Here’s how #internet users breakdown across the world | World Economic Forum
▻https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-next-billion-internet-users-worldwide
Over the past couple of decades, internet adaptation has steadily increased.
But not everyone has access to the web, even in some of the world’s biggest economies.
Despite having the second largest online market in the world India, 50% of people living in India don’t have internet access.
Bangladesh faces a remittances crisis amid COVID-19 | World Economic Forum
#Covid-19#migrant#migration#Bangladesh#remises
▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/bangladesh-faces-a-remittances-crisis-amid-covid-19
The coronavirus pandemic highlights the need for better cooperation over migration.
Bangladesh has offered incentives to encourage expatriate workers to send their money through legal channels.
Public bodies and remittance services providers must improve access to digital solutions.
Nepal faces a crisis as COVID-19 stems the flow of remittances | World Economic Forum
#Covid-19#migrant#migration#nepal#remises
▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/nepal-faces-a-crisis-as-covid-19-stems-the-flow-of-remittances
Remittances represent more than a quarter of Nepal’s economic output.
The pandemic means migrant workers have swapped the risk of death or injury at work with the reality of poverty and homelessness.
Financing a shift from subsistence to commercial farming could help prevent food shortages and stimulate employment.
Digitization could make migrant workers more resilient to shocks.
These refugees have built a Lego robot to fight COVID-19 - World Economic Forum
Living in close quarters and with basic health and sanitation facilities, residents of Jordan’s Za’atari settlement are worried about what will happen if the virus reaches them, according to the UNHCR.
The situation has inspired a group of Syrian refugees at the camp to get creative to help – by building a robotic hand sanitizer out of Lego.
▻https://assets.weforum.org/editor/responsive_large_webp_I2UdworXI1lGF04PcpNMlk23Job951VwUBZVw4ddz0M.we
The idea is simple: help prevent the spread of COVID-19 with a cheap sanitizer dispenser that can easily be replicated. But to reduce transmission of the virus it has to operate without the need to touch a bottle.
Syrian refugees, trained in robotics at the Jubilee Center for Excellence in Education in Jordan, worked on the problem at the Innovation Lab in the giant Za’atari camp.
#Covid-19#Syriens#camp#UN#Jordanie#Zaatari_camp#Initiative#migration#quarantaine
▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/coronavirus-robot-lego-sanitizer-refugees
How COVID-19 is throttling vital global migration flows. | World Economic Forum
#Covid-19#migrant#migration#Monde#frontiere#fermeture
▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/covid-19-is-throttling-vital-migration-flows
Migration normally helps keep the global economy flowing. COVID-19 has mostly put a stop to that.
Gig workers among the hardest hit by coronavirus pandemic | World Economic Forum
▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/gig-workers-hardest-hit-coronavirus-pandemic
Gig workers are quitting jobs due to a fall in demand and safety concerns. The majority of gig workers now have no income due to COVID-19. Almost 70% of gig workers were not satisfied with the support provided by the company they work for. Gig workers are among the hardest hit economically by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey. AppJobs – an online platform to compare app-based jobs around the world – said many have had to quit their gig jobs due to a decrease in demand, as (...)
##santé
Indian cities are running out of water | World Economic Forum
▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/06/this-city-in-india-is-running-out-of-water
By 2030, it’s predicted that 40% of the population will have no access to drinking water - and 21 cities, including Chennai and New Delhi, will run out of groundwater, impacting 100 million people, according to NITI Aayog.
Climate change is altering global weather patterns, with devastating consequences for some subsistence farmers, whose livelihoods depend on successfully harvesting crops. Rising temperatures increase the severity and frequency of droughts, as well as other extreme weather events like floods, tropical cyclones and dust storms.
L’Inde affronte une crise de l’eau sans précédent
►https://www.lemonde.fr/climat/article/2019/06/24/en-inde-narendra-modi-affronte-une-crise-de-l-eau-sans-precedent_5480708_165
Autre talon d’Achille, d’après M. Iyer, « les fuites dans les réseaux urbains », qui représentent, par manque d’entretien, 40 % du volume envoyé dans les tuyaux, et « l’absence presque totale de traitement et de recyclage des eaux usées ». Dans le centre du sous-continent, l’Etat du Telangana prétend avoir trouvé une solution. Vendredi 21 juin, il a inauguré l’un des dispositifs d’irrigation les plus grands au monde.
Celui-ci consiste à profiter des crues des rivières pendant la saison des pluies pour pomper 85 millions de mètres cubes d’eau par jour dans le fleuve Godavari, faire remonter ces volumes colossaux en amont par une série de barrages, tunnels et canaux, et finalement arroser 1,8 million d’hectares de terres agricoles, tout en alimentant l’agglomération d’Hyderabad (14 millions d’habitants). Une infrastructure qui aura coûté près de 13 milliards d’euros et dont l’efficacité, comme les nuisances, sera regardée à la loupe au cours des prochains mois.
#Pakistan has planted over a billion trees
Pakistan hit its billion tree goal in August 2017 – months ahead of schedule. Now, the hills of the country’s northwestern province of #Khyber_Pakhtunkhwa are alive with newly planted saplings.
The massive reforestation project – named the #Billion_Tree_Tsunami – added 350,000 hectares of trees both by planting and natural regeneration, in an effort to restore the province’s depleted forests and fight the effects of climate change.
Decades of felling and natural disasters have drastically reduced Pakistan’s forests. Figures for the country’s total forest cover range between around 2% and 5% of land area. Nevertheless, Pakistan has one of the lowest levels of forest cover in the region and well below the 12% recommended by the UN.
It is also among the six countries that will be most affected by global warming.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had lost large areas of forest to felling, which increased the likelihood of flooding and landslides. In 2016 flash floods hit the province, killing dozens of people.
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/adqbHr4uH062Zm8dmlZIL1zl2WS2qU62zjy1EqkW_gM.png 
https://assets.weforum.org/article/image/large_qXeRQtIrYy1T0PJO9gXBp2DWUlKrj-i1y17B0MUtugw.jpg
2.3 million Venezuelans now live abroad
More than 7% of Venezuela’s population has fled the country since 2014, according to the UN. That is the equivalent of the US losing the whole population of Florida in four years (plus another 100,000 people, give or take).
The departing 2.3 million Venezuelans have mainly gone to neighboring Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, and Peru, putting tremendous pressure on those countries. “This is building to a crisis moment that we’ve seen in other parts of the world, particularly in the Mediterranean,” a spokesman for the UN’s International Organization for Migration said recently.
This week, Peru made it a bit harder for Venezuelans to get in. The small town of Aguas Verdes has seen as many as 3,000 people a day cross the border; most of the 400,000 Venezuelans in Peru arrived in the last year. So Peru now requires a valid passport. Until now, ID cards were all that was needed.
Ecuador tried to do the same thing but a judge said that such a move violated freedom-of-movement rules agreed to when Ecuador joined the Andean Community. Ecuador says 4,000 people a day have been crossing the border, a total of 500,000 so far. It has now created what it calls a “humanitarian corridor” by laying on buses to take Venezuelans across Ecuador, from the Colombian border to the Peruvian border.
Brazil’s Amazon border crossing in the state of Roraima with Venezuela gets 500 people a day. It was briefly shut down earlier this month—but that, too, was overturned by a court order.
Venezuela is suffering from severe food shortages—the UN said more than 1 million of those who had fled since 2014 are malnourished—and hyperinflation. Things could still get worse, which is really saying something for a place where prices are doubling every 26 days. The UN estimated earlier this year that 5,000 were leaving Venezuela every day; at that rate, a further 800,000 people could leave before the end of the year (paywall).
A Gallup survey from March showed that 53% of young Venezuelans want to move abroad permanently. And all this was before an alleged drone attack on president Nicolas Maduro earlier this month made the political situation even more tense, the country’s opposition-led National Assembly said that the annual inflation rate reached 83,000% in July, and the chaotic introduction of a new currency.
▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/08/venezuela-has-lost-2-3-million-people-and-it-could-get-even-worse
#Venezuela #asile #migrations #réfugiés #cartographie #visualisation #réfugiés_vénézuéliens
Sur ce sujet, voir aussi cette longue compilation initiée en juin 2017 :
►http://seen.li/d26k
Venezuela. L’Amérique latine cherche une solution à sa plus grande #crise_migratoire
Les réunions de crise sur l’immigration ne sont pas l’apanage de l’Europe : treize pays latino-américains sont réunis depuis lundi à Quito pour tenter de trouver des solutions communes au casse-tête migratoire provoqué par l’#exode_massif des Vénézuéliens.
Bataille de #chiffres et guerre d’images autour de la « #crise migratoire » vénézuélienne
L’émigration massive qui touche actuellement le Venezuela est une réalité. Mais il ne faut pas confondre cette réalité et les défis humanitaires qu’elle pose avec son instrumentalisation, tant par le pouvoir vénézuélien pour se faire passer pour la victime d’un machination que par ses « ennemis » qui entendent se débarrasser d’un gouvernement qu’ils considèrent comme autoritaire et source d’instabilité dans la région. Etat des lieux d’une crise très polarisée.
C’est un véritable scoop que nous a offert le président vénézuélien le 3 septembre dernier. Alors que son gouvernement est avare en données sur les sujets sensibles, Nicolas Maduro a chiffré pour la première fois le nombre de Vénézuéliens ayant émigré depuis deux ans à 600 000. Un chiffre vérifiable, a-t-il assuré, sans toutefois donner plus de détails.
Ce chiffre, le premier plus ou moins officiel dans un pays où il n’y a plus de statistiques migratoires, contraste avec celui délivré par l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM) et le Haut-Commissariat aux Réfugiés (HCR). Selon ces deux organisations, 2,3 millions de Vénézuéliens vivraient à l’étranger, soit 7,2% des habitants sur un total de 31,8 millions. Pas de quoi tomber de sa chaise ! D’autres diasporas sont relativement bien plus nombreuses. Ce qui impressionne, c’est la croissance exponentielle de cette émigration sur un très court laps de temps : 1,6 million auraient quitté le pays depuis 2015 seulement. Une vague de départs qui s’est accélérée ces derniers mois et affectent inégalement de nombreux pays de la région.
Le pouvoir vénézuélien, par la voix de sa vice-présidente, a accusé des fonctionnaires de l’ONU de gonfler les chiffres d’un « flux migratoire normal » (sic) pour justifier une « intervention humanitaire », synonyme de déstabilisation. D’autres sources estiment quant à elles qu’ils pourraient être près de quatre millions à avoir fui le pays.
▻https://www.cncd.be/Bataille-de-chiffres-et-guerre-d
#statistiques #guerre_des_chiffres
La formulation est tout de même étrange pour une ONG… : pas de quoi tomber de sa chaise, de même l’utilisation du mot ennemis avec guillemets. Au passage, le même pourcentage – pas si énorme …– appliqué à la population française donnerait 4,5 millions de personnes quittant la France, dont les deux tiers, soit 3 millions de personnes, au cours des deux dernières années.
Ceci dit, pour ne pas qu’ils tombent… d’inanition, le Programme alimentaire mondial (agence de l’ONU) a besoin de sous pour nourrir les vénézuéliens qui entrent en Colombie.
ONU necesita fondos para seguir atendiendo a emigrantes venezolanos
▻http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/mundo/onu-necesita-fondos-para-seguir-atendiendo-emigrantes-venezolanos_25311
El Programa Mundial de Alimentos (PMA), el principal brazo humanitario de Naciones Unidas, informó que necesita 22 millones de dólares suplementarios para atender a los venezolanos que entran a Colombia.
«Cuando las familias inmigrantes llegan a los centros de recepción reciben alimentos calientes y pueden quedarse de tres a cinco días, pero luego tienen que irse para que otros recién llegados puedan ser atendidos», dijo el portavoz del PMA, Herve Verhoosel.
[…]
La falta de alimentos se convierte en el principal problema para quienes atraviesan a diario la frontera entre Venezuela y Colombia, que cuenta con siete puntos de pasaje oficiales y más de un centenar informales, con más de 50% de inmigrantes que entran a Colombia por estos últimos.
El PMA ha proporcionado ayuda alimentaria de emergencia a más de 60.000 venezolanos en los departamentos fronterizos de Arauca, La Guajira y el Norte de Santander, en Colombia, y más recientemente ha empezado también a operar en el departamento de Nariño, que tiene frontera con Ecuador.
[…]
De acuerdo con evaluaciones recientes efectuadas por el PMA entre inmigrantes en Colombia, 80% de ellos sufren de inseguridad alimentaria.
Le grand #exode
Plus d’un million et demi de Vénézuéliens ont fui leur pays depuis trois ans. Un mouvement migratoire au moins aussi intense que celui qu’a connu l’Europe en 2015. Et qui provoque, lui aussi, des turbulences sur son passage. Coup d’œil sur la plus grande #vague de migration humaine que l’Amérique latine ait jamais connue.
▻http://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/61c2076f-32d8-40c9-ad8d-e6e186b8bfae__7C___0.html
Migrants du Venezuela vers la Colombie : « ni xénophobie, ni fermeture des frontières », assure le nouveau président colombien
Le nouveau président colombien, entré en fonction depuis hier (lundi 8 octobre 2018), ne veut pas céder à la tentation d’une fermeture de la frontière avec le Venezuela.
Fleeing hardship at home, Venezuelan migrants struggle abroad, too
Every few minutes, the reeds along the #Tachira_River rustle.
Smugglers, in ever growing numbers, emerge with a ragtag group of Venezuelan migrants – men struggling under tattered suitcases, women hugging bundles in blankets and schoolchildren carrying backpacks. They step across rocks, wade into the muddy stream and cross illegally into Colombia.
This is the new migration from Venezuela.
For years, as conditions worsened in the Andean nation’s ongoing economic meltdown, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans – those who could afford to – fled by airplane and bus to other countries far and near, remaking their lives as legal immigrants.
Now, hyperinflation, daily power cuts and worsening food shortages are prompting those with far fewer resources to flee, braving harsh geography, criminal handlers and increasingly restrictive immigration laws to try their luck just about anywhere.
In recent weeks, Reuters spoke with dozens of Venezuelan migrants traversing their country’s Western border to seek a better life in Colombia and beyond. Few had more than the equivalent of a handful of dollars with them.
“It was terrible, but I needed to cross,” said Dario Leal, 30, recounting his journey from the coastal state of Sucre, where he worked in a bakery that paid about $2 per month.
At the border, he paid smugglers nearly three times that to get across and then prepared, with about $3 left, to walk the 500 km (311 miles) to Bogota, Colombia’s capital. The smugglers, in turn, paid a fee to Colombian crime gangs who allow them to operate, according to police, locals and smugglers themselves.
As many as 1.9 million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2015, according to the United Nations. Combined with those who preceded them, a total of 2.6 million are believed to have left the oil-rich country. Ninety percent of recent departures, the U.N. says, remain in South America.
The exodus, one of the biggest mass migrations ever on the continent, is weighing on neighbors. Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, which once welcomed Venezuelan migrants, recently tightened entry requirements. Police now conduct raids to detain the undocumented.
In early October, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, Colombia’s foreign minister, said as many as four million Venezuelans could be in the country by 2021, costing national coffers as much as $9 billion. “The magnitude of this challenge,” he said, “our country has never seen.”
In Brazil, which also borders Venezuela, the government deployed troops and financing to manage the crush and treat sick, hungry and pregnant migrants. In Ecuador and Peru, workers say that Venezuelan labor lowers wages and that criminals are hiding among honest migrants.
“There are too many of them,” said Antonio Mamani, a clothing vendor in Peru, who recently watched police fill a bus with undocumented Venezuelans near Lima.
“WE NEED TO GO”
By migrating illegally, migrants expose themselves to criminal networks who control prostitution, drug trafficking and other rackets. In August, Colombian investigators discovered 23 undocumented Venezuelans forced into prostitution and living in basements in the colonial city of Cartagena.
While most migrants are avoiding such straits, no shortage of other hardship awaits – from homelessness, to unemployment, to the cold reception many get as they sleep in public squares, peddle sweets and throng already overburdened hospitals.
Still, most press on, many on foot.
Some join compatriots in Brazil and Colombia. Others, having spent what money they had, are walking vast regions, like Colombia’s cold Andean passes and sweltering tropical lowlands, in treks toward distant capitals, like Quito or Lima.
Johana Narvaez, a 36-year-old mother of four, told Reuters her family left after business stalled at their small car repair shop in the rural state of Trujillo. Extra income she made selling food on the street withered because cash is scarce in a country where annual inflation, according to the opposition-led Congress, recently reached nearly 500,000 percent.
“We can’t stay here,” she told her husband, Jairo Sulbaran, in August, after they ran out of food and survived on corn patties provided by friends. “Even on foot, we must go.” Sulbaran begged and sold old tires until they could afford bus tickets to the border.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has chided migrants, warning of the hazards of migration and that emigres will end up “cleaning toilets.” He has even offered free flights back to some in a program called “Return to the Homeland,” which state television covers daily.
Most migration, however, remains in the other direction.
Until recently, Venezuelans could enter many South American countries with just their national identity cards. But some are toughening rules, requiring a passport or additional documentation.
Even a passport is elusive in Venezuela.
Paper shortages and a dysfunctional bureaucracy make the document nearly impossible to obtain, many migrants argue. Several told Reuters they waited two years in vain after applying, while a half-dozen others said they were asked for as much as $2000 in bribes by corrupt clerks to secure one.
Maduro’s government in July said it would restructure Venezuela’s passport agency to root out “bureaucracy and corruption.” The Information Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“VENEZUELA WILL END UP EMPTY”
Many of those crossing into Colombia pay “arrastradores,” or “draggers,” to smuggle them along hundreds of trails. Five of the smugglers, all young men, told Reuters business is booming.
“Venezuela will end up empty,” said Maikel, a 17-year-old Venezuelan smuggler, scratches across his face from traversing the bushy trails. Maikel, who declined to give his surname, said he lost count of how many migrants he has helped cross.
Colombia, too, struggles to count illegal entries. Before the government tightened restrictions earlier this year, Colombia issued “border cards” that let holders crisscross at will. Now, Colombia says it detects about 3,000 false border cards at entry points daily.
Despite tougher patrols along the porous, 2,200-km border, officials say it is impossible to secure outright. “It’s like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket,” said Mauricio Franco, a municipal official in charge of security in Cucuta, a nearby city.
And it’s not just a matter of rounding up undocumented travelers.
Powerful criminal groups, long in control of contraband commerce across the border, are now getting their cut of human traffic. Javier Barrera, a colonel in charge of police in Cucuta, said the Gulf Clan and Los Rastrojos, notorious syndicates that operate nationwide, are both involved.
During a recent Reuters visit to several illegal crossings, Venezuelans carried cardboard, limes and car batteries as barter instead of using the bolivar, their near-worthless currency.
Migrants pay as much as about $16 for the passage. Maikel, the arrastrador, said smugglers then pay gang operatives about $3 per migrant.
For his crossing, Leal, the baker, carried a torn backpack and small duffel bag. His 2015 Venezuelan ID shows a healthier and happier man – before Leal began skimping on breakfast and dinner because he couldn’t afford them.
He rested under a tree, but fretted about Colombian police. “I’m scared because the “migra” comes around,” he said, using the same term Mexican and Central American migrants use for border police in the United States.
It doesn’t get easier as migrants move on.
Even if relatives wired money, transfer agencies require a legally stamped passport to collect it. Bus companies are rejecting undocumented passengers to avoid fines for carrying them. A few companies risk it, but charge a premium of as much as 20 percent, according to several bus clerks near the border.
The Sulbaran family walked and hitched some 1200 km to the Andean town of Santiago, where they have relatives. The father toured garages, but found no work.
“People said no, others were scared,” said Narvaez, the mother. “Some Venezuelans come to Colombia to do bad things. They think we’re all like that.”
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-migration-insight/fleeing-hardship-at-home-venezuelan-migrants-struggle-abroad-too-idUSKCN1MP
Avec ce commentaire de #Reece_Jones:
People continue to flee Venezuela, now often resorting to #smugglers as immigration restrictions have increased
’No more camps,’ Colombia tells Venezuelans not to settle in tent city
Francis Montano sits on a cold pavement with her three children, all their worldly possessions stuffed into plastic bags, as she pleads to be let into a new camp for Venezuelan migrants in the Colombian capital, Bogota.
Behind Montano, smoke snakes from woodfires set amid the bright yellow tents which are now home to hundreds of Venezuelans, erected on a former soccer pitch in a middle-class residential area in the west of the city.
The penniless migrants, some of the millions who have fled Venezuela’s economic and social crisis, have been here more than a week, forced by city authorities to vacate a makeshift slum of plastic tarps a few miles away.
The tent city is the first of its kind in Bogota. While authorities have established camps at the Venezuelan border, they have resisted doing so in Colombia’s interior, wary of encouraging migrants to settle instead of moving to neighboring countries or returning home.
Its gates are guarded by police and officials from the mayor’s office and only those registered from the old slum are allowed access.
“We’ll have to sleep on the street again, under a bridge,” said Montano, 22, whose children are all under seven years old. “I just want a roof for my kids at night.”
According to the United Nations, an estimated 3 million Venezuelans have fled as their oil-rich country has sunk into crisis under President Nicolas Maduro. Critics accuse the Socialist leader of ravaging the economy through state interventions while clamping down on political opponents.
The exodus - driven by violence, hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicines - amounts to one in 12 of the population, placing strain on neighboring countries, already struggling with poverty.
Colombia, which has borne the brunt of the migration crisis, estimates it is sheltering 1 million Venezuelans, with some 3,000 arriving daily. The government says their total numbers could swell to 4 million by 2021, costing it nearly $9 billion a year.
Municipal authorities in Bogota say the camp will provide shelter for 422 migrants through Christmas. Then in mid January, it will be dismantled in the hope jobs and new lodgings have been found.
Creativity amid Crisis: Legal Pathways for Venezuelan Migrants in Latin America
As more than 3 million Venezuelans have fled a rapidly collapsing economy, severe food and medical shortages, and political strife, neighboring countries—the primary recipients of these migrants—have responded with creativity and pragmatism. This policy brief explores how governments in South America, Central America, and Mexico have navigated decisions about whether and how to facilitate their entry and residence. It also examines challenges on the horizon as few Venezuelans will be able to return home any time soon.
Across Latin America, national legal frameworks are generally open to migration, but few immigration systems have been built to manage movement on this scale and at this pace. For example, while many countries in the region have a broad definition of who is a refugee—criteria many Venezuelans fit—only Mexico has applied it in considering Venezuelans’ asylum cases. Most other Latin American countries have instead opted to use existing visa categories or migration agreements to ensure that many Venezuelans are able to enter legally, and some have run temporary programs to regularize the status of those already in the country.
Looking to the long term, there is a need to decide what will happen when temporary statuses begin to expire. And with the crisis in Venezuela and the emigration it has spurred ongoing, there are projections that as many as 5.4 million Venezuelans may be abroad by the end of 2019. Some governments have taken steps to limit future Venezuelan arrivals, and some receiving communities have expressed frustration at the strain put on local service providers and resources. To avoid widespread backlash and to facilitate the smooth integration of Venezuelans into local communities, policymakers must tackle questions ranging from the provision of permanent status to access to public services and labor markets. Done well, this could be an opportunity to update government processes and strengthen public services in ways that benefit both newcomers and long-term residents.
▻https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/legal-pathways-venezuelan-migrants-latin-america
Venezuela: Millions at risk, at home and abroad
Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world and is not engulfed in war. Yet its people have been fleeing on a scale and at a rate comparable in recent memory only to Syrians at the height of the civil war and the Rohingya from Myanmar.
As chronicled by much of our reporting collected below, some three to four million people have escaped the economic meltdown since 2015 and tried to start afresh in countries like Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. This exodus has placed enormous pressure on the region; several governments have started making it tougher for migrants to enter and find jobs.
The many millions more who have stayed in Venezuela face an acute humanitarian crisis denied by their own government: pervasive hunger, the resurgence of disease, an absence of basic medicines, and renewed political uncertainty.
President Nicolás Maduro has cast aside outside offers of aid, framing them as preludes to a foreign invasion and presenting accusations that the United States is once again interfering in Latin America.
Meanwhile, the opposition, led by Juan Guaidó, the president of the National Assembly, has invited in assistance from the US and elsewhere.
As aid becomes increasingly politicised, some international aid agencies have chosen to sit on the sidelines rather than risk their neutrality. Others run secretive and limited operations inside Venezuela that fly under the media radar.
Local aid agencies, and others, have had to learn to adapt fast and fill the gaps as the Venezuelan people grow hungrier and sicker.
▻https://www.irinnews.org/special-report/2019/02/21/venezuela-millions-risk-home-and-abroad
#cartographie #visualisation
Leaving Home Through a Darkened Border
I’m sitting on the edge of a boat on the shore of the Grita river, a few kilometers from the Unión bridge. The border between San Antonio del Tachira (Venezuela) and Cucuta (Colombia), one of the most active in Latin America, is tense, dark and uneasy. I got there on a bus from Merida, at around 4:00 a.m., and people were commenting, between WhatsApp messages and audios, that Maduro had opened the border, closed precisely the last time I went through in a violent haze.
Minutes after I got off the bus, I could see hundreds standing in an impossible queue for the Venezuelan immigration office, at Boca de Grita. Coyotes waited on motorbikes, telling people how much cheaper and faster it’d be if they paid to cross through the side trail. I approached the first motorbike I saw, paid 7,000 Colombian pesos (a little over $2) and sleepily made my way through the wet, muddy paths down to the river.
Challenge 1: From Merida to the border
Fuel shortages multiplied the bus fares to the border in less than a month; the few buses that can still make the trip are already malfunctioning. The lonely, dark roads are hunting grounds for pirates, who throw rocks at car windows or set up spikes on the pavement to blow tires. Kidnapping or robberies follow.
The bus I was in stopped several times when the driver saw a particularly dark path ahead. He waited for the remaining drivers traveling that night to join him and create a small fleet, more difficult to attack. The criminals are after what travelers carry: U.S. dollars, Colombian pesos, Peruvian soles, gold, jewelry (which Venezuelans trade at the border for food or medicine, or a ride to Peru or Chile). “It’s a bad sign to find a checkpoint without soldiers,” the co-driver said, as he got off to stretch his legs. “We’ll stop here because it’s safe; we’ll get robbed up ahead.” Beyond the headlights, the road was lost in dusk. This trip usually takes five hours, but this time it took seven, with all the stops and checkpoints along the way.
Challenge 2: Across the river from Venezuela to Colombia
Reaching the river, I noticed how things had changed since the last time I visited. There was no trace of the bottles with smuggled fuel, barrels, guards or even containers over the boats. In fact, there weren’t even that many boats, just the one, small and light, pushed by a man with a wooden stick through muddy waters. I was the only passenger.
The paracos (Colombian paramilitaries) were in a good mood. Their logic is simple: if Maduro opened the border, lots of people would try to cross, but since many couldn’t go through the bridge due to the expensive bribes demanded by the Venezuelan National Guard and immigration agents, this would be a good day for trafficking.
The shortage of fuel in states like Tachira, Merida and Zulia destroyed their smuggling of incredibly cheap Venezuelan fuel to Colombia, and controlling the irregular crossings is now the most lucrative business. Guerrillas and paracos have been at it for a while, but now Venezuelan pro-Maduro colectivos, deployed in Tachira in February to repress protests, took over the human trafficking with gunfire, imposing a new criminal dynamic where, unlike Colombian paramilitaries, they assault and rob Venezuelan migrants.
A woman arrives on a motorbike almost half an hour after me, and comes aboard. “Up there, they’re charging people with large suitcases between 15,000 and 20,000 pesos. It’s going to be really hard to cross today. People will grow tired, and eventually they’ll come here. They’re scared because they’ve heard stories, but everything’s faster here.”
Her reasoning is that of someone who has grown accustomed to human trafficking, who uses these crossings every day. Perhaps she’s missing the fact that, in such a critical situation as Venezuela’s in 2019, most people can no longer pay to cross illegally and, if they have some money, they’d rather use it to bribe their way through the bridge. The binational Unión bridge, 60 km from Cucuta, isn’t that violent, making it the preferred road for families, pregnant women and the elderly.
Coyotes get three more people on the boat, the boatman sails into the river, turns on the rudimentary diesel engine and, in a few minutes, we’re on the other side. It’s not dawn yet and I’m certain this is going to be a very long day.
“I hope they remove those containers from the border,” an old man coming from Trujillo with a prescription for insulin tells me. “I’m sure they’ve started already.” After the failed attempt to deliver humanitarian aid in February, the crossing through the bridges was restricted to all pedestrians and only in a few exceptions a medical patient could be let through (after paying the bribe). The rest still languishes on the Colombian side.
Challenge 3: Joining the Cucuta crowd
I finally reach Cucuta and six hours later, mid-afternoon, I meet with American journalist Joshua Collins at the Simón Bolívar bridge. According to local news, about 70,000 people are crossing it this Saturday alone.
The difference with what I saw last time, reporting the Venezuela Live Aid concert, is astounding: the mass of Venezuelans lifts a cloud that covers everything with a yellowish, dirty and pale nimbus. The scorching desert sunlight makes everyone bow their heads while they push each other, crossing from one side to the other. There’s a stagnant, bitter smell in the air, a kind of musk made of filth, moisture and sweat.
Joshua points to 20 children running barefoot and shirtless after cabs and vehicles. “Those kids wait here every day for people who want to cross in or out with packs of food and merchandise. They load it all on their shoulders with straps on around their heads.” These children, who should be in school or playing with their friends, are the most active carriers nowadays, working for paramilitaries and colectivos.
The market (where you can buy and sell whatever you can think of) seems relegated to the background: what most people want right now is to cross, buy food and return before nightfall. The crowd writhes and merges. People shout and fight, frustrated, angry and ashamed. The Colombian police tries to help, but people move how they can, where they can. It’s unstoppable.
The deepening of the complex humanitarian crisis in the west, plus the permanent shortage of gasoline, have impoverished migrants to a dangerous degree of vulnerability. Those who simply want to reach the border face obstacles like the absence of safe transportation and well-defined enemies, such as the human trafficking networks or the pro-Maduro criminal gangs controlling the roads now. The fear of armed violence in irregular crossings and the oppressive tendencies of the people controlling them, as well as the growing xenophobia of neighboring countries towards refugees, should be making many migrants wonder whether traveling on foot is a good idea at all.
Although the border’s now open, the regime’s walls grow thicker for the poor. This might translate into new internal migrations within Venezuela toward areas less affected by the collapse of services, such as Caracas or the eastern part of the country, and perhaps the emergence of poor and illegal settlements in those forgotten lands where neither Maduro’s regime, nor Iván Duque’s government hold any jurisdiction.
For now, who knows what’s going to happen? The sun sets over the border and a dense cloud of dust covers all of us.
▻https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2019/06/11/leaving-home-through-a-darkened-border
Vision du #WEF, mais intéressant tout de même:
Speaking more than one language can boost economic growth
Multilingualism is good for the economy, researchers have found. Countries that actively nurture different languages reap a range of rewards, from more successful exports to a more innovative workforce.
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/Gy5sGwpZjeC4wCX0Wi46ioH3Fps_KAyt-RrYBzTV32U.jpg 
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/YBLXtJufISBC7uvout9lCYTlXfCnfIbv9dLXRHUdDio.jpg ▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/02/speaking-more-languages-boost-economic-growth
#langue #multilinguisme #croissance_économique #économie #cartographie #visualisation
Why multilingualism is good for economic growth
Language matters on a large-scale national level and at the level of smaller businesses. One famous cheese steak shop in Philadelphia, Geno’s, used to refuse sales to customers placing their orders in languages other than English. Its sign announcing this to customers was only taken down in 2011.
▻https://theconversation.com/why-multilingualism-is-good-for-economic-growth-71851
Take Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, who is learning Mandarin. His wife’s family is Chinese, so you might say he is personally motivated to do so. But he also has a huge market-driven incentive, as his company has long been trying to penetrate China’s market.
In this, he follows an old mantra that was most famously expressed by Willy Brandt, the former chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany: “If I’m selling to you, I speak your language. But if I’m buying, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen [then you have to speak German]”. This shows that now too, the customer is king.
Eurasia, the supercontinent that will define our century
–-> si le #WEF le dit...
In recent years, Chinese authorities have increasingly taken on this task and with the Belt and Road Initiative, a development project of unmatched ambition, they intend to be firmly in control. Spanning some 70 countries and requiring investment approaching $4 trillion, the initiative is deliberately intended to reshape the global political and economic order. China’s trade with countries along the Belt and Road rose 17.8% year-on-year in January 2018.
▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/02/how-countries-can-find-their-place-in-the-new-eurasian-century
#Eurasie #route_de_la_soie #Chine
cc @fil @reka @simplicissimus
Si c’est le #World_Economic_Forum qui le dit...
Why urban farming is changing the future of agriculture
The planet is growing more food than ever, and yet millions of people continue to starve worldwide. People are hungry everywhere — in the country, in the suburbs. But increasingly, one of the front lines in the war against hunger is in cities. As urban populations grow, more people find themselves in food deserts, areas with “[l]imited access to supermarkets, supercenters, grocery stores, or other sources of healthy and affordable food,” according to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
New technologies are changing the equation, allowing people to grow food in places where it was previously difficult or impossible, and in quantities akin to traditional farms.
▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/01/why-urban-farming-is-changing-the-future-of-agriculture
#agriculture #agriculture_urbaine #urban_matter #villes #faim #famine #WEF
The electricity required for a single Bitcoin trade could power a house for a whole month | World Economic Forum
▻http://uk.businessinsider.com/electricity-required-for-single-bitcoin-trade-could-power-a-hous
►http://www.jssj.org/article/deplacer-des-montagnes-avec-le-vent-numerique
Pour les « mineurs » de bitcoins, le calcul d’empreintes – dont la mise en œuvre massive est au cœur du protocole Bitcoin – est une fonction sans contenu propre. Elle ne délivre en effet pas de résultat particulier mais participe à la production purement formelle d’une totalité abstraite, celle des preuves de travail. Indépendamment des transactions concrètes qui sont menées par les utilisateurs de Bitcoin, la fonction de hachage devient cependant pour ces « mineurs » le but même à accomplir (à un niveau d’efficacité toujours plus élevé) et induit des effets bien réels sur et par les moyens mobilisés.
Le protocole Bitcoin se présente donc avec deux faces simultanées dont l’interaction est constitutive même de sa logique. Il y a d’une part une face concrète, dans le sens où elle adresse un besoin particulier, qui est représentée par les transactions des utilisateurs de la monnaie bitcoin. La portée de cet aspect-là dans le réel commence et s’éteint avec l’usage qui est fait du protocole Bitcoin par les « parties contractantes ». Il y a d’autre part une face abstraite, dans le sens où elle est vide de contenu particulier qui est représentée par la puissance de calcul « sans qualité » mise en œuvre par les « mineurs » afin de produire des preuves de travail indéfiniment et quel que soit le contenu des transactions traitées. Cette face qui présente une indifférence à (et non pas détachement de) tout contenu particulier, induit une dynamique et s’avère déterminante pour expliquer finalement les effets constatés dans le réel, en deçà et au-delà de ceux escomptés par les promoteurs du protocole.
Unemployment in the Eurozone has fallen to its lowest level since 2009
In June this year, euro-area unemployment dropped to 9.1%, down from 9.2% the previous month, and from 10.1% in the same month in 2016. This pattern reflects a trend seen across the EU as a whole, where the jobless rate in June was 7.7%, down from 8.6% a year earlier, according to the latest Eurostat data.
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/Wx1Gd3717RYh8w7LeTEBfGLy3XBObIki2pVK8-oADX0.png 
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/ReQjo9seJgv-F7IpdcB2bztDiRN6fyvJNoX19VhB9R8.png ▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/08/unemployment-falls-optimism-rises-in-eu
#statistiques #EU #UE #Europe #union_européenne #chiffres #chômage #travail
Four dangerous assumptions about human trafficking | World Economic Forum
▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/08/4-fallacies-slowing-the-fight-against-human-trafficking
Human trafficking is subject to complicated legal definitions, but the essence of this crime is straightforward: a person who is trapped in a situation of economic exploitation from which they cannot escape is very likely a victim of trafficking. Someone involved in moving that person into exploitation, or keeping them there against their will, is very likely a trafficker.
The forms it takes are as varied as the potential for profit. Women, men and children are trapped on farms, fishing boats and construction sites; in factories, mines, restaurant kitchens and private households. They are coerced into fighting wars, giving up their organs, marrying into servitude, or acting as commercial surrogates.
Millions of Africans depend on fishing. We must stop the plunder of their oceans
Millions of African citizens depend on fishing for their jobs, food and income. For years, however, Africa’s rich coastal waters have been plundered by foreign fleets, often fishing illegally.
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/u9JEYcaEDzN_Q4FukJHqQVP1vSpycrNXwkkw7Jl-KNA.jpg 
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/uY2nfaTbOBgJEXQU-l4NqE1cK9IGBvjS2RYNbF8FpLo.png #pêche #surpêche #infographie #visualisation #Afrique
... dit le World Economic Forum, WEF...
The Arctic is now expected to be ice-free by 2040
The last piece of summer sea-ice in the Arctic is expected to melt away in just 23 years, three decades earlier than previously expected.
▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/05/the-arctic-could-be-ice-free-by-2040
#arctique #glace #climat #changement_climatique #cartographie #visualisation
à ajouter aux compilations :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/524060
►https://seenthis.net/messages/499739
#effondrement #collapsologie #catastrophe #fin_du_monde #it_has_begun #Anthropocène #capitalocène
#réchauffement_climatique #dérèglement_climatique
Mais on peut aussi se consoler avec :
Science décalée : bientôt de la glace qui fond moins vite
Marie-Céline Jacquier, Futura-Science, le 3 juin 2017
►https://seenthis.net/messages/604025
This is the impact robots are having in jobs in the US | World Economic Forum
▻http://www.nber.org/digest/may17/w23285.shtml
The researchers find large and robust negative effects of robots on employment and wages. They estimate that one more robot per thousand workers reduces the employment-to-population ratio by between 0.18 and 0.34 percentage points, and is associated with a wage decline of between 0.25 and 0.5 percent. The effects are most pronounced on industries most exposed to robots, on workers with less than a college degree, and on routine manual, blue-collar, assembly, and other related occupations.
Robots appear to have a more negative impact on the employment of men than of women.
6 maps that could change your perspective on the world | World Economic Forum
▻https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/05/6-maps-that-could-change-your-perspective-on-the-world
What you need to know about LGBT rights in 11 maps
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/ko_Zy97c4E7ErrJzquChvyBX924z-8iA7V23lKctMGY.JPG 
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/9uI8oY9C9JLt8jiUyYZV1tNcthJG33PqvzIXP_XCNFI.JPG 
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/zH26NUyn_kNVCi0Bj-s6QD_EOKE5KigwT0S4n-uzI1E.JPG 
