provinceorstate:california

  • The Problem Isn’t Fake News From Russia. It’s Us. – Foreign Policy
    https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/03/the-problem-isnt-fake-news-from-russia-its-us

    In 1934, the investigative journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair ran in the California gubernatorial election as part of the End Poverty in California movement (EPIC). He proposed a sweeping progressive agenda that featured the introduction of pensions, increased income and property taxes on wealthy Californians, and the creation of a state-run network of cooperatives that put the unemployed to work. Business leaders and trade associations around the country, alarmed by the socialist elements of his agenda, put forth millions of dollars to support incumbent Gov. Frank Merriam.

    That outside money was used to promote lies and disinformation through leaflets, radio spots, newspaper hits, and a new media invention: partisan attack ads disguised as newsreels that ran before motion pictures in California movie theaters. The clips featured actors who, posing as ordinary citizens, recited scripted lines containing falsehoods about the EPIC movement and Sinclair. Such fake news proved highly effective; Merriam handily beat his opponent. And even before the vote, Sinclair wrote to Congress demanding an investigation into what he called “false propaganda,” adding, “Whether or not you sympathize with me on my platform is beside the point.” If the motion picture industry, he continued, “can be used to influence voters justly, it can be used to influence voters unjustly.” No investigation ever occurred; influence campaigns and disinformation simply became a normal and tolerated part of U.S. elections.

    #propagande #mensonges #désinformation #élections #états-unis #démocraties

  • The LSD Archive at The Institute of Illegal Images
    “It kept me from eating it if it was framed on the wall” - Mark Mcloud on his amazing collection of LSD Blotters.
    https://flashbak.com/lsd-archive-institute-illegal-images-394427

    On October 6, 1966 (aka ‘The Day of the Beast’ in psychedelic circles) California banned the possession of LSD. Two years later the law went nationwide. Mark McCloud did as anyone of vision might: he began buying loads of blotters, sheets of paper infused with LSD, for consumption. Eventually his San Francisco home filled with thousands of LSD tabs. Over time the acid broke down. So now the framed sheets (part of an archive of more than 33,000 sheets and individual tabs), and Mark’s “Institute of Illegal Images” – “the most comprehensive collection of decorated LSD blotter paper in the world” – can be viewed by art buffs, former heads and anyone who wants to see objects that came to define an era.

    The art is broadly two-fold: graphics and visions of the sort of thing you see after ingesting LSD. They are, says Mark, who earned a Masters of Fine Art from UC Davis, “examples of true American folk art, like whittling.”

  • Judy Collins - Marat/Sade
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvW2v9dUjI8

    Marat/Sade - Wikipedia
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marat/Sade

    Musical score

    Marat/Sade is a play with music. The use of music follows the approach of Brecht, whereby the songs comment on themes and issues of the play. Unlike a traditional musical format, the songs do not further the plot or expositional development of character in the play. By contrast they often add an alienation effect, interrupting the action of the play and offering historical, social and political commentary. Richard Peaslee composed music for the original English-language production of Marat/Sade directed by Peter Brook. Although there is no official score to the play in any language, the success of the Brook-directed Royal Shakespeare Company production and film made the Peaslee score popular for English-language productions. Sections of the Peaslee score have been included in trade copies of the Geoffrey Skelton/Adrian Mitchell English version (based on the text used for the Royal Shakespeare Company productions). The full score is available from ECS Publishing/Galaxy Music Corporation. The original Royal Shakespeare Company production was so popular that some of the songs from the show were recorded as a medley by Judy Collins on her album In My Life.

    Marat/Sade production at the University of California, San Diego, 2005, directed by Stefan Novinski

    Marat/Sade production at the State University of New York at Fredonia, 2008, directed by James Ivey

    Marat/Sade production at the Theatre of NOTE, 2000, directed by Brad Mays

    Marat/Sade is set at later mental home “Hôpital Esquirol” in present-day Saint-Maurice

    Recordings of the songs were made by the cast of the original Royal Shakespeare Company production and film. The first recording of the show was a three-LP set released in 1964 by Caedmon Records. This was a complete audio recording of the original Broadway production. The second release was a single soundtrack album LP of the film score, released by Caedmon/United Artists Records.

    The third release was a CD compilation of two 1966 Brook/Peaslee Royal Shakespeare Company productions: Marat/Sade and US, released by Premier Recordings. The songs included on this 1992 CD were:

    Homage to Marat
    The Corday Waltz
    Song and Mime of Corday’s Arrival in Paris
    The People’s Reaction
    Those Fat Monkeys
    Poor Old Marat
    One Day It Will Come to Pass
    Poor Marat in Your Bathtub Seat
    Poor Old Marat (Reprise)
    Copulation Round
    Fifteen Glorious Years (interpolating the “Marseillaise”)
    Finale

    This track listing omits Royal Anthem (which appears on all other recordings) and does not specifically mention The Tumbrel Song either individually or as a part of Song and Mime of Corday’s Arrival in Paris. The cast of this recording includes Patrick Magee, Glenda Jackson and Freddie Jones. (The accompanying production, US, is about an American soldier “zappin’ the [Viet] Cong” in the Vietnam War.)

    Marat/Sade (1967) + subtitles
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJc4I6pivqg

    #théâtre

  • The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774

    Un article scientifique de 2009 sur le marketing d’Oxycontin.

    OxyContin’s commercial success did not depend on the merits of the drug compared with other available opioid preparations. The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics concluded in 2001 that oxycodone offered no advantage over appropriate doses of other potent opioids.3 Randomized double-blind studies comparing OxyContin given every 12 hours with immediate-release oxycodone given 4 times daily showed comparable efficacy and safety for use with chronic back pain4 and cancer-related pain.5,6 Randomized double-blind studies that compared OxyContin with controlled-release morphine for cancer-related pain also found comparable efficacy and safety.7–9 The FDA’s medical review officer, in evaluating the efficacy of OxyContin in Purdue’s 1995 new drug

    application, concluded that OxyContin had not been shown to have a significant advantage over conventional, immediate-release oxycodone taken 4 times daily other than a reduction in frequency of dosing.10 In a review of the medical literature, Chou et al. made similar conclusions.11

    The promotion and marketing of OxyContin occurred during a recent trend in the liberalization of the use of opioids in the treatment of pain, particularly for chronic non–cancer-related pain. Purdue pursued an “aggressive” campaign to promote the use of opioids in general and OxyContin in particular.1,12–17 In 2001 alone, the company spent $200 million18 in an array of approaches to market and promote OxyContin.❞

    From 1996 to 2001, Purdue conducted more than 40 national pain-management and speaker-training conferences at resorts in Florida, Arizona, and California. More than 5000 physicians, pharmacists, and nurses attended these all-expenses-paid symposia, where they were recruited and trained for Purdue’s national speaker bureau.19(p22)

    In much of its promotional campaign—in literature and audiotapes for physicians, brochures and videotapes for patients, and its “Partners Against Pain” Web site—Purdue claimed that the risk of addiction from OxyContin was extremely small.43–49

    Purdue trained its sales representatives to carry the message that the risk of addiction was “less than one percent.”50(p99)

    In 1998, Purdue distributed 15 000 copies of an OxyContin video to physicians without submitting it to the FDA for review, an oversight later acknowledged by Purdue. In 2001, Purdue submitted to the FDA a second version of the video, which the FDA did not review until October 2002—after the General Accounting Office inquired about its content. After its review, the FDA concluded that the video minimized the risks from OxyContin and made unsubstantiated claims regarding its benefits to patients.19

    When OxyContin entered the market in 1996, the FDA approved its original label, which stated that iatrogenic addiction was “very rare” if opioids were legitimately used in the management of pain. In July 2001, to reflect the available scientific evidence, the label was modified to state that data were not available for establishing the true incidence of addiction in chronic-pain patients. The 2001 labeling also deleted the original statement that the delayed absorption of OxyContin was believed to reduce the abuse liability of the drug.19 A more thorough review of the available scientific evidence prior to the original labeling might have prevented some of the need for the 2001 label revision.

    #Opioides #Marketing #Purdue_Pharma

  • New analysis: Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities protect 5 times more carbon than previously thought | Rights + Resources
    https://rightsandresources.org/en/blog/gcas2018

    Two new studies released on the eve of the Global Climate Action Summit illustrate the powerful links between securing indigenous and community land rights and protecting the forests that are vital to mitigating climate change. As climate researchers, advocates, and leaders gather in California this week to discuss priorities and goals at the Global Climate Action Summit, they must recognize the urgent need to secure the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities as a key climate solution.

    #climat

  • Tesla workers speak out : ’Anything pro-union is shut down really fast’
    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/10/tesla-workers-union-elon-musk

    Elon Musk has said he is ‘neutral’ about a union but former employees blame their firing on their efforts to organize while current workers say a ‘culture of fear’ persists For two years Dezzimond Vaughn was a well-regarded worker at the Tesla factory in Lathrop, California. Then he became involved in trying to organize a union and suddenly his job was on the line. “They started changing rules without any remorse,” Vaughn, a 31-year-old former Tesla computer-numeric-controlled (CNC) heavy (...)

    #Tesla #travail

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/54cac055122e121ec9e12e6ae4b5478d20d171c8/0_71_3816_2289/master/3816.jpg

  • Scooter use is rising in major cities. So are trips to the emergency room. - The Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/scooter-use-is-rising-in-major-cities-so-are-trips-to-the-emergency-room/2018/09/06/53d6a8d4-abd6-11e8-a8d7-0f63ab8b1370_story.html?noredirect=on

    Attention aux faux-amis, ici scooter veut dire trottinettes electriques.

    Il faudra un jour repenser la question de ces systèmes qui n’ont pas de points fixes (dont qui encombrent les villes, sont moins biens réparés et plus abîmés). Ce modèle est une certaine idée du partage qui en réalité est ouverte... à la « tragédie des communs ». Effectivement, dans ce modèle, le partage et la conservation du système devient second par rapport à l’utilité pour chaque usager. Les conditions de la tragédie des communs sont alors réunies : il n’y a pas de communauté pour « se parler » (communs, communautés et communication viennent de la même racine latine) et donc régler les problèmes.

    They have been pouring into emergency rooms around the nation all summer, their bodies bearing a blend of injuries that doctors normally associate with victims of car wrecks — broken noses, wrists and shoulders, facial lacerations and fractures, as well as the kind of blunt head trauma that can leave brains permanently damaged.

    When doctors began asking patients to explain their injuries, many were surprised to learn that the surge of broken body parts stemmed from the latest urban transportation trend: shared electric scooters.

    In Santa Monica, Calif. — where one of the biggest electric-scooter companies is based — the city’s fire department has responded to 34 serious accidents involving the devices this summer. The director of an emergency department there said his team treated 18 patients who were seriously injured in electric-scooter accidents during the final two weeks of July. And in San Francisco, the doctor who runs the emergency room at a major hospital said he is seeing as many as 10 severe injuries a week.

    As the injuries pile up in cities across the country, the three largest scooter companies — operating under the names Bird, Lime and Skip — have seen their values soar as they attempt to transform urban transit, following the successes of ride-hailing and bike-sharing companies. The scooter start-ups have attracted massive investments from Uber, the prominent technology venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, with some analysts estimating that some of the privately held companies might be worth more than $1 billion.

    A commuter rides a scooter on 15th Street NW in Washington. (Robert Miller/The Washington Post)

    But a growing number of critics — including doctors, former riders, scooter mechanics and personal injury lawyers — say the devices may look like toys but inflict the same degree of harm as any other motorized vehicle on the road, only without having to comply with safety regulations. These critics add that some ­electric-scooter fleets are poorly maintained by a loose-knit flock of amateur mechanics, making them prone to dangerous mechanical failures.

    Bird and Skip have programs that give helmets to riders who request them, and Lime notes that riders must go through an “in-app tutorial” on helmet safety to unlock one of the company’s scooters for the first time.

    “We also strive to reduce injuries though our vehicle design and include key safety features such as headlights and taillights, independent suspension, and a wider and higher footboard to improve stability,” a statement from Skip said.

    But Bird is also lobbying against legislation in California that would require users to wear helmets.

    The injured might quickly discover that their ability to sue the scooter industry is limited.

    Bird and Lime, the two biggest companies, require consumers to agree to not sue — either individually or as part of a class-action suit — and instead turn to a form of mediation known as “binding arbitration” as a condition of using their scooters. They both name specific arbitration companies, while Bird also names a preferred location for arbitration and Lime requires users to first engage in a 60-day “dialogue” with the company.

    Bird says its user agreement “represents an industry standard” among “transportation technology companies.”

    Skip recently informed users that its arbitration agreement would be binding for users beginning Friday. Skip said the company is adding the arbitration provision as part of a revamp of its user agreement as the firm expands across the country. In a statement, Skip said the changes “make the terms and conditions more clear, more informative, and more efficient.”

    Consumer advocates have long criticized binding arbitration as putting consumers at a disadvantage. Arbitration clauses — often appearing as fine print in user agreements and employee contracts — have become a defining feature of corporate contracts used by many of the nation’s most recognizable brands across multiple industries.

    #Véhicules_partagés #Tragédie_des_communs #Accidents #Economie_collaborative(_mon_c..)

  • Before the Trump Era, the “Wall” Made In Arizona as Political Performance

    “Trump’s Wall” illustrates the US obsession with ever-greater militarization of the Mexican border, independently of the actual numbers of unauthorized crossings. Yet these debates began revolving around the slogan “Build The Wall” long before the rise of Trump. Between 2010 and 2013, the activities of a coalition of activists, politicians and Arizona security experts had already legitimized recourse to a “wall”. Border-security debates thus concern more than mere control of border crossings. More crucially, they structure local and national political life in accordance with the interests and agendas of the political players whom they bring together.

    The Governors of California and Arizona reacted unevenly to President Trump’s announcement on April 4th, 2018, that National Guard soldiers were to be sent to the Mexican border1 to reinforce the Border Patrol and local police. Doug Ducey, Republican Governor of Arizona, displayed his enthusiasm: “I’m grateful today to have a federal administration that is finally taking action to secure the border for the safety of all Americans” 2. Jerry Brown, Democrat Governor of California, was more circumspect. He insisted upon the limits of such a measure: “”This will not be a mission to build a new wall […] It will not be a mission to round up women and children or detain people escaping violence and seeking a better life. […] Here are the facts: There is no massive wave of migrants pouring into California3”. These contrasting reactions illustrate the US rift over migration and border-security issues. To the anti-migrant camp, the border is insufficiently secured, and is subject to an “invasion4”. For opponents of the border’s militarization, this deployment is futile.

    On the anti-migrant side, between 2010 and 2013, Republican state congressmen in Arizona set up a unified Committee to gather all the political players who demanded of President Obama that he increases militarization of the border5. This included Sheriffs and Arizona State ministers—but also a breeders’ organization, the border Chambers of Commerce, militiamen who patrol the desert, and Tea Party groups. In May 2011, this Committee launched a fundraising drive dubbed “Build the Border Fence”. They portrayed cross-border migration as a threat to the public, consecrated the “Fence” as a legitimate security tool, and, seeking to force the hand of the Federal Government, accused it of failing in its duty to protect. Examining this mobilization prior to Trump’s election enables illustrating how militarization and the debates around it came to acquire legitimacy—and therefore to shed light on its current crystallization around the rhetoric of the “Wall”. This article will, first, briefly describe stages in the performative militarization of the border within which this political mobilization is embedded. It then presents three stages in the legitimization of the “Wall”, drawing on pro-“Border Wall” activism in Arizona.

    #Militarization by One-Upmanship

    Parsing differences over migration debates in the United States requires situating them within the framework of the long-term political performance of militarization of the border. The process whereby the border with Mexico has become militarized has gone hand in hand with the criminalization of unauthorized immigration since the 1980s-6. In the border area, militarization is displayed through the deployment of technology and surveillance routines of transborder mobility, both by security professionals and by citizen vigilantes7. The construction of “fences”8 made the borderline visible and contributed to this policy of militarization. The Trump administration is banking on these high-profile moments of wall-construction. In doing so, it follows in the footsteps of the G.W.Bush administration through the 2006 Secure Fence Act, and California Republicans in the 1990s. This is even while the numbers of unauthorized crossings are at historically low levels9, and federal agencies’ efforts are more directed towards chasing down migrants within the US. At various stages in the development of this policy, different players, ranging from federal elected officials through members of civil society to the security sector, local elected officials and residents, have staged themselves against the backdrop of the territory that had been fenced against the “invaders”. They thereby invest the political space concerned with closing this territory,against political opponents who are considered to be in favor of its remaining open, and of welcoming migrants. The latter range from players in transborder trade to religious humanitarian and migrant rights NGOs. Border security is therefore at the core of the political and media project of portraying immigration in problematic and warlike terms. Beyond controlling migrants, the issue above all orbits around reassuring the citizenry and various political players positioning themselves within society-structuring debates.
    Why Demand “Fences”?

    First and foremost, Arizona’s pro-fence players package transborder mobility as a variety of forms of violence, deriving from interpretation, speculation and—to reprise their terms—fantasies of “invasion”. In their rhetoric, the violence in Mexico has crossed the border. This spillover thesis is based on the experience of ranchers of the Cochise County on the border, who have faced property degradations since the end of the 1990s as a result of migrants and smugglers crossing their lands. In January 2013, the representative of the Arizona Cattlemen Association struck an alarmist tone: “Our people are on the frontline and the rural areas of our border are unsecured10”. The murder of an Association member in March 2010 was cited as evidence, swiftly attributed to what was dubbed an “illegal alien11”.

    “Border security also reflects domestic political stakes.”

    Based on their personal experiences of border migration, the pro-fence camp has taken up a common discursive register concerning the national stakes tied to such mobility. As Republican State Senator Gail Griffin explains, they express a desire to restore public order over the national territory, against the “chaos” provoked by these violent intrusions:

    “People in larger communities away from the border don’t see it as we do on the border but the drugs that are coming in though my backyard are ending up in everybody’s community in the State of Arizona and in this country. So it’s just not a local issue, or a county issue or a state issue, it’s a national issue 12.”

    In their view, the threat is as much to public order as it is to national identity. These fears denote a preoccupation with the Hispanization of society and cultural shifts affecting a nation that they define as being “Anglo-Saxon”. When the Build the Border Fence fundraising drive was launched on July 27, 2011, for example, Representative Steve Smith pronounced himself “horrified” by a development that he called “Press 2 for Spanish” in telephone calls. He also condemned the lack of integration on the part of Mexican migrants:

    “If you don’t like this country with you, you wanna bring your language with you, your gangfare with you, stay where you were! Or face the consequences. But don’t make me change because you don’t want to13.”

    Finally, border security also reflects domestic political stakes. It is a variable in the political balance of power with the federal government to influence decisions on immigration policy. Arizona elected representatives condemn the federal government’s inefficiency and lay claim to migration decision-making powers at the state-level. The “fence” is also portrayed a being a common sense “popular” project against reticent decision-making elites.
    “Fences”—or Virtual Surveillance?

    Control of the border is already disconnected from the border territory itself, and virtual and tactical technologies are prioritized in order to manage entry to the US. “Fences” appear archaic compared to new surveillance technologies that enable remote control. In the 2000s, the “virtualization” of border control was favored by the Bush and Obama administrations. Since 2001-2002, it has been embedded in the strategic concept of “Smart Borders” within the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This aims to filter authorized migration through programs that grant expedited- and preregistered-entry to US ports of entry, and through the generalization of biometric technologies. This strategy also rests upon integrating leading-edge technologies, such as the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) program that was in place from 2006 to 2011. At the time, the border area (including South-West Arizona) acquired watchtowers equipped with cameras and radar. Fences are, moreover, costly—and the financial and human costs of the construction, guarding and upkeep of these fences raise doubts over the benefits of such infrastructure. These doubts are expressed at security-technology fairs, where security professionals and industrialists gather14. There, the “fence” is ultimately understood as being a marginal control technology.

    Regardless, pro-fence activism in Arizona grants a key role to those military and police who help legitimate the recourse to “fences”. In particular, they draw on such models of securitization as the California border, that has been gradually been sealed since 1991, as well as, since 2006-07, the triple-barrier of Yuma, in South-West Arizona. Sheriff Paul Babeu, an ex-military National Guardsman who erected the “fences” in Yuma, assesses that they provide a tactical bonus for Border Patrol agents in smuggling centers, urban areas and flatlands15. Mainly, Arizona security professionals articulate their defense of the “fence” within the pursuit of personal political agendas, such as Republican sheriffs who are both security and political professionals.

    Attacking the Federal Government for Failure to Protect

    The spread of the pro-fence narrative largely rests upon widely-covered events designed to symbolize the process of militarization and to call for federal intervention. The materiality of “fences” elicits easy media coverage. The pro-fence camp are well aware of this, and regularly stage this materiality. During such public events as the 4thof July national holiday, they erect fake wooden fences on which they encourage participants to write “Secure the Border”. These pro-fence political players also seek out media coverage for their public statements.

    “Republicans consecrate Arizona as their laboratory for immigration and border security policy.”

    Such media as Fox News follow their activities to the extent of turning pro-fence events into a regular series. On August 25, 2011, on the Fox News program On The Record, presenter Greta Van Susteren invited Republican Representative Steve Smith and publicized the fundraising drive using visuals drawn from the initiative’s website 16. The presenter framed the interview by gauging that Arizona parliamentarians had “got a grip on things to get the White House’s attention”. At no point was Steve Smith really challenged on the true cost of the fence, nor on opposition to the project. This co-production between the channel’s conservative editorial line and the pro-fence narrative enables the border area to be presented as a warzone, and amplifies the critique of the federal government.

    This staging of the debate complements lobbying to set up direct contact with federal decision-makers, as well as legal actions to pressure them. Pro-barrier activists in Arizona thus set out plans to secure the border, which they try to spread among Arizona authorities and federal elected officials-17. Sheriff Paul Babeu, for instance, took part in consultations on border security conducted by Senator John McCain and Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. By passing repressive immigration laws and mobilizing Arizona legal advisors to defend these laws when they are challenged in court, Republicans consecrate Arizona as their laboratory for immigration and border security policy.
    Twists and Turns of “Build The Wall”

    Portraying transborder mobility as a “problem” on the local and, especially, the national levels; Legitimizing a security-based response by promoting the “fence” as only solution; And accusing the federal government of failing to protect its citizens. These are the three pillars of “The Fence”, the performance by pro-fence activists in the early 2010s. These moves have enabled making militarization of the border and the “Build The Wall” trope banal. Its elements are present in the current state of the discourse, when Donald Trump resorts to aggressive rhetoric towards migrants, touts his “Wall” as the solution, and stages photo-ops alongside prototypes of the wall—and when he accuses both Congress and California of refusing to secure the border. The issue here has little to do with the undocumented, or with the variables governing Central American migration. It has far more to do with point-scoring against political opponents, and with political positioning within debates that cleave US society.


    https://www.noria-research.com/before-the-trump-era-the-wall-made-in-arizona-as-political-performan
    #performance #performance_politique #spectacle #murs #barrières #barrières_frontalières #USA #Etats-Unis #Arizona #surveillance #surveillance_virtuelle #sécurité

    signalé par @reka

  • Military robots are getting smaller and more capable (https://www.e...
    https://diasp.eu/p/7664483

    Military robots are getting smaller and more capable

    Soon, they will travel in swarms Article word count: 1557

    HN Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17898057 Posted by prostoalex (karma: 64719) Post stats: Points: 90 - Comments: 68 - 2018-09-02T18:45:51Z

    #HackerNews #and #are #capable #getting #military #more #robots #smaller

    Article content:

    ON NOVEMBER 12th a video called “Slaughterbots” was uploaded to YouTube. It is the brainchild of Stuart Russell, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley, and was paid for by the Future of Life Institute (FLI), a group of concerned scientists and technologists that includes Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Martin Rees, Britain’s Astronomer Royal. It is set in a near-future in which (...)

  • The rape of men: the darkest secret of war | Society | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/jul/17/the-rape-of-men

    Because there has been so little research into the rape of men during war, it’s not possible to say with any certainty why it happens or even how common it is – although a rare 2010 survey, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that 22% of men and 30% of women in Eastern Congo reported conflict-related sexual violence. As for Atim, she says: “Our staff are overwhelmed by the cases we’ve got, but in terms of actual numbers? This is the tip of the iceberg.”

    Later on I speak with Dr Angella Ntinda, who treats referrals from the RLP. She tells me: “Eight out of 10 patients from RLP will be talking about some sort of sexual abuse.”

    “Eight out of 10 men?” I clarify.

    “No. Men and women,” she says.

    “What about men?”

    “I think all the men.”

    I am aghast.

    “All of them?” I say.

    “Yes,” she says. “All the men.”

    The research by Lara Stemple at the University of California doesn’t only show that male sexual violence is a component of wars all over the world, it also suggests that international aid organisations are failing male victims. Her study cites a review of 4,076 NGOs that have addressed wartime sexual violence. Only 3% of them mentioned the experience of men in their literature. “Typically,” Stemple says, “as a passing reference.”

    ...

    Stemple’s findings on the failure of aid agencies is no surprise to Dolan. “The organisations working on sexual and gender-based violence don’t talk about it,” he says. “It’s systematically silenced. If you’re very, very lucky they’ll give it a tangential mention at the end of a report. You might get five seconds of: ’Oh and men can also be the victims of sexual violence.’ But there’s no data, no discussion.”

    As part of an attempt to correct this, the RLP produced a documentary in 2010 called Gender Against Men. When it was screened, Dolan says that attempts were made to stop him. “Were these attempts by people in well-known, international aid agencies?” I ask.

    “Yes,” he replies. “There’s a fear among them that this is a zero-sum game; that there’s a pre-defined cake and if you start talking about men, you’re going to somehow eat a chunk of this cake that’s taken them a long time to bake.”

    #Afrique #Congo #guerre #violence_sexuelle #hommes

  • Shocked, burnt and bruised: the plight of workers at Tesla’s plants Peoples Dispatch - 10 Juillet 2018
    https://peoplesdispatch.org/2018/07/10/shocked-burnt-and-bruised-the-plight-of-workers-at-teslas-plants

    A third investigation has been opened last week into carmaker Tesla by California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (OSHA), which received a complaint from a worker at the company’s automobile assembly plant in Fremont. The details of the complaint will be disclosed by the body only after the completion of the investigation.

    The investigation has been launched only days after the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, announced that he would be launching a new production line at the Fremont plant.

    Over the past years, Tesla’s Fremont plant, which employs over 10,000 workers, has proven to be an extremely dangerous workplace, where employes have been “sliced by machinery, crushed by forklifts, burned in electrical explosions and sprayed with molten metal.”


    In 2014, the rate of work-related recordable injuries – i.e injuries that require medical treatment beyond first aid – was 15% higher than the average rate in the automobile industry. The following year, when the industry average of such injuries came down from 7.3 per 100 workers to 6.7, at the Fremont plant, the rate of injuries increased from 8.4 per 100 workers to 8.8, which was 31% higher than the industry average.

    The figures on the rate of serious injuries – i.e those that require days off from work or restricted duty or transfer to a different task – paint a much darker picture of how dangerous working in Tesla is for its employees. As with recordable injuries, the rate of serious injuries also came down industry-wide in 2015. In the case of Tesla’s plant, however, the rate of serious injuries soared and was 103% higher than the industry average, according to a report by Work Safe, a non-profit organization that specializes in workplace health and safety issues.

    The 2018 annual report of The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, which identified Tesla as one of the 12 most dangerous workplaces in the US that puts its employees at risk of physical injuries, pointed out that the rate of recordable injuries was 31% higher than the industry average in 2016, while the rate of serious injuries was 83% higher. Last year, another 722 instances of work-related injuries were reported at the Fremont plant, of which 600 were serious injuries.

    While the industry-average for last year is not yet available, Tesla’s Vice President of Environment, Health and Safety claimed on its website, under an article titled “Becoming the Safest Car Factory in the World”, that the recordable injuries last year had declined by 25% compared to the year before.

    “Relying on 2017 injury data to reach any conclusions about safety trends at the plant is premature and could have misleading results,” said Workspace’s report, which pointed to many irregularities in the way in which the injury logs were maintained by the company.

    “I hear coworkers quietly say that they are hurting but they are too afraid to report it for fear of being labeled as a complainer or bad worker.”

    . . . . . . .

    #tesla#voiture #mobilité #robotisation #innovation #batteries #électricité #accidents_du_travail #pénibilité #danger #elon_musk

    • Une troisième enquête a été ouverte début juillet contre le constructeur automobile Tesla par la Division de la sécurité et de la santé au travail de Californie (OSHA dans son acronyme anglais), à la suite de la plainte d’un ouvrier de l’usine d’assemblage automobile de l’entreprise de Fremont. Les détails de la plainte ne seront divulgués par le service qu’après la fin de l’enquête.

      L’enquête a été entamée quelques jours seulement après l’annonce, par le PDG de l’entreprise Elon Musk, qu’il lancerait une nouvelle ligne de production dans l’usine de Fremont.

      Ces dernières années, l’usine Tesla de Fremont, qui emploie plus de 10 000 ouvriers, s’est avérée être un lieu de travail extrêmement dangereux, où les employés ont été « taillés en pièces par des machines, écrasés par des chariots élévateurs, brûlés dans des explosions électriques et aspergés de métal en fusion ».

      En 2014, le taux de blessures liées au travail rapportées – c’est-à-dire des blessures exigeant un traitement médical au-delà des premiers soins – était de 15% plus élevé que le taux moyen dans l’industrie automobile. L’année suivante, lorsque le taux moyen de ces blessures dans l’industrie est passé de 7.3 à 6.7 pour 100 ouvriers, il a augmenté de 8.4% à 8.8% dans l’usine de Fremont, ce qui était plus élevé de 31% que la moyenne de l’industrie.

      Les chiffres du taux de blessures graves – c’est-à-dire celles qui nécessitent des jours d’arrêt de travail ou un horaire de travail limité ou encore le transfert à un autre poste – brossent un tableau beaucoup plus sombre de la dangerosité du travail chez Tesla pour ses employés. Comme pour les blessures signalées, le taux de blessures graves a aussi diminué dans toute l’industrie en 2015. Dans le cas de l’usine de Tesla, ce taux de blessures graves a explosé pour se situer à 103% de la moyenne de l’industrie, selon un rapport de Work Safe, une organisation à but non lucratif spécialisée dans les questions de santé et de sécurité au travail.

      Le rapport annuel 2018 du Conseil national pour la sécurité et la santé au travail, qui a identifié Tesla comme l’un des 12 lieux de travail les plus dangereux aux États-Unis, qui exposent leurs employés au risque de blessures physiques, a souligné que le taux de blessures signalées était plus élevé de 31% que la moyenne dans l’industrie en 2016, tandis que le taux de blessures graves était plus élevé de 83%. L’an dernier, 722 cas de blessures liées au travail ont été rapportées dans l’usine de Fremont, dont 600 étaient graves.
      . . . . .

  • Exhibition Résistance et refus
    An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940–2017
    Aug 18, 2017–Aug 27, 2018 NY
    https://whitney.org/Exhibitions/AnIncompleteHistoryOfProtest
    Resistance and Refusal
    American artists in the mid-twentieth century used ideas of resistance and refusal to reject inherited policies, politics, and social norms. For some, like Toyo Miyatake, the very act of making art was a form of disobedience. He documented his internment after smuggling camera parts into the camp in Manzanar, California, where he and other Japanese Americans were held during World War II. For Larry Fink, photographing the beatniks during the 1950s gave visibility to a population that formed its identity in opposition to a conformist cultural mainstream. Other projects, like those by Louis H. Draper and Gordon Parks, recorded the efforts of those fighting against racist politics and policies for the fundamental right to be part of society. Ad Reinhardt, working in the aftermath of World War II, defined his art mainly by what it was not. His black paintings were “non-objective, timeless, spaceless, changeless, relationless, disinterested.” Although described in aesthetic terms, Reinhardt’s disavowal can also be seen as a stand against the heroic cultural ideology that led to repression and war.
    https://whitney.org/Exhibitions/AnIncompleteHistoryOfProtest

    Si je n’étais pas si loin qu’est-ce que j’aimerais voir cette exposition.

  • Fight fires with indigenous knowledge, researchers say | PLACE
    http://www.thisisplace.org/i/?id=aed310f3-cbef-46b1-a503-94a6ab5f6f48

    ah ces primitifs qui ne connaissent rien de rien...

    “The best firefighting equipment in the world cannot stop the most devastating wildfires. An effective weapon to prevent uncontrolled wildfire is knowledge,” the report said.

    Indigenous people, who manage nearly 900 million hectares of land worldwide, hold “highly sophisticated” knowledge of fire management, the report noted.

    Indigenous groups around the world deliberately light small fires throughout the year, which reduces the amount of fuel, preventing wildfires from spreading rapidly.

    “Small controlled burns can reduce the impact and threat of catastrophic wildfires,” lead researcher Andrew Davis told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

    In the Brazilian savannah, the number of dry season fires decreased by 57 percent after fire services started collaborating with indigenous tribes, according to the Prisma Foundation.

    The U.S. Forest Service formed a partnership with the Yurok tribe in northern California last year, after a fast-moving wildfire killed 43 people.

    #feu #incendies #savoir-faire #peuples_autochtones #climat

  • Elbert Howard, a Founder of the Black Panthers, Dies at 80 - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/obituaries/elbert-howard-a-founder-of-the-black-panthers-dies-at-80.html?emc=edit_th_1

    Elbert Howard, who was a founder of the Black Panther Party and, as its spokesman, in the thick of some of the most tumultuous events of the late 1960s and early ’70s — but who was most enthusiastic about its social-service and community-organizing work — died on Monday in Santa Rosa, Calif. He was 80.

    His wife, Carole Hyams, confirmed the death. She said he had been ill for some time but did not specify a cause.

    Mr. Howard, widely known as Big Man because of his linebacker’s build, did not have the high profile of the Panther leaders Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton or Eldridge Cleaver as the group, which was formed in Oakland, Calif., in 1966, went national and took on issues like police brutality and racial injustice.

    As the group’s deputy minister of information, Mr. Howard was often quoted when the more prominent party figures were on trial or in the news for other reasons. (The minister of information, Mr. Cleaver, was in exile overseas.)

    But in a 2004 interview with the website of the PBS documentary series “POV,” when Mr. Howard was asked to name something people did not appreciate about the Black Panthers, he replied:

    “People didn’t understand what our survival programs really meant: schoolchildren’s breakfasts, feeding the hungry. Those programs helped immediate problems. They were also organizing tools.

    “The Panthers themselves weren’t the only ones in those programs,” he continued. “We got the community involved, teaching them how to become self-reliant, whereas the government wouldn’t help with problems. It was about us helping ourselves.”

    #Black_Panthers #Politique_USA

  • Aux #Etats-Unis, lumière sur les disparitions et meurtres d’#Amérindiennes
    https://information.tv5monde.com/info/aux-etats-unis-lumiere-sur-les-disparitions-et-meurtres-d-amer

    Autre facteur : les polices tribales n’ont pas autorité pour poursuivre les non-#Amérindiens, même pour des agressions commises sur leurs terres. La police fédérale délaisse beaucoup de cas et quand elle prend en charge un dossier, des mois ont parfois été perdus.

  • What It Takes to Become an Intern at #tesla
    https://hackernoon.com/what-it-takes-to-become-an-intern-at-tesla-e1daf5f79b4d?source=rss----3a

    Photo courtesy of TeslaWhat could be more uplifting and exciting than watching rising souls pursue their dream career?!Tesla, the famous electric car company headquartered in Fremont, CA, may be an example of where this is taking place. They currently hire interns from universities all around the country throughout the year. But they do have high standards!In order to find out more about what they are looking for in a new intern, I was able to speak directly with three current interns about their college experiences and what they think allowed them to become an intern at Tesla. These three interns are Jennifer, Chad, and Dillon.JenniferJennifer is a mechanical engineering student at the University of North Dakota, who currently interns in the manufacturing side at Tesla. This is already (...)

    #internships #intern-at-tesla #tech-intern #careers

  • Is Facebook a publisher ? In public it says no, but in court it says yes
    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-platform-publisher-lawsuit

    In its defense against a former app startup, Facebook is contradicting its long-held claim to be simply a neutral platform Facebook has long had the same public response when questioned about its disruption of the news industry : it is a tech platform, not a publisher or a media company. But in a small courtroom in California’s Redwood City on Monday, attorneys for the social media company presented a different message from the one executives have made to Congress, in interviews and in (...)

    #CambridgeAnalytica #Facebook #algorithme #domination #BigData #procès

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/23b04eaac2db6316bfd7e6e807b7a091ca8cb73a/0_67_3000_1800/master/3000.jpg

    • Migranti:da inizio anno sbarcati 16.566,-79% rispetto a 2017

      Dall’inizio dell’anno ad oggi sono sbarcati in Italia 16.566 migranti, il 79,07% in meno rispetto allo stesso periodo dell’anno scorso, quando ne arrivarono 79.154. Dai dati del Viminale, aggiornati al 28 giugno, emerge dunque che per il dodicesimo mese consecutivo gli sbarchi nel nostro paese sono in calo: l’ultimo picco fu registrato proprio a giugno dell’anno scorso, quando sbarcarono 23.526 migranti (nel 2016 ne arrivarono 22.339 mentre quest’anno il numero è fermo a 3.136). Dal mese di luglio 2017, che ha coinciso con gli accordi siglati con la Libia dall’ex ministro dell’Interno Marco Minniti, si è sempre registrata una diminuzione. Dei 16.566 arrivati nei primi sei mesi del 2018 (la quasi totalità, 15.741, nei porti siciliani), 11.401 sono partiti dalla Libia: un calo nelle partenze dell’84,94% rispetto al 2017 e dell’83,18% rispetto al 2016. Quanto alle nazionalità di quelli che sono arrivati, la prima è la Tunisia, con 3.002 migranti, seguita da Eritrea (2.555), Sudan (1.488) e Nigeria (1.229).

      http://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/cronaca/2018/06/30/migrantida-inizio-anno-sbarcati-16.566-79-rispetto-a-2017-_30327137-364e-44bf-8

    • En Méditerranée, les flux de migrants s’estompent et s’orientent vers l’ouest

      Pour la première fois depuis le début de la crise migratoire en 2014, l’Espagne est, avant l’Italie et la Grèce, le pays européen qui enregistre le plus d’arrivées de migrants par la mer et le plus de naufrages meurtriers au large de ses côtes.

      https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/280618/en-mediterranee-les-flux-de-migrants-s-estompent-et-s-orientent-vers-l-oue
      #routes_migratoires

    • Migratory flows in April: Overall drop, but more detections in Greece and Spain

      Central Mediterranean
      The number of migrants arriving in Italy via the Central Mediterranean route in April fell to about 2 800, down 78% from April 2017. The total number of migrants detected on this route in the first four months of 2018 fell to roughly 9 400, down three-quarters from a year ago.
      So far this year, Tunisians and Eritreans were the two most represented nationalities on this route, together accounting for almost 40% of all the detected migrants.

      Eastern Mediterranean
      In April, the number of irregular migrants taking the Eastern Mediterranean route stood at some 6 700, two-thirds more than in the previous month. In the first four months of this year, more than 14 900 migrants entered the EU through the Eastern Mediterranean route, 92% more than in the same period of last year. The increase was mainly caused by the rise of irregular crossings on the land borders with Turkey. In April the number of migrants detected at the land borders on this route has exceeded the detections on the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.
      The largest number of migrants on this route in the first four months of the year were nationals of Syria and Iraq.

      Western Mediterranean
      Last month, the number of irregular migrants reaching Spain stood at nearly 1100, a quarter more than in April 2017. In the first four months of 2018, there were some 4600 irregular border crossings on the Western Mediterranean route, 95 more than a year ago.
      Nationals of Morocco accounted for the highest number of arrivals in Spain this year, followed by those from Guinea and Mali.

      https://frontex.europa.eu/media-centre/news-release/migratory-flows-in-april-overall-drop-but-more-detections-in-greece-a
      #2018 #Espagne #Grèce

    • EU’s Frontex warns of new migrant route to Spain

      Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri has warned that Spain could see a significant increase in migrant arrivals. The news comes ahead of the European Commission’s new proposal to strengthen EU external borders with more guards.

      Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri said Friday that some 6,000 migrants had entered the European Union in June by crossing into Spain from Morocco, the so-called western Mediterranean route.

      https://m.dw.com/en/eus-frontex-warns-of-new-migrant-route-to-spain/a-44563058?xtref=http%253A%252F%252Fm.facebook.com

    • L’Espagne devient la principale voie d’accès des migrants à l’Europe

      La Commission a annoncé trois millions d’euros d’aide d’urgence pour les garde-frontières espagnols, confrontés à un triplement des arrivées de migrants, suite au verrouillage de la route italienne.

      –-> v. ici :
      https://seenthis.net/messages/683358

      L’aide supplémentaire que l’exécutif a décidé d’allouer à l’Espagne après l’augmentation des arrivées sur les côtes provient du Fonds pour la sécurité intérieure et a pour but de financer le déploiement de personnel supplémentaire le long des frontières méridionales espagnoles.

      Le mois dernier, la Commission a déjà attribué 24,8 millions d’euros au ministère de l’Emploi et de la Sécurité sociale et à la Croix-Rouge espagnole, afin de renforcer les capacités d’accueil, de prise en charge sanitaire, de nourriture et de logement des migrants arrivants par la route de l’ouest méditerranéen.

      Une enveloppe supplémentaire de 720 000 euros a été allouée à l’organisation des rapatriements et des transferts depuis l’enclave de Ceuta et Melilla.

      Cette aide financière s’ajoute aux 691,7 millions que reçoit Madrid dans le cadre du Fonds pour l’asile, l’immigration et l’intégration et du fonds pour la sécurité intérieure pour la période budgétaire 2014-2020.

      https://www.euractiv.fr/section/migrations/news/avramopoulos-in-spain-to-announce-further-eu-support-to-tackle-migration

    • En #Méditerranée, les flux de migrants s’orientent vers l’ouest

      Entre janvier et juillet, 62 177 migrants ont rejoint l’Europe par la Méditerranée, selon les données de l’Agence des Nations unies pour les réfugiés. Un chiffre en baisse par rapport à 2017 (172 301 sur l’ensemble des douze mois) et sans commune mesure avec le « pic » de 2015, où 1 015 078 arrivées avaient été enregistrées.

      Les flux déclinent et se déplacent géographiquement : entre 2014 et 2017, près de 98 % des migrants étaient entrés via la Grèce et l’Italie, empruntant les voies dites « orientales » et « centrales » de la Méditerranée ; en 2018, c’est pour l’instant l’Espagne qui enregistre le plus d’arrivées (23 785), devant l’Italie (18 348), la Grèce (16 142) et, de manière anecdotique, Chypre (73).


      https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/030818/en-mediterranee-les-flux-de-migrants-s-orientent-vers-l-ouest
      #statistiques #chiffres #Méditerranée_centrale #itinéraires_migratoires #parcours_migratoires #routes_migratoires #asile #migrations #réfugiés #2018 #Espagne #Italie #Grèce #2017 #2016 #2015 #2014 #arrivées

      Et des statistiques sur les #morts et #disparus :


      #mourir_en_mer #décès #naufrages

    • The most common Mediterranean migration paths into Europe have changed since 2009

      Until 2018, the Morocco-to-Spain route – also known as the western route – had been the least-traveled Mediterranean migration path, with a total of 89,000 migrants arriving along Spain’s coastline since 2009. But between January and August 2018, this route has seen over 28,000 arrivals, more than the central Africa-to-Italy central route (20,000 arrivals) and the Turkey-to-Greece eastern route (20,000 arrivals). One reason for this is that Spain recently allowed rescue ships carrying migrants to dock after other European Union countries had denied them entry.

      Toute la Méditerranée:

      #Méditerranée_occidentale:

      #Méditerranée_centrale:

      #Méditerranée_orientale:

      http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/18/the-most-common-mediterranean-migration-paths-into-europe-have-changed-

    • The “Shift” to the Western Mediterranean Migration Route: Myth or Reality?

      How Spain Became the Top Arrival Country of Irregular Migration to the EU

      This article looks at the increase in arrivals[1] of refugees and migrants in Spain, analysing the nationalities of those arriving to better understand whether there has been a shift from the Central Mediterranean migration route (Italy) towards the Western Mediterranean route (Spain). The article explores how the political dynamics between North African countries and the European Union (EU) have impacted the number of arrivals in Spain.

      The Western Mediterranean route has recently become the most active route of irregular migration to Europe. As of mid-August 2018, a total of 26,350 refugees and migrants arrived in Spain by sea, three times the number of arrivals in the first seven months of 2017. In July alone 8,800 refugees and migrants reached Spain, four times the number of arrivals in July of last year.

      But this migration trend did not begin this year. The number of refugees and migrants arriving by sea in Spain grew by 55 per cent between 2015 and 2016, and by 172 per cent between 2016 and 2017.

      At the same time, there has been a decrease in the number of refugees and migrants entering the EU via the Central Mediterranean route. Between January and July 2018, a total of 18,510 persons arrived in Italy by sea compared to 95,213 arrivals in the same period in 2017, an 81 per cent decrease.

      This decrease is a result of new measures to restrict irregular migration adopted by EU Member States, including increased cooperation with Libya, which has been the main embarkation country for the Central Mediterranean migration route. So far this year, the Libyan Coast Guards have intercepted 12,152 refugees and migrants who were on smuggling boats (more than double the total number of interceptions in 2017). In the last two weeks of July, 99.5 per cent of the refugees and migrants who departed on smuggling boats were caught and returned to Libya, according to a data analysis conducted at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI). The number of people being detained by the Libyan Directorate for Combatting Illegal Migration (DCIM) has continued growing (from 5,000 to 9,300 between May and July 2018), with thousands more held in unofficial detention facilities.

      So, was there a shift from the Central to the Western Mediterranean Migration route? In other words, has the decline of arrivals in Italy led to the increase of arrivals in Spain?

      First of all, while this article only analyses the changes in the use of these two sea routes and among those trying to go to Europe, for most West Africans, the intended destination is actually North Africa, including Libya and Algeria, where they hope to find jobs. A minority intends to move onwards to Europe and this is confirmed by MMC’s 4Mi data referred to below.

      The answer to the question on whether or not there has been a shift between the two routes can be found in the analysis of the origin countries of the refugees and migrants that were most commonly using the Central Mediterranean route before it became increasingly difficult to reach Europe. Only if a decrease of the main nationalities using the Central Mediterranean Route corresponds to an increase of the same group along the Western Mediterranean route we can speak of “a shift”.

      The two nationalities who were – by far – the most common origin countries of refugees and migrants arriving in Italy in 2015 and in 2016 were Nigeria and Eritrea. The total number of Nigerians and Eritreans arriving in Italy in 2015 was 50,018 and slightly lower (47,096) in the following year. Then, between 2016 and last year, the total number of Nigerian and Eritrean arrivals in Italy decreased by 66 per cent. The decrease has been even more significant in 2018; in the first half of this year only 2,812 Nigerians and Eritreans arrived in Italy.

      However, there has not been an increase in Nigerians and Eritreans arriving in Spain. Looking at the data, it is clear that refugees and migrants originating in these two countries have not shifted from the Central Mediterranean route to the Western route.

      The same is true for refugees and migrants from Bangladesh, Sudan and Somalia – who were also on the list of most common countries of origin amongst arrivals in Italy during 2015 and 2016. While the numbers of Bangladeshis, Sudanese and Somalis arriving in Italy have been declining since 2017, there has not been an increase in arrivals of these nationals in Spain. Amongst refugees and migrants from these three countries, as with Nigerians and Eritreans, there has clearly not been a shift to the Western route. In fact, data shows that zero refugees and migrants from Eritrea, Bangladesh and Somalia arrived in Spain by sea since 2013.

      However, the data tells a different story when it comes to West African refugees and migrants. Between 2015 and 2017, the West African countries of Guinea, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia and Senegal were also on the list of most common origin countries amongst arrivals in Italy. During those years, about 91 per cent of all arrivals in the EU from these five countries used the Central Mediterranean route to Italy, while 9 per cent used the Western Mediterranean route to Spain.

      But in 2018 the data flipped: only 23 per cent of EU arrivals from these five West African countries used the Central Mediterranean route, while 76 per cent entered used the Western route. It appears that as the Central Mediterranean route is being restricted, a growing number of refugees and migrants from these countries are trying to reach the EU on the Western Mediterranean route.

      These finding are reinforced by 3,224 interviews conducted in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso between July 2017 and June 2018 by the Mixed Migration Monitoring Mechanism initiative (4Mi), which found a rise in the share of West African refugees and migrants stating their final destination is Spain and a fall in the share of West African refugees and migrants who say they are heading to Italy.[2]

      A second group who according to the data shifted from the Central Mediterranean route to the Western route are the Moroccans. Between 2015 and 2017, at least 4,000 Moroccans per year entered the EU on the Central Mediterranean route. Then, in the first half of this year, only 319 Moroccan refugees and migrants arrived by sea to Italy. Meanwhile, an opposite process has happened in Spain, where the number of Moroccans arriving by sea spiked, increasing by 346 per cent between 2016 and last year. This increase has continued in the first six months of this year, in which 2,600 Moroccans reached Spain through the Western Mediterranean route.

      On-going Political Bargaining

      The fact that so many Moroccans are amongst the arrivals in Spain could be an indication that Morocco, the embarkation country for the Western Mediterranean route, has perhaps been relaxing its control on migration outflows, as recently suggested by several media outlets. A Euronews article questioned whether the Moroccan government is allowing refugees and migrants to make the dangerous sea journey towards Spain as part of its negotiations with the EU on the size of the support it will receive. Der Spiegel reported that Morocco is “trying to extort concessions from the EU by placing Spain under pressure” of increased migration.

      The dynamic in which a neighbouring country uses the threat of increased migration as a political bargaining tool is one the EU is quite familiar with, following its 2016 deal with Turkey and 2017 deal with Libya. In both occasions, whilst on a different scale, the response of the EU has been fundamentally the same: to offer its southern neighbours support and financial incentives to control migration.

      The EU had a similar response this time. On August 3, the European Commission committed 55 million euro for Morocco and Tunisia to help them improve their border management. Ten days later, the Moroccan Association for Human Rights reported that Moroccan authorities started removing would-be migrants away from departure points to Europe.

      Aside from Morocco and Libya, there is another North African country whose policies may be contributing to the increase of arrivals in Spain. Algeria, which has been a destination country for many African migrants during the past decade (and still is according to 4Mi interviews), is in the midst of a nationwide campaign to detain and deport migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.

      The Associated Press reported “Algeria’s mass expulsions have picked up since October 2017, as the European Union renewed pressure on North African countries to discourage migrants going north to Europe…” More than 28,000 Africans have been expelled since the campaign started in August of last year, according to News Deeply. While Algeria prides itself on not taking EU money – “We are handling the situation with our own means,” an Algerian interior ministry official told Reuters – its current crackdown appears to be yet another element of the EU’s wider approach to migration in the region.
      Bargaining Games

      This article has demonstrated that – contrary to popular reporting – there is no blanket shift from the Central Mediterranean route to the Western Mediterranean route. A detailed analysis on the nationalities of arrivals in Italy and Spain and changes over time, shows that only for certain nationalities from West Africa a shift may be happening, while for other nationalities there is no correlation between the decrease of arrivals in Italy and the increase of arrivals in Spain. The article has also shown that the recent policies implemented by North African governments – from Libya to Morocco to Algeria – can only be understood in the context of these countries’ dialogue with the EU on irregular migration.

      So, while the idea of a shift from the Central Mediterranean route to the Western route up until now is more myth than reality, it is clear that the changes of activity levels on these migration routes are both rooted in the same source: the on-going political bargaining on migration between the EU and North African governments. And these bargaining games are likely to continue as the EU intensifies its efforts to prevent refugees and migrants from arriving at its shores.

      http://www.mixedmigration.org/articles/shift-to-the-western-mediterranean-migration-route
      #Méditerranée_centrale #Méditerranée_occidentale

    • IOM, the UN Migration Agency, reports that 80,602 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2018 through 23 September, with 35,653 to Spain, the leading destination this year. In fact, with this week’s arrivals Spain in 2018 has now received via the Mediterranean more irregular migrants than it did throughout all the years 2015, 2016 and 2017 combined.

      The region’s total arrivals through the recent weekend compare with 133,465 arrivals across the region through the same period last year, and 302,175 at this point in 2016.

      Spain, with 44 per cent of all arrivals through the year, continues to receive seaborne migrants in September at a volume nearly twice that of Greece and more than six times that of Italy. Italy’s arrivals through late September are the lowest recorded at this point – the end of a normally busy summer sailing season – in almost five years. IOM Rome’s Flavio Di Giacomo on Monday reported that Italy’s 21,024 arrivals of irregular migrants by sea this year represent a decline of nearly 80 per cent from last year’s totals at this time. (see chart below).

      IOM’s Missing Migrants Project has documented the deaths of 1,730 people on the Mediterranean in 2018. Most recently, a woman drowned off the coast of Bodrum, Turkey on Sunday while attempting to reach Kos, Greece via the Eastern Mediterranean route. The Turkish Coast Guard reports that 16 migrants were rescued from this incident. On Saturday, a 5-year-old Syrian boy drowned off the coast of Lebanon’s Akkar province after a boat carrying 39 migrants to attempt to reach Cyprus capsized.

      IOM Spain’s Ana Dodevska reported Monday that total arrivals at sea in 2018 have reached 35,594 men, women and children who have been rescued in Western Mediterranean waters through 23 September (see chart below).

      IOM notes that over this year’s first five months, a total of 8,150 men, women and children were rescued in Spanish waters after leaving Africa – an average of 54 per day. In the 115 days since May 31, a total of 27,444 have arrived – or just under 240 migrants per day. The months of May-September this year have seen a total of 30,967 irregular migrants arriving by sea, the busiest four-month period for Spain since IOM began tallying arrival statistics, with just over one week left in September.

      With this week’s arrivals Spain in 2018 has now received via the Mediterranean more irregular migrants than it did throughout all the years 2015, 2016 and 2017 combined (see charts below).

      On Monday, IOM Athens’ Christine Nikolaidou reported that over four days (20-23 September) this week the Hellenic Coast Guard (HCG) units managed at least nine incidents requiring search and rescue operations off the islands of Lesvos, Chios, Samos and Farmakonisi.

      The HCG rescued a total 312 migrants and transferred them to the respective islands. Additional arrivals of some 248 individuals to Kos and some of the aforementioned islands over these past four days brings to 22,821 the total number of arrivals by sea to Greece through 23 September (see chart below).

      Sea arrivals to Greece this year by irregular migrants appeared to have peaked in daily volume in April, when they averaged at around 100 per day. That volume dipped through the following three months then picked up again in August and again in September, already this year’s busiest month – 3,536 through 23 days, over 150 per day – with about a quarter of the month remaining. Land border crossing also surged in April (to nearly 4,000 arrivals) but have since fallen back, with fewer than 2,000 crossings in each of the past four months (see charts below).

      IOM’s Missing Migrants Project has recorded 2,735 deaths and disappearances during migration so far in 2018 (see chart below).

      In the Americas, several migrant deaths were recorded since last week’s update. In Mexico, a 30-year-old Salvadoran man was killed in a hit-and-run on a highway in Tapachula, Mexico on Friday. Another death on Mexico’s freight rail network (nicknamed “La Bestia”) was added after reports of an unidentified man found dead on tracks near San Francisco Ixhuatan on 15 September.

      In the United States, on 16 September, an unidentified person drowned in the All-American Canal east of Calexico, California – the 55th drowning recorded on the US-Mexico border this year. A few days later a car crash south of Florence, Arizona resulted in the deaths of eight people, including four Guatemalan migrants, on Wednesday. Two others killed included one of the vehicles’ driver and his partner, who authorities say had been involved with migrant smuggling in the past.

      https://reliefweb.int/report/spain/mediterranean-migrant-arrivals-reach-80602-2018-deaths-reach-1730

    • Analyse de Matteo Villa sur twitter :

      Irregular sea arrivals to Italy have not been this low since 2012. But how do the two “deterrence policies” (#Minniti's and #Salvini's) compare over time?


      Why start from July 15th each year? That’s when the drop in sea arrivals in 2017 kicked in, and this allows us to do away with the need to control for seasonality. Findings do not change much if we started on July 1st this year.
      Zooming in, in relative terms the drop in sea arrivals during Salvini’s term is almost as stark as last year’s drop.

      In the period 15 July - 8 October:

      Drop during #Salvini: -73%.
      Drop during #Minniti: -79%.

      But looking at actual numbers, the difference is clear. In less than 3 months’ time, the drop in #migrants and #refugees disembarking in #Italy under #Minniti had already reached 51,000. Under #Salvini in 2018, the further drop is less than 10,000.


      To put it another way: deterrence policies under #Salvini can at best aim for a drop of about 42,000 irregular arrivals in 12 months. Most likely, the drop will amount to about 30.000. Under #Minniti, sea arrivals the drop amounted to 150.000. Five times larger.

      BOTTOM LINE: the opportunity-cost of deterrence policies is shrinking fast. Meanwhile, the number of dead and missing along the Central Mediterranean route has not declined in tandem (in fact, in June-September it shot up). Is more deterrence worth it?

      https://twitter.com/emmevilla/status/1049978070734659584

      Le papier qui explique tout cela :
      Sea Arrivals to Italy : The Cost of Deterrence Policies


      https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/sea-arrivals-italy-cost-deterrence-policies-21367

    • Méditerranée : forte baisse des traversées en 2018 et l’#Espagne en tête des arrivées (HCR)

      Pas moins de 113.482 personnes ont traversé la #Méditerranée en 2018 pour rejoindre l’Europe, une baisse par rapport aux 172.301 qui sont arrivés en 2017, selon les derniers chiffres publiés par le Haut-Commissariat de l’ONU pour les réfugiés (HCR).
      L’Agence des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés rappelle d’ailleurs que le niveau des arrivées a également chuté par rapport au pic de 1,015 million enregistré en 2015 et à un moindre degré des 362.753 arrivées répertoriées en 2016.

      Toutefois pour l’année 2018, si l’on ajoute près de 7.000 migrants enregistrés dans les enclaves espagnoles de #Ceuta et #Melilla (arrivées par voie terrestre), on obtient un total de 120.205 arrivées en Europe.

      L’an dernier l’Espagne est redevenue la première porte d’entrée en Europe, avec 62.479 arrivées (dont 55.756 par la mer soit deux fois plus qu’en 2017, avec 22.103 arrivées).

      La péninsule ibérique est suivie par la #Grèce (32.497), l’Italie (23.371), #Malte (1.182) et #Chypre (676).

      https://news.un.org/fr/story/2019/01/1032962

  • Google and Facebook Are Quietly Fighting California’s Privacy Rights Initiative, Emails Reveal
    https://theintercept.com/2018/06/26/google-and-facebook-are-quietly-fighting-californias-privacy-rights-in

    Lobbyists for the largest technology and telecommunications firms have only three days to prevent the California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA, a ballot initiative that would usher in the strongest consumer privacy standards in the country, from going before state voters this November. The initiative allows consumers to opt out of the sale and collection of their personal data, and vastly expands the definition of personal information to include geolocation, biometrics, and browsing (...)

    #Google #Facebook #données #BigData #lobbying #CCPA

  • Is There a Smarter Path to Artificial Intelligence? Some Experts Hope So par Steve Lorh, New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/technology/deep-learning-artificial-intelligence.html

    “There is no real intelligence there,” said Michael I. Jordan, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of an essay published in April intended to temper the lofty expectations surrounding A.I. “And I think that trusting these brute force algorithms too much is a faith misplaced.”