Diplomacy & Defense Think Tank News

Wichtig war, dass die Schreibtische rechtzeitig freigeräumt wurden, nicht der Wissenstransfer im ehrwürdigen US-Außenministerium. Und Außenminister wurde dann jemand, den niemand auf der Rechnung hatte und der sich nicht darum beworben hatte. Rex Tillerson traf den designierten US-Präsidenten erstmalig im Dezember 2016 zu einem einstündigen Hintergrundgespräch über die Weltlage, an dessen Ende ihm Trump den Außenminister-Job antrug. 

Ökologische und soziale Anliegen werden immer häufiger in Freihandelsabkommen verankert. Von Seiten der EU geschieht dies im Rahmen eines Dialogansatzes (»soft approach«); die USA wiederum setzen dabei auf die Drohung mit Handelssanktionen. Ein interessanter Fall in diesem Zusammenhang ist Kolumbien. Das Land hat Abkommen mit den USA, Kanada und der EU geschlossen, die von den jeweiligen Parlamenten erst ratifiziert wurden, als in den Verträgen auch festgeschrieben war, dass die Situation von Gewerkschaften und Arbeiterschaft zu verbessern sei. In den letzten Jahren war das Verhältnis von Handelspolitik, Nachhaltigkeit und Menschenrechten aber grundsätzlich umstritten. Die bislang gemachten Erfahrungen mit Arbeitsklauseln erlauben Schlussfolgerungen für die Ausgestaltung handelspolitischer Instrumente, auch jener der EU. Dabei bestätigt sich, wie wichtig Nachhaltigkeitsbestimmungen in Handelsabkommen und die Stärkung landesinterner Institutionen sind.

In Europa wandelt sich die Stimmung gegenüber China. Während die Volksrepublik unter Xi Jinping mit der Seidenstraßeninitiative als einziges Land der Welt eine globale Vision verfolgt, wächst das Misstrauen über die Ausdehnung chinesischer Einflussnahme. Infolgedessen wird die europäische Debatte über China immer emotionaler geführt, wobei die Deutungen zwischen Alarmismus und Beschwichtigung schwanken. Vorstellungen über das »Wesen Chinas« und die Erwartung, das Land habe sich nach westlichen Maßstäben in die liberale Ordnung einzufügen, drohen jedoch den Handlungsspielraum gegenüber der Volksrepublik zu verengen. Um Strategien für eine selbstbewusste deutsche und europäische Politik zu entwickeln, muss Chinas derzeitige Spielart von Weltpolitik systematisch betrachtet werden. Aus den Merkmalen chinesischer »Konnektivitätspolitik« lassen sich weit über den Infrastrukturbereich hinaus politische Handlungsoptionen für Deutschland und die EU ableiten.

Fendeur de bois, fendeuses de bûches, nombreuses sont les appellations pour désigner les fendeuses à bois. Ayant compris que le chauffage au bois dans notre cher pays, avait encore de beaux jours devant lui, vous avez décidé de vous essayer au découpage de bois. Pour le faire, il vous faudra vous acheter une fendeuse à bois. Il en existe cependant de divers types, dont la fendeuse électrique pour laquelle vous semblez avoir un penchant. Une question vous taraude toutefois : serait-ce un investissement rentable d’en acheter une ? Le présent article vient vous sortir du doute et vous apporte des éléments de réponse.

Les différentes catégories de fendeuses à bois que vous pourriez trouver

Lorsque vous vous intéressez aux fendeuses, vous vous rendez vite compte qu’il en existe de diverses catégories. Lorsque vous vous attardez sur la motorisation par exemple, vous vous rendez compte qu’on peut les classer en trois grandes catégories : les fendeuses à bois électriques, les thermiques et les hydrauliques. Lorsque vous considérez plutôt l’ergonomie, elles deviennent classables en deux catégories : les fendeuses à bois verticales et celles horizontales. Ces deux catégorisations sont celles qu’on rencontre le plus souvent. Il y en a cependant une autre (pas très courante, c’est vrai) qui fait une séparation entre fendeuse électrique et fendeuse manuelle.

à Venir lire ; 2ememain

Gros plan sur les fendeuses électriques

Ce sont les préférées des écologistes. En effet, elles ne sont absolument pas polluantes. Très silencieuses à l’usage, elles vous aideront à couper assez rapidement votre bois. Vous n’aurez également aucune difficulté à l’utiliser. Par contre, si vous envisagez utiliser votre fendeuse pour de très grosses productions annuelles, n’optez surtout pas pour le modèle électrique. En effet, elles ne produisent qu’environ 10 stères par an (soit à peu près 10 mètres cube). Raison pour laquelle elle est recommandée pour de petites exploitations. Vu qu’elles sont électriques, elles doivent obligatoirement être branchées à une prise avant de pouvoir fonctionner. Ce qui a comme conséquence de limiter vos gestes et déplacements. C’est ce qui fait de la fendeuse à bois électrique, l’idéal pour les petits travaux aux alentours des lieux d’habitation. D’une puissance variant entre 1500W (watts) et 3500W, vous en trouverez aussi bien des verticales que des horizontales. Les verticales vous aideront à couper du bois ayant plus de 50cm de diamètre. Ce qui n’est pas le cas des horizontales. En effet, ces dernières ne peuvent que couper du bois de moins de 50cm de diamètre.

S’acheter une fendeuse à bois électrique, est-ce une bonne affaire

Déjà côté prix, vous aurez beaucoup de mal à trouver mieux. En effet, des fendeuses de bûches thermiques et hydrauliques, celles électriques sont de loin les moins chères. Vous pourrez vous en acheter une de très bonne qualité pour moins de 1000 euros. Au cas où, des habitués de fendeuse manuelle ou même de haches viennent jouer les détracteurs sur le prix, ne vous laissez pas démonter. Expliquez-leur que même si à leurs yeux, elles semblent coûter chères, une fois qu’on commence par les utiliser elles sont très vite amorties. De plus, les fendeuses sont très rapides et faciles à utiliser. Donc les adopter pour vos tâches de fendage de bois vous feront énormément gagner en temps et en énergie.

Venez voir nos sources ; jefenddubois.fr/

Seit dem Amtsantritt von Präsident Duterte gehört der Populismus zum politischen Tagesgeschäft auf den Philippinen. Auch international erscheint das Land regelmäßig in den Schlagzeilen. Diese Woche verkündete Präsident Duterte den nächsten Paukenschlag: Die Philippinen werden aus dem Internationalen Strafgerichtshof (IStGH) austreten und damit „ihre Ratifizierung des Römischen Statuts mit sofortiger Wirkung zurückziehen“.

Lettre de Washington – un tournant dans la politique étrangère de M. Trump ? Institut Montaigne ven 16/03/2018 - 11:57

En l’espace de quelques jours, le Président Trump a rétabli des taxes à l’importation sur l’acier et l’aluminium, accepté l’offre du dirigeant nord-coré

 

 

EVP-Parteienfamilie in der EU | Wahlergebnisse der größten EVP-Mitgliedspartei in den letzten nationalen Parlamentswahlen | Stärkste politische Familie in Umfragen | Europawahlergebnisse der EVP-Parteien 2014 | Regierungsbeteiligung EVP-Parteien | Staats- oder Regierungschefs nach politischer Familie

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Global indices are a way to assess and compare national progress on key issues by distilling an array of complex information into a single number and ranking. Until recently, there was no index that explicitly brought together the three dimensions of women’s inclusion, access to justice, and security.

To fill that void, a new women, peace, and security index has been created by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security (GIWPS). On March 15th, IPI, GIWPS, and the Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations held a panel discussion on the subject.

“This index is actually the first one to be built on the principles of the SDGs. It encourages a holistic approach to rights, development, and security,” said the introductory speaker, Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ine Eriksen Søreide. “In my opinion, conflict prevention must be a key part of the strategy that we undertake for development and for the SDGs. And this index gives us a potential platform to integrate it into action.”

“For too long,” she said, “security and gender experts on both sides have been doing a lot of good work. And they have been working in parallel but not necessarily engaging with each other. So there is a real need to break down the silos. And I think all the good work that has been done in the respective silos now needs to be introduced to each other for the first time. By putting this index together with data from other indices, we are gaining a more complete picture than we’ve had so far.”

Jeni Klugman, Managing Director of GIWPS, introduced the jointly developed index and explained the benefits of this new form of measurement. She noted that other indices had major gaps in their focus on traditional development, and that they lacked key explanatory factors.

“For example, we look to see whether girls are attending school,” she said. “But surely that’s incomplete if the girls are not safe in their homes or if they’re not safe in their communities on the way to school. Likewise, if we look at traditional measures of security and peace, the aspects of discrimination and systematic exclusion are almost invariably excluded.”

Within the index’s three dimensions of inclusion, justice, and security, inclusion is measured by women’s achievements in education employment, and parliamentary representation, as well as access to cellphones and financial services. Justice is captured in both formal and informal aspects through indicators that measure the extent of discrimination in the legal system, alongside any bias in favor of sons and exposure to discriminatory norms. Finally, security is measured at three levels–family, community, and society.

The combination of these dimensions is unique, Dr. Klugman said, “In that sense, I think it is truly a major innovation.” The index is also the first measure to take advantage of the new emerging consensus associated with the sustainable development agenda, she said. She relayed the hope that the index would be used as “an opening to have deeper conversations.”

In their findings, one measure that emerged among the statistics of all 153 countries ranked was that while organized violence at the societal level is important, of greater relevance for many women around the world is “security at the community, as well as at the family level,” she said. “I think you’d all know that intimate partner violence is the most common form of violence experienced by women globally but with significant variation across countries.”

Despite the fact that intimate partner violence is significant globally, measuring its variation across countries is “notoriously difficult,” said Papa Seck, Chief Statistician of UN Women. Lack of resources and weak institutions, including national statistical systems, are some of the challenges of assembling reliable data, he noted.

Furthermore, he said, “All of the markers of data availability are worse in conflict and post-conflict situations,” and data collection and security are closely related, as “data collection requires security: the security of those who are collecting the data on the ground.”

On the importance of funding, Mr. Seck added, “For UN women in particular, it is a hot button issue. This index, I think, is really critical for us on how we make the case.” He also noted that in many cases statisticians are not trained in gender-specific approaches, and that gender experts are not often trained in statistics. This creates a gap in much needed data and analysis.

Lina Abou Habib, Executive Director of the Women’s Learning Partnership, whose group specializes in global south countries in or exiting from conflict, stressed the difficulties of gathering data in such places. Ms. Habib explained that data collection on women’s rights issues is not often given priority or resources, which, in addition to security as a prerequisite for data collection, continues to be a significant challenge. The answer to this problem, she said, requires “a framework where data collection is allowed.”

She spoke to the specific example of one unnamed country in which it is illegal to collect data. “It’s illegal to do any form of research, it’s illegal to go to the field and ask people questions,” she said. Ms. Abou Habib posited a solution to improve the scope of data collection, which she called making data collection a practice–“to make data collection empowering for women, to make it as part of a workshop, as part of a conversation with the community. I think advocacy is the most important thing in terms of the purpose of the data.”

Ms. Habib then described two levels of this data’s significance. First, the data can “hold governments accountable, and I’m not just saying it as a slogan. It means that women have to know about it.” The second level, she said, is using advocacy to build “a momentum, which I see it’s really possible from the relationship we have with the women with whom we work.” In terms of data collection, she emphasized the priority of frequency and accountability.

In conclusion, IPI Research Fellow and moderator Sarah Taylor, said, “There’s a reason that data collection is political, and it’s because properly collected data has the power to expose rights violations, to point to changes that need to be made. And so I think that really speaks to the power of the project, particularly in the women, peace, and security agenda.”

L’économie russe confrontée à ses difficultés. Entretien avec Sergei Guriev. Institut Montaigne jeu 15/03/2018 - 14:23

Le 18 mars 2018, 110 millions de citoyens russes sont appelés aux urnes pour (ré)élire leur prochain Président.

DT 5/2018 - 15/3/2018
Andrés Cajiao, Paola González, Daniel Pardo y Oswaldo Zapata

¿Cómo ha sido la evolución de las estructuras armadas organizadas en Colombia y cuáles son las características de las redes de narcotráfico Colombia-España?

Trotz kleinerer Unterschiede: Die Frage nach dem richtigen Umgang mit dem Iran ist eines der Felder, auf dem deutsche und russische Interessen weitgehend übereinstimmen. Besonders, wenn es um das Atomabkommen geht. Experten beider Länder weisen immer wieder darauf hin, dass eine mögliche Aufkündigung des Abkommens mit dem Iran durch die USA verhindert werden sollte: In diesem Fall drohten schwerwiegende Folgen für die gesamte Region des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens. Vor diesem Hintergrund hat die Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung vier Experten aus Bayern nach Moskau eingeladen, um mit hochrangigen russischen Gesprächspartnern die aktuelle Lage im Iran und in weiteren Brennpunkten im Nahen und Mittleren Osten zu diskutieren und das Potenzial für eine erweiterte deutsch-russische Zusammenarbeit auszuloten.

ARI 37/2018 - 15/3/2018
Patrícia Lisa

Las presiones migratorias en la UE son una cuestión central del Espacio de Libertad Seguridad y Justicia, siendo fundamentales sus perspectivas de desarrollo en el próximo bienio.

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Development programs tend to include women affected by conflict and violence as passive beneficiaries, rather than as active agents in strengthening gender equality, peacebuilding, and sustainable development. And where development partners do support women’s agency in strengthening recovery and reconciliation in rural areas, they often fail to link these activities to wider processes of women’s mobilization, peacebuilding, and statebuilding.

Confronting that reality requires looking at women as “actors rather than only as passive victims,” said Ursula Keller, chair of the Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee Network on Gender Equality (GENDERNET). It requires focusing “very strongly on women’s participation, but really meaningful participation: not just counting women but making women count,” she said.

Ms. Keller was speaking to a March 14th policy forum at IPI on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations, cosponsored by IPI, GENDERNET, and the Governments of Sweden and Switzerland.

In introductory remarks, Deqa Yasin Hagi Yusuf, Somalia’s Minister of Gender and Human Rights Development, said that during the recent conflict in her country “women provided the backbone of our economy” and that now that the conflict is largely over, “gender equality is a central objective for sustaining peace and development in our current national development plan.” Among the “significant strides” she reported were that women occupy 24% of the seats in the two houses of Parliament, an inclusive human rights commission has been formed with four women among the nine commissioners, and the country’s first legislation on sexual offenses has been developed under the leadership of her ministry.

Ms. Keller reported the findings of a new OECD policy report into how donors can provide these gender equality projects with support that is both qualitatively and quantitatively better. Gender roles and inequality can often be a driver in conflict, she said, naming societal expectations of masculinity as a cause for violence. Programming that considers gender-sensitive pathways can best tackle fragility as “conflict and fragility places enormous burdens on women’s rights,” she said. She also noted that “women’s active participation in peacebuilding and statebuilding can actually contribute to peace and resilience.”

Barbro Svedberg, Policy Specialist for Women, Peace, and Security at the Swedish Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) said that women, peace, and security resolutions had been paramount to a collective understanding of “women as drivers of positive peace,” and had had an enormous impact on Swedish “feminist” foreign policy over the last year.

Sida considers the interlinkage of gender equality, conflict sensitivity, and human rights, as “key elements in all of our programming,” said Ms. Svedberg, adding that “gender equality, for Sida, is a prerequisite for peace.” Describing Sida’s two new strategies, she said “The first, gender equality, should inform the other, [peacebuilding and statebuilding].”

Mavic Cabrera-Balleza, International Coordinator of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, reiterated the significance of this interlinkage, highlighting that “gender inequality, conflict, and fragility are all parts of the same equation. Each one cannot be isolated from the other two.” She also acknowledged that “gender inequality is one of the drivers of conflict.”

Considering conflict and fragility as functions of gender inequality rather than inequality as a consequence of conflict, Ms. Cabrera-Balleza urged institutional supporters to offer sustainable and not project-based donations. “Sustainable peace is not a project,” she said, “it is a way of life and it should be part of our global culture.”

Sarah Douglas, Deputy Chief of Peace and Security of UN Women, said that the women’s empowerment aspect of the Sustainable Development Goals creates an effective framework that shifts thinking from technical to political approaches and “challenges us…to use political analysis when we’re thinking about development and peacebuilding in the aftermath of conflict.”

Ms. Douglas conceded that UN analysis of conflict usually focused more on women’s oppression than their “capacities for peace,” and argued, “that’s what a gender perspective can also bring.”

Because deliberation at United Nations headquarters can reflect a strikingly different vision of conflict than the reality on the ground, she emphasized the need that conversation at headquarters reflect the lived experience of “women on the ground in a much more authentic way.”

Referring to the importance of “breaking down silos” and adopting a more holistic approach to policy making, Ms. Douglas concluded that policy must consider, “Who are the women’s organizations at the grassroots level who are actually holding the fabric of society together and how can they be mobilized, supported, encouraged, have doors open to them to really be able to expand their work and ensure sustainability?”

IPI Research Fellow Sarah Taylor was the moderator.

La menace sur le commerce mondial est sérieuse. Comment y répondre ? Institut Montaigne mer 14/03/2018 - 18:18

Le relèvement des tarifs douaniers sur les importations d’acier et d’aluminium par les Etats-Unis n’aurait qu’une importance mineure si les circonstances de la décision du président Trump n’étaient pas si particulières. L’Europe ne peut y être indifférente.

Echanges avec Carlos Ghosn Institut Montaigne mer 14/03/2018 - 16:39

Carlos Ghosn, président-directeur général du groupe Renault, a été reçu mercredi 14 mars pour un petit-déjeuner organisé par l’Institut Montaigne. Cette rencontre fut l’occasion de recueillir son sentiment sur l’évolution actuelle du marché automobile, très marqué par l’émergence des voitures électriques et autonomes, ainsi que ses prévisions quant aux menaces et aux opportunités que devrait affronter ce secteur dans le futur.

Blanc 14 mars 2018 Activé Avec Carlos Ghosn, président-directeur-général du groupe Renault. Fermé Non Non

L’Italie, une exception politique en Europe ? Institut Montaigne mer 14/03/2018 - 12:58

Alors que les élections du 4 mars dernier en Italie ont laissé le pays dans une nouvelle crise politique, Marc Lazar, professeur d’histoire et de sociologie politique à Sciences Po, analyse trois grandes tendances politiques à l’oeuvre en Europe : perte de vitesse d

Sécurité privée : d'une logique d'externalisation à un modèle de co-construction Institut Montaigne mar 13/03/2018 - 17:28

En France, la sécurité privée est aujourd’hui dans une situation paradoxale : elle n’a jamais été aussi présente, visible et indispensable que depuis la reprise des attentats dans l’Hexagone (6,6 milliards d’euros de chiffre d’affaire et 167 800 salarié

Syrie : le dilemme des "lignes rouges" Institut Montaigne mar 13/03/2018 - 16:18

Comme si la tragédie syrienne avait besoin d’une escalade dans l’horreur, les indications récentes d’emploi d’armes chimiques se sont faites, depuis la fin 2017, de plus en plus claires.

Voting in America: What does the future hold?Wednesday, March 14, 6:30 PM
Museum of Cycladic Art, AthensPlease RSVP here

There are more than half a million elected officials in America, from the dog catcher of Duxbury, Vermont, to the President of the United States. Americans are called upon to vote more frequently and amply than in any other democratic country in history.

Yet voting in America has come to be plagued by a growing number of woes, from perennial voter disaffection to an allegedly outmoded electoral regime, from an excessively decentralized approach nation-wide to election administration to a widespread reliance on shoddy technology and a singular lack of security against hacking, meddling, and malevolent interference by external actors.

2018 is another election year, and the stakes are high. Can citizens cast their ballots with confidence? Are elections safe from outside intervention? Are there any signs of improvement in how Americans administer their elections? How drastic is the current state of affairs?

In collaboration with the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), the Dukakis Center will convene a panel of experts to share their thoughts on the future of voting in America. The present event is a follow up to a round table on “Voting in America” staged in Thessaloniki in October 2016.”The Future of Voting in America”

• Michael Ertel, Supervisor of Elections, Seminole County (Florida)
• Charles Stewart III, Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Aristides N. Hatzis, Associate Professor of Philosophy of Law & Theory of Institutions,University of Athens
• Moderator: Athanasios Ellis. Editor in Chief, Kathimerini English Edition

The event will be in English