JPMiginiac.com

Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche

vendredi 9 mai 2008

Repères 09/05/08 - Quelques sources d'information sur la situation en Birmanie

Repères 09/05/08 - Quelques sources d'information sur la situation en Birmanie après les ravages du cyclone Nargis

Le site d'information locale : Irrawaddy
http://www.irrawaddy.org/

Irrawaddy est un magazine d'opposition démocratique à la junte au pouvoir, créé en 1993. Sa rédaction, basée à Chiang Mai, en Thaïlande, est composée d'anciens étudiants ayant fui la répression du régime. Le site internet reprend en large partie les articles publiés dans le mensuel. Des articles d'actualité sont insérés quotidiennement. 

Le hub global d'information humanitaire : ReliefWeb Myanmar
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/dbc.nsf/doc104?OpenForm&rc=3&cc=mmr

Blogs about Cyclone Nargis Myanmar 2008
http://fr.wordpress.com/tag/cyclone-nargis-myanmar-2008/

et de nombreuses images satellites sur le blog Planète vivante
http://planetevivante.wordpress.com/

Quelques autres sources d'information :

Democratic Voice of Burma
http://english.dvb.no/

Mizzima News
http://www.mizzima.com/

Burma News International
http://www.bnionline.net/

 

mardi 6 mai 2008

La phrase du jour 06/05/08 - Rachida Dati

La phrase du jour 06/05/08 - Rachida Dati

la justice est rendue "au nom de la légitimité suprême des Français qui ont élu Nicolas Sarkozy pour restaurer l'autorité"

Rachida Dati est Ministre de la Justice, Garde des Sceaux.

 

in le rapport 2008 de la Ligue des droits de l'homme, cité par Le Nouvel Observateur

 

Repères 06/05/08 - La grande peur des Etats-Unis

Repères 06/05/08 - La grande peur des Etats-Unis

Le Sénateur Joseph R. Biden Jr vient de rendre publique une étude du Congressional Research Service (CRS) sur les implications, pour les intérêts économiques et sécuritaires des Etats-Unis, de la croissance de l'influence globale de la Chine dans le monde. La question posée révèle l'inquiétude des Etats-Unis face au déclin de sa propre influence.

The question : How much is China really doing in these regions, and
how much do we knowabout its motivations? What do these widespread PRC activities mean for the United States and for U.S. global influence: are the implications necessarily bad and therefore a demonstrable threat to U.S. interests across the board, or might the implications be benign or in some instances even positive for U.S. interests? How has this increasing engagement affected China’s own policies? Finally, what are the economic and political costs and benefits to China of such international engagement, and are they likely to be influences for greater pragmatism and nuance in PRC policies or serve instead to reinforce more hardline and nationalistic sentiments?

 

CRS Study: China's Foreign Policy and "Soft Power" in South America, Asia, and Africa, April 2008 (139 pages, PDF). Report Prepared by the Congressional Research Service at the Request of Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph Biden

"...As requested, this study focuses on China’s ‘‘soft power’’ projection in the specified regions. The term ‘‘soft power’’ originally was conceived in 1990 by Harvard Professor Joseph S. Nye, Jr.. Nye argued that the United States had reserves of power and influence that were separate from ‘‘hard power,’’ or military force projection. He expanded greatly on this concept in his book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics—partly, he said, from the frustration of watching ‘‘some policy makers ignore the importance of our soft power and make us all pay the price by unnecessarily squandering it.’’ According to Nye, soft power is crucially important in today’s world politics and is significantly more than just the trappings of American culture:

Soft power rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others . . .
[It] is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals, and policies. When our policies are seen as legitimate in the eyes of others, our soft power is enhanced. America has long had a great deal of soft power . . . .

More broadly speaking, the components of soft power also are defined as including international trade, overseas investments, development assistance, diplomatic initiatives, cultural influence, humanitarian aid and disaster relief, education, and travel and tourism. Although American soft power remains formidable, by some of these measures it is seen to have declined in the 21 century. In absolute terms, some believe this perceived decline is the result of the United States’ own policies and actions. One former U.S. Government official speculates that although America has massive remaining reserves of soft power, they have become a ‘‘non-renewable resource’’ given current U.S. policies.6 Others point to multiple global survey results on international views of the United States, saying ‘‘the downward trend is unmistakable.’’  As Nye himself puts it:

Anti-Americanism has increased in recent years and the United States’
soft power . . . is in decline as a result . . . . A Eurobarometer poll found that a majority of Europeans believes that Washington has hindered efforts to fight global poverty, protect the environment, and maintain peace. Such attitudes undercut soft power, reducing the ability of the United States to achieve its goals . . . .

Others have attributed the perceived decline in American soft power as relative—largely a comparative decline based on the rise of other powers—in particular the rapid emergence of China as a U.S. ‘‘peer competitor’’ and a growing source of international influence, investment, and political and economic power. China is seen to be trying to project soft power by portraying its own system as an alternative model for economic development, one based on authoritarian governance and elite rule without the restrictions and demands that come with political liberalization.

Furthermore, according to this view, ‘‘soft power’’ is ephemeral; the United States has recovered from loss of prestige and influence before (such as occurred with the Vietnam War), and it will again. China’s apparent soft power gains, then, should not be blown out of proportion..."

 

Repères 06/05/08 - Comment pré-saboter les armes que nous vendons

Repères 06/05/08 - Comment pré-saboter les armes que nous vendons (au cas où elles tomberaient en de mauvaises mains !)

The Hunt for the Kill Switch
IEEE Spectrum 05/08

"Are chip makers building electronic trapdoors in key military hardware? The Pentagon is making its biggest effort yet to find out.

Last September, Israeli jets bombed a suspected nuclear installation in northeastern Syria. Among the many mysteries still surrounding that strike was the failure of a Syrian radar—supposedly state-of-the-art—to warn the Syrian military of the incoming assault. It wasn't long before military and technology bloggers concluded that this was an incident of electronic warfare—and not just any kind.

Post after post speculated that the commercial off-the-shelf microprocessors in the Syrian radar might have been purposely fabricated with a hidden “backdoor” inside. By sending a preprogrammed code to those chips, an unknown antagonist had disrupted the chips' function and temporarily blocked the radar.

That same basic scenario is cropping up more frequently lately, and not just in the Middle East, where conspiracy theories abound. According to a U.S. defense contractor who spoke on condition of anonymity, a “European chip maker” recently built into its microprocessors a kill switch that could be accessed remotely. French defense contractors have used the chips in military equipment, the contractor told IEEE Spectrum. If in the future the equipment fell into hostile hands, “the French wanted a way to disable that circuit,” he said. Spectrum could not confirm this account independently, but spirited discussion about it among researchers and another defense contractor last summer at a military research conference reveals a lot about the fever dreams plaguing the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)..."

 

- page 1 de 73