company:bloomberg

Punishing Putin Will Hurt the U.S. and Europe, Too - Bloomberg View
▻http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-06/punishing-putin-will-hurt-the-u-s-and-europe-too

... U.S. and European banks would be among the most affected by financial sanctions. Here’s a breakdown of their exposure to Russia by country:

http://www.bloomberg.com/image/imTg2QNHqtWE.jpg

Obama to Israel — Time Is Running Out - Bloomberg View

▻http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-02/obama-to-israel-time-is-running-out

Le long entretien d’Obama à Bloomberg in extenso. Worth reading... avec ce tout petit extrait qui en dit long :

"On the subject of Middle East peace, Obama told me that the U.S.’s friendship with Israel is undying, but he also issued what I took to be a veiled threat: The U.S., though willing to defend an isolated Israel at the United Nations and in other international bodies, might soon be unable to do so effectively."

Obama to Israel — Time Is Running Out

3374 Mar 2, 2014 2:00 PM ET

By Jeffrey Goldberg

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House tomorrow, President Barack Obama will tell him that his country could face a bleak future — one of international isolation and demographic disaster — if he refuses to endorse a U.S.-drafted framework agreement for peace with the Palestinians. Obama will warn Netanyahu that time is running out for Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy. And the president will make the case that Netanyahu, alone among Israelis, has the strength and political credibility to lead his people away from the precipice.

http://www.bloomberg.com/image/ipNJVmKker2Q.jpg

Obama devant un isolement des USA à cause d’Israël
▻http://www.argotheme.com/organecyberpresse/spip.php?article2093

L’avertissement d’Obama au 1er ministre israélien est 1er du genre dans les annales de l’infaillible soutien des USA à Israël. Le ton utilisé sort des habitudes, dans l’interview donnée à Bloomberg View (UNE EXCLUSIVITE) et publiée dimanche soir. Vous trouverez un lien vers l’interview en fin de ce sujet. Mais les colons et la droite israélienne resteront sourds tant que le processus d’isolement diplomatique actuel ne devienne plus concret, avec l’adhésion des USA et sa suite atlantiste des pays (...)

Monde, informations, actualité, international, politique, relations, diplomatie, affaires étrangères,

/ #Israël,_Proche-Orient,_EPU,_droits_de_l’homme,_ONU, Obama, USA, Israël, Proche-Orient, (...)

#Monde,informations,_actualité,_international,_politique,_relations,_diplomatie,_affaires_étrangères, #Obama,_USA,_Israël,_Proche-Orient,_Palestine

#Bloomberg_Africa evokes Reagan’s “welfare queen” stereotype for poor South Africans
▻http://africasacountry.com/bloomberg-africa-evokes-reagans-welfare-queen-stereotype-for-south-

Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg was in South Africa this month to launch the Bloomberg #MEDIA Initiative, a $10-million project to build capacity in business and financial #JOURNALISM across the continent (starting first in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa—which is a questionable choice of countries). But he should probably also invest some of his billions closer to home, too; at Bloomberg Africa, the Africa-focused overlay of his New York-based Bloomberg News agency.

#Northern_Cape #Rene_Vollgraaff #Ronald_Reagan #social_grants #South_African_Institute_of_Race_Relations #welfare_queen

Solar Industry Seen as Winning Bet for $1.3 Billion Skagen Fund - Bloomberg
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-12/solar-industry-seen-as-winning-bet-for-1-3-billion-skagen-fund.html

Solar industry companies are set for a “boom” as falling costs make harnessing the sun’s energy a more competitive alternative, according to Norwegian fund manager Skagen AS.

“We now have a situation where solar is competitive with traditional energy in the grid or off the grid,” Geir Tjetland, who helps manage the 960 million-euro ($1.3 billion) Skagen Vekst (STVEKST) fund, said in an interview in Stavanger yesterday. “About 0.4 to 0.5 percent of all energy consumed is solar. This will grow a lot in the next five to 10 years.”

#énergie #solaire #Norvège

Bloomberg’s viral misquote : Columbia Journalism Review
▻http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/bloombergs_viral_misquote_1.php?page=all

That quote sounded a little too perfectly evil, and I couldn’t find the original anywhere online. So I asked Bayer whether Bloomberg had it wrong. They did.

Here’s what Dekkers actually said, at a Financial Times conference that day, on a panel called “Buffering the Pharma Brand: Restoring Reputation, Rebuilding Trust” (the above link leads to video of the panel and the relevant part starts at about 19:00 in):

“Is this going to have a big effect on our business model? No, because we did not develop this product for the Indian market, let’s be honest. We developed this product for Western patients who can afford this product, quite honestly. It is an expensive product, being an oncology product.

mais :

Agence France Presse, as far as I could find, was the only outlet that fact-checked the quote with Bayer, and even then the system broke down.
Bayer said the statements attributed to Dekkers were accurate and forwarded written comments made later by the German chief executive seeking to explain his remarks.

et Bloomberg a corrigé avec la mention :

(Corrects last paragraph to show Dekkers said “Indian market” and include full quote.)

▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-21/merck-to-bristol-myers-face-more-threats-on-india-patents.html

cf. ▻http://seenthis.net/messages/220303

At $84,000 Gilead Hepatitis C Drug Sets Off Payer Revolt - Bloomberg
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-27/at-84-000-gilead-hepatitis-c-drug-sets-off-payer-revolt.html

As Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) touted its $1,000-a-pill hepatitis C cure to investors in a hotel ballroom in San Francisco, a group of about 20 protesters milled outside. “Gilead=Greed,” one sign read.

(...) worries that insurers will see Gilead’s price and force patients to try a less effective, older and cheaper therapy first (...)

Gilead’s new drug, Sovaldi, costs $84,000 for a 12-week treatment. Such breakthrough treatments and their stratospheric price tags have “absolutely” caused insurers to reconsider covering high-priced hepatitis, diabetes and other treatments,

#hépatite #santé #pharma #médicaments #prix

Revue du 23/01– La Russie grimpe au classement Best for doing business
▻http://www.lecourrierderussie.com/2014/01/23/russie-best-for-doing-business

La Russie est remontée de 13 places au classement de l’agence Bloomberg sur les 100 pays les plus attractifs pour le business.The post Revue du 23/01– La Russie grimpe au classement Best for doing business appeared first on Le Courrier de Russie.

Alors que 2013 touche à sa fin, l’effondrement capitaliste s’intensifie
▻http://www.wsws.org/fr/articles/2014/jan2014/deux-j07.shtml

Le flux d’argent fourni aux marchés financiers suite aux mesures de la Fed et d’autres banques centrales met en place les conditions d’un nouveau krach financier plus grave encore que celui de 2008. Bloomberg, par exemple, a annoncé que la quantité des obligations à haut risque classées comme spéculatives est passée cette année à 693 milliards de dollars, un nouveau record, en dépassant le niveau de 593 milliards de dollars atteint en 2008.

Ceux qui prédisent une « relance » de l’économie américaine en 2014 ne manqueront sans nul doute de signaler que les chiffres du chômage ont baissé ces derniers temps. De telles prévisions ignorent le fait que la plupart des nouveaux emplois sont créés avec des taux de salaire considérablement plus bas (réduction de moitié des salaires pour les nouvelles recrues dans l’automobile en vertu du programme de restructuration de 2009 du gouvernement Obama servant de référence à cet égard) et qu’une grande partie de l’« amélioration » est attribuable au nombre croissant de gens qui ont été retirés des statistiques de chômage. Au cours des 43 derniers mois, plus de gens ont quitté le marché du travail américain que d’autres n’y sont rentrés.

L’#Iran, un marché qui monte en flèche
▻http://affaires.lapresse.ca/economie/international/201312/30/01-4724682-liran-un-marche-qui-monte-en-fleche.php

Alors que ses opérations quotidiennes ne représentent qu’environ 22 secondes de transactions boursières aux États-Unis, le #marché_boursier de l’Iran roule à plein régime. L’indice de référence est monté en flèche de 133% cette année (jusqu’au 24 décembre), atteignant une valeur record et présentant des rendements plus élevés que les 93 principaux indicateurs boursiers mondiaux suivis par Bloomberg.

La plus grande part d’augmentation a suivi l’élection, en juin, du président Hassan Rohani, 65 ans, qui a obtenu un accord initial avec les puissances mondiales à peine cinq mois après son élection.

(...)

Exit l’or

Les Iraniens se retirent des actifs qui étaient devenus les valeurs sûres de la République islamiste - l’or, les dollars et l’immobilier - pour retrouver des liquidités à investir dans le marché boursier, selon Turquoise Partners, une firme de placements de Téhéran. (...)

Le « Nuclear Enrichment Trading » de l’Iran est à la hausse, avec en moyenne 203 millions US d’actions changeant de mains chaque jour depuis le début de l’année, et jusqu’à la fin de novembre. Il y a deux ans, il n’était question que de 83 millions US d’actions, et d’à peine 20 millions US en 2006, selon les données de la Bourse. La moyenne des transactions quotidiennes sur le marché boursier américain a atteint 220 milliards cette année, selon les données compilées par Bloomberg.

Les institutions financières et les sociétés pétrolières figurent parmi les plus grandes gagnantes sur le marché des actions de l’Iran. Saderat Bank Iran, assujettie à des sanctions de l’Union européenne depuis 2010, a réalisé un gain de 142% cette année, à partir de la plus basse valeur des 52 dernières semaines, alors que Parsian Oil&Gas Co. a progressé de 87% à partir de ce creux.

Iran Is Playing Obama, Says Savvy Saudi Prince - Bloomberg
►http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-22/iran-is-playing-obama-says-savvy-saudi-prince.html

If the negotiations don’t succeed — and clearly, Alwaleed sees no chance of success — then what? Anti-proliferation by force? I asked him if he thought the Arab states would actually back an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, if this terrible option should come to pass.

“Publicly, they would be against it,” he said. “Privately, they would love it.”

What about at the level of the so-called Arab street?

“The Sunnis will love it,” he said, referring to the dominant branch of Islam, to which most Arab Muslims adhere. “The Sunni Muslim is very much anti-Shiite, and very much anti-, anti-, anti-Iran,” he said.

Signalé dans un article de Al-Akhbar (►http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/195990), cet entretien d’Al-Walid bin Talal, mogul des médias, qui justifie quasiment par avance une alliance israélo-saoudienne contre l’iran...

Iran Is Playing Obama, Says Savvy Saudi Prince - Bloomberg
►http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-22/iran-is-playing-obama-says-savvy-saudi-prince.html

Walid Ben Talal (d’après Jeffrey Goldberg):

“Look, Iran is a huge threat, historically speaking," he said. "The Persian empire was always against the Muslim Arabes empire, especially against the Sunnis. The threat is from Persia, not from Israel.

Robin Li, créateur de #Baidu, le « Google chinois », #deuxième #fortune de Chine

La #fortune du #fondateur du #moteur de #recherche chinois atteint 11,9 milliards de dollars selon l’indice Bloomberg.

Le self-made man à la chinoise

▻http://www.latribune.fr/actualites/economie/international/20131121trib000797026/robin-li-createur-de-baidu-le-google-chinois-deuxieme-fortune-de-chine.htm

Revue de Presse Hebdomadaire sur la Chine du 18/11/2013

How McDonald’s and Wal-Mart Became Welfare Queens - Bloomberg
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/how-mcdonald-s-and-wal-mart-became-welfare-queens.html

According to one study, American fast food workers receive more than $7 billion dollars in public assistance. As it turns out, McDonald’s has a “McResource” line that helps employees and their families enroll in various state and local assistance programs. It exploded into the public when a recording of the McResource line advocated that full-time employees sign up for food stamps and welfare.

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private sector employer, is also the biggest consumer of taxpayer supported aid. According to Florida Congressman Alan Grayson, in many states, Wal-Mart employees are the largest group of Medicaid recipients. They are also the single biggest group of food stamp recipients. Wal-mart’s “associates” are paid so little, according to Grayson, that they receive $1,000 on average in public assistance. These amount to massive taxpayer subsidies for private companies.

#précariat #pauvreté #travail #profitation #subvention #exploitation #capitalisme

Manipulation des taux de change : les grandes #banques dans le collimateur de la FCA
▻http://e-delit.com/2013/11/15/manipulation-des-taux-de-change-les-grandes-banques-dans-le-collimateur-de-

Depuis plusieurs mois les autorités de régulation boursière de pays comme les Etats-Unis, l’Allemagne, la Suisse, ou la Grande-Bretagne cherchent à déterminer si des traders employés par les plus grandes banques internationales avaient manipulé les taux de change pour augmenter leur profit.

La semaine dernière les choses ont commencé à devenir plus claires. Barclays et JP Morgan ont déclaré avoir mis à l’arrêt plusieurs de leurs traders. UBS, Citigroup et Deutsche Bank ont quant à elles reconnu avoir lancé une enquête pour dire de manière sure si certains de leurs traders ont participé à ce montage financier.

Au cœur de cette affaire, un système de messagerie instantanée et plusieurs milliers de milliards de dollars en jeu. Bloomberg a été la première en juin 2013 à évoquer cette histoire en affirmant que des traders de banques pourtant concurrentes s’échangeaient des informations de manière clandestine sur les ordres de changes des devises de leurs clients.

Ces acteurs bien informés du marché se mettaient ensuite d’accord, d’après les accusations, pour gonfler ou minimiser les ordres en fonction de leurs propres paris sur telle ou telle devise, afin d’influencer le taux de change et maximiser leur profit.

Wall Street’s Culture of #Corruption : ForEx Markets Manipulated Too, NYT Reports | Daily Ticker - Yahoo Finance
▻http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/wall-street-culture-corruption-forex-markets-manipulated-too-17502780

Wall Street (and the Twitter-sphere) were abuzz earlier this week about a Bloomberg report that JPMorgan (JPM) is considering a ban on traders using instant messaging and other chatting technology.
Other banks may soon follow suit and here’s why: The Justice Department is investigating alleged collusion of currency markets by a group of traders from several banks, including Citigroup (C), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), UBS (UBS) and Deutsche Bank (DB). The bankers communicated via instant messaging and at least one trader is cooperating with authorities, The New York Times reports.
The fact the group called themselves “The Cartel” isn’t likely to help them in the court of public opinion, much less with the feds.
“The manipulation we’ve seen so far may just be the tip of the iceberg,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told The Times. “We’ve recognized that this is potentially an extremely consequential investigation.”

#banksters #fraude

Hymn to Egypt Army Evokes Love, Anger as Takeover Splits Nation - Bloomberg

▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-10/hymn-to-egypt-army-evokes-love-anger-as-takeover-splits-nation.html

One song dominates Egypt’s airwaves, blaring from radios and television sets nationwide. It’s a hymn of praise to the army, which overthrew President Mohamed Mursi three months ago, and the emotions it evokes show how the country remains polarized by that intervention.

Conflicts of interest in the Syria debate
▻http://public-accountability.org/2013/10/conflicts-of-interest-in-the-syria-debate

Sur les liens financiers directs et indirects des « experts » et « think tanks » qui ont appelé aux frappes contre la Syrie avec l’industrie de l’armement et la non divulgation de ces liens par les médias étasuniens.

During the public debate around the question of whether to attack Syria, Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser to George W. Bush, made a series of high-profile media appearances. Hadley argued strenuously for military intervention in appearances on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and Bloomberg TV, and authored a Washington Post op-ed headlined “To stop Iran, Obama must enforce red lines with Assad.”

In each case, Hadley’s audience was not informed that he serves as a director of Raytheon, the weapons manufacturer that makes the Tomahawk cruise missiles that were widely cited as a weapon of choice in a potential strike against Syria. Hadley earns $128,500 in annual cash compensation from the company and chairs its public affairs committee. He also owns 11,477 shares of Raytheon stock, which traded at all-time highs during the Syria debate ($77.65 on August 23, making Hadley’s share’s worth $891,189). Despite this financial stake, Hadley was presented to his audience as an experienced, independent national security expert.

Though Hadley’s undisclosed conflict is particularly egregious, it is not unique. The following report documents the industry ties of Hadley, 21 other media commentators, and seven think tanks that participated in the media debate around Syria. Like Hadley, these individuals and organizations have strong ties to defense contractors and other defense- and foreign policy-focused firms with a vested interest in the Syria debate, but they were presented to their audiences with a veneer of expertise and independence, as former military officials, retired diplomats, and independent think tanks.

The report offers a new look at an issue raised by David Barstow’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times series on the role military analysts played in promoting the Bush Administration’s narrative on Iraq. In addition to exposing coordination with the Pentagon, Barstow found that many cable news analysts had industry ties that were not disclosed on air.

If the recent debate around Syria is any guide, media outlets have done very little to address the gaps in disclosure and abuses of the public trust that Barstow exposed. Some analysts have stayed the same, others are new, and the issues and range of opinion are different. But the media continues to present former military and government officials as venerated experts without informing the public of their industry ties – the personal financial interests that may be shaping their opinions of what is in the national interest.

GDF SUEZ : retenu pour une centrale en Mongolie
▻http://www.boursier.com/actions/actualites/news/gdf-suez-retenu-pour-une-centrale-en-mongolie-543298.html

La Mongolie a retenu un consortium composé de GDF SUEZ, Posco, Newcom et Sojitz pour construire une centrale au gaz de 450 MW dans la banlieue d’Oulan-Bator, la capitale du pays, dont la population a doublé en 15 ans pour atteindre 1,2 million de personnes. L’annonce a été faite par le Ministre de l’Energie, dont les propos sont relayés ce matin par Bloomberg. Le groupement emmené par l’énergéticien français a été préféré à celui composé de Samsung et Korea Southern Power. L’entrée en service de la centrale, qui représente un projet de 1,2 milliard de dollars (environ 9 milliards d’euros) est prévue en 2017.

Eric Holder Owes the American People an Apology - Bloomberg
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-11/eric-holder-owes-the-american-people-an-apology.html

The Justice Department made a long-overdue disclosure late Friday: Last year when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder boasted about the successes that a high-profile task force racked up pursuing mortgage fraud, the numbers he trumpeted were grossly overstated.

We’re not talking small differences here. Originally the Justice Department said 530 people were charged criminally as part of a year-long initiative by the multi-agency Mortgage Fraud Working Group. It now says the actual figure was 107 — or 80 percent less. (...)

...

The Obama administration has been on the defensive for years over its lack of decisive, high-profile prosecutions related to the financial crisis. So it leads one to believe that might help explain why the feds have occasionally inflated their fraud statistics: to persuade the public that they were being tough on financial crimes.

Holder needs to come forward and explain exactly how this happened and why. He used a press conference with the cameras rolling to give out numbers that proved to be false — and they appear to have been willfully false. He should be just as eager to hold another press conference to set the record straight, answer any questions about his apparent sleight of hand when it comes to financial-fraud metrics and apologize to the American people.

Trillions of Smart #Sensors Will Change Life - Bloomberg
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-05/trillions-of-smart-sensors-will-change-life-as-apps-have.html

le titre est un poil exagéré sans doute, mais :

“I think it’s going to be huge, the way all sensors are going to operate,” said Linear Chief Technology Officer Kris Pister. “A good analogy is the phone and apps. Ten years ago, no one knew what an app was.”
One reason for the surge is that it’s becoming important to have sensors quickly separate important data from the chaff before sending it to a central server.
“We are swimming in sensors, and drowning in data,” said Dharmendra Modha, a principal investigator at IBM. “Sensory data is growing at such a rate that our ability to make sense of it is highly constrained.”

#internet_des_objets #capteurs #mesure #surveillance

La #Chine #censure le « Wall Street Journal »
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/actualite-medias/article/2013/08/04/la-chine-censure-le-wall-street-journal_3457287_3236.html

La version chinoise du site d’information, cn.wsj.com, est désormais totalement inaccessible aux internautes chinois (...)
En revanche, la version anglophone du Wall Street Journal est toujours accessible. (...)
En juin 2012, l’agence Bloomberg avait subi le même sort, avant le New York Times en octobre.

Au rayon #presse : le Boston Globe est repassé dans le giron des Red Sox (Fenway Sports Group), vendu par le New York Times 25 fois moins cher qu’il ne l’avait acheté.
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/actualite-medias/article/2013/08/05/le-new-york-times-vend-le-boston-globe-25-fois-moins-cher-qu-il-ne-l-avait-a

1500 millions USD de ventes, une amende de 10 millions maximum, GSK se frotte les mains et s’en va recruter des prostitué(e)s,

Police Say Sexual Favors Spur $1.5 Billion Glaxo China Sales - Bloomberg
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-16/sexual-favors-spur-glaxo-s-1-5-billion-china-sales-police-say.html

GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK)’s (GSK) sales in China jumped 20 percent to about 1 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) last year, almost quadruple the pace of growth across its emerging markets. Police say bribes and sexual favors spurred the gain.

The drugmaker now faces allegations of economic crimes involving 3 billion yuan ($489 million) of spurious travel and meeting expenses, and trade in sexual favors, the Public Security Ministry said yesterday. The allegations are “shameful” and would be a breach of the company’s systems and values, Glaxo said in a statement.

Prior to a police probe that began last month, Glaxo embarked on a strategy that tripled its Chinese sales force to more than 4,000 people in three years as the U.K.’s largest drugmaker sought a bigger share of the market. As that expansion was ramping up, Chief Executive Officer Andrew Witty told analysts on a February 2010 conference call that controlling Glaxo’s operations in China was “not a trivial proposition.”

Bribes paid to hospitals, doctors and health officials contributed to the resulting gains in revenue, according to the ministry, which controls China’s police. If found guilty, Glaxo could be ordered to pay a penalty of $5 million to $10 million, according to estimates by Kepler Capital Markets based on fines paid in China for similar violations.

That’d be a fraction of its sales in China, the world’s fastest-growing major pharmaceutical market, said Fabian Wenner, a Kepler Capital health-care analyst in Zurich.

“While being involved in criminal offenses and associated with illegal actions is clearly damaging for GSK’s reputation, I doubt that this will be of material impact for the company,” Wenner said in an interview yesterday. “I haven’t spoken to any investor who is concerned about this yet.”

Glaxo fell 0.9 percent to 1,728.50 pence as of 11:50 a.m. in London trading. The stock has risen 29 percent this year, compared with a 17 percent gain in the Bloomberg Europe Pharmaceutical Index.

Turks Are Fighting Over the Future, Not Religion - Bloomberg
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-23/turks-are-fighting-over-the-future-not-religion.html

#Pankaj_Mishra

The presence of Turkish neo-nationalists at the demonstrations even prompted the liberal-left Guardian to go soft on Kemalism. “At issue,” the newspaper claimed, “is whether Turkey should be the progressive, secular European nation-state that Ataturk originally envisaged and shaped from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, or a more explicitly religious country.”

Never mind that secularism in Turkey was brutally imposed, and that many Islamic practices were violently eradicated by Ataturk. That Istanbul’s long-standing, cosmopolitan communities of Jews and Greek Catholics were chased out during the heyday of secular nationalism. Or that the long-persecuted Turkish Kurds suspect — rightly — that they might get a better hearing from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan than from fans of Ataturk.

Simple ideological oppositions also obscure a more revealing irony: the Islamist Erdogan expediting, with the help of crony capitalists, the touristification of Istanbul. This highly lucrative beautification campaign requires the destruction of familiar landmarks, such as Gezi Park.

Cultural Inferno

But it should not be forgotten that Ataturk, beloved of modernizing despots from the Shah of Iran to Pervez Musharraf, presided over a cultural inferno more extensive than Erdogan could ever dream of — one that turned Turkey’s greatest writers, from Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar to Orhan Pamuk, into melancholy private archivists of an officially scorned Ottoman culture.

Those conditioned to see Erdogan’s cultural vandalism as a fall from a golden age or as evidence of his latent Talibanism, should recall Turkey’s long history as a country with plenty of rich and powerful secularists but no democracy and human rights. Like Meiji Japan, Kemalist Turkey wanted to achieve civilization and enlightenment on terms defined by the West, yet only managed to violate the values of both.

...

Commenting in 1997 on Turkey’s prolonged and weird isolation, Pamuk held out a bleak prospect: “Since people have lost their memories and their relationships with their cultural neighbours” he wrote, “the entire country has acquired the crudeness, inflexibility and slovenliness which often occur in those who live alone.”

Both Erdogan and his neo-nationalist opponents manifest many of these tendencies. The difference is that in the age of global capital flows and rapid communications, Turkey no longer lives alone. In many ways — and this may be their enduring significance — the recent protests have rancorously shattered Turkey’s almost century-long solitude.

U.S. Surveillance Is Not Aimed at Terrorists - Bloomberg
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-23/u-s-surveillance-is-not-aimed-at-terrorists.html

In a January 2012 report titled “Jihadism on the Web: A Breeding Ground for Jihad in the Modern Age,” the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service drew a convincing picture of an Islamist Web underground centered around “core forums.” These websites are part of the Deep Web, or Undernet, the multitude of online resources not indexed by commonly used search engines.

No Data

The Netherlands’ security service, which couldn’t find recent data on the size of the Undernet, cited a 2003 study from the University of California at Berkeley as the “latest available scientific assessment.” The study found that just 0.2 percent of the Internet could be searched. The rest remained inscrutable and has probably grown since. In 2010, Google Inc. said it had indexed just 0.004 percent of the information on the Internet.

Websites aimed at attracting traffic do their best to get noticed, paying to tailor their content to the real or perceived requirements of search engines such as Google. Terrorists have no such ambitions. They prefer to lurk in the dark recesses of the Undernet.

“People who radicalise under the influence of jihadist websites often go through a number of stages,” the Dutch report said. “Their virtual activities increasingly shift to the invisible Web, their security awareness increases and their activities become more conspiratorial.”

Radicals who initially stand out on the “surface” Web quickly meet people, online or offline, who drag them deeper into the Web underground. “For many, finally finding the jihadist core forums feels like a warm bath after their virtual wanderings,” the report said.

When information filters to the surface Web from the core forums, it’s often by accident. Organizations such as al-Qaeda use the forums to distribute propaganda videos, which careless participants or their friends might post on social networks or YouTube.

Communication on the core forums is often encrypted. In 2012, a French court found nuclear physicist Adlene Hicheur guilty of, among other things, conspiring to commit an act of terror for distributing and using software called Asrar al-Mujahideen, or Mujahideen Secrets. The program employed various cutting-edge encryption methods, including variable stealth ciphers and RSA 2,048-bit keys.

The NSA’s Prism, according to a classified PowerPoint presentation published by the Guardian, provides access to the systems of Microsoft Corp. (and therefore Skype), Facebook Inc., Google, Apple Inc. and other U.S. Internet giants. Either these companies have provided “master keys” to decrypt their traffic - - which they deny — or the NSA has somehow found other means.

Traditional Means

Even complete access to these servers brings U.S. authorities no closer to the core forums. These must be infiltrated by more traditional intelligence means, such as using agents posing as jihadists or by informants within terrorist organizations.

Similarly, monitoring phone calls is hardly the way to catch terrorists. They’re generally not dumb enough to use Verizon. Granted, Russia’s special services managed to kill Chechen separatist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev with a missile that homed in on his satellite-phone signal. That was in 1996. Modern-day terrorists are generally more aware of the available technology.

At best, the recent revelations concerning Prism and telephone surveillance might deter potential recruits to terrorist causes from using the most visible parts of the Internet. Beyond that, the government’s efforts are much more dangerous to civil liberties than they are to al-Qaeda and other organizations like it.

Piratage informatique : la Chine et les Etats-Unis discutent en tête à tête
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/asie-pacifique/article/2013/06/08/piratage-informatique-la-chine-et-les-etats-unis-discutent-en-tete-a-tete_34

Début mai, l’agence Bloomberg a retracé dans le détail un vol qui résume bien les techniques des pirates chinois. Cette attaque a visé, entre 2007 et 2010, la société de sécurité privée Qinetiq, un sous-traitant du Pentagone. Qinetiq fabrique des satellites, des drones, des systèmes robotiques et des logiciels utilisés par les forces spéciales américaines en Aghanistan et au Moyen-Orient. On attendrait d’elle un niveau de sécurité exemplaire. Son amateurisme a laissé les experts pantois.

Les pirates ont notamment pu pénétrer l’ordinateur d’un spécialiste des logiciels pour puces électroniques. Ces données auraient facilité la construction par la Chine, l’an dernier, d’un robot démineur proche du Dragon Runner de Qinetiq. Elles pourraient également permettre à la Chine de s’entraîner à prendre le contrôle de drones américains durant leur déploiement.

Via les ordinateurs de dix-sept employés de Qinetiq, les hackers ont également eu accès à une base de données à laquelle est connecté chaque hélicoptère militaire de type Blackhawk et Apache américain, en Afghanistan comme dans le Maine. Un outil de collecte de données inséré dans chaque appareil transmet à la base son lieu de déploiement, ses performances, ses heures de vol, sa durée de vie... Installant des canaux de sortie discrets, les pirates ont fait passer ces données par petits paquets, lentement, afin de fondre leurs vols dans le trafic Internet régulier de l’entreprise. Au total, ils ont ainsi volé quelque 20 gigaoctets de données, soit l’équivalent compressé de 40 DVD ou 1,3 millions de pages texte.