continent:asia

  • Inside Italy’s Shadow Economy

    #Home_work — working from home or a small workshop as opposed to in a factory — is a cornerstone of the #fast-fashion supply chain. It is particularly prevalent in countries such as India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and China, where millions of low-paid and predominantly female home workers are some of the most unprotected in the industry, because of their irregular employment status, isolation and lack of legal recourse.

    That similar conditions exist in Italy, however, and facilitate the production of some of the most expensive wardrobe items money can buy, may shock those who see the “Made in Italy” label as a byword for sophisticated craftsmanship.

    Increased pressure from #globalization and growing competition at all levels of the market mean that the assumption implicit in the luxury promise — that part of the value of such a good is that it is made in the best conditions, by highly skilled workers, who are paid fairly — is at times put under threat.

    Though they are not exposed to what most people would consider sweatshop conditions, the homeworkers are allotted what might seem close to sweatshop wages. Italy does not have a national minimum wage, but roughly €5-7 per hour is considered an appropriate standard by many unions and consulting firms. In extremely rare cases, a highly skilled worker can earn as much as €8-10 an hour. But the homeworkers earn significantly less, regardless of whether they are involved in leatherwork, embroidery or another artisanal task.

    In #Ginosa, another town in Puglia, Maria Colamita, 53, said that a decade ago, when her two children were younger, she had worked from home on wedding dresses produced by local factories, embroidering gowns with pearl paillettes and appliqués for €1.50 to €2 per hour.

    Each gown took 10 to 50 hours to complete, and Ms. Colamita said she worked 16 to 18 hours a day; she was paid only when a garment was complete.

    “I would only take breaks to take care of my children and my family members — that was it,” she said, adding that she currently works as a cleaner and earns €7 per hour. “Now my children have grown up, I can take on a job where I can earn a real wage.”

    Both women said they knew at least 15 other seamstresses in their area who produced luxury fashion garments on a piece-rate basis for local factories from their homes. All live in Puglia, the rural heel of Italy’s boot that combines whitewashed fishing villages and crystal clear waters beloved by tourists with one of the country’s biggest manufacturing hubs.

    Few were willing to risk their livelihoods to tell their tales, because for them the flexibility and opportunity to care for their families while working was worth the meager pay and lack of protections.

    “I know I am not paid what I deserve, but salaries are very low here in Puglia and ultimately I love what I do,” said another seamstress, from the attic workshop in her apartment. “I have done it all my life and couldn’t do anything else.”

    Although she had a factory job that paid her €5 per hour, she worked an additional three hours per day off the books from home, largely on high-quality sample garments for Italian designers at roughly €50 apiece.

    “We all accept that this is how it is,” the woman said from her sewing machine, surrounded by cloth rolls and tape measures.
    ‘Made in Italy,’ but at What Cost?

    Built upon the myriad small- and medium-size export-oriented manufacturing businesses that make up the backbone of Europe’s fourth largest economy, the centuries-old foundations of the “Made in Italy” legend have shaken in recent years under the weight of bureaucracy, rising costs and soaring unemployment.

    Businesses in the north, where there are generally more job opportunities and higher wages, have suffered less than those in the south, which were hit hard by the boom in cheap foreign labor that lured many companies into moving production operations abroad.

    Few sectors are as reliant on the country’s manufacturing cachet as the luxury trade, long a linchpin of Italy’s economic growth. It is responsible for 5 percent of Italian gross domestic product, and an estimated 500,000 people were employed directly and indirectly by the luxury goods sector in Italy in 2017, according to data from a report from the University of Bocconi and Altagamma, an Italian luxury trade organization.

    Those numbers have been bolstered by the rosy fortunes of the global luxury market, expected by Bain & Company to grow by 6 to 8 percent, to €276 to €281 billion in 2018, driven in part by the appetite for “Made in Italy” goods from established and emerging markets.

    But the alleged efforts by some luxury brands and lead suppliers to lower costs without undermining quality have taken a toll on those on those operating at the very bottom of the industry. Just how many are affected is difficult to quantify.

    According to data from Istat (the Italian National Institute of Statistics), 3.7 million workers across all sectors worked without contracts in Italy in 2015. More recently, in 2017, Istat counted 7,216 home workers, 3,647 in the manufacturing sector, operating with regular contracts.

    However, there is no official data on those operating with irregular contracts, and no one has attempted to quantify the group for decades. In 1973, the economist Sebastiano Brusco estimated that Italy had one million contracted home workers in apparel production, with a roughly equal figure working without contracts. Few comprehensive efforts have been made to examine the numbers since.

    This New York Times investigation collected evidence of about 60 women in the Puglia region alone working from home without a regular contract in the apparel sector. Tania Toffanin, the author of “Fabbriche Invisibili,” a book on the history of home working in Italy, estimated that currently there are 2,000 to 4,000 irregular home workers in apparel production.

    “The deeper down we go in the supply chain, the greater the abuse,” said Deborah Lucchetti, of #Abiti_Puliti, the Italian arm of #Clean_Clothes_Campaign, an anti-sweatshop advocacy group. According to Ms. Lucchetti, the fragmented structure of the global manufacturing sector, made up of thousands of medium to small, often family-owned, businesses, is a key reason that practices like unregulated home working can remain prevalent even in a first world nation like Italy.

    Plenty of Puglian factory managers stressed they adhered to union regulations, treated workers fairly and paid them a living wage. Many factory owners added that almost all luxury names — like Gucci, owned by Kering, for example, or Louis Vuitton, owned by #LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton — regularly sent staff to check on working conditions and quality standards.

    When contacted, LVMH declined to comment for this story. A spokesman for MaxMara emailed the following statement: “MaxMara considers an ethical supply chain a key component of the company’s core values reflected in our business practice.”

    He added that the company was unaware of specific allegations of its suppliers using home workers, but had started an investigation this week.

    According to Ms. Lucchetti, the fact that many Italian luxury brands outsource the bulk of manufacturing, rather than use their own factories, has created a status quo where exploitation can easily fester — especially for those out of union or brand sightlines. A large portion of brands hire a local supplier in a region, who will then negotiate contracts with factories in the area on their behalf.

    “Brands commission first lead contractors at the head of the supply chain, which then commission to sub-suppliers, which in turn shift part of the production to smaller factories under the pressure of reduced lead time and squeezed prices,” Ms. Lucchetti said. “That makes it very hard for there to be sufficient transparency or accountability. We know home working exists. But it is so hidden that there will be brands that have no idea orders are being made by irregular workers outside the contracted factories.”

    However, she also called these problems common knowledge, and said, “some brands must know they might be complicit.”

    The ‘Salento Method’

    Certainly that is the view of Eugenio Romano, a former union lawyer who has spent the last five years representing Carla Ventura, a bankrupt factory owner of Keope Srl (formerly CRI), suing the Italian shoe luxury behemoth Tod’s and Euroshoes, a company that Tod’s used as a lead supplier for its Puglian footwear production.

    Initially, in 2011, Ms. Ventura began legal proceedings against only Euroshoes, saying that consistently late payments, shrinking fee rates for orders and outstanding bills owed to her by that company were making it impossible to maintain a profitable factory and pay her workers a fair wage. A local court ruled in her favor, and ordered Euroshoes to pay the debts, which, after appealing unsuccessfully, the company did.

    Orders dried up in the wake of those legal proceedings. Eventually, in 2014, Keope went bankrupt. Now, in a second trial, which has stretched on for years without a significant ruling, Ms. Ventura has brought another action against Euroshoes, and Tod’s, which she says had direct knowledge of Euroshoes’ unlawful business practices. (Tod’s has said it played no role in nor had any knowledge of Euroshoes’ contract issues with Keope. A lawyer for Euroshoes declined to comment for this article.)

    “Part of the problem down here is that employees agree to forgo their rights in order to work,” Mr. Romano said from his office in the town of Casarano, ahead of the next court hearing, scheduled for Sept. 26.

    He spoke of the “Salento method,” a well-known local phrase that means, essentially: “Be flexible, use your methods, you know how to do it down here.”

    The region of Salento has a high unemployment rate, which makes its work force vulnerable. And although brands would never officially suggest taking advantage of employees, some factory owners have told Mr. Romano that there is an underlying message to use a range of means, including underpaying employees and paying them to work at home.

    The area has long been a hub of third-party shoemakers for luxury brands including Gucci, Prada, Salvatore Ferragamo and Tod’s. In 2008, Ms. Ventura entered into an exclusive agreement with Euroshoes to become a sub-supplier of shoe uppers destined for Tod’s.

    According to Ms. Ventura’s lawsuit, she then became subject to consistently late payments, as well as an unexplained reduction in prices per unit from €13.48 to €10.73 per shoe upper from 2009 to 2012.

    While many local factories cut corners, including having employees work from home, Ms. Ventura said she still paid full salaries and provided national insurance. Because the contract required exclusivity, other potential manufacturing deals with rival brands including Armani and Gucci, which could have balanced the books, could not be made.

    Production costs were no longer covered, and promises of an increased number of orders from Tod’s via Euroshoes never came, according to the legal papers filed in Ms. Ventura’s case.

    In 2012, orders from Tod’s via Euroshoes stopped completely, one year after Ms. Ventura first took Euroshoes to court for her unpaid bills. Ms. Ventura said that eventually put Keope on the road to bankruptcy, according to legal documents. Ms. Ventura was declared insolvent in 2014.

    When asked for comment, a Tod’s spokeswoman said in a statement:

    “Keope filed a lawsuit against one of our suppliers, Euroshoes, and Tod’s, to recover damages related to the alleged actions or omissions of Euroshoes. Tod’s has nothing to do with the facts alleged in the case and never had a direct commercial relationship with Keope. Keope is a subcontractor of Euroshoes, and Tod’s is completely extraneous to their relationship.”

    The statement also said that Tod’s had paid Euroshoes for all the amounts billed in a timely and regular manner, and was not responsible if Euroshoes failed to pay a subcontractor. Tod’s said it insisted all suppliers perform their services in line with the law, and that the same standard be applied to subcontractors.

    “Tod’s reserves the right to defend its reputation against the libelous attempt of Keope to involve it in issues that do not concern Tod’s,” the spokeswoman said.

    Indeed, a report by Abiti Puliti that included an investigation by Il Tacco D’Italia, a local newspaper, into Ms. Ventura’s case found that other companies in the region sewing uppers by hand had women do the work irregularly from their homes. That pay would be 70 to 90 euro cents a pair, meaning that in 12 hours a worker would earn 7 to 9 euros.

    ‘Invisible’ Labor

    Home working textile jobs that are labor intensive or require skilled handiwork are not new to Italy. But many industry observers believe that the lack of a government-set national minimum wage has made it easier for many home workers to still be paid a pittance.

    Wages are generally negotiated for workers by union representatives, which vary by sector and by union. According to the Studio Rota Porta, an Italian labor consultancy, the minimum wage in the textile industry should be roughly €7.08 per hour, lower than those for other sectors including food (€8.70), construction (€8) and finance (€11.51).

    But workers who aren’t members of unions operate outside the system and are vulnerable to exploitation, a source of frustration for many union representatives.

    “We do know about seamstresses working without contracts from home in Puglia, especially those that specialize in sewing appliqué, but none of them want to approach us to talk about their conditions, and the subcontracting keeps them largely invisible,” said Pietro Fiorella, a representative of the CGIL, or Italian General Confederation of Labour, the country’s largest national union.

    Many of them are retired, Mr. Fiorella said, or want the flexibility of part-time work to care for family members or want to supplement their income, and are fearful of losing the additional money. While unemployment rates in Puglia recently dropped to 19.5 percent in the first quarter of 2018 from nearly 21.5 percent in the same period a year ago, jobs remain difficult to come by.

    A fellow union representative, Giordano Fumarola, pointed to another reason that garment and textile wages in this stretch of southern Italy have stayed so low for so long: the offshoring of production to Asia and Eastern Europe over the last two decades, which intensified local competition for fewer orders and forced factory owners to drive down prices.

    In recent years, some luxury companies have started to bring production back to Puglia, Mr. Fumarola said. But he believed that power is still firmly in the hands of the brands, not suppliers already operating on wafer-thin margins. The temptation for factory owners to then use sub-suppliers or home workers, or save money by defrauding their workers or the government, was hard to resist.

    Add to that a longstanding antipathy for regulation, high instances of irregular unemployment and fragmented systems of employment protection, and the fact that nonstandard employment has been significantly liberalized by successive labor market reforms since the mid-1990s, and the result is further isolation for those working on the margins.

    A national election in March swept a new populist government to power in Italy, placing power in the hands of two parties — the Five Star Movement and the League — and a proposed “dignity decree” aims to limit the prevalence of short-term job contracts and of firms shifting jobs abroad while simplifying some fiscal rules. For now, however, legislation around a minimum wage does not appear to be on the agenda.

    Indeed, for women like the unnamed seamstress in Santeramo in Colle, working away on yet another coat at her kitchen table, reform of any sort feels a long way off.

    Not that she really minded. She would be devastated to lose this additional income, she said, and the work allowed her to spend time with her children.

    “What do you want me to say?” she said with a sigh, closing her eyes and raising the palms of her hands. “It is what it is. This is Italy.”


    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/fashion/italy-luxury-shadow-economy.html
    #fashion #mode #industrie_textile #travail #exploitation #Italie #esclavage_moderne #Pouilles #made_in_Italy #invisibilité #travail_à_la_maison #mondialisation #luxe #MaxMara #Gucci #Kering #Louis_Vuitton #LVMH #Salento #Carla_Ventura #Keope_Srl #CRI #Euroshoes #Tod's #Salento_method #Prada #Salvatore_Ferragamo

    via @isskein

  • Le monde dans nos tasses

    « Thé ? Café ? Chocolat ? » Cette litanie du matin, formulée dans tous les hôtels du monde, évoque à chacun un rituel quotidien immuable : celui du petit déjeuner. Qui peut en effet imaginer se réveiller sans l’odeur stimulante d’un café, la chaleur enrobante d’un thé ou la douceur réconfortante d’un chocolat chaud ?
    Et pourtant, ces #boissons, pour nous si familières, n’ont rien d’européennes. Ni le caféier, ni le théier, ni le cacaoyer ne poussent dans les contrées tempérées. Alors comment ces produits ont-ils fait irruption dans nos tasses, et ce dès le XVIIIe siècle, au point de devenir nos indispensables complices des premières heures du jour ?
    En retraçant l’étonnante histoire du petit déjeuner, de la découverte des denrées exotiques à leur exploitation, de leur transformation à leur diffusion en Europe et dans le monde, c’est toute la grande histoire de la mondialisation et de la division Nord/Sud que Christian Grataloup vient ici nous conter.
    Ainsi chaque matin, depuis trois siècles, en buvant notre thé, notre café ou notre chocolat, c’est un peu comme si nous buvions le Monde…


    https://www.armand-colin.com/le-monde-dans-nos-tasses-trois-siecles-de-petit-dejeuner-9782200612283
    #livre #petit-déjeuner #mondialisation #globalisation #Grataloup #Christian_Grataloup #géohistoire #géographie_de_la_mondialisation #thé #café #cacao #chocolat #alimentation #RAP2018-2019

    #ressources_pédagogiques

    • Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

      With a few minor exceptions, there are really only two ways to say “tea” in the world. One is like the English term—té in Spanish and tee in Afrikaans are two examples. The other is some variation of cha, like chay in Hindi.

      Both versions come from China. How they spread around the world offers a clear picture of how globalization worked before “globalization” was a term anybody used. The words that sound like “cha” spread across land, along the Silk Road. The “tea”-like phrasings spread over water, by Dutch traders bringing the novel leaves back to Europe.

      The term cha (茶) is “Sinitic,” meaning it is common to many varieties of Chinese. It began in China and made its way through central Asia, eventually becoming “chay” (چای) in Persian. That is no doubt due to the trade routes of the Silk Road, along which, according to a recent discovery, tea was traded over 2,000 years ago. This form spread beyond Persia, becoming chay in Urdu, shay in Arabic, and chay in Russian, among others. It even made its way to sub-Saharan Africa, where it became chai in Swahili. The Japanese and Korean terms for tea are also based on the Chinese cha, though those languages likely adopted the word even before its westward spread into Persian.

      But that doesn’t account for “tea.” The Chinese character for tea, 茶, is pronounced differently by different varieties of Chinese, though it is written the same in them all. In today’s Mandarin, it is chá. But in the Min Nan variety of Chinese, spoken in the coastal province of Fujian, the character is pronounced te. The key word here is “coastal.”

      The te form used in coastal-Chinese languages spread to Europe via the Dutch, who became the primary traders of tea between Europe and Asia in the 17th century, as explained in the World Atlas of Language Structures. The main Dutch ports in east Asia were in Fujian and Taiwan, both places where people used the te pronunciation. The Dutch East India Company’s expansive tea importation into Europe gave us the French thé, the German Tee, and the English tea.

      Yet the Dutch were not the first to Asia. That honor belongs to the Portuguese, who are responsible for the island of Taiwan’s colonial European name, Formosa. And the Portuguese traded not through Fujian but Macao, where chá is used. That’s why, on the map above, Portugal is a pink dot in a sea of blue.

      A few languages have their own way of talking about tea. These languages are generally in places where tea grows naturally, which led locals to develop their own way to refer to it. In Burmese, for example, tea leaves are lakphak.

      The map demonstrates two different eras of globalization in action: the millenia-old overland spread of goods and ideas westward from ancient China, and the 400-year-old influence of Asian culture on the seafaring Europeans of the age of exploration. Also, you just learned a new word in nearly every language on the planet.


      https://qz.com/1176962/map-how-the-word-tea-spread-over-land-and-sea-to-conquer-the-world
      #mots #vocabulaire #terminologie #cartographie #visualisation

  • Classifying #drivers of #global_forest_loss | Science
    http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6407/1108/tab-figures-data

    #Mapping global #deforestation patterns
    Forest loss is being driven by various factors, including commodity production, forestry, agriculture, wildfire, and urbanization. Curtis et al. used high-resolution Google Earth imagery to map and classify global forest loss since 2001. Just over a quarter of global forest loss is due to deforestation through permanent land use change for the production of commodities, including beef, soy, palm oil, and wood fiber. Despite regional differences and efforts by governments, conservationists, and corporations to stem the losses, the overall rate of commodity-driven deforestation has not declined since 2001.

    Abstract
    Global maps of forest loss depict the scale and magnitude of forest disturbance, yet companies, governments, and nongovernmental organizations need to distinguish permanent conversion (i.e., deforestation) from temporary loss from forestry or wildfire. Using satellite imagery, we developed a forest loss classification model to determine a spatial attribution of forest disturbance to the dominant drivers of land cover and land use change over the period 2001 to 2015. Our results indicate that 27% of global forest loss can be attributed to deforestation through permanent land use change for commodity production. The remaining areas maintained the same land use over 15 years; in those areas, loss was attributed to forestry (26%), shifting agriculture (24%), and wildfire (23%). Despite corporate commitments, the rate of commodity-driven deforestation has not declined. To end deforestation, companies must eliminate 5 million hectares of conversion from supply chains each year.

    http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/361/6407/1108/F2.large.jpg?width=800&height=600&carousel=1

  • The irreplaceable scientific treasures lost in Brazil’s National Museum blaze
    https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/09/07/inenglish/1536314750_865530.html?id_externo_rsoc=FB_CC

    Three days after the fire, the full extent of the damage had still not been assessed. But both professors and students are pessimistic, with many facing the possibility that the object of their studies has gone up in smoke.

    One of the main concerns is the potential damage done to the material taken from the archeological site Lagoa Santa, in the state of Minas Gerais, which is considered of fundamental importance to understanding the origin of prehistoric American communities. The largest assortment of this material in the world, it was the indisputable jewel in the museum’s crown.

    Labeled “the Luzia Group,” in reference to the oldest skeleton ever found in America, which came to light in 1974 and dates back 11,500 years, its discovery paved the way for a series of hypotheses concerning the colonization of the continent. Studies carried out on Luzia’s skull during the 1980s by Professor Walter Neves suggest that the first natives in America were possibly of African origin. As Luzia’s features do not resemble the features of Brazilian indigenous people at the time of its discovery, experts came up with the theory of an initial migration to Brazil of peoples with African characteristics who would have crossed from Asia to America via the Bering Strait 14,000 years ago, followed by another wave of migrants with Asiatic features, such as those of the American Indians, around 12,000 years ago. The delicate cranium was kept inside a steel case and it is not yet known what has become of it.

  • Organized crime in Nigeria - Wikipedia
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organized_crime_in_Nigeria

    An example of this are the highly organized confraternities/campus gangs that operate worldwide, for example the Neo Black Movement of Africa. In its own words, the Neo Black Movement of Africa is a “registered non-partisan, non-religious and non-tribal organisation that sincerely seek to revive, retain and modify where necessary those aspects of African culture that would provide vehicles of progress for Africa and her peoples”.

    The current worldwide head of the Neo Black Movement is Augustus Bemigho-Oyeoyibo. A representative of the Neo Black Movement of Africa has claimed to be separate from the Black Axe groups and has engaged in charitable giving.

    Behind the welfare facade of the Neo Black Movement hides indeed the most dreaded Nigerian campus cult, the Black Axe confraternity. NBM usually state that they are not identical with Black Axe for propaganda purposes. While the atrocities committed by campus cult members are well-known, very little is known about other activities of the Neo Black Movement. Offiong claims that the group’s initial goal of promoting black consciousness and fighting for the dignity of Africans and their freedom from neo-colonialism has deteriorated into self-serving behaviour that is “notoriously and brutally violent”. He maintains that violence has in fact become the cult’s official policy.

    Apart from the atrocities in the orbit of NBM, most members of the confraternity are involved in fraud and cyber crime. The main reason to join the confraternity is (besides the pressure and intimidation that is applied to students to join) the fact that the confraternity has infiltrated all spheres of Nigerian society and serves the main purpose of helping its members climb the career ladder and going unpunished for their crimes by means of their nepotistic structure.

    Investigations and a number of arrests of members of NBM by the Italian police brought to light various crimes committed by members of NBM. NBM and other cults were found guilty of smuggling of drugs, extortion, 419 fraud, prostitution, passport falsification, and cloning of credit cards.

    In 2011, eight more members of NBM were arrested in Italy for the same offenses mentioned above. They are referred to as an international criminal organisation and Nigerian Mafia. According to internal documents, the confraternity helps members to immigrate illegally to Europe. Nigerian fraud rings have been exported to Europe, America, and Asia (see external links section). In 2015 a sophisticated car theft ring run by the Black Axe organized crime ring was busted in Toronto, Canada. The ring had stolen more than 500 luxury cars in one year, valued at 30 million US dollars.

    #Nigeria #Black_Axe #crime

  • Maersk sends first container ship through Arctic route | Reuters
    https://uk.reuters.com/article/arctic-shipping-maersk/maersk-sends-first-container-ship-through-arctic-route-idUKL8N1VE3NM

    A Maersk vessel loaded with Russian fish and South Korean electronics will next week become the first container ship to navigate an Arctic sea route that Russia hopes will become a new shipping highway.

    The Arctic voyage by the 3,600 20-foot container capacity Venta Maersk is the latest step in the expansion of the so-called Northern Sea Route which is becoming more accessible to ships as climate change reduces the amount of sea ice.

    The brand new Venta Maersk, one of the world’s largest ice-class vessels, will also collect scientific data, said Maersk, underlining that the voyage is a one-off trial for now.

    The decision by Maersk, the world’s biggest container shipping group, to test out the route is a positive sign for Russia, which hopes this could become a mini Suez Canal, cutting sea transport times from Asia to Europe.

    A well-respected company like Maersk sending a container ship through the Arctic, definitely signals there’s something there,” Malte Humpert, a senior fellow at U.S.-based think-tank Arctic Institute, said.

  • Google Censorship Plan Is “Not Right” and “Stupid,” Says Former Google Head of Free Expression
    https://theintercept.com/2018/08/10/google-censorship-plan-is-not-right-and-stupid-says-former-google-head

    Google’s former head of free expression issues in Asia has slammed the internet’s giant’s plan to launch a censored search engine in China, calling it a “stupid move” that would violate widely–held human rights principles. As The Intercept first reported last week, Google has been quietly developing a search platform for China that would remove content that China’s authoritarian government views as sensitive, such as information about political opponents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and (...)

    #Google #GoogleSearch #algorithme #censure #TheGreatFirewallofChina #AccessNow #Amnesty #HumanRightsWatch #RSF (...)

    ##HumanRightsinChina_

  • Global Coin Weekly — #eos drama; #korea regulation update; BABA #blockchain; #cryptokitties
    https://hackernoon.com/global-coin-weekly-eos-drama-korea-regulation-update-baba-blockchain-cry

    ? Quote of the week“A trend you will start to seeing in the next 3–6 month in Asia is that, in these large tech companies in Korea, Japan, China, they will come up with their so called “blockchain solutions”. Most of these are private blockchains, but they have the keys to 300mn to 500mn people, and they will onboard these hundreds of millions of people onto what they say is the blockchain.This is something I’ve been thinking about, which is the entire crypto space around the world is more or less around 60mn people currently, and we have come to recognize that Bitcoin is crypto and Ethereum is crypto, and that it means a distributed ledger. But I think these conversations will be challenged in the 3–6 months by these big companies saying “no no no, that’s not blockchain”, THIS is (...)

    #alibaba

  • Israel warns Iran of military response if it closed key Red Sea strait | Reuters
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-redsea/israel-warns-iran-against-closing-key-red-sea-waterway-idUSKBN1KM5VM

    Israel would deploy its military if Iran were to try to block the #Bab_al-Mandeb strait that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.
    […]
    Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a separate speech at the event that Israel had “recently heard of threats to harm Israeli ships in the Red Sea.” He gave no further details.

    Ships bound for Israel, mainly from Asia, pass through the waterway to Eilat, or continue through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea. Ships bound for Jordan’s Aqaba port and for some Saudi destinations must also pass through the strait.

    #Bab_el-Mandeb

  • How we hacked events to get a 90% response rate
    https://hackernoon.com/how-we-hacked-events-to-get-a-90-response-rate-3fcfd8010bad?source=rss--

    When it comes to feeling the pulse of your prospects, nothing is better than meeting them face-to-face. Knowing this, I try not to miss a business event where I can meet our potential customers and talk to them in person. But these events come with their own set of challenges; they are usually overcrowded, everybody is vying for attention, and the majority of attendees are there just for networking.In the span of past two months, I attended three events — Digital Travel Summit APAC (Singapore), Collision (New Orleans), and Tech In Asia (Singapore) — and had an incredible experience that has added new paradigms to my understanding of how to communicate well with customers. My goal, as the Head of #marketing for Freshchat, was to make us stand out in the crowd and create a lasting impression (...)

    #event-marketing #marketing-field #hack-events #email-marketing

  • Quick Guide to Raising Money in North America with #china/Asia #investors
    https://hackernoon.com/quick-guide-to-raising-money-in-north-america-with-china-asia-investors-

    Hope Liu, CEO, and co-founder, of EximChain and Ryan Fang, co-founder and COO of Ankr.Network are two Chinese-born co-founders with deep knowledge of regulations, fundraising and hiring in China. After our discussion on the Global Coin podcast, I realized that knowledge about Asia funds may be quite limited in English-speaking countries. So here I take our discussion from the podcast and give you a brief, initial guide on how to raise money from China/Asia fund and some go to market strategy tips there.1. Wait, but why?Even though we focused specifically on Chinese investors in our latest podcast, I’ve come to believe that raising money from investors who are not local to where your team is based is CRUCIAL to one’s success as a Crypto company. Not only can the overseas investors bring a (...)

    #tech-newsletters #andreessen-horowitz #fundraise

  • The secret story of how America lost the drug war with the Taliban - POLITICO
    https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/08/obama-afghanistan-drug-war-taliban-616316

    For decades, much of the region’s narcotics trade had been controlled by the Quetta Alliance, a loose confederation of three powerful tribal clans living in the Pakistani border town of the same name. At a June 1998 summit, the clan leaders gathered secretly to approve another alliance — with the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan at the time, according to classified U.S. intelligence cited in Operation Reciprocity legal documents.

    Under the “Sincere Agreement,” the drug lords pledged their financial support for the Taliban in exchange for protection of their vast swaths of poppy and cannabis fields, drug processing labs and storage facilities. The ties were solidified further when the U.S. invasion toppled the Taliban after 9/11 and forced top commanders to flee to Quetta, where they formed a shura, or leadership council.

    In the early years of the U.S. occupation, the Pentagon and CIA cultivated influential Afghan tribal leaders who were not part of the Quetta Alliance, even if they were deeply involved in drug trafficking, in order to turn them against the Taliban. That willingness to overlook drug trafficking was assisted by their belief that the drugs were going almost entirely to Asia and Europe.

  • #cryptokitties Co-Founder on Go to Market in China and the Future of Blockchain in #asia
    https://hackernoon.com/cryptokitties-on-go-to-market-in-china-and-the-future-of-blockchain-in-a

    “A trend you will start to seeing in the next 3–6 month in Asia is that, in these large tech companies in Korea, Japan, China, they will come up with their so called “blockchain solutions”. Most of these are private blockchains, but they have the keys to 300mn to 500mn people, and they will onboard these hundreds of millions of people onto what they say is the blockchain.This is something I’ve been thinking about, which is the entire crypto space around the world is more or less around 60mn people currently, and we have come to recognize that #bitcoin is crypto and Ethereum is crypto, and that it means a distributed ledger. But I think these conversations will be challenged in the 3–6 months by these big companies saying “no no no, that’s not blockchain”, THIS is “blockchain”. And their (...)

    #andreessen-horowitz #mithril

  • #netflix and #vpn servers — How Do They Relate?
    https://hackernoon.com/netflix-and-vpn-servers-how-do-they-relate-1e2942629aca?source=rss----3a

    According to the global statistics, Asia scored highest among the continents with the maximum number of people accessing the internet. Almost 49% of people use various online channels to view their favorite TV shows, movies, videos and so on. To feed the huge demand, various new players have entered in the online space along with a lot of variety of VPS or VPNs or network access services.The Gaining Popularity of Live Streaming ChannelsThere are wide varieties of network accessing online service including Amazon prime video, Hulu, Sling TV, Pureflix, HBO Now, Show Time, Netflix and so on. Among all of these online services, Netflix has created a specific impact on the global audience. Netflix has proven itself to be the smartest and fastest online entertainment service provider in the (...)

    #vpn-server #netflix-and-vpn-servers

  • Today’s Crypto News on Asia — Jun 28th
    https://hackernoon.com/todays-crypto-news-on-asia-jun-28th-6a0b39c8444a?source=rss----3a8144eab

    Binance to launch crypto-fiat exchange in Uganda, #korea’s new Crypto regulation; Messaging App #line to release an exchange; JD working with HuobiWhat Crypto insiders are reading on Asia.Subscribe now? Top NewsBinance is about to launch a crypto-fiat exchange in Uganda, supporting the Ugandan Shilling, alongside major cryptocurrencies. http://bit.ly/2tCsO7wKorea has revealed a new crypto regulatory framework and guidelines pertaining to AML and KYC requirements for crypto exchanges. It’s investigating into three major banks and having banks alert suspicious fund movements to avoid the “kimchi premium” from happening. http://bit.ly/2N5OhOgLine is launching its own exchange supporting 30 cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin, at a trading fee of 0.1%. The Japanese messaging (...)

    #china #binance #tech-newsletters

  • Global Coin Weekly — Exchange updates; #eos; #china and #korea
    https://hackernoon.com/global-coin-weekly-exchange-updates-eos-china-and-korea-56d1840aa93f?sou

    ? Quote of the week“Investors in cryptocurrencies should realise that, once the regulators start banning and inspecting these ICOs and cryptocurrency operations, they will find fraud, losses and manipulations that ultimately will lead to tears. Trust in #blockchain, as in anything else, needs to be earned, not created through hype.”-Andrew Sheng, SCMP. Sums up a lot of the regulatory happenings in Asia in the last week. The regulations arising s not a bad thing for the industry at all…? Top News from this past WeekTwo trends happening in exchanges right now: 1) Binance and OKEx are both piloting “membership programs” where members will get access to the exchanges’s management systems and backends support. 2) Exchanges like FCoin and OKEx are all releasing “trans-fee mining” models.EOS freezes 27 (...)

    #tech-newsletters

  • The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities
    https://theintercept.com/2018/06/25/att-internet-nsa-spy-hubs

    The NSA considers AT&T to be one of its most trusted partners and has lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help.” It is a collaboration that dates back decades. Little known, however, is that its scope is not restricted to AT&T’s customers. According to the NSA’s documents, it values AT&T not only because it “has access to information that transits the nation,” but also because it maintains unique relationships with other phone and internet providers. The NSA exploits these relationships for surveillance purposes, commandeering AT&T’s massive infrastructure and using it as a platform to covertly tap into communications processed by other companies.

    It is an efficient point to conduct internet surveillance, Klein said, “because the peering links, by the nature of the connections, are liable to carry everybody’s traffic at one point or another during the day, or the week, or the year.”

    Christopher Augustine, a spokesperson for the NSA, said in a statement that the agency could “neither confirm nor deny its role in alleged classified intelligence activities.” Augustine declined to answer questions about the AT&T facilities, but said that the NSA “conducts its foreign signals intelligence mission under the legal authorities established by Congress and is bound by both policy and law to protect U.S. persons’ privacy and civil liberties.”

    Jim Greer, an AT&T spokesperson, said that AT&T was “required by law to provide information to government and law enforcement entities by complying with court orders, subpoenas, lawful discovery requests, and other legal requirements.” He added that the company provides “voluntary assistance to law enforcement when a person’s life is in danger and in other immediate, emergency situations. In all cases, we ensure that requests for assistance are valid and that we act in compliance with the law.”

    Dave Schaeffer, CEO of Cogent Communications, told The Intercept that he had no knowledge of the surveillance at the eight AT&T buildings, but said he believed “the core premise that the NSA or some other agency would like to look at traffic … at an AT&T facility.” He said he suspected that the surveillance is likely carried out on “a limited basis,” due to technical and cost constraints. If the NSA were trying to “ubiquitously monitor” data passing across AT&T’s networks, Schaeffer added, he would be “extremely concerned.”

    An estimated 99 percent of the world’s intercontinental internet traffic is transported through hundreds of giant fiber optic cables hidden beneath the world’s oceans. A large portion of the data and communications that pass across the cables is routed at one point through the U.S., partly because of the country’s location – situated between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia – and partly because of the pre-eminence of American internet companies, which provide services to people globally.

    The NSA calls this predicament “home field advantage” – a kind of geographic good fortune. “A target’s phone call, email, or chat will take the cheapest path, not the physically most direct path,” one agency document explains. “Your target’s communications could easily be flowing into and through the U.S.”

    Once the internet traffic arrives on U.S. soil, it is processed by American companies. And that is why, for the NSA, AT&T is so indispensable. The company claims it has one of the world’s most powerful networks, the largest of its kind in the U.S. AT&T routinely handles masses of emails, phone calls, and internet chats. As of March 2018, some 197 petabytes of data – the equivalent of more than 49 trillion pages of text, or 60 billion average-sized mp3 files – traveled across its networks every business day.

    The NSA documents, which come from the trove provided to The Intercept by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, describe AT&T as having been “aggressively involved” in aiding the agency’s surveillance programs. One example of this appears to have taken place at the eight facilities under a classified initiative called SAGUARO.

    In October 2011, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves the surveillance operations carried out under Section 702 of FISA, found that there were “technological limitations” with the agency’s internet eavesdropping equipment. It was “generally incapable of distinguishing” between some kinds of data, the court stated. As a consequence, Judge John D. Bates ruled, the NSA had been intercepting the communications of “non-target United States persons and persons in the United States,” violating Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. The ruling, which was declassified in August 2013, concluded that the agency had acquired some 13 million “internet transactions” during one six-month period, and had unlawfully gathered “tens of thousands of wholly domestic communications” each year.

    The root of the issue was that the NSA’s technology was not only targeting communications sent to and from specific surveillance targets. Instead, the agency was sweeping up people’s emails if they had merely mentioned particular information about surveillance targets.

    A top-secret NSA memo about the court’s ruling, which has not been disclosed before, explained that the agency was collecting people’s messages en masse if a single one were found to contain a “selector” – like an email address or phone number – that featured on a target list.

    Information provided by a second former AT&T employee adds to the evidence linking the Atlanta building to NSA surveillance. Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician, alleged in 2006 that the company had allowed the NSA to install surveillance equipment in some of its network hubs. An AT&T facility in Atlanta was one of the spy sites, according to documents Klein presented in a court case over the alleged spying. The Atlanta facility was equipped with “splitter” equipment, which was used to make copies of internet traffic as AT&T’s networks processed it. The copied data would then be diverted to “SG3” equipment – a reference to “Study Group 3” – which was a code name AT&T used for activities related to NSA surveillance, according to evidence in the Klein case.

    #Surveillance #USA #NSA #AT&T

  • International Migration Outlook 2018

    Preliminary data show that OECD countries received slightly more than 5 million new permanent legal migrants in 2017. This represents the first decline in migration to the area since 2011 (down by around 5%, compared to 2016). This is due, however, to the significant reduction in the number of recognised refugees in 2017 while other migration categories remained stable or increased.

    After two years of record‑high numbers of asylum applications to OECD countries, there was a significant decline in 2017, with 1.23 million claims. This figure is still well above any other recorded year, prior to 2015. The top three origin countries were Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. In 2017, the United States received the highest number of asylum applications in the OECD (330 000 applications), followed by Germany (198 000).

    Accounting for almost 40% of permanent migrants, family migration (family reunification and formation as well as accompanying family members) remained the most important migration channel to the OECD area. The sharp increase in this category in the period 2015/16 reversed a decline that started in 2010.

    For the first time, this year’s Outlook includes a consolidated number for all categories of temporary labour migration to OECD countries. These categories comprise international recruitments of seasonal workers and other temporary foreign workers; EU workers sent by their employers to other EU countries under local contracts (posted workers); and intra‑company transferees. In total, more than 4.2 million temporary foreign workers were recorded in the OECD in 2016, which corresponds to an 11% increase compared to the previous year. The main receiving countries for temporary foreign workers are Poland (672 000, mostly from Ukraine) and the United States (660 000, with India as main origin country).

    Around 3.3 million international students were enrolled in higher education in an OECD country, 8% up from the previous year. Recent trends in the United States, however, indicate a strong decline in the number of study permits in 2016 (‑27%). On average, international students account for 9% of the total number of students enrolled in establishments of higher education in OECD countries in 2015. They represent 14% of all students enrolled in Master’s degree courses and 24% of those enrolled in doctoral courses.

    On average across OECD countries, migrants’ employment rate increased by 1 percentage point in 2017, to 67.1. Their average unemployment rate decreased by 1 percentage point to 9.5%, and the average unemployment gap with their native‑born peers narrowed to 3 percentage points in 2017. This development was partly driven by significant improvements in some EU countries.

    On the policy side, migration channels for highly‑qualified foreigners continue to be refined in many countries, involving adjustment of the selection criteria of permanent programmes and reviewing conditions for temporary programmes. Start‑up visas continue to grow in number while investor programmes are under review and see stricter conditions. Eligibility for family reunification is also an area of policy adjustment.

    The labour market impact of recent refugees

    For European countries as a whole, the estimated relative impact of recent refugee inflows on the working‑age population is projected to reach no more than 0.4% by December 2020. In terms of labour force, since participation rates of refugees are typically very low in the early period of their stay in the host country, the magnitude of the aggregate net impact is estimated to be even smaller, at less than 0.25% by December 2020.

    In countries with the highest aggregate effects, the impact is likely to be much larger in specific segments of the labour market, notably among young low‑educated men. Since this population group is already vulnerable in most host countries, well‑targeted measures are needed to provide them with adequate support.

    The illegal employment of foreign workers

    The illegal employment of foreign workers may result from non‑compliance with either migration – or labour – rules. Addressing this issue is therefore both an economic and migration policy objective.

    Consequently, OECD countries should seek to improve co ordination and coherence between enforcement authorities. They should also raise awareness among both employers and workers and use improved status verification systems as part of measures to prevent the illegal employment of migrant labour. However, when the illegal employment of foreign workers becomes a highly prominent issue or is deemed structural, regularisation programmes may be considered. They need to be designed carefully and accompanied by appropriate changes in legal labour migration channels and stronger enforcement measures. Finally, policies to combat the illegal employment of foreign workers should be conducted not only at national and sector levels, but also internationally.

    Main findings

    Labour market integration of immigrants

    Between 2016 and 2017, the unemployment rate of migrants in the OECD decreased by more than 1 percentage point to 9.5%, and the employment rate increased from 65.5% to 67.1%. The improvement was more marked for foreign‑born women.
    Specific migrant groups are showing particularly high employment rates. For example, in the European Union, the employment rate of EU migrants is higher than that of natives by 5 percentage points. In the United States, for the first time in recent years, migrants from Mexico and Africa outperformed migrants from Asia by 1 and 3 percentage points, respectively.
    Across OECD countries, the creation of integration programmes for newly‑arrived migrants and refugees continues, focusing largely on language and skills acquisition. Many countries have also developed measures intended for the most vulnerable, notably unaccompanied minors and children who arrive late to the education system.

    Labour market impact of refugees

    European countries received 4 million new asylum applications between January 2014 and December 2017, three times as many as during the previous four‑year period. During the same period (2014‑17), about 1.6 million individuals were granted some form of protection.
    For European countries as a whole, the relative impact of recent refugee inflows on the labour force is estimated to be quite small, at less than 0.25% by December 2020. Specific groups (young, low‑educated men) in the most affected countries (Austria, Germany, Sweden) are, however, more exposed.
    In the absence of any migrant returns to their countries of origin, the total number of rejected asylum seekers could reach 1.2 million by end 2020. The effect on the informal labour market will depend on the level of voluntary returns and the efficiency of enforcement measures.

    Illegal employment of foreign workers

    Illegal employment of foreign workers is most likely to affect men of a relatively young age. The sectors most concerned by such illegal employment are agriculture, construction, manufacturing and domestic services.

    https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/0312b53d-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/0312b53d-en
    #migrations #réfugiés #OCDE #statistiques #asile #chiffres #2017 #rapport #travailleurs_étrangers #marché_du_travail #travail

    cc @reka

  • Today’s Crypto News on Asia — Jun 20th
    https://hackernoon.com/todays-crypto-news-on-asia-jun-20th-968608e89b22?source=rss----3a8144eab

    Top News*China Media* The Chinese gov’t (MIIT) published an updated Crypto ranking list. By applicability, top 4 didn’t change, Nebulas moved up to 5th. Google translated linkKorean Cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb loses more than $30 Million in hack. https://on.wsj.com/2tplP0AAfter Bithumb’s hack, Korean regulators are speeding up in passing the country’s first cryptocurrency bill to regulate exchanges as banks.http://bit.ly/2tbC6qREOS have unanimously decided to freeze seven EOS accounts that were suspected to be carrying stolen funds.http://bit.ly/2te42u5*China Media* “I sincerely do not recommend that #china’s domestic exchanges publicize themselves when Bithumb is in trouble […] Chinese companies wanting to occupy the international market need to understand and respect international (...)

    #hackernoon #cryptocurrency-investment #currency-exchange #tech-newsletters

  • Scavenging Russia’s Rocket Graveyard Is Dangerous and Profitable - Facts So Romantic
    http://nautil.us/blog/scavenging-russias-rocket-graveyard-is-dangerous-and-profitable

    This might be one of the most remote places on earth, little accessible by road, but its peace is routinely broken by the oldest, largest and busiest spaceport in the world: the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Photograph by Alex Zelenko / WikicommonsThe Altai mountain region of Central Asia is a rugged and remote place. Right in the center of the continental landmass, it forms a crossroads between the Kazakh steppes, the snow forests of Siberia and the arid plains of Mongolia. It’s a landscape of granite, forced up by the inch-a-year collision of the Indian tectonic plate with Asia, then carved out over millions of years by streams of snowmelt. Siberian Ibex wander here along with musk deer feeding on the lichenous rocks and brown bears that follow the retreating snow fields in spring.This might (...)