continent:asia

  • LNG Tanker Charts Shortcut to Asia

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324020804578150563502056032.html
    By ERIC YEP

    A Norwegian tanker full of natural gas is scheduled to deliver to Japan after traveling through the Arctic Ocean. The WSJ’s Ken Brown explains how this route will change the way people sell gas.

    A tanker full of chilled natural gas is about to complete a trip through the Arctic Ocean to Asia, as a combination of climate change, the shale-gas revolution and the earthquake in Japan opens a potentially disruptive trade route.

    The tanker Ob River is scheduled to deliver a cargo of Norwegian gas to energy-starved Japan on Tuesday after traveling from Norway through the Arctic above Russia. The trip takes three weeks less than it would if the gas took its normal route though the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal and around Asia.

    #artique #transport #transport-maritime

  • Eritrea and its refugee crisis - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

    http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/20121013164211672211.html

    This article is the thirteenth in a series by Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, a former Pakistani high commissioner to the UK, exploring how a litany of volatile centre/periphery conflicts with deep historical roots were interpreted after 9/11 in the new global paradigm of anti-terrorism - with profound and often violent consequences. Incorporating in-depth case studies from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Ambassador Ahmed will ultimately argue that the inability for Muslim and non-Muslim states alike to either incorporate minority groups into a liberal and tolerant society or resolve the “centre vs periphery” conflict is emblematic of a systemic failure of the modern state - a breakdown which, more often than not, leads to widespread violence and destruction. The violence generated from these conflicts will become the focus, in the remainder of the 21st century, of all those dealing with issues of national integration, law and order, human rights and justice.

    Under the baking sun of Sinai early last month, a group of Eritrean refugees with little food or water had been stranded at the border between Egypt and Israel for over a week, attempting to cross the border. They huddled together beneath the feeble shade of a sheet of plastic that they held aloft.

    #érythrée #migrations #asile #israël #sinaï

  • 5 Reasons Why the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands are NOT Chinese Territory - YouTube

    Superbe propagande, merveille de propagande japonaise justifiant que les iles Senkaku (Diaoyu pour les Chinois) sont bien japonaises. La musique choisie surtout est tout à fait époustouflante (qui peut me dire de qui c’est d’ailleurs ?)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnlr_OBN2uw&list=PL2104ED7AB17696A3&index=0&feature=plcp

    Expanding China will be the biggest problem for the international society of the 21st century. Sinocentrism, an ancient imperialism deeply rooted in China’s history, seems now trying to swallow everything under the name of China. Sinocentrism has made Chinese people say, Taiwan is a part of China, Tibet is a part of China, East Turkestan is a part of China, Manchuria is a part of China, Mongolia is a part of China, Goguryeo is a part of China, the Spratly & Parcel islands are a part of China, the Senkaku islands are a part of China. It will also make them say, Okinawa is a part of China, North Korea is a part of China, South Korea is a part of China, Japan is a part of China, the whole Asia is a part of China, the whole Earth is a part of China. However, they must just realize that CHINA IS A MERE PART OF THE WORLD. Tibet must be Tibet. East Turkestan must be East Turkestan. Mongolia must be Mongolia. Manchuria must be Manchuria. Taiwan must be Taiwan. Each people must be allowed to decide their own future and what kind of tradition they will hand over to their children by their own. Sinocentrism is now blocking this basic human right. Democracy cannot coexist with Sinocentrism. The riverse is also true. Sinocentrism cannot coexist with Democracy. Either side must win and defeat the other. Which side will win? Sinocentrism or Democracy? Which side must win? Of course the latter.

    5 Reasons Why the Senkaku Islands are not Chinese Territory

    1. International Law

    “Island of Palmas Case” (1928), one of the most highly influential precedents dealing with island territorial conflicts say as follows,

    1) Firstly, title based on contiguity has no standing in international law.
    2) Secondly, title by discovery is only an inchoate title.
    3) Finally, if another sovereign begins to exercise continuous and actual sovereignty, (and the arbitrator required that the claim had to be open and public and with good title), and the discoverer does not contest this claim, the claim by the sovereign that exercises authority is greater than a title based on mere discovery.

    The Senkaku Islands were incorporated into Japan in 1895 by “prior occupation of terra nullius,” but both PRC (People’s Republic of China) and ROC (Republic of China) had never protested against Japan’s claim over the Senkaku Islands until 1971 for 76 years. Instead they had recognized the Islands as Japanese territory explicitly in their documents, newspapers, textbooks and maps. International law gives them the qualification to claim the Islands any longer.

    2. The Senkaku islands were discovered first not by Chinese but by Ryukyuans (Okinawan people).

    It was only 23 times that Chinese investiture Missions sailed to the Ryukyu Kingdom (Okinawa) in 507 years, while Ryukyuan Tributary Missions sailed to China over 580 times in the same period via the Senkaku Islands.

    3. There is no historical fact that China has exercised any “effective control” on the Senkaku Islands.

    China has claimed that the Senkaku islands had been Chinese territory “since the Ming Dynasty.” However, during the Ming Dynasty, even Taiwan was not a part of China. Taiwan was incorporated into Qing in 1683 for the first time. And all Chinese official documents written during the Qing Dynasty regarding Taiwan say the north end of Taiwan was the present Hoping island never Keelung. There is no historical fact that the Senkaku Islands were incorporated into China ever.

    4. The Japanese old map China quote often never admitted that the Senkaku islands were Chinese territory.

    China often quotes the Japanese old map, 「琉球三省並三十六島之図」(1786) by 林子平(Hayashi Shinei) to argue that the Senkaku Islands were colored in the same color as mainland China, so Japanese at that time recognized that the Senkaku islands were Chinese territory. However, in the same map, Taiwan was colored with the different color from the mainland China despite the fact that Taiwan was already incorporated in to Qing when the map was published in Japan. And Hayashi Shihei was not a Japanese governmental official, but a mere private citizen who was even arrested and punished by the Tokugawa Shogunate. We can not think Japan’s official view was reflected in his map anyway.

    5. There is no historical fact that Senkaku Islands had ever belonged to China, so China cannot say that they were stolen from China. So the Cairo Declaration has nothing to do with the Senkaku Islands.

    Conclusion.
    China has invaded and absorbed Tibet, East Turkestan, Inner Mongolia, and Manchuria. China is going to swallow the Senkaku Islands, Okinawa and Taiwan this time. The reestablishment of full-fledged Chinese Empire is their ultimate objective.

    #chine #japon #senkaku #diaoyu

  • Pakistan’s factory fire : An indictment of capitalism

    http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/sep2012/pers-s19.shtml
    19 September 2012

    The tragic blaze in Pakistan that killed nearly 300 workers last week was the world’s worst factory fire, surpassing the terrible death toll of 188 in the Kader toy factory fire in Thailand in 1993. The latest fire was a particularly horrific product of the dangerous and oppressive conditions that are the common experience of tens of millions of workers in Asia and many other parts of the world.

    Over the past three decades, countries like Pakistan and Thailand have been integrated into globalised production systems like never before. In the garment industry, global corporations contract out production of their prestige products to the sweatshops of Asia, setting in motion a dog-eat-dog competition to cut costs and provide the lowest price.

    #pakistan #sweat-shop #no-logo #travail #emploi #conditions-travail

  • Why Canada severed relations with Iran
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/09/08/f-iran-canada-diplomatic-relations.html

    Devine points to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran last week. Iranian officials boasted about a successful summit, which involved most countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America.

    He says the summit “was not an overwhelming success for Iran but demonstrated they are not as isolated as the West would hope.”

    The West is trying to isolate Iran over the dispute about Iran’s nuclear program. In that context, Devine says, Canada may be trying to send “a symbolic message to Iran after the NAM meeting that they should not conclude that their isolation is over or that they can escape western pressure.”

  • US to expand anti-missile systems in Asia

    http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/aug2012/miss-a24.shtml

    By Peter Symonds
    24 August 2012

    As part of its build-up in Asia, the US military is planning an extensive ballistic missile defence system that will only exacerbate tensions throughout the region, especially with China. According to the Wall Street Journal yesterday: “The planned build-up is part of a defensive array that could cover large swathes of Asia, with a new radar in southern Japan and possibly another in Southeast Asia tied to missile-defence ships and land-based interceptors.”

    #Etats-Unis #armement #asie

  • Pas tendre pour le New York Times non plus, la 4e internationale qui accuse le quotidien de soutenir Obama dans sa politique d’agression en Mer de Chine méridionale

    New York Times backs reckless US intervention in South China Sea

    http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/aug2012/scse-a21.shtml

    By Peter Symonds
    21 August 2012

    The New York Times has once again stepped forward as the apologist for and promoter of the Obama administration’s aggressive foreign policy—this time in the South China Sea.

    An editorial last weekend entitled “Asia’s Roiling Sea” drew attention to rising tensions in these strategic waters. Declaring that competition between China and its neighbours had become “a virtual free-for-all”, it warned: “Confrontations over territorial control are alarmingly frequent and could get out of hand, with dangerous consequences.”

  • A global slide into depression

    http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/pers-j22.shtml

    A global slide into depression

    22 June 2012

    It is now coming on close to four years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the autumn of 2008. The events of the past several months underscore two fundamental features of the crisis that emerged out of the subsequent financial collapse: 1) that it is systemic, not temporary; and 2) that it is global, effecting every country in the world. Globally integrated capitalism has created a globally integrated catastrophe.

    This week, a series of economic figures were released confirming this analysis. Hopes from bourgeois commentators that the debt crisis in Europe could be offset by economic growth in Germany, or that weakness in the West as a whole could be counterbalanced by strong production in Asia, are being dashed with each passing day.

  • Police spied on B.C. natives protesting pipeline plan, documents show - thestar
    http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1175824--rcmp-spied-on-b-c-natives-protesting-pipeline-plan-documents-show

    The documents show that a provincial RCMP unit has been closely tracking the potential for “acts of protest and civil disobedience” by the Yinka Dene Alliance, a coalition of northern B.C. First Nations who have been at the centre of resistance to Enbridge’s $5.5 billion pipeline proposal.

    Their territory covers a quarter of the route of the pipeline, which would carry more than 500,000 barrels of oilsands crude from Alberta through pristine territory to Kitimat, B.C., for export by supertanker to Asia and other markets.

    The revelations add ammunition to critics who have charged that the Harper government is waging a campaign to demonize legitimate opponents of resource developments like the Northern Gateway, by labelling them as radicals or including them in Canada’s “counter-terrorism” strategy.

    #police #surveillance #environnement #canada #cdp

  • Exposed: The reality behind London’s ’ethical’ Olympics - Asia - World - The Independent
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/exposed-the-reality-behind-londons-ethical-olympics-7644013.html

    While the German company – which unveiled its Stella McCartney-designed kit for British athletes last month – hopes to make £100m from its Olympic lines, the mainly young, female factory employees work up to 65 hours (25 hours more than the standard working week), for desperately low pay. They also endure verbal and physical abuse, they allege, are forced to work overtime, and are punished for not reaching production targets.

    #travail #exploitation #JO #Adidas

  • Climate-Linked Migration Poses Growing Humanitarian Threat - Study | Asian Development Bank
    http://beta.adb.org/news/climate-linked-migration-poses-growing-humanitarian-threat-study

    The report, Addressing #Climate_Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific, notes that more than 42 million people in the region were displaced by environmental disasters over the past two years alone. An undetermined number of those displaced became migrants, unable to return home or choosing to relocate to safer ground.

    #migrations #environnement #réfugiés

  • Asia Sentinel - Women’s rights in Afghanistan
    http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4186&Itemid=212

    According to a report by the UK-based aid agency Oxfam, last year nearly 90 percent of Afghan women said they had experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or been forced into marriage. Fattana Gailani, from the Afghanistan Women’s Council, says Afghan women suffer on a daily basis and have lost faith in foreign aid and institutions to improve their lives.

    “The Americans and Europeans are supporting this corrupt government. Even foreigners understand that corruption and the drug mafia is controlling this government. The Afghan people are becoming tired with this,” she says.

    The lack of education – particularly for girls – is a major cause of the problem, says Gailani.

    #femmes #Afghanistan

  • European Exodus Reverses Well-Worn Migration Patterns - WSJ.com
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550304577137174048327642.html

    Economic distress is driving tens of thousands of skilled professionals from Europe, and many are being lured to thriving former European colonies in Latin America and Africa, reversing well-worn migration patterns. Asia and Australia, as well as the U.S. and Canada, are absorbing others leaving the troubled euro zone.

    At the same time, an influx of Third World immigrants whose labor helped fuel Europe’s growth over the past decade is subsiding. Hundreds of thousands of them, including some white-collar professionals, have been returning home.

    #migration

  • Indian state offers prizes for sterilisation - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English
    http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2011/12/20111264741922824.html

    India has 1.2 billion people and is fast catching up with China as the world’s most populous nation. In an attempt to slow down the baby boom the state of Rajasthan, home to 68 million people, is offering prizes in exchange for sterilisation.

    Now women can win anything from food processors to cars in exchange for being sterilised.

    This latest effort by state officials has raised controversy as the procedure is still viewed with suspicion after the government introduced a forced sterilisation program the 1970s.

    #contraception_radicale #Inde #femmes

  • Why the Fukushima disaster is worse than Chernobyl - Asia - World - The Independent
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/why-the-fukushima-disaster-is-worse-than-chernobyl-2345542.html

    But many experts warn that the crisis is just beginning. Professor Tim Mousseau, a biological scientist who has spent more than a decade researching the genetic impact of radiation around Chernobyl, says he worries that many people in #Fukushima are “burying their heads in the sand.” His Chernobyl research concluded that biodiversity and the numbers of insects and spiders had shrunk inside the irradiated zone, and the bird population showed evidence of genetic defects, including smaller brain sizes.

    “The truth is that we don’t have sufficient data to provide accurate information on the long-term impact,” he says. “What we can say, though, is that there are very likely to be very significant long-term health impact from prolonged exposure.”

    #nucléaire

  • Pour archives : 11 août 2006, Timur Goksel pense que si Israël ne parvient pas à détruire les capacités de commandement et de contrôle du Hezbollah, c’est parce que celui-ci n’a pas besoin d’une telle structure centralisée. (Mais depuis 2008, on sait qu’il y a un réseau de communication terrestre spécifique.)

    Asia Times Online - Hezbollah’s lack of structure its strength
    http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH11Ak03.html

    RFE/RL: A common strategy in wartime is to disrupt the command-and-control capability of the enemy. But Hezbollah seems to have survived almost a month of heavy Israeli bombing. How does the militia remain effective on the battlefield?

    Goksel: They don’t work in military hierarchies or military command levels. They don’t have anything like that. There is one leader in Beirut and all the other units in the field are autonomous, they know what they are doing [by themselves]. They don’t need communications, they don’t report everything, they don’t ask for orders, they know what they are doing.

    There are small units of not more than 20 men, and most are local people. They operate on their own, they don’t need supplies. They are very independent. That makes it very difficult to catch them, of course.

  • Gender bias: Only Afghanistan fares worse than India in South Asia - Times Of India
    http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-11-03/india/30354228_1_hdi-india-ranks-gender-inequality-index

    India’s abysmal gender inequality statistics seem to have taken a turn for the worse. New data shows the country’s Gender Inequality Index (GII) worsened between 2008 and 2011, and India now ranks 129 out of 146 countries on the GII, better only than Afghanistan in south Asia.

    “Economic growth is a necessary but not sufficient condition for human development. Recent data shows that high growth states like Gujarat have worse human development measures, particularly on malnutrition, than many of the northern states,” Ramesh said. He went on to praise the role of non-government players, including Anna Hazare, in bringing about a change in sanitation.

    #Inde #inégalités #genre

  • 15th october 2011: birth of a global anti-capitalist movement?
    http://libcom.org/library/15th-october-2011-birth-global-anti-capitalist-movement
    Adam Ford argues that the #Occupy movement represents a historic moment in the fight against austerity.

    In my opinion, it is very likely that the historians of the future will look upon yesterday as the day a truly global anti-capitalist movement was born. Following the example of Occupy Wall Street, Los Angeles, Boston, and hundreds of US towns and cities, a huge number of small and large occupations began on every continent except Antarctica (see Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America

  • Map of the Day: Global Homicide Rates | UN Dispatch
    http://www.undispatch.com/map-of-the-day-global-homicide-rates

    There were 468,000 homicides around the world in 2010. More than a third (36 per cent) of those are estimated to have occurred in Africa, 31 per cent in the Americas, 27 per cent in Asia, 5 per cent in Europe and 1 per cent in Oceania. The thing is, when broken down by population size, it turns out that The Americas and Africa have roughly the same homicide rates (between 16 and 17/100,000–which is roughly twice the global average of 6.9 homicides per 100,000 people). Those peaceful Europeans? About half the global average.

  • Intéressant billet sur un nouveau « dérapage » raciste typiquement lébanonais de Murr TV (ce genre de chose est plus qu’une anecdote).

    Lebanese Media and the “Scourge of the Foreigners” | Al Akhbar English
    http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/lebanese-media-and-“scourge-foreigners”

    From the outset, the tour is clearly a slur against Lebanon’s migrant community. “You may think you’re not in Lebanon,” she says alarmingly, “like you are in Sudan, or a country with Kurds, or a country in Asia!” Her diatribe is accompanied by a panning camera shot of the faces of migrant workers who either live or gather to socialize in this area on the weekends.

    Despite the racist nature of her ‘report,’ one cannot but laugh at the last part of her opening commentary; for her worry that Lebanon may become part of Asia has been a geographic reality for many, many years. Lebanon is not in the EU, nor does it border the US. The reporter and the producer need to come to grips with this “bitter” reality, as harsh as it may seem.

    To be fair, perhaps they made a geographical error? Of course not, geography is clearly not the issue here. What is more important, according to the report, is that the mostly female immigrant workers attract young, non-Lebanese men who are responsible for “pickpocketing and other deviant behavior” in the area. The report does not bother to mention minor details, like the fact that working conditions for these workers are so bad that one of them commits suicide every week.

  • African Electricity and Renewable Energy - Environment - GOOD
    http://www.good.is/post/african-electricity-and-renewable-energy

    In terms of population and land mass, Africa is the second largest continent in the world, trailing only Asia. But, amazingly, a majority of the billion people living on the continent survive every day with little to no access to electricity. In the midst of economic, social, and geopolitical turmoil, many of the poorest nations in Africa are unable to scrounge up the money, resources, and general know-how to bring electricity to their people.


    #infographie #afrique #électricité

  • Hydro-control turning China into dreaded hydra?
    http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/261849/hydro-control-turning-china-into-dreaded-hydra

    http://www.bangkokpost.com/media/content/20111018/320597.jpg

    With Beijing controlling the sources of Asia’s most important rivers, water has increasingly become a new political divide in China’s relations with neighbours like India, Russia, Kazakhstan, Nepal and the Mekong River countries.

    No other country has ever managed to assume such unchallenged riparian pre-eminence on a continent by controlling the headwaters of multiple international rivers and manipulating their cross-border flows. China, the world’s biggest dam builder with slightly more than half of the approximately 50,000 large dams on the planet is rapidly accumulating leverage against its neighbours by undertaking massive hydro-engineering projects on transnational rivers.

    #eau #Chine #Asie #barrages