• #Singapore — The Social Laboratory
    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/29/the_social_laboratory_singapore_surveillance_state

    #Singapour, un modèle de social-libéralisme-totalitaire (??), s’est installé depuis 2002 un système de #surveillance et de #big_data qui fait rêver la #NSA ; justifié notamment par la crise du #SRAS (#santé_sécuritaire)

    Four months later he got his chance, when an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) swept through the country, killing 33, dramatically slowing the economy, and shaking the tiny island nation to its core. Using Poindexter’s design, the government soon established the Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning program (RAHS, pronounced “roz”) inside a Defense Ministry agency responsible for preventing terrorist attacks and “nonconventional” strikes, such as those using chemical or biological weapons — an effort to see how Singapore could avoid or better manage “future shocks.” Singaporean officials gave speeches and interviews about how they were deploying big data in the service of national defense — a pitch that jibed perfectly with the country’s technophilic culture.

    reportage glaçant avec des illustrations sympa en gif animés :

  • L’argent du pétrole alimente désormais directement l’État islamique...

    The Islamic State Is the Newest Petrostate

    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/28/baghdadis_hillbillies_isis_iraq_syria_oil_terrorism_islamic_state

    REPORT
    The Islamic State Is the Newest Petrostate
    The Islamic State, the world’s richest terror group, is reaping millions of dollars a day from selling stolen oil to shady businessmen across the Middle East.

    BY KEITH JOHNSON JULY 28, 2014


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    IRAQ
    ENERGY
    OIL
    SYRIA
    MIDDLE EAST
    The homicidal maniacs of the Islamic State, like many shady and not-so-shady groups before it, are apparently getting into the oil business. And it seems to suit them as they reportedly are making millions of dollars per day off of it.
    The militants who have conquered broad swaths of Iraq and Syria are turning to good old-fashioned crime — oil smuggling, in this case — to underwrite its main line of work. The money it can earn from illicit oil sales further bolsters the group’s status as one of the richest self-funded terrorist outfits in the world, dependent not on foreign governments for financial support but on the money its reaped from kidnappings and bank robberies. The group has also managed to steal expensive weaponry that the United States had left for the Iraqi military, freeing it from the need to spend its own money to buy such armaments.
    But even the millions of dollars a day that the Islamic State seems to be raking in by trucking stolen oil across porous borders is not enough to meet the hefty obligations created by the group’s own headlong expansion. Taking over big chunks of territory, as in eastern Syria and in northern Iraq, could also leave it forced to take on the sorts of expensive obligations — such as paying salaries, collecting the trash, and keeping the lights on — usually reserved for governments.
    “They’ve gone from being the world’s richest terrorist organization to the world’s poorest state,” said Michael Knights, a Middle East expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
    “They’ve gone from being the world’s richest terrorist organization to the world’s poorest state,” said Michael Knights, a Middle East expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
    As with much of what the Islamic State purportedly does, the group’s actual role in trading illicit Syrian and Iraqi oil is hard to pin down. The Islamic State seemingly controls the majority of Syria’s oil fields, especially in the country’s east; human rights observers say 60 percent of Syrian oil fields are in the hands of militants or tribes. The Islamic State also seems to have control of several small oil fields in Iraq as well, though reports differ on whether most of those wells are capped or whether the Islamists are producing and shipping serious volumes of stolen Iraqi oil across the border.
    In all, energy experts estimate that illicit production in Iraq and Syria — largely by the Islamic State — is north of 80,000 barrels a day. That’s a tiny amount compared with stable oil-producing countries’ output, but it is a lot of potentially valuable oil in the hands of a group that even al Qaeda considers beyond the pale.
    If that oil fetched global market prices, it would be worth a small fortune: $8 million a day. But as the Sunni militant group’s new neighbors in Iraqi Kurdistan have discovered, it’s not easy to get top dollar for what many consider black-market oil. The Islamic State allegedly sells much of its production to middlemen in Syria, who then bring it to refineries in Turkey, Iran, or Kurdistan.
    That oil is essentially fenced and likely fetches only about $10 to $22 a barrel, said Valérie Marcel, an oil expert at Chatham House in London. Crude trades just above $100 a barrel in New York and London.
    In Iraq, the Islamic State apparently cut out middlemen and uses its own fleet of tankers, which means it can reap between $50 and $60 a barrel, Marcel said. Other reports put the terrorist group’s Iraqi oil proceeds as low as $25 a barrel.
    “They’re taking a massive discount, and they’re only achieving a small fraction of the value” of the oil, the Washington Institute’s Knights said. Altogether, the group’s oil smuggling could be generating on the order of $1 million to $2 million a day. Other analysts say the Islamic State’s oil income could be as much as $3 million a day.
    The United Nations is taking notice. On Monday, July 28, it warned countries against buying oil from militants in Iraq or Syria, saying that such purchases would violate U.N. sanctions on the terrorist group.
    With the Islamic State at the helm, that oil boom certainly won’t last forever. The old oil fields in Syria and Iraq need lots of care, such as injections to keep the pressure up and output reliable; the lack of trained technicians and the frequent turnover have been a nightmare for proper reservoir management and will ultimately lower future output at those fields, Marcel said.
    Still, all else being equal, that kind of control over oil fields, oil revenues, and petroleum products would be a financial shot in the arm for any terrorist outfit. Control of oil products, from gas canisters needed for cooking to fuel needed for transport, gives the group additional local leverage. And the revenue bolsters the Islamic State’s ability to recruit and pay fighters and to buy weapons.
    However, that money is also desperately needed to cover the salaries of public workers in places the militants now occupy. Providing basic public services to show that they can do more than conquer and crucify, but can govern to a limited extent, also costs money. Serving as an unelected proxy for ousted or absent governments has long been a way for Islamist groups, from Hezbollah to Hamas, to broaden popular support.
    “They need to keep their war machine going, but they also need to govern, and that’s costing them money,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a terrorism expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He estimates that most of the oil revenue is quickly spent pacifying restless tribal leaders, bribing coalition partners, and paying to keep functional the basic sinews of daily life.
    “If they don’t make happen the things that people are used to see happening, their rule is going to look really, really bad,” he said.
    Here’s the thing about the Islamic State’s newfound oil wealth: Big money is not unique among terrorist groups, and in this case, it’s probably not enough.
    Here’s the thing about the Islamic State’s newfound oil wealth: Big money is not unique among terrorist groups, and in this case, it’s probably not enough.
    Oil money is just one slice of an illicit pie funding the group. In Syria and Iraq, protection rackets, extortion, local taxes, and other forms of smuggling all pour millions of dollars into the Islamic State’s coffers. Brett McGurk, the State Department’s point man on Iraq, told Congress last week that even before the militants captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-biggest city, the group was raking in $12 million a month from illicit activities there.
    And in the pantheon of terrorist groups, none of which has conquered the world, top-line illicit revenues of a few hundred million dollars a year are not unusual. The U.S. government estimates that more than a score of the groups on its list of designated foreign terrorist organizations are deeply involved in transnational criminal activities.
    The Taliban in Afghanistan, for example, raked in between $100 million and $200 million annually from the drug trade and smuggling timber and minerals. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb took home dozens of millions of dollars a year from ransom kidnappings; over a decade, the group possibly netted as much as $200 million. Hezbollah took a page from The Sopranos and made a fortune off stolen or counterfeit cigarettes. Al-Shabab fueled its fight with proceeds from human trafficking, while cocaine money kept Colombia’s FARC in the field for decades.
    More importantly, the Islamic State’s access to some oil revenues pales in comparison with its obligations and points to the group’s longer-term vulnerabilities.
    Part of its illicit empire, such as extortion and shakedowns in towns across northern Iraq, is crumbling after Baghdad froze public salaries for those areas. That’s a double blow to the group: No local incomes to extort, and now the Islamic State has to pay the payroll tab itself. At the same time, the group’s barbarity, lack of outreach to even like-minded Salafi groups, and territorial overreach may have sown the seeds of its own downfall.
    “They’re overplaying their hand everywhere they have a hand, and that’s going to come back and hurt them,” Gartenstein-Ross said.
    Moreover, control of a few small oil fields that translates into heavily discounted smuggling revenues won’t be enough to give the Islamic State staying power.
    “They can bring power, fear, and intimidation, and they can even bring unsophisticated social services,” Knights said. “What they can’t do is bring the resources of the Iraqi state,” a $120 billion national budget underwritten by the nearly 3 million barrels of oil shipped daily out of southern Iraqi oil terminals.
    “Without that oil from Basra, then ISIS are just Palestinians,” Knights added.

  • It’s 10 o’Clock — Do You Know Where Your Bubonic Plague Is? - Laurie Garrett (Foreign Policy)
    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/10/it_s_10_o_clock_do_you_know_where_your_bubonic_plague_is_smallpox

    Now that the security of all of these facilities has been proven — to put it politely — “flawed,” it seems wise to rethink the larger notion of “biosafety” in our time of gain-of-function research, synthetic biology, and directed evolution. As I recently laid out during a TEDx talk, we are hard pressed to demonstrate that public safety is intact for the organisms we know, like smallpox and anthrax, much less for the new, previously unknown ones that are being created now in less secure facilities, like high school labs.

    After Lapses, C.D.C. Admits a Lax Culture at Labs - NYTimes.com
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/us/after-lapses-cdc-admits-a-lax-culture-at-labs.html

    The report recalled other errors. In 2006, the agency accidentally sent live anthrax to two other labs, and also shipped out live botulism bacteria.

    Several experts on biosecurity noted that the inspector general’s office of the Department of Health and Human Services sent official complaints to the C.D.C. in 2008, 2009 and 2010 about undertrained lab personnel and improperly secured shipments.

    Both Dr. Frieden and his predecessor, Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, replied in letters over their signatures that the problems would be fixed.

    The agency’s report Friday suggested that fewer labs should be handling dangerous microbes.

    Avian Flu Diary: FDA Statement On Additional 300 Vials Discovered At NIH Campus Lab
    http://afludiary.blogspot.ca/2014/07/fda-statement-on-additional-300-vials.html

    Among these latest discoveries are vials marked as containing such diverse pathogens as dengue, influenza, Q fever, and rickettsia, and are believed to date back 50 years or more.

    #biosécurité #bioterrorisme #armement_biologique #recherche

  • Donc #el-Sissi est le “nouveau Nasser”,

    Egypt: Hamas ’could have saved dozens of lives’ with truce | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR
    http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Jul-17/264252-egypt-hamas-could-have-saved-dozens-of-lives-with-truce.ashx#ax

    CAIRO: Egypt’s foreign minister said Thursday that Hamas could have saved dozens of lives if it had accepted a Cairo-mediated truce earlier this week in its conflict with Israel.

    “Had Hamas accepted the Egyptian proposal, it could have saved the lives of at least 40 Palestinians,” Sameh Shoukri said, quoted by state news agency MENA.

    • Israeli journalist: ’ Egypt’s ceasefire proposal grants Israel international legitimacy to bomb Gaza
      https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/12841-israeli-journalist-egypts-ceasefire-proposal-grants-israel-

      The Sisi regime in Cairo is a crucial ally to Israel in its efforts to crush Palestinian resistance, Israeli commentator Ron Ben-Yishai said on Tuesday.

      In his column for Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Ben-Yishai said that the Egyptian regime, led by President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi, is working jointly with Israel to slowly undermine Gaza’s military capabilities by its destruction of tunnels and its closure of the Rafah border crossing.

      He also hailed the Egyptian regime for the ceasefire proposal, considering it “a very calculated move, optimal for both Egypt and Israel”.

      Ben-Yishai added that the Egyptian proposal “has granted Israel international legitimacy to continue to crush Hamas from the air. It has also received the Egyptians as a partner for the arduous negotiations with Hamas, and Al-Sisi’s goodwill in preventing the strengthening of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the future.”

      He went on to say that Egypt will remain an Israeli ally so long as Al-Sisi remains in power, because of his efforts to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.

      “That Egypt remains the broker also works to Israel’s advantage. The Egyptians are now committed to restoring the calm and preventing the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, and will probably remain so as long as Al-Sisi is in power,” he said.

    • Gaza : la trêve ’aurait pu sauver des vies’
      http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2014/07/17/97001-20140717FILWWW00417-gaza-la-treve-aurait-pu-sauver-des-vies.php

      Le ministre égyptien des Affaires étrangères a vivement critiqué le Hamas aujourd’hui, estimant que le mouvement islamiste aurait pu sauver des dizaines de vies s’il avait accepté un cessez-le-feu, proposé cette semaine par Le Caire, et qui avait été accepté par Israël.

      #complicité #crimes_de_guerre

    • When and how will it end?
      http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21607893-killing-and-destruction-are-gathering-pace-neither-side-winning-

      The terms of the ceasefire offered through Egypt’s offices amounted virtually to a surrender by Hamas. “It was a trap,” says a European diplomat who still meets Hamas. “Hamas knows that Sisi wants to strangle the movement even more than Israel does.” Since Egypt’s generals overthrew Mr Sisi’s predecessor, Muhammad Morsi, last year, they have closed most of the tunnels under the border with Gaza which served as a lifeline, carrying basic goods as well as arms into the strip. Mr Sisi seems content to see Hamas thrashed.

    • The Last Great Myth About Egypt
      Cairo has never been a mediator between Israel and Palestine — and today’s regime actually benefits from the Gaza invasion.
      STEVEN A. COOK
      http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/21/the_last_great_myth_about_egypt_israel_palestine_gaza

      In an entirely cynical way, what could be better from where Sisi sits? The Israelis are battering Hamas at little or no cost to Egypt. In the midst of the maelstrom, the new president, statesman-like, proposed a cease-fire. If the combatants accept it, he wins. If they reject it, as Hamas did — it offered them very little — Sisi also wins.

      Rather than making Sisi look impotent, Hamas’s rejection of his July 14 cease-fire has only reinforced the Egyptian, Israeli, and American narrative about the organization’s intransigence. The Egyptians appear to be calculating, rightly or wrongly, that aligning with Israel will serve their broader goals by bringing Hamas to heel, improving security in the Sinai, and diminishing the role of other regional actors. In other words, Sisi is seeking to accomplish without a cease-fire what Mubarak and Mohamed Morsi accomplished with a cessation of hostilities.

      Sisi’s strategy, of course, could backfire. Mubarak tried something similar during the 2006 Israeli incursion into Lebanon — supporting the operation with the belief that the mighty IDF would deal a blow to Hezbollah, only to be exposed politically when the Israelis underperformed and killed a large number of Lebanese civilians in the process. Confronted with an increasingly hostile press and inflamed public opinion — posters lauding Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became common around Cairo — Mubarak was forced to dispatch his son, Gamal, and a planeload of regime courtiers to Beirut in a lame effort to demonstrate Egypt’s support for the Lebanese people.

      A similar dynamic might alter Sisi’s calculations on Gaza. Egyptian officials may have whipped up anti-Hamas sentiment in their effort to discredit the Muslim Brotherhood, but this does not diminish the solidarity many Egyptians feel for the Palestinians.

      It may be that Egyptians have come to loathe the Brotherhood, but they hate Israel more. As Operation Protective Edge widens and more civilians are killed, Sisi’s collusion with Israel may become politically untenable.

  • You Can’t Kill Hamas, You Can Only Make It Stronger

    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/14/cant_kill_hamas_make_it_stronger_protective_edge_israel_gaza

    You Can’t Kill Hamas, You Can Only Make It Stronger
    Experts and insiders say that Israel’s military offensive will only further radicalize the Palestinian population — and alienate frustrated friends in the United States.

    #gaza