Russia test-launches new missiles
MOSCOW: A senior Russian official said strategic and tactical missiles tested Tuesday can penetrate any missile defense system, Russian news agencies reported.
"As of today Russia has new (missiles) that are capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defense systems," ITAR-Tass quoted First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying. "So in terms of defense and security Russian can look calmly to the country's future."
Ivanov spoke after the Russian Strategic Missile Forces announced the test of a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple independent warheads. He said Russia had also successfully tested a tactical cruise missile.
President Vladimir Putin and Ivanov, a former defense minister seen as a potential candidate to succeed Putin in elections next year, have repeatedly said Russia would continue to improve its nuclear weapons systems and respond to U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Europe.
The ICBM, called the RS-24, was fired from a mobile launcher at the Plesetsk launch pad in northwestern Russia. Its test warhead landed on target some 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles) away on the Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, a statement from the Strategic Missile Forces said.
The new missile is seen as eventually replacing the aging RS-18s and RS-20s that are the backbone of the country's missile forces, the statement said. Those missiles are known in the West as the SS-19 Stiletto and the SS-18 Satan.
Ivanov said the missile was a new version of the Topol-M, first known as the SS-27 in the West, but one that that can carry multiple independent warheads, ITAR-Tass reported.
The first Topol-Ms were commissioned in 1997, but deployment has proceeded slower than planned because of a shortage of funds. Existing Topol-M missiles are capable of hitting targets more than 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) away.
The RS-24 "strengthens the capability of the attack groups of the Strategic Missile Forces by surmounting anti-missile defense systems, at the same time strengthening the potential for nuclear deterrence," the statement said.
The statement did not specify how many warheads the missile can carry.
The new missile would likely be more capable of penetrating missile defense systems than previous models, said Alexander Pikayev, an arms control expert and senior analyst at the Moscow-based Institute for World Economy and International Relations.
He said Russia had been working on a version of the Topol-M that could carry multiple warheads, and that its development was probably "inevitable" after the U.S. withdrew from the Soviet-era Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty in 2002, preventing the START-II treaty from coming into force.
Pikayev concurred with the missile forces statement that the RS-24 conforms with terms laid down in the START-I treaty, which is in force, and the 2002 Moscow Treaty, which calls for reductions in each country's nuclear arsenal to 1,700-2,000 warheads.
Alexander Golts, a respected military analyst with the Yezhenedelny Zhurnal online publication, expressed surprise at the announcement.
"It seems to be a brand new missile. It's either a decoy or something that has been developed in complete secrecy," he told The Associated Press.
The test comes at a time of increased tension between Russia and the West over missiles and other weapons issues.
Russia adamantly opposes U.S. efforts to deploy elements of a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The United States says the system is aimed at blocking possible attacks by countries such as North Korea and Iran, but Russia says the system would destroy the strategic balance of forces in Europe.
"We consider it harmful and dangerous to turn Europe into a powder keg," Putin said Tuesday, when asked at a news conference with Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates about the controversy.
Russia, meanwhile, called Monday for an emergency conference next month on a key Soviet-era arms control treaty that has been a source of increasing friction between Moscow and NATO.
The call for a conference on the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty follows last month's statement from Putin in which he declared a moratorium on observing Russia's obligations under the treaty.
The treaty, which limits the number of aircraft, tanks and other non-nuclear heavy weapons around Europe, was first signed in 1990 and then amended in 1999 to reflect changes since the Soviet breakup. Russia has ratified the amended version, but the United States and other NATO members have refused to do so until Moscow withdraws troops from the former Soviet republics of Moldova and Georgia — an issue Moscow says is unrelated.
Putin warned that Russia could dump the treaty altogether if Western nations refuse to ratify its amended version, and the Foreign Ministry said Monday that it lodged a formal request for a conference among treaty signatories in Vienna, Austria, on June 12-15.
Source: the International Herald Tribune - The Associated Press
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
mardi 29 mai 2007
lundi 28 mai 2007
Guerre Froide: La Russie met fin au desarmement commun
La Russie veut rapidement réviser le traité FCE
a Russie a demandé aux Pays-Bas, dépositaire désigné du traité sur les Forces conventionnelles en Europe (FCE), la convocation d'une conférence extraordinaire du 12 au 15 juin à Vienne pour réviser le traité. "La Russie espère que cette conférence extraordinaire discutera sérieusement de la situation. Nous espérons que nos partenaires feront preuve de volonté politique dans la recherche d'une solution acceptable par tous qui permette d'en finir avec la crise du traité sur les Forces conventionnelles en Europe", déclare la diplomatie russe dans un communiqué publié lundi 28 mai.
Le 26 avril, Vladimir Poutine a annoncé un moratoire sur l'application de ce traité, en réponse au projet américain de déploiement d'un bouclier antimissile en Europe, que la Russie considère comme une menace. Autre objet de tension, l'élargissement à l'Est de l'OTAN en 1999 et 2004. Le ministre des affaires étrangères russe, Sergueï Lavrov, avait déjà demandé, la semaine dernière, la convocation d'une conférence extraordinaire pour réviser le traité FCE.
RÉDUCTION DES FORCES ARMÉES DES DEUX BLOCS
Le traité FCE, signé en 1990, est entré en vigueur en 1992. Marquant la fin de la guerre froide, il a encadré la réduction des forces armées et des équipements conventionnels des deux blocs, et donc leur plafonnement, prévoyant des mesures de confiance – annonce des grandes manœuvres – et de transparence – inspections réciproques.
Il a été adapté en 1999, prenant acte de la disparition de l'URSS. La Russie a ratifié cette nouvelle version, mais pas les pays de l'OTAN, qui exigent au préalable que les troupes russes évacuent la Géorgie et la Moldavie, deux anciennes Républiques soviétiques.
Source: LEMONDE.FR avec AFP et Reuters | 28.05.07 | 17h54
a Russie a demandé aux Pays-Bas, dépositaire désigné du traité sur les Forces conventionnelles en Europe (FCE), la convocation d'une conférence extraordinaire du 12 au 15 juin à Vienne pour réviser le traité. "La Russie espère que cette conférence extraordinaire discutera sérieusement de la situation. Nous espérons que nos partenaires feront preuve de volonté politique dans la recherche d'une solution acceptable par tous qui permette d'en finir avec la crise du traité sur les Forces conventionnelles en Europe", déclare la diplomatie russe dans un communiqué publié lundi 28 mai.
Le 26 avril, Vladimir Poutine a annoncé un moratoire sur l'application de ce traité, en réponse au projet américain de déploiement d'un bouclier antimissile en Europe, que la Russie considère comme une menace. Autre objet de tension, l'élargissement à l'Est de l'OTAN en 1999 et 2004. Le ministre des affaires étrangères russe, Sergueï Lavrov, avait déjà demandé, la semaine dernière, la convocation d'une conférence extraordinaire pour réviser le traité FCE.
RÉDUCTION DES FORCES ARMÉES DES DEUX BLOCS
Le traité FCE, signé en 1990, est entré en vigueur en 1992. Marquant la fin de la guerre froide, il a encadré la réduction des forces armées et des équipements conventionnels des deux blocs, et donc leur plafonnement, prévoyant des mesures de confiance – annonce des grandes manœuvres – et de transparence – inspections réciproques.
Il a été adapté en 1999, prenant acte de la disparition de l'URSS. La Russie a ratifié cette nouvelle version, mais pas les pays de l'OTAN, qui exigent au préalable que les troupes russes évacuent la Géorgie et la Moldavie, deux anciennes Républiques soviétiques.
Source: LEMONDE.FR avec AFP et Reuters | 28.05.07 | 17h54
Russie: Une presse baillonnee
En Russie, la mise au pas des médias se poursuit sous Vladimir Poutine
e n'est pas une bonne période pour les partisans de la liberté d'informer, mais j'ai l'espoir que les choses changeront un jour. Je veux rester un professionnel. C'est pourquoi, en dépit de tout, je continue de travailler ", commente un journaliste russe de la chaîne de télévision TV6, deux années après l'élection de Vladimir Poutine. Eliminée des écrans par le pouvoir fin janvier pour ses liens avec un opposant en vue, TV6 a été rétablie dans ses droits de transmission le 27 mars, à condition d'accepter une tutelle du Kremlin.
Plusieurs informations ont encore alourdi l'atmosphère. Le corps sans vie, battu et étranglé d'un journaliste de la publication Moskovskie Novosti, Valeri Batouev, trente- trois ans, qui avait effectué plusieurs reportages en Tchétchénie, a été retrouvé dimanche 31 mars dans un appartement à Moscou. Le 11 mars, une journaliste de Rostov-sur-le- Don, Natalia Skryl, était retrouvée morte après avoir enquêté sur des grandes entreprises de la région. On a appris par ailleurs que le rédacteur en chef d'un quotidien critique à l'égard du pouvoir, Nezavissimaïa Gazeta, contrôlé par le financier exilé Boris Berezovski, était convoqué lundi 1er avril par le parquet de Moscou pour " interrogatoire ", sans autre précision.
Selon Alexei Simonov, le directeur de l'organisation non gouvernementale (ONG) Fonds pour la défense de la glasnost (terme faisant référence à la relative libéralisation de l'information en URSS à l'époque Gorbatchev), " les autorités continuent à purger le secteur de l'information de tout ce qu'elles considèrent comme représentant une opposition ". Les récents incidents ont pour effet, dit-il, " de rappeler à tous qu'il s'agit de réfléchir très soigneusement avant de dire ou d'écrire quelque chose ".
Fin février, l'hebdomadaire Novaïa Gazeta, qui se distingue à la fois par la faiblesse de son tirage et la virulence de ses critiques contre la corruption officielle et la guerre en Tchétchénie, a été frappé d'amendes sans précédent, d'un montant total de 1,5 million de dollars. Le journal a été condamné à Moscou pour diffamation, après la publication d'un article exposant les revenus illicites d'un juge de la région de Krasnodar, et pour avoir mentionné la banque Mezhprombank, liée à un homme d'affaires proche de M. Poutine, dans un scandale de blanchiment d'argent. " Il est devenu évident que les tribunaux mettent à exécution des ordres officiels pour éliminer la presse indépendante ", estime-t- on au Fonds pour la défense de la glasnost.
Anna Politkovskaïa, journaliste primée en France en 2000 pour un livre sur le conflit en Tchétchénie ( Voyage en Enfer, Laffont, 216 p.) raconte qu'elle a subi des intimidations de la part de responsables militaires russes. Au point d'avoir fait le choix de quitter la Russie, à l'automne 2001, pour se réfugier en Autriche, où un institut lui offrait une bourse d'étude. A l'occasion de son retour à Moscou pour les fêtes du Nouvel An, son passeport a été saisi par la police et le ministère russe de l'intérieur lui a affecté une garde rapprochée. " Cela revient à me surveiller en permanence, a-t-elle raconté au Monde. Je ne peux plus avoir de discussion avec une source sans qu'ils [les services russes] en soient informés. Je ne peux sortir de chez moi sans être suivie. "
Selon le commentateur russe Pavel Felgenhauer, M. Poutine a mis en place dans le pays une " machine de propagande ". Elle vise, selon lui, à masquer les difficultés en Tchétchénie, mais aussi à attiser régulièrement dans l'opinion des bouffées de nationalisme permettant au président russe de se présenter, au yeux de l'Occident, comme un élément modérateur.
La mise sous tutelle des chaînes de télévision nationales a été achevée par le transfert de TV6 à un groupe d'une douzaine d'" oligarques " (patrons de groupes industriels et énergétiques russes), coiffés par l'ancien premier ministre Evguéni Primakov. TV6, comme de nombreux médias subissant les pressions du pouvoir, était la propriété du financier Boris Berezovski, qui a dénoncé une dérive " totalitaire " en Russie. En 2001, Vladimir Goussinski, rangé dans l'opposition au Kremlin, avait passé trois jours en prison avant d'être dépossédé de sa chaîne de télévision, NTV, fragilisée par ses emprunts à des structures étatiques.
La faiblesse des médias face au pouvoir, depuis dix ans, est liée aux insuffisances du marché publicitaire en Russie. Incapables d'autofinancement, journaux et télévisions sont tombés dans l'escarcelle d' " oligarques ", qui ont été contraints soit à la fidélité politique à M. Poutine, soit à l'exil. La population russe, à en croire les sondages, ne considère pas la liberté d'expression comme le principal acquis depuis la chute de l'URSS, mettant plutôt l'accent sur l'accès aux biens de consommation. Les journalistes en Russie sont souvent critiqués pour leur corruption. " Lorsque je lance une campagne publicitaire, je prends mon carnet d'adresses : je sais combien coûte tel journaliste, combien coûte tel article ", raconte une responsable de société de communication.
" La liberté d'expression, au sens politique, n'existe plus " en Russie, dénonce le chef d'un petit parti démocrate, Grigori Iavlinski. Quant à Boris Nemtsov, considéré comme " libéral " défenseur des libertés publiques, il parle de " purge " dans le milieu de la télévision.
Source : LE MONDE | 12.01.07 | 16h38
e n'est pas une bonne période pour les partisans de la liberté d'informer, mais j'ai l'espoir que les choses changeront un jour. Je veux rester un professionnel. C'est pourquoi, en dépit de tout, je continue de travailler ", commente un journaliste russe de la chaîne de télévision TV6, deux années après l'élection de Vladimir Poutine. Eliminée des écrans par le pouvoir fin janvier pour ses liens avec un opposant en vue, TV6 a été rétablie dans ses droits de transmission le 27 mars, à condition d'accepter une tutelle du Kremlin.
Plusieurs informations ont encore alourdi l'atmosphère. Le corps sans vie, battu et étranglé d'un journaliste de la publication Moskovskie Novosti, Valeri Batouev, trente- trois ans, qui avait effectué plusieurs reportages en Tchétchénie, a été retrouvé dimanche 31 mars dans un appartement à Moscou. Le 11 mars, une journaliste de Rostov-sur-le- Don, Natalia Skryl, était retrouvée morte après avoir enquêté sur des grandes entreprises de la région. On a appris par ailleurs que le rédacteur en chef d'un quotidien critique à l'égard du pouvoir, Nezavissimaïa Gazeta, contrôlé par le financier exilé Boris Berezovski, était convoqué lundi 1er avril par le parquet de Moscou pour " interrogatoire ", sans autre précision.
Selon Alexei Simonov, le directeur de l'organisation non gouvernementale (ONG) Fonds pour la défense de la glasnost (terme faisant référence à la relative libéralisation de l'information en URSS à l'époque Gorbatchev), " les autorités continuent à purger le secteur de l'information de tout ce qu'elles considèrent comme représentant une opposition ". Les récents incidents ont pour effet, dit-il, " de rappeler à tous qu'il s'agit de réfléchir très soigneusement avant de dire ou d'écrire quelque chose ".
Fin février, l'hebdomadaire Novaïa Gazeta, qui se distingue à la fois par la faiblesse de son tirage et la virulence de ses critiques contre la corruption officielle et la guerre en Tchétchénie, a été frappé d'amendes sans précédent, d'un montant total de 1,5 million de dollars. Le journal a été condamné à Moscou pour diffamation, après la publication d'un article exposant les revenus illicites d'un juge de la région de Krasnodar, et pour avoir mentionné la banque Mezhprombank, liée à un homme d'affaires proche de M. Poutine, dans un scandale de blanchiment d'argent. " Il est devenu évident que les tribunaux mettent à exécution des ordres officiels pour éliminer la presse indépendante ", estime-t- on au Fonds pour la défense de la glasnost.
Anna Politkovskaïa, journaliste primée en France en 2000 pour un livre sur le conflit en Tchétchénie ( Voyage en Enfer, Laffont, 216 p.) raconte qu'elle a subi des intimidations de la part de responsables militaires russes. Au point d'avoir fait le choix de quitter la Russie, à l'automne 2001, pour se réfugier en Autriche, où un institut lui offrait une bourse d'étude. A l'occasion de son retour à Moscou pour les fêtes du Nouvel An, son passeport a été saisi par la police et le ministère russe de l'intérieur lui a affecté une garde rapprochée. " Cela revient à me surveiller en permanence, a-t-elle raconté au Monde. Je ne peux plus avoir de discussion avec une source sans qu'ils [les services russes] en soient informés. Je ne peux sortir de chez moi sans être suivie. "
Selon le commentateur russe Pavel Felgenhauer, M. Poutine a mis en place dans le pays une " machine de propagande ". Elle vise, selon lui, à masquer les difficultés en Tchétchénie, mais aussi à attiser régulièrement dans l'opinion des bouffées de nationalisme permettant au président russe de se présenter, au yeux de l'Occident, comme un élément modérateur.
La mise sous tutelle des chaînes de télévision nationales a été achevée par le transfert de TV6 à un groupe d'une douzaine d'" oligarques " (patrons de groupes industriels et énergétiques russes), coiffés par l'ancien premier ministre Evguéni Primakov. TV6, comme de nombreux médias subissant les pressions du pouvoir, était la propriété du financier Boris Berezovski, qui a dénoncé une dérive " totalitaire " en Russie. En 2001, Vladimir Goussinski, rangé dans l'opposition au Kremlin, avait passé trois jours en prison avant d'être dépossédé de sa chaîne de télévision, NTV, fragilisée par ses emprunts à des structures étatiques.
La faiblesse des médias face au pouvoir, depuis dix ans, est liée aux insuffisances du marché publicitaire en Russie. Incapables d'autofinancement, journaux et télévisions sont tombés dans l'escarcelle d' " oligarques ", qui ont été contraints soit à la fidélité politique à M. Poutine, soit à l'exil. La population russe, à en croire les sondages, ne considère pas la liberté d'expression comme le principal acquis depuis la chute de l'URSS, mettant plutôt l'accent sur l'accès aux biens de consommation. Les journalistes en Russie sont souvent critiqués pour leur corruption. " Lorsque je lance une campagne publicitaire, je prends mon carnet d'adresses : je sais combien coûte tel journaliste, combien coûte tel article ", raconte une responsable de société de communication.
" La liberté d'expression, au sens politique, n'existe plus " en Russie, dénonce le chef d'un petit parti démocrate, Grigori Iavlinski. Quant à Boris Nemtsov, considéré comme " libéral " défenseur des libertés publiques, il parle de " purge " dans le milieu de la télévision.
Source : LE MONDE | 12.01.07 | 16h38
Russie: Un exemple de la Dictature
Violences et arrestations à la Gay Pride de Moscou
a deuxième édition de la Gay Pride à Moscou, comme la précédente, s'est soldée par les mêmes actes de violence commis par des jeunes nationalistes, des skinheads et des grands-mères ultra-orthodoxes à l'encontre de quelques dizaines de gays et lesbiennes, sous le regard tout d'abord passif d'un impressionnant déploiement d'Omons, les forces antiémeutes, qui ont ensuite procédé à des dizaines d'arrestations dans les rangs des deux camps.
Les chants religieux se mêlaient aux jets d'oeufs et aux cris de "pervers", "mort aux homosexuels !" ou "Moscou n'est pas Sodome !" lancés par les opposants au défilé. Certains portaient des masques chirurgicaux pour se protéger "de la maladie". De jeunes lesbiennes résistaient, regroupées devant les forces de l'ordre avec des drapeaux arc-en-ciel. Les chanteuses homosexuelles du groupe russe Tatou ont fait une apparition.
A l'origine, l'organisateur de la marche, Nikolaï Alexeïev, devait remettre une lettre au maire de Moscou, Iouri Loujkov, signée par près de cinquante députés européens. Il a été aussitôt arrêté et devra se rendre devant la justice pour avoir "résisté à la police". Il s'agissait d'une pétition demandant l'autorisation de ce genre de manifestation que le maire de la capitale russe avait qualifié d'"acte satanique".
Le rassemblement comptait parmi ses soutiens des personnalités comme le défenseur des droits de l'homme britannique Peter Tatchell. Le député italien du Parlement européen Marco Cappato et un député Vert du Bundestag, Volker Beck, ont fait partie des 31 personnes arrêtées.
La présidente des Verts allemands, Claudia Roth, a appelé la chancelière Angela Merkel à évoquer la question des droits de l'homme avec le président Vladimir Poutine, lors du sommet du G8 prévu du 6 au 8 juin en Allemagne. "On a vu, une fois encore, que les droits de l'homme faisaient l'objet de violations systématiques dans la Russie de Poutine", a-t-elle déclaré. Le maire de Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, dont le chargé de mission a été interpellé par les forces de l'ordre, a dénoncé "les violences inacceptables, perpétrées une fois de plus par des extrémistes à l'encontre de manifestants pacifiques".
Comme en 2006, la disproportion entre le dispositif policier et le petit nombre de participants et la réaction tardive des Omons face aux attaques des extrémistes étaient manifestes. Beaucoup de jeunes homosexuels n'ont pas participé à la manifestation de peur d'être frappés, davantage stigmatisés et de voir, au final, leurs intérêts desservis. L'homosexualité n'est plus classée comme une maladie mentale par les psychiatres russes depuis 1999.
Source: le monde, Madeleine Vatel
Article paru dans l'édition du 29.05.07
a deuxième édition de la Gay Pride à Moscou, comme la précédente, s'est soldée par les mêmes actes de violence commis par des jeunes nationalistes, des skinheads et des grands-mères ultra-orthodoxes à l'encontre de quelques dizaines de gays et lesbiennes, sous le regard tout d'abord passif d'un impressionnant déploiement d'Omons, les forces antiémeutes, qui ont ensuite procédé à des dizaines d'arrestations dans les rangs des deux camps.
Les chants religieux se mêlaient aux jets d'oeufs et aux cris de "pervers", "mort aux homosexuels !" ou "Moscou n'est pas Sodome !" lancés par les opposants au défilé. Certains portaient des masques chirurgicaux pour se protéger "de la maladie". De jeunes lesbiennes résistaient, regroupées devant les forces de l'ordre avec des drapeaux arc-en-ciel. Les chanteuses homosexuelles du groupe russe Tatou ont fait une apparition.
A l'origine, l'organisateur de la marche, Nikolaï Alexeïev, devait remettre une lettre au maire de Moscou, Iouri Loujkov, signée par près de cinquante députés européens. Il a été aussitôt arrêté et devra se rendre devant la justice pour avoir "résisté à la police". Il s'agissait d'une pétition demandant l'autorisation de ce genre de manifestation que le maire de la capitale russe avait qualifié d'"acte satanique".
Le rassemblement comptait parmi ses soutiens des personnalités comme le défenseur des droits de l'homme britannique Peter Tatchell. Le député italien du Parlement européen Marco Cappato et un député Vert du Bundestag, Volker Beck, ont fait partie des 31 personnes arrêtées.
La présidente des Verts allemands, Claudia Roth, a appelé la chancelière Angela Merkel à évoquer la question des droits de l'homme avec le président Vladimir Poutine, lors du sommet du G8 prévu du 6 au 8 juin en Allemagne. "On a vu, une fois encore, que les droits de l'homme faisaient l'objet de violations systématiques dans la Russie de Poutine", a-t-elle déclaré. Le maire de Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, dont le chargé de mission a été interpellé par les forces de l'ordre, a dénoncé "les violences inacceptables, perpétrées une fois de plus par des extrémistes à l'encontre de manifestants pacifiques".
Comme en 2006, la disproportion entre le dispositif policier et le petit nombre de participants et la réaction tardive des Omons face aux attaques des extrémistes étaient manifestes. Beaucoup de jeunes homosexuels n'ont pas participé à la manifestation de peur d'être frappés, davantage stigmatisés et de voir, au final, leurs intérêts desservis. L'homosexualité n'est plus classée comme une maladie mentale par les psychiatres russes depuis 1999.
Source: le monde, Madeleine Vatel
Article paru dans l'édition du 29.05.07
Venezuela: La Dictature prend le pas
La dernière grande chaîne d'opposition au Venezuela a cessé d'émettre
près cinquante-trois années d'existence, RCTV (Radio Caracas Television), dernière grande chaîne d'opposition au Venezuela, a cessé d'émettre, dimanche 27 mai une seconde avant minuit, à l'expiration de sa concession. Le gouvernement d'Hugo Chavez, qui a refusé de la renouveler, avait qualifié la très populaire RCTV de "menace pour le pays".
Une grande partie des trois mille salariés que comptait la chaîne sont apparus à l'écran chantant l'hymne national juste avant l'arrêt des émissions. Marcel Granier, président de RCTV, s'est dit sûr que "la démocratie et RCTV reviendront au Venezuela", espérant encore que le gouvernement reconsidérerait sa décision. La veille, M. Granier avait fait appel une dernière fois au chef de l'Etat, affirmant qu'il avait "la possibilité de corriger l'erreur commise".
REMPLACÉE PAR UNE "TÉLÉVISION SOCIALISTE"
M. Chavez reprochait à RCTV le ton acerbe de ses journaux et le soutien au coup d'Etat avorté à son encontre en 2002. Alors que la plus ancienne chaîne de télévision vénézuélienne disparaissait, une fête populaire organisée par des partisans de M. Chavez se déroulait devant un complexe culturel de Caracas pour célébrer la naissance de la nouvelle chaîne de "télévision socialiste" (TVES), financée par le gouvernement et dont les transmissions ont commencé dès que se sont interrompues celles de RCTV.
Plusieurs milliers de manifestants anti-Chavez s'étaient également mobilisés, dimanche, pour protester devant le siège de la commission nationale des télécommunications avant d'être dispersés par des tirs de grenades lacrymogènes. Quelques heurts avaient auparavant fait onze blessés, dont quatre ont été hospitalisés parmi les forces de l'ordre, selon la police.
Dans un éditorial intitulé "Chavez éteint RCTV", le quotidien d'opposition Tal Cual affirme que "la fermeture de RCTV marque le point le plus haut de l'escalade d'agressions contre la liberté d'expression au Venezuela". "L'Organisation des États américains (OEA) et le Mercosur peuvent bien dire qu'Hugo Chavez est un démocrate, mais ses actes le démentent totalement", ajoute-t-il.
Le quotidien El Nacional va dans le même sens, estimant que cette mesure marque la "fin du pluralisme" dans le pays. Le journal affirme par ailleurs que plusieurs employés de RCTV ont passé la nuit dans les locaux et refusent toujours de les quitter.
Source: LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 28.05.07 | 08h17 • Mis à jour le 28.05.07 | 08h53
près cinquante-trois années d'existence, RCTV (Radio Caracas Television), dernière grande chaîne d'opposition au Venezuela, a cessé d'émettre, dimanche 27 mai une seconde avant minuit, à l'expiration de sa concession. Le gouvernement d'Hugo Chavez, qui a refusé de la renouveler, avait qualifié la très populaire RCTV de "menace pour le pays".
Une grande partie des trois mille salariés que comptait la chaîne sont apparus à l'écran chantant l'hymne national juste avant l'arrêt des émissions. Marcel Granier, président de RCTV, s'est dit sûr que "la démocratie et RCTV reviendront au Venezuela", espérant encore que le gouvernement reconsidérerait sa décision. La veille, M. Granier avait fait appel une dernière fois au chef de l'Etat, affirmant qu'il avait "la possibilité de corriger l'erreur commise".
REMPLACÉE PAR UNE "TÉLÉVISION SOCIALISTE"
M. Chavez reprochait à RCTV le ton acerbe de ses journaux et le soutien au coup d'Etat avorté à son encontre en 2002. Alors que la plus ancienne chaîne de télévision vénézuélienne disparaissait, une fête populaire organisée par des partisans de M. Chavez se déroulait devant un complexe culturel de Caracas pour célébrer la naissance de la nouvelle chaîne de "télévision socialiste" (TVES), financée par le gouvernement et dont les transmissions ont commencé dès que se sont interrompues celles de RCTV.
Plusieurs milliers de manifestants anti-Chavez s'étaient également mobilisés, dimanche, pour protester devant le siège de la commission nationale des télécommunications avant d'être dispersés par des tirs de grenades lacrymogènes. Quelques heurts avaient auparavant fait onze blessés, dont quatre ont été hospitalisés parmi les forces de l'ordre, selon la police.
Dans un éditorial intitulé "Chavez éteint RCTV", le quotidien d'opposition Tal Cual affirme que "la fermeture de RCTV marque le point le plus haut de l'escalade d'agressions contre la liberté d'expression au Venezuela". "L'Organisation des États américains (OEA) et le Mercosur peuvent bien dire qu'Hugo Chavez est un démocrate, mais ses actes le démentent totalement", ajoute-t-il.
Le quotidien El Nacional va dans le même sens, estimant que cette mesure marque la "fin du pluralisme" dans le pays. Le journal affirme par ailleurs que plusieurs employés de RCTV ont passé la nuit dans les locaux et refusent toujours de les quitter.
Source: LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 28.05.07 | 08h17 • Mis à jour le 28.05.07 | 08h53
Pologne: Les Teletubbies sont Gay !!!
Les Teletubbies sont-ils gays ?
Les autorités polonaises comptent mener une étude pour déterminer si la série, destinée aux touts-petits, incite à l’homosexualité.
Le fait que Tinky Winky, un garçon, porte un sac à main, constitue-t-il une incitation à l’homosexualité ? C’est la très sérieuse question à laquelle vont devoir répondre des psychologues polonais.
Le gouvernement conservateur au pouvoir en Pologne est parti en croisade contre «l’incitation à l’homosexualité» sous toutes ses formes. Et les dernières victimes en date ne sont autres que les Teletubbies, ces créatures ressemblant à de grosses peluches de couleurs vives, qui font la joie des enfants de 0 à 2 ans dans 120 pays. Le programme, produit par la BBC, connaît un succès considérable depuis plus de 10 ans.
Les Teletubbies, présentés par leurs créateurs comme des «bébés technologiques», sont au nombre de quatre : Dipsy la peluche verte qui porte des chapeaux étranges ; Lala la fille de la bande, en jaune, qui possède un ballon ; Po le rouge et son vélo ; et Tinky Winky, le violet. C’est ce dernier qui pose question aux autorités polonaises. Tinky Winky se distingue en effet... par un sac à main, qu’il transporte partout avec lui.
«Sous-entendu homosexuel voilé»
«Il pourrait y avoir un sous-entendu homosexuel voilé» derrière ce sac à main, estime très sérieusement Ewa Sowinska, médiatrice polonaise aux Droits de l'enfant. Un argument déjà avancé par des groupes conservateurs chrétiens américains.
«J'ai bien remarqué que Tinky Winky avait un sac à main pour femmes, mais je n'avais pas réalisé qu'il s'agissait d'un garçon», explique-encore Ewa Sowinska au magazine Wprost. «J'appelle les psychologues à regarder de près le dessin animé, afin de trancher s'il peut être diffusé sur la télévision publique ou non. Il faut l'examiner. S'il y avait une promotion d'attitudes inappropriées, il faudrait réagir», poursuit la médiatrice.
La fièvre anti-homosexuels du gouvernement Kaczyński a déjà conduit le ministre polonais de l’Education nationale à proposer une loi visant à exclure les enseignants qui font de la «propagande homosexuelle» dans les écoles.
Quant aux Teletubbies, ils avaient déjà été pris pour cible par l’auteur d’American Psycho Brett Easton Ellis, qui les jugeait dans un texte tout simplement… maléfiques.
Source: lefigaro.fr (avec AFP) - Publié le 28 mai 2007
Les autorités polonaises comptent mener une étude pour déterminer si la série, destinée aux touts-petits, incite à l’homosexualité.
Le fait que Tinky Winky, un garçon, porte un sac à main, constitue-t-il une incitation à l’homosexualité ? C’est la très sérieuse question à laquelle vont devoir répondre des psychologues polonais.
Le gouvernement conservateur au pouvoir en Pologne est parti en croisade contre «l’incitation à l’homosexualité» sous toutes ses formes. Et les dernières victimes en date ne sont autres que les Teletubbies, ces créatures ressemblant à de grosses peluches de couleurs vives, qui font la joie des enfants de 0 à 2 ans dans 120 pays. Le programme, produit par la BBC, connaît un succès considérable depuis plus de 10 ans.
Les Teletubbies, présentés par leurs créateurs comme des «bébés technologiques», sont au nombre de quatre : Dipsy la peluche verte qui porte des chapeaux étranges ; Lala la fille de la bande, en jaune, qui possède un ballon ; Po le rouge et son vélo ; et Tinky Winky, le violet. C’est ce dernier qui pose question aux autorités polonaises. Tinky Winky se distingue en effet... par un sac à main, qu’il transporte partout avec lui.
«Sous-entendu homosexuel voilé»
«Il pourrait y avoir un sous-entendu homosexuel voilé» derrière ce sac à main, estime très sérieusement Ewa Sowinska, médiatrice polonaise aux Droits de l'enfant. Un argument déjà avancé par des groupes conservateurs chrétiens américains.
«J'ai bien remarqué que Tinky Winky avait un sac à main pour femmes, mais je n'avais pas réalisé qu'il s'agissait d'un garçon», explique-encore Ewa Sowinska au magazine Wprost. «J'appelle les psychologues à regarder de près le dessin animé, afin de trancher s'il peut être diffusé sur la télévision publique ou non. Il faut l'examiner. S'il y avait une promotion d'attitudes inappropriées, il faudrait réagir», poursuit la médiatrice.
La fièvre anti-homosexuels du gouvernement Kaczyński a déjà conduit le ministre polonais de l’Education nationale à proposer une loi visant à exclure les enseignants qui font de la «propagande homosexuelle» dans les écoles.
Quant aux Teletubbies, ils avaient déjà été pris pour cible par l’auteur d’American Psycho Brett Easton Ellis, qui les jugeait dans un texte tout simplement… maléfiques.
Source: lefigaro.fr (avec AFP) - Publié le 28 mai 2007
jeudi 24 mai 2007
Globalisation: China...step by step...playing chess
Blocked by U.S., China finds it own way to space
BEIJING: For years, China has chafed at efforts by the United States to exclude it from full membership in the world's elite space club. So, lately, China seems to have hit on a solution: create a new club.
Beijing is trying to position itself as a space benefactor to the developing world - the same countries, in some cases, whose natural resources China covets here on Earth. The latest, and most prominent, example came last week when China launched a communications satellite for Nigeria in a project that serves as a tidy case study of how space has become another arena where China is trying to exert its soft power.
Not only did China design, build and launch the satellite for oil-rich Nigeria - it also provided a huge loan to help pay the bill. China has also signed a satellite contract with another major oil supplier, Venezuela. It is developing an earth observation satellite system with Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru and Thailand. And it has organized a satellite association in Asia.
For China, the strategy is a blend of self-interest, broader diplomacy and, from a business standpoint, an effective way to break into the satellite market. Satellites have become status symbols and technological necessities for many countries that want an ownership stake in the digital world dominated by the West, analysts say.
"There's clearly a sense that countries like Nigeria want to have a stronger presence in space," said Peter Brown, a journalist who specializes in satellite technology and writes frequently about the satellite market in Asia. "As you look around the map, more and more countries are moving to get satellites up."
The more grandiose Chinese space goals, which include building a Mars probe and, eventually, putting an astronaut on the Moon, are based on a blueprint in which space exploration enhances national prestige and advances technological development. But Beijing also is focused on competing in the lucrative $100 billion commercial satellite industry.
In recent years, China has managed to attract customers with its less expensive satellite launching services. Yet it had never demonstrated the technical expertise to compete for international contracts to build satellites.
The Nigeria deal has changed that. Chinese engineers designed and constructed the geostationary communications satellite, called the Nigcomsat-1. A Chinese state-owned aerospace company, Great Wall Industry, will monitor the satellite from a ground station in northwestern China. It will also train Nigerian engineers to operate a tracking station in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.
Last week, a day after the launching, Ahmed Rufai, the Nigerian project manager for the satellite, was exultant as he paused between appointments at his Beijing hotel. Nigeria may be rich in oil, he said, but it lacks many of the basic building blocks of a modern, information-based economy.
"We want to be part of the digital economy," Rufai said, noting that Africa suffers more than any other continent from the so-called digital divide. "We are trying to diversify the economic base of the country."
Rufai predicted the satellite would pay for itself within seven years as Nigeria sold bandwidth to different commercial users. He also predicted major improvements for Nigeria itself: "distance learning" educational programs for remote rural areas, online public access to government records, a video monitoring system of remote oil pipelines to allow quicker responses to spills and the establishment of an online banking system.
Nigeria is a risky customer for any satellite manufacturer. It is consistently rated one of the most corrupt nations in the world, and at least one Western aerospace company has become embroiled in business disputes there.
"Business ventures with Nigeria have been difficult, to say the least," said Roger Rusch, president of TelAstra, a satellite communications consulting firm in California.
Nigeria put the project out for bidding in April 2004. Rufai said 21 bids arrived from major aerospace companies, but that nearly all of them failed to meet a key requirement: a significant financial package.
Rufai said the Western firms saw Nigeria as a major gamble. "Their response was very cool," Rufai said of one financial institution approached about backing the deal. "They said, 'Oh, Nigeria. Don't touch it.' "
China was not so cautious. With the satellite priced at roughly $300 million, the state-owned Export-Import Bank of China, or China ExIm, granted $200 million in preferential buyer's credits to Nigeria. The bank often provides the hard currency for Chinese soft power aspirations: In Africa, China ExIm has handed out more than $7 billion in loans in recent years, according to one recent study.
Quality remains a concern. Last year, China suffered a major setback with the failure of the Sinosat-2. It was the most sophisticated satellite ever made in China, and it suffered a systems breakdown on its first launching. The Nigerian satellite was delayed for three months so that it could be retrofitted.
Joan Johnson-Freese, chairwoman of the Department of National Security Studies at the U.S. Naval War College, said China still trailed major aerospace companies in the quality and sophistication of its satellites but that the strategy was working on multiple levels.
"They want to play a leadership role for developing countries that want to get into space," Johnson-Freese said in an interview earlier this year. "It's just such a win-win for them. They are making political connections, it helps them with oil deals and they bring in hard currency to feed back into their own program to make them even more commercially competitive."
Satellites also are becoming vital to Beijing's domestic development plans. In the next several years, China could launch as many as 100 satellites to help deliver television to isolated rural areas, create a digital navigational network, facilitate scientific research and improve mapping and weather monitoring.
But the Chinese focus on satellites has also brought suspicions, particularly from the United States, since most satellites are "dual use" technologies, capable of civilian and military applications.
China is overhauling its military in a modernization drive focused, in part, on developing the capability to fight a high-tech war.
Analysts say the Chinese determination to develop its own equivalent to the Global Positioning System is partly because such a satellite system would be critical for military operations if a war were to erupt over Taiwan.
Most alarmingly to Western countries, China conducted an antisatellite test in January by firing a missile into space and destroying one of its own orbiting satellites. Four months later, Washington is still trying to parse the Chinese motivations for the test, while China has offered little in the way of explanation.
For nearly a decade, even as China has participated in different projects with Europe, Russia and Canada, the United States has sought to isolate the Chinese space program in ways large and small. Export restrictions intended to block the illegal transfer of military technology now prohibit U.S. technology from being used on satellites launched in China.
The United States also has blocked Beijing from participating in the international space station. Chinese scientists are often denied visas to attend important space conferences held in the United States.
In fact, a debate is under way in Washington and within the U.S. aerospace industry about whether the export restrictions have damaged American competitiveness. Some European companies now build satellites without any American parts in order to avoid the export ban.
Eric Hagt, a director at the World Security Institute, testified in Washington this year that China's increasing investment in space has also made it feel more vulnerable at a time when the United States is advocating missile defense programs in the name of protection against terrorist states. China seems to believe Washington is determined to dominate space, he said.
The United States is also realizing that many parts of the world are happy to help China gave a bigger role in space. When the Nigerian satellite was launched, the blast-off was televised live to Nigeria. Nigerian newspapers proclaimed the satellite as a seminal moment in efforts to modernize the Nigerian economy.
Source: The International Herald Tribune, By Jim Yardley - Wednesday, May 23, 2007
BEIJING: For years, China has chafed at efforts by the United States to exclude it from full membership in the world's elite space club. So, lately, China seems to have hit on a solution: create a new club.
Beijing is trying to position itself as a space benefactor to the developing world - the same countries, in some cases, whose natural resources China covets here on Earth. The latest, and most prominent, example came last week when China launched a communications satellite for Nigeria in a project that serves as a tidy case study of how space has become another arena where China is trying to exert its soft power.
Not only did China design, build and launch the satellite for oil-rich Nigeria - it also provided a huge loan to help pay the bill. China has also signed a satellite contract with another major oil supplier, Venezuela. It is developing an earth observation satellite system with Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru and Thailand. And it has organized a satellite association in Asia.
For China, the strategy is a blend of self-interest, broader diplomacy and, from a business standpoint, an effective way to break into the satellite market. Satellites have become status symbols and technological necessities for many countries that want an ownership stake in the digital world dominated by the West, analysts say.
"There's clearly a sense that countries like Nigeria want to have a stronger presence in space," said Peter Brown, a journalist who specializes in satellite technology and writes frequently about the satellite market in Asia. "As you look around the map, more and more countries are moving to get satellites up."
The more grandiose Chinese space goals, which include building a Mars probe and, eventually, putting an astronaut on the Moon, are based on a blueprint in which space exploration enhances national prestige and advances technological development. But Beijing also is focused on competing in the lucrative $100 billion commercial satellite industry.
In recent years, China has managed to attract customers with its less expensive satellite launching services. Yet it had never demonstrated the technical expertise to compete for international contracts to build satellites.
The Nigeria deal has changed that. Chinese engineers designed and constructed the geostationary communications satellite, called the Nigcomsat-1. A Chinese state-owned aerospace company, Great Wall Industry, will monitor the satellite from a ground station in northwestern China. It will also train Nigerian engineers to operate a tracking station in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.
Last week, a day after the launching, Ahmed Rufai, the Nigerian project manager for the satellite, was exultant as he paused between appointments at his Beijing hotel. Nigeria may be rich in oil, he said, but it lacks many of the basic building blocks of a modern, information-based economy.
"We want to be part of the digital economy," Rufai said, noting that Africa suffers more than any other continent from the so-called digital divide. "We are trying to diversify the economic base of the country."
Rufai predicted the satellite would pay for itself within seven years as Nigeria sold bandwidth to different commercial users. He also predicted major improvements for Nigeria itself: "distance learning" educational programs for remote rural areas, online public access to government records, a video monitoring system of remote oil pipelines to allow quicker responses to spills and the establishment of an online banking system.
Nigeria is a risky customer for any satellite manufacturer. It is consistently rated one of the most corrupt nations in the world, and at least one Western aerospace company has become embroiled in business disputes there.
"Business ventures with Nigeria have been difficult, to say the least," said Roger Rusch, president of TelAstra, a satellite communications consulting firm in California.
Nigeria put the project out for bidding in April 2004. Rufai said 21 bids arrived from major aerospace companies, but that nearly all of them failed to meet a key requirement: a significant financial package.
Rufai said the Western firms saw Nigeria as a major gamble. "Their response was very cool," Rufai said of one financial institution approached about backing the deal. "They said, 'Oh, Nigeria. Don't touch it.' "
China was not so cautious. With the satellite priced at roughly $300 million, the state-owned Export-Import Bank of China, or China ExIm, granted $200 million in preferential buyer's credits to Nigeria. The bank often provides the hard currency for Chinese soft power aspirations: In Africa, China ExIm has handed out more than $7 billion in loans in recent years, according to one recent study.
Quality remains a concern. Last year, China suffered a major setback with the failure of the Sinosat-2. It was the most sophisticated satellite ever made in China, and it suffered a systems breakdown on its first launching. The Nigerian satellite was delayed for three months so that it could be retrofitted.
Joan Johnson-Freese, chairwoman of the Department of National Security Studies at the U.S. Naval War College, said China still trailed major aerospace companies in the quality and sophistication of its satellites but that the strategy was working on multiple levels.
"They want to play a leadership role for developing countries that want to get into space," Johnson-Freese said in an interview earlier this year. "It's just such a win-win for them. They are making political connections, it helps them with oil deals and they bring in hard currency to feed back into their own program to make them even more commercially competitive."
Satellites also are becoming vital to Beijing's domestic development plans. In the next several years, China could launch as many as 100 satellites to help deliver television to isolated rural areas, create a digital navigational network, facilitate scientific research and improve mapping and weather monitoring.
But the Chinese focus on satellites has also brought suspicions, particularly from the United States, since most satellites are "dual use" technologies, capable of civilian and military applications.
China is overhauling its military in a modernization drive focused, in part, on developing the capability to fight a high-tech war.
Analysts say the Chinese determination to develop its own equivalent to the Global Positioning System is partly because such a satellite system would be critical for military operations if a war were to erupt over Taiwan.
Most alarmingly to Western countries, China conducted an antisatellite test in January by firing a missile into space and destroying one of its own orbiting satellites. Four months later, Washington is still trying to parse the Chinese motivations for the test, while China has offered little in the way of explanation.
For nearly a decade, even as China has participated in different projects with Europe, Russia and Canada, the United States has sought to isolate the Chinese space program in ways large and small. Export restrictions intended to block the illegal transfer of military technology now prohibit U.S. technology from being used on satellites launched in China.
The United States also has blocked Beijing from participating in the international space station. Chinese scientists are often denied visas to attend important space conferences held in the United States.
In fact, a debate is under way in Washington and within the U.S. aerospace industry about whether the export restrictions have damaged American competitiveness. Some European companies now build satellites without any American parts in order to avoid the export ban.
Eric Hagt, a director at the World Security Institute, testified in Washington this year that China's increasing investment in space has also made it feel more vulnerable at a time when the United States is advocating missile defense programs in the name of protection against terrorist states. China seems to believe Washington is determined to dominate space, he said.
The United States is also realizing that many parts of the world are happy to help China gave a bigger role in space. When the Nigerian satellite was launched, the blast-off was televised live to Nigeria. Nigerian newspapers proclaimed the satellite as a seminal moment in efforts to modernize the Nigerian economy.
Source: The International Herald Tribune, By Jim Yardley - Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Globalisation: China makes good use of extra money !!!
China seeks to play down $3 billion investment in Blackstone
HONG KONG: A day after buying a $3 billion stake in the Blackstone Group, China sought Monday to offer assurances that it was looking only to improve its returns on overseas investments - not to take control of foreign companies, which could aggravate political tension.
The government moved quickly on the deal to make an investment before Blackstone, a U.S. private equity firm, conducted its initial public offering of shares, said Jesse Wang, the chairman of the Chinese government agency that is managing the transaction on behalf of a new state investment company, which has yet to be set up.
But the new state investment company is not currently negotiating for further large stakes in overseas companies, Wang added.
The Blackstone investment stirred memories of the unsuccessful bid two years ago by Cnooc, a Chinese state-owned oil company, to acquire Unocal, an American oil company; congressional opposition in Washington blocked that transaction.
Some in the United States have also been wary of any pattern of high-profile Chinese acquisitions that might resemble Japanese investors' acquisitions in the 1980s of landmarks like Rockefeller Center and the Pebble Beach golf course.
Wang went out of his way to try to allay those fears, saying that the new investment company would be more interested in investments paralleling funds that buy shares in most or all of the stocks in indexes that track the overall performance of overseas stock markets.
"In the future, yes, we surely think we will invest in the index funds," he said.
The Chinese government is setting up the state investment company to diversify the country's overseas investments beyond U.S. Treasury securities and other bonds. But the main goal is to accumulate a broad portfolio of small stakes in lots of companies, instead of purchasing controlling stakes in a few companies, Wang said.
The Blackstone transaction, "is an individual case - I assume the investment company will engage in portfolio investment rather than takeovers," Wang said by telephone from Beijing.
The transaction Sunday will transfer less than 10 percent of Blackstone's equity to the Chinese government, and is a nonvoting stake, Wang said.
He said that the government did not expect to play a role in managing Blackstone, and added that the government did not expect Blackstone to provide any advice in exchange for the investment.
[Blackstone said Monday that it planned to raise as much as $7.75 billion from selling stakes to the public and to China, Reuters reported from New York. The initial public offering would rank among the top 10 U.S. IPOs, according to Dealogic, and be the largest by a private equity firm. ]
Wang is the chairman of China Jianyin, an operating unit of the Central Huijin Investment, a Chinese government agency that handles a broad array of transactions between Chinese state-owned companies and foreign investors, including the sale of Chinese banks' problem loans.
Michael Smith, the chief executive of HSBC's Asian operations, said during an interview that few companies were likely to oppose the sale of minority stakes to the Chinese government.
"Too many shareholders just think for tomorrow, so in many ways they bring some stability," he said.
In the Blackstone deal, the new state investment company will acquire a nonvoting stake at a 4.5 percent discount to the public offering price to be set in Blackstone's initial public offering this year.
It is common in China for tycoons and large companies, often from Hong Kong, to take large stakes in a company before its initial public offering. Wang said that to some extent the state investment company would be following this precedent in agreeing to a deal with Blackstone even before the Chinese government has decided many details about the investment company.
"Personally, I think it may be a Chinese way" of doing business, he said.
The timing of the Blackstone deal two days before senior Chinese and American economic policy makers begin meeting in Washington was purely coincidental, Wang insisted.
"I don't think that IPO schedule is coordinated" with the China-U.S. talks, he said.
The new investment company is supposed to buy a broader array of assets than the central bank usually purchases with its foreign exchange reserves, but it is still a long way from even being established as a separate legal entity. "We hope it will be in operation before the end of this year, but I don't know," Wang said.
China's State Council, the country's top government body, will give the company its capital by putting in foreign exchange, but there has been no decision yet on how much money the company will have, Wang said. The central bank will closely advise the new company once it is created.
"When the new company is set up, it cannot possibly manage tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars" unless it receives help from other government agencies, he added.
It is unusual for Chinese officials to take questions from the media regarding overseas investments, but Wang allowed his phone number to be printed on a Blackstone news release. Answering some of the resulting phone calls was "a little scary," he said.
Holding $1.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, as China does, can be a curse as well as a blessing, forcing tough decisions.
Well before the investment Sunday, the managers of China's foreign exchange reserves had proven themselves unusually willing to venture beyond the U.S. Treasury securities that make up the bulk of most countries' reserves.
Whereas countries like Japan have kept as much as 90 percent of their reserves in Treasury securities, the People's Bank of China has bought at least $100 billion of U.S. mortgage-backed securities as well as large purchases of bonds denominated in euros and other currencies, people close to the purchases said.
China's enormous role in financing other countries' budget deficits is a somewhat sensitive subject within China, with occasional postings on Chinese Web sites suggesting that the money could be better spent inside the country. The state-controlled media have largely ignored the issue and the postings have tended to disappear, a clear sign that the government is not allowing open discussion of the issue.
The official Xinhua press agency waited more than 14 hours, until late Monday evening, to report the Blackstone announcement.
China has such large foreign exchange reserves because it has been buying dollars on a large scale so as to slow the rise of its currency, known as the yuan or renminbi. For most approaches to investing the reserves domestically, the government would effectively have to sell dollars and buy yuan, which would drive up the value of the yuan and defeat the purpose of accumulating the reserves in the first place.
Source: The International Herald Tribune,
By Keith Bradsher - Monday, May 21, 2007
HONG KONG: A day after buying a $3 billion stake in the Blackstone Group, China sought Monday to offer assurances that it was looking only to improve its returns on overseas investments - not to take control of foreign companies, which could aggravate political tension.
The government moved quickly on the deal to make an investment before Blackstone, a U.S. private equity firm, conducted its initial public offering of shares, said Jesse Wang, the chairman of the Chinese government agency that is managing the transaction on behalf of a new state investment company, which has yet to be set up.
But the new state investment company is not currently negotiating for further large stakes in overseas companies, Wang added.
The Blackstone investment stirred memories of the unsuccessful bid two years ago by Cnooc, a Chinese state-owned oil company, to acquire Unocal, an American oil company; congressional opposition in Washington blocked that transaction.
Some in the United States have also been wary of any pattern of high-profile Chinese acquisitions that might resemble Japanese investors' acquisitions in the 1980s of landmarks like Rockefeller Center and the Pebble Beach golf course.
Wang went out of his way to try to allay those fears, saying that the new investment company would be more interested in investments paralleling funds that buy shares in most or all of the stocks in indexes that track the overall performance of overseas stock markets.
"In the future, yes, we surely think we will invest in the index funds," he said.
The Chinese government is setting up the state investment company to diversify the country's overseas investments beyond U.S. Treasury securities and other bonds. But the main goal is to accumulate a broad portfolio of small stakes in lots of companies, instead of purchasing controlling stakes in a few companies, Wang said.
The Blackstone transaction, "is an individual case - I assume the investment company will engage in portfolio investment rather than takeovers," Wang said by telephone from Beijing.
The transaction Sunday will transfer less than 10 percent of Blackstone's equity to the Chinese government, and is a nonvoting stake, Wang said.
He said that the government did not expect to play a role in managing Blackstone, and added that the government did not expect Blackstone to provide any advice in exchange for the investment.
[Blackstone said Monday that it planned to raise as much as $7.75 billion from selling stakes to the public and to China, Reuters reported from New York. The initial public offering would rank among the top 10 U.S. IPOs, according to Dealogic, and be the largest by a private equity firm. ]
Wang is the chairman of China Jianyin, an operating unit of the Central Huijin Investment, a Chinese government agency that handles a broad array of transactions between Chinese state-owned companies and foreign investors, including the sale of Chinese banks' problem loans.
Michael Smith, the chief executive of HSBC's Asian operations, said during an interview that few companies were likely to oppose the sale of minority stakes to the Chinese government.
"Too many shareholders just think for tomorrow, so in many ways they bring some stability," he said.
In the Blackstone deal, the new state investment company will acquire a nonvoting stake at a 4.5 percent discount to the public offering price to be set in Blackstone's initial public offering this year.
It is common in China for tycoons and large companies, often from Hong Kong, to take large stakes in a company before its initial public offering. Wang said that to some extent the state investment company would be following this precedent in agreeing to a deal with Blackstone even before the Chinese government has decided many details about the investment company.
"Personally, I think it may be a Chinese way" of doing business, he said.
The timing of the Blackstone deal two days before senior Chinese and American economic policy makers begin meeting in Washington was purely coincidental, Wang insisted.
"I don't think that IPO schedule is coordinated" with the China-U.S. talks, he said.
The new investment company is supposed to buy a broader array of assets than the central bank usually purchases with its foreign exchange reserves, but it is still a long way from even being established as a separate legal entity. "We hope it will be in operation before the end of this year, but I don't know," Wang said.
China's State Council, the country's top government body, will give the company its capital by putting in foreign exchange, but there has been no decision yet on how much money the company will have, Wang said. The central bank will closely advise the new company once it is created.
"When the new company is set up, it cannot possibly manage tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars" unless it receives help from other government agencies, he added.
It is unusual for Chinese officials to take questions from the media regarding overseas investments, but Wang allowed his phone number to be printed on a Blackstone news release. Answering some of the resulting phone calls was "a little scary," he said.
Holding $1.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, as China does, can be a curse as well as a blessing, forcing tough decisions.
Well before the investment Sunday, the managers of China's foreign exchange reserves had proven themselves unusually willing to venture beyond the U.S. Treasury securities that make up the bulk of most countries' reserves.
Whereas countries like Japan have kept as much as 90 percent of their reserves in Treasury securities, the People's Bank of China has bought at least $100 billion of U.S. mortgage-backed securities as well as large purchases of bonds denominated in euros and other currencies, people close to the purchases said.
China's enormous role in financing other countries' budget deficits is a somewhat sensitive subject within China, with occasional postings on Chinese Web sites suggesting that the money could be better spent inside the country. The state-controlled media have largely ignored the issue and the postings have tended to disappear, a clear sign that the government is not allowing open discussion of the issue.
The official Xinhua press agency waited more than 14 hours, until late Monday evening, to report the Blackstone announcement.
China has such large foreign exchange reserves because it has been buying dollars on a large scale so as to slow the rise of its currency, known as the yuan or renminbi. For most approaches to investing the reserves domestically, the government would effectively have to sell dollars and buy yuan, which would drive up the value of the yuan and defeat the purpose of accumulating the reserves in the first place.
Source: The International Herald Tribune,
By Keith Bradsher - Monday, May 21, 2007
Mondialisation: USA vs China
Premiers désaccords entre Pékin et Washington lors de leur sommet économique
l'ouverture d'une nouvelle session de "dialogue économique stratégique" américano-chinois à Washington, mardi 22 mai, les Etats-Unis ont appelé la Chine à accélérer le rythme de ses réformes économiques, notamment concernant l'évaluation de sa monnaie. Pékin a, pour sa part, mis en garde contre le risque d'une "politisation" de leurs relations commerciales, qui "compliquerait la situation".
Henry Paulson, secrétaire au Trésor américain, a insisté sur "l'impatience" américaine à propos des "déséquilibres commerciaux et financiers persistants" entre les deux pays, et demandé à la Chine de prendre rapidement des mesures pour les corriger. Les inquiétudes américaines en matière de déficit commercial à l'égard de Pékin, qui pèsent sur cette rencontre, sont en partie dûes à l'attitude des parlementaires américains, qui accusent Pékin de maintenir sa monnaie à un niveau artificiellement bas pour favoriser ses exportations. Ils ont menacé de recourir à la loi pour imposer des sanctions contre la Chine, si Pékin refuse de rendre le yuan plus flexible.
Faisant apparemment référence aux inquiétudes du Congrès, M. Paulson a ajouté que le "sentiment antichinois" grandissait aux Etats-Unis, la Chine devenant progressivement "le symbole des inconvénients réels ou imaginaires de la compétition internationale". Il a toutefois précisé que les Etats-Unis n'avaient "pas peur" d'être en concurrence avec la Chine, alors même que Pékin a arraché, dans de nombreux pays, la place de premier partenaire commercial occupée auparavant par les Etats-Unis.
"LES PROBLÈMES DOIVENT ÊTRE ABORDÉS CALMEMENT "
La vice-première ministre chinoise, Wu Yi, qui dirige la délégation de quatorze ministres, s'est pour sa part déclarée hostile à toute "politisation des questions commerciales et économiques", susceptible, selon elle, de "compliquer la situation". "Les problèmes et les controverses doivent être abordés calmement et réglés en accord avec la loi économique", a-t-elle ajouté. Elle a également souligné que les Etats-Unis, le pays le plus développé du monde, et la Chine, en pleine croissance, connaissaient des stades de développement différents et qu'ils se situaient à deux extrémités distinctes de la chaîne de production. "Nous ne devrions nous laisser aller à reprocher à l'autre partie des problèmes intérieurs", a-t-elle affirmé.
Dans ce qui apparaît comme un gage de bonne volonté, la Banque centrale chinoise a annoncé, vendredi, un assouplissement des conditions de fluctuation de sa monnaie et un relèvement de ses taux d'intérêt. De plus, la Chine avait annoncé, en début mai, qu'elle achèterait des produits de haute technologie de fabrication américaine pour un montant de 4,3 milliards de dollars (3,2 milliards d'euros).
Ces gestes n'ont pas satisfait les parlementaires américains, qui ont écrit à Mme Wu que la Chine ne devait pas seulement laisser sa devise s'apprécier, mais aussi faire cesser le piratage du droit d'auteur sur des produits américains. Les industriels américains jugent le yuan sous-évalué d'environ 35 % face au dollar.
LEMONDE.FR avec AFP et Reuters | 22.05.07 | 20h43 • Mis à jour le 22.05.07 | 20h43
l'ouverture d'une nouvelle session de "dialogue économique stratégique" américano-chinois à Washington, mardi 22 mai, les Etats-Unis ont appelé la Chine à accélérer le rythme de ses réformes économiques, notamment concernant l'évaluation de sa monnaie. Pékin a, pour sa part, mis en garde contre le risque d'une "politisation" de leurs relations commerciales, qui "compliquerait la situation".
Henry Paulson, secrétaire au Trésor américain, a insisté sur "l'impatience" américaine à propos des "déséquilibres commerciaux et financiers persistants" entre les deux pays, et demandé à la Chine de prendre rapidement des mesures pour les corriger. Les inquiétudes américaines en matière de déficit commercial à l'égard de Pékin, qui pèsent sur cette rencontre, sont en partie dûes à l'attitude des parlementaires américains, qui accusent Pékin de maintenir sa monnaie à un niveau artificiellement bas pour favoriser ses exportations. Ils ont menacé de recourir à la loi pour imposer des sanctions contre la Chine, si Pékin refuse de rendre le yuan plus flexible.
Faisant apparemment référence aux inquiétudes du Congrès, M. Paulson a ajouté que le "sentiment antichinois" grandissait aux Etats-Unis, la Chine devenant progressivement "le symbole des inconvénients réels ou imaginaires de la compétition internationale". Il a toutefois précisé que les Etats-Unis n'avaient "pas peur" d'être en concurrence avec la Chine, alors même que Pékin a arraché, dans de nombreux pays, la place de premier partenaire commercial occupée auparavant par les Etats-Unis.
"LES PROBLÈMES DOIVENT ÊTRE ABORDÉS CALMEMENT "
La vice-première ministre chinoise, Wu Yi, qui dirige la délégation de quatorze ministres, s'est pour sa part déclarée hostile à toute "politisation des questions commerciales et économiques", susceptible, selon elle, de "compliquer la situation". "Les problèmes et les controverses doivent être abordés calmement et réglés en accord avec la loi économique", a-t-elle ajouté. Elle a également souligné que les Etats-Unis, le pays le plus développé du monde, et la Chine, en pleine croissance, connaissaient des stades de développement différents et qu'ils se situaient à deux extrémités distinctes de la chaîne de production. "Nous ne devrions nous laisser aller à reprocher à l'autre partie des problèmes intérieurs", a-t-elle affirmé.
Dans ce qui apparaît comme un gage de bonne volonté, la Banque centrale chinoise a annoncé, vendredi, un assouplissement des conditions de fluctuation de sa monnaie et un relèvement de ses taux d'intérêt. De plus, la Chine avait annoncé, en début mai, qu'elle achèterait des produits de haute technologie de fabrication américaine pour un montant de 4,3 milliards de dollars (3,2 milliards d'euros).
Ces gestes n'ont pas satisfait les parlementaires américains, qui ont écrit à Mme Wu que la Chine ne devait pas seulement laisser sa devise s'apprécier, mais aussi faire cesser le piratage du droit d'auteur sur des produits américains. Les industriels américains jugent le yuan sous-évalué d'environ 35 % face au dollar.
LEMONDE.FR avec AFP et Reuters | 22.05.07 | 20h43 • Mis à jour le 22.05.07 | 20h43
mardi 22 mai 2007
Fascinating Finance world... isn't it ?
Private bankers ride an updraft in Asia as region's wealth soars
SINGAPORE: Katherine Kosasih, a 28-year-old private banker from Indonesia, took a new job a month ago, and is already receiving phone calls from head hunters who want to lure her away.
"I keep on telling them, 'No more - I want to stay where I am' " said Kosasih, who works in the Singapore office of LGT Bank in Liechtenstein. "But I must be on their database; or maybe a friend in the industry gave them my name. It's quite a small pool of people here and everybody knows everyone."
Kosasih has worked in wealth management for just five years, and has been a relationship manager for just over one year, but already she has worked for three employers in the sector, winning a significant pay rise each time that she has moved on.
After starting her banking career in Australia, as an account officer in a commercial bank in Sydney, she switched to wealth management in 2002, joining a European bank as an assistant private banker in Jakarta - an entry-level job selling wealth management products by cold-calling.
In 2005, moving onward and upward, she joined a Swiss bank in Jakarta as a relationship manager.
She had every intention of staying with her Swiss employer for the long haul, Kosasih said, "but when my boss left the bank it certainly influenced my decision to seek a change."
That decision led to her following her team leader to LGT. "When you're comfortable working with someone and you're comfortable working in a team, it's not unusual to have the whole team move," she said.
Kosasih declined to discuss her salary, or details of her previous employment packages, but industry sources said junior private bankers may receive $65,000-$78,000 a year plus a "significant" bonus, and can earn sharp increases, sometime doubling their salaries, when they move. A very senior banker can easily command several million dollars, plus bonus.
The young Indonesian's fast-track trajectory is far from unique. Private wealth management has been growing at an ever-faster pace in recent years in Asia, where high net worth individuals, defined as people with more than $1 million in liquid assets, had accumulated an estimated $7.6 trillion of financial wealth by the end of 2005, according to the most recent World Wealth Report, published by Merrill Lynch and Cap Gemini last year.
The report predicted these fortunes would increase at an average annual rate of 6.7 percent to reach $10.6 trillion by 2010.
"The industry has really evolved at super speed thanks to the Asian recovery story," said Tee Fong Seng, regional market manager for Southeast Asia at UBS Wealth Management. "People have so much more money, they're all looking for private bankers."
This year alone, industry analysts say, some 1,000 additional private bankers will be needed in Asia to cope with growing demand. This is presenting tremendous employment challenges as the region is facing an undersupply of talent. In the last couple of years the acute shortage of wealth management professionals in Asia has led to a game of musical chairs after bonus time in March and April, as banks have resolved to poach from one another.
In March, Barclays Wealth hired Didier Von Daeniken, a former co-head of private banking at Credit Suisse with over 16 years experience in the wealth market, to drive the British bank's Asian expansion.
According to industry sources, the mobility rate from one bank to another for private bankers in Asia is hovering around 15 percent, and team hiring appears to be on the increase as banks try to supercharge their pursuit of lucrative business opportunities.
In April, Deutsche Bank hired 18 executives from Citigroup Global Wealth Management, as the Citigroup team followed their former boss Ravi Raju - a 16-year Citibank veteran and regional managing director - who had already joined Deutsch Bank a month earlier. Also in April, UBS lost six private bankers to Goldman Sachs, including their team leader, Tan Shern Liang.
Tan has a career profile typical of the most sought-after private bankers. With more than 10 years experience as an asset portfolio manager for Citigroup, he switched to private banking in 1999, first at Citigroup, then at UBS in 2003. He also has a knowledge of Greater China clients and their needs, having worked for several years as a relationship manager on a Taiwan desk. "He's a very experienced private banker and the products knowledge he acquired as an asset manager comes in very useful for his clients," noted an industry source, who asked to remain anonymous. Tan declined to be interviewed for this story.
Christopher Sykes, managing director with responsibility for Greater China at Edward W Kelley, an executive search firm, said finding experienced bankers and persuading them to move to another institution is becoming increasingly difficult.
"You still tend to find good private bankers in the region, but you may also have to go to Switzerland or London," Sykes said. "They are expensive to hire and retain but it's also a question of quality of institution. This is rather important these days."
High-prestige institutions like Morgan Stanley, catering to ultra wealthy individuals, continue to attract talent, Sykes said. But "boutique banks can actually be more attractive for senior bankers because this is where more discerning clients at the top end will go.
"This particular niche, where fees can be high, is where many banks in Asia would like to be these days: low volume, high income."
With so much money in search of management, "it's very exciting for a middle or even a senior-level private banker to access this new wealth," Sykes said. 'If you're working on improving or building a business, it will be a challenge, but not as much as finding new wealth in Europe, for example."
But some industry analysts are starting to sound a note of warning.
"The musical chairs game currently played by wealth managers highlights a fundamental flaw in the wealth management business model," said Justin Ong, head of the wealth management practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
"Spiraling salaries cannot be the answer in this war for talent," Ong said. "It undermines the basis of the economic model."
Universities and training institutes in the region, like the Wealth Management Institute, a Singapore banking school set up in 2003, are not producing enough qualified individuals to meet the industry's growing demands, he added.
Large private banks like UBS, Credit Suisse, and Citigroup have recognized the shortage and started in-house training programs.
UBS, for example, is recruiting and training wealth managers from other branches of banking, and even from outside the industry, said Tee.
"Corporate bankers make the easiest conversion as private bankers and they can bring clients because of their previous job," he said.
"Investment bankers either make it big or find it difficult to adjust because they don't always have the right people skills, " he added.
Increasingly, however, banks are also looking at unrelated professions, hiring and training former engineers, lawyers, sales representatives and civil servants to fill the gaps.
"We look at some key attributes that will make them successful as private bankers. Of course you need some numeric abilities, but you also need an ability to listen well, an ability to converse. You must have an inquisitive mind," Tee said.
Pang Siu Yuin, is now a junior private banker at UBS Wealth Management, as she nears the end of an 18-month in-house training course. In her previous job, Pang was a senior manager at the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, in charge of programming and education.
"I was looking for a radical change of career, and wanted to be in a growth industry, using my people skills," Pang said. She was one of 33 successful candidates out of 3,000 hopefuls from the Asia-Pacific region who applied in 2006 for the first UBS Wealth Management Associate Program.
UBS has set up its own wealth management campus in Singapore and aims to train 5,000 private bankers there by 2010. Students are paid $46,000 to $59,000 annually, plus a bonus, during their training.
As part of the program - which included six weeks of classroom work studying private banking, basic economics, derivatives, and wealth planning, as well as advisory skills - Pang rotated amongst different UBS departments around the globe, including a six-week stint in Zurich which provided her with "a very good insight into the Swiss banking culture," she said. She now works as part of a team, shadowing two senior bankers.
In a world where bonuses are no longer enough to ensure loyalty, banks are trying various other initiatives to retain their employees, especially senior staff, said Ong.
"The higher the seniority, the greater the ownership needs are, and some banks are looking to give senior staff more freedom and responsibility, thus creating an 'ownership' element to the operating model," he said.
Some private banks are even exploring a franchising model, in which teams "are allowed to operate as pseudo-independent outlets within the bank," Ong said.
The franchise approach allows the team leader to take operational ownership of his, or her, business unit within the bank. "This means having the authority to decide on remuneration of relationship managers, pricing structures for products, spending on support services, for example," Ong said.
Several boutique and niche private banks have adopted this type of structure as a way to attract and keep talented managers, he said.
Source: the International Herald Tribune, By Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
SINGAPORE: Katherine Kosasih, a 28-year-old private banker from Indonesia, took a new job a month ago, and is already receiving phone calls from head hunters who want to lure her away.
"I keep on telling them, 'No more - I want to stay where I am' " said Kosasih, who works in the Singapore office of LGT Bank in Liechtenstein. "But I must be on their database; or maybe a friend in the industry gave them my name. It's quite a small pool of people here and everybody knows everyone."
Kosasih has worked in wealth management for just five years, and has been a relationship manager for just over one year, but already she has worked for three employers in the sector, winning a significant pay rise each time that she has moved on.
After starting her banking career in Australia, as an account officer in a commercial bank in Sydney, she switched to wealth management in 2002, joining a European bank as an assistant private banker in Jakarta - an entry-level job selling wealth management products by cold-calling.
In 2005, moving onward and upward, she joined a Swiss bank in Jakarta as a relationship manager.
She had every intention of staying with her Swiss employer for the long haul, Kosasih said, "but when my boss left the bank it certainly influenced my decision to seek a change."
That decision led to her following her team leader to LGT. "When you're comfortable working with someone and you're comfortable working in a team, it's not unusual to have the whole team move," she said.
Kosasih declined to discuss her salary, or details of her previous employment packages, but industry sources said junior private bankers may receive $65,000-$78,000 a year plus a "significant" bonus, and can earn sharp increases, sometime doubling their salaries, when they move. A very senior banker can easily command several million dollars, plus bonus.
The young Indonesian's fast-track trajectory is far from unique. Private wealth management has been growing at an ever-faster pace in recent years in Asia, where high net worth individuals, defined as people with more than $1 million in liquid assets, had accumulated an estimated $7.6 trillion of financial wealth by the end of 2005, according to the most recent World Wealth Report, published by Merrill Lynch and Cap Gemini last year.
The report predicted these fortunes would increase at an average annual rate of 6.7 percent to reach $10.6 trillion by 2010.
"The industry has really evolved at super speed thanks to the Asian recovery story," said Tee Fong Seng, regional market manager for Southeast Asia at UBS Wealth Management. "People have so much more money, they're all looking for private bankers."
This year alone, industry analysts say, some 1,000 additional private bankers will be needed in Asia to cope with growing demand. This is presenting tremendous employment challenges as the region is facing an undersupply of talent. In the last couple of years the acute shortage of wealth management professionals in Asia has led to a game of musical chairs after bonus time in March and April, as banks have resolved to poach from one another.
In March, Barclays Wealth hired Didier Von Daeniken, a former co-head of private banking at Credit Suisse with over 16 years experience in the wealth market, to drive the British bank's Asian expansion.
According to industry sources, the mobility rate from one bank to another for private bankers in Asia is hovering around 15 percent, and team hiring appears to be on the increase as banks try to supercharge their pursuit of lucrative business opportunities.
In April, Deutsche Bank hired 18 executives from Citigroup Global Wealth Management, as the Citigroup team followed their former boss Ravi Raju - a 16-year Citibank veteran and regional managing director - who had already joined Deutsch Bank a month earlier. Also in April, UBS lost six private bankers to Goldman Sachs, including their team leader, Tan Shern Liang.
Tan has a career profile typical of the most sought-after private bankers. With more than 10 years experience as an asset portfolio manager for Citigroup, he switched to private banking in 1999, first at Citigroup, then at UBS in 2003. He also has a knowledge of Greater China clients and their needs, having worked for several years as a relationship manager on a Taiwan desk. "He's a very experienced private banker and the products knowledge he acquired as an asset manager comes in very useful for his clients," noted an industry source, who asked to remain anonymous. Tan declined to be interviewed for this story.
Christopher Sykes, managing director with responsibility for Greater China at Edward W Kelley, an executive search firm, said finding experienced bankers and persuading them to move to another institution is becoming increasingly difficult.
"You still tend to find good private bankers in the region, but you may also have to go to Switzerland or London," Sykes said. "They are expensive to hire and retain but it's also a question of quality of institution. This is rather important these days."
High-prestige institutions like Morgan Stanley, catering to ultra wealthy individuals, continue to attract talent, Sykes said. But "boutique banks can actually be more attractive for senior bankers because this is where more discerning clients at the top end will go.
"This particular niche, where fees can be high, is where many banks in Asia would like to be these days: low volume, high income."
With so much money in search of management, "it's very exciting for a middle or even a senior-level private banker to access this new wealth," Sykes said. 'If you're working on improving or building a business, it will be a challenge, but not as much as finding new wealth in Europe, for example."
But some industry analysts are starting to sound a note of warning.
"The musical chairs game currently played by wealth managers highlights a fundamental flaw in the wealth management business model," said Justin Ong, head of the wealth management practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
"Spiraling salaries cannot be the answer in this war for talent," Ong said. "It undermines the basis of the economic model."
Universities and training institutes in the region, like the Wealth Management Institute, a Singapore banking school set up in 2003, are not producing enough qualified individuals to meet the industry's growing demands, he added.
Large private banks like UBS, Credit Suisse, and Citigroup have recognized the shortage and started in-house training programs.
UBS, for example, is recruiting and training wealth managers from other branches of banking, and even from outside the industry, said Tee.
"Corporate bankers make the easiest conversion as private bankers and they can bring clients because of their previous job," he said.
"Investment bankers either make it big or find it difficult to adjust because they don't always have the right people skills, " he added.
Increasingly, however, banks are also looking at unrelated professions, hiring and training former engineers, lawyers, sales representatives and civil servants to fill the gaps.
"We look at some key attributes that will make them successful as private bankers. Of course you need some numeric abilities, but you also need an ability to listen well, an ability to converse. You must have an inquisitive mind," Tee said.
Pang Siu Yuin, is now a junior private banker at UBS Wealth Management, as she nears the end of an 18-month in-house training course. In her previous job, Pang was a senior manager at the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, in charge of programming and education.
"I was looking for a radical change of career, and wanted to be in a growth industry, using my people skills," Pang said. She was one of 33 successful candidates out of 3,000 hopefuls from the Asia-Pacific region who applied in 2006 for the first UBS Wealth Management Associate Program.
UBS has set up its own wealth management campus in Singapore and aims to train 5,000 private bankers there by 2010. Students are paid $46,000 to $59,000 annually, plus a bonus, during their training.
As part of the program - which included six weeks of classroom work studying private banking, basic economics, derivatives, and wealth planning, as well as advisory skills - Pang rotated amongst different UBS departments around the globe, including a six-week stint in Zurich which provided her with "a very good insight into the Swiss banking culture," she said. She now works as part of a team, shadowing two senior bankers.
In a world where bonuses are no longer enough to ensure loyalty, banks are trying various other initiatives to retain their employees, especially senior staff, said Ong.
"The higher the seniority, the greater the ownership needs are, and some banks are looking to give senior staff more freedom and responsibility, thus creating an 'ownership' element to the operating model," he said.
Some private banks are even exploring a franchising model, in which teams "are allowed to operate as pseudo-independent outlets within the bank," Ong said.
The franchise approach allows the team leader to take operational ownership of his, or her, business unit within the bank. "This means having the authority to decide on remuneration of relationship managers, pricing structures for products, spending on support services, for example," Ong said.
Several boutique and niche private banks have adopted this type of structure as a way to attract and keep talented managers, he said.
Source: the International Herald Tribune, By Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Geopolitique... Russie vs Estonie
Les cyberpirates prennent l'Estonie à l'abordage
Les autorités estoniennes affirment que leur pays est l'objet de cyberattaques pilotées par la Russie et appellent leurs partenaires de l'OTAN et de l'UE à la rescousse. La BBC Online enquête sur le prolongement, via la Toile, de cette crise provoquée par le déplacement d'un monument de l'Armée rouge à Tallinn.
L'Estonie est l'un des Etats les plus connectés à la Toile de l'Union européenne (UE). Mais depuis que Tallinn a décidé de déplacer un monument aux morts soviétique du centre-ville de la capitale – ce qui a déclenché des émeutes de la part des Russes ethniques – le pays est méthodiquement attaqué par des pirates informatiques. Les sites Internet du gouvernement de ce minuscule Etat balte, ainsi que ceux des partis politiques, des médias et du monde des affaires, ont dû fermer temporairement après avoir été l'objet d'attaques par déni de service qui les ont submergés de requêtes externes.
Les internautes ont ainsi été redirigés vers des images de soldats soviétiques et des citations de Martin Luther King invitant à résister au "mal". Quant aux pirates qui s'en sont pris au site du Parti de la réforme (au pouvoir), au plus fort des tensions le 29 avril dernier, ils ont laissé un faux message selon lequel le Premier ministre estonien, Andrus Ansip, et son gouvernement demandaient pardon aux Russes et s'engageaient à réinstaller la statue sur son emplacement d'origine.
En réaction, le gouvernement a verrouillé les accès extérieurs vers les sites visés, tout en s'efforçant de les maintenir à disposition des usagers en Estonie même. Mais ces attaques, que le ministère de la Défense a comparées à des "activités terroristes", ont coûté cher. "Bien sûr, [les sites] peuvent être relancés, mais ils peuvent aussi être de nouveau attaqués", estime Mikhail Tammet, responsable de la sécurité informatique au ministère estonien de la Défense. L'Estonie dépend considérablement d'Internet avec le programme "administration sans papier" du pays [qui vise à transférer sur le Net l'ensemble des services des administrations et du gouvernement] et son système bancaire en réseau sur la Toile. "Si ces services sont ralentis, nous perdons évidemment sur le plan économique", assure-t-il.
Si Tallinn n'a pas officiellement accusé les autorités russes d'être derrière ces agissements, le ministère des Affaires étrangères a publié une liste d'adresses IP à partir desquelles "les attaques ont été lancées". Parmi les coupables présumés, on trouve des adresses du gouvernement et de l'administration présidentielle russes. Dimitri Peskov, porte-parole du Kremlin, a assuré que "l'Etat [russe] ne saurait en aucune façon être impliqué dans le cyber-terrorisme. Quand on voit les adresses IP incriminées, on constate qu'il s'agit d'une sélection très variée de pays du monde entier. Mais cela ne veut pas dire que des gouvernements étrangers sont derrière ces attaques. De plus, comme vous le savez probablement, il est possible de falsifier des adresses IP." Et de rappeler que le site de la présidence russe lui-même est quotidiennement soumis à des "centaines" d'attaques.
David Emm, consultant auprès de Kasperskiy Lab, société moscovite de logiciels antivirus, pense que les pirates sont selon toute probabilité "des jeunes qui, en d'autres temps, auraient écrit et répandu des virus. Je ne serais pas surpris si des gens branchés utilisaient des moyens d'expression techniques", explique-t-il. Anton Nossik, l'un des pionniers d'Internet en Russie, ne voit pas pourquoi l'Etat russe serait impliqué dans ces actes de piraterie, sinon pour attiser le sentiment anti-estonien. "Contrairement à une frappe militaire conventionnelle ou nucléaire, un gouvernement pour ce genre d'attaques n'est pas nécessaire. Le sentiment anti-estonien est présent, alimenté par la propagande officielle russe, et il s'est exprimé dans des articles, sur des blogs, des forums, dans la presse. Il est donc naturel que des hackers aient éprouvé ce sentiment et aient agi en conséquence. Ils n'ont pas besoin de fonds importants et peuvent louer des serveurs puissants dans des pays aussi divers que les Etats-Unis ou la Corée du Sud. Le niveau d'expertise requis est minime, les scripts de virus et les codes sources sont disponibles en ligne, et on trouve des centaines de milliers de groupes qui ont les ressources nécessaires pour lancer une attaque virale massive. Le principe est très simple : il suffit d'envoyer une énorme vague de requêtes simultanées."
Il considère que l'Estonie, en bloquant les accès extérieurs, a opté pour une solution habile, mais qui ne peut fonctionner que dans un pays "de 1,4 million d'habitants parlant une langue non internationale. En Russie, par exemple, les serveurs étrangers représentent 60 % du Net" commente-t-il. Il s'inquiète davantage de savoir comment la Toile mondiale peut se protéger contre les grands virus comme Backbone et son déni de service qui, en février 2007, a touché trois serveurs clés qui font partie de l'épine dorsale d'Internet. "Si on évalue le problème à l'échelle mondiale, celui de l'Estonie est microscopique", conclut-il.
Patrick Jackson
BBC News Online
Les autorités estoniennes affirment que leur pays est l'objet de cyberattaques pilotées par la Russie et appellent leurs partenaires de l'OTAN et de l'UE à la rescousse. La BBC Online enquête sur le prolongement, via la Toile, de cette crise provoquée par le déplacement d'un monument de l'Armée rouge à Tallinn.
L'Estonie est l'un des Etats les plus connectés à la Toile de l'Union européenne (UE). Mais depuis que Tallinn a décidé de déplacer un monument aux morts soviétique du centre-ville de la capitale – ce qui a déclenché des émeutes de la part des Russes ethniques – le pays est méthodiquement attaqué par des pirates informatiques. Les sites Internet du gouvernement de ce minuscule Etat balte, ainsi que ceux des partis politiques, des médias et du monde des affaires, ont dû fermer temporairement après avoir été l'objet d'attaques par déni de service qui les ont submergés de requêtes externes.
Les internautes ont ainsi été redirigés vers des images de soldats soviétiques et des citations de Martin Luther King invitant à résister au "mal". Quant aux pirates qui s'en sont pris au site du Parti de la réforme (au pouvoir), au plus fort des tensions le 29 avril dernier, ils ont laissé un faux message selon lequel le Premier ministre estonien, Andrus Ansip, et son gouvernement demandaient pardon aux Russes et s'engageaient à réinstaller la statue sur son emplacement d'origine.
En réaction, le gouvernement a verrouillé les accès extérieurs vers les sites visés, tout en s'efforçant de les maintenir à disposition des usagers en Estonie même. Mais ces attaques, que le ministère de la Défense a comparées à des "activités terroristes", ont coûté cher. "Bien sûr, [les sites] peuvent être relancés, mais ils peuvent aussi être de nouveau attaqués", estime Mikhail Tammet, responsable de la sécurité informatique au ministère estonien de la Défense. L'Estonie dépend considérablement d'Internet avec le programme "administration sans papier" du pays [qui vise à transférer sur le Net l'ensemble des services des administrations et du gouvernement] et son système bancaire en réseau sur la Toile. "Si ces services sont ralentis, nous perdons évidemment sur le plan économique", assure-t-il.
Si Tallinn n'a pas officiellement accusé les autorités russes d'être derrière ces agissements, le ministère des Affaires étrangères a publié une liste d'adresses IP à partir desquelles "les attaques ont été lancées". Parmi les coupables présumés, on trouve des adresses du gouvernement et de l'administration présidentielle russes. Dimitri Peskov, porte-parole du Kremlin, a assuré que "l'Etat [russe] ne saurait en aucune façon être impliqué dans le cyber-terrorisme. Quand on voit les adresses IP incriminées, on constate qu'il s'agit d'une sélection très variée de pays du monde entier. Mais cela ne veut pas dire que des gouvernements étrangers sont derrière ces attaques. De plus, comme vous le savez probablement, il est possible de falsifier des adresses IP." Et de rappeler que le site de la présidence russe lui-même est quotidiennement soumis à des "centaines" d'attaques.
David Emm, consultant auprès de Kasperskiy Lab, société moscovite de logiciels antivirus, pense que les pirates sont selon toute probabilité "des jeunes qui, en d'autres temps, auraient écrit et répandu des virus. Je ne serais pas surpris si des gens branchés utilisaient des moyens d'expression techniques", explique-t-il. Anton Nossik, l'un des pionniers d'Internet en Russie, ne voit pas pourquoi l'Etat russe serait impliqué dans ces actes de piraterie, sinon pour attiser le sentiment anti-estonien. "Contrairement à une frappe militaire conventionnelle ou nucléaire, un gouvernement pour ce genre d'attaques n'est pas nécessaire. Le sentiment anti-estonien est présent, alimenté par la propagande officielle russe, et il s'est exprimé dans des articles, sur des blogs, des forums, dans la presse. Il est donc naturel que des hackers aient éprouvé ce sentiment et aient agi en conséquence. Ils n'ont pas besoin de fonds importants et peuvent louer des serveurs puissants dans des pays aussi divers que les Etats-Unis ou la Corée du Sud. Le niveau d'expertise requis est minime, les scripts de virus et les codes sources sont disponibles en ligne, et on trouve des centaines de milliers de groupes qui ont les ressources nécessaires pour lancer une attaque virale massive. Le principe est très simple : il suffit d'envoyer une énorme vague de requêtes simultanées."
Il considère que l'Estonie, en bloquant les accès extérieurs, a opté pour une solution habile, mais qui ne peut fonctionner que dans un pays "de 1,4 million d'habitants parlant une langue non internationale. En Russie, par exemple, les serveurs étrangers représentent 60 % du Net" commente-t-il. Il s'inquiète davantage de savoir comment la Toile mondiale peut se protéger contre les grands virus comme Backbone et son déni de service qui, en février 2007, a touché trois serveurs clés qui font partie de l'épine dorsale d'Internet. "Si on évalue le problème à l'échelle mondiale, celui de l'Estonie est microscopique", conclut-il.
Patrick Jackson
BBC News Online
lundi 21 mai 2007
Energy...2
Cartel countdown?
Alarm bells rang out across Europe last week as talk once again surfaced over the possible creation of an OPEC-style cartel between the world's gas exporters.
Ministers from 16 gas-producing nations gathered in Doha for the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) with the agenda dominated by cartel speculation. While analysts suggest that it could be a number of years until such an organisation is born however, it appears that the gas giants are no longer merely talking hot air. And a significant proportion of the gas-rich fraternity is showing a genuine desire to get the cartel wheels in motion.
Last week, delegates from Iran and Qatar both strived to play down rumours that the conference had anything to do with the forming of a ‘gas OPEC'. "I hate the name cartel. We're just here to consider our interests," said Qatar's minister of petroleum, Abdullah Al Attiyah.
Story continues below ↓
advertisement
Iran's energy representative, Seyed Hamaneh, told reporters: "The cartel is not an issue. We're here to exchange views on technical issues and on the markets." But as they tried in vain to dowse the fire of speculation, other energy leaders made it clear that a gas OPEC was definitely on their agendas. "In the long run, yes, we are moving towards a gas OPEC," Chakib Khelil, Algeria's oil minister said, although he added that it would be "a long time" before gas markets were liquid enough that such a group could be formed. Meanwhile, Venezuelan oil minister Rafael Ramirez also stated the case for a global gas-producing alliance. "We believe it is a good opportunity to have some discussions about this organisation," he said. "In spite of huge developments in the gas industry and growing demand to import it by consumers, great challenges face the producing countries."
Of course Russia, which controls over a quarter of the world's gas reserves, is likely to be the driving force behind any future cartel movement. At the GECF, Viktor Khristenko, Russia's industry and energy minister, said: "Russia is ready to be the one that will carry out research into the problem of price formation for gas."
In what could be the first step towards a gas cartel, the GECF member states did agree last week to set up a committee to focus on pricing. The body will be set up in conjunction with Russian gas giant Gazprom and Qatar's state-owned oil company. Asked whether the move would eventually evolve into a gas OPEC, Algeria's Khelil said: "Maybe in 10 to 15 years we will see the possibility of an organisation that would be effective in this market." It was the words of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei back in January that started the latest wave of speculation over an OPEC-style cartel.
During a state visit by Igor Ivanov, Secretary of Russia's Security Council, Ali Khamenei publicly proposed the formation of a gas exporters organisation. This lead Russian President Vladimir Putin to describe a cartel as an "interesting idea".
During the GECF meeting, a number of major gas-consumers spoke out against moves towards a global gas alliance. While some European leaders warned that a gas cartel would spur consumers to move to alternative sources, Andris Piebalgs, the European Union's energy commissioner said: "I'm calling for [gas exporters] not to do this because it's definitely not a healthy development in the gas market." But opposition is not limited to the West. Japan - which imports over 81 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year - has also come forward in opposition to the idea of a cartel. "If I'm asked whether we had better create one or not, I would say it's not desirable," Japan's trade minister Akira Amari said recently. "[Gas] trades in each market under free-trade circumstances, it is different from oil," he added.
Maintaining a firm stance against the forming of a gas cartel, a spokesperson for the International Energy Agency tells Arabian Business: "We believe that a cartel is always bad news for consumers and consumer countries, but cartels are also counterproductive for producing countries. Pushing up prices by forming a cartel will encourage consumers to reduce demand or switch to other fuels. This is particularly true for gas, which can be substituted with coal and nuclear power. Cartels distort behaviour and do not strengthen the security of supply."
Despite facing opposition from some of the world's largest economies however, it appears that the birth of a gas cartel is more a question of ‘when' rather than ‘if'.
So how long is it likely to be before we see its formation? According to the Egyptian energy minister Sameh Fahmi, "the world is not prepared" for a gas OPEC. The main stumbling block appears to be the fact that gas prices can vary in different areas and the commodity is not traded in the same way as oil. "At least in the OPEC, you know what the price of the crude oil is, you know the quotas. With regards to gas, nobody knows the prices and nobody is declaring the price of their exports," said Fahmi recently.
Majid Jafar, business development director of Dana Gas - the Middle East's first private-sector regional gas company - agrees that the creation of a price-fixing cartel is unlikely given the nature of the gas sector. "The ministers in Doha were correct when they dismissed accusations that the gas forum would turn into a cartel that would control prices and supply quotas on a global scale," he says. "Gas is fundamentally different from oil in one major respect - the high cost of transportation, whether by pipeline or LNG. This means that gas prices are a local phenomenon and vary considerably from region to region."
Jafar also cites the fact that oil barrels are traded multiple times and quickly - making it easier to set a global price due to the ease of shipping - as a major difference that makes oil far more attuned to the cartel-culture than gas. The use of long-term contracts in the gas industry also makes a gas OPEC with the power to manipulate prices unlikely in the near future at least.
Tilak Doshi, executive director of energy at Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, explains: "The gas market has long-term contracts between buyers and sellers [lasting] 20 to 25 years, with the value linked to oil prices. So any idea of setting prices is quite inapplicable at least until there is a global gas market with spot prices." According to Doshi, between 10 and 12% of liquified natural gas (LNG) is currently traded as spot gas - gas that is bought and sold on a short-term basis. Doshi believes that the next five years will bring the evolution of a "more global gas market but even then it's too early to talk about a cartel."
It appears that, despite ongoing speculation, the birth of the gas OPEC is a long way off and a price-fixing cartel will be tough to achieve. Fundamentally different from the oil market, the gas trade would have to undergo sweeping changes before it could adopt the OPEC model. For the moment, the gas exporting giants will have to make do with the GEFC - more informal talking shop than price-controlling alliance - as its porthole for discussion and debate. What we will see in the near future is more analysis on how gas prices are calculated, as Jonathan Stern, director of gas research at the Oxford Institute for Energy studies said recently: "It makes sense for gas exporters to re-examine why the price of gas is linked to oil prices." In the meantime, the gas giants can concern themselves with the more pressing issues that could limit supplies and drive prices up.
As equipment costs continue to rise and the skills shortage worsens, LNG production and gas investment are slowing down. Iran, that has 15.9% of the world's proven gas supply, needs more investment to fulfill its export potential. Political tension over the country's nuclear program however looks set to hinder the foreign investment needed to exploit its huge reserves. The Middle East's ability to export its gas reserves to the world could be increasingly hampered by the region's rapidly increasing domestic consumption, while Russia is similarly facing soaring demand at home alongside decreasing production at existing sites. All of which could spell bad news for price-conscious consumers.
Source: www.arabianbusiness.com, by Andrew Mernin, 15 April 2007
Alarm bells rang out across Europe last week as talk once again surfaced over the possible creation of an OPEC-style cartel between the world's gas exporters.
Ministers from 16 gas-producing nations gathered in Doha for the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) with the agenda dominated by cartel speculation. While analysts suggest that it could be a number of years until such an organisation is born however, it appears that the gas giants are no longer merely talking hot air. And a significant proportion of the gas-rich fraternity is showing a genuine desire to get the cartel wheels in motion.
Last week, delegates from Iran and Qatar both strived to play down rumours that the conference had anything to do with the forming of a ‘gas OPEC'. "I hate the name cartel. We're just here to consider our interests," said Qatar's minister of petroleum, Abdullah Al Attiyah.
Story continues below ↓
advertisement
Iran's energy representative, Seyed Hamaneh, told reporters: "The cartel is not an issue. We're here to exchange views on technical issues and on the markets." But as they tried in vain to dowse the fire of speculation, other energy leaders made it clear that a gas OPEC was definitely on their agendas. "In the long run, yes, we are moving towards a gas OPEC," Chakib Khelil, Algeria's oil minister said, although he added that it would be "a long time" before gas markets were liquid enough that such a group could be formed. Meanwhile, Venezuelan oil minister Rafael Ramirez also stated the case for a global gas-producing alliance. "We believe it is a good opportunity to have some discussions about this organisation," he said. "In spite of huge developments in the gas industry and growing demand to import it by consumers, great challenges face the producing countries."
Of course Russia, which controls over a quarter of the world's gas reserves, is likely to be the driving force behind any future cartel movement. At the GECF, Viktor Khristenko, Russia's industry and energy minister, said: "Russia is ready to be the one that will carry out research into the problem of price formation for gas."
In what could be the first step towards a gas cartel, the GECF member states did agree last week to set up a committee to focus on pricing. The body will be set up in conjunction with Russian gas giant Gazprom and Qatar's state-owned oil company. Asked whether the move would eventually evolve into a gas OPEC, Algeria's Khelil said: "Maybe in 10 to 15 years we will see the possibility of an organisation that would be effective in this market." It was the words of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei back in January that started the latest wave of speculation over an OPEC-style cartel.
During a state visit by Igor Ivanov, Secretary of Russia's Security Council, Ali Khamenei publicly proposed the formation of a gas exporters organisation. This lead Russian President Vladimir Putin to describe a cartel as an "interesting idea".
During the GECF meeting, a number of major gas-consumers spoke out against moves towards a global gas alliance. While some European leaders warned that a gas cartel would spur consumers to move to alternative sources, Andris Piebalgs, the European Union's energy commissioner said: "I'm calling for [gas exporters] not to do this because it's definitely not a healthy development in the gas market." But opposition is not limited to the West. Japan - which imports over 81 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year - has also come forward in opposition to the idea of a cartel. "If I'm asked whether we had better create one or not, I would say it's not desirable," Japan's trade minister Akira Amari said recently. "[Gas] trades in each market under free-trade circumstances, it is different from oil," he added.
Maintaining a firm stance against the forming of a gas cartel, a spokesperson for the International Energy Agency tells Arabian Business: "We believe that a cartel is always bad news for consumers and consumer countries, but cartels are also counterproductive for producing countries. Pushing up prices by forming a cartel will encourage consumers to reduce demand or switch to other fuels. This is particularly true for gas, which can be substituted with coal and nuclear power. Cartels distort behaviour and do not strengthen the security of supply."
Despite facing opposition from some of the world's largest economies however, it appears that the birth of a gas cartel is more a question of ‘when' rather than ‘if'.
So how long is it likely to be before we see its formation? According to the Egyptian energy minister Sameh Fahmi, "the world is not prepared" for a gas OPEC. The main stumbling block appears to be the fact that gas prices can vary in different areas and the commodity is not traded in the same way as oil. "At least in the OPEC, you know what the price of the crude oil is, you know the quotas. With regards to gas, nobody knows the prices and nobody is declaring the price of their exports," said Fahmi recently.
Majid Jafar, business development director of Dana Gas - the Middle East's first private-sector regional gas company - agrees that the creation of a price-fixing cartel is unlikely given the nature of the gas sector. "The ministers in Doha were correct when they dismissed accusations that the gas forum would turn into a cartel that would control prices and supply quotas on a global scale," he says. "Gas is fundamentally different from oil in one major respect - the high cost of transportation, whether by pipeline or LNG. This means that gas prices are a local phenomenon and vary considerably from region to region."
Jafar also cites the fact that oil barrels are traded multiple times and quickly - making it easier to set a global price due to the ease of shipping - as a major difference that makes oil far more attuned to the cartel-culture than gas. The use of long-term contracts in the gas industry also makes a gas OPEC with the power to manipulate prices unlikely in the near future at least.
Tilak Doshi, executive director of energy at Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, explains: "The gas market has long-term contracts between buyers and sellers [lasting] 20 to 25 years, with the value linked to oil prices. So any idea of setting prices is quite inapplicable at least until there is a global gas market with spot prices." According to Doshi, between 10 and 12% of liquified natural gas (LNG) is currently traded as spot gas - gas that is bought and sold on a short-term basis. Doshi believes that the next five years will bring the evolution of a "more global gas market but even then it's too early to talk about a cartel."
It appears that, despite ongoing speculation, the birth of the gas OPEC is a long way off and a price-fixing cartel will be tough to achieve. Fundamentally different from the oil market, the gas trade would have to undergo sweeping changes before it could adopt the OPEC model. For the moment, the gas exporting giants will have to make do with the GEFC - more informal talking shop than price-controlling alliance - as its porthole for discussion and debate. What we will see in the near future is more analysis on how gas prices are calculated, as Jonathan Stern, director of gas research at the Oxford Institute for Energy studies said recently: "It makes sense for gas exporters to re-examine why the price of gas is linked to oil prices." In the meantime, the gas giants can concern themselves with the more pressing issues that could limit supplies and drive prices up.
As equipment costs continue to rise and the skills shortage worsens, LNG production and gas investment are slowing down. Iran, that has 15.9% of the world's proven gas supply, needs more investment to fulfill its export potential. Political tension over the country's nuclear program however looks set to hinder the foreign investment needed to exploit its huge reserves. The Middle East's ability to export its gas reserves to the world could be increasingly hampered by the region's rapidly increasing domestic consumption, while Russia is similarly facing soaring demand at home alongside decreasing production at existing sites. All of which could spell bad news for price-conscious consumers.
Source: www.arabianbusiness.com, by Andrew Mernin, 15 April 2007
dimanche 20 mai 2007
samedi 19 mai 2007
Geopolitic: North and South Korea
Trains cross divided Korean Peninsula
MUNSAN, South Korea: Trains crossed the border between North and South Korea on Thursday for the first time in 56 years, in what was hailed by both sides as a milestone for reconciliation on the divided Korean Peninsula.
As white balloons soared into a blue sky, soldiers swung open barbed-wire-topped gates shortly after noon to let a five-car South Korean train enter North Korea. It entered through the 4-kilometer-wide, or 2.5-mile-wide, demilitarized zone, the world's most heavily armed border.
At the same time, 240 kilometers to the east, a North Korean train trundled down the coast.
Although these were one-time test runs on two short stretches of railway that were linked through the demilitarized zone several years ago, they were highly symbolic to Koreans. No train had crossed the border since the last trains carrying refugees and wounded soldiers arrived in South Korea from the north during the Korean War in 1951.
For decades here, in South Korean postcards and school textbooks, the bullet-scarred, rusting hulks of wartime locomotives trapped in the demilitarized zone have symbolized a divided Korea and a conflict that has never been formally ended.
North Korea and South Korea are still technically at war - the Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
"These are not just test runs," Unification Minister Lee Jae Joung of South Korea said. "They mean reconnecting the severed bloodline of the Korean nation." He spoke during a ceremony at Munsan Station, 12 kilometers south of the demilitarized zone. "The trains carry our dream of peace."
His North Korean counterpart, Kwon Ho Ung, who was also in Munsan, said the trains represented the "Korean nation's wish to gallop to the destination of reunification," despite what he called outside forces - apparently a reference to the United States - that are "not happy with reconciliation among Koreans."
The major television networks in South Korea broadcast the event live.
The South Korean train, carrying 150 people from both sides of the border, pulled out of Munsan around 11:30 a.m. as fireworks exploded overhead. It traveled 27 kilometers to Gaesong, a North Korean border town where South Korea runs factories employing workers from the North, where labor is less costly than in the South. The North Korean train, which also carried passengers from both sides of the border, made a similar journey, traveling between the Diamond Mountain resort and Jejin, 40 kilometers to the south.
South Korea has long dreamed of building a trans-Korea railroad that would connect its train network to China and to the Trans-Siberian Railway in the former Soviet Union, creating a so-called Iron Silk Road.
North Korea blocks overland access to Asia, which makes South Koreans "feel as if we live in an island," the South Korean transportation minister, Lee Yong Sup, said Wednesday.
A trans-Korea railroad would offer a faster and cheaper way for South Korea to bring exports that are now shipped by sea to China and Europe. It would also provide a shortcut for Russian oil and other natural resources transported to South Korea. Such a rail system would save South Korea $34 to $50 a ton in shipping costs, said Lim Jae Kyung, a researcher at the Korea Transport Institute.
But before the dream of a trans-Korea rail system comes true, transportation analysts and government officials say, years of confidence-building talks and billions of dollars in investment in North Korea's decrepit rail system will be needed.
Officials acknowledge that such a dream will not be made real until after North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons and improves its human rights record. Those moves would help build public support in South Korea for large investments across the border and would open the way for international development aid.
Six-nation talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs have been stalled for months. Doubts persist over whether Pyongyang will give up its weapons program in return for economic aid and diplomatic recognition from Washington.
"I cannot understand why we should give rice, flour, fertilizer and everything else the North Koreans want when they don't do anything for us," said Hong Moo Sun, 71, one of a dozen South Koreans protesting just outside Munsan Station on Thursday.
The protesters were calling for North Korea to return their relatives. Hundreds of South Korean fishermen, described by the North as defectors, were taken to the North in the years following the war.
Several who have returned have said that they had been held against their will.
Members of the Grand National Party, part of the conservative opposition, called the event Thursday a "train of illusion" - the event, they said, appeared to draw voters' attention in an election year.
South Korean officials say a trans-Korea railroad would invigorate inter-Korean trade, which tripled from $430 million in 2000 to $1.35 billion last year.
It would also bring cash to North Korea, which could collect an estimated $150 million a year in transit fees from trains that pass through its territory, Lim, the researcher, said.
But it is unclear whether or when North Korea might agree to regular train service across the border.
Procuring international aid to renovate the rail network and letting trains from one of Asia's most vibrant economies, carrying exports and tourists, rumble through its isolated territory could threaten the North Korean regime, analysts and others say. North Korea now relies on keeping its people ignorant of the outside world to maintain its totalitarian grip on power, those analysts add.
Both Koreas agreed in 2000 to reconnect their rail systems, which had been severed by aerial bombing during the war. It took three years to relink the tracks on the west and east ends of the border.
After four more years of haggling and delays, the North Korean military agreed this month to allow one-time test runs.
The agreement came after South Korea promised to send North Korea 400,000 tons of rice, as well as $80 million worth of raw materials for shoes, soap and textiles.
South Korea has spent 544.5 billion won, or $589 million, on reconnecting the rail system, including 180 billion won worth of equipment, tracks and other material loaned to North Korea.
South Korean policy makers have called for patience in working toward reconciliation with the North. They have often been accused by conservative politicians and civic groups of giving in to North Korea's strategy of extracting economic aid for every step toward reconciliation.
"This is a precious first step for a 1,000-mile journey," Lee, the unification minister, said Thursday.
Source: By Choe Sang-Hun - Thursday, May 17, 2007 - The International Herald Tribune
MUNSAN, South Korea: Trains crossed the border between North and South Korea on Thursday for the first time in 56 years, in what was hailed by both sides as a milestone for reconciliation on the divided Korean Peninsula.
As white balloons soared into a blue sky, soldiers swung open barbed-wire-topped gates shortly after noon to let a five-car South Korean train enter North Korea. It entered through the 4-kilometer-wide, or 2.5-mile-wide, demilitarized zone, the world's most heavily armed border.
At the same time, 240 kilometers to the east, a North Korean train trundled down the coast.
Although these were one-time test runs on two short stretches of railway that were linked through the demilitarized zone several years ago, they were highly symbolic to Koreans. No train had crossed the border since the last trains carrying refugees and wounded soldiers arrived in South Korea from the north during the Korean War in 1951.
For decades here, in South Korean postcards and school textbooks, the bullet-scarred, rusting hulks of wartime locomotives trapped in the demilitarized zone have symbolized a divided Korea and a conflict that has never been formally ended.
North Korea and South Korea are still technically at war - the Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
"These are not just test runs," Unification Minister Lee Jae Joung of South Korea said. "They mean reconnecting the severed bloodline of the Korean nation." He spoke during a ceremony at Munsan Station, 12 kilometers south of the demilitarized zone. "The trains carry our dream of peace."
His North Korean counterpart, Kwon Ho Ung, who was also in Munsan, said the trains represented the "Korean nation's wish to gallop to the destination of reunification," despite what he called outside forces - apparently a reference to the United States - that are "not happy with reconciliation among Koreans."
The major television networks in South Korea broadcast the event live.
The South Korean train, carrying 150 people from both sides of the border, pulled out of Munsan around 11:30 a.m. as fireworks exploded overhead. It traveled 27 kilometers to Gaesong, a North Korean border town where South Korea runs factories employing workers from the North, where labor is less costly than in the South. The North Korean train, which also carried passengers from both sides of the border, made a similar journey, traveling between the Diamond Mountain resort and Jejin, 40 kilometers to the south.
South Korea has long dreamed of building a trans-Korea railroad that would connect its train network to China and to the Trans-Siberian Railway in the former Soviet Union, creating a so-called Iron Silk Road.
North Korea blocks overland access to Asia, which makes South Koreans "feel as if we live in an island," the South Korean transportation minister, Lee Yong Sup, said Wednesday.
A trans-Korea railroad would offer a faster and cheaper way for South Korea to bring exports that are now shipped by sea to China and Europe. It would also provide a shortcut for Russian oil and other natural resources transported to South Korea. Such a rail system would save South Korea $34 to $50 a ton in shipping costs, said Lim Jae Kyung, a researcher at the Korea Transport Institute.
But before the dream of a trans-Korea rail system comes true, transportation analysts and government officials say, years of confidence-building talks and billions of dollars in investment in North Korea's decrepit rail system will be needed.
Officials acknowledge that such a dream will not be made real until after North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons and improves its human rights record. Those moves would help build public support in South Korea for large investments across the border and would open the way for international development aid.
Six-nation talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs have been stalled for months. Doubts persist over whether Pyongyang will give up its weapons program in return for economic aid and diplomatic recognition from Washington.
"I cannot understand why we should give rice, flour, fertilizer and everything else the North Koreans want when they don't do anything for us," said Hong Moo Sun, 71, one of a dozen South Koreans protesting just outside Munsan Station on Thursday.
The protesters were calling for North Korea to return their relatives. Hundreds of South Korean fishermen, described by the North as defectors, were taken to the North in the years following the war.
Several who have returned have said that they had been held against their will.
Members of the Grand National Party, part of the conservative opposition, called the event Thursday a "train of illusion" - the event, they said, appeared to draw voters' attention in an election year.
South Korean officials say a trans-Korea railroad would invigorate inter-Korean trade, which tripled from $430 million in 2000 to $1.35 billion last year.
It would also bring cash to North Korea, which could collect an estimated $150 million a year in transit fees from trains that pass through its territory, Lim, the researcher, said.
But it is unclear whether or when North Korea might agree to regular train service across the border.
Procuring international aid to renovate the rail network and letting trains from one of Asia's most vibrant economies, carrying exports and tourists, rumble through its isolated territory could threaten the North Korean regime, analysts and others say. North Korea now relies on keeping its people ignorant of the outside world to maintain its totalitarian grip on power, those analysts add.
Both Koreas agreed in 2000 to reconnect their rail systems, which had been severed by aerial bombing during the war. It took three years to relink the tracks on the west and east ends of the border.
After four more years of haggling and delays, the North Korean military agreed this month to allow one-time test runs.
The agreement came after South Korea promised to send North Korea 400,000 tons of rice, as well as $80 million worth of raw materials for shoes, soap and textiles.
South Korea has spent 544.5 billion won, or $589 million, on reconnecting the rail system, including 180 billion won worth of equipment, tracks and other material loaned to North Korea.
South Korean policy makers have called for patience in working toward reconciliation with the North. They have often been accused by conservative politicians and civic groups of giving in to North Korea's strategy of extracting economic aid for every step toward reconciliation.
"This is a precious first step for a 1,000-mile journey," Lee, the unification minister, said Thursday.
Source: By Choe Sang-Hun - Thursday, May 17, 2007 - The International Herald Tribune
Geopolitique... nouvelles guerres informatiques
Russie-Estonie : la guerre électronique
Le conflit larvé qui oppose Moscou et Tallinn s’entend sur internet, à tel point que cette cyber-guerre sera au menu du sommet UE-Russie.
Deux banques, des journaux, de nombreux sites gouvernementaux ou de partis politiques : les dégâts sont lourds en Estonie depuis le début de la cyber-guerre que se livrent Tallin et Moscou. Internet et les infrastructures informatiques sont en effet devenus des champs de bataille où se reflète la crise diplomatique entre les deux pays. Explications.
Le 27 avril dernier, l’Estonie décide de déboulonner un monument à la gloire de l’armée rouge. Plusieurs attaques informatiques, menées grâce à la tactique du déni de service (qui consiste à surcharger un serveur informatique), sont aussitôt signalées contre les sites officiels estoniens. En représailles, plusieurs sites russes semblent avoir été visés, dont le quotidien Kommersant et la radio des Echos de Moscou. Et l’affrontement continue depuis, avec un pic atteint le 9 mai, date anniversaire de la victoire russe sur l’Allemagne nazie.
Qui sont ces combattants de l’ombre qui s’affrontent à distance ? Pour l’heure, un seul pirate a été arrêté. Ce jeune estonien de 19 ans postait sur des forums les adresses des sites gouvernementaux estoniens à attaquer. D’autres attaques sont menées par des pirates grâce à des bataillons d’ordinateurs privés infectés au préalable par des virus. En Russie, un membre des Nachis, les jeunes militants pro-Poutine, a déclaré avoir participé à certaines attaques.
La main du Kremlin ?
Simples affrontements entre communautés de pirates russes et estoniens ? Certains en doutent, croyant voir la main du Kremlin derrière l’offensive, particulièrement dangereuse pour un pays aussi dépendant de l’informatique que l’Estonie. Le 30 avril, le ministre de la Justice estonien déclare, sans accuser directement le Kremlin, que la source de certaines attaques remonte directement à des ordinateurs d’institutions officielles russes. Quelques jours plus tard, c’est au tour du ministre des Affaires étrangères de demander à Moscou des « excuses » après les cyber-attaques. Même le président estonien, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, laisse deviner qui est coupable à ses yeux : « en Europe, on n'a pas l'habitude d'organiser des cyber-attaques contre les sites des administrations d'autres pays », déclare-t-il. D’autres officiels estoniens déclarent au Guardian que le « général » de cette cyber-guerre a été identifié, en la personne d’un Russe « lié aux services de sécurité fédéraux ».
Et l’Estonie d’en appeler à l’Otan pour se défendre. Le secrétaire général de l'OTAN s’est dit « préoccupé » par les attaques et l’organisation a dépêché trois spécialistes à Tallin. Le dossier devrait être prudemment abordé lors du sommet UE-Russie de Samara, qui commence jeudi soir sur les bords de la Volga.
La dernière cyber-guerre de cette ampleur remonte à la guerre du Liban. Israël attaquait les sites liés au Hezbollah, tandis que des pirates anti-guerre s’en prenaient, eux, à des sites officiels israéliens ou américains. Si la preuve de l’implication de l’Etat russe est apportée, cette offensive deviendra le premier assaut électronique d’un pays contre un autre.
Laurent Suply (lefigaro.fr).
Source: lefigaro.fr, le 18/05/2007
Le conflit larvé qui oppose Moscou et Tallinn s’entend sur internet, à tel point que cette cyber-guerre sera au menu du sommet UE-Russie.
Deux banques, des journaux, de nombreux sites gouvernementaux ou de partis politiques : les dégâts sont lourds en Estonie depuis le début de la cyber-guerre que se livrent Tallin et Moscou. Internet et les infrastructures informatiques sont en effet devenus des champs de bataille où se reflète la crise diplomatique entre les deux pays. Explications.
Le 27 avril dernier, l’Estonie décide de déboulonner un monument à la gloire de l’armée rouge. Plusieurs attaques informatiques, menées grâce à la tactique du déni de service (qui consiste à surcharger un serveur informatique), sont aussitôt signalées contre les sites officiels estoniens. En représailles, plusieurs sites russes semblent avoir été visés, dont le quotidien Kommersant et la radio des Echos de Moscou. Et l’affrontement continue depuis, avec un pic atteint le 9 mai, date anniversaire de la victoire russe sur l’Allemagne nazie.
Qui sont ces combattants de l’ombre qui s’affrontent à distance ? Pour l’heure, un seul pirate a été arrêté. Ce jeune estonien de 19 ans postait sur des forums les adresses des sites gouvernementaux estoniens à attaquer. D’autres attaques sont menées par des pirates grâce à des bataillons d’ordinateurs privés infectés au préalable par des virus. En Russie, un membre des Nachis, les jeunes militants pro-Poutine, a déclaré avoir participé à certaines attaques.
La main du Kremlin ?
Simples affrontements entre communautés de pirates russes et estoniens ? Certains en doutent, croyant voir la main du Kremlin derrière l’offensive, particulièrement dangereuse pour un pays aussi dépendant de l’informatique que l’Estonie. Le 30 avril, le ministre de la Justice estonien déclare, sans accuser directement le Kremlin, que la source de certaines attaques remonte directement à des ordinateurs d’institutions officielles russes. Quelques jours plus tard, c’est au tour du ministre des Affaires étrangères de demander à Moscou des « excuses » après les cyber-attaques. Même le président estonien, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, laisse deviner qui est coupable à ses yeux : « en Europe, on n'a pas l'habitude d'organiser des cyber-attaques contre les sites des administrations d'autres pays », déclare-t-il. D’autres officiels estoniens déclarent au Guardian que le « général » de cette cyber-guerre a été identifié, en la personne d’un Russe « lié aux services de sécurité fédéraux ».
Et l’Estonie d’en appeler à l’Otan pour se défendre. Le secrétaire général de l'OTAN s’est dit « préoccupé » par les attaques et l’organisation a dépêché trois spécialistes à Tallin. Le dossier devrait être prudemment abordé lors du sommet UE-Russie de Samara, qui commence jeudi soir sur les bords de la Volga.
La dernière cyber-guerre de cette ampleur remonte à la guerre du Liban. Israël attaquait les sites liés au Hezbollah, tandis que des pirates anti-guerre s’en prenaient, eux, à des sites officiels israéliens ou américains. Si la preuve de l’implication de l’Etat russe est apportée, cette offensive deviendra le premier assaut électronique d’un pays contre un autre.
Laurent Suply (lefigaro.fr).
Source: lefigaro.fr, le 18/05/2007
jeudi 17 mai 2007
Geopoitique...Russie vs UE...
La Russie peut-elle diviser l'UE ?
Le sommet UE-Russie s'ouvrira jeudi 17 mai à Samara dans une atmosphère tendue. De nombreux conflits opposent la Russie aux pays de l'Est membres de l'UE, alors que les pays occidentaux espèrent renforcer la coopération entre Bruxelles et Moscou. L'UE élargie va-t-elle trouver un terrain d'entente face à la Russie ?
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Allemagne)
L'eurodéputé tchèque Josef Zieleniec, ex-ministre des Affaires étrangères, appelle l'UE à faire front contre la Russie. "A Samara, il ne s'agira de rien de moins que de l'avenir de la communauté politique européenne. Pendant des siècles, les monarques russes ont considéré l'Europe centrale et orientale comme leur zone d'influence naturelle. Ce point de vue fait aujourd'hui partie des piliers de la raison d'Etat russe, sans que l'adhésion à l'UE des jeunes démocraties y ait changé quoi que ce soit. (...) La Russie conteste systématiquement le droit à la souveraineté de ses anciens satellites. Elle saisit toutes les occasions pour les isoler du reste de l'UE et s'en servir contre les membres occidentaux. La grave crise autour d'un monument soviétique en Estonie, les menaces militaires en réaction au projet de bouclier antimissile [américain en Pologne et République tchèque], le blocage des importations de viande en provenance de Pologne, l'utilisation répétée du robinet à gaz comme matraque politique en sont les exemples les plus récents."
Latvijas Avize (Lettonie)
Uldis Smits est sceptique quant à l'amélioration des relations UE-Russie lors du sommet. Le conflit entre Moscou et Tallinn au sujet du 'Soldat de bronze' assombrit la rencontre. "Par la haine qu'elle fomente contre l'Estonie, la Russie rend involontairement service aux Pays baltes. Les médias occidentaux ont subitement commencé à s'intéresser aux événements des années 40. La conclusion à laquelle ils sont parvenus en analysant l'histoire n'est pas conforme à l'idéologie officielle de Moscou. Les 'manifestations spontanées' dirigées par le Kremlin sont perçues comme une campagne anti-occidentale orchestrée par Moscou. (...) Le père du nouveau président français Nicolas Sarkozy avait quitté la Hongrie pour fuir l'Armée rouge, et Nicolas Sarkozy lui-même ne cache pas sa sympathie pour les Etats-Unis. (...) Du fait de la disparition de la scène politique de la vieille garde des amis du Kremlin, comme Gerhard Schröder, Silvio Berlusconi et Jacques Chirac, Moscou aura davantage de difficultés à atteindre ses objectifs en Europe."
Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Suisse)
Pour Hansrudolf Kamer, l'Europe n'a pas encore trouvé de réponse convaincante à la 'grossière politique russe'. Il demande que la politique étrangère commune de l'UE prenne en considération les conflits opposant les pays d'Europe de l'Est à la Russie. "La vieille Europe doit avoir conscience du fait que l'élargissement de l'UE aux anciens pays satellites et membres de l'ex-Union soviétique met à mal les relations avec Moscou. L'UE n'a pas le choix, elle accomplit son devoir. Elle ne peut pas tenter de régler ses problèmes avec la Russie aux dépens de ses nouveaux membres. Prague, Varsovie et Tallinn, pour ne citer que ces capitales, ont leur mot à dire quant à la politique à adopter vis-à-vis de la grande puissance de l'Est. Elles ne se laisseront pas ôter ce droit par un nouveau traité constitutionnel. (...) Jusqu'à aujourd'hui, l'Union européenne était dans une situation confortable car elle pouvait imposer ses conditions aux nouveaux membres. Maintenant, elle va devoir faire preuve d'une plus grande solidarité avec eux, notamment en cas de crise."
Financial Times (Royaume-Uni)
Les universitaires Bertrand Benoit et Richard Milne rapportent qu'une dispute autour de la Russie a récemment opposé à Bruxelles les ambassadeurs d'Allemagne et de la Lituanie. Cette dispute "a soulevé la question de la capacité de l'Allemagne, qui occupe actuellement la présidence tournante de l'UE, à garder une position neutre dans les dossiers qui opposent la Russie aux anciens pays satellites soviétiques d'Europe de l'Est. (...) Le monde des affaires en Allemagne a besoin d'entretenir de bonnes relations avec une Russie stable, même si elle est autoritaire, et il a une influence considérable à Berlin. (...) En alimentant cette relation particulière avec Moscou, Berlin contribue cependant, selon certains experts européens, à diviser l'Europe. De plus, ils estiment que les intérêts allemands - qui consistent à persuader une Russie de plus en plus riche et de plus en plus ferme de continuer à fournir de l'énergie - seraient mieux défendus dans le cadre d'une véritable politique européenne à l'égard de Moscou."
Source: courrierinternational.com, le 17/05/2007
Le sommet UE-Russie s'ouvrira jeudi 17 mai à Samara dans une atmosphère tendue. De nombreux conflits opposent la Russie aux pays de l'Est membres de l'UE, alors que les pays occidentaux espèrent renforcer la coopération entre Bruxelles et Moscou. L'UE élargie va-t-elle trouver un terrain d'entente face à la Russie ?
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Allemagne)
L'eurodéputé tchèque Josef Zieleniec, ex-ministre des Affaires étrangères, appelle l'UE à faire front contre la Russie. "A Samara, il ne s'agira de rien de moins que de l'avenir de la communauté politique européenne. Pendant des siècles, les monarques russes ont considéré l'Europe centrale et orientale comme leur zone d'influence naturelle. Ce point de vue fait aujourd'hui partie des piliers de la raison d'Etat russe, sans que l'adhésion à l'UE des jeunes démocraties y ait changé quoi que ce soit. (...) La Russie conteste systématiquement le droit à la souveraineté de ses anciens satellites. Elle saisit toutes les occasions pour les isoler du reste de l'UE et s'en servir contre les membres occidentaux. La grave crise autour d'un monument soviétique en Estonie, les menaces militaires en réaction au projet de bouclier antimissile [américain en Pologne et République tchèque], le blocage des importations de viande en provenance de Pologne, l'utilisation répétée du robinet à gaz comme matraque politique en sont les exemples les plus récents."
Latvijas Avize (Lettonie)
Uldis Smits est sceptique quant à l'amélioration des relations UE-Russie lors du sommet. Le conflit entre Moscou et Tallinn au sujet du 'Soldat de bronze' assombrit la rencontre. "Par la haine qu'elle fomente contre l'Estonie, la Russie rend involontairement service aux Pays baltes. Les médias occidentaux ont subitement commencé à s'intéresser aux événements des années 40. La conclusion à laquelle ils sont parvenus en analysant l'histoire n'est pas conforme à l'idéologie officielle de Moscou. Les 'manifestations spontanées' dirigées par le Kremlin sont perçues comme une campagne anti-occidentale orchestrée par Moscou. (...) Le père du nouveau président français Nicolas Sarkozy avait quitté la Hongrie pour fuir l'Armée rouge, et Nicolas Sarkozy lui-même ne cache pas sa sympathie pour les Etats-Unis. (...) Du fait de la disparition de la scène politique de la vieille garde des amis du Kremlin, comme Gerhard Schröder, Silvio Berlusconi et Jacques Chirac, Moscou aura davantage de difficultés à atteindre ses objectifs en Europe."
Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Suisse)
Pour Hansrudolf Kamer, l'Europe n'a pas encore trouvé de réponse convaincante à la 'grossière politique russe'. Il demande que la politique étrangère commune de l'UE prenne en considération les conflits opposant les pays d'Europe de l'Est à la Russie. "La vieille Europe doit avoir conscience du fait que l'élargissement de l'UE aux anciens pays satellites et membres de l'ex-Union soviétique met à mal les relations avec Moscou. L'UE n'a pas le choix, elle accomplit son devoir. Elle ne peut pas tenter de régler ses problèmes avec la Russie aux dépens de ses nouveaux membres. Prague, Varsovie et Tallinn, pour ne citer que ces capitales, ont leur mot à dire quant à la politique à adopter vis-à-vis de la grande puissance de l'Est. Elles ne se laisseront pas ôter ce droit par un nouveau traité constitutionnel. (...) Jusqu'à aujourd'hui, l'Union européenne était dans une situation confortable car elle pouvait imposer ses conditions aux nouveaux membres. Maintenant, elle va devoir faire preuve d'une plus grande solidarité avec eux, notamment en cas de crise."
Financial Times (Royaume-Uni)
Les universitaires Bertrand Benoit et Richard Milne rapportent qu'une dispute autour de la Russie a récemment opposé à Bruxelles les ambassadeurs d'Allemagne et de la Lituanie. Cette dispute "a soulevé la question de la capacité de l'Allemagne, qui occupe actuellement la présidence tournante de l'UE, à garder une position neutre dans les dossiers qui opposent la Russie aux anciens pays satellites soviétiques d'Europe de l'Est. (...) Le monde des affaires en Allemagne a besoin d'entretenir de bonnes relations avec une Russie stable, même si elle est autoritaire, et il a une influence considérable à Berlin. (...) En alimentant cette relation particulière avec Moscou, Berlin contribue cependant, selon certains experts européens, à diviser l'Europe. De plus, ils estiment que les intérêts allemands - qui consistent à persuader une Russie de plus en plus riche et de plus en plus ferme de continuer à fournir de l'énergie - seraient mieux défendus dans le cadre d'une véritable politique européenne à l'égard de Moscou."
Source: courrierinternational.com, le 17/05/2007
mercredi 16 mai 2007
Energy...1
HYDROCARBURES - La "guerre des pipelines" décryptée par la presse russe
La question de l'acheminement du pétrole et du gaz de la mer Caspienne vers les pays européens donne lieu à des rivalités économiques et diplomatiques sans fin entre Moscou et l'Occident. Qui risquent d'hypothéquer le prochain sommet Russie-UE à Samara.
"La visite en Asie centrale de Vladimir Poutine peut être considérée comme l'une des plus réussies de sa carrière." Dans un éditorial, le journal d'opposition Nezavissimaïa Gazeta se félicite du succès de la tournée du chef de l'Etat russe, entamée le 10 mai au Kazakhstan et poursuivie au Turkménistan. Et pour cause : "Au grand dam des Etats-Unis et de l'Europe, le président russe a obtenu que le gaz turkmène arrive aux consommateurs européens en passant par le Kazakhstan et la Russie."
En effet, comme le souligne Kommersant, cette visite de Poutine a coïncidé avec le "sommet énergétique antirusse" dit "des cinq" (à savoir la Pologne, l'Ukraine, l'Azerbaïdjan, la Géorgie et le Kazakhstan), à Cracovie, les 11 et 13 mai, où ces pays se sont mis d'accord sur "la construction d'un nouvel oléoduc d'Odessa à Gdansk, qui contournerait la Russie en utilisant les pipelines déjà existants, Odessa-Brodi (Ukraine) et Plotsk-Gdansk (Pologne)". Or, le Kazakhstan n'était pas représenté par son président, Noursoultan Nazerbaev, qui de son côté signait un accord concurrent avec ses homologues russe, Vladimir Poutine, et turkmène, Gourbangouly Berdymoukhamedov.
Pour la NG, "ce succès économique et de politique extérieure de la Russie est la conséquence d'une part de l'autorité renaissante de notre pays et de ses dirigeants dans les pays asiatiques de l'ancienne Union soviétique, et d'autre part d'une certaine désillusion des pays en développement à l'égard des bénéfices liés à leur coopération avec les pays occidentaux".
En revanche, le quotidien économique moscovite RBK Daily ne partage pas ce point de vue. "La tournée de Vladimir Poutine en Asie centrale a montré une fois de plus que Moscou a peu de leviers efficaces pour agir sur ses voisins", note ce journal russe publié en partenariat avec l'allemand Handelsblatt. Ce jugement sévère s'appuie sur le fait que, "malgré toutes les concessions faites à Astana et à Achkhabat, Poutine n'a réussi qu'à retarder la construction du projet de gazoduc transcaspien (TKG)", qui contournera la Russie.
La Russie a renforcé sa position de transit des hydrocarbures d'Asie centrale exportés vers l'Europe alors même que cette dernière souhaite diversifier ses approvisionnements énergétiques pour alléger sa dépendance à l'égard de la Russie. "Le principal objectif suivi par la Russie, c'est-à-dire le renforcement de sa position dans le dialogue énergétique avec les pays de l'Union européenne, est pratiquement atteint", note Ekspert. D'après le magazine, le succès russe est d'autant plus remarquable qu'il "contraste particulièrement avec les acquis misérables de l'autre sommet énergétique qui s'est tenu parallèlement à Cracovie".
Pour Vremia Novostieï, "la réunion d'Achkhabat a eu l'effet d'une gifle pour les participants du sommet énergétique de Cracovie, dont la Pologne voulait faire le point de départ de la fondation d'un 'OTAN énergétique'". D'après le journal russe, le sommet UE-Russie qui doit se tenir les 17 et 18 mai à Samara, en Russie, pourrait en faire les frais.
Philippe Randrianarimanana
Source: courrierinternational.com
La question de l'acheminement du pétrole et du gaz de la mer Caspienne vers les pays européens donne lieu à des rivalités économiques et diplomatiques sans fin entre Moscou et l'Occident. Qui risquent d'hypothéquer le prochain sommet Russie-UE à Samara.
"La visite en Asie centrale de Vladimir Poutine peut être considérée comme l'une des plus réussies de sa carrière." Dans un éditorial, le journal d'opposition Nezavissimaïa Gazeta se félicite du succès de la tournée du chef de l'Etat russe, entamée le 10 mai au Kazakhstan et poursuivie au Turkménistan. Et pour cause : "Au grand dam des Etats-Unis et de l'Europe, le président russe a obtenu que le gaz turkmène arrive aux consommateurs européens en passant par le Kazakhstan et la Russie."
En effet, comme le souligne Kommersant, cette visite de Poutine a coïncidé avec le "sommet énergétique antirusse" dit "des cinq" (à savoir la Pologne, l'Ukraine, l'Azerbaïdjan, la Géorgie et le Kazakhstan), à Cracovie, les 11 et 13 mai, où ces pays se sont mis d'accord sur "la construction d'un nouvel oléoduc d'Odessa à Gdansk, qui contournerait la Russie en utilisant les pipelines déjà existants, Odessa-Brodi (Ukraine) et Plotsk-Gdansk (Pologne)". Or, le Kazakhstan n'était pas représenté par son président, Noursoultan Nazerbaev, qui de son côté signait un accord concurrent avec ses homologues russe, Vladimir Poutine, et turkmène, Gourbangouly Berdymoukhamedov.
Pour la NG, "ce succès économique et de politique extérieure de la Russie est la conséquence d'une part de l'autorité renaissante de notre pays et de ses dirigeants dans les pays asiatiques de l'ancienne Union soviétique, et d'autre part d'une certaine désillusion des pays en développement à l'égard des bénéfices liés à leur coopération avec les pays occidentaux".
En revanche, le quotidien économique moscovite RBK Daily ne partage pas ce point de vue. "La tournée de Vladimir Poutine en Asie centrale a montré une fois de plus que Moscou a peu de leviers efficaces pour agir sur ses voisins", note ce journal russe publié en partenariat avec l'allemand Handelsblatt. Ce jugement sévère s'appuie sur le fait que, "malgré toutes les concessions faites à Astana et à Achkhabat, Poutine n'a réussi qu'à retarder la construction du projet de gazoduc transcaspien (TKG)", qui contournera la Russie.
La Russie a renforcé sa position de transit des hydrocarbures d'Asie centrale exportés vers l'Europe alors même que cette dernière souhaite diversifier ses approvisionnements énergétiques pour alléger sa dépendance à l'égard de la Russie. "Le principal objectif suivi par la Russie, c'est-à-dire le renforcement de sa position dans le dialogue énergétique avec les pays de l'Union européenne, est pratiquement atteint", note Ekspert. D'après le magazine, le succès russe est d'autant plus remarquable qu'il "contraste particulièrement avec les acquis misérables de l'autre sommet énergétique qui s'est tenu parallèlement à Cracovie".
Pour Vremia Novostieï, "la réunion d'Achkhabat a eu l'effet d'une gifle pour les participants du sommet énergétique de Cracovie, dont la Pologne voulait faire le point de départ de la fondation d'un 'OTAN énergétique'". D'après le journal russe, le sommet UE-Russie qui doit se tenir les 17 et 18 mai à Samara, en Russie, pourrait en faire les frais.
Philippe Randrianarimanana
Source: courrierinternational.com
mardi 15 mai 2007
Histoire... la loi de lustration jugee anticonstitutionnelle
POLOGNE - Journée noire pour les frères Kaczynski
La Cour constitutionnelle a rendu son verdict. Selon elle, de nombreux articles de la loi sur les "lustrations" sont anticonstitutionnels. Un coup dur pour les frères Kaczynski, pour lesquels la décommunisation reste une priorité. Pendant que l'opposition jubile, la droite maintient son cap dans la chasse aux collabos de l'époque communiste.
En vigueur depuis le 15 mars, la loi sur les "lustrations" oblige les membres d'une cinquantaine de professions nés avant 1972 d'avouer leurs contacts avec la police secrète à l'époque communiste. Mais le vendredi 11 mai, à la demande de l'Alliance de la gauche démocratique (SLD), qui regroupe, entre autres, d'anciens communistes, la Cour constitutionnelle a rendu son verdict. Elle considère comme anticonstitutionnels plusieurs articles de cette loi, et par conséquent elle demande d'élaborer un nouveau projet, sans mettre toutefois en cause la nécessité d'une telle décommunisation.
C'est un grand coup porté contre la coalition au pouvoir, et surtout contre les frères Kaczynski, respectivement Premier ministre et président de la République, pour qui la décommunisation reste une priorité. "La Cour constitutionnelle a massacré la loi sur les lustrations. Elle a considéré que plusieurs dizaines de ses articles sont anticonstitutionnels. C'est contre eux que l'intelligentsia polonaise a protesté", explique Jaroslaw Kurski, commentateur politique du quotidien Gazeta Wyborcza. "C'est une grande défaite de Droit et justice. Les juges ont anéanti le principal projet du camp des lustrations généralisées", considère Kurski. "La Cour constitutionnelle a résisté aux pressions du PiS et elle a défendu la loi en Pologne. Les juges méritent notre estime et notre reconnaissance." En effet, les politiciens ont essayé de retarder la procédure et de révoquer certains membres de la Cour sous prétexte de leur passé, mais sans succès.
Bronislaw Wildstein, ancien opposant rendu célèbre par la publication d'une liste d'"agents" relevée à l'Institut de la mémoire nationale (IPN), qui gère les archives de la sécurité communiste, n'est pas surpris par le verdict et propose de continuer en direction de la transparence. "La nouvelle situation", estime-t-il dans les pages du quotidien conservateur Rzeczpospolita, "exige une nouvelle solution juridique." Selon lui, le meilleur moyen d'en finir serait de rendre publiques toutes ces archives, à l'exception de celles qui portent sur la vie privée des personnes qu'elles concernent. "Si l'on impose la transparence, il sera impossible de manipuler les dossiers des anciens services de sécurité. Cela va empêcher les chantages, les fuites et d'autres agissements de ce type." Selon lui, les archives appartiennent à la société. "Ces fonds constituent une mine de connaissances sur la Pologne communiste", souligne-t-il.
Une bonne nouvelle, enfin. "Le président veut connaître l'opinion sur les lustrations", se réjouit le quotidien de droite Dziennik. "C'est pourquoi il veut rencontrer les chefs de tous les clubs parlementaires…" Pour mieux élaborer un nouveau projet de lustration.
Et le quotidien populaire Super Express résume la situation à sa façon. A la une, les deux frères Kaczynski déguisés en plombiers, ventouse et clé anglaise à la main. Le titre : "Encore un bousillage, messieurs…"
Iwona Ostapkowicz
Source: courrierinternational.com
La Cour constitutionnelle a rendu son verdict. Selon elle, de nombreux articles de la loi sur les "lustrations" sont anticonstitutionnels. Un coup dur pour les frères Kaczynski, pour lesquels la décommunisation reste une priorité. Pendant que l'opposition jubile, la droite maintient son cap dans la chasse aux collabos de l'époque communiste.
En vigueur depuis le 15 mars, la loi sur les "lustrations" oblige les membres d'une cinquantaine de professions nés avant 1972 d'avouer leurs contacts avec la police secrète à l'époque communiste. Mais le vendredi 11 mai, à la demande de l'Alliance de la gauche démocratique (SLD), qui regroupe, entre autres, d'anciens communistes, la Cour constitutionnelle a rendu son verdict. Elle considère comme anticonstitutionnels plusieurs articles de cette loi, et par conséquent elle demande d'élaborer un nouveau projet, sans mettre toutefois en cause la nécessité d'une telle décommunisation.
C'est un grand coup porté contre la coalition au pouvoir, et surtout contre les frères Kaczynski, respectivement Premier ministre et président de la République, pour qui la décommunisation reste une priorité. "La Cour constitutionnelle a massacré la loi sur les lustrations. Elle a considéré que plusieurs dizaines de ses articles sont anticonstitutionnels. C'est contre eux que l'intelligentsia polonaise a protesté", explique Jaroslaw Kurski, commentateur politique du quotidien Gazeta Wyborcza. "C'est une grande défaite de Droit et justice. Les juges ont anéanti le principal projet du camp des lustrations généralisées", considère Kurski. "La Cour constitutionnelle a résisté aux pressions du PiS et elle a défendu la loi en Pologne. Les juges méritent notre estime et notre reconnaissance." En effet, les politiciens ont essayé de retarder la procédure et de révoquer certains membres de la Cour sous prétexte de leur passé, mais sans succès.
Bronislaw Wildstein, ancien opposant rendu célèbre par la publication d'une liste d'"agents" relevée à l'Institut de la mémoire nationale (IPN), qui gère les archives de la sécurité communiste, n'est pas surpris par le verdict et propose de continuer en direction de la transparence. "La nouvelle situation", estime-t-il dans les pages du quotidien conservateur Rzeczpospolita, "exige une nouvelle solution juridique." Selon lui, le meilleur moyen d'en finir serait de rendre publiques toutes ces archives, à l'exception de celles qui portent sur la vie privée des personnes qu'elles concernent. "Si l'on impose la transparence, il sera impossible de manipuler les dossiers des anciens services de sécurité. Cela va empêcher les chantages, les fuites et d'autres agissements de ce type." Selon lui, les archives appartiennent à la société. "Ces fonds constituent une mine de connaissances sur la Pologne communiste", souligne-t-il.
Une bonne nouvelle, enfin. "Le président veut connaître l'opinion sur les lustrations", se réjouit le quotidien de droite Dziennik. "C'est pourquoi il veut rencontrer les chefs de tous les clubs parlementaires…" Pour mieux élaborer un nouveau projet de lustration.
Et le quotidien populaire Super Express résume la situation à sa façon. A la une, les deux frères Kaczynski déguisés en plombiers, ventouse et clé anglaise à la main. Le titre : "Encore un bousillage, messieurs…"
Iwona Ostapkowicz
Source: courrierinternational.com
samedi 12 mai 2007
Music...11... Mia Rose Youtube phenomena
1/25/07, 5:07 pm EST
YouTube Phenom Mia Rose Has Her Thorns?
In the last few weeks, vlogs from Mia Rose, a disturbingly well-packaged 18-year-old singer-songwriter, have become some of the most-viewed videos on YouTube. Rose is a well-scrubbed but coy girl-next-door with decent guitar skills, a welcome-to-Hollywood worthy voice and a knack for bearing her midriff without seeming trashy (harder than it looks). She has posted a series of her own original tunes (the particularly cheesy “Husband to Be” is a fan favorite) plus karaoke-style covers on her YouTube channel and has quickly risen to the forefront of the next Lonelygirl15 list. Except Mia Rose might not be a fake.
As her popularity has soared, the expected collection of haters has appeared. Appropriately named YouTuber Lazy Dork wrote a reasonably clever satirical song (with the charming refrain “Shut the fuck up, Mia Rose” sung to the tune of Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”) that mocks Rose for being prepackaged and produced. And in this clip another YouTuber takes us through the various dummy accounts Rose (and presumably her handlers) may be using to boost her YouTube numbers. Meanwhile, Rose isn’t helping matters by recording self-satisfied vlogs about how she doesn’t have enough time for her many fans now that she’s traipsing around the world meeting with record-label reps.
Obviously this girl is manipulating the YouTube system for her own gain, but is there anything wrong with that? Has she violated some sort of social contract with the viewers? And what do you think of the tunes?
-- Elizabeth Goodman
Source:http://www.rollingstone.com
English....7
harsh = ungentle and unpleasant in action or effect: harsh treatment; harsh manners.
shattered = bouleverse, ebranle
cure = traitement, remede
heck = hell = enfer
awkward (adj)= clumsy = maladroit
outage = marchandises perdues, arret de fonctionnement
shattered = bouleverse, ebranle
cure = traitement, remede
heck = hell = enfer
awkward (adj)= clumsy = maladroit
outage = marchandises perdues, arret de fonctionnement
vendredi 11 mai 2007
Geopolitique...16
An Indian town's 21st-century ambitions exceed its power supply
UMRED, India: When the authorities cut off the electricity here, they picked on the wrong town.
In the villages and small hamlets where most Indians live, power blackouts are as common as bullock carts. India does not have enough electricity for all of its 1.1 billion people, and so daily outages as long as 18 hours are imposed on smaller settlements so that megacities like Mumbai can enjoy a 24-hour supply. It is an arrangement that is suffered mostly in silence.
But last February, in this small, dusty town of 50,000 in central India, where goats and children scamper through the byways, the blackouts triggered a violent revolt. Thousands marched on the local government offices, some pelting stones, others setting police jeeps ablaze. When the police fired their guns to scatter the mob, at least two people were struck and killed.
That one town exploded over what others quietly endure is perhaps an anomaly. But a recent visit to Umred suggested that the uprising might also reflect new anxieties stewing in a nation where ambitions are trickling down much faster than the means to achieve them.
Umred belongs to a growing number of small, rapidly urbanizing towns in India - not yet a city but no longer a village - whose people have yet to taste the fruits of economic growth but have nonetheless acquired the aspirations and expectations that are growth's byproducts.
Satellite television is beaming urban India's new cravings and anxieties into Umred's living rooms. Relatives who migrated to cities are returning home with tales of lucrative jobs and trendy nightclubs. The Internet has emboldened the young to hunt beyond the town for jobs, life partners and ideas.
But even as big-city dreams flow to Umred, there is not enough electricity for those dreams to come true.
"Electricity is essential to ambition," said Ravindra Misal, the 26-year-old owner of an English-language academy here, "because I need it to do my homework, I need it to listen to music if I am a dancer, I need it to listen to tapes of great speakers, I need it to surf the Internet.
"But I cannot, so people get angry. They have bigger expectations, but electricity is becoming a hurdle on their path."
Ten years ago, this was a sleepy town, little altered since it emerged as a trading hub for surrounding villages. Farmers' sons became farmers. Women married young and lived with their in-laws. Few spoke enough English to work in a city like Mumbai; even if they did, few would abandon aging parents to take the job. It was a place far removed from the bustling business and soaring ambitions of globalized, metropolitan India.
But if new wealth remains concentrated in urban areas, the longings created by growth are spreading more evenly. To buy a washing machine costs money, but to desire one is free. And so Umred began to catch ambition's bug, expecting more than had been its lot.
Farmers' children began leaving the farm for big-city jobs. Young women whose mothers barely left the home began venturing to Nagpur, a small city an hour's drive away, and even Mumbai, an overnight train journey away, to study subjects like fashion design.
Last year, the town held its first-ever Mister and Miss Umred contests. Sixty-eight people competed, and while Umred's resources were limited, it strove to follow global practices.
"We gave them a crown," said Misal, the English teacher, who helped organize the show. "It was plastic, but it was good."
English-language training became a growth industry as the young sought to leave town. Five years ago there was one English-language school in Umred; there are now 10. Misal's private academy offers a spoken-English course whose price reflects how far down the economic strata ambition has seeped: For 90 hours of classes over 45 days, he charges just $24.
"If they speak English, they feel that they can influence people, they can talk with high-class girls," Misal said over tea at a roadside stall. "They are doing what their parents couldn't do. The laborer's son is going for hotel management."
It was in this changed climate that the blackouts struck.
In India, electricity is controlled by state governments, and until a few years ago Maharashtra State, which includes Umred and Mumbai, the Indian financial capital formerly called Bombay, enjoyed a power surplus. But as energy demand has soared among the middle class, this state and others have failed to expand the supply.
The result is large-scale rationing. Big cities like Mumbai are spared as much as possible, to avoid discouraging investment. The burden is carried by villages and small towns.
Entering the hottest season, however, the crisis is so acute in Maharashtra that even Mumbai may face blackouts. They would be the first in decades, and Mumbai's Scotch-sipping elite is furious at the prospect of no air conditioning for 90 minutes a day.
In Umred, a 90-minute disruption would be a luxury. Its blackouts are typically eight to 12 hours a day.
"Why?" barked Abhay Lanjewar, the proprietor of a sporting-goods store in Umred. "They're humans in Bombay, but we're only animals here?"
For Prashant Sapate, the 36-year-old owner of an Umred printing business, blackouts have strangled business, cost him sleep and threatened his baby's health.
Because the electricity is often absent during much of the workday, he does much of his printing between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.
His four-month-old baby recently had bronchitis. The doctor told Sapate to bring the baby in twice a day to receive medicine from an electric inhaler. But at the appointed time, there was often no electricity.
Sapate had to use a pump inhaler. The baby took more than three weeks to recover, rather than the eight to 10 days originally anticipated.
Yet one thing enraged Umred more than any other. Its heightened expectations are distilled in a new craving for schooling. Across India, there is a new insistence among the uneducated that their children receive educations and break poverty's hereditary chain.
But the blackouts were distracting their children from their evening studying. When the parents marched in February, a principal demand was that blackouts be suspended during the annual examinations that can make or break a child's career in India.
Sushrut Lanjewar, an 8-year-old with a Spider-Man T-shirt, is still learning his letters, but he has already reached a grown-up conclusion. He knows he must study his way out of Umred, and he intends to do so. He wants to be a botanist and discover a plant to thwart global warming.
But a mysterious force is obstructing him, he said.
Several nights a week, he said, electricity vanishes from Umred. The houses darken. The televisions sputter off. Lanjewar, a nephew of the sporting-goods seller, lights a candle to finish his homework.
But he loses his focus, he said, because of the flickering light and the motionless ceiling fan that fails to blow mosquitoes away.
"Are these people crazy who keep turning off the light?" he asked, not just angry but inquisitive. Why do grown-ups keep telling him to do his homework and then shut off the light?
He was told that 8-year-olds in Mumbai have 24-hour electricity.
His eyes bulged. He looked like a child stripped of Santa Claus fantasies. "If they can get the light," he asked, "how come we can't get it?"
Source: By Anand Giridharadas - Friday, May 4, 2007 - The International Herald Tribune
UMRED, India: When the authorities cut off the electricity here, they picked on the wrong town.
In the villages and small hamlets where most Indians live, power blackouts are as common as bullock carts. India does not have enough electricity for all of its 1.1 billion people, and so daily outages as long as 18 hours are imposed on smaller settlements so that megacities like Mumbai can enjoy a 24-hour supply. It is an arrangement that is suffered mostly in silence.
But last February, in this small, dusty town of 50,000 in central India, where goats and children scamper through the byways, the blackouts triggered a violent revolt. Thousands marched on the local government offices, some pelting stones, others setting police jeeps ablaze. When the police fired their guns to scatter the mob, at least two people were struck and killed.
That one town exploded over what others quietly endure is perhaps an anomaly. But a recent visit to Umred suggested that the uprising might also reflect new anxieties stewing in a nation where ambitions are trickling down much faster than the means to achieve them.
Umred belongs to a growing number of small, rapidly urbanizing towns in India - not yet a city but no longer a village - whose people have yet to taste the fruits of economic growth but have nonetheless acquired the aspirations and expectations that are growth's byproducts.
Satellite television is beaming urban India's new cravings and anxieties into Umred's living rooms. Relatives who migrated to cities are returning home with tales of lucrative jobs and trendy nightclubs. The Internet has emboldened the young to hunt beyond the town for jobs, life partners and ideas.
But even as big-city dreams flow to Umred, there is not enough electricity for those dreams to come true.
"Electricity is essential to ambition," said Ravindra Misal, the 26-year-old owner of an English-language academy here, "because I need it to do my homework, I need it to listen to music if I am a dancer, I need it to listen to tapes of great speakers, I need it to surf the Internet.
"But I cannot, so people get angry. They have bigger expectations, but electricity is becoming a hurdle on their path."
Ten years ago, this was a sleepy town, little altered since it emerged as a trading hub for surrounding villages. Farmers' sons became farmers. Women married young and lived with their in-laws. Few spoke enough English to work in a city like Mumbai; even if they did, few would abandon aging parents to take the job. It was a place far removed from the bustling business and soaring ambitions of globalized, metropolitan India.
But if new wealth remains concentrated in urban areas, the longings created by growth are spreading more evenly. To buy a washing machine costs money, but to desire one is free. And so Umred began to catch ambition's bug, expecting more than had been its lot.
Farmers' children began leaving the farm for big-city jobs. Young women whose mothers barely left the home began venturing to Nagpur, a small city an hour's drive away, and even Mumbai, an overnight train journey away, to study subjects like fashion design.
Last year, the town held its first-ever Mister and Miss Umred contests. Sixty-eight people competed, and while Umred's resources were limited, it strove to follow global practices.
"We gave them a crown," said Misal, the English teacher, who helped organize the show. "It was plastic, but it was good."
English-language training became a growth industry as the young sought to leave town. Five years ago there was one English-language school in Umred; there are now 10. Misal's private academy offers a spoken-English course whose price reflects how far down the economic strata ambition has seeped: For 90 hours of classes over 45 days, he charges just $24.
"If they speak English, they feel that they can influence people, they can talk with high-class girls," Misal said over tea at a roadside stall. "They are doing what their parents couldn't do. The laborer's son is going for hotel management."
It was in this changed climate that the blackouts struck.
In India, electricity is controlled by state governments, and until a few years ago Maharashtra State, which includes Umred and Mumbai, the Indian financial capital formerly called Bombay, enjoyed a power surplus. But as energy demand has soared among the middle class, this state and others have failed to expand the supply.
The result is large-scale rationing. Big cities like Mumbai are spared as much as possible, to avoid discouraging investment. The burden is carried by villages and small towns.
Entering the hottest season, however, the crisis is so acute in Maharashtra that even Mumbai may face blackouts. They would be the first in decades, and Mumbai's Scotch-sipping elite is furious at the prospect of no air conditioning for 90 minutes a day.
In Umred, a 90-minute disruption would be a luxury. Its blackouts are typically eight to 12 hours a day.
"Why?" barked Abhay Lanjewar, the proprietor of a sporting-goods store in Umred. "They're humans in Bombay, but we're only animals here?"
For Prashant Sapate, the 36-year-old owner of an Umred printing business, blackouts have strangled business, cost him sleep and threatened his baby's health.
Because the electricity is often absent during much of the workday, he does much of his printing between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.
His four-month-old baby recently had bronchitis. The doctor told Sapate to bring the baby in twice a day to receive medicine from an electric inhaler. But at the appointed time, there was often no electricity.
Sapate had to use a pump inhaler. The baby took more than three weeks to recover, rather than the eight to 10 days originally anticipated.
Yet one thing enraged Umred more than any other. Its heightened expectations are distilled in a new craving for schooling. Across India, there is a new insistence among the uneducated that their children receive educations and break poverty's hereditary chain.
But the blackouts were distracting their children from their evening studying. When the parents marched in February, a principal demand was that blackouts be suspended during the annual examinations that can make or break a child's career in India.
Sushrut Lanjewar, an 8-year-old with a Spider-Man T-shirt, is still learning his letters, but he has already reached a grown-up conclusion. He knows he must study his way out of Umred, and he intends to do so. He wants to be a botanist and discover a plant to thwart global warming.
But a mysterious force is obstructing him, he said.
Several nights a week, he said, electricity vanishes from Umred. The houses darken. The televisions sputter off. Lanjewar, a nephew of the sporting-goods seller, lights a candle to finish his homework.
But he loses his focus, he said, because of the flickering light and the motionless ceiling fan that fails to blow mosquitoes away.
"Are these people crazy who keep turning off the light?" he asked, not just angry but inquisitive. Why do grown-ups keep telling him to do his homework and then shut off the light?
He was told that 8-year-olds in Mumbai have 24-hour electricity.
His eyes bulged. He looked like a child stripped of Santa Claus fantasies. "If they can get the light," he asked, "how come we can't get it?"
Source: By Anand Giridharadas - Friday, May 4, 2007 - The International Herald Tribune
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