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Russia: 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

It would be, of course, an exaggeration to say that every single Russian blogger has commented on Russia's victorious bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi last week – but it wouldn't be that huge of an exaggeration. The response to the news has been enormous, and the blogosphere seems to be divided into two camps now: those who think that holding the Olympics in this mountainous Black Sea resort town is a great idea – and those who think it's a disaster in the making.
Thousands of people danced in the streets of Sochi the night the victory was announced, but the amount of work and the potential problems that lie ahead are overwhelming.
Vladimir Putin has pledged $12 billion to prepare Sochi for the Games more or less from scratch – and at the same time, he had to order the creation of a new governmental department “to prevent embezzlement of government resources.”
Ecology concerns run high, too: environmentalists fear that large-scale construction would damage “the unique nature landscapes of the West Caucasus, including the territories inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List.”
And, last but not least, there's politics: while many credit Putin with securing Russia's victory, there are also those who believe that the International Olympic Committee's decision is likely to strengthen the oft-criticized regime.
Below are the responses of several bloggers involved in the Russian opposition politics in one way or another – as well as some comments from their readers – all translated from Russian.
Ilya Yashin, leader of the youth wing of Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko Party – July 5, 2007, 3:26 AM:
I believed in it!
SOCHI!
Happiness!
***
loyalnaya:
[…]
I've been to [Krasnodar] recently, deliberately asked the locals what they thought about it, and I have to note that ordinary people are simply horrified by the prospects of having the Olympics there. Real estate prices have really jumped since the beginning of the campaign, and now they'll fly all the way to heaven. [According to the Moscow Times, “real estate prices in Sochi jumped by from 30 to 40 percent virtually overnight after the city last week won the right to host the 2014 Winter Olympics, Swiss Realty Group said in a report released Monday.”] And you've already mentioned budget spendings and the elimination of the park.
Theoretically, it is nice, of course, that we are the hosts – maybe we'll have a hockey victory at last, and there won't be as much harassment by the judges as there was in Salt Lake City, but in practice… well. And, of course, Putin is now a here for ever and ever, and I think that this would get him to win without the election in 2012, in order to have good publicity in 2014.
***
jalal_kirmizi:
Aha. Russia is a rich country and can afford it. Average pension in the regions is 2,000-3,000 rubles [$80-$120 a month]. Children's cancer treatment funds are empty and begging money from the public. And I don't even want to talk about the happiness that will now fall over Sochi residents – [South Butovo] would seem like a trifle compared to what's going to start happening there now.
You know very well, Yashin, who's going to profit from this Olympics. Just another event in the parallel world…
July 5, 2007, 1:11 PM:
SOCHI!
I was in a wonderful mood last night.
I was nervously staring at my computer screen until 3:30 AM, waiting for the results of the vote in Guatemala. And after they announced the results, I started to happily sing songs about [Misha the Bear, the mascot of the 1980 Moscow Olympics], send ICQ messages and call friends. I even woke the neighbor up and started pounding on the wall for me to shut up.
But I was happy. […]
This joy is normal. Or, at least, this is how it appears to me.
And now I'm reading [negative] comments to my yesterday's inspired post, which I wrote right after the Sochi victory had been announced…
Listen, it's as if you and I live in different Russias.
I also hate Putin's regime and despise [the Kremlin folks], but what does the Olympics have to do with it?
It's a holiday for the whole country, isn't it, the world's best athletes will come here, and for a month, the remote Sochi will basically turn into the world's sports capital. What's bad about it?
Of course, money is going to be stolen. But they are stealing everywhere here – because both you and I haven't yet learned to fight corruption. Should we stop building anything now, stop allotting money for health care, etc.? Nonsense? Nonsense.
By 2014, Sochi will be a modern sports resort area with developed infrastructure. This, without doubt, is a benefit.
It's true that the trees will probably be destroyed. But this is where the civil society has to act – go ahead, dear ecologists, make sure that the damage done to Sochi's nature is minimal.
[…]
***
gope_om_yma:
Who's gonna go to Sochi when you have the Alps? And the prices would be more or less the same.
***
rayniac:
[…] The Russian TV “expressed concern” over that fact that “Pyeongchang is located just a few hundred kilometers from the border with North Korea.” Meanwhile, Sochi is located right next to the border with Georgia's breakaway [Abkhazia] and really close to the glorious places like Chechnya – and only God knows what it's going to be like in Abkhazia and Chechnya in 2014.
Besides, I heard opinions of people close to the construction works in Sochi, who were concerned about these problems:
- Energy: Sochi doesn't have enough electricity even now. What's going to happen when electricity use grows, during the construction and even more during the Games?
- The city lacks free space for creating the construction infrastructure – that is, there's no place to unload construction materials, no place to set up equipment. Most of the land is private, and the city itself stretches along the sea coast in a narrow line, 4 km wide and 100 km long, and behind it are the steep mountains.
[…]
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wolfenste1n:
I'll draw a parallel with my native [Yakutsk]. It may seem strange, the scale is too different, but still, it's the same country…
Since 2000, every four years, they hold an international sporting event here called “Asia's Children.” It's sort of like our own Yakutsk Olympics. The money alloted for this from the republic's budget is enormous (yes, by our standards). They steal relentlessly. On the one hand, if this event didn't exist, there'd probably be no modern stadiums, ice skating palaces, sports complexes, swimming pools, dormitories and other goods that civilization has to offer. But on the other hand, half the city literally drowns in crap, and people spend years waiting for normal apartments. So that the foreign guests do not see how things really are, they even had to paint the facades of half-demolished huts along Lermontov St. in bright colors. They didn't have enough money to paint the backyard side as well, but that doesn't really matter, sort of: no one sees that from the street anyway.
IMHO, until all these Potemkin Villages exist, Russia will not turn into a normal country. Some Russian officials were saying with obvious pride that the budget of the Olympic Salzburg is tiny compared to ours. But, excuse me, how do people live in Russia and how do people live in Austria and Korea? […]
Nikita Belykh, the leader of the Union of Right Forces party – July 5, 2007, 2:37 PM:
Sochi-2014
I'm genuinely happy!
I was at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. One day before the opening nothing was ready yet: they were painting something, attaching, finishing up. At the bleachers, railings were still sticky with paint.
[…]
The mess was everywhere – hotels didn't have vacant rooms, roads were jammed, no one knew anything, everyone was fussing around, service personnel […] almost didn't speak any English. But it was fun.
And I've a feeling that it's going to be more or less like this in Sochi, too.
[…]
After all, Russians are often compared to Greeks in their mentality and temperament.
The Olympics is a really useful project. First, such events help to reveal the area's problems with infrastructure. For example, in [Perm], they talked about the lack of hotels for a long time, but didn't do anything about it. And all these problems came to the surface when Perm was hosting the European Boxing Championship and the ULEB basketball events. Today, there are several new, very good, modern hotels in Perm. Same thing about roads, etc.
[…] Those objects that would be built for the Olympics will stay there when it's over, too […]. […]
And the last point. I'm an oppositioner. But in this case I think that the authorities are doing everything absolutely correctly: the way the campaign was organized and the president's presence in Guatemala.
The Olympics in Russia – it's really cool! And for me it has a special meaning.
There is a chance that I'll have to be responsible for the Olympics-2014.
***
mr_fatcat:
Minus one vote for SPS. Sorry.
***
dwow:
Nikita, why can't infrastructure be built without the Olympics?)
kobsev:
Are you serious? You don't understand?
dwow:
What I do not understand is how come the state that can spend $12 billion on infrastructure development would only do it in case of the Olympics, but not if there's no Olympics.
Leonid Nevzlin, former CEO of Mikhail Khodorkovsky‘s oil company Yukos, currently living in Israel – July 5, 2007, 12:56 PM:
Respect […]
For the first time, Putin has acted like a real president. Perhaps, it's his personal involvement that has played a role in promoting the country's interests through sports. It was beautiful.
***
baruhgerman:
I congratulate the Russians on their success! I remember the International Youth and Students Festival of 1957, four years after Stalin's death. It was a gulp of fresh air, a powerful push towards free thinking. The 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow made extremely obvious the contradiction between the Communist ideology and practice ([the war in Afghanistan]) and the people's thirst for renewal. It was ten years before the Soviet Union's collapse… […]
dictator_of_rus:
Is this how he acted: he gave orders to Gazprom and [made] the oligarchs buy the IOC?! Leonid, if you turn into a [Putin-lover], too, I'm speechless…
Valeriya Novodvorskaya, a Russian dissident:
July 8, 2007, 11:28 PM
[Question:] Hi, Valeriya Ilyinichna!
What do you think, is the Sochi Olympics a chance for the country to improve its image in the West, or is it the opposite and we risk spoiling everything with a typically “Russian” approach to organizing events of this level […]?
[Novodvorskaya's Answer:] Russia's image does not depend on the quality of the roads and the number of stars at a hotel – in China, they have skyscrapers, super-fast trains, technology and clothes, but there's no freedom whatsoever. In Guatemala, Putin's regime has received an indulgence for the next seven years for any type of actions against the rights and freedoms. For any free-thinking person, this quote from O'Henry becomes relevant: There'll be music at your plantation, but you won't hear any of it. Do you seriously believe that good service can obscure the prison cells of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, [Svetlana Bakhmina] and [Igor Sutyagin]? The West knows very well what we are, but unfortunately, it doesn't give a damn so far.


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Thailand: North Food in Bangkok · Global Voices
Preetam Rai

Real Thai introduces some Northern Thai dishes and recommends a place in Bangkok where one can get these dishes.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Preetam Rai


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Trinidad & Tobago: Caribbean Tales  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Caribbean Free Radio is in Toronto for the second annual Caribbean Tales Film Festival…

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana: Tasty Dishes  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Lifespan of a Chennette blogs about a few dishes that have formed part of her “Guyanese foodie experience”.


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Uzbekistan: Improbable headlines · Global Voices
Ben Paarmann

Suffering from the heat in Tashkent, Rowan Wagner thinks of “headlines you will never see in Uzbekistan”.

author: Ben Paarmann


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Uzbekistan: Special prison · Global Voices
Ben Paarmann

Jamiyat writes that the Uzbek government has built a new prison especially designed for “delinquent” civil servants. They are not thrown into the dire facilities where normal inmates serve their sentence as the latter “might show no tolerance towards newcomers, who in fact, might have put them in these premises”.


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Africa: women’s rights in Africa · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Black Looks explores the old and new state of women's rights  in Africa: “In Kenya the abortion debate went public when a mock tribunal was supposed to be held with 4 women telling their personal stories. Although anti-abortion activists managed to stop the debate the Vice President has come out along with nine other African leaders to call for legislation legalising abortions.”

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Albania: Immigrants in Greece · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Our Man in Tirana links to an article on attitudes towards Albanian immigrants in Greece.

author: Veronica Khokhlova


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Algeria: Muslim Prayer Break  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Nouri, an Algerian American blogger, discusses the 15-minute break for prayers for Muslims in schools.

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Arabeyes: The Wonders of Jordan  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

The ancient rosy coloured city Petra has been named among the seven wonders of the world. Our Jordan author Naseem Tarawnah covered what English language blogs are saying about the citation, but what do bloggers writing in Arabic have to say?
Jordanian Hareega  gives us a run down of what to expect when you first arrive in Jordan.
Batir Wardam too isn't impressed with the television coverage surrounding the celebrations.


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Bahamas: Freedom of Information · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“I find it difficult to write about this subject – it's such a no-brainer, and so crucial to the good governance of the country that it upsets me.”  Larry Smith at Bahama Pundit blogs about the Freedom of Information Act.


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Bahamas: Literary Ethnicity?   · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“When I gave my reading…someone remarked that my poetry was not ‘street’. Well, I wondered, why should it be?”  Nicolette Bethel examines the role ethnicity plays in literature.


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Bahrain: Do Bahrainis Want To Be Part Of Iran? · Global Voices
Ayesha Saldanha

A few weeks ago we mentioned a report on CNN about poverty and sectarian divides in Bahrain. This week a piece appeared in the LA Times concerning a rift in the Bahraini ruling family, and LuLu is impressed:
After CNN, the Los Angeles Times takes a more intelligent look at Bahrain.
The article claims that senior members of the Bahraini ruling family have allied themselves with hard-line Sunni Muslim groups, hoping to counter a perceived threat from the majority Shi'a. Concerned Citizen X comments:
BandarGate, CNN & now the LA Times; all raising the issue of promoted sectarianism by factions within the Government. What now?
[…]
Transparency, Trustworthy & Accountable; three words that do not come into the picture when talking about entities within the Government.
Mahmood asks:
Why would a country as minute as Bahrain make it with such heavy-duty articles to some of the world’s top publications other than the world is somewhat sitting up and taking notice that inequity should not go unreported?
Mohammed AlMaskati, commenting on a disturbing story from Iraq about the tactics used by Al Qaeda to pressure people, relates it to trends he has discerned in Bahrain:
The power and numbers of the Wahabi and Muslim Brotherhood currents are on the increase around the island; one could sense that by just a quick roundup on local forums or Arabic Blogs, we need more attention on stories like those around the country. We need to educate the youth, the brainwashable youngsters that are vulnerable to fall victims so such schools of teachings aided by the lack of other social activities and religious grounds of the local communities.
Apart from the LA Times story, Bahrain has been highlighted in the press of another country this week; a senior Iranian government advisor, as well as newspaper editor, Hussain Shariatmadari, has written in his paper claiming that the main demand of Bahrainis is the return of Bahrain to Iran. Mahmood states what he thinks in no uncertain terms:
Apparently this guy – who is one of the Iranian leadership’s consultants – is demanding that Bahrain be returned to the folds of the Iranian Nation as the United Nations declaration to remain both Arab and independent is null and void as it was the word of the dual-Great Satans (Amerika and UK).
[…]
The political lines between Bahrain and Iran have been burning at one million Kelvin since this story broke when Shariatmadari authored his OpEd in his paper, I just hope that this will get resolved soon and that the Iranian leadership will come on and unequivocally state that they do recognise Bahrain as independent and kick this moron’s ass into oblivion.
Rayyash comments on the same matter, and ends with a question:
Bahrainis often look at another neighbour, Dubai, as a model for advancement. Ammar comments on the new toll booth system, Salik, that Dubai has just introduced, and wonders about the larger implications:
Now, how is this relevant to us in Bahrain, or anyone in the surrounding region? Well, if you haven't noticed, Dubai is the model city that all countries around it try to follow. Dubai jumps, they jump. Dubai ducks, they duck. And now, Dubai, the tax free haven, has finally introduced a pretty direct tax on people using its roads. Sure, it's there to reduce congestion on the main roads, and generate more income for new infrastructure projects, but it's a tax nonetheless. And you can bet your sweaty GCC passport (or visa) that that the surrounding countries are going to introduce taxes pretty soon. Not necessarily taxes on major roads or highways, but any form of tax is applicable.
Yes, Salik has been criticized by many commuters, claiming that it hasn't fixed the problem, shifted it to somewhere else, or only created more problems. Some claim that it isn't fair, having to pay the same toll if you had 10 people in one vehicle, or one person, whether you were driving a tiny 2-seater or a truck, or if you were a poor labourer trying to make it to work to earn a living or a rich billionaire going to Dubai to spend a few thousand dollars for a good time.
Either way, I think it was a good start, and even though it wasn't launched as well as it should have been, it is still progress. Other measures need to be implemented to bring down congestion, and speaking of Dubai, Bahrain also needs to start moving on some strong traffic-control measures before we start turning into the next Cairo. Aside from the other available solutions for congestion, and I have a LOT in mind, we need to start looking at this whole tax situation, and start to prepare for it.
Toll booths are just the beginning.
Apart from traffic, affordable housing is another problem in Bahrain. Silver summarises the situation for many:
A typical case will be a Bahraini couple getting BD 40,000 (US $ 106,000) to buy a house form the government (Ministry of Housing). A typical liveable (not even decent) house costs at least BD 80,000. … So what does a person do? You say take a bank loan, alright let's try it. The only loan you will get is a personal loan because the house has to be mortgaged by the Ministry of Housing (for the 40K loan), so a typical couple will make around BD800-1200 (US $ 2120-3180) (combined), 50% of your income is your max installment, now take out two car loans, if you are lucky you will be able to get additional BD10-20k. As a result now you have BD50-60k. The question is what can you buy with that???
There is a suggestion to increase government loan to BD60,000, guess what that will do?? Yes, increase property prices even further!! So we will be back to square one!!
Ammar has been thinking about Bahrain's relationship to its heritage:
I read a report in the GDN today which sort of alarmed me; it seems that Bahrain is bidding for a seat in the UNESCO World Heritage Commitee. The aim is to make Bahrain the regional hub for cultural and natural heritage preservation.
OK STOP.
Cultural and natural heritage preservation?
Bahrain?
[…]
But when talking of culture and heritage? We've done all but completely destroy it. This really doesn't make sense to me; how can a country that has not only neglected but purposely destroyed a large part of its own heritage be considered for such a committee? Don't get me wrong, I love my country. I would love to see it advance and grow on the global map, but the way things go, you don't get a fat kid to work in a cake shop.
We end with Seroo, who is astounded by an instance of laziness she recently encountered:
I got up from quick lunch at a Starbucks with a friend to head back to work one afternoon.
“Where's your car?” he asked as he picks up his Gucci shades and pulled out his Mont Blanc keyring.
“At the Regency car park.” I got up, adjusted myself and picked up my hand bag.
“Laish wagafteeha b3eeed min ihneey?” (Why did you park so far away?) he asked, busy fiddling with his super cool new phone.
“Laish? (Why?) That's where my parking spot is…”
“O Shlone yeetay?” (So how did you get here?) We walked towards the door.
“Shino shlone? Meshait.” (What do you mean how? I walked.)
“You walked?!?!?!” He stops in his tracks, raises his eyebrows and mockingly drops his mouth open.
“Ee akeed.” (Yes, of course) I stopped as well and knitted my eyebrows together. “Why should I drive for 15 minutes when I could walk for 5?”
He shook his head and put on his blinging shades.
“Ma7ad yamshi ihneey terra, 7u6i hai el shai fi balech.” (You know no one walks here, just think about that.)
Well Harumph to you too.

author: Ayesha Saldanha


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Bahrain: Irresponsible Response  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Bahraini Mahmood Al Yousif  is angered by the “irresponsible” response of an official to the plight of the legendary Tree of Life.


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Bangladesh: Going to Dhaka · Global Voices
Neha Viswanathan

A Sunshine Too Brief goes to Bangladesh and discovers two unexpected things – great facials and a lesson in humility.

author: Neha Viswanathan


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Barbados: Losing Tourists to Dubai?  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

As Barbados Free Press identifies Dubai as the island's new tourism competitor, it also examines some of the challenges Barbados faces: “Barbados Tourism has suffered from an identity crisis. We don’t know what we want to be anymore and our messages to the world reflect this confusion.”


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Bulgaria, Libya: Still Some Hope for Tripoli Six? · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Declan Butler reports on the Tripoli Six case: “…so far the endgame script in this tragic case is playing out as predicted.” There's still some hope, though.


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Cambodia: Cambodia Thai Border and Google Earth · Global Voices
Preetam Rai

Borin finds Google Earth displaying Cambodia's border with Thailand incorrectly.


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Eastern & Central Europe: More on the Economist’s Coverage · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

The discussion of the Economist's coverage of East European economies and demography has moved from A Fistful of Euros to the Economist's Certain Ideas of Europe blog.


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Egypt: After Mubarak  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

D B Shobrawy from Egypt is worried that history may repeat itself in his country. “My fears for the future of Egypt are largely based on what might happen when Mubarak dies,” writes the blogger.


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Ethiopia: lies of the millenium · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Read Enset's post about the Ethiopian government titled, Lies of the Millenium: “In the last two years, Ethiopia has produced a plethora of pathological liars; in fact, it produced more public liars than honest judges. Historically, Ethiopia is a country where the supply of the truth has always been in excess of the demand.”


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Francophone Morocco: Development, Modernization, and Creation · Global Voices
Hamza Daoui

This week, francophone Moroccans take stock of their country, reflecting on the good, the bad, the beautiful.
Developing, modernizing and creating requires accepting criticism; but as Kenza, who blogs at Murmures hedra w klam (Fr), explains,  criticism can be difficult to accept about one's own country, even when it is true:
Il est des choses qui peuvent choquer, il est des réalités qu’on a du mal à accepter, un amour pour ce pays qui sent la pointe de la critique comme une blessure à son inconditionnalité …. des choses somme toute que je peux admettre mais tout de même d’autres que je ne comprends toujours pas.
There are things that can shock, there are realities that people have a hard time accepting, a unconditional love for this country that feels criticism like a wound… [there are] things that finally I can admit but others that I still do not understand.
Sometimes it’s difficult to avoid telling it like it is, especially when you see videos like the one posted by Mourad in the blog of jeunes intellectuels marocains (fr). The video showed two cops in the countryside taking money from every car that drove by. Mourad introduced the video saying:
Si les terroristes et les marchands de drogue circulent librement, c’est en grande partie à cause de ce genre de scènes qui se répètent au quotidien, mettant en danger la sécurité des marocains et les initiatives de développement du pays.
If the terrorists and the drug dealers roam freely, it is mainly because of these kinds of scenes which happen day after day, endangering the safety of Moroccans and the development initiatives in the country.
Sometimes, certain initiatives need a little outside help. Last month, a Moroccan family that had been living in a public restroom spoke to the BBC after being evicted from it. Shortly after, Britons reading the article donated over £1,000, allowing the family to rent a home. MoTIC (fr) says of the generosity:
On avait tous lu dans le quotidien Al Massae l'histoire malheureuse de cette famille marocaine de Salé qui n'avait trouvé comme domicile pas mieux que des toilettes publiques. On avait appris dans le même quotidien (voir cet article) que les cartes d'identité (qui indiquaient que cette famille avait comme adresse des toilettes publiques!) avaient été retirées et qu'on avait convaincu la famille de quitter les toilettes.
La BBC nous a appris la semaine dernière que grâce aux dons (qui ont totalisé les 1000 livres, soit plus de 16 500dh) des lecteurs d'un article sur son site Internet, cette famille marocaine a pu louer un logement et compte acquérir un appartement.
We all read in the daily newspaper Al Massae the unhappy story of this Moroccan family from Salé that had not found a residence better than public toilets.  We learned from the same paper that [the family's national identity cards] (which indicated public toilets as this family's address!) had been revoked and that the family had been convinced to leave the toilets.
The BBC tells us that last week that thanks to gifts (which added up to 1000 pounds, or more than 16,500 dirhams) from readers of the internet site, this Moroccan family was able to rent housing and intends to acquire an apartment.
But then there are those that might need a little outside criticism. The Committee to Protect Journalists released another report on Morocco, and blogger basta-baraka (fr) says:
Intitulé “le Maroc de façade”, le document décrit fidèlement les contradictions d'un pouvoir qui veut indiscutablement s'ouvrir, mais sans renoncer pour autant à l'envie (au besoin ?) de museler la presse indépendante.
Entitled “The Moroccan Facade,” the document faithfully describes contradictions of a power that indisputably wants to open up but [stops short] giving up its desire (or is that need?) to muzzle the independent press.
Lastly there are the developments outside of Morocco, which we can simply sit back and enjoy. The new Seven Wonders of the World, welcomed on 7 July 2007, usher in a new era, particularly for blogger Faycal of The Unveiled Diary (fr), who said:
On vous les a enseignées lorsque vous étiez petits, elles n'ont cessé de vous enchanter par leur splendeur, par leur histoire incroyable. Une seule d'entre elles a survecu au temps, les autres ayant été emportées et ne vivent plus que dans nos mémoires. Depuis le 7 juillet 2007, ces merveilles de l'antiquité ne sont plus merveilles mais simplement un vague souvenir du passé décrit dans des livres d'histoire.
They were taught to you when you were little; they have not stopped enchanting you with their splendor, with their incredible history. Only one of them survived time, the others having been eroded, living on only in our memories. Since July 7, 2007, these wonders of antiquity are not wonders anymore but simply a vague memory of the past described in history of books.
Photo by dberm

author: Hamza Daoui


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Haiti: Unmasked · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

gmtPlus9 (-15) links to a project called Kids With Cameras, which has given Haitian children in indentured servitude the power to tell their own stories.


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Hindi Blogosphere: A brouhaha, customer service and blogger meets! · Global Voices
Amit Gupta

So it's after about one and a half month that we are looking at what has been going on in Hindi blogosphere. The dust had barely settled down when it rose again, this time on the issue of expulsion of a blog from the leading Hindi blog aggregator, Narad. For quite some time Narad has acted as a readership supplier to the handful of Hindi blogs, a number which has been growing steadily. Sometime back, Narad introduced a relatively lenient policy, to which all bloggers had to agree before their blog would be aggregated by it.
Now one particular blogger insulted another Hindi blogger by calling him a dirty napkin. This was against Narad's policy as it clearly states that if a blogger attacks another fellow blogger personally then his or her blog would be expelled from Narad and so it was. Most of the Hindi bloggers welcomed this action but some bloggers didn't like it and labelled it as an attack on freedom of speech and expression. However, it's interesting to note that the blogger wasn't forced to shut down his blog, only his blog was expelled from Narad. Some bloggers felt that this was rightly done as that same blogger was later putting up murder threats on another blog against all those who disagreed with him.
A second front was opened up against Narad and its public face Jitu. This issue went on for quite sometime and still hasn't subsided. During this, many accusations surfaced. Some bloggers found these accusations absurd. One stated that Narad and its technical team are radical Hindus who are running their saffron propaganda via Narad, while another accusation was that only posts supporting radical Hinduism are showing up on Narad, and that liberal and anti-Hindu posts are being blocked.
It's a little hard to fathom how Narad's team could have written a code that was somehow biased and differentiating on the basis of religion. However, things are starting to look as if they will settle down gradually, for now.
Anyways, moving on from this issue, let's see what else has been blogged in the last week. Notepad felt kinda low when she saw a photo of some nice looking coffee admitting that all she knew about coffee was that there's good coffee and there's bad coffee, not realizing that there are so many types of coffee. She narrates her coffee experience at Cafe Coffee Day, a chain of coffee shops in India.
Ravi Ratlami (who was recently awarded MVP from Microsoft) wrote a satirical article about a recent invention by Italian scientists – hunger killing pills. In his cartoon, besides the news clipping, he showed a pig saying to the other that perhaps one day someone will make a pill that would kill Indian politicians’ hunger for votes and (currency) notes. Then perhaps they will be able to attend to more pressing matters, like running the country in a better way (for a change)! ;)
He also blogs about a new blog comment selling service called Buy Blog Comments(link) where you can buy one of the three packages available at different prices which will give you different number of valid and relevant comments on your blog. Seems like this service is based on the model of website traffic selling websites which sell traffic for websites.
Customer service is important these days and efficient customer service is crucial for a business if it wants to have its customers stick around. So it looks like Google's Blogger.com team is working on the age-old service and have now introduced the ability to create polls as well, because Ankur blogged just about that. And on Tarakash, Sanjay narrates his experience with the first rains of this monsoon and how he got stuck as train services were stopped due to flooding of tracks and he finished the 4 hour journey in 10 hours. While he's all praises for the Railways for stopping the trains while the things become okay, I think that they should consider thinking about how to prevent these train stopping incidents when such a thing as flooding of tracks etc. occur; they can take measures to battle minor flooding etc.
Not everyone however, is happy to serve their regular or would-be customers by providing any service, let alone efficient or decent service. This became quite evident when I had a bad experience with Dass Studios with their ignorant and arrogant staff. I called them up, inquiring about a polarizer that I was looking to buy for my new camera. They are not just another small shop but are an established name in photography and photographic equipment business in New Delhi. But as the saying goes, someone's loss is someone else's gain. Dass Studios’ loss was Mahatta & Co.'s (a 92 year old photography shop in New Delhi) gain as I got excellent service from them; they even went to the trouble of finding the brand which I was looking for, even though they had told me earlier that I'd be lucky to get that brand in the market!
Blogger Meets are happening quite frequently in the Hindi Blogosphere now (or it seems that the blogger meet season is on). Pankaj blogged about his little blogger meet with the first Hindi blogger Alok(the man who started it all) as the latter was on a visit to the US. Sagar also narrated his experience as he had two blogger meets, one of them on the way to his native village. While I also participated in a recent blogger meet as Manish was on a Delhi visit due to some official work, it seems that this is all going to be just a warm-up compared to the BIG Blogger Meet that's going to take place this Saturday (July 14th) which if called an international blogger meet, won't be exaggeration as Kuwait based Jitu will be attending along with other fellow bloggers from other parts of India, and some from Delhi, the city which has more Hindi Bloggers than any other city around the world!
Ankur blogs about how he would like Linux to be, i.e., just as easy to use as Microsoft Windows with support for all his favourite and frequently used software. Now ambitious as this may sound, it's not far away. A while back, I blogged about ReactOS, which aims to be the Open Source and free alternative to Microsoft WindowsXP by being similar to the latter as well as having the application and driver compatibility, meaning all Microsoft Windows applications and drivers can run on ReactOS as well. Linspire's free offering of the scaled down version of their Linux distro as Freespire is already in the run, so things can be expected to be quite hot in the coming year or two. While we're on technology, Alok broke the news in the Hindi blogosphere about the availability of Blogger.com site in Hindi.
Sunil came up with a blog-post for the unmarried telling them about the hundreds of thousands of weddings scheduled on the 7th July all over the world and how people have booked venues for that day years in advance! And if you missed it, intentionally (like me) or accidentally, then not to worry, there's going to be 08/08/08, 09/09/09, 10/10/10, 11/11/11 & 12/12/12. Or for that matter even 06/07/08, 07/08/09, 08/09/10, 09/10/11, 10/11/12 & 11/12/13 as well! ;) Hmm, lots of cool dates to choose from, I think I'll also pick one of these & start planning! ;)
Manish finally finished his travelogue series of Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Just reading it one can imagine what fun it must have been (and you don't even need a strong and wild imagination like mine, eh!), so it's no telling how the real fun will be when you are actually there. So I think I'll just start saving!
This chapter of a guided tour through the Hindi Blogosphere concludes here. We'll meet soon again for another chapter of the guided tour. Till then, au revoir!! :)
Links courtesy: Narad

author: Amit Gupta


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India: Change and Calcutta · Global Voices
Neha Viswanathan

The closing of a sweet shop in Calcutta, gets Heartcrossings musing on change and Calcutta.


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Indonesia: Distasteful TV · Global Voices
Preetam Rai

Rani writes about the distasteful way in which TV stations invade the privacy of people to get their news.


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Iran:Democray and Abjeez · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Thanks to Parsarts we can watch “Demokrasi Video” by Abjeez.

author: Fred Petrossian


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Iran:Great photos from an international photographer · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Nasrollah Kasraian,an international photographer, has just launched his personal site where you can see beautiful photos of Iranian people and places.


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Iran:More Student Activists were Arrested · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

City Boy reports that the July 9, 1999 Tehran student rebellion was the single most important movement against the Islamic Republic government.The 8th anniversary of this event in Iran started by attack on the Advar-e Tahkim Vahdat (High Council of the Office for the Strengthening Unity) who had gathered outside the gates of the Amir Kabir University in protest of the nine Amir Kabir students currently in prison.Six more students were arrested.


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Israel: A Spy in Lebanon · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Israeli Lisa Goldman writes about her trip to Beirut and her coverage one year after the war with Israel and the reactions it received.


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Israel: Super Maid Wanted · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Yaeli from Israel is looking for a super maid to help clean up before her mother arrives on a visit.


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Israel: the censorship bill unanimously approved · Global Voices
sami ben gharbia

The censorship bill for internet porn and violence proposed by Amnon Cohen of  the ultra-orthodox Shas party has been unanimously approved by the Ministerial Committee on Legislation and will be brought to the Israeli Knesset.

author: sami ben gharbia


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Jamaica: The Human Cage · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“A caged bird cannot pick blossom from the tree nor catch worms from the soil.”  The Inmate Diaries features the poetry of Byron Mesquita, a prisoner at a correctional facility in Jamaica.


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Japan: Robot receptionists · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Edo from Pinktacle reports: On July 11, People Staff, a major temporary staffing agency based in Nagoya, announced it has accepted 10 of the robots as dispatch workers and is ready to send them out to work at businesses and institutions in the Tokai area of central Japan.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Jordan: Bush in Court · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Shifaa from Jordan writes about calling US President Bush to testify in front of a Jordanian court.


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Jordan: Family Life · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Naseem Tarawnah from Jordan opens a small window into his family life and living with parents in a light-hearted post.


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Kenya: Kenya offline · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Rebecca Wanjiku writes about websites of companies in Kenya: “Having a website may be the latest fad for many Kenyan companies, but how many of these websites have relevant information? How many have content that browsers are looking for?”


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Kuwait: Weight Loss Progress  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Zeena from Kuwait updates us on her weight loss programme here.


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Lebanon: Hariri Murderers Identified  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

The UN team investigating the Hariri murder has identified the individuals involved in the planning and execution of the Hariri murder, reports  Abu Kais from Lebanon.


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Lebanon: Just Another Battle  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Bob from Lebanon reflects on last year's war with Israel, saying it was “another battle in a very long war.”


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Lebanon: Three Palestinians Shot Dead  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Golaniya writes about attending a memorial service for three Palestinians shot dead by the Lebanese Army during a peaceful demonstration in Baddawi.


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Lebanon: War Anniversary · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Lebanese Faysal  gives us his views on last year's war in Lebanon here.


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Lebanon: What a Shame! · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

“It is a shame some people cannot make a distinction between politics and everyday life,” writes M from Lebanon in the wake of Israeli blogger and journalist Lisa Goldman visit to Lebanon.


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Liberia: crappy Time Magazine coverage  · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Liberia Ledger finds Time Magazine coverage of Liberia crappy: “This story is annoying. It's supposed to be a scary warning about the West African country of Guinea-Bissau as the newest narco-state.
Interesting premise, but even as it mentions Liberia only once in a list of countries, somehow more than half of the pictures they used (I'm talking about the print version) were taken in Monrovia. Are they suggesting that Liberia is some kind of narco-state as well? Or were they just too lazy to find a photographer in Guinea-Bissau?”


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Malaysia: Blogger Detained by Police · Global Voices
Preetam Rai

Several Malaysian bloggers are reporting that blogger Nat (Nathaniel) Tan of jelas.info was detained earlier today (July 13) by Malaysian police .  KTEmoc writes
Police took Nathaniel Tan of PKR away for questioning, without providing any reason at all. They entered his office at about 4.45 pm today, and told Tan to follow them to the Bukit Aman police headquarters. The policemen also requested that Tan bring his notebook computer with him. It is believed that he is being questioned on matters relating to certain postings on the Internet.
Nathaniel works for a political party called Parti Keadilan Rakyat or PKR. Tian Chua, the information chief of PKR offers some background information on Nathaniel Tan.
Nathaniel is a 27 year old graduate from Harvard University. We began to know each other last year and became good friend. Early this year, I recruited him to work under KeADILan’s Information Bureau.
Image from Mob's Crib
Police initially denied having taken Nathaniel but later at night they admitted to it. Malaysian bloggers find the action puzzling. Maverick SM commenting on a post at Mob's Crib says
This is truly a sad day for democracy in Malaysia. Nat had never being subversive nor acted in anyway that would have threatened the security of the nation. How could the authorities be so misinformed? Democracy is dead!
Detained blogger's colleague John thinks that the establishment is trying to make an example out of Nathaniel for  “those who dare to make a difference”.
There is also some speculation that one of Nathanial's post earlier this week (about an ongoing spat between the deputy internal security minister and the inspector general of police) might have caused the detention.
UPDATE: It seems that the police is looking for information on a comment that was left on Nathaniel's post on mentioned above. 4896 has an update on his blog .
Nathaniel's younger sister Cheryl is logging the latest developments on her own blog.
Links to bloggers talking about Nathaniel:
Elizabeth Wong
The Sensintrovert
Reduced and Recycled
Lucia Lai
Rocky's Bru
S.K.Thew
Susan Loone
Jeff Ooi
Politics 101 Malaysia
Bullets of Quills and Ink


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Nepal: No cut for the King · Global Voices
Neha Viswanathan

Kathmandu Speaks on the budget in Nepal, which proposes, among other things, no more money for the King and his kin.


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Nigeria: a book on impact of mobile technology  · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Kenny writes about the book, Mobile Telephony: Leveraging Strengths and Opportunities for Socio-Economic Transformation in Nigeria, “Dominated by the voices of women's groups, market traders, businessmen and women, students and members of the public, the book gives a unique insight into the impact of mobiles at the grassroots level of Nigerian society. It's also full of little gems.”


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Nigeria: listen to Dudu Radio  · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Listen to Dudu Radio: “”…Dudu Radio broadcasts a selection of pre-recorded programs which provides listeners all over the globe with the opportunity to listen to a variety of music genres, including traditional and modern Nigerian and Africa music.”


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Nigeria: New Yam Festival · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Ugo Daniels informs us about the New Yam Festival: “It’s getting nearer to that time of the year when every Igbo person gathers to celebrate the Iwa ji afo (New Yam Festival). For those who may want to know, Yam is the main agricultural crop of the Igbos and also the staple food of our people. The New Yam Festival known as ‘Iwa-Ji’ or ‘Iri-Ji’ is a celebration depicting the prominence of yam in the social-cultural life of our people.”


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Palestine: Peace, War and Swanky Ramallah · Global Voices
Jillian C. York

“Have you ever read anything that just left you feeling stunned?” asks Meanwhile in Palestine and Iraq.  Indeed, we all have.  So what exactly has this blogger so tongue-tied?  As it turns out, it's an International Herald Tribune article which depicts Ramallah as if it were Seattle.  The blogger comments:
Doesn't Ramallah sound like a slice of Palestinian heaven?  Right.  If you close your eyes you can almost ignore the checkpoints.
But while Ramallah may be a sort of heaven for some, Gaza right now is most certainly not.  A Blogger from Gaza reports:
There has been an Israeli incursion to our neighbourhood last week, which resulted in 11 martyrs, all of them are under 25 years old, just young men, who haven't even started their lives yet…
The blogger then adds:
All this is happening while we are still fighting… who is Fatah and who is Hamas, still pointing fingers and looking for someone to blame.. still throwing accusations here and there… i'm trying to put some sense into what i'm going through right now… but nothing comes across my troubled mind but “madness”…. complete and absolute “madness”…
Another Ramallah blogger, Oranges and Olives surmises on “how Hamas surpassed the US,” saying:
Take a look at the other side of the Middle East: Gaza. Hamas took over in what was reminiscent of the fall of Baghdad 4 years ago. What did Hamas do afterwards? of course with a small force like the Executive Force you cannot rule almost 2 million people most of them in deep poverty. Hamas now controls the same security forces that used to belong to Fatah. They got rid of the previous leaders and promoted others from the lower ranks to lead the institutions. So the institutions remained in place, and were run by people who always worked in them. Therefore, these people did not need to start learning about the institution, its roles and its responsibilities, they just continued to do their job.
I think, therefore, that Hamas was much smarter than the US, albeit, maybe, just as evil.
Meanwhile, I Saw it in Palestine mourns the memory of 943 Palestinian and 118 Israeli children who have been killed since 2000:
On Wednesday, we read all 1,063 names of Israeli and Palestinian children killed since 2000 outside of the Northwest Convergence, a conference featuring members of the Likkud party who strongly advocate the continuance of the Israeli occupation.
The blogger added:
It's was easy to lose myself in the complex task of sounding out names like Shalevet and Khaled. It took all of my concentration to stumble my way through unfamiliar sounds and multisyllabic surnames. But then I would come across a name I knew well – Fadi, Jamil, Bassem, Huda, Mohamed, Rachel. I can't help but picture other children I know with those names and wonder if they're still okay.
And asked the question:
How many more years? How many more children?
In the interest of finishing on an up note, we'll move to a fantastic post by a self-described Palestinian housewife.  Peace For Palestine pontificates on the idea of freedom and its limits:
Freedom allows people to do whatever they want, provided that they do not harm others and that they remain wholly devoted to truth. Freedom that does not acknowledge religious ideas and feelings, and that does not serve as the ground for virtue and morality, is like the desire to eventually become restless and wander off the common road of humanity.
Creative Commons-licensed photograph of Ramallah by the walker cleavelands

author: Jillian C. York


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Peru: Bloggers Celebrate Machu Picchu’s Selection as a Wonder of the World · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Photo taken by C.J. Schexnayder and used with permission.
The much delayed selection of the “new seven wonders of the world” has finally ended; Machu Picchu, also known as the lost city of the Incas, came in fourth place in the election, which was decided by internet users around the world. Let’s see what Peruvian bloggers had to say about the news:
Of course, most bloggers are happy with the results, as is obvious in the blog Dttodo‘s post “Machu Picchu, one of the seven wonders of the modern world“.
Mi papá es Cuzqueño y Yo he tenido la suerte de vivir parte de mi infancia en esa hermosa ciudad. La semana pasada quedó plasmada la influencia de nuestra cultura para la humanidad con la elección de Machu Picchu como una de las 7 maravillas del mundo moderno. Esta es una de las ocasiones en las que podemos hinchar el pecho y decir a viva voz, ¡Que viva el Perú carajo! (También sentí mucho orgullo por México y Brasil…felicidades!)
My father is from Cuzco, and I have been lucky enough to live part of my childhood in this beautiful city… seeing my father anxiously await the results reminds me that it is not easy to be Peruvian. It made me think that remaining in our country has not been easy that for his generation (and many others)… This is one of the times when we can puff out our chests and say loudly, Long live Peru damnit! (I also was very proud of Mexico and Brazil… congratulations!).
Letra Suelta [ES] in its short post (Machu Picchu: A New Wonder of the World, Surprised?) reviews the media coverage of the award in newspapers of the Spanish-speaking world:
Hubo gran cobertura mediática: El Comercio (Perú), Clarín (Argentina), El País (España), El Universal (México), El Mercurio (Chile)…Y, claro está, la blogósfera mundial estuvo atenta a los resultados finales. Se resalta que Latinoamérica haya acaparado tres maravillas.
There was a lot of media coverage: El Comercio (Peru), Clarín (Argentina), El País (Spain), El Universal (Mexico), El Mercurio (Chile)… And, of course, the global blogosphere also paid attention to the results. In the end, Latin America was home to three of the wonders.
Ernesto of Fisica3 [ES] explains the reasons behind the Peruvian victory in his post: And the Peruvian effort supporting Machu Picchu prevailed.
Razones del triunfo peruano? Simple… trabajo que empezo hace tiempo, el tomarselo como asunto de orgullo nacional lo que llevo a que muchos websites peruanos tuvieran un banner invitando a votar desde el año pasado, osea que no ha sido casualidad, sino una labor de tiempo y persistencia de los internautas peruanas, la cual ya habiamos visto en los casos de Libido, TK y la gringa Sofia.
Reasons for the Peruvian victory? Simple… work that began a long time ago, and the fact that many Peruvians took the matter as a point of national pride and placed banners on their websites that encouraged people to vote during the past year. In other words, it wasn't just luck, but instead was through the hard work and persistence by Peruvian internet users, which we have seen in the blogs of Libido, TK y la gringa Sofia.
In the midst of the celebrations, PEDROVILCAPAZA [ES] reflects on the need to care for the Inca city: Machu Picchu, wonder of the modern world.
Nos toca a todos los peruanos preservar este patrimonio de la humanidad y no destruirlo ni perderlo en el tiempo, felicitaciones a la ministra que se puso la camiseta en esta campaña, hoy todos ganamos y como dice un comercial “Machu Picchu es una maravilla, ser peruano es una maravilla”.
It is our responsibility as Peruvians to preserve this human patrimony and not destroy it or lose it to the ravages of time. Congratulations to the government official who helped in this campaign, and as the commercial says, ‘Machu Picchu is a wonder, being Peruvian is a wonder.
The sentiment that Machu Picchu needs more care than it has previously received was echoed in the blog Cuaderno de Borrador [ES] in its post Of seven wonders, Machu Picchu is the fourth.
¿Hacía falta el concurso para que los peruanos sepamos que Macchupicchu es una maravilla? Para los peruanos no, pero tal vez para que lo sepa la parte del mundo que no lo sabía. Con o sin concurso, visitemos y tratemos con cariño la siempre (antes del 07/07/07) maravillosa Macchupicchu. Ahora, con concurso y galardón encima, los encargados de la administración de nuestra maravilla ¿estan preparados para la pronosticada sobre avalancha de turistas que se viene?, ¿no abusaran de los precios?, ¿cuidaran mejor que nunca el mantenimiento de la ciudadela?, ¿etc. ?
Did we Peruvians need the contest to know that Machu Picchu is a wonder? For Peruvians probably not, but maybe the rest of the world now knows. With or without a competition, we will visit and treat with love the always (before 7/7/07) marvelous Machu Picchu. After the competition and with the prize, are the officials responsible for the monument ready for the forecasted avalanche of tourists who will descend upon the site? Will they inflate prices? Will they take better care of the site?
The above post is the only one that questions the capacity and ability of Machu Picchu to receive more visitors. Media Perú [ES] its post Is Machu Picchu ready to be a seventh wonder of the world? cites an answer given by a representative of the National Chamber of Tourism (CANATUR).
Según Petrozzi existen cuatro accesos a Machu Picchu de los que actualmente sólo se utiliza uno y el número de visitantes diarios oscila en 1500 personas, las que hacen largas colas para ingresar. Despues de las celebraciones las instituciones correspondientes debería realizar un plan de contingencia para el posible aumento de visitas y mejorar el servicio turistico en la ciudad inca.
According to Petrozzi there are four entries into Machu Picchu, and only one is currently being used by 1,500 daily visitors, creating very long lines to enter the site. After the celebration the responsible organizations should come up with a plan to handle the possible increase in visits and to improve service in the Inca city.
These aren’t all of the criticisms. The blog DESDE EL TERCER PISO [ES] outlines many reasons against increasing the number of visits to Machu Picchu in its post Old summit, new wonder?
Lo tercero y final: la sobreexplotación del Cusco en desmedro de otros lugares del país. Cuando he visto a la simpática Mercedes Araoz haciendo campaña por esta bendita votación, me venían dos preguntas a la cabeza:
1. ¿Tenemos política de turismo más allá de promover el Cusco como imagen? Como que hasta Toledo hizo alguito más con la huachafería esa de The Royal Tour.
2. ¿No tenemos otros atractivos que mostrar? Se me vienen a la cabeza varios: las líneas de Nazca, Chavín de Huantar, el Museo del Señor de Sipán, las playas del norte, los manglares de Tumbes, Arequipa, las riquezas folklóricas de Puno, la selva, Kuelap, Choquequirao y el mismo Centro Histórico de Lima.
The exploitation of Cuzco to the detriment of other locations in the country. When I saw the pleasant Mercedes Araoz campaigning for the election of Machu Picchu in this election, two things came to mind:1. Do we have the governmental support of tourism that will go beyond solely promoting the image of Cuzco?
2. Do we have other attractions to offer? A few come to mind: the Nazca lines, Chavín de Huantar, the Museum of Señor de Sipán, the beaches of the north, the mangrove swamps of Tumbes, Arequipa, the folkoric riches of Puno, the jungle, Kuelap, Choquequirao and the historic center of Lima. Even Toledo did something else with the distasteful Royal Tour.
The blog Peruanista [ES]distances itself from this issue and offers a thoughtful reflection in its post The two “new” indigenous wonders of the world.
Este premio entonces no debe ser solamente una forma de reconocer el trabajo, creatividad, inteligencia y excelencia de las geniales civilizaciones Indígenas Nativas que surgieron en el continente Abya Yala (América), sino es una llamada de atención para la reivindicación de los derechos de los pueblos Indígenas. Nuestros antepasados construyeron estas ciudades de las que nos enorgullecemos hoy, mucho antes que los europeos invadieran nuestras tierras con sus balas, caballos, religiones y enfermedades. Pero quiero creer que eso es parte del pasado. En vez de lamentar esa parte de nuestra historia común, quiero aceptar y celebrar incluso que ahora nuestro rico continente es compartido con otros pueblos y culturas.
It is prize is not just a way of recognizing the work, creativity, intelligence, and excellence of the brilliant indigenous civilizations that arose in the continent of Abya Yala (America); it is also a call to reclaim the rights of indigenous people. Our ancestors built these cities that we take pride in today, many years before the Europeans invaded our lands, bringing their weapons, horses, religions, and diseases. But I would like to believe that all of that is part of the past. Instead of regretting that part of our common history, we should accept and celebrate that now our rich continent is celebrated with other people and cultures.
Machu Picchu is a wonder that we must protect; that much is clear. There are various studies on the topic that warn of the dangers that an increase in the number of visitors to the site will have. There is already a lot of damage being done by the chaotically growing settlement that exists at the foot of the site, and we’re not even considering the impact of the infamous plans for a cable car. I’ll end with a few of the many posts in Spanish on the subject.
LaNuez – Machu Picchu una Maravilla
Blogginsomnio.net La falsa votación de las Nuevas 7 Maravillas
Pretextos – LAS SIETE ¿MARAVILLAS? DEL MUNDO
Política en Perú – New7Wonders: Machu Picchu Elegida entre las 7 Maravillas del Mundo
Rosa de Paz – MACHU PICCHU GANO… es una de las 7 MARAVILLAS DEL MUNDO
Crepúsculos y cuadernos Kausachum, Machu Picchu
Pelo Pon Eso – Realmente maravillado
ALEXCELI.ORG [ES] MACHU PICCHU ES UNA DE LAS N7W
Negligencia Médica [ES] – Macchu Picchu instante de ser elegido Nueva Maravilla del Mundo (Video)
Toñito Ávalos – TOÑILUSTRACIÓN: !PASU MACHU!!..MACHU PICCHU MARAVILLOSO!
Peru y Medio Ambiente – Gran alegría por elección de Machu Picchu como maravilla del mundo
Trujillo Daily Photo – A NEW WONDER OF THE WORLD
And to end I'll leave you with this related video of Machu Picchu from Enlace Nacional [ES]. Ciao.
Translation by Linda Rodríguez

author: Juan Arellano


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Russia: Sochi and Abkhazia · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

TOL's Steady State offers an Abkhaz perspective on the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.


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Russia: Sochi, Lobsters, Georgia · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Mark MacKinnon posts a few quick notes on Sochi-2014, Putin's meeting with Bush, and Russia's relations with Georgia.


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Saudi Arabia: Three Books  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Saudi Jeans introduces us to three books on Saudi Arabia here.


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Serbia’s One and Only Science Blog: Help Save It! · Global Voices
Danica Radovanovic

What is the cost of having and maintaining a science blog? What does science blogging mean for the scientific community and education of a country like Serbia, especially after years and years of sanctions, war and political disturbances?
Serbia is the country in transition, and right now there is a great chance for its scientific community to jump into the ICT world science highway by implementing new technologies into its scientific and educational systems. One of the main postulates of this year's workshop in Belgrade at FP 7/ICT Work Programme on science in society was that technology is worth nothing without users, content and interaction. If Serbia wants to become part of e-Europe, many things must be changed, beginning locally and then on a much broader scale.
But some representatives of Serbian educational and science institutions don't seem to care too much about information literacy and information sharing, as well as developing new information technology tools – which, ironically, happen to be open software applications and platforms that do not cost anything. One of the professors at Belgrade Open School (BOS) has described the situation in the region as not good: the educational system is neither valued enough, nor evaluated.
Blogs would have been a great medium for interaction, publishing, communication and collaboration in science, a good place for showcasing Serbian scientific achievement, which has been in the shade lately. In Serbia, however, there is only one institutional science blog – the blog of KoBSON, the Serbian Consortium of Coordinated Library Acquisition hosted and maintained by the Center for Scientific Information at the National Library of Serbia.
Besides being one and only in Serbia – and despite providing the Serbian scientific community with examples of various uses of blogs in science, education, teaching, research, networking, popularization of science and online activism – the KoBSON blog may soon disappear altogether.
Bora Zivkovic, a science blogger and the founder of the Science Blogging Initiative, reports on the problem at ScienceBlogs.com:
Do Serbian scientists need a blog of their own?
Not that it costs anything to have one…
Yet, the Konsortium of science libraries in Serbia is seriously contemplating shutting down their KOBSON blog, an invaluable tool in science communication in the region.
Danica, who the regular readers of this blog are quite familiar with as she is the Number One Champion for Open Science and Web 2.0 science in Serbia, has put a lot of effort into building the online infrastructure for Serbian scientific communication, including the KOBSON blog and the KOBSON wiki, as well as teaching and preaching to the local scientific community about the importance of catching up with the world after a decade of isolation and fully embracing the modern communication tools.”
Below is some of what other bloggers write about the value of the KoBSON blog and science blogging in general.
Journalist and blogger Ljubisa Bojic comments in Serbian version of the post at KoBSON. He believes that blogs are a necessary tool in education, at universities as well as in the scientific community, because they help to “[exchange] ideas between scientists”:
I use the KOBSON services from time to time and I think that frequent users should as well make their own blogs. Therefore, it is not only you [addressing KoBSON], but also the university professors and students who feel that your internet page is their own home and who have the need to share their views and to talk about their own research.
A colleague from Croatia, Filologanoga, who is also blogger in education and science area, thinks that communication and interaction are very important factors:
It is necessary for Institutions who are dealing with acquisition, keeping and sharing the information to have communication with their users. The only problem is that for this kind of communication two sides are necessary, at least, according to my experience, and in science this process sometimes doesn’t go very well.
Tanja, who is researching the areas of virtual communication and blogs, writes:
Excellent discussion… I think that we do not have developed audience for understanding such issues, still. […] And, of course, it's not just the science blogs that we need :)
Solana wrote this, in English:
The more science blogging the better! Knowledge should be open to all.
What is to be done about the situation?
Bora Zivkovic suggests direct action and interaction:
There is not much more that Danica alone can do in the present situation to save the KOBSON blog, but perhaps YOU all can help. How? Let's demonstrate the power of Science 2.0 by direct example! Go to the KOBSON blog and explain the importance of such a tool in the comments of this post. Even better, if you are fluent in one or another variant of the Serbo-Croatian language, post a comment on the Serbian version of the post. Then, post a link and this plea to your own blog as well and ask your readers to do the same.

author: Danica Radovanovic


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South Korea: New Bill on Irregular Workers · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Jamie from Two Koreas comments on the new bill on irregular workers which affects in particular the female population.


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Sri Lanka: Music · Global Voices
Neha Viswanathan

London, Lanka and Drums on music and its importance to Sri Lankans.


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Syria: Damascus Old Streets  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Syrian Looks takes us down Damascus’ old streets in this photo post.


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Vietnam: Love of Reading · Global Voices
Preetam Rai

Chlim01 is impressed by the Vietnamese people's love for books.


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Yemen: The iAge  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Yemeni Omar Barsawad writes about the impact of the i-age on his country.


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Africa: Kerosene Magazine: call for submissions · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Kerosene Magazine is a new opinion magazine for the African Diaspora: “The print edition of magazine is currently being worked on and this is an open call for submissions. Please look at the “Submission Guidelines” page for further details and if you are interested, please send your work along. The deadline for the editorial and artwork is the 5th of October 2007. The theme for the launch issue is Past & Present.”


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Albania: “A Creative Traffic Calming System” · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Our Man in Tirana writes about and posts pictures of “a creative traffic calming system” recently installed in his neighborhood.


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Albania: Still No President · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Our Man in Tirana reports on the lack of progress in electing the president.


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Blog of a Tunisian journalist and blogger hacked  · Global Voices
sami ben gharbia

The blog of the Tunisian journalist and blogger Slim Boukhdhir has been hacked and deleted. The work seems to be done by the same group of hackers who are targeting Tunisian opposition websites and blogs. Last weeks, the website of the Progressive Democratic Party (a legal opposition political party) has been hacked for several times.  Next to censorship, hacking is a serious problem that dissent Tunisian websites and blogs are dealing with.


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Central Asia: Clash of opinion · Global Voices
Ben Paarmann

Josh Foust engages in an extremely interesting discussion with an Uzbek journalist (working for a Russian news agency) about Western promotion of democracy in Central Asia.


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Georgia: Controversial murder · Global Voices
Ben Paarmann

Melissa is appalled that the murder of a famous politician is being brought into connection with the repatriation of the Meshkhetian Turks. The murder victim, Guram Sharadze, had always spoken against inviting the ethnic minority to return to Georgia.


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Iran:Brain drain! · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Lord Kavi says “brain drain costs $50 billion or more yearly for Iran.”He explains a lot more about the “roots” of this problem that Iran has faced since Islamic Revolution.


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Is Africa ready for a United States of Africa? · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

United States of Africa. The idea is not new. It was alive during the times of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Mwalimu Nyerere of Tanzania. Today, the idea is being pushed under the auspices of the African Union (AU). Its most visible proponent is the Libyan Leader, Muammar Gaddafi.
July 1-3 African Heads of State and Government met in Accra, Ghana for the 9th Ordinary Summit of the African Union. The item on the agenda was the United States of Africa: the formation of a single government in Africa. Muammar Gaddafi traveled by road, visiting several West African states to garner support.
African bloggers were not silent about the summit and the idea of creating a United States of Africa.
Grandiose Parlor wonders about Gaddafi's motives in pushing for a United States of Africa:
He’s been calling for the unification of African nations under a “United States of Africa”. Another U.S.A?
Is this a classic presentation of a grandiosely deluded mind? Or is Gaddafi simply manifesting his pan-African core?
While many bloggers doubt the possibility of a United State of Africa, Branded, writing from Nairobi, Kenya, declares on his blog, Business In Focus, “the United States of Africa is already here.” He specifically looks at two elements to make his point: trade and information technology. For example, he notes that the mobile phone company operating in East Africa, Celtel, has allowed its customers in the region to operate in a single network at existing local rates.
Benin Mwangi:
The proposal to officially create a United States of Africa may not have come at a better time than now when international trade is dictating the pace of development thanks to technological innovation. You may not have noticed but recent trends indicate that the United States of Africa is already here. Through various communication technologies, Africa has transformed into a large business unit.
Mobile telephony has also been on the increase in the continent and is showing higher prospects for further growth supported mainly by increased need for global business communication. Mobile telephone service providers are embracing regional integration by converging their operations into single seamless networks ostensibly to improve access and lower the overall cost of international roaming. A good example is Celtel, whose operations in East and Central Africa are now seamlessly converged into one network that allows international roaming at existing local rates. Armed with your mobile telephone and a laptop, you can work from virtually anywhere.
Banking and other financial services are on the growth path with indigenous African banks opening up branches in regions where they were not allowed to operate before. For instance, Standard bank South Africa recently merged with CFC Bank Kenya to support their growth in East Africa. Foreign direct investments have also been on the increase within the continent thanks to technological innovation that allows all operations to be centralised.
He finishes his post by arguing that many iniatiatives to build regional blocks have failed except for trade alliances because of its direct influence in economic development:
Looking at history, various regional blocking in Africa have failed to meet their mandate due to various reasons mostly political. Only trade has been self-sustaining because of its direct influence in economic development. If the idea of creating a United States of Africa is to create wealth, then we may argue that it is already here. What Africa needs is to strengthen existing structures, invest more in ICT and establish structures that support international trade and wealth creation through value addition.
Writing at AfricanLoft, Ugo Daniels sees the path to a Federation of African States as the most realist and practical path for Africa:
I want to say three things. First, yes, African countries should definitely unite. But an African ‘united states’ is not possible. Too much ego stands in the way, too many regional interests, and also outside interference would prevent it. Would the USA want to see a truly united Africa?
Would the leaders of northern African countries, [with the notable and admirable exception of President Ghadaffi], who admit to being African only when they need votes at the UN or for some other geo-political purposes, want a United Africa? I doubt it!! So let us be realistic and practical and think of a Federation of African States along the lines of the European Union. And we should get on with it now. Right now!!!
Current African leaders are far lesser men that the African leaders who fought for independence… Nyerere had the guts to invade Uganda to get rid of the homicidal maniac, Idi Amin.
I have nothing but contempt for most of today’s African leaders who specialize in getting rich, attending international conferences and making fine speeches – the blood of the victims of the Darfur holocaust is also on their hands as because they won’t intervene overtly or covertly to save their black brothers and sisters.
The Cameroonian writer and activist, Mwalimu George Ngwane, argues that while the political and economic trajectories of African integration have been developed, the cultural component has not been explored, “…this has undermined the quest for an African citizenship through a common language, a pan-African media organ, a revised and harmonised education system, and a return to the organic concept of co-existence and cooperation as it obtained before individualism and exclusion became our new mantra.”
According to Ngwane, Africa should try a voluntary approach to forming a single government:
I, therefore, propose that if the Accra July summit fails to achieve a minimum consensus on the African Union government now, then we should abandon the holistic approach of trying to get all African countries to accept the one-off continental version and embark on the voluntary approach which requires countries or regions that are prepared to create a United States of Africa, to come together as nucleus members like it was in 1961 among Ghana, Guinea and Mali. And when other citizens shall see the benefits accruing from these core members, they shall oblige their governments into associating with the United Africa architecture.
The blogger at Alnigeria finds the idea “rather ridiculous at first take“:
When you however do a double, you discover there may be some merit to the idea. Those against this idea have probably narrowed the available options to mean, creating a duplicate of the system presently in place in the USA or even the EU. If the available alternatives include a flexible state with loose economic ties which encourage trading and production while maintaining sovereign governments which have enough power to make the system beneficial to the member states. Then the idea takes on a new lease of life. An idea also known as ‘A stronger AU’. I am not sure this is workable at the moment. Obviously this is an alternative way to look at the idea of a United States of Africa in Trade.
Critic Blog suggests “a little African unity first“:
But doesn’t it all sound like “Plenty of talk – but what action?” syndrome? There’s always a huge build up and some excitement, as well as a great deal of cynicism, before these summits.
If Africa is still trying to resolve the basic problems, like the summit organizers are still discreetly having to separate two Horn of Africa neighbors, two enemies namely Eritrea and Ethiopia, what hope then for a United States of the continent, speaking with one voice to the world? What about a little African unity first?
Illustrious Africans, such as the veteran anti-apartheid campaigner and legendary trumpeter, Hugh Masekela, joined forces with civil society activists in Accra, to say Africa must first deal with its crises and conflicts. The United States of Africa comes later.
It seems most African Union countries are not ready to rush headlong into the creation of a continental government just yet. But that’s the top item on the agenda in Accra.
And, one may even look forward to an expected debate as to who then would become that first President of Africa?
Will this idea of one government, one army, one everything for the continent, fly? Let’s wait and watch!
Dave is not sure if Africa is ready for such a union:
Whilst I admire efforts for pan Africanism I think with the 53 countries with their varied cultural, ethnic and politic differences stretching for years to the present day, this would be no mean feat. The countries and cultures of Africa are far too different. Even with my recent trip to Tanzania I picked up regional differences and mentalities that would take mountains to climb before they were resolved. Can it work? Of course it can. Do I think the continent is ready for such a thing…..no, not yet. (It’s my blog. Am allowed to be opinionated!!)
He supports the idea of an African Central Bank:
One the upside, I personally think that an African Central Bank would be remarkable. A great start for non partisan investment into the infrastructure of macro and micro investment in many of the continents poorer and more politically fragile nations. A pegged currency could certainly remove the slavish dependence many countries have on say the US dollar and counter some of the hyper inflation in countries like Zimbabwe. But bearing in mind that last point what would the Union be able to do to deal with the socio economic policies of member states like Sudan, Sierra Leone, DR Congo and Zimbabwe.
David Ajao writes, “Obviously, the issue is not whether Africa should unite political & economically or not. The issue is when? Now, or gradually?”:
I’m now sure about the possibility of Africa uniting now. Why? ECOWAS (the West African regional block) has not worked well so far. All it has done well to some extent is to contain conflicts in the sub-region.
#1. ECO: a single currency for Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Liberia, has expressed an interest in joining. The goal post of the day this currency will be used keeps shifting. This currency was announced during the days of General Sani Abacha of Nigeria (late 1990’s) and as of today 30th June 2009, launch date is 2009.
#2. Free movement of people, goods: This is the most ridiculous of it all. Travelling by road from Nigeria to Ghana, is hectic even more if you are a citizen of an ECOWAS country. Extortions, bribery, corruption are the order of the day at the borders. Movement across the borders is far from free!
So what are they talking about an African union government now? I am all for a unified Africa, but we have a long way to go.
The Concoction writes a post titled, Changing stoves doesn’t make the food taste better:
Good thing that there are no defeatist attitudes within the organization and the continent. When the going gets tough, the tough changes its name. African Union (AU) has been the new boy’s club in town since 2002. I’m wondering if shortening the name is supposed to make it less clumsy. The AU is supposed to accelerate the integration of the continent while its visions and structure stayed the same as OAU. The Constitutive Act of the African Union states that the new body is committed to focusing on growth and development, democracy, and peace. And the OAU’s was,,,?
The focus of OAU was
• OAU Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) and the Final Act of Lagos (1980); incorporating programmes and strategies for self reliant development and cooperation among African countries.
• The African Charter on Human and People's Rights (Nairobi 1981) and the Grand Bay Declaration and Plan of Action on Human rights: two instruments adopted by the OAU to promote Human and People's Rights in the Continent. The Human Rights Charter led to the establishment of the African Human Rights Commission located in Banjul, The Gambia.
• Africa's Priority Programme for Economic recovery (APPER) – 1985: an emergency programme designed to address the development crisis of the 1980s, in the wake of protracted drought and famine that had engulfed the continent and the crippling effect of Africa's external indebtedness.
So how different is the AU?
The concoction discusses what she calls “the legitimate child” (the New Partnership for Africa's Development) and the surrogate brother (the Commission for Africa) and concludes brilliantly with “the neglected”:
While big shots are flying around the globe attending one summit after the other, patting each other on the back and basically talking fancy stuff, ordinary African’s have rolled up their sleeves to get busy.
An Ethiopian who set up a mobile library in rural Ethiopia using a donkey.
A Kenyan high school principal is breaking the cycle of aid dependency by teaching his students to be self sufficient in food production. These students go back to their villages and teach others.
A Malawian farmer is teaching people how to feed themselves despite poverty and harsh climates “using just hoes and shovels, he's built an elaborate gravity-driven irrigation system …and inch-deep trenches.”
Farmers in Kenya are “turning to marula tree (elephant tree) farming as a way of fighting rural poverty.”
South African priests are busy battling HIV/AIDS by distributing condoms and raising awareness while a Tanzanian traditional healer is cooking up some herbs and roots to fight infections associated with AIDS
Kid-powered water pumps in South Africa and elsewhere are helping women reduce the distance and time that they have to cover to fetch water.
An Ethiopian heart surgeon gives back to his community.
Wangari Maathai’s speech is an excellent summary of what is wrong in Africa and what should be done. Her website has more information on her and her work.
There are many more such examples than a Google search reveals, and these the people who fill the huge gap in Africa. The grandparents who are caring for children orphaned by AIDS, the women who pick up the pieces of wars and conflicts, teachers who get paid in kind by villagers in rural areas, health workers who volunteer to care for the sick… Although very little seems rosy in Africa, there are heart warming examples of resilience, compassion and rich culture
Tajudeen Abdul-Rahman considers the idea of a United States of Africa a lack of creativity:
This is unfortunate because even those of us enthusiastic about the unity of Africa would wish that the leaders are a bit more creative than just wanting to create another USA. Given what one USA is doing, it would be a disservice to humanity to want to inflict another USA on the world. Our values should be made of better ethics and love for humanity and affirmation of life with dignity than to be copying the United States of America whose unity is based on a genocide against indigenous Indians, the slavery of people of African origin, and a continuing plunder of the rest of the world.
The agenda has pitched leaders against leaders and different sectors of our informed and ill-informed publics against one another. But basically there are two broad positions- those who want a united government and those who aim to have union of states later; with a third position essentially calling for a Federal Government. None disagree about the need for Africa to unite. So if there is no disagreement about the goal what is the debate about?
There is a three-way division on this issue. One, United States of Africa. Two, Union of African States. Three, a Union Government of Africa. The advocates of two and three claim they do not disagree with the goal as contained in the first proposal but they want a slower pace. These gradualists may have forgotten that the OAU was the outcome of previous graduualism and we know where it has led us so far. If gradualism worked we would not be discussing African unity again fifty years later in Accra where Nkrumah declared that ‘the independence of Ghana is meaningless withouth the total liberation of Africa’. Those propagating a Union of States have also failed to appreciate the salutary lesson of our painful post-colonial experience that you cannot declare sovereignty over states created for the interest of others. That will be trying to co-own your oppression. We have tried this with calamitous consequences all over. Sovereignty belongs to the people. Therefore A Union of African Peoples is what our people are prepared for but the leaders are holding us back. Leaders can choose to be like giraffes, firmly standing but with the neck held so high that they can see far, instead of pandering to Afropessimism and defeatism by saying ‘we are not ready’. If not now then when?
It is a false choice to posit the issue as one between gradualists and radicals. The choice should be between fast and faster! Africa has waited too long and we should all be tired of the stagnation. If indeed we are serious about union.


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Japan: A Social Media “Explosion” · Global Voices
Chris Salzberg

A seminar entitled “Explosive Social Media” held at the Jiji Press Hall in Tokyo last Tuesday brought together people from various sectors of the business world interested in finding out about the explosive potential of social media in Japan. Named after the title of a book by one of the presenters, the seminar featured presentations about “social media optimization,” social networking, the future of Second Life, and the “Web 2.0 paradigm.” The promotional blurb for the event on the website of the Jiji Press Co. reads:
ブログ、ＳＮＳ、Second Life（セカンドライフ）、YouTube・・・。こうしたユーザー参加型サイトは、ＣＧＭ（消費者発信型メディア）と呼ばれることが多かったが、最近はソーシャルメディアと呼ばれるようになってきている。英語の頭文字という、いかにも技術者向け用語から、より一般ビジネスピープル向けの言葉になっている証拠だろう。
ソーシャルメディアの特徴の１つは、利用者が爆発的に増加することだ。このままの勢いで伸び続ければ、その影響力がマスメディアを超える可能性を、だれも否定できなくなってきた。ではこのソーシャルメディアの影響力が爆発的に伸びる中、広報業務、広告業務、マーケティング業務はどのように変化し、企業戦略をどう変えるべきなのだろうか。
One of the presenters at the seminar was president of the Internet PR company news2u and blogger Kanbara Minako, who blogged at her own site about the event, noting the potential of social media in the near future:
2000年前後に検索技術として注目を集めたGoogleが、一般の方々に認知されたのは2003年以降。まさにそれはマネタイズの手段が確立したとき。ソーシャルメディアもマネタイズの方法が確立したころに、きっと「爆発」するのだろう。
Kanbara Minako was earlier interviewed by the author of “Explosive Social Media,” Yukawa Tsuruaki, who wrote in the JiJi Press Co. blog:
ブログやSNSに代表されるソーシャルメディアから発信される情報量が爆発的に増えている。そんな中で、企業の情報発信はどうあるべきなのだろうか。
早くから企業のネットPR支援を手がけてきた株式会社ニューズ・ツー・ユー の神原弥奈子氏は、情報が洪水状態に陥ると信頼性を確認するために一次情報にアクセスするようになると予測する。そうした時代に向け企業は今から正確な一次情報を出し続けるべきで、社長や従業員がブログなどを通じて多面的な情報を大量に発信するかどうかが企業の信頼性につながる時代になる、と同氏は主張する。
同氏に、これからの時代のネットPRについて話を聞いた。（聞き手　時事通信編集委員・余談ですが、ブログで『踊れ！グローズヌイ』の紹介をしてくださっているのを見ました。実は、私はアムネスティのキャンペーンチームコーディネーター（名ばかりですが…）で、この映画の上映会もなどもチームで担当しているので、とてもうれしいです。）
The following is the transcript of the interview:
ソーシャルメディアの時代になって、企業の情報の流れ方に変化があるのだろうか。
ネットは、あらゆる企業、個人が情報発信できるというもの。今ソーシャルメディアの時代といわれているが、ニューズ・ツー・ユーの事業にとってはソーシャルメディア対応は特に新しいものではない。もともとのコンセプトがそこに非常に近い。
今、ソーシャル・メディア・オプティマイゼーションといった場合、ブックマークされるための機能をつけるなどといった機能寄りの話が多い。しかしそれ以前に情報を提供することからソーシャルメディア対応というのは始まる。その最初の部分が、ブログであり、ニュースリリースである。
最近は（一般的に）情報の活用の仕方が上手になってきた。今までは情報を伝達してくれるのがマスメディアという発想だけだった。それがニッチな限られた人にだけ有益な情報も、企業が積極的に発信し始めたことによって、情報流通が促進されている。５年後、１０年後にその情報を必要とする人にさえも、ブログやニュースリリースの情報が生きてくる。
どういうことなんでしょう？
ネットのアーカイブ性や、パーマネントリンクの発想が浸透してきている。ブログのエントリーやニュースリリースがバックナンバーとして蓄積されることになる。それが時間軸とともに増えていって資産になる。資産になって気づくのは、１つ１つのニュースが情報流通していれば、企業の情報のコンタクトポイントがネット上のいろんなところに広がっているということになる。ソーシャルメディアも有力なコンタクトポイントの１つだと思う。
ブログの古いエントリーがアクセスされることがあるのだろうか。
わたしのブログの２月、３月の人気エントリーが「さよなら僕らの保育園」だった。それは昨年、わたしの子供が保育園を卒園する際に書いたエントリーだった。それが卒園の時期になるたびにアクセスして読んでくれる人がいる。ブログのエントリーは半永久的に効果がある。
企業の場合は、企業活動の足跡、履歴が残る。継続的に情報発信し続ける企業ということで、情報発信イコール信頼性、となることもこれからの時代の特徴だ。
それはどうして？
情報をたくさん出している企業のほうが、情報の受信者にとって理解しやすい。ニュースリリースだけでなく、社長ブログ、広報ブログ、担当者ブログなどで、企業を多面的に見ることができるし、理解しやすくなる。
最後にソーシャルメディア時代に企業はどう対応すべきなのか。
信頼できる一次情報を出すことだと思う。情報リテラシーの高い人は、一次情報を確認しようとする。一次情報がますます重要になるので、それを出すパイプを用意することが必要だ。

author: Chris Salzberg


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Korea: Bogus-degree and Success · Global Voices
Hyejin Kim

A young female professor who was appointed as a director of one of the biggest festivals in Korea this month was revealed to be a bogus-degree holding intellectual. An art professor and supposed Yale University degree holder, she has brought a positive influence to the field of art by making it easier and more interesting to understand.
But the big position she received as a festival director gave rise to suspicions of how she obtained such an important position even though the festival committee members were opposed to offering the job to her. The inspection revealed that her degree was fake. Not only her PhD degree, but also her BA and MA degrees are suspected of being bogus. Her status as ‘high school graduate’ (go-jol) and her calculating malice have shocked people.
In order to hide her secret, she copied another person’s dissertation and claimed it as hers. Another reason why she became a legend is that she survived under debris in the collapse of a department store for two days in 1995.
Fake degree scandals (especially from famous overseas universities) have come up as a social issue in Korea because of frequent scandals like this. While some people focus on what she did wrong, others regard her as a heroine for mocking Korean society, which gives so much credit to a ‘degree.’
A blogger, fivecard, tracked back to a similar scandal in the past. In this case, the woman took a chunk of money from other people using her status.
사실 한국에선 심심찮게 이런 ‘가짜'사건들이 있어왔습니다. 몇해 전에는 서울대 국제경제학과를 나왔고 현재 모 정보기관 요원이라고 사칭하고 다니던 30대 주부가 체포된 적이 있습니다. 추적해보니 대학생일 나이때부터 동네 교회 청년부에서 ‘서울대생'이라고 사칭한 것은 물론, 부모 형제까지도 딸이 서울대를 나왔다고 굳게 믿고 있었다는 겁니다.
The majority of bloggers, like mramor, talk about problems in Korean society through this scandal.
이번 스캔들은 한 개인의 정체성뿐만 아니라 이번 사태를 가능하게 한 한국사회, 대학사회와 한국 미술계의 정체성까지도 되돌아보게 한다. Who are you?..
A blogger who worked with her before blames society instead of her.
신씨의 거짓학위 사건, 그리고 이를 검증하지 않은 대학당국과 세계적인 수준이라 칭해지는 비엔날레.. 이들의 관계 속에서 비난 받아야 할 당사자는 누구인가. 우리는 신정아 씨의 거침없는 거짓 행각만을 탓하기 보다, ‘정치적 관행'으로 점철된 미술계의 구조, 나아가 ‘환상의 스크린'으로 우리의 눈을 가려버리는 한국사회의 문제 자체에 관심을 기울여야 한다. ‘내용(각종 스캔들)'을 만드는 우리의 구조는 바로 잘못 이식된 ‘형식(제도권)'에 있는 것은 아닐까… 자성의 물음을 던져본다.
Even a journalist called her as “Seo Tae-ji” in the art field (mi-sul-gye).
On the other hand, there are other opinions against sheltering her. Some bloggers call her a female version of Hwang Woo-Suk
사람 하나 죽이나, 수십명 죽이나 같은 살인범 입니다.
더 한 잘못도 있는데, 이거는 아무것도 아니다 라는 논리는 맞지 않습니다.
잘못은 잘못이고, 틀린건 틀린겁니다.
더 큰 잘못, 더 틀린 오답은 없습니다.
Some bloggers, like painter, comment that this issue misses the real point.
이번 사태를 보면서 많은 분들이 오해하고 있는 부분에 대해 짚고 넘어가고자 합니다. 만약 신씨가 우리나라와 같이 학벌위주의 사회가 아니었다면 과연 그렇게 거짓으로까지 학벌을 포장했어야 했을까? 하는 점을 여러 분들이 지적하시는것 같은데요,
…학력중심의 사회, 분명히 문제있습니다. 하지만 이번 사건에서만큼은 그 화살이 엉뚱한데 꼽혔습니다. 진짜 문제는 바로 ‘거짓말'과 ‘지식도둑질’ 중심의 사회라는 것 말이죠.
… Society prefering school certificates. It's of course problematic. But this scandal has been directed the wrong way. The real problem is a ‘lie’ and ‘knowledge theft.’
I conclude this issue with a poem that a blogger made for her.
억울할지도 모른다.
억울할 것이다.
그대는 능력있는 사람이다.
그리고 삶을 열정적으로 살고 싶은
추진력있고 친화력있는 사람이다.
모두가 그대에게 잘해 주었고
그대는 젊은 나이에도 불구하고
많은 일을 정말 멋지게 해냈다.
허나 한꺼번에 이 모든 것을 잃는다니
도저히 받아들일 수 없을 것이다.
운이 없었다고 느껴질 것이다.
또 혼자만 희생양처럼 당한다고 느낄 것이다.
하지만 그대는 아는가.
그대는 삼풍백화점 폐허 속에서 사경을 헤매다
2일만에 햇빛을 본 사람.
지옥에서 돌아와 마음 속에 갖게된
용기와 도전의식, 그것만으로
당신은 이미 성공할 사람이었다.
실은 그것만으로
이 세상 최고의 큐레이터 중 한 사람이 될
자격을 갖추게 되었다.
거짓 학위 따위는 원래 필요 없었던 것이다.
다만 시간이 다소간 필요했을 뿐인 것을.
좀 더 멀리보면 되었을 것을.
그리고 그대는 너무나 젊었던 것을.

author: Hyejin Kim


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Kyrgyzstan: Missing in action · Global Voices
Ben Paarmann

Major Jill Metzger disappeared from the US military base in Kyrgyzstan last year. CXW is catching up with the latest developments on the mysterious case and finds that the American officials are not investing enough effort into a full investigation.


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Malawi: reclaiming a place at the Pan-African table · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Steve Sharra reclaims Malawi's place at the Pan-African table: “It augurs very well for Malawi’s place in the pan-African world that we are celebrating our 43rd independence anniversary this year the same week that the 9th African Union Summit has been taking place in Accra, Ghana. After 43 odd years of independence, how many of us, not to talk of young Malawians, have a good grasp of the significance of celebrating July 6th as Malawi’s Independence Day?”


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Malaysian blogger arrested for comment published on his blog · Global Voices
sami ben gharbia

Malaysian blogger Nat Tan has been arrested  for a comment published on one of his blog posts last year. His Laptop and desktop were seized. Tan has been remanded for four days, until Tuesday, to facilitate investigation under the Official Secrets Act (OSA).


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Russia: The “BAMers” · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Russian photographer Oleg Klimov has been on the road since June 23. He wrote this (RUS) about his intended route all the way across Russia:
[…] By the roughest estimates, I plan to take nine trains, two sea ferries, three cargo ships, a few military and border guard boats and only one plane on the way back to Moscow. I have to visit more than 20 cities and settlements, meet with hundreds of people… and cover the distance of about 20,000 km. All this in approximately 90 days. Not too much time, considering that travel in the Far East is extremely complicated. […]
On July 10, Klimov posted this sketch (RUS) from the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM):
[photo]
([TYNDA – KOMSOMOLSK-ON-AMUR]). BAM – The Baikal-Amur Mainline. A strategic idea of Stalin (BAMlag) and Brezhnev (Komsomol contruction). A “brilliant” project of the Soviet times.
Today BAM is “[the old woman with her broken washboard],” a fairy tale in which there used to be both an old man and a golden fish. Unfulfilled dreams.
When you ask the local people about “Komsomol volunteers” of the Brezhnev era, they just smile in a slightly embarrassed way. You know, the kind of “smile and embarrassment” at the same time, when you feel uncomfortable to admit that you've been fooled. You feel something similar when they manage to cheat you in some modern [scam]. […]
[photo]
There are two types of “BAMers”: those who have left and those who've stayed at BAM forever. The former tend to romanticize “the construction of the century” from a place like Moscow or Leningrad, while the latter are, at best, “smiling uncomfortably” from between Tynda and Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
Those who did have the money and a place to go to, they left. The rest stayed, and one of the reasons was that they continued to believe that the gigantic construction couldn't be deserted just like that […].
[photo]
At first, BAM was being built by prisoners, who, following [WWII], were being helped by the Japanese POWs. Amazing stories are being told here. People were mainly dying of hunger, cold and impaired cardiac function, a heart attack.
They were burying the dead along the railway, not too deep because of the freezing cold. When Komsomol [volunteers] continued what prisoners and the Japanese foreigners had started, they discovered many open graves. The strange thing about it was that most of the bodies buried there had broken skulls. Later, it turned out that if the guards weren't sure whether a prisoner-laborer was dead or if they believed he was faking death, they used to break his skull with a spade, just to be on the safe side. […]
Maybe I talk too much about labor camps and prisons, but this is the way it is – outside Moscow and to the East, there are former and current camps and prisons. Settlements. Repressions. Everywhere. If you think about it, you can go crazy from the realization of what kind of country we live in…
BAM is also a “time machine.” Self-service cafeterias still exist here, and you can get a cutlet, mashed potatoes with thick brown gravy, and a glass of “Navy-style” compote. There is [Red Presnya] and [Arbat] in the capital of BAM, Tynda. Along the railway, it's easy to recognize train station buildings of all 15 former Soviet republics, which were built by their representatives. People are mistrustful here and ask a photographer more than once whether he has a permission to shoot at BAM. A permission from whom? – is the question that bewilders even the police. They simply don't know who gives permissions to shoot at BAM now. They aren't even sure BAM still exists.
Slava, 37, is a native “BAMer” whose mother came here in 1974 from Kherson region of Ukraine. He can't return to the warm lands because the Ukrainian sea climate is bad for his asthmatic wife.
- Tynda has the best climate for people suffering from asthma, – Slava declares. – Especially if you were born here. All those who came here and have lived here more than 30 years can't go back to Russia because their bodies have adopted to the local climate. I know many examples when people left this place and died within two years – of heart attacks and impaired cardiac function. Everyone knows about it here and everyone's afraid to leave, even when there is a place to leave to. It's very important to do this before you turn 40; it gets too dangerous after that…
[photo]
I haven't found any medical corroboration of this story, but it's easy to understand the human aspect of it – impaired cardiac function [literally, “insufficient heart” in Russian] is our country's diagnosis.


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The Baltics: “Russian Literature With a Baltic Accent” · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

A Step At A Time links to a Tartu-based site featuring Russian-language writing from the Baltic region.


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Uzbekistan: Cotton boycott · Global Voices
Ben Paarmann

As the Uzbek cotton sector is often brought in connection with gross human rights violations, Craig Murray finds the first major retailer's boycott of Uzbekistan's cotton products commendable.