Didier “Ice” Iceman
Shared posts
‘Reconstruction Olympics’: Building rush for Tokyo Games causing steel and bolt shortages in Japan’s disaster-hit areas
Didier “Ice” IcemanLes méfaits des olympiades
Coupe d’Afrique des nations : la défaite des “sorciers blancs”
Didier “Ice” IcemanIdem pour la coupe féminine
Vietnam says Chinese vessel violated its sovereignty in South China Sea, tells Beijing to remove ships
Didier “Ice” IcemanC'est reparti
Ma banque et l’éducation au phishing
Didier “Ice” IcemanEt il n'y a pas qu'elles
J’ai eu l’occasion récemment de pester contre ma banque à l’occasion d’un énième mail de publicité, quand j’aimerais plutôt avoir les infos importantes, qui elles continuent d’être envoyées seulement en papier. Et pire, après une prise de contact via le site web, la notification de réponse est arrivée avec encore un autre domaine. Voyons donc pourquoi je suis colère.
En fait, c’est par rapport à ce qu’on apparente à de la sécurité informatique, ici surtout l’éducation à la lutte contre le phishing. En effet, parmi les réflexes que l’on essaie d’inculquer aux utilisateurs pour éviter les fraudes, il y a l’analyse de l’expéditeur.
Voici donc ce que j’ai reçu dans ma boîte mail qui semble provenir de ma banque, mais qui me fait tiquer :
Ce domaine n’est pas celui du Crédit Mutuel, pourtant tout le contenu du mail m’y fait penser (et le « Réponse à » aussi). Deux possibilités, soit la banque fait une connerie, soit le malfaisant est super doué. Avant de cliquer sur n’importe quoi, j’analyse donc rapidement le domaine, avec un whois :
domaine pourrave pour l’envoi de notifications
$ whois e-i.com Admin Name: Benoît WIESEL Admin Organization: Euro Information Admin Street: 4 rue Frederic-Guillaume Raiffeisen Admin City: STRASBOURG Admin State/Province: Admin Postal Code: 67000 Admin Country: FR Admin Phone: +33.388148054 Admin Phone Ext: Admin Fax: +33.388148530 Admin Fax Ext: Admin Email: nsmaster@e-i.com Registry Tech ID: Tech Name: Benoît WIESEL Tech Organization: Euro Information Tech Street: 34, rue du Wacken Tech City: STRASBOURG Tech State/Province: Tech Postal Code: 67000 Tech Country: FR Tech Phone: +33.388148054 Tech Phone Ext: Tech Fax: +33.388148530 Tech Fax Ext: Tech Email: nsmaster@e-i.com Name Server: LDNSSE1P.E-I.NET Name Server: LDNSSE2P.E-I.NET Name Server: LDNSIE1P.E-I.NET Name Server: LDNSIE2P.E-I.NET
Toujours pas de Crédit Mutuel sur ce domaine, mais un nom qui revient à plusieurs endroits, je cherche donc à en savoir plus sur ce monsieur. Chou blanc sur Qwant, je me rabat sur Google qui est un peu plus efficace puisqu’il me présente ce lien dans les résultats : une décision de justice concernant une demande pour faire cesser l’utilisation d’un domaine proche de celui du Crédit Mutuel, avec le monsieur présenté comme représentant ledit Crédit Mutuel. Donc tout va bien finalement.
Mais bon dieu comment voulez-vous qu’on soit efficace dans l’éducation des gens quand les banques se mettent à faire de telles conneries, alors qu’elles sont les premières à se plaindre quand leurs clients se font avoir par des mails frauduleux ? Une des composantes essentielles qu’on enseigne pour détecter les fraudes est justement le fait que le domaine ne correspond pas. Hors c’est précisément le cas ici, et vous avez vu les efforts de recherche que j’ai du effectuer pour m’assurer au final que c’était légitime ? Qui prendrait le parti de faire ce genre de vérification ?
Donc pitié, quand vous construisez vos mails de communication, quelle que soit la finalité, utilisez un domaine au plus proche, mieux, si vous pouvez utilisez le même ça ira très bien. Vous rendrez service à tous ceux qui ont l’habitude d’éduquer vos utilisateurs à la détection de fraudes, autrement dit vous aiderez vos utilisateurs à avoir confiance en vous, et vous vous aiderez à les éviter de se faire enfumer. Merci.
Sécurité routière : 30 dispositifs "intelligents" obligatoires dès 2022
Didier “Ice” IcemanCela va augmenter beaucoup le prix
Jusqu’à 30 dispositifs électroniques seront bientôt obligatoires, parmi lesquels l’adaptation intelligente de la vitesse, l’éthylomètre antidémarrage, l’avertisseur de somnolence, la reconnaissance avancée de distraction du conducteur, la détection en marche arrière et la "boîte noire". Le Conseil européen devrait donner prochainement son feu vert à cette réglementation qui a déjà été adoptée par le Parlement européen en avril.
Toyota unveils electric vehicle to be used at Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic venues
Didier “Ice” Icemantrès bien pensé
June was the hottest on record across the globe: NOAA
Didier “Ice” IcemanRecord a battre
Internet : l'Inde prête 100 millions de dollars au Nigeria pour l'extension du haut débit
Didier “Ice” IcemanÉtrange...
Malgré la reprise de la chasse, le sombre avenir de l’industrie baleinière au Japon
Didier “Ice” IcemanMais en attendant...
Trilayer graphene shows signs of superconductivity
Didier “Ice” IcemanImportant pour l'avenir de l'energie
Crise politique au Bénin : premier pas vers l'apaisement ou dialogue de sourds ?
Didier “Ice” IcemanIl faut en parler
Will Azerbaijan Join the Anti-Iran Coalition?
Didier “Ice” IcemanEffet de bord
by Eldar Mamedov
As the United States speeds up the militarization of tensions with Iran, the role of neighbouring countries in either exacerbating or mitigating them is going to be crucial. Some of Iran´s neighbours, such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, and, until recently, the United Arab Emirates, appear to be pushing the United States toward war with Iran. Others, such as Iraq, Oman, and Qatar, pursue a policy of “active neutrality”, seeking diplomatic engagement between Washington and Tehran. And still others sit on the fence, carefully monitoring developments, but without positioning themselves on either side. That, however, can change should the situation degenerate into a military confrontation.
One of the actors belonging to the latter group is Azerbaijan. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, in his speech in the Asia Society in New York in April 2019, singled out Azerbaijan as one of the countries with which Iran´s relations have recently improved. That is true, but Azerbaijan also enjoys close relations with two of Iran’s antagonists—the United States and Israel. Should tensions erupt, Azerbaijan will come under pressure from both to provide at least tacit support in their campaign against Iran, such as the use of Azerbaijani territory for anti-Iranian intelligence activities, if not as a launching pad for military attacks. The last time a military action against Iran over its nuclear program seemed plausible, in August 2011, Iranian Major General Hassan Firouzabadi angrily rebuked Baku for allegedly turning itself into an Israeli outpost, and predicted an uprising of its people against Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Another potential fallout of a conflict involving Iran would be a re-ignition of irredentist claims on Iranian Azerbaijan, where, according to some sources, up to a quarter of Iran’s population lives. Although Baku officially distances itself from these claims, the notion of a “south Azerbaijan” that needs to be “liberated from the Persian yoke” is still very much present in Azerbaijani political and intelligentsia circles. If Iran is destabilized, pan-Turkist agitators from both north and south will try to seize the momentum to advance their long-cherished dream of a “Great Azerbaijan”. Some pro-regime change circles in the United States and Israel have long advocated Iran’s balkanization—i.e., its disintegration along ethnic lines. The government in Baku, far from harbouring any sympathies to Iran, might at some point be compelled to “help the southern brethren”.
Conscious of these complexities, Iran has studiously avoided antagonizing Azerbaijan. On the most critical issue for Baku—its unresolved conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region—Tehran has firmly supported Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. Even Azerbaijan’s attempts of appropriate Iran’s cultural heritage—such as claiming exclusive ownership of the famous Persian poet Nezami Ganjavi, who lived in the territory of modern Azerbaijan in 13th century—have been met only with the mildest of Iranian rebukes.
Iranians have thus clearly signalled their preference for maintaining the status-quo in their relations with Azerbaijan. If, however, Azerbaijan is persuaded or pressured to support an American or Israeli military action against Iran, they are likely to revert to the tactics they used in 1990s: manipulating and securitizing pro-Iranian Shiite groups in Azerbaijan to pressure the Aliyev administration.
Back in the 1990s, Azerbaijani authorities were afraid of the Shiite challenge to Aliyev’s rule, and primarily used repression to quell it. The emergence of the Wahhabi threat, associated with organizations like the Islamic State, diminished the urgency of the Shiite threat. The authorities also adopted a somewhat more nimble approach to Shiites: repression was complemented with cooptation, with some success.
For example, according to Altay Goyushov, an Islam expert from the independent Baku Research Institute, Hajji Shahin Hasanli, one of the most charismatic and popular Shiite preachers, used to be the leader of a movement called Ikmal in 1990s that was considered to be Khomeinist by Azerbaijani authorities. Now he is a representative of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of the Caucasus, a Soviet-era leftover designed to control religious life in Azerbaijan. He preaches in one of the most popular mosques in Baku, but one that has—highly unusually—a national flag foisted upon it, in a clear symbol of the state’s tight control of Islam. Clerics with more oppositional leanings, such as Iran-trained Hajji Ilgar Ibrahimoglu, who is also well-versed in Western human rights discourse, are marginalized. And those considered by the authorities radical and dangerous, like Taleh Baghir-zade, the leader of the Muslim Unity movement, linger in jail, reportedly subject to torture.
This mix of repression and cooptation seems to have ensured a semblance of calm and stability in the religious sphere. But that may be a deceptive impression. Widespread discontent with social conditions and corruption, in addition to the demise of the secular opposition, enlarges the pool of potential recruits for Shiite Islamists. And the opposition to Azerbaijan’s potential involvement in a war against Iran may not come only from these circles. In the absence of credible surveys, it is difficult to gauge Azerbaijanis’ real attitudes to Iran. Some may indeed harbour ill feelings, either out of pan-Turkist or anti-Islamist sentiment, but there are also ample reasons to believe that many do not share those views, especially outside Baku. In 2018, Azerbaijanis were second only to Iraqis in numbers of visitors to Iran, mostly for medical and religious reasons. Many also transit Iran en route to Shiite pilgrimage sites in Karbala and Najaf in Iraq.
Even supporters of the “Great Azerbaijan” should be careful about what they wish. The external players who appear to support this idea do so because their wish is to see a disintegrated Iran, not a new powerful Azerbaijani state. Such a hypothetical state would deepen the already existing cleavages in Azerbaijani society between secular and religious citizens, Shiites and Sunnis, Azeri Turks and non-Turkic minorities, and add new ones between “northern” and “southern” Azerbaijanis. It is, for example, inconceivable that Tabriz, the centre of Iranian Azerbaijan, would accept the political dominance of Baku. Moreover, a mere attempt to establish such a state could only possibly come as consequence of a war with Iran. Such a war would plunge Azerbaijan into a vortex of messy and bloody Middle Eastern politics, all this with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Armenia still unresolved. If America’s war on Iran can be avoided, this nightmare scenario will not materialize. In the opposite case, however, no Iranian neighbour will be left unscathed, including Azerbaijan.
This article reflects the personal views of the author and not necessarily the opinions of the S&D Group and the European Parliament.
Not going anywhere: How to handle the world’s growing trash problem
Didier “Ice” Icemanun vrai problème en asie et ailleurs
Royaume-Uni : paiement par carte bancaire aux bornes de recharge, qui pourraient devenir obligatoires dans les nouveaux logements
Didier “Ice” Icemandu bon sens
C'est le grand casse-tête en Europe : le paiement aux bornes de recharge pour les véhicules électriques, avec la multiplication des cartes d'abonnements et autres systèmes par smartphone. Devant cette pagaille, le Royaume-Uni a décidé de lancer des bornes à paiement par carte bleue.
Monnaie unique de la Cedeao : Ouattara ne veut pas de rupture brutale entre le CFA et l'eco
Didier “Ice” Icemanla voix de son maitre
Chevron ordered to halt oil spill into California canyon stemming from fracking
Didier “Ice” Icemanc'est beau le pétrole
Le Botswana dépénalise l’homosexualité
Didier “Ice” IcemanBonne nouvelle
Elephant and rhino populations rebounding in Tanzania after crackdown on poaching
Didier “Ice” IcemanMouais
Tencent urged to improve safety of WeChat
Didier “Ice” IcemanUn peu archaïque en effet
WeChat, one of the world’s most popular instant messaging applications, was allegedly flooded with malicious mini-programs and experts are now urging Tencent to improve efforts to make the app safer.
Mini-programs which were launched by Tencent back in January 2017, are sub-applications within the WeChat ecosystem. They are popular with tens of thousands of users as they need not be downloaded and available for almost all kinds of services within the instant messaging application, Xinhua News Agency reported, the Paper recapped.
According to a 2019 survey by Tencent on data gathered from 8,000 WeChat users, 72% had tried mini-programs and 34% of them admitted to be frequent users. The most downloaded mini programs by category are the mini games (42%) followed by lifestyle mini apps (39%), Blog/News (28%), and e-commerce mini-programs.
However, problems have started blossoming on the ecosystem, and tens of thousands of mini-programs were allegedly malicious.
Scammers have posed as legitimate vendors on e-commerce mini-programs, selling knock-off products such as fake Rolex watches. In mini games, mobile users who would like to proceed to higher-level rounds are forced to go through advertisements, some of which contain misleading content.
Many mini programs take surety money and promise to pay back with interest if they check in every day and share the information with their friends. Developers can change terms easily, making every user lose money at once.
There are at least three major reasons for the increase in malicious mini-programs on WeChat.
First, mini-programs are very cheap to develop, compared to a standard mobile application, with the average cost for a customised program only about a few hundred Chinese yuan. Those that have been flagged or reported can easily be resurrected at low cost.
Second, though Tencent has tried to remove problematic programs, the damage has already been done and can only be remedied.
Thirdly, WeChat users give away their personal information easily without reading the terms of mini programs. They often add programs that are recommended by their friends without a second thought.
MBS est-il le nouveau Saddam Hussein ?
Didier “Ice” IcemanUn peu ?
The Trump pattern: Create a crisis, retreat, declare victory and move on
Didier “Ice” IcemanLa méthode trump
61% of South Koreans blame Japanese government for diplomatic row
Didier “Ice” IcemanOn en parle peu
Le bureau libre ? Une grande désillusion et 13 ans perdus.
Didier “Ice” IcemanPareil
Avant toute chose, je tiens à préciser que c’est un point de vue qui se base sur ma propre expérience, qui est constituée de 13 années et des bananes environ, d’utilisation de bureautique libre en mono-démarrage sur mes ordinateurs respectifs.
C’est un article qui est l’expression du dégrisement par rapport à un espoir que j’ai caressé à l’époque du très moyen MS-windows Vista. Quand celui qui avait été connu sous le nom de code de Longhorn est enfin sorti, Microsoft s’était pris une volée – justifiée – de bois vert en ce qui concerne le successeur de MS-Windows XP : lourd, lent, avec l’UAC qui se déclenchait au moindre gaz intestinal de travers.
À l’époque, l’offre libre n’était pas des plus joyeuses, mais il y avait des projets qui auraient pu faire du mal à MS-Windows Vista comme la première Ubuntu LTS, la 6.06 alias Dapper Drake. Évidemment, il y avait encore du travail à faire, mais le monde du libre avait déjà de quoi tenir la dragée haute.
C’était cependant un brin trop tôt. Je me disais alors qu’il faudrait une poignée d’années pour que cela change. Manque de pot, Microsoft ayant pris en compte les critiques sortait en 2008 un certain MS-Windows 7, et une avenue qui s’était ouverte se refermait tout aussi rapidement.
En 2011, c’est l’arrivée des interfaces nouvelles générations comme Unity et Gnome 3.x qui provoquent un rejet de la part des personnes utilisant le libre au quotidien à cause d’un trop grand chamboulement : arrive la naissance du duo Cinnamon/Mate-Desktop qui conservent une ergonomie qui a fait ses preuves depuis des années.
Après le fiasco de MS-Windows Vista, Microsoft tente le coup de l’interface unique avec MS-Windows 8.x et se prend une nouvelle volée de bois vert à l’image des développeurs d’Unity et de Gnome 3.x.
En 2012, le monde du libre avait pas mal avancé sur le plan technique, c’est la grande époque de LinuxMint comme distribution à conseiller. Mais déjà en 2012, il y a pas loin d’une centaine de distributions qui se battent pour le marché bureautique, alors que 6 ans plus tôt, c’était à peine la moitié qui se battait pour le même marché.
C’est vrai qu’il est prouvé qu’avoir 100 choix est mieux pour l’utilisateur au lieu de 50… À moins que ce ne soit complètement l’inverse ?
Les mêmes causes produisant les mêmes effets, le marché bureautique libre est resté à peu de chose près au même point. C’est à cette époque que je commence à critiquer les abus, les forks qui se multiplient comme des bactéries dans un bouillon de culture. Mais qui suis-je pour être entendu ?
Et depuis 2012 ? Les réflexes pavloviens : tu veux découvrir Linux ? Installe LinuxMint ou Ubuntu. Même si ce genre de distributions n’est plus adapté au modèle de publication de plus en plus rapide et effréné des logiciels.
2012, c’est l’année de naissance d’une distribution détestée par de nombreux libristes, Manjaro : elle ose rendre abordable – en simplifiant certaines actions – une distribution mère, Archlinux.
Surtout, elle propose quelque chose d’intéressant : être une distribution à publication continue assez rapide, relativement stable, et surtout qui peut vivre sur le long terme. Il n’est pas rare de trouver des installations vieilles de 2 voire 3 ans.
Avec quelques autres personnes, nous avions monté un projet de saveurs complémentaires de Manjaro à destination du public francophone, mais c’était sans compter sur l’inertie du monde libre des années 2010…
Celui qui veut que rien ne bouge. Celui qui déclame « tout va très bien, madame la Marquise » même si la part de marché du bureau linux n’a gagné qu’un minuscule pourcent en 10 ans. Mais il n’y a pas que cette inertie qui creuse la tombe du bureau linuxien.
Les fondements du logiciel libre avec la liberté de forker (principe noble dont il est facile d’abuser), le choix mis en avant tel un mantra que l’on psalmodie (en oubliant que trop de choix finit par tuer le choix), le manque de solidarité entre les diverses communautés, les guerres pour des éléments dont on se contrefout pour l’utilisation quotidienne, la volonté d’être plus libre que Stallman (il faut le faire), la volonté de ne pas mutualiser les efforts y joue pour beaucoup.
Il y a évidemment la vente liée entre les ordinateurs et les systèmes d’exploitations qui jouent en la défaveur de Linux. Mais comment expliquer à une personne qui ne connait rien au libre qu’il existe plus ou moins 250 distributions pour un seul marché, celui de la bureautique ?
Comment peut-on justifier que des personnes se lancent des anathèmes car le groupe A utilise telle technologie et le groupe B une autre, technologies dont on ne voit que les conséquences à l’emploi ?
Comment peut-on justifier l’existence de X environnements de bureau qui à première vue sont des photocopies les uns des autres ? Quelles différences fondamentales entre un Cinnamon, un Plasma dans leur présentation par défaut ?
Je dois plaider coupable dans les guerres intestines, car j’y ai mis ma dose à une époque. Mais depuis, j’ai ouvert les yeux. Je suis dégrisé de l’espoir de voir un jour le bureau linux dépasser les 5% de parts de marché.
Linux sur le bureau est un fiasco. Dans quel domaine trouve-t-on un produit qui existe depuis 25 ans (le premier noyau stable date de 1994) et qui n’a pas réussi à dépasser les 2% de pénétration auprès du grand public en dehors du luxe ? Nulle part, à moins que je ne me trompe.
J’ai bêtement cru durant des années que des personnes de bonnes volontés se mettraient ensemble pour dire : « faut arrêter les conneries maintenant ! » et que le bureau linuxien prendrait enfin son envol. Qu’est-ce qu’on peut être con par moment !
Oui, je suis aigri. D’autant plus que je me suis investi à mon humble niveau pour faire bouger les choses. Je n’ai plus envie de perdre mon temps à promouvoir une solution qui se cassera la gueule à cause des égos des diverses communautés plus occupées à se faire la guerre qu’à combattre les vrais ennemis que sont Google, Microsoft et Apple.
Continuez donc à chasser le méchant logiciel non libre jusqu’à sa troisième génération. Continuez de vous battre pour savoir quelle technologie employer dans tel domaine. Vous perdrez le seul marché que vous aviez à conquérir, l’utilisateur personnel.
Je continuerai – tant que cela sera tenable – d’utiliser du logiciel libre au quotidien. Mais je ne participerai plus qu’à la marge et sans en faire la moindre publicité.
Vous avez réussi à faire partir Arpinux, papa de la HandyLinux/DFLinux. Vous avez presque fait partir Cyrille Borne. Continuez et vous serez seuls à vous masturber sur la pureté de votre installation.
Ce sera sans moi. Le monde du libre vient de perdre près de 15 ans pour ne pas avoir réussi à se réformer et juguler les abus d’utilisation des quatre libertés fondamentales du libre. Il lui en faudra sûrement le double pour redevenir une alternative crédible au logiciel proposé par Google, Apple et Microsoft.
Je vais arrêter ici, car je pourrai continuer durant des pages à déverser ma bile et ma désillusion. Mais cela serait un péché de gourmandise…
Dossier : Tesla, Uber, Intel, Nvidia... Ils font la voiture autonome
Didier “Ice” Icemanla marche en avant reprend
Ford va utiliser la plate-forme électrique de Volkswagen
Didier “Ice” Icemanles alliances reprennent
Après s'être associés pour les utilitaires, Ford et Volkswagen officialisent une coopération dans les domaines de la voiture électrique et de la voiture autonome.
Rohingya refugee crisis is a ticking time bomb
Didier “Ice” Icemanon en reparle,?
Myanmar’s Rohingya refugee crisis, characterized by United Nations’ investigators as “ethnic cleansing” with possible “genocidal intent”, could finally be redounding on the country’s powerful and autonomous top brass.
But while Western nations press to penalize Myanmar’s latest abuses, definitively ending a short-lived engagement with the long-isolated county, neighboring states are taking a more self-interested approach.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague said last month that it plans to initiate pre-trial procedures which could lead to legal action against Myanmar’s military leaders for mass atrocities.
A conviction against top soldiers, including military commander Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, could spur renewed Western sanctions, soon after the US and European Union lifted their previous punitive measures in diplomatic reward for implementing democratic reforms.
The government in Naypyitaw is clearly in damage control mode. Reports suggest it will send a delegation to Cox’s Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh, where at least 700,000 Rohingya refugees have been housed in squalid camps since being driven out of Myanmar in 2016 and 2017.
Myanmar and Bangladesh signed a repatriation deal in November 2017, but now both sides are blaming each other for a failure to implement its measures.
To date, no refugees have been returned through official channels, in part because they refuse to return to Myanmar without official guarantees of full citizenship rights.
Bangladesh, meanwhile, is getting agitated about the lack of movement. During a visit to Beijing this month, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina appealed to her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to intervene in the crisis.
“We expect the goodwill of the Chinese government and the president so that the displaced Rohingyas can go back,” local media reported her saying on July 6.
That plaintive plea reflects a new, bitter regional reality which is just now coming into stark view: any ICC move against Myanmar’s military will only drive the nation more firmly back into the grip of its long-time protector and patron, China.
Beijing, for its part, opposes intervention by international legal bodies, seen most recently in its rejection of a Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruling in 2016 against its wide-sweeping claims to the South China Sea.
Meanwhile, no government in Naypyitaw will likely ever agree to take back more than a million, mostly Muslim, refugees who want to be fully recognized as Myanmar citizens.
As such, an Asian version of Palestine is emerging on the shores of Bangladesh, a realization which may have prompted Hasina to say on June 26 that “our security and stability will be hampered” if the Rohingya remain in their camps.
If the Rohingya are not soon returned to Myanmar, their situation will increasingly mirror that of the Palestinians in Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries, where refugees have carved out a state within a state with their own political organizations and administration.
There are also indications that desperate Rohingya are being radicalized by outside extremist groups, posing a potent new security risk that reach across the country.
In May, Rohingya in cahoots with Malaysian militants plotted to bomb Hindu and Buddhist temples, Christian churches, and the Myanmar embassy in Kuala Lumpur. BenarNews reported that the arrested militants had all pledged allegiance to Islamic State.
The news outlet quoted a Malaysian police source close to the investigation saying that “this is the first time we arrest Rohingyas. Prior to this, there was no case involving them.” There are currently tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees and migrants in Malaysia.
One of the detained Rohingya also said that he supported the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a relatively new militant group that carried out a series of deadly attacks against Myanmar security forces in Rakhine state in October 2016 and August 2017.
Those crude assaults prompted Myanmar’s military to launch what it referred to as “clearance operations” in northern Rakhine state, assaults that UN investigators have since referred to as “ethnic cleansing” with “genocidal intent.”
The thwarted bomb plot in Malaysia may only be an isolated incident, but security analysts believe it could be indicative of the threats that will arise if the Rohingya are stuck interminably in Bangladesh.
Many clearly want out. An unknown number of refugees have recently purchased Bangladeshi passports so that they may escape the crowded camps for third country destinations, sources familiar with the situation say.
Others are reportedly seeking to cross the border into India, where they apparently hope to live more freely than in Bangladesh’s tightly-controlled camps.
An estimated 40,000-50,000 Rohingya now live near the capital New Delhi, in Jammu in the north and Hyderabad in the south. Earlier this year, small groups of Rohingya were rounded up in India and sent back to Myanmar.
India clearly does not want to become a magnet for more Rohingya refugees. That likely has more to do with strategic interests than security concerns that Islamic militants may be hiding in the refugees’ midst.
New Delhi wants to build cordial relations with Naypyitaw to maintain Myanmar’s cooperation against insurgents from northeastern India who for years have used cross-border sanctuaries in Myanmar’s northwestern Sagaing Region to launch cross-border attacks.
After years of inaction against the armed rebels, with officials even implausibly denying the existence of such camps, the Myanmar military finally drove some of the insurgents out of their sanctuaries in March this year.
New Delhi is also eager to counterbalance China’s influence in Myanmar through Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Act East” policy, which aims to better link and integrate India with Southeast Asia’s booming economies.
Likewise, geopolitical concerns are likely behind China’s refusal to support a British-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution to address the Rohingya refugee crisis. Both China and Russia boycotted the meeting and hence killed the motion.
Even Hasina’s appeal to Xi may fall on deaf ears as Myanmar is strategically too important to China to risk frictions with Naypyitaw over any contentious refugee repatriation scheme.
Anti-Chinese sentiment in Myanmar is already running high over the highly unpopular Myitsone hydroelectric power dam project and other controversial China-backed investment projects across the country.
Myanmar is China’s only relatively secure outlet to the Indian Ocean and building an “economic corridor” through its southwestern neighbor is more important to its national interests than helping to resolve the Rohingya refugee crisis.
So, too, is a desire not to inflame more anti-Chinese sentiment in Myanmar. There is little public support for repatriation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, where many consider them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
That also means it’s unlikely that Myanmar civilian politicians would agree to such a mass repatriation, especially with new general elections on the horizon in 2020.
Military commander Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s most powerful political figure, has said the 2017 crackdown on the Rohingya aimed to settle “unfinished business” from World War II.
His statement was a clear allusion to bloody clashes that occurred in 1942 between Muslims who remained loyal to the British colonial power and Buddhists who sided with the then Japanese occupational force.
Muslims in what’s now Rakhine state tortured, raped and murdered more than 20,000 ethnic Rakhine Buddhists while about twice that number of Muslims were killed, according to Myanmar and Western historians.
Moreover, the Chinese are also wary of ARSA and its possible connections to regional extremist groups, including Uighur Muslim terrorists from its Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
China recently conveyed that concern to an alliance of ethnic armed groups in northern Myanmar to discourage any engagement with ARSA, a warning they have apparently heeded.
The fact that ARSA was founded by Rohingya based in Pakistan, among them ARSA chairman and founder Ataullah abu Ammar Junini, poses a similar Islamic extremist threat to India.
It is still not clear what Ataullah and his militant group hoped to achieve when they launched their poorly planned and weakly armed attacks on Myanmar security forces in 2016 and 2017.
But the upshots of those fateful assaults has been a situation that threatens not only the stability of Bangladesh but has
also pushed Myanmar back towards China and away from the West.
Myanmar has almost overnight been transformed from a darling of the US and EU enamored with its democratic reforms to a rights-abusing international pariah.
The losers are over one million Rohingya who face bleak futures in squalid camps; Bangladesh, which must shoulder the burden of housing the refugees and brace for new extremist threats; and the West, which has lost the influence it gained in Myanmar during the transition from direct military to quasi-democratic rule.
The winner, on the other hand, is China. Beijing will likely not, as Hasina hopes, use its considerable clout to solve her country’s refugee crisis, but rather will leverage the situation to regain ground it had earlier lost to the West in Myanmar.
Geopolitics are taking precedence over humanitarian concerns in the imbroglio that has tragically emerged on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border, one that if allowed to entrench and fester runs the risk of becoming Asia’s version of Palestine.
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