Blogs & Columns, Blog Directory

Why Belgium? by Didier Leroy | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books
▻http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/03/24/brussels-attacks-isis-why-belgium

I think that money from Gulf countries has done a lot of damage in Moroccan mosques in Belgium on that level. Some mosques have been more and more under the sway of Saudi imams or of Moroccan-Belgian citizens who have been trained in and funded by Saudi Arabia and who are spreading Wahhabi doctrine. Most Turkish mosques, to my knowledge, are financed and managed by the Diyanet institution, largely associated with the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. And then, there is also the secularist heritage of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk of course, which probably still plays a part at some level too.

#Arabie_saoudite #wahhabites

Why a top food poisoning expert won’t ever eat these foods - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/02/why-a-top-food-safety-expert-doesnt-eat-oysters-and-always-orders-meat-well-done/?tid=pm_business_pop_b

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2016/02/Oysters2.jpg

The way in which the American food system works is often perplexing, if not entirely nonsensical, according to Marler. For this reason, he takes precautions people less familiar with food safety oversight might find absurd. In a recent piece, published in Bottom Line Health, he lists six foods he no longer eats, because he believes the risk of eating them is simply too large. The list includes raw oysters and other raw shellfish, raw or under-cooked eggs, meat that isn’t well-done, unpasteurized milk and juice, and raw sprouts.

#insécurité alimentaire #salmonelles #états-unis

Baby carrots are not baby carrots - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/13/no-one-understands-baby-carrots

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So much for the West ‘saving’ Muslim women from terrorism - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/11/18/so-much-for-the-west-saving-muslim-women-from-terrorism

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/files/2015/11/2015-11-12T111126Z_01_AMM05_RTRIDSP_3_JORDAN-REDCROSS-REUNIFICATION.jpg

For Western leaders to actively campaign against refugees fleeing terrorism, many of whom are women, reveals stunning hypocrisy on the part of those who in the past invoked those very same women as reasons to launch the war on terror. Resettling women and children seeking refuge is a pretty clear way to “save” women from terrorism in the Middle East, and the United States and Europe have decided to turn their backs on them.

#menteurs #sans_vergogne

Technologies. Une cartographie d’Internet

Internet n’est pas dans le “cloud”, mais plutôt tout au fond des océans. Vox a réalisé une vidéo montrant le réseau de câbles sous-marins qui permettent au web d’exister. “La fibre optique reste le moyen le plus rapide de transférer de grandes quantités d’informations. Même si couvrir le fond des océans de câbles est une tâche complexe et laborieuse, cela vaut le coût en termes de vitesse d’échange à l’échelle internationale”, indique Vox. Le site rappelle que 99 % des données échangées transitent par ces câbles. La pose du premier câble au fond de l’océan Atlantique remonte à 1858. A l’époque, il servait à faire voyager les informations pour les communications télégraphiques.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CR1boa5WEAAqVIz.png

#cartographie #visualisation #internet #flux
cc @fil

This privacy activist has just won an enormous victory against U.S. surveillance. Here’s how. - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/10/06/this-privacy-activist-has-just-won-an-enormous-victory-against-u-s-s

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Max Schrems

The new court decision has fundamental consequences. It not only invalidates Safe Harbor, but makes it clear that any new arrangement has to be fundamentally different from the old one. It not only has to protect European citizens better against U.S. e-commerce firms, but has to protect them against the U.S. state.

Here’s how the Facebook case has just transformed the surveillance debate - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/10/06/heres-how-the-facebook-case-has-just-transformed-the-surveillance-de

The Safe Harbor was (as described in earlier research on it) a rickety institution; formally, it was not even an agreement between the E.U. and United States, but an exchange of letters. The European Court of Justice will clearly not accept a deal with shaky foundations; it wants law.

#privacy #militer #facebook #NSA #Snowden

The European refugee crisis: Bulgaria’s wake-up call?

The refugee crisis has superceded refugees and countries are being forced to choose sides. Why does Bulgaria support a united European solution when so many of its neighbours do not?

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▻https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/alice-nicolov/european-refugee-crisis-bulgaria%E2%80%99s-wake-up-call
#réfugiés #asile #migrations #Bulgarie

WATCH: A Hungarian camerawoman trips refugees who are running from police - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/08/watch-a-hungarian-camerawoman-trips-refugees-who-are-running-from-po

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When dozens of refugees tried to escape police officers at a Hungarian camp on Tuesday, one camerawoman decided to get involved. While she was filming a father, holding a child in his arms, she tripped both of them.

The scene at the Roeszke camp, which you can watch in the video embedded on top of this post, was captured by a German correspondent. According to Hungarian news site 444.hu, the camerawoman worked for Hungarian broadcaster N1 and has since been fired.

#honte

Three and a half reasons why Russia might be planning to withdraw from Ukraine (or some of it, anyway) - The Washington Post
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/08/31/three-and-a-half-reasons-why-russia-might-be-planning-to-withdraw-fr

On Aug. 9, 2015, a senior Russian general declared that if the Ukrainian military crosses Russia’s red line and attempts to recapture the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, Russia would respond with overwhelming force. This statement reaffirms the Kremlin’s official line that Russia needs to hold onto territory it has virtually annexed in Donbas to ensure the viability of its puppet republics, Donetsk and Luhansk.

But is it true?

Here’s another theory. It could be that President Vladimir Putin regards the takeover of Donbas territories as temporary, and is evaluating this occupation with a strict cost-benefit analysis. Right now, he has concluded that small military victories in the Donbas generate more than enough political capital in Russia to offset the Russian public’s disdain for the hardships of sanctions-induced austerity.

[Hey, Putin, have you seen how much China is investing in Ukraine?]

Should that assessment change, Putin is very likely to tactically withdraw from Donbas on his own terms. Putin will not regard this withdrawal as a defeat, as Russia will retain a military force in Crimea that could be used to destabilize Ukraine if it tries to join NATO.

Three factors suggest that Putin’s commitment to retaining control over the territories is weaker than his regime’s rhetoric indicates:

• Russia’s military presence in and occupation of Donbas territory is much less popular among Russian-speaking Ukrainians than Putin initially predicted in 2014.
• The Ukrainian government has more power than it has used in the conflict thus far, and it could use this influence to force Putin to back down sooner than expected in Donbas.
• There is compelling evidence that Putin’s long-term goal is to create a “frozen conflict” in Donbas, a scenario in which active fighting is suspended but ethnic tensions remain and can reignite at any time.

In addition, withdrawal from territories in Donbas would relieve Russia of the costs of occupation.

Let’s examine these factors in turn.
[…]

Thinking beyond the two-state solution - The Washington Post
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/08/25/thinking-beyond-the-two-state-solution

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Believing in a two-state #solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today is a little like looking for unicorns on the moon — it doesn’t matter how much you search, you still won’t find any. As recognition of this fact has become increasingly widespread, grappling with its implications has been hampered by the lack of normatively attractive or politically viable alternatives. In his review of Padraig O’Malley’s “The Two State Delusion,” Peter Beinart calls the book and its research impressive but nevertheless faults the author for not telling us how the story ends.

Although Beinart and others committed to a two-state solution make it sound like the alternatives are a great mystery, the search for unicorns has been distracting them from increasingly plausible outcomes. As the two-state solution fades into history, its alternatives become increasingly likely: civil war, ethnic cleansing or a non-democratic state. Although all three are possible, the third is rising on the horizon. Whether it goes by the name of an #apartheid state, an illiberal democracy, a less than free society or a competitive authoritarianism, the dominant theme will be a Jewish minority ruling over a non-Jewish majority. Although such an outcome would be an emotional blow to those who favor the two-state solution as a way to maintain Israel’s democratic and Jewish character, it looks quite familiar in a world where liberal democracy not only remains the exception but has actually lost ground over the last decade.

#Israël #Palestine #Israel #démocratie #aveuglement_fanatique

Map: The walls Europe is building to keep people out - The Washington Post

▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/08/28/map-the-walls-europe-is-building-to-keep-people-out

via @freakonometrics sur Twitter que je remercie !

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2015/08/EuropeFences2300.jpg

After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, for a while it seemed like border fences and barriers were a thing of the past in Europe. Many on the continent hoped for a new era of integration and receptivity. It didn’t happen. Instead, a variety of pressures have led Europe to adopt wall-building projects that would make Donald Trump proud.

Right now, in Hungary, for example, the government is rushing to complete a 109-mile-long barbed wire border fence along its southern frontier with Serbia – a project made bitterly ironic by Hungary’s 1989 decision to cut its border fence with Austria and help break the Iron Curtain. “We have only recently taken down walls in Europe,” European Union spokesperson Natasha Bertaud said when news of the fence spread in June. “We should not be putting them up.”

#frontières #murs #europe #migrations #asile

Why it’s never ‘the right time’ to discuss gun control - The Washington Post

▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/27/why-its-never-the-right-time-to-discuss-gun-violence

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Last Friday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was in no mood to talk gun control in the wake of the Lafayette theater shooting. “There will be an absolute appropriate time for us to talk about policies and politics,” he said. But it wasn’t then.

He didn’t want to talk about it a month earlier, either, in the aftermath of the Charleston church shootings. “Now’s not the time,” he said, criticizing President Obama for “trying to score cheap political points” for bringing up gun control in a speech.

#armes #armement #états-unis #armes_légères #meurtres

Why haven’t Syrian banks collapsed under sanctions and war ? - The Washington Post
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/08/03/why-havent-syrian-banks-collapsed-under-sanctions-and-war

La résilience du secteur bancaire syrien malgré bientôt 5 ans de guerre.

My recent research on disclosures made by publicly listed private banks investigates this resilience. Although the Syrian banks have indeed taken a hard beating, struggling with the shrinking economy, international sanctions, and absence of public and private investments, none of the six state-owned banks have suspended their operations.

Additionally, the 14 private banks — primarily subsidiaries of regional Arab banks in Lebanon, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain — have decided to stay put until the resolution of the conflict and will likely remain in the country for the long haul. These banks have endured physical destruction of their branches and offices in violence-ridden cities, robberies by gangs and militias on both warring sides, tighter inspection of their foreign-currency operations and embezzlement by some of their own staff.

(...)

More than four years of biting sanctions have not resulted in any critical mass of businessmen abandoning the embattled regime. While very few have decided to divest from these banks, others have actually increased their investments in spite of the severe operational, security and reputational risks. The considerable investments they have made and the need for a privately and internationally funded nationwide reconstruction plan after the end of the conflict will outweigh the prospects for an exit from the country. Ironically, the future rebuilding of the country might rest in their hands, unless a new government decides to confiscate those businessmen’s assets and deal a strong blow to the sector.

Pour me citer moi-même, les médias s’étonneront-ils un jour qu’un pays vivant sous une dictature aussi épouvantable depuis tant d’années conserve aussi longtemps (5 ans) autant d’hommes d’affaires fidèles ?

Map: Where Europe is growing and where it is shrinking - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/06/23/map-where-europe-is-growing-and-where-it-is-shrinking