• Michael Walzer : « Il sera très difficile pour les progressistes de gagner des élections à l’avenir » | Mediapart | 10.11.24

    #Michael_Walzer, référence mondiale de la philosophie politique, revient pour Mediapart sur l’élection états-unienne et son dernier livre « Le Paradoxe des libérations nationales ». Entretien.

    https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/101124/michael-walzer-il-sera-tres-difficile-pour-les-progressistes-de-gagner-des

    Fondé sur l’examen de trois situations – l’Algérie, #Israël et l’Inde –, le livre étudie le paradoxe lié au fait que les promoteurs de la libération nationale – Nehru, Ben Gourion et Ben Bella notamment –, nourris de culture européenne laïque et progressiste, ont vu leur héritage récusé au bout de quelques décennies, la religion faisant un retour irrépressible dans leurs pays respectifs.

    Pour le philosophe, qui se situe à distance d’une lecture marxiste ou postcoloniale, la manière dont ont été menées ces libérations nationales a fini par engendrer une réaction politico-religieuse, visible dans le sionisme religieux, l’hindouisme de Modi ou l’islamisme : une réaction « tout à fait moderne dans son antimodernisme ». Rencontre à New York.

    • Si Trump, qui a déjà le Sénat, remporte aussi la Chambre des représentants [toujours en balance, en attendant notamment le dépouillement des votes en Californie – ndlr], nous serons face à une version américaine d’un populisme autoritaire dont il est difficile de voir aujourd’hui jusqu’où il pourrait aller. J’évite d’employer le terme de « fascisme », mais ce ne serait peut-être pas si loin d’une version américaine du fascisme.

      J’espère que la Cour suprême, même si elle est dominée par des juges conservateurs, s’opposerait à certaines mesures annoncées par Trump, comme le recours à l’armée pour des questions de politique intérieure. J’ai encore l’espoir qu’il demeure des contrepoids.

      Je crains aussi qu’il devienne très difficile pour les progressistes de gagner des élections dans le futur si les trumpistes appliquent leur volonté de purger les listes électorales, de restreindre le droit de vote des minorités, d’exiger des documents que beaucoup de populations pauvres ne possèdent pas…

      ...
      C’était alors une ville extrêmement syndiquée, rapidement devenue un bastion démocrate. Puis l’industrie de l’acier a littéralement disparu, passant de 20 000 à 200 travailleurs. Les démocrates néolibéraux comme Clinton ou Obama n’ont rien fait pour aider les habitants de Johnstown.

      Et, en 2016, cette ville de Johnstown a voté deux fois plus pour Trump que pour Hillary Clinton. Dans le même temps, à Princeton, dans le New Jersey, où je vivais alors, le vote en faveur de Clinton a été six fois supérieur au vote Trump. Faire de la classe éduquée la nouvelle base sociale du Parti démocrate ne permet pas d’obtenir une majorité aux États-Unis.

    • Dans ce contexte, l’hindouisme devient une doctrine de suprématie hindoue, et le judaïsme, compris comme un sionisme messianiste, une doctrine de suprématie juive. En Israël, cette doctrine s’avère meurtrière pour les personnes vivant à Gaza ou au Sud-Liban, mais je pense qu’elle est aussi très dangereuse pour Israël lui-même.

      En quoi ?

      Parce que je ne crois pas qu’Israël puisse survivre en tant qu’entité ultra-nationaliste et ultra-religieuse juive au Moyen-Orient. Il reste beaucoup d’Israéliens qui veulent vivre dans un État laïque et démocratique et pas dans ce qu’est en train de devenir Israël.

      La plus grande crainte de mes amis en Israël est que leurs petits-enfants ne restent pas à la maison, et renoncent finalement à être israéliens. À mon avis, beaucoup de ceux qui ont fait d’Israël une puissance militaire et technologique ne resteront pas pour défendre un État ultra-nationaliste et ultra-religieux.

  • Le atrocità di Mussolini. I crimini di guerra rimossi dell’Italia fascista

    Questo libro è stato già pubblicato nel 1992 (con il titolo L’Olocausto rimosso), ma nessuno ha mai potuto trovarlo in libreria. La casa editrice Rizzoli decise infatti, subito dopo averle stampate, di mandare al macero tutte le copie di questo testo, ritenuto evidentemente troppo scomodo. Il lavoro di ricerca di #Michael_Palumbo sulla storia dei crimini di guerra del fascismo era già presente nel documentario Fascist Legacy prodotto dalla Bbc nel 1989, anch’esso acquistato dalla Rai e mai mandato in onda nonostante L’Unità del 10 giugno 1990 lo definisse come l’opera che «ha posto fine per sempre alla leggenda degli “italiani brava gente”».

    Palumbo ha portato infatti alla luce la decisiva documentazione proveniente dagli archivi nazionali degli Stati Uniti a Washington DC e dalla Commissione delle Nazioni Unite per i Crimini di Guerra con cui, insieme a ulteriore materiale reperito in dieci lingue diverse, comprova le atrocità commesse in tutti i paesi in cui l’Italia entrò in guerra: dalla Libia all’Etiopia, dalla Grecia alla Jugoslavia. Crimini poi insabbiati dagli angloamericani per non disturbare gli equilibri del dopoguerra e mantenere a disposizione una classe dirigente utile alla crociata anticomunista della nuova Italia democratica. Successivamente, tra la fine degli anni Novanta e i primi anni Duemila, altri studiosi hanno pubblicato importanti ricerche sui crimini di guerra fascisti. Arrivando solo oggi nelle librerie italiane, Le atrocità di Mussolini completa il quadro.

    Lo stile di Palumbo e la drammaticità degli eventi offrono un affresco tragico e illuminante di cosa è stata l’Italia fascista, un volto che le forze politiche eredi di quella stagione provano costantemente a rimuovere dalla memoria nazionale.

    https://edizionialegre.it/product/le-atrocita-di-mussolini
    #livre
    #histoire #Italie #fascisme #crimes_de_guerre #italiani_brava_gente #Libye #Ethiopie #Grèce #Yougoslavie #Mussolini #colonialisme #colonisation #Italie_coloniale

    –-

    ajouté à la métaliste sur l’Italie coloniale:
    https://seenthis.net/messages/871953

    • La storia strappata al macero

      Vede finalmente gli scaffali il libro scomparso che documenta i crimini rimossi dell’Italia fascista e le atrocità commesse dai soldati italiani in Africa e in Europa.

      Qualcuno l’ha avuto in mano, questo libro, prima che finisse (quasi) integralmente al macero. Qualcuno è riuscito a recuperarne una copia, e ora Le atrocità di Mussolini. I crimini di guerra rimossi dell’Italia fascista, fresco di stampa per le Edizioni Alegre, non solo è arrivato in magazzino, ma anche in libreria. Dopo oltre trent’anni. E a quarantaquattro anni da quando, il 28 marzo 1980, il suo autore, l’allora giovane ricercatore Michael Palumbo, annunciò al New York Times la scoperta dei documenti della Commissione delle Nazioni Unite sui Crimini di Guerra (Unwcc), che avrebbero scoperchiato un vaso di Pandora portando alla realizzazione del documentario Fascist Legacy di Ken Kirby (BBC, 1989), basato sulle ricerche di Palumbo, e alla stesura di questo saggio «fantasma» all’epoca ampiamente annunciato e atteso.

      La rassegna stampa sul lavoro del ricercatore italo-americano e sulle sue implicazioni sul piano della conoscenza storica e della memoria pubblica in quegli anni tra la fine degli Ottanta e l’inizio dei Novanta fu notevole. Tre articoli in particolare anticiparono l’uscita del libro in quella primavera editoriale di trentadue anni fa: Italiani bonaccioni? No, assassini di James Walston (L’Indipendente, 17 marzo 1992: «Un libro che si preannuncia come una vera e propria bomba editoriale», scriveva Walston); Come trucidavamo di Giorgio Fabre (Panorama, 12 aprile 1992) e Quel libro non si stampi! di Simonetta Fiori, pezzo apparso sulle pagine culturali de la Repubblica del 17 aprile 1992, che esordisce riferendosi all’articolo di cinque giorni precedente:

      Quel lunedì mattina, in casa editrice tirava una brutta aria. Il libro di Michael Palumbo sui crimini dei soldati italiani continuava a produrre grane. L’ultima – di quel lunedì – era l’intervista a Panorama di uno dei personaggi incriminati. […]
      Chi ce lo ha fatto fare?, devono aver pensato alla Rizzoli. D’altra parte, che la materia fosse incandescente non era notizia di quel lunedì. Già tre anni prima, un programma sullo stesso argomento curato da Palumbo per la Bbc – Fascist Legacy, coautore Ken Kirby – aveva scatenato a Londra un pandemonio. Con la protesta risentita dell’ambasciatore italiano Boris Biancheri. Il documentario denunciava per la prima volta, senza reticenze, le atrocità commesse dai soldati italiani in Grecia, Jugoslavia e nelle colonie d’Africa. E la copertura che nel dopoguerra il potere democristiano avrebbe garantito ai criminali di guerra. Tanto per non sbagliare, la rete Uno della Rai, che s’era assicurata i diritti, si guardò bene dal mandarlo in onda.
      Il documentario di Palumbo, giovane ricercatore di Brooklyn, incuriosì l’allora direttore editoriale della Rizzoli, Gian Andrea Piccioli, che sottoscrisse con lui un contratto. Dopo un anno il libro, ricco di rivelazioni sulle malversazioni degli italiani nel campo di Arbe, in Etiopia, in Cirenaica e in Grecia, era già pronto.

      «Che fare del libro tanto atteso, che in un primo tempo doveva chiamarsi L’Olocausto mancato, poi più morbidamente Italiani, brava gente? e infine – titolo definitivo – L’Olocausto rimosso?», si chiedeva Fiori. A fronte alle minacce di querela di uno degli innumerevoli personaggi coinvolti nella galleria di atrocità compiute dagli italiani, «secondo una prima notizia, la Rizzoli avrebbe deciso di mandare al macero le ottomila copie già stampate, una tiratura giustificata dalle attese», chiosava.

      «Caso alla Rizzoli: che fine ha fatto il lavoro di Palumbo sui criminali italiani?», recitava l’occhiello di quell’articolo de la Repubblica. Aveva fatto una brutta fine, allora. Ma ora eccolo qui, finalmente, con una prefazione di Eric Gobetti e una postfazione (Breve storia di un libro censurato e ritrovato) di Ivan Serra, metalmeccanico e animatore del sito diecifebbraio.info, che ha inseguito come un segugio questa pista fino a ritrovare una copia – una delle copie? – sopravvissuta alla distruzione.

      «Abbiamo distrutto ogni cosa da cima a fondo senza risparmiare gli innocenti. Uccidiamo intere famiglie ogni notte, picchiandoli a morte o con le armi. Basta che facciano un movimento, noi spariamo senza pietà. Se muoiono, muoiono. Stanotte ci sono stati cinque morti: due donne, un bambino piccolo e due uomini», scriveva una camicia nera alla famiglia il 1° luglio 1942 dal Montenegro.

      «Stanno arrivando gli italiani», è una frase testuale che rispetto allo scenario greco riporta l’autore riferendo delle scene di panico che seguono annunci come questo, nel genocidio in Cirenaica come in Etiopia, come nella Jugoslavia «a ferro e fuoco» – nella Slovenia della famigerata «Circolare 3C» del generale Mario Roatta che autorizzava a fucilare in maniera indiscriminata, in Croazia e in Montenegro – come in Grecia, lasciando non di rado attoniti anche gli alleati nazisti.

      L’angolatura prospettica che permette a Palumbo questa ricognizione, oltre all’accesso alle ricerche allora già disponibili – in particolare quelle solidissime e pionieristiche di Angelo Del Boca e Giorgio Rochat – è proprio la documentazione della Unwcc, e il suo lavoro pachidermico cominciato nel 1978 quando ha potuto attingere massicciamente a documenti etiopici, jugoslavi, britannici, statunitensi, tedeschi, oltre che italiani, producendo il dossier necessario a realizzare Fascist Legacy e documentando, oltre che i crimini, la lucida e strategica opera di insabbiamento degli stessi, quando la lista della Unwcc arrivò «a comprendere 700 persone, molte delle quali occupavano un posto chiave nel governo italiano», e «gli alleati continuarono la loro tattica di indugio». «Fra i criminali di guerra ancora in servizio c’erano i generali [Alessandro] Pirzio Biroli, [Mario] Robotti, [Carlo] Tucci, [Silvio] Bonini, [Domenico] Chinnici e [Alessandro] Maccario, tutti colpevoli delle più gravi atrocità commesse in Jugoslavia», scriveva Palumbo un decennio prima che l’istituzione del Giorno del Ricordo contribuisse a ribaltare completamente nel senso comune il giudizio storico su quegli anni. Il libro avrebbe potuto persino precedere la celebre querelle tra Del Boca e Indro Montanelli, che nel 1996, dopo aver negato l’uso dei gas iprite in Africa orientale, a fronte delle prove schiaccianti prodotte dallo storico novarese, avrebbe infine ammesso di essersi sbagliato e – almeno di questo – si sarebbe pubblicamente scusato.

      Centinaia di voci – da Pietro Badoglio e Rodolfo Graziani all’ultimo dei loro sottoposti, dai carnefici alle vittime, ai testimoni degli orrori africani ed europei – si avvicendano nelle quasi quattrocento pagine a stampa che ora chiunque può avere tra le mani. Il saggio di Palumbo è una cartografia d’epoca – in fondo è un pezzo da collezione di storia della ricerca storica – delle atrocità commesse dall’Italia fascista lungo tutto il ventennio, e in particolare all’estero e dal 1930 in Libia al termine del secondo conflitto mondiale, in un procedere per episodi dei quali gli studi più recenti avrebbero confermato la rilevanza storica: il massacro di Addis Abeba del febbraio 1937 («una visione da inferno dantesco» nelle parole del delegato della Croce Rossa Internazionale in Etiopia, Marcel Junod), finalmente ricostruito nel dettaglio da Ian L. Campbell in un libro edito nel 2018 dalla stessa Rizzoli; quello immediatamente successivo di Debre Libanos, oggetto di uno studio approfondito di Paolo Borruso edito da Laterza nel 2020; quello di Zeret dell’aprile del 1939, a cui Matteo Dominioni avrebbe dedicato uno studio nel 2006; quello di Domeniko/Domenikon del 16 febbraio 1943 in Grecia (definito ancora «l’eccidio dimenticato» dal Corriere della Sera tre anni fa), quando gli italiani massacrarono tutti gli uomini validi di un piccolo villaggio greco, in Tessaglia, ora portato alla luce da Vincenzo Sinapi (Domenikon 1943. Quando ad ammazzare sono gli italiani, Mursia 2021) e al quale Palumbo dedicava già diverse pagine, con tanto di interviste ai sopravvissuti.

      Si ha l’impressione di assistere a un what if? della memoria pubblica italiana, trovando episodi ora noti tra gli studiosi e non solo già descritti nel dettaglio, e tutti insieme, in un libro di un terzo di secolo fa, prima ancora della «scoperta» a Roma dell’«armadio della vergogna» nel 1994. Già, perché il testo è stato pubblicato così come sarebbe dovuto uscire, in un’operazione di repêchage più unica che rara nel panorama della saggistica italiana. Con un valore conoscitivo e civile davvero con pochi precedenti.

      Il libro edito oggi da Alegre è infatti un recupero integrale di quel testo stampato (prima edizione: aprile 1992) e «cancellato», con la sola correzione di alcuni refusi e imprecisioni, specie nei toponimi, opera della traduttrice Paola Tornaghi. Un esempio che può illuminare è appunto la lectio «Domenikos» che Palumbo aveva utilizzato al posto di «Domenikon» (dicitura in katharevousa) e «Domeniko» (come è chiamato oggi, in dimotiko), le uniche due occorrenze presenti nelle fonti: leggiamo questa precisazione in Camicie nere sull’Acropoli. L’occupazione italiana in Grecia (1941-1943), edito da Deriveapprodi nel 2013, in cui l’autore Marco Clementi raccontando questo evento «riscoperto in Italia» solo negli anni Duemila si stupiva di questa versione del toponimo rintracciata in altri studi, ignaro del fatto che verosimilmente provenisse dal libro di Palumbo. Qualche altra copia oltre a quella recuperata da Serra è dunque circolata tra gli studiosi?

      Certo, la ricerca sul «nuovo ordine mediterraneo» (così avrebbe titolato il saggio di Davide Rodogno del 2003, edito da Bollati Boringhieri) in questi tre decenni è andata avanti, e il progetto imperiale fascista che in Europa come in Africa condusse a incalcolabili atrocità è stato studiato e divulgato con serietà e passione proprio da storici come Del Boca – che nel decennio seguente avrebbe intitolato il suo libro di maggior successo proprio Italiani, brava gente? Un mito duro a morire (Neri Pozza 2005), scomparso nel 2021 – e come Rochat, scomparso due settimane fa, che furono maestri per molti. E dalle successive generazioni ricordate anche nella prefazione di Gobetti: si pensi a Nicola Labanca, il già citato Dominioni e Valeria Deplano e Alessandro Pes per il colonialismo; a Paolo Fonzi per la Grecia, allo stesso Gobetti per la Jugoslavia, a Filippo Focardi per gli studi sulla memoria pubblica.

      Ma la ricerca, e ancora di più la discussione pubblica, avrebbe potuto avanzare con maggiore rapidità e pregnanza se i risultati di questo lavoro «cancellato» di Palumbo fossero passati dai magazzini alle librerie, e non solo in qualche mano fortunata che ha potuto avere le poche copie scampate al macero; avrebbe forse potuto avere, a proposito di what if?, un impatto simile a quello che il controverso I volonterosi carnefici di Hitler. I tedeschi comuni e l’Olocasusto di Daniel J. Goldhagen (1996) ebbe nel dibattito tedesco e globale sulla partecipazione delle persone «ordinarie» alla Shoah.

      Dal momento che non esistono «caratteri nazionali» immutabili, gli italiani furono As Cruel as Anyone Else, come titola la traduzione inglese del pamphlet di Del Boca, fresca di stampa per i tipi della University of Chicago Press. Eppure avviandosi a concludere Le atrocità di Mussolini l’autore italo-americano lasciava spazio a un’immagine controfattuale che vale la pena riportare, dopo aver riflettuto a lungo anche sulle profonde radici nel nazionalismo e nelle «avventure» espansionistiche e coloniali che hanno preceduto il fascismo, utili da ricordare in questi giorni in cui la sbronza nazionalista e militarista del 4 novembre ci sovrasta:

      È difficile valutare il numero totale delle vittime dei crimini di guerra fascisti, sicuramente centinaia di migliaia di persone morirono nei campi di concentramento italiani, nelle tremende incursioni e nelle carestie artificialmente create nei Balcani.
      Si possono aggiungere poi i massacri compiuti dalle forze di [Rodolfo] Graziani durante la Repubblica di Salò, così come le migliaia di civili e prigionieri di guerra assassinati dalle legioni di Mussolini nella guerra civile spagnola e sul fronte russo durante la Seconda guerra mondiale. Benché non si possa più conoscere il numero reale delle vittime, è probabile che un milione di persone siano morte in conseguenza delle atrocità fasciste italiane […].
      Se il regime di Mussolini fosse stato più efficiente, se la sua caduta non fosse coincisa col momento culminante della Seconda guerra mondiale, il tributo delle vittime sarebbe stato molto più elevato. Infatti, dato che i fascisti avevano progettato di spopolare grandi aree della Libia, dell’Etiopia, della Grecia e della Jugoslavia, la conclusione inevitabile è che, se il regime di Mussolini fosse sopravvissuto, parecchi milioni di persone sarebbero morte nelle zone destinate al nuovo Impero Romano.

      «Stavo dicendo all’Italia che il mito dell’innocenza italiana era finito», scrive oggi, da Taipei, Michael Palumbo, ricordando l’effetto del documentario della Bbc e introducendo il suo libro che vede finalmente gli scaffali, sperando che ne sia in qualche modo una replica tardiva. Forse, allora, quando si ammaineranno i tricolori dopo l’ennesimo e imbarazzante tripudio di celebrazioni del diritto alla «Difesa» di questo paese, si potrà iniziare a fare i conti con le guerre d’aggressione che per vent’anni si sono mosse in ogni angolo del tanto agognato progetto imperiale. Trentadue anni dopo quel «Non si stampi!» (da leggersi: «Non si distribuisca!»), e ottant’anni dopo la Liberazione.

      https://jacobinitalia.it/la-storia-strappata-al-macero

  • La carte des pensées écologiques

    La carte des pensées écologiques est enfin disponible !

    Il aura fallu des mois de discussions et de travail collectif pour aboutir à cette #carte qui a l’ambition de représenter dans toute leurs pluralités les pensées de l’#écologie_politique en montrant les liens entre ses principaux courants, penseurs et penseuses, luttes et organisations.

    L’objectif premier est de montrer que l’#écologie est un #champ_de_bataille, un terrain où s’affrontent des #idées. En conséquence figurent sur cette carte des « #écoles » pauvres en apports théoriques mais riches en capitaux et en relais d’influence. Comme toute cartographie également, elle fige des positions par nature dynamiques, des espaces mouvants, et impose une vision qui lui est propre.

    Cette citation d’André Gorz résume bien la situation :

    “Si tu pars de l’impératif écologique, tu peux aussi bien arriver à un anticapitalisme radical qu’à un pétainisme vert, à un écofascisme ou à un communautarisme naturaliste”.

    La carte des pensées écologiques n’aurait jamais vu le jour sans un formidable travail de toute l’équipe du média Fracas. Nous avons décidé de la laisser gratuitement en accès libre. Pour soutenir Fracas et avoir la version poster, vous pouvez acheter leur premier numéro directement sur ce lien. Abonnez-vous pour soutenir la presse indépendante !

    La carte des pensées écologiques

    Voici la carte des pensées écologiques. 8 grandes familles, plus de 150 personnalités représentées :

    Les 8 grandes familles des pensées écologiques

    Pour vous y retrouver plus facilement, voici en détail les 8 grandes familles des pensées écologiques, avec leurs autrices et auteurs clés. Si vous souhaitez aller plus loin, plus de 150 noms sont à retrouver sur la carte, et des sources sont disponibles à la fin de cet article.
    1/ ÉCOLOGIES ANTI-INDUSTRIELLES

    Les #écologies_anti-industrielles rejettent le productivisme et l’hyper-mécanisation du travail issus de l’ère industrielle. Elles développent une approche technocritique tout au long du XXe siècle. Critiques du gigantisme de l’appareil productif et de l’État pour les ravages qu’ils causent aux écosystèmes et à la personne humaine, les écologies anti-industrielles prônent la petite échelle et refusent une certaine idéologie du Progrès.

    Elles critiquent vertement la dépossession des populations de leurs propres moyens de subsistance. Elles encouragent enfin le fait de considérer l’industrie et la technique comme un système avec ses logiques propres, dont on ne peut se contenter de critiquer tel ou tel effet pris isolément.

    Autrices et auteurs clés : #Ivan_Illich, #Jacques_Ellul et #Günther_Anders

    2/ ÉCOLOGIES LIBERTAIRES

    Les #écologies_libertaires s’inscrivent en filiation des traditions du socialisme ouvrier anglais et de l’anarchisme, et entretiennent une grande proximité avec les écologies anti-industrielles. L’idéal d’émancipation et d’autonomie des libertaires se trouve régénéré par une analogie : les dominations de l’homme sur l’homme, de l’homme sur la femme et de l’homme sur la nature ne peuvent être prises séparément, et doivent être combattues d’un bloc.

    En conséquence, elles aspirent à la constitution d’éco-communautés et d’institutions autogérées et démocratiques à l’échelon local et défendent des principes fédératifs contre les dynamiques centralisatrices de l’État. La vision de la société s’articule autour du champ, de l’usine et de l’atelier, et d’une démocratie radicale, parfois exprimée par le recours au tirage au sort.

    Autrices et auteurs clés : #Murray_Bookchin, #Kristin_Ross, #Bernard_Charbonneau

    3/ ÉCOFÉMINISMES

    Né dans les années 1970 sous la plume de Françoise d’Eaubonne, l’#écoféminisme est une famille qui propose une analyse de la catastrophe écologique fondée sur le genre et sur l’oppression des femmes sous le capitalisme patriarcal. Nébuleuse aux contours flous, l’écoféminisme se conjugue dès le départ au pluriel, soulignant la diversité des origines géographiques et des influences idéologiques qui composent ce courant : socialisme, spiritualisme, queer, marxisme, pensées décoloniales, etc.

    Elles partagent pour la plupart le constat que, d’une part, le rôle des femmes a été subordonné à une fonction purement reproductive et, d’autre part, que la nature a été associée à l’image de cette femme dominée, que le capitalisme doit soumettre, exploiter, et même violer.

    Autrices et auteurs clés : #Françoise_d’Eaubonne, #Vandana_Shiva, #Starhawk

    4/ ÉTHIQUES ENVIRONNEMENTALES

    Les #éthiques_environnementales émergent au sein de la philosophie de l’environnement aux États-Unis, et explorent, chacune avec des options parfois radicalement différentes, le lien qu’entretient l’homme avec la « nature ». Certaines écoles défendent que les espaces naturels ont une valeur intrinsèque, d’aucunes qu’on ne peut juger de la nature que par son utilité pour l’homme, d’autres encore que nous devons nous concevoir comme une espèce au sein d’une « communauté biotique ».

    Faut-il préserver des espaces vierges ? Faut-il au contraire être les stewards d’espaces dont l’homme ne s’exclue pas ? Les polémiques et conflits n’ont certainement pas manqué au sein de cette famille…

    Autrices et auteurs clés : #Aldo_Leopold, #Imanishi_Kinji

    5/ #ÉCOSOCIALISME

    La famille écosocialiste émerge comme un prolongement du #marxisme mais s’oppose à ses interprétations productivistes portées notamment par l’URSS. En partant de l’insuffisante prise en considération des écosystèmes dans les traditions socialiste et marxiste, il s’agit alors de les dépoussiérer et les adapter au tournant écologique des sociétés, en portant l’idée que l’oppression sociale et la destruction de la nature ont une même et unique cause : le capitalisme.

    Si la socialisation des moyens de production et l’autogouvernance démocratique restent au cœur de ce projet, les écosocialismes proposent une variété de réponses allant d’un interventionnisme fort de l’État à des perspectives davantage autogestionnaires. Certains écosocialismes contemporains, dont la branche étatsunienne, ont même rompu avec une perspective anticapitaliste claire et la tradition révolutionnaire.

    Autrices et auteurs clés : #André_Gorz, #Michael_Löwy, #John_Bellamu_Foster

    6/ ÉCOLOGIES DÉCOLONIALES

    Conceptualisée dans les années 1980, les #écologies_décoloniales pointent l’#impensé_décolonial de l’écologie dominante, à la fois libérale et occidentalo-centrée, qui empêcherait la constitution d’une lutte écologiste pleinement libératrice car internationaliste. Par son universalisme « naturaliste » et raciste, sa vision mortifère de la nature, son extractivisme et son colonialisme producteur de natures appauvries (dont la plantation coloniale est l’emblème), l’Occident est en grande partie responsable de la catastrophe en cours.

    De ce point de vue, une écologie de « transition » qui supplanterait les énergies fossiles par des ressources minières au profit d’énergies renouvelables ne serait pas seulement insuffisante : elle ne ferait que trouver de nouvelles formes au colonialisme.

    Autrices et auteurs clés : #Joan_Martinez_Alier, #Malcolm_Ferdinand

    7/ #CAPITALISME_VERT

    La crise écologique fournit chaque jour de nouvelles preuves de la logique mortifère qui se loge au cœur de la dynamique d’accumulation capitaliste. Pour autant, le capitalisme a aussi ses théoriciens, et ceux-ci ont eux aussi tenté d’intégrer les paramètres écologiques dans leur défense de l’ordre en place.

    Dès lors, il s’agit bien souvent de corriger les « excès » ou les « impensés » du capitalisme en intégrant la dimension environnementale aux échanges marchands (taxes, compensation, technologies vertes…). Certains vont jusqu’à vouloir accélérer la dynamique du système capitaliste, y voyant un moyen de contrôler le Système-Terre dans un sens qui ne nuise pas aux intérêts de la classe possédante.

    Autrices et auteurs clés : #Christiana_Figueres, #David_Keith

    8/ ÉCOFASCISMES

    Les #écofascismes, qui ont émergé à bas bruit depuis les années 1980, sont extrêmement fragmentés. En Europe, ils défendent un éco-différentialisme, soit l’idée d’une humanité divisée en différentes « races » ou civilisations non hiérarchisées mais qui doivent rester séparées, car adaptées à leur environnement immédiat : « chacun chez soi » devient « chacun dans son propre écosystème ».

    Aux États-Unis, le néo-malthusianisme et la xénophobie se doublent d’une apologie des grands espaces vierges, de la wilderness, souillée par l’immigration. Cette obsession démographique se traduit souvent par un repli sur des « bases à défendre », dans des logiques « survivalistes ».

    https://bonpote.com/la-carte-des-pensees-ecologiques
    #visualisation #cartographie #infographie #pensée_écologique #épistémologie #pensées_écologiques #décolonial #ressources_pédagogiques

    ping @reka

    • Politique économique : le Nouveau Front populaire dessine un #changement_de_cap

      Le programme du Nouveau Front populaire, présenté le 14 juin, indique une direction de politique économique claire : il s’agit de reprendre le chemin d’une #politique_sociale et d’investissement (public et privé), articulée à une #politique_fiscale qui vise à (re)remplir les caisses et à instaurer davantage de #justice_fiscale. C’est une #réorientation marquée par rapport à la politique actuelle.

      Est-ce que les #mesures sont crédibles ? Oui, les pistes de #financement aussi. Est-ce que tout pourra être mis en œuvre et selon quel calendrier ? On verra bien. Dans tous les cas, la situation économique est incertaine et ce, quel que soit le gouvernement qui sera nommé.

      La bonne question n’est pas celle du « #sérieux » – la politique actuelle à maints égards n’est pas sérieuse, ni socialement, ni économiquement, ni budgétairement – mais de savoir quel cap de politique économique nous choisissons pour faire face aux incertitudes et répondre aux questions écologiques et sociales qui se posent. Car oui, il y a le choix.

      Le débat sur le #réalisme est à côté du sujet

      On pourrait résumer le programme du NFP ainsi : suspendre l’application des réformes antisociales, redonner du pouvoir d’achat aux ménages, renforcer les #services_publics, récupérer de l’argent sur le #patrimoine, et générer en retour des #effets_économiques vertueux.

      Cette politique tourne le dos à celle mise en œuvre depuis 2017 dont l’orientation principale, revendiquée par Bruno Le Maire, est la baisse des prélèvements obligatoires et l’horizon la réduction du rôle de la #protection_sociale et des services publics. Cette politique menée à un rythme rapide, comme une fuite en avant, une recherche vaine d’un retour de la #croissance, ne récolte qu’une baisse de la #productivité.

      Une large partie des critiques sur le sérieux du programme du NFP provient de commentateurs pour qui le seul débat économique valable est de savoir s’il faut d’abord définancer les retraites, l’école, les deux en même temps, ou si on n’ajouterait pas encore un peu de baisse de prélèvements sur les entreprises, pour la route.

      Et lorsque ces réformes sont évaluées scientifiquement, qu’on en démontre le #coût_social ou le peu d’#efficacité_économique, le plus souvent ces personnes haussent les épaules et passent à la suivante. Evidemment, une autre politique économique est possible.

      Des mesures sociales tout à fait à portée de main

      Si on considère les principales mesures proposées par le Nouveau Front populaire, elles apparaissent tout à fait envisageables. Elles sont sans doute d’ailleurs un peu plus modérées que celles du programme de la Nupes en 2022, pour tenir compte de la dégradation depuis des comptes publics.

      Pour ne prendre que quelques mesures sur les sujets que je connais le mieux : suspendre la réforme des #retraites de 2023 pour revenir à 62 ans immédiatement est faisable, d’autant que la réforme a à peine commencé d’être appliquée. Cela représente environ 0,8 point de PIB en 2032 pour le système de retraite et c’est en grande partie financé par la hausse prévue des cotisations de 0,6 point pour les employeurs et 0,6 point pour les salariés, selon un chiffrage réalisé d’après le simulateur du COR.

      Il est prudent de ne pas s’engager trop avant sur le droit à la retraite à 60 ans pour toutes et tous, même s’il apparaît évident que pour certaines personnes et certains métiers pénibles qui ne sont aujourd’hui quasiment pas reconnus, la baisse de l’âge de départ devrait être appliquée rapidement.

      Annuler les réformes de l’#assurance_chômage est également très facilement réalisable, la précédente n’étant même pas encore complètement montée en charge et la prochaine n’étant pas encore appliquée.

      Revaloriser le #point_d’indice de la fonction publique de 10 % est un #choix_budgétaire non négligeable dont il s’agit de mesurer l’ampleur, à hauteur de 0,8 point de PIB, selon certaines estimations. Cette priorité constitue bien une partie de la réponse aux graves difficultés de recrutement que connaissent actuellement les services publics.

      C’est particulièrement vrai pour les deux plus importants que sont la santé et l’éducation, dont les concours ne font plus, du tout, le plein. Cela sera sans doute plus utile pour l’avenir que la baisse de la fiscalité pour les ménages les plus aisés.

      L’indexation des salaires, elle, existe sous une certaine forme chez nos voisins Belges, qui ne s’en plaignent pas, et cela mériterait qu’on s’y penche pour en affiner les caractéristiques techniques.

      Aller plus loin sur les recettes

      Côté recettes, là aussi les pistes sont claires : récupérer des moyens sur les patrimoines des millionnaires et milliardaires par le retour à un impôt sur la fortune et l’instauration d’un impôt élevé sur les très hautes #successions. Il est également urgent de revenir sur certaines #niches_fiscales ayant peu d’effet positif et très coûteuses.

      C’est peut-être de ce côté-là d’ailleurs que le programme mériterait d’être approfondi. Un passage en revue systématique de la politique fiscale depuis 2017 pourrait donner des pistes de financement utiles. En effet, depuis cette date, les baisses de prélèvements obligatoires décidées par les différents gouvernements s’élèvent à près de 70 milliards d’euros par an.

      Ces 70 milliards ont eu deux contreparties : une baisse (ou un ralentissement du financement) des protections collectives (retraite, chômage, services publics), mais également un creusement du #déficit_public. Selon l’OFCE, de l’ordre de 40 milliards d’euros de baisse de recettes n’ont jamais été compensés depuis sept ans. Alors que le déficit s’est élevé à 5,5 % du PIB en 2023, ces mesures non compensées représentent environ 1,4 point de PIB, ce qui n’est budgétairement pas très « sérieux ».

      Selon la même logique, revenir sur le #CICE et le #pacte_de_responsabilité, mis en place sous François Hollande, ou sur la baisse de la #cotisation_sur_la_valeur_ajoutée des entreprises (#CVAE) plus récente, pourrait donner davantage de marge de manœuvre. Certes, ce n’est pas parce que ces mesures fiscales étaient contestables, qu’on peut les supprimer toutes, et d’un coup : les entreprises, même si elles n’en avaient pas besoin, s’y sont accoutumées. Mais il y a de la marge pour commencer tout de suite, et récupérer des montants conséquents.

      C’est pour cela qu’une revue paraît opportune afin de savoir jusqu’où et à quel rythme on peut remonter la pente dévalée au cours des dernières années. De manière intéressante, certains amendements aux dernières lois de finances de la majorité présidentielle, le rapport Bozio-Wasmer en cours de rédaction, ou encore la Cour des comptes, esquissent déjà des pistes en ce sens.

      N’esquivons pas le débat démocratique sur la politique à mener

      Ce qui serait « sérieux », et démocratique, c’est que les médias d’information utilisent le temps de cette élection pour mettre en perspective les #visions de politiques économiques alternatives des trois pôles : la baisse des prélèvements et des dépenses sociales de LREM, espérant faire revenir de la croissance, sa version amplifiée par le RN assortie d’une politique économique xénophobe motivée par des orientations racistes, et le changement de cap proposé par le Nouveau Front populaire qui fait le pari d’une réorientation écologique et sociale, appuyée par la fiscalité et dans une perspective keynésienne.

      Si le Nouveau Front populaire gagne, il aura alors à sa disposition tous les moyens de l’Etat pour calibrer, orchestrer, séquencer les mesures de son programme, et proposer des décisions à arbitrer. La feuille de route est suffisamment explicite pour que cela démarre vite, l’administration sait faire. Un programme est là pour définir un cap, le début du chemin et un horizon. En l’espèce, celui du NFP trace des perspectives sans ambiguïtés et enthousiasmantes.

      https://www.alternatives-economiques.fr/michael-zemmour/politique-economique-nouveau-front-populaire-dessine-un-changement-de-cap/00111532
      #crédibilité

  • Klepac’s scoping review of #climate_change, #malaria and #neglected_tropical_diseases: what about the #epistemic significance of #health worker knowledge?
    https://redasadki.me/2024/06/03/klepacs-scoping-review-of-climate-change-malaria-and-neglected-tropical-di

    By #Luchuo_E._Bain and Reda Sadki The scoping review by Klepac et al. provides a comprehensive overview of codified academic knowledge about the complex interplay between climate change and a wide range of infectious diseases, including malaria and 20 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). The review synthesized findings from 511 papers published between 2010 and 2023, revealing that the vast majority of studies focused on malaria, dengue, chikungunya, and leishmaniasis, while other NTDs were relatively understudied. The geographical distribution of studies also varied, with malaria studies concentrated in Africa, Brazil, China, and India, and dengue and chikungunya studies more prevalent in Australia, China, India, Europe, and the USA. One of the most striking findings of the review is (...)

    #Global_health #epistemic_injustice #global_health #learning_culture #Michael_Adekunle_Charles #Petra_Klepac #Thoko_Elphick-Pooley

  • Journée mondiale contre le paludisme : nous avons besoin de nouvelles façons de mener le changement
    https://redasadki.me/2024/04/25/journee-mondiale-contre-le-paludisme-nous-avons-besoin-de-nouvelles-facons

    English version | Version française Aujourd’hui, à l’occasion de la Journée mondiale contre le paludisme, la Fondation Apprendre Genève est fière de se tenir aux côtés des travailleurs de la santé en première ligne dans la lutte contre cette maladie. Le paludisme reste un problème de santé majeure, affectant de manière disproportionnée les communautés d’Afrique et d’Asie. C’est pourquoi la lutte contre le paludisme sera au cœur de #Teach_to_Reach 10, un événement phare qui permet à des milliers de professionnels de santé du monde entier de partager leurs expériences, leurs réussites et leurs défis. Teach to Reach est une plateforme qui facilite l’apprentissage par les pairs afin de mener des actions locales sur des questions de santé urgentes. Lors de Teach to Reach 10 le 21 juin 2024, nous nous (...)

    #Global_health #Human_resources_for_health #locally-led_action #malaria #Michael_Adekunle_Charles #Roll_Back_Malaria #World_Malaria_Day

  • UK strikes £1M deal with Libya to combat irregular arrivals into Europe

    The announcement comes after Britain’s home office minister concluded a visit to Tripoli with representatives from the European Union, the United Nations, France, Germany, and Malta.

    The United Kingdom will pay Libya £1 million (1.17 million euros) to stop people from entering Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea and instead repatriate them to their countries of origin, the German news agency dpa reported.

    The announcement comes after #Michael_Tomlinson, Britain’s home office minister, concluded a visit to Tripoli last week with representatives from the European Union, the United Nations, France, Germany, and Malta. Tomlinson is the first UK home office minister to visit the North African country in decades.

    “As well as supporting survivors of trafficking, the funding will assist migrants who choose to return to their countries of origin. These voluntary returns are one of the most fundamental tools at our disposal for driving down migration numbers globally,” Tomlinson said in a statement published on his website.

    The International Organization for Migration (IOM) defines voluntary returns as the “assisted or independent return to the country of origin, transit or another country based on the voluntary decision of the returnee.”

    Launching pad for entry to Europe

    The previous year saw record-high arrivals in Europe from North Africa, with over 150,000 migrants reaching Italy by sea. Libya, a major departure point for Mediterranean-bound migrants, saw nearly 40,000 arrivals in Europe.

    “The new funding I announced is only the latest step in our drive to bolster international efforts, building on our new deal with Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, and agreements with other countries including Vietnam and Albania,” said Tomlinson in an article he wrote for British newspaper The Telegraph.

    Last month, the UK also announced a new working arrangement with Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency to crack down on people smuggling networks by strengthening Frontex’s border agency capabilities.

    “This isn’t just Libya or North Africa; it isn’t just Europe. It is a global challenge. And we are getting on with the job. We will do whatever it takes to secure our borders, reform our immigration system, and stop the boats,” Tomlinson concluded.

    In addition to Libya, the UK has pledged a £3 million deal with Turkey to construct a new center to coordinate joint operations between the UK and the Turkish border patrol. Tukey is reportedly the starting point for 90 percent of the small boats attempting to enter the UK by crossing the English Channel.

    Last year, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak penned similar bilateral agreements with Belgium, Bulgaria, and Serbia.

    Outsourcing migrant oppression

    The UK and Libya alliance comes in the wake of media reports that the humanitarian rescue group SOS Humanity 1 clashed with the Libyan coast guard while conducting a rescue mission earlier this month. SOS Humanity alleged that the Libyan Coast Guard had fired live bullets and used violence.

    Human rights groups have widely criticized Europe for outsourcing their migration policies to African countries, particularly those with a record of human rights abuses such as Libya.

    In January, Human Rights Watch released a report that revealed the dire conditions faced by migrants and asylum seekers in Libya which include torture, forced labor, and sexual assault.

    After a fact-finding mission in Libya last year, the UN Human Rights Council declared that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed against Libyans and migrants throughout Libya since 2016.”

    There are an estimated 600,000 migrants stranded in Libya according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

    Failed state

    Libya spiraled into chaos after Muammar Gaddafi’s removal in 2011. Libya plunged into a failed state with two rival political administrations controlled by militias.

    Since then, Libya has faced persistent condemnation from human rights organizations for widespread human rights violations and unchecked actions by the government.

    #Angleterre #UK #Libye #externalisation #migrations #réfugiés #financement #aide_financière

  • Education as a system of systems: rethinking learning #Theory to tackle complex threats to our societies
    https://redasadki.me/2024/01/31/education-as-a-system-of-systems-rethinking-learning-theory-to-tackle-comp

    In their 2014 article, Jacobson, Kapur, and Reimann propose shifting the paradigm of learning theory towards the conceptual framework of complexity science. They argue that the longstanding dichotomy between cognitive and situative theories of learning fails to capture the intricate dynamics at play. Learning arises across a “bio-psycho-social” system involving interactive feedback loops linking neuronal processes, individual cognition, social context, and cultural milieu. As such, what emerges cannot be reduced to any individual component. To better understand how macro-scale phenomena like learning manifest from micro-scale interactions, the authors invoke the notion of “emergence” prominent in the study of complex adaptive systems. Discrete agents interacting according to simple rules (...)

    #complex_learning #dichotomies #emergence #Michael_J._Jacobson #systems_theory

  • Migranti, l’idea di Biancofiore : “Costruire un’isola artificiale in acque internazionali”

    La senatrice centrista dice di ispirarsi all’#Isola_delle_Rose, e sulla fattispecie di quanto predisposto dall’Australia

    «Costruire, immediatamente, in acque internazionali un’isola artificiale nel Mediterraneo, una sorta di ’pit stop’ di approdo, sulla fattispecie dell’Isola delle Rose, dove realizzare un hub di accoglienza e salvezza, e di verifica se gli immigrati abbiano titolo a venire in Europa o siano clandestini». È questa l’idea, «sulla fattispecie - spiega - di quanto predisposto dall’Australia», lanciata dalla capogruppo al Senato Civici d’Italia-Noi Moderati-Coraggio Italia-Udc-Maie, #Michaela_Biancofiore, per gestire l’emergenza migranti.

    Sempre durante la trasmissione de La Verità ’Dimmi la verità’, Biancofiore osserva che si tratterebbe di agire «in accordo con l’Ue e l’Onu» e ricorda come la sua proposta sia «un pò quanto ha suggerito anche la Grecia: un luogo neutro di cooperazione internazionale nel quale, di concerto con la Croce Rossa internazionale e altre associazioni umanitarie, ci si possa prendere cura di questi disperati, farli approdare senza lasciarli annegare ma, allo stesso tempo, gli si prendano le impronte per le identificazioni e per valutare il loro diritto a chiedere ed ottenere asilo».

    «Chi non ha i requisiti - dice ancora - dovrà essere rimpatriato, come sottolineato dalla presidente Von der Leyen. Si impedirebbe così il dramma di Lampedusa o Porto Empedocle o altri luoghi rivieraschi del nostro Paese o della Spagna, della Grecia, di Malta e così via».

    «Benissimo quanto sta facendo la premier Meloni per fermare gli sbarchi di clandestini e per non far diventare l’Italia il campo profughi dell’Ue - aggiunge - Dobbiamo imprimere una vera svolta al fenomeno migratorio impedendo che i clandestini arrivino sulle nostre coste che sono, ricordiamolo, i confini dell’Europa».

    https://www.repubblica.it/politica/2023/09/20/news/emergenza_migranti_biancofiore_isola_artificiale-415161712

    Le projet auquel Biancofiore fait référence, l’#île_de_la_Rose :

    Pendant une courte période, la République espérantiste de l’île de la Rose (en espéranto : Esperantista respubliko de la Insulo de la Rozoj) a existé du 1er mai au 24 juillet 1968 en tant que micronation au large de la côte de la province italienne de Forlì dans la mer Adriatique.

    https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8Ele_de_la_Rose_(micronation)
    #micro-Etat #micronation #Insulo_de_la_Rozoj

    #île #île_artificielle #Italie #migrations #asile #réfugiés #eaux_internationales #Méditerranée #externalisation #tri #catégorisation

    –-

    ajouté à la métaliste sur des #îles qui sont utilisées (ou dont il a été question d’imaginer de le faire) pour y envoyer des #réfugiés :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/881889

  • #Michael_Zemmour (économiste) : « Il y a un tel #contrôle sur les allocataires qu’on leur rend la vie impossible »

    Michael Zemmour, économiste et maître de conférences en économie à l’Université Paris 1, était l’invité de BFMTV pour réagir aux chiffres des fraudes fiscale et sociale. La lutte face à ces fraudes a été fixée comme un objectif pour “les 100 jours” annoncés par Emmanuel Macron lors de son allocution. Invité sur BFMTV ce mardi matin, Bruno Le Maire a par ailleurs durci le ton sur la fraude sociale et les personnes qui envoient des aides sociales vers leur pays d’origine.

    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8k7mon


    #fraude_fiscale #fact-checking #vidéo #fraude_sociale #fraude_fiscale

    • Lumière sur : Michael Zemmour

      Michael Zemmour, le guerrier de la réforme des retraites qui a débarqué sur la scène avec un esprit aussi affûté qu’une épée de samouraï ! Ce maître de conférences à l’université Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne et chercheur à Liepp (Sciences-Po) a laissé sa marque en se battant pour des politiques sociales bien financées. Et il a réussi à le faire en moins de temps qu’il n’en faut pour dire "retraite" !

      Ce passionné d’économie a écrit des bouquins tellement percutants que même les planches de bois ont peur de lui ! Son chef-d’œuvre intitulé « En France, le travail coûte trop cher » est une source d’inspiration pour peut-être chercher à comprendre les mécanismes des enjeux économiques et sociaux du pays.

      Avec une détermination à faire pâlir un militant enragé, Michael Zemmour s’est jeté dans l’arène du débat sur la réforme des retraites, tel un gladiateur du savoir. Ses analyses ont électrisé le public, attirant l’attention des gens qui cherchent désespérément des solutions concrètes. C’est simple, il est aussi incontournable dans les médias que la météo en été !

      Sa capacité à parler de choses compliquées avec autant de clarté que le rire d’un enfant fait de lui un héros du peuple, capable de briser les barrières entre le jargon économique et le langage compréhensible par tous. Michael Zemmour est le Messi des politiques sociales !

      Son moment de gloire a été lorsqu’il a enflammé le micro de France Inter lors d’une entrevue enflammée avec Léa Salamé. Telle une tornade de vérité, il a démoli l’argument bancaire du ministre de l’Économie Bruno Le Maire sur la pension minimale de 1200 euros pour tous les retraités. Michael a sorti sa boule de cristal et a révélé que le nombre de retraités en dessous de ce seuil serait encore plus long qu’un discours de politicien en campagne !

      Cette révélation fracassante a secoué la sphère publique et a ouvert les yeux sur les véritables enjeux des retraites. Et ce n’était que le début ! Grâce à ses analyses éclairées, il a réussi à ébranler les fondations de la réforme proposée, telle une danse endiablée sur les idées fausses du gouvernement.

      Aujourd’hui, Michael Zemmour continue son combat avec le sourire, comme un super-héros engagé, prêt à sauver la France des méandres de l’ignorance économique. Alors, préparez-vous, car avec lui, le futur des politiques sociales s’annonce plus brillant qu’un feu d’artifice du 14 juillet !

      Ps : Vous savez quelle est la différence entre Eric Zemmour et Michael Zemmour ? C’est simple, Eric est tellement obscur que même dans une pièce plongée dans le noir complet, vous ne le verrez toujours pas. Tandis que Michael est tellement brillant qu’il pourrait éclairer une salle entière rien qu’en récitant des chiffres économiques ! Mais bon, chacun son style : l’un préfère se cacher dans l’ombre des controverses, tandis que l’autre brille de mille feux dans le débat public !

      https://twitter.com/RomainMerciere/status/1688109097554436096

  • The Migration Managers

    How a little-known organization far from public scrutiny is helping to shape Europe’s migration policy.

    “Making Migration Better” is what the #International_Centre_for_Migration_Policy_Development (#ICMPD) promises its members. ICMPD advises countries in the background, creates international networks and also becomes active itself in border regions of the EU. ICMPD is an organization that is known to only a few, but at the same time has become an important player in EU migration policy.

    Together with a team of international journalists, we investigated what exactly ICMPD does. We filed numerous requests under the EU and German Freedom of Information laws and received hundreds of documents in response. Additionally, we were able to view internal ICMPD documents, some of which we are also publishing today after thorough examination and careful consideration. We shared our findings in advance with ZDF Magazin Royale and the Austrian daily DerStandard, and jointly coordinated articles.

    Our investigation led to the EU’s external borders in the Western Balkans and to North Africa; to training camps for border guards and “dead body management”, and the roleplayed not only by ministries and governments, but also by the German Federal Police, a former Austrian Vice Chancellor, and the now internationally wanted white-collar criminal Jan Marsalek.
    Our research shows:

    – As an international organization, ICMPD is subject to few transparency obligations. This allows ICMPD to create and host spaces where member states like Germany can discuss migration policy out of the public eye.
    - ICMPD directly and indirectly influences European migration policy. Strengthening of asylum law, which is publicly proposed by politicians, was partly worked out beforehand in informal meetings or outlined in documents of ICMPD.
    – ICMPD directly and indirectly supports border and coast guards in Libya, Morocco and Tunisia - authorities that are accused of grave human rights violations. In doing so, ICMPD is helping to push the EU’s external border towards North Africa. Currently, the EU is also discussing border procedures at the EU’s external borders as part of the asylum system reform.
    - ICMPD co-developed ideas for a dubious asylum project - including for Germany. In the process, ICMPD also worked closely with Jan Marsalek, a white-collar criminal who has since gone underground.

    ICMPD was founded in 1993. The organization’s purpose was to make it possible to exchanges views on migration policy. Due to the ongoing conflict in Yugoslavia,, the focus was mainly on the Balkans. Nearly two decades later, ICMPD’s focus would radically shift.

    Michael Spindelegger was appointed as he ICMPD’s Director General in 2016. He is a former Austrian vice chancellor, former Secretary General of ÖVP, the countrys’ biggest governing party, and the political foster father of Austria’s former chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Commenting on his arrival at ICMPD, Spindelegger said in an interview, “I want to give the organization more political weight and visibility.”

    Since Spindelegger took office, ICMPD’s projects, staff and annual budget have steadily increased. While the budget was 16.8 million euros in 2015, it was already 74.5 million in 2022. 56 percent of the money ICMPD received in 2022 came from the EU Commission. The rest came from EU member states, transit countries and countries of origin: the members of the ICMPD.

    Technocratic terms to disguise the true essence

    ICMPD describes its main business as a three-pillar model of “migration management”: research, dialogue and capacity building. The organization writes studies on migration, it brings states to the table for negotiations, and then implements what governments have decided. But what sounds mundane in theory has far-reaching consequences in practice.

    “I think the notion of migration management appeals to a lot of people because it makes migration more of a technocratic issue,” explains Jeff Crisp. Crisp was a senior staff member of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and is an expert on migration. The term migration management, according to him, is so popular among governments and organizations because it obscures the true nature of their actions and there is no need to talk openly about restriction and deterrence.

    In 2020, ICMPD’s chief Spindelegger described how he envisions successful “migration management” in several interviews. EU states should enter into more partnerships with countries of origin for a “more efficient return policy,” i.e., deport more people. Asylum applications should be processed in a few days near the border, which human rights organizations criticize as insufficient time for a fair process. Similarly, the ICMPD chief argued that migrants should be selected according to the needs of companies in the destination countries.

    These ideas have been widely criticized by human rights activists and lawyers, but they fit into the political line of many European governments, especially in view of the current debate about reforming the EU asylum system.

    In early 2023, the need for deportations and cooperation with third countries is now publicly the dogma of EU migration policy. In Germany, the governing coalition came to conclusions after a summit which are in fact contrary to the coalition agreements: the government wants more deportations, asylum procedures at the EU’s external borders, agreements with third countries, as shown by a document we recently published. To enforce more deportations, Germany has even created its own special envoy since the beginning of the year.

    This strategic orientation has been discussed for some time, but in an informal setting: at negotiation rounds, events and congresses such as those organized by ICMPD. So far, however, little of this has reached the outside world, because ICMPD has almost no transparency obligations.
    Backroom Talks and Racist Comments

    Legally, ICMPD is an “International Organization” - an intergovernmental association to carry out a supranational task. It has the same status as, for example, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). As an international organization, ICMPD does not pay taxes, is difficult to prosecute in court, and cannot be summoned before any parliament for information.

    This special status seems to be welcomed, above all, by EU states whose migration policies are particularly controversial. For example, according to the minutes of a meeting with Spindelegger in July 2020, the then-deputy migration minister of Greece said, “ICMPD can provide a flexible and informal forum (for discussions) without the pressure of the media; A forum to solve problems.” One solution he may have wanted to discuss at the time was a heavily criticized asylum law which contemplated rejected asylum seekers to be detained on a blanket basis.

    In the informal setting provided by ICMPD, some seem to dare to formulate what would probably be strongly criticized publicly. A representative of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security, in an informal exchange with representatives of EU states and EU institutions in May 2020 on “The Protection of Human and Public Security in the New Migration Agenda,” said that the “Refugee Treaty is not the issue”, but the European Convention on Human Rights is. According to the representative, “the right to request asylum makes migration management” very difficult”.

    Insights into the inner workings of ICMPD are provided by an internal diversity report from 2019, which we were able to view. Half of the respondents said they believe that not all employees have the same opportunities. More than one in three said they had been discriminated against or harassed while working at ICMPD. Similarly, the report found that employees regularly made racist and discriminatory comments about people from regions where ICMPD works - especially from the African continent.

    When asked, ICMPD said that “internal steps” have been taken since then and “will be subject to a new review soon.”
    Externalization of the EU’s external borders

    In 2015, the EU launched the Trust Fund for Africa with a funding budget of five billion euros. It was an indirect reaction to the increasing number of migrants coming to Europe. Since then, EU funds have been flowing to North African states and their border institutions for technological and personnel development, among other things - and ICMPD is helping with this.

    Exactly what that looks like is revealed at a meeting in January 2019 between Spindelegger and the EU Commission. It says that an agreement with Morocco for ICMPD “border management assistance operations” had been concluded. A previous investigation shows that, in the course of this project, surveillance technologies that allow access to secured phones had been delivered. According to a former ICMPD employee, there were no mechanisms to prevent abuses by Morocco, such as using this technology to target activists, academics and journalists.

    Furthermore, the meeting between ICMPD and the EU Commission relates to border security through “provide training and technical assistance” in Libya. The EU stresses that ICMPD’s involvement is “instrumental” to moving this forward quickly - for example, with regard to the “White Paper,” a strategy document that, while not binding on the parties involved, sets the political direction and next steps.

    For several years, journalists and human rights organizations have reported on how migrants are systematically pushed back along the central Mediterranean and the inhumane detention conditions that await them in Libya. The fact that the EU and some member states support Libya is also an issue. What is less known, however, is what mediating role ICMPD had in the elaboration of the strategy.

    Just a few months after the EU highlighted ICMPD’s mediating role in the process, representatives from the EU, UN, Libya, France, Italy, and ICMPD met in Tunis in June 2019. The aim of this meeting was to start the elaboration of a strategy paper for a “fully-fledged border security and management system”.
    Training and coordination with the so-called Libyan Coast Guard

    We had filed a request under the EU Freedom of Information law for the white paper from the EU Commission, but it was denied. The reason given was that, if the document became public, the relationship between the EU and Libya would be endangered. Nevertheless, we have obtained the document and publish it after a thorough examination. It is a version from December 2019, which is described as final.

    The document justifies why the preparation of such a strategy document is necessary: Libya would need to reform its structures in order to regain full control over its borders. The reason given is that the country faces “immense challenges” from “the flow of migrants, who, to a large extent, intend to use Libya as a transit route to Europe.” Migration “has complicated an already fragile political situation” and is “undermining the security, stability, and social wellbeing of the Libyan state and society.

    What should follow from this, with the participation of ICMPD among others, is shown in an EU document from 2021: A training center for the so-called Libyan coast guard is to be established. Likewise, mechanisms are to be created to forge cooperation between Libya, the EU and neighboring countries - for the Border Guard Training Academy and the Libyan Maritime Rescue Coordination Center.

    Human rights organizations call this approach the “externalization of the EU’s external borders,” which means the outsourcing of border protection and migration management tasks to third countries. Likewise, cooperation with the Libyan Maritime Rescue Coordination Unit would lead to more pull-backs. This means that third countries, with the support of the EU, would prevent fleeing people from reaching Europe.

    “The support given by the EU to the Libyan coast guard in terms of pull-backs, pushbacks, (and) interceptions led to violations of certain human rights,” said Chaloka Beyani in late March 2023, who was a member of the Fact-Finding Mission to Libya of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which released its report in the process.

    “You can’t push back people to areas that are unsafe, and the Libyan waters are unsafe for the embarkation of migrants,” Beyani continued. He added that the EU and its member states are not found to be responsible for war crimes, but “the support given has aided and abetted the commission of the crimes.”
    Atmosphere of hatred towards migrants

    ICMPD is not only active in Libya, but also in Tunisia - and since 2019, on a much larger scale.

    That same year, Tunisia elected a new president who is now not only pushing the state system towards dictatorship, but also creating an atmosphere of hatred towards migrants. At the end of February 2023, he called on Tunisian security forces to take urgent measures against migrants.

    Romdhane Ben Amor, spokesman for the Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights, tells us exactly what that looks like. “There is a political pressure on the coast guard to prevent people from leaving, no matter what the cost, no matter what the damage. That’s how the violence started, and the Coast Guard is responsible for a lot of it.”

    Reports of human rights abuses by the Tunisian coast guard are mounting. Alarmphone writes about this, saying that the Tunisian coast guard beats migrants with sticks, demands money for rescues, and even steals the boat engines.

    And it is these security forces that continue to be supported and trained by ICMPD with the support of the EU, Germany, Austria and Denmark. In fact, this cooperation is even being expanded, as EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson reiterated at a meeting in Tunis in late April 2023.

    When asked about this, ICMPD says that it learned about the violence emanating from the Tunisian coast guard through the media and therefore cannot comment further.
    Active support of the German Federal Police

    Regarding EU support to the Tunisian coast guard, a dossier was prepared in 2019 jointly with ICMPD. “Preferred options in line with the National vision” had been identified, as well as “requests for equipment and capacity building measures.” Underwater drones, radars and even a dedicated IT system, the Integrated System for Maritime Surveillance, or ISMariS, were to be provided.

    Germany was presented with the plans for Tunisia at a meeting in January 2020 between the Federal Police and ICMPD. The goal: “Make migration and mobility of people orderly, safe and regular.” To this end, the coast guards of North African states are to be trained and provided with equipment. Two training centers are being built in Tunisia for this purpose, one in the south and one in the north of the country. The northern center is financed by Germany.

    The minutes of a meeting in January 2022 show how Germany is continuing to provide support: the Federal Police have equipped the Tunisian coast guard with 12 speedboats. Likewise, the Federal Police was “involved in SAR-connected trainings”. In an email written after the meeting, the Federal Police representative again advocates that Tunisia’s fleet be further expanded through “donor support.” For the following years, he proposed “boating training for Fast Control Boats” and “modernization of the boat fleet.”

    We were unable to find out in detail what curriculum ICMPD, the German Federal Police and other authorities of EU member states use to train the Tunisian coast guard. However, the minutes of various meetings provide an insight into the subject areas. French security authorities organized for example a “training course on the management of dead bodies at sea.”

    When asked, the German Federal Police confirmed that it was supporting the Tunisian coast guard with “training, advisory and procurement services.” In response to criticism of its involvement in Tunisia, the Federal Police pointed out that Tunisia was described as a “safe port” on the UNHCR website. However, this description can no longer be found on the UNHCR website.
    More deportations through migration diplomacy

    ICMPD is very active not only on the African continent, but also along the so-called Balkan route.

    In July 2020, the “Salzburg Forum”, a meeting of 18 EU interior ministers, EU commissioners, EU agencies such as Frontex and ICMPD took place in Vienna. The result was, among other things, the establishment of the “Joint Cooperation Platform on Irregular Migration”. This was chaired by the former deputy director of Frontex Berndt Körner.

    According to preparatory documents and an email, ICMPD elaborated on why such a platform was needed at a follow-up meeting in February 2021. “Irregular economic migration” is a shared problem, ICMPD said, and therefore there is a need to build capacity for “quick procedures, quick returns, and to coordination border closures again”.

    ICMPD will not only assist with training and capacity building, it said, but will also help with the “implementation of a regional returns mechanism” - meaning deportations. Through “migration diplomacy,” ICMPD would support the negotiation of agreements with third countries.

    Previous experience in supporting deportations has been gained by ICMPD in Turkey. The project, with the acronym FRMON, aims to “strengthen the capacity to conduct return operations in Turkey.” The duration was from 2021 to 2022, during which time Human Rights Watch wrote that deportations from Turkey to Afghanistan had increased by 150 percent. Many other states had suspended this after the Taliban took power.
    More money for migration management

    Those who try to enter the EU via the so-called Western Balkan route often arrive from Bosnia-Herzegovina and want to get to Croatia. In recent years, journalists and activists have documented how Croatian border officials use batons to push back migrants, preventing them from applying for asylum in an EU country.

    The Western Balkan states, where many of the migrants are then stranded, are therefore of great importance to the EU. Bosnia-Herzegovina has been an official candidate for EU membership since 2022 and must therefore fulfill certain conditions. For this purpose, a so-called Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) fund was set up years before. Part of the money goes to migration and border management.

    What this means exactly is revealed in documents from meetings between ICMPD and Bosnian authorities, which we have obtained and will publish following a detailed examination.

    In January 2021, shortly before the second meeting of the coordination platform, Spindelegger made a phone call on behalf of ICMPD to then-Bosnian Security Minister Selmo Cikotić. According to the minutes, the telephone call had been initiated by ICMPD. We have the preparatory documents.

    ICMPD criticized that EU funds “for the management of migration would be mainly provided for humanitarian needs." Ninety percent of the budget has been used on basic needs of migrants and only 10 percent for “migration management,” he said. Therefore, according to ICMPD, it “became evident that it is necessary to intensify the efforts aimed at strengthening the capacities of the migration management authorities in BiH”. For a good “migration management” ICMPD will provide equipment, training but also personnel.

    The Lipa camp, whose detention center had been reported on several times in the previous weeks, was also discussed. The security minister was pleased that ICMPD had sent a “project proposal” regarding Lipa.

    500,000 € had been paid by the EU Commission to ICMPD for the construction of the detention unit. According to the documents, the order was for “temporary detention facilities
    for migrants within the multi-purpose reception centre Lipa in line with European and international standards.”. When asked, ICMPD did not answer what was meant by this term. The detention unit would be built to “support the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina to further develope and implement capacity in the area of returns in order to adress irregular migration.”

    We publish the “Action Plan” prepared by ICMPD with the EU.
    Dialogue only

    Another point raised in the conversation between ICMPD and Bosnia’s minister is a “facilitation of dialogue between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia and Slovenia regarding readmission and prevention of push-backs.” It is true that there has been a so-called “readmission” agreement between Bosnia and Croatia since 2007. This allows a state to send migrants back to another country. So far, however, this agreement has not been implemented, and Croatia was not yet a member of the EU at the time of the agreement.

    The Border Violence Monitoring Network reports that migrants who enter Croatia through Bosnia and Herzegovina are apprehended, imprisoned, and forced to sign a document in Croatian agreeing to be sent back to Bosnia. According to a conversation with representatives of the network and a report by Human Rights Watch, this is made possible by the revival of the readmission agreement – the dialogue that ICMPD wanted to promote.
    A dubious card project

    Even before Germany became a member of ICMPD, the organization had come up with something very special for German “migration management.” The now internationally wanted white-collar criminal Jan Marsalek and the now insolvent financial services provider Wirecard were a part of it.. Their plan: a “digital refugee card”. Asylum seekers were no longer to receive cash, but all financial support was to be paid out digitally.

    According to the project description, which we are now publishing, this card should not be limited to the payment function. The “usability of certain functions, such as payment transactions” should be limited to “certain geographies” and “deployment scenarios.” Similarly, the card “could be extended to include the possibility of direct retrieval of cardholder data with government/police terminals/equipment.”

    The project should not be limited to Bavaria, according to documents we received following a Freedom of Information Act request to the German Federal Ministry of the Interior. Bavarian State Secretary Joachim Herrmann wrote in a letter to then-Interior Minister Horst Seehofer in October 2020 that he planned to "implement this new payment system in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Spindelegger and ICMPD. He said it could “serve as a model for similar projects in Europe.” In his response, Seehofer called the project a “lighthouse project.”

    “If a German politician were to propose introducing an identity card that is also a bank card that all Germans use to pay for their purchases, and which could then be read by all authorities, including the police, one thing would be certain: he would be out of a job within hours,” said Matthias Spielkamp of AlgorithmWatch. “But the fact that Seehofer and others call it a lighthouse project to force people seeking protection to use such a card shows abundantly clear their contempt for the human rights of those who need protection the most.”

    What Herrmann and Seehofer’s emails do not mention, however, is who was originally intended to carry out the project alongside ICMPD. The project description comes from a mail in November 2019 for preparation of a meeting between state secretaries from Bavaria and Brandenburg, a CDU politician, ICMPD head Michael Spindelegger and Jan Marsalek, at that time still CFO of Wirecard. Another email we publish shows that Marsalek had already had a conversation with a company about the idea of a Digital Refugee Card in July 2019 and had helped develop the idea.

    As the report from Wirecard’s investigative committee shows, Marsalek had a very unique idea when it came to migrants. He wanted to pay for a border guard force of 15,000 to 20,000 “militiamen” to stop people trying to get to Europe via Libya and the central Mediterranean Sea as early as Libya’s southern border.

    Wirecard is now insolvent and is considered Germany’s biggest financial scandal. However, the “Digital Refugee Card” project is not completely on hold. In Bavaria, the legal framework for the project has already been adjusted accordingly. An email from the State Ministry to the BMI in March 2021 states that a “private sector payment service provider” will provide the cards. An “involvement of NGOs” is not planned.

    In response to a press inquiry, the Bavarian Ministry of Interior said that it was currently looking for an implementing company.

    https://fragdenstaat.de/en/blog/2023/05/19/the-migration-managers

    #lobby #migrations #asile #réfugiés #frontières #lobbying #influence #politique_migratoire #externalisation #Afrique_du_Nord #Tunisie #route_des_Balkans #Jan_Marsalek #gardes-côtes_libyens #Maroc #Libye #Michael_Spindelegger #migration_management #Spindelegger

  • « La stratégie de Darmanin rappelle celle des années 30 »
    https://www.politis.fr/articles/2023/05/micheal-foessel-la-strategie-de-darmanin-rappelle-celle-des-annees-30

    ... Au fond, cette sorte de confusion, de bouillie intellectuelle et politique, tend à annihiler le principe majeur issu de la Révolution française et de la modernité politique, le clivage droite-gauche. Faute de mémoire historique, on se condamne à être aveugle au présent. Si, dans le contexte actuel, il y a une faute démocratique de la part de la Macronie, c’est de ne pas avoir compris ou d’avoir refusé d’admettre que le camp progressiste avait besoin d’une victoire. Non seulement pour lui-même, mais pour l’avenir de la démocratie française.

    On le voit très bien ces dernières semaines puisque les syndicats (et bien sûr les partis politiques de la Nupes) repoussent sans cesse l’échéance : après la motion de censure, cela a été la saisie du Conseil constitutionnel, puis maintenant le 1er Mai (1), ensuite la décision du même Conseil sur le référendum d’initiative partagée, prévue le 3 mai, puis enfin une proposition de loi d’abrogation de la réforme des retraites présentée par le groupe LIOT en juin. C’est de toute évidence un crève-cœur pour les leaders syndicaux d’avoir à dire à ces gens qui se sont battus, ont fait grève, ont milité ensemble : « On a perdu. » En sous-entendant : nous ne pouvons plus rien à faire...

    ... La gauche est devenue un signifiant assez démonétisé. En tout cas, pour cette part de la gauche dite « réformiste » qui a troqué son désir de transformation contre une stratégie d’adaptation. Qu’on le veuille ou non, s’il reste une gauche en France, c’est grâce à La France insoumise et en particulier à Jean-Luc Mélenchon. En Italie, par exemple, il a fallu la victoire du néofascisme pour qu’elle tente de renaître (difficilement) de ses cendres...

    ... Depuis l’apparition de la Nupes, même les socialistes sont présentés par le parti gouvernemental comme des « extrêmes », à égalité avec le RN. Après avoir dédiabolisé l’extrême droite, on diabolise tout projet de transformation sociale ou de réforme institutionnelle. Ne pas être pour la logique institutionnelle de la Ve République, par exemple, c’est ne pas être républicain.

    Mais il y a un deuxième piège, tendu cette fois-ci par l’extrême droite, qui épouse le désir de justice sociale simplement parce qu’il émane de son électorat. Cet électorat est en partie celui d’une classe moyenne en voie de paupérisation, donc déclassée. C’est le processus qui a toujours fait arriver l’extrême droite au pouvoir par les urnes : une interprétation de la souffrance sociale comme angoisse identitaire. La réforme des retraites, après la loi travail de Valls, accélère ce déclassement.

    C’est pourquoi je crois qu’il faut trouver un point de clivage entre la gauche et l’extrême droite qui coupe l’herbe sous le pied à leur confusion dans la rhétorique des « extrêmes ». On ne peut pas placer ce clivage sur le seul terrain social puisque, comme on l’a vu avec cette réforme des retraites, l’extrême droite a réussi à convaincre qu’elle mènerait une politique en faveur des classes populaires. Pour savoir qu’elle ne le fera pas, il faut mobiliser une mémoire historique aujourd’hui malheureusement en déshérence.

    Mais alors quel peut être ce point de clivage ?

    La mobilisation contre la réforme des retraites indique la voie. Comme d’ailleurs au moment des gilets jaunes, on est passé spontanément d’une contestation sociale à une contestation de type politique ou même institutionnel, au moment du recours au 49.3. Le Pen a dénoncé cet usage, mais elle ne fera jamais la critique de la monarchie présidentielle, dont elle entend bien se servir le moment venu. Elle se dit en faveur du retour à la retraite à 60 ans (ce qu’elle ne fera jamais), mais elle n’abandonnera pas le présidentialisme, même dans son discours.

    On a là un exemple paradigmatique montrant que la justice sociale et la question des institutions démocratiques sont en fait les deux faces d’une même médaille. La réactivation de la VIe République, de la refondation politique, devrait être au cœur du discours de la gauche, précisément parce qu’il n’y a qu’elle qui peut la porter. Et cela en vertu de la continuité entre égalité sociale et égalité politique. Le moment est propice puisque les institutions de la Ve République produisent un procès immédiat en illégitimité. Il faut donc développer un discours positif en la matière, sur lequel l’extrême droite sera contrainte d’avouer qu’elle ne donnera pas à la population les moyens politiques de ses promesses sociales.

    L’agonie du néolibéralisme se double de celle du présidentialisme.

    L’agonie du néolibéralisme se double de celle du présidentialisme tant il apparaît que des méthodes autoritaires sont consubstantielles à des mesures impopulaires. Il me semble urgent d’élaborer intellectuellement un nouveau clivage qui marque que l’alternative principale se joue aujourd’hui entre la gauche et l’extrême droite. En termes plus philosophiques, entre l’égalité et l’identité.

    Et cette gauche doit être assez large pour espérer l’emporter, quoi qu’on pense de chacune de ses composantes, grâce à une alliance entre son pôle réformiste et celui de la gauche de rupture, chacune devant dépasser leurs divergences. Seule cette tactique de « front populaire » peut ouvrir la possibilité d’une victoire. Il n’y aura pas de progrès social sans approfondissement des droits démocratiques.

  • UK signs contract with US startup to identify migrants in small-boat crossings

    The UK government has turned a US-based startup specialized in artificial intelligence as part of its pledge to stop small-boat crossings. Experts have already pointed out the legal and logistical challenges of the plan.

    In a new effort to address the high number of Channel crossings, the UK Home Office is working with the US defense startup #Anduril, specialized in the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

    A surveillance tower has already been installed at Dover, and other technologies might be rolled out with the onset of warmer temperatures and renewed attempts by migrants to reach the UK. Some experts already point out the risks and practical loopholes involved in using AI to identify migrants.

    “This is obviously the next step of the illegal migration bill,” said Olivier Cahn, a researcher specialized in penal law.

    “The goal is to retrieve images that were taken at sea and use AI to show they entered UK territory illegally even if people vanish into thin air upon arrival in the UK.”

    The “illegal migration bill” was passed by the UK last month barring anyone from entering the country irregularly from filing an asylum claim and imposing a “legal duty” to remove them to a third country.
    Who is behind Anduril?

    Founded in 2017 by its CEO #Palmer_Luckey, Anduril is backed by #Peter_Thiel, a Silicon Valley investor and supporter of Donald Trump. The company has supplied autonomous surveillance technology to the US Department of Defense (DOD) to detect and track migrants trying to cross the US-Mexico border.

    In 2021, the UK Ministry of Defence awarded Anduril with a £3.8-million contract to trial an advanced base defence system. Anduril eventually opened a branch in London where it states its mission: “combining the latest in artificial intelligence with commercial-of-the-shelf sensor technology (EO, IR, Radar, Lidar, UGS, sUAS) to enhance national security through automated detection, identification and tracking of objects of interest.”

    According to Cahn, the advantage of Brexit is that the UK government is no longer required to submit to the General Data Protection Regulation (RGPDP), a component of data protection that also addresses the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA areas.

    “Even so, the UK has data protection laws of its own which the government cannot breach. Where will the servers with the incoming data be kept? What are the rights of appeal for UK citizens whose data is being processed by the servers?”, he asked.

    ’Smugglers will provide migrants with balaclavas for an extra 15 euros’

    Cahn also pointed out the technical difficulties of identifying migrants at sea. “The weather conditions are often not ideal, and many small-boat crossings happen at night. How will facial recognition technology operate in this context?”

    The ability of migrants and smugglers to adapt is yet another factor. “People are going to cover their faces, and anyone would think the smugglers will respond by providing migrants with balaclavas for an extra 15 euros.”

    If the UK has solicited the services of a US startup to detect and identify migrants, the reason may lie in AI’s principle of self-learning. “A machine accumulates data and recognizes what it has already seen. The US is a country with a significantly more racially and ethnically diverse population than the UK. Its artificial intelligence might contain data from populations which are more ethnically comparable to the populations that are crossing the Channel, like Somalia for example, thus facilitating the process of facial recognition.”

    For Cahn, it is not capturing the images which will be the most difficult but the legal challenges that will arise out of their usage. “People are going to be identified and there are going to be errors. If a file exists, there needs to be the possibility for individuals to appear before justice and have access to a judge.”

    A societal uproar

    In a research paper titled “Refugee protection in the artificial intelligence Era”, Chatham House notes “the most common ethical and legal challenges associated with the use of AI in asylum and related border and immigration systems involve issues of opacity and unpredictability, the potential for bias and unlawful discrimination, and how such factors affect the ability of individuals to obtain a remedy in the event of erroneous or unfair decisions.”

    For Cahn, the UK government’s usage of AI can only be used to justify and reinforce its hardline position against migrants. “For a government that doesn’t respect the Geneva Convention [whose core principle is non-refoulement, editor’s note] and which passed an illegal migration law, it is out of the question that migrants have entered the territory legally.”

    Identifying migrants crossing the Channel is not going to be the hardest part for the UK government. Cahn imagines a societal backlash with, “the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom being solicited, refugees seeking remedies to legal decisions through lawyers and associations attacking”.

    He added there would be due process concerning the storage of the data, with judges issuing disclosure orders. “There is going to be a whole series of questions which the government will have to elucidate. The rights of refugees are often used as a laboratory. If these technologies are ’successful’, they will soon be applied to the rest of the population."

    https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/48326/uk-signs-contract-with-us-startup-to-identify-migrants-in-smallboat-cr

    #UK #Angleterre #migrations #asile #réfugiés #militarisation_des_frontières #frontières #start-up #complexe_militaro-industriel #IA #intelligence_artificielle #surveillance #technologie #channel #Manche

    –—

    ajouté à la métaliste sur la Bibby Stockholm:
    https://seenthis.net/messages/1016683

    • Huge barge set to house 500 asylum seekers arrives in the UK

      The #Bibby_Stockholm is being refitted in #Falmouth to increase its capacity from 222 to 506 people.

      A barge set to house 500 asylum seekers has arrived in the UK as the government struggles with efforts to move migrants out of hotels.

      The Independent understands that people will not be transferred onto the Bibby Stockholm until July, following refurbishment to increase its capacity and safety checks.

      The barge has been towed from its former berth in Italy to the port of Falmouth, in Cornwall.

      It will remain there while works are carried out, before being moved onto its final destination in #Portland, Dorset.

      The private operators of the port struck an agreement to host the barge with the Home Office without formal public consultation, angering the local council and residents.

      Conservative MP Richard Drax previously told The Independent legal action was still being considered to stop the government’s plans for what he labelled a “quasi-prison”.

      He accused ministers and Home Office officials of being “unable to answer” practical questions on how the barge will operate, such as how asylum seekers will be able to come and go safely through the port, what activities they will be provided with and how sufficient healthcare will be ensured.

      “The question is how do we cope?” Mr Drax said. “Every organisation has its own raft of questions: ‘Where’s the money coming from? Who’s going to do what if this all happens?’ There are not sufficient answers, which is very worrying.”

      The Independent previously revealed that asylum seekers will have less living space than an average parking bay on the Bibby Stockholm, which saw at least one person die and reports of rape and abuse on board when it was used by the Dutch government to detain migrants in the 2000s.

      An official brochure released by owner Bibby Marine shows there are only 222 “single en-suite bedrooms” on board, meaning that at least two people must be crammed into every cabin for the government to achieve its aim of holding 500 people.

      Dorset Council has said it still had “serious reservations about the appropriateness of Portland Port in this scenario and remains opposed to the proposals”.

      The Conservative police and crime commissioner for Dorset is demanding extra government funding for the local force to “meet the extra policing needs that this project will entail”.

      A multi-agency forum including representatives from national, regional and local public sector agencies has been looking at plans for the provision of health services, the safety and security of both asylum seekers and local residents and charity involvement.

      Portland Port said it had been working with the Home Office and local agencies to ensure the safe arrival and operation of the Bibby Stockholm, and to minimise its impact locally.

      The barge is part of a wider government push to move migrants out of hotels, which are currently housing more than 47,000 asylum seekers at a cost of £6m a day.

      But the use of ships as accommodation was previously ruled out on cost grounds by the Treasury, when Rishi Sunak was chancellor, and the government has not confirmed how much it will be spending on the scheme.

      Ministers have also identified several former military and government sites, including two defunct airbases and an empty prison, that they want to transform into asylum accommodation.

      But a court battle with Braintree District Council over former RAF Wethersfield is ongoing, and legal action has also been threatened over similar plans for RAF Scampton in Lancashire.

      Last month, a barrister representing home secretary Suella Braverman told the High Court that 56,000 people were expected to arrive on small boats in 2023 and that some could be made homeless if hotel places are not found.

      A record backlog of asylum applications, driven by the increase in Channel crossings and a collapse in Home Office decision-making, mean the government is having to provide accommodation for longer while claims are considered.

      https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/barge-falmouth-cornwall-migrants-bibby-b2333313.html
      #barge #bateau

    • ‘Performative cruelty’ : the hostile architecture of the UK government’s migrant barge

      The arrival of the Bibby Stockholm barge at Portland Port, in Dorset, on July 18 2023, marks a new low in the UK government’s hostile immigration environment. The vessel is set to accommodate over 500 asylum seekers. This, the Home Office argues, will benefit British taxpayers and local residents.

      The barge, however, was immediately rejected by the local population and Dorset council. Several British charities and church groups have condemned the barge, and the illegal migration bill it accompanies, as “an affront to human dignity”.

      Anti-immigration groups have also protested against the barge, with some adopting offensive language, referring to the asylum seekers who will be hosted there as “bargies”. Conservative MP for South Dorset Richard Drax has claimed that hosting migrants at sea would exacerbate tenfold the issues that have arisen in hotels to date, namely sexual assaults, children disappearing and local residents protesting.

      My research shows that facilities built to house irregular migrants in Europe and beyond create a temporary infrastructure designed to be hostile. Governments thereby effectively make asylum seekers more displaceable while ignoring their everyday spatial and social needs.
      Precarious space

      The official brochure plans for the Bibby Stockholm show 222 single bedrooms over three stories, built around two small internal courtyards. It has now been retrofitted with bunk beds to host more than 500 single men – more than double the number it was designed to host.

      Journalists Lizzie Dearden and Martha McHardy have shown this means the asylum seekers housed there – for up to nine months – will have “less living space than an average parking bay”. This stands in contravention of international standards of a minimum 4.5m² of covered living space per person in cold climates, where more time is spent indoors.

      In an open letter, dated June 15 2023 and addressed to home secretary Suella Braverman, over 700 people and nearly 100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) voiced concerns that this will only add to the trauma migrants have already experienced:

      Housing people on a sea barge – which we argue is equal to a floating prison – is morally indefensible, and threatens to retraumatise a group of already vulnerable people.

      Locals are concerned already overstretched services in Portland, including GP practices, will not be able to cope with further pressure. West Dorset MP Chris Lode has questioned whether the barge itself is safe “to cope with double the weight that it was designed to bear”. A caller to the LBC radio station, meanwhile, has voiced concerns over the vessel’s very narrow and low fire escape routes, saying: “What they [the government] are effectively doing here is creating a potential Grenfell on water, a floating coffin.”

      Such fears are not unfounded. There have been several cases of fires destroying migrant camps in Europe, from the Grand-Synthe camp near Dunkirk in France, in 2017, to the 2020 fire at the Moria camp in Greece. The difficulty of escaping a vessel at sea could turn it into a death trap.

      Performative hostility

      Research on migrant accommodation shows that being able to inhabit a place – even temporarily – and develop feelings of attachment and belonging, is crucial to a person’s wellbeing. Even amid ever tighter border controls, migrants in Europe, who can be described as “stuck on the move”, nonetheless still attempt to inhabit their temporary spaces and form such connections.

      However, designs can hamper such efforts when they concentrate asylum seekers in inhospitable, cut-off spaces. In 2015, Berlin officials began temporarily housing refugees in the former Tempelhof airport, a noisy, alienating industrial space, lacking in privacy and disconnected from the city. Many people ended up staying there for the better part of a year.

      French authorities, meanwhile, opened the Centre Humanitaire Paris-Nord in Paris in 2016, temporary migrant housing in a disused train depot. Nicknamed la Bulle (the bubble) for its bulbous inflatable covering, this facility was noisy and claustrophobic, lacking in basic comforts.

      Like the barge in Portland Port, these facilities, placed in industrial sites, sit uncomfortably between hospitality and hostility. The barge will be fenced off, since the port is a secured zone, and access will be heavily restricted and controlled. The Home Office insists that the barge is not a floating prison, yet it is an unmistakably hostile space.

      Infrastructure for water and electricity will physically link the barge to shore. However, Dorset council has no jurisdiction at sea.

      The commercial agreement on the barge was signed between the Home Office and Portland Port, not the council. Since the vessel is positioned below the mean low water mark, it did not require planning permission.

      This makes the barge an island of sorts, where other rules apply, much like those islands in the Aegean sea and in the Pacific, on which Greece and Australia have respectively housed migrants.

      I have shown how facilities are often designed in this way not to give displaced people any agency, but, on the contrary, to objectify them. They heighten the instability migrants face, keeping them detached from local communities and constantly on the move.

      The government has presented the barge as a cheaper solution than the £6.8 million it is currently spending, daily, on housing asylum seekers in hotels. A recent report by two NGOs, Reclaim the Seas and One Life to Live, concludes, however, that it will save less than £10 a person a day. It could even prove more expensive than the hotel model.

      Sarah Teather, director of the Jesuit Refugee Service UK charity, has described the illegal migration bill as “performative cruelty”. Images of the barge which have flooded the news certainly meet that description too.

      However threatening these images might be, though, they will not stop desperate people from attempting to come to the UK to seek safety. Rather than deterring asylum seekers, the Bibby Stockholm is potentially creating another hazard to them and to their hosting communities.

      https://theconversation.com/performative-cruelty-the-hostile-architecture-of-the-uk-governments

      –---

      Point intéressant, lié à l’aménagement du territoire :

      “Since the vessel is positioned below the mean low water mark, it did not require planning permission”

      C’est un peu comme les #zones_frontalières qui ont été créées un peu partout en Europe (et pas que) pour que les Etats se débarassent des règles en vigueur (notamment le principe du non-refoulement). Voir cette métaliste, à laquelle j’ajoute aussi cet exemple :
      https://seenthis.net/messages/795053

      voir aussi :

      The circumstances at Portland Port are very different because where the barge is to be positioned is below the mean low water mark. This means that the barge is outside of our planning control and there is no requirement for planning permission from the council.

      https://news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/2023/07/18/leaders-comments-on-the-home-office-barge

      #hostile_architecture #architecture_hostile #dignité #espace #Portland #hostilité #hostilité_performative #île #infrastructure #extraterritorialité #extra-territorialité #prix #coût

    • Sur l’#histoire (notamment liées au commerce d’ #esclaves) de la Bibby Stockholm :

      Bibby Line, shipowners

      Information
      From Guide to the Records of Merseyside Maritime Museum, volume 1: Bibby Line. In 1807 John Bibby and John Highfield, Liverpool shipbrokers, began taking shares in ships, mainly Parkgate Dublin packets. By 1821 (the end of the partnership) they had vessels sailing to the Mediterranean and South America. In 1850 they expanded their Mediterranean and Black Sea interests by buying two steamers and by 1865 their fleet had increased to twenty three. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 severely affected their business and Frederick Leyland, their general manager, failed to persuade the family partners to diversify onto the Atlantic. Eventually, he bought them out in 1873. In 1889 the Bibby family revived its shipowning interests with a successful passenger cargo service to Burma. From 1893 it also began to carry British troops to overseas postings which remained a Bibby staple until 1962. The Burma service ended in 1971 and the company moved to new areas of shipowning including bulkers, gas tankers and accommodation barges. It still has its head office in Liverpool where most management records are held. The museum holds models of the Staffordshire (1929) and Oxfordshire (1955). For further details see the attached catalogue or contact The Archives Centre for a copy of the catalogue.

      The earliest records within the collection, the ships’ logs at B/BIBBY/1/1/1 - 1/1/3 show company vessels travelling between Europe and South America carrying cargoes that would have been produced on plantations using the labour of enslaved peoples or used within plantation and slave based economies. For example the vessel Thomas (B/BIBBY/1/1/1) carries a cargo of iron hoops for barrels to Brazil in 1812. The Mary Bibby on a voyage in 1825-1826 loads a cargo of sugar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to carry to Rotterdam. The log (B/BIBBY/1/1/3) records the use of ’negroes’ to work with the ship’s carpenter while the vessel is in port.

      In September 1980 the latest Bibby vessel to hold the name Derbyshire was lost with all hands in the South China Sea. This collection does not include records relating to that vessel or its sinking, apart from a copy ’Motor vessel ’Derbyshire’, 1976-80: in memoriam’ at reference B/BIBBY/3/2/1 (a copy is also available in The Archives Centre library collection at 340.DER). Information about the sinking and subsequent campaigning by the victims’ family can be found on the NML website and in the Life On Board gallery. The Archives Centre holds papers of Captain David Ramwell who assisted the Derbyshire Family Association at D/RAM and other smaller collections of related documents within the DX collection.

      https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/bibby-line-shipowners

      –—
      An Open Letter to #Bibby_Marine

      Links between your parent company #Bibby_Line_Group (#BLG) and the slave trade have repeatedly been made. If true, we appeal to you to consider what actions you might take in recompense.

      Bibby Marine’s modern slavery statement says that one of the company’s values is to “do the right thing”, and that you “strongly support the eradication of slavery, as well as the eradication of servitude, forced or compulsory labour and human trafficking”. These are admirable words.

      Meanwhile, your parent company’s website says that it is “family owned with a rich history”. Please will you clarify whether this rich history includes slaving voyages where ships were owned, and cargoes transported, by BLG’s founder John Bibby, six generations ago. The BLG website says that in 1807 (which is when slavery was abolished in Britain), “John Bibby began trading as a shipowner in Liverpool with his partner John Highfield”. John Bibby is listed as co-owner of three slaving ships, of which John Highfield co-owned two:

      In 1805, the Harmonie (co-owned by #John_Bibby and three others, including John Highfield) left Liverpool for a voyage which carried 250 captives purchased in West Central Africa and St Helena, delivering them to Cumingsberg in 1806 (see the SlaveVoyages database using Voyage ID 81732).
      In 1806, the Sally (co-owned by John Bibby and two others) left Liverpool for a voyage which transported 250 captives purchased in Bassa and delivered them to Barbados (see the SlaveVoyages database using Voyage ID 83481).
      In 1806, the Eagle (co-owned by John Bibby and four others, including John Highfield) left Liverpool for a voyage which transported 237 captives purchased in Cameroon and delivered them to Kingston in 1807 (see the SlaveVoyages database using Voyage ID 81106).

      The same and related claims were recently mentioned by Private Eye. They also appear in the story of Liverpool’s Calderstones Park [PDF] and on the website of National Museums Liverpool and in this blog post “Shenanigans in Shipping” (a detailed history of the BLG). They are also mentioned by Laurence Westgaph, a TV presenter specialising in Black British history and slavery and the author of Read The Signs: Street Names with a Connection to the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Abolition in Liverpool [PDF], published with the support of English Heritage, The City of Liverpool, Northwest Regional Development Agency, National Museums Liverpool and Liverpool Vision.

      While of course your public pledges on slavery underline that there is no possibility of there being any link between the activities of John Bibby and John Highfield in the early 1800s and your activities in 2023, we do believe that it is in the public interest to raise this connection, and to ask for a public expression of your categorical renunciation of the reported slave trade activities of Mr Bibby and Mr Highfield.

      https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/an-open-letter-to-bibby-marine

      –-

      Très peu d’info sur John Bibby sur wikipedia :

      John Bibby (19 February 1775 – 17 July 1840) was the founder of the British Bibby Line shipping company. He was born in Eccleston, near Ormskirk, Lancashire. He was murdered on 17 July 1840 on his way home from dinner at a friend’s house in Kirkdale.[1]


      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bibby_(businessman)

    • ‘Floating Prisons’: The 200-year-old family #business behind the Bibby Stockholm

      #Bibby_Line_Group_Limited is a UK company offering financial, marine and construction services to clients in at least 16 countries around the world. It recently made headlines after the government announced one of the firm’s vessels, Bibby Stockholm, would be used to accommodate asylum seekers on the Dorset coast.

      In tandem with plans to house migrants at surplus military sites, the move was heralded by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman as a way of mitigating the £6m-a-day cost of hotel accommodation amid the massive ongoing backlog of asylum claims, as well as deterring refugees from making the dangerous channel crossing to the UK. Several protests have been organised against the project already, while over ninety migrants’ rights groups and hundreds of individual campaigners have signed an open letter to the Home Secretary calling for the plans to be scrapped, describing the barge as a “floating prison.”

      Corporate Watch has researched into the Bibby Line Group’s operations and financial interests. We found that:

      - The Bibby Stockholm vessel was previously used as a floating detention centre in the Netherlands, where undercover reporting revealed violence, sexual exploitation and poor sanitation.

      – Bibby Line Group is more than 90% owned by members of the Bibby family, primarily through trusts. Its pre-tax profits for 2021 stood at almost £31m, which they upped to £35.5m by claiming generous tax credits and deferring a fair amount to the following year.

      - Management aboard the vessel will be overseen by an Australian business travel services company, Corporate Travel Management, who have previously had aspersions cast over the financial health of their operations and the integrity of their business practices.

      - Another beneficiary of the initiative is Langham Industries, a maritime and engineering company whose owners, the Langham family, have longstanding ties to right wing parties.

      Key Issues

      According to the Home Office, the Bibby Stockholm barge will be operational for at least 18 months, housing approximately 500 single adult men while their claims are processed, with “24/7 security in place on board, to minimise the disruption to local communities.” These measures appear to have been to dissuade opposition from the local Conservative council, who pushed for background checks on detainees and were reportedly even weighing legal action out of concern for a perceived threat of physical attacks from those housed onboard, as well as potential attacks from the far right against migrants held there.

      Local campaigners have taken aim at the initiative, noting in the open letter:

      “For many people seeking asylum arriving in the UK, the sea represents a site of significant trauma as they have been forced to cross it on one or more occasions. Housing people on a sea barge – which we argue is equal to a floating prison – is morally indefensible, and threatens to re-traumatise a group of already vulnerable people.”

      Technically, migrants on the barge will be able to leave the site. However, in reality they will be under significant levels of surveillance and cordoned off behind fences in the high security port area.

      If they leave, there is an expectation they will return by 11pm, and departure will be controlled by the authorities. According to the Home Office:

      “In order to ensure that migrants come and go in an orderly manner with as little impact as possible, buses will be provided to take those accommodated on the vessel from the port to local drop off points”.

      These drop off points are to be determined by the government, while being sited off the coast of Dorset means they will be isolated from centres of support and solidarity.

      Meanwhile, the government’s new Illegal Migration Bill is designed to provide a legal justification for the automatic detention of refugees crossing the Channel. If it passes, there’s a chance this might set the stage for a change in regime on the Bibby Stockholm – from that of an “accommodation centre” to a full-blown migrant prison.

      An initial release from the Home Office suggested the local voluntary sector would be engaged “to organise activities that keep occupied those being accommodated, potentially involved in local volunteering activity,” though they seemed to have changed the wording after critics said this would mean detainees could be effectively exploited for unpaid labour. It’s also been reported the vessel required modifications in order to increase capacity to the needed level, raising further concerns over cramped living conditions and a lack of privacy.

      Bibby Line Group has prior form in border profiteering. From 1994 to 1998, the Bibby Stockholm was used to house the homeless, some of whom were asylum seekers, in Hamburg, Germany. In 2005, it was used to detain asylum seekers in the Netherlands, which proved a cause of controversy at the time. Undercover reporting revealed a number of cases abuse on board, such as beatings and sexual exploitation, as well suicide attempts, routine strip searches, scabies and the death of an Algerian man who failed to receive timely medical care for a deteriorating heart condition. As the undercover security guard wrote:

      “The longer I work on the Bibby Stockholm, the more I worry about safety on the boat. Between exclusion and containment I encounter so many defects and feel so much tension among the prisoners that it no longer seems to be a question of whether things will get completely out of hand here, but when.”

      He went on:

      “I couldn’t stand the way prisoners were treated […] The staff become like that, because the whole culture there is like that. Inhuman. They do not see the residents as people with a history, but as numbers.”

      Discussions were also held in August 2017 over the possibility of using the vessel as accommodation for some 400 students in Galway, Ireland, amid the country’s housing crisis. Though the idea was eventually dropped for lack of mooring space and planning permission requirements, local students had voiced safety concerns over the “bizarre” and “unconventional” solution to a lack of rental opportunities.
      Corporate Travel Management & Langham Industries

      Although leased from Bibby Line Group, management aboard the Bibby Stockholm itself will be handled by #Corporate_Travel_Management (#CTM), a global travel company specialising in business travel services. The Australian-headquartered company also recently received a £100m contract for the provision of accommodation, travel, venue and ancillary booking services for the housing of Ukrainian refugees at local hotels and aboard cruise ships M/S Victoria and M/S Ambition. The British Red Cross warned earlier in May against continuing to house refugees on ships with “isolated” and “windowless” cabins, and said the scheme had left many “living in limbo.”

      Founded by CEO #Jamie_Pherous, CTM was targeted in 2018 by #VGI_Partners, a group of short-sellers, who identified more than 20 red flags concerning the company’s business interests. Most strikingly, the short-sellers said they’d attended CTM’s offices in Glasgow, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Switzerland. Finding no signs of business activity there, they said it was possible the firm had significantly overstated the scale of its operations. VGI Partners also claimed CTM’s cash flows didn’t seem to add up when set against the company’s reported growth, and that CTM hadn’t fully disclosed revisions they’d made to their annual revenue figures.

      Two years later, the short-sellers released a follow-up report, questioning how CTM had managed to report a drop in rewards granted for high sales numbers to travel agencies, when in fact their transaction turnover had grown during the same period. They also accused CTM of dressing up their debt balance to make their accounts look healthier.

      CTM denied VGI Partners’ allegations. In their response, they paraphrased a report by auditors EY, supposedly confirming there were no question marks over their business practices, though the report itself was never actually made public. They further claim VGI Partners, as short-sellers, had only released the reports in the hope of benefitting from uncertainty over CTM’s operations.

      Despite these troubles, CTM’s market standing improved drastically earlier this year, when it was announced the firm had secured contracts for the provision of travel services to the UK Home Office worth in excess of $3bn AUD (£1.6bn). These have been accompanied by further tenders with, among others, the National Audit Office, HS2, Cafcass, Serious Fraud Office, Office of National Statistics, HM Revenue & Customs, National Health Service, Ministry of Justice, Department of Education, Foreign Office, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

      The Home Office has not released any figures on the cost of either leasing or management services aboard Bibby Stockholm, though press reports have put the estimated price tag at more than £20,000 a day for charter and berthing alone. If accurate, this would put the overall expenditure for the 18-month period in which the vessel will operate as a detention centre at almost £11m, exclusive of actual detention centre management costs such as security, food and healthcare.

      Another beneficiary of the project are Portland Port’s owners, #Langham_Industries, a maritime and engineering company owned by the #Langham family. The family has long-running ties to right-wing parties. Langham Industries donated over £70,000 to the UK Independence Party from 2003 up until the 2016 Brexit referendum. In 2014, Langham Industries donated money to support the re-election campaign of former Clacton MP for UKIP Douglas Carswell, shortly after his defection from the Conservatives. #Catherine_Langham, a Tory parish councillor for Hilton in Dorset, has described herself as a Langham Industries director (although she is not listed on Companies House). In 2016 she was actively involved in local efforts to support the campaign to leave the European Union. The family holds a large estate in Dorset which it uses for its other line of business, winemaking.

      At present, there is no publicly available information on who will be providing security services aboard the Bibby Stockholm.

      Business Basics

      Bibby Line Group describes itself as “one of the UK’s oldest family owned businesses,” operating in “multiple countries, employing around 1,300 colleagues, and managing over £1 billion of funds.” Its head office is registered in Liverpool, with other headquarters in Scotland, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Malaysia, France, Slovakia, Czechia, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Nigeria (see the appendix for more). The company’s primary sectors correspond to its three main UK subsidiaries:

      #Bibby_Financial_Services. A global provider of financial services. The firm provides loans to small- and medium-sized businesses engaged in business services, construction, manufacturing, transportation, export, recruitment and wholesale markets. This includes invoice financing, export and trade finance, and foreign exchanges. Overall, the subsidiary manages more than £6bn each year on behalf of some 9,000 clients across 300 different industry sectors, and in 2021 it brought in more than 50% of the group’s annual turnover.

      - #Bibby_Marine_Limited. Owner and operator of the Bibby WaveMaster fleet, a group of vessels specialising in the transport and accommodation of workers employed at remote locations, such as offshore oil and gas sites in the North Sea. Sometimes, as in the case of Chevron’s Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) project in Nigeria, the vessels are used as an alternative to hotels owing to a “a volatile project environment.” The fleet consists of 40 accommodation vessels similar in size to the Bibby Stockholm and a smaller number of service vessels, though the share of annual turnover pales compared to the group’s financial services operations, standing at just under 10% for 2021.

      - #Garic Ltd. Confined to construction, quarrying, airport, agriculture and transport sectors in the UK, the firm designs, manufactures and purchases plant equipment and machinery for sale or hire. Garic brought in around 14% of Bibby Line Group’s turnover in 2021.

      Prior to February 2021, Bibby Line Group also owned #Costcutter_Supermarkets_Group, before it was sold to #Bestway_Wholesale to maintain liquidity amid the Covid-19 pandemic. In their report for that year, the company’s directors also suggested grant funding from #MarRI-UK, an organisation facilitating innovation in maritime technologies and systems, had been important in preserving the firm’s position during the crisis.
      History

      The Bibby Line Group’s story begins in 1807, when Lancashire-born shipowner John Bibby began trading out of Liverpool with partner John Highfield. By the time of his death in 1840, murdered while returning home from dinner with a friend in Kirkdale, Bibby had struck out on his own and come to manage a fleet of more than 18 ships. The mysterious case of his death has never been solved, and the business was left to his sons John and James.

      Between 1891 and 1989, the company operated under the name #Bibby_Line_Limited. Its ships served as hospital and transport vessels during the First World War, as well as merchant cruisers, and the company’s entire fleet of 11 ships was requisitioned by the state in 1939.

      By 1970, the company had tripled its overseas earnings, branching into ‘factoring’, or invoice financing (converting unpaid invoices into cash for immediate use via short-term loans) in the early 1980s, before this aspect of the business was eventually spun off into Bibby Financial Services. The group acquired Garic Ltd in 2008, which currently operates four sites across the UK.

      People

      #Jonathan_Lewis has served as Bibby Line Group’s Managing and Executive Director since January 2021, prior to which he acted as the company’s Chief Financial and Strategy Officer since joining in 2019. Previously, Lewis worked as CFO for Imagination Technologies, a tech company specialising in semiconductors, and as head of supermarket Tesco’s mergers and acquisitions team. He was also a member of McKinsey’s European corporate finance practice, as well as an investment banker at Lazard. During his first year at the helm of Bibby’s operations, he was paid £748,000. Assuming his role at the head of the group’s operations, he replaced Paul Drescher, CBE, then a board member of the UK International Chamber of Commerce and a former president of the Confederation of British Industry.

      Bibby Line Group’s board also includes two immediate members of the Bibby family, Sir #Michael_James_Bibby, 3rd Bt. and his younger brother #Geoffrey_Bibby. Michael has acted as company chairman since 2020, before which he had occupied senior management roles in the company for 20 years. He also has external experience, including time at Unilever’s acquisitions, disposals and joint venture divisions, and now acts as president of the UK Chamber of Shipping, chairman of the Charities Trust, and chairman of the Institute of Family Business Research Foundation.

      Geoffrey has served as a non-executive director of the company since 2015, having previously worked as a managing director of Vast Visibility Ltd, a digital marketing and technology company. In 2021, the Bibby brothers received salaries of £125,000 and £56,000 respectively.

      The final member of the firm’s board is #David_Anderson, who has acted as non-executive director since 2012. A financier with 35 years experience in investment banking, he’s founder and CEO of EPL Advisory – which advises company boards on requirements and disclosure obligations of public markets – and chair of Creative Education Trust, a multi-academy trust comprising 17 schools. Anderson is also chairman at multinational ship broker Howe Robinson Partners, which recently auctioned off a superyacht seized from Dmitry Pumpyansky, after the sanctioned Russian businessman reneged on a €20.5m loan from JP Morgan. In 2021, Anderson’s salary stood at £55,000.

      Ownership

      Bibby Line Group’s annual report and accounts for 2021 state that more than 90% of the company is owned by members of the Bibby family, primarily through family trusts. These ownership structures, effectively entities allowing people to benefit from assets without being their registered legal owners, have long attracted staunch criticism from transparency advocates given the obscurity they afford means they often feature extensively in corruption, money laundering and tax abuse schemes.

      According to Companies House, the UK corporate registry, between 50% and 75% of Bibby Line Group’s shares and voting rights are owned by #Bibby_Family_Company_Limited, which also retains the right to appoint and remove members of the board. Directors of Bibby Family Company Limited include both the Bibby brothers, as well as a third sibling, #Peter_John_Bibby, who’s formally listed as the firm’s ‘ultimate beneficial owner’ (i.e. the person who ultimately profits from the company’s assets).

      Other people with comparable shares in Bibby Family Company Limited are #Mark_Rupert_Feeny, #Philip_Charles_Okell, and Lady #Christine_Maud_Bibby. Feeny’s occupation is listed as solicitor, with other interests in real estate management and a position on the board of the University of Liverpool Pension Fund Trustees Limited. Okell meanwhile appears as director of Okell Money Management Limited, a wealth management firm, while Lady Bibby, Michael and Geoffrey’s mother, appears as “retired playground supervisor.”

      Key Relationships

      Bibby Line Group runs an internal ‘Donate a Day’ volunteer program, enabling employees to take paid leave in order to “help causes they care about.” Specific charities colleagues have volunteered with, listed in the company’s Annual Review for 2021 to 2022, include:

      - The Hive Youth Zone. An award-winning charity for young people with disabilities, based in the Wirral.

      – The Whitechapel Centre. A leading homeless and housing charity in the Liverpool region, working with people sleeping rough, living in hostels, or struggling with their accommodation.

      - Let’s Play Project. Another charity specialising in after-school and holiday activities for young people with additional needs in the Banbury area.

      - Whitdale House. A care home for the elderly, based in Whitburn, West Lothian and run by the local council.

      – DEBRA. An Irish charity set up in 1988 for individuals living with a rare, painful skin condition called epidermolysis bullosa, as well as their families.

      – Reaching Out Homeless Outreach. A non-profit providing resources and support to the homeless in Ireland.

      Various senior executives and associated actors at Bibby Line Group and its subsidiaries also have current and former ties to the following organisations:

      - UK Chamber of Shipping

      - Charities Trust

      - Institute of Family Business Research Foundation

      - Indefatigable Old Boys Association

      - Howe Robinson Partners

      - hibu Ltd

      - EPL Advisory

      - Creative Education Trust

      - Capita Health and Wellbeing Limited

      - The Ambassador Theatre Group Limited

      – Pilkington Plc

      – UK International Chamber of Commerce

      – Confederation of British Industry

      – Arkley Finance Limited (Weatherby’s Banking Group)

      – FastMarkets Ltd, Multiple Sclerosis Society

      – Early Music as Education

      – Liverpool Pension Fund Trustees Limited

      – Okell Money Management Limited

      Finances

      For the period ending 2021, Bibby Line Group’s total turnover stood at just under £260m, with a pre-tax profit of almost £31m – fairly healthy for a company providing maritime services during a global pandemic. Their post-tax profits in fact stood at £35.5m, an increase they would appear to have secured by claiming generous tax credits (£4.6m) and deferring a fair amount (£8.4m) to the following year.

      Judging by their last available statement on the firm’s profitability, Bibby’s directors seem fairly confident the company has adequate financing and resources to continue operations for the foreseeable future. They stress their February 2021 sale of Costcutter was an important step in securing this, given it provided additional liquidity during the pandemic, as well as the funding secured for R&D on fuel consumption by Bibby Marine’s fleet.
      Scandal Sheet

      Bibby Line Group and its subsidiaries have featured in a number of UK legal proceedings over the years, sometimes as defendants. One notable case is Godfrey v Bibby Line, a lawsuit brought against the company in 2019 after one of their former employees died as the result of an asbestos-related disease.

      In their claim, the executors of Alan Peter Godfrey’s estate maintained that between 1965 and 1972, he was repeatedly exposed to large amounts of asbestos while working on board various Bibby vessels. Although the link between the material and fatal lung conditions was established as early as 1930, they claimed that Bibby Line, among other things:

      “Failed to warn the deceased of the risk of contracting asbestos related disease or of the precautions to be taken in relation thereto;

      “Failed to heed or act upon the expert evidence available to them as to the best means of protecting their workers from danger from asbestos dust; [and]

      “Failed to take all reasonably practicable measures, either by securing adequate ventilation or by the provision and use of suitable respirators or otherwise, to prevent inhalation of dust.”

      The lawsuit, which claimed “unlimited damage”’ against the group, also stated that Mr Godfrey’s “condition deteriorated rapidly with worsening pain and debility,” and that he was “completely dependent upon others for his needs by the last weeks of his life.” There is no publicly available information on how the matter was concluded.

      In 2017, Bibby Line Limited also featured in a leak of more than 13.4 million financial records known as the Paradise Papers, specifically as a client of Appleby, which provided “offshore corporate services” such as legal and accountancy work. According to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a global network of investigative media outlets, leaked Appleby documents revealed, among other things, “the ties between Russia and [Trump’s] billionaire commerce secretary, the secret dealings of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief fundraiser and the offshore interests of the Queen of England and more than 120 politicians around the world.”

      This would not appear to be the Bibby group’s only link to the shady world of offshore finance. Michael Bibby pops up as a treasurer for two shell companies registered in Panama, Minimar Transport S.A. and Vista Equities Inc.
      Looking Forward

      Much about the Bibby Stockholm saga remains to be seen. The exact cost of the initiative and who will be providing security services on board, are open questions. What’s clear however is that activists will continue to oppose the plans, with efforts to prevent the vessel sailing from Falmouth to its final docking in Portland scheduled to take place on 30th June.

      Appendix: Company Addresses

      HQ and general inquiries: 3rd Floor Walker House, Exchange Flags, Liverpool, United Kingdom, L2 3YL

      Tel: +44 (0) 151 708 8000

      Other offices, as of 2021:

      6, Shenton Way, #18-08A Oue Downtown 068809, Singapore

      1/1, The Exchange Building, 142 St. Vincent Street, Glasgow, G2 5LA, United Kingdom

      4th Floor Heather House, Heather Road, Sandyford, Dublin 18, Ireland

      Unit 2302, 23/F Jubilee Centre, 18 Fenwick Street, Wanchai, Hong Kong

      Unit 508, Fifth Floor, Metropolis Mall, MG Road, Gurugram, Haryana, 122002 India

      Suite 7E, Level 7, Menara Ansar, 65 Jalan Trus, 8000 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia

      160 Avenue Jean Jaures, CS 90404, 69364 Lyon Cedex, France

      Prievozská 4D, Block E, 13th Floor, Bratislava 821 09, Slovak Republic

      Hlinky 118, Brno, 603 00, Czech Republic

      Laan Van Diepenvoorde 5, 5582 LA, Waalre, Netherlands

      Hansaallee 249, 40549 Düsseldorf, Germany

      Poland Eurocentrum, Al. Jerozolimskie 134, 02-305 Warsaw, Poland

      1/2 Atarbekova str, 350062, Krasnodar, Krasnodar

      1 St Peter’s Square, Manchester, M2 3AE, United Kingdom

      25 Adeyemo Alakija Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria

      10 Anson Road, #09-17 International Plaza, 079903 Singapore

      https://corporatewatch.org/floating-prisons-the-200-year-old-family-business-behind-the-bibby-s

      signalé ici aussi par @rezo:
      https://seenthis.net/messages/1010504

    • The Langham family seem quite happy to support right-wing political parties that are against immigration, while at the same time profiting handsomely from the misery of refugees who are forced to claim sanctuary here.


      https://twitter.com/PositiveActionH/status/1687817910364884992

      –---

      Family firm ’profiteering from misery’ by providing migrant barges donated £70k to #UKIP

      The Langham family, owners of Langham Industries, is now set to profit from an 18-month contract with the Home Office to let the Bibby Stockholm berth at Portland, Dorset

      A family firm that donated more than £70,000 to UKIP is “profiteering from misery” by hosting the Government’s controversial migrant barge. Langham Industries owns Portland Port, where the Bibby Stockholm is docked in a deal reported to be worth some £2.5million.

      The Langham family owns luxurious properties and has links to high-profile politicians, including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden. And we can reveal that their business made 19 donations to pro-Brexit party UKIP between 2003 and 2016.

      Late founder John Langham was described as an “avid supporter” of UKIP in an obituary in 2017. Now his children, John, Jill and Justin – all directors of the family firm – are set to profit from an 18-month contract with the Home Office to let the Bibby Stockholm berth at Portland, Dorset.

      While Portland Port refuses to reveal how much the Home Office is paying, its website cites berthing fees for a ship the size of the Bibby Stockholm at more than £4,000 a day. In 2011, Portland Port chairman John, 71, invested £3.7million in Grade II* listed country pile Steeple Manor at Wareham, Dorset. Dating to around 1600, it has a pond, tennis court and extensive gardens designed by the landscape architect Brenda Colvin.

      The arrangement to host the “prison-like” barge for housing migrants has led some locals to blast the Langhams, who have owned the port since 1997. Portland mayor Carralyn Parkes, 61, said: “I don’t know how John Langham will sleep at night in his luxurious home, with his tennis court and his fluffy bed, when asylum seekers are sleeping in tiny beds on the barge.

      “I went on the boat and measured the rooms with a tape measure. On average they are about 10ft by 12ft. The bunk bed mattresses are about 6ft long. If you’re taller than 6ft you’re stuffed. The Langham family need to have more humanity. They are only interested in making money. It’s shocking.”

      (#paywall)
      https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/family-firm-profiteering-misery-providing-30584405.amp

      #UK_Independence_Party

    • ‘This is a prison’: men tell of distressing conditions on Bibby Stockholm

      Asylum seekers share fears about Dorset barge becoming even more crowded, saying they already ‘despair and wish for death’

      Asylum seekers brought back to the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset, have said they are being treated in such a way that “we despair and wish for death”.

      The Guardian spoke to two men in their first interview since their return to the barge on 19 October after the vessel lay empty for more than two months. The presence of deadly legionella bacteria was confirmed on board on 7 August, the same day the first group of asylum seekers arrived. The barge was evacuated four days later.

      The new warning comes after it emerged that one asylum seeker attempted to kill himself and is in hospital after finding out he is due to be taken to the barge on Tuesday.

      A man currently on the barge told the Guardian: “Government decisions are turning healthy and normal refugees into mental patients whom they then hand over to society. Here, many people were healthy and coping with OK spirits, but as a result of the dysfunctional strategies of the government, they have suffered – and continue to suffer – from various forms of serious mental distress. We are treated in such a way that we despair and wish for death.”

      He said that although the asylum seekers were not detained on the barge and could leave to visit the nearby town, in practice, doing so was not easy.

      He added: “In the barge, we have exactly the feeling of being in prison. It is true that they say that this is not a prison and you can go outside at any time, but you can only go to specific stops at certain times by bus, and this does not give me a good feeling.

      “Even to use the fresh air, you have to go through the inspection every time and go to the small yard with high fences and go through the X-ray machine again. And this is not good for our health.

      “In short, this is a prison whose prisoners are not criminals, they are people who have fled their country just to save their lives and have taken shelter here to live.”

      The asylum seekers raised concerns about what conditions on the barge would be like if the Home Office did fill it with about 500 asylum seekers, as officials say is the plan. Those on board said it already felt quite full with about 70 people living there.

      The second asylum seeker said: “The space inside the barge is very small. It feels crowded in the dining hall and the small entertainment room. It is absolutely clear to me that there will be chaos here soon.

      “According to my estimate, as I look at the spaces around us, the capacity of this barge is maximum 120 people, including personnel and crew. The strategy of ​​transferring refugees from hotels to barges or ships or military installations is bound to fail.

      “The situation here on the barge is getting worse. Does the government have a plan for shipwrecked residents? Everyone here is going mad with anxiety. It is not just the barge that floats on the water, but the plans of the government that are radically adrift.”

      Maddie Harris of the NGO Humans For Rights Network, which supports asylum seekers in hotels, said: “Home Office policies directly contribute to the significant deterioration of the wellbeing and mental health of so many asylum seekers in their ‘care’, with a dehumanising environment, violent anti-migrant rhetoric and isolated accommodations away from community and lacking in support.”

      A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Bibby Stockholm is part of the government’s pledge to reduce the use of expensive hotels and bring forward alternative accommodation options which provide a more cost-effective, sustainable and manageable system for the UK taxpayer and local communities.

      “The health and welfare of asylum seekers remains the utmost priority. We work continually to ensure the needs and vulnerabilities of those residing in asylum accommodation are identified and considered, including those related to mental health and trauma.”

      Nadia Whittome and Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the Labour MPs for Nottingham East and Brighton Kemptown respectively, will travel to Portland on Monday to meet asylum seekers accommodated on the Bibby Stockholm barge and local community members.

      The visit follows the home secretary, Suella Braverman, not approving a visit from the MPs to assess living conditions as they requested through parliamentary channels.

      https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/29/this-is-a-prison-men-tell-of-distressing-conditions-on-bibby-stockholm
      #prison #conditions_de_vie

  • « Michaël Zemmour est pédagogue, limpide et parfaitement rationnel dans son analyse de la situation. C’est d’une clarté incontestable.

    Cette réforme est injuste, car elle résulte de choix budgétaires dogmatiques et d’une mauvaise gestion financière des ressources de l’Etat. »

    https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1632696619211583488/pu/vid/540x540/MsE_VGKFka0HOCXy.mp4?tag=12

    https://twitter.com/albinwagener/status/1632748757535137794?cxt=HHwWhIC9xYSW2KgtAAAA

    • En quoi c’est débile ? :)
      L’enjeu non pas à court terme mais l’enjeu en tant que modèle de société sur le long terme, c’est à la base de pas dépendre de participation de l’État (ce qui est en partie le cas aujourd’hui). Donc oui là-maintenant-tout-de-suite ya l’État qui baisse ses entrées, donc faut possiblement se battre contre ça pour récupérer des sous. Mais sur le long terme, à la base c’est sans passer par des caisses de l’État.

    • fétichisme juridique et comptable. le SMIC, l’école, la législation du travail, du crédit, c’est l’État. les cotisations c’était et ça reste un bout de sa main gauche. on peut lui donner tous les prêtes noms qu’on voudra pour moins le voir. mais croire s’affranchir ne serait-ce qu’en partie de l’État ainsi c’est une auto-intoxication pathétique. de l’air !

      le communisme de Friot :

    • Le concept même de protection sociale (sécu, retraite & assurance chômage) repose sur le principe de la constitution d’une ressource (un « pot commun » non financiarisé) ; cette ressource étant elle-même créée par des cotisations sur le travail. Car, comme dirait l’autre, seul le travail génère de la valeur.

      Le but étant que cette ressource soit ensuite redistribuée aux bénéficiaires ; autrement dit, les salarié.es. Ça c’est le principe de la répartition, effectivement, basée sur le salariat et le travail ; lesquelles représentent, certes,un caractère discriminant pour les non-salarié.es ainsi qu’une profonde forme d’aliénation au capitalisme. Je ne suis pas fan de la nostalgie CNR qu’on nous sert à toutes les sauces (Friot, PCF, CGT, etc.).

      Néanmoins, il n’y a, à ma connaissance, pas réellement d’autre modèle de financement de « la sécu », dans ce monde capitaliste, si ce n’est la capitalisation (fonds de pension, etc.) où c’est chacun pour sa pomme et tant pis pour toi si ton salaire est trop faible pour mettre de la thune de côté ou s’il s’avère que le « pot commun » est complètement vérolé par des placements foireux.

      Tant qu’on n’a pas mis par terre le système global - capital, travail et tout le paquet - je préfère quand même garantir la protection sociale par répartition.

      L’accoutumance, c’est aussi celle qui lie l’État au patronat dans la généralisation des exonérations de cotisations sociales. Ces exonérations sont en partie compensées par l’impôt et la TVA, autrement dit, par tout le monde, y compris les non-salarié.es.

      La sécu est, certes, complètement étatisée et contrôlée par l’État mais il n’en reste pas moins qu’un tel magot échappe aux placements financiers et cela représente une aberration absolument insupportable pour ce monde capitaliste. On essaie de lui faire la peau, soit par la retraite à points, soit, comme actuellement, en la décrédibilisant.

      Déjà, beaucoup de jeunes peuvent se demander, à juste titre, à quoi cela sert de prélever une part de mon salaire si, à la finale, il n’en reste rien ?

    • ok. alors soyons beveridgiens avec les entreprises (assistées) et bismarckiens avec les prolos (assurés). ça marche très bien, et pas seulement sur les dégrèvements de cotisations : dépense collective en éducation, santé, infrastructures, recherche, financement des implantations, de l’outil de travail, au nom de l’emploi, de la croissance.
      ça marche très bien, sauf pour les prolos dont on continue à assoir une part essentielle de la reproduction sur (le travail gratuit et) un temps d’emploi qui ne prend en compte ni les gains de productivité, ni la discontinuité de l’emploi, ni la réduction réelle du temps de travail-emploi sur le cycle de vie.

      la théorie de la valeur travail est en crise ? révérons la cotisation assise sur le volume horaire d’emploi, mais ne nous étonnons pas de constater que c’est depuis cette même vision (le travail seul créateur de valeurs) que partout les états et les entreprises exigent que l’on travaille davantage. et ce jusqu’à un retour à la survaleur absolue (dans certains états US, on légalise et/ou facilite le travail des enfants, ça remet de l’égalité avec les migrants sans pap et mineurs qui font les livreurs).

    • Bé non, au départ les cotisations sociales, c’est pas « la main gauche de l’État », à la base c’est des caisses indépendantes, contrôlées par les instances représentatives des salariés (mais ça peut être un mélange de salariés et d’autres de la société civile si on veut agrandir à pas que les travailleureuses), et seulement dans un deuxième temps avec obligation d’une minorité de patronat (et même si obligé, seulement en minorité). Autrement dit, la conception de départ (très vite combattue bien évidemment, autant par les patrons que par l’État capitaliste) c’était une semi « auto organisation » des caisses de sécu.

      Qu’actuellement ce soit de nouveau l’État et les patrons qui gèrent à peu près tout, c’est une chose. Mais on peut parfaitement faire autrement, et sans utopisme impossible : ça a déjà été fait, ça fonctionne quand c’est en place, et c’est plus égalitaire et démocratique qu’actuellement (quand bien même ça resterait une grosse institution à une échelle énorme ça ok, et ce n’est pas forcément ma came MAIS ça reste bien mieux que le backlash qu’il y a eu ensuite). (Je n’ai pas dit « c’est démocratique », mais bien « plus démocratique que ».)

      https://www.contretemps.eu/comprendre-la-sociale-pour-la-continuer

      Financé par des cotisations sociales obligatoires, et géré majoritairement par les représentants des salarié-es, « le régime général de la Sécurité sociale n’est pas une nationalisation de la protection sociale d’avant-guerre, c’est une socialisation » (p. 130). Pour la première fois se met en place une protection sociale placée sous le contrôle des assurés sociaux eux-mêmes par le biais de leurs représentant-es élu-es.

    • @colporteur Je te donne la théorie, telle qu’elle est construite. Ce n’est pas la mienne.

      Je suis d’accord pour remettre en cause l’aliénation des « catégories » emplois et travail, bien qu’il me soit pénible de ne m’en tenir qu’à combattre principes (anarchistes) et catégories (critique de la valeur).

      Il n’en reste pas moins que je n’ai aucune autre théorie à mettre en place immédiatement dans un rapport de force social réel - que je sache, nous ne sommes pas en période révolutionnaire où le capitalisme serait sur le point de périr - permettant d’éviter que les retraités (un concept tout aussi critiquable, en soi, comme celui de salarié) continuent simplement d’avoir de quoi vivre.

    • Wesh le confusionnisme, ça veut rien dire « loi de la valeur » comme si c’était la même chose « à la figure par les exploiteurs », et dans la bouche de Marx (et des marxiens) où c’est une description de comment fonctionne concrètement le capitalisme et la mesure de la valeur dans ce système social complet. Justement pour le critiquer et vouloir vivre autrement.

      L’ensemble du budget des États est construit sur la valeur capitaliste dont on ponctionne une partie (en impôts ou cotisations), mais donc bien basée entièrement sur la valeur capitaliste, pas autre chose.

      On peut pas comparer des propositions qui sont « là à relativement court terme, comment on pourrait faire pour vivre déjà un peu mieux et un peu plus démocratique, mais sur le même principe qu’actuellement », et « révolution totale de mode de vie et on vit complètement autrement ». Pour moi faut toujours réfléchir aux deux, mais bon, c’est vraiment pas les mêmes échéances quoi.

    • merci pour l’épithète mais je te fiche mon billet que si Marx qui n’était pas marxiste était là, il serait autre (il a contredit ses penchants économicistes, réels, et il attachait une certaine importance à l’histoire et à l’analyse concrète comme on le sait), plus proche probablement des thèse de Jason Moore sur la mise au travail du vivant (travail vivant inclu, et pas toujours salarié) et pas fossilisé au point de reproposer une théorie marquée au coin du positivisme et déterminée par le processus d’industrialisation qui caractérisait son époque. il aurait cherché et trouvé encore ! et verrait fort bien comme Le capital a tout compte fait davantage servi de bréviaire aux exploiteurs qui jamais n’auraient pigé ce qu’ils font sans aller le découvrir chez l’ennemi.
      140 d’histoire du capitalisme dont 50 sous le signe d’une révolution permanente du capitalisme laisseraient la théorie inchangée ? dans ce cas, je sais pas, si on se soucie peu des luttes qui en ont décidé, il faut relire la théorie de la survaleur, le passage de la plus value absolue à la plus value relative (qui n’élimine pas la première) sous les coups de la lutte de classe (la lutte contre le travail des enfants, pour la journée de 8heures) et constater que contre les crises -et la révolution !- les États au XXe siècle constitués comme gestionnaires d’une plus value sociale (ici, c’est déjà « la société » qui est l’usine où est produite cette valeur qu’on ne sait plus mesurer depuis le travail-emploi)

      c’est pas une question de société future (j’ai pas grand chose à dire là dessus) ou idéale ! il n’y a que la logique capitaliste qui puisse soutenir que la mesure du temps d’emploi individuel doit déterminer la reproduction du travail vivant. c’est réduire celui-ci à cette marchandise particulière qu’est la force de travail. c’est un boulot de militant de l’économie avec lequel aucun pacte n’est possible, spécialement depuis que de la Première guerre mondiale en Europe à la crise écologique, la production pour la production apparait pour ce qu’elle est, non seulement une course au profit délétère mais bien l’enrégimentement de tout ce qui est vers la destruction.

    • pas compris grand chose au dernier message, et surtout je n’arrive jamais à comprendre ce confusionnisme de mélanger la description de comment fonctionne le capitalisme (donc bah oui merci captain obvious c’est « la logique capitalisme » forcément…) avec comment la personne voit le monde. La majeure partie du travail de Marx ça a été de décrire, mettre à jour, le fonctionnement réel du capitalisme (de son temps évidemment, toujours à mettre à jour), ce qui n’a rien à voir avec sa vision du monde, puisque ce qu’il préconisait explicitement c’était l’abolition totale de la valeur, donc bien totalement l’inverse de la logique capitaliste.
      (Par ailleurs chez lui il me semblait que la valeur ne se mesure par précisément, seulement proportionnellement et globalement à l’état de la productivité à un instant T pour une marchandise donnée ; seuls les prix se mesurent, ces derniers ayant un rapport avec la valeur, mais pas que)

  • At the heart of Fortress Europe: A new study about Austria’s role in border externalization policies in the Balkans

    On the 28th of September 2020, Ayoub N. and six of his friends were chain pushed back from Austria to Slovenia, Croatia, and eventually back to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), from where Ayoub had begun his journey to Austria a few weeks earlier. Ayoub, like many others, had been stuck for years in between the EU member states, in the Balkans, and this was just another attempt to reach the Schengen Zone. He continued trying even after this push-back. In July 2022, Ayoub was still stuck inside the Balkan Circuit (Stojić Mitrović and Vilenica 2019), a region of transit with many loops, within which movement is circular, going forward and backwards because of border violence.

    Exactly one year after Ayoub and his group of friends experienced the chain push-back, Austrian Interior Minister, Karl Nehammer, finished his trip to Kosovo, Albania, and Montenegro meant to coordinate joint frameworks for fighting what he calls illegal migration, terrorism, and organized crime. During the trip, he announced that a “Return Conference” would take place a few months later in Vienna. The gathering in February 2022 brought together high-ranking officials from more than 22 countries, including representatives of EU agencies and think tanks. The main focus of the event was supporting Western Balkan[1] states with effective deportation practices through the newly established “Joint Coordination Platform against irregular migration.” BiH was mentioned as one of the platform’s main partners, and during the press conference organized after the event BiH Security Minister Selmo Cikotić stated that “With the support of the EU and some proactive partners, like Austria, we could move from a crisis situation to migration management.”

    It is not known to the public how the “return mechanisms” discussed would materialize and on what legal grounds the return of people would take place. In 2021, a parliamentary request for information focused specifically on Austria’s plans to return people to the Western Balkans, while another asked details about the role of BiH. In response to the queries, the interior minister emphasized that Austria is “only” providing good practice, expertise, and training, while partner countries can state their specific needs and are, in the end, responsible for ensuring that the human rights of those concerned will be upheld. This is a common rhetorical practice in the context of EU border externalization policies, with EU countries only providing knowledge and equipment, while “accession” countries in the Balkans have to fulfil the dark side of Europeanization.

    Austria took over a key role in building up a network of multilateral stakeholders that enables the fortification of Europe on diplomatic and informal levels, while states and locations near and far from Central Europe face the consequences of these policies; BiH is one example.

    Lobbying for Externalization

    In July 1998, Austria took over the EU presidency. As its first intervention on the issue of EU-migration policy, it introduced the Strategy Document on Immigration and Asylum Policies, which was sent to the European Council for further discussion. In this document, Austria advocated for a unified approach to migration in the Schengen area, which at that moment comprised 15 countries. It proposed the “Europeanization of migration policy,” while describing the existing approach and structures dealing with migration as “relatively clumsy.” The document called for more cooperation with “third states” in exchange for economic and other benefits. The Strategy envisaged that “Fortress Europe” should be replaced by the “concentric circles of the migration policy,” which included EU neighboring countries. Further, the neighboring partners “should be gradually linked into a similar system” that would eventually be similar to the “first circle,” meaning the EU member states. As for “transit countries,” the main approach would be to “eliminate push factors” in them. The Strategy called for the “tightening of the pre-accession strategy… as far as migration policies are concerned.” In addition, it stressed the need for agreements with third countries that would allow the return of people whose asylum applications were rejected, as well as the introduction of policies that would deter migration in general. The paper also argued that the Geneva Convention was outdated and that individual rights should be replaced with “political offers” of EU membership, or other types of cooperation.

    By the end of the year, this proposal had been amended twice, but in the end it was rejected. A number of non-governmental organizations, including the International Federation for Human Rights, condemned the document on account of its harsh language and the restrictive measures proposed. Even though it was never adopted, the document remains a guideline, and some of its measures were put in place, especially in Austria. Along with several Balkan neighboring countries, Austria became more involved in security-related questions in the region, establishing various organizations and groups that are visibly active in the field, including the Salzburg Forum as one key intergovernmental group. Since the early 1990s, the forum functioned as a lobbying group, not only within the framework of the EU and on a regional level between its partners, but also on an often invisible level that reaches far beyond the EU. Austria played a key role in establishing the forum and is also one of its leading members. While the forum did not always achieve its strategic goals (Müller 2016, 28), it became a testing ground for fueling anti-Muslim and anti-migrant sentiments in Europe, and spearheaded plans for the dark future of EU border externalization policies. The multilateral cooperation within the Forum was based on debate, dialogue, exchange of ideas, and strategic planning; the establishment of its operative tool, the Joint Coordination Platform, is another step in cementing the externalization of border management to the Balkans.

    Coordinating “Migration Management”

    The Joint Coordination Platform (JCP) is a network that coordinates political and strategic intervention outside the Schengen Area, monitoring and controlling the EU’s external borders, as well as actions in third countries. Although it was already in the planning for several years, the JCP was inaugurated in Vienna after the Return Conference in February 2022. The JCP office is led by former Frontex Vice-President Berndt Körner and by lawyer Bohumil Hnidek,[2] and will provide a hinge function for Frontex operations in the Balkans (Monroy 2022). As the Frontex agency is not allowed to organize deportations to third countries, in the future it may support deportations from different EU countries to the Balkans, while the JCP would coordinate and monitor the rest of the “local” operations. In September 2022, the first deportations from Bosnia to Morocco with the support of the JCP already took place.

    The investigative journalist Matthias Monroy further links the Vienna-based think tank ICMPD, led by former Austrian Vice-Chancellor Michael Spindelegger (ÖVP), to the operational implementation of regional return mechanisms to the Balkans. As early as 2020, the JCP started training police officers from BiH for conducting deportations. The training of 50 “return specialists” was recently described by Austrian Interior Minister Karner: “We help with training, impart standards, but that doesn’t change the responsibility that remains in the respective countries. It is about observing all international standards.”

    To understand ICMPD’s practices on the ground, it is worth reviewing the project descriptions of its Western Balkans and Turkey office in recent years. The long-standing partner of the Salzburg Forum implements migration management, border management, and capacity building in the Balkans, for example by providing the border police in Kosovo[3] with technical and biometric equipment to register people on the move; and supporting the border police in Albania[4] with equipment for land border surveillance and maritime border surveillance and control. Capacity building in Albania means in particular providing patrol boats and surveillance vehicles. The regional capacity building projects further cover information campaigns for people in Afghanistan, Iraq, and people on the move in the Western Balkans.[5] Labelled as protection and support for migrants, ICMPD invests in the enhancement of migrant information systems[6] for authorities in BiH to implement entry control, registration, and data collection mechanisms. The “electronic biometric residence permit cards,” which should be made available through such projects, point not only to the on-ground preparation but also to the implementation of what investigative journalists call “extra-European Dublin.” This includes for example “Balkandac,” a fingerprint database in the Balkans that would allow countries to deport third-country nationals to countries with readmission agreements before entering the EU Schengen area.

    It is important to highlight that ICMPD has entered the Joint Coordination Platform with years of experience in implementing EU border externalization projects in Africa and the Middle East (Naceur 2021).

    Another active regional partner of the Joint Coordination Platform is Hilfswerk International. Next to the 1 million Euro in Austrian Development Aid that was used as an emergency relief fund through IOM in BiH in 2021, the Upper Austrian Federal Government donated 100,000 Euro to support the construction of a water system in the Lipa camp.[7] The project was implemented by Hilfswerk International, which has been working in the Balkans and especially in BiH as a humanitarian aid organization since 1996. While the organization covers a broad range of services in BiH, it recently joined the niche of network and capacity building in the field of “migration management” in BiH, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Montenegro.

    Hilfswerk International has joined the field of migration management in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a player that can offer extensive experience on the ground. Considering the top-down and dysfunctional approach implemented by IOM in the region, Hilfswerk International is an organization that is closely linked to Austria-based actors and accessible for unbureaucratic and, according to its managing director, pragmatic solutions. As Regional Director Jašarević stated in an interview about their most recent project:

    … we all know, and it is not a secret, that the EU does not want migrants on their territory. And what now? Should we leave them here to suffer or to disappear? It’s not possible.

    They [the JCP] can use our infrastructure here if needed, but they also organize some events themselves. They are connecting donors and infrastructure. They know what is going on at a much deeper level than we do. And we are happy to contribute. They are working very hard as far as I know. Very few people and very big plans, but very capable people. I think it will be more visible this year. But it has only just started.[8]

    Balkan Route: better coordination with Austrian aid

    Even at the end of the 1990s, Austria’s political landscape paved the way for defining the Western Balkans as a strategic buffer zone for Europe’s increasingly restrictive migration and asylum policies. What has been drafted as a strategy to contain migration in “concentric circles” has since developed into the full-scale implementation of land and sea border zones that legitimate legislation, control, tracking, management of, and violence against people moving in circuits while trying to reach the EU Schengen zone.

    Our study can be used as a tool to further investigate Austrian-based and Austrian-initiated organizations, security corporations, and individual actors that are heavily involved in violent EU border externalization from Vienna to Sarajevo and beyond.

    The full study can be accessed here.

    References:

    Müller, Patrick. 2016. “Europeanization and regional cooperation initiatives: Austria’s participation in the Salzburg Forum and in Central European Defence Cooperation.” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 45, no. 2: 24-34.

    Stojić Mitrović, Marta, and Ana Vilenica. 2019. “Enforcing
    and disrupting circular movement in an EU
    Borderscape: housingscaping in Serbia.” Citizenship Studies 23, no. 6: 540-55.

    Stojić Mitrović, Marta, Nidzara Ahmetašević, Barbara Beznec, and Andrej Kurnik. 2020. The Dark Sides of Europeanisation: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the European Border Regime. Belgrade: Rosa-Luxemburg Stiftung Southeast Europe; and Ljubljana: Inštitut Časopis za kritiko znanosti. https://rosalux.rs/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/169_the-dark-side-of-europeanisation-_vladan_jeremic_and_wenke_christoph_rls.

    [1] The authors only use the term Western Balkans in relation to the process of EU border externalization and accession plans of Albania, BiH, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. See Stojić Mitrović et al. 2020, 20-22.

    [2] Bohumil Hnidek is a lawyer and the former Director for International Cooperation and EU Affairs to the Ministry of interior of the Czech Republic.

    [3] MIK: Manage increased influx of migrants in Kosovo, April, March 2021 (Fact Sheet ICMPD, 4).

    [4] EU4SAVEALB: EU Support for the Effective Management of Green and Blue Borders in Albania, February 2019-April 2022 (Fact Sheet ICMPD, 7-8).

    [5] IKAM: Information and capacity building on asylum, legal and irregular migration in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Western Balkans, March 2021-March 2022 (ICMPD Fact Sheet, 9).

    [6] MiS BiH: Enhancement of Migration Information System for Strengthening Migration, Asylum and Border Management in Bosnia and Herzegovina, November 2021-March 2023 (ICMPD Fact Sheet, 9-10).

    [7] In mid-June 2022, people living in Lipa reached out to local volunteers in BiH to inform them that for a week they did not have running water. At that moment, the temperatures were over 40 degrees. Even though less than 400 people were in the camp (capacity is 1,500), people were crammed in containers (six in each) with one small fan, and were receiving a gallon of water per person a day. Every day, one cistern was used. According to the testimony, there was no water in the bathrooms and toilets, either. After the information was published on social media, people in the camp told local volunteers that the employees in the camp threatened some of the residents, warning them that they cannot talk about the camp and saying that if they did not like the place they could leave.

    [8] Interview Suzana Jašarević online, 15 March 2022.

    https://lefteast.org/fortress-europe-austria-border-externalization

    #Autriche #externalisation #asile #migrations #réfugiés #frontières #contrôles_frontaliers #Balkans #route_des_Balkans #push-backs #refoulements #refoulements_en_chaîne #Slovénie #Croatie #migrerrance #violence #Balkan_Circuit #Return_Conference #Joint_Coordination_Platform_against_irregular_migration #renvois #expulsions #Joint_Coordination_Platform (#JCP) #Frontex #ICMPD #Michael_Spindelegger #return_specialists #spécialistes_du_retour #Salzburg_Forum #Kosovo #militarisation_des_frontières #complexe_militaro-industriel #Albanie #surveillance #surveillance_des_frontières #biométrie #Balkandac #empreintes_digitales #réadmission #Hilfswerk_International #Lipa #Bosnie #Bosnie_et_Herzégovine #Serbie #Macédoine_du_Nord #Monténégro

    • At the Heart of Fortress Europe

      The study provides a broad mapping of Austrian-based multilateral cooperation, actors, and or­ganisations that are heavily involved in EU border externalisation policies far beyond Austrian borders – and therefore in the violent and sometimes lethal approach to people on the move.

      Since the ‘long summer of migration’ in 2015 and the sealing of the Balkan Route in 2016, people on the move are trying to make their way to the European Schengen area via Bosnia-Herzegovina. According to Frontex, the Western Balkans has become one of the main migrant routes to Europe. The actors examined here are therefore of particular importance.

      https://www.transform-network.net/publications/issue/at-the-heart-of-fortress-europe

      #rapport

    • Balkans : la #Serbie, la #Hongrie et l’Autriche s’unissent contre l’immigration illégale

      La Serbie a accepté mercredi, en concertation avec la Hongrie et l’Autriche, de déployer des forces de police supplémentaires à sa frontière Sud avec la Macédoine du Nord, afin de lutter contre l’immigration illégale. L’Autriche va envoyer 100 policiers en renfort dans cette zone.

      La Serbie est parvenue à un accord avec la Hongrie et l’Autriche, mercredi 16 novembre, sur le déploiement de patrouilles de police conjointes le long de sa frontière Sud.

      « Nous avons convenu d’engager plus de police (...) à la frontière avec la Macédoine du Nord », a déclaré le président serbe Aleksandar Vucic, lors d’une conférence de presse organisée après la signature de l’accord avec les Premiers ministres hongrois et autrichien, Viktor Orban et Karl Nehammer.

      L’accord vise à freiner en amont les arrivées dans l’Union européenne (UE), la Serbie étant utilisée comme un pays de transit par les migrants. La route des Balkans occidentaux, via la Turquie, la Bulgarie, la Macédoine du Nord et la Serbie, reste la principale porte d’entrée dans l’UE pour les migrants. Près de 130 000 entrées irrégulières dans l’UE à partir de la route des Balkans occidentaux ont été enregistrées sur les dix premiers mois de l’année 2022, soit le nombre le plus fort depuis le pic de la crise migratoire de 2015, selon Frontex.
      « La migration illégale ne devrait pas être gérée, elle devrait être stoppée »

      Karl Nehammer a annoncé que son pays allait déployer 100 officiers de police pour aider son voisin serbe à patrouiller la frontière avec la Macédoine du Nord. Ces patrouilles seront secondées par des moyens techniques tels que « des caméras à vision thermique, des drones et des véhicules », a précisé le Premier ministre autrichien. Le même genre de matériel est déjà utilisé à la frontière serbo-hongroise où, depuis 2017, une clôture s’étend sur 160 km.

      Viktor Orban a, de son côté, affirmé que, depuis le début de l’année 2022, la Hongrie avait empêché 250 000 franchissements illégaux de frontières, dont beaucoup organisés par des passeurs armés. « La migration illégale ne devrait pas être gérée, elle devrait être stoppée », a-t-il ajouté, décrivant la situation à la frontière avec la Serbie comme « difficile ».

      Conséquence du mur érigé entre la Serbie et la Hongrie : les migrants se tournent vers les passeurs, seuls espoirs pour les aider à franchir. Résultat, dans la zone, leur mainmise s’exerce partout, dans les camps informels comme à l’intérieur des centres officiels, comme a pu le constater InfoMigrants sur place en octobre.
      En finir avec le « tourisme de l’asile »

      Toujours mercredi, Aleksandar Vucic a déclaré que son pays imposait désormais des visas aux ressortissants de la Tunisie et du Burundi, une mesure déjà annoncée en octobre mais qui entre ces jours-ci en vigueur.

      L’UE et la Suisse avaient fait pression pendant plusieurs semaines sur la Serbie afin qu’elle modifie sa politique des visas. Ces pays avaient reproché à la Serbie de servir de porte d’entrée vers l’UE à des migrants turcs, indiens, tunisiens, cubains et burundais, dispensés de visas jusque là pour venir dans le pays. C’est maintenant chose faite.

      Le président de la Serbie, du pays candidat à l’UE depuis 2012, avait promis que Belgrade alignerait sa politique des visas sur celle de Bruxelles « d’ici la fin de l’année » en commençant par la révocation des dispenses accordées aux Tunisiens, Burundais et Indiens. « Bientôt, deux autres pays seront soumis à cette même mesure car nous devrons avoir le même régime de visas que l’UE », a-t-il prévenu, sans préciser de quels pays il s’agissait.

      « Je suis reconnaissant envers le président de la Serbie pour tout ce qu’il fait pour en finir avec le ’tourisme de l’asile’ », a réagi, mercredi, Karl Nehammer.

      Ensemble, les Tunisiens, les Burundais, les Indiens, les Cubains et les Turcs représentent seulement 20% des migrants passés par la route des Balkans occidentaux depuis janvier 2022. La grande majorité des personnes qui transitent par la Serbie ne sont donc pas des exilés exemptés de visas. La plupart sont originaires d’Afghanistan et de Syrie.

      http://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/44816/balkans--la-serbie-la-hongrie-et-lautriche-sunissent-contre-limmigrati

  • The Full Story Behind Sega Channel, Sega’s Precursor To Game Pass | Time Extension
    https://www.timeextension.com/features/the-full-story-behind-sega-channel-segas-precursor-to-game-pass

    The idea of video games on demand is something we’re all quite familiar with today thanks to subscription services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, but what you might not know - and might even struggle to believe - is that Sega attempted its own version of this business model back in the 1990s.

    #jeu_vidéo #jeux_vidéo #rétro #vintage #sega #sega_channel #time_warner #console_megadrive #console_genesis #xbox_game_pass #playstation_plus #rétrospective #tv #sega_of_america #nintendo #tom_kalinske #doug_glen #delta_box #atari_2600 #tom_kalinske #stan_thomas #hbo #andy_rifkin #gaas #konami #michael_shorrock #andy_rifkin #nick_fiore #ea #jeu_vidéo_triple_play_baseball_96 #jeu_vidéo_primal_rage #atari_games

  • The Full Story Behind Sega Channel, Sega’s Precursor To Game Pass | Time Extension
    https://www.timeextension.com/features/the-full-story-behind-sega-channel-segas-precursor-to-game-pass

    The idea of video games on demand is something we’re all quite familiar with today thanks to subscription services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, but what you might not know - and might even struggle to believe - is that Sega attempted its own version of this business model back in the 1990s.

    #jeu_vidéo #jeux_vidéo #rétro #vintage #sega #sega_channel #time_warner #console_megadrive #console_genesis #xbox_game_pass #playstation_plus #rétrospective #tv #sega_of_america #nintendo #tom_kalinske #doug_glen #delta_box #atari_2600 #tom_kalinske #stan_thomas #hbo #andy_rifkin #gaas #konami #michael_shorrock #

  • Blockchain game studio Immutable is making layoffs
    https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/web3-developer-immutable-games-studio-hit-with-layoffs

    Founded in 2018 by Alex Connolly and James and Robbie Ferguson, and part of the blockchain company Immutable X, the studio develops NFT games. Immutable is credited with “pioneering the world’s first blockbuster NFT trading-card game” in Gods Unchained. It has also been involved with the development of upcoming mobile action-RPG, Guild of Guardians. 

    In March, Immutable X partnered with retailer GameStop to establish a $100 million fund in Immutable tokens to assist those looking to create NFT technology and content. GameStop recently launched its own NFT marketplace, which came under fire when it had to remove an NFT referencing a man who fell to his death during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks from its marketplace.

    NFTs are trying to make a place for themselves in gaming Right now, numerous NFT and blockchain companies are trying to push into the mainstream video game market, while some developers and publishers have also flirted with the controversial technology.

    #jeu_vidéo #jeux_vidéo #business #finance #immutable #licenciements #ressources_humaines #nft #chaîne_de_blocs #blockchain #gamestop #microsoft #jeu_vidéo_minecraft #nft_worlds #jeu_vidéo_final_fantasy_vii #playstation_studios #john_garvin #michael_mumbauer #liithios #jeu_vidéo_ashfall #web3 #jeu_vidéo_stalker_2_heart_of_chernobyl #gsc_game_world #crypto #game_developers_conference #gdc #jeu_vidéo_guild_of_guardians