region:northern europe

  • Europe is using smartphone data as a weapon to deport refugees

    European leaders need to bring immigration numbers down, and #metadata on smartphones could be just what they need to start sending migrants back.

    Smartphones have helped tens of thousands of migrants travel to Europe. A phone means you can stay in touch with your family – or with people smugglers. On the road, you can check Facebook groups that warn of border closures, policy changes or scams to watch out for. Advice on how to avoid border police spreads via WhatsApp.

    Now, governments are using migrants’ smartphones to deport them.

    Across the continent, migrants are being confronted by a booming mobile forensics industry that specialises in extracting a smartphone’s messages, location history, and even #WhatsApp data. That information can potentially be turned against the phone owners themselves.

    In 2017 both Germany and Denmark expanded laws that enabled immigration officials to extract data from asylum seekers’ phones. Similar legislation has been proposed in Belgium and Austria, while the UK and Norway have been searching asylum seekers’ devices for years.

    Following right-wing gains across the EU, beleaguered governments are scrambling to bring immigration numbers down. Tackling fraudulent asylum applications seems like an easy way to do that. As European leaders met in Brussels last week to thrash out a new, tougher framework to manage migration —which nevertheless seems insufficient to placate Angela Merkel’s critics in Germany— immigration agencies across Europe are showing new enthusiasm for laws and software that enable phone data to be used in deportation cases.

    Admittedly, some refugees do lie on their asylum applications. Omar – not his real name – certainly did. He travelled to Germany via Greece. Even for Syrians like him there were few legal alternatives into the EU. But his route meant he could face deportation under the EU’s Dublin regulation, which dictates that asylum seekers must claim refugee status in the first EU country they arrive in. For Omar, that would mean settling in Greece – hardly an attractive destination considering its high unemployment and stretched social services.

    Last year, more than 7,000 people were deported from Germany according to the Dublin regulation. If Omar’s phone were searched, he could have become one of them, as his location history would have revealed his route through Europe, including his arrival in Greece.

    But before his asylum interview, he met Lena – also not her real name. A refugee advocate and businesswoman, Lena had read about Germany’s new surveillance laws. She encouraged Omar to throw his phone away and tell immigration officials it had been stolen in the refugee camp where he was staying. “This camp was well-known for crime,” says Lena, “so the story seemed believable.” His application is still pending.

    Omar is not the only asylum seeker to hide phone data from state officials. When sociology professor Marie Gillespie researched phone use among migrants travelling to Europe in 2016, she encountered widespread fear of mobile phone surveillance. “Mobile phones were facilitators and enablers of their journeys, but they also posed a threat,” she says. In response, she saw migrants who kept up to 13 different #SIM cards, hiding them in different parts of their bodies as they travelled.

    This could become a problem for immigration officials, who are increasingly using mobile phones to verify migrants’ identities, and ascertain whether they qualify for asylum. (That is: whether they are fleeing countries where they risk facing violence or persecution.) In Germany, only 40 per cent of asylum applicants in 2016 could provide official identification documents. In their absence, the nationalities of the other 60 per cent were verified through a mixture of language analysis — using human translators and computers to confirm whether their accent is authentic — and mobile phone data.

    Over the six months after Germany’s phone search law came into force, immigration officials searched 8,000 phones. If they doubted an asylum seeker’s story, they would extract their phone’s metadata – digital information that can reveal the user’s language settings and the locations where they made calls or took pictures.

    To do this, German authorities are using a computer programme, called Atos, that combines technology made by two mobile forensic companies – T3K and MSAB. It takes just a few minutes to download metadata. “The analysis of mobile phone data is never the sole basis on which a decision about the application for asylum is made,” says a spokesperson for BAMF, Germany’s immigration agency. But they do use the data to look for inconsistencies in an applicant’s story. If a person says they were in Turkey in September, for example, but phone data shows they were actually in Syria, they can see more investigation is needed.

    Denmark is taking this a step further, by asking migrants for their Facebook passwords. Refugee groups note how the platform is being used more and more to verify an asylum seeker’s identity.

    It recently happened to Assem, a 36-year-old refugee from Syria. Five minutes on his public Facebook profile will tell you two things about him: first, he supports a revolution against Syria’s Assad regime and, second, he is a devoted fan of Barcelona football club. When Danish immigration officials asked him for his password, he gave it to them willingly. “At that time, I didn’t care what they were doing. I just wanted to leave the asylum center,” he says. While Assem was not happy about the request, he now has refugee status.

    The Danish immigration agency confirmed they do ask asylum applicants to see their Facebook profiles. While it is not standard procedure, it can be used if a caseworker feels they need more information. If the applicant refused their consent, they would tell them they are obliged under Danish law. Right now, they only use Facebook – not Instagram or other social platforms.

    Across the EU, rights groups and opposition parties have questioned whether these searches are constitutional, raising concerns over their infringement of privacy and the effect of searching migrants like criminals.

    “In my view, it’s a violation of ethics on privacy to ask for a password to Facebook or open somebody’s mobile phone,” says Michala Clante Bendixen of Denmark’s Refugees Welcome movement. “For an asylum seeker, this is often the only piece of personal and private space he or she has left.”

    Information sourced from phones and social media offers an alternative reality that can compete with an asylum seeker’s own testimony. “They’re holding the phone to be a stronger testament to their history than what the person is ready to disclose,” says Gus Hosein, executive director of Privacy International. “That’s unprecedented.”
    Read next

    Everything we know about the UK’s plan to block online porn
    Everything we know about the UK’s plan to block online porn

    By WIRED

    Privacy campaigners note how digital information might not reflect a person’s character accurately. “Because there is so much data on a person’s phone, you can make quite sweeping judgements that might not necessarily be true,” says Christopher Weatherhead, technologist at Privacy International.

    Bendixen cites the case of one man whose asylum application was rejected after Danish authorities examined his phone and saw his Facebook account had left comments during a time he said he was in prison. He explained that his brother also had access to his account, but the authorities did not believe him; he is currently waiting for appeal.

    A spokesperson for the UK’s Home Office told me they don’t check the social media of asylum seekers unless they are suspected of a crime. Nonetheless, British lawyers and social workers have reported that social media searches do take place, although it is unclear whether they reflect official policy. The Home Office did not respond to requests for clarification on that matter.

    Privacy International has investigated the UK police’s ability to search phones, indicating that immigration officials could possess similar powers. “What surprised us was the level of detail of these phone searches. Police could access information even you don’t have access to, such as deleted messages,” Weatherhead says.

    His team found that British police are aided by Israeli mobile forensic company Cellebrite. Using their software, officials can access search history, including deleted browsing history. It can also extract WhatsApp messages from some Android phones.

    There is a crippling irony that the smartphone, for so long a tool of liberation, has become a digital Judas. If you had stood in Athens’ Victoria Square in 2015, at the height of the refugee crisis, you would have noticed the “smartphone stoop”: hundreds of Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghans standing or sitting about this sun-baked patch of grass and concrete, were bending their heads, looking into their phones.

    The smartphone has become the essential accessory for modern migration. Travelling to Europe as an asylum seeker is expensive. People who can’t afford phones typically can’t afford the journey either. Phones became a constant feature along the route to Northern Europe: young men would line the pavements outside reception centres in Berlin, hunched over their screens. In Calais, groups would crowd around charging points. In 2016, the UN refugee agency reported that phones were so important to migrants moving across Europe, that they were spending up to one third of their income on phone credit.

    Now, migrants are being forced to confront a more dangerous reality, as governments worldwide expand their abilities to search asylum seekers’ phones. While European countries were relaxing their laws on metadata search, last year US immigration spent $2.2 million on phone hacking software. But asylum seekers too are changing their behaviour as they become more aware that the smartphone, the very device that has bought them so much freedom, could be the very thing used to unravel their hope of a new life.

    https://www.wired.co.uk/article/europe-immigration-refugees-smartphone-metadata-deportations
    #smartphone #smartphones #données #big_data #expulsions #Allemagne #Danemark #renvois #carte_SIM #Belgique #Autriche

  • Heatwave in northern Europe, summer 2018 – World Weather Attribution

    https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/attribution-of-the-2018-heat-in-northern-europe

    SIgnalé par l’ami @freakonometrics sur Twitter, mais que je référence ici aussi

    The summer of 2018 has been remarkable in northern Europe. A very persistent high-pressure anomaly over Scandinavia caused high temperature anomalies and drought there from May to (at least) July.

    Southern Europe was unusually wet, with damaging thunderstorms in France in the first half of June. In this analysis we investigate the connection between one aspect, the highest temperatures so far in Northern Europe, and climate change.

    Aspects other than temperature are much less straightforward to analyse but may be considered in subsequent studies. It is important to note that, compared to other attribution analyses of European summers, attributing a heatwave early in the season with the whole of August still to come will only give a preliminary result of the 2018 Northern hemisphere heatwave season.

    #climat #arctique

  • Lawmakers Want to Know if US Troops Are Ready for Arctic Warfare | Military.com
    https://www.military.com/kitup/2018/07/30/lawmakers-want-know-if-us-troops-are-ready-arctic-warfare.html

    The report should include:

    – A description of current cold weather capabilities and training to support United States military operations in cold climates across the joint force;
    – A description of anticipated requirements for United States military operations in cold and extreme cold weather in the Arctic, Northeast Asia, and Northern and Eastern Europe;
    – A description of the current cold weather readiness of the joint force, the ability to increase cold weather training across the joint force, and any equipment, infrastructure, personnel, or resource limitations or gaps that may exist;
    – An analysis of potential opportunities to expand cold weather training for the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marine Corps and the resources or infrastructure required for such expansion;
    – An analysis of potential partnerships with state, local, tribal, and private entities to maximize training potential and to utilize local expertise, including traditional indigenous knowledge.

    If the proposal makes it to President Donald Trump for approval, it could lead to improvements in cold-weather equipment and training U.S. troops receive.

    #arctique #guerre #etats-unis

  • In squats by the Serbian border, young men trying to enter the EU live in dangerous limbo

    Just 300 metres from the border crossing between Serbia and Hungary, a gateway to the European Union, around 30 men are standing in the middle of a field. It’s late January and the temperature is near zero. Nearby are several abandoned buildings where they are temporarily living. An open fire, made of wood, tires, and plastic, serves as the only source of warmth, but it creates heavy and poisonous air inside the squat. They are waiting for drinking water, food, and warm clothes to be distributed by a group of volunteers – the only people helping them to survive the winter.

    These men, most of them from Pakistan and Afghanistan, were pushed from their homes by ongoing conflicts and poor economic conditions. They are trying to cross the Balkan corridor to seek asylum in the EU, but got trapped in Serbia when Hungary and Croatia erected razor wire fences on their borders in 2015. For many, this journey has been part of their life for several years, and has involved multiple deportations and restarted attempts at making it to the EU.

    As part of my PhD research, I spent a total of five weeks between May 2017 and January 2018 in seven transit squats and three state-run camps in Serbia.

    The chances of making a legal border crossing from Serbia to the EU countries of Hungary or Croatia are getting slimmer. The legal border crossing points into Hungary currently accept only two to six people per working day. The “lucky” ones are mainly families with children, who often pay the Serbian state authorities €3,000 per family to appear on top of highly corrupted “waiting lists” which stipulate who gets access and whose asylum claim will be assessed. This makes single men the most disadvantaged and vulnerable group in such transit camps, and they often have to rely on their own support networks, deemed illegal by Serbian authorities.


    https://theconversation.com/in-squats-by-the-serbian-border-young-men-trying-to-enter-the-eu-li
    #frontières #hébergement #squats #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Serbie #Hongrie #limbe #réfugiés_afghans #réfugiés_pakistanais #hommes #zone_frontalière

  • Denmark will increase defense spending to counter Russia : PM

    RIGA (Reuters) - The Danish government expects to win backing for a substantial increase in defense spending next month, to counter Russia’s intensified military activity in eastern and northern Europe, the NATO-member’s prime minister said Monday.

    Denmark last week deployed 200 troops to a UK-led NATO mission in Estonia aimed at deterring Russia from attacking the Baltic NATO members.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-security-denmark/denmark-will-increase-defense-spending-to-counter-russia-pm-idUSKBN1F42LT
    #Danemark #armée #armes #armement #Russie #Estonie #pays_baltes

    cc @reka

    –-> un petit air de guerre froidre

  • Migreurop | City Plaza Hôtel : un exemple emblématique de la solidarité à Athènes
    https://asile.ch/2017/12/28/migreurop-city-plaza-hotel-exemple-emblematique-de-solidarite-a-athenes

    Dès la fermeture du « corridor migratoire » (printemps 2016), la capitale grecque a vu ses rues se peupler de plus de 25’000 de personnes sans abri. Les squats, ouverts par des collectifs militants locaux s’opposent à la « politique d’encampement » appliquée par le gouvernement grec. Ces modes d’accueil alternatifs font écho à d’autres mobilisations organisées par des […]

    • « City Plaza Hotel will become your home in Athens » / Entre lieu de vie et espace politique, les enjeux d’appropriation d’un squat athénien

      « Que vous soyez à Athènes pour affaires ou pour votre loisir, vous serez comme chez vous au City Plaza. »1 Cet extrait du site internet de l’hôtel City Plaza d’Athènes, non actualisé depuis sa fermeture en 2010, est une présentation à l’attention des touristes qui s’apprêtent à y séjourner quelques jours. Rénové grâce à des fonds de l’État octroyés à l’occasion des Jeux Olympiques de 2004 puis fermé après sa faillite sans indemnisation de ses employés, cet hôtel trois étoiles fait figure de symbole de la crise grecque. Huit ans plus tard, c’est un « chez-soi » (home) dénué de toute valeur marchande que le Refugee Accommodation and Solidarity Space City Plaza, propose à ses nouveaux habitants. Le 22 avril 2016, une centaine de militants grecs et un groupe de réfugiés2 squattent le bâtiment pour fournir sur sept étages un logement à environ 350 réfugiés. Leur objectif est de montrer par un exemple concret et de grande envergure qu’une politique d’accueil solidaire au centre d’Athènes est possible. Ils placent en effet au cœur de leurs actions la critique « en pratique » (expression d’un local) de la politique migratoire de l’Union Européenne et du gouvernement grec, des conditions de vie dans les camps et des hotspots3. Pour cela, ils proposent en miroir un modèle incarné par l’appropriation d’un lieu commun et autogéré.

      http://www.revue-urbanites.fr/city-plaza-athenes-squat

    • Greece’s Tower of Babel: An unusual place

      City Plaza functions collectively with refugees and activists cooking, cleaning, and making decisions together.

      From the outside, City Plaza Hotel might not look like much, just another shabby building in the Greek capital of Athens, neglected during the years of the economic crisis. Step inside its doors to find a unique space for hundreds of people from all over the world: refugees.

      Their plan was never to stay in Greece. They had hopes of reaching northern Europe. But, once the “Balkan Route” closed in March 2016, those who had made the dangerous trip in rubber dinghies from Turkey had nowhere else to go.

      That’s when activists in Athens intervened and occupied spaces such as City Plaza, a hotel that had been abandoned years earlier, to prevent the weary travellers from sleeping in overcrowded camps or, even worse, in the streets of Athens, as many who could not find shelter were forced to do.

      Since it was occupied, City Plaza has become home to some 400 refugees and migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere. Unlike most refugee accommodations in Europe, City Plaza affords its guests a level of dignity they wouldn’t find elsewhere.

      People have private rooms and their own bathrooms. It’s an unusual space - where most asylum centres are hierarchical and segregated based on nationality, City Plaza functions collectively, with refugees and activists cooking, cleaning, living and making decisions together.

      In such a diverse space, things can easily get lost in translation. But people find a way to communicate, and when they can’t there are people such as Rabea, himself a refugee from Damascus, to make sure that Greek and international activists can communicate with the refugees and migrants living in City Plaza.


      http://www.migreurop.org/article2852.html

    • City Plaza, la #fin...
      Message reçu le 12.07.2019 de Vicky Skoumbi via la mailing-list de Migreurop:

      Après 39 mois de fonctionnement l’occupation City Plaza, un hôtel athénien transformé en lieu de vie et d’hébergement pour réfugiés a fermé. City Plaza avait accueilli 2.500 réfugiés dans un espace exemplaire, géré collectivement par les solidaires et par les réfugiés eux-mêmes. L’évacuation a été programmée par le collectif Solidarity 2 refugees qui a été à l’origine de l’occupation. La décision de ne plus continuer l’occupation fut prise en mai 2018 et depuis juin de la même année City Plaza n’acceptait plus de nouveaux arrivants. D’après le communiqué mise en ligne sur FB, la décision fut prise pour trois raisons :

      A) le refus de normaliser/légaliser une occupation qui s’est voulue un acte militant tandis que deux ordres successives d’évacuation du procureur restaient en attente.

      B) Un manque grandissant des moyens et de forces vives ; il fallait que chaque nuit un service de sécurité de huit personnes soit de garde afin d’assurer la sécurité des réfugiés qui pouvaient à n’importe quel moment devenir la cible d’une attaque de l’Aube Dorée ou d’autres groupuscules d’extrême droite, la possibilité d’une intrusion de la propriétaire accompagnée de ses sbires étant toujours en ligne de mire.

      C) Les élections et la formation d’un gouvernent de droite qui a déjà annoncé son intention d’y envoyer les CRS pour évacuer de force l’hôtel et en finir avec la soi-disant « anomie » de l’occupation ; ont précipité l’évacuation : il fallait protéger les migrants sans-papiers d’une arrestation qui pourrait être suivi d’un internement et d’une expulsion

      Tous les résidents de City Plaza ont été relogés dans des bonnes conditions, soit à d’autres occupations, soit à des appartements.

      Le collectif remercie tous ceux et celles ont soutenu d’une façon ou d’une autre et leur donne rendez-vous pour des nouveaux combats en commun

      Voir leur communiqué en anglais
      https://www.facebook.com/sol2refugeesen/posts/2117692658523066?__tn__=K-R

      39 months City Plaza: the end of an era, the beginning of a new one. (here is the text in Greek https://urlzs.com/dtFsv)

      Yesterday, on 10th July 2019, the keys of squatted City Plaza were handed back to the former employees of the hotel, to whom the mobile equipment in the building belongs. All refugees living at City Plaza have been moved to safe housing within the city.

      On 22 April 2016, the Economic and Political Refugee Solidarity Initiative squatted the empty City Plaza building with a two-fold goal: to create, on the one hand, a space of safety and dignity in which to house refugees in the centre of the city and, on the other, to create a centre of struggle against racism, borders, and social exclusion. For the freedom of movement and for the right to stay.

      The decision to squat was taken at a critical political juncture. On 18th March 2016, one month before the squat opened, the EU-Turkey deal to restrict the movement of refugees to Europe was signed. It was the deal that marked the end of the “summer of migration” - the period which began in July 2015 when, under pressure from approximately one million people, the European borders “opened”. This was the deal that turned the islands of the Aegean into a sort of prison for migrants, and which turned mainland Greece into a trap for over 60,000 people. The SYRIZA-ANEL government, following its capitulation to the neoliberal management of the economic crisis, took on the the implementation of a policy of control, deterrence and discouragement of migration. With Frontex and NATO patrolling the Aegean, with detention centres such as Moria on the islands, with awful camps as the only policy for housing refugees on the mainland, by punishing solidarity and the struggle of refugees. During that time, the housing issue was very pressing. The refugees who had arrived in Athens were either homeless or were being housed in the awful camps of Elliniko, Malakasa, or the port of Piraeus, while hundreds of people slept in tents or cardboard boxes in city streets and squares.

      It was while these were happening that a discussion began within the Economic and Political Refugee Solidarity Initiative, which led to the decision to squat City Plaza, a hotel on Acharnon street which remained shut for seven years. The decision had certain features of voluntarism, and was not justified by the forces in our disposal, nor by the state of the anti-authoritarian movement at the time. Yet it was a move which addressed the political situation and the great struggle of the refugees who had, over the previous months, opened the borders of Fortress Europe and thus won their right to freedom of movement. It also matched the massive and spontaneous social solidarity movement which developed along the length of the migration route.

      City Plaza as an example of dignified housing, space for social solidarity and cooperation between locals and migrants.

      From its inception, City Plaza was organized around two key goals:
      – to create a space for safe and dignified housing for migrants in the centre of the city, a space of solidarity and cooperation between locals and migrants.
      – to function as a centre of struggle in which political and social demands by migrants and locals will interweave and complement each other.

      CP proved in practice that the state policy of “hospitality” towards refugees is a mixture of harshness, incompetence, and political expediency. Where the solidarity movement, without any funding from formal institutions, without any “experts” or employees, managed to create one of the best housing spaces in the centre of the city, the state continued to abide by the trapping of refugees in makeshift camps and tents in the mainland, and by imposing a regime of refuting the rights of refugees and detaining them in hot spots on the islands, at the threat of deportation.
      This contrast was the key element which led to mass support for CP at the beginning of its operation, by individual activists, organizations/collectives of the left, as well as by people who joined the movement for the first time there. Of course, because of the ownership status of the hotel, there were several attacks “from the left” which, fully aligned with the narrative of the owner and the petty bourgeois rhetoric on the “supreme human right to property”, attempt to belittle the effort, by spreading conspiracy theories (ranging from claims that we’re being funded by Soros, SYRIZA, the German State, to claims that we traffic drugs, firearms, children, and sex workers), slandering the collective and the activists who are part of it.

      City Plaza proved in practice that refugees and locals can live together when, instead of isolation, punishment, and hatred, there is solidarity, struggle, and community. At the opposite pole from the camps, located outside the cities and in awful conditions, CP managed, in a difficult neighbourhood, until recently patrolled by neonazis, to brighten the formerly dark corner between Acharnon and Katrivanou, by giving it the character of security truly valued by those from below: the security of dignified housing, community, solidarity, and vitality of the people selflessly fighting for better lives.

      At the same time, dozens of people showed their solidarity around the world. Through their daily presence, their participation in shifts, positive attitude and a large-scale international campaign for the financial support of the project. Dozens of crates of food and other essentials were sent to Plaza, thousands of people and groups made donations to support the project, which relied solely on donations for its survival.

      City Plaza also served as a centre for struggle. Aiming to internationally denounce the anti-refugee policies of the SYRIZA-ANEL government and the EU, we brought to the fore topics such as criminal responsibility for shipwrecks and loss of human life, the delay or obstruction of sea rescue, the practice of illegal pushbacks in Evros and the Aegean, the conditions of imprisonment in hotspots. City Plaza hosted dozens of open discussions on the border regime, racism, the struggle for rights, often featuring contributions by well-known intellectuals from around the world, such as Judith Butler, Angela Davis, David Harvey, Alain Badiou, Sandro Mezzandra, among others. Yet the goal was not just to highlight issues relating to migrant struggles, but also to link them to the struggles of locals. In the rallies for International Worker’s Day, the Polytechnic Uprising, antifascist and feminist protests, the City Plaza block was present throughout the three years.

      The City Plaza community: Practices, Rights, Cooperation.

      The answer to the question of what City Plaza is is known to the thousands of people who passed through its doors: CP is a project for the realisation of a conception of everyday life which aims to empower those “from below”, in the constitution of a space of freedom, which practically realises an aspect of the society we envision.

      Its mode of operation expressed a politics of everyday life which is in opposition to the dominant model of managing migration, especially to its “NGOisation”. At the core of this voluntary contribution of time, effort, and emotion was not the “provision of services” to “the vulnerable” but the attempt to combat insecurity and fear, to empower and encourage confidence and trust in the collective. Help to refugees was re-politicised - and became solidarity and common struggle. Self-organisation, shared responsibility and decision making were central, as was a constant reflection on the inequalities permeating relations within the project: localisation, class, gender, language, education, etc.

      Despite the inherent contradictions and difficulties, the collective experience of organising everyday life was the foundation for building a strong community of solidarity. At the same time, in this context, and in contrast to dominant victimising narratives, refugees and migrants became dynamic subjects with an active role on social and political life.

      Daily life at CP was based on the principle of participatory organisation and collective decision making and operations, processes particularly complex in a community of 350 people speaking different languages, and with different ethnic, class, and social backgrounds, and different plans for the future. Regular coordination meetings became the space in which equal discussion took place on issues of operation and organisation, while House meetings were - especially in the beginning - a real lesson in how we can and should discuss, operate, and co-implement, as refugees and as locals. The organisation of residents and solidarians into working groups was a component of organising the project but also an essential basis for developing personal and political relationships amongst ourselves. The working groups were: Reception, Education, Children’s Activities, Health Centre, Kitchen, Security, Economics, Cleaning, Communications, as well as a self-organized Women’s Space.

      In its 36 months of operation, City Plaza hosted over 2,500 refugees from 13 different countries. About 100 of the 126 rooms of the hotel hosted 350 refugees at any one time, while the remaining 26 either served as communal spaces (classrooms, women’s space, storage space) or to host solidarians from around the world. It was, after all, City Plaza’s political choice to not serve as a housing space “for” refugees but as a space of cohabitation and shared everyday life.

      Yet we will not provide statistics referring to countries of origin, ages or ‘vulnerable” cases. In contrast, we will provide “statistics” on the enormous amount of resources that the movement was able to mobilise in order to keep City Plaza going:

      812,250 hot meals were prepared by the kitchen team

      74,500 work hours on security shifts

      28,630 hours of shifts at reception

      5,100 hours of language teaching and creative educational activities

      * 69,050 rolls of toilet paper

      However, the most important things cannot be counted. They have to do with human relationships, mutual respect and solidarity, emotions and experiences, optimism born out of common struggle.

      The end of an era, the beginning of a new one

      Such a project demands enormous resources. It is not a political squat which can stay closed for a couple of days in August without any problems. It is a space which demands a daily commitment, responsibility, and presence. Besides, the way we see it, self-organization is not automatic. To the contrary, it requires many hours of work, often endless processes of shared decision making, and interminable difficulties. In other words, self-organization and solidarity are not theory. They are action in the here and now. Action full of contradictions and life’s problems. In a society in which authoritarianism, war, capitalism, and competition between the subjugated is considered normal, while multiple divisions and hierarchies permeate us all, because of our origins, genders, and class backgrounds, self-organisation is not a slogan. It is a struggle.

      Unfortunately, as often happens in many self-organized projects, enthusiasm, commitment, and participation dwindle over time - especially when circumstances are so demanding. The fact that the overwhelming majority of City Plaza residents are in transit made it impossible to hand the operation of the squat completely over to the refugees as most of them, sooner or later, left for Europe. At the same time, the material resources required for a project of such size - for food, hygiene products, medications, building maintenance - became harder to come by, despite the fact that comrades throughout Europe have demonstrated extraordinary commitment.

      On the basis of all of the above, shortly before City Plaza celebrated its two-year anniversary, and following calls to collectives and spaces which supported the project from its inception, there opened a difficult and contradictory discussion on how long City Plaza can carry on, or whether and how it should adapt, given that we did not wish to see the project decline. There was a dilemma on whether we would move towards the direction of “normalising/ legalising” the squat or towards completing the project, while also looking for new ways to keep the community it created alive in a different context.
      The first option was found to be politically undesirable, as it clashes with City Plaza’s character as a political alternative to NGOisation, and leads to a disconnect between the issues of safe housing and collective struggle and rights demands more generally.

      We decided that, despite it being a difficult choice, City Plaza should rightly close the way it began and operated: as a political project, by protecting the central element which turned it into a example, that is organisation from below, safe and dignified living, community of struggle, and addressed to society as a whole.

      During the House meeting of 26th May 2018, we jointly decided on this direction - not without contradictions and disagreements - and there was an extensive discussion about how to implement such a decision. Beginning in June 2018, City Plaza did not accept new residents, while there was a collective commitment that the project would not wind down until every resident had found acceptable accommodation. This commitment was not at all simple to implement. The wider circumstances of dealing with the refugee question - both from the point of view of the SYRIZA-ANEL government and from the point of view of NGOs, did not provide an opportunity to provide institutionally guaranteed housing to residents, while other spaces and squats could not house such a large number of refugees, despite positive attempts to support this.

      One year on, and while the project was winding down, the expected change in the political landscape, with the imminent re-election of New Democracy, made it imperative to once more address the pace at which the project is progressing towards its close, taking into account the fact that, over the past several months, several refugees had gradually moved to safe housing. Plaza has two pending court orders for its evacuation, while high-ranking New Democracy members made daily references to the “destruction of private property” and the “lawlessness” at City Plaza. In this respect, evacuation could be used as a deterrent, while many refugees, especially those with no fixed legal status, could face disproportionate consequences (deportation, detention, etc.). Even though, for some, an evacuation by New Democracy could be seen as a “heroic exit”, for which few political explanations would need to be given, nevertheless most City Plaza residents would be put in danger, especially in view of their already vulnerable and unstable status.

      This reconfirmed the decision to bring City Plaza to a close, on a collective basis and in our own terms. All refugees found safe housing. In the almost eighteen months between the decision to shut down and its implementation, most refugees moved on towards Northern Europe. Out of those who remained at City Plaza, some had the opportunity to rent their own place, as they had since found employment, while others still resorted to collective solutions. Through shared spaces and other housing projects which we have already put in place, along with the impossibly persistent network of all the people who actively participated in the project (refugees and solidarians), the community will continue to exist long after the building has been abandoned.

      City Plaza’s closure is linked to the wider movement’s inability to develop effective forms of organization, mobilisation, and discourse on the refugee questions, which match the demands of the time. It is true that many parts of the wider social movement decided on different degrees of involvement, being unable to support the project and/or develop similar ones, which would galvanise our efforts through a new dynamic. This position is not apportioning blame, but highlights the project as part of a wider social and political process, reflecting the ideological-political and organisational crisis within the movement, with which we will have to deal in the next phase.

      City Plaza was an invaluable political experience for all who took part, but also a political event far greater than the sum of its parts. Without exaggeration, CP was the pan-European symbol which concentrated resistance to the racist and repressive migration regime of the EU, following the closure of the borders after the EU-Turkey deal was signed. Equally, it served as a strong counter-example at a time of pessimism and demobilisation for the left, and a time of resurgence for the far right.

      City Plaza was a great struggle which, like all great struggles, cannot be counted as a clear victory or a clear defeat. It is a chapter in antiracist and migration struggles and, at the same time, an experiment in social movements, an unexpected mix of different needs, sociopolitical, gendered, and class experiences. This meeting, like every mixture, needs some time for the multiple experiences to settle and leave their trace on our individual and collective consciousness.In this milieu, new forms of resistance, struggle, and relationships of cooperation and solidarity will form - in Athens as well as in the dozens of cities at which City Plaza residents will arrive, as well as in the daily struggles against the barbarism or racism and repressive policies. Σ

      The City Plaza collective was, from the beginning, aware of its contradictory makeup. The alternative it proposed could not but me incomplete, dependent on the circumstances in which it was born and the subjective capacities of the movement and its people, with their brains, hearts, and bodies. Yet it was also restricted, like every struggle for rights and equal participation, which impinges on the power of capitalist exploitation, the imposition and reproduction of nationalist, racist, and gendered hierarchies and divisions.

      City Plaza is a link in a chain of struggles for social emancipation. A peculiar struggle, as it began from the small and the everyday, from how to cook the food and how to clean the building, and extended to resistance to the border regime and to multiple levels of discrimination. For those of us who took part in it, CP was an opportunity to redefine and to reflect on political thought and practice, relations of power, everyday life, cohabitation and its terms, self-organisation and its contradictions. We say goodbye to S(p)iti Plaza with one promise: to transfer this rich experience, to continue to enrich and broaden the ways and the places of common struggle.

      Solidarity will win!

  • Astara-Astara Railroad Launch by Dec. 25 | Financial Tribune
    https://financialtribune.com/articles/economy-domestic-economy/77848/astara-astara-railroad-launch-by-dec-25

    Astara-Astara Railroad connecting Iran’s northwestern city of Astara to the Azerbaijani city with the same name will come on stream by Dec. 25, director general of International Affairs Office with the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways said. Abbas Nazari added that the two sides have negotiated issues related to customs procedures and visa issuance, as well as how to make use of the cargo terminal in Iran’s Astara, Mehr News Agency reported. The Astara-Astara Railroad, which is part of a bigger project to connect Iran and Azerbaijan’s rail system, runs 8 kilometers in Azerbaijan up to the border from where it extends 2 km to Iran’s port city of Astara. The project also includes a bridge on Astarachay River, which stretches along the border. Tehran and Baku are working to connect their railroads as part of the International North-South Transportation Corridor, which is aimed at connecting Northern Europe with Southeast Asia.

  • The thawing Arctic threatens an environmental #catastrophe - Skating on thin ice
    https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21721364-commercial-opportunities-are-vastly-outweighed-damage-climate-th
    Commercial opportunities are vastly outweighed by damage to the climate

    [...]

    Amid all this bad news about the state of the Arctic, the #business opportunities associated with warming were supposed to cheer at least a few. The Arctic is an ocean covered in ice, ringed by land (whereas the Antarctic is a lump of land covered in ice, ringed by ocean). The eight Arctic countries have interests in shipping, fishing and drilling in the region. But finding profits amid the thaw is tough. Prospects look bleaker in many industries than they did five years ago as the risks are better understood.

    The Arctic contains more than a fifth of the world’s untapped hydrocarbon resources. But in the North American Arctic offshore drilling was banned in December almost everywhere to protect ecosystems (although Donald Trump may reverse the moratorium). Elsewhere, low prices and the difficulties of operating in the Arctic’s dangerous waters now repel big firms attracted to the region back when oil fetched over $100 a barrel.

    In a stunning about-turn, Shell ended operations in the Chukchi Sea in 2015 after spending $7bn on exploration there. It says it did not find enough oil to justify continuing. Russian firms, such as Rosneft, are proving hardier. They have fewer opportunities to invest elsewhere, after all, and Russia needs the money. Low oil prices have taken a toll on an economy which relies on the Arctic for a fifth of GDP and a fifth of exports.

    The shipping industry is another for which Arctic promise has drifted away. In theory shipping firms should benefit from access to a more open seaway. Using it to sail from northern Europe to north-east Asia can cut the length of voyages by two-fifths compared with travelling via the Suez Canal. But an expected shipping boom has not materialised. In 2012 only 1m tonnes of goods were shipped through the northern passage, a paltry level of activity yet one not achieved since.

    Even in the summer months the Arctic ocean is stormy, making timely delivery of goods impossible to guarantee. Drifting ice also poses a danger. Ships must be strengthened to withstand it, adding to construction costs. And a lack of coastal infrastructure, such as deepwater ports, means that spills of the heavy fuel oil that powers most vessels could wreak havoc on both ecosystems and reputations, because clean-up missions would have to set out from much farther away and would take much longer to be effective.

    A new Polar Code from the International Maritime Organisation, which regulates shipping, came into force at the beginning of the year to try to address some of these concerns. It bans sewage discharges in polar waters and ones of oily mixtures. America and Canada, among others, want to go further. For one thing, they want a ban on heavy fuel-oil (as there is in the Antarctic, which has various special protections).

    Mining firms, interested in metals such as copper, are eyeing up the Arctic. But most firms do not have the experience to negotiate with indigenous groups over projects on their land (about one in ten people in the region is from such a group). And many of the inhabitants oppose development anyway. In Norway the Sami parliament, which represents Sami people from across the country, is wary. Jon Petter Gintal, who deals with international affairs at the parliament, says blighting the landscape would be foolish. Tourists, keen to see rugged natural beauty, may sustain the Arctic economy in future decades as traditional livelihoods, such a reindeer herding, prove harder to maintain.

    #climat

  • mapping the deals and decision-makers

    One year after the Jungle eviction, the hunt against migrants is as vicious as ever. People keep arriving, hoping to cross the channel and join families and friends in the UK. They are now met with a zero tolerance policy: shelters destroyed, demonstrations broken up, people rounded up in the streets, as deportations are scheduled to vicious states like Sudan, and the death count continues to mount. These days even charity food distributions are being targeted by police and dispersed with tear gas.

    The #calaisresearch website is a collaborative project to gather and analyse information about the Calais border. Formed by members of Calais Migrant Solidarity, Corporate Watch, and Passeurs d’Hospitalités, its first publication in 2016 was a list of 40 companies profiting from the jungle eviction and other border violence. The site’s aim is to help those fighting for freedom of movement in Calais develop effective strategies.

    To do that we need to understand what we’re up against: the decision-makers and deals that create the Calais ‘Border Regime’. Most obviously, the orders come from the UK and French governments. But there also other important players, including the business interests which govern cross-border trade. The latest section of the calaisresearch site maps these key decision-makers, with another new page cataloging the security funding deals announced since 2009.

    First, the two states: the French and UK governments and their security forces. The securitised border is a direct result of the “juxtaposed controls” agreement, first signed as the Channel Tunnel was being built in 1991. This offshores the UK border to French soil in order to stop refugees claiming asylum in Britain. To keep the deal going, the UK has given millions in funding to France, as well as directly to private contractors, to create a militarised death-zone in Calais.

    Second, local power players: Right-wing Mayor Natacha Bouchart has staked her political ambition on a personal campaign to clean Calais of migrants, flirting with far-right vigilantes in the process. And now she has support from the right-wing takeover of the Regional Council, a major local landowner.

    Third, corporate interests: Eurotunnel and the Port of Calais are allies in lobbying for extreme security measures – but also fierce competitors for cross-channel trade. The Port is now run by a semi-private company embarking on a major expansion programme, whose majority shareholders are the local Chambers of Commerce. The freight industry, with its trade associations, also has a stake in shaping the key problem facing the Calais border regime: how to stop human beings moving freely, but without slowing the profitable trade in commodities.

    For over 20 years now, Calais has been a focal point for migration struggles in northern Europe. It will be so for as long as wars, dictatorships, and environmental destruction drive people to risk their lives at the border. Movement will not stop, and neither will resistance.

    So the calaisresearch website will be a continual work in progress. It hopes to make a small contribution to the fight today and tomorrow, helping us share our knowledge and inform our strategies. We will keep on updating it with new information and analysis as the struggle develops.

    If you have any useful information about the border at Calais please get in touch: calaisresearch(at)riseup.net.

    https://calaisresearch.noblogs.org
    #Calais #frontières #France #UK #Angleterre #crowd_sourcing #informations
    cc @isskein : si tu penses à d’autres tag pour retrouver cette iniatiative, qui me semble importante...

  • Belgrade’s Young Refugees Once Hidden in Plain Sight, Now Disappear

    More than 1,000 men and boys were living around Belgrade’s train station until their eviction in May. Now many of them, including hundreds of children traveling alone, are missing or vulnerable to trafficking in their desperation to reach northern Europe.

    https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2017/06/26/belgrades-young-refugees-once-hidden-in-plain-sight-now-disappear

    #disparitions #enfants #enfance #mineurs #MNA #mineurs_non_accompagnés #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Balkans #route_des_balkans #Serbie #Belgrade #visibilité #in/visibilité

  • Northern Europe’s first floating rubbish bin installed in Helsinki – gCaptain
    http://gcaptain.com/northern-europes-first-floating-rubbish-bin-installed-helsinki

    The technology group Wärtsilä’s project to bring floating rubbish bins to Finland is making progress. The project is being executed in honour of Finland’s centenary. The first Seabin marine rubbish bin in all of Northern Europe was launched and placed in test use today in Uunisaari, off the coast of the Kaivopuisto district of Helsinki. Another floating rubbish bin will be installed in Helsinki at the turn of June.

    Wärtsilä will be operating as the Seabin Project’s global pilot partner for the next three years. The other six pilot partners are La Grande Motte in Southern France, Porto Montenegro in Montenegro, Port Adriano in Mallorca (Spain), Butterfield in Bermuda, and Safe Harbor Marinas in the United States. Seabin Project launched its new V5 Hybrid model at the end of April. It then began installing prototypes at its pilot partners’ sites. For a three-month trial period, the pilot partners will provide information about how the floating rubbish bins have functioned. Seabins are expected to go on commercial sale in August.
    […]
    The Seabin is a floating rubbish bin that is located in the water at marinas, docks, yacht clubs and commercial ports, where it collects all floating rubbish. Water is sucked in from the surface and passes through the catch bag inside the Seabin. The water is then pumped back into the marina leaving litter and debris trapped in the catch bag to be disposed of properly. The Seabin also has the potential to collect some of the oils and pollutants floating on the water surface. The Seabin Project’s team currently uses 12-volt submersible water pumps that can utilise alternative and clean energy sources. These may include solar, wave or wind power, depending on the location and available technology.

  • Exposed: abuses of migrants by state officials on Europe’s borders

    Violence, brutality and unlawful treatment by authorities on the Western Balkan route are a frequent occurrence, claim refugees and other migrants in a new NGO report revealed today. People fleeing war, persecution and poverty describe beatings, robbery and inhuman treatment at the hands of police, border guards and other officials. In many cases, people tell of illegal deportations with state agents denying access to asylum procedures for those seeking international protection.

    https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-04-06/exposed-abuses-migrants-state-officials-europes-borders
    #frontières #asile #migrations #réfugiés #violence #brutalité #Croatie #rapport #hongrie #bulgarie #serbie

    Lien vers le rapport:
    https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/bp-dangerous-game-pushback-migrants-refugees-060417-en_0.pdf
    #push-back #refoulement

  • Russian nuclear-powered warships expected to enter UK waters on Friday | The Independent
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/russian-warships-nuclear-powered-aircraft-carrier-taskforce-task-forc

    Ils sont passés par la Norvège juste avant, mais les Norvégiens sont restés assez discrets...

    Russian nuclear-powered warships expected to enter UK waters on Friday

    If it follows normal navigation rules, ’the most powerful Russian naval task force to sail in northern Europe since 2014’ will pass through the British side of the Channel - hours after Theresa May demanded ’a robust stance in the face of Russian aggression’

    #rusie #syrie #alep #armée #armement

    • #gesticulation (britannique)

      A Ministry of Defence spokesman has promised: “When these ships near our waters we will man-mark them every step of the way. We will be watching as part of our steadfast commitment to keep Britain safe."

      We will … je rigole…


      A lookout on board HMS Richmond monitors the Russian warships in the North Sea
      PO(Phot) Dez Wade/MoD/Crown Copy

      Photos taken by Royal Navy photographers on board HMS Richmond suggest that they are already being closely shadowed.

      Les (vrais) pros quant à eux voient ce passage avec un grand intérêt :

      This time, however, some defence experts are saying that the flotilla’s expected presence in the Channel, on an operational footing, provides a rare intelligence gathering opportunity.

      This allows the Royal Navy and Nato to watch a Russian carrier battle group actually in operation,” said Peter Felstead, the editor of Jane’s Defence Weekly. “It’s a very interesting opportunity to answer all kinds of questions, to see the strengths and weaknesses: for example, does that carrier battle group have submarines deployed with it? I am sure our submarines are out there trying to find that out right now.

      When they finally get to the Med it’s going to be very interesting, because they will be conducting wartime operations and we will be able to have eyes on and see how good they are.

  • Alternate History Cartography : #Suède

    http://toixstory.tumblr.com/image/143667973140

    voir : http://toixstory.tumblr.com/post/143667973140/a-request-for-tardis218-on-deviantart-colonial

    This map shows a world in which Sweden, following the Thirty Years War, managed to hold on to its status as the premiere power in northern Europe, playing Poland and Russia against themselves to remain in control of the Baltic in almost every way. Now, hundreds of years later in the mid-20th century, Sweden rules an empire across the world, from North America to the Pacific Islands. It is a rich and powerful empire built on trade within and without the empire of the many goods Sweden manufactures, farms, or mines.

    The Swedish Empire, however, is interesting in that it is not an empire in the traditional sense. Technically, Sweden is still a kingdom and all lands, no matter where they are, are as much a part of Sweden as Stockholm is. Rather than colonial possessions or separate parts of government, Sweden’s colonies have a say within Sweden’s parliament. This has led to a greater mixing of peoples throughout the Swedish Realm, with Africans and Pacific Islanders being found all around the Swedish metropole while European Swedes can be found in the Gold Coast, Comoros Islands, and elsewhere.

    #cartography

  • Wieder Tränengas gegen Flüchtlinge

    Rund um die Flüchtlingscamps an der griechisch-mazedonischen Grenze wächst die Anspannung wieder an. Die mazedonische Polizei setzte am Vormittag Tränengas gegen Hunderte Migranten ein, die sich am Grenzzaun versammelt hatten.


    http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/idomeni-fluechtlinge-119.html
    #Idomeni #asile #migrations #réfugiés #violences_policières #Grèce #Macédoine #Balkans
    via @isskein

  • Austria wants to deploy soldiers on Italy border, defence minister says

    BERLIN (Reuters) - Austria plans to deploy soldiers at the Brenner border with Italy to stem an expected increase in migrants trying to get to northern Europe, Defence Minister Hans Peter Doskozil told news outlets on Saturday.

    http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0WZ0E8
    #Autriche #frontières #asile #migrations #réfugiés #militarisation_des_frontières #armée

  • No-man’s land: life on the Serbia-Hungary border, a briefing on the current crisis

    One well-trodden route travelled by refugees towards central Europe takes them through Macedonia to Serbia and towards Hungary, where they then hope to make it to northern Europe. The journey is life threatening. It is punctuated by moments of risk and uncertainty; the deadly Aegean Sea crossing, exploitation by the border police, illegal detention and interference from non-state actors such as smugglers, robbers and disgruntled locals.

    http://rightsinexile.tumblr.com/post/128142507027/no-mans-land-life-on-the-serbia-hungary-border
    #Serbie #asile #migrations #réfugiés

  • Know Which Type of Denmark Visa Is For You
    http://www.permitsandvisas.com/know-which-type-of-denmark-visa-is-for-you

    Know Which Type of Denmark Visa Is For You ABOUT DENMARK The kingdom Denmark is located inside Northern Europe, a peninsula of Germany, neighboring within the west the North Sea, into the north Skagerrak and within the east the aroma along with Baltic Sea. Subsequently to the two huge islands Sjaelland moreover entertaining in attendance […]

  • CMA CGM to Deploy Six Megaships to U.S. West Coast - gCaptain
    https://gcaptain.com/cma-cgm-to-deploy-six-megaships-to-u-s-west-coast

    French container shipping company CMA CGM has confirmed that starting in the end of May it will deploy six 18,000 TEU ‘megaships’ between Asia and U.S. west coast ports.

    The ships will be the largest to call regularly in North America.

    The company says the decision to deploy its ‘flagship fleet’ is in line with the company’s growth strategy in the United States and around the world, calling the trans-Pacific market “the most active and dynamic market to date”.

    The decision follows 399-meter long CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin’s two visits to the U.S. west coast last December and again in February, setting the record for the largest ship ever to call in the United States. The series of 4 trial-calls – including the port of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland and Seattle – meant to test U.S. west coast port’s ability to accommodate larger vessels. The trial-calls were hailed as a success, but still many have questioned whether U.S. west coast are prepared to handle megaships on a regular basis.

  • The Corporate Greed of Strangers

    John Grayson reveals the spread of corporate involvement in the provision of asylum housing in the UK and northern Europe, and how outsourcing and private companies are tarnishing Europe’s ‘welcome’ to refugees.

    http://www.irr.org.uk/news/the-corporate-greed-of-strangers/?platform=hootsuite

    #asile #migrations #réfugiés #privatisation #business #économie #G4S #Jomast #UK #Angleterre #détention_administrative #logement #hébergement #Norvège #Suède #mitie #Allemagne #Autriche #Suisse #ORS
    cc @albertocampiphoto @daphne @marty @reka

  • ’Large number’ of Syrian refugees waiting to enter Albania

    A “large number” of Syrian refugees are waiting to cross into Albania, the Balkan nation’s integration minister said Thursday, as migrants begin to seek out new routes into northern Europe following a series of border clampdowns.

    http://reliefweb.int/report/albania/large-number-syrian-refugees-waiting-enter-albania
    #Albanie #réfugiés #réfugiés_syriens #asile #migrations #Balkans #migrations

  • Ireland’s Recovery Has Nothing to Do With Austerity
    Voters headed to the polls this Friday should take heed: The Celtic Tiger got its groove back despite — not because of — the EU and IMF’s advice.

    By Philippe Legrain
    February 24, 2016

    Ireland’s Recovery Has Nothing to Do With Austerity
    After years of crisis, austerity, and wage cuts, Ireland’s economy grew by 7 percent last year, faster than China’s. With a general election on Feb. 26, the governing coalition has been quick to claim credit for this turnaround, as have policymakers in Berlin and Brussels who celebrate Ireland as the poster child of the harsh medicine they prescribed in the country’s financial assistance program. “See,” they say to Greeks and others, “if you do what you’re told, it works.” But while Ireland’s economic recovery is impressive, it has happened despite the European Union and International Monetary Fund’s policies that the government faithfully followed, not because of them.

    Understanding Ireland’s present requires first understanding its recent past. Twenty-five years ago, Ireland was the poorest country in northern Europe. Yet by the eve of the financial crisis, it had leapt to being among the richest. Thanks to growth rates matching Asia’s dynamic economies, it was dubbed the “Celtic Tiger.” That remarkable economic progress was based on attracting foreign investment, notably from American firms, with its attractive business climate, including its low corporate taxes and skilled workforce. That foreign investment, in turn, fueled an export boom. But the years before the crisis also saw the emergence of a huge property bubble, financed by reckless bank lending, which ended in an almighty bust after 2007.

    Given the size of the bubble, the bust was bound to be painful. But government policy made matters much worse. In late September 2008, in the turmoil following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the previous Fianna Fail administration extended a two-year government guarantee to all the creditors of Ireland’s busted banks. In effect, this put taxpayers on the hook for the banks’ astronomical losses. By late 2010, when the government finally saw sense and sought not to extend the guarantee, it was strong-armed into bailing out banks’ creditors anyway by eurozone policymakers. In an outrageous abuse of power, the then president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, threatened, in effect, to force Ireland out of the eurozone should it not comply.

    The upshot was that Irish taxpayers were lumbered with some 64 billion euros in bank debt — around 14,000 euros ($15,400) per person. They were forced to bail out the German, French, and British banks and other foreign bondholders who had financed Ireland’s bubble. And Ireland was pushed into the clutches of the EU and the IMF. Over the next three years, they imposed huge budget and wage cuts as a condition for lending the Irish government 67.5 billion euros, primarily to bail out the foreign creditors of bust Irish banks.

    The current Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition, which took office in March 2011, cannot be blamed for that. But it can be criticized for failing to fight in Ireland’s corner in Brussels, naively relying instead, to no avail, on other eurozone governments’ goodwill to deliver justice on the bank debt. Moreover, the present government cannot claim credit for the recovery. This was primarily due to a combination of Ireland’s underlying strengths and more favorable external factors, rather than the EU-prescribed policies that it has followed.

    For sure, the government needed to tighten its belt once the tax revenues from the property bubble had vanished. But the pace and scale of austerity were unduly harsh, not least because of the bank bailouts. Moreover, the government’s Germanic drive to bolster exports by driving down wages was misconceived. Lower wages made Ireland’s huge debts, both private and public, harder to bear. They depressed domestic demand further, pushing up unemployment. And slashing wages was based on a false premise. While Irish civil servants enjoyed bumper pay raises in the bubble era, wages in the export sector never got out of line with productivity. And since Ireland competes on the basis of its increasingly high-tech business clusters, not its low wages, wage cuts were not a sensible road to growth.

    Why, then, has the Celtic Tiger rebounded? In part, because the economies of Ireland’s two biggest export markets, Britain and the United States, have recovered, so export-led growth has resumed. A weaker euro has also helped. Above all, as research by Aidan Regan of University College Dublin shows, many of the export sectors in which the dynamic Irish economy increasingly specializes — notably biotech, pharmaceuticals, and business and computer services — have boomed. And they boosted output and employment while raising wages, not slashing them.

    A note of caution is due. Part of the recovery is an accounting fiction due to U.S. tech and other firms allocating profits to Ireland for tax purposes; the only benefit Ireland derives from this profit shifting is the low taxes charged on it. Nor is the economy out of the woods yet. While unemployment has fallen sharply, it is still 8.9 percent, and many talented young people have emigrated. Overall wages remain depressed. The government still ran a budget deficit of some 1.7 percent of GDP last year. And the Irish economy is acutely vulnerable to a slowdown in the United States or a bursting of what some think is a tech bubble.

    Still, it remains nonsense that the EU policies that the Fine Gael-Labour Party government faithfully followed triggered recovery. Nor is it true that economies with very different structures and an unbearable burden of government debt, such as Greece, could emulate Ireland’s success if only they followed instructions.

    Ireland now needs a clean broom. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have alternated in governing the country since just after its independence nearly a century ago. Their differences derive from their stances in the post-independence civil war, rather than from ideology. Since neither has proved competent, alternatives are needed.

    Regrettably, the search for alternatives has often led down blind alleys in other European countries. Greece’s radical-left government has so far failed to obtain debt relief from its EU creditors and is not confronting the oligarchs and special interests that also hold the economy back. The racism and protectionism of the likes of Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France would be a disaster.

    But disenchanted Irish voters are rallying to mostly reasonable independents and new parties that reflect a variety of views from conservative to social democratic. Together, the upstarts are polling 29 percent, ahead of both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. Irish people can confidently reject the old establishment parties that have mismanaged the country in recent years and embrace positive change.

    #irlande #crise_bancaire #crise_financière

  • The Arctic Institute - Center for Circumpolar Security Studies

    http://www.thearcticinstitute.org/2016/02/CBS-Maritime-Arctic-Shipping-Study.html

    Le rapport complet est téléchargeable là :

    https://services-webdav.cbs.dk/doc/CBS.dk/Arctic%20Shipping%20-%20Commercial%20Opportunities%20and%20Chall

    je l’ai rapidement parcouru, c’est riche et passionnant, très complet sur la question importante de la route maritime arctique (dont les auteurs pensent -qu’elle n’ouvrira pas de si tôt).

    A new study on the commercial opportunities and challenges of Arctic shipping by researchers at Copenhagen Business School’s Maritime Division finds that the navigation season on the Northern Sea Route (NSR) will remain too short for investments in ice-class vessels to be economically viable in the coming decades. Only after the year 2035 may the Arctic shipping route along Russia’s northern coast became competitive for some ships of comparable size.

    The study aimed at determining when (if ever) the investment in an ice-reinforced container ship operating along the NSR would be preferable to the investment in an open water vessel solely navigating the Suez Canal Route.
    Screen Shot 2016-01-20 at 7.57.15 PM.png
    Source: CBS Maritime

    The authors compared a vessel operating on the NSR with a capacity of 8000 containers (TEU) to three open water container ships operating on the SCR with container capacities of 8000 TEU, 10000 TEU and 15000 TEU, respectively. As part of the study the ice-reinforced vessel was assumed to operate along the NSR during the navigation season and the SCR when ice prevents access to Arctic waters.

    CBS’ study employed an innovative calculation tool to determine the year when a given investment for ice-reinforced vessels destined to operate on the NSR would become favorable to an ordinary container ship sailing along the Suez Canal Route. Using the tool researchers calculated the comparative costs per container taking into account more than a dozen variables including vessel specification and size, engine type and capacity, average speed and distance, navigation season, transit fees, and load factors. According to the study’s authors the tool combines an economic framework with applied naval engineering and is the first of its kind specifically designed to compare Arctic shipping to traditional routes.

    Furthermore, rather than making deterministic statements about Arctic shipping from a single point in time, the complex methods applied allow for the creation of detailed scenarios to understand how different factors and variables influence the feasibility of using the NSR for transport and when under a given scenario a break-even point may occur. Thus the tool allows for a detailed look at how e.g. higher or lower fuel prices affect the economic calculation of shipping via the Arctic.

    #arctique #route_maritime_arctique #transport #transport_maritime

  • Refugee Flows to Lesvos: Evolution of a Humanitarian Response

    The Greek island of Lesvos, separated from Turkey’s coastline by a thin sliver of the Aegean Sea, is no stranger to refugee flows. In the aftermath of the 1919-22 Greco-Turkish War, thousands of Anatolian Greeks forcibly displaced from Turkey found safety and started new lives in Lesvos. Almost a century later, the island’s local population of approximately 85,000 played host to more than half a million migrants and asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond over the course of 2015. This figure represents about 59 percent of all asylum seekers and migrants who transited through Greece in 2015 en route to preferred asylum destinations in northern Europe.


    http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/refugee-flows-lesvos-evolution-humanitarian-response
    #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Lesbos #Grèce #visualisation #cartographie #aide_humanitaire