[living] les mythes sur le phénomène criminel en Russie

Depuis la fin des années 80, il est autorisé de parler de la criminalité en Russie : des statistiques sont publiées, les sources d'informations se multiplient. Ce phénomène nouveau engendre une perception erronée du phénomène criminel.

Une mythologie se crée ainsi, présente non seulement dans l'opinion publique, mais aussi dans les média et les discours des dirigeants politiques. Sept mythes peuvent être identifiés.

Le premier correspond à la conviction selon laquelle la hausse actuelle de la criminalité serait extraordinaire. Il est dû à la surabondance de statistiques publiées sur ce thème.

Si on prend du recul par rapport aux chiffres publiés, il est clair que le niveau actuel de la criminalité ne constitue pas un recors. il est bien moins élevé qu'au cours des années 20 en U.R.S.S et n'atteind pas le niveau existant aux Etats-Unis ou dans les pays d'Europe occidentale.

Le taux d'élucidation des faits a beau baisser en Russie de façon préoccupante, il reste supérieur aux chiffres atteints dans les pays occidentaux. Le nombre de meurtres en Russie reste, il est vrai, préoccupant et comparable à la majorité des pays d'Europe occidentale.

Il faut cependant noter que ce n'est pas un phénomène extraordinaire, car il y a toujours eu en Russie un nombre élevé de meurtres, y compris durant les périodes relativement calmes de noytre histoire, par exemple à la fin du dix-neuvième siècle.

Le second mythe consiste à dire que les criminels provoquent un dommage considérable auprès de la population. En 1994, ce dommage s'élève à 766 milliards de roubles, soit 350 millions de dollars. Ce chiffre est supérieur aux dommages créés par les incendies (450 millars de roubles), mais bien inférieur à l'argent perdu par la population dans les banques et sociétés commerciales (20.000 milliards de roubles).

Les meurtres ne représentent pas une cause de décès quantitativement comparable aux accidents de la route, aux maladies et à l'alcoolisme.

Troisième mythe : la population considérerait que le problème de la criminalité est le plus préoccupant. Il est vrai que toutes les enquêtes montrent que la criminalité constitue une des principales inquiètudes de la population.

En approfondissant l'analyse des réponses, il est aisé de se rendre compte que ce n'est pas le niveau réel de la criminalité qui suscite cette opinion, mais, d'une part, la couverture médiatique de ce phénomène et, d'autre part, l'impression que les organes des forces de l'ordre sont impuissants à juguler ce problème. Derrière la peur suscitée par la criminalité, se cache la prise de conscience de la crise de la justice, du pouvoir et de l'Etat.

Le quatrième mythe revient à dire que le durcissement des peines fait baisser le niveau de la criminalité. Dans la plupart des cas, les crimes sont commis dans une situation de besoin ou dans un état ne permettant pas d'apprécier les risques pris. De nombreuses études, en Russie comme à l'étranger, prouvent que la relation causale durcissement des peines - baisse de la criminalité est erronée.

Le cinquième mythe, sur lequel il n'est pas besoin de s'étendre, considère qu'il n'y a que des criminels dangereux en prison. Cette absurdité reste vivace en Rusie. Il suffit de considérer le nombre de détenus emprisonnés pour spéculation dérisoire pour en être convaincu.

Sixième mythe : la criminalité est un phénomène global qui nécessite une réponse elle-même globale. Le problème ici est que la criminalité est considérée uniquement sous l'angle de sa définition juridique. Est criminel tout ce qui est contraire à la loi, tout ce qui est recensé dans le code pénal en vigueur.

Dans la pratique, il est clair que la criminalité ne peut être considérée comme un tout, dans la mesure où elle cache des pratiques, des formes et des motivations très diverses.

Le slogan "lutter contre la criminalité" ne répond donc qu'à des besoins politiques de mobilisation de la société. Il est inefficace et absurde du point de vue de l'application. Au contraire, la Russie a aujourd'hui besoin, pour réellement lutter contre la criminalité, de diversifier ses modes d'action et de réaction.

Enfin, le dernier mythe principal concerne la criminalité organisée, perçue comme une force obscure, éminence grise qui tiendrait le pays. Ce mythe rejoint certaines choses écrites sur les francs-maçons et les juifs. Cet amalgame prouve l'existence de fantasmes sur la criminalité organisée.

Si on se tient à une définition rigoureuse du phénomène, celui-ci est beaucoup plus circonscrit qu'on ne le pense. Employer le mot "mafia" à propos de l'Etat russe souligne la confusion suscitée par une période difficile pour une grande partie de la population russe.

Merci: http://www.irenees.net/fiches/fiche-dph-3735.html

[world] doha soon to be a dodo

Doha explained, a summary for the non-economist

The Doha Round is close to total collapse – the first major multilateral trade talks to fail since the 1930s. All major global trade negotiations flirt with collapse and succeed only at the last possible moment but not this time. Doha is much more difficult than the Kennedy, Tokyo, and Uruguay Rounds, especially as there are 149 nations now to consider in the template.

Its participants represent 5.5 billion of the world's 6.5 billion people, and produce 97 per cent of the world's annual $13 trillion in exports. So far there’s been agreement only over the principle of eliminating export subsidies for agriculture but these are unresolved:

· policy changes deeply political and now deeply impinging on the process
· nothing signed concerning the crucial services sector
· no negotiating procedures for agricultural and non-agricultural market access
· removal from the agenda of two critical issues - investment and competition policy
· no attempt to seriously address security concerns since 911
· absence of effective control over the increasing number of preferential pacts
· entrenched local interests
· massive current account imbalances
· currency misalignments pushing trade politics in dangerously protectionist directions
· strong and growing antiglobalization sentiments
· absence of a compelling reason for the political leaders of the chief holdout countries to make the necessary concessions
· import surcharge on all Chinese products
· fierce congressional hostility to any relaxation of US antidumping and immigration laws
· deep popular unwillingness to significantly alter the EU's protective agricultural regime.
· large, fast-growing developing countries often tougher on the poor eg. India on Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Implications
· Trade policy must move onwards and upwards or else revert to protectionism and mercantilism and its corollary - bilateralism.
· There are huge international security concerns.
· Basic economic relations around the world will descend to the primitive.
· The world's poor, of course, now see hopes for fairer trade put off for many years.
· Richer countries, deprived of a chance to find new markets, are starting to argue over old markets.

Measures which would help
· mini-package that would achieve modest real liberalization
· monetary adjustments leading to global trade liberalization
· greater balance of US /China imports/exports [now a ratio of more than six to one in favour of China]
· dollar/euro currency misalignments probably now near their bilateral equilibrium
· undervaluation of Asian currencies [kept artificially undervalued, including the yen and the Indian rupee because governments were afraid to let their competitive positions deteriorate against China], could be eased, negotiating step by negotiating step
· major currency realignments, beginning with the undeveloped and developing nations
· substantially enhancing the skill level of the work forces in UD countries
· expanding the safety nets that cushion transitional cost of trade-related job dislocation
· extending all deadlines for at least six months, [which I posted as a comment on Tim Worstall’s article]
· appreciating that tariffs are simply ways of shifting tax burdens from the rich to the poor, "taxing want rather than wealth"
· reducing special bilateral arrangements eg. American tariffs on Asia and the Muslim world; European tariffs and subsidies excluding farm products produced from the Middle East, Latin America and Asia
· allowing the poor to sell the items they make and grow without complications [World Bank idea]
· lowering tariffs on t-shirts, shoes, rice, butter and orange juice, thereby opening export opportunities in markets for services and technology products
· eliminating the "Special Safeguard Mechanism."
· aligning the business sector with government policy and establishing government policy based on the needs of the private sector eg. Brazil’s private sector saying one thing but the government saying another.

Slow process
WTO Director General Pascal Lamy likened the negotiators' task to building a gothic cathedral, in which domestic support for agriculture and market access represent two columns, and reduction of duties on industrial goods a third. The gothic imagery he utilizes is apt, for it is also the imagery of the 4th player, [China being the 3rd].

My take
Doha will collapse irrevocably. It's not just brinkmanship any more because there are clear national interests perceived as greater than the interest of global world trade. The implications are major for the world's poor in the short term but it does have the effect of slowing the globalization process, which I see as fundamentally unsound.

Acknowledgements
· Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS)
· C. Fred Bergsten December 2005 Policy Council - Institute for International Economics - Rescuing the Doha Round.htm
· YaleGlobal Online, (http://yaleglobal.yale.edu)
· Edward Gresser, Progressive Policy Institute's Project on Trade and Global Markets

[world] the destruction of the ozone [latest]

AAP has run this piece in the Melbourne Age today:

Extreme weather conditions have produced a rare cloud formation over Australia's Mawson station in Antarctica. Meteorological officer Renae Baker captured spectacular images of the nacreous clouds, otherwise known as polar stratospheric clouds, late last month.

Reflecting like an airborne mother-of-pearl shell, the cloud colours are produced when fading light at sunset passes through water-ice crystals blown along a strong jet of stratospheric air more than 10 kilometres above the ground. A weather balloon measured temperatures down to minus 87 degrees celsius when the photographs were taken.

"That's about as cold as the lowest temperatures ever recorded on the surface of the Earth," Ms Baker said. "Amazingly, the winds at this height were blowing at nearly 230 kilometres per hour."

Australian Antarctic Division atmospheric scientist Andrew Klekociuk said the clouds were seldom seen but could have long-ranging effects. "These clouds are more than just a curiosity," he said. "They reveal extreme conditions in the atmosphere and promote chemical changes that lead to destruction of vital stratospheric ozone."

At the same time, a new report, originally from this site, claims that China is way up there in trading ODSs. The EIA describes how China is smuggling ODSs around the world. It shows how undercover investigators, posing as chemical dealers, visited a number of firms in Zhejiang province and this is what I keep going on about, regarding China and what it’s up to.

The report says:

The initial order was equivalent to more than 12 per cent of the entire quantity of CFCs available under the protocol to China for all its exports and stockpiling needs in 2006, the report said.

The most frequently used method to smuggle CFCs was by mis-declaring them as alternative chemicals that are not controlled by the Montreal Protocol. China ratified the protocol in 1991 and later accepted a multimillion dollar package to bring the end of production forward by three years.

Now I have been going on about China ever since this blog began and before – even the name of the blog, nourishing obscurity, is Chinese in origin and refers to their method of operation. Even if we could forgive the Chinese for this latest, there is still the coal burning and the arms dealing to address, before getting onto a list of other issues.

I also implied, in the pieces on Korea, below, that China needed watching the whole time. But of course, you don’t need me to tell you that.

An old EPA report puts the ozone question in layman's terms:

Scientists have found "holes" in the ozone layer high above the Earth. The 1990 Clean Air Act has provisions for fixing the holes, but repairs will take a long time. Ozone holes aren't like doughnut holes; they're not empty spaces in the sky. Ozone holes are much like the worn-out places in an old sock or sweater: there are still threads covering the worn-out area, but the fabric can be so thin you can see right through it.

Ozone in the stratosphere, a layer of the atmosphere nine to 31 miles above the Earth, serves as a protective shield, filtering out harmful sun rays, including a type of sunlight called ultraviolet B. Exposure to ultraviolet B has been linked to development of cataracts (eye damage) and skin cancer.

In the mid 1970s, scientists suggested that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) could destroy stratospheric ozone. CFCs were widely used then as aerosol propellants in consumer products such as hairsprays and deodorants, and for many uses in industry. Because of concern about the possible effects of CFCs on the ozone layer, in 1978 the U.S. government banned CFCs as propellants in aerosol cans.

Since the aerosol ban, scientists have been measuring the ozone layer. A few years ago, an ozone hole was found above Antarctica, including the area of the South Pole. This hole, which has been appearing each year during the Antarctic winter (our summer), is bigger than the continental United States.

More recently, ozone thinning has been found in the stratosphere above the northern half of the United States; the hole extends over Canada and up into the Arctic regions (the area of the North Pole).

The hole was first found only in winter and spring, but more recently has continued into summer. Between 1978 and 1991, there was a 4-5 percent loss of ozone in the stratosphere over the United States; this is a significant loss of ozone. Ozone holes have also been found over northern Europe.

What could a thinned-out ozone layer do to people's lives? There could be more skin cancers and cataracts. Scientists are looking into possible harm to agriculture, and there is already some evidence of damage to plant life in Antarctic seas.

Evidence that the ozone layer is dwindling led 93 nations, including the major industrialized nations, to agree to cooperate in reducing production and use of chemicals that destroy the ozone layer. As it became clear that the ozone layer was thinning even more quickly than first thought, the agreement was revised to speed up the phase-out of ozone-destroying chemicals.

Unfortunately, it will be a long time before we see the ozone layer repaired. Because of the ozone-destroying chemicals already in the stratosphere and those that will arrive within the next few years, ozone destruction will likely continue for another twenty years.

CFCs from car air conditioners are the biggest single source of ozone-destroying chemicals. By the end of 1993, all car air conditioner systems must be serviced using equipment that recycles CFCs and prevents their release into the air.

In the meantime, refrigerator servicing and disposal will have to be done in ways that don't release CFCs. Methyl chloroform, also called l,l,l-trichloroethane, is a very widely-used solvent found in products such as automobile brake cleaners (often sold as aerosol sprays) and spot removers used to take greasy stains off fabrics. Replacing methyl chloroform in workplace and consumer products will lead to changes in many products and processes.

As substitutes are developed for ozone-destroying substances, before the chemicals can be produced and sold, EPA must determine that the replacements will be safe for health and the environment.

Consumer products containing CFCs and other ozone-destroying chemicals will have to be reformulated.

The ozone layer has been written and written about but despite bans on a cocktail of chemicals and a plethora of other commendable measures, still Asia continues to do its thing and still the US refuses to subscribe to Kyoto or any of its subsequent manifestations.

[living] how to spend twenty-five minutes with a russian girl

What would you do if you suddenly found yourself with a Russian femme fatale with brunette hair, a winning smile and a brain the size of a computer? And if you had more than a passing interest in her? In my case, three hours ago, I suddenly decided to interview her. For some people, I may have had my priorities wrong. Interview follows.

[living] blogger of the day - tim worstall

Being new to the blogosphere and with the naive arrogance only upstarts can display, I ambitiously embarked on a ‘blogger-of-the-day’ corner, little realizing the impossibility of encapsulating, in half a page, the public life of a known figure.

And yet, looking back, I stand by the decision.

Looking at the spread of visits to my own site, it seems reasonable to suggest that there might be some in other countries who are still not familiar with the blogger-of-the-day and I think they should be. So, in my own small way, I hope it contributes.

Today’s victim is Tim Worstall.

Says Theodore Gray: Tim Worstall is an interesting character: A Englishman living in Portugal who deals in scandium metal and scandium oxide. He doesn't just deal in them, he does most of the dealing in them (60% or so) that is done worldwide. Oddly, I don't have any pure scandium from him, but rather a couple of rare earths he happened to have on the side. You can contact him through www.timworstall.com: If you're an industrial user or producer of scandium and you need someone to broker your scandium oxide transactions, see Tim.

Is this the same Tim Worstall? I thought he was an economics blogger.

Tim Worstall vs. Greenpeace. One of our favorite bloggers takes on Greenpeace, and it isn't pretty.

Environmental blogger.

Blogbuster: Tim Worstall's entertaining new anthology of web writers, 2005 - Blogged, puts the best into a book, says Rafael Behr [Sunday December 4, 2005 The Observer]. On paper it’s a terrible idea: let every have-a-go writer on the planet publish whatever they fancy and give it all away free. No editors, no agents, no fees, no quality control. But a new generation of diarists, satirists, polemicists and poets have made the idea work, precisely because they dispensed with paper. They are bloggers, their medium is the internet and there are around 19 million of them worldwide; 300,000 or so in the UK.

Er – 19 million? What have I got myself into? To delve further:

Rafael Behr continues: Worstall is an expat businessman based in Portugal. He is also a prolific blogger, with a libertarian bent, who is on a self-appointed mission to eviscerate every newspaper article that he judges guilty of economic illiteracy. He is not, however, exclusively hostile to old media, nor immune to the charms of ink on paper. He must be at least ambivalent about olde worlde recognition or he would not have published anything so Luddite as a book. But therein lies a contradiction in much political blogging: it rather depends on the very thing it likes ostentatiously to scorn.

Curiouser and curiouser.

"That rare commodity: knows economics and can write" - The Observer Blog

Yes, I'd heard this.

A blog interested in the interface between economics and environmentalism. Other matters are also discussed.

That’s more or less what was expected. Now to his site:

We actually want to abolish the taxation of retained profits altogether. This is, after all, what a company uses to reinvest. Tax dividends as income, fine, tax capital gains (although more on that later) but retained profits? Shouldn’t be taxed at all. Actually, there’s interesting evidence that even corporation tax, at least in part, is actually paid by the workers in the form of lower wages.

Yes, well that’s more or less what was expected of him as well.

There is no unique, absolute, scientific cut-off threshold available to decide whether any product is safe or not. If we are to hold the world to the standard being demanded here we would never have anything new ever again. In fact, we would have to go back through the stock of what we already consume and we’d probably have to excise potatoes, tomatoes, nuts (people die every year from nut allergies), rhubarb (not a great tragedy, I agree), possibly coffee.....

Potatoes [not even spelt in the Quaylian manner]?

I sit back and scratch my balding pate and think of this man whom I e-mailed about different pesky little blogging questions of concern, which he answered immediately, repeatedly and helpfully.

Tim Worstall. Blogger and scandium dealer.

[living] the naked truth about blogging

In the red corner, ladies and gentlemen – Oliver Kamm, author, journalist and writer/blogger. In the blue corner – Clive Davis and Tim Worstall, unashamed bloggers.

Here I sit at ringside, one week after I started this blogging business and I’m wondering what to make of it. Bursting from the starting gate, I launched into the blogging with a vengeance. One week later and I’m somewhat more circumspect.

What on earth am I doing?

Inordinate amounts of time consumed, lost friends who can’t reach me on the phone, lack of sleep, almost nobody commenting on any of my pieces and giving that much needed feedback and yet … and yet …

My counter ticks over and tells me 187 people visited yesterday, [I'm not sure if that's good or bad], the James Bond Big Java Board lights up with pinpoints of prettily coloured lights, mainly centred on the UK, the US, Australia and a mysterious ‘unknown country’. I thought that unknown country was me until I checked addresses and it seems I’m not the only stateless person out there.

The language spread shows English, French, German and Portugese and one of the latter was inside for some minutes. Why? I put a French recipe in [hope you enjoyed the aubergine] and hoped to get some French traffic ... but no luck. I suppose I’ll try again tomorrow.

So I repeat the question – what on earth am I doing? Oliver Kamm knows. He says:

What blogs do effectively is provide a vehicle for instant comment and opinion. Some newspapers have established blogs for their journalists or other commentators. But the overwhelming majority of blogs — no one knows how many there are — are set up by amateurs using software that is easily available and almost free.

All right. But they’re still at the cutting edge of the new journalism, aren’t they?

These are not a new form of journalism, but new packaging for a venerable part of a newspaper. Even the best blogs are parasitic on what their practitioners contemptuously call the “mainstream media”. Without a story to comment on or an editorial to rubbish, they would have nothing to say.

Well yes, we’re all derivative in the end aren’t we? We all have to do our research and glean our material from somewhere, surely. And look at the vast mass of interesting material, the sheer dazzling variety of what’s on offer.

Most blogs have nothing to say even then. Without editorial control, they are unconstrained by sense, proportion or grammar. Almost by definition, they are the preserve of those with time on their hands.

I see. So I’m wasting my time, it seems. I’m writing pieces I can’t write, for a non-existent readership of fellow bloggers – a sort of worldwide club for the illiterate, perhaps. Oliver Kamm also added that he detests the term ‘blogosphere’. Oops. Clive Davis appears to agree with him:

Jean-Remy von Matt, the CEO of a German advertising agency … called blogs "the toilet walls of the internet". "What on earth", he asked, "gives every computer-owner the right to express his opinion, unasked for?"

But one moment – he heads this piece with ‘Another one who doesn’t get it’ and refers to von Matt as belonging to the ‘tribe that time forgot’. Ah, now there is hope indeed. Tim Worstall now weighs in to the debate and a review on his book 2005 Bloggers says:

But a new generation of diarists, satirists, polemicists and poets have made the idea work, precisely because they dispensed with paper.

And another thing. Since I began, I've been snubbed by one or two, vilified by e-mail by one or two but by and large, I now have a few new - dare I call them friends, some from this post. I think Oliver Kamm certainly has a point - are we sad cases? I certainly feel myself one. Or are we fearless bloggers, bringing the latest news and views to an anxious and expectant public?

The referee is at the centre of the ring, the combatants either side, but so far he’s raised neither side’s hand in victory.