Mikhail still can’t believe his luck. And since he doesn’t quite believe it, he’s scared. Actually he should be on his way to the front or to a military base where he will do a short training before being posted to Ukraine, but in reality he is in Turkey. It was a matter of hours. The same day he landed in Istanbul, a military officer came to his home in Moscow to order his conscription into the Russian armed forces.

“I love my country very much, but not this government. But when I heard on the news that if you refuse to kill people in another country you can be sentenced to 10 years in prison, I knew it was time to go,” Mijaíl explains over the phone, who, for security reasons, asks not to publish his real name and to hide some of the details he shared with EL PAÍS As in many other Russian households, the hours after the decree signed by Vladimir Putin on September 21 were the “partial Mobilization” frantic and agonizing. He knew he could be one of the first to mobilize. He’s 26 years old, athletic, and went through a special unit during his military service. He had all the ballots to get drafted.

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“We were three people – my mum, my girlfriend and I – trying to buy a ticket for me, no matter what country it was. We tried about 40 times and there was always an error,” he says. “I even bought a flight to Yekaterinburg to take a bus to Kazakhstan from there. Although I was finally able to buy a ticket to Istanbul,” Mijaíl continues. In the early hours of September 22, he landed in the Turkish metropolis. “I felt free,” he exclaims.

As air services from Russia to European Union countries have been suspended, Turkey has become one of the main destinations for fleeing Russians – to stay or as a stopover to another country – as they do not need a visa. More than 120 flights from various Russian cities land in Turkey daily, but demand has increased so much that Turkish Airlines has swapped the planes it uses for others with larger capacity, company sources have told local press. In the last two weeks it has been practically impossible to get a ticket and those currently in existence exceed 1,000 euros each way. Similarly, Russian company Aeroflot’s website has fewer than four seats available each way for next week’s flights.

“If they send you to Ukraine, you will die”

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Alexander Dobromislov was a bit more far-sighted. He had wanted to leave his country for a long time. “But at the beginning of the war, the ruble lost so much value that I couldn’t afford a plane ticket,” he laments on the terrace of a café in Istanbul. He made several plans and started saving. On the 20th, when pseudo-referendums were announced in the occupied territories of Ukraine to justify their annexation to Russia, this young Moscow University PhD student in political science sensed that the mobilization – a rumor that had lingered in Russia for months – was about to happen, arrive and get a seat on the plane to Istanbul. “My studies officially ended on September 30th, from then on I could be mobilized. My skills as a political science expert are of no interest to this government, which only needs propagandists. I’m just being used as cannon fodder for them to die at the front. Everyone who has the opportunity to flee does so because they know that if they send you to Ukraine they will die.”

Most flights arriving in Turkey are still packed with tourists – two-thirds of planes from Russia are destined for the cities on the Mediterranean coast – but among the passengers there are a growing number of young men who escape mobilization and don’t Do believe Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s pledge to limit it to 300,000 reservists. “Basically, every man over the age of 18 feels in danger. Because, as much as they called it partial mobilization, they recruit completely at random. People who died two years ago, people over 50, people who have five children. They’re trying to recruit everyone they can,” explains Eva Rapoport, a Russian living in Istanbul who is taking part in the Kovcheg (The Ark) project funded by businessman and opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky to help Russians flee to support their country.

“We have received thousands of inquiries and requests for legal assistance over the past few days,” he explains. Their Telegram group, where they offer advice on leaving Russia, has grown by 65,000 members since the levy was announced. And they have also received hundreds of requests for accommodation in the apartments this organization maintains in Istanbul and in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, where it provides temporary housing until those affected find something more permanent.

Many of the Russians who emigrated to other countries at the start of the conflict because of their opposition to the war have also opened up their homes and are lending mattresses and sofas to their recently fled compatriots. Since the beginning of the year, the number of Russians with residence permits in Turkey has almost doubled, to 109,349, reported by Turkey’s Interior Ministry’s Migration Department on September 29. And they are not all included there, because anyone who has a Russian passport can stay in Turkey for 90 days without registering.

No chance of returning

The most stressful moment political science PhD student Alexander Dobromislov experienced during his flight was when, after passport control at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, he was ordered with many other men to go into a room to check his military status. “It was at its most tense, but they treated us well and even told us we could all move on,” he says. “I don’t think anyone has a problem getting out. That’s probably because, statistically, not many of us left [aunque cientos de miles de personas han abandonado ya el territorio ruso] because they still have a lot of people to recruit in a country of 140 million people. Or maybe Putin prefers those of us who oppose him to leave so we don’t cause trouble. But there are also rumors that they could ban all men of military age from leaving the country, and who knows how long this ban will last,” he muses.

Of those arriving in Istanbul now, most are unclear as to how they will survive: they simply packed their essentials, packed their bags and fled. They also know that they may not be able to return to their country for long periods of time, especially if they have been drafted, since desertion is punishable by ten years in prison, more than the minimum penalty for murder (about six years). “I don’t think I’ll ever see my country again. It’s very painful for me: I leave a son there,” complains Mijaíl: “I don’t have more than 1,000 euros and no plan. But at least I’m free and alive.”

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Paris condemned an “unworthy” and “heinous” staging after Iran on Thursday aired a video presented as “confessions” by two French men arrested in the country in May, in which they claim to be agents of French intelligence.

• Also read: In Iran, school girls are demonstrating and defying repression

• Also read: [EN VIDÉO] Celebrities cut off a strand of hair in solidarity with Iranian women

The two Frenchmen were arrested at a time when Iran was the scene of demonstrations by teachers demanding reforms to increase their salaries and the release of colleagues arrested in previous demonstrations.

The broadcast of this video also comes against the backdrop of other demonstrations sparked off on September 16 by the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, after being arrested by the vice squad.

Iran has repeatedly accused outside forces of fueling protests and said last week that nine foreign nationals, including those from France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands, had been arrested.

In the video, broadcast by the website of official television’s Arabic-language channel al-Alam, a young woman who speaks French claims her name is Cecile Kohler and that she is an agent of the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) operational intelligence. the French secret services.

France, which denounced an “unfounded” arrest in May, on Thursday called the dissemination of the images “undignified, repugnant, unacceptable and contrary to international law.”

“This masquerade reveals the contempt for human beings that characterizes the Iranian authorities,” the Foreign Ministry said, calling for the “immediate release” of Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris.

The two French are “state hostages,” adds the Quai d’Orsay.

Iran announced on May 11 the arrest of two Europeans “who entered the country to wreak havoc and destabilize society.”

Tehran then in early July accused two “French trade unionists” who had been arrested in May of “undermining the country’s security”.

“unionist”

A French union source had identified them as Cécile Kohler, an official of the teachers’ union Fnec FP-FO, and her spouse Jacques Paris. She stated that at the time of her arrest they were traveling in Iran during the Easter holidays.

In the video released Thursday, the woman, who is seated and wearing a colorful veil, claims that she and her spouse were in Iran “to prepare the conditions for revolution and the overthrow of the Iranian regime.”

She mentions “money” that was “intended to fund strike action and demonstrations.”

According to the man featured in the video, who also speaks French, the “goals of the DGSE are to put pressure on the government” of Iran.

Iranian television has shown “confessions” from detainees in the past, including Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari, who later claimed in a book published abroad that he was forced to make them during his 2009 detention.

In June 2020, NGOs had called on Iran to end the practice of televised “forced confessions” from prisoners broadcast by state media.

According to the London-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Justice for Iran (JFI), victims interviewed say they were “subjected to torture and ill-treatment to force them to confess facts (often falsely) in front of the camera.” “.

More than twenty Western nationals, mostly dual nationals, are detained or stranded in Iran in what NGOs condemn as a policy of hostage-taking to win concessions from foreign powers.

Among them are the Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, arrested in June 2019 and then sentenced to five years in prison for undermining national security, which his relatives have always vehemently denied, and the Frenchman Benjamin Brière, arrested in May 2020 and was sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison for espionage, which he denies.

Iran announced in mid-June it had arrested a suspected Marxist activist linked to the two French trade unionists, saying that “its mission was to foment rebellion and unrest in the working class”.

Meta’s Horizon Worlds virtual reality network, currently the heart of its Metaverse endeavour, is suffering from bugs and isn’t being used very much by the staff building it, new internal documents show.

In a Sept. 15 memo to staff obtained by The Verge, Vishal Shah, Metaverse vice president at Meta, said the team will remain in “quality lockdown” for the remainder of 2022 to “ensure we address our quality gaps and Fix performance issues beforehand. We’re opening up Horizon to more users.”

Horizon Worlds is a free virtual reality online video game that allows users to interact with legless avatars that they can create. It was first released on December 9, 2021 in the United States and Canada to people over the age of 18.

Meta’s Horizon Worlds virtual reality network, currently the heart of its Metaverse endeavour, is suffering from bugs and isn’t being used very much by the staff building it, new internal documents show

In a Sept. 15 memo to staff received by The Verge, Metaverse vice president Vishal Shah said the team would remain in “quality lockdown” for the remainder of 2022

The virtual network has since rolled out to Quest users in several other countries, including France, Spain, Ireland and the UK, reaching 300,000 users.

The network is also coming soon to mobile and desktop via a web version.

It’s a big part of Meta’s efforts to essentially build the next version of social media, which Mark Zuckerberg’s company has already spent more than $10 billion on.

“Since launching late last year, we’ve seen that the core thesis of Horizon Worlds — a synchronous social network where developers can build engaging worlds — is strong,” Shah wrote in the memo.

“But the current feedback from our creators, users, playtesters, and many of us on the team is that the combined weight of paper cuts, stability issues, and bugs are making it too difficult for our community to experience the magic of Horizon.

“Put simply, for an experience to be enjoyable and sustainable, it must first be usable and well designed.”

What is the metaverse?

The “Metaverse” is a series of virtual spaces where you can play, work, and communicate with others who are not in the same physical space as you.

Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg was a leading voice for the concept, which is seen as the future of the internet and would blur the lines between the physical and the digital.

“You can hang out with friends, work, play, study, shop, be creative, and more,” says Meta.

“It’s not necessarily about spending more time online — it’s about making the time you spend online more meaningful.”

While Meta is in charge of the Metaverse, it stated that it is not a single product that a company can build.

“Just like the internet, the Metaverse exists regardless of whether Facebook is there or not,” it added.

“And it’s not built overnight. Many of these products will only be fully realized in the next 10-15 years.’

In a follow-up memo dated Sept. 30, according to The Verge, Shah said employees were still not using Horizon enough and wrote that a plan was being drawn up to “hold managers accountable” for letting their teams use Horizon use at least once a week.

“Everyone in this organization should make it their mission to fall in love with Horizon Worlds. You can’t do that without using it. come in there Organize times to do it with your colleagues or friends in both internal builds and public builds so you can interact with our community.’

Shah has also reportedly addressed specific issues with Horizon, writing that “our user onboarding experience is confusing and frustrating” and that the team “needs to introduce new users to world-class worlds that will ensure their first visit is a success.”

It seems like the teams working on Horizon Worlds cut their work out for them, at least according to Shah’s memo.

“Today we don’t work flexibly enough,” says his memo. “I want to be clear on this point. We are working on a product that is not suitable for the product market. When you are on Horizon you must fully embrace ambiguity and change.’

The internal documents come at a time when several tech executives are publicly retiring from the Metaverse.

Apple CEO Tim Cook believes that most consumers cannot even define what the metaverse is and dismissed the notion that they would spend their entire lives in a virtual world.

“I always think it’s important that people understand what something is,” Cook told Dutch publication Bright, according to a Google translation. “And I’m not sure the average person can tell you what the metaverse is.”

Cook also expressed skepticism that people will want to spend longer periods of time in VR in the future. ‘[VR is] something to really immerse yourself in. And you can put that to good use.”

Zuckerberg was ridiculed in August when he revealed his own Horizon Worlds avatar, which was branded amateurish and odd-looking.

Shortly after, the mogul posted a more polished-looking avatar and said he would be presenting “major updates to Horizon and avatar graphics” at the company’s annual conference on Oct. 11.

Horizon Worlds is a free virtual reality online video game that allows users to interact with legless avatars that they can create. It was first released on December 9, 2021 in the United States and Canada to people over the age of 18

“Everyone in this organization should make it their mission to fall in love with Horizon Worlds. You can’t do that without using it. come in there Organize times to do it with your colleagues or friends in both internal builds and public builds so you can interact with our community.

By Adam Arroudj

Posted 3 hours ago, updated 2 hours ago

In 2019, the rectors of the universities (here the University of Algiers) received a notice that the headers of administrative documents must be written in Arabic and English. Agency MOUSAAB ROUIBI/Anadolu via AFP

DETECTION – Since this school year began, the government has enforced the teaching of English from primary school, with competition from French apparently at the expense of the “language of colonization,” while the administrative purge began several years ago.

In Algiers

In Algeria, Arabic and French can no longer live together. Khaoula Taleb Ibrahimi, who has spent his career teaching young Algerians languages ​​at the University of Algiers, is struggling to hide his sadness just months after retiring. His first graders, who once could write and speak French, “can’t even form Latin characters anymore,” the eminent linguist notes. A large proportion of them had no contact with a foreign language during their school days.

And yet. In Algeria, French is included in the curriculum in the third year of primary school (equivalent to CE2). But given the lack of teachers trained for such a mission, it has gradually disappeared from the curriculum.

On July 30th, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune decided to complete it by decreing that English would be compulsory from the start of the third year, at the rate of an hour and a half per week, in the same way as…

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