilé à de l’ingérence : pour intervenir en Syrie, les Occidentaux ont besoin de l’aval du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU, que les vétos russes et chinois ont toujours bloqué, en dépit des multiples "lignes rouges. 

    Techniquement, il pourrait être compliqué de frapper uniquement tel ou tel camp en Syrie, tant la situation « ressemble à un damier » entre rebelles, djihadistes de différents fronts et troupes du régime, analyse CNN. Sans compter que l’armée syrienne opposerait certainement une résistance à l’entrée d’avions américains dans son espace aérien.

    • A l’opposé on trouve ceci : dans le Financial Times, Malcolm Rifkind député anglais qui préside le comité sur la sécurité et le renseignement du Parlement se prononce pour une collaboration avec Assad contre Da3ch, alors même qu’il avait été partisan d’une attaque contre lui à l’été 2013 :
      US and allies must join Assad to defeat Isis, warns British MP
      http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7e95e2e8-2934-11e4-9d5d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3B7VSJeLj

      The US and its allies must be prepared to work with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad to have any hope of defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis, one of Britain’s most senior MPs has warned.
      Sir Malcolm Rifkind – the chairman of parliament’s intelligence and security committee and a former foreign secretary and defence secretary – told the Financial Times that the “ghastly” killing of US journalist James Foley this week underscored the need to act against the militant jihadi group, whose rise to power in the Middle East has so far gone largely unchecked.
      [...]
      “Sometimes you have to develop relationships with people who are extremely nasty in order to get rid of people who are even nastier,” Sir Malcolm said, referring to working with Mr Assad’s dictatorship, which is an international pariah after it carried out brutal attacks on civilians in the civil war that has divided Syria and allowed Isis to flourish.
      [...]
      Sir Malcolm was previously one of the most outspoken members of parliament in calling for the UK to intervene with military force against Mr Assad’s regime – an option he and others pressed for in the wake of a devastating chemical weapons attack by Mr Assad’s forces on civilians in Ghouta one year ago.

    • Techniquement, il pourrait être compliqué de frapper uniquement tel ou tel camp en Syrie, tant la situation « ressemble à un damier » entre rebelles, djihadistes de différents fronts et troupes du régime, analyse CNN.

      Il convient donc ici de saluer le travail exceptionnel de nos services : là où pour les Américains, « c’est tellement le bordel qu’on ne saurait même pas qui on bombarde », nous arrivons sans mal à trier la bonne « rébellion syrienne démocratique » de l’ivraie.

  • Jordanian lender faces Hamas funding claims in NY trial - FT.com
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/163f9e54-1f30-11e4-9689-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=crm/email/2014811/nbe/MiddleEast/product&siteedition=intl#axzz39yrsweqV

    When the arguments begin, likely to be later this week, the trial is expected to focus on transactions performed by Arab Bank for charities in the Middle East and what their link was to the attacks for which Hamas claimed responsibility.
    One particular charity is the Saudi Committee, which the plaintiffs argued in a court document in 2004 was part of “the backbone of the donor base and operational budgets of Hamas”.
    Saudi government officials have repeatedly said that the country does not support terrorism and in 2002 the Saudi embassy in the US rejected Israeli criticism of its charities, saying that it did not finance suicide bombers but helped ordinary Palestinians. A Saudi government spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

  • The modern jihadi is a Wahhabi on steroids. His main grievance with the House of Saud is that it deviates

    Saudis have lost the right to take Sunni leadership - FT.com
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ab1b61c4-1cb6-11e4-b4c7-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=crm/email/201488/nbe/MiddleEast/product&siteedition=intl#axzz39yrsweqV

    The House of Saud, facing a potentially wrenching succession to the ailing Abdullah at a time of upheaval across the Arab world, is in a delicate position. As custodian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, it is the closest modern equivalent to the old Islamic caliphate. It thus abominates the violent presumption of Isis as much as it abhors the rival brand of pan-Islamic fundamentalism of the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet the kingdom still spews out the corrosive poison that helps fuel religion-based fanaticism. The Isis rampage of destruction of shrines and mosques, for instance, continues the two centuries-old record of Wahhabi iconoclasm. Nor should it be forgotten that the House of Saud used Wahhabi zealots as its shock troops in the last century to unite by force most of the religiously diverse Arabian peninsula – won by the sword in 52 battles over 30 years. There are no churches in Saudi Arabia, and permits to build Shia mosques are rarer than desert rain.

    • Du même tonneau dans le Angry Corner du jour : ISIS : the US saves Iraq, yet again ?
      http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/isis-us-saves-iraq-yet-again

      Obama made one thing clear: that he won’t accept the creation of a caliphate anywhere in Syria or Iraq. The almost century-old Saudi quasi caliphate never offended the US or its Western allies – who actually helped create it – although the ideological foundations of Saudi Arabia and ISIS are one and the same. The ISIS official statement about “the destruction of gravesites and tombs” was not published or even covered in the Saudi-dominated Arabic press. They found it too embarrassing to give any coverage to the argument pushed forward by ISIS, whose religious rationalizations and justifications rely on the views and practices of none other than Mohammed ibn ‘Abdul-Wahab, the founder of Wahhabiyyah which is the ruling religio-political doctrine of both Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

      ISIS is not something that is alien to religious Muslims although many Muslims are becoming way too defensive in their need to explain to Westerners that “Islam” – what is Islam, and which Islam? – does not really endorse the views and interpretations of ISIS. But that is not inaccurate. Indeed, mainstream Islam (three out of the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence and Ja`farite twelver Shia) frowns upon the views, excesses, practices and interpretations of ISIS. But Wahhabiyyah is fully in sync with ISIS.

  • Saudis have lost the right to take Sunni leadership - FT.com
    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ab1b61c4-1cb6-11e4-b4c7-00144feabdc0.html#axzz39vcNzTI8

    The kingdom spews out the corrosive poison that helps fuel religion-based fanaticism

    Saudi Arabia not only exports oil, but tanker-loads of quasi-totalitarian religious dogma and pipelines of jihadi volunteers, even as it struggles to insulate itself from the blowback; and King Abdullah, in his end of Ramadan address, warns against the “devilish” extremism of “these deviant forces”.

    Jihadi extremism does present a threat to the kingdom. But in doctrinal terms it is hard to see in what way it “deviates” from Wahhabi orthodoxy, with its literalist and exclusivist rendering of Sunni Islam. Its extreme interpretation of monotheism anathematises other beliefs, in particular the “idolatrous” practices of Christians and Shia Muslims, as infidel or apostate. That can be read as limitless sanction for jihad.

    The modern jihadi is a Wahhabi on steroids. His main grievance with the House of Saud is that it deviates: its profligate deeds do not match its Wahhabi words.

    #Saoud #Wahhabisme

  • Pentagon confronts militant dilemma in Africa

    From Nigeria to Somalia, US military presence on the continent is a creeping reality. US troops may be thin on the ground, with the Pentagon preferring to rely on training and financial support to allied forces, but special forces are now operating at any given moment.

    http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/745a4254-1c02-11e4-9db1-00144feabdc0.img
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/cbc97f3c-141e-11e4-9acb-00144feabdc0.html#axzz39X1g2fBH

    #Afrique #investissements_militaires #USA #armée #industrie_militaire #Etats-Unis #visualisation #carte

  • Digital trade : Data protectionism - FT.com
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/93acdbf4-0e9b-11e4-ae0e-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz39VQH2nf7

    Un article intéressant, qui dévoile les dessous des négociations sur les flux transfontières de données. Avec bien évidemment le penchant néolibéral du Financial Time.

    Juste en passant une remarque sur ce paragraphe (enfin, le second, le premier étant là pour donner le contexte).

    Russia’s parliament recently passed a bill requiring technology companies such as Google to keep their Russian users’ data within the country. Brazil last year proposed doing the same but subsequently backed down. And at least two provinces in Canada require public contractors to keep personal data in the country.

    The US, as it tries to repair the damage caused by the Snowden leaks, is using existing talks in an attempt to prevent other countries from adopting similar measures to block the free trade in data.

    Ce qui est drôle, c’est la formule « réparer les dommages créés par Snowden », qui est devenu une phrase toute faite, que l’on retrouve souvent, y compris en français... alors que les dommages sont ceux créés par les pratiques de surveillance de la NSA et de ses compères... que Snowden a dévoilés pour empêcher qu’ils ne deviennent plus grands encore et obèrent toute confiance dans le monde numérique.

  • Vladimir Putin : Collision course - FT.com
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1af3068c-1348-11e4-84b7-00144feabdc0.html

    L’article expose les états d’âme du milieu des affaires, recourt à l’analyse du langage corporel…

    Mr Putin does not like the choice with which he is confronted. When he addressed the nation on the downing of MH17 in a video message recorded in the early hours of Monday, he stepped nervously from one foot to the other, his face sweaty and rigid, his eyes blinking heavily and an eyebrow twitching.

    … et fait des comparaisons stylistiques.

    A group of men sit in a Kamaz truck – one of those big Russian 4x4s that regularly wins the Dakar rally – speeding down a highway. Some of them sense that they are going the wrong way fast but nobody dares do anything.


    Off-road politics : Mr Putin’s style has been likened to that of a Kamaz truck on the Dakar rally

  • Je parlais ici de Flurry, cette boîte pas très connue qui brasse beaucoup de #data et de #publicité sur #mobile : http://seenthis.net/messages/197683

    Eh bien elle vient d’être rachetée par #Yahoo :

    Yahoo has bought #Flurry, an app analytics company, as part of a push to grow its mobile business to catch up with competitors such as Google and Facebook.

    The deal, for an undisclosed sum, is thought to be the company’s largest acquisition since it bought blogging platform Tumblr in 2012.

    (...) The Flurry acquisition follows similar moves by other internet companies to buy mobile advertising technology companies to lure marketers to their own ads and generate revenue from ads on other company’s #apps.

    Last year Twitter bought MoPub, a mobile advertising exchange, while Facebook acquired the Atlas Advertiser Suite from Microsoft and Parse, a cloud-based platform for mobile app developers. Yahoo has also previously bought other advertising technology companies such as AdMovate, which specialised in automated mobile ad buying.

    Yahoo buys Flurry app analytics company (FT.com 21/07/2014)
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1523de48-111d-11e4-94f3-00144feabdc0.html