city:moscow

US foreign policy as bellicose as ever, by Serge Halimi (Le Monde diplomatique - English edition, September 2017)
▻https://mondediplo.com/2017/09/01trump-foreignpolicy

https://mondediplo.com/IMG/arton8660.jpg

Trump is not solely responsible for this increased tension: Republican neoconservatives, Democrats and the media all applauded him this spring when he ordered military manoeuvres in Asia and the launch of 59 missiles towards an air base in Syria (1). At the same time, he was prevented from acting when he broached a possible rapprochement with Moscow, and was even forced to sign off on new US sanctions against Russia. US foreign policy’s point of equilibrium is effectively being determined by Republican phobias (Iran, Cuba, Venezuela) often shared by Democrats, and by Democrat hatreds (Russia, Syria) endorsed by most Republicans. If there is a peace party in Washington, it’s currently well hidden.

#Etats-Unis

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▻http://www.tourisme-rennes.com/fr/les-focus/odorico-mosaique

Originalité du patrimoine rennais, l’art de la mosaïque a laissé son empreinte dans la capitale de la Bretagne et même au-delà, dans tout le Grand Ouest. L’œuvre de la famille #Odorico, installée à #Rennes en 1882. Le début d’une saga pour deux générations d’artistes-artisans italiens qui ont décoré de nombreux bâtiments de la ville.

▻http://www.odorico.musee-bretagne.fr/accueil.htm

http://www1.rfi.fr/actufr/images/112/08-02178-Odorico432.jpg

Surrounded by the undead deep beneath Moscow: A Russian illustrator maps out a subway survival scheme for the zombie apocalypse — Meduza
▻https://meduza.io/en/shapito/2017/08/09/surrounded-by-the-undead-deep-beneath-moscow

https://meduza.io/image/attachments/images/002/402/622/elarge/JAl04Ik6S2I6trXphLdukg.jpg

Here’s a question: What would happen if a zombie apocalypse forced you to take refuge in the Moscow subway system? If you’ve ever pondered this and wondered how you might survive underground among the living dead, a Russian illustrator named Max Degtyarev has created something that will likely speak to your heart: a detailed diagram of life in a Moscow subway station under attack by a zombie horde. Degtyarev’s illustrations are full of survival advice, like using ladders as watchtowers, converting station attendants’ offices into shelters, and making toilets out of emergency spaces under the station platforms. Meduza spoke to the artist to learn more about his nightmare vision.

https://meduza.io/image/attachments/images/002/402/650/large/DrUuujmCBhLyVFmFX-F43Q.jpg

Restrictions du trafic maritime dans le détroit de #Kertch motivées par la construction du pont

Россия перекрыла Керченский пролив - Korrespondent.net
▻http://korrespondent.net/ukraine/3875990-rossyia-perekryla-kerchenskyi-prolyv

http://kor.ill.in.ua/m/610x385/2046508.jpg

Запрет движения будет действовать с 06.00 до 18.00 среды, 9 августа.
[…]
Напомним, ранее сообщалось, что Россия планирует ввести запрет на движение кораблей и судов по Керченскому проливу, который будет действовать 3-6, 8-10, 14-21 и 28-31 августа, а также 1-4 сентября 2017 года.

Russia, Xenophobia and Profiting From Migration Controls

Migrant labor contributes more to the Moscow city budget in taxes than all the oil and gas giants headquartered in Russia’s capital. Despite being a major budgetary resource for the state, migrants living and working in Russia continue to be portrayed as a potential threat that requires strict controls. Russia’s current migration management framework is designed to keep labor migrants on a short leash while at the same time extracting maximum revenue from the barriers it places.

https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20170803110141/Protest-rally-on-Revolution-Square-in-Moscow.jpg?w=640&fit=max&q=60&dpr=2#.jpg

The Chilling Ruins of Hovrinskaya Hospital, Moscow

http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Hovrinskaya-Hospital-1.jpg

Construction of Moscow’s Hovrinskaya Hospital began in 1980 and halted five years later, leaving behind an unsettling, brutalist shell of what would have been a 1,300-bed hospital. At a glance, it’s easy to imagine how a plethora of creepy tales and urban legends might have emerged from the ruins of the abandoned, unfinished hospital. And indeed they have. But not all of these stories are the stuff of folklore.

http://readrussia.com/media/article/teaser_small/2015-08-20_17-33-16__65648774-4748-11e5-99b6-448a5b8480a3.jpg

#Israel escalates threats against Iran - Middle East News - Haaretz.com
▻http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/1.802076

http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.802103.1500434714!/image/2313854386.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/2313854386.jpg

But developments along the Syrian border have an even greater potential for drama. Though it’s doubtful Israel will attack Iranian bases in Syria the next morning, as Amidror’s words might seem to imply, there’s clearly a point of friction over which Netanyahu, for the first time, has been willing to publicly clash with the Trump administration.

Israel’s suspicions about Washington’s conduct in the Syrian theater relate to several issues: Russian-American coordination, which Israel sees as being dictated mainly by Moscow; the emerging American plan to reduce its military presence in the region once the Islamic State is defeated in its Syrian capital of Raqqa; and Trump’s apparent acceptance of Iran’s growing role in Syria.

The administration’s announcement, two years after the nuclear deal was signed with Iran, that Tehran is honoring its commitment to freeze its nuclear program also apparently made Netanyahu uncomfortable. Until then, President Donald Trump had sounded much more forceful and suspicious toward Iran than some of his top officials.

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 Geopolitical Economy of the Global Internet Infrastructure on JSTOR
▻https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jinfopoli.7.2017.0228

Article très intéressant qui repositionne les Etats dans la gestion de l’infrastructure globale de l’internet. En fait, une infrastructure globale pour le déploiement du capital (une autre approche de la géopolitique, issue de David Harvey).

According to many observers, economic globalization and the liberalization of telecoms/internet policy have remade the world in the image of the United States. The dominant roles of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have also led to charges of US internet imperialism. This article, however, argues that while these internet giants dominate some of the most popular internet services, the ownership and control of core elements of the internet infrastructure—submarine cables, internet exchange points, autonomous system numbers, datacenters, and so on—are tilting increasingly toward the EU and BRICS (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries and the rest of the world, complicating views of hegemonic US control of the internet and what Susan Strange calls the knowledge structure.

This article takes a different tack. It argues that while US-based internet giants do dominate some of the middle and top layers of the internet—for example, operating systems (iOS, Windows, Android), search engines (Google), social networks (Facebook), online retailing (Amazon), over-the-top TV (Netflix), browsers (Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Microsoft Explorer), and domain names (ICANN)—they do not rule the hardware, or material infrastructure, upon which the internet and daily life, business, governments, society, and war increasingly depend. In fact, as the article shows, ownership and control of many core elements of the global internet infrastructure—for example, fiber optic submarine cables, content delivery networks (CDNs), autonomous system numbers (ASN), and internet exchange points (IXPs)—are tilting toward the rest of the world, especially Europe and the BRICS (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). This reflects the fact that the United States’ standing in the world is slipping while an ever more multipolar world is arising.

International internet backbone providers, internet content companies, and CDNs interconnect with local ISPs and at one or more of the nearly 2000 IXPs around the world. The largest IXPs are in New York, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Seattle, Chicago, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. They are core elements of the internet that switch traffic between all the various networks that comprise the internet system, and help to establish accessible, affordable, fast, and secure internet service.

In developed markets, internet companies such as Google, Baidu, Facebook, Netflix, Youku, and Yandex use IXPs to interconnect with local ISPs such as Deutsche Telecoms in Germany, BT or Virgin Media in Britain, or Comcast in the United States to gain last-mile access to their customers—and vice versa, back up the chain. Indeed, 99 percent of internet traffic handled by peering arrangements among such parties occurs without any money changing hands or a formal contract.50 Where IXPs do not exist or are rare, as in Africa, or run poorly, as in India, the cost of bandwidth is far more expensive. This is a key factor that helps to explain why internet service is so expensive in areas of the world that can least afford it. It is also why the OECD and EU encourage developing countries to make IXPs a cornerstone of economic development and telecoms policy work.

The network of networks that make up the internet constitute a sprawling, general purpose platform upon which financial markets, business, and trade, as well as diplomacy, spying, national security, and war depend. The world’s largest electronic payments system operator, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications’ (SWIFT) secure messaging network carries over 25 million messages a day involving payments that are believed to be worth over $7 trillion USD.59 Likewise, the world’s biggest foreign currency settlement system, the CLS Bank, executes upward of a million trades a day worth between $1.5 and $2.5 trillion over the global cable systems—although that is down by half from its high point in 2008.60 As Stephen Malphrus, former chief of staff to the US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, observed, when “communications networks go down, the financial services sector does not grind to a halt, rather it snaps to a halt.”61

Governments and militaries also account for a significant portion of internet traffic. Indeed, 90 to 95 percent of US government traffic, including sensitive diplomatic and military orders, travels over privately owned cables to reach officials in the field.62 “A major portion of DoD data traveling on undersea cables is unmanned aerial vehicle video,” notes a study done for the Department of Homeland Security by MIT scholar Michael Sechrist.63 Indeed, the Department of Defense’s entire Global Information Grid shares space in these cables with the general public internet.64

The 3.6 billion people as of early 2016 who use the internet to communicate, share music, ideas and knowledge, browse, upload videos, tweet, blog, organize social events and political protests, watch pornography, read sacred texts, and sell stuff are having the greatest influence on the current phase of internet infrastructure development. Video currently makes up an estimated two-thirds of all internet traffic, and is expected to grow to 80 percent in the next five years,69 with US firms leading the way. Netflix single-handedly accounts for a third of all internet traffic. YouTube is the second largest source of internet traffic on fixed and mobile networks alike the world over. Altogether, the big five internet giants account for roughly half of all “prime-time” internet traffic, a phrasing that deliberately reflects the fact that internet usage swells and peaks at the same time as the classic prime-time television period, that is, 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Importance des investissements des compagnies de l’internet dans les projets de câbles.

Several things stand out from this analysis. First, in less than a decade, Google has carved out a very large place for itself through its ownership role in four of the six projects (the SJC, Faster, Unity, and Pacific Cable Light initiatives), while Facebook has stakes in two of them (APG and PLCN) and Microsoft in the PLCN project. This is a relatively new trend and one that should be watched in the years ahead.

A preliminary view based on the publicly available information is that the US internet companies are important but subordinate players in consortia dominated by state-owned national carriers and a few relatively new competitors. Keen to wrest control of core elements of the internet infrastructure that they perceive to have been excessively dominated by United States interests in the past, Asian governments and private investors have joined forces to change things in their favor. In terms of the geopolitical economy of the internet, there is both a shift toward the Asia-Pacific region and an increased role for national governments.

Return of the State as Regulator of Concentrated Markets

In addition to the expanded role of the state as market builder, regulator, and information infrastructure policy maker, many regulators have also rediscovered the reality of significant market concentration in the telecom-internet and media industries. Indeed, the US government has rejected several high-profile telecoms mergers in recent years, such as AT&T’s proposal to take over T-Mobile in 2011, T-Mobile’s bid for Sprint in 2014, and Comcast’s attempt to acquire Time Warner Cable last year. Even the approval of Comcast’s blockbuster takeover of NBC Universal in 2011, and Charter Communications acquisition of Time Warner Cable last year, respectively, came with important strings attached and ongoing conduct regulation designed to constrain the companies’ ability to abuse their dominant market power.87 The FCC’s landmark 2016 ruling to reclassify broadband internet access as a common carrier further indicated that US regulators have been alert to the realities of market concentration and telecoms-internet access providers’ capacity to abuse that power, and the need to maintain a vigilant eye to ensure that their practices do not swamp people’s rights to freely express themselves, maintain control over the collection, retention, use, and disclosure of their personal information, and to access a diverse range of services over the internet.88 The 28 members of the European Union, along with Norway, India, and Chile, have adopted similar “common carriage/network neutrality/open network”89 rules to offset the reality that concentration in core elements of these industries is “astonishingly high”90 on the basis of commonly used indicators (e.g., concentration ratios and the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index).

These developments indicate a new phase in internet governance and control. In the first phase, circa the 1990s, technical experts and organizations such as the Internet Engineers Task Force played a large role, while the state sat relatively passively on the sidelines. In the second phase, circa the early to mid-2000s, commercial forces surged to the fore, while internet governance revolved around the ICANN and the multi-stakeholder model. Finally, the revelations of mass internet surveillance by many states and ongoing disputes over the multi-stakeholder, “internet freedom” agenda on the one side, versus the national sovereignty, multilateral model where the ITU and UN system would play a larger role in internet governance all indicate that significant moves are afoot where the relationship between states and markets is now in a heightened state of flux.

Such claims, however, are overdrawn. They rely too heavily on the same old “realist,” “struggle for control” model where conflict between nation-states has loomed large and business interests and communication technologies served mainly as “weapons of politics” and the handmaidens of national interests from the telegraph in the nineteenth century to the internet today. Yet, nation-states and private business interests, then and now, not only compete with one another but also cooperate extensively to cultivate a common global space of economic accumulation. Communication technologies and business interests, moreover, often act independent of the nation-state and via “private structures of cooperation,” that is, cartels and consortia, as the history and contemporary state of the undersea cable networks illustrate. In fact, the internet infrastructure of the twenty-first century, much like that of the industrial information infrastructure of the past 150 years, is still primarily financed, owned, and operated by many multinational consortia, although more than a few submarine communications cables are now owned by a relatively new roster of competitive players, such as Tata, Level 3, Global Cloud Xchange, and so forth. They have arisen mostly in the last 20 years and from new quarters, such as India in the case of Tata, for example.

#Economie_numérique #Géopolitique #Câbles_sous_marins

Lethal opioid delivery seized by Finnish customs | Yle Uutiset | yle.fi
▻https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/lethal_opioid_delivery_seized_by_finnish_customs/9728264

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Finnish Customs said Tuesday that the agency had confiscated the highly dangerous drug #carfentanil. Officials intercepted the potent opioid in the post and have warned that merely handling the narcotic could be lethal.

#drogue #finlande

300 000 fois plus grand que celui qui a coulé le Titanic, un iceberg se détache de l’Antarctique
12 juillet 2017
▻https://www.rtbf.be/info/societe/detail_un-iceberg-geant-se-detache-de-l-antarctique?id=9658208

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Un iceberg de mille milliards de tonnes, l’un des plus gros jamais vus, vient de se former après s’être détaché du continent Antarctique, ont affirmé mercredi des chercheurs de l’Université de Swansea (Royaume-Uni).

« La formation s’est produite entre lundi et mercredi », précisent les scientifiques, qui surveillaient l’évolution de ce bloc de glace gigantesque.

Ce gigantesque iceberg pourrait rendre la navigation très hasardeuse pour les navires voguant à proximité du continent gelé, rapportait, il y a 15 jours, des scientifiques.

Une immense faille de 175 km de long, identifiée depuis 2014, s’était créée sur la barrière de Larsen, une formation de glace le long de la côte orientale de la péninsule Antarctique du Cap Longing.
5000 km2

Cette faille, appelée Larsen C, a isolé un morceau de banquise de 5000 km2 qui, le 21 juin, n’était plus relié au reste du continent que par un bras de glace de 13 km. Celui-ci a cédé.

L’iceberg qui menace de se détacher est 300 000 fois plus grand que celui qui a coulé le Titanic et l’un des plus grands jamais enregistrés.

#Larsen_C #Climat

New Cyberattack Goes Global, Hits WPP, Rosneft, Maersk - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-27/ukraine-russia-report-ransomware-computer-virus-attacks

A new cyberattack similar to #WannaCry is spreading from Europe to the U.S. and South America, hitting port operators in New York, Rotterdam and Argentina, disrupting government systems in Kiev, and disabling operations at companies including Rosneft PJSC, advertiser WPP Plc. and the Chernobyl nuclear facility.

More than 80 companies in Russia and Ukraine were initially affected by the #Petya virus that disabled computers Tuesday and told users to pay $300 in cryptocurrency to unlock them, Moscow-based cybersecurity company Group-IB said. About 2,000 users have been attacked so far, according to Kaspersky Lab analysts, with organizations in Russia and the Ukraine the most affected.

Parmi les (nombreuses) victimes citées

Cie de Saint-Gobain, a French manufacturer, said its systems had also been infected, though a spokeswoman declined to elaborate, and the French national railway system, the SNCF, was also affected, according to Le Parisien.

Foreign Policy - Situation Report
▻http://link.foreignpolicy.com/view/52543e66c16bcfa46f6ced165vxvx.23w3/1ea399c6

Syria ops normal. Mostly. Tensions remain high between the United States and Russia after Sunday’s shoot down of a Syrian jet, and Moscow’s threats to begin tracking all coalition flights west of the Euphrates River with its warplanes and missile defense systems. There’s already been a bit of fallout. Australia announced Tuesday it had suspended its flights into Syria, "as a precautionary measure,” Australia’s Department of Defence said in a statement.

Strikes continue. A daily roundup of airstrikes released by the U.S. Central Command Tuesday showed eight strikes around Raqqa, which sits directly on the Euphrates. “Coalition aircraft continue to conduct operations [unescorted by Russian aircraft] throughout Syria,” Col. Ryan Dillon, the Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS, told SitRep in an email Tuesday.

He added that despite Russian claims to have shut down the “hotline” between American and Russian military officers in Syria, “we continue to use the de-confliction line with the Russians. The Coalition is always available to de-conflict with the Russians.”

Syrians on the move. In southern Syria, government forces recently took the al Waleed border crossing, an ISIS-held crossing close to the al Tanf garrison where 150 U.S. Special Operations Forces are based. For the first time in years Syrians greeted Iraqi troops, who pushed the Islamic State from their side of the border crossing over the weekend. U.S. military officials said they believe the reports of the border meet and greet are true, but had no further comment. FP’s Paul McLeary has more on the latest complications in the almost three-year American effort in Syria.

En quelques heures, les tensions internationales montent d’un cran en Syrie - L’Orient-Le Jour
▻https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1057941/en-quelques-heures-les-tensions-internationales-montent-dun-cran-en-s

L’aviation américaine abat un chasseur syrien, des affrontements ont lieu entre les troupes gouvernementales et les rebelles soutenus par les Etats-Unis, l’Iran annonce des tirs de missiles dans la région de Deir ez-Zor.

Russia: Children, Students Targeted after Protests

(Moscow) – The authorities in numerous cities across Russia have harassed and intimidated schoolchildren and university students who participated in anti-corruption demonstrations on March 26, 2017, Human Rights Watch said today. Officials also harassed and intimidated parents for allowing children to take part in protests.

▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/11/russia-children-students-targeted-after-protests
#enfants #élèves #étudiants #Russie #répression #arrestation #it_has_begun #université

The Inflated Debate Over Cosmic Inflation - Issue 48: Chaos
▻http://nautil.us/issue/48/chaos/the-inflated-debate-over-cosmic-inflation

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On the morning of Dec. 7, 1979, a 32-year-old Alan Guth woke up with an idea. It had come into his head the previous night, but now, in the light of a California day, he could see the shape of the thing, and was itching to work through the math. He hopped on his bike and rode to his office at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. His excitement got him there in record time: 9 minutes, 32 seconds. At his desk, Guth neatly carried out the calculations in his notebook, forming the numbers and symbols in tight, careful lines. Then, at the top of a fresh page, he wrote in all caps: SPECTACULAR REALIZATION. A year later and some 6,000 miles away, in Moscow, in the middle of the night, Andrei Linde, having read Guth’s paper, had his own spectacular realization. He had been working on his (...)

Monument to peer review unveiled in Moscow
▻https://www.nature.com/news/monument-to-peer-review-unveiled-in-moscow-1.22060

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_original/prylkxa7wjitdrwpbkgn.jpg

On 26 May, a good-humoured crowd of more than 100 people — including students, researchers and Russia’s deputy minister of education and science — gathered outside Moscow’s Higher School of Economics (HSE) to witness the unveiling of what is probably the world’s first monument to #peer_review.

Killing Pavel - OCCRP

Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet’s reporting had challenged authorities from Minsk to Moscow and Kyiv.

In a murder that shocked the world, he was killed by a car bomb in the Ukrainian capital in July 2016.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called for law enforcement to find and punish those behind the attack, but authorities have so far been unable to solve the case.

For over nine months, reporters from OCCRP and Slidstvo.Info conducted their own investigation, both into the murder and into the police probe – and recorded every step of the way. “Killing Pavel” is the result of these efforts.

In exclusive footage and interviews, the film reveals crucial information about the night and morning of the killing that never found its way into the official investigation – and asks why.

▻https://www.occrp.org/en/documentaries/killing-pavel

https://www.occrp.org/assets/documentaries/killingpaveltitlebanner.jpg

#occpr #journalisme #documentaire #Russie #Biélorussie #Pavel_Sheremet #homicide #attentat

What’s New in Japan-Russia Relations? | The Diplomat
▻http://thediplomat.com/2017/05/whats-new-in-japan-russia-relations

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During a bilateral summit meeting in Moscow on April 27, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to make concrete progress toward deepening trust, resolving the issue of the disputed Northern Territories (also know as the Kuril Islands), and concluding a peace treaty. As no peace treaty was signed between Japan and Russia in the aftermath of World War II, the two countries are still technically at war.

The question of sovereignty over four disputed islands was set aside (as expected), but several tangible steps were taken. Notably, Japan and Russia agreed that a joint public-private survey mission would be sent to the Northern Territories as early as May to research how the two countries can pursue economic cooperation. Areas of research for potential cooperation include fish and sea urchin farming and ecotourism. This step is in line with Abe and Putin’s December agreement to launch talks on joint activities on the islands.

#japon #russie #asie

Animals Etched onto Dirty Cars by Illustrator Nikita Golubev | Colossal
▻http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/04/animals-etched-onto-dirty-cars-by-illustrator-nikita-golubev/?mc_cid=37041aa5fd&mc_eid=a53b581529

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/golubev-1.jpg

Moscow-based artist and illustrator Nikita Golubev has taken to the streets to etch images of animals onto the sides of completely filthy vehicles

#art_éphémère #graffiti #street_art

Russia, the friend of our enemies

In Washington it’s becoming clear that the West’s real enemy in the Middle East is Iran, which wields power in Lebanon and Syria and is now trying for Yemen

Moshe Arens Apr 18, 2017
read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.783861

An enemy of our enemies is our friend, and a friend of our enemies is presumably our enemy. So what should we make of Vladimir Putin, an enemy of the Islamic State, which is an enemy of Israel, but who is also a friend of Iran, Hezbollah and Syria, who are also enemies of Israel? Has Putin made the wrong choice?
Sergey Lavrov, Javad Zarif and Walid Moallem, the foreign ministers of Russia, Iran, and Syria, sit in Moscow coordinating their positions, claiming the charge that Bashar Assad’s forces used chemical warfare on Syrian civilians is a complete fabrication, despite the incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Putin no doubt knows the truth but has put his money on the Syrian president – who is allied with Iran – and has decided to stick with him for the time being. Presumably he is still counting on Assad to defeat his adversaries with the help of Moscow and Tehran, thus maintaining Russia’s military presence and influence in Syria. He has continued good relations with Israel, and yet backs forces that are pledged to Israel’s destruction. How has it come to this pass?
At least part of the answer is the attempts by ISIS, that zany radical Islamist group, to set up a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria, as well as the organization’s success with making inroads into Libya and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and spreading terror aimed at “nonbelievers” throughout the world. A worthy enemy for sure. A broad coalition has been formed to fight ISIS, and Assad insists he is a member of that coalition. Assad the terrorist is fighting terrorists and insists that he deserves the world’s sympathy and support. Putin, intent on fighting the Islamic State, has decided to help Assad “fight terrorism.”
U.S. President Donald Trump began going down the same path. At first he saw no need to replace Assad, since he was presumably fighting ISIS, the common enemy. In the profusion of “enemies” taking part in the bloody war in Syria, ISIS looked like the worst of the lot. But militarily, it turned out that it was also among the easiest to defeat. There was no need to ally oneself with Assad to accomplish that aim. If you fight alongside Assad, as the Russians are doing, you find yourself fighting alongside Hezbollah, which is financed, trained and equipped by Iran. Iranian militias are taking part in the fighting against ISIS in Mosul. How do you solve this puzzle?
Trump seems to have found his way out of this labyrinth by condemning Assad for using chemical weapons against civilians and sending him a message via 59 Tomahawks to make sure he and everyone else knows that he means business. Assad’s latest chemical attack against his own citizens dispelled any illusions people may have had about him – and his allies. Maybe the message will be coming through in Moscow as well.

What did Tillerson’s Russia trip achieve?

▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/04/tillerson-lavrov-russia-meeting.html

❝Moscow also seized the moment of direct contact with the top US diplomat to clarify its own positions. On Syria, the departure of President Bashar al-Assad was and remains a non-starter for Russia. What neither Lavrov nor Putin would probably say to Tillerson, but do expect him to understand, is that Russia has invested so much into Syria now, politically and militarily, that Moscow’s primary concern is less about Assad than about the principle, power and prestige of maintaining its position. Hence, any plan that might move Moscow from this standing would have to involve some face-saving mechanism that the Kremlin could package as a win-win internationally, and as a “decision made in Russia’s best interest” domestically.

So far, the US vision has been to get Russia on board by offering Moscow an opportunity to “play a constructive role in the humanitarian and political catastrophe in the Middle East.” That approach misses a critical point in Russian political psychology: The Kremlin believes it has already stepped up as a constructive player to counter the increasingly destructive forces unleashed by the United States. This belief — no matter how uncomfortably it sits with anyone — is not entirely groundless. Many players in the region perceive Russia in this capacity, even if it’s just for their own political reasons.

A senior Russian diplomat speaking with Al-Monitor not for attribution said: “[Russia] stepping aside from Assad would mean, among other things, an ultimate win for the US regime-change policy. It would indicate that no matter how long you resist this policy, you’ll be made to surrender. That’s a serious red line in Russia’s foreign policy thinking, the one that President Putin cannot afford to be crossed — not for all the tea in China, or should I say, a chocolate cake in Mar-a-Lago?”

Therefore, Tillerson’s statement on the importance of Assad’s departure in a “structural, organized manner” is seen in Moscow as a positive outcome. It leaves open the prospect of returning to the political process that was underway for several months before the gas attack and the airstrikes.

However, it might be much more difficult to achieve now, as the parties focus on reinforcing their respective and contradictory narratives. Reports of US intelligence intercepting communications between Syrian military and chemical experts about preparations for a sarin nerve gas attack in Idlib are a powerful argument for the audience that shares the “American narrative” — as Moscow sees it. However, it is producing counternarratives on the Russian side. One such narrative, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, suggests that of all “12 facilities that stored Syrian chemical weapons, 10 were destroyed in the timeline between 2013 and 2016 under the watch of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons … [while] the remaining two compounds are out of reach for the Syrian government since they are located in the territory controlled by the so-called opposition.”

Also, as Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, put it: “The recitation of mantras on the necessity of Assad’s departure” won’t budge Moscow’s position an inch, nor will it help with a political solution to the Syria crisis. On the contrary, it will only reinforce Russia’s position on Assad. So far, Moscow has been operating on the principle of presumed innocence and calling for an “unbiased probe” into the Syria attack. To Russia, a refusal to have such an investigation would show that the case against Assad is being pursued for political rather than humanitarian reasons.

Remarkably, a recent Mir interview with Putin indicates Moscow hasn’t reached a concrete conclusion on exactly who perpetrated the attacks. Putin’s statement that it could have been the Syrian opposition or the Islamic State (IS) is based primarily on the opposition’s hope of saving itself in a losing battle and on previous IS chemical attacks in Iraq. On factual grounds, however, Russia’s arguments look as shaky as the West’s “confidence” that Assad did it. Yet this state of affairs leaves enough space for US-Russia cooperation on investigating the case, if only inspired by a solid political will.

Though it seems counterintuitive, Russia’s veto of the UN resolution on Syria proposed by the United States, the UK and France hours after the Tillerson-Lavrov press conference is an important sign of Russia’s commitment to work with the United States. Deputy Russian UN Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov explained the veto by saying the resolution assigned guilt “before an independent and objective investigation” could be conducted.

However, Russia probably had decided to veto the resolution even before Tillerson and Lavrov met, to give itself more time to think through the negotiation results. Moscow wanted to come up with a fresh proposal at the UN that would reflect a more engaging approach for both US and Russian interests. Hence came Safronkov’s heated and scandalous lashing out against British diplomat Matthew Rycroft, whom he accused of trying to derail a potential agreement on Syria and Assad’s fate that Moscow had hoped to reach with Washington. "Don’t you dare insult Russia!” he said at the UN Security Council meeting April 12.

Rycroft had accused Moscow of supporting Assad’s “murderous, barbaric” regime.

In general, the visit left a feeling in Moscow that the initiatives Lavrov and Tillerson discussed will face intense scrutiny in Washington. The confrontational rhetoric flying from both capitals will remain prevalent. But the parties have articulated a need and agreed on some — though not many — concrete steps toward managing the situation. It’s not likely to lead to a “great-power alliance” or help both parties accomplish much together. But it might be just what’s needed to take the two back from the brink of a direct military clash and spare the world even more uncertainty. Given the current circumstances, this might be the most comfortable paradigm for the bilateral relations — at least until Putin and Trump meet face to face.

MAXIM A. SUCHKOV
Editor, Russia-Mideast 
Maxim A. Suchkov, PhD is the Editor of Al-Monitor’s Russia-Mideast coverage as well as an expert of the Russian International Affairs Council. He is also an Associate Professor of International Relations and Deputy Director for Research at the School of International Relations, Pyatigorsk State University based in the North Caucasus, Russia. Formerly he was a Fulbright visiting fellow at Georgetown University (2010-11) and New York University (2015). He is the author of the “Essays on Russian Foreign Policy in the Caucasus and the Middle East.” On Twitter: @Max_A_Suchkov

#Russie #Syrie #Etats-Unis

Russia ’furious’ with Assad over gas attack

▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/04/russia-us-chemical-weapons-attack-assad-putin-tillerson.html

http://images.al-monitor.com/almpics/2017/04/GettyImages-664852180.jpg/GettyImages-664852180.jpg

WASHINGTON — Privately, Russian officials are furious with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for a suspected April 4 chemical weapons attack in Idlib province that killed over 80 people, Russia analysts said. They see it as threatening to sabotage the potential for US-Russia rapprochement ahead of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s first visit to Moscow this week.

Syria’s alleged chemical weapons attack in Idlib province has threatened to sabotage potential US-Russia rapprochement, and Russia is privately furious with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Author Laura Rozen Posted April 10, 2017

But Russia is also confused by what it perceives as contradictory statements from various top Trump Cabinet officials on whether US policy is shifting to demand Assad’s ouster, to what degree does the United States think Russia is culpable for Assad’s behavior, and more broadly, who from the administration speaks for Donald Trump, they said.

“Assad committed suicide here,” Michael Kofman, a Russia military expert with the Kennan Institute, told Al-Monitor in an interview April 10. Russia “will never forgive him for this.”

The suspected April 4 nerve gas attack on rebel-held Khan Sheikhoun that killed over 80 people, many of them children, “is a complete disaster” for Russia, Kofman said. “It destroyed the legacy of the 2013 deal [to remove Syria’s chemical weapons] that both countries [the United States and Russia] certified. So it made liars of both of us.”

He noted, “It provided all the ammunition to sabotage rapprochement between the United States and Russia. Look at the atmospherics. It caused public embarrassment. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has to swallow US cruise missile strikes. Notice he has not defended Assad. It looks bad for Russia.”

Kofman added, “It demonstrates … in terms of Putin being a power broker … that the Russian role is very aspirational. It prevented him from doing this.”

“The Russians weren’t happy about what happened,” Nikolas Gvosdev, a Russia expert and professor at the US Naval War College, told Al-Monitor, referring to the April 4 chemical weapons attack. “They don’t like unpredictability … when things happen that throw what they are planning off course.”

“The Russians don’t like to be surprised,” Gvosdev added. “They don’t like … [to be made to] look like they can’t enforce agreements or don’t have as much influence over Assad as they were suggesting.”

Trump discussed Syria during a phone call with British Prime Minister Theresa May on April 10, and according to the British readout, the two leaders said they saw an opportunity to press Russia to break its alliance with Assad.❞
#Russie #Syrie #armeschimiques

Will Israel be a casualty of U.S.-Russian tension after Trump’s missile attack? - Syria - Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/.premium-1.782265

Putin might want to prove that an attack on Russia’s ally has implications for America’s ally. But Israel needs coordination with Russia over Syria’s skies

Zvi Bar’el Apr 08, 2017 7:30 AM
 
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013. AP
Analysis Syria strike marks complete turnaround in Trump’s policy
Analysis Trump challenges Putin with first Western punishment for Assad’s massacres since start of Syria war
Russia: U.S. strike in Syria ’one step away from military clashes with Russia’
A military strike was warranted but the likelihood was low − so U.S. President Donald Trump surprised everyone, as usual. Russian President Valdimir Putin was furious, Syrian President Bashar Assad screamed, but the 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired by the USS Ross and USS Porter weren’t just another tug-of-war or show of strength.
>> Get all updates on Trump, Israel and the Middle East: Download our free App, and Subscribe >>
Without a UN Security Council resolution and without exhausting diplomatic chatter, the U.S. strike on the air force base near Homs slapped Assad and Putin in the face, sending a message to many other countries along the way.
The military response was preceded by a foreign-policy revolution in which Trump announced that Assad can no longer be part of the solution. Only a few days earlier, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, announced that Assad’s removal was no longer an American priority.
Did American priorities change as a result of the chemical weapons attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun near Idlib, and will Trump now work to bring down Assad? Not yet. Will Trump renew the military aid to the rebel militias so they can fight the regime? Far from it.

Donald Trump after U.S. missiles strike Assad regime airbase in Syria, April 7, 2017JIM WATSON/AFP
>> Read top analyses on U.S. strike in Syria: Trump challenges Putin, punishes Assad for first time | Russia, Iran, denounce strike, Saudi Arabia praises it | Trump’s move could backfire | Trump’s 48-hour policy turnaround <<
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The American attack also provides no answers to the tactical questions. The Tomahawk missiles didn’t hit the warehouses where Assad’s chemical weapons may be stored, but rather the air force base where the planes that dropped the weapons took off.
It’s possible the chemical weapons are still safely stored away. The logic behind the attack on the air force base is understandable, but does it hint that Trump won’t hesitate to attack the person who gave the order and the president who gave the initial approval? For now the answers aren’t clear.
Trump did on a large scale what Israel has been doing on a smaller scale when it attacked weapons convoys leaving Syria for Hezbollah. Unless Washington decides to surprise us once again, it won’t return to being a power on the Syrian front, it won’t steal the show from Russia. Diplomatic efforts, as far as there are any, will be made without active American participation.
So the immediate and important achievement for Trump is an American political one: He tarred and feathered Barack Obama and proved to the Americans that his United States isn’t chicken. Trump, who demanded that Obama receive Congress’ approval before attacking Syria in 2013, has now painted Congress into a corner, too. Who would dare criticize the attack, even if it wasn’t based on “the proper procedures,” and even though the United States didn’t face a clear and present danger?

U.S. envoy to the UN Nikki Haley holds photographs of victims during a UN Security Council meeting on Syria, April 5, 2017. SHANNON STAPLETON/REUTERS
The question is whether as a result of the American cruise missile attack, Russia and Syria will opt for a war of revenge in order to prove that the attack didn’t change anything in their military strategy against the rebels and the civilian population. They don’t feel they need chemical weapons to continuously and effectively bomb Idlib and its suburbs. They don’t need to make the entire world man the moral barricades if good results can be achieved through legitimate violence, as has been going on for six years.
Such a decision is in the hands of Putin, who despite recent rifts with Assad is still committed to stand alongside the Syrian president against the American attack. This isn’t just defending a friend but preserving Russia’s honor. As recently as Thursday, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s support for Assad was unconditional and “it is not correct to say that Moscow can convince Mr. Assad to do whatever is wanted in Moscow.” But the Kremlin has said such things before, every time Russia has been blamed for Assad’s murderous behavior.
Read Russia’s response to the attack very carefully. Peskov called it “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of the norms of international law and on a made-up up pretext.” He didn’t embrace Assad and didn’t describe the attack as one that harmed an ally. And he didn’t directly attack Trump − just as Trump didn’t hold Putin responsible for the original chemical weapons attack.
It seems that despite the loud talk, which included a Russian warning about U.S.-Russian relations, neither country is keen to give Assad the ability to upset the balance between the two superpowers.
The only practical step taken so far by Russia − suspending aerial coordination between the countries over Syria based on the understandings signed in October 2015 − could turn out a double-edged sword if coalition planes start running into Russian ones. It’s still not clear if this suspension includes the coordination with Israel, which isn’t part of the Russian understandings with the United States.
But Putin is angry about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments about Assad, and might want to prove to Trump that an attack on Russia’s ally has implications for America’s ally. So he could freeze or cancel the agreements with Israel regarding attacks inside Syria.
This would mean the war in Syria puts Israel in the diplomatic crossfire too, not just the military one. It could find itself in a conflict between Trump’s policies and its needs for coordination with Russia.

Zvi Bar’el
Haaretz Correspondent

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Jpost Exclusive: Moscow surprisingly says west Jerusalem is Israel’s capital - Israel News - Jerusalem Post
▻http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Jpost-Exclusive-Moscow-surprisingly-says-west-Jerusalem-is-Israels-capital-48

Russia recognizes west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated in a surprise announcement on Thursday.

The announcement comes as US President Donald Trump’s administration is agonizing over whether to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move that would constitute recognizing west Jerusalem as the country’s capital. No other country in the world recognizes any part of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Pendant qu’on est occupé à autre chose...

#israël #palestine