person:john

  • How music about space became music about drugs - MIT Technology Review
    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613762/space-music-drugs

    The rock era and the space age exist on parallel time lines. The Soviets launched Sputnik in October 1957, the same month Elvis Presley hit #1 with “Jailhouse Rock.” The first Beatles single, “Love Me Do,” was released 23 days after John F. Kennedy declared that America would go to the moon (and not because it was easy, but because it was hard). Apollo 11 landed the same summer as Woodstock. These specific events are (of course) coincidences. Yet the larger arc is not. Mankind’s assault upon the heavens was the most dramatic achievement of the 20th century’s second half, simultaneous with rock’s transformation of youth culture. It does not take a deconstructionist to see the influence of the former on the latter. The number of pop lyrics fixated on the concept of space is massive, and perhaps even predictable. It was the language of the era. But what’s more complicated is what that concept came to signify, particularly in terms of how the silence of space was somehow supposed to sound.

    The principal figure in this conversation is also the most obvious: David Bowie. In a playlist of the greatest pop songs ever written about life beyond the stratosphere, 1969’s “Space Oddity” would be the opening cut, a musical experience so definitive that its unofficial sequel—the 1983 synth-pop “Major Tom (Coming Home)” by German one-hit wonder Peter Schilling—would probably be track number two. The lyrical content of “Space Oddity” is spoken more than sung, and the story is straightforward: an astronaut (Major Tom) rockets into space and something goes terribly wrong. It’s odd, in retrospect, that a song with such a pessimistic view of space travel would be released just 10 days before Neil Armstrong stepped on the lunar surface. That level of pessimism, however, would become the standard way for rock musicians to write about science. Outside of Sun Ra or Ace Frehley, it’s hard to find serious songs about space that aren’t framed as isolating or depressing.

    Space is a vacuum: the only song capturing the verbatim resonance of space is John Cage’s perfectly silent “4’33".” Any artist purporting to embody the acoustics of the cosmos is projecting a myth. That myth, however, is collective and widely understood. Space has no sound, but certain sounds are “spacey.” Part of this is due to “Space Oddity”; another part comes from cinema, particularly the soundtrack to 2001 (the epic power of classical music by Richard Strauss and György Ligeti). Still another factor is the consistent application of specific instruments, like the ondes martenot (a keyboard that vaguely simulates a human voice, used most famously in the theme to the TV show Star Trek). The shared assumptions about what makes music extraterrestrial are now so accepted that we tend to ignore how strange it is that we all agree on something impossible.

    Unsurprisingly, the ambiance of these tracks merged with psychedelic tendencies. The idea of “music about space” became shorthand for “music about drugs,” and sometimes for “music to play when you are taking drugs and thinking about space.” And this, at a base level, is the most accurate definition of the genre we now called space rock.

    The apotheosis of all the fake audio signifiers for interstellar displacement, Dark Side of the Moon (and its 1975 follow-up Wish You Were Here) perfected the synthesizer, defining it as the musical vehicle for soundtracking the future. Originally conceived as a way to replicate analog instruments, first-generation synthesizers saw their limitations become their paradoxical utility: though incapable of credibly simulating a real guitar, they could create an unreal guitar tone that was innovative and warmly inhuman. It didn’t have anything to do with actual astronomy, but it seemed to connote both the wonder and terror of an infinite universe. By now, describing pop music as “spacey” usually just means it sounds a little like Pink Floyd.

    What has happened, it seems, is that our primitive question about the moon’s philosophical proximity to Earth has been incrementally resolved. What once seemed distant has microscoped to nothingness. When rock music was new, space was new—and it seemed so far beyond us. Anything was possible. It was a creative dreamscape. But you know what? We eventually got there. We went to space so often that people got bored. The two Voyager craft had already drifted past Pluto before Nirvana released Nevermind in 1991. You can see a picture of a black hole in the New York Times. The notion that outer space is vast and unknowable has been replaced by the notion that space is exactly as it should be, remarkable as it is anodyne.

    #Musique #Espace #David_Bowie #Pink_Floyd

  • Les cafards sont devenus résistants à la quasi totalité des insecticides. Étude parue dans Nature diffusée sur RT

    Estudio advierte que las cucarachas se están volviendo imposibles de matar
    http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/ciencia-tecnologia/estudio-advierte-que-las-cucarachas-estan-volviendo-imposibles-matar_28

    Probaron diferentes insecticidas en edificios de Indiana e Illinois, que alternaban cada mes. Encontraron que las poblaciones aumentaron o se mantuvieron estables

    Un grupo de investigadores expuso a cucarachas comunes a diferentes tipos de productos químicos durante seis meses, y encontraron que las poblaciones aumentaron o se mantuvieron estables.

    Las cucarachas están evolucionando rápidamente para ser resistentes a casi todo tipo de insecticida y pronto podrían ser casi imposible de matarlas solo con pesticidas, se desprende de un estudio publicado en la revista Nature difundido por el sitio web RT.

    En una búsqueda para determinar los métodos de erradicación más óptima de estos insectos, entomólogos de la Universidad Purdue de Indiana, Estados Unidos, establecieron un experimento para evaluar su resistencia a los pesticidas en generaciones sucesivas y analizaron concretamente la especie más común: la Blattella germanica, más conocida como cucaracha rubia o alemana.

  • The steal of the century: stolen land, stolen water, stolen images – Middle East Monitor
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190627-the-steal-of-the-century-stolen-land-stolen-water-stolen

    Jared Kushner and Benjamin Netanyahu must have considered it the longest of long shots but what if the Palestinians by some wild stretch of the imagination had called their bluff on the “deal of the century”; what if they had suddenly decided to turn up in Bahrain for the “Peace to Prosperity” workshop this week?

    To guard against any such thing happening, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, wrote a deliberately offensive and insulting opinion piece on 24 June that the #New_York_Times was happy to publish. “What’s wrong with Palestinian surrender?” mused Ambassador Danon. “Surrender is the recognition that in a contest, staying the course will prove costlier than submission.” Having backed the Palestinians into a corner from which they could only say no, Kushner then had Danon stick the knife in.

    The message, in all its arrogance, was clear: if you don’t take what is on offer, it is going to get a hell of a lot worse. However, we know we have made it impossible for you to take what is on offer, so guess what? The two state solution is well and truly dead; the path to a greater Israel is secured; welcome to the new reality of Palestinian Bantustans in the West Bank and Gaza. And, oh yes, we promise to throw cash at you, $50 billion; that’s a lot of dosh, if you do what is commanded of you. If you don’t, well that money is off the table.

    While many commentators have rightly attacked the New York Times for publishing an openly racist and hate-mongering piece, they may have missed the larger significance of what is happening at speed in the killing of the two-state solution. The day before the Danon article, US National Security Advisor John Bolton accompanied the Israeli Prime Minister to land overlooking the Jordan Valley, the most fertile region of the West Bank. Nearly 90 per cent of the valley has been allocated to Israeli settlements and agriculture, in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 242 and international law.

    #vol #voleurs #sans_vergogne #Palestine #impunité #etats-unis #sionisme

  • Architectural Review : The Irish issue

    https://www.architectural-review.com/my-account/magazine-archive/the-irish-issue-is-here/10042957.article

    Un numéro intéressant consacré à l’Irlande

    Avec cette carte de Belfast en page 106

    ‘If there is a canon in Irish architecture, it seems to be one of ambiguity, of refined cross-pollinations, of great thought in small things’, writes Andrew Clancy. He offers an Irishness in relation, between home and away, one that traverses and returns, to stand at the edge of Europe and before the open ocean. By sending this issue to press at the end of May, the idea was to have caught the islands just two months after the UK’s formal departure from the European Union, with whatever strained solution might have been wrought into the land around the border. We remain, however, afloat in the unknown; and as the interminable process grinds on – as Maria McLintock writes – our language around it remains insufficient, the messy and pulsating borderlands collapsed into ‘backstop’.

    Ignoring the rigid, often arbitrary, frontiers dividing countries, choosing to encompass instead the entirety of ‘the islands of Ireland’ is itself a provocation. But in this issue, we ramble the land from end to end and over the sea to Inis Mór, the ambiguity of our appelation proving productive, to rove around rich seams and difficult terrain to cast an eye over a land in the middle of something.

    In the keynote, Shane O’Toole traces the developments of a critical culture of architecture across Ireland, starting in November 1974 when the AR paid a visit to Dublin, and following on through to the threats posed to the culture today. ‘How long can architects survive on house extensions and other small private commissions before their potential atrophies?’, he asks. In reflection, Eleanor Beaumont considers the ambitious architecture packed into Dublin’s domestic projects, such as those by Clancy Moore, TAKA, Ryan W Kennihan Architects, and Arigho Larmour Wheeler Architects, and Noreile Breen features as this issue’s AREA profile. Going back to Group 91, and the introduction of Irish architecture to an international scene, we also feature a retrospective on Grafton Architects, and their offers of silence in the cacophony of the city.

    We go to Galway, on the Republic’s western coast, to review the recently-completed Pálás cinema by dePaor, a small and fantastical gem fourteen years in the making. Further out in the remote western reaches of Rosmuc and the Aran isle of Inis Mór, we also feature two new school buildings by Paul Dillon, the simplicity and clarity of which does not undermine their value. Looking back to a school rooted in 1970s ideals, we revisit Birr Community School by Peter and Mary Doyle, a school found to be ‘no museum piece’, as John McLaughlin and Aiobheann Ní Mhearáin write: ‘the values it embodies are as pertinent today as they were when it was first built.’

    In Belfast, Mark Hackett asserts that the roads that profess to connect the city can be as divisive as its walls, and Gary A Boyd reviews the transport hub designed by Hackett’s former partners, Hall McKnight, as part of a masterplan hoped to catalyse regeneration of the city’s dislocated fringe. In Outrage, Dawn Foster writes that inequalities in access to social housing continue to perpetuate the divide between Catholics and Protestants. In Cantrell Close in Belfast for example, the banners hung around the purportedly mixed community constitute a warning: symbols become violent, even lethal. As Darran Anderson writes, the land is one of iconographers – but also one of iconoclasts, the violence of the conflict mirrored by symbolic acts of destruction carried out on architecture as a receptacle of collective memory.

    In this issue we also feature The raingod’s green, dark as passion, a lyrical story of Cork by Kevin Barry, while Reputations looks at the life of States-based architect, Pritzker laureate and County Cork native, Kevin Roche.

    #irlande #architecture #conflit #frontière #urban_matter

  • Renaud Epstein & station urbaner kulturen

    (Feben Amara, Jochen Becker, Christian Hanussek, Eva Hertzsch, Adam Page) with Oliver Pohlisch and Birgit Schlieps

    One day, one ZUP, one postcard (2014-…), 2018

    Wallpaper / Display cabinet
    Collection station urbaner kulturen, Berlin-Hellersdorf

    The sociologist Renaud Epstein’s project has first and foremost been an online format since its initiation in 2014: he posts a new postcard of large housing estates (Zones à Urbaniser par Priorité / ZUP) on his Twitter account every day. From a time when France dreamed of being modern and urban and believed in its architectural utopias, the ZUP postcards evoke at best a golden era, at worst a contemporary delusion.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/vte4ejv9wsumzyh/ARLES%202019-PRESS%20KIT-kl.pdf?dl=0

    The Berlin collective station urbaner kulturen, based in the last big housing estate built in the GDR, has extracted sections from Epstein’s Twitter timeline in order to materialize the interaction between internet users and images. Their project «Going out of Circles / Kreise ziehen» presents a wider series of exhibitions that aims to create connections between the housing estates on the periphery of urban and economic centers, around Berlin and beyond.

    A display case with original postcards next to the Twitter wallpaper emphasises the different readings of formats of communication.

    Postcards – News from a Dream World
    Musée départemental Arles Antique

    1 July - 25 August / 10 - 18

    Exhibition curators: Magali Nachtergael and Anne Reverseau

    Eric Baudart & Thu-Van Tran (1972 et 1979), Fredi Casco (1967), Moyra Davey (1958), documentation céline duval (1974), Renaud Epstein & station urbane kulturen (1971 et créé en 2014), Jean Geiser (1848-1923), Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (1969), Roc Herms (1978), Susan Hiller (1940-2019), John Hinde (1916-1997), Katia Kameli (1973), Aglaia Konrad (1960), Valérie Mréjen (1969), Martin Parr (1952), Mathieu Pernot (1970), Brenda Lou Schaub (1993), Stephen Shore (1947), John Stezaker (1948), Oriol Vilanova (1980), William Wegman (1943)

    The postcard is the ultimate circulating picture, constantly subject to a sense of déjà-vu. Throughout the twentieth century, it went hand in hand with the bottling of the visible world, the rise of image globalization and mass tourism. Collectors, hoarders, retouchers and iconographers seize existing pictures to give them a new meaning, clarify their status or context.

    By comparing this artistic vision with the making of postcards, this exhibition questions what they show and tell of the world, like a visual anthropology. What did they convey throughout the twentieth century, during their hour of glory? What vision of the world did they plant in the minds of their recipients, who got them from relatives and friends?

    Both a symbol of our private and collective imagination, the postcard represents an illusion, always close to hand. It shows us a dream world in which can project ourselves, as in a desirable fiction story.

    www.rencontres-arles.com/en/expositions/view/779/cartes-postales

    https://archiv.ngbk.de/projekte/station-urbaner-kulturen-hellersdorf-seit-2014
    https://www.ngbk.de/en/program/initiative-urbane-kulturen

    #renaud_epstein #cartes_postales

  • U.A.E. Splits With U.S. Over Blame for Oil Tanker Attack in May - Bloomberg
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-26/u-a-e-splits-with-u-s-over-blame-for-oil-tanker-attack-in-may


    A U.S. Navy vessel guards the Japanese oil tanker Kokuka Courageous in the Gulf of Oman.
    Photographer: Mumen Khatib/AFP via Getty Images

    The United Arab Emirates appeared to distance itself from U.S. claims that pinned attacks on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz on Iran.

    Honestly we can’t point the blame at any country because we don’t have evidence,” Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan said on Wednesday in Moscow. “If there is a country that has the evidence, then I’m convinced that the international community will listen to it. But we need to make sure the evidence is precise and convincing.

    While an investigation by the U.A.E., Norway and Saudi Arabia concluded that a “state actor” was most likely behind the incident in May, no nation was singled out. Still, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton has said that Iran was almost certainly responsible.

  • Silicon Valley Came to Kansas Schools. That Started a Rebellion. - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/technology/silicon-valley-kansas-schools.html

    Silicon Valley had come to small-town Kansas schools — and it was not going well.

    “I want to just take my Chromebook back and tell them I’m not doing it anymore,” said Kallee Forslund, 16, a 10th grader in Wellington.

    Eight months earlier, public schools near Wichita had rolled out a web-based platform and curriculum from Summit Learning. The Silicon Valley-based program promotes an educational approach called “personalized learning,” which uses online tools to customize education. The platform that Summit provides was developed by Facebook engineers. It is funded by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician.

    Many families in the Kansas towns, which have grappled with underfunded public schools and deteriorating test scores, initially embraced the change. Under Summit’s program, students spend much of the day on their laptops and go online for lesson plans and quizzes, which they complete at their own pace. Teachers assist students with the work, hold mentoring sessions and lead special projects. The system is free to schools. The laptops are typically bought separately.

    Then, students started coming home with headaches and hand cramps. Some said they felt more anxious. One child asked to bring her dad’s hunting earmuffs to class to block out classmates because work was now done largely alone.

    “We’re allowing the computers to teach and the kids all looked like zombies,” said Tyson Koenig, a factory supervisor in McPherson, who visited his son’s fourth-grade class. In October, he pulled the 10-year-old out of the school.

    “Change rarely comes without some bumps in the road,” said Gordon Mohn, McPherson’s superintendent of schools. He added, “Students are becoming self-directed learners and are demonstrating greater ownership of their learning activities.”

    John Buckendorf, Wellington High School’s principal, said the “vast majority of our parents are happy with the program.”

    The resistance in Kansas is part of mounting nationwide opposition to Summit, which began trials of its system in public schools four years ago and is now in around 380 schools and used by 74,000 students. In Brooklyn, high school students walked out in November after their school started using Summit’s platform. In Indiana, Pa., after a survey by Indiana University of Pennsylvania found 70 percent of students wanted Summit dropped or made optional, the school board scaled it back and then voted this month to terminate it. And in Cheshire, Conn., the program was cut after protests in 2017.

    “When there are frustrating situations, generally ki

    ds get over them, parents get over them, and they all move on,” said Mary Burnham, who has two grandchildren in Cheshire’s school district and started a petition to end Summit’s use. “Nobody got over this.”

    Silicon Valley has tried to remake American education in its own image for years, even as many in tech eschew gadgets and software at home and flood into tech-free schools. Summit has been part of the leading edge of the movement, but the rebellion raises questions about a heavy reliance on tech in public schools.

    For years, education experts have debated the merits of self-directed, online learning versus traditional teacher-led classrooms. Proponents argue that programs like Summit provide children, especially those in underserved towns, access to high-quality curriculums and teachers. Skeptics worry about screen time and argue that students miss out on important interpersonal lessons.❞

    When this school year started, children got laptops to use Summit software and curriculums. In class, they sat at the computers working through subjects from math to English to history. Teachers told students that their role was now to be a mentor .

    Myriland French, 16, a student at Wellington’s high school, said she had developed eye strain and missed talking to teachers and students in class. “Everyone is more stressed now,” she said.

    #Facebook #Education #Summit

  • 1969, « Que je t’aime » devient le succès de l’année - Archives vidéo et radio Ina.fr
    https://www.ina.fr/contenus-editoriaux/articles-editoriaux/1969-que-je-t-aime-devient-le-succes-de-l-annee

    Que je t’aime, le titre culte de Johnny Hallyday souffle ses cinquante bougies. Cette chanson est l’un des plus grands succès du chanteur et elle est toujours plébiscitée par le public.

    « Quand on a fait l’amour. Comme d’autres font la guerre. Quand c’est moi le soldat. Qui meurt et qui la perd ». La chanson Que je t’aime, l’autre héritage de Johnny...

    Nous sommes le 22 juin 1974 sur le plateau de l’émission de variétés Top à. Johnny Hallyday interprète ce jour-là l’un de ses plus grands tubes intitulé Que je t’aime. Il est accompagné par son orchestre dirigé par Tommy Brown.

    Que je t’aime est sorti en 1969, c’est une chanson d’amour écrite par le compositeur Jean Renard et le parolier Gilles Thibaut qui, fou amoureux, l’avait écrit en une nuit pour exprimer ses sentiments. Il envoie ce texte avec d’autres à Johnny Hallyday qui recherche justement un titre fort pour sa rentrée au Palais des sports. Touché par ces paroles à la fois tendres et sauvages, le chanteur la transmet à son compositeur Jean Renard. Il lui aurait dit « Tu verras, c’est un truc qui parle d’amour ».

    Jean Renard, à l’inverse de l’auteur des paroles, traverse une crise sentimentale compliquée et compose une musique plutôt nostalgique qu’il réservait d’ailleurs à un autre titre fourni par Johnny, Ceux que l’amour a blessé, également proposé par Thibaut en même temps que Que je t’aime.

    Le contraste paroles enflammées sur musique dépressive ne séduit pas l’idole des jeunes. Il juge la tonalité trop haute pour lui. Jean Renard apporte quelques modifications à sa composition. De son côté, sur les conseils de Johnny, Thibaut modifie l’agencement des paroles. A l’origine « que je t’aime » était placé au début de chaque couplet. Modification faite, le titre fonctionne parfaitement.

    Que je t’aime est créé à la scène lors du spectacle de Johnny Hallyday au Palais des sports du 26 avril au 4 mai 1969. A chaque fois, il provoquera l’hystérie parmi les spectatrices. Même sur les plateaux télé, si on en juge par le niveau sonore des cris dans l’émission Cadet Rousselle en 1973.

    L’année de sa sortie, le titre sera n° 1 des ventes durant 16 semaines, le 45t s’écoule à plus de 700 000 exemplaires en France, devenant la meilleure vente de singles de l’année 1969. La version italienne sera également n° 1 en Italie.

    #Musique #Johnny_Hallyday

  • The Epoch Times
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times


    Je constate que les membres de Falun Gong sont des personnes apolitiques et paisibles alors que les organisateurs du mouvement dépensent des millions pour soutenir des extrémistes de droite dans le monde entier. Ceci met en question les affirmations de l’organisation qui accuse la Chine d’emprisonner ses disciples afin de les tuer pour vendre leurs d’organes.

    The Epoch Times is a multi-language newspaper headquartered in New York City. The company was founded in 2000 by John Tang and a group of Chinese Americans associated with the Falun Gong spiritual movement. The newspaper covers general interest topics with a focus on news about China and human rights issues there. It draws from a network of sources inside China, as well as Chinese expatriates living in the West. It is also known for coverage favorable to rightist politicians in the West, including Donald Trump in the United States and far-right groups in Germany.

    The Epoch Times is widely distributed in overseas Chinese communities, and has been publishing in Chinese since May 2000. It is either sold or distributed free-of-charge in 35 countries, including various intranational regional editions. It has editions in English, Chinese and nine other languages in print, as well as 21 different languages on the internet.

    #Chine #religion #politique #extrême_droite

  • Call immigrant detention centers what they really are: concentration camps

    If you were paying close attention last week, you might have spotted a pattern in the news. Peeking out from behind the breathless coverage of the Trump family’s tuxedoed trip to London was a spate of deaths of immigrants in U.S. custody: Johana Medina Léon, a 25-year-old transgender asylum seeker; an unnamed 33-year-old Salvadoran man; and a 40-year-old woman from Honduras.

    Photos from a Border Patrol processing center in El Paso showed people herded so tightly into cells that they had to stand on toilets to breathe. Memos surfaced by journalist Ken Klippenstein revealed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s failure to provide medical care was responsible for suicides and other deaths of detainees. These followed another report that showed that thousands of detainees are being brutally held in isolation cells just for being transgender or mentally ill.

    Also last week, the Trump administration cut funding for classes, recreation and legal aid at detention centers holding minors — which were likened to “summer camps” by a senior ICE official last year. And there was the revelation that months after being torn from their parents’ arms, 37 children were locked in vans for up to 39 hours in the parking lot of a detention center outside Port Isabel, Texas. In the last year, at least seven migrant children have died in federal custody.

    Preventing mass outrage at a system like this takes work. Certainly it helps that the news media covers these horrors intermittently rather than as snowballing proof of a racist, lawless administration. But most of all, authorities prevail when the places where people are being tortured and left to die stay hidden, misleadingly named and far from prying eyes.

    There’s a name for that kind of system. They’re called concentration camps. You might balk at my use of the term. That’s good — it’s something to be balked at.

    The goal of concentration camps has always been to be ignored. The German-Jewish political theorist Hannah Arendt, who was imprisoned by the Gestapo and interned in a French camp, wrote a few years afterward about the different levels of concentration camps. Extermination camps were the most extreme; others were just about getting “undesirable elements … out of the way.” All had one thing in common: “The human masses sealed off in them are treated as if they no longer existed, as if what happened to them were no longer of interest to anybody, as if they were already dead.”

    Euphemisms play a big role in that forgetting. The term “concentration camp” is itself a euphemism. It was invented by a Spanish official to paper over his relocation of millions of rural families into squalid garrison towns where they would starve during Cuba’s 1895 independence war. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered Japanese Americans into prisons during World War II, he initially called them concentration camps. Americans ended up using more benign names, like “Manzanar Relocation Center.”

    Even the Nazis’ camps started out small, housing criminals, Communists and opponents of the regime. It took five years to begin the mass detention of Jews. It took eight, and the outbreak of a world war, for the first extermination camps to open. Even then, the Nazis had to keep lying to distract attention, claiming Jews were merely being resettled to remote work sites. That’s what the famous signs — Arbeit Macht Frei, or “Work Sets You Free” — were about.

    Subterfuge doesn’t always work. A year ago, Americans accidentally became aware that the Trump administration had adopted (and lied about) a policy of ripping families apart at the border. The flurry of attention was thanks to the viral conflation of two separate but related stories: the family-separation order and bureaucrats’ admission that they’d been unable to locate thousands of migrant children who’d been placed with sponsors after crossing the border alone.

    Trump shoved that easily down the memory hole. He dragged his heels a bit, then agreed to a new policy: throwing whole families into camps together. Political reporters posed irrelevant questions, like whether President Obama had been just as bad, and what it meant for the midterms. Then they moved on.

    It is important to note that Trump’s aides have built this system of racist terror on something that has existed for a long time. Several camps opened under Obama, and as president he deported millions of people.

    But Trump’s game is different. It certainly isn’t about negotiating immigration reform with Congress. Trump has made it clear that he wants to stifle all non-white immigration, period. His mass arrests, iceboxes and dog cages are part of an explicitly nationalist project to put the country under the control of the right kind of white people.

    As a Republican National Committee report noted in 2013: “The nation’s demographic changes add to the urgency of recognizing how precarious our position has become.” The Trump administration’s attempt to put a citizenship question on the 2020 census was also just revealed to have been a plot to disadvantage political opponents and boost “Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites” all along.

    That’s why this isn’t just a crisis facing immigrants. When a leader puts people in camps to stay in power, history shows that he doesn’t usually stop with the first group he detains.

    There are now at least 48,000 people detained in ICE facilities, which a former official told BuzzFeed News “could swell indefinitely.” Customs and Border Protection officials apprehended more than 144,000 people on the Southwest border last month. (The New York Times dutifully reported this as evidence of a “dramatic surge in border crossings,” rather than what it was: The administration using its own surge of arrests to justify the rest of its policies.)

    If we call them what they are — a growing system of American concentration camps — we will be more likely to give them the attention they deserve. We need to know their names: Port Isabel, Dilley, Adelanto, Hutto and on and on. With constant, unrelenting attention, it is possible we might alleviate the plight of the people inside, and stop the crisis from getting worse. Maybe people won’t be able to disappear so easily into the iceboxes. Maybe it will be harder for authorities to lie about children’s deaths.

    Maybe Trump’s concentration camps will be the first thing we think of when we see him scowling on TV.

    The only other option is to leave it up to those in power to decide what’s next. That’s a calculated risk. As Andrea Pitzer, author of “One Long Night,” one of the most comprehensive books on the history of concentration camps, recently noted: “Every country has said their camps are humane and will be different. Trump is instinctively an authoritarian. He’ll take them as far as he’s allowed to.”

    https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-katz-immigrant-concentration-camps-20190609-story.html
    #terminologie #vocabulaire #mots #camps #camps_de_concentration #centres_de_détention #détention_administrative #rétention #USA #Etats-Unis
    #cpa_camps

    • ‘Some Suburb of Hell’: America’s New Concentration Camp System

      On Monday, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referred to US border detention facilities as “concentration camps,” spurring a backlash in which critics accused her of demeaning the memory of those who died in the Holocaust. Debates raged over a label for what is happening along the southern border and grew louder as the week rolled on. But even this back-and-forth over naming the camps has been a recurrent feature in the mass detention of civilians ever since its inception, a history that long predates the Holocaust.

      At the heart of such policy is a question: What does a country owe desperate people whom it does not consider to be its citizens? The twentieth century posed this question to the world just as the shadow of global conflict threatened for the second time in less than three decades. The dominant response was silence, and the doctrine of absolute national sovereignty meant that what a state did to people under its control, within its borders, was nobody else’s business. After the harrowing toll of the Holocaust with the murder of millions, the world revisited its answer, deciding that perhaps something was owed to those in mortal danger. From the Fourth Geneva Convention protecting civilians in 1949 to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, the international community established humanitarian obligations toward the most vulnerable that apply, at least in theory, to all nations.

      The twenty-first century is unraveling that response. Countries are rejecting existing obligations and meeting asylum seekers with walls and fences, from detainees fleeing persecution who were sent by Australia to third-party detention in the brutal offshore camps of Manus and Nauru to razor-wire barriers blocking Syrian refugees from entering Hungary. While some nations, such as Germany, wrestle with how to integrate refugees into their labor force—more and more have become resistant to letting them in at all. The latest location of this unwinding is along the southern border of the United States.

      So far, American citizens have gotten only glimpses of the conditions in the border camps that have been opened in their name. In the month of May, Customs and Border Protection reported a total of 132,887 migrants who were apprehended or turned themselves in between ports of entry along the southwest border, an increase of 34 percent from April alone. Upon apprehension, these migrants are temporarily detained by Border Patrol, and once their claims are processed, they are either released or handed over to ICE for longer-term detention. Yet Border Patrol itself is currently holding about 15,000 people, nearly four times what government officials consider to be this enforcement arm’s detention capacity.

      On June 12, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that Fort Sill, an Army post that hosted a World War II internment camp for detainees of Japanese descent, will now be repurposed to detain migrant children. In total, HHS reports that it is currently holding some 12,000 minors. Current law limits detention of minors to twenty days, though Senator Lindsey Graham has proposed expanding the court-ordered limit to 100 days. Since the post is on federal land, it will be exempt from state child welfare inspections.

      In addition to the total of detainees held by Border Patrol, an even higher number is detained at centers around the country by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency: on a typical day at the beginning of this month, ICE was detaining more than 52,500 migrants. The family separation policy outraged the public in the 2018, but despite legal challenges, it never fully ended. Less publicized have been the deaths of twenty-four adults in ICE custody since the beginning of the Trump administration; in addition, six children between the ages of two and sixteen have died in federal custody over the last several months. It’s not clear whether there have been other deaths that have gone unreported.

      Conditions for detainees have not been improving. At the end of May, a Department of Homeland Security inspector general found nearly 900 migrants at a Texas shelter built for a capacity of 125 people. On June 11, a university professor spotted at least 100 men behind chain-link fences near the Paso del Norte Bridge in El Paso, Texas. Those detainees reported sitting outside for weeks in temperatures that soared above 100 degrees. Taylor Levy, an El Paso immigration lawyer, described going into one facility and finding “a suicidal four-year-old whose face was covered in bloody, self-inflicted scratches… Another young child had to be restrained by his mother because he kept running full-speed into metal lockers. He was covered in bruises.”

      If deciding what to do about the growing numbers of adults and children seeking refuge in the US relies on complex humanitarian policies and international laws, in which most Americans don’t take a deep interest, a simpler question also presents itself: What exactly are these camps that the Trump administration has opened, and where is this program of mass detention headed?

      Even with incomplete information about what’s happening along the border today and what the government plans for these camps, history points to some conclusions about their future. Mass detention without trial earned a new name and a specific identity at the end of the nineteenth century. The labels then adopted for the practice were “reconcentración” and “concentration camps”—places of forced relocation of civilians into detention on the basis of group identity.

      Other kinds of group detention had appeared much earlier in North American history. The US government drove Native Americans from their homelands into prescribed exile, with death and detention in transit camps along the way. Some Spanish mission systems in the Americas had accomplished similar ends by seizing land and pressing indigenous people into forced labor. During the 245 years when slavery was legal in the US, detention was one of its essential features.

      Concentration camps, however, don’t typically result from the theft of land, as happened with Native Americans, or owning human beings in a system of forced labor, as in the slave trade. Exile, theft, and forced labor can come later, but in the beginning, detention itself is usually the point of concentration camps. By the end of the nineteenth century, the mass production of barbed wire and machines guns made this kind of detention possible and practical in ways it never had been before.

      Under Spanish rule in 1896, the governor-general of Cuba instituted camps in order to clear rebel-held regions during an uprising, despite his predecessor’s written refusal “as the representative of a civilized nation, to be the first to give the example of cruelty and intransigence” that such detention would represent. After women and children began dying in vast numbers behind barbed wire because there had been little planning for shelter and even less for food, US President William McKinley made his call to war before Congress. He spoke against the policy of reconcentración, calling it warfare by uncivilized means. “It was extermination,” McKinley said. “The only peace it could beget was that of the wilderness and the grave.” Without full records, the Cuban death toll can only be estimated, but a consensus puts it in the neighborhood of 150,000, more than 10 percent of the island’s prewar population.

      Today, we remember the sinking of the USS Maine as the spark that ignited the Spanish-American War. But war correspondent George Kennan (cousin of the more famous diplomat) believed that “it was the suffering of the reconcentrados, more, perhaps, than any other one thing that brought about the intervention of the United States.” On April 25, 1898, Congress declared war. Two weeks later, US Marines landed at Fisherman’s Point on the windward side of the entrance to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. After a grim, week-long fight, the Marines took the hill. It became a naval base, and the United States has never left that patch of land.

      As part of the larger victory, the US inherited the Philippines. The world’s newest imperial power also inherited a rebellion. Following a massacre of American troops at Balangiga in September 1901, during the third year of the conflict, the US established its own concentration camp system. Detainees, mostly women and children, were forced into squalid conditions that one American soldier described in a letter to a US senator as “some suburb of hell.” In the space of only four months, more than 11,000 Filipinos are believed to have died in these noxious camps.

      Meanwhile, in southern Africa in 1900, the British had opened their own camps during their battle with descendants of Dutch settlers in the second Boer War. British soldiers filled tent cities with Boer women and children, and the military authorities called them refugee camps. Future Prime Minister David Lloyd George took offense at that name, noting in Parliament: “There is no greater delusion in the mind of any man than to apply the term ‘refugee’ to these camps. They are not refugee camps. They are camps of concentration.” Contemporary observers compared them to the Cuban camps, and criticized their deliberate cruelty. The Bishop of Hereford wrote to The Times of London in 1901, asking: “Are we reduced to such a depth of impotence that our Government can do nothing to stop such a holocaust of child-life?”

      Maggoty meat rations and polluted water supplies joined outbreaks of contagious diseases amid crowded and unhealthy conditions in the Boer camps. More than 27,000 detainees are thought to have died there, nearly 80 percent of them children. The British had opened camps for black Africans as well, in which at least 14,000 detainees died—the real number is probably much higher. Aside from protests made by some missionaries, the deaths of indigenous black Africans did not inspire much public outrage. Much of the history of the suffering in these camps has been lost.

      These early experiments with concentration camps took place on the periphery of imperial power, but accounts of them nevertheless made their way into newspapers and reports in many nations. As a result, the very idea of them came to be seen as barbaric. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the first camp systems had all been closed, and concentration camps had nearly vanished as an institution. Within months of the outbreak of World War I, though, they would be resurrected—this time rising not at the margins but in the centers of power. Between 1914 and 1918, camps were constructed on an unprecedented scale across six continents. In their time, these camps were commonly called concentration camps, though today they are often referred to by the more anodyne term “internment.”

      Those World War I detainees were, for the most part, foreigners—or, in legalese, aliens—and recent anti-immigration legislation in several countries had deliberately limited their rights. The Daily Mail denounced aliens left at liberty once they had registered with their local police department, demanding, “Does signing his name take the malice out of a man?” The Scottish Field was more direct, asking, “Do Germans have souls?” That these civilian detainees were no threat to Britain did not keep them from being demonized, shouted at, and spat upon as they were paraded past hostile crowds in cities like London.

      Though a small number of people were shot in riots in these camps, and hunger became a serious issue as the conflict dragged on, World War I internment would present a new, non-lethal face for the camps, normalizing detention. Even after the war, new camps sprang up from Spain to Hungary and Cuba, providing an improvised “solution” for everything from vagrancy to anxieties over the presence of Jewish foreigners.

      Some of these camps were clearly not safe for those interned. Local camps appeared in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921, after a white mob burned down a black neighborhood and detained African-American survivors. In Bolshevik Russia, the first concentration camps preceded the formation of the Soviet Union in 1922 and planted seeds for the brutal Gulag system that became official near the end of the USSR’s first decade. While some kinds of camps were understood to be harsher, after World War I their proliferation did not initially disturb public opinion. They had yet to take on their worst incarnations.

      In 1933, barely more than a month after Hitler was appointed chancellor, the Nazis’ first, impromptu camp opened in the town of Nohra in central Germany to hold political opponents. Detainees at Nohra were allowed to vote at a local precinct in the elections of March 5, 1933, resulting in a surge of Communist ballots in the tiny town. Locking up groups of civilians without trial had become accepted. Only the later realization of the horrors of the Nazi death camps would break the default assumption by governments and the public that concentration camps could and should be a simple way to manage populations seen as a threat.

      However, the staggering death toll of the Nazi extermination camp system—which was created mid-war and stood almost entirely separate from the concentration camps in existence since 1933—led to another result: a strange kind of erasure. In the decades that followed World War II, the term “concentration camp” came to stand only for Auschwitz and other extermination camps. It was no longer applied to the kind of extrajudicial detention it had denoted for generations. The many earlier camps that had made the rise of Auschwitz possible largely vanished from public memory.

      It is not necessary, however, to step back a full century in American history to find camps with links to what is happening on the US border today. Detention at Guantánamo began in the 1990s, when Haitian and Cuban immigrants whom the government wanted to keep out of the United States were housed there in waves over a four-year period—years before the “war on terror” and the US policy of rendition of suspected “enemy combatants” made Camps Delta, X-Ray, and Echo notorious. Tens of thousands of Haitians fleeing instability at home were picked up at sea and diverted to the Cuban base, to limit their legal right to apply for asylum. The court cases and battles over the suffering of those detainees ended up setting the stage for what Guantánamo would become after September 11, 2001.

      In one case, a federal court ruled that it did have jurisdiction over the base, but the government agreed to release the Haitians who were part of the lawsuit in exchange for keeping that ruling off the books. A ruling in a second case would assert that the courts did not have jurisdiction. Absent the prior case, the latter stood on its own as precedent. Leaving Guantánamo in this gray area made it an ideal site for extrajudicial detention and torture after the twin towers fell.

      This process of normalization, when a bad camp becomes much more dangerous, is not unusual. Today’s border camps are a crueler reflection of long-term policies—some challenged in court—that earlier presidents had enacted. Prior administrations own a share of the responsibility for today’s harsh practices, but the policies in place today are also accompanied by a shameless willingness to publicly target a vulnerable population in increasingly dangerous ways.

      I visited Guantánamo twice in 2015, sitting in the courtroom for pretrial hearings and touring the medical facility, the library, and all the old abandoned detention sites, as well as newly built ones, open to the media—from the kennel-style cages of Camp X-Ray rotting to ruin in the damp heat to the modern jailhouse facilities of Camp 6. Seeing all this in person made clear to me how vast the architecture of detention had become, how entrenched it was, and how hard it would be to close.

      Without a significant government effort to reverse direction, conditions in every camp system tend to deteriorate over time. Governments rarely make that kind of effort on behalf of people they are willing to lock up without trial in the first place. And history shows that legislatures do not close camps against the will of an executive.

      Just a few years ago there might have been more potential for change spurred by the judicial branch of our democracy, but this Supreme Court is inclined toward deference to executive power, even, it appears, if that power is abused. It seems unlikely this Court will intervene to end the new border camp system; indeed, the justices are far more likely to institutionalize it by half-measures, as happened with Guantánamo. The Korematsu case, in which the Supreme Court upheld Japanese-American internment (a ruling only rescinded last year), relied on the suppression of evidence by the solicitor general. Americans today can have little confidence that this administration would behave any more scrupulously when defending its detention policy.

      What kind of conditions can we expect to develop in these border camps? The longer a camp system stays open, the more likely it is that vital things will go wrong: detainees will contract contagious diseases and suffer from malnutrition and mental illness. We have already seen that current detention practices have resulted in children and adults succumbing to influenza, staph infections, and sepsis. The US is now poised to inflict harm on tens of thousands more, perhaps hundreds of thousands more.

      Along with such inevitable consequences, every significant camp system has introduced new horrors of its own, crises that were unforeseen when that system was opened. We have yet to discover what those will be for these American border camps. But they will happen. Every country thinks it can do detention better when it starts these projects. But no good way to conduct mass indefinite detention has yet been devised; the system always degrades.

      When, in 1940, Margarete Buber-Neumann was transferred from the Soviet Gulag at Karaganda to the camp for women at Ravensbrück (in an exchange enabled by the Nazi–Soviet Pact), she came from near-starvation conditions in the USSR and was amazed at the cleanliness and order of the Nazi camp. New arrivals were issued clothing, bedding, and silverware, and given fresh porridge, fruit, sausage, and jam to eat. Although the Nazi camps were already punitive, order-obsessed monstrosities, the wartime overcrowding that would soon overtake them had not yet made daily life a thing of constant suffering and squalor. The death camps were still two years away.

      The United States now has a vast and growing camp system. It is starting out with gruesome overcrowding and inadequate healthcare, and because of budget restrictions, has already taken steps to cut services to juvenile detainees. The US Office of Refugee Resettlement says that the mounting number of children arriving unaccompanied is forcing it to use military bases and other sites that it prefers to avoid, and that establishing these camps is a temporary measure. But without oversight from state child welfare inspectors, the possibilities for neglect and abuse are alarming. And without any knowledge of how many asylum-seekers are coming in the future, federal administrators are likely to find themselves boxed in to managing detention on military sites permanently.

      President Trump and senior White House adviser Stephen Miller appear to have purged the Department of Homeland Security of most internal opposition to their anti-immigrant policies. In doing so, that have removed even those sympathetic to the general approach taken by the White House, such as former Chief of Staff John Kelly and former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, in order to escalate the militarization of the border and expand irregular detention in more systematic and punitive ways. This kind of power struggle or purge in the early years of a camp system is typical.

      The disbanding of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police, in February 1922 and the transfer of its commander, Felix Dzerzhinsky, to head up an agency with control over only two prisons offered a hint of an alternate future in which extrajudicial detention would not play a central role in the fledgling Soviet republic. But Dzerzhinsky managed to keep control over the “special camps” in his new position, paving the way for the emergence of a camp-centered police state. In pre-war Germany in the mid-1930s, Himmler’s struggle to consolidate power from rivals eventually led him to make camps central to Nazi strategy. When the hardliners win, as they appear to have in the US, conditions tend to worsen significantly.

      Is it possible this growth in the camp system will be temporary and the improvised border camps will soon close? In theory, yes. But the longer they remain open, the less likely they are to vanish. When I visited the camps for Rohingya Muslims a year before the large-scale campaign of ethnic cleansing began, many observers appeared to be confusing the possible and the probable. It was possible that the party of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi would sweep into office in free elections and begin making changes. It was possible that full democracy would come to all the residents of Myanmar, even though the government had stripped the Rohingya of the last vestiges of their citizenship. These hopes proved to be misplaced. Once there are concentration camps, it is always probable that things will get worse.

      The Philippines, Japanese-American internment, Guantánamo… we can consider the fine points of how the current border camps evoke past US systems, and we can see how the arc of camp history reveals the likelihood that the suffering we’re currently inflicting will be multiplied exponentially. But we can also simply look at what we’re doing right now, shoving bodies into “dog pound”-style detention pens, “iceboxes,” and standing room-only spaces. We can look at young children in custody who have become suicidal. How much more historical awareness do we really need?

      https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/06/21/some-suburb-of-hell-americas-new-concentration-camp-system

    • #Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez engage le bras de fer avec la politique migratoire de Donald Trump

      L’élue de New York a qualifié les camps de rétention pour migrants érigés à la frontière sud des Etats-Unis de « camps de concentration ».

      https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/06/19/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-engage-le-bras-de-fer-avec-la-politique-migratoire-

  • Pub express de dernière minutes :

    Demain, à Guipel (ille et Vilaine, pas loin de Rennes)
    salle André Michel, à Guipel,
    à 20h30,
    l’ensemble « Fous de Baroque » donne un concert gratuit

    Ils donneront entre autres :
    De Andréa Falconieri (1585-1656), une passacaille et une folia.
    Quelques pièces de John Dowland (1563-1626) dont le Lachrimae Antiquae
    Une canzone de Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654), et des extraits de l’ouverture N°4 de Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (1657-1714).
    alto, violons, violoncelles, flûtes, basson, traverso, épinette
    venez nombreux, ils sont bons pour les passacailles mais ils sont nuls pour la pub...

    #baroque #concert

  • Ces femmes qui ont compté dans l’ombre
    https://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2019/06/05/ces-femmes-qui-ont-compte-dans-l-ombre_5471924_1650684.html


    photo apparaissant « par magie », donc non créditée

    On trouve beaucoup d’exemples de travaux scientifiques basés sur le travail de « calculatrices féminines », dont les noms apparaissent au mieux dans les remerciements.

    L’un de mes articles scientifiques préférés a été écrit par Edward Lorenz, en 1963, et s’intitule « Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow » (flot déterministe et non périodique). Il s’agit de l’un des textes fondateurs de la théorie du chaos. Son contenu passera dans le grand public un peu plus tard à travers la belle image de l’effet papillon : un battement d’ailes d’un papillon au Brésil pourrait engendrer un ouragan au Texas. Cette publication est un mélange extraordinaire de physique, de météorologie, de mathématiques et de simulations numériques. Je l’ai lue et relue un très grand nombre de fois et je croyais la connaître jusque la semaine dernière.

    Un article de Joshua Sokol dans Quanta Magazine m’a appris que j’aurais dû lire le dernier paragraphe dans lequel l’auteur remercie « Miss Ellen Fetter qui a pris en charge les nombreux calculs et les graphiques ». Comment ? Ce n’est pas Edward Lorenz qui a fait les calculs, mais une assistante ? Il faut comprendre que simuler le mouvement de l’atmosphère sur un ordinateur était une composante essentielle de l’article. En 1963, les ordinateurs étaient primitifs et « prendre en charge les calculs » aurait probablement mérité un peu plus qu’un discret remerciement.

    Ce n’est pas la première fois que des scientifiques utilisent des « calculatrices féminines », dont les noms apparaissent au mieux dans les remerciements. Dix ans auparavant, Enrico Fermi, John Pasta et Stanislaw Ulam publiaient la première simulation numérique d’un système physique complexe. On peut considérer cet article comme la naissance d’une nouvelle discipline de physique mathématique. Il s’agissait d’étudier, sur un ordinateur, les vibrations d’une chaîne constituée d’une soixantaine de ressorts « non linéaires ».

    Là encore, deux lignes discrètes dans la publication remercient Miss Mary Tsingou pour « la programmation efficace du problème et pour avoir effectué les calculs sur l’ordinateur Maniac de Los Alamos », ce qui représente pourtant une partie très importante du travail. Ce n’est qu’en 2008 que le physicien Thierry Dauxois lira ces deux lignes et proposera d’appeler Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou cette simulation numérique. J’aurais même proposé de respecter l’ordre alphabétique…

    #paywall

    • Nicole-Reine Lepaute — Wikipédia
      https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicole-Reine_Lepaute


      Détail d’un portrait de Nicole-Reine Lepaute
      par Guillaume Voiriot, là aussi, il faut aller chercher l’auteur qui n’est pas mentionné dans les infos WP de l’image, mais en note de l’article…

      Nicole Reine Lepaute, née Étable, le 5 janvier 1723 à Paris, morte dans la même ville le 6 décembre 1788, est une calculatrice et astronome française. Elle est, avec Caroline Herschel et la marquise du Châtelet une des principales femme scientifique du siècle des Lumières.

      Son travail est souvent inclus dans celui d’autres auteurs, dont Jérôme de Lalande et son mari. Mais, s’il faut en croire Lalande, qui l’aimait beaucoup, elle était « un maître plutôt qu’un émule ». Elle a notamment aidé au calcul de la date précise du retour de la comète de Halley de 1759 et contributrice majeure au calcul de l’éphéméride astronomique La connaissance des temps.

    • On trouve beaucoup d’exemples de travaux scientifiques basés sur le travail de « calculatrices féminines », dont les noms apparaissent au mieux dans les remerciements.

      L’un de mes articles scientifiques préférés a été écrit par Edward Lorenz, en 1963, et s’intitule « Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow » (flot déterministe et non périodique). Il s’agit de l’un des textes fondateurs de la théorie du chaos. Son contenu passera dans le grand public un peu plus tard à travers la belle image de l’effet papillon : un battement d’ailes d’un papillon au Brésil pourrait engendrer un ouragan au Texas. Cette publication est un mélange extraordinaire de physique, de météorologie, de mathématiques et de simulations numériques. Je l’ai lue et relue un très grand nombre de fois et je croyais la connaître jusque la semaine dernière.

      Un article de Joshua Sokol dans Quanta Magazine m’a appris que j’aurais dû lire le dernier paragraphe dans lequel l’auteur remercie « Miss Ellen Fetter qui a pris en charge les nombreux calculs et les graphiques ». Comment ? Ce n’est pas Edward Lorenz qui a fait les calculs, mais une assistante ? Il faut comprendre que simuler le mouvement de l’atmosphère sur un ordinateur était une composante essentielle de l’article. En 1963, les ordinateurs étaient primitifs et « prendre en charge les calculs » aurait probablement mérité un peu plus qu’un discret remerciement.

      Calculs faits à la main

      Ce n’est pas la première fois que des scientifiques utilisent des « calculatrices féminines », dont les noms apparaissent au mieux dans les remerciements. Dix ans auparavant, Enrico Fermi, John Pasta et Stanislaw Ulam publiaient la première simulation numérique d’un système physique complexe. On peut considérer cet article comme la naissance d’une nouvelle discipline de physique mathématique. Il s’agissait d’étudier, sur un ordinateur, les vibrations d’une chaîne constituée d’une soixantaine de ressorts « non linéaires ».

      Là encore, deux lignes discrètes dans la publication remercient Miss Mary Tsingou pour « la programmation efficace du problème et pour avoir effectué les calculs sur l’ordinateur Maniac de Los Alamos », ce qui représente pourtant une partie très importante du travail. Ce n’est qu’en 2008 que le physicien Thierry Dauxois lira ces deux lignes et proposera d’appeler Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou cette simulation numérique. J’aurais même proposé de respecter l’ordre alphabétique…

      En remontant encore dans le temps, on arrive à une période où les calculs étaient faits à la main, et où la main en question était bien souvent féminine. Dans les années 1940, un membre d’un institut de mathématiques appliquées ose parler du kilogirl (kilofille) : la quantité de calculs qu’une femme peut produire en mille heures ! Vers 1880, l’astronome Edward Charles Pickering recrute, à Harvard (Massachusetts), une équipe de plus de 80 calculatrices féminines surnommées « harem de Pickering » et payées moins qu’un ouvrier.

      On sait que la comète de Halley est visible dans le ciel à peu près tous les soixante-seize ans. Sa trajectoire est perturbée par l’attraction de Jupiter et de Saturne. Au milieu du XVIIIe siècle, certains savants doutaient encore de la théorie de la gravitation de Newton. Le calcul de la date du retour de la comète fut un grand moment de l’histoire des sciences. En novembre 1758, l’académicien Alexis Clairaut annonce un retour « vers le mois d’avril de l’année prochaine ».

      Ce fut un triomphe quand sa prédiction se réalisa. La théorie est en effet due à Clairaut, mais les calculs monstrueux ont été effectués par Joseph Lalande et Nicole-Reine Lepaute qui « calculaient depuis le matin jusqu’au soir, parfois même à table ». Clairaut « oubliera » de remercier sa collaboratrice. La Ville de Paris rendra partiellement justice à Nicole-Reine, en 2007, en donnant son nom à une rue.

      Nicole-Reine Lepaute (1723-1788), calculatrice et astronome.

      En 2017, l’ingénieur de Google James Damore a été renvoyé après avoir affirmé que le manque d’informaticiennes était d’origine biologique.

  • M. Bolton annonce de nouvelles sanctions pour renforcer l’asphyxie du secteur pétrolier vénézuélien, notamment le contrôle accru sur les importations de diluant.

    EE UU advirtió que habrá más sanciones petroleras contra Venezuela
    http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/economia/advirtio-que-habra-mas-sanciones-petroleras-contra-venezuela_284595


    Foto : Archivo

    El Departamento del Tesoro de Estados Unidos reforzó este jueves su presión sobre Pdvsa al advertir que las exportaciones de diluyentes por embarcadores internacionales podrían estar sujetas a más sanciones de ese país. 

    Este cambio fue anunciado en el site del Departamento del Tesoro, treasury.gov, y es la última medida de Estados Unidos para limitar el acceso a ingresos a Venezuela por la exportación de petróleo. 

    «Estamos restringiendo el ciclo de posibles soluciones alternativas a las sanciones vigentes que permiten al régimen de Maduro encontrar formas de explotar a Pdvsa como una fuente de ingresos», dijo un alto funcionario de la administración de Estados Unidos a la agencia Reuters

    El asesor de Seguridad Nacional de Estados Unidos, John Bolton, dijo, por su parte: «Estados Unidos seguirá reforzando las sanciones al petróleo y sus derivados hasta que se restablezcan la libertad y la democracia en Venezuela. Las compañías internacionales que continúan haciendo negocios con Pdvsa están en aviso».

    • Rappel : l’indien Reliance, le dernier fournisseur de diluant du Venezuela, a annoncé mi-mars l’arrêt complet de ses livraisons jusqu’à la levée des sanctions.

      Reliance Industries Stops Diluent Deliveries To PDVSA | OilPrice.com
      https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Reliance-Industries-Stops-Diluent-Deliveries-To-PDVSA.html

      India’s Reliance Industries has suspended shipments of much-needed diluents to Venezuela’s PDVSA and will not resume them until U.S. sanctions against the South American country are not lifted.

      Reuters quoted a statement by the company as saying Reliance has also not raised the amount of oil it buys from PDVSA under a 2012 contract that stipulated it would buy between 300,000 and 400,000 bpd of Venezuelan crude for a period of 15 years. However, Reuters calculations suggest that Reliance has been importing less than 300,000 bpd from Venezuela since 2018.

      Reliance was supplying diluents necessary to make the extra heavy Venezuelan crude fluid enough to be loaded on tankers from its U.S. subsidiary. Before the January sanctions, the country imported an average 100,000 bpd of naphtha to use as diluent at a naphtha/crude rate of 1:4. Most of these imports came from the United States.

  • Ah ben zut, Seenthis, tu me préviens pas : tu viens de me faire penser à l’album Yellow Moon, des Neville Brothers, alors du coup je les ai googlés, et devine quoi : je pense que j’en ai tué un…

    Charles Neville, le saxophoniste des Neville Brothers, est mort à 79 ans (avril 2018)
    https://www.francetvinfo.fr/culture/musique/charles-neville-le-saxophoniste-des-neville-brothers-est-mort-a-79-ans_

    Le saxophoniste américain Charles Neville du groupe The Neville Brothers, pilier de l’histoire musicale et du jazz contemporain de La Nouvelle-Orléans, est décédé jeudi à l’âge de 79 ans, a annoncé vendredi sa famille dans un communiqué.

    Bon, tout ça pour dire que l’album Yellow Moon, 1989, c’est encore un de ces disques qui m’a marqué.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O87iUDZGDKs


    En plus, Aaron joue sur un Juno-106 (de Rolland, 1984), le synthé que j’avais à l’époque (et que j’ai toujours). Je vais pas te dire que c’est un disque qui m’a sauvé la vie, mais tout de même, pendant une bonne année j’ai écouté le CD en boucle.

    Sinon, il me semble qu’ils apparaissaient en concert au Tipitinas dans un film de l’époque, à la Nouvelle Orléans. Je pense que c’est Mississipi Burning, mais je n’en suis pas certain. Ça dit quelque chose à quelqu’un ? Ça pourrait être dans The Big Easy avec Dennis Quaid (1986), aussi, vraiment c’est vieux tout ça…

  • Article indigent compte tenu de la carrière incroyable de ce géant... très triste... à suivre...

    Le chanteur et pianiste Dr John est mort à l’âge de 77 ans
    Radio Canada, le 6 juin 2019
    https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1175140/dr-john-chanteur-mort-deces-nouvelle-orleans

    Do you know the Dr ? Dr John ? Mac Rebennack ? Such a night... (1976)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCRrXZP8b0I

    Dr. John Collection on Letterman, 1982-2008
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCFRKWnl-_I

    Et collection de duos ci-dessous...

    #Musique #Dr_John #Nouvelle_Orleans

  • L’idylle insolite de Donald Trump, artisan du « Muslim Ban » avec la dynastie wahhabite : 2/2
    https://www.madaniya.info/2019/06/06/lidylle-insolite-de-donald-trump-artisan-du-muslim-ban-avec-la-dynastie-w

    Un conseiller du prince héritier d’Abou Dhabi incuclpé aux Etats Unis pour détention de matériel pornographique.

    Coup dur pour la stratégie d’endiguement de l’Iran, un des missi dominici américain en direction de l’Arabie saoudite et des Emirats Arabes Unis, Georges Nader, homme d’affaires américain d’origine libanaise, a été inculpé pour détention de matériel pornographique.

    Son arrestation est intervenue le 4 juin 2019 une semaine après l’échec du triple sommet de la Mecque (islamique, arabe et Golfe), fin mai, et la décision de Benyamin Netanyahu d’organiser de nouvelles élections législatives israéliennes en septmebre, faute de pouvoir former un gouvernement. Deux echecs qui ont renvoyé aux calendes grecques le lancement de la transaction du siècle, conconctée sous l’égide de Jared Kusgner, le gendre présidentiel américain.

    Agé de 60 ans, Georges Nader a été conseiller du prince héritier d’Abou Dhabi, Mohamamd Ben Zayed et son chargé de mission auprès de l’équipe de campagne présidentielle de Donald Trump, en vue d’établir un partenariat privilégié entre les Emirats arabes Unis et les Etats Unis.

    L’intermédiaire libano américain avait entrepris des démarches similaires auprès d’Israël, la Russie et l’Arabie saoudite.

    Georges Nader avait été entendu par Robert Mueller chargé de l’enquête sur les interérecnes russes de la campagne présidentielle américaine.

    Objet d’une première interpellation en 1987, il a été arrêté le 4 juin 2019 à son arrivée à l’aéroport John F. Kennedy de New York, en vertu d’un mandat d’arrêt délivré en 2018, en raison du fait que « sur son portable, il conservait des photos de mineurs en position obscène ».

    • Un homme d’affaires américano-libanais arrêté à New York pour possession d’images pédopornographiques
      https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1173549/un-homme-daffaires-americano-libanais-arrete-a-new-york-pour-possessi
      https://s.olj.me/storage/attachments/1174/800_950951.png/r/800

      M. Nader avait aidé à mettre en œuvre une rencontre, aux Seychelles en janvier 2017, entre Erik Prince, un partisan de M. Trump qui avait fondé la société de sécurité privée Blackwater, et un responsable russe proche de Vladimir Poutine, rappelle le Washington Post. « L’objet de cette rencontre a suscité un intérêt particulier de la part des enquêteur du procureur Mueller, et certaines questions restent sans réponse, même après la publication du rapport Mueller », ajoute le quotidien américain.

    • Mars 2018 : Les Emirats accusés d’influencer Trump : un homme d’affaires américano-libanais dans le collimateur
      https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1102941/les-emirats-accuses-dinfluencer-la-politique-etrangere-de-trump-un-ho

      Selon le quotidien, les enquêteurs de M. Mueller, qui mène l’enquête sur une possible collusion entre l’équipe du président Donald Trump et la Russie pendant la campagne présidentielle de 2016, ont interrogé M. Nader qui aurait tenté d’influencer la politique étrangère des Etats-Unis en faveur des Emirats, notamment en « donnant de l’argent en soutien à Trump durant la dernière campagne présidentielle ».

      L’Arabie saoudite et les Emirats arabes unis, de même que Bahreïn et l’Egypte, ont rompu en juin dernier leurs relations diplomatiques avec le Qatar, qu’ils accusent de promouvoir le terrorisme, ciblant aussi dans cette initiative l’Iran, ennemi juré de Riyad.

      Le New York Times cite le cas d’une relation de M. Nader, Eliott Broidy, un mécène de la campagne de Trump, très proche du Premier ministre israélien Benjamin Netanyahu, qui a des centaines de millions de dollars de contrats avec la famille régnante émirati. M. Broidy a oeuvré ces derniers mois pour pousser l’administration Trump à se rapprocher des Emirats.

    • George Nader (businessman) - Wikipedia
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Nader_(businessman)

      Nader has been charged with multiple crimes involving the sexual exploitation of minors, and convicted of several of them. A 1985 charge of receiving from the Netherlands films and magazines depicting pre and post-pubescent boys engaged in sexual acts, was dismissed due to an invalid search warrant.[18] A federal court in Virginia in 1991 gave him a six-month sentence on a felony charge of transporting from Germany, pornographic videotapes of boys about 13 or 14 years old.[18] Prosecutors agreed to put the case under seal “due to the extremely sensitive nature of Mr. Nader’s work in the Middle East.”[18]

      In 2003, he was convicted in Prague, Czech Republic for sexually abusing 10 boys, for which he served one year in prison.[1][18] A spokesperson of the court told press that the crimes occurred between 1999 and 2002. In one case, at his room in Hilton Prague Hotel, he requested oral sex from a 14-year-old boy and after he refused, Nader masturbated in front of him, paying him 2,000 koruna.[1]

      On June 3, 2019, Nader was arrested by federal agents for possession of child pornography as well as bestiality[19] and, for a second time, transportation of child pornography. These charges stemmed from his January 2018 questioning by FBI agents working on behalf of special counsel Robert Mueller, at which time child pornography was incidentally found on one of his three cell phones as agents inspected it pursuant to a warrant.[20][21] He was ordered to be held pending his extradition to Virginia.[22]

  • Témoignages : le #travail_forcé, l’autre facette de l’enfer que vivent les migrants détenus en #Libye

    Agriculture, travaux ménagers, construction de bâtiments… En Libye, les migrants enfermés dans les centres de rétention officiels sont forcés de travailler pour des employeurs libyens, sans rémunération et avec la complicité des autorités.

    « Régulièrement, des Libyens viennent nous chercher en prison et nous forcent à travailler pour eux », affirme à InfoMigrants John*, un migrant érythréen enfermé dans le centre de détention officiel de #Zintan, au sud de Tripoli.

    « Lorsque j’étais au centre de Tarek-el-Matar [à Tripoli, ndlr], des hommes en armes choisissaient parmi nous des personnes pour les forcer à travailler », explique à son tour Landry, un migrant camerounais qui vit aujourd’hui en Tunisie, joint par InfoMigrants.

    « On travaille de 8h du matin à la tombée de la nuit »

    La rédaction d’InfoMigrants a récolté nombre de témoignages qui racontent la même histoire : des employeurs libyens qui entrent dans les centres officiels, avec la complicité des gardes, pour choisir plusieurs migrants et les obliger à travailler toute la journée. Le soir, ils sont re-déposés au centre, sans avoir perçu la moindre rémunération.

    Il existe en Libye 16 centres de détention officiels où s’entassent environ 6 000 migrants, selon les estimations d’Amnesty International données fin 2018. C’est là que les migrants interceptés en mer par les garde-côtes libyens sont envoyés.


    « On travaille de 8h du matin à la tombée de la nuit. Si la tâche donnée n’est pas terminée, ils peuvent nous forcer à travailler toute la nuit », précise encore Landry.

    Cette main-d’oeuvre gratuite est ainsi réquisitionnée pour travailler dans la construction de bâtiments, dans les champs d’oliviers ou la récolte de tomates, dans l’agriculture mais aussi effectuer des travaux ménagers. Les femmes, sont, elles, forcées de se prostituer ou d’effectuer des tâches domestiques chez des particuliers.

    « Nous en avons entendu parler sur les réseaux sociaux mais nous n’avons pas la confirmation que cela existe », déclare à InfoMigrants Sasfa Msehli de l’Organisation internationale des migrations (OIM) en Libye.

    Ce phénomène n’est pourtant pas nouveau. Il est documenté depuis plus de deux ans. Un rapport du Haut-commissariat des Nations unies aux droits de l’Homme (HCDH) et de la mission d’appui des Nations unies en Libye (Manul) publié fin 2016 faisait déjà état de travaux forcés dans les centres de détention gérés par les autorités libyennes.

    « Si on refuse de les suivre, ils nous torturent et nous tuent »

    Des migrants « ont été forcés de travailler afin d’économiser suffisamment de fonds pour pouvoir sortir de détention. Après avoir travaillé toute la journée, certains sont ramenés dans les centres de détention le soir. D’autres sont détenus sur le lieu de travail pendant des semaines ou des mois », écrivent les auteurs du rapport.

    En décembre 2018, un rapport produit par les mêmes institutions réitère les observations de 2016. « Les hommes migrants et réfugiés sont régulièrement retirés de leur captivité pour effectuer des travaux manuels forcés […] », peut-on lire dans le document.

    Ces travaux forcés se font, par définition, sous la menace. « Si on refuse de les suivre, ils nous torturent, parfois nous tuent », signale Moussa, un Camerounais qui est passé par le centre de détention de Zouara, à l’ouest de Tripoli.

    « Lorsque je travaillais dans les champs, des hommes en armes contrôlaient ce que nous faisions. Si ça ne leur convenait pas ou si on s’arrêtaient quelques minutes, ils nous frappaient », assure de son côté Landry.

    Tous racontent aussi les privations de nourriture lors de leur journée de travail, sous le soleil brûlant de Libye. « Ils nous donnent seulement un morceau de pain et de l’eau », déplore John, toujours enfermé au centre de Zintan. « Le travail est très éprouvant, certains s’évanouissent ».

    « Les autorités légitiment cette pratique »

    Comment les migrants sont-ils choisis par les exploitants ? Souvent, ce sont les personnes les plus fortes physiquement qui sont désignées. « Si tu es costaud en Libye, tu es mort. Tu es réquisitionné pour toutes les tâches », se souvient Moussa.

    Le Camerounais explique aussi que les « anciens » ont plus de risques d’être exploités. « Les gardes ont espoir que les nouveaux arrivants puissent récupérer de l’argent de leur famille pour payer leur libération. Alors ils préfèrent envoyer les plus anciens pour les travaux forcés car ils savent qu’ils n’ont plus aucune chance de se faire de l’argent avec eux ». En d’autres mots, les plus anciens ne représentent plus aucun intérêt financier pour les gérants des centres de détention et sont donc à la merci des trafiquants.

    « Les autorités légitiment cette pratique », estime Hassiba Hadj-Sahraoui, conseillère aux affaires humanitaires de Médecins sans frontières (MSF), contactée par InfoMigrants. « Les employeurs passent des arrangements avec les gardes des centres de détention. Souvent, ils reçoivent de l’argent des trafiquants en échange de main d’œuvre gratuite ».

    Selon elle, les centres de détention sont une source de revenus pour de nombreux Libyens. « Tout le monde se fait de l’argent sur le dos des migrants, à tous les niveaux. Cela explique en partie que ces centres existent encore ».

    « Le système de détention libyen est en fait un système d’exploitation »

    Les travaux forcés ne se limitent pas à l’extérieur des prisons. Au sein même des centres de détention, certains migrants sont exploités par le personnel.

    « J’ai dû déboucher des toilettes du centre à mains nues, mais j’ai aussi été forcé de décharger des armes dans un entrepôt situé à quelques mètres de la prison », glisse Landry.

    Une pratique confirmée dans le rapport de 2018 du HCDC et de la Manul. Selon les auteurs, les migrants sont forcés de travailler « à l’intérieur des installations, notamment le nettoyage, la cuisine, le déchargement d’objets lourds et le lavage des véhicules des fonctionnaires de la DCIM [le département de lutte contre la migration illégale, chargé des centres de détention, ndlr] ».

    « Le système de détention libyen est en fait un système d’exploitation », déplore Hassiba Hadj-Sahraoui.
    Depuis 2016, l’Union européenne (UE) a signé un accord avec la Libye, permettant de fournir un appui logistique et matériel aux garde-côtes libyens. Pour les ONG, cet accord rend les États européens complices des exactions commises sur les migrants en Libye. En début de semaine, un collectif d’avocats a déposé plainte à la Cour pénale internationale (CPI) contre l’Union européenne pour « crimes contre l’humanité ».

    https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/17333/temoignages-le-travail-force-l-autre-facette-de-l-enfer-que-vivent-les
    #centres_de_détention #asile #migrations #réfugiés #esclavage_moderne
    ping @reka

    • Libye, loin des yeux, loin du cœur : reportage dans les centres de détention

      5 000 à 6 000 réfugiés et migrants sont détenus de façon arbitraire dans les centres de détention libyens qui dépendent du ministère de l’Intérieur basé à Tripoli.

      Ces derniers mois, leur situation s’est encore aggravée à cause du conflit qui a éclaté début avril entre le gouvernement libyen reconnu par les Nations unies et basé à Tripoli (GNA) et les forces de l’Armée Nationale Libyenne (ANL). Toutefois, malgré des appels répétés à la protection et à l’évacuation des réfugiés et des migrants détenus, ceux-ci ont peu de chances de parvenir en lieu sûr dans un avenir proche. Par ailleurs, nombre d’entre eux sont renvoyés de force dans ce même cycle de violences et de détention en Libye par les garde-côtes libyens soutenus par l’Union européenne.

      Loin de la zone de combat, des centaines de personnes restent enfermées pour une durée indéterminée, dans des conditions néfastes, dans des centres de détention où elles sont exposées aux maltraitances et à la mort, et poussées au désespoir.

      Dans le djebel Nafousa, une région montagneuse au sud de Tripoli, des personnes nécessitant une protection internationale et enregistrées auprès du Haut Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés (HCR) en tant que réfugiés ou demandeurs d’asile, ont été abandonnées dans des centres de détention depuis des mois, voire des années, sans aucune assistance.

      De septembre 2018 à mai 2019, au moins 22 personnes sont décédées dans les centres de détention de Zintan et de Gharyan, principalement de la tuberculose. Parmi les morts se trouvaient des jeunes hommes, des femmes et un enfant de huit ans.

      Dans le centre de détention de Zintan, quelque 700 personnes étaient enfermées dans un entrepôt agricole surpeuplé, tandis que 200 autres étaient confinées dans un ensemble de petits bâtiments.

      https://www.msf.fr/actualites/libye-loin-des-yeux-loin-du-coeur-reportage-dans-les-centres-de-detention

    • Libye : incendie dans un centre de détention de migrants à Zintan

      Un feu s’est déclaré dimanche dans le centre de détention de Zintan, en Libye. Provoqué par des infrastructures électriques vétustes, l’incendie a provoqué des dégâts matériels et alerte une fois de plus sur les conditions de détention des migrants en Libye.

      Un nuage de fumée noire sort d’un bâtiment délabré. À l’extérieur, plusieurs jeunes hommes tentent d’évacuer les affaires qu’ils peuvent atteindre. Certains portent un tissu sur la bouche, maigre protection face à une fumée toxique.

      Dimanche 1er décembre, le centre de détention de Zintan, en Libye, a connu un incendie dont l’origine serait électrique. L’incident n’a pas fait de blessés même si certains migrants ont respiré des fumées. Une vingtaine d’entre eux ont perdu leurs affaires personnelles et le bâtiment où s’est déclaré l’incendie est désormais inutilisable.

      Selon Besay*, un jeune Érythréen détenu dans le centre et contacté par InfoMigrants, les gardiens ont mis plus d’une heure et demie à appeler les pompiers. Cet incendie rappelle que les conditions de vie des migrants en Libye sont extrêmement difficiles. Les ONG dénoncent régulièrement la situation des migrants dans les centres de détention gérés par le département libyen de lutte contre la migration illégale (DCIM, selon l’acronyme anglais).

      Près de 500 hommes – majoritairement érythréens et somaliens – sont détenus à Zintan. Parmi eux, plus d’une centaine sont atteints de tuberculose. Les équipes de Médecins sans frontières (MSF) n’ont accès aux détenus que depuis le mois de mai.

      Aujourd’hui, les malades de la tuberculose sont séparés des autres détenus pendant deux semaines. Mais cela n’a pas toujours été le cas. « Après ils reviennent avec nous », explique Besay. Le jeune Érythréen est lui-même malade. « Depuis quatre mois, je prends un traitement donné par MSF. »

      À Zintan, les migrants souffrent également du manque de nourriture. En mars 2019, plusieurs migrants étaient morts de faim dans le centre. InfoMigrants avait reçu des photos de jeunes hommes d’une maigreur extrême.

      Plus de 40 000 migrants ont été enregistrés en Libye par le Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés (HCR). Mais plusieurs centaines vivraient en tout dans le pays dans des centres de détentions officiels et clandestins ainsi que dans des squats et des logements individuels.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7GmSTYgAK4&feature=emb_logo

      https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/21270/libye-incendie-dans-un-centre-de-detention-de-migrants-a-zintan?ref=tw

      #feu #incendie

    • La machine à broyer. Réfugiés et migrants piégés en Libye

      Fin 2017, des images effroyables de migrants vendus comme des marchandises en Libye faisaient le tour du monde et suscitaient une réaction en chaîne de nombreux dirigeants, en Libye, en Europe, en Afrique, promettant de prendre des mesures destinées à protéger les réfugiés et migrants d’un système d’exploitation organisée.

      Deux ans après, rien n’a pourtant changé. Présentes depuis 2017 auprès des migrants et réfugiés détenus en Libye, les équipes MSF témoignent de l’#horreur de la situation pour des milliers de personnes condamnées à croupir dans des centres de détention ou prises au piège d’un cycle sans fin de #violence et d’#abus.

      https://msf2016.atavist.com/libye-la-machine-a-broyer

      #MSF #rapport
      –----------
      v. des documents archivés sur seenthis en 2017 :
      https://seenthis.net/messages/605873

    • Migrant in Libya relives brutal detention through sketches

      A guard withholds water from a barefoot migrant kneeling in front of him. An emaciated man lies on the ground while a thermostat reads a broiling 43 degrees Celsius. Refugees cower to the ground as bullets whiz by.

      These rough pencil sketches by an Eritrean refugee offer a glimpse of the brutal reality of Libya’s migrant detention centers, where thousands have been locked away for months or even years. Most are there after failing to make the perilous crossing to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea.

      The artist asked to only be identified by his nickname, Aser, because he fears reprisals from militias for speaking out about what he says are “nightmare conditions” inside the centers. In a country with no functioning government, it is often competing militias who run the detention centers and make money off migrants.

      The drawings are based on what Aser, 28, witnessed inside several migrant facilities in Tripoli between September 2017 and October this year. At night, he recalls, he awoke to the sounds of militiamen dragging migrants from their sleep and beating them to get ransoms from their families, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Guards withheld food, water and medicine for the same reason.

      Libya’s migrant detention centers are rife with abuse, and many have gotten caught in the crossfire of the country’s civil war. One drawing depicts refugees in the crossfire between forces of military commander Khalifa Hifter and militias allied with the United Nations-supported government in Tripoli.

      Libya became a major crossing point for migrants to Europe after the death of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, but Europe now sends money for Libya to prevent migrants from reaching its shores. With increased reports of torture and abuse inside detention centers, Europe’s policy of supporting the Libyan coast guard as it intercepts fleeing migrants has come under growing criticism.

      Aser says that often, the only drinking water available inside the hangars where he was kept was a few buckets of water for hundreds of people. He and others went weeks without seeing sunlight, and the crowded centers became breeding grounds for disease. At the last facility where he was held, Abu Salim, he and another migrant, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said two Eritreans died from what they believed to be tuberculosis.

      Aser’s journey began more than four years ago, when he escaped forced military conscription in Eritrea, considered among the world’s most repressive governments. He made his way through Ethiopia and Sudan, and paid $6,000 to traffickers in Libya to secure a place on a boat to Europe. But the vessel was intercepted by the Libyan coast guard.

      He ended up in Tripoli in September 2017 and was placed in the first of three centers. Visiting workers from Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, provided him with pencils and paper, and he worked out of the sight of guards. He sometimes hid the drawings with other migrants, and took photos of some sketches before destroying them.

      In late October, Aser fled to an already overcrowded United Nations-run facility with hundreds of other detainees. Now his hope is that he can be one of the few to qualify for asylum, who are put on flights via Niger and Rwanda to Europe.

      In the meantime, he says, his only escape is art.

      “I dream that one day I can move out of Libya to develop my skill by gaining additional education,” he said.

      source : https://apnews.com/b55a574819e26a45c819fe843c946379

      #eau #guerre_civile #jeu_de_l'oie (une sorte de jeu de l’oie bien dramatique, car la dernière étape est le #cimetière dans ce dessin) #centre_de_détention #centres_de_détention #décès #mort

      Et pour le dessin du « tour des centres de détention » :
      https://twitter.com/mokhbersahafi/status/1211981910219657218?s=03

  • Au Liban, la fête du Fitr assombrie par les attaques de Tripoli
    https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1173476/au-liban-la-fete-du-fitr-assombrie-par-les-attaques-de-tripoli.html

    Le premier jour de la fête du Fitr, qui marque la fin du mois de jeûne musulman du ramadan, a été assombri au Liban par l’attaque meurtrière qui a fait quatre tués lundi soir dans les rangs des forces de sécurité à Tripoli. En dépit de la gravité de cette agression, les responsables se veulent rassurants quant à la situation sécuritaire dans le pays.

    Abdel Rahmane Mabsout a abattu lundi soir quatre membres des forces de sécurité avant de se faire exploser. La direction générale des Forces de sécurité intérieure a ainsi annoncé mardi dans un communiqué la mort du sergent Johnny Khalil et du caporal Youssef Faraj. Le commandement de l’armée libanaise a pour sa part annoncé la mort du lieutenant Hassan Ali Farhat et du soldat Ibrahim Mohammad Saleh.

    Il n’y a pas eu de revendication immédiate des attaques et les mobiles de l’assaillant restent inconnus. Mais selon des responsables de sécurité, l’auteur était un extrémiste récemment libéré de prison. Des médias locaux ont rapporté que cet homme, originaire de Tripoli, avait combattu à Raqqa, en Syrie, dans les rangs de l’Etat islamique. Le tireur a d’abord ouvert le feu sur une branche de la Banque centrale, puis sur un poste de police et un véhicule militaire, avant d’être coincé dans un immeuble résidentiel par les forces de sécurité et de faire détonner sa ceinture d’explosifs.

  • #Suisse : Des riverains excédés par les Ferrari à Gstaad
    http://www.lessentiel.lu/fr/news/europe/story/des-riverains-excedes-par-les-ferrari-a-gstaad-13732125

    Depuis plusieurs jours, des propriétaires de bolides se rassemblent sur l’aérodrome de Gstaad, en Suisse, pour tester leur voiture. Les habitants n’en peuvent plus.

    Le week-end prolongé de l’Ascension n’a pas été synonyme de repos et de détente pour tout le monde. Les habitants de Saanen bei Gstaad, en Suisse, ont dû supporter des nuisances sonores causées par des Ferrari à l’aérodrome voisin. Depuis la semaine passée, plusieurs propriétaires de bolides se donnent en effet rendez-vous tous les jours pour tester la puissance de leur voiture. Et le rugissement des moteurs est perceptible loin à la ronde.

    Selon divers habitants de la région, les essais débutent aux alentours de 9h et se terminent vers 18h. « Les Ferrari roulent chaque 15 à 30 minutes et essaient d’atteindre les 300 km/h », s’énerve un riverain domicilié non-loin de l’aérodrome : « Le bruit est juste insupportable ».

    « Là, ça dure depuis près d’une semaine »
    Ce qui énerve aussi les habitants, c’est de ne pas avoir été averti du rassemblement par la commune : « Si l’événement n’avait eu lieu qu’un seul jour, j’aurais encore pu le comprendre. Mais là, ça dure depuis près d’une semaine. » L’autorité communale confie que l’événement a été sous-estimé. À la base, il devait s’agir de simples essais de Ferrari et non d’un rassemblement de personnes aisées venues pour rouler à vive allure avec leurs bolides.

    Les organisateurs, eux, n’ont, pour l’heure, pas officiellement réagi. On ignore jusqu’à quand la manifestation durera.

    #nuisances les #émigrés_fiscaux, #milliardaires, s’emmerdent à #Gstaad (là ou était domicilié fiscalement Johnny Hallyday) #Société #élite #élites

  • La justice s’est donc servie du compte Instagram de Johnny Hallyday pour trancher
    https://www.numerama.com/politique/521105-la-justice-sest-servie-du-compte-instagram-de-johnny-hallyday-pour-

    Le tribunal de Nanterre devait trancher sur le lieu de résidence principal de Johnny Hallyday, sur fond d’une affaire d’héritage. Le compte Instagram du chanteur a été montré comme preuve. Un compte Instagram peut-il servir de preuve devant un tribunal ? Les juges de Nanterre ont décidé que oui, ce mardi 28 mai. Comme l’a rapporté France Inter, ils se sont basés sur les géolocalisations des photos publiées par Johnny et Laeticia Hallyday pour confirmer que le couple vivait bien en France la plupart du (...)

    #Instagram #géolocalisation #procès

    //c2.lestechnophiles.com/www.numerama.com/content/uploads/2019/05/johnny-hallyday.jpg

  • US wants access to NHS in post-Brexit deal, says Trump ally | Politics | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/02/us-wants-access-to-nhs-in-post-brexit-deal-ambassador-to-uk-says

    Johnson est l’ambassadeur des #Etats-Unis au #Royaume-Uni,

    Asked if the NHS was likely to form part of trade negotiations, Johnson told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “I think the entire economy, in a trade deal, all things that are traded would be on the table.” Asked if that specifically meant healthcare, he said: “I would think so.”