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  • The covid-19 crisis is going to get much worse when it hits rural areas - The Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/06/covid-19-crisis-is-going-get-much-worse-when-it-hits-rural-areas

    Rural areas also already suffer from a rural mortality penalty, with a disparity in mortality rates between urban and rural areas that has been climbing since the 1980s. Chronic financial strain and the erosion of opportunity have contributed to “deaths of despair” as well as a rise in conditions such as heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and stroke. Add in prolonged social distancing and the economic downturn, and these trends will surely worsen.

    Long before the novel coronavirus emerged as a threat, America’s rural hospitals were already in dire financial straits. About 1 in 4 are vulnerable to being shuttered, with 120 having closed in the past decade. With the pandemic looming, many of these health systems have been forced to cancel elective procedures and non-urgent services such as physical therapy and lab tests, which in some cases account for half of their revenue. As cash flow wanes, the American Hospital Association warns that even more hospitals could be forced to shut their doors exactly when patients need them most.

    #zones_rurales #états-unis #inégalités #pauvreté #coronavirus #covid-19 #sars-cov2

  • Opinion | Reporters Face New Threats From the Governments They Cover - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/opinion/greenwald-brazil-reporter.html

    Greenwald après Assange,

    Both cases are based in part on a new prosecutorial concept — that journalism can be proved to be a crime through a focus on interactions between reporters and their sources. Prosecutors are now scrutinizing the processes by which #sources obtain classified or private information and then provide it to journalists. Since those interactions today are largely electronic, prosecutors are seeking to criminalize journalism by turning to anti-#hacking laws to implicate reporters in the purported criminal activity of their sources in gaining access to data on computers or cellphones without authorization.

    #journalisme #répression #tests #démocratie #whistleblower #lanceur_d’alerte

  • Saudi Arabia cracks down on writers challenging MBS and his narrow vision - The Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/27/saudi-arabia-cracks-down-writers-challenging-mbs-his-narrow-vision

    A new crackdown against young writers and bloggers in Saudi Arabia provides more evidence that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is feeling more and more empowered to terrorize his own citizens thanks to the continued support of his Western partners, most notably the current U.S. administration. President Trump’s unfaltering patronage has given the Riyadh carte blanche not only to get away with the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi but also to detain activists and writers.

    It is unclear what the charges against the new detainees are, although they have one thing in common: crimes of omission. They are all independent writers who have failed to provide zealous support for the prince and his new initiatives. Most of them were enthusiastic about the 2011 Arab uprisings but since the prince came to power in 2017 have remained silent and refrained from criticizing his policies.

    Clearly this was not enough. The prince wants all to praise his plans and join the propaganda machine that his coterie of aides presides over. His cult of personality is pervasive and all-encompassing. It has become sacrosanct, above all criticism and in constant need of being worshiped by citizens. Those who fail to pay homage to the “Son King” commit a crime by omission.

    #arabie_saoudite #crimes #répression

  • Why WhatsApp is pushing back on NSO Group hacking
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/29/why-whatsapp-is-pushing-back-nso-group-hacking

    In May, WhatsApp announced that we had detected and blocked a new kind of cyberattack involving a vulnerability in our video-calling feature. A user would receive what appeared to be a video call, but this was not a normal call. After the phone rang, the attacker secretly transmitted malicious code in an effort to infect the victim’s phone with spyware. The person did not even have to answer the call. Now, after months of investigation, we can say who was behind this attack. Today, we have (...)

    #Facebook #WhatsApp #Pegasus #smartphone #spyware #activisme #journalisme #écoutes (...)

    ##surveillance

  • Incompréhension complète du système libanais et de ses tares dans cet édito de David Ignatius. On a l’impression qu’il relaie les demandes de l’élite économique et du système bancaire réclamant un énième pansement. L’idée que le Hezbollah est le principal bénéficiaire de la corruption au Liban est tellement absurde...

    Syria is lost. Let’s save Lebanon. - The Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-us-should-double-down-on-support-for-lebanon/2019/10/16/846f9a18-f028-11e9-89eb-ec56cd414732_story.html

    In return for deepening its support, the United States should demand some urgent reforms. Lebanon needs a modern telecommunications regulatory authority, as a first step toward privatization of the largely state-owned telecommunications sector that could raise $6 billion. It needs to privatize its inept state-run electricity company, too, which could save up to $2 billion.

    Lebanon’s sectarian political system now divvies up the spoils in these two key sectors, along with about 100 other small state-owned enterprises. Hezbollah probably gets the largest share, but all the other sects and factions take their cuts. It’s a rotten system, and it’s long past time for change.

    The chief enemy of a strong, sovereign Lebanon is Hezbollah, which profits from chaos. It follows that a stronger Lebanon will, over time, weaken the Shiite militia. Bankrupting Lebanon to pressure Iran, as some U.S. officials suggest, would be one more act of folly for a Trump administration that has made far too many mistakes in the Middle East already.

  • We can’t despair about our antibiotic crisis - The Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-despair-our-antibiotic-resistance-crisis/2019/07/08/b164ea4e-9f62-11e9-b27f-ed2942f73d70_story.html

    Much of this is warranted: Antibiotic resistance is undermining the foundations of our modern medical system. No longer can we count on these drugs for a broad array of critical situations: for patients needing joint replacements or open-heart surgery or Caesarean sections; for immune-compromised individuals receiving cancer treatment or organ transplants; for people undergoing other increasingly commonplace, high-tech invasive procedures.

    The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, a project supported by the British government and the Wellcome Trust, predicts that, by 2050, drug resistance will claim 10 million lives a year worldwide. Closer to home, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 2 million people in the United States will suffer drug-resistant infections annually, and 23,000 will die. These numbers are likely dramatic underestimates: A 2018 study from the Washington University School of Medicine put the number of deaths between 153,113 and 162,044 .

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    We can’t despair about our antibiotic crisis

    This 2006 colorized scanning electron micrograph image made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the O157:H7 strain of the E. coli bacteria. (Janice Carr/AP)
    By Michelle A. Williams
    July 8 at 6:26 PM

    Michelle A. Williams is dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

    When the media covers antibiotic-resistant bugs, they typically describe them with a sense of alarm, fear and helplessness.

    Much of this is warranted: Antibiotic resistance is undermining the foundations of our modern medical system. No longer can we count on these drugs for a broad array of critical situations: for patients needing joint replacements or open-heart surgery or Caesarean sections; for immune-compromised individuals receiving cancer treatment or organ transplants; for people undergoing other increasingly commonplace, high-tech invasive procedures.

    The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, a project supported by the British government and the Wellcome Trust, predicts that, by 2050, drug resistance will claim 10 million lives a year worldwide. Closer to home, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 2 million people in the United States will suffer drug-resistant infections annually, and 23,000 will die. These numbers are likely dramatic underestimates: A 2018 study from the Washington University School of Medicine put the number of deaths between 153,113 and 162,044 .

    So, yes, we should be scared. But we need not feel helpless.

    Although the antibiotic-resistance problem is complex — spanning the domains of clinical medicine, basic research, economics and government policy — there is a clear path to reversing the situation. We must summon the determination to choose that path.

    We are up against natural selection — Darwinian evolution itself. Antibiotics, especially when used improperly and profligately, create selective pressure on bacteria. The organisms most vulnerable to the drugs die quickly, while the most resilient bugs survive and replicate.

    How can humankind prevail against nature’s ingenuity? We’ll do it the same way that public health has historically triumphed over infectious scourges such as smallpox and polio, and has fought other entrenched problems such as cigarette smoking, unsafe work­places and contaminated food. We must marshal a sustained, coordinated, multifront campaign.

    Here is one prescription to solve the antibiotic crisis: First, prevent infections whenever possible. An infection prevented is a case of antibiotic resistance averted. Prevention is the essence of public health. In the fight against drug resistance, this means prescribing antibiotics only when they are necessary, especially in outpatient settings such as doctors’ offices and clinics. It means halting the unnecessary use of antibiotics in farm animals, a practice that nurtures drug-resistant organisms in our food supply. And it means channeling more money to hospital infection-control programs — which, unfortunately, are often low-priority budget items.

    Second, invest far more money in research and development. Bringing a new antibiotic to market, from basic research through clinical trials, can take 10 to 15 years and cost upward of $1 billion. Yet the profits on these drugs are negligible compared with those for drugs that treat chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes or heartburn. Today, there are only 42 new antibiotics in the drug pipeline compared with more than 1,000 candidate drugs for cancer.

    Once new antibiotics come to market, we must break the conventional link between sales and profits. Unlike other drugs, new classes of antibiotics will need to be preserved as long as possible, through limited use. That means their profitability should be tied not to sales but to their social value.

    Earlier this year, Jim O’Neill, a former Goldman Sachs chief economist who chaired Britain’s Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, suggested nationalizing antibiotics production, such as through a taxpayer-supported utility that would focus solely on drug manufacture and distribution. Others have floated the idea of a for-profit company for which the core investors would be governments and charities, with the rest owned by the public. Unlike large pharmaceutical firms, these utilities would not expect blockbuster profits on their products — just a steady 4 percent or 5 percent rate of return.

    Finally, we must reframe the way we think about antibiotic drugs. Like our rivers and forests, they are precious resources. Like our highways and bridges, they are public goods that should be available to all. Put simply, we must bring a collective moral vision to this high-stakes battle.

    Reversing the tide of antibiotic resistance won’t be easy. The issue is similar to climate change in that it seems distant, abstract and insidious, but is potentially catastrophic for those it affects. Unlike with climate change, however, there are no “antibiotic resistance deniers.” Experts agree that this crisis is solvable with science and with money. The time to act is now.

    #Antibiotiques #Santé_publique

  • A new generation is ready to stand with Palestinians
    Noura Erakat, The Washington Post, le 16 avril 2019
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/16/new-generation-is-ready-stand-with-palestinians

    Young Palestinians, born and raised in the era of the Oslo Accords and Israel’s repeated wars in Gaza, are increasingly disillusioned with the two-state solution. They are cynical about all Palestinian national leadership from Fatah to Hamas and are seeking alternative futures. It was young people who launched the Great March of Return, the largest popular convergence in Gaza to demand freedom and the right to return of Palestinian refugees.

    Young Palestinians have been the driving force of new political efforts such as the Palestinian Youth Movement, which connects Palestinians ages 18 to 35 across a global diaspora with the aim of reconstituting a national politics of resistance. Young Palestinians are also the primary advocates of the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that sidesteps political negotiations and makes rights-based claims for equality, the return of refugees and the end of occupation of Arab lands. Far from destitution, the grim status quo is fueling a politics of hope among Palestinian youths in particular.

    This hope echoes a similar trend in the United States, where young people are driving an unprecedented shift in U.S. politics on the Middle East, and Palestinian freedom has been steadily incorporated into a progressive agenda. Trump’s embrace of Netanyahu is making ever clearer to a U.S. public that the reactionary right embodied by Trump is the normalized state of affairs in Israel. The Trump-Netanyahu alliance is on full display in the concerted and hypocritical attacks against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who, in her advocacy on behalf of all marginalized communities, has illuminated the negative impact that U.S. unconditional support for Israel has on Palestinians.

    Social movements such as Black Lives Matter and events like the Women’s March, driven by a similar base, have affirmed Palestinian freedom as part of their platforms. Polls indicate that since Trump took office two years ago, more Americans are less inclined to sympathize with Israel over Palestinians, while a majority of Democrats say they would support sanctions or stronger action against Israel due to settlement construction.

    A mettre avec l’évolution de la situation aux États-Unis vis à vis de la Palestine :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/752002

    #Palestine #USA #BDS #Noura_Erakat #Washington_Post #Jeunesse

  • The U.S. is funding dangerous experiments it doesn’t want you to know about - The Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-is-funding-dangerous-experiments-it-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about/2019/02/27/5f60e934-38ae-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html

    In 2014, U.S. officials imposed a moratorium on experiments to enhance some of the world’s most lethal viruses by making them transmissible by air, responding to widespread concerns that a lab accident could spark a global pandemic. Most infectious-disease studies pose modest safety risks, but given that these proposed experiments intended to create a highly contagious flu virus that could spread among humans, the government concluded the work should not go on until it could be approved through a specially created, rigorous review process that considered the dangers.

    Apparently, the government has decided the research should now move ahead. In the past year, the U.S. government quietly greenlighted funding for two groups of researchers, one in the United States and the other in the Netherlands, to conduct transmission-enhancing experiments on the bird flu virus as they were originally proposed before the moratorium. Amazingly, despite the potential public-health consequences of such work, neither the approval nor the deliberations or judgments that supported it were announced publicly. The government confirmed them only when a reporter learned about them through non-official channels.

    This lack of transparency is unacceptable. Making decisions to approve potentially dangerous research in secret betrays the government’s responsibility to inform and involve the public when approving endeavors, whether scientific or otherwise, that could put health and lives at risk.

    #expériences #infection #etats-unis

  • Pendant que les décideurs français travaillent pour un système de couverture à l’américaine, des citoyens américains luttent pour un système à la française,

    The media is badly botching the #Medicare-for-all debate - The Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/30/media-is-badly-botching-medicare-all-debate

    Let me explain. There are any number of reasons you might oppose universal coverage. I happen to think they don’t add up to much, but you can make a case. Maybe you just don’t think it’s government’s job to make sure people are covered. What you cannot say, however, is that a universal system is unaffordable.

    That’s because there is one thing you absolutely, positively must do whenever you talk about the cost of a universal system — and that journalists almost never do when they’re asking questions. You have to compare what a universal system would cost to what we’re paying now.

    #couverture_maladie #Etats-unis

  • En pleine affaire Khashoggi, Donald Trump remercie l’#Arabie_saoudite - La Libre
    http://www.lalibre.be/actu/international/en-pleine-affaire-khashoggi-donald-trump-remercie-l-arabie-saoudite-5bf5621f

    « Il se pourrait très bien que le prince héritier ait eu connaissance de cet évènement tragique —peut-être, peut-être pas ! », a dit Donald Trump dans un communiqué.

    #Etats-Unis #sans_vergogne

  • Jamal Khashoggi : What the Arab world needs most is free expression - The Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/jamal-khashoggi-what-the-arab-world-needs-most-is-free-expression/2018/10/17/adfc8c44-d21d-11e8-8c22-fa2ef74bd6d6_story.html

    A note from Karen Attiah, Global Opinions editor

    I received this column from Jamal Khashoggi’s translator and assistant the day after Jamal was reported missing in Istanbul. The Post held off publishing it because we hoped Jamal would come back to us so that he and I could edit it together. Now I have to accept: That is not going to happen. This is the last piece of his I will edit for The Post. This column perfectly captures his commitment and passion for freedom in the Arab world. A freedom he apparently gave his life for. I will be forever grateful he chose The Post as his final journalistic home one year ago and gave us the chance to work together.

    جمال خاشقجي : أَمَسُّ ما يحتاجه العالم العربي هو حرية التعبير - The Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/10/17/jamal-khashoggi-what-the-arab-world-needs-most-is-free-expression-ar

    رسالة من كارِن عطية محررة قسم الآراء العالمية:

    تلقيتُ مقال الرأي هذا من مترجم ومساعد جمال في اليوم الذي تلا الإبلاغ عن فقدانه في إسطنبول. صحيفة الـ”بوست” كانت قد قررت تأجيل نشره لأننا أملنا أن يعود جمال إلينا كي نستطيع نحن الاثنان تحريره سويًا. الآن عليّ أن أتقبل أن ذلك لن يحصل. هذه هي آخر مقالاته التي سأحررها للـ”واشنطن بوست”. يجسّد هذا العمود تمامًا التزامه وشغفه بالحرية في العالم العربي. حرية ضحّى بحياته في سبيلها. وسأكون ممتنةً دومًا أنّه اختار الـ”بوست” ليكون آخر بيت صحفي له قبل عام ومنحَنا الفرصة للعمل معًا.

    #Jamal_Khashoggi

    • Even Lebanon, the Arab world’s crown jewel when it comes to press freedom, has fallen victim to the polarization and influence of pro-Iran Hezbollah.

      Tuer un type capable d’un tel parti-pris prouve combien le régime saoudien est devenu totalitaire.

  • America’s Jews are watching Israel in horror
    The Washington Post - By Dana Milbank - September 21 at 7:25 PM

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/israel-is-driving-jewish-america-farther-and-farther-away/2018/09/21/de2716f8-bdbb-11e8-8792-78719177250f_story.html

    My rabbi, Danny Zemel, comes from Zionist royalty: His grandfather, Rabbi Solomon Goldman, led the Zionist Organization of America in the late 1930s, and presided over the World Zionist Convention in Zurich in 1939. So Zemel’s words carried weight when he told his flock this week on Kol Nidre, the holiest night of the Jewish year, that “the current government of Israel has turned its back on Zionism.”

    “My love for Israel has not diminished one iota,” he said, but “this is, to my way of thinking, Israel’s first anti-Zionist government.”

    He recounted Israel’s transformation under Benjamin Netanyahu: the rise of ultranationalism tied to religious extremism, the upsurge in settler violence, the overriding of Supreme Court rulings upholding democracy and human rights, a crackdown on dissent, harassment of critics and nonprofits, confiscation of Arab villages and alliances with regimes — in Poland, Hungary and the Philippines — that foment anti-Semitism. The prime minister’s joint declaration in June absolving Poland of Holocaust culpability, which amounted to trading Holocaust denial for good relations, earned a rebuke from Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.

    “The current government in Israel has, like Esau, sold its birthright,” Zemel preached.

    Similarly anguished sentiments can be heard in synagogues and in Jewish homes throughout America. For 70 years, Israel survived in no small part because of American Jews’ support. Now we watch in horror as Netanyahu, with President Trump’s encouragement, leads Israel on a path to estrangement and destruction.

    Both men have gravely miscalculated. Trump seems to think support for Netanyahu will appeal to American Jews otherwise appalled by his treatment of immigrants and minorities. (Trump observed Rosh Hashanah last week by ordering the Palestinian office in Washington closed, another gratuitous blow to the moribund two-state solution that a majority of American Jews favor.) But his green light to extremism does the opposite.

    Netanyahu, for his part, is dissolving America’s bipartisan pro-Israel consensus in favor of an unstable alliance of end-times Christians, orthodox Jews and wealthy conservatives such as Sheldon Adelson.

    The two have achieved Trump’s usual result: division. They have split American Jews from Israelis, and America’s minority of politically conservative Jews from the rest of American Jews.

    A poll for the American Jewish Committee in June found that while 77 percent of Israeli Jews approve of Trump’s handling of the U.S.-Israeli relationship, only 34 percent of American Jews approve. Although Trump is popular in Israel, only 26 percent of American Jews approve of him. Most Jews feel less secure in the United States than they did a year ago. (No wonder, given the sharp rise in anti-Semitic incidents and high-level winks at anti-Semitism, from Charlottesville to Eric Trump’s recent claim that Trump critics are trying to “make three extra shekels.”) The AJC poll was done a month before Israel passed a law to give Jews more rights than other citizens, betraying the country’s 70-year democratic tradition.

    “We are the stunned witnesses of new alliances between Israel, Orthodox factions of Judaism throughout the world, and the new global populism in which ethnocentrism and even racism hold an undeniable place,” Hebrew University of Jerusalem sociologist Eva Illouz wrote in an article appearing this week on Yom Kippur in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper titled “The State of Israel vs. the Jewish people.” (...)

  • Why does Putin treat Britain with disdain? He thinks he’s bought it.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/why-does-putin-treat-britain-with-disdain-he-thinks-hes-bought-it/2018/03/16/9f66a720-2951-11e8-874b-d517e912f125_story.html

    In her parliamentary statement, the prime minister did leave open the possibility of harsher financial sanctions. But the real question, for Britain — as well as France, Germany and the United States — is whether we are willing to end the financial relationship altogether. We could outlaw tax havens, in the Virgin Islands as well as in Delaware and Nevada; we could make it impossible to buy property anonymously; we could ban Russian companies with dubious origins from our stock exchanges. But that would cost our own financiers and real estate agents, disrupt the discreet flow of cash into the coffers of political parties, deprive the art market of its biggest investors. Does May have the nerve to do that? Do any of us?

    #élites#hypocrisie #finances #système #argent #capitalisme

  • Why Saad Hariri Had That Strange Sojourn in Saudi Arabia - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/24/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-saad-hariri-mohammed-bin-salman-lebanon.html

    Pas de trève des confiseurs aux USA ! Etrange offensive médiatique contre MbS, le tout daté du 24 décembre.

    Dans cet article du NYT (pas fracassant) qui relate la détention de Hariri en Arabie saoudite :

    As bizarre as the episode was, it was just one chapter in the story of Prince Mohammed, the ambitious young heir apparent determined to shake up the power structure not just of his own country but of the entire region.

    Dans le Washington Post (où il est décrit comme “le prince de l’hypocrisiehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/saudi-arabias-crown-prince-of-hypocrisy/2017/12/24/b331025a-dc3f-11e7-b1a8-62589434a581_story.html:
    If he is truly interested in demonstrating enlightened and modern leadership, he should unlock the prison doors behind which he and his predecessors have unjustly jailed people of creativity, especially writers critical of the regime and intolerant religious hard-liners. Recently, he oversaw a crackdown that swept up influential clerics, activists, journalists and writers on vague charges of endangering national security. Allowing these voices to thrive and exist in the open would be a real contribution to the kind of society he says he wants. In particular, he should arrange an immediate pardon for blogger Raif Badawi, serving a 10-year jail sentence in the kingdom for the crime of free expression. Mr. Badawi offended hard-liners when he wrote that he longed for a more liberal Saudi society, saying, “Liberalism simply means, live and let live.”

    Opening Mr. Badawi’s cell door would do more to change Saudi Arabia than purchasing a fancy yacht and a villa in France.

    Et, Newsweek en remet une couche sur le Yémen notamment : But by far the biggest warning sign that Saudi Arabia is not ready to take human rights seriously is what it is doing in neighboring Yemen.

    “Earlier in November the U.N. warned that Yemen is on the brink of famine on a scale that the world has not seen in decades. This has been caused in no small part by the actions of the Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting in the country.

    Since early November, Saudi Arabia has tightened a blockade preventing nearly all food and life-saving aid from reaching an already starving and battered nation. An estimated 130 Yemeni children are dying every day, according to Save the Children.

    Though key access routes have since been reopened, there is little evidence that enough critically needed aid is being allowed in or guarantees that it will not be tightened again following the Huthis’ control of Sana’a. There certainly has been an uptick in air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition in December.

    All parties to the conflict have crimes to answer for, but in its fight against Huthi rebels in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has decided that the collective punishment of Yemeni civilians is an acceptable tactic in war. It is not.

    The Saudi Arabian authorities are not keen for the outside world to see how they are waging this war. Yet the pictures are starting to trickle out. It is these images, as well as those of the real reformers in Saudi Arabia who are languishing behind bars, that we should keep in mind next time we think about casually endorsing the new Crown Prince’s efforts to bring about reform.”

    Et Newsweek en remet une couche sur le Yémen notamment, sous le titre “Les nouveaux habits de l’emperuer” http://www.newsweek.com/saudi-arabia-and-emperors-new-clothes-758219 :
    But by far the biggest warning sign that Saudi Arabia is not ready to take human rights seriously is what it is doing in neighboring Yemen.

    Earlier in November the U.N. warned that Yemen is on the brink of famine on a scale that the world has not seen in decades. This has been caused in no small part by the actions of the Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting in the country.

    Since early November, Saudi Arabia has tightened a blockade preventing nearly all food and life-saving aid from reaching an already starving and battered nation. An estimated 130 Yemeni children are dying every day, according to Save the Children.

    Though key access routes have since been reopened, there is little evidence that enough critically needed aid is being allowed in or guarantees that it will not be tightened again following the Huthis’ control of Sana’a. There certainly has been an uptick in air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition in December.

    All parties to the conflict have crimes to answer for, but in its fight against Huthi rebels in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has decided that the collective punishment of Yemeni civilians is an acceptable tactic in war. It is not.

    The Saudi Arabian authorities are not keen for the outside world to see how they are waging this war. Yet the pictures are starting to trickle out. It is these images, as well as those of the real reformers in Saudi Arabia who are languishing behind bars, that we should keep in mind next time we think about casually endorsing the new Crown Prince’s efforts to bring about reform."

    #arabie_saoudite

  • Saudi Arabia’s prince is doing #damage_control
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/saudi-arabias-prince-is-doing-damage-control/2017/11/16/e3710ba4-cb14-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html

    The Hariri episode appears to have convinced Washington and Riyadh that their interests are better served by stability in Lebanon than instability, even though that approach requires some cooperation with Hezbollah, the dominant political faction. A Saudi official told me that the kingdom plans to work with the United States to support Lebanese institutions, such as the army, that can gradually reduce the power of Hezbollah and its patron, Iran. MBS seems to have recognized that combating Hezbollah is a long game, not a short one.

    #arabie_saoudite #MBSsile

  • When it comes to Facebook, Russia’s $100,000 is worth more than you think
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-it-comes-to-facebook-russias-100000-is-worth-more-than-you-think/2017/09/11/b6f8dde6-94c7-11e7-aace-04b862b2b3f3_story.html?tid=sm_tw

    As if we needed more evidence that Facebook influenced the election.

    Last week, the social-media company revealed that during the 2016 presidential campaign it sold more than $100,000 in ads to a Kremlin-linked “troll farm” seeking to influence U.S. voters. An additional $50,000 in ads also appear suspect but were less verifiably linked to the Russian government.

    In the grand — at this point, far too grand — scheme of campaign spending, $150,000 doesn’t sound like much. It’s a minor TV ad buy, perhaps, or a wardrobe makeover for one vice-presidential candidate. But in the context of Facebook, it matters quite a bit. Not just for what it might have done to the election but also for what it says about us.

    MAKE MARK ZUCKERBERG TESTIFY
    https://theintercept.com/2017/09/11/make-mark-zuckerberg-testify

    LAST WEEK, after what must have been a series of extremely grim meetings in Menlo Park, Facebook admitted publicly that part of its revenue includes what appears to be politically-motivated fraud undertaken by a shady Russian company. The social network, perhaps motivated by a Washington Post scoop on the matter, released a statement outlining the issues at hand, but leaving the most important questions unanswered. Only Facebook knows these answers, and we should assume they won’t be eager to volunteer them.

    After last week’s reports, Facebook received a round of emails and calls from reporters asking for clarifications on the many glaring gaps in the social network’s disclosure:

    What was the content of the Russian-backed ads in question?
    How many people saw these ads? How many people clicked them?
    What were the Facebook pages associated with the ads? How many members did they have?
    What specific targeting criteria (race, age, and most importantly, location) did the Russian ads choose?
    Given that Facebook reaches a little under 30% of the entire population of our planet, the answers to these questions matter.

  • Tillerson is working with China and Russia — very, very quietly - The Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/tillerson-is-working-with-china-and-russia--very-very-quietly/2017/09/07/1aed4970-9416-11e7-89fa-bb822a46da5b_story.html

    Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has often been the silent man in the Trump foreign policy team. But out of the spotlight, he appears to be crafting a broad strategy aimed at working with China to resolve the North Korea crisis and with Russia to stabilize Syria and Ukraine.

    The Tillerson approach focuses on personal diplomacy, in direct contacts with Chinese and Russian leaders, and through private channels to North Korea. His core strategic assumption is that if the United States can subtly manage its relations with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin — and allow those leaders to take credit for successes — complex regional problems can be solved effectively.

    Tillerson appears unfazed by criticism that he has been a poor communicator and by recent talk of discord with President Trump. His attitude isn’t exactly “take this job and shove it,” but as a former ExxonMobil chief executive, he doesn’t need to make money or Washington friends — and he clearly thinks he has more urgent obligations than dealing with the press.

    Tillerson appears to have preserved a working relationship with Trump despite pointedly separating himself from the president’s controversial comments after the Charlottesville unrest. Although Trump didn’t initially like Tillerson’s statement, it’s said he was ultimately comfortable with it.

    The North Korea crisis is the best example of Tillerson’s diplomacy. For all the bombast of Trump’s tweets, the core of U.S. policy has been an effort to work jointly with China to reverse the North Korean nuclear buildup through negotiations. Tillerson has signaled that the United States is ready for direct talks with Kim Jong Un’s regime — perhaps soon, if Kim shows restraint. Tillerson wants China standing behind Kim at the negotiating table, with its hands figuratively at Kim’s throat.

    Despite Pyongyang’s hyper-belligerent rhetoric, its representatives have conveyed interest in negotiations, querying details of U.S. positions. But Kim’s actions have been erratic and confusing: When it appeared that the North Koreans wanted credit for not launching missiles toward Guam, Tillerson offered such a public statement. Bizarrely, North Korea followed with three more weapons tests, in a reckless rebuff.

    Some analysts see North Korea’s race to test missiles and bombs as an effort to prepare the strongest possible bargaining position before negotiations. Tillerson seems to be betting that China can force such talks by imposing an oil embargo against Pyongyang. U.S. officials hope Xi will make this move unilaterally, demonstrating strong leadership publicly, rather than waiting for the United States to insert the embargo proposal in a new U.N. Security Council resolution.

    Tillerson signaled his seriousness about Korea talks during a March visit to the Demilitarized Zone. He pointed to a table at a U.N. office there and remarked, “Maybe we’ll use this again,” if negotiations begin.

    The Sino-American strategic dialogue about North Korea has been far more extensive than either country acknowledges. They’ve discussed joint efforts to stabilize the Korean Peninsula, including Chinese actions to secure nuclear weapons if the regime collapses.

    The big idea driving Tillerson’s China policy is that the fundamentals of the relationship have changed as China has grown more powerful and assertive. The message to Beijing is that Xi’s actions in defusing the North Korea crisis will shape U.S.-China relations for the next half-century.

    Tillerson continues to work the Russia file, even amid new Russia sanctions. He has known Putin since 1999 and views him as a predictable, if sometimes bullying, leader. Even with the relationship in the dumps, Tillerson believes he’s making some quiet progress on Ukraine and Syria.

    On Ukraine, Tillerson supports Russia’s proposal to send U.N. peacekeepers to police what Putin claims are Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s assaults on Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine. The addition of U.N. monitors would help implement the Minsk agreement, even if Putin gets the credit and Poroshenko the blame.

    On Syria, Tillerson has warned Putin that the real danger to Russian interests is increasing Iranian power there, especially as Bashar al-Assad’s regime regains control of Deir al-Zour in eastern Syria. To counter the Iranians, Tillerson supports a quick move by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces to capture the lower Euphrates Valley.

    Trump’s boisterous, sometimes belligerent manner and Tillerson’s reticence are an unlikely combination, and many observers have doubted the relationship can last. But Tillerson seems to roll with the punches — and tweets. When Trump makes a disruptive comment, Tillerson seems to treat it as part of the policy landscape — and ponder how to use it to advantage.

    Tillerson may be the least public chief diplomat in modern U.S. history, but that’s apparently by choice. By Washington standards, he’s strangely uninterested in taking the credit.

  • The U.S. war crime North Korea won’t forget - The Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-war-crime-north-korea-wont-forget/2015/03/20/fb525694-ce80-11e4-8c54-ffb5ba6f2f69_story.html

    The story dates to the early 1950s, when the U.S. Air Force, in response to the North Korean invasion that started the Korean War, bombed and napalmed cities, towns and villages across the North. It was mostly easy pickings for the Air Force, whose B-29s faced little or no opposition on many missions.

    The bombing was long, leisurely and merciless, even by the assessment of America’s own leaders. “Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — 20 percent of the population,” Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, told the Office of Air Force History in 1984. Dean Rusk, a supporter of the war and later secretary of state, said the United States bombed “everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another.” After running low on urban targets, U.S. bombers destroyed hydroelectric and irrigation dams in the later stages of the war, flooding farmland and destroying crops.

  • Et donc, Trump met fin au (non-)programme de (non-)intervention de la CIA en Syrie (dont on connaît, à ce jour, le milliard de dollars annuel d’armements déversés sur on ne sait trop qui depuis plusieurs années). Annonçant cela, le WaPo précise subtilement dès le titre : « a move sought by Moscow ».

    Trump ends covert CIA program to arm anti-Assad rebels in Syria, a move sought by Moscow
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-ends-covert-cia-program-to-arm-anti-assad-rebels-in-syria-a-move-sought-by-moscow/2017/07/19/b6821a62-6beb-11e7-96ab-5f38140b38cc_story.html

    President Trump has decided to end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-Assad, a move long sought by Russia, according to U.S. officials.

    C’est Charles Lister qui te sort l’argumentaire rigolo (les rebelles-modérés-tout-ça) :

    Some analysts said the decision to end the program was likely to empower more radical groups inside Syria and damage the credibility of the United States.

    “We are falling into a Russian trap,” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, who focuses on the Syrian resistance. “We are making the moderate resistance more and more vulnerable. . . . We are really cutting them off at the neck.”

    Le contre-feu n’a pas traîné : dans une tribune dans le même journal signée par l’un des principaux porte-plume néo-conservateurs de W. Bush, la réponse furibarde (toujours sur le thème subtile de « la défaite face aux Russes »), où l’on suggère qu’armer des dingues au motif de faire chier les Popovs est une excellente idée et une grande réussite historique sur la voie de la démocratisation des peuples : Trump’s breathtaking surrender to Russia (Michael Gerson)
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-breathtaking-surrender-to-russia/2017/07/20/bde94e10-6d6c-11e7-96ab-5f38140b38cc_story.html

    Trump is alienating Republicans from their own heroic foreign policy tradition. The conduct of the Cold War was steadied and steeled by Ronald Reagan, who engaged with Soviet leaders but was an enemy of communism and a foe of Soviet aggression. In fact, he successfully engaged Soviet leaders because he was an enemy of communism and a foe of Soviet aggression. There is no single or simple explanation for the end of the Cold War, but Republicans have generally held that the United States’ strategic determination played a central role.

    Bon, ce genre de spectacle est assez divertissant, mais au fond, on annule publiquement un programme qui était essentiellement secret, dont on ne connaît réellement aucun détail, et dans le même temps on sait que le rôle du Pentagone (lui aussi parfaitement capable de financer et mener des opérations secrètes lourdes) en Syrie ne cesse de grandir.

    Gesticulations qui, dans le même temps, ne suffisent pas à remettre en cause le discours dominant autour de la « non-intervention » occidentale en Syrie.

  • The U.S. will never win the war in Afghanistan
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-will-never-win-the-war-in-afghanistan/2017/05/16/ac65a52e-39c0-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

    “President Trump hasn’t decided whether to sign off on his generals’ request for more troops for Afghanistan. Ironically, this would be one instance in which Trump — and the country — would benefit from repudiating President Barack Obama’s example. Instead of yet another troop surge in America’s longest war, now heading toward its 16thbirthday, Trump should adopt the advice that then-Sen. George Aiken (R-Vt.) offered about Vietnam in 1966: “Declare victory and get out.”

    General John W. Nicholson testified that he wants an additional 5,000 soldiers to break the “stalemate” in Afghanistan. In the first months of his presidency, Obama signed off on a surge that ended with 100,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. His generals also promised to break the stalemate. Today, the Taliban controls more of the country than it has since 2001. A surge of 5,000 or even 10,000 troops won’t defeat the Taliban. It is simply a recipe for more war without end and without victory.

    Why are we still there? We went into Afghanistan after 9/11 to get Osama bin Laden and to punish the Taliban for harboring al-Qaeda. Now bin Laden is dead; al-Qaeda is dispersed; the Taliban has been battered. Afghan civilians have been killed, wounded or displaced in increasing numbers. The United Nations reports that there were more than 11,000 war-related civilian casualties last year, and 660,000 Afghans were displaced, adding to the country’s massive refugee crisis.”