#Welt_Bio to see pepper harvests in 2018
South Korean-owned Welt Bio Co Ltd.’s $40-million pepper plantation in Mondulkiri province is expected to see its first harvest next year from what it claims to be the largest pepper farm in the world.
“About 200 hectares of the 350-hectare cultivated land have been planted with pepper,” said Song Kheang, director of Mondulkiri’s provincial agriculture department, yesterday.
“A team from the provincial agriculture department had just visited the plantation and according to our assessment they could start harvesting next year,” he added.
According to Hean Vanhan, director-general of the general directorate of agriculture at the Ministry of Agriculture, Welt Bio Co plants pepper using seeds from Cambodia and Malaysia.
“If the company is successful in planting pepper on the total 1,000 hectares of land, it will be the largest pepper plantation in the world,” said Mr Vanhan.
According to Kim Yuong Jun, CEO of Welt Bio Co, pepper from its Mondulkiri plantation would be exported around the globe.
Pepper is planted in 19 provinces across the country and Tbong Khmom province, located in the east of the country, contributes to about 75 percent of total production.
Due to lack of pepper processing factories, most of Cambodia’s black pepper is exported to Vietnam, the world’s biggest pepper producing country.
Pepper growers are now urging the government to set up processing factories in the country, so that they can bypass the Vietnamese middlemen, and export their products directly overseas.
“The government should encourage investors to put funds into pepper processing plants so that we wean ourselves away from the Vietnamese traders,” Chan Sophal, a pepper farm owner in Preah Vihear province, told Khmer Times recently.
Last year, Cambodia’s pepper production was 11,800 tonnes and is predicted to increase by 70 percent, to 20,000 tonnes by the end of 2017, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
▻https://www.khmertimeskh.com/5078377/welt-bio-see-pepper-harvests-2018
#Corée_du_Sud
Breastfeeding policies are a barrier to trade? The U.S. trade office thinks so - by Marion Nestle (Food Politics)
▻http://www.foodpolitics.com/2017/05/breastfeeding-policies-are-a-barrier-to-trade-the-u-s-trade-office-thi
The Trump administration wants to get rid of these “technical trade barriers:”
– Hong Kong draft code designed to “protect breastfeeding and contribute to the provision of safe and adequate nutrition for infants and young children.” This, according to USTR, could reduce sales of food products for infants and young children.
– Indonesia: USTR wants to get rid of a draft regulation to ban advertising or promotion of milk products for children up to two years of age.
– Malaysia: USTR doesn’t like its code restricting corporate marketing practices aimed at toddlers and young children.
– Thailand: USTR wants to eliminate penalties for corporations that violate laws restricting the promotional, and marketing activities for modified milk for infants, follow-up formula for infants and young children, and supplemental foods for infants.
This is about protecting sales of infant formulas and weaning foods heavily marketing to mothers in developing countries as superior to breastfeeding, this despite vast amounts of evidence for the superiority of breastfeeding over any other method for promoting infant health.
How Singapore Is Creating More Land for Itself - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/magazine/how-singapore-is-creating-more-land-for-itself.html
The island off the southern tip of Malaysia reveals the
future of building in an epoch of dwindling territory.
HRW | UE : Garantir que les aides parviennent aux réfugiés en situation de handicap
▻https://asile.ch/2017/04/04/hrw-ue-garantir-aides-parviennent-aux-refugies-situation-de-handicap
Le Parlement européen devrait améliorer le suivi des fonds d’aide destinés aux réfugiés.
EU/Greece: Pressure to Minimize Numbers of Migrants Identified As ‘Vulnerable’
(Brussels, June 1, 2017) – People with disabilities and other at-risk groups go unidentified on the Greek islands as the European Union inappropriately presses Greek authorities and medical aid organizations to reduce the number of asylum seekers identified as “vulnerable,” Human Rights Watch said today. The EU, and the Greek government, now prefer to contain all asylum seekers on the Greek islands. Before the new policy, asylum seekers identified as “vulnerable” were allowed to be transferred to the mainland to have their cases handled there.
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rgn91GY1Zw&feature=youtu.be
Migranti disabili: la doppia fragilità di cui nessuno si occupa
Sono pochi i dati sugli stranieri disabili nel nostro paese, mentre mancano completamente informazioni sui richiedenti asilo. La responsabilità dei media e le storie di questo “doppio svantaggio” al convegno “Disabili & Migranti: alla ricerca di un’integrazione possibile e necessaria”. Palazzotto: “Il nostro sistema di accoglienza non sa gestire la disabilità”
▻http://www.redattoresociale.it/Notiziario/Articolo/536539/Migranti-disabili-la-doppia-fragilita-di-cui-nessuno-si-occupa
On the Margins of the Margins: Refugees With Intellectual Disabilities
Refugees with intellectual disabilities are a largely forgotten and highly vulnerable group on the margins of the global displacement crisis. David Evangelista of the Special Olympics explains how the movement offers an alternative model for embracing refugees.
Forgotten and invisible? The legal protection of refugees with disabilities
Before starting my PhD in sociolinguistics at Macquarie University, I had the great privilege of being involved in a research project that was run out of Sydney Law School at the University of Sydney. The project explored how disability was conceptualised, acknowledged and accommodated in government and NGO programmes assisting refugees. Over three years, I assisted the project’s Chief Investigators, Professors Mary Crock and Ben Saul and Emeritus Professor Ron McCallum AO, travelling to Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Uganda, Jordan and Turkey. Our focus was on uncovering how (or whether) the newly created UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) influences responses to forced migration. We used this rights-based lens to then explore the lived reality for refugees and identify the challenges they faced in displacement, making recommendations for change and reflecting on how the very nature of being outside one’s country of citizenship can be a barrier in itself.
Deadly Foreign Conflicts Spill Onto Malaysia’s Streets - WSJ
▻https://www.wsj.com/articles/foreign-conflict-finds-home-across-malaysias-open-borders-1489483964
#malaisie #visas #passeport #circulation #Mobilité
KUALA LUMPUR—Malaysia’s open-border policy has long helped lend it notoriety as a way station for conspirators to plot terror attacks abroad.
Now, many people worry that two major terror-linked plots on Malaysia’s own soil show that the Muslim-majority nation is increasingly becoming a host to other people’s deadly conflicts.
The plots were the February killing of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s half brother with VX nerve agent, which police blame on a North Korean-led hit team, and an alleged Islamic State-linked attempt to attack Saudi King Salman’s visiting delegation last week with a car bomb. They followed Islamic State’s first successful attack in Malaysia last year and dozens of terror-related arrests in 2016.
Indonesia - When a tree falls in Borneo, does it make a sound?
For a better Borneo, new map reveals how much terrain has changed | CIFOR Forests News Blog
▻http://blog.cifor.org/48167/for-a-better-borneo-new-map-reveals-how-much-terrain-has-changed?fnl=
A new interactive atlas developed by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) is making sure it does.
Incorporating 40 years of maps of Borneo (the world’s third largest island), the tool reveals both the forest remaining and what is being reshaped due to degradation and extraction industries. With the ability to search by oil palm or pulpwood concessions, and view the locations of intact peatland, as well as determine the speed with which forest is converted to plantation, the atlas offers the first significant opportunity to distinguish companies that are avoiding deforestation to a large degree.
In addition to providing data on deforestation and land use for individual land concessions, the tool allows users to search by company, as companies often own multiple concessions.
One can also filter information by country, province and peat area remaining, which allows users to get the big picture of corporate land use on the island shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.
#Bornéo #forêt #déforestation #industrie_palmiste #industrie_papetière #catographie
Philippines’ Duterte asks China to patrol piracy-plagued waters | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippine-militants-china-idUSKBN15F1AV
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday said he had asked China to help in the fight against Islamic State-linked militants by sending ships to patrol southern waters plagued by raids on commercial vessels.
Speaking to newly promoted army generals, Duterte said he had sought China’s help in dangerous waters in the south to check the activities of Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim rebel group sustained by piracy and kidnap-for-ransom activities.
A surge in piracy off parts of the Philippines is forcing ship-owners to divert vessels through other waters, pushing up costs and shipping times.
Duterte said piracy in the Sulu Sea between eastern Malaysia and the southern Philippines would escalate to levels seen in Somalia, and raise insurance costs for firms and increase prices of consumer goods and services.
“We would be glad if they have their presence there ... just to patrol,” Duterte said, adding that China could send coastguard vessels, not necessarily “gray” warships.
Gabon: The battle over palm oil - African Business Magazine
▻http://africanbusinessmagazine.com/region/west-africa/gabon-battle-palm-oil
The campaign against palm oil could have profound implications for the sector’s development in Africa. Palm oil cultivation has become controversial because ecologically diverse areas of rainforest are often cut down to allow cultivation to take place. Huge areas of forest have been felled in Indonesia and Malaysia, affecting flora and fauna, and producing air pollution caused by forest fires when land is being cleared for palm oil plantation.
According to Friends of the Earth and numerous other environmental NGOs, palm oil plantations are the fastest growing cause of rainforest destruction and an increasingly important cause of climate change.
Palm oil produces almost quadruple oil yeild compared to sunflower or rapeseed oil, and the majority of the palm oil is produced in Indonesia and Malaysia. However, African countries have also been targeted for cultivation more recently.
Olam is a major player in the global palm oil sector and a big investor in African agri-business. The company currently sources more than 99% of its palm oil from third-party suppliers. In 2011, it set up a palm oil and rubber cultivation joint venture with the government of Gabon, with equity shared 60:40 in favour of the Singaporean firm.
Search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 finally called off with mystery unsolved - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/search-for-malaysia-airlines-mh370-finally-called-off-with-mystery-unsolved/2017/01/17/3662d778-dc84-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was finally called off Tuesday after nearly three years spent combing the desolate Indian Ocean and its deep seabed, leaving one of the greatest aviation mysteries of all time unsolved.
The governments of Malaysia, Australia and China said crews finished an underwater sweep of a 46,000-square-mile zone of seabed without finding the missing Boeing 777.
The most complex and expensive search in aviation history cost around $150 million but failed to locate the plane, let alone answer the questions surrounding its disappearance in March 2014.
[…]
“The decision to suspend the underwater search has not been taken lightly nor without sadness,” the [Joint Agency Coordination Center in Australia] said.
How did #Indonesia and #Malaysia become majority-Muslim when they were once dominated by Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms ?
▻https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5o8avu/how_did_indonesia_and_malaysia_become/dchh4ru? #Islam #Indonésie #Malaisie #Hindouisme #Hinduism #Buddhism #Bouddhisme #religion #Reddit
/r/AskHistorians contributions are usually informative & well sourced, but this takes it to a whole new level
cf. ▻https://seenthis.net/messages/541309
et L’histoire à parts égales, de Romain Bertrand que tu citais également en commentaire du même billet ou dans les discussions, là ▻https://seenthis.net/messages/506920
Former Pakistan army chief to head Saudi-led military alliance: Pakistani media
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-saudi-idUSKBN14S0MS
A statement carried by Saudi state news agency SPA in December 2015 said the new coalition would have 34 members, though more have joined since then. It also said the coalition would be based in Riyadh to “coordinate and support military operations” against terrorism. Little has been heard of it since then.
The states it listed as joining the new coalition included Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan and several African nations.
It did not include Shi’ite Muslim Iran and its allies Syria and Iraq, leading to speculation that it could become a potential Sunni bloc against Iran, a rival of Sunni Saudi Arabia for influence across the Arab world. Tehran and Riyadh are ranged on opposite sides in proxy conflicts in Syria and Yemen.
At soaring rate, Nepalis seeking jobs abroad come home dead
Hundreds of young Nepali men excitedly wave final goodbyes to friends and family. On this day 1,500 will fly out of the Kathmandu airport bound for jobs mostly in Malaysia, Qatar or Saudi Arabia — jobs that are urgently needed by the people of this desperately poor country.
UN resolution is a breath of hope in sea of darkness and despair -
It’s now even more crystal clear: The world thinks the settlements are a crime. All the settlements and all the world
Gideon Levy Dec 25, 2016 12:12 PM
▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.761114
On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to establish a Jewish state (alongside an Arab state) in the Land of Israel. Sixty-nine years later, on December 23, 2016, the UN Security Council voted to try to save it. Resolution 2334 that was approved Friday is a gust of good news, a breath of hope in the sea of darkness and despair of recent years.
Just when it seemed that everything was going downhill – the deepening occupation increasingly supported by America, with Europe galloping to the right – along came a Hanukkah resolution that lights a thin candle. When it seemed that the evil ones would remain victorious, along came New Zealand and three other countries and gave the world a Christmas gift.
Read more on the Security Council resolution: It’s the settlements, stupid: UN failure is entirely Netanyahu’s / Analysis | Obama, where have you been for 8 wasted years? / Analysis | Why the Palestinians are jubilant and Israel is spooked / Analysis | Security Council punch knocks Netanyahu down from hubris to humiliation
So thanks to New Zealand, Venezuela and Malaysia. True, the Christmas tree they’ve supplied, with all its sparkling lights, will soon be removed; Donald Trump is already waiting at the gate. But the imprint will remain. Until then, this temporary rejoicing is a joy, despite the expected hangover.
We of course must ask U.S. President Barack Obama in fury: Now you’re doing something? And we must ask the world in frustration: What about actions? But it’s impossible to ignore the Security Council decision that rules that all the settlements are illegal by nature.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can call back his ambassadors, while his right-hand minister Yuval Steinitz can shriek that the resolution is “unfair.” (He has a sense of humor.) And opposition leader Isaac Herzog can babble that “we need to fight the decision with all means.” But there isn’t a person in the world with a conscience who won’t rejoice over the resolution.
There also isn’t a decent Israeli who ought to fall for the propaganda that calls the resolution “anti-Israeli,” a definition that the Israeli media rushed to adopt – with its characteristic slavishness, of course.
This decision has brought Israel back to the solid ground of reality. All the settlements, including in the territories that have been annexed, including in East Jerusalem of course, are a violation of international law. In other words, they are a crime. No country in the world thinks otherwise. The entire world thinks so – all Israel’s so-called friends and all its so-called enemies – unanimously.
Most probably the tools of brainwashing in Israel, along with the mechanisms of repression and denial, will try to undermine the decision. But when the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia unite in such a clear statement, this will be difficult work.
So you can say “the entire world is against us.” You can scream “anti-Semitism!” You can ask “What about Syria?” In the end this clear-as-crystal truth will remain: The world thinks that the settlements are a crime. All the settlements and all the world.
True, the world doesn’t lift a finger to have the settlements removed, but maybe one day this will happen. Still, it will be too late by then, too late.
Resolution 2334 artificially distinguishes between Israel and the settlements in that it is aimed at the settlements, not the occupation. As if the guilt of Amona were on its settlers and not all Israelis. This deception proves how much the world continues to treat Israel with leniency and hesitates to takes steps against it, as it did with Russia’s conquest of Crimea, for example.
But Israelis who don’t live in Amona, who have never been there, who have no real interest in its fate – it seems most Israelis – have to ask themselves: Is it really worth it? All this for a few settlers they don’t know and don’t really want to know?
Resolution 2334 is meant above all for Israeli ears, like an alarm clock that makes sure to wake you up on time, like a siren that tells you to go down to the bomb shelter. True, the resolution has no concrete value; true, the new U.S. administration promises to erase it.
But two questions won’t let up: Why don’t the Palestinians deserve exactly the same thing that Israelis deserve, and how much can one country, with all its lobbying power, weapons and high-tech, ignore the entire world? On this first day of both Hanukkah and Christmas, we can enjoy, if only for a moment, the sweet illusion that Resolution 2334 will rouse these questions in Israel.
traduction en français de l’article ci-dessus par Yves Jardin, membre du GT de l’AFPS sur les prisonniers.
La résolution de l’ONU est un souffle d’espoir dans la mer de ténèbres et de désespoir
C’est maintenant encore plus limpide : le monde pense que les colonies sont un crime. Toutes les colonies et tout le monde.
Gideon Levy, Haaretz, mardi 27 décembre 2016
▻http://www.france-palestine.org/La-Resolution-de-l-ONU-est-un-Souffle-d-Espoir-dans-la-Mer-de-Tene
Oceanographers offer clues to Malaysian airlines crash | John Abraham | Environment | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/dec/14/oceanographers-offer-clues-to-malaysian-airlines-crash
spécialement pour @simplicissimus
No doubt nearly everyone is familiar with the story. In early 2014, Malaysian flight #MH370 left Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, on a flight to China. The flight disappeared from communication and was never found; despite great search efforts.
It isn’t that there is no evidence of the crash. In July of last year, a portion of a wing was found near Madagascar and Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. Since then, other debris has been found in the Western Indian Ocean.
–—
Analysis of flight MH370 potential debris trajectories using ocean observations and numerical model results: Journal of Operational Oceanography: Vol 9, No 2
Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014. Potential sites of where the plane entered the water are considered within a vast region of the Indian Ocean. We present a methodology to assess the potential crash site based on where airplane debris was found, with an emphasis on the first debris discovery on Reunion Island. This methodology uses the historical dataset of surface drifters and numerical modeling results. Marine debris, depending on its buoyancy, is exposed to varying amounts of wind, and we conducted tests for a suite of different scenarios. The methodology proposed here enables us to generate fields of particle density probability to assess debris trajectories and, therefore, hypothesize on the potential crash site.
’They raped us one by one,’ says Rohingya woman who fled #Myanmar
TEKNAF, Bangladesh: The brutal gang rape that Habiba and her sister endured is a story that is becoming depressingly familiar among the thousands of Rohingya refugees fleeing to #Bangladesh to escape the violence of Myanmar’s soldiers.
▻http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/They-raped-us-one-by-one-says-Rohingya-woman-who-fled-Myanmar/articleshow/55619653.cms
Who will help Myanmar’s Rohingya?
Rejected by the country they call home and unwanted by its neighbours, the Rohingya are impoverished, virtually stateless and have been fleeing Myanmar in droves and for decades.
Outcast: Adrift with Burma’s Rohingya
Persecuted Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar face a dangerous journey on their way to freedom in Thailand and Malaysia.
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rewind/2016/11/outcast-adrift-burma-rohingya-161128063953657.html
Dozens of Rohingya missing as boat sinks off Bangladesh
Boat packed with at least 31 people reportedly chased by a Myanmar army speedboat as it tried to reach Bangladesh.
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/12/dozens-rohingya-missing-boat-sinks-bangladesh-161205132909880.html
Rohingya Face Health Care Bias in Parts of Asia, Study Finds
HONG KONG — Members of the Rohingya ethnic group face chronic discrimination in access to medical care in Myanmar and other Asian countries, with severe consequences for health and mortality rates, a study has found.
Burmese military killed seven of my children, says Rohingya refugee
Woman’s account is one of a wave of reports of murder and rape by soldiers in Myanmar, amid claims of genocide
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/10/burmese-military-killed-seven-of-my-children-says-rohingya-refugee?CMP=
#génocide
A family torn apart at sea
The trawler’s captain had abandoned the ship and naval authorities in the region had pushed it back out to sea, bereft of fuel and potable water with over 800 refugees and migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh onboard. With passengers crammed above and below deck in sweltering heat, a deadly brawl over water erupted.
▻http://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2016/12/58453b454/a-family-torn-apart-at-sea.html
Myanmar stops migrant workers going to Malaysia after Rohingya row
YANGON, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Myanmar has stopped workers going to Malaysia after Malaysia’s leader criticised its treatment of Muslims, while Indonesia joined a growing chorus of concern about the fate of Myanmar’s stateless Rohingya Muslims.
▻http://news.trust.org/item/20161207111227-90q04/?source=dpagetopic
UN getting daily reports of rapes, killings and other abuses against Rohingya Muslims in Burma
UN human rights chief accuses Burmese government of taking ‘short-sighted, counterproductive, even callous’ approach to crisis
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/burma-rohingya-muslims-rape-murder-accusations-un-aung-san-suu-kyi-a7
Burma: Security Forces Raped Rohingya Women, Girls
(New York) – Burmese government forces committed rape and other sexual violence against ethnic Rohingya women and girls as young as 13 during security operations in northern Rakhine State in late 2016, Human Rights Watch said today. The Burmese government should urgently endorse an independent, international investigation into alleged abuses in northern Rakhine State, including into possible systematic rape against Rohingya women and girls.
▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/02/06/burma-security-forces-raped-rohingya-women-girls
Rohingya Villagers Bear Witness to a Brutal Crackdown in Myanmar
On the morning of Oct. 10, Hussein Muhammad, an old Rohingya man who doesn’t know his age, was awoken at 6 a.m. by a noise outside his home. When he stepped outside, he saw that dozens of soldiers and members of Myanmar’s Border Guard Police had his hut surrounded.
Rohingya Muslims tell of gang rapes and secret killings in Myanmar’s hidden region
As the last of the foreign reporters walked over a bamboo bridge a young Rohingya woman dressed in black, with a black umbrella, raised her hand hesitantly.
Leader of Malaysia’s Anti-Corruption Movement ‘Bersih’ Arrested Under Anti-Terror Law · Global Voices
▻https://globalvoices.org/2016/11/23/leader-of-malaysias-anti-corruption-movement-bersih-arrested-under-ant
Malaysian activists and supporters of the Bersih movement (‘Bersih’ is a Bahasa word for clean or reform) have been organizing symbolic protest actions in the last few days to demand the release of Bersih chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah.
Maria Chin was arrested last November 18, a day before Bersih was scheduled to hold massive rallies across the country to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is facing numerous corruption scandals. Bersih succeeded in peacefully mobilizing more than 10,000 people on November 19.
Malaysian investors eye more palm oil plantations in PH
▻http://www.rappler.com/business/152064-malaysian-investors-palm-oil-plantations
“Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said that the businessmen initially planned to develop 80,000 hectares but are considering expanding the investment to about 300,000 hectares throughout the Philippines,” said Abella.
Duterte himself indicated he was open to the idea of more palm oil plantations in the country.
Despite concerns about the impact of palm oil plantations on the environment, Duterte said the palm oil industry in some parts of Mindanao, like Agusan del Sur, “has proven to be a good source of revenue and a source of livelihood for the people there.”
Environmentalists have pointed out that land conversion to make way for palm oil plantations has driven deforestation and led to soil, water, and air pollution in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia.
Parait que les enfant philippins souffrent de malnutrition #industrie_palmiste #Philippines
Calenda - Education in the Borderlands: Promises, Utopias and Realities
▻http://calenda.org/381515
Argument
Thousands of people transmigrate daily between countries around the world. Amongst these daily transmigrants, many children and young people cross a national border as un/documented to receive an education. These ‘transfronterizos’ are to be found in places as diverse as the borderlands between the USA and Mexico, China and Burma, or Malaysia and Singapore but also in many border refugee camps. In this volume this phenomenon is referred to as Education in the Borderlands (EiB). According to Passi (2011: 13), there are more than “300 land borders and scores of sea boundaries” between the 200 states or so that compose the world. This means that there are, in theory, as many possible cases of education in the borderlands.
For Thomas Adam (2012: 1) even if national borders appear (increasingly) to be turned into fortified political borders, they are “certainly not impenetrable”. Wastl-Walter (2011: 2) adds that “borders are (…) complex spatial and social phenomena which are not static or invariable but which must be understood as highly dynamic”. Depending on the context, borders might be non-material or material (barbed-wire fence, a door, heavily-guarded, etc.) (ibid.).
#frontières #cross-borders #helsinki (nouveau tag)
Malaysia to Purchase Four Navy Ships From China in Landmark Deal - Bloomberg
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-02/malaysia-to-purchase-four-navy-ships-from-china-in-landmark-deal
Malaysia said it will buy at least four Littoral Mission Ships from China as Prime Minister Najib Razak announced “new steps” in military cooperation between the two countries.
Najib oversaw the purchase of the vessels on Tuesday during a state visit to Beijing. While no details were released on the value of the ships, the deal comes after Malaysia recently announced that it was cutting its defense budget by 13 percent.
“Now we have agreed the first significant defence deal between our two countries, with Malaysia purchasing littoral mission ships from China,” Najib said Wednesday in an editorial published in the China Daily newspaper. The first two will be built in China and the next two in Malaysia, with further Malaysian-built ships subject to government financing, he said.
Pas encore grand chose de « finalisé ». Du bluff pour faire monter les enchères ?
(sachant que Najib a une casserole à 700 M$ qui lui est attachée…)
Malaysia buys Navy vessels from China | New Straits Times | Malaysia General Business Sports and Lifestyle News
▻http://www.nst.com.my/news/2016/11/185136/malaysia-buys-navy-vessels-china
Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, who was also present, said technical details on the vessels have not yet been finalised.
[…]
Asked about the Malaysian companies that will be involved in building the vessels, he said this is in the process of being determined, adding that the vessels are to be built within 24 months and will be used to patrol Malaysian waters.
bip @aude_v
The no-shows at Arafat’s funeral - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.com
All those who don’t understand why it was so difficult for the Palestinian-Israelis’ political representatives to show their final respects to Shimon Peres, should recall Arafat’s funeral and the ’respect’ shown him by the Israelis.
Shlomo Sand Oct 14, 2016
read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.747364
On November 11, 2004, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat died under mysterious circumstances. The next day his body was brought to Cairo, where a official state funeral was held. Representatives of 50 countries participated in the event, both admirers and rivals.
Behind his coffin marched Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Syrian President Bashar Assad, King Abdullah of Jordan, King Mohammed VI of Morocco, the presidents of Tunisia and Sudan, the leaders of Sweden, Brazil, Turkey, Malaysia and Pakistan, the deputy prime minister of China, the vice presidents of Austria, Bulgaria, Tanzania, Iraq and Afghanistan, the foreign ministers of Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Greece, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia, Canada, Indian and Slovenia, the parliamentary leaders of Italy, Russia, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. It was an official farewell that was less impressive that Shimon Peres’ funeral, but still quite respectable for a president without a country.
The United States, the well known neutral intermediary between Israel and Palestine, sent a low-ranking representative: William Burns, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. Israel, on the other hand, gave it the finger.
No Israeli representative, either high- or low-ranking, or even very low-ranking, attended. None of the leaders of the opposition dreamed of showing his final respects to the leader of the Palestinian people, the first who recognized the State of Israel, and signed the Oslo Accords. Not Shimon Peres, not Ehud Barak, not Shlomo Ben-Ami and not even Uzi Baram bothered to participate in the Palestinians’ mourning.
Some of them had courageously shaken his hand in the past, other had embraced him enthusiastically several years earlier. But with the outbreak of the second intifada he was once again categorized as a satanic terrorist. The pundits of the sane, moderate left repeatedly claimed in innumerable learned articles that he was not a partner and there was nobody to talk to. When the body of the rais was transferred to Ramallah, the funeral was attended by several “extremist,” marginal Israelis, the likes of Uri Avnery and Mohammed Barakeh.
All the other peaceniks had to wait for the screening of the film “The Gatekeepers” in 2012; in other words, for the videos of all the chiefs of the Shin Bet security services, who declared that in real time they knew that Arafat did not encourage, organize or initiate the mass uprising in the second intifada, nor the acts of terror that accompanied it. For lack of choice the leader was forced to join the wave, otherwise he would have lost his prestige and his status. The disappointment at Barak’s unprepared and totally bizarre diplomatic step, and Ariel Sharon’s ascent to the Temple Mount, were among the main reasons for the eruption of the Palestinians’ unbridled opposition.
Indonesia seizes fertilizer ship in Bali, suspecting bomb plot | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-security-idUSKCN11S0T9
Indonesian authorities on the resort island of Bali on Thursday detained a ship from Malaysia carrying around 30 tonnes of fertilizer which police believe may have been intended for making bombs.
Customs and police were questioning the crew and investigating the material for potential links to radical networks as the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation remains on high alert for militant attacks.
Bali police official Hendra Suhartiyono said authorities were looking into whether the material was on its way to the eastern island of Sulawesi, a region known for militant violence.
Great Barrier Reef and the Amazon Rainforest Among Outstanding Natural Sites Under Threat from French Multinationals
▻http://multinationales.org/Great-Barrier-Reef-and-the-Amazon-Rainforest-Among-Outstanding-Natu
Half of World Heritage sites are currently threatened by industrial development, and the oil and mining sectors pose a particular threat. So many invaluable sites and #biodiversity sanctuaries face being wiped off the map just because we are unable to do anything about our voracious model of development. Several French transnational corporations are among those involved in projects that could herald the end of these exceptional sites. Some of the sites facing destruction include national (...)
/ A la une, #Extractive_Industries, #Australia, #Brazil, #Canada, #Guatemala, #Guinea, #Indonesia, #Malaysia, #Netherlands, #Peru, #DR_Congo, São Tomé, #ArcelorMittal, #Areva, Bolloré, #EDF, Engie (ex GDF Suez), #Eramet, #Lafarge, #Maurel_et_Prom, #Perenco, #Total, #Socfin, (...)
#São_Tomé #Bolloré #Engie_ex_GDF_Suez_ #Energy #Extractive_Industries #environmental_impact #resource_overexploitation #extractive_industries
“►https://www.bastamag.net/De-la-Grande-barriere-de-corail-a-l-Amazonie-ces-sites-naturels-d-exceptio”
“►http://www.wwf.fr/vous_informer/actualites/?7841/La-moitie-des-sites-du-Patrimoine-mondial-sont-menaces-par-des-activites-industr”
“►http://whc.unesco.org/fr/peril”
“►http://www.socfin.com/Files/media/News/2016-03-04---Menaces-sur-forets-africaines.pdf”
“►http://www.perenco.com”
“►http://e360.yale.edu/feature/how_nations_are_chipping_away_their_protected_lands/2989”
“►http://www.padddtracker.org”
“►http://marketforces.org.au/banks/map”
“►http://www.societegenerale.com/sites/default/files/documents/Document%20RSE/Finance%20responsable/Principes%20Generaux%20Environnementaux%20et%20Sociaux%20de%20nos%2”
“►https://www.societegenerale.com/sites/default/files/documents/Document%20RSE/Finance%20responsable/Politique%20Transversale%20Biodiversit%C3%A9.pdf”
“►http://blog.greenpeace.fr/bollore-zero-deforestation”
“►http://forets.greenpeace.fr/la-socfin-menace-toujours-les-forets-africaines”
Le Parti démocrate voit la main de la Russie derrière la publication d’e-mails par WikiLeaks
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2016/07/25/le-parti-democrate-voit-la-main-de-la-russie-derriere-la-publication-d-e-mai
A quelques heures de l’ouverture de la convention du Parti démocrate à Philadelphie (Pennsylvanie), lundi 25 juillet, qui va officiellement désigner Hillary Clinton comme sa candidate à la présidentielle du 8 novembre, l’affaire dite des e-mails du Democratic national committee, (DNC, la plus haute instance du parti) continue de rebondir. La publication de milliers de courriels internes du DNC par le site WikiLeaks, qui montrent notamment que les élites du parti ont favorisé l’ancienne secrétaire d’Etat par rapport à son adversaire Bernie Sanders, avait déjà fait une victime majeure : Debbie Wasserman Schultz, la présidente du DNC, qui a annoncé sa démission dimanche.
Mais l’affaire a aussi pris de faux airs de guerre froide : dimanche matin, lors de l’émission « This Week » de la chaîne ABC, le responsable de la campagne de Mme Clinton, Robby Mook, a accusé WikiLeaks d’avoir publié des documents « fournis par les Russes pour aider Donald Trump ». Une thèse largement défendue par l’entourage et les partisans de Mme Clinton, qui s’appuient sur plusieurs rapports d’experts ayant travaillé sur des piratages qui ont ciblé le DNC cette année.
Selon la société spécialisée Crowdstrike, embauchée par le DNC pour mener l’enquête sur les piratages, au moins deux groupes sont parvenus à s’introduire dans les serveurs du parti. Et selon l’entreprise, les deux groupes seraient liés à d’autres piratages d’ampleur visant des ministères et des administrations américaines, et considérés comme proches du pouvoir russe.
Les infos communiquées par #Crowdstrike (le 15 juin 2016, pour des attaques en mai)
Bears in the Midst : Intrusion into the Democratic National Committee »
▻https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee
CrowdStrike Services Inc., our Incident Response group, was called by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the formal governing body for the US Democratic Party, to respond to a suspected breach. We deployed our IR team and technology and immediately identified two sophisticated adversaries on the network – COZY BEAR and FANCY BEAR. We’ve had lots of experience with both of these actors attempting to target our customers in the past and know them well. In fact, our team considers them some of the best adversaries out of all the numerous nation-state, criminal and hacktivist/terrorist groups we encounter on a daily basis. Their tradecraft is superb, operational security second to none and the extensive usage of ‘living-off-the-land’ techniques enables them to easily bypass many security solutions they encounter. In particular, we identified advanced methods consistent with nation-state level capabilities including deliberate targeting and ‘access management’ tradecraft – both groups were constantly going back into the environment to change out their implants, modify persistent methods, move to new Command & Control channels and perform other tasks to try to stay ahead of being detected. Both adversaries engage in extensive political and economic espionage for the benefit of the government of the Russian Federation and are believed to be closely linked to the Russian government’s powerful and highly capable intelligence services.
#COZY_BEAR (also referred to in some industry reports as CozyDuke or APT 29) is the adversary group that last year successfully infiltrated the unclassified networks of the White House, State Department, and US Joint Chiefs of Staff. In addition to the US government, they have targeted organizations across the Defense, Energy, Extractive, Financial, Insurance, Legal, Manufacturing Media, Think Tanks, Pharmaceutical, Research and Technology industries, along with Universities. Victims have also been observed in Western Europe, Brazil, China, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, Turkey and Central Asian countries. COZY BEAR’s preferred intrusion method is a broadly targeted spearphish campaign that typically includes web links to a malicious dropper. Once executed on the machine, the code will deliver one of a number of sophisticated Remote Access Tools (RATs), including AdobeARM, ATI-Agent, and MiniDionis. On many occasions, both the dropper and the payload will contain a range of techniques to ensure the sample is not being analyzed on a virtual machine, using a debugger, or located within a sandbox. They have extensive checks for the various security software that is installed on the system and their specific configurations. When specific versions are discovered that may cause issues for the RAT, it promptly exits. These actions demonstrate a well-resourced adversary with a thorough implant-testing regime that is highly attuned to slight configuration issues that may result in their detection, and which would cause them to deploy a different tool instead. The implants are highly configurable via encrypted configuration files, which allow the adversary to customize various components, including C2 servers, the list of initial tasks to carry out, persistence mechanisms, encryption keys and others. An HTTP protocol with encrypted payload is used for the Command & Control communication.
#FANCY_BEAR (also known as Sofacy or APT 28) is a separate Russian-based threat actor, which has been active since mid 2000s, and has been responsible for targeted intrusion campaigns against the Aerospace, Defense, Energy, Government and Media sectors. Their victims have been identified in the United States, Western Europe, Brazil, Canada, China, Georgia, Iran, Japan, Malaysia and South Korea. Extensive targeting of defense ministries and other military victims has been observed, the profile of which closely mirrors the strategic interests of the Russian government, and may indicate affiliation with Главное Разведывательное Управление (Main Intelligence Department) or #GRU, Russia’s premier military intelligence service. This adversary has a wide range of implants at their disposal, which have been developed over the course of many years and include Sofacy, X-Agent, X-Tunnel, WinIDS, Foozer and DownRange droppers, and even malware for Linux, OSX, IOS, Android and Windows Phones. This group is known for its technique of registering domains that closely resemble domains of legitimate organizations they plan to target. Afterwards, they establish phishing sites on these domains that spoof the look and feel of the victim’s web-based email services in order to steal their credentials. FANCY BEAR has also been linked publicly to intrusions into the German Bundestag and France’s TV5 Monde TV station in April 2015.
At DNC, COZY BEAR intrusion has been identified going back to summer of 2015, while FANCY BEAR separately breached the network in April 2016. We have identified no collaboration between the two actors, or even an awareness of one by the other. Instead, we observed the two Russian espionage groups compromise the same systems and engage separately in the theft of identical credentials
GRU ou pas, le contenu de ce qui a fui n’est pas bidonné.
Quoiqu’il en soit, le Parti démocrate a présenté lundi, à l’ouverture de la convention, ses excuses à Bernie Sanders. « Nous voulons présenter nos excuses sincères au sénateur Sanders, à ses soutiens et au Parti démocrate dans son ensemble pour les remarques inexcusables » contenues dans les emails internes publiés par Wikileaks, indiquent les responsables du parti dans un communiqué. Ils ont souligné que certains propos ne reflètent pas l’engagement de « neutralité » auxquels ils sont attachés.
(mise à jour de cette nuit, 26/07 à 0h37, me semble-t-il)
Le Kremlin dément toute implication dans le piratage des emails du Parti démocrate américain
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2016/07/26/le-kremlin-dement-toute-implication-dans-le-piratage-des-emails-du-parti-dem
Des « informations absurdes » et des « tentatives maniaques d’utiliser la Russie dans la campagne électorale aux Etats-Unis » : le porte-parole du Kremlin, Dmitri Peskov, a vivement démenti les accusations du Parti démocrate américain, selon lesquelles Moscou a fourni à WikiLeaks les emails internes du parti que le site a publiés.
… au passage…
Mais les deux piratages, détectés ce printemps, semblent ne pas avoir de lien avec les emails que s’est procurés WikiLeaks – une partie de ces derniers ont été envoyés après que les deux piratages aient été découverts. Le site, qui affirme d’ordinaire ne pas connaître l’identité de ses sources, affirme que les documents ne proviennent pas de ces deux piratages.
Mais, c’est pas grave, de toutes façons #c'est_Poutine™
Trump says Russia should find Clinton’s missing emails - World - CBC News
▻http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-trump-clinton-emails-1.3697407
“If Russia or China or any of those country gets those emails, I’ve got to be honest with you, I’d love to see them.”
D. Trump parle des 30 000 mails effacés par H. Clinton après avoir reçu une injonction de les produire…
Gunmen kidnap three Indonesians off Malaysian state of Sabah | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-security-kidnapping-idUSKCN0ZQ05N
Gunmen kidnapped three Indonesian members of a tugboat crew off Malaysia’s eastern state of Sabah, police said on Sunday, the latest in a string of abductions in a region noted for kidnappings by Islamist militants.
It was not immediately clear whether the men were seized by Abu Sayyaf, a group linked to Islamic State that is responsible for recent beheadings of Western hostages and notorious for the extortion of millions of dollars in ransoms.
The tugboat, with a crew of seven, was in waters off the east coast of Sabah on Borneo island, about 3.6 nautical miles from a nearby Kampung Sinakut beach, Sabah police commissioner Abdul Rashid Harun said, when it was attacked by armed men in a white boat late on Saturday.
He said that based on early investigations, the three men kidnapped were 34-year-old Lorens Koten, 40-year-old Teo Dores Kopong and a 46-year-old identified only as Emanuel.
Abdul Rashid said they are likely to be in the southern Philippines now but did not elaborate. Four other crew members were left behind by the kidnappers who came in a speedboat.