continent:asia

  • Refugees: A small and relatively stable proportion of world migration

    As so often with migration, the reality is more nuanced. In fact, the total number of refugees as a share of all migrants in the world is rather limited, and has remained remarkably stable if we look at long term trends. According to official figures compiled by the UNHCR there are currently about 16.1 million refugees under their mandate. This figure would rise to 21.1 million if we include Palestinian refugees, who do not fall under UNHCR’s mandate.

    This is less than 0.3 percent of the total world population (7.4 billion people), and about 10 per cent of the total estimated number of international migrants, which currently hovers around 220-230 million (excluding refugees). While the international migrant population counted as a percentage of the world population has remained remarkably stable on levels of around 3 percent of the world population since 1960, refugee numbers have shown more fluctuations, mainly depending on the level of conflict in origin areas.


    http://heindehaas.blogspot.ch/2016/08/refugees-small-and-relatively-stable.html?m=1
    #statistiques #réfugiés #migrations #monde #3% #asile #chiffres #3_pourcent

    • Global Migration Trends 2015 Factsheet

      In 2015, the number of international migrants worldwide – people residing in a country other than their country of birth – was the highest ever recorded, having reached 244 million (from 232 million in 2013). As a share of the world population, however, international migration has remained fairly constant over the past decades, at around #3% . While female migrants constitute only 48% of the international migrant stock worldwide, and 42% in Asia, women make up the majority of international migrants in Europe (52.4%) and North America (51.2%).

      http://iomgmdac.org/global-trends-2015-factsheet

    • –-> @seenthis #seenthis_bug : comment puis-je mettre 3% comme tag ? C’est un billet que je veux retrouver, car ce 3% est un peu un chiffre « magique » dont j’ai besoin pour certains textes... mais comment le retrouver si les % ne peuvent pas être utilisés dans les tags ?
      #3_pour_cent c’est peut-être une alternative, mais... j’espère me rappeler de l’avoir écrit comme cela !
      Si jamais il y a un moyen plus efficace, je suis preneuse...
      ou 3_pourcent

  • US-South Korean war games inflame Asian tensions - World Socialist Web Site

    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/08/23/uskr-a23.html

    US-South Korean war games inflame Asian tensions
    By Peter Symonds
    23 August 2016

    The annual joint US-South Korean military exercises known as Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) began yesterday amid rising tensions in Asia fuelled by the American military build-up throughout the region. While nominally aimed against North Korea, the war games consolidate Washington’s military alliance with Seoul as it makes preparations for conflict with China.

    The military drills involve around 25,000 US military personnel, of which 2,500 will come from outside South Korea, operating alongside 75,000 South Korean troops. The US has 28,500 troops stationed permanently in South Korea and is currently restructuring its bases in the country as part of its broader reorganisation of American military forces in the Asia Pacific.

    #corée_du_sud #états-unis #chine #nucléaire

  • The Inside Story Behind MS08-067
    https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/johnla/2015/09/26/the-inside-story-behind-ms08-067

    Seven years ago a small set of targeted attacks began. In 2008 an unknown set of attackers had a zero day vulnerability that would soon have worldwide attention. They were patient and used it quietly in several countries in Asia. The vulnerability was not just good–it was the kind of vulnerability that offensive teams and bug hunters dream about. It was, as we say in the business, “wormable”. That word sends chills down any defender’s spine. In short, the attackers had a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability that affected every version of Windows, gave them full control at SYSTEM level rights, left almost no forensic footprint, and could be used anonymously from anywhere on the Internet. Their exploit was 95% reliable. Almost perfect. Almost.

  • Exclusive: U.S. seeks Latin American help amid rise in Asian, African migrants

    Washington is seeking closer coordination with several Latin American countries to tackle a jump in migrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East who it believes are trying to reach the United States from the south on an arduous route by plane, boat and through jungle on foot.

    http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-mexico-exclusive-idUKKCN10R0DD

    #Mexique #externalisation #USA #asile #migrations #réfugiés #routes_migratoires #parcours_migratoires #Etats-Unis

  • 100 Chinese translations of foreign publications which had strong influence in China, Thomas Kampen
    http://www.zo.uni-heidelberg.de/md/zo/sino/institute/staff/kampen/kampen_100_translations.pdf

    Between 1840 and 1949, millions of Chinese students, academics and
    politicians were influenced by Chinese translations of Western books. But for a long time it was difficult to find details about the publication of these translations and biographical data of the translators.

    In 1996, the Chinese scholar 鄒振環 Zou Zhenhuan (Fudan University, Shanghai) published a book introducing one hundred Chinese translations of foreign publications that had strong influence in modern China (影響中國近代社會的一百種譯作 Yingxiang Zhongguo jindai shehui de yibai zhong yizuo, Beijing: Zhongguo duiwai fan yi chuban gongsi, 1996). This book provides important information for studying Western influences in China as well as literary, philosophical and political trends in modern China.

    Contents

    The book includes an impressive selection of novels (Defoe, Dumas, Scott), detective stories (A.C. Doyle), plays (Schiller, Shakespeare), poems (Byron), as well as historical, religious, sociological, philosophical and political studies (Einstein, Huxley, Kropotkin, Marx, Nietzsche, Rousseau). Most of the original worksare from Europe and about Europe; there are about a dozen Japanese books, but most of these are also based on western publications; there is also a small number of Western books about China, including Pearl S. Buck’s Good Earth and Edgar Snow’s Red Star over China.

    Zou Zhenhuan provides information about
    – the original works and authors,
    – the Chinese translations and translators
    – the impact of the translations in China.

    Getting “The Good Earth”’s Author Right: On Pearl S. Buck, By Charles W. Hayford
    https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/getting-the-good-earths-author-right-on-pearl-s-buck

    ... the seven pirated translations of The Good Earth into Chinese sold more copies than any other foreign book had up to that point.

    Once denounced, now honored—discovering Pearl S. Buck, BookPage Behind the Book by Anchee Min
    https://bookpage.com/behind-the-book/12261-once-denounced-now-honored-discovering-pearl-s-buck

    I was ordered to denounce Pearl Buck in China, where I lived for 27 years. The year was 1971. I was a teenager attending middle school in Shanghai.

    I was raised on the teachings of Mao and the operas of Madam Mao. I became a leader of the Little Red Guards in elementary school. My mother had been a teacher—she taught whatever the Party asked, one semester in Chinese and the next in Russian. My father was an instructor of industrial technique drawing at Shanghai Textile Institute, although his true love was astronomy. My parents both believed in Mao and the Communist Party, just like everybody else in the neighborhood. I became a Mao activist and won contests because I was able to recite the Little Red Book. In school Mao’s books were our texts.

    Trying to gain international support to deny Pearl Buck an entry visa (to accompany President Nixon to China), Madam Mao organized a national campaign to criticize Buck as an “American cultural imperialist.”

    I followed the order to denounce Pearl Buck and never doubted whether or not Madam Mao was being truthful. I was brainwashed at that time and had learned never to question anything. And yet I do remember having difficulty composing the criticisms. I wished that I had been given a chance to read The Good Earth. We were told that the book was so “toxic” that it was dangerous to even translate. I was told to copy lines from the newspapers: “Pearl Buck insulted Chinese peasants therefore China.” “She hates us therefore is our enemy.” I was proud to be able to defend my country and people.

    Pearl Buck’s name didn’t cross my path again until I immigrated to America. It was 1996 and I was giving a reading at a Chicago bookstore for my memoir, Red Azalea. Afterward, a lady came to me and asked if I knew Pearl Buck. Before I could reply, she said—very emotionally and to my surprise—that Pearl Buck had taught her to love the Chinese people. She placed a paperback in my hands and said that it was a gift. It was The Good Earth.

    I finished reading The Good Earth on the airplane from Chicago to Los Angeles. I broke down and sobbed. I couldn’t stop myself because I remembered how I had denounced the author. I remembered how Madam Mao had convinced the entire nation to hate Pearl Buck. How wrong we were! I had never encountered any author, including the most respected Chinese authors, who wrote about our peasants with such admiration, affection and humanity.

    A Guide to Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth | Asia for Educators | Columbia University, A Summary of The Good Earth
    http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1900_earth.htm

    The story begins on the day of Wang Lung’s wedding. Wang Lung is a poor young peasant who lives in an earthen brick house with his father, who has arranged for him to marry a slave girl named O-lan from the great family of the House of Hwang. After Wang Lung brings his quiet but diligent new wife home, she works side by side with him in the fields until their first child is born. They are delighted with their son, and at the New Year O-lan dresses him up and proudly takes him to the House of Hwang to show him off. She discovers that due to ostentatious waste and decadence, the Hwang household has squandered their fortune and is now poor enough to be willing to sell off their land. Since Wang Lung, with the help of O-lan who continues to join him in the fields, has had a relatively good year, he determines to extend his prosperity and better his position by buying some land from the House of Hwang. Although they must work harder with more land, Wang Lung and O-lan continue to produce good harvests; they also produce a second son and a daughter.

    But soon Wang Lung encounters difficulties. His selfish and unprincipled uncle is jealous, and demands a portion of Wang Lung’s new wealth, while Wang Lung, obsessed with his desire to acquire more land, spends all the family savings; a drought causes a poor harvest and the family suffers from lack of food and from their envious, starving neighbors’ looting of the little dried beans and corn they have left. O-lan has to strangle their fourth child as soon as she is born because otherwise she would die of starvation. Desperately poor and hungry, Wang Lung sells his furniture for a bit of silver to take his family south, though he refuses to sell his land. They ride a firewagon to a southern city, where they live in a makeshift hut on the street. They survive by O-lan, the grandfather, and the children begging for food and Wang Lung pulling a jinrickshaw (or rickshaw) for the rich, or pulling wagonloads of cargo at night.

    In the southern city, Wang Lung perceives the extraordinary wealth of westerners and Chinese aristocrats and capitalists, and he is interested in the revolutionaries’ protests of the oppression of the poor. He watches soldiers seize innocent men and force them to carry equipment for their armies. Yet Wang Lung’s overriding concern is to get back to his beloved land. He gets his chance when the enemy invades the city and the rich people flee; Wang Lung and O-lan join the throng of poor people who loot the nearby rich man’s house and get enough gold and jewels to enable them to return north. They repair their house and plough the fields, having bought seeds, an ox, new furniture and farm tools, and finally more land from the bankrupt House of Hwang.

    There follow seven years of prosperity, during which the sons grow and begin school; a third son is born with a twin sister, and the harvest is so plentiful that Wang Lung hires laborers and his loyal neighbor, Ching, as a steward. When a flood causes a general famine in the seventh year, Wang Lung is rich enough not to worry about survival yet, while his lands are under water, he becomes restless in his idleness. Bored with his plain and coarse wife, he ventures into a tea shop in town operated by a man from the south where the rich and idle spend their time drinking, gambling, and visiting prostitutes. There he begins an affair with Lotus, a delicately beautiful but manipulatively demanding courtesan whom he desires obsessively. Wang Lung is cruel to his wife and children and spends his fortune on Lotus, finally using up much of his savings to purchase her and build an adjacent courtyard for her to live in as his second wife. Here Lotus indolently lies around in silks, eating expensive delicacies, and gossiping with the deceitful and opportunistic wife of Wang Lung’s uncle.

    But discord arises immediately. O-lan is deeply hurt and angry, which makes Wang Lung defensively guilty and cold with her; there are conflicts between O-lan and Lotus’ maid Cuckoo who had mistreated O-lan when she was a concubine of the old master in the House of Hwang. Wang Lung’s old father protests the decadence of catering to a “harlot” in the house. Finally, Lotus is intolerant of Wang Lung’s children, especially his favorite daughter who had become mentally disabled due to malnutrition during the famine. As a result, Wang Lung’s passion for Lotus eventually cools, and when the flood recedes and he returns to his farming work, he is no longer obsessed with love.

    In the last third of the book, Wang Lung experiences a succession of joys and sorrows in his family relationships and in his farming. Seasons of good harvests are punctuated by occasional bad years, due to a heavy flood, a severe winter freeze, and a scourge of locusts. Yet on the whole Wang Lung continues to prosper. His wealth, however, also brings a series of discontents. His first son is idle and interested only in women; Wang Lung is furious when he finds the son has visited first a local prostitute and then his own Lotus, so he arranges a marriage for him. Moreover, Wang Lung’s good-for-nothing uncle, with his wife and son, force themselves on the family with their demands for money and their morally corrupting influence; Wang Lung must be kind to them because the uncle is a leader of a band of robbers, from which Wang Lung’s prosperous household is protected for as long as he provides for the uncle. He eventually renders the uncle and his wife harmless by making them addicted to opium.

    Family affairs continue to have ups and downs. O-lan’s sickness finally overpowers her, and Wang Lung’s tender solicitousness to her on her deathbed cannot fully compensate for the insults she received when Lotus moved into the house. She is content to die only after her first son’s marriage is consummated, so she can expect a grandson. Wang Lung’s father dies immediately after O-lan, and the faithful steward Ching is buried next. But these losses are accompanied by new joys: the first son produces grandsons and granddaughters, and the second son — a successful grain merchant — and the second daughter are also married and have children.

    As Wang Lung ages, he rents out his farm land to tenants. His eldest son persuades him to buy the old estate of the House of Hwang in town, both as a means of moving out from the place where the disgraceful uncle and his wife live, and as a symbol of Wang Lung’s elevated social position. Wang Lung is gratified that now he can take the place of the Old Master of Hwang who once intimidated him so much. But although Wang Lung is head of a three generation extended family who live in luxury with numerous servants, he cannot find peace. The two older brothers and their wives quarrel; the youngest son refuses to become a farmer as Wang Lung had intended and instead joins the army. The uncle’s malicious son causes more trouble when he brings his military regiment to camp for six weeks in Wang Lung’s elegant house. And Wang Lung, long tired of the aging Lotus, finds some comfort in taking the young slave Pear Blossom as his concubine.

    Finally, Wang Lung returns to the earthen house of his land to die. Material prosperity has brought him superficial social satisfaction, but only his land can provide peace and security. Even his final days are troubled, when he overhears his two older sons planning to sell the land as soon as he dies.

    #Chine #USA #histoire #politique #littérature

  • Global Migration Trends 2015 Factsheet

    J’archive ici ce document car il y a la référence au 3%, que je cherche depuis longtemps :

    In 2015, the number of international migrants worldwide – people residing in a country other than their country of birth – was the highest ever recorded, having reached 244 million (from 232 million in 2013). As a share of the world population, however, international migration has remained fairly constant over the past decades, at around 3% . While female migrants constitute only 48% of the international migrant stock worldwide, and 42% in Asia, women make up the majority of international migrants in Europe (52.4%) and North America (51.2%).

    http://publications.iom.int/system/files/global_migration_trends_2015_factsheet.pdf

    #asile #migrations #statistiques #chiffres #3% #3_pourcent
    cc @reka

  • Ukraine to Woo Shippers From Asia to Baltics by Fixing Ports - Bloomberg
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-12/ukraine-to-lure-shippers-from-asia-to-baltics-improving-ports

    Ukraine, whose trade links with Russia have been severed by a two-year insurgency in its eastern regions, will strive to offset that loss by becoming a transit hub for shipments from the Persian Gulf, Asia, China to the Scandinavian countries and the Baltics.

    The government wants to create “comfort and confidence” for businesses and is struggling to change a cumbersome customs policy, cut high port fees and improve difficult logistics,
    Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said in an interview in Kiev on Tuesday. The cabinet is in talks with several international companies as it seeks investors to modernize Black Sea ports and upgrade Soviet-era railways and river transport.

    I’d like to bring talks with China Shipping and Port Dubai to a successful completion,” Omelyan said, adding that the Dubai Ports Authority is considering investment in the Odessa port. “We have started discussing preliminary possibilities with Hutchison Port Holdings Ltd. There is a clear understanding that logistics at Ukrainian ports do not meet modern requirements. Many ports have to be rebuilt.

    Et donc pour restaurer le rôle d’axe de communication majeur des fleuves à l’époque des Varègues, il faut au préalable rénover les installations qui datent pratiquement … de la même époque :-D

  • Europe tries to buy its way out of the migration crisis

    This week’s European Council meeting was dominated by reactions to Britain’s referendum result, but on Tuesday EU leaders took a decision that has far-reaching consequences for people forced or wishing to migrate from more than a dozen countries in Africa and Asia.
    Under the Partnership Framework with third countries, which the council adopted, 16 countries of origin and transit for migrants will be pressured to cooperate with the EU’s goals on curbing migration. Their compliance is to be rewarded with various “incentives” including development aid and trade deals. Non-cooperation will be met with unspecified “negative incentives” – presumably the withholding of aid and trade.

    https://www.irinnews.org/fr/node/258942
    #asile #migrations #réfugiés #externalisation #UE #EU #Union_européenne #politique_migratoire

  • Tencent rachète supercells

    What does Clash of Clans maker’s $10 billion sale say about the future of gaming?
    Developer says it has over 100 million daily players for 4 games, including Clash.
    http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/06/are-mobile-games-like-clash-of-clans-the-future-of-gaming

    Tencent paid $8.57 billion for about 84 percent of the Finnish Supercell (which is owned by Japanese parent Softbank), valuing the mobile game studio at about $10.2 billion. That means a mobile game company with four titles is now worth more than twice as much as both Minecraft-maker Mojang (acquired by Microsoft in 2014 for $2.5 billion) and VR company Oculus (acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion) combined. Looking outside of gaming, Supercell sold for nearly twice as much as the combined purchase price of both YouTube and LucasFilm.
    The only gaming acquisition that even comes close to the size of the Supercell deal is Activision’s purchase of Candy Crush Saga maker King, another mobile-focused studio. That move represented a $5.9 billion bet that franchises like Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Destiny aren’t going to be enough to sustain growth for the mega-publisher going forward. But King is largely a one-trick pony at this point, relying heavily on the Candy Crush games for the vast majority of its players and revenue. Supercell’s success runs a bit deeper, with mega-hit Clash of Clans backed up by smaller-but-still-big hits like Clash Royale, Boom Beach, and Hay Day.
    The relative value of mobile gaming largely comes from the simple fact that so many people worldwide have smartphones in their pockets, and they are willing to download and try free-to-play titles. Supercell claims more than 100 million daily players for the four games mentioned above; that’s a little under 10 percent of the total market for mobile gamers worldwide, according to one estimate. For a console game to have 100 million players, it would have to be sold to roughly 50 percent of all console owners worldwide, according to other estimates. PC gaming looks relatively strong on a worldwide revenue basis, but these days the business is utterly contaminated by free-to-play MOBAs and MMOs, rather than more traditional single-player games or direct online competitions.

    Asia is the key to this change, which helps explain why Tencent is willing to put so much money into acquiring a growing competitor. A recent Digi-Capital report estimates Asia will represent more than 50 percent of all mobile gaming revenue by 2018, leaving Europe and North America to divide up the remainder. That same report estimates the total market for mobile games will be $45 billion (£30 billion) in two years, representing a 40 percent plurality of the total gaming market.

    Tencent’s reach is unmatched in the gaming market
    http://venturebeat.com/2016/06/26/tencent-will-unlock-more-of-chinas-value-and-weave-itself-into-global-g

    un article pourri du monde
    http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2016/06/22/avec-supercell-tencent-s-offre-une-horde-de-barbares_4955675_4408996.html

    #jeux_video #economie #gafa mais on oublie aussi souvent les #jd #tencent #alibaba #baidu #chine (#jtab?) ou les japonais de #rakuten #sharks

  • A photo from the past
    http://www.voltairenet.org/article171580.html

    A photograph from the 80’s has caused a stir in Washington after its publication by several media outlets. It was erroneously assumed that it was Jalaluddin Haqqani shown with President Ronald Reagan.
    ...
    Even if it’s not Haqqani in the photo unearthed from the Getty Image archives, it is nevertheless instructive. President Ronald Reagan is seen receiving at the White House a hero of the anti-communist struggle, Yunus Khalis, who just happened to be a mentor to Haqqani. To the left of the photo is famous CIA operative Zalmay Khalilzad, then presidential Asia adviser. Subsequently, George W. Bush named his neocon aide ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations.

    And yet, the George W. Bush administration accused Yunus Khalis in 2001 of having organized Osama bin Laden’s escape during the battle of Tora Bora.

  • Annual Reports | Forest Peoples Programme
    http://www.forestpeoples.org/tags/annual-reports

    Forest peoples and indigenous organisations in Asia, Africa, and South and Central America have made considerable progress over the last year in their work to secure their rights. Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) has continued to support forest peoples’ efforts to gain ownership of their lands, aiming to ensure that their voices are heard across the complex political and social global landscape as they assert their human rights.

    #forêt #peuples_des_forêts #peuples_autochtones

  • Deep Cables — Disruption Network Lab
    http://www.disruptionlab.org/deep-cables

    Uncovering the Wiring of the World
    June 17-18 · 2016
    The 8th event of the #Disruption Network Lab at Kunstquartier Bethanien, Studio 1, Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin. Directed by Tatiana Bazzichelli.

    Funded by: Der Regierende Bürgermeister von Berlin, Senatskanzlei, Kulturelle Angelegenheiten / City Tax.
    In partnership with: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.
    In cooperation with Kunstraum Kreuzberg /Bethanien.
    Pre-Lab 1.6 at SPEKTRUM, Bürknerstraße 12, Berlin-Kreuzberg.

    In collaboration with: NOME, Wau Holland Stiftung, Copenhagen Center for Disaster Research (COPE), Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG). With the support of the Free Chelsea Manning Initiative Berlin.

    Entrance 5€ / day. In English language.

    In August 2015 Henrik Moltke and a team of journalists from Pro Publica and the New York Times revealed intimate details of the National Security Agency’s decades-long partnership with the telecom giant AT&T. A seemingly innocuous detail in a random document allowed the team to pin down the elusive collaboration, referred to by codename in the documents leaked by Edward Snowden. A cable severed by the 2011 earthquake in Japan caused an outage, after which NSAs ‘collection’ - or tap - on the cable resumed. The date matched the repair on the northern leg of the Japan-US Cable, one of a handful of main arteries connecting Asia and the US. At the end of the cable is an anonymous looking industrial building, far off on the Mendocino coast of Northern California. The cable station is operated by AT&T. Under the motto “Follow the cables”, Henrik Moltke recounts how he retraces the physical footprint of deep state secrets.

    In this presentation, Henrik Moltke and Trevor Paglen will trace a link between the imaginary concept of “The Internet” and the present configuration of geopolitical wired structures, where big data, cloud computing, mass surveillance, and the monopolies of big corporations are intertwined. By disclosing through photography the development of transatlantic and undersea fibre-optic cables, and reconnecting the past with the present by charting the hidden infrastructure of information technology, this event will expose the inner functioning of the modern business of cable infrastructures, showing the global dimension, as well as the invisible sites of the physical Internet.

    etc.

    #Berlin #événement #réseaux

  • MAREA: Microsoft and Facebook to build submarine cable across Atlantic : 160Tbps over 6600km

    https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/server-cloud/2016/05/26/microsoft-and-facebook-to-build-subsea-cable-across-atlanti

    The new MAREA [Spanish for “tide”] cable will help meet the growing customer demand for high speed, reliable connections for cloud and online services for Microsoft, Facebook and their customers. The parties have cleared conditions to go “Contract-In-Force” with their plans, and construction of the cable will commence in August 2016 with completion expected in October 2017.

    [...]

    MAREA will be the highest-capacity subsea cable to ever cross the Atlantic – featuring eight finer pairs and an initial estimated design capacity of 160Tbps. The new 6,600 km submarine cable system, to be operated and managed by Telxius [part of Telefónica], will also be the first to connect the United States to southern Europe: from Virginia Beach, Virginia to Bilbao, Spain and then beyond to network hubs in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. This route is south of existing transatlantic cable systems that primarily land in the New York/New Jersey region. Being physically separate from these other cables helps ensure more resilient and reliable connections for our customers in the United States, Europe, and beyond.

    http://www.wired.com/2016/05/facebook-microsoft-laying-giant-cable-across-atlantic

    Microsoft offers Bing, Office365, and its Azure cloud services. Facebook has its social network along with Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. The data moved by just a few online giants now dwarfs that of most others, so much so that, according to telecommunications research firm Telegeography, more than two thirds of the digital data moving across the Atlantic is traveling on private networks—namely networks operated by the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.

    #submarine_cable #câble_sous-marin #câbles_sous-marins
    #câble #câbles #personnellement_je_préfère_le_singulier_parce_que_plus_facile_pour_les_recherches

  • International Shipping Crisis - What about the Professional Mariner ? - gCaptain
    https://gcaptain.com/international-shipping-crisis-professional-mariner

    Point de vue d’un pilote, tout nouveau chroniqueur sur gCaptain, sur l’impact de la crise du transport maritime sur le personnel navigant.

    As a working mariner, however, I find myself thinking about…the working mariner. Where is the international discussion regarding how this crisis has affected the professionals manning these vessels? Because let’s face it (Contrary to Roll’s Royce’s touts on “automation is here”), the men and women manning these ships are the only reason international marine transportation functions. The fact is, mariner’s man ships and until such time as they don’t, it demands our attention. I have seen little to no discussion locally, regionally or internationally about the effect this extraordinary crisis has had on the professionals manning the world’s fleets. (Please correct me if I am wrong here).

    As a pilot, I get the opportunity to work daily on many kinds of ships with many different nationalities, thus allowing me a glimpse of how things are faring on the high seas for mariners. The picture is grim for a significant portion of the men and women sailing the world’s oceans.

    Examples? Graduating junior officers from the fine Indian Maritime Schools find employment in a sea-going billet very difficult if not impossible to obtain. How about one of the world’s greatest shipping nations, the land of my mother and father (and most of my family); the United Kingdom paying below poverty wages to deckhands on Scottish Ferries? Less than British National Minimum wage. What about the continued implementation of a ‘two watch’ system on short sea ships in Europe and Asia? How many ships will go aground at full ahead with an exhausted mate or master fast asleep before something is done about manning? What about Asian national fishing vessels literally enslaving deckhands and crew?

    Chômage massif pour les jeunes officiers, salaires de misère y compris en Europe (R.-U.), quart par bordée, travail forcé,…

    En complément des chantiers navals,…

  • the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens: An imaginary dialogue between the “bosses”
    http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2013/12/an-imaginary-dialogue-between-bosses.html

    2013,

    Biggest Multinational Corporations (BMCs) : What the hell are you doing? You dictate governments to cut salaries and pensions, proceed in massive layoffs! You destroy our consumers!

    Banksters : Don’t worry we know what we are doing.

    BMCs : No you don’t. You reduce our profits!

    Banksters : Calm down! We are major shareholders in many of you. Do you think we want to lose?

    BMCs : Then what, exactly, is your plan?

    Banksters : Look, can you imagine what would happen if people were receiving higher salaries and pensions?

    BMCs : Yes, we would be selling more products and making more profits!

    Banksters : Far from it! Your losses would be much more than your profits for a number of reasons!

    BMCs : Can you be more specific?

    Banksters : First: if more money were going to the market, then they would lose much of their value and we would lose profits because we are the ones who print money! That’s why we invented inflation, to keep governments in fear and directing money back to us through the so-called Quantitative Easing Policies.

    BMCs : But inflation happens anyway!

    Banksters : Yes, but it is controlled. We control it. When money start to spread in the society “above acceptable limits”, we create financial crises to take them back. We dictate governments to take measures and apply austerity policies directing money back to us. We keep money valuable to everyone and secure our profits.

    BMCs : Ok, how about the other reasons?

    Banksters : Second: small-medium businesses would have more customers because consumers would have the “luxury” to buy higher quality products locally, even if they were more expensive than yours of low quality due to mass production, so, you would have to deal with thousands of competitors locally because much more of them could survive!

    Third: expensive labor force. You would have to pay higher salaries, therefore lose profits.

    Fourth: without government budget cuts you would have to pay more money through taxes in healthcare and education and other social benefits. Plus, you will have the opportunity for new business in healthcare and education.

    BMCs : Ok, how about extremely low salaries in India, China and SE Asia. We lose a huge market there.

    Banksters : Can you imagine if one day all these people demand Western salaries? That’s why we dictate the fairytale of budget cuts and fiscal discipline to countries. So that to reduce salaries in West and say to Asians: look, don’t ask for too much, look what happens in West. You will get your raise up to a certain limit.

    You see? Once we equalize salaries everywhere, you will get your new market there. New consumers who could spend as much as Americans and Europeans. Plus you will get rid of regulations and fire employees at will without consequences. Governments and politicians by then would become totally powerless.

    BMCs : And how will you do that practically?

    Banksters : But we are doing it already! The experiment in Greece continues as planned. Once we bring salaries at the level we want, and destroy the welfare state, we will continue to the rest of the eurozone.

    BMCs : Well, alright with the PIIGS, but how about France, Germany and the entire north? People will never accept such policies there.

    Banksters : They will. We will start with Italy and Spain. We will order rating agencies to attack, exclude them from markets and throw them to the ECB trap. They will be forced to take similar measures, as Greece did, in order to receive liquidity. Then, we will attack France and Germany.

  • Asian Arms Race Continues – OpEd

    The announcement that Australia has awarded the biggest arms contract in its history ($40 bn) to France provides further fuel to the arms race in Asia. Already last year Asia overtook Europe in terms of defence spending with the total reaching $340bn according to IISS figures. This year the trend is continuing with overall defence expenditure likely to increase by a further 6%. Asian countries are shopping not only for submarines but new generation fighter aircraft, amphibious landing craft and other advanced weaponry. European defence contractors are now looking to Asia to boost falling sales at home.

    The reasons for the rise in defence spending include the increasing tensions in the East and South China seas and the unpredictable nature of the regime in North Korea. China accounts for about 40% of the total spending and has ambitious plans to modernise its armed forces and increase its power projection capabilities. This, in turn, has led to increases in defence spending by India, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Australia and other countries in Asia. South Korea is considering accepting a US missile system following the latest provocations from North Korea.

    http://www.eurasiareview.com/09052016-asian-arms-race-continues-oped

    #transferts_d_armes #armement #asie

  • The unbearable agony of choosing an Android phone
    https://www.facebook.com/notes/factordaily/the-unbearable-agony-of-choosing-an-android-phone/1756113214621810

    “90 brands launched 256 mobile phone models in India in the last 3 months alone. Not all them were smartphones — 119 were feature phones — but that’s still a heck of a lot of models to choose from”

    #mobile_smartphone_model_Android_India_Asia_beclever

  • Al Qaeda in Yemen poses growing threat to shipping : naval force | Reuters
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-qaeda-idUSKCN0XV1WV

    Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch remains a powerful force and poses a growing risk to merchant ships in vital waterways nearby despite efforts by Yemeni government forces and their allies to push back the group, a top officer in an international naval force said.

    Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) confirmed on Saturday it had withdrawn from the southern Yemeni port of‎ Mukalla - a week after Yemeni government and Emirati soldiers seized the‎ city that was used by the Islamist militants to amass a fortune.

    Captain William Nault, Chief of Staff with the multi-national Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), told Reuters ‎the gains by government forces were “heartening” and a “setback” for AQAP, but added the group still had capabilities due to the ongoing civil war.

    ‎"AQAP has taken advantage of that chaos and moved into the void. In doing so they have gotten stronger‎," said Nault of CMF, whose mission includes counter-piracy and counter-terrorism in the region.

    AQAP has exploited conflict between Yemeni government loyalists backed by a Gulf Arab coalition and Houthi rebels allied to Iran and has sought to carve out a quasi state.

    The group still controls the Arabian Sea towns of Zinjibar and Shaqra, about 400 km (250 miles) southwest of Mukalla.

    That coastal area is close to the Bab al-Mandab gateway though which nearly four million barrels of oil are shipped daily to Europe, the United States and Asia.

    Nault said ‎AQAP had a “stated capability and intent to conduct a maritime terrorist attack”, which was something “we look at very hard”‎.

    I would assess that as getting worse over the last year instead of better,” he said on a visit to London.

    Bref, les résultats sont encourageants mais le risque d’attaque du trafic marchand va croissant…

  • Global water shortages to deliver ’severe hit’ to economies, World Bank warns | Environment | The Guardian
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/03/climate-change-water-shortage-middle-east-asia-africa-world-bank?CMP=tw

    Water shortages will deliver a “severe hit” to the economies of the Middle East, central Asia, and Africa by the middle of the century, taking double digits off their GDP, the World Bank warned on Tuesday.

    By 2050, growing demand for cities and for agriculture would put water in short supply in regions where it is now plentiful – and worsen shortages across a vast swath of Africa and Asia, spurring conflict and migration, the bank said.

    #climat #sécheresse #eau #urbanisation

  • Indigenous leaders from threatened tropical forests to launch tour in Europe; will challenge region’s deadly trade in ubiquitous palm oil | Forest Peoples Programme
    http://www.forestpeoples.org/topics/agribusiness/news/2016/04/indigenous-leaders-threatened-tropical-forests-launch-tour-europe-w

    Between 27 April and 4 May 2016, indigenous representatives and community leaders from tropical forest countries in Asia, Africa and South America will tour Brussels, The Netherlands, Germany and the UK to raise concerns with high-level policy and decision-makers about palm oil supply chains and the impact they are having on their lands, forests and communities.

    WHO: Franky Samperante and Agus Sutomo from Indonesia; Ali Kaba from Liberia; Robert Guimaraes Vasquez and Sedequías Ancon Chávez from Peru; and Willian Aljure from Colombia
    WHEN: Wednesday 27 April to Wednesday 4 May 2016
    WHERE: Multiple venues in Brussels, The Hague, Rotterdam Port, Bonn, Cologne and London

    #peuples_autochtones #Europe #contestation #industrie_palmiste

  • Mapping the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage
    http://www.martingrandjean.ch/mapping-unesco-intangible-cultural-heritage

    The creation of a list of intangible cultural elements to preserve (ICH, UNESCO) should be understood as a kind of reaction to the vast World Heritage List (WHC, UNESCO), highly politicized “wonders of the world” directory. For many reasons, related to the preservation of ancient monuments, the Western-centric definition of the terms “cultural” or “heritage” or because we find many European countries actively involved in United Nations programs, Europe is over-represented in the World Heritage list.

    WORLD HERITAGE SITES – Europe and North America host 48% of the listed items, while these territories account for only 16% of the world population, a rate of 40 items listed for 100M inhabitants. By comparison, the rate is 5/100M in Asia, 10/100M in Africa, 20/100M in the Arab States and 21/100M in Latin America.

    INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE – Implicitly, the intangible cultural heritage directory aims to restore a form of balance, including a new element to list. As a result of a political choice to favor the marginalized elements, the number of intangible heritage elements in North America and Europe are less numerous (but still 33% of the new list). Asia, meanwhile, is better highlighted.


    #héritage_culturel_intangible #culture #musique #cartograhie
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intangible_cultural_heritage