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‘Australia Spied on Timor Leste to Gain Commercial Advantage’ · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Australia is accused of spying on East Timor leaders in 2004 when the two countries were negotiating a gas treaty. After learning about the spying, the East Timor government wanted to revoke the deal it signed with Australia.
Protest at Australian embassy in Dili, Timor-Leste. Photo from website of etan.org
Tensions rose last week when the Australia Security Intelligence Office raided the Canberra office of the lawyer who is representing East Timor in the spying case. East Timor is now demanding the return of the documents seized by government agents from the lawyer’s office.
Former East Timor president Jose Ramos-Horta criticized Australia over the spying allegations:
When you try to listen in to phone conversations of the president of Indonesia, a friendly country, or his own wife, or when you spy on a friendly neighbour like Timor-Leste which Australia helped to free in 1999 and which Australia claimed to be a friend, well it really undermines 10 years of our relationship…
Australia likes to lecture Timor-Leste and other countries about transparency and integrity in public life. Well, this has not been a very good example of transparency and honesty.
Horta was referring to the news report about Australia’s spying activities in Indonesia which created a diplomatic conflict between the two countries.
East Timor citizens held a protest outside the Austalia Embassy in Dili in relation to the spying case. One of the protesters identified Australia Aid as a cover for the Australian government’s spying operations:
The problem is they steal our oil then sell it in other places to buy some kind of equipment bring to East Timor trough AusAid Funding. Because of all this reason this afternoon I would like to bring to the attention of the Timorese community and International community to be careful dealing with people from AusAid. AusAid is an espionage agent.
Meanwhile, the Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea urged Australia to ‘stop stealing and occupying the Timor Sea’:
For many years, Australia has been stealing the oil and gas from the Timor Sea, in an area which belongs to Timor-Leste under international legal principles. Sadly, Australia has shown its manner and its greed to make our small and poor country in this region lose our resources and sovereignty.
Stop stealing and occupying the Timor Sea, but show your good will as a large nation which follows democratic principles to accept a maritime boundary which follows international law principles.
The Timor Sea Justice Campaign provides a background to the uneven gas negotiation between Australia and East Timor
As a sovereign nation East Timor wants maritime boundaries and is legally entitled to have them. Unfortunately, the Australian Government has persistently refused to establish permanent maritime boundaries with East Timor in accordance with current international law.
The uneven negotiating positions have resulted in a series of temporary resource sharing agreements that short-change East Timor of billions of dollars worth of government royalties generated by oil and gas resources located in the Timor Sea.
The Dili protests were documented on Twitter:
Demo at australian embassy today over #australia spying on #timor sea maritime oil negotiation. pic.twitter.com/E9detfFcTZ
— Tempo Semanal (@TempoSemanal) December 6, 2013
Peaceful demo outside Australian Embassy #Dili #timorleste today. they shout Canberra need to learn democracy from TL pic.twitter.com/AnUWFTVc6Q
— Tempo Semanal (@TempoSemanal) December 6, 2013
"We need median line" – demonstrators protest #Australia intel bugging #Timor govt during maritime boundary talks. pic.twitter.com/EtGxODG8AE
— Tempo Semanal (@TempoSemanal) December 6, 2013
Very good short history of Australia's greedy grab for East Timor's oil http://t.co/DxygjbvOwz #auspol #TimorLeste pic.twitter.com/cVGqVdFOER
— Stan Steam (@StanSteam2) December 5, 2013
La’o Hamutuk calculated the amount which Australia ‘stole’ from East Timor:
How much money has Australia taken from Timor-Leste? Our very conservative calculations show that Australia received more than two billion U.S. dollars in government revenues from Laminaria-Corallina through the end of 2012, and the actual figure is significantly higher.


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Bangladesh: Where Will The Non-Muslim Go? · Global Voices
Rezwan

Protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A mob torched and vandalised a village of Buddhists in Cox's Bazaar's Ramu Upazila In one of the worst religious attacks in Bangladesh apparently triggered by a Facebook posting allegedly defaming the Quran. Image by Zakir Hossain Chowdhury. Copyright Demotix. 29th September 2012
Subrata Shuvo at Banglablogging platform Amra Bondhu (We are friends) shares the fear and plights of Non-Muslims as racial attacks on them are on the rise, especially during the political disturbances. He shares a story from Chittagong:
পঞ্চাশ টাকা দিয়ে এক মাতালকে বলেছিল মসজিদে ঢিল মারতে। মাতাল কথামতন তাই করল। পরে মাইকে গুজব ছড়ানো হল যে; হিন্দুরা মসজিদে আক্রমন করেছে, মসজিদ ভেঙে ফেলছে। বাঙালির রক্ত গু+, গুজবী জাতি মুহূর্তের মধ্যে হিন্দুদের বাড়ি ঘর দোকান লুট করা শুরু করে দিল। লুট করাই এসব হামলার মূল রহস্য। যদি উচ্ছেদ করা সম্ভব হয় তাহলে ভূমি দখল। যদি গুজব ছড়ানো সম্ভব হয় তাহলে লুট করা যায়। এসব সাম্প্রদায়িক হামলার মূল উদ্দেশ্য-ই হল লুট। ঘটনারগুলো বিস্তারিত ভাবে খেয়াল করলে লুটের বিষয়টি স্পষ্ট হবে। লুটের পর দেখা যায় মন্দিরের ক্যাশ বাক্স ভাঙা, সোনার পতিমা গায়েব, মূলবান সামগ্রি হাওয়া।
One drunken vagabond was paid Tk. 50 ($0.63) to throw bricks on a Mosque. The drunk just did that. Then rumors were spread via mosque loudspeaker that Hindus started attacking the mosque and damaged it. It in the blood of the Bengalis. They bought the rumor started vandalizing Hindu homes and shops. The main focus of these attacks was looting. If they can evict Hindus then land-grabbing. The beauty of spreading the rumors is that you get the license to loot. That's the main agenda. If you get more information about these attacks you will know. You will see that the cash boxes of Hindu temple were emptied, idols of precious metal missing, or loss of other valuable items.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Rezwan


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Global Voices Meetup in Porto: Journalism, Citizenship and New Media · Global Voices
Sara Moreira

Friday, 13 December
9.30 p.m. in Gato Vadio: Exposing the Invisible, Tactical Technology Collective
Saturday, 14 December
2.30 p.m. -6.30 p.m. in Maus Hábitos: Citizen journalism and new media in the Lusophone World. Registration necessary: http://tinyurl.com/GVmeetup
in conjunction with: Transparência Hackday.
8 p.m. in Espaco Compasso: Lusophone dinner.
9.30 p.m. in Espaco Compasso: Concert “Gringo e o Curisco” (Brazil)
Design: Manufactura Independente (@ManufacturaInd). Background image: Analysis of the protests in Brazil on social networks, by Andrés Monroy-Hernández on Flickr (Creative Commons: BY-SA 2.0).
Global Voices in Portugal invites journalists, amateur media practitioners, citizens and groups dedicated to independent online communication projects or in favour of a more active digital citizenship to a meetup in Porto on 14 December, 2013.
The first Global Voices meetup in Portugal will take a look at how people can come together and strengthen dialogue, understanding and solidarity within and between communities that express themselves in the “languages in Portuguese” (as the only Portuguese-language literary Nobel prize winner, José Saramago, used to refer to the diversity of languages existing in the Lusophone world), as well as what roles do people play – and can play – today on the Internet to share Lusophone issues with the world.
At the Porto meetup, we will search for new ways of working together and building bridges between platforms of online communication that elevate voices which need to be heard. We want to see, hear, record and sow the seeds for a more civic kind of journalism. We believe that we can reap rewards from sharing and collaborating through the “networks of indignation and hope” (Castells).
What's going to happen?
Broadcasters, amateur filmmakers, professional reporters, volunteers, and developers from diverse locations of our scattered linguistic region will be present.
Click to see a larger version. Design: Manufactura Independente (@ManufacturaInd). Background image: Analysis of the protests in Brazil on social networks, by Andrés Monroy-Hernández on Flickr (Creative Commons: BY-SA 2.0).
The programme is mobile and stops off at three social and cultural intervention associations in Porto's city centre, bringing together collaborators and friends of Global Voices from various parts of Portugal, with participants from Brazil, São Tomé and Angola. At the end there will be cachupa from Cape Verde – a popular dish made from corn, beans and fish or meat – along with Brazilian music at the association Espaço Compasso [pt].
The meetup begins with an evening of cinema and a conversation about investigative journalism documentary Exposing the Invisible by the Tactical Technology Collective. This pre-event will happen at the Gato Vadio (Stray Cat) [pt] association and is part of an international film festival organised by Tactical Tech, which began 9 December and runs until the 15.
The meeting and the items dedicated to citizen journalism and new media in the Lusophone world will take place throughout Saturday afternoon on 14 December in Maus Hábitos (Bad Habits) [pt]. The meetup will run in conjunction with the monthly meeting of Transparência Hackday (Transparency Hackday), a Portuguese group which aims to make information freely available to the public and encourages the interaction of citizens with technology. That meeting has promised the disclosing of public expenditure data in Portugal, following the example of the platform launched by the Open Knowledge Foundation, Spending Stories.
Participation in the meetup is free, but registration is necessary and should be done through this link: http://tinyurl.com/GVmeetup [pt]. All information about location and events can be found on the programme [pt]. A private Facebook event is being used to introduce participants and topics for the meetup.
Global Voices in the Community
Beginning in November and running until the end of 2013, Global Voices is organising a series of face-to-face meetups in six cities around the world. The Global Voices in the Community meetings are led and facilitated by members of Global Voices who live in and know the local communities where the meetings take place.
In the last GVFace (the weekly forum of debates and conversations which Global Voices runs on Google Hangout) which took place on Friday, 6 December, the meetup organisers discussed the events that have already happened, with the Porto meetup the only one yet to take place. The conversation revolved around the theme, From online to offline: Recreating the virtual Global Voices world for real audiences. You can watch the discussion here.

author: Sara Moreira


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Haiti, Dominican Republic: Discriminatory Ruling  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Haiti Chery reports that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ (IACHR) preliminary findings basically state that the “Dominican Constitutional Court Ruling TC168.13 is discriminatory and violates the rights of Dominicans of Haitian descent.”

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Haiti: The Reality of Abortion  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The discussion of sex is a taboo in Haitian society. But the discussion of abortion is even more so. Haitian law outlaws the practice in all its forms.
Haiti Grassroots Watch explains.


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South Korea: Students Voice Dissent Against Korea Railroad’s Mass Layoff · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

South Korea's state-owned railway operator, Korea Railroad Corp. (KORAIL), has laid off an unprecedented number of more than 7,600 workers [ko] within a week as it decided to set up a subsidiary for new high-speed train operations, which critics call ‘a prelude to privatization of the nation's rail system’. Inspired by a student at Korea University in Seoul who posted on his school's offline bulletin board a message– a longtime symbol/traditional way of voicing students’ dissent– criticizing the government's such decision, many universities have started posting similar messages on their respective school bulletin boards. A Facebook page entitled ‘안녕들하십니까?‘ [ko] (formal way of saying ‘how are you?’ in Korean) was set up to share images of messages posted across various universities’ bulletin boards. In less than two days, the page has already received more than 41 thousand likes.

author: Lee Yoo Eun


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South Korea’s ‘Gas Tank Grandpas’ Block Protests in US · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

Notorious right wing extremists who go by their nickname ‘Gas Tank Grandpas‘ have continued to obstruct protests held by South Koreans living in the United States against the snowballing election manipulation allegations.
Storify user @wjsfree shared images of right wing groups trying to block a small peaceful demonstration held at Yale University earlier this week. Youtube user biophysics7 shared  raw footage of the clash embedded below.
Back in September, protesters even caught on tape (no English subtitle yet) one of these ‘Grandpas’ accidentally divulging, while obstructing a candlelight vigil in New York City, that they were paid 100 dollars per protest they block by powerhouses and conservative political groups.
Identified by their extreme language, bandannas and military uniforms, these violent ‘Grandpas’ are exclusively comprised of elderly men well over 50 and have earned their nickname for wielding all sorts of weapons, including a portable gas tank, a fire extinguisher and sticks, while calling protesters ‘Anti-government commies’.


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Spanish Television Show Does Not Represent Reality of Expats in Santiago · Global Voices
Silvia Vinas

Madrid native David Sigüenza [es] watched a recent episode [es] of Spanish program “Madrileños por el Mundo,” focusing on Chilean capital Santiago, “hoping to see a representation of the reality of this city, where many young Spanish people have found themselves living due to the crisis faced by our country.”
“Madrileños por el Mundo” shows the lives of Madrileños (people from Madrid) living in other countries. However, David says that the stories about life in Santiago portrayed by the program were unrepresentative of the reality of “the exiled Madrileños in Santiago.”
For example, the program included the story of a Spanish woman married to a lawyer; “Her life consisted of going to the golf club, then to the shops, afterwards to the gym and to look after her children – a typical day for anyone, right?” writes David.
The reality here is much more difficult than [this story], the reality is about people who earn a little more than 1000 Euros a month [a low salary earned by countless Spaniards] but who are better off here in Santiago than filling up unemployment lists in Spain. It's about people who fight to live with dignity and get ahead with the hope of one day returning to their country. It's about people who save month after month to be able to afford a plane ticket that will take them to see their loved ones who are more than 10,000 km and a month's wage away.
The complete entry can be found in his blog [es].

author: Silvia Vinas


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The Caucasus Network: The Subtleties of Censorship · Global Voices
Mari Bst

9 June 2013, photo by Sergey Ponomarev.
This article is part of an extensive RuNet Echo study of the North Caucasus blogosphere. Explore the complete report and personal stories on The Caucasus Network page.
In their 2010 paper for Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Bruce Etling, Karina Alexanyan, John Kelly, Rob Faris, John Palfrey, and Urs Gasser described Russian Internet censorship as “contested authoritarianism”:
First, by any number of measures, Russia is at best a thin, electoral democracy, and some argue it represents a new type of a hybrid regime that might be called “contested authoritarianism.” However one chooses to label Russia’s political system, most observers agree that the government maintains tight control over politics and the economy, and to a lesser extent over the critical aspects of the media and society. The system is not nearly as restrictive as the Soviet Union, but it is also far from free.
The mechanics of Internet censorship in the North Caucasus are not dramatically different from elsewhere in Russia. While the region’s local authorities typically treat the blogosphere as harmless, efforts to censor online content have gradually increased, according to bloggers and professionals contacted for this study. As Russia’s political climate has changed in recent years, the government has increasingly exploited remnants of the old Soviet infrastructure.
In 2012, RIA Novosti reported that Russian surveillance officials signed a multi-million-dollar contract with the information technology firm “Iteranet” for a project designed to monitor the Russian blogosphere on a mass scale.
Even without the active involvement of the government today, Russian society—both in the heartland and in the North Caucasus—is accustomed to expurgations of politically sensitive public materials.
Like Russia’s national mix of formal and informal censorship, control over the North Caucasus’ blogosphere is notable for its subtlety. Indeed, the process relies principally on intermediaries in the telecoms industry micro-managing the region’s social networks, as well as bloggers’ own self-censorship.
Most of the censorship bloggers face in the North Caucasus is self-directed. It is comparatively rare that bloggers can recount instances of external pressure from the authorities or “run-ins with the law” concerning something objectionable published online.
In my own interviews with several bloggers from each region of the North Caucasus, the overwhelming majority confessed to censoring their own writing, when addressing certain topics. In most cases, they say they exercise special caution when writing about issues that concern the state, cultural traditions, or organized religion. The few who denied any such precautions are the individuals at the extremes of the political spectrum: the active government supporters and the committed oppositionists.
According to Interkavkaz (a network aimed at promoting independent journalism), bloggers exercise self-censorship more to maximize employment opportunities than to avoid reprisals by the authorities.
The active political oppositionists I contacted told me that some people tailor their blogging to dovetail with rhetoric sympathetic to the government, in an effort to promote their careers within the government bureaucracy, where jobs in North Caucasus can still be secured with relative ease.
In most cases, however, self-censorship has the more passive goal of protecting an individual’s status quo—of not “rocking the boat.”
In addition to self-censorship, individuals involved in the maintenance of the North Caucasus’ social networks and telecoms industry also play a role in managing content on the region’s blogosphere. The following pertains to blogs once hosted on the North Caucasian section of PublicPost, which ceased operations on July 1, 2013.
Internet access in the North Caucasus is largely unfiltered, both for private connections and in public spaces like Internet cafes and libraries. Despite this openness, the area’s blogosphere is monitored closely for any investigative reportage on issues related to human rights and corruption. Posting offhand comments about these subjects—or even frequent visits to human rights advocacy websites—can be enough to prompt a visit by state officials or telecoms authorities.
Staff in the executive offices of the region’s republics monitor any blogs that criticize government performance. According to Magomed Mutsolgov, a human rights lawyer and prominent blogger from Ingushetia (whom I interviewed for this study), police and counter-terrorism departments keep an eye on bloggers who take an interest in issues relevant to human rights—especially counter-terrorism operations. Mutsolgov further claims that the methods to censor content vary from polite requests to remove material, offers of bribes, and occasionally concrete threats.
According to an employee of the now-defunct PublicPost blogging platform, the government’s two chief methods of monitoring the Internet fall under what might be described as “mass-sweeping” and “target practice.” The latter tactic consists of singling out troublesome bloggers, placing them under regular surveillance, and pressuring them into some form of self-censorship. In 2009, for instance, many friends and colleagues of the staff at Chernovic, Dagestan’s most prominent opposition newspaper (which mixes traditional media and blogging approaches), endured a wave of police summons and informal but harassing “talks” engineered to intimidate the publication from hosting further critical reportage.
“Mass-sweeping” involves the closure of blogs that frequently post certain key words that the authorities have determined to be questionable. In interviews with employees at several blogging platforms (conducted on the condition of anonymity), respondents explained that decisions to ban certain users are usually made by the blogging platform’s owners. As far as employees know, these moves are intended to prevent the need for police interference, but the motivation can also be financial. Owners of the region’s blogging platforms are naturally reluctant to allow users to affiliate the service with contentious political campaigns.
Platforms like LiveJournal and Facebook enjoy more lax rules and appear to be generally free of direct surveillance, according to an interview with an advisor to the Ingushetian President, who claims that the government actually enjoys a warm relationship with the leaders of platforms like LiveJournal.
When a decision is made to conduct a purge, a platform’s management hires roughly five people, who spend nearly two months combing through blogs and comments, looking for content triggered by key words like “United Russia,” “Putin,” “Surkov,” “Kadyrov,” “Pussy Riot,” “Khorodkovsky,” and so on. Bloggers who frequently use such words are at a high risk of losing their account without warning or any explanation. While there is no record of bloggers ever appealing such bans, employees of certain blogging platforms assure me that these “mass sweeps” have become commonplace enough that they fail to garner any publicity in either the blogosphere or the media.
Censorship customs tend to break down when blogging addresses issues or events that have a high shock value. In these circumstances, bloggers mobilize as a community, often organizing around specific protest agendas.
In 2010, one such shocking incident—the gang rape of 13-year-old Zalina Alubova—galvanized the Dagestani blogosphere against the perceived inefficiency of local law enforcement. Bloggers’ outrage eventually spilled into the streets, where demonstrators (coordinating through LiveJournal and Facebook messages) tried to pressure police into redoubling their investigation. The democratic potential of netizen mobilization, however, suffers from the Internet’s attention deficit and is typically short-lived. More complex and protracted cases fall out of the spotlight long before the need for public support ends.
In another high-profile case, Shami Abdulaev claimed to have suffered torture while in illegal police detention on armed robbery charges. Nariman Gadzhiev, a prominent journalist and blogger in Dagestan (where the two identities often overlap) launched an online petition in support of Abdulaev, writing:
Друзья я опять к Вам с просьбой, нужна Ваша помощь , для того чтобы невиновного человека наконец выпустили из тюрьмы. К нам обратилась его тётяКлименкова Диана Гамидовна. Вот как оказывается просто за неправильную фамилию можно схлопотать приличный срок. […] Теперь очередь за нами надо добиться чтобы судьбой паренька занились наши депутаты государственной Думы и Представитель Дагестана в Москве.
Friends, again I must ask you for a favor. Help is needed so that an innocent man can at last be released from prison. His aunt Diana Gamidovna Klimenkova has contacted us. It seems that do serious time just for having the wrong surname. […] Now it’s our turn to make sure that our deputies in the federal parliament and Dagestan’s Moscow representative weigh in on this fellow’s fate.
While bloggers did respond to Gadzhiev’s petition by circulating and discussing it online, the court convicted Abdulaev and sentenced him to five years in prison, despite overwhelming evidence that police detained him unjustly and obtained evidence by torture.
While censorship certainly exists in the North Caucasus, it is not particularly inventive or technologically advanced. It relies on manpower, not machines. (For comparison, the Azerbaijan government in its surveillance efforts has purchased special software from Israel and teamed up with Swedish telemarketing firms.) For now, the region’s authorities seem content to rely primarily on varying degrees of self-censorship, when it comes to policing the Internet. Meanwhile, the blogosphere’s capacity for mobilizing the general public remains limited, rendering the Internet an unreliable means of sustaining vibrant public discourse.
This article is part of an extensive RuNet Echo study of the North Caucasus blogosphere. Explore the complete report and personal stories on The Caucasus Network page.

author: Mari Bst


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UNESCO Honors Japanese Cuisine as Intangible Cultural Heritage · Global Voices
Keiko Tanaka

The United Nations cultural agency UNESCO has officially recognized Japan's traditional cuisine “washoku” as “Intangible Cultural Heritage” among its 14 new listings.
Image of Japanese cuisine taken by Flickr user Kei Kondo (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Overjoyed after reading the news, Japanese twitter user Komachi jokingly commented that her regular habit is now part of renowned heritage:
私、3日にいっぺんくらいは無形文化遺産作ってる！と言えるわけですね。 「和食」無形文化遺産に登録決定…ユネスコ（読売新聞） – Y!ニュース http://t.co/Fxvh0uoCNO
— komachi (@komatchr) 2013, 12月 4
That means I can say that I am cooking intangible cultural heritage [washoku] once every three days!

author: Keiko Tanaka


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Another Rural Japanese Elementary School Disappears Due to Declining Birthrate · Global Voices
Yuko Aoyagi

Image of another site in Ibaraki prefecture where school had closed. Photo taken in 2008 by Yuko Aoyagi. Covered in snow, there used to be a public elementary school.
There are nine students in all. Community residents and the students know each other by name, and local farmers help students to grow vegetables in their schoolyard. The students carefully package their crops and sell them by themselves at the morning farmers market. This small public elementary school in rural village of Takaoka [ja], a mountainous area of Toyama prefecture, the only one providing unique education in a sparsely populated area, is closing next March[ja] because no more children are expected to enroll.
Every year, about 500 public schools [ja] in Japan take the same path as Takaoka Municipal Nishihirotani School: closure due to a shortage of children. Japan's declining birthrate with the exhaustion of domestic rural labor power are hitting rural villages hard. And the cost of education per student is practically not affordable for rural public schools to operate. While local residents make efforts to keep schools afloat, many of them are forced to close.
Takaoka Municipal Nishihirotani School, which celebrated its 120th anniversary last year, is located about 30 minutes by car from the center of the city. It once had an adequate 47 students in 1988 [ja], but has continued to dwindle since. After community residents fought for its continuance in 2009, the school applied for Special Unrestricted Small School program [ja] in order to enroll more students from outside its school district. Usually, Japanese elementary schools accept students from within walking distance of their school district. The Special Unrestricted Small Schools program is a system which removes the district restriction for schools in which the number of children enrolled is extremely low so that they can continue operation.
Thanks to adoption of this system, children from the entire area of Takasaki City have been accepted at Takaoka Municipal Nishihirotani School, and some parents drive to drop off and pick up their children from outside of the school district. With small class sizes, a rich surrounding natural environment, and support from the community residents, the school offered the students original experiences that would never be possible in urban schools. Both students and parents were highly satisfied.
However, it did not stop the school from closing. The Takaoka City Board of Education decided to close [ja] the Nishihirotani school during an extraordinary meeting on September 10, 2012. The reason stated was that all the children within the school district will have graduated by March 2014, and no new students are expected to enter from the area.
The closure of the Nishihirotani school is a symptom of the country's population shift to cities as well as the declining birth rate. Japan had been an agricultural country since ancient times, and rural villages with farming population, such as those in the area around the Nishihirotani school, were seen everywhere in the country. After the Second World War, and throughout the period of high economic growth, the population became increasingly concentrated in cities and declined in rural areas. The declining birth rate producing fewer children is a serious social issue for Japan: Its young population percentage, being 13.1 percent [ja], is the lowest among major nations. Although the declining birth rate and aging population are a national trend, the effect is more pronounced in rural areas.
On the other hand, schools in urban areas have their problems too. Bullying, suicide and truancy in elementary and middle schools also have been serious social issues throughout Japan in recent decades. In urban public schools, there are far fewer teachers per student, and not many opportunities to interact with adults in the community. When 30 to 40 students of the same age spend every day in class, it becomes stressful for children, and not all of them get along with each other. With more time occupied in specialized schools known as cram schools, they have little occasion to play their own role in society with pride, and even during playtime they may prefer to play in unsocial ways, such as with video games or Internet. These social environments are considered to be one cause for problems in schools.
Small class sizes in rural villages seem to provide the exact opposite environment. In Nishihirotani school, teachers watch students carefully, residents are in close contact with students, and children of various ages play together in the midst of nature. Some believe these schools are a place where truant children might be able to feel at ease and express their own identities again.
The Special Unrestricted Small Schools system gives hope for the continuance of elementary schools in depopulated areas, and is a ray of light for families troubled with truant children in urban areas. However, the system is a financial burden to the educational administration because of the high cost per student.
In June 2012, the City Board of Education convened [ja] a school district deliberative council. During the meeting, they examined the cost, and showed concerns that even if the school continued inviting new children from other areas, it would be difficult to gain support from local residents once there were no children from local families.
In response, community residents and parents quickly collected 409 signatures in a petition for the school's continuation, more signatures than the regional population of 270 persons. It was to be submitted to the mayor and the superintendent of education, but the council did not consider the petition at all, and submitted a recommendation a month later on July 23 to close the school [ja]. Following the recommendation, the Board decided to close the school during the meeting on September 10, held behind closed doors, without informing the parents about the meeting.
One of the parents, “karisumasuu”, expressed dissatisfaction with the decision process on his blog[ja]:
これまで教育委員会と保護者との間で話し合いが幾度と行われ、署名活動もやり、最後は教育長まで引きずり出しましたが本当の教育よりも金ありきの教育委員会の方針は変わらず2年後国吉小学校と統廃合されることとなりました。校長、教頭、現場の先生も絶賛のこの小学校、教育委員会は現場の先生に事情を聴くこともありませんでした。
Many meetings between the Board and the parents, the petition campaign, and finally appeals to the superintendent of education couldn't change the Board's policy of preferring money to true education. The school will be abolished, and consolidated with Kuniyoshi Elementary School two years later. Though the school has been highly praised by the principal, vice principal, and teachers in the district, the Board never held a hearing with the school teachers of the district.
Staff members of Community House Hitonoma, a group of facilitators and citizens working to bring the community together in Takaoka City, also opposed this process:
「子供にとって必要な教育とはどういうものなのか」ということを本当に考えなくてはいけないのは教育委員会や審議会ではない。
子育てを行っている当事者である親や、
子供たち本人たちであり、
実際に関わっている教員であり、
地域の大人たちであり、
私たち市民ひとりひとりであるはずだ。
我々が当事者として高岡の教育を考える機会を与えず、むしろ隠すようにひっそりと行う。
そのことが高岡市の教育環境にいい影響を及ぼすプロセスだとは思えない。
It must not be the Education Board, nor the deliberative council, who decide what is necessary education for children,
but the parents who are raising children, the children themselves,
the teachers who work in the field,
the adults in the community,
and each of us, citizens.
Instead providing us an opportunity to discuss education in Takaoka city, the decision was made silently, as if to conceal it. I don't think that is good process to make changes affecting the educational environment in Takaoka City.
Even though it won't change the school's closure, local members and parents are keen to keep the spirit of the school alive. In September 2012, Hitonoma held a “Think About School“[ja] meeting to hear stories from the parents of Nishihirotani Elementary School. Some parents, like Noriko Kodama and Rie Sano, have been taking such opportunities to let people know about the benefit of small school program. They spoke at various events, including giving speeches during the intermission of the lecture seminar held by “Toyama Itazura-mura Kodomo-Asobase-Tai’ [ja], a non-profit organization supporting parenting, in September 2013, and at the conference by Four Winds Association for Infant Mental Health [ja] in Hiroshima in November. She insists, and shares one example of truant child's change after entering small school, in her presentation document [ja]:
明るい挨拶やきれいな話し方が上から下へと受け継がれ、ルールも自然に学ぶ。上の子は助け教えることに誇りを持ち、下の子は上の子を信頼し憧れる。
[…]伸びて育つ子どもの姿を逃さず語りかけ、文章で表し、認められほめられる喜びを子どもたちに伝える大人たち。口々に「いい学校」と言われ、この学校で学べてよかったと信じる子が育っている。　前の学校を休み続けた子に笑顔が戻り、緊張で声が出なかった子が転校して大声で話す。集団になじめず自信を失っていた子が大役を果たす。先生たちもみずみずしい心で教える楽しさを取り戻す。小さな学校にこそ豊かな育ちがある。
[…]子供達の周りに先生や地域の方や親がいて、子供達自身が小さな村社会を作り、時には葛藤を通じて、悩み、傷つき、そして生きる力を育み、大きな社会に出る準備をすること、それが教育ではないでしょうか。
Younger children inherit cheerful greetings and a polite manner of speaking from elder children, they learn rules naturally. The elder are proud to lead the younger, and the younger trust and admire the elder. […]
Parents won't lose opportunities to talk to, write to, and convey the joy of being accepted and praised to, the growing children. When they hear the praise “What a wonderful school!” from many people, children grow up with a belief that they should be happy to study at that school. Children who were truants at their former school start smiling again. They regain the voices which they had lost due to stress, and speak loudly after transferring schools. Children who found it hard to adapt to their group, and had lost self-confidence, now play an important role at their school. Teachers regain the feeling of enjoying teaching with a fresh mind. It's a small school where you can see rich growth. […]
“Being watched over by teachers, community residents and parents, children themselves make a small society, may sometimes be in trouble or hurt through conflicts, develop their viability, and prepare to go out into a larger society. That is true education, isn't it?
Noriko Kodama has a dream to make a new school at the site of closed school where “children would pester their parents to go to”, and accessible for children including mentally challenged and truant children with hybrid of public construction and private management for a consistent education for elementary and middle school.
Update:Images of the school has been replaced due to request by author and parties involved.

author: Yuko Aoyagi


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Bangladesh Executes Islamist Leader Abdul Quader Mollah for War Crimes · Global Voices
পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)

Thousands thronged to Shahbag to join celebrations after Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Molla was executed for war crimes he committed in 1971. Photo by Mamunur Rashid. Copyright Demotix (12/12/13)
This post is part of Global Voices’ special coverage of Bangladesh's #Shahbag protests.
Abdul Quader Mollah, the assistant secretary general of right-wing Islamist party Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami convicted of crimes against humanity during Bangladesh's bloody liberation war from Pakistan in 1971, was executed inside the capital city Dhaka's Central Jail late 12 December 2013.
The hanging sparked a wave of deadly violence from supporters, leaving several dead and a number of homes and businesses torched.
Quadar Mollah was the first to die for war crimes committed during the struggle for independence, in which an estimated 300,000 and three million people were killed and 200,000 women were raped. Jamaat-e-Islami joined forces with Pakistan's secret service to form militia groups such as Razakars & Al-Badr (“the moon”) to fight against the nationalist movement and freedom fighters. These forces aided Pakistani forces in the killings.
As a member of Jamaat's student wing Islami Chatra Sangha, Quader Molla joined Al-Badr and, according to charges framed against him, led a mass killing in Mirpur, thus earning the name Butcher of Mirpur among locals. He was also responsible for the shooting of 344 people, the rape of an 11-year-old girl, and the beheading of a poet.
After the formation of Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal in 2009 to prosecute those who participated in the war's genocide, he was arrested 13 July 2010, and more than a year later on 18 December 2011, he was formally charged with six charges and 344 counts of murder. On 5 February 2013, he was given a life sentence, with an additional 15-year sentence, for his crimes.
But the verdict sparked massive protests demanding his death as well as an end to extremism in politics. Thousands of people joined the demonstrations in Dhaka's central square, which became known as the #2013 Shahbag protests (see Global Voices special coverage page).
An ambulance carrying the body of Abdul Quader Molla leaves the Dhaka Central Jail after his execution for war crimes. Molla was hanged at 10:01am on Thursday night and the ambulance left at around 11:14pm. Photo by Anwar Hossain Joy. Copyright Demotix (12/12/2013)
In response to the protests, the Bangladeshi Parliament passed a bill on 17 February 2013 amending the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act of 1973, which allowed the government to appeal sentences. The government appealed against Quader Mollah's first verdict, and on 17 September 2013, the Bangladesh Supreme Court found him guilty of murders and other war crimes and converted his life sentence to a death sentence.
So far, 12 people excluding Quader Mollah have been arrested and the trials are ongoing in different stages. A number of them have already been awarded with sentences ranging from life imprisonment to death. Members of political party Jamaat have led protests against the trials, alleging that the government is trying to suppress the opposition through the trials.
There have been intense Twitter campaigns from #Shahbag activists (using hashtags like #shahbag & #BanJamaat) in favor of the execution and Jamaat supporters (using hashtags like #FreeQuaderMollah, #WeAreQuaderMollah, #MartyrAbdulQuaderMollah), with some of the hashtags trending on given days.
Activist Allan Turing (@turing1010) thanked the #Shahbag movement and tweeted:
Thank you #Bangladesh & #Shahbag, this is the beginning of a new era, secular and independent nation :) ‘V’
— Alan Turing (@turing1010) December 12, 2013
Many netizens commented that the nation has cleared the blemish of impunity with this execution. Blogger Ekramul Haque Shamim posted a status on Facebook:
কাদের মোল্লার ফাঁসি কার্যকর। দায়মুক্তির সূচনা এখানেই। জয় বাংলা।
The execution of Quader Mollah Complete. The end to impunity. Joy bangla.
Blogger Avijit Roy mentioned on Facebook that Bangladesh has entered a new phase:
আজ যুদ্ধাপরাধী কাদের মোল্লার ফাঁসির সাথে বাংলাদেশ নতুন দিনে, নতুন যুগে, নতুন জগতে প্রবেশ করলো। অনেক দুঃখ পেয়েছি মা এই বছরটায়, আশা করি বিজয় দিবসটা এবার নতুন আলোয় অন্যরকম একটা ভোর দেখবে।…
Today we entered a new phase, a new day, a new era of Bangladesh. We have suffered through many sorrows this year, hope we will see a new dawn on Victory Day [16 December].
Twitter user Royesoye (@royesoye) reminded readers that Bangladeshis had been waiting for this trial and justice for 42 long years:
After 42 years, we tried and executed one of the monsters who participated in one of the cruelest genocide in 20th century. #JoyBangla
— royesoye (@royesoye) December 12, 2013
Here are more reactions:
Why people of Bangladesh is demanding death penalty of Quader Mollah?? Here is the reason! #shahbag pic.twitter.com/wtpqeFVckd
— ChLoeyy (@_chloey_001) December 12, 2013
[DEAR WORLD] The Mass Movement in @Bangladesh is not against “Islamists” by @moshahidas http://t.co/VAc5WsVCuc #Righton #RT #shahbag
— Shahbag Worldwide! (@Projonmo13) December 13, 2013
Angry Jamaat warns of dire consequences | Sets alight house of ex-minister: http://t.co/fsvqjJQccp #Shahbag
— Ruhin Afrin Joyee (@rajoyee) December 10, 2013
#Jamaat threatens to burn 56,000 square miles. It is still Government's fault, right? http://t.co/zs3Mm2R3HD #Shahbag @nytimes @andyrNYT
— Enamul Hoque (@enamul1hoque) November 22, 2013
I reject the verdict of Quader Mollah #FreeQuaderMollah Send in your picture with this message! pic.twitter.com/7L1L6QICpU #Bangladesh
— RT 2 #SaveBangladesh (@RT_SaveBD) September 19, 2013
Abdul Quader Mollah death sentence violates international law http://t.co/qJ816FE6Ut #SaveBangladesh #FreeQuaderMollah
— Mahfuz Nahid (@MahfuzNahid) September 19, 2013
UN experts, Human Rights Watch and other organizations urged Bangladesh government not to carry on with the execution over fair trial concerns. However, netizens reacted:
Where is @UN when people die on the streets every day from violence by Jamaat? Human rights only for the powerful eh? #shahbag
— AD (@m0th3rh3n) December 10, 2013
Blogger Kalo Kak (Black Crow) at Choturmatrik wrote:
কাদের মোল্লার ফাঁসির দিনে Jang Song Thaek নামে নর্থ কোরিয়ার একজন সাবেক ক্ষমতাধর ব্যক্তির’ও মৃত্যদন্ড কার্যকর হয়েছে। নর্থ কোরিয়া কাউকে পাত্তা-টাত্তা দেয়না বলে সেখানে গিয়ে নাক গলানো সম্ভব না। কিন্তু মানবাধিকার সংগঠনগুলোর হলো কী? তারা তো একটু শব্দ-টব্দ করতে পারতো? করেছে কেউ? আমার গুগলমতে না। [..] বিশ্ববাসীর সিলেক্টিভ মানবতা দেখছি!
On the day of the execution of Quader Mollah, an influential political leader from North Korea Jang Song Thaek was executed. North Korea doesn't bother any country so it is hard for others to stick their noses in there. But what happened to the human rights organizations? They could have protested. Did anyone do it? I googled and found none. [..] I am witnessing selective concern of human rights amongst the people of the world.
From the opposite camp, Shahnur Begum (@ShahnurBegum) addressed those who were celebrating the execution:
“আয়রনি আর আয়রনি” #WeAreQuaderMollah.কাদের মোল্লার মৃত্যুতে যারা খুশি, তারা কেউ তাঁকে খুন,ধর্ষণ করতে দেখেনি.https://t.co/ypej4jmoRS
— Shahnur Begum (@ShahnurBegum) December 13, 2013
Irony & irony, #WeAreQuaderMollah Those who are celebrating the execution have never seen him murder or rape anyone.
Blogger I am Opimist wrote that the verdict has divided the nation:
আয়রনি হচ্ছে, বেয়াল্লিশ বছর অপেক্ষা করে যেই রায় দেয়া হলো এবং কার্যকর করা হলো, যাতে বেয়াল্লিশ বছর আগের ক্ষত ভুলে আমরা একসাথে সামনে আগাতে পারি, সেই রায়ই দেশের মানুষকে শত ভাগে ভাগ করে দিয়ে গেল। […]
The irony is that the verdict, which came after 42 years and was executed, was meant to be part of the reconciliation and a way forward, but instead it had divided the nation. [..]
After the execution of Quader Mollah, violence led by supporters of Jamaat left several people dead. Activists also vandalized and burnt minority Hindu homes and shops, and the home of one judge working in the war crimes tribunal was attacked with a petrol bomb. The party has maintained that the execution was politically motivated and has called for a dawn to dusk strike on 15 December 2013.
Jamat e Islami activists in Bangladesh set four vehicles on fire in response to Abdul Quader Mullah's execution. Photo by Mahbubur Rahman Khoka. Copyright Demotix (13/12/2013)
Ishtiaq Al Mahmud (@iamahmud) provided an update on the Jamaat violence after the execution of Quader Mollah:
10 killed in Jamaat-Shibir men unleashed violence on political rivals in #bangladesh http://t.co/xjs1Xqr3Sn @UNHRC @amnesty #shahbag,
— Istiaque Al Mahmud (@iamahmud) December 13, 2013
Blogger and online activist Kallol Mustafa wrote that it is important to arrest the people involved in the Jamaat mayhem as soon as possible:
কুখ্যাত রাজাকার কাদের মোল্লার ফাঁসিকে কেন্দ্র করে বরাবরের মতোই জামাত সারা দেশে পরিকল্পিত ভাবে তান্ডব চালাচ্ছে- হিন্দু পল্লী,সরকারি প্রতিষ্ঠান, দোকান-পাট, ব্যাবসা প্রতিষ্ঠান, জানবাহন ইত্যাদি এই জামাতি তান্ডবের লক্ষ বস্তু । শুধু জামাতি সেন্ট্রাল কমান্ড নয়, গ্রাম-থানা-উপজেলা-জেলা-বিভাগ পর্যায়ের জামাত-শিবিরের ‘তান্ডব সংগঠকদের’ সমন্বিত প্রচেষ্টা ছাড়া এটা সম্ভব নয়। তাৎক্ষণিক ভাবে তান্ডব ঠেকানোর পাশাপাশি এই ‘তান্ডব সংঠকদের’ দ্রুত সানাক্ত করে গ্রেফতার ও বিচারের আওতায় আনা এখন সবচেয়ে জরুরী কাজ।
Jamaat has unleashed a wave of planned violence stemming from the execution of Quader Mollah. Hindu installations, government offices, private commercial premises, transport are the focus of their destruction. This requires a massive coordination between Jamaat central command and the arms of violence. So it is mandatory to resist the violence and rampage and arrest the masterminds.
Activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, torched four private cars and five motorcycles including two of police personnel at Motijheel in the capital after the Juma prayer. Photo by Reaz Sumon. Copyright Demotix (13/12/13)
The international mainstream media had provided wide coverage on the execution of Quader Mollah. Many of them termed him as an Islamist leader, which journalist Pallab Muhaimen protested on Facebook:
কাদের মোল্লাকে Islamist leader বলা হচ্ছে দুই জায়গায়। এক. জামাত বলছে। আর দুই. পশ্চিমা গণমাধ্যম। পশ্চিমা গণমাধ্যমের শিরোনামে war criminal লিখতে কেন এত কষ্ট? ব্যতিক্রম হিসেবে রয়টার্স ও এএফপি তবুও কিছুটা যুদ্ধপরাধের কথা যুক্ত হয়েছে।
Quader Mollah is being named as an “islamist leader” on two fronts. One: Jamaat is propagating this. And two: the Western mainstream media. Why is it too hard to write “war criminal”? Only exceptions are Reuters and AFP who had mentioned about his war crimes.
This post is part of Global Voices’ special coverage of Bangladesh's #Shahbag protests.

author: পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)


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Czechoslovakia’s Architectural Heritage in Kyrgyzstan · Global Voices
Alexander Sodiqov

Karina Ditkovskaya writes [ru] about a unique architectural heritage left by volunteer construction workers from Czechoslovakia in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan:
In the 1920s a commune of volunteers from Czechoslovakia built a whole district of Bishkek. Now, after almost one hundred years, this area of Kyrgyzstan's capital city stands out due to its unusual architecture…
The volunteers arrived in Bishkek <…> in April 1925, responding to a call by the Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin to support the construction of the newly founded socialist empire…
After building several important factories and a district in the city, many of the [volunteers from Czechoslovakia] left [Bishkek] – some of them were purged, some died during the Second World War, and some returned to their motherland.
The blog features photos of the buildings constructed by the volunteers.

author: Alexander Sodiqov


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In Tajikistan Protest Occurs Online · Global Voices
Alexander Sodiqov

While many people in Tajikistan are unhappy about the country's dire economic situation and political leadership, public protest is rare in the country. The fear of inevitable punishment by the state, the weakness of political opposition, and the memories of the 1992-1997 civil war make the likelihood of mass protest low. In this environment, social media has emerged as the main space where disillusioned Tajikistanis voice their anger and disagreement with the authorities.
Sarafrozi Olamafruz has recently posted [ru] an image on Facebook which reflects, rather ironically, the nature of protest in the country. The title of the image is “How people voice their discontent with the authorities”. The two images on the top show mass public protests in Ukraine (left) and Kyrgyzstan (right). The two images on the bottom show how people protest in Russia (left) and Tajikistan (right). The Russian man is talking back to a TV-set. The Tajikistani man is shouting angrily at his computer, thus taking his discontent online.
Image disseminated anonymously on Facebook.


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The Caucasus Network: On Blogging and Keeping Up Appearances · Global Voices
Mari Bst

9 June 2013, photo by Sergey Ponomarev.
This article is part of an extensive RuNet Echo study of the North Caucasus blogosphere. Explore the complete report and personal stories on The Caucasus Network page.
The following observations address several hundred popular blog posts on LiveJournal, as well as comments on those posts. The rankings listed below I derived from statistics collected on Facebook and PublicPost.
In the North Caucasus, bloggers in this category are frequently people whose professions already require an aptitude for communication and engagement: writers, advocates of social causes, teachers, and so on.
Bloggers in this group are usually educated professionals, though all come from a myriad of social backgrounds and hold different political views. In addition to these differences, all tend to share a similar approach to blogging, even writing in a common style (often using the active voice and relying on plain speak).
Those in this group tend to focus on content, not the medium; they do not appear to be concerned with who follows or “unfollows” them. Whereas other types of bloggers like to discuss their own popularity in their writing, “organic” bloggers ignore this subject. Instead, they prefer to write about specific issues, consciously trying to educate their readers about a particular topic.
Members of this group tend to adopt new platforms (like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook) earlier than other groups of Internet users. Most bloggers in the North Caucasus remain on LiveJournal, mainly because they have become entrenched in what is essentially a virtual home.
Russian blogger lunnyi_kot dubbed this group “the Alpha bloggers”:
Альфа-блогеры, т.е. они одни из тех блогеров, которые достигли определенных успехов на поприще ЖЖ, которые задают тон и общие тенденции в блогосфере Северного Кавказа. Местным начинающим блогерам было о чем послушать и что перенять у альфа-блогеров.
Alpha-bloggers are the bloggers who have achieved certain success on LJ, who set the tone and the overall trends on the blogosphere of the North Caucasus. Local beginner bloggers would be wise to listen to and borrow from the Alpha-bloggers.
Lunnyi_kot describes the Alphas as bloggers distinguished by personal investment in producing professional quality content, though “Alphas” themselves seem to reject this characterization, regarding their work as more casual. (I base this claim on my general reading of conversations online about this subject.)
Across the North Caucasus, the Alpha blogger group contains prominent members representing each of the region’s republics. For those unfamiliar with the region’s blogosphere and interested in reading some individual “Alpha” bloggers, here is a list of some noteworthy writers in this category:
People in this group are explicit in their writing about how much effort goes into their work. These individuals do not have a particular message, but they do demonstrate dedication to the medium of blogging (which is to say, they intentionally build up their audiences and establish their names). This group’s bloggers often advertise their blogging success in their offline activities, and tend to be highly informed about events happening on the RuNet, following and often early-adopting new platforms, not unlike the Alpha bloggers. Compared with the “organic” bloggers, this group demonstrates a much greater focus on appropriating the medium than shaping the message. “Invested Bloggers” are especially keen to establish themselves as recognized bloggers. Members of this group are also most likely to interact with bloggers in Group Three (see below), who together attend blogger forums and conferences, and even participate in blogger education programs in schools.
In the North Caucasus, politicians are the most active “image bloggers,” writing to project a specific image of themselves that is distinct from their offline identity. These bloggers write to camouflage their activity as grassroots netizen work, concealing its origins in officialdom.
In the North Caucasus, building a cult of personality can be a quicker, more legitimate way to secure a government position than executing a series of popular policy decisions.
This tension is especially present when “image bloggers” hire public relations professionals to manage their outreach campaigns.
In their publicity efforts, bloggers in Group Three present themselves in their online content as average citizens. For example, government leaders try to project the identity of an ordinary citizen, whose passions are the “simple” pleasures of the Internet, ranging from a love of flowers and kittens to collecting gold-plated pistols and exotic animals (see link below).
For instance, the region’s most prominent “Group Three” blogger is Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who uses social media accounts to project completely different identities.
In his first online iteration in 2010, Kadyrov stormed the Internet with a LiveJournal blog, appropriately titled I-Am-Kadyrov. Initially, Kadyrov’s communications team updated the blog regularly with the Chechen leader’s everyday musings.
Professional-quality photographs often accompanied this content, typically depicting Kadyrov engaged in some wholesome or stately act. On average, each of these posts gathered roughly 300 approving comments. It is more difficult to track criticism of the material, however, as the blog’s moderators removed any negative feedback immediately. (Indeed, the bloggers contacted for this study, who claimed that Kadyrov’s moderators deleted their comments, asked to remain anonymous.) In 2012, to offset the influence of an existing satirical account lampooning Chechnya’s leader, Kadyrov became one of the first officials of the North Caucasus to join Twitter formally.
While LiveJournal is a relatively safe platform (as it allows users to moderate what feedback is published on their blogs), Kadyrov’s move to Twitter was something of a risk, as the latter’s less controlled, more interactive design does more to enable and disseminate criticism. The Twittersphere also subjects Kadyrov to an audience largely based outside the North Caucasus, where microblogging remains unpopular (relative to more traditional platforms like LiveJournal).
At first, Kadyrov’s account followed no one (though he now follows 19 other users). He ignored any serious questions about his governance, quickly blocked other users who criticized him, and devoted most of his tweets to banal weather reports and culinary updates. He has since gathered over 45,000 followers. While it is difficult to know how many of this total constitutes real people instead of artificial “bot” followers, the website Fakers. Statuspeople estimates that 27% of Kaydrov’s followers are fake, and just 38% are active, human Twitter users.
Kadyrov captivated the blogosphere and mass media a second time when he arrived on Instagram. His first account, @Alihan777, might have gone unnoticed if Kadyrov had not decided to post unusually entertaining photographs of himself wearing colorful jumpsuits, brandishing firearms, and so on. (For a separate review of Kadyrov’s first Instagram account, read Andrey Tselikov’s work on the subject.)
When the account generated an unexpected degree of attention, he shut down the (still anonymous) account, replacing it with the similar (and still active) @Kadyrov_95.
Nobody in the North Caucasus demonstrates a better understanding the effectiveness of photography than Kadyrov and his team. The Chechen leader’s Instagram has earned him thousands of followers. Kadyrov owes this success, however, not to his own inventions, but to existing political tactics adapted to new social media.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has long exploited photography’s ability to propagate a public image that is simultaneously casual and assertive. This, after all, has been the message of Putin’s many publicity photo-shoots, which invariably feature juxtaposed images of the President as a handyman, a strongman, a tender-hearted man, a man of special powers, and so on.
On the other hand, Kadyrov’s propagated image as a concerned patriot ready to “hunt down his enemies to the last rat” also borrows heavily from the insurgency movement in the North Caucasus. That group, which in its contemporary form has existed since the beginning of the Second Russian-Chechen War, also promotes an oversimplified narrative of regional politics. The insurgency has published online videos [warning: explicit content] to assert its identity as the sole legitimate resistance, and used this claim to justify its guerrilla tactics. (Unwittingly, insurgents thereby perpetuate their own marginality, presenting themselves as excluded outcasts, isolated from society.)
Recently, Dagestan’s acting president, Ramazan Abdulatipov, also joined Instagram, apparently inspired to copycat Kadyrov. Despite the similarities, however, Abdulatipov’s photographs employ a broader framework of references, making him at times even more effective at propagating a cult of personality. In one example of such layered communication, he published an image of a green lamp (a symbol of the Soviet cabinet, often misattributed to Lenin), the Russian blue (to signal tenderness), along with the symbol of Islam, above an accidental sample of personal handwriting.
Abdulatipov also writes a traditional blog, but unlike Kadyrov and Yevkurov, he publishes his work on a personal domain, instead of a shared platform, like LiveJournal. Most of the updates to Abdulatipov’s blog are from an anonymous administrator and a group of guest authors.
Ingushetian President Yunus-Bel Evkurov has not opened an Instagram account, but he does maintain blogs on LiveJournal and Twitter, both of which Evkurov’s media assistant, Beslan Chechoev, manages. (Chechoev revealed this in an interview with me, the audio of which can be found here.) Chechoev’s full-time job, he says, is to read aloud comments to the president and transcribe his responses.
Photography has always played a vital role in the image-making industry because of its “instant believability.” Thanks to online social media, however, photography’s illusion of intimacy, where the audience feels “right there with the subject,” has become the Internet’s illusion of interactivity, where netizens believe “their voice is being heard.”
In recent years, this brand of politics has also come to dominate Middle Eastern political struggle, where the competition over manufacturing potent imagery has pitted against one another protest groups and the state.
Image politics in the North Caucasus has not yet reached the intensity it now enjoys in the Middle East, though there are indications that online-orchestrated public relations is becoming a top priority for regional authorities.
Very few, if any, of the North Caucasus’ blogging political officials belong to the Alpha group. Instead, they consciously spin local politics and attempt to manipulate their audience. Kadyrov, for example, has more than once complained that managing his Instagram account is no small burden on his workload.
Для людей инстаграм – развлечение, а для меня – дополнительная нагрузка.
For people, Instragram is entertainment, but for me it’s an additional burden.
Alpha bloggers exist largely within their own community, and are generally unaffected by the writing of “Invested Group” bloggers. In fact, the over-eager latter group is often the target audience in image-making campaigns designed to inflate certain political figures’ popularity.
In recent years, blogger conferences in the North Caucasus have emerged as a major public relations tool, even rivaling traditional press conferences. This political technology has the advantage of avoiding the heavy handedness of state-run media channels, instead using relatively “apolitical” netizens to disseminate the government’s messages.
In October 2011, Beslan Chechoev (mentioned above) held Ingushetia’s first blogger conference, in a transparent attempt to win influence with the North Caucasus’ most prominent netizens.
In May 2013, Karachaevo-Cherkessia Head Rashid Temrezov held another regional conference, inviting bloggers from Cherkessia, Chechnya, Kabardina-Balkaria, Ingushetia, and Stavropol’skii.
Curiously, the visiting bloggers proposed creating a special state information agency to feature work produced exclusively by netizens. Another product of the conference was a planned blogger workshop, scheduled to begin touring the region (starting in Aarkhiz village) sometime in late 2013.
Karachaevo-Cherkessian authorities’ acknowledgement of bloggers’ influence predates the May bloggers conference. A month earlier, they launched the North Caucasus’ first “blogging school,” funded by the state-backed youth forum “Marshuk 2012.” Despite the rising profile of bloggers in this republic, very few “Alpha” bloggers are based in Karachaevo-Cherkessia. Among the few from that group writing in the area are Inna, a writer, and Alexander Roxmistov, a painter. It seems neither attended nor took any interest in the blogger conference held by Termezov.
The idea of a blogging school is itself not new, and was first conceived in Dagestan by the Ministry of Youth in 2010. At their core, these schools were formed around the Orwellian slogan, “The Creation of Positive Information” (“создание позитивной информации”), proposed by Program Director Mukhtar Amirov, who described the project in the following words:
К сожалению, в дагестанских блогах мы можем наблюдать асоциальные проявления, а позитивную информацию о нашей республике в них сложно найти. Школа блогеров позволит подготовить специалистов-патриотов, готовых рассказывать о происходящем в Дагестане.
Unfortunately, we can observe in Dagestani blogs [certain] anti-social displays, but it is difficult to find positive information about our republic. The blogging school will allow [us] to train specialist-patriots, [who will be] prepared to describe what is happening in Dagestan.
Many of the region’s more established bloggers responded to the schools with open suspicion. One of them, Zakir, compared the idea to the widely despised pro-Kremlin youth movement:
Это вся затея послеселигеровская. Мой знакомый в этом лагере проходил что-то вроде этих курсов. Их там учили как в инете “мочить” неугодных лиц, которые критикуют власть. В Москве вся система апробируется активно. Вот и до Дагестана добрались.
This whole undertaking is post-Seliger [a youth summer camp closely connected to NASHI, the most infamous pro-Putin youth group]. My friend who was at the camp went through something similar to this course. They teach them there how to “rub out” the undesirables on the Internet who criticize the authorities. The whole system is being piloted actively in Moscow. And now it’s come to Dagestan.
In March 2013, Dagestani officials invited a group of Russian bloggers from Moscow and Saint Petersburg on a tour of the republic. While most had never been to Dagestan, after initial reservations, many accepted the offer, justifying it as an all-paid travel opportunity. Kept on a tight schedule and within the confines of the guided tour, the netizen guests tweeted and Instagram’ed a steady flow of photographs capturing Dagestan’s undeniable natural beauty. In other words, they became unconscious agents in a government publicity stunt.
Later in the year, Chechen blogger and then Ministry of Finance staff member Arbi Tamaev organized a meeting between Kadyrov and his Instagram subscribers, during which the Chechen Head of State complained that many underestimate the significance of Instagram and do not engage in online discussions seriously enough. Not long after the event, Tamaev was made chief of the short-lived Ministry for Government-Civil Society Cooperation. (Within three months, Tamaev was demoted to a position in another office and his ministry was merged into a new body.)
Russian nationalists have also noted how republic-level governments throughout the North Caucasus have engaged and invested in local bloggers. Citing a recent documents leak that implicated regional officials in paying large sums of cash to bloggers in exchange for favorable reportage, Russian nationalists have complained that federal money is being wasted on developing a more positive public image for the still turbulent North Caucasus.
The North Caucasus’ state intrusions into the region’s blogosphere amount to a campaign that could have a significant impact on the independence and vitality of local netizen activity. These political attempts to control what is an increasingly less free space threaten to damage the long-term development of the region’s blogosphere, which until recently has enjoyed the salutary neglect of the government.


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The Caucasus Network: In Blogs, Russian is the Common Language · Global Voices
Mari Bst

9 June 2013, photo by Sergey Ponomarev.
This article is part of an extensive RuNet Echo study of the North Caucasus blogosphere. Explore the complete report and personal stories on The Caucasus Network page.
Russian is the lingua franca that bridges the republics of the North Caucasus. None of the many indigenous non-Russian languages dominate any of the blogging platforms in the North Caucasus, even the forums dedicated exclusively to regions’ internal issues operate in Russian.
Judging by the media they share in social networks, netizens throughout the North Caucasus tend to read online news in Russian—indeed, it is the working language of most information outlets in the region. Only in Dagestan has there been a concerted effort to develop outlets not based in Russian. Two of the most prominent outlets are the local Radio Liberty branch and Ria-News division, both working in the Avar language. Additionally, a new online video portal, AVAR TV, recently launched, which offers netizens channels for self-expression in the opportunity to produce original content in Avar.
When I informally surveyed several bloggers active in the North Caucasus, many explained the choice to blog in Russian as the most efficient means of reaching a wider audience—particularly as a way to speak to other bloggers in the region’s neighboring republics.
Timur Agirov, known on LiveJournal as Timag82, has done groundbreaking work to quantify the presence of non-Russian blogging in the North Caucasus, compiling a personal archive of statistics to map the various language enclaves. Of the top one hundred bloggers on Agirov’s list, every single one writes exclusively in Russian.
The language barriers that necessitate the use of Russian as a lingua franca across the North Caucasus are also present within individual republics. In Dagestan, for instance, there are over thirty unique languages spoken by different groups of the population.
The blogosphere in Chechnya resembles Dagestan’s, though there are a few notable exceptions that do feature non-Russian writing, like bilingual work by Gilani Lamaro, LiveJournal user svd-1986, and Mukhammed Yusupov.
In Ingushetia, bloggers use the native language even less frequently. One rare example of mixed-language blogging includes Abu-Umar Sakhabi’s LiveJournal. Bloggers in Circassia also favor Russian, though you can find exceptions there, too, like Circassian-language blogging by Astemir Shibzukho and Avraham Shmulevich.
The popularity of Russian owes largely to the North Caucasus’ place in the Russian Federation (and its longer history in the Soviet Union and Tsarist Empire). Curiously, however, bloggers in the North Caucasus tend to defend their use of Russian as a means of reaching one another within the Caucasus, rather than as a way to affiliate with the wider Russian Internet.
It is also the case that Russian, as the language of a larger, more developed society, carries certain advantages in various scientific and technical fields. Shmulevich, for instance, has complained that indigenous languages face an uphill battle:
[…] лексика на некоторые специальные темы на местных языках мало разработана. Писать по вопросам экономики или теории искусств или квантовой физики на табасаранском или даже аварском все же трудно.
[…] the vocabulary and terminology in local languages is poorly developed. Writing about matters concerning economics or the theory of art, or quantum physics, is quite difficult in Tabasaran or even Avar.
Blogger Ramazan Radzhabov disagrees, suggesting that explanations lie elsewhere. He argues that that languages can develop new vocabularies to communicate complex subjects. Another blogger, Mukhamed Avarski, adds:
Популяризация и продвижение родных языков очень не модная тема. Ресурсы по этой теме так же трудно продвигать в сети, за отсутствием посетителей большинство из них быстро затухают. Всевозможные форумы и годеканы начинали свою деятельность по данной тематике но быстренько превращались в обычные флудодромы. Ни кому не интересно напрягать извилины и думать о том что станет с народами потерявшими свой язык. А общекавказских ресурсов занимающихся данной проблематикой я вообще не встречал в сети.
The popularization and promotion of native languages is a very unfashionable topic [in the North Caucasus]. It’s so difficult to provide [the necessary] online resources on this subject that most [websites] die out for a lack of visitors. All kinds of forums and [online] godekans [public squares in the Caucasus] began their activities on this subject, but quickly turned into the usual fludodroms [a portmanteau composed of the English word “flood” and the Russian word “aerodrom” for “airfield,” meant to describe a website inundated with spam]. No one is interested in exercising their minds and thinking about what will become of people who have lost their [native] language, and I’ve certainly never encountered pan-Caucasian resources dedicated to this problem.
It’s difficult to explain why North Caucasian native languages have failed to take root online. In fact, according to Agirov’s database, it seems that bloggers throughout the region are turning increasingly to English as a new lingua franca, displacing Russian and creating new obstacles to an expansion of native-language blogging.


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The Caucasus Network: What They Blog About · Global Voices
Mari Bst

9 June 2013, photo by Sergey Ponomarev.
This article is part of an extensive RuNet Echo study of the North Caucasus blogosphere. Explore the complete report and personal stories on The Caucasus Network page.
The following observations reflect my study of the top 15% most commented-on blogs authored by people in the Russian North Caucasus and hosted on LiveJournal, in addition to another twelve such blogs based on the non-LJ networks Facebook, PublicPost (now defunct), and The Caucasian Knot.
Within the sample described above, the activity of bloggers falls largely into the following six categories:
Bloggers in the North Caucasus first prefer to write about their personal life experiences, with the exception of individuals in Dagestan, where reactions to news events populate the biggest category of blogger activity. The type of person performing this kind of blogging is usually over thirty, and just as likely to be male as female. Much of the personalized writing style resembles an extended “status update” common to online social networks like Facebook.
Bloggers who write predominantly about their private lives often describe firsthand experiences in their local communities, leaving behind intricate records of local activities.
While bloggers who keep records of their daily lives also tend to engage with cultural issues, it is commentary on current events that is the second most common type of writing in the North Caucasus’ blogosphere. Those writing about culture are primarily women between the ages of 25 and 35. Favorite topics within this cluster include cinema, literature, and arts and crafts, among others. (LiveJournal user Vergova, for instance, is a twenty-something Dagestani female who writes about illustration and web design.)
People writing about culture are also the most geographically diverse.
***
Bloggers writing about current events are more likely to be men over thirty, though Dagestan is again the exception, where “news bloggers” are equally divided between men and women. People writing about current events usually cite articles that appear on newswire websites like Interkavkaz and The Caucasian Knot, or more specialized local sites like Akhavat: A Women’s Site About Islam and Spravedlivaia Rossiia newspaper.
The content usually deals with the region’s current events. Among this group’s writing, it is often unclear whether a particular blogger has witnessed news events firsthand or merely learned about them online or through mass media.
***
Legal professionals and career human rights activists dominate the political opposition cluster of the North Caucasus’ blogosphere. (Indeed, active blogging has become something of a job requirement for such individuals.) This professional/netizen overlap is unique to oppositionist bloggers. In contrast, people writing about cultural events (for example, reviewing films or books) only rarely make a living in the same field.
One form of political opposition that is notably subdued on blogs based in the North Caucasus is any direct mockery of state and religious officials (such as political cartoons or other kinds of satire).
In more open societies, human rights organizations institute formal public relations campaigns to advance their goals and sustain their place in the public eye, whereas this task falls almost exclusively to individual blogger-activists in the North Caucasus.
Oppositionist bloggers tend to cite their materials rigorously, often identifying mistakes and potential fabrications in mass media reporting. Additionally, these bloggers typically refer to their own professional experiences in legal and human rights matters to inform their criticisms of traditional journalism about the North Caucasus.
Men roughly forty-years-old dominate the oppositionist section of the North Caucasus’ blogosphere, though there are notable exceptions, like Zulikhan Magomadova, a middle-aged female blogger living somewhere near Chechnya. Magomadova cross-posts her Twitter updates to Facebook, often generating large discussion threads on matters concerning regional politics.
Oppositionist blogging is the fifth largest node of the North Caucasus’ blogosphere, trailing (in order of popularity) bloggers who focus on (1) personal experiences, (2) current events, (3) culture, and (4) instrumental issues. The smallest group of bloggers in the region’s RuNet consists of pro-government individuals, who address state actors’ role in local news with an invariably positive spin. Defenders of the government exercise particular caution when discussing the actions of the police. Those writing in this cluster are mostly men between the ages of thirty and forty.
Bloggers in this group make special efforts to deflect accusations against the region’s current administrations and inflate the government’s social prestige. For instance, in a February 2013 post following a police intervention in a bar brawl that killed three people, Gamid Gitinov, the director of Dagestan’s “Bloggers School,” implied that police officers owe their degraded social respect to the decline of Soviet cinema, where the population once learned to romanticize its law enforcement agents. In modern Russia, the most popular form of entertainment related to police work depicts the lives of criminals, Gitinov complains, which “hardly facilitates the creation of an attractive image for the police.” Gitinov goes on to propose a writing competition for schoolchildren, challenging the nation’s youth to draft descriptions of their ideal police officer.
There are only a dozen of bloggers writing about history and other education themes, and they are equally likely to be men or women. People writing in this field tend to draw on library resources and online research hubs, custom-designed for specific purposes (typically to address subjects that are technical and obscure). As with other nodes of the North Caucasus’ blogosphere, these individuals bring to their writing about current events their own honed expertise (in their case, usually in history or science). Unlike the region’s other blogging clusters, this group tends to be more global in its focus, writing about subjects that are often disconnected from the local goings-on of their immediate surroundings.
The Internet phenomenon known as “trolling” is not substantial in the North Caucasus’ blogosphere. What little hate-mongering does exist in the community usually does not generate much interest. For example, LiveJournal user Allkazar is one such “troll” blogger, though his repeated use of homophobic slurs attracts only little attention.
The North Caucasus’ bloggers appear to exist in a bubble, demonstrating little interest in the outside world, short of a fascination with YouTube videos containing clips of popular Western culture, among other things. Some international events do grab the attention of this region’s blogosphere, but the discourse inevitably splits into pro-Russia and anti-Russia camps.
The majority of bloggers writing about the North Caucasus’ various republics also live in those areas, though Chechnya boasts the highest number of expats blogging from homes outside the region (thanks no doubt to displaced people who left in the 1990s early 2000s). (On LiveJournal, most Chechen and Russian bloggers who write about Chechnya from the outside now reside in Moscow or somewhere outside Russia.)
This article is part of an extensive RuNet Echo study of the North Caucasus blogosphere. Explore the complete report and personal stories on The Caucasus Network page.


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Uruguayan Trade Union Federation Backs Launch of Worker-run Airline   · Global Voices
Guillermo Vidal

Photograph published by Jimmy Baikovicius on Flickr under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 2.0)
[Links to English language web pages are indicated by [en]; all other links lead to Spanish language web pages]
The Uruguayan national trade union federation PIT-CNT [en] has come out in support of the new Alas Uruguay [en] airline by investing union resources into the project after the airline's launch suffered numerous setbacks.
The PIT-CNT (Intersyndical Plenary of Workers–National Convention of Workers) has shown its solidarity with Alas Uruguay due to its status as an autonomously administered company consisting of ex-workers of the previously state owned airline PLUNA [en]. With the Uruguayan government no longer able to meet the airline's growing debts, Pluna was liquidated in mid-2012 after 76 years of service.
However, in November of this year the Supreme Court of Justice ruled that the law allowing for the liquidation of Pluna, which saw seven of the its aeroplanes handed over to trustees and special treatment awarded to certain creditors, was unconstitutional. As a result, Alas Uruguay’s plan to buy three of the seven Bombardier planes held by trustees has returned to Earth with a resounding thud after the court’s ruling led to the suspension of a previously approved loan by the development fund FONDES.
As Alas Uruguay officially state on the website of Portal de Américas in the article “Alas Uruguay rompe el silencio” [Alas Uruguay break the silence], this has delayed the awarding of mandatory certificates from the National Civil Aviation and Aviation Infrastructure Directorate which could further hinder the airline’s launch and leave workers unable to meet the numerous financial commitments made in recent months.
Maintenance of the aeroplanes has been carried out by ex-employees of Pluna with the aim of keeping them operative as even a short break in upkeep leads to the withdrawal of airworthiness certificates. This would result in an immediate fall in their sale price.
In addition to the failed attempt to purchase the three aircraft, Alas Uruguay has already registered as a Public Limited Company having incorporated its managerial staff. According to statements made by the company, office spaces have already been let, bank accounts have been opened, documents have been submitted for the insurance of aircraft (including to Uruguay’s state owned insurance company), websites have been designed and telephone services put in place. Furthermore, the General Manager recently made a presentation before an International Forum on aviation and preliminary talks were underway with national and international service providers.
One particularly worrying detail, however, is that by not finalising the creation a new airline, the government has to continue to pay workers unemployment benefit for a period of two years in order to cover expenses and loss of income. Estimates suggest that this could end up costing the government in excess of US $20 million without any chance of the sum being recovered.
Leo Pintos (@huesopintos) ironically tweeted:
Uruguay 2030: los trabajadores de Alas Uruguay reclaman se le extienda 10 años mas el seguro de desempleo.
— Leo Pintos (@huesopintos) diciembre 6, 2013
Uruguay 2030: Alas Uruguay workers demand unemployment benefit for ten more years.
Jose Pedro Urraburu (@urraburu), on on the other hand, declared himself against continuing to pay income support:
#Plunagate y su hijito #AlasU: Estado no puede pagar seguros de paro a empresas fundidas. Hay que pagar despidos, ya http://t.co/ORByNtbxdN
— Jose Pedro Urraburu (@urraburu) diciembre 5, 2013
#Plunagate and its baby #AlasU: The state shouldn’t be paying unemployment benefits to merged companies. Pay layoffs, now
Despite accusations, workers have stated that they are financially committed to Alas Uruguay, alongside PIT-CNT who have also made guarantees for the realisation of the project. Furthermore, workers of Alas Uruguay have given 25% of their salary to the company as a means of financing the venture.
With regards to the Pluna aeroplanes, if these are not subject to constant maintenance then were they to be sold it would be for a drastically lower price than the US $15 million per plane previously agreed with Alas Uruguay.
The Minister of Economy and Finance, on the other hand, has stated that he is not aware of any law that allows for the state to act as guarantor for a private company in which it does not have an active participation. Indeed, the Uruguayan government is already paying a fee of US $8 million every six months to Scotiabank in its role as guarantor of the seven Bombardier planes that were acquired by the former Pluna CEO, Matías Campiani [en], in 2008. Consequently, if Alas Uruguay does not keep up with its payments then the government would be liable to Pluna’s creditors thus creating a type of ‘double guarantee’ on the same aeroplanes.
The Uruguayan president, José Mujica, in a recent speech spoke about the possibility of the government financing the venture, saying: “I would ask that people have a little bit of heart because the PIT-CNT is even offering part of its monthly income as a guarantee. The Government, if it can, will take that step.”
The senator Alfredo Solari (@senadorsolari) commented on this statement, saying:
“@portal180: Mujica:Que la gente se ponga una mano en el corazón por Alas Uruguay http://t.co/Swi7xFVLGg” La mano en el bolsillo la pongo yo
— Alfredo Solari 3010 (@senadorsolari) noviembre 29, 2013
Mujica: “People should have a little bit of heart over Alas Uruguay” In the meantime, we’re all paying for it.
In their article “Alas Uruguay más cerca del despegue” [Alas Uruguay, closer to take off], the tourism website TurisUY stressed the importance of this project in kick starting the local tourist industry while also benefiting Uruguayan travellers who are currently paying over the odds for airfares.
The upshot of the closure of Pluna and the delay to the launch of Alas Uruguay has been reflected in an increase in airfares for flights to and from Carrasco International Airport [en] which has ended up benefiting BQB [en], a rival airline run by the Argentine entrepreneur Juan Carlos López Mena who, coincidentally, has since been implicated in Alas Uruguay's failed attempt to buy the Pluna aircraft.
The economist and broadcaster Laura Raffo (@lauraraffo) commented on a photograph published by the Uruguayan newspaper El Observador in which López Mena and his son Juan Patricio can be seen lunching with the Minister of Economy and Finance, Fernando Lorenzo, and Hernán Antonio Calvo Sánchez, the vice-president of the Spanish airline Cosmo, saying:
Muy buenas fotos del almuerzo Lopez Mena – Lorenzo!! Caras de sorpresa y de poker :) http://t.co/uUQqZW7x
— Laura Raffo (@lauraraffo) octubre 4, 2012
Great photos of the López Mena – Lorenzo lunch!! Some surprised faces and some poker faces :)
One of the leading newspapers in Uruguay, El País, in their article “Aerolínea de López Mena sumó 56 vuelos tras el cierre de Pluna” [López Mena’s airline adds 56 flights after closure of Pluna], claim that in “the year and a half since the closure of Pluna, López Mena has not only expanded his river transport business [en] [that connects Uruguay to Argentina] but has also seen a significant growth in his airline business.”
The official Twitter account of Alas Uruguay responded by saying:
@elpaisuy empresarios así habría que mandarlos de vuelta a su país pero bien flaquitos !!! Obvio después de ir preso !!
— Alas-U (@AlasUruguay) diciembre 1, 2013
businessmen like this should be sent back to their country with their tail firmly between their legs. Obviously after having been arrested!!!

author: Guillermo Vidal


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VIDEO: Young Men Are Forced to Join Army in Tajikistan · Global Voices
Alexander Sodiqov

As Tajikistan's military faces a struggle to get enough volunteer conscripts, recruitment officers often rely on illegal practices in drafting military-age men into the army. One of the most common among such practices is “oblava” which involves “military press gangs making sweeps of city streets, bazaars and bus stations, rounding up young men who meet the desired criteria [to serve their compulsory two-year-long service]”.
Blogger Rustam Gulov (aka Teocrat) has posted a mobile phone video which shows how “oblava” typically works:
In the video, a recruitment officer wearing a military uniform is aggressively trying to force a young man to go with him. The young man lies on the floor, while an older woman (presumably his mother) defends him and shouts at the officer, saying (in Tajik) that the young man is “ill”.
Over the last two years, Gulov has written much about “oblava”, condemning the practice, explaining that it is illegal, and telling young men what they need to do to avoid being forcefully drafted into the army.


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Aam Admi Party Emerges As A Cleaner Option In Indian Politics · Global Voices
Rezwan

Supporters of Aam Aadmi Party celebrated the party's result in the Delhi Assembly elections in Allahabad. The new political party played spoiler in the race and pushed Congress into third place, according to early results. Image by Prabhat Kumar Verma. Copyright Demotix (8/12/2013)
The Aam Admi Party (AAP)- or Common Man's Party – led by anti-corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal, is challenging India's mainstream parties. During the recently concluded Delhi Assembly poll, AAP emerged as the second largest party winning 28 seats in the assembly out of a total 70 seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 31 and the Indian National Congress could secure only eight. The AAP success helped put an end to 15 years of Indian Congress Party rule in the Delhi state government.
Dubbed as India's pirate party, it was formed about an year ago when two anti-corruption movement (India Against Corruption) activists Arvind Kejriwal and Anna Hazare had some differences. Hazare wanted that their movement should remain politically unaligned while Kejriwal opted for a direct political involvement by creating a new party.
When the party first decided to contest for the elections and was approved the symbol of a “broom”, it was dismissed as an insignificant and inexperienced toddler party. But Vidyut at Aam Janata blog wrote before the elcetions why people should vote for the AAP:
For me the issue isn’t even corruption alone, but the inequality of power. [..] For me it isn’t a matter of who paid a bribe to whom or who did how big as scam. It is about the people having authority to speak on what their interest is. Never mind the big parties and big talk and fancy think tanks and fancier explanations. Fact of the matter is that the government’s objectives seem to move on a separate track from people. I my view, this has to change, and at least in terms of stated interest, the AAP is setting its agendas on the streets and settling them by the word of the constitution, instead of the usual setting agendas in backroom deals and settling them on the streets. This is already more than most parties offer whether elected or not.
However, Gopan K has apprehensions about AAP:
AAP is indeed a spoiler. It took a major chunk of votes from Congress and damaged it at the same time ensured that BJP is not having a sweep. The AAP themselves failed to estimate the impact they caused and it is indicating the huge expectation the people have on them. The television channels and the social media engineering helped them in the cause. The huge expectation puts a lot of pressure on the baby shoulders of AAP. They have zero administrative experience and their working plans are raw and very conceptual. It may be tough to execute in a practical way. The different could be same as an advertisement and the actual product. They have two actual risks waiting for them.
Celebration rang out from the AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) headquarters in New Delhi as polling results revealed their success. Image by  Louis Dowse. Copyright Demotix (8/12/2013)
There were strong reactions in the social media, especially Twitter.
Some celebrated the success of AAP:
"If u want to change the system, Join the system" No-one thought this to be practical. Today, things 've changed a bit, Massive Respect #AAP
— Gabbar Singh (@GabbbarSingh) December 8, 2013
I can't get over the success of #AAP it's a historic moment in our lives. A revolution has begun. Must do everything to keep it going.
— kunal kohli (@kunalkohli) December 9, 2013
#AAP has proven itself in Delhi polls. The so-called apolitical people want to have some victory too! @SunilSurf2 @ismohd87
— Pran Kurup (@pkurup) December 15, 2013
Some have high hopes:
#AAP shows the way forward for India. Anything is possible. Don't give up hope in the people of India.
— Pritish Nandy (@PritishNandy) December 8, 2013
STOI: #AAP’s victory is symbolic of a larger social churn. It’s a sign Indians are demanding accountability today  http://t.co/SEdaemc9Hn
— Times of India (@timesofindia) December 15, 2013
#AAP has made a point. It needs courage to stand up against the most ruthless corrupt system. If they don't win, Delhi looses.
— Sridhar R (@Sridhar67) December 4, 2013
There's not been a more important movement in India than #AAP since 'Quit India'.Need Quit India movement for corrupt politicians now
— kunal kohli (@kunalkohli) December 11, 2013
Some are apprehensive about the party's success:
The Aam Aadmi Party of India is the new communist party of India with Arvind Kejriwal as their Stalin.#AAP
— Suman Gangopadhyay™ (@sgangopadhyay) December 15, 2013
#AAP got only 29% votes#BJP got 34% votes in Delhiyet people say AAP won it— hypocrite foolspic.twitter.com/kN6bXk9WJH (read & decide)
— Jia Sharma (@JiaSharmaRockz) December 11, 2013
A party needs at least 36 seats in the House of 70 members to form a government in Delhi. So it was predicted that Aam Admi Party could form a government with a qualition partner. However latest reports say that AAP will not form a Government at this moment. It remains to be seen what impact this party will have on Indian politics in near future.


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Abducted a Year Ago, Sombath Somphone Case Highlights Human Rights Abuses in Laos · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Sombath Somphone, a development economist and educator from Laos, was abducted by unidentified men exactly a year ago a few moments after he was stopped by a police car. His disappearance was captured by a CCTV footage. Today, his family and friends from around the world are asking the Laos government to undertake more decisive actions to help find Sombath.
Protest in front of Laos embassy in Bangkok. Photo from Facebook page of Joey Oliveros Dimaandal.
Dec 15 marks 1 year since #Sombath Somphone was abducted in public view caught on CCTV camera. Why has the Lao govt no news for us till now?
— Shalmali Guttal (@commonmolly) December 12, 2013
CCTV showed police stopped him but govt has refused to acknowledge any role in his disappearance despite intl pressure #sombath #laos
— Thin (@thinink) December 11, 2013
The Solidarity for Asian Peoples’ Advocacy Working Group on ASEAN is accusing the Laos government of hiding something about the case:
We hold the government of Lao accountable for his enforced disappearance. The inconsistencies in the Lao government's policy pronouncements over his case prove our point that it has something to do with what happened to Sombath Somphone. We challenge Lao officials to, once and for all, provide a credible action and resolution on his case. It must prosecute individuals and institutions responsible for his enforced disappearance.
The Laos government has denied that it was involved in the disappearance of Sombath.
Nalaka Gunawardene clarified that Sombath is not an activist:
Sombath isn’t a politician. Nor is he an activist, although some have given him that label. The Sombath I know is a sensitive thinker who pauses to reflect on where his country and the world are headed. He is also a teacher and mentor who has helped thousands of young Lao nationals to improve skills and find their own voice.
In a Facebook note, Anne-Sophie promised Sombath that his friends will keep alive the advocacy until he is found:
Someone said that “the one who has been killed dies once, the disappeared dies again everyday”. We refuse to let this happen. This is why we are starting this discussion with you today. And this discussion will continue, everyday, to keep you alive. Your engagement has been a lot about giving voice to the people. It is time for others to give you a voice. Silence will not prevail. Because we will never forget. Because we keep hoping.
Return #Sombath #Somphone rally at #Laos embassy pic.twitter.com/QcuQ1H3NG9
— Debbie Stothard (@DebbieStot) December 15, 2013
One year after the enforced disappearance of Sombath Somphone pic.twitter.com/zH9TcQAYb4
— Pablo Solon (@pablosolon) December 15, 2013
Meanwhile, 62 NGOs in the Asia-Pacific signed a statement urging the Laos government to form a new body to investigate Sombath’s disappearance:
Establish a new commission tasked with carrying out a prompt, thorough, independent, and impartial investigation into Sombath’s enforced disappearance and return him safely to his family.
Extend an invitation for a country visit by the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances
Sombath’s whereabouts remain unknown and there has been no progress in the investigation into the circumstances of his enforced disappearance. In addition, the authorities have rejected offers of technical assistance to analyze the CCTV footage.
M Rajaretnam hopes the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN will demand more answers from the Laos government:
After a year of silence, the disclosure should be treated as an opportunity to seek redress for Mr Sombath. If Sombath Somphone can disappear in broad daylight, it can happen to anyone. Asean governments and their stakeholders, in the name of human decency, have the right to clear answers from the Lao leadership.

author: Mong Palatino