text:
Ghanaian Online Community Remembers BBC Presenter Komla Dumor · Global Voices
Kofi Yeboah

Photo by BloggingGhana member Nana Kofi Acquah on Komla Dumor’s 41st birthday. Used with permission.
On 18 January, 2014, the world was hit with the shocking news of the sudden death of Ghanaian BBC presenter Komla Dumor, who was known in the Ghanaian community as the “Boss Player”. Komla was the presenter for the BBC World News and Focus on Africa.
Upon hearing the news of his death, Ghanain President John Mahama tweeted:
Our nation has lost one of its finest ambassadors. @BBCkomladumor was a broadcaster of exceptional quality and Ghana's gift to the world.
— John Dramani Mahama (@JDMahama) January 18, 2014
Blogging Ghana, an organization of bloggers and social media enthusiasts, organised a Google+ hangout discussion on 24 January, 2014 in remembrance of Komla. The hangout was spearheaded by Jemila Abdulai and Gameli Adzaho, members of Blogging Ghana.
They wrote in a blog post on the group's website:
Members of Ghana’s online community would justifiably want to quickly forget last Saturday 18th January 2014 for the sad tidings the day brought. From noon or so, rumours started filtering into various online platforms that “something bad” might have happened to leading BBC world service presenter Komla Dumor.
Like the pitiful notes and sombre drumbeats of bad music emanating from a player outside our control, the dreadful news continued to self-propagate, finally filling our hearts and minds with misery. And as the pitch increased, the clouds darkened, and our worst fears descended like torrential rainfall. Komla Afeke Dumor, the “boss player”, is gone from the earth and has taken his vim to another sphere.
Ghanaians mourned together on Twitter with the hashtag #RIPKomlaDumor.
Maame Aba recalled how she heard about Komla's death:
@BloggingGhana I was cooking on Sunday evening. Had gone offline. Sister came home and blurted it was on the radio #RIPKomlaDumor
— Maame Aba (@D41XY) January 24, 2014
GanyobiNaa, an occupational hygienist and a photographer who was a participant of the Google+ hangout discussion, stated:
“I didn't think of him as a traffic reporter. His detail – he made the morning show something not to miss.” – @GanyobiNaa #RIPKomlaDumor
— BlogCamp14 (@BloggingGhana) January 24, 2014
Macjordan reflected on Komla's interview skills:
“A lot of African presidents ran away. He sat w Rwanda's president and got the truth out.” – @MacJordaN on pursuing the truth #RIPKomlaDumor
— BlogCamp14 (@BloggingGhana) January 24, 2014
Bernard Kelvin, a bestselling author in Ghana, emphasised the uniqueness of Komla's journalism work:
“As a journalist, what are your values? What are your talents? Are you being authentic?” – @BernardKelvin #RIPKomlaDumor
— BlogCamp14 (@BloggingGhana) January 24, 2014
Blogging Ghana tweeted a question:
What can African journalists, bloggers learn from Komla Dumor's body of work? #RIPKomlaDumor
— BlogCamp14 (@BloggingGhana) January 24, 2014
Maame Aba responded:
@BloggingGhana journalists should maintain integrity. Be tenacious yet respectful. Love what they do n be true to themselves #RIPKomlaDumor
— Maame Aba (@D41XY) January 24, 2014
Blogging Ghana asked the online community to share their personal interaction they had with Komla:
Do you have any personal stories about your interaction with Komla Dumor? Tweet with the hashtag #RIPKomlaDumor
— BlogCamp14 (@BloggingGhana) January 24, 2014
Papa Nkpa responded:
@BloggingGhana never met or had interactions with him personally was only praying n hoping to meet him 1 day but….. #RIPKomlaDumor
— Papa Nkpa (@SeeDeblay) January 24, 2014
Gameli noted:
I've never met or interacted directly with @BBCkomladumor. All the admiration comes from the way he delivered on his job. @BloggingGhana
— Gameli Adzaho (@gamelmag) January 24, 2014
Jeanne expressed her sadness:
.@bloggingGhana #RiSE first linked me to Komla. Sadly, we never met. His EXCELLENCE serves as a model for us all #RIPKomlaDumor
— Jeanne Clark (@JeanneC_IO) January 24, 2014
Kwame Anim commented on the moments he had with Komla:
He inspired creativity, growth and hard work. I cherish our few times of communicating. #RIPKomlaDumor @BloggingGhana
— Kwame Anim (@KwameAnim) January 24, 2014
Jemila commented on Komla's effort to help Africa tell its story:
There's a diff between telling Africa's story and helping Africa tell it's story. Komla Dumor embodied the latter – @jabdulai #RIPKomlaDumor
— BlogCamp14 (@BloggingGhana) January 24, 2014
GanyobiNaa pointed out that:
“I didn't think of him as a traffic reporter. His detail – he made the morning show something not to miss.” – @GanyobiNaa #RIPKomlaDumor
— BlogCamp14 (@BloggingGhana) January 24, 2014
Jeanne tweeted:
Thinking of the @JOYNEWSONTV & @Joy997FM family tonight. Honor the legacy by pursuing excellence! #RIPKomlaDumor pic.twitter.com/6jZuz4FKpt
— Jeanne Clark (@JeanneC_IO) January 24, 2014
Non-Ghanaian fans and friends of Komla also took to Twitter to express their sadness and views about Komla:
Ameyaw Debrah tweeted:
The last time I saw him was actually the first time we had a conversation and he encouraged me to continue with what I do. #RIPKomlaDumor
— Ameyaw Debrah (@ameyaw112) January 18, 2014
Julie Gichuru from Kenya also tweeted:
Down to earth, humorous & engaging, you did us proud. We shall miss you! May the Lord rest your soul in eternal peace. #RIPKomlaDumor
— Julie Gichuru (@juliegichuru) January 19, 2014
Robert Alai expressed his sadness:
Sad to lose #KomlaDumor. One of the few African reporters who told a balanced African story. Never exaggerated for fame. #RIPKomlaDumor
— Robert Alai (@RobertAlai) January 18, 2014
Trevor Ncube noted:
#BBCKomlaDumor was passionate about Africa and Africa telling her own story. #RIPKomlaDumor You played your role well
— Trevor Ncube (@TrevorNcube) January 18, 2014
Nana Asaase prayed:
I never met you in person; I pray to meet you in heaven. #RIPKomlaDumor
— Nana Asaase (@AsaaseNana) January 18, 2014
US Embassy Ghana expressed their condolence:
RIP Komla Dumor, great ambassador of Ghana & role model for journalists worldwide! #RIPKomlaDumor — US Embassy Ghana (@USEmbassyGhana) January 18, 2014
Errol Barnet tweeted:
Shocked and saddened to hear of @BBCKomlaDumor‘s untimely passing. Condolences to family. Big loss for #Africa & #journalism #RIPKomlaDumor
— Errol Barnett (@ErrolCNN) January 18, 2014

author: Kofi Yeboah


text:
Human Rights Video: 2013 Year in Review  · Global Voices
Gerda

A video by WITNESS on the Human Rights Channel of YouTube wrapped up some of the most significant protests and human rights abuses of 2013. Dozens of clips shot by citizens worldwide are edited together to show efforts to withstand injustice and oppression, from Sudan to Saudi Arabia, Cambodia to Brazil.
A post on the WITNESS blog by Madeleine Bair from December 2013, celebrates the power of citizen activism using new technologies including video, while readers are reminded that the difficulty of verification and establishing authenticity remains a big obstacle.
“Citizen footage can and is throwing a spotlight on otherwise inaccessible places such as prisons, war zones, and homes,” says Bair. “But given the uncertainties inherent in such footage, reporters and investigators must use it with caution.”

source: news-globalvoices

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: Gerda


text:
Is Japan Alone? Survey on Dance Regulations and Clubbing · Global Voices
Keiko Tanaka

Fresh off writing a series of posts on dance club regulations in Japan for Tokyo's city life magazine Time Out, James Hadfield is taking a survey on clubbers around the world:
In light of the ongoing controversy regarding clubbing in Japan, where clubs continue to be shut down and harassed by the police for the ‘crime’ of dancing, Time Out Tokyo is looking to get to the bottom of the problem. We'd like you to tell us a few things about the clubbing environment in your country, city, or area, wherever in the world that may be.

author: Keiko Tanaka


text:
Lessons of Peace from the Central African Republic’s Most Disadvantaged · Global Voices
Rakotomalala

A school in Bangui, Central African Republic via Wikipedia. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
Full-time volunteers from the organization ATD Fourth World in the Central African Republic (CAR) have been working with those most disadvantaged since before the violent religious conflict began to tear the country apart in early 2013.
The Central African conflict between the government and Seleka rebels has worsened alarmingly for the past year. The initially political conflict has now evolved into a religious conflict between Seleka rebels, mostly of Islamic confession, and anti-Balakas, mostly composed of Christian youth groups. ATD Fourth World's mission in CAR is to support the more disenfranchised civilians living in extreme poverty by providing shelters for the neediest and some schooling for a few children.
The actions they have taken to support local populations have preserved unity and social cohesion in some of the communities weakened by fratricidal fighting. Their continued presence within the community has rendered them key players and observers of the current situation.
Global Voices approached the volunteers to find out how they see things and what they think needs to be done to rebuild the country. What follows is the first part of a lengthy interview with Michel Besse, local team leader of the ADT Fourth World team in Bangui and his collaborators:
Global Voices (GV): What are the most  pressing issues for the Central African Republic right now?  How could they be resolved?
Michel Besse (MB): Pour nous, ce dont le pays a besoin pour reconstruire,  c'est de tenir compte de ceux qui ont résisté, et compter avec eux, s’appuyer sur leur expérience et leur savoir. Des familles, des personnes qu'on considère pour rien, isolées de tous et sans appuis chez les « kotazo » (les puissants, en sango langue nationale), ont maintenu malgré tout un lien de paix et de survie, au cœur des conflits. C'est ce lien dont le pays a besoin pour se rassembler après toutes ces distensions brutales. En revanche ceux qui sont restés comme des « blocs » par l'usage de la force (les milices armées) ou par l'usage de la ruse pour la survie de leurs intérêts politiques ou autres, n'ont pas cette vision de résistance et de reconstruction. Nous souhaitons que cette sagesse de paix des très pauvres puisse être connue de ceux qui sont dans leurs sécurités, ceux qui peuvent se protéger, ou ceux qui sont à l'abri.
Michel Besse (MB): For us, what the country needs in order to rebuild itself is to take into account the views of those who are fighting the hatred, and trust them, rely on their experience and their knowledge. Families and people who are being left stranded now, isolated from their loved ones and without any influence over the “kotazo” (the powerful ones, in the national Sango lauguage) have, despite it all, managed to maintain peaceful social relationships in the midst of conflict. It is these kind of links that the country needs in order to come together after all of these brutal flare-ups. On the other hand, those who remained in their fighting stances like “blocks of violence” (the armed militia) or by ruse in order to preserve their own interest or political agendas, these people do not hold the vision of resistance to hatred and reconstruction. We hope that the wisdom for peace held by the poorest can be felt by those who are in more privileged positions, those able to protect themselves, or those who are sheltered.
GV: What is the current situation in the area where you are?  Are their refugees, and if so, where are they coming from?
MB: On peut dire que depuis le 24 décembre, toutes les maisons dans notre quartier ont accueilli des familles déplacées fuyant les quartiers devenus dangereux ; nous-mêmes, à la Maison Quart Monde, nous accueillons désormais une vingtaine de personnes, des membres du Mouvement venant de quartiers proches. Par ailleurs, un site de déplacés existe à quelques rues de chez nous, avec 19.000 personnes déplacées.
Des jeunes de ces familles déplacées sont souvent envoyés pour essayer de passer une nuit dans les maisons familiales, mais au bout de quelques essais ils retournent à nouveau dans des quartiers plus sûrs, à cause de regain de violences et de scènes de tueries qui ont eu lieu dans les zones d'affrontement. La situation, d'après ce que nous entendons de leur part, ainsi que par d'autres amis du Mouvement ATD, l'instabilité d'un jour sur l'autre est la marque de cette insécurité. Elle empêche de pouvoir se réinstaller durablement chez soi.
Beaucoup de ceux avec qui nous sommes en lien, entre autres des jeunes qui viennent prendre des matériaux d'animation pour les Bibliothèques de Rues dans leurs sites, et qui nous racontent leur vie quotidienne dans ces camps dont le plus grand à l'aéroport compte 100.000 personnes, nous le disent : « Ça fait très mal quand je vois ma famille sur cet aéroport. Quand je fais l'animation avec les enfants, la douleur est enlevée, j'ai moins de soucis ni de tracas, pas de douleur ».
Quand il y a de l'électricité, nous pouvons rester en lien avec des membres du mouvement, donner et recevoir de nouvelles des uns et des autres. Comme les déplacements sont limités, ces liens se font par téléphone mobile, surtout avec des familles qui sont dans zones de combats, avec un SMS, un appel de quelques secondes, parfois ces familles répondent en murmurant, de peur d’être entendues par les groupes armés qui passent, dans les ruelles près de leurs maisons. Nous faisons tout le possible pour que les nouvelles circulent : nous savons que c'est vital pour ne pas se sentir seuls.
Nous avions un projet de faire découvrir aux enfants et aux animateurs de Bibliothèque de rue et d’action Tapori dans sept zones de la capitale un DVD de chansons Tapori . C’était prévu pour Fin 2013, début 2014 : malheureusement, la flambée du 5 décembre nous a empêché de vivre ce projet : « C'est reporté, pas annulé », disait un de ces animateurs. « Dans le pays, un jour le calme viendra, alors ça sera possible ». Mais en attendant, les animateurs ne restent pas les bras croisés. Ils ont rejoints les enfants dans différents camps de déplacés. A l’aéroport, ils les réunissent plusieurs fois par semaines autour des livres, des chansons, du dessin. C’est ainsi que les enfants de la BDR du Camp de Mpoko, ont réalisé des coloriages, et ont choisi de les offrir à l’hôpital-mobile de MSF [ Doctors Without Borders] lors de l'inauguration , et avec leur fameux DVD en prime ! En recevant ce cadeau, la Directrice de l’hôpital, une MSF qui avait travaillé dans bien d'autres pays, disait sa joie de voir pour la première fois de sa carrière, que la force des enfants à travers leurs paroles et leurs chansons des enfants pour la joie d'autres enfants était mise en avant.
MB: I can tell you that since 24 December all of the houses in our part of town have taken in displaced families fleeing those other parts which have become danger zones. At the ATD Fourth World HQ, we are also hosting 20 people from surrounding neighbourhoods. A refugee site for displaced people is set only a few streets away from us and it holds 19,000 displaced people.
Youngsters from the displaced families are often sent to try and spend the night in the family's homes, but after a few failed attempts, they return to safer neighbourhoods due to the increased violence and the killings which have taken place in the trouble spots. The situation, according to what they tell us, as well as what other friends of the ADT Movement say, is one of day-to-day volatility. It prevents people from going back home for good.
Many of those who we are in contact with, including the youngsters who come to get materials for use in activities at the street libraries, a collection of children’s artwork to decorate hospitals in Bangui on their sites, tell us about their day-to-day lives in these camps, the biggest of which is at the airport and holds 100,000 people. They say that “it makes us feel really bad to see our families at the airport. When we lead activities with the children, their pain is alleviated and they have fewer worries, less pain”.
When there is electricity, we can stay in contact with members of the movement, exchange news. As travel is limited, these exchanges are made by mobile phone, especially with families who are in the combat zones, by text message or a call lasting only a few seconds. Sometimes these families answer with only a whisper, scared of being heard by armed groups who pass by near their houses. We are doing everything we can to make sure news gets round: We know it is essential in order to combat feelings of isolation.
We had a project to introduce a DVD of Tapori [a worldwide network of young members of the ATD Movement] songs to children and facilitators at the Street Library and Tapori action in seven zones around the capital. It was planned for the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014. Unfortunately, the flare-up on 5 December prevented us from carrying out the project: “It is postponed, not cancelled” said one of the facilitators. “One day, calm will come back in the country, that's when it will be possible”.  But in the meantime, the facilitators are not just sitting around. They have travelled to the children in the various displacement camps. At the airport, they bring them together several times a week around books, songs and drawing. This is how the children of the Street Library in the Mpoko camp produced their colouring picture book, and decided to give them to the MSF mobile hospital during it's inauguration. On receiving the gift, the hospital's director, who has worked with MSF in many other countries, expressed her joy at seeing for the first time in her career that the strength of these children, coming from their words and their songs for the joy of other children, was being showcased.
GV: The day-to-day situation is truly worrying. How do you manage the uncertainty? What are the most pressing needs at present?
MB: Nous voyons que pour les familles qui sont déplacées, l'important est de pouvoir continuer à gagner de quoi vivre. Pour deux mères de familles qui sont avec nous, il s'agit de vendre de la farine de maïs : pour cela il faut aller acheter le grain en vrac, puis le mettre à tremper une nuit, le sécher et aller trouver dans le marché Lakouanga à deux kms un moulin qui fasse la farine à bon prix, et enfin organiser la vente au détail dans l'un ou l'autre marché « spontané » qui est né du déplacement de la moitié de la ville. Toute cette activité de survie donne à la famille toute entière une raison de se lever, de se battre, d'espérer.
L'incertitude, c'est de vendre suffisamment pour pouvoir acheter de quoi manger à la famille ; c'est aussi d'avoir à traverser des quartiers où les conditions de sécurité sont tellement changeantes : celui qui a moulu mon grain aujourd'hui sera-t-il encore vivant demain ? C'est par exemple sur ce trajet de fabrication de la farine de maïs qu'une des mamans a été témoin devant ses yeux du lynchage d'un homme par la foule. C'est aussi l'incertitude de pouvoir rentrer avant le couvre-feu et la tombée de jour à 18 heures, alors que des bandes commencent à sortir pour aller piller des maisons désertées. L’autre souci des parents, c’est l’éducation des enfants, ils ne veulent pas que les enfants soient témoins de scènes de violence. depuis le début des tensions, les animateurs disaient : « il nous faut continuer nos Bibliothèque de rue pour désarmer l’esprit des enfants ». c’est aussi pour cela que nous allons soutenir l’initiative de l’école qui se trouve proche de la Maison Quart Monde. elle accueille depuis quelques jours plus de 1000 enfants et proposent des activités ludiques.
Depuis le jeudi 20 janvier 2014 et la prestation de serment de la Présidente de la transition, les radios nationales donnent des communiqués sur les réalités de violence qui continuent de toucher le pays : cela fait que les déplacés qui vivent avec nous, et d'autres qui passent nous voir, se posent beaucoup de questions pour le devenir de leur pays. Si malgré un deuxième gouvernement de transition les choses en restent à la violence, alors qu'est-ce qu'on va devenir?
La situation est très compliquée, c'est vrai. Mais on ne peut pas dire que tout le monde est ennemi. On ne peut pas sous-estimer les risques que prennent certains pour sauver d'autres qui ne sont pas de leur communauté. Par exemple, telle maman musulmane qui un midi voit passer une jeune fille chrétienne, ployant sous le poids du sac de grain qu'elle est allée moudre, et s'avance dans une rue ou des exactions viennent d'avoir lieu : « Viens ma fille »,dit-elle pour faire croire qu'elle est une parente, « je t'aide à porter »… et elle lui montre une ruelle pour éviter le quartier ! Dans ce même quartier, 17 lieux de culte chrétiens ont étés protégés par des groupes de jeunes musulmans qui ont voulu que l'honneur de leur voisinage soit respecté. Un autre exemple, un jeune chrétien a sauvé un homme poursuivi par une foule qui le soupçonnait d’être un ex rebelle. Lorsqu’on lui a dit : « mais pourquoi tu as sauvé ce rebelle ? » il a répondu : « j’ai sauvé un homme ».
En parlant de l'avenir du pays, un éducateur spécialisé dit : « Qu'on en finisse avec la haine. C'est une catastrophe. Les centrafricains veulent quelqu'un qui peut assurer cette transition, faire grandir un esprit qui bannit la haine et la jalousie. Qui favorise que l'un accepte l'autre. Un esprit de pardon pour assurer la paix, quelles que soient les origines de l'un et de l'autre. Les politiques doivent accepter que les gens veulent vivre en paix. Les gens réfléchissent : des dirigeants créeront-ils encore des divisions ? Car depuis si longtemps nous arrivions à vivre sans tenir compte de l'appartenance religieuse».
MB: We can see that for the displaced families, the most important thing is to continue to be able to earn enough to live on. For two of the mothers who are with us, it's a question of selling maize flour: to do that, they have to go and buy the grain in bulk, then leave it to soak overnight, dry it and then go to the market at Lakouanga, two kilometres away, to find a miller who will mill the flower at a decent price, before arranging to retail the flour at one or other of the “pop-up” markets which have been born out of the displacement of half the town. Any survival activity gives the family a reason to get up, to fight, to hope.
Uncertainty comes from whether enough flour will be sold to be able to buy the family something to eat; it is also about being able to cross neighbourhoods where the security situation is very changeable. Will the person who milled my grain today still be alive tomorrow? It was, for example, via the production of maize flour that one of the mothers came to witness the mob lynching if a man. Uncertainty also comes from not knowing whether you'll be able to return before the 6 p.m. curfew when gangs begin to appear looking to loot the deserted houses. Another worry for parents is their children's education; they don't want their children to witness scenes of violence. Since the beginning of the troubles, the facilitators have said, “We need to continue on with our street library in order to take away violence from the children's spirits”. This is also why we are going to support the initiative of the schools. For the past few days, the schools have entertained more than 1,000 children and offered fun activities.
Since Thursday, 20 January 20, 2014 and the swearing into office of the transitional president, the national radio stations have been broadcasting bulletins on the reality of the violence that continues to affect the country. This has lead to the displaced people who are living with us, and others who stop by to see us, to ask a lot of questions about the future of their country. If, despite a second transitional government, the violence continues, what will their future hold?
It is true that this is a very complicated situation. But it cannot be said that everyone has suddenly become an enemy The risks which some are willing to take in order to protect others not from their own communities shouldn't be underestimated. For example, a Muslim mother saw a young Christian girl passing by one midday, buckling under the weight of a sack of grain she was taking to be milled and heading for a street where scenes of violence had recently played out. “Come on, my darling girl”, she said to indicate that she was the girl's parent, “I'll help you carry it,” and she showed her a side street to bypass the neighbourhood! In this same neighbourhood, 17 places of Christian worship have been protected by groups of young Muslims who want to ensure the honour of their neighbours is respected. In another example, a young Christian saved a man who was being pursued by a crowd who suspected him of being a former rebel. When he was asked, “But why did you save this rebel?” he replied, “I saved a man.”
Talking about the future of the country, an educational specialist said, “The hate needs to stop. It's a catastrophe. Central Africans want someone who can ensure a transition, engender a spirit which banishes hate and jealousy. One which encourages acceptance of one another. A spirit of forgiveness in order to ensure peace, whatever each others origins. Politicians need to accept that people want to live in peace. People are thinking, will our leaders create further division? Because for a long time we managed to live without religious affiliation being an issue.”

author: Rakotomalala


text:
Panama’s First Lady Will Run For Vice Presidency  · Global Voices
Ariel Moreno

Marta será nuestra vicepresidenta. Ella y Aimée serán el corazón social de nuestro gobierno. Vamos por más cambios con #LaFuerzadeloNuevo
— José Domingo Arias (@JDAriasV) January 29, 2014
Marta will be our next vice president. Her and Aimée will be the heart of our government. Let's go for more change with “the strength of the new”
With this tweet from the governing party, CD (Democratic Change) announced what was an open secret: Marta de Martinelli, wife of current president Ricardo Martinelli, will run as a candidate for vice presidency.
Social networks had already witnessed a change in the attitude of the first lady, who had taken on a more aggressive discourse since mid-2013; such as on October 15, 2013, when she took to her Twitter account to attack La Prensa, a medium that has been disqualified on more than one occasion by President Martinelli:
Quedo al descubierto intriga diario L Prensa donde dicen Vaticano no tiene en agenda visita RM. Debieron primero verificar cn l Nuncio PLOP
— Marta de Martinelli (@martamartinelli) October 15, 2013
La Prensa's scheme remains exposed, where they say that the Vatican does not have Ricardo Marinelli's visit on their schedule. They should verify things with the Nuncio first. GOSH.
The appointment of the First Lady has raised all sorts of reactions.
Sports commentator Juan Carlos Tapia shared an image that circulated on social networks where President Ricardo Martinelli appears with his wife's hairstyle, implying that he is the one who will really be running for the vice presidency.
Me acaban de mandar los candidatos del CD pic.twitter.com/soIGNV9cT6
— Juan Carlos Tapia (@JCTapiaLMB) January 29, 2014
They just sent me the Democratic Change candidates.
Twitter users created the hashtag #noseascongo (#dontbeafool), where several Panamanians denounced a “reelection” in disguise following the appointment of the First Lady.
Delany Morales denounced “the plan” under which it is believed the reelection will arrive according to her point of view.
Si estás en contra del plan funesto para traer la reelección, dale RT! #NoSeasCongo pic.twitter.com/LzAQDyHl2K
— Delany Morales (@delamora0) January 29, 2014
If you are against the disastrous plan to bring about the reelection, RT!
For some, like journalist Edwin Cabrera, alarms went off when the phenomenon that occurred in Argentina with Kirchner would be repeated.
primer reto será convencer a tod@s q un triunfo de @JDAriasV y @martamartinelli no será el inicio de la versión panameña del kirsnerischmo
— Edwin Cabrera (@EdwinECabreraU) January 29, 2014
The first challenge will be convincing that a win from @JDAriasV and @martamartinelli will not be the start of a Panamanian version of Kirchnerism.
Similarly, writer Edilberto Gonzalez, commented:
Aquí pues viendo como CD Kirchnerea.
— Edilberto González T (@egtrejos) January 30, 2014
Here, watching how the Democratic Change is Kirchnerizing.
For Julieta Guerra, however, there could not have been better news:
Una propuesta social, un alto sentido de inclusion es la formula presidencial JDAriasV y Marta de Martinelli. Vamos x +CAMBIOS!
— Julieta M. Guerra (@ju05guevara) January 30, 2014
A social proposal, a high sense of inclusion is the presidential formula for JDAriasV and Marta de Martinelli. Let's go for more CHANGE!
Alvaro Biebarach shares an image on his Facebook account where several of his friends are excited by the appointment of the First Lady:
Algunos mensajes en mi Facebook sobre designación de la Sra. Marta de Martinelli Excelente… pic.twitter.com/xqP9LNjbjf
— Alvaro Biebarach (@Alvarobiebarach) January 30, 2014
A few messages on my Facebook on the appointment of Ms. Marta de Martinelli. Excellent…
Meanwhile, Francisco Rodrigo shares an image of Article 193 of the Panamanian Constitution that seems to prevent the First Lady from running as vice president:
@rmartinelli debe leer el artículo 193 de al actual constitución política de Panamá pic.twitter.com/lxd34mk8jD
— Francisco Rodrigo (@yonosoyunspam) January 30, 2014
@rmartinelli should read Article 193 of Panama's current political constitution.
Regarding this dilemma, Electoral Tribunal President Erasmo Pinilla pronounced [es] that relatives in the fourth degree of consanguinity and second of affinity cannot be candidates, but spouses do not fall in either of these categories.
The stage is served and with this appointment there are already five nominees that will run for president and vice president on May 4.

author: Ariel Moreno


text:
Searching for Solutions to Open Defecation in Ghana · Global Voices
Kofi Yeboah

Open defecation is a huge health problem facing Ghana. Sixteen million people in Ghana use unsanitary or shared latrines, while 5.7 million have no latrines at all and defecate in the open. This has led to outbreak of diseases such as cholera when human excreta and urine pollutes water bodies. Open defecation costs the nation a whopping sum of 79 million dollars per year.
An article published by SpyGhana indicates that:
Although Ghana has chalked tremendous progress in some of the eight areas of the development goals including MDG 7, Target 7c, which is to: “Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking-water and basic sanitation”, whereas it has already surpassed its target of 78% for water, the country has failed woefully in increasing access to improved sanitation.
Crawling at a snail’s pace of one percentage point increase each year, access to improved sanitation in Ghana is now at 15% according to the latest Multi Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) report released few days ago.
This means only 15 out of 100 Ghanaians now have access to improved sanitation, which is 39% short of Ghana’s sanitation MDG target of 54% that expires in 2015.
To further compound Ghana’s unenviable sanitation status, the open defecation rate in Ghana has now increased from 19 per hundred Ghanaians to 23 per 100, according to the MICS report.
But Clean Team Ghana is a sanitation company in Ghana that is working to change that by providing innovative and affordable in-house toilet facilities to urban communities. The YouTube video below shows how Clean Team is improving urban communities in Ghana by helping households have access to safe and clean toilet in their homes:
The company organised a Twitter debate on the 24 January 2014 to engage sanitation experts, government, social enterprises and the online community to deliberate on how open defecation can be eradicated in Ghana. The debate was organised using the hashtag #OpenDefecationGh.
In response to why people defecate in the open, Green Ghanaian (@GreenGhanaian) tweeted:
@CleanTeamGhana people don't take open defecation seriously because the sanitation court is a joke #OpenDefecationGh
— Green Ghanaian (@GreenGhanaian) January 24, 2014
Naomi Kokuro (@Naamsb) commented:
@CleanTeamGhana most people especially dont see anything wrong in defecating in the open as its been a norm with them for long. — Naomi Kokuro (@naamsb) January 24, 2014
Valeries Labi (@ValerieLabi) agreed:
@CleanTeamGhana @victoria_okoye I think it's cheap and socially acceptable everyone sees it as normal @WASHUnited
— Valerie Labi (@valerielabi) January 24, 2014
Naomi Kokuro (@Naamsb) emphasised:
@CleanTeamGhana @victoria_okoye @valerielabi no thats not the only choice but i guess people are reluctant to change
— Naomi Kokuro (@naamsb) January 24, 2014
How can open defecation be eradicated in Ghana? Ghana Wash Project (@Gwashproject) suggested:
@CleanTeamGhana eradicating open defecation requires physical facilities (toilets, latrines) and immense behavior change #OpenDefecationGh
— Ghana WASH Project (@gwashproject) January 24, 2014
Naomi Kokuro (@Naamsb) argued:
@gwashproject @CleanTeamGhana how do we do that? is it always just saying it n not taking steps to really do wat weve been saying from time
— Naomi Kokuro (@naamsb) January 24, 2014
Edu Afrique (@EduAfrique) tweeted:
@CleanTeamGhana We think that #OpendefecationGH should be made as taboo as handing items to ppl with your left hand is in GH.
— EduAfrique (@EduAfrique) January 24, 2014
Gameli Adzaho (@Gamelmag) pointed out that:
But beyond all this talk, we need to: 1. Act within our locales 2. Work together @CleanTeamGhana hope you rally us all #OpenDefecationGh
— Gameli Adzaho (@gamelmag) January 24, 2014
Asante Pious (@Asantep2005) noted:
@CleanTeamGhana i think the best thing to do is preach the provision of toilet facilities in every house #OpenDefecationGh
— Asante Pious (@asantep2005) January 24, 2014
Delali Kumapley (@DKumapley) remarked:
@CleanTeamGhana We need to educate the Ghanaians on the hazards, that are caused by open defecation.
— delali kumapley (@DKumapley) January 24, 2014
Valeries Labi (@ValerieLabi) wrote:
@GreenGhanaian #opendefecationgh I think that it starts from youth if toilets in school were standard people would grow with this as norm
— Valerie Labi (@valerielabi) January 24, 2014
Francis Kumadoh (@Kumadorian) commented:
More places of convenience must be constructed for those who can not afford to build theirs #OpenDefecationGh
— francis kumadoh (@kumadorian) January 24, 2014
Replying to Francis Kumadoh (@Kumadorian) tweet, Ghana Wash Project (@Gwashproject) wrote:
@kumadorian Agreed &working togethr to maintain public/communal facility (but shared facilities don't = improved a la MDGs #OpenDefecationGH
— Ghana WASH Project (@gwashproject) January 24, 2014
MIT Environmental Engineering student J Knutson (@JKnoot) advised that:
#opendefecationgh picture I took of a public toilet in Ashton today. Affordable private toilets are needed pic.twitter.com/UBRi79qS4X
— J Knutson (@JKnoot) January 24, 2014
Co-founder of Clean Team Andy Narracott (@AndyNarracott) wrote:
@CleanTeamGhana it has to a joint effort! A social marketing campaign backed by ALL #OpenDefecationGH
— Andy Narracott (@AndyNarracott) January 24, 2014
Nii Kwade (@Niikwade) emphasised the need for collaboration:
#OpenDefecationGh I think govt can't do it alone. CSOs, companies, schools and individuals all need to pitch in to curb the menace.
— niikwade (@niikwade) January 24, 2014
Grace Aba Ayensu (@Aba_Ayensu) complimented the effort of Clean Team:
I believe that @CleanTeamGhana is setting the example and is leading an initiative that government should support #OpenDefecationGh
— Grace Aba Ayensu (@Aba_Ayensu) January 24, 2014
Victoria Okoye (@Victoria_Okoye), media and communications expert, noted:
@DKumapley @niikwade @CleanTeamGhana Exactly — if you're waiting for the govt, you could be waiting forever #OpenDefecationGH
— Victoria Okoye (@victoria_okoye) January 24, 2014
Peter Jones (@HCPeterJones), British High Commissioner to Ghana, tweeted:
@valerielabi @gamelmag @CleanTeamGhana Start with taking responsibility for your immediate patch of ground, drains, etc?
— HCPeterJones (@HCPeterJones) January 24, 2014


text:
Snow in Iran: 500,000 Without Electricity, Gas and Water · Global Voices
Farid

Snow in Mazandaran. Source: Mehr News Agency. Photographer: Pejman Marzi.
500,000 people are reportedly trapped in villages without electricity, gas or water after a massive snow storm this weekend in Iran's northern provinces, Gilan and Mazandaran.
One local official called it the heaviest snowfall in 50 years. Thousands have been rescued and taken to emergency shelters or hospitalized.
ZA1-1RA tweeted:
من ازین باباتم خیالم از خونواده جمه که می دونم اندازه چن ماه برنج دارن #برف #شمال :|
— ZA1-1RA (@zara_esm) February 3, 2014
I do not worry about my family, they have rice in reserve for months.
Farshad Faryabi tweeted:
فکر کنم #وزیرخارجه #سوئد برنگرده از ایران چون الان #برف و سرما تو #ایران بیشتر از سوئد شده :)
— Farshid Faryabi (@F_Faryabi) February 3, 2014
Swedish Foreign Minister, Carl Blidt, [who is on a trip in Iran] won't go back to Sweden now because there is more snow in Iran.
Soheila Sadegh tweeted:
به علت بارش برف در شرق #گيلان، یک مدرسه ابتدایی بدلیل فرسودگی تخریب شد #آموزش‌پرورش #مدارس #دانش‌آموز #معلم #مازندران #رشت #گرگان #اردبيل
— soheila sadegh (@Soheila_Sadegh) February 3, 2014
A school was destroyed in Gilan under heavy snow.
Maysam Bizar tweeted:
شهروند #مازندرانی: بخاطر #برف 6 عدد آب معدنی کوچک 3 هزار تومانی را خریدیم 12 هزار تومان. خودمون به خودمون رحم نمیکنیم از دشمن انتظار داریم؟
— Maysam Bizar (@M_Bizar) February 3, 2014
The price for bottled water rose four times during snowing days. If we do not have pity for ourselves, what we do we expect of enemies?
Mozdeh A tweeted:
هر چی برا بقیه دنیا نعمته واسه ایرانی جماعت نکبته #برف
— mozhdeh A (@MozhdehT) February 3, 2014
What is a blessing for others, is a curse for us.
Saham Borghani shared a photo last month (January 10) of tea and snow.
#برف و #چای pic.twitter.com/6phbpubCjJ
— saham Boorghani (@sahamedin) January 10, 2014

author: Farid


text:
Submit Cartoons on NSA Surveillance and Win $1000 · Global Voices
Solana Larsen

Commander Keith Alexander on the bridge” Cartoon shared by DonkeyHotey (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The Web We Want invites cartoonists, creatives and artists to join The Day We Fight Back on February 11, 2014 by creating an original cartoon about online surveillance and the right to privacy. The cartoons should help increase awareness about the NSA and demand accountability for mass digital surveillance in a way that makes people want to click and share.
Deadline for submissions is February 8.
Prizes:
1st place: USD $1000
2nd place: USD $500
3rd Place: USD $250
Rules:
1. Anyone can participate.
2. By submitting the work, the author agrees that it is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution Share Alike license. There is no limit of submissions per author.
3. The Author will provide a name or pseudonym to the submission. Further personal details will be requested for the winners – but their real name will remain private upon request of the author.
4. The winners will be announced on February 11, 2014. The winner will be picked by members of the Web We Want Executive Committee.
5. The award will be transferred to the winners within 30 days after the announcement.
Submissions:
1. By email: send your cartoon – high definition, .jpg, .pdf, .svg or .png to
grants@webfoundation.org SUBJECT: Cartoon by February 8th.
2. By Twitter: Tweet your uploaded image to @webwewant with the hashtag #webwewant
3. Adding your nationality and country of origin is optional but highly encouraged.

author: Solana Larsen


text:
Taliban Play Trump with Peace Talks in Pakistan · Global Voices
Sana Jamil

The Pakistani government finally announced their negotiating team for peace talks with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The banned militant outfit responded with their own team, which includes politicians from the very parties that were backing the government's peace talks, including cricketer-turned- politician Imran Khan, who declined the role.
In an analysis piece written for the daily Dawn, Peshawar-based journalist Ismail Khan writes:
It’s a win-win situation – tail, I win, head, you lose! Like-minded people on both sides. As one commentator put it, it was a case of Liverpool playing against Liverpool.
Lahore-based tweeter Faisal Sherjan tweets:
#TTP list of its five nominated negotiators proves they have a zany sense of humour.
— Faisal Sherjan (@fsherjan) February 2, 2014
Peace talk committees
While speaking to parliament on January 29, 2014 Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said that regardless of the recent deadly attacks by the Taliban, Pakistan hopes that its talks-first approach will help end violence in the country.
Sharif's four-member committee to pursue talks “immediately”, includes well-known journalists Rahimullah Yousufzai and Irfan Siddique, former ambassador Rustam Shah Mohmand (who is also a member of Imran Khan's party); former Intelligence official Major (Retired) Amir Shah.
The Taliban announced team to facilitate talks with the government, includes three top Islamist party leaders Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, Mufti Kifayatullah and Prof Ibrahim Khan, the controversial former chief cleric of Lal Masjid Maulana Abdul Aziz, and former cricketer turned Chairman of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) party Imran Khan.
Imran Khan's nomination resulted in lots of buzz on Twitter, from his critics who call with “Taliban Khan” for his pro-talks stance and his supporters who defend him vociferously.
I can really realllly not stop laughing at the TTP nominating Imran Khan as THEIR representative for the negotiations. Vindication AT LAST.
— Kala Kawa (@kaalakawaa) February 1, 2014
@YusraSAskari if the govt had put him forward for dialogue, i doubt IK would have refused; We all know he would be lynched had he
— Zarlasht Faisal (@ZarlashtFaisal) February 3, 2014
On his official Twitter account, Imran Khan distanced himself from the Taliban nomination:
TTP should select their own Taliban representatives 4 peace talks. We have full faith in the 4 member committee announced by the govt. 1/2
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) February 1, 2014
Former Ambassador to the US Sherry Rehman believed that the Taliban were trying to exert power over the talks:
So the Taliban are dictating all terms, name of dream team. No good can come of this abject surrender
— sherryrehman (@sherryrehman) February 1, 2014
Taliban attacks throughout Pakistan
Following the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud in a US drone strike in November last year, newly elected TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah shunned the negotiation table and swore to avenge the death of his predecessor. The group has since carried out attacks in Pakistan's major cities.
Views after deadly suicidal attack on Chief of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) of Sindh Police Chaudhry Muhammad who killed in attack. Image by ppiimages. Copyright Demotix (9/1/2014)
In some of the major attacks of 2014, a senior police officer Chaudhry Aslam was assassinated on January 9 in an IED blast in Karachi. Aslam was highly critical of TTP activities in the city and had either arrested or killed several TTP members in recent years. The TTP Mohmand Agency group claimed responsibility for that attack.
Later on January 19, Taliban militants hit a security convoy in the Bannu area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and killed 20 people. The next day, at least 13 more people were killed in a bomb explosion in Rawalpindi.
With this violence in mind, some are skeptical of the prudence of peace talks. According to an article published by the Asian Human Rights Commission:
“It is madness for sheep to talk peace with a wolf,” said British historian and clergyman Thomas Fuller. In other words, we cannot change the nature of wild creatures. We cannot predict when snakes, lions, wolves or any other wild animals will attack, and without protecting ourselves we cannot sit calmly. In the context of Pakistan, the sheep is the government, and the wolf is the Taliban. It is madness on the part of the government to want peace talks with the Taliban, who only understand the language of weapons and violence.
Yet another report called the “Pakistan Security Report 2013” compiled by the Pak Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS) showed that in 2013, TTP remained the reason behind unrest in the country:
Compared to 2012, the number of reported terrorist attacks in Pakistan posted a nine per cent increase while the number of people killed and injured in these attacks increased by 19 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively. Despite the killing of its top brass in drone attacks and military operations by Pakistani security forces, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) remained the major actor of instability in the country in 2013 through its alliance with numerous militant groups. It carried out 645 terrorist attacks in 50 districts, claiming the lives of 732 civilians and 425 security forces personnel.
Split opinions on peace talks
Pakistan first proposed negotiations with the Taliban in 2004, but talks have not been successful. According to Prime Minister Sharif, this is the Taliban's final chance to come to the negotiation table and halt their violent activities in the country.
The country's major political parties have split down the middle on the issue: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) have hailed the government’s decision, while Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) are not so hopeful about the talks and wanted a full force, comprehensive military action against the TTP.
The selection of the negotiators has also raised some eyebrows when it comes to their credentials.
Pakistan Peoples Party Patron-in-Chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Image by Jamal Dawoodpoto. Copyright Demotix (27/12/2014)
After Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's announcement of more talks with the TTP, Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari reacted in utter disappointment on Twitter:
Shocked at composition of committee.Ex-midnight jackal.Some practically Taliban spokes person. This is sending Taliban to talk to Taliban.
— BilawalBhuttoZardari (@BBhuttoZardari) January 29, 2014
For senior anchor and political analyst Syed Talat Hussain, the committee is just for distraction and nothing more:
Instead of explaining progress of 6 months,another committee is formed for distraction.
— Syed Talat Hussain (@TalatHussain12) January 29, 2014

author: Sana Jamil


text:
Will Orcas Be Put on Display at Sochi? · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Two “transient” orcas near Alaska's eastern Aleutian Islands. Photo credit: Robert Pitman/NOAA (public domain)
This article and a radio report by Andrea Crossan for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on January 31, 2014 and is republished as part of a content sharing agreement.
How do you hide something that weighs as much as six tons, is 20 feet long and requires hundreds of pounds of food every day?
That's the mystery researchers and conservationists are trying to solve, as they search for eight orca whales they believe were captured in Russian waters.
Rumors surfaced that two of the whales were going to be put on display at the 2014 Winter Olympics. And that ignited a firestorm.
An online petition, widely circulating on Twitter, demanded that the Russian company White Sphere not put the orcas in a dolphinarium in Sochi. At last count, the online petition had 400,000 signatures.
Please sign this petition http://t.co/vUe0BDOSAQ. Stop Russia keeping orcas in tanks for the Sochi olympics. Thanks :)
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) January 25, 2014
There were numerous reports that the Russian company had captured the orcas in the Sea of Okhotsk and that at least some of the whales were in holding pens near Vladivostok. The Russian Fisheries Agency didn't respond to questions regarding quotas for orca captured in Russian waters.
A male orca is seen near the Commander Islands in the Russian Far East.
“We have information from within Russia that two of them were shipped to China,” said Erich Hoyt, a research fellow with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation. “We have confirmation that two of them have gone to Moscow. However, none of these four [other] orcas are anywhere on display.”
But there's no proof that White Sphere has the whales — or has any plans to display them at Sochi. A spokesperson said the company doesn't “deal with the capture of wild animals or the transport of them.” The spokesperson said the company was aware of the online petition and expressed concern about the uproar.
It's believed the two Russian orcas that went to China will be displayed at a new Chinese theme park called Ocean Kingdom. Ocean Kingdom features the world's biggest aquarium and advertises a massive collection of sea life, including beluga whales and whale sharks. But it doesn't advertise having orcas on display. Ocean Kingdom wouldn't comment on whether it planned to display orcas.
There has been a strong backlash to marine parks keeping orcas in captivity. It may be, in part, due to the impact of the 2013 documentary film “Blackfish,” which examines the 2010 death of an orca trainer at SeaWorld. It also highlights the methods used to capture wild orcas.
“Definitely you can see that marine parks around the world are being much more covert about what they're doing with dolphins and orcas,” said Tim Zimmermann, associate producer and co-writer of “Blackfish.” “Ten years ago, I think you would have had [marine parks] advertising and proudly saying they would be displaying killer whales. But these days, it seems like a much more covert operation. We'll only know the killer whales are there when they suddenly appear in the pools.”
Andrea Crossan is a Boston-based senior producer for The World. She follows all things Canadian and has a dog the size of a small horse.

author: PRI/PRX's The World


text:
15-year-old Girl Spins for Four Hours in Spring Festival Gala · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Chinese netizens were outraged about such ridiculous performance. The girl Wei Caiqi rotated more than 8000 circles non-stop for four hours as performance. As explained by the TV hosts, the spinning performance is to indicate the Chinese sense of “time” and “history”. It sounds like a mockery.
ChinaSMACK translated some online reaction to the performance.

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
Apply for Development Reporting Grants · Global Voices
Solana Larsen

The European Journalism Centre (EJC) is calling for applications for a new round of grants for innovation in development reporting. So far the EJC have funded 28 projects worth a combined 550,000 Euros in grants. The next deadline for applications is February 26, 2014. Visit Journalismgrants.org to apply online.


text:
Aymara Children and their Mental Health · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

The website Indigenous News analizes a report carried out by BMC Psychiatry which studied 748 children, whose ages range between 9 and 15, from nine different schools attended by low socioeconomic classes in the city of Arica, in northern Chile. Out of the total number of children that took part of the study, 37% were Aymara.
Aymara families live a traditional lifestyle. Elders advise the youth, mothers take care of household tasks and educate the children, while fathers are the bread-winners and often make family decisions.
The study concludes:
Although Aymara children have migrated from the high Andean plateau to the city, this migration has not resulted in a greater presence of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Greater involvement with the Aymara culture may be a protective factor against anxiety and depressive symptoms in Aymara children. This point to an additional benefit of maintaining cultural traditions within this population.

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


text:
Blog Carnival Shows the Caribbean Some Love  · Global Voices
Matthew Hunte

The online feminist collective CODE RED hosted a month-long blog carnival called e-Mas, under the theme “To the Caribbean, With Love.”  The series featured contributions from writers all over the Caribbean. According to the organizers:
Still confused about what a blog carnival is? Think of all the usual ingredients of a Caribbean carnival and try to replicate those with words, images and/or sound.  The theme is broad enough that you can guh to town pun it!
This led to a wide variety of posts being published – essays, poems, photography, even vidblogs – touching on a broad spectrum of topics, all united by the Twitter hashtag #DearCaribbean.
Carla Moore presented a vidblog in which she discusses why some people choose to stay at home in the Caribbean even when they can leave:
Moore inspired Klieon Cavon to do his own vidblog entitled “Basseterre Woman”:
Akeema-Zane preferred to write about her experience:
For the first time you will eat swordfish from Oistins and cry out loud in the clear blue waters of Pebbles Beach, praising the universe and all of creation for the now, the yesteryears and the tomorrows and acknowledging in that present moment that you deserve every rainbow, every sun-kissing sky, every laugh and smile. You will hug yourself tightly because you dared to feel the enormity of your existence-that you are real and not imagined; that you are highest form of beauty personified. You will love yourself so strongly, so deeply, that you will be moved to the highest gratitude of thanks. For everything known and unknown and everyone who allowed you to be!
Saieed I. Khalil examined what the Caribbean integration movement can learn from the mass protests in Ukraine:
But who among us will participate in the uprising to galvanize policymakers to act? In Ukraine, some estimates put the portion of youths under 30 participating in the protests at 90%! Many of them are students and wield degrees. This leads us to the second lesson of the Maidan protests: a mass of young, educated people who are sufficiently mobilized can lead the strike for regional integration. Why them, and not older folks?
Diaspora Dash shared her discovery about the cultural impact of the migration from the Anglophone/Francophone Caribbean into Venezuela, while Jermain Ostiana wrote a poem entitled Trujillonomics:
Little kids drawing veves
with anti-capitalist
black angel dust.
Yeah pah I love you
even if you been god-awfully indoctrinated by the Dutch.
While you suited up
in a cold temperatured office
helping the corporate to connive.
The kids be in classes without airco and iPads, school teachers struggling to inspire.
And this kingdom s’posed to be heaven?
Maureen St. Clair admitted that she did not really learn to love her own body until she moved to the Caribbean:
I began to respect and love my soft round belly passed down by my Mother, Grandmother and Great Grand. In Grenada for the first time I witnessed gorgeous full bodied women who weren’t afraid to be their natural selves, who weren’t afraid of the flesh on their bodies, didn’t try to hide or camouflage their size through large clothing, didn’t feel great shame for the bodies their mamas passed on to them.  It was the first time I experienced women moving with confidence and delight; gratitude and pride.
Lina Free wrote “a love letter to the Caribbean”:
Every day is a struggle, oui, but here in the Caribbean is where I want to be battling. From the beach in Tobago where I spent my first New Years Eve after coming back, drinking too much and hugging up everybody too much, just abrim with love, to the tent cities of Port Au Prince where women bathed, bare breasted, in plain sight of every tom, dick, and harry passerby- you continue to succor as well as challenge me, Caribbean. This, I love.
Gabrielle Hosein wrote about the challenges of being an Indo-Caribbean feminist:
Indian womanhood now is even more complex than three generations ago. Unapologetically, I’m in solidarity with the young Indian lesbians from South, the well-educated Muslim mothers not ready to marry, the young Hindu women who have chosen to terminate pregnancies because of unreliable partners or income, and the girls whose decisions about love may cross racial lines. I’m all for the ‘good’ Indian girls too, whoever and wherever they are. We all draw on religion, history, ancestry, mythology, cultural diversity, modernity and sisterhoods that cross ethnicity in ways we creatively combine. Regardless of how we choose to weave together our best, most fulfilled, most equal selves, I think it’s our right to decide.
Vidyaratha Kissoon, who inspired the blogging mas, also wrote about being Indian and from the Caribbean:
But is funny, when I lef dis part uh de world.. how ah does push de Caribbean ting. ( i was tellin’ a fren is Burnham jumbie in me.. an’ I laff when I remembah how dem people in Englan’ used to tell me dat i soun ‘black’ an’ how i join up wid de African and Caribbean Students Society instead of de Asian Students because I feel like I had more in common wid black ‘Caribbean’ people. Anodda time ah had to laff because a drunk India coolie computer man.. we bin at a conference party.. tell me dat is a good ting we ancestors lef India because at least we could dance.
The Contessa wrote about appropriating the Baby Doll ole mas character as a way to challenge conventional notions of sexuality:
The Baby doll conventionally provides commentary on teen-pregnancy and responsible fathering and can easily be extended to other related issues such as breast feeding and child rights. At the competition level, baby dolls tend to use current social and political events, making their speeches relevant, witty and sometimes controversial.  This however did not prevent the looks of slight shock and discomfort I received back stage after telling two of the other “dolls” that I would be looking for my child mother and not father this time around. I guess some things remain taboo despite our Carnival’s history.
Take a look at all the submissions, here.

author: Matthew Hunte


text:
China’s Second Largest Online Retailer JD.com Files for US Stock Listing · Global Voices
Jack Hu

JD.com Inc., a major Chinese e-commerce company, has filed to raise up to 1.5 billion US dollars in an initial public offering (IPO) in the US, making it the largest IPO of a Chinese Internet company in the states thus far.
JD is a major competitor to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., China's biggest e-commerce company, which is also considering going public in what is expected to be a much larger IPO valued around 100 billion. JD's business model is more similar to that of Amazon.com in that it is a direct seller of goods held in sprawling warehouses, while Alibaba runs online marketplaces.
The company's most distinctive feature is its highly efficient delivery team that reaches third-tier cities and is currently expanding to rural villages. Below is the latest advertisement of the company that highlights its delivery service:
JD.com, founded by its chairman Richard Liu Qiangdong only ten years ago, had 35.8 million customer accounts by the end of the third quarter of last year. After two years of losses, the company said it registered a profit of 60 million yuan (about 9.9 million US dollars) in the first three quarters of last year, mainly due to interest income.
The company said it would use the funds raised to “acquire land use rights, build new warehouses and establish more delivery stations,” according to the filing. It currently operates 82 warehouses and 1,453 delivery stations across China.
Although the company's profit comes from its interest and the reach of its e-commerce platform is far behind Alibaba and Tencents, JD.com has its supporters. IT news commentators Xie Pu and Xu Ji highlighted the great potentials of the company's logistics, in particular its nationwide warehouse and goods delivery network:
为京东点赞，因为刘强东比起其他电商公司，更早看到虚拟与现实的交融，京东十年来做对了一件事——自建物流。物流建设成就了京东，它进可攻，退可守。
We support JD.com because Richard Liu sees the intertwine between the virtual and the real. In the past ten years, it built its logistics system. JD.com is a logistic infrastructure. It helps the company to sustain and expand its business.
我们为京东点赞，也因为京东赚钱不容易。电商不是游戏，毛利低得可怜，要自建物流，还要供养数万快递配送员，能够赚到不容易赚到的钱，这样的公司，才好长期看好。
We support JD.com because it does not make easy money. E-commerce is no game and it has very little profit margin. To make money by building its logistic infrastructure and hiring tens of thousands delivery workers, this is not an easy task and the long-term effect will show.
China’s e-commerce boom
By 2015, China will have surpassed the US as the leading e-commerce market, according to consulting firm Bain & Company. On November 11, China marked its “Super Singles” day for jewelry and other sales to entice couples to shop for their loved ones. Sales hit five billion US dollars. By comparison, last year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales combined reached around three billion dollars.
In such as huge market, local corporates such as JD.com perform much better than international giant corporates such as Amazon. Chinese New York Times columnist Li Chengdong compared JD.com and Amazon's performances in China on his Weibo:
凡是亚马逊进入的市场，基本是第一名。进入中国10年了，且提供的体验是要优于亚马逊全球的标准。拼钱，亚马逊更多;拼技术，亚马逊更强;拼仓储，亚马逊自建更早更先进;拼品牌，亚马逊更要强于京东。如果非要分析亚马逊中国为什么打不过京东？京东有不一样的就是刘强东，而亚马逊中国是一帮职业经理人！
In the rest of the world, Amazon occupies the number one position in all its markets. The company has been in China for about ten years and its services in China are on average better than the rest of the world. Amazon has more money, better technology, more advanced warehouses than JD.com. If I have to explain why Amazon cannot beat down JD.com, it is because of Richard Liu. Amazon is run by a team of professional managers [rather than an entrepreneur like Liu].
However, Jing Nanke, who is customer of both Amazon and JD.com, disagreed with Li's judgement:
胡说八道，这两家网店我都是经常去买东西，到我还是喜欢京东。在服务，响应时间，送货时间，平台友好程度上，京东都远优于亚马逊。看好京东，亚马逊在中国牛不了。
Nonsense, I am customer of both online platforms and I like JD better. Its customer service, delivery service and platform friendliness is better than Amazon. I don't think Amazon can gain an upper hand in China.
Lingpeng1973 said the “professional managers” of Amazon are poor at localization of e-commerce:
这些职业经理人们根本不了解在中国电商怎么玩，只对西雅图负责，不求有功只求无过，碰上刘强东、李国庆这帮不按规矩出牌的地头蛇，只能苟延残息。以前还看好其强大的技术背景和仓储实力，但随着京东等的崛起，亚马逊在中国的机会已经失去。
The professional managers don't understand how to run e-commerce in China and they are responsible to Seattle. They don't want to make mistakes rather than taking risks to compete for success. Thus, when competing with Richard Liu and Li Guoxin [CEO of Dangdang.com, China's biggest online bookstore], who play the game differently, it barely makes business. Because of Amazon's super technology and warehouses, it had great potential before. Now that JD.com, among others, have established themselves in China, Amazon has lost its edge.
Li Guoqing, CEO of another online retailer, Dangdang.com, believed that going public in the US could help JD.com to improve the company's capital flow and transparency:
目前公认美国资本市场过热，是融资好时机。老刘说“13年盈利，但14年不上市”，那我再劝一句：14年Q1务必在美国上市，补充资本金不足和增加被美国会计准则审计的透明度。
Now the US capital market is becoming overheated, which offers good timing for fundraising. Liu once said “JD will gain profits in 2013 but will not go public in 2014″, but I would advise him to go public in the first quarter of 2014 so as to improve capital flow and increase audit transparency.

author: Jack Hu


text:
Exploring Puerto Rican Music · Global Voices
Firuzeh Shokooh Valle

Musician Luis Amed Irizarry [es] explores various Puerto Rican musical genres in this column [es] for the digital publication 80 Grados.

author: Firuzeh Shokooh Valle


text:
Four Months in Jail and Counting for Algerian Blogger Who Criticized President · Global Voices
Abdou Semmar

Algerian Abdelghani Aloui has been in jail since September 25, 2013. His crime? Sharing images on Facebook that are caricatures of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal.
Since his arrest, the 24-year-old blogger has been detained in Serkadji prison of Algiers, the capital city of Algeria, a prison known for hosting terrorists and criminals. A trial has yet to take place for Abdelghani Aloui.
“Blogs: No Mocking Allowed” says this poster. The poster shows Aloui on the right and one of the photo he posted on the left. The poster was originally published on the weekly online El Watan Weekend following the activist arrest then republished by the blog “Chouf el Djazair”- Posted with the permission of Chouf el Djazair's author.
Like many other young Algerians who make up the the majority of the Algerian society, Aloui believed or was made to believe that his country was different from Syria, Libya or other countries ruled by dictators. But after he exercised his right to express himself on social networks, he was arrested by Algerian police and was placed under custody warrant, a type of preventive detention that appears to have become indefinite in Aloui's case. Demands for his provisional release have been refused several times by the district attorney of Sidi M'hamed in Algiers, the latest being on October 9, 2013.
Aloui was first charged with insulting the president, and later a charge of glorifying terrorism was added on. In this French-language video, one the Aloui's lawyers explains that he believes his client is innocent of the charges against him.  The lawyer stated that he accepted to take his case because he believes Aloui is being harassed because of a political agenda and not because he broke any laws:
Many people, from activists to netizens, embraced Aloui's case and asked for his release. An online petition [fr] condemning the abuse of authority regarding his arrest was even created. The text of the petition read:
Ces graves dérives autoritaires qui portent atteinte aux acquis démocratiques des Algériens doivent sans cesse être dénoncées et combattues, afin que les citoyens algériens accèdent à une Algérie de droit, dans laquelle les libertés individuelles et collectives sont respectées
These dangerous authoritarian abuses that violate the democratic gains of all Algerians should always be denounced and fought so that Algerian citizens can fully live in an Algerian state where individual and collective freedoms are respected.
Philip Luther, the Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International, links this case to the upcoming elections in Algeria:
The Algerian authorities appear to be trying to stifle criticism at a time of uncertainty ahead of presidential elections due next year.
Unfortunately, this public mobilization seems to be fading out. Many human rights activists in Algeria are afraid that Aloui's case will fade into oblivion. Indeed, the Algerian regime is orchestrating a campaign calling Aloui a dangerous terrorist supporting jihad, or the holy struggle against the enemies of Islam. To support this idea and assert Aloui's guilt, a video of him praising jihad was posted on YouTube:
Amine Sidhoum, Aloui's laywer, immediately slammed the video as fake and denounced it as an alleged manipulation. The objective of the video, he said, is to discredit Aloui by portraying him as an Islamist. Sidhoum also raised doubts about the true identity of the user, who posted the video on Facebook under the name “Malik Liberter“, Aloui's nickname on YouTube. Sidhoum argues that someone used Aloui's Youtube nickname on Facebook to post videos that would implicate Aloui. Interviewed by Algerie Focus, Sidhoum noted:
We hear three different voices in this video and the mismatch between Abedelghani's lips and the actual sound is blatant. Moreover, my client stopped schooling at the age of 15. His command of classical Arabic is not good enough for him to hold such a speech without cue cards.
Algerian authorities are doing their best to make the public forget that Aloui was originally arrested for “insults against the President of the Republic”, which is far removed from conducting a terrorist act. To put things into historical perspective, in the 1990s Algeria suffered a violent civil war between Islamists and the state. Anyone contesting the legitimacy of the regime back then would automatically be labelled a ‘terrorist.
After four months in jail, Aloui's future is gloomier than ever, especially if one considers that Article 87-bis of the Penal Code that deals with “the proponents of terrorism” remains quite vague and can often lead to dangerous interpretations. From Facebook to prison, the tragic fate of this Algerian cyber-activist proves that the so-called promise of ”democracy and freedom” waved by the Algerian regime might just be a front.

author: Abdou Semmar


text:
Hong Kong: Flashmob Action To Free Xu Zhiyong · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A group of Hong Kong students who met Chinese citizen right activist Xu Zhiyong in seminars before organized a flashmob action to express their support for Xu and demand his release. Xu Zhiyong was sentenced to four year imprisonment for organizing a small protest in Beijing last month.


text:
How Eating Italian Gnocchi Became a Monthly Tradition in Latin America · Global Voices
Laura Schneider

Gnocchi. Image by Simenon on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-SA 2.0)
[All links lead to Spanish-language pages unless otherwise noted.]
In Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, eating gnocchi on the 29th of every month is a popular tradition. No one knows for sure where or how this custom came about, but many bloggers have dedicated posts to the culinary habit and published recipes explaining how to make gnocchi.
The blog Sección del por qué went back to the 8th century:
La tradición de servir ñoquis los dias 29 nace de una leyenda que se remonta al siglo VIII. Vivía entonces en Nicosia (Asia Mayor) un joven médico llamado Pantaleón, quien, tras convertirse al cristianismo, peregrina por el norte de Italia. Allí practicó milagrosas curaciones por las que fue canonizado. Cierta ocasión en que pedía pan a unos campesinos , estos lo invitaron a compartir su pobre mesa. Agradecido, les anuncia un año de pesca y cosechas excelentes. La profecía se cumplía y otros muchos milagros. San Pantaleón fue consagrado -a la par de San Marcos- patrono de Venecia. Aquel episodio ocurría un 29, por tal razón se recuerda ese día con una comida sencilla representada por los ñoquis. El ritual que lo acompaña de poner dinero bajo el plato simboliza el deseo de nuevas dádivas.
Carambolatango offered her favorite story:
Durante la Guerra de Europa, en Italia, escaseaban los alimentos entonces. El gobierno repartía bonos que eran cambiados por comida en los expendios. Las familias más numerosas se veían en serias dificultades para alimentarse y llegar a fin de mes. Nace la solidaridad entre  las personas y los vecinos invitaban a comer  noquis, (que era siempre considerada comida para los pobres) a las familias más grandes. Debajo de cada plato les ponían un bono y este regalo permitía que estos grupos pudieran cambiarlos por comida y llegar a fin de mes –
Alejandra Moglia from the blog Chocolate y Frambuesa added even more history for gnocchi:
Hay otra historia que cuenta que hacia 1690, en un pueblo de Piamonte, se perdió la cosecha de trigo. Si bien la papa sólo la usaban para alimentar a los animales, era tan grande la miseria que la cocinaron, la mezclaron con harina y dieron origen a los ñoquis.
Nuria Eme from Cuaderno de recetas published a recipe and added:
[…] se suelen comer los días 29 de cada mes, y por lo visto el origen  (de esta versión, pues hay varias)  es, que por ser uno de los últimos días del mes, las personas que tenían pocos recursos y cobraban a primero de mes, tenían que ingeniárselas para comer con alimentos hechos con materia prima barata. Y claro, ya sabemos que la papa y la harina, no son excesivamente caros. Y aunque la tradición es antigua, creo que por desgracia, es extrapolable en el tiempo, y totalmente actual con las circunstancias que nos ha tocado vivir.
Claudia Calizaya showed in a video how she prepares them:
But this tradition goes beyond meals. In Argentina, “gnocchi” is a nickname for public employees and those who do not go to work but still appear every 29th to get their paycheck.
Legend or tradition, this custom continues to stand the test of time in the southern hemisphere. If you do not know how to make them yet, take a look at another recipe from the blog From Argentina With Love [en].

author: Laura Schneider


text:
Jamaica: Third World Front Man Dies of Cancer · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Jamaican View notes that Bunny Rugs, leader of the reggae band Third World, has passed away after a long battle with cancer.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
Meet Puerto Rican Feminist Organization “Proyecto Matria”  · Global Voices
Firuzeh Shokooh Valle

A collaborator of Proyecto Matria [es] shot a video about the Puerto Rican feminist non governmental organization in English, as a gift and a way to spread the word about the wonderful work they do. Proyecto Matria supports the development of women by offering alternative housing and comprehensive services in areas such as education, psychosocial support, and entrepreneurship to overcome situations of violence and gender discrimination.


text:
Mozambique’s LGBT Community: Tell Your Story · Global Voices
Sara Moreira

Lambda, the Mozambican Association for the Defense of Sexual Minorities, invites [pt] adult members of the LGBT community to participate in a short documentary. “Your story in the first person” is the title of this film project which aims at “documenting our trajectories of self-acceptance, our battles and conquests as LGBT people in Mozambique.” More information on how to take part is available in the LambdaMozi Facebook page. The deadline is February 21, 2014.

author: Sara Moreira


text:
Saudi King Outlaws Religious Groups · Global Voices
Anas Soliman

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia issued a royal decree which imposes prison sentences on Saudis who fight outside the country and on those who are “members of religious and extremist groups.” The decree incited different reactions on social media networks.
Thousands of Saudis have joined the civil war in Syria, including young fighters, and the Saudi media has been debating who to blame. The decree also comes after Egypt has declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group.
The official Saudi News Agency reported:
Whoever participates or is involved in hostilities outside the Kingdom or joins radical religious and intellectual groups or currents, will be sentenced by no less than three years and not more than twenty years in prison. However, the punishment will be increased to no less than five years and no more than thirty years in prison for armed forces servicemen, a royal order stated here today.
The Arabic decree, however, did not mention “radical religious group,” but rather “religious and extreme,” which induced criticism for the vague language that it uses. Some Twitter users even started a hashtag: “King Abdullah outlaws the Muslim Brotherhood group.”
Political science academic Khalid al-Dekhayel stated that the decree does actually outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood:
تحديد الأمر “للتيارات أو الجماعات … الدينية … أوالمصنفة كمنظمات إرهابية داخلياً أو إقليمياً أو دولياً” يشمل الإخوان بعد تصنيف مصر لهم.
— Khalid al-Dekhayel (@kdriyadh) February 3, 2014
The specification of “religious groups or those that are declared terrorist nationally, regionally or internationally” includes the Muslim Brotherhood after it was declared so by Egypt.
Saudi Twitter user Sultan al-Fifi noted the paradox in citing Sharia law to outlaw religious groups:
انطلاقًا من “مقاصد الشريعة الإسلامية”، سنجرم كل من ينتمي إلى جماعة الإخوان المسلمين التي تتاجر بالدين لأهداف سياسية.
— سلطان الفيفي (@SultanAlfifi) February 3, 2014
Based on the purposes of the Islamic Sharia, we will criminalize those who join the Muslim Brotherhood which trades religion for political gain.
Twitter user Abdullah al-Awlah posted a newspaper headline from the 1960s when Saudi Arabia supported the Muslim Brotherhood against the nationalist regime in Egypt of Gamal Abdel Nasser. The headline reads: “Prince Faisal: The Muslim Brotherhood struggled for the sake of Allah by their souls and their money.”
#أمر_ملكي_بعقوبات_أصحاب_التيارات_والأحزاب_والفتنة يعني إلّي يقول زي كذا حيعاقب: pic.twitter.com/o9ZveBVKnZ
— عبدالله يوسف العُولة (@Alawlah) February 3, 2014
It means that anyone who says this will be punished:

author: Anas Soliman


text:
Tajikistan Is “Besieged by Snow” · Global Voices
Iskandar

A massive snow storm has hit Tajikistan. Over the last three days, the country has been getting record-breaking amounts of snow, causing a nightmare for hundreds of thousands of people.
The authorities have closed schools, universities, and kindergartens throughout the country. Two major airports, in Kulob and Qurghonteppa, have been shut down. Many flights have been cancelled at the airports in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, and Khujand. The snow has also left some parts of the country cut off from the rest. Avalanches have been reported across the mountainous nation.
Snow in Dushanbe. Image by ASIA-Plus, February 3, 2014, used with permission.
The snow has also left Dushanbe “at the edge of a collapse” [ru]. The municipal authorities have been unable to remove snow from all but several main streets in the city. As a result, the public transportation system has all but stopped, leaving thousands of people unable to get to work or hospitals. Multiple car crashes have further paralyzed the city's roads. The snow has also caused frequent power cuts in the city where nine out of ten residents rely on electricity to heat their homes.
#Snowpocalypse in Dushanbe. Holy shmoly.
— SaToeRi (@satoricalhumor) February 3, 2014
Opera ballet in the snow #Dushanbe pic.twitter.com/7mchd2cQaj
— Robin Ord-Smith (@RobinOrdSmith) February 2, 2014
Real winter caught me in #Dushanbe #Tajikistan. pic.twitter.com/c4cBUG8f0m
— Asel Kalybekova (@aselkalybekova) February 2, 2014
Dushanbe Medical University in the snow. -12 this morning pic.twitter.com/5Dxc1zkRqd
— Robin Ord-Smith (@RobinOrdSmith) February 3, 2014
Crews of mostly babushki have been brought on to clear the streets of Dushanbe pic.twitter.com/0zenikDx35
— Tye Sundlee (@tsundlee) February 4, 2014
One blogger wrote [ru]:
Душанбе – в снежной осаде. Это красиво, даже в чем-то волшебно, но очень неудобно.
Шла сегодня с работы домой пешком. Около часа. Транспорта нет, да и ездить на том, что есть, опасно.
Dushanbe is besieged by snow. This is beautiful, even somewhat magical, but very inconvenient.
I had to walk home from work today. It took me about an hour. There is no [public] transportation, and whatever transportation is available is too dangerous to ride.
Municipal services in Dushanbe are short of special equipment and rely on street cleaners to remove snow from the city's roads. Image by ASIA-Plus, February 3, 2014, used with permission.
On Facebook, a prominent Tajik journalist wrote [ru] (in a post that has got more than 120 likes and has been shared by users on various pages):
Думаю в какой же отсталой стране мы живем:
снежный покров в 14-16 см великая проблема для городских служб;
спецтехника, включая “Скорую помощь” ограничена в движении, следовательно десятки (если не сотни) людей не получать помощь;
тысячи людей не добрались на работу, учебу…;
общественное питание самоограничилась;
мобильные операторы не обспечивают скорость Интернета;
и что еще хуже: НИКТО и НИ ЗА ЧТО не отвечает! ((((
I think that we live in a very backward country:
– 14-16 centimeters of snow is a huge problem for municipal services;
– special services, including ambulance service, is limited in terms of the places they can reach; as a result, tens (or even hundreds) of people will not get the assistance they require;
– thousands of people have been unable to get to work or [schools and universities];
– [restaurants] have closed down;
– mobile service operators fail to ensure fast Internet service;
– and, what is worse, NOBODY is responsible FOR ANYTHING! (((
On social media sites, many Tajikistani users share pictures of snow-hit Dushanbe and wonder whether this winter is going to be as bad as the winter of 2008.
See more images and videos from snowy Dushanbe here and here.

author: Iskandar


text:
Talking with the Director of Calle 13’s Video Filmed in Palestine · Global Voices
Firuzeh Shokooh Valle

The blog “Diseñado en Puerto Rico” (Designed in Puerto Rico) interviews [es] film director Kacho López Mari. Among many other musical videos, López Mari directed the most recent video of the Puerto Rican hip hop duo Calle 13, “Multi_Viral,” shot in Palestine. The lyrics are the product of a collaboration with Wikileaks’ Julian Assange.


text:
The Horse Year is Coming. Be Happy! · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A happy lunar new year video is circulated in China WeChat. Bill Bishop made a backup in Youtube:
According to Lunar Chinese calendar, starting from January 30, 2014, is the Year of the Horse. In Chinese, Ma (horse) when uses with the word Shang (Up), means coming. The lyric of this new year greeting goes like this:
Horse Horse Horse. Year of the Horse Coming.
Year of the Horse, You get what you want. [Your wishes] will be realized soon.
In the Year of Horse, money, apartment and everything are coming soon.
Year of the Horse Coming, it is cool to greet in the new year.
Happiness is coming. Minions wish you happiness in new year. Happiness is coming.
In the Year of Horse, man and woman, old and young, all be happy.
Year of the Horse is coming, Happiness is coming.


text:
“The Square” Director Jehane Noujaim On Filming Egypt’s Revolution · Global Voices
WITNESS

Filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, director of “The Square”. Image courtesy WITNESS
This article by Matisse Bustos-Hawkes for WITNESS originally appeared on The WITNESS Blog on January 31, 2014 and is republished as part of a content sharing agreement.
By Matisse Bustos Hawkes, Senior Communications Manager/WITNESS
The Square, an Oscar-nominated documentary by director Jehane Noujaim, follows core activists during the Egyptian Revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarack, and then saw the rise and fall of Mohamed Morsi.
In an interview with WITNESS, Noujaim explains how the documentary was constructed from 1,600 hours of footage, the role of citizen video in the making of it and how collaborative production brought the whole film together.
Q: How did the project originate? When did you know you had material enough for a full-length documentary about the Egyptian revolution?
Jehane Noujaim: I grew up just ten minutes from Tahrir Square, and my family still lives in Cairo. I came to the square with plans to make a film, but I was not sure what the story was. In the first few weeks the entire crew met each other in the square and we began looking for characters to follow and began filming. If I weren’t a filmmaker, I would have been there anyway. I often find myself shooting people and situations that I am drawn to. It’s part of the process. The footage doesn’t always turn into a film. This one did.
By the time we finished shooting, we had over 1600 hours worth of material. We cut a finished film in 2012 and took it to Sundance a year later, where it won the Audience Award. But the story wasn’t over. The situation on the ground had changed again and our characters were once again the in thick of things back in Cairo. We realized we had to continue the story. We had to go back to Tahrir and keep shooting. As a result the film became a deeper, more complex story.
Q: How did you find each of the characters you ended up featuring in the film? Were there others you followed who didn't make it into the film?
JN: The magic of Tahrir Square is that it drew in people from all walks of life, it was easy to find a diverse cast of characters that any audience could relate to. We started with about six characters in the film; out of that Ahmed, Khalid, and Magdy emerged as the central figures. Their stories fit together in a character arc that was understandable, coherent, and didn’t pull you too far from what was happening in Tahrir Square. They were also characters I fell in love with — Khalid for his fire and eloquence, Magdy for his faithfulness and open-mindedness, and Ahmed for his sheer charisma and magnetism.
One character that didn’t make it into the film was Buthayna Kamel, the first person I called when the rumblings started in 2011. She was in my 2007 BBC documentary Egypt:We Are Watching You, about a group of women in Egypt fighting for political change long before the revolution started. Buthayna used to work as a newscaster, but quit because she said she was no longer going to tell lies on behalf of the government. She decided to run for the presidency, the first woman in Egypt to do so. We followed her during her entire campaign, but painfully had to take her out because she deserved her own story, and we wanted to keep the film about the public space of the square itself and how it was used as a political tool.
Q: What safety measures or precautions were undertaken to keep those in front of and behind the cameras safe while filming?
JN: For one thing, we all shot the film with Canon DSLRs, which made it look like we were just taking photos. Otherwise, our cameras would have been confiscated by the police. One of the characters in the film — Pierre — lived in an apartment just a few minutes away from Tahrir. It became our safety blanket, a place to run to if we needed to get away. Also we began to rent an office a few minutes away from the Square which we would run to, download footage at, and discuss our shooting plans.
But there really wasn’t a set protocol that we went by. At the start, we found ourselves in the middle of a river, one that none of us expected to be in or had even prepared for. Eventually, safety measures organically emerged. We made a point to look out for each other all the time. Like Ahmed says in the film, “We loved each other without really knowing each other.”
It was very important that the crew came from Egypt — that they were protestors and that they wanted to be there anyway — because we didn’t know where the story was going. What you see is not one person’s film, but a collaborative effort between stakeholders in what was taking place, by people who deeply cared about the future of the country.
Video still of Ahmed Hassan in The Square.
Q: What key lessons did your team learn about the benefits and the challenges of shooting citizen video?
JN: This film could not have been made without utilizing citizen video.
For example, a month after Mubarak stepped down — while Egypt was still in a post revolutionary hangover — Ramy Essam, the singer of the revolution, was arrested and tortured by the army in the Egyptian museum. He was electrocuted, beaten, and hung by his hair. He spent weeks in bed recovering from his injuries. At the time, people refused to believe that the military would torture someone. The military was still widely viewed as heroes of the revolution, and there was no local or international media coverage of some of the things that were happening on the ground. Looking back now, it was a foreshadowing of what was to come.
Aida El Kashef, had a camera and she shot a video documenting the results of Ramy’s torture so there would be no doubt what had happened. It was then that Mosireen — a media activism collective founded by Khalid and Aida — was formed, with the goal of putting cameras into locations that would normally never have cameras. Mosireen set up a headquarters downtown where they began training people on how to shoot video and edit and upload pieces. Some of what they shot made its way into the finished film.
In fact, about a quarter of this film, including some of the most of the incredible footage from the frontline of the protests, where you literally feel like you’re being fired at, was shot by Ahmed, the film’s lead subject. Ahmed actually studied journalism, but like many young Egyptians, he had to do whatever job he could find to make a living. He had no real training in filmmaking. Our Director of Photography, Muhammed Hamdy, taught Ahmed how to properly use a camera, and over the course of shooting this film, he used that camera as a weapon to fight back and expose human rights abuses and oppression that he saw.
Many times when he was on the front line, Ahmed was the only one there with a camera. The other protesters would form a circle around him and make sure he was protected. They would say to him, “Record, Ahmed! Record!” because it was so important for them that there was a witness, that what was happening was documented. Otherwise their stories wouldn’t get reported. That’s how it was.
Some of the footage shot for this film has been used as evidence in legal cases, a lot of it was uploaded to YouTube to try to show the world what was happening in Egypt after the media had stopped covering it. Footage has even been used in reportage by major news organizations.
Q: The visual arts and music are huge forces in the revolutionary period. You document the work of muralist Ammar Akbo Bakr throughout the film and singer Ramy Essam figures prominently. Although some works such as Akbo Bakr’s murals were intended to be temporary and shifting, did you set out to create an archive of sorts in the film of the cultural and artistic activity that was taking place along side the protests?
The role of art in the Egyptian revolution cannot be exaggerated. That’s why it’s such an essential through-line in the film, because artists were at the forefront of the changes taking place in Egypt. From the start, culture and freedom of expression were at the heart of the movement. I think that the Cultural Revolution — the explosion of art, painting, writing, and poetry — continues to be something that inspires Egyptians. There are so many initiatives and collectives now for people to express themselves, to express the revolution, to claim ownership of their country. We ourselves were making a film or documenting events as they unfolded through our characters. What you see in the final film and the rest of the other 1599 hours of footage not in the film is, I guess, a form of an archive.
Q: Although you have not been able to officially screen the film in Egypt, have the main characters been able to see it? What have reactions been from Egyptians in the diaspora who have been able to see the film?
The main characters have all seen the film and they are, of course, following all the stories about the film on social media. You have to keep in mind that for them the revolution is still going on. They are very much still in the thick of it. In fact, as Egypt marked the third anniversary of the January 25 uprising, it was quite tense for them.
As for Egyptians in the diaspora, they typically approach the film with a degree of apprehension. Given the ever shifting and increasingly unstable situation in Egypt, this is understandable. We frankly didn’t know what to expect from them. Now that we have been doing screening after screening all over North America and in the UK, we have been seeing Egyptians from across the spectrum of Egyptian society respond differently to the film.
Look, it’s a really dark and divided time for Egyptians – not just those in the country, but in the diasporas as well. Egyptians are torn apart by what's happening in their country. Some have said that Egypt is descending into civil war. Watching the film, however, and especially the relationship between Ahmed and Magdy, the Muslim Brotherhood member, has given them a completely different perspective. Their story personalized the commonality of the human struggle in Egypt despite the deep political divides. Even though Ahmed and Magdy have different political perspectives, the caring and the love, the loyalty and friendship they display to each other at the end of the film has given a lot of the Egyptians who’ve seen the film hope that Egypt can still be united.
Q: What message do you think The Square will convey to worldwide audiences about Egypt's post revolutionary period?
JN: The Square is not the seminal film on the Egyptian revolution. I don't think that anybody can claim to do that. It’s not a piece of journalism, and it doesn’t pretend to tell the entire story of the revolution. And it certainly is not a “one-sided,” “naïve,” or “dangerous” depiction of Egyptian politics, as some have suggested.
This is a vérité documentary about the journey of a handful of characters in Tahrir Square; how they come from different walks of life, but are completely united in their unwillingness to compromise on their principles. Ultimately it’s about greatness emerging out of chaos. My responsibility as the director was to be truthful to these characters and to take the audience deep into their stories. In the end, this is not a film about the Egyptian revolution. It is a film about the Egyptians who are living through it.
Like Ahmed says in the film, “only we can tell our stories, only we can write our stories. It's our time to bring back the narrative, to show the power of our communities to be our own storytellers.” This film is a direct product of this phenomenon.
The Square is now streaming on Netflix. Reach Matisse and WITNESS on Twitter at @matissebh and @witnessorg.

author: WITNESS


text:
Trinidad & Tobago: Put Bullying in its Place  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Why not teach kids that bullies are real, that assholes exist, and the proper way to deal with them, i.e. IGNORE THEM. Rob them of their power. Or, and here’s an even better one: STAND UP FOR YOURSELF.
Rants of a Redman recommends taking the bully by the horns.