company:western

  • Viols à distance en streaming : un Français jugé pour complicité d’agressions sexuelles - Le Parisien
    http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/viols-a-distance-en-streaming-un-francais-juge-pour-complicite-d-agressio

    Derrière son ordinateur, il tentait d’assouvir ses sordides fantasmes. Mais Stéphane L., renvoyé le 23 mai devant le tribunal correctionnel, ne se contentait pas d’agir en spectateur passif. Le pilote de ligne de 50 ans, domicilié en région parisienne, s’était tourné vers une forme d’exploitation sexuelle des enfants en plein essor : le live-streaming. Ou comment des Français commandent, sur Internet, des viols d’enfants diffusés en direct par des hommes où des femmes qui appliquent à la lettre les instructions des commanditaires.

    En 2010, un agent infiltré du FBI, explique avoir reçu de la part d’un certain « Benjibenji028 » des images explicites d’enfants. Il s’agit de Stéphane L. Les enquêteurs de l’Office central pour la répression des violences aux personnes (OCRVP) sondent les comptes en banque du suspect. Ils découvrent qu’il a effectué des dizaines de virements – en général 30 euros - à des femmes installées aux Philippines. Interpellé le 12 août 2014 à son hôtel parisien, Stéphane L. n’est alors que le deuxième français impliqué dans une affaire de live-streaming. Il plonge les enquêteurs dans un monde où des enfants sont violés pour quelques dizaines d’euros.

    Il donne des instructions à la « réalisatrice »

    L’exploitation des ordinateurs de Stéphane L. permet aux policiers de découvrir de sordides conversations sur Skype. « Le contenu […] démontre qu’il a bénéficié de shows pédopornographiques […] et qu’il donnait des instructions afin que des fillettes se soumettent à des attouchements de nature sexuelle par un adulte », écrit la juge d’instruction dans son ordonnance de renvoi. Dans une discussion datée du 27 octobre 2013, Stéphane L. demande par exemple à une femme – violeuse sur commande - de pénétrer une enfant avec ses doigts. Une fillette dont l’âge – 8 ans ! - est clairement évoquée par la « réalisatrice » de ce show en live. « Super, j’aime cet âge », s’enthousiasme l’ancien pilote de l’armée de l’air décrivant par le menu et avec des mots très crus ce qu’il souhaite voir infliger à la fillette.

    LIRE AUSSI >L’inquiétant phénomène des viols à distance

    Une fois devant la juge pourtant, Stéphane L. minimise son implication. Il explique ne jamais avoir donné d’ordre, et avoir même souvent versé de l’argent pour rien. Quant aux quelques prestations auxquelles il a pu assister, cela n’avait rien d’un viol, se défend-il. « Elle simulait… Par exemple, au lieu de mettre un doigt, elle courbait le doigt pour que l’on croie qu’il y avait une pénétration alors qu’il n’y en avait pas ». Des dénégations qui compliquent fortement le travail de la justice, qui ne dispose pas d’enregistrements de ces prestations réalisées en direct.
    Une fillette entraînée depuis ses 3 ans…

    D’ailleurs, contre l’avis du parquet de Paris qui souhaitait un procès aux assises, la juge, qui n’a pas pu « démontrer la réalité d’un acte de pénétration », a décidé de renvoyer Stéphane L. devant le tribunal correctionnel. Il sera, avant la fin de l’année, le premier Français jugé pour « complicité d’agressions sexuelles » dans un dossier de live-streaming. « Jusque-là, les auteurs de ces infractions étaient uniquement condamnés pour consultation d’images pédopornographiques », souligne Ludivine Piron, chargée de mission à l’Ecpat, association qui lutte contre l’exploitation sexuelle des enfants. « Nous aurions préféré un procès aux assises, mais cela reste un progrès significatif », appuie Me Emmanuel Daoud, l’avocat de l’Ecpat.

    Pour l’association, ce procès devra montrer le « véritable business derrière ces viols en direct ». Un gagne-pain familial parfois, à l’image de cette femme contactée par Stéphane L. qui mettait en scène sa fille. Une situation déjà entrevue en Roumanie. « Mais le live-streaming est aussi l’œuvre de réseaux mafieux, souligne Ludivine Piron. C’est un marché très lucratif, avec des enfants réduits en esclavage. » Le 11 août 2014, une Philippine explique ainsi à Stéphane L. « entraîner » une petite fille de 11 ans à réaliser de telles prestations « depuis ses trois ans »…

    Ce militaire n’est pas le complice, c’est le commanditaire des viols et c’est pas une agression sexuelle c’est un pédo-viol avec préméditation et en bande organisée.
    #viol #correctionnalisation #pedocriminalité #pornographie

    • Viols à distance en streaming : «Un phénomène exponentiel»
      http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/viols-a-distance-en-streaming-un-phenomene-exponentiel-17-06-2019-8095494

      Des enfants de moins de 10 ans violés en direct pour le plaisir d’Occidentaux cachés derrière leur ordinateur. Et pour un montant dérisoire : environ 50 dollars l’agression. Phénomène inquiétant, le live-streaming préoccupe magistrats et policiers depuis un peu plus de quatre ans. 7 dossiers sont actuellement entre les mains des enquêteurs spécialisés, 17 ont été traités depuis 2016. « Mais le phénomène est exponentiel, souligne le commissaire divisionnaire Philippe Guichard, patron de l’Office central de répression des violences aux personnes (OCRVP). Je crains que nous arrivions rapidement à plus de 90 Français impliqués dans ces faits abjects. »

      Preuve de l’engagement des autorités à circonscrire ce fléau, Jérôme Bonet, directeur central de la police judiciaire et Philippe Guichard ouvriront, ce mardi à Singapour, un séminaire international dédié notamment au live-streaming. « L’objectif est d’éviter que ce phénomène apparu aux Philippines ne gangrène davantage de pays pauvres, détaille le commissaire Guichard. Il est vital de mettre en place des collaborations internationales. » Car ces dossiers, dont certains concernent l’Europe de l’Est, sont épineux.

      Multiplier les partenariats avec les autorités locales

      Très souvent, l’implication de ressortissants français est signalée à l’OCRVP grâce aux services de police étrangers, notamment américains. Tracfin ou Western Union ont aussi pris l’habitude d’alerter les policiers sur les mouvements de fonds suspects : l’île de Cebu, région pauvre des Philippes, concentre nombre de transactions. Ces hommes « de tous les profils » sont alors traqués sur Internet. « Mais les enquêtes sont difficiles, note Philippe Guichard. Comme nous n’avons pas d’accord judiciaire avec les Philippines, nous ne pouvons entendre ni les victimes ni les auteurs directs des viols. Les investigations se concentrent alors sur les supports numériques saisis chez les commanditaires français. »

      Reste que la justice peine jusque-là à obtenir des condamnations exemplaires. Ainsi, à Grenoble, un internaute mis en examen pour complicité de viols a finalement été condamné à deux ans de prison pour la simple « détention d’images pédopornographiques ». « Juridiquement, donner des instructions pour commettre un viol sur un mineur, c’est de la complicité de viol et cela doit être jugé devant une cour d’assises, plaide Aude Groualle, cheffe de la section des mineurs au parquet de Paris, qui sera représentée à Singapour. La difficulté tient au principe même du live-streaming, avec une vidéo en direct qu’il est difficile pour nous de récupérer. »

      La justice peine donc à matérialiser les viols, malgré des écrits sans équivoque. « Au parquet de Paris, notre position est claire, prévient Aude Groualle. Si nous avons des éléments permettant d’établir qu’il y a eu des instructions pour un viol, nous qualifions cela de complicité de viol. Pour parvenir à renvoyer des mis en cause devant la cour d’assises, nous devons multiplier les partenariats avec les autorités locales afin de retrouver les violeurs et les victimes. »

  • Tom Stevenson reviews ‘AngloArabia’ by David Wearing · LRB 9 May 2019
    https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n09/tom-stevenson/what-are-we-there-for

    It is a cliché that the United States and Britain are obsessed with Middle East oil, but the reason for the obsession is often misdiagnosed. Anglo-American interest in the enormous hydrocarbon reserves of the Persian Gulf does not derive from a need to fuel Western consumption . [...] Anglo-American involvement in the Middle East has always been principally about the strategic advantage gained from controlling Persian Gulf hydrocarbons, not Western oil needs. [...]

    Other parts of the world – the US, Russia, Canada – have large deposits of crude oil, and current estimates suggest Venezuela has more proven reserves than Saudi Arabia. But Gulf oil lies close to the surface, where it is easy to get at by drilling; it is cheap to extract, and is unusually ‘light’ and ‘sweet’ (industry terms for high purity and richness). It is also located near the middle of the Eurasian landmass, yet outside the territory of any global power. Western Middle East policy, as explained by Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was to control the Gulf and stop any Soviet influence over ‘that vital energy resource upon which the economic and political stability both of Western Europe and of Japan depend’, or else the ‘geopolitical balance of power would be tipped’. In a piece for the Atlantic a few months after 9/11, Benjamin Schwarz and Christopher Layne explained that Washington ‘assumes responsibility for stabilising the region’ because China, Japan and Europe will be dependent on its resources for the foreseeable future: ‘America wants to discourage those powers from developing the means to protect that resource for themselves.’ Much of US power is built on the back of the most profitable protection #racket in modern history.

    [...]

    It is difficult to overstate the role of the Gulf in the way the world is currently run. In recent years, under both Obama and Trump, there has been talk of plans for a US withdrawal from the Middle East and a ‘#pivot’ to Asia. If there are indeed such plans, it would suggest that recent US administrations are ignorant of the way the system over which they preside works.

    The Arab Gulf states have proved well-suited to their status as US client states, in part because their populations are small and their subjugated working class comes from Egypt and South Asia. [...] There are occasional disagreements between Gulf rulers and their Western counterparts over oil prices, but they never become serious. [...] The extreme conservatism of the Gulf monarchies, in which there is in principle no consultation with the citizenry, means that the use of oil sales to prop up Western economies – rather than to finance, say, domestic development – is met with little objection. Wearing describes the modern relationship between Western governments and the Gulf monarchs as ‘asymmetric interdependence’, which makes clear that both get plenty from the bargain. Since the West installed the monarchs, and its behaviour is essentially extractive, I see no reason to avoid describing the continued Anglo-American domination of the Gulf as #colonial.

    Saudi Arabia and the other five members of the Gulf Co-operation Council are collectively the world’s largest buyer of military equipment by a big margin. [...]. The deals are highly profitable for Western arms companies (Middle East governments account for around half of all British arms sales), but the charge that Western governments are in thrall to the arms companies is based on a misconception. Arms sales are useful principally as a way of bonding the Gulf monarchies to the Anglo-American military. Proprietary systems – from fighter jets to tanks and surveillance equipment – ensure lasting dependence, because training, maintenance and spare parts can be supplied only by the source country. Western governments are at least as keen on these deals as the arms industry, and much keener than the Gulf states themselves. While speaking publicly of the importance of fiscal responsibility, the US, Britain and France have competed with each other to bribe Gulf officials into signing unnecessary arms deals.

    Control of the Gulf also yields less obvious benefits. [...] in 1974, the US Treasury secretary, William Simon, secretly travelled to Saudi Arabia to secure an agreement that remains to this day the foundation of the dollar’s global dominance. As David Spiro has documented in The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony (1999), the US made its guarantees of Saudi and Arab Gulf security conditional on the use of oil sales to shore up the #dollar. Under Simon’s deal, Saudi Arabia agreed to buy massive tranches of US Treasury bonds in secret off-market transactions. In addition, the US compelled Saudi Arabia and the other Opec countries to set oil prices in dollars, and for many years Gulf oil shipments could be paid for only in dollars. A de facto oil standard replaced gold, assuring the dollar’s value and pre-eminence.

    For the people of the region, the effects of a century of AngloArabia have been less satisfactory. Since the start of the war in Yemen in 2015 some 75,000 people have been killed, not counting those who have died of disease or starvation. In that time Britain has supplied arms worth nearly £5 billion to the Saudi coalition fighting the Yemeni Houthis. The British army has supplied and maintained aircraft throughout the campaign; British and American military personnel are stationed in the command rooms in Riyadh; British special forces have trained Saudi soldiers fighting inside Yemen; and Saudi pilots continue to be trained at RAF Valley on Anglesey. The US is even more deeply involved: the US air force has provided mid-air refuelling for Saudi and Emirati aircraft – at no cost, it emerged in November. Britain and the US have also funnelled weapons via the UAE to militias in Yemen. If the Western powers wished, they could stop the conflict overnight by ending their involvement. Instead the British government has committed to the Saudi position. As foreign secretary, Philip Hammond pledged that Britain would continue to ‘support the Saudis in every practical way short of engaging in combat’. This is not only complicity but direct participation in a war that is as much the West’s as it is Saudi Arabia’s.

    The Gulf monarchies are family dictatorships kept in power by external design, and it shows. [...] The main threat to Western interests is internal: a rising reminiscent of Iran’s in 1979. To forestall such an event, Britain equips and trains the Saudi police force, has military advisers permanently attached to the internal Saudi security forces, and operates a strategic communications programme for the Saudi National Guard (called Sangcom). [...]

    As Wearing argues, ‘Britain could choose to swap its support for Washington’s global hegemony for a more neutral and peaceful position.’ It would be more difficult for the US to extricate itself. Contrary to much of the commentary in Washington, the strategic importance of the Middle East is increasing, not decreasing. The US may now be exporting hydrocarbons again, thanks to state-subsidised shale, but this has no effect on the leverage it gains from control of the Gulf. And impending climate catastrophe shows no sign of weaning any nation from fossil fuels , least of all the developing East Asian states. US planners seem confused about their own intentions in the Middle East. In 2017, the National Intelligence Council described the sense of neglect felt by the Gulf monarchies when they heard talk of the phantasmagorical Asia pivot. The report’s authors were profoundly negative about the region’s future, predicting ‘large-scale violence, civil wars, authority vacuums and humanitarian crises persisting for many years’. The causes, in the authors’ view, were ‘entrenched elites’ and ‘low oil prices’. They didn’t mention that maintenance of both these things is US policy.

    #etats-unis #arabie_saoudite #pétrole #moyen_orient #contrôle

  • Remittance & Blockchain — Match Made In Heaven ?
    https://hackernoon.com/remittance-blockchain-match-made-in-heaven-5f5ad8500a2?source=rss----3a8

    Remittance & Blockchain — Match Made In Heaven?Remittance is the transfer of money from a migrant worker to someone back in their home country. People have always moved in search of better work prospects in high-income (or high currency value as compared to home) countries. Based on the World Migration Report 2018, there are currently an estimated 244 million international migrants living in other countries. This number has either directly or indirectly contributed to the global remittance’s $689 billion dollar industry with India being top of the pile, contributing $80 Billion or 11.6% of its entirety. The global remittance industry is expected to grow by more than 3% in 2019.Traditional Remittance MarketCompanies such as Western Union and MoneyGram come to mind when we talk about (...)

    #atm-services #moneyfi #blockchain-technology #remittance-blockchai #remittances

  • Atlantik-Brücke and the ACG
    http://www.transatlanticperspectives.org/entry.php?rec=133
    Des fois que vous nauriez jamais compris pourquoi l’Allemagne est le meilleur ami des USA en Europe voici le résumé de la thèse d’Anne Zetsche

    Transatlantic institutions organizing German-American elite networking since the early 1950s

    Author » Anne Zetsche, Northumbria University Published: November 28, 2012 Updated: February 28, 2013

    The Cold War era witnessed an increasing transnational interconnectedness of individuals and organizations in the cultural, economic and political sphere. In this period, two organizations, the Atlantik-Brücke and the American Council on Germany, established themselves as influential facilitators, enabling German-American elite networking throughout the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. The two organizations brought together influential politicians and businesspeople, as well as representatives of the media and the academic world.

    Efforts in this regard commenced in the early days of the Cold War, only a few years after the end of World War II. In 1949, two American citizens and two Germans began developing the plan to found the Atlantik-Brücke in West Germany and a sister organization, the American Council on Germany (ACG), in the United States. Their plan was to use these two organizations as vehicles to foster amicable relations between the newly founded Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America. Only a few years prior, Americans and Germans had faced each other as enemies during World War II and many segments of German society, including West German elites, held strong, long-standing anti-American sentiments. The U.S. public in turn was skeptical as to whether Germans could indeed be denazified and convinced to develop a democratic system. Thus, in order to forge a strong Western alliance against Soviet Communism that included West Germany it was critical to overcome mutual prejudices and counter anti-Americanism in Western Europe. It was to be one of the central tasks of the Atlantik-Brücke and the ACG to achieve this in West Germany.

    Individuals at the Founding of the Atlantik-Brücke and the ACG

    One of the founders of the Atlantik-Brücke and the ACG was Eric M. Warburg. He was a Jewish-American banker originally from Hamburg where his ancestors had founded the family’s banking house in 1798. Due to Nazi Aryanisation and expropriation policies, the Warburg family lost the company in 1938 and immigrated to the United States, settling in New York. In spite of the terror of the Nazi regime, Eric Warburg was very attached to Hamburg. He became a vibrant transatlantic commuter after World War II, living both in Hamburg and in New York. In the intertwined histories of the Atlantik-Brücke and the ACG, Warburg played a special role, becoming their leading facilitator and mediator.

    Not long after his escape from the Nazis, Warburg met Christopher Emmet, a wealthy publicist and political activist who shared Warburg’s strong anti-communist stance and attachment to pre-Nazi Germany. On the German side of this transatlantic relationship, Warburg and Emmet were joined by Marion Countess Dönhoff, a journalist at the liberal West German weekly Die Zeit, and by Erik Blumenfeld, a Christian Democratic politician and businessmen. There were two main characteristics shared by the original core founders of the Atlantik-Brücke and the ACG: firstly, each one of the founding quartet belonged to an elite – economic, social or political – and was therefore well-connected with political, diplomatic, business and media circles in both the United States and Germany. Secondly, there was a congruence of basic dispositions among them, namely a staunch anti-communist stance, a transatlantic orientation, and an endorsement of Germany’s integration into the West.

    The Western powers sought the economic and political integration of Western Europe to overcome the devastation of Europe, to revive the world economy, and to thwart nationalism and militarism in Europe after World War II. Germany was considered Europe’s economic powerhouse and thus pivotal in the reconstruction process. West Germany also needed to be on board with security and defense policies in order to face the formidable opponent of Soviet Communism. Since the Federal Republic shared a border with the communist bloc, the young state was extremely vulnerable to potential Soviet aggression and was at the same time strategically important within the Western bloc. Elite organizations like the Atlantik-Brücke and the ACG were valuable vehicles to bring West Germany on board for this ambitious Cold War project.

    Thus, in 1952 and 1954 respectively, the ACG and the Atlantik-Brücke were incorporated and granted non-profit status with the approval of John J. McCloy, U.S. High Commissioner to Germany (1949-1952). His wife Ellen McCloy was one of signatories of the ACG’s certificate of incorporation and served as its director for a number of years. The Atlantik-Brücke (originally Transatlantik-Brücke) was incorporated and registered in Hamburg.

    Transatlantic Networking

    The main purpose of both organizations was to inform Germans and Americans about the respective other country, to counter mutual prejudices, and thus contributing to the development of amicable relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States in the postwar era. This was to be achieved by all means deemed appropriate, but with a special focus on arranging personal meetings and talks between representatives of both countries’ business, political, academic, and media elites. One way was to sponsor lectures and provide speakers on issues relating to Germany and the United States. Another method was organizing visiting tours of German politicians, academics, and journalists to the United States and of American representatives to West Germany. Among the Germans who came to the U.S. under the sponsorship of the ACG were Max Brauer, a former Social Democratic mayor of Hamburg, Willy Brandt, the first Social Democratic Chancellor and former mayor of West Berlin, and Franz Josef Strauss, a member of the West German federal government in the 1950s and 1960s and later minister president of the German federal state of Bavaria. American visitors to the Federal Republic were less prominent. Annual reports of the Atlantik-Brücke explicitly mention George Nebolsine of the New York law firm Coudert Brothers and member of the International Chamber of Commerce, and the diplomats Henry J. Tasca, William C. Trimble, and Nedville E. Nordness.

    In the late 1950s the officers of the Atlantik-Brücke and the ACG sought ways of institutionalizing personal encounters between key Americans and Germans. Thus they established the German-American Conferences modeled on the British-German Königswinter Conferences and the Bilderberg Conferences. The former brought together English and German elites and were organized by the German-English Society (later German-British Society). The latter were organized by the Bilderberg Group, founded by Joseph Retinger, Paul van Zeeland and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. Those conferences began in 1954 and were informal, off-the-record meetings of American and West European representatives of business, media, academia and politics. Each of these conference series was important for the coordination of Western elites during the Cold War era. Bilderberg was critical in paving the way for continental European integration and the German-British effort was important for reconciling the European wartime enemies.

    From 1959 onwards, the German-American Conferences took place biennially, alternating between venues in West Germany and the United States. At the first conference in Bonn, 24 Americans came together with 27 Germans, among them such prominent individuals as Dean Acheson, Henry Kissinger, and John J. McCloy on the American side, and Willy Brandt, Arnold Bergstraesser (considered to be one of the founding fathers of postwar political science in Germany), and Kurt Georg Kiesinger (third Christian Democratic Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany and former minister president of the federal state Baden-Württemberg) on the German side. By 1974 the size of the delegations had increased continuously, reaching 73 American and 63 German participants.

    A central goal in selecting the delegations was to arrange for a balanced, bipartisan group of politicians, always including representatives of the Social and Christian Democrats (e.g. Fritz Erler, Kurt Birrenbach) on the German side and both Democratic and Republican senators and representatives (e.g. Henry S. Reuss, Jacob Javits) on the American side, along with academics, journalists, and businessmen. Prominent American academics attending several of the German-American conferences included Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Representatives of major media outlets were Marion Countess Dönhoff of Germany’s major liberal weekly Die Zeit, Kurt Becker, editor of the conservative daily newspaper Die Welt, and Hellmut Jaesrich, editor of the anticommunist cultural magazine Der Monat. The business community was prominently represented by John J. McCloy, the president of the Chase Manhattan Bank, and Herman Georg Kaiser, an oil producer from Tulsa, Oklahoma. From Germany, Gotthard von Falkenhausen and Eric Warburg represented the financial sector and Alexander Menne, a member of the executive board of Farbwerke Hoechst, represented German industry.

    Officers of the Atlantik-Brücke and the ACG were mainly in charge of selecting the delegates for the conferences. However, Shepard Stone of the Ford Foundation also had an influential say in this process. In the late 1950s and 1960s he was director of the foundation’s international program and thus responsible for allocating funds to the ACG to facilitate the German-American conferences. Shepard Stone was deeply attached to Germany as he had pursued graduate studies in Berlin in the Weimar period, earning a doctoral degree in history. After World War II he returned to Germany as a public affairs officer of the U.S. High Commission. Stone’s continuing interest in German affairs and friendship with Eric Warburg and Marion Dönhoff regularly brought him to Germany, and he was a frequent participant in the German-American conferences.

    The German-American Conferences and Cold War Politics

    All matters discussed during the conferences stood under the headline “East-West tensions” in the earlier period and later “East-West issues” signaling the beginning of détente, but always maintaining a special focus on U.S.-German relations. The debates from the late 1950s to the early/mid-1970s can be categorized as follows: firstly, bilateral relations between the U.S. and the FRG; secondly, Germany’s relation with the Western alliance; thirdly, Europe and the United States in the Atlantic Alliance; and last but not least, relations between the West, the East, and the developing world. The conferences served three central purposes: firstly, developing a German-American network of elites; secondly, building consensus on key issues of the Cold War period; and thirdly, forming a common Western, transatlantic identity among West Germans and Americans.

    Another emphasis of both groups’ activities in the United States and Germany was the production of studies and other publications (among others, The Vanishing Swastika, the Bridge, Meet Germany, a Newsletter, Hans Wallenberg’s report Democratic Institutions, and the reports on the German-American Conferences). Studies aimed at informing Germans about developments in the United States and American international policies on the one hand, and at informing the American people about West Germany’s progress in denazification, democratization, and re-education on the other. The overall aim of these activities was first and foremost improving each country’s and people’s image in the eyes of the counterpart’s elites and wider public.

    The sources and amounts of available funds to the ACG and the Atlantik-Brücke differed considerably. Whereas the latter selected its members very carefully by way of cooptation especially among businessmen and CEOs to secure sound funding of its enterprise, the former opened membership or affiliation to basically anyone who had an interest in Germany. As a result, the ACG depended heavily, at least for its everyday business, on the fortune of the organization’s executive vice president Christopher Emmet. Emmet personally provided the salaries of ACG secretaries and set up the organization’s offices in his private apartment in New York’s upper Westside. In addition, the ACG relied on funds granted by the Ford Foundation especially for the biannual German-American conferences as well as for the publication of a number of studies. The Atlantik-Brücke in turn benefitted immensely from public funds for its publications and the realization of the German-American conferences. The Federal Press and Information Agency (Bundespresse- und Informationsamt, BPA) supported mainly publication efforts of the organization and the Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt) regularly granted funds for the conferences.

    Politics, Business and Membership Growth

    Membership of the Atlantik-Brücke grew from 12 in 1954 to 65 in 1974. Among them were representatives of companies like Mannesmann, Esso, Farbwerke Hoechst, Daimler Benz, Deutsche Bank, and Schering. Those members were expected to be willing and able to pay annual membership fees of 3000 to 5000 DM (approx. $750 to $1,250 in 1955, equivalent to approx. $6,475 to $10,793 today). Since the business community always accounted for the majority of Atlantik-Brücke membership compared to members from academia, media and politics, the organization operated on secure financial footing compared to its American counterpart. The ACG had not even established formal membership like its German sister organization. The people affiliated with the ACG in the 1950s up to the mid-1970s were mostly academics, intellectuals, and journalists. It posed a great difficulty for ACG officers to attract business people willing and able to contribute financially to the organization at least until the mid-1970s. When Christopher Emmet, the ACG’s “heart and soul,” passed away in 1974, the group’s affiliates and directors were mostly comprised of Emmet’s circle of friends and acquaintances who shared an interest in U.S.-German relations and Germany itself. Emmet had enlisted most of them during his frequent visits to the meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations. Another group of prominent members represented the military. Several leading figures of the U.S. occupying forces and U.S. High Commission personnel joined the ACG, in addition to ranking politicians and U.S. diplomats. The ACG’s long term president, George N. Shuster had served as Land Commissioner for Bavaria during 1950-51. In 1963, Lucius D. Clay, former military governor of the U.S. zone in Germany, 1947-49, joined the ACG as honorary chairman. George McGhee, the former ambassador to Germany prominently represented U.S. diplomacy when he became director of the organization in 1969.

    Although the Atlantik-Brücke had initially ruled out board membership for active politicians, they were prominently represented. Erik Blumenfeld, for example, was an influential Christian Democratic leader in Hamburg. In 1958 he was elected CDU chairman of the federal city state of Hamburg and three years later he became a member of the Bundestag.In the course of the 1960s and 1970s more politicians joined the Atlantik-Brücke and became active members of the board: Kurt Birrenbach (CDU), Fritz Erler (SPD), W. Alexander Menne (FDP), and Helmut Schmidt (SPD). Thus, through their members and affiliates both organizations have been very well-connected with political, diplomatic, and business elites.

    Besides individual and corporate contributions, both organizations relied on funding from public and private institutions and agencies. On the German side federal agencies like the Foreign Office, the Press and Information Agency, and the Chancellery provided funding for publications and supported the German-American conferences. On the American side additional funds were provided almost exclusively by the Ford Foundation.

    Although both groups were incorporated as private associations with the objective of furthering German-American relations in the postwar era, their membership profile and sources of funding clearly illustrate that they were not operating at great distance from either public politics or official diplomacy. On the contrary, the Atlantik-Brücke and the ACG represent two prominent actors in a transnational elite networking project with the aim of forging a strong anti-communist Atlantic Alliance among the Western European states and the United States of America. In this endeavor to back up public with private authority, the Atlantik-Brücke and the ACG functioned as major conduits of both transnational and transcultural exchange and transfer processes.

    #Europe #Allemagne #USA #politique #guerre #impérialisme #élites

  • [Promo] Le WD My Passport Ultra 4 To à 123,38 €
    https://www.tomshardware.fr/articles/disques-durs-wd-promos,1-68478.html#xtor=RSS-5

    Le site anglais d’Amazon propose actuellement le disque dur externe My Passport de Western Digital, dans sa version blanche de 4 To, à seulement 123,38 € (en tenant compte des frais de livraison), alors que le site français d’Amazon le propose à 189,99

    https://img.purch.com/rc/120x90/aHR0cDovL21lZGlhLmJlc3RvZm1pY3JvLmNvbS9QL0gvNzk3OTU3L29yaWdpbmFsL1dELU15L

  • ArtWallet — Have You Ever Wanted to Own An #art Masterpiece? Well This Could Be Your Chance..
    https://hackernoon.com/artwallet-have-you-ever-wanted-to-own-an-art-masterpiece-well-this-could

    ArtWallet — Have You Ever Wanted to Own An Art Masterpiece? Well This Could Be Your Chance..I’m no art connoisseur however I know a great #blockchain use case when I see one.Crypto Trading Art from /r/CryptoCurrencyCrypto skeptics like to argue that the #cryptocurrency market is significantly overvalued as there is little real world use case or tangible value offered by crypto projects justifying the exuberant valuations.Enthusiasts tend to counter with examples of people — in particular those who are impoverished — using crypto to wire money to their family based overseas to avoid exorbitant fees associated with payment services such as Western Union. There is also the example of Bitcoin being used as a store of value to hedge against extreme hyperinflation as was witnessed in countries such as (...)

    #art-wallet #ethereum

  • Slides of the 28th of June 2018 BeCPP Meeting—Marc Gregoire
    http://isocpp.org/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=All+Posts&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fisocpp.org%2Fblog%2F2

    On June 28th 2018, the Belgian C++ Users Group had their next event sponsored by Western Digital.

    Slides of the 28th of June 2018 BeCPP Meeting

    About the event:

    “Strongly Typed Declarative Bitsets in C++17” (Ewoud van Craeynest) “The Observer pattern and boost.signals2” (Lieven de ####) If you couldn’t attend the event in person, or if you would like to go over the material again, you can download them from the BeCPP website.

    #News,_Events,

  • Over 14,000 Children Die After Colombian Gov’t Sells Indigenous Peoples’ Drinking Water To Western Mining Corporations – Carib Flame
    http://www.caribflame.com/2017/05/over-14000-children-die-after-colombian-govt-sells-indigenous-peoples-dr

    On Colombia’s arid Guajira Peninsula a quiet effort to eradicate the Wayuú people, Colombia’s largest indigenous group, has entered its sixth year. The Colombian government and Western mining corporations are complicit in this attempt to wipe the group off of Colombia’s map. Apparently President Trump does not care at all that these “beautiful babies” are dying from an easily preventable situation.

    Victims of a devastating, manufactured drought, the Wayuú are fighting for their very survival, as thousands of children die every year. The deaths of nearly 5,000 children due to thirst or malnutrition have been documented since 2011, though the Wayuú themselves claim that the figure tops 14,000, according to Mint Press News.

    The Colombian government, as well as the Western media, blame the drought on climate change and weather patterns like El Niño. What they have tried to avoid acknowledging is the 2011 construction of the Cercado Dam, which diverted the Ranchería River from its natural course. The government claimed that building the dam would improve the lives of everyone in the region by supplying nine towns with a second source of drinking water, employing 1,000 workers and providing irrigation for 18,500 hectares of farmland.

    But the Ranchería is the only river on the Guajira Peninsula, as well as the only source of drinking water for the Wayuú people. The consequences of the river’s disappearance have been catastrophic. Now, the Wayuú must walk more than three hours to draw drinking water from wells, with each person living off of less than 0.7 liters a day. What little water they do obtain is contaminated with bacteria and salt, which has caused severe diarrhea and cholera to run rampant among their quickly dwindling population.

    #Colombie #sécheresse #climat #extraction #malnutrition #soif #eau #mort

  • Test : SSD WD Black PCIe 512 Go, bon rapport qualité-prix
    http://www.tomshardware.fr/articles/ssd-black-wd-stockage,1-63987.html#xtor=RSS-100

    Nos confrères de Cowcotland publient leur test du SSD Black M.2 NVMe de Western Digital. D’une capacité de 512 Go, le support a un prix correct et même s’il ne bat pas des records, il reste intéressant.

  • Qatar restarts development of world’s biggest gas field after 12-year freeze | Reuters
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-qatar-gas-idUSKBN175181

    Qatar has lifted a self-imposed ban on development of the world’s biggest natural gas field, the chief executive of Qatar Petroleum said on Monday, as the world’s top LNG exporter looks to see off an expected rise in competition.

    Qatar declared a moratorium in 2005 on the development of the North Field, which it shares with Iran, to give Doha time to study the impact on the reservoir from a rapid rise in output.

    The vast offshore gas field, which Doha calls the North Field and Iran calls South Pars, accounts for nearly all of Qatar’s gas production and around 60 percent of its export revenue.

    (...) “Iran’s gas production in South Pars can exceed Qatar’s before the end of new Iranian year (ending March 20, 2018),” Zanganeh was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency on Thursday.

    Total was the first Western energy company to sign a major deal with Tehran since the lifting of international sanctions.

    Kaabi said the decision to lift the moratorium was not prompted by Iran’s plan to develop its part of the shared field.

    “What we are doing today is something completely new and we will in future of course ... share information on this with them (Iran).”

  • AIDA 2016 Update: Greece

    The updated country report on Greece provides a thorough analysis of the transformation of the Greek asylum system in the light of the closure of the Western Balkan route and the EU-Turkey statement. The report offers detailed statistics and practical insights into the workings of the asylum procedure, reception and detention of asylum seekers, as well as content of international protection.

    Substantial asylum reforms, many of which driven by the implementation of the EU-Turkey statement, took place in 2016. Law (L) 4375/2016, adopted in April 2016 and transposing the recast Asylum Procedures Directive into Greek law, was subsequently amended in June 2016 and March 2017, while a draft law transposing the recast Reception Conditions Directive has not been adopted yet.

    The impact of the EU-Turkey statement has been a de facto divide in the asylum procedures applied in Greece. Asylum seekers arriving after 20 March 2016 are subject to a fast-track border procedure and excluded from relocation in practice.

    Fast-track border procedure: One of the main modifications brought about by L 4375/2016 has been the establishment of an extremely truncated fast-track border procedure, applicable in exceptional cases. As underlined the fast-track procedure under derogation provisions in Law 4375/2016 does not provide adequate safeguards. In practice, fast-track border procedure applies to arrivals after 20 March 2016 and takes place in the Reception and Identification Centres (RIC) of Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Leros and Kos. Under the fast-track border procedure, which does not apply to Dublin family cases and vulnerable cases, interviews are also conducted by EASO staff, while the entire procedure at first and second instance has to be completed within 14 days. The procedure has predominantly taken the form of an admissibility procedure to examine whether applications may be dismissed on the ground that Turkey is a “safe third country” or a “first country of asylum”; although these concepts already existed in Greek law, they have only been applied following the EU-Turkey statement. The admissibility procedure started being applied to Syrian nationals in April 2016 and was only applied to other nationalities with a rate over 25% (e.g. Afghans, Iraqis) since the beginning of 2017. In the meantime, for nationalities with a rate below 25%, the procedure entails an examination of the application on the merits without prior admissibility assessment as of July 2016. A Joint Action Plan of the EU Coordinator on the implementation of certain provisions of the EU-Turkey statement recommends that Dublin family reunification cases be included in the fast-track border procedure and vulnerable cases be examined under an admissibility procedure.

    Appeals Committees reform: The composition of the Appeals Committees competent for examining appeals was modified by a June 2016 amendment to the April 2016 law, following reported EU pressure on Greece to respond to an overwhelming majority of decisions rebutting the presumption that Turkey is a “safe third country” or “first country of asylum” for asylum seekers. The June 2016 reform also deleted a previous possibility for the appellant to obtain an oral hearing before the Appeals Committees upon request. Applications for annulment have been submitted before the Council of State, invoking inter alia issues with regard to the constitutionality of the amendment. A recent reform in March 2017 enabled EASO staff to assist the Appeals Committees in the examination of appeals, despite criticism from civil society organisations. Since the operation of the (new) Appeals Committees on 21 July and until 31 December 2016, the recognition rate of international protection is no more than 0.4%. This may be an alarming finding as to the operation of an efficient and fair asylum procedure in Greece. Respectively, by 19 February 2017, 21 decisions on admissibility had been issued by the new Appeals Committees. As far as GCR is aware, all 21 decisions of the new Appeals Committees have confirmed the first-instance inadmissibility decision.

    Reception capacity: Despite the commitment of the Greek authorities to meet a target of 2,500 reception places dedicated to asylum seekers under the coordination of the National Centre for Social Solidarity (EKKA) by the end of 2014, this number has not been reached to date. As of January 2017, a total 1,896 places were available in 64 reception facilities mainly run by NGOs, out of which 1,312 are dedicated to unaccompanied children. As of 13 January 2017, 1,312 unaccompanied children were accommodated in long-term and transit shelters, while 1,301 unaccompanied children were waiting for a place. Out of the unaccompanied children on the waitlist, 277 were in closed reception facilities (RIC) and 18 detained in police stations under “protective custody”. A number of 20,000 accommodation places were gradually made available under a UNHCR accommodation scheme dedicated initially to relocation candidates and since July 2016 extended also to Dublin family reunification candidates and applicants belonging to vulnerable groups.

    Temporary accommodation sites: A number of temporary accommodation places were created on the mainland in order to address the pressing needs created after the imposition of border restrictions. However, the majority of these places consists of encampments and the conditions in temporary facilities on the mainland have been sharply criticised, as of the widely varying and often inadequate standards prevailing, both in terms of material conditions and security.

    Automatic detention policy: Following a change of policy announced at the beginning of 2015, the numbers of detained people have been reduced significantly during 2015. The launch of the implementation of the EU-Turkey Statement has had an important impact on detention, resulting in a significant toughening of detention policy and the establishment of blanket detention of all newly arrived third-country nationals after 20 March 2016, followed by the imposition of an obligation to remain on the island, known as “geographical restriction”.

    Detention on “law-breaking conduct” grounds: A Police Circular issued on 18 June 2016 provided that third-country nationals residing on the islands with “law-breaking conduct” (παραβατική συμπεριφορά), will be transferred, on the basis of a decision of the local Director of the Police, approved by the Directorate of the Police, to pre-removal detention centers in the mainland where they will remain detained. Serious objections as raised as to whether in this case the administrative measure of immigration detention is used with a view to circumventing procedural safeguards established by criminal law. Moreover, GCR findings on-site do not confirm allegations of “law-breaking conduct” in the vast majority of the cases. A total 1,626 people had been transferred to mainland detention centres by the end of 2016.

    Humanitarian status for old procedure backlog: Article 22 L 4375/2016 provides that appellants who have lodged their asylum applications up to five years before the entry into force of L 4375/2016 (3 April 2016), and their examination is pending before the Backlog Committees, shall be granted a two-years residence status on humanitarian grounds, which can be renewed. Appellants granted with residence status on humanitarian grounds have the right to ask within two months from the notification of the decision for their asylum application to be examined in view of fulfilling the requirements international protection. Under Article 22 L 4375/2016, a total 4,935 decisions granting humanitarian residence permits have been issued by the end of 2016.


    http://www.asylumineurope.org/news/28-03-2017/aida-2016-update-greece
    #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Grèce #fast-track #procédures_accélérées #logement #hébergement #procédure_d'asile #détention_administrative #rétention #accord_UE-Turquie #statistiques #chiffres

  • Bons plans du jour : MSI GE62VR 6RF-221 XFR à 944,99 € et SSD Western Digital Blue 500 Go à 139,99 €
    http://www.tomshardware.fr/articles/ordinateurs-portables-ssd,1-57764.html#xtor=RSS-100

    Les deux bons plans que nous avons sélectionnés aujourd’hui concernent un PC portable MSI particulièrement bien équipé pour jouer ainsi qu’un SSD de Western Digital de 500 Go.

  • AIDA 2016 Update : Croatia

    The updated Country Report on Croatia documents the transformation of the Croatian asylum system following the closure of the Western Balkan route and the exponential rise in the number of asylum seekers entering Croatia compared to previous years. The closure of the route has also led to a substantial increase in incoming #Dublin requests and transfers, mainly from Austria, Switzerland and Germany.

    Due to the increase in the number of arrivals, the Reception Centres for Asylum Seekers in #Zagreb and #Kutina have reached close to, or in the case of Kutina full, capacity. A total 2,002 persons have been placed in accommodation in the centres in the course of last year. If the trend continues, reception capacities would be soon be full.

    Several organisations, including UNICEF, Doctors of the World (MdM), the Rehabilitation Centre for Stress and Trauma, the Croatian Red Cross, the Society for Psychological Assistance (SPA) and the Centre for Peace Studies, have reported great problems and major deficiencies in the provision of health care for asylum seekers and refugees. Due to deficiencies in the system, many organisations have targeted their activities in that direction.

    In relation to integration of refugees and foreigners under subsidiary protection into Croatian society, as in previous years, the greatest problems still relate to learning the Croatian language, healthcare, employment, education and accommodation. No language course has been organised throughout 2016.

    Beyond challenges facing those arriving in Croatia, a number of organisations, including ECRE, the “Welcome” Initiative, Are You Syrious, Human Rights Watch and Save the Children have reported that push backs from the Croatian territory to Serbia have occurred during 2016 and early 2017.

    http://www.asylumineurope.org/news/09-03-2017/aida-2016-update-croatia
    #Croatie #asile #migrations #réfugiés #santé

  • Toshiba enrichit sa gamme de disques durs pour NAS
    http://www.comptoir-hardware.com/actus/stockage/33509-toshiba-enrichit-sa-gamme-de-disques-durs-pour-nas.html

    Le fabricant de solutions de #Stockage Toshiba développe sa gamme de disques durs 3,5’’ spécialisés NAS, à l’instar de ses concurrents comme Western Digital avec sa gamme RED. La série N300 de Toshiba comprend plusieurs versions de 4, 6 et 8 To... [Tout lire]

  • De la NAND 3D TLC 64 couches 512Gb en production chez Western Digital
    http://www.comptoir-hardware.com/actus/stockage/33451-de-la-nand-3d-tlc-64-couches-512gb-en-production-chez-weste

    Western Digital a mis un moment à se mettre aux SSD, mais avec le rachat de SanDisk et les partenariats qui allaient avec, le géant du #Stockage s’est bien positionné sur le marché et ses récentes actions avec Toshiba lui assurent un avenir prometteur sur le segment. D’ailleurs, la firme est toute fière d’annoncer être la première à avoir lancé la production de puces NAND 3D TLC à 64 couches offrant 512Gb de stockage par petit carré de silicium... [Tout lire]

  • Western Union fined $586 million for colluding with organized crime / Boing Boing
    http://boingboing.net/2017/01/23/western-union-fined-586-milli.html

    Forbes article:

    In a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission on Thursday, authorities describe insufficient or poorly enforced policies that resulted in the funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds from illegal gambling, fraud and drug and human trafficking.

    ...

    In one case, illegal immigrants from China sent money back to the people who smuggled them across the border. With the help of employees, the payments were structured so that they didn’t trigger reporting requirements under the Bank Secrecy Act, say authorities.

    In another example, Western Union processed hundreds of thousands of transactions for an international scam, wherein fraudsters directed people to send money in order to claim a prize or help a relative. Western Union employees often processed the payments in return for a cut of the proceeds, say authorities.

    From CFO:

    Wifredo A. Ferrer, the U.S. Attorney in Miami, said the misconduct reflected “a flawed corporate culture that failed to provide a checks and balances approach to combat criminal practices.”

    “Western Union’s failure to implement proper controls and discipline agents that violated compliances policies enabled the proliferation of illegal gambling, money laundering and fraud-related schemes,” he added.

    #banques #escrocs

  • Toshiba pourrait se séparer de ses chaines de production de NAND au profit de Western Digital ?
    http://www.comptoir-hardware.com/actus/ram/33332-toshiba-pourrait-se-separer-de-ses-chaines-de-production-de

    Toshiba, c’est une firme qui brillait à une époque par son matos, mais ne brille pas ces dernières années par ses choix (spécialement du côté des finances). La société a racheté OCZ après ses mésaventures (encore une firme dont l’image a eu mal après une série de loupés), mais il semblerait qu’elle songe à s’en séparer d’une partie pour faire rapidement rentrer de l’argent et purger ses dettes... [Tout lire]

    #Mémoires