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El Salvador: Cheerleaders Banned from Independece Celebrations · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

In the blog Gatos Frentudos [es] Chambita Hernandez writes about a recent decision to ban cheerleaders from independence celebrations, starting with the bicentennial. Since 1960, cheerleaders have been part of annual independence parades.


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Ghana: Footbal star ventures into music · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

The Ghanaian football star Asamoah Gyan has become the first footballer to venture into hiplife music.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Haiti: Presidential Candidates  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Can Wycelf run for President or not?  Dessalines’ Children republishes a report which confirms that “Haiti’s electoral board [has] decided to push back to August 20 its release of a final list of presidential candidates…”

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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India: Tell Your Story With Twitter Tales · Global Voices
Rezwan

Mathew Ingram at Giga Om informs that Twitter has introduced ‘Twitter Tales‘, a collection of stories from users about how the service has helped them or affected their lives. @natashabadhwar, an Indian tweep from New Delhi was featured in the life section.

author: Rezwan


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Indonesia: “What’s wrong, Mr. President?” · Global Voices
Juke Carolina

The speech of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the eve of the country's Independence Day celebration disappointed many people, including netizens. Could this be a sign that the president, who secured a big mandate in the elections, is already losing the public support?
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
Lawmakers said[id] that the president's speech didn't mention some contemporary issues like sovereignty and consumer security.
For example, a fresh border spat between Indonesia and Malaysia took place last weekend when several Malaysian fishermen were arrested by Indonesian sea patrol for fishing on Indonesian waters. Polis Diraja Malaysia (Malaysian Royal Police) intercepted the fishermen’s arrest and in return captured three Indonesian officers. The incident is currently under investigation and the release of three officers is being negotiated.
The deadly explosions coming from faulty canister of subsidized liquefied gas (LPG) continue to fuel anti-government sentiments in the country. The number of casualties is still rising despite intensified efforts to minimize accidents.
Puan Maharani, granddaughter of Indonesian first president Sukarno and heiress to a prominent political clan, said that president SBY’s speech disregarded the people’s welfare in general.
Critics noted that the president's appeal to all Indonesians about the need of “living harmoniously in a pluralistic society” is contradicted by his silence to the recent attacks against Christian congregations outside of Jakarta, the country's capital. He is also mum about the attack in the Ahmadiyyah community in West Java by Islamic Defenders Front, an extremist group that advocates Sharia-based laws in the secular country.
Relly Jehato, who blogs at Kompasiana blog network said that the speech was normative and lacking in sincere problem-solving plans.
Sulit memang untuk menemukan perubahan yang benar-benar masif pada pemerintahan SBY. Mengapa? Keberhasilan seorang SBY sangat ditentukan oleh kualitas reformasi pada berbagai institusi dan kepentingan politik lain yang menyertai dan menopangnya. Mulai dari jajaran birokrasi, aparat penegak hukum, parleman, partai politik, dan masyarakat sipil.
He concluded:
Persoalannya, sejujmlah institusi tersebut masih berada dalam kondisi sekarat alias sarat masalah. Ini diperumit oleh sikap SBY yang kerap bimbang, ambigu, tidak tegas, lamban, dan cenderung kompromisti. Kita pun lantas bertanya: apakah pidato SBY kali ini masih omong doang, sama seperti penilaian banyak kalangan?…Kita tunggu dan lihat saja…
Here are few comments from Indonesian Twittersphere:
@ekyamiruddin:  SBY banyak dikritik orang. Dan tdk keliatan demokrat mendukungnya. Hmmm, what's wrong mr president ?
@SayRizal: Presiden SBY Pidato, Banyak pejabat yg tidur, BBan, Catur, dll, Contoh seorang pemimpin yang sudah tidak punya lagi wibawa #indonesia65
@bhe_es: @fadjroel :sedih rasanya mendengar pidato kenegaraan presiden SBY,,hanya berisi pandangan dan tujuan semu yang menjadi khayalan …

author: Juke Carolina


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Mexico: Parents to be Reminded About Vaccinations through SMS · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

Health officials will send parents text messages reminding them about the date, time and place where their children can be vaccinated. Ximena Vega explains [es] that health officials aim to reduce infant mortality rate through this initiative. She adds that the geographical scope of the SMS campaign and its official implementation date are still unknown.

author: Silvia Viñas


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Morocco: Fasting Versus Individual Liberties  · Global Voices
Jillian C. York

For Muslims, the holy month of Ramadan is a period of reflection, community, and of course, fasting.  But for nonbelievers in countries where fasting is the norm — or even a requirement — Ramadan can be a difficult burden to bear.  Last year, Global Voices reported on a group of Moroccan activists, the Alternative Movement for Individual Liberties (whose French acronym, MALI?, also means “what about me?” in darija).  The group had attempted to protest Moroccan law, which requires Muslims to fast, by publicly eating a sandwich at midday.
This year, as the Economist reports, the fight continues.  According to the article, though protesters do not intend this year to stage a public demonstration, they are continuing their efforts online, with a Facebook group, and offline as well.
An interview with the group's leader, Ibtissame “Betty” Lachgar, was published by Jeune Afrique and translated into English by the Morocco Board.  When asked if she regrets the protest of last year, Lachgar replied:
Not at all. Our mission was a success, and many people have expressed their support. It opened the debate on Article 222 of the Penal Code, which prescribes a penalty of imprisonment for those who openly break the fast in public during the month of Ramadan. We are not against Islam, but we are for freedom of conscience. For every Moroccan, whether atheist, Christian or Muslim, to be treated in an an equal footing.
In the comments section, reader “MoroccoGurl” is one of few who express support for Lachgar:
I invite my fellow Moroccans on this site to be open-minded about this issue. I am assuming most readers either live in the US or another western country. We wish for equal treatment of Muslims and we should strive for equal treatment of non-Muslims or non-religious in our country of birth. We can argue about reasons behind this movement and how it's simply more courteous to avoid eating in front of a fasting crowd but the fact remains that there is an actual law obliging people to hide the fact that they don't fast in Ramadan. If one is content with practicing his religion there is no reason to be offended others don't.
Still, it's clear from comments around the blogosphere that Lachgar and supporters have a long fight ahead of them.  On the both the Morocco Board post and the Economist post, numerous commenters expressed derision at MALI's campaign.
Another commenter on the latter claimed that things aren't so bad:
For decades, in addition to Jews, Christians and any other religion who are not obliged to fast, there are also Moroccans who do not fast but no one has ever been penalized. What’s to be respected is the feelings of this majority of Muslims. We are not against the idea of not fasting, and everyone is free to do what he believes in, but he should in turn consider the freedom of others. And when we eat in public, while the majority fast, this is a little bit wired and touches the freedom of this majority. There are many restaurants opened for non-fasters from foreigners and Moroccans who do not fast, and they could go there and practice their complete freedom without being attacked. We never heard of someone being attacked at his home because he eat during Ramadan, though, there are many Moroccans known for their neighbors that they don’t fast, but since they respect them by eating in their houses, no one would attack them.
A recent blog post by Moroccan blogger Kacem El Ghazzali says differently, however.  El Ghazzali, a self-described atheist, writes:
During the last few years of my adolescence, every year during Ramadan, State and society declare the onset of the month of fasting, and because I’m non religious those commandments do not concern me, which is why I find myself compelled to have my food secretly, surrounded by four walls, merely separated by the distance between my knees and my back (in a sitting position): the walls of the toilet that I usually attend to discharge my noisome feces. I have to spend an hour approximately in that bathroom to nourish myself from the leftovers of the s’hour (early meal taken before dawn during Ramadan); it’s a difficult position, but it’s still much better than spending the whole day in a struggle entitled “the battle of the empty stomach”.
I cannot eat publicly, and you cannot imagine what would possibly happen to me if I ever did.
Blogger Youssef Debbagh chalks up the dissent to Morocco's Generation Y who, Debbagh writes, “prefer dialogue, leadership and a decision on a model in regulatory networks and influence.”  The blogger continues:
Les Y marocains n’hésitent pas à accroitre de plus en plus leur champ de libertés individuelles, même au risque de choquer ou de bouleverser l’équilibre socio-culturel du Royaume. Le meilleur exemple de cela est l’initiative du mouvement alternatif des libertés individuelles (MALI) qui, en utilisant Facebook, a décidé de défier l’autorité de l’état en rompant le jeûne en public durant le mois de Ramadan.

author: Jillian C. York


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Nicaragua: Blog Informs About LGBT Community · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

Grupo de Diversidad Sexual de Carazo (Sexual Diversity Group from Carazo) keeps a blog [es] called Espacio Comunicación Alternativa (Space for Alternative Communication), where they aim to, “Create alternative and accessible processes to inform, communicate and teach LGBT youth, to achieve empowerment, recognition and respect for different sexual orientations and sexual and gender identities.”


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Nigeria: Citizen Reporter Interviews Fiery Lagos Preacher · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

A video of a citizen reporter, Kayode Ogundamisi, interviewing fiery Lagos pastor of the convener of the Save Nigeria Group.


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Nigeria: Communications Commission wants to track your movement · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Should the Nigerian Communications Commission be allowed to track your movement? David Ajao answers: “This is ludicrous. Telecom operators are now law enforcement agencies. Even if the NCC was allowed to implement this absurdity, how would they access the GPS coordinates of a mobile phone…”


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Pakistan Flood Incident Reporting System Based On Ushahidi · Global Voices
Rezwan

Raza Rumi at Pak Tea House reports in details about the Ushahidi Crowdmap engine powered Pakistan Flood Incident Reporting site, which acts as a crowd-sourcing “data portal designed to gather comprehensive and dynamic information on disaster-related variables”.


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Paraguay: Soaring Soybean Production Prompts Clashes  · Global Voices
Juhie Bhatia

This post was commissioned as part of a Pulitzer Center/Global Voices Onlineseries on Food Insecurity. These reports draw on multimedia reporting featured on the Pulitzer Gateway to Food Insecurity and bloggers discussing the issues worldwide. Share your own story on food insecurity here.
As the global demand for soy rises, Paraguay has become the world's fastest-growing producer of the crop. But with resulting riches have also come battles over land rights and environmental concerns.
Soybeans are used in the production of food, edible oils and animal feed, as well as biofuels. The industry has grown exponentially in recent years, in part because of increased demand for meat and cattle feed in China and a rising biofuel industry in Europe. Many South American countries, including Paraguay, have responded to this demand by boosting soybean production.
Photo by Olmo Calvo Rodríguez from a series on soybeans and campesino rights in Paraguay (see slideshow below).
Paraguay is the now world's fourth largest exporter of the crop, trailing the U.S., Brazil and Argentina, and the sixth biggest producer of soybeans. Earlier this year the country saw a record soybean crop. This growth has come at a price though, creating social disputes and land rights issues for the country's small-scale farmers, known also as campesinos, as well as environmental and health concerns.
In the blog of the Brussels office of the German Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Edgardo Lander in Venezuela argues that the recent growth in Latin American trade and agriculture is “predatory” and that leftist governments must seek sustainable alternatives:
“Given a rapidly growing international demand and high levels of profit, agribusiness has responded with a rapid increase of the extensions of crops in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia. In addition to the negative impacts of monoculture and transgenic crops, the tremendous expansion of the soybeans has led to a greater concentration in land tenure and the displacement of peasants, affecting the production of other crops such as rice, maize, sunflower and wheat. This has also led to a strengthening of the economic and political power of the business groups that participate in the different stages of production and marketing of the soybeans. This is what Syngenta, (one of the main agribusiness corporations), cynically and arrogantly, referred to as the United Soya Republic.”
The industry has had particularly adverse effects on Paraguay's small farmers and indigenous people, many of whom have been forced off their lands.
New York City-based photographer Evan Abramson documented the social conflicts generated by industrial soy production in some of Paraguay's rural communities. In a photo essay for NACLA Report on the Americas, he says:
“The soy boom has been disastrous for small farmers, who, after living for years on government-allotted forestland, have begun to be uprooted. In the last decade, the Paraguayan government has given away or illegally sold this public land to political friends in the soybean business, pushing the peasants out. Today, about 77 percent of Paraguayan land is owned by 1 percent of the population… Since the first soy boom in 1990, almost 100,000 small-scale farmers have been forced to migrate to urban slums; about 9,000 rural families are evicted by soy production each year.”
In 2009, photographer Olmo Calvo Rodríguez, a member of the Latin American photographer's collective SUB, took the photos featured in the slideshow below. He wrote that the campesinos in the photos form part of a community of 40 families who were evicted from their land by the soybean industry 17 times in the past six years, but still have not lost hope of building their lives there. (The photos are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.)
Journalist Charles Lane, in a series supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, calls this scenario “the soybean wars.” But landless farmers are fighting back, he says, protesting and even staging armed invasions on the land of soybean producers, who have themselves also been accused of resorting to violence.
Many of these farmers had hoped Paraguay's president Lugo would bring them some relief. Lugo received nearly unanimous support from the campensinos when elected in 2008, but in March of this year thousands of farmers protested in Asunción to demand Lugo follow through on campaign promises.
Kyle Tana, blogging on the Council on Hemispheric Affairs's Web site, suggests that Lugo is caught between two polarized groups–the campesino movement and Paraguay's congress:
“While campaigning, then-Bishop Lugo characterized himself as the “bishop for the poor,” and was successful in giving hope to Paraguay’s indigenous and disadvantaged communities. However, after two years in office, comparatively little has been done to address the promised redistribution of land to landless farmers as well as the rising tensions between campesinos and large monocrop (primarily soy) producers.”
The growing soy industry has also had environmental effects, contributing to the destruction of rain forests and leading to heavy use of toxic agrochemicals. In his photo essay, Abramson says that soy cultivators dump more than 6 million gallons of pesticides and herbicides into the Paraguayan soil every year, including extremely hazardous chemicals, partly due to lax environmental law enforcement. Some fear that in addition to harming the environment, these chemicals are harming the health of local residents. To make matters worse, a post on the blog of the Union of Journalists of Paraguay (Sindicato de Periodistas del Paraguay) says the press isn't covering deaths or diseases that may be related to chemical overuse, sanitizing the image of multinationals:
Este tipo de información negativa que afecta la imagen de los poderosos sojeros no son publicados con frecuencia por los grandes medios del Paraguay, como ABC Color, que inclusive niega el poder destructivo de los “agrotóxicos”. El diario del empresario Aldo Zuccolillo prohibe a sus periodistas utilizar este término en caso de que no pueda evitar la publicación de una denuncia de intoxicación (la palabra autorizada por el diario es “agroquímico”).
Another concern, for people like Alan Raul Banda Huatay in Cancun, Mexico, is the planting of genetically modified (GM) soy. After watching a film on the subject, Huatay had this to say in a discussion board on Facebook:
Es lamentable comprobar que lo único que realmente importa es el beneficio económico, ni la salud, ni los derechos de los campesinos, todo queda en segundo término ante la soja transgénica y no se sopesa el riesgo de los alimentos transgénicos. A los campesinos sólo les queda plantar cara e intentar frenar el avance del monocultivo…
Bloggers’ suggested solutions to minimizing these various consequences range from eating less meat to establishing voluntary standards for eco-friendly soy production, to alerting students in China about the issues. A post on The Socialist WebZine says the first step, however, is to recognize that we're all in this together:
“Digging our way out will necessarily entail creating a movement with the ability to link the soy consumer in the north with a Paraguayan farmer or to see how yucca, corn, beans and potatoes might produce a far greater benefit for the planet than mono-cropping. The politics of the “we” of socialism hold far more potential for addressing the dire needs of our planet than the “I” of capitalist consumption.”

author: Juhie Bhatia


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Poland: “Defenders of the Cross” · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Updates on Poland's “Defenders of the Cross” story and on “how a tragedy has turned into a feacial farce” – at 20 east and the beatroot (here, here, and here).

author: Veronica Khokhlova


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Russia: Anglophone Bloggers Discuss Social and Political Aspects of the Wildfires · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Anglophone Russia bloggers have been discussing social and political aspects of the catastrophic wildfires and the ongoing firefighting efforts in central Russia since early August. Below is a selection of their views.
In an Aug. 4 post, Streetwise Professor noted that, for a number of reasons, Russia lacked much of what was needed for “effective firefighting” – “a good deal of contingency planning,” significant “investment in equipment,” “excellent communications,” and “trained personnel who can act on the spot in response to sudden developments” – and concluded:
Not surprisingly, perhaps, the official response seems as much focused on appearing to be in charge and doing something, rather than actually being in charge and doing something. […]
A Russia-based reader – mossy – responded in the comments section:
[…] It’s really, really, really bad. The most organized, prepared, well-funded and well-organized system wouldn’t be able to cope with this. On the other hand, we don’t have an organized, prepared, well-funded, and well-organized system. And people are idiots. My neighbor has his sprinkler on 24/7 even though he loses water because of it. People start bonfires to burn construction material and leave them unattended. So yeah, the authorities are really f*cking up. But yeah, it really is a miserable situation. There has never been anything like this in the recorded history of Moscow.
[…]
[…] On Putin “taking control.” This is a double-edged sword. […] On the one hand, some people probably think: Molodets! Taking control from those local jerks who didn’t do their job. He cares about people. On the other hand, some people also think: So what happened to the power vertical? If you’re on the top with top-down command, why did you let it get this bad? And why is it that the only time problems get fixed is when you show up? Don’t we have any system of governance that works without the prime minister taking charge?
So I’m not sure how this is going to play out. I’ve been surprised at the ferocity of government criticism from “average citizen” types who usually support Putin. We had a smaller version of this horror in 2002, and I don’t remember any criticism of the government at the time. I don’t think this is the straw that will break the camel’s back, but I do think people’s general sense of being fed up is being pushed up another notch. […]
On Aug. 5, Miriam Elder filed a GlobalPost dispatch from a burned-down village 140 km from Moscow and also blogged about burning her foot severely there:
[…] I was taking photographs of the remains of Kadanok, a village that had burned entirely, when one wrong step left me sinking into something that felt like a thousand boiling knives stabbing themselves into my foot.
Russia is burning. Whatever you’ve heard, multiply it by a thousand and that’s how bad it is. […]
[…]
And there is no one to help. With three colleagues, I left Moscow at 7 a.m. and got to the hospital in Moscow at 7 p.m. Twelve hours and not one moving fire truck, army truck, official emergencies ministry vehicle. These people have been left to fend for themselves. In Beloomut, people, many of them pensioners, are picking up shovels and digging trenches for themselves.
This isn’t Siberia or the Far East. This is a suburb of Moscow, incredibly poor and totally forgotten. […]
Also on Aug. 5, A Good Treaty translated from Russian the rynda/fire-alarm-bell exchange between LJ user top-lap and PM Vladimir Putin (a GV translation is here) and wrote this about it:
[…] I’m sure many will read Putin’s response as another installment in his epic book of cool […]. […] The actual content of his letter — its sarcasm and concluding offer to ‘return the fire alarm bell’ — seems to make light of a pretty serious problem, namely the embarrassing poverty of the Russian countryside. […]
On Aug. 10, Vadim Nikitin of Foreign Policy Association's Russia blog wrote about the consequences of the disastrous situation for some of Russia's officials:
[…] So far the disaster has claimed the political lives of just one small and isolated group of mid-ranking bureaucrats: Medvedev sacked a few Defence Ministry officials for letting the fire destroy a top military installation. The Minister himself received only a mild rebuke.
[…]
[…] What’s the point of looking for blame when the damage has already been done? Like get over it and move on already, Russia!
Sublime Oblivion analyzed the climatic aspect of the current situation, in addition to the social and political ones, concluding that “the Great Russian Heatwave of 2010 as a mere herald of things to come.” Below is a summary to this rather lengthy post (which has so far generated 46 comments):
[…] 1) There is nothing the Russian government could have done to contain a natural disaster of such magnitude, 2) many of the lectures about how Russia could have done better to prepare itself would have been counter-productive had they actually been implemented, 3) the hysteria about Moscow turning into a giant morgue from heat stress and smog or radioactive ash clouds is overblown, and 4) the real problem, or rather predicament, is global warming, the effects of which are expected to transform Russia’s heartlands into Central Asia within the next few decades. […]
The Reference Frame also took a close look at the climate issue, asking – and answering – this question in regard to the current weather conditions: “Can a rare heat wave in a big city occur by chance?” According to the blogger, “the short answer is Yes.” Below is a small part of “the long answer”:
[…] Now, is it shocking that Moscow has experienced temperatures that are expected once in 2,000 or 15,000 years? Well, if Moscow were the only city that matters, if July were the only month in the year, and if the temperature were the only quantity that can excite us and that can drive the climate alarmism, the answer would be that it would be relatively unusual. […]
[…]
But Moscow is not the only city, July is not the only month, and temperature is not the only quantity that can be interesting or that can look like a sign from the heavens to some sensitive individuals. […]
[…]
But much like tens of thousands of years ago when people would invent new gods whenever they experienced a somewhat unusual event – solar eclipse, rainbow, hurricane – people remain irrational when it comes to events that only occur “a few times a life” or less frequently. People just can't “instinctively” understand that statistics also holds at time frames that are longer or much longer than our lives. […]
Finally, Robert Amsterdam's blog translated a conspiracy theory explanation of the heatwave, offered by Komsomolskaya Pravda, a popular Russian tabloid:
“[…] Certain specialists suspect that the current temperature records are not the fault of global warming, but of the application by the Americans of military elaborations. […]”


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Russia: Independent Regional News Portal Blocked by Internet Provider · Global Voices
Alexey Sidorenko

“Center-Telekom,” the state-controlled Internet provider in the Tula region [EN] blocked “Tulskiye Pryaniki” [RUS], an independent website known for its critical articles towards regional authorities, blogger publikator-s reported [RUS]. The website had already launched a mirror at blogger.com [RUS].

author: Alexey Sidorenko


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Russia: TorrentReactor Village; $17,000 in Roaming Charges  · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Svetlana Gladkova of Profy shares two stories much discussed in the Russian blogosphere now: how a “Russian village almost got named after a torrent website in a publicity stunt,” and how a Russian woman received a $17,000 roaming charges bill after her son had spent some four hours playing games on her iPhone during their vacation abroad.


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South Africa: Would Media Appeals Tribunal be constitutional? · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Pierre de Vos discusses the constitutionality of the proposed Media Appeals Tribunal (MAP) in South Africa: “The legislature will thus either pass a law creating a MAP that will not change anything, or it will pass a law creating a MAP that would be unconstitutional…”


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South Korea: North Korea’s Twitter Is Limited In South · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

On North Korea's newly opened twitter[en], South Korea's Unificiation Ministry hurriedly went checking legal issues in interacting with the North's Twitter account. South Korea's Chosun, along with other Korean local media predicted that the South's government may limit [kr] its people from retweeting some of North Korean propaganda links and ban Koreans from actively following it, warning it may violate the Inter-Korea Exchange and Cooperation Act.

author: Lee Yoo Eun


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Trinidad & Tobago: Fasting  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

As the end of the first week of Ramadan approaches, Lifespan of a Chennette shares a bit about those all-important meals.


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Trinidad & Tobago: Toco Lighthouse  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“No trip to Toco is complete without visiting the lighthouse that sits on the north eastern tip of Trinidad”: My Chutney Garden regales us with tales from her journey.


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U.S.A.: Russophone Students Blog About Work and Travel Program · Global Voices
Maryna Reshetnyak

Every summer, thousands of college students from Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet countries come to the United States to take part in the Work and Travel USA program [EN]. Through this U.S. State Department-sponsored exchange program [EN] students from certain countries have an opportunity to earn some cash working in U.S. restaurants, hotels, resorts and stores, and also to travel around the United States, learning about its culture, meeting people and improving their English.
The program is very popular. According to STAR Travel agency [RUS], some 30,000 students from Russia alone take part in Work and Travel USA annually. The number of Ukrainian participants is close to 11,000 students, Ekonomichna Pravda reported last year [RUS].
For most of these young people, Work and Travel is the first experience of living on their own. For many of them, it is their first time abroad. Coming to an entirely new culture with not much cash, they have to quickly learn how to survive, find a job and a place to live. Internet has become an important tool that helps students to find travel companions, discuss employment and housing, and just to share stories of their summer abroad.
Below is what blogger Tatsiana wrote [RUS] about her first night in the United States, one of the winning blogs of the Work and Travel blogging competition [RUS] organized by the International Exchange Center (IEC), one of the organizations that administers the program:
[…] Итак. 11 часов вечера, я одна, со мной все мои документы и деньги. И следуя указателям я нашла airtrain … Людей было мало, и поэтому почему то было еще страшнее … В airtraine я познакомилась с бразильским парнем, которому 30 лет. Он фотограф и был в Сан-Франциско… Он тоже в Нью-Йорк едет, и когда я сказала, что я впервые сдесь, начал мне все объяснять: как купить билет на поезд и так далее.)))
[…]
12 ночи. Где ночевать? Искать хостелл? Одной? Ночью?
Ужасно устала, хочу принять душ и спать…
Бразильский парень, Цезар, прeделожил пойти в хостелл, куда он забронировал билеты. Но самое интересное, что мы очень долго с ним искали, где этот хостелл находится. … хотелось расплакаться! Как же я устала. Вышли на улицу. Пятница. Много людей. Все гуляют, отдыхают! И жутко страшно! Но оттого, что я с Цезаром, я не могу расплакаться и показать, что мне страшно!) Я же смелая, я же в свои 19 лет решилась на это, одна)
Наконец-то мы нашли этот хостелл, и оказалось, что для меня нет свободной кровати. Тогда Цезар предложил мне спать на его кровати, а он постелит себе на полу. Я была в шоке от того, насколько он благороден. Но все равно страшно!
[…]
Midnight. Where should I spend the night? Should I look for a hostel? Alone? At night? I'm terribly tired, want to take a shower and fall asleep.
The Brazilian guy, Cesar, offered to take me to the hostel he had booked for himself. Interesting that it took us a long time to find the hostel. I felt like crying. How tired I was. We walked along the street. Friday. Lots of people around. Everybody's having a good time! And I'm awfully scared! But because I was with Cesar, I could not cry and show how scared I was! I am brave, at the age of 19 I had the courage to do this, on my own )
Finally, we found this hostel, but it turned out there was no spare bed for me. Cesar offered me his bed and made a bed for himself on the floor… I was shocked by how noble he was. But still, I was scared…
According to the rules of the Work and Travel program, participants are required to have a job offer from an American employer prior to coming to the United States. But sometimes, for various reasons, students lose their initial jobs and have to look for a new employment, which is not an easy task. Here is what blogger taksosvova, who is also a very good photographer, wrote [RUS] about surviving in New York City:
Сегодня с утра я поехал менять оставшиеся русские рубли… За 1800 рублей я получил $42. Теперь у меня хватит денег на безлимитную MetroCard на одну неделю. А метро для большого города – это все. Представляете, сегодня я сытый. Никогда не думал, что так буду радоваться еде. Нашел дешевое китайское кафе, где за $4.50 получаешь тарелку пластиковую, разделенную на 5 секций, в них можно положить любое блюдо. Я поел салат, яишницу, мясо и еще какие-то приколюхи. Потом сидел и получал удовольствие от заполненного желудка.
…кажется, что даже бомжи и бичи в НЙ никогда не унывают. Ходят веселые…сегодня вот в поезде чувак лет 50 ходил и просил денег. Я тоже неунывающий русский безработный. Продолжаю писать письма, заполнять анкеты, звонить…
…It seems that even the [homeless] of NYC never lose hope. They are walking around happy… today, for example, a guy of around 50 was begging for money on a train. I am also a happy-go-lucky Russian unemployed. I continue writing letters, filling out applications, making phone calls…
Three months seem to be enough for most of these young people to get adjusted to a new environment. Later posts of Work and Travel bloggers are mostly about the people they met and experiences they gained. Blogger YesNo from Novosibirsk writes this [RUS] about her work at Walmart in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and about her co-workers:
Я проработала только 3 недели…Уже привыкла и к самой работе, и к людям. Первую неделю каждый, с кем я работаю казался мне целой историей, … а теперь они мне кажутся обычными людьми. И мы говорим с ними на обычные темы, делаем обычные вещи. […]
В нашей команде работает около 20 человек. Конечно, рассказывть о каждом глупая и скучная затея. Но есть те, о которых я буду вспоминать и я знаю об этом уже сейчас.
[…]
Mike. … Когда он узнал, что мы … русские, у него тут же возникло целая куча вопросов: можно ли пить водку по утрам? какое у нас традиционное блюдо? холодно ли в Сибири? есть ли у нас черные? правда, что у нас плохие тюрьмы?… Но что самое хорошее в нем, так это то, что он не только спрашивает и выслушивает ответы, но и рассказывает мне об Америке. Точнее о Питтсбурге. Например, где самые лучшие пиццерии, в каком районе живут самые добрые люди, какое пиво самое вкусное и тому подобное…
[…]
There are 20 people in our team. Of course, it is silly and boring to talk about each of them. But there are people I'll remember, and I already know this.
[…]
Mike… As soon as he learned that we … were Russians, he got a ton of questions for us: Is it ok to drink vodka in the morning? What's our traditional dish? Is it cold in Siberia? Do we have black people? Is it true that our prisons are bad? … But what's best about him is that he not only asks and listens, but also tells me about America. Particularly about Pittsburgh. For example, where the best pizza place is, which neighborhood has the friendliest people, which beer is the best, etc…
[…]
Many bloggers emphasize that the program for them is, above all, an opportunity to gain experience, new emotions and impressions. Ekaterina Bayutina from Lugansk wrote this [RUS] on her return to Ukraine:
Прилетев в Украину и поразмышляв над всем случившимся, я поняла, что США – та страна, где такие студенты, как мы с вами, становятся взрослей на пару лет после пройдённых трудностей, становятся самостоятельней и сильней. В памяти остаются самые тёплые и яркие моменты, увиденное ещё долго будет сниться чудесными картинками, а приобретённый опыт всегда пригодиться в жизни.

author: Maryna Reshetnyak


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Venezuela: Violent Images Censored for a Month · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

The Devil's Excrement shares images of Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional with the word “Censurado” (Censored) over the space where images would normally appear. In a previous post, the blogger explains, “a Judge issues the following prohibition [es] ‘For the next four weeks, no newspaper, magazine or weekly of  the country can publish images that are violent, bloody, grotesque,  whether about crime or not'”


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Zambia: Citizens react to Chiluba’s court clearance · Global Voices
Gershom Ndhlovu

Zambian High Court judge Evans Hamaundu last week set aside an order that was granted to the Attorney General to register a London High Court judgment against second President Dr. Frederick Chiluba and seven others in which they were found guilty of stealing US$46 million public funds. Judge Hamadudu argued that there is no such provision under the Zambian laws.
From mid-2002, a few months after Zambia’s second president, Frederick Chiluba stepped down as Republican president, his successor, Levy Mwanawasa, now late, summoned parliament where he disclosed massive and systematic abuse of the national treasury by his predecessor.
President Mwanawasa called for the removal of Chiluba’s immunity so that he could face prosecution for crimes that came to be known as the plunder of national resources with which he was accused together with some of his close advisors such as former Finance Minister Katele Kalumba and former Director General of the Intelligence Service Xavier Chungu. Both men, together with others, including military commanders under him, have since been convicted for related offences.
Dr. Chiluba was last year acquitted in controversial circumstances after a seven-year long trial in which he was jointly charged with others for theft of US$500,000 from an intelligence account.
Just like his acquittal last year, the High Court decision on August 13 2010 attracted attention in the Zambian blogosphere and social networking sites such as Facebook.
According to Elias Muanshya, the London judgment was doomed right from the start because of what he calls “judicial colonialism”:
Zambians were told that the reasons why the Attorney General Hon George Kunda, SC sued Chiluba in London were to reach him where the Zambian courts could not reach. Kunda and Mwanawasa alleged that Chiluba had stashed millions of dollars outside the Zambian court’s jurisdiction. And for the government to confiscate those millions they needed to use a European Court; and England was their natural choice. They told us that once they obtain the judgment in England, it would be enforceable in the whole of Europe and as such, they would bring back Chiluba’s stolen millions from Belgium, France and Switzerland. That sounded like a very good plan.
Another reason they went to London, we were told, was that the Zambian government was not confident of getting back the money if they had used the Zambian courts. They had both jurisdictional and competency problems with the Zambian courts. They averred that Chiluba’s matrix of plunder would be too complicated for an average Zambian judge to comprehend or even handle. That was the reason why they had to look to England and not Kitwe or Chipata High Courts.
The Zambian government, Elias argues, should have trusted local courts:
….Mr. Justice Hamaundu [the judge who dismissed the application to register the London judgment] has demonstrated the fact that we would rather have injustice done by ourselves, than justice served from London. Injustice in Lusaka is rather by far more preferable than justice served from the doorsteps and the gravel of Mr. Justice Peter Smith. The London judgement was alright in so far as it was obtained to take the money that Chiluba had taken to Europe. But beyond that, it had the potential of being a tool of juridical colonization. If the Zambian government was serious about getting Chiluba’s millions in Zambia they should have commenced legal proceedings in the Zambian court system. They should have trusted the Zambian courts to come up with a fair judgment. But if they mistrusted our courts and insulted our courts and poured contempt on our learned judges why should they now turn around to try and get the same courts to recognise an imperial judgement from London? There is one old rule that says that you cannot have your own cake and eat it too.
Commenting on an article titled: London Court Judgment: Chiluba Wins, a reader called Freedom said:
Yes this is a betrayal to Levy. I don’t think Levy was that daft to take the court to London and spend so much money on it if he knew that it can not be basically enforced anywhere. Something fishy here. Looks like this is a real scam here involving the Head of State, the current Judges and Don Chiluba himself. Looks like the Mafias have taken over and am sure the Mafias in Sicily, Italy are clapping hands for these graduates of crime, the way they have raped Zambia. Anyway we know nobody will touch Chiluba as long as RB is in power. Time to move on, we have wasted enough money already on this non-winnable case. The mafias have invaded the system.
Another reader calling himself viva justice writes:
Bane (colleagues) the case is over. The same useless evidence was brought before a criminal court in Zambia and at the end of it all Chiluba was charged with theft of only 500,000 dollars! Now surely if the London High Court claims the man stole 45 million dollars why did Mutembo (Nchito, private prosecutor for the state) fail to prove that amount of money in a proper criminal court? That’s because the burden of proof in a criminal case is higher and must be beyond reasonable doubt whereas in a civil case like the UK one it is just on the basis of balance of probability. I don’t understand why the LAZ (Law Association of Zambia) does not educate people on these matters…
Trigo says that Chiluba remains a thief despite the failed attempt to register the London judgment:
Though the high court of Zambia has failed to register it, Chiluba still remains a THIEF in the eyes of the world. When ever he is obtaining a visa or when he is signing certain documents overseas when there is a question HAVE YOU BEEN CONVICTED OF ANY CRIME OR TAKEN TO COURT BEFORE the answer he will fill in is YES. He can pretend to be free in Zambia but his not in the WESTERN COUNTRIES. The actual judgment was in U.K.
Malaika argues that Chiluba has in fact never been found guilty of anything:
Chiluba has not been found guilty of anything, he was only found liable in the London court. In civil courts there are no guilty verdicts unlike in criminal courts. Chiluba was found not guilty in a criminal trial in Lusaka. In legal terms, and despite what people believe, Chiluba is not a criminal and has no criminal record.
Reacting to a story that Transparency International Zambia (TIZ) wants the registration of the London Court judgment to go all the way to the Supreme Court, Kibakimani says that he is not sure if the case against Chiluba is conducted in the interest of the Zambian people:
This topic is a difficult one and the reasons are:- 1) Chiluba abused his Presidency and most of the allegations that have been raised against him hold alot of water, so all in all, Chiluba need to be taken to task.2)However, the pipo charged with ensuring that Chiluba is taken to task again abused their privilaged position to settle scores that may have nothing to do with the common citizens’cry of wanting accountability from Chiluba. As revalations are comming, these guys were just as crooked as Chiluba.
Therefore, while we would want to really push the matter as far as possible, can we really be sure that what is being done is been done in our interest? Was spenind all those millions, in many cases breaching procurement procedures, using underhand methods really helpful to the cause of the commoner’s plight?
Is it not ironic that pipo like Kunda donot seem to have a possition on this matter?
On another website, the Zambian Watchdog, ZWA!1! wrote under the story Chiluba Wins London Judgment Case:
I really don’t understand all these complaints!!! WHY ARE PEOPLE SURPRISED AND COMPLAINING?? This was EXPECTED. Let us just forget about fighting corruption in Zambia. We have failed miserably. If we forget about fighting corruption and stop talking about it, that will be even better for (our) own health. There is no point talking about corruption when you are doing nothing about it. This has proven (to) our neighbours: there is nothing special about Zambia. The truth is that MWANAWASA was a special person, very special person compared to the rest of us. I would rather we actually got rid of the Anti-Corruption Commission because it is serving no purpose. The Auditor General’s Office is also a waste of money. We are still too backward to grasp the essence of these sophisticated systems. PERIOD.
Another reader signing himself as Ku Masangalatoni wrote:
George Kunda (Vice President and Minister of Justice) has a lot of explaining to do as Minister of Justice and Attorney General at the time. If he had known, or he pretended not to know, that a British judgment was unenforceable in Zambia, or (all) he wanted to do was to please his boss, Levy Mwanawasa. If Rupiah is genuine in his mission to uplift Zambia, he should fire Kunda for wasting the nation’s resources and time pursuing a matter that was not going anywhere right from the beginning.
I have also looked at the implication of the High Court judgment for next year presidential election. Will the High Court judgment help the current president?:
Chiluba’s fortunes changed after the death of Mwanawasa who died in August 2008 and Rupiah Banda took over as president and the two have been very close from the time Banda took over. Chiluba has also been publicly campaigning for Banda at every opportunity.
Whether Chiluba’s absolution of both the criminal and civil cases of plunder will endear President Banda to the citizenry remains to be seen.
It is too early to tell whether the handling of Chiluba’s cases will have a bearing on the election results especially on President Banda who is accused of interfering with the judiciary to seek favorable outcomes for his newly founded friend. Chiluba has publicly announced to be a special political consultant for President Rupiah Banda.

author: Gershom Ndhlovu


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Africa: A Pan-African Social Media Brand · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Munashe writes about Sowambe, a Pan-African social media brand: “Loy Okezie the blogger/writer and Francis Oghuma the co-founder of Naijaborn and Camerborn recently partnered to form create Sowambe.”


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Africa: African Wedding Songs Playlist · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Chale's African wedding songs playlist:”I already have a good idea what will be played at my wedding. Unless, my partner comes up with some recipe of her own. My list is African songs only.”


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Africa: The new direction for Maneno blogging platform · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Miquel discusses new direction for multilingual blogging platform, Maneno: “…we will be stepping back from the active social media promotion of articles and content that people have been writing on Maneno. Additionally, we are also going to gradually stop hosting blogs on the system as well as not accept any new joins.”


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Armenia: Homophobic radio station rewarded?  · Global Voices
Onnik Krikorian

Having already warned against increasing levels of homophobia in society, including that recently shown by a local radio station in a project ostensibly meant to promote European integration and values, Unzipped: Gay Armenia is shocked to discover that international bodies continue to work with those it feels should be blacklisted instead. In the latest incident, the blog expresses its horror that the British Council will support the same radio station despite concerns expressed by the LGBT community and as already noted and accepted by the British Embassy in Armenia.

author: Onnik Krikorian


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Azerbaijan: Reflections on Ramadan · Global Voices
Onnik Krikorian

Aaron in Azerbaijan, a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) blog, reflects on how Ramadan is observed in Azerbaijan. Although a secular republic, with many people not observing fasting, the blog says it is nonetheless impressed by the dedication of those that do. Meanwhile, another PCV blog, From the Land of Fire, maintains its daily diary of Ramadan.


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Barbados: How Many More?  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“Fortunately no one died in Tuesday’s bus crash in Christ Church but 22 people were injured”: Barbados Free Press thinks it's high time the country introduced breathalyzer laws.


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Bhutan’s New Dream Town · Global Voices
Rezwan

Bhutan's well planned and executed development of Bajo Town is going to make it a dream town for many Bhutanese and foreign tourists, according to Passu Diary.


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China: Apple Peel · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The video shows how the China made new product Apple Peel 520 turns a IPod Touch into an IPhone. More Apple Peel alike products are coming out. This one equips IPhone with an extended keyboard.

author: Oiwan Lam


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China: The use of Documentary in Chinese Civil Rights Movements · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Florence from interlocals.net has translated an article written by human rights lawyer, Tengbiao, on the use of documentary video in Chinese civil rights movement.


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Cuba: Youth in Prison  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Iván's File Cabinet blogs about the majority of “common (non-political) prisoners in Cuba [being] black or mestizo”, saying: “The environment in which these youths grow up is fertile ground for delinquency.  The worst part [is] that the Cuban State doesn’t have a solution for the problem of a society that grows more unstable and violent.”


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France: Racism and Politics · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

This post is part of our special coverage Indigenous Rights.
Nowadays in France, like in Africa, when politicians need a boost in popularity or want to cast a wider political net, they make an appeal  into the most primal instincts of the voters: ethnic identity. The approval rate of French president Sarkozy has gone from 67% in July of 2007 to less than 27% in July 2010, according to the blog sarkononmerci.fr, citing 9 opinion polls from independent media sources. The blog adds the following analysis after the latest surveys [fr]:
He asked that we judge him on the results of his actions. Today, after more than three years of a disastrous administration, the purchasing power is at its lowest, unemployment is at its highest,  the french economy is in limbo, the social injustice are as obvious as ever and the republican ideal is in very bad shape.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Frenchmen have such a low opinion of their head of state who offers little vision or stature and whose only competency seem to be to give hands out to his billionaire friends, the same friends who were of a great help when he reached for a seat that now seems a bit too overwhelming for him. In fact, we should be suprised that there are still almost one-third of the population that still thinks the president  is doing a good job. Still, it alo means that 2/3 of the population have a low or very low opinion of his tenure
French Minority Protesters on Flickr by edesc – CC license-attribution
For the past few weeks, in order to regain the approval of his citizens and turn back a declining popularity, the president has been given multiple interviews and repeatedly offered firm speeches on the theme of security and criminality. He was given a golden opportunity to retrieve voters lost to the extreme rights when the riots of Grenoble occurred a few weeks ago.
Tepetate recalls the events  évènements  on the blog rue89.com [fr]:
The riots started around 1h30 am. About 40 cars were burned within a limited parking space, between two tramway stations. It was the deed of a few youngsters.
The armed forces and the foremen arrived one hour later. Mutliple tear gas were thrown. As far as gun shots, it is impossible to confirm or deny because some of the noise came from cars exploding.
To speak of urban guerilla warfare is vastly overstating the case because it was not people against an army but some schmuks without any strategy! The police station in the borrough was not even lit on fire.
»
The president rapidly intervened and used a lexicon that far right politicians would not have repudiated.    Mehmet  Alparslan SAYGIN   reminds us on his blog of the most controversial part passage le plus controversé [fr] of Mr Sarkozy's speech at the installment of the new governor of Isère:
Rescind the current legislation on nationality and propose that nationality be revoked for the people of foreign origins when attempting to take the lives of a policeman, gendarme or any representative of the public authority. Well, the ensuing controversy was to be expected.
The blog lalignegenerale, analyses thusly those  measures announced by  the president :
« I won't dwell on the ubuesque notion of  “of foreign origin”. Because when exactly does “foreign origin” start? In the spirit of this measure,  how many generations have to had passed on before one is protected from losing its citizenship? Does the president have criteria he'd like offer? Maybe a (DNA) Test ?  And if by any chance the members of the Constitutional Council, State Coucil or the parliament were to approve of this inane proposition, what would then become of the no-longer citizens?  Since they don't have a substitute nationality, what kind of legal vacuum would then fall into ? Former Frenchmen? Stateless people? As the president put it, since the “machine that provides nationality no longer works”, will it now produce stateless citizens?
The worst part is that at the end of the day, if this proposal is a serious one and not just some political fronting to win back some votes from Marine Le Pen ( ed. note: far right leader), then it would contradict three sacred axioms engraved in the founding texts of our republic: the Program of the National Council of the Resistance in May 15 1944, the Declaration of the Human Rights in 1948 and the Constitution of 1958.
As soon as those measures were announced, the daily newspaper le Figaro published an opinion poll conducted by IFOP that proclaimed the results he was hoping to see: that the majority of the French people shared his views on domestic security. The enthusiasm was so overwhelming  and the questions posed in the surveys so biased that other newspapers conducted their own polls, most notably l'Humanité and Marianne who found that the enthusiasm for the annoucement might have been more moderated that initially proclaimed. In an article entitled: ” All polls are not created equal” Rue 89 explains the issue:
Polls keep coming in and they contradict each other. After le Figaro and l'Humanité, Marianne publishes its own study on the government's security measures.
We learned that 51% of French are rather “in favor” of revoking citizenship as a sanction (63% of left leaning voters and 28% of right-leaning voters).  In the Figaro poll on August 6, 70% were in favor of revoking citizenship. For the same crime, the CSA poll for l'Humanité showed that 57% think it is necessary.
Ministers and other leaders of the ruling party took turn in blaming immigrants, Roma and itinerant community members.  Mais  Il y a aussi protestations et cacophonie  dans la majorité comme le relève viactu.com, citant un article sur Profession Politique.However, there were also voices of protests from the ruling party as viactu.com noted, citing an article in Profession Politique:
After the firm speech from the president on July 30, that brought to the forefront the theme of linking immigration with national security and given the increased popularity of the politics of the far right, many personalities spoke out against the measure.
Not surprisingly, the supporters of Villepin ( rival of the president in the ruling party) protested the loudest, notably the MP Marie-Anne Montchamp who spoke of “upping the ante” and “populist position from the presidency”.
Yet, some of the attacks also came from people who were not hostile to Sarkozy. “Let's try to avoid making laws based on circumstances” says the former PM Alain Juppé who is a potential candidate for a position in the new government.  His thoughts were echoed by Senate president Gérard Larcher and  MP Bernard Debré who urge everyone to be very careful with “manipulating citizenship”.
Another point of tension was the elimination of Roma and itinerant community illegal camps within 3 months , measures that  were disapproved by  Christine Boutin and Jean-Pierre Grand, who angered the ruling party when they called the measures “raids”.
On July 28, Brice Hortefeux announced that half of the illegal camps will be dismantled. To facilitate this “ethnic clean up” the blog denistouret.fr writes [fr]:
Brice Hortefeux will “quasi-immediately” deport Roma back to Rumania and Bulgaria who committed offenses to the public order.  In 2009, more than 10.000 Roma were expulsed from France. 10 IRS agents will investigate the situation in the illegal camps because many of our compatriots are surprised to see the size of some of the cars that are found in the camps. The interior minister also promised that the government will pursue developmental programs on the space vacated by the Roma.
denistouret.fr adds:
More than 400,000 itinerant community members were in the census in France in 1990. 95% were French and 1/3 were nomads. Roma were the minority.
“We are facing a slew of the most obsolete clichés” reacts SOS Racism president Dominique Sopo. “The phrases being outed suggest that all these communities are cheating the IRS, living illegally on camps and committing crimes that ought to result in their nationality being stripped from them.” We are currently seeing a vision of society that ostracizes and racializes communities. They presidency want to spur fear so that it can deploy security measures  and surveillance companies”
The first expulsion of Roma people will happen on August 19 says a report seen on Facebook.
On his blog, Guy Birenbaum sarcastically reports on the comments made by  by minister Éric Besson on the president's speech:
I cannot resist the temptation to offer you a hilarious take on the following words:
” As to the remarks by the president about the stripping of nationality, let's not exptrapolate and create unnecessary scare crows.”
No Scare crows !
and more importantly, Unnecessary ones !
Got it ?
Don't ever bring it up again.
And don't forget to tell Roma people, Itinerant people and “people of foreign origins” [to not bring it up ever again] ( I will let you complete the list as you wish).
According to other polls, these speeches reflect the general sentiment in France quite well. Saphirnews.com says in an article:” Racism explodes in France“:
One out of two French thinks that “foreigners know how to exploit the social security better than others”. 28% think that “Blacks are stronger physically than others.” 30% think that Jews have more influence in the finance and in the medias than others. About homosexuals, 12% think that they are more obsessed with sex and 4% openly say that they are homophobic.
Dominique Soppo says that ” we witness a liberated expression of racist speeches for a few months now. This is in reference to Eric Zemmour's words about blacks and arabs.
Tackling the issue of racism, alterinfo.net writes that the fabrication of new ennemies from within is a well-known tactic to distract from other issues and legitimize the current order:
It's waiting there. Ready to jump. It's ready to undermine the basis of French society, sneaky parasite that is hidden inside. It's often of brown skin, comes from foreign countries, display so-called radical political views, attend a mosque, read dangerous books, wears sportswear and sneakers; it's dangerous, lives in community, is involved in urban violence, the roots of violence, delinquance and the rise of all perils. It's a “fellagha” (bandit in arabic), bolsheviks, post-colonial immigrants, leftists, and third-world revolutionary, or anarchists. It's…
It's in this climate of hatred fed by political ambitions who are scared of their own constituents that the UN Comittee on the Elimination of Racial dDiscrimination (CERD) denounced a “recrudescence of racism and xenophobia” in France.
Still, despite the racially charged atmosphere, it is important to note that one of the most liked political figure in France is Rama Yade, a black politician born in Senegal and that for the 8th time, Yannick Noah is ranked first on the list of most popular personalities in France and that Franco-Algerian football player Zinedine Zidane is in second place.
This post is part of our special coverage Indigenous Rights.

author: Abdoulaye Bah


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Ghana: Leave the judges alone · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Nana Sarpong wants the National Chairman of the Ghanaian ruling party to leave judges alone after he called on the Chief Justice of Ghana to ‘clean up’ the judiciary.


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Haiti: Student Visas · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The Caribbean Camera reports that the Haitian community is concerned about the relatively low number of Canadian student visas being granted since the January 12 earthquake, saying: “This problem comes just as Haiti needs international education as much as investment to get back on its feet.”


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Honduras: Police Brutality Toward Resistance Group · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

Juan Carlos Rivera in Mirada de Halcón provides a personal account [es] (including photographs) of what he calls a police “attack” on a bridge blockade by the Resistance Front (Frente de Resistencia). Juan Carlos says he had to run away to avoid tear gas from police and bullets from civilians; he also reports that police arrested, dragged and hit protesters and other civilians who were not participating in the blockade. Juan Carlos admits that some of the policemen showed respect toward the “physical integrity of several citizens.”


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Jamaica, U.S.A.: Thoughts on the Mosque  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Jamaican diaspora blogger Dennis Jones weighs in on “the subject of plans to build a mosque near what is called Ground Zero.”


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Japan: Lost generation · Global Voices
Scilla Alecci

Tanaka Hidetomi  reflects  [ja] on the meaning of lost generation (失われた世代) and the origin of such phenomenon.

author: Scilla Alecci


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Mauritania: Floods Impact Aggravated by Disrupted Roads, Sewer Systems  · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

Kal writes that the severe floods in Mauritania have cut off communication between many cities, impeding the transport of critical food supplies. He adds that the limited number of sewer systems has resulted in destruction of ancient mosques. Here are photos of the flood damages [Ar].

author: Lova Rakotomalala


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Nigeria: Around Nigeria in 20 days · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Nigeria at 50, The Land of Our Fathers, Our Beloved Motherland: Around Nigeria in 20 days.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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North Korea: A North Korean Jet Fighter Crashed · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

North Korea has confirmed today that a North Korean jet fighter crashed in Liaoning Province, China Tuesday. South Korean experts assume that the pilot sought to defect the North with his airplane South Korea’s Donga reported.


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Pakistan: Step Up For Relief Efforts · Global Voices
Rezwan

Teeth Maestro writes about a second relief mission of OffroadPakistan and MotorSports Club of Pakistan and asks other Pakistanis to step up their efforts as they simply cannot wait for the state of flood victims get worse.


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Tech and Transparency in MENA: A Long Way to Go · Global Voices
Anas Qtiesh

Overview of the index of perception of corruption, 2009. (The highest perception of corruption is colored red, and lowest is colored green.) Source: Wikipedia
According to Transparency International‘s Corruption Perceptions Index, the vast majority of countries in the Middle East and North Africa region score very poorly to various degrees. The often oppressive and hostile policies towards activists and organizations that are involved with civil society and governance (including those that promote transparency and accountability) and the mediocre integration of technology in governance, administration, and everyday life in general have resulted in a negligible use of available technologies and the tools and platforms they provide to promote accountability and institutional integrity.
Legislative hurdles often stand in the face of NGOs and activists working to promote transparency. For instance, while the constitutions of Syria and Egypt grant the freedom of expression and the establishment of civil society organizations that focus on social or political issues, an Emergency Law in place since the sixties suspends those rights under the pretense of national security and gives unlimited power to the security apparatus to persecute individuals and organizations deemed unfavorable by the authorities. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, and Egypt comprised half of the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 2009 list of the 10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger, which is one indicator of the respective countries’ hostility towards online activism and the use of technology to raise issues of corruption and accountability.
Apart from the legislative hurdles, many countries in the region suffer from low Internet penetration or weak infrastructure and slow connection speeds. According to Internet World Stats, Internet penetration in the Middle East and North Africa is 29.8 percent — a little above the world average of 25.6 percent. Penetration in the countries ranges from 1.1 in Iraq and 1.8 in Yemen to 75.9 percent in the UAE and 88 percent in Bahrain. Weak infrastructure does not help the adoption of tech tools in promoting transparency: the vast majority of Syrian users are still using dial-up connections, and the Lebanese Internet was recently ranked as having the second worst upload speed globally.
Currently, many of the local chapters of Transparency International and other organizations and activists that share the same focus and goals work under the constant risk of scrutiny and persecution of the local authorities.  Some of them operate unlicensed in countries that do not allow such organizations or make it extremely difficult to acquire licensing. The most prevalent form of technology adoption is still the most basic — creating a website that holds introductory information about the organization and some resources and articles covering transparency news from around the world.
Despite the aforementioned hurdles, concerned activists and organizations have made some impressive steps utilizing different technological platforms. In 2007, Morocco was buzzing with news about an anonymous activist that went by the name Targuist Sniper; he recorded several videos of identifiable police officers accepting money bribes from drivers of passing trucks and potential smugglers and then uploaded the videos to YouTube, where they were a major hit and received over a million views. Threatening comments were left on his YouTube profile warning him to stop or else, and unfortunately, local police officers to responded to the videos with mass punishment of the residents of his area hoping that would stop him. Eventually, the videos led to the arrest of nine corrupt policemen and the transfer of others. Targuist Sniper is no longer active, but he has demonstrated that an individual assisted by technology can have a huge impact in exposing corruption.
Another distinguished effort is the Sharek961 project in Lebanon. Sharek961 is an Ushahidi-based platform that “empowers Lebanese citizens to promote transparency by sending in eyewitness reports on all election-related incidents or issues” online, by email, or via SMS. Sharek961 received dozens of reports during the 2009 elections season in Lebanon and anonymously published those citizen reports alongside news reports, blog posts, photos, videos and tweets in one place, on an interactive map.
In order to create more remarkable success stories like these, it is important to assist local organizations and activists promoting transparency and fighting corruption in obtaining the technological means and expertise and legal assistance according to their needs in their respective countries. There is a lot of potential in the region, and positive outcomes can be maximized by offering the appropriate form support where needed.

author: Anas Qtiesh


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The Real India · Global Voices
Rezwan

Radio Open source is producing a series of articles and podcasts on the theme ‘Real India’.

author: Rezwan


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Trinidad & Tobago: Big River · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

My Chutney Garden visits Grande Riviere, “a small fishing village that is best known for attracting nesting leatherback turtles.”

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Bangladesh: An Important Recognition · Global Voices
Rezwan

Andalib at Cadet College Blog discusses [bn] about the recent decision of Bangladesh election commission to recognize “sex worker” as a profession in the voter ID.


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Bhutan: An Inspiring Man · Global Voices
Rezwan

Dorji Wangchuk introduces us to Dr Sanga Dorji, chief physiotherapist in Thimphu hospital, whose blindness did not stop him from being the best at his professional field in Bhutan. Tshering Tobgay interviewed Dr. Dorji earlier.


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Brunei: “I’m sorry” video now a youtube sensation · Global Voices
Senor Pablo

The youtube video of a young man named Zek from Brunei pleading forgiveness to his girlfriend became a popular trending topic on social networks last August 18. The video generated over 41,000 hits in a span of three days.  Facebook, Twitter and the video on youtube were buzzing with comments with many netizens sympathizing with the young man. But there were also web commenters who loathe the whole video episode.
Below is the popular youtube video
My7thlife explains the popularity of the video.
This video of apology to his girlfriend was made by a local named Haziq (famously known as Zekzek)  and has made a very big buzz on Twitter and Facebook. When I watched  this the first time, way before it went past the 1 minute mark, I had to  share it with my friend and watch it together because I, for one, can’t  stand to watch it on my own.
I had to pause in between minutes too because it was so hard for me  to laugh and watch at the same time. Zekzek, surprisingly, is taking it  all in very well. He’s accepted friend requests from strangers on  Facebook, and these new friends of his poke fun at his “bravery”, yet  he’s still cool about it.
Reportedly, he uploaded this video on YouTube a month ago, but became  an overnight sensation just last night! He deleted the video, but  someone re-uploaded the video, and I’m thinking that he just gave up and  is willing to let it pass. Although I think it’ll take Brunei a few  months to get over this.
I think what made people find this absolutely hilarious is the fact  that he calls himself “hubby”, and dubs his girlfriend (ex?) as  “Princess of The Earth”.
CKTB drew a cartoon based on a popular line in the video: ‘Nda Cali Wah’  means ‘Not funny!’ RanoAdidas thinks the video made internet history in Brunei
Cartoon by CKTB
…#Zek the new sensation in the making. He is definitely the new Justin Beiber of Brunei and no one from Brunei at this moment can surpass the popularity of Zek in the Internet.
His message to Zek
I had a mixed reaction as I want to salute you at a certain point but  also cracked up because of the delivery. As for the entertainment  factor, I have to give an A+ and the number of views speak for itself. But you are on hell of a brave man to  face all these attentions (good and bad) and yes, you are in Brunei where people just yadda, yadda, yadda.. Remember, buddy, there's always a  price for fame and it's how you handle it and plus, it's a learning  process. You can't just simply please everyone.
RanoAdidas also interviewed Zek to find out the story behind the video:
RA: So how long has the video be uploaded on the net?
Zek: This video was actually uploaded last month but it was set for private use. But someone managed to get hold of the video and posted it in the last 2 days.
RA: Have you been receiving lots of messages from ladies?
Zek: No, but many sent messages through my inbox and felt sorry for me
RA: How do you cope with the negative comments?
Zek: The negative comments? I'm pretty cool about it. Maybe some of them were rude but I don't care. It's not like I'm the one who spread the video. I'm more of a victim
RA: So what is it like be in the spotlight?
Zek: Haha.. It feels like a dream. I just don't know what to say..
RA: So which is your favourite tag-line in the video?
Zek: My favorite has to be “The Princess of the Earth”
Funnyman and popular blogger Kurapak also discusses the phenomenon of the video in his post – The Prince of the Earth. Meanwhile, Brunei Lifestyle described the video as the best reality show in Brunei
“A tribute to Zek – My apology” has Bruneians talk and discuss endlessly on the video. My whole family, from mom to mom’s youngest  grand-child gathered around the small notebook as if we were waiting for an official announcement on the result of the sighting of the moon, and watched the video. I think this is the best reality show from Brunei. I have never seen a guy’s sincere face in making an apology.
TigerLim, who claims to be the ‘No. 1 Broken-English Blogger’, re-edited the video to shorten it to 6 minutes and added an English  translation since many of the lines are delivered in Bahasa Melayu(Malay). The video can be viewed here.
T-shirt design by Tiger Lim
Soulekoneksen wants to get hold of Zek and be his PR Manager :
“How do I get hold of #Zek? I’ll be his manager and make him into a Star! #Brunei He needs good PR! LOL!”
On Twitter, my response on whether others see merit for a single man to address himself as hubby to a girl he is courting:
snrpablo: What is with unmarried guys calling themselves HUBBY… NIKAH DULU OIIIII!!!#FAIL
Within a few  hours, it was retweeted by more than a dozen local twitterers. @Emmagoodegg tweeted how the usage of ‘hubby’ creates a social dilemma
@Anniekins36 Gawd that's true Anniekins, even when I  have to shorten Beloved Husband to , ‘Hubby’ on Twitter I cringe just a  lil’ bit! Haha
@esteillha What gets my goat most is kids  referring to themselves as “Hubby” when not married. Is this a trend? Am  I too old and not cool??
I asked the same questions on Facebook and interestingly the following response came from an educator who is concerned about the current trend of unmarried guys addressing themselves as ‘Hubby':
Irene: I am so 200% with you on this one!!! My students (some of them) call each other hubby and wifey!!! Kan terjeluak  mendengar!!!!It's a   challenge for me as I have to deal with these young adults, as they want us to call them (??!!??),…   everyday but so quite immature at the moment, na'udzubillah, I have kids growing up as well but the level of maturity that I get to teach every year just keeps on becoming very very low!!! A very vast difference with the ones I used to teach in the late 90s and early 2000. I think these youngsters need to be re-educated once more! Kalah2  ketani yg andang expose dari damit ani tah pulang. hehehe
Some guys from the Nasi Katok Productions made a response video, The ZEK. They wrote
dedicated to Zek Zek Kaachinggzz, from NKP. we are always gonna support you bro. Kaachinggzz all the way!
Within another hour, another song video dedicated to Zek appeared on Facebook.   Isyrah Fikri Osman made the song video tribute.
Zek's popular video is being compared to the video of  Achai,  – a young soldier who dedicated a song to his girlfriend, Aku Bana bana kan kau!! ( I'm serious about you). Without a doubt, Zek is now the newest internet overnight sensation in Brunei.

author: Senor Pablo


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Burundi: At Rainbow’s end · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Christopher Redmonds blogs about the shooting of a new movie in Burundi: “The film is based on the true story of a man who fled to Tanzania in 1972 after coming home to find his wife and daughter murdered.”


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China and North Korea: Jet Crash · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Adam Cathcart from Sinologistical Violoncellist looks into the strange jet crash incident in Liaoning province. Some Chinese netizens commented that the incident is the the North Korean version of Lin Biao.


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China and the U.S: Trouble Waters · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Sinica podcast looks at the trouble waters between China and the U.S around China’s coast.


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Colombia: Ongoing Online Reactions to Mass Grave La Macarena · Global Voices
Lully Posada

At the beginning of this year, El Nuevo Herald [es] reported on the discovery of a mass grave containing more than 2,000 unidentified corpses buried in the municipality La Macarena, located about 280 km (170 m) south of Bogotá, in the department of Meta, The bodies were allegedly taken there by the Army and identified as combat casualties. The mass grave was quickly referred to as “La Macarena” because of its location.
In Colombia, the discovery was announced on December 11, 2009 by newspaper El Espectador [es]. However, the news agency EFE released a report in February 2009, which was mostly ignored by Colombian mass media [es]. The international media eventually published the story as well; Spanish center-left daily Público.es [es] echoed previous reports, and Constanza Vieira wrote a broad and disturbing overview for IPS [es]. Although the story was reported months ago, commentary on the mass grave and its implications continues to invade the Internet through blogs and social networks.
On Twitter, Javier Salazar (@F0405) shares a video [es] where, “Alvaro Uribe criticized [the] hearing for relatives of victims of mass graves.” Ángela (@Angelaaqui), with irony, quotes the phrase “continue as normal,” to refer to the attitude toward the mass grave and other security issues in Colombia. Edmundo Villarroel (@Evill24) writes:
en  Colombia lo podrido no es la comida son las persona, miles de muertos  encontrados en fosas comunes pero nadie habla de La Macarena
Echoing Edmundo's disappointment, Diana touches on the media's role in a post [es] for Indymedia Colombia titled,”The biggest mass grave in America (Exceeds [mass graves] of [former Chilean dictator] PINOCHET)”:
Los medios masivos trabajan sin descanso para desviar la atención y presentar la noticia maquillada restándole importancia.
Azalea Robles also refers to the lack of media coverage in the site  PCN Proceso de Comunidades negras de Colombia (PNC Process of Black Communities of Colombia), in her post [es], “The Largest Mass Grave in Latin America, Very Far from the Media”:
Fue gracias a la perseverancia de los familiares de desaparecidos y a la visita de una delegación de sindicalistas y parlamentarios británicos que investigaba la situación de derechos humanos en Colombia, en diciembre 2009, que se ha logrado destapar este horrendo crimen perpetrado por los agentes militares un Estado que les garantiza impunidad.
Cartoon by Tomáz Garzía, used with his permission. Dialogue: Man in red says, "Look William, a mass (or common) grave." Man in gray responds, "yes…common and ordinary""
On Yahoo! Answers, user El Necio answers the question, “What will happen to the biggest mass grave in Latin America found in Colombia?” with srong staments [es]:
Deberían a esta FOSA COMÚN ponerle un nombre en homenaje a sus creadores: FOSA COMÚN ALVARO URIBE-MANUEL SANTOS.
Y esto no es broma, esta fosa se encuentra ubicada en una base militar. Fue denunciada hace meses con la asistencia de diputados europeos, pero en su momento no se le dio mayor cobertura mediática. Se supone que en ella se encuentran muchos de los “falsos positivos” otro de los engendros creados por la política militar de Santos-Uribe.
The site La Silla Vacía (The Empty Chair) tries to delve into the story behind the mass grave [es] in a post titled: “What is behind the ‘mass grave’ denounced by Piedad Córdoba?” Piedad Córdoba (@piedadcordoba) [es] is a Senator who as strongly condemned the mass grave. The post reads:
Organizaciones de Derechos Humanos como ASFADHES, MOVICE Y CINEP habían acumulado una serie de denuncias de las comunidades de la zona, sobre supuestas ejecuciones extrajudiciales, desapariciones y detenciones arbitrarias, entre 2003 y 2004, pero solo después de la publicación se comenzó a hablar de dos mil muertos enterrados en una fosa común.  En 2009, una delegación de organizaciones británicas estuvo en el lugar y en su informe dijo que habían corroborado la existencia de la fosa, aunque no suministraron ninguna prueba de ello. (…) El representante a la Cámara del Polo Democrático, Iván Cepeda, quien estuvo en la audiencia de la Macarena y ha hecho seguimiento al tema, dijo que en efecto el hallazgo ha sido de 449 cuerpos y que están enterrados individualmente en un terreno que fue anexado al cementerio y que colinda con la base militar.
User GRGJ defends former President Uribe [es] in the comments section of a cartoon by Tomáz Garzía in the site EquinoXio:
(…) todo el mundo sabe que la macarena es una zona guerrillera, y recuperada por el gobierno del gran ilustre por excelencia  Dr. Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Ex Presidente por excelencia.  La guerrilla ha matado centenares de personas inocentes, militares, policías, niños, ancianos (…).
In the blog 2Tutor Virtual, Carlos Gamboa shows his indignation and impotence through a poem, in a post [es] called, “Clamor in the Mountains of La Macarena”.
Abro la ventana
Y el olor a sangre se cuelga en las cortinas
Mientras afuera ríen.
¿Quién cerró los ojos de la noche
Bajo la piqueta furiosa de los días?
Cuerpo sin rostro, rostro sin cuerpo
Collage de destrucción en las llanuras.
Voz del viento gutural,
Si encuentras a tu paso algún vestigio
Dile al hombre que lloro su destino.
Finally, Tomáz Garzía uses his creativity –and irony– in his blog Mundo Desgrafiado, presenting a bleak picture of the issue by using the Guinness World Records as a reference in his post [es], “Colombia debuts in a new Guinness Record: The largest mass grave in Latin America.”
Hasta hace unos meses, Colombia era para los extranjeros sinónimo de drogas y café, pero en ambas cosas nos superaron Brasil y Bolivia, respectivamente. Por eso, hay que agradecer al gobierno saliente procurar que Colombia fuera recordada por la comunidad internacional gracias a un novedoso, reciente y sorpresivo record: ser la sede de la fosa común más grande de la historia de Latinoamérica.

author: Lully Posada


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Colombia: Siblings Create Dining Hall for Hungry Children · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

María Eugenia, from the blog La Mariposa, writes [es] about María Cenelia and Carlos Hernán, a sister and brother who created a dining hall for children in Cali, Colombia. The hall became foundation Funcreamor, serving children that would otherwise go hungry. The foundation has a Facebook [es] profile where they post pictures and information; in their latest post, they announce the dinning hall will be closed next week because they don't have enough food.

author: Silvia Viñas


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El Salvador: Climate Change and Migration · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

Tim's El Salvador Blog recommends an essay by his friend Beth, “who works with a local community on reconstruction projects necessitated by weather disasters” in El Salvador. The essay is called, “In Search of Shelter and Protection: Environmental Migration and Climate Change.”


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Explicit Websites Blocked In Nepal And Violators To Be Criminalized · Global Voices
Rezwan

XNepali Blog informs that the Nepalese Government has decided to block all websites containing explicit contents and nudity and criminalize the violators who view or host such websites in Nepal.


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Guatemala: Almost 1,000 Children Live in Temporal Government Housing · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

In his blog Carpe Diem, Luis Figueroa wonders [es] what will happen to the almost 1,000 children who live in temporal government housing while they wait to be adopted into a home or return to their own.


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Hong Kong: Policemen Issued Threats On Facebook · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Two policemen wrote in Facebook that they would shoot, Amina, the cop-slapper. Upon investigation, they have been assigned to desk duty and not allowed to carry firearms. However, similar threats made by ordinary citizen had ended up in court with criminal charges. (more from ESWN)


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India: Plights Of The Deaf Students · Global Voices
Rezwan

Sukanya at Notes From Wherever I Happen To Be shares the plights of the students of two deaf schools in Bhubaneswar and comments that the “India shining” slogan seems mere rhetoric.


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Liberia: Charles Taylor Trial Update · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Alpha Sesay writes about the testimony Isa Sesay, the former interim leader of the Sierra Leonean rebel group that Charles Taylor is accused of providing support at the Charles Taylor trial at the Hague.


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Madagascar: The Undercover Investigations That Exposed Rosewood Trafficking from the Rain Forest  · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

One of the consequences of the enduring political crisis in Madagascar is its punishing impact on the  environment, especially on the rain forest that is being pillaged because of a lucrative illegal rosewood.  The combined work of activists and organizations specialized in conservation and protection, and investigative work in environmental crimes and exposing corruption in natural resource exploitation and trade was instrumental in documenting these environmental crimes. The investigation conducted by various independent environmental agencies showed that the illegal logging of rosewood was worth $460,000 USD/day. The reports also revealed that the illegal trafficking was sanctioned by the government of Madagascar who authorized the transportation of containers containing the rosewood logs.  The investigations were conducted for more than 2 years  and started when the previous administration were still in place.  The issue has only made its way into the political debate and the Malagasy mainstream media in the last few months partly because of the indisputable evidence collected and published by the agencies.
Village Scene in the vicinity of Masoala National Park – invaded by loggers (copyright Global Witness)
Many environmental and transparency organizations are to be credited for conducting the investigation in spite of the political turmoil, legal uncertainty and death threats.  We interviewed Rhett A. Butler, creator of the environmental science and conservation website Mongabay and Reiner Tegtmeyer, member of the Global Witness team, an organization that exposes the corrupt exploitation of natural resources and international trade systems  about the many challenges of protecting the environment in an embattled country and the role of technology in collecting data for their reports. The full reports on the extent of the traffic and the authorities involved can be found here (Global Witness) and  here (Mongabay).  Important  policy reports on the protection of environment were also published by the  Madagascar Wildlife Conservation and Jane Goodall Insitute and the International Resources Group, USAID and  Madagascar National Parks.  These investigations were mostly conducted independently of the others except for a few collaborations.
Mongabay team in Madagascar- Credits Benja R. at wildmadagascar.org
The Role of Technology and Cost of Investigative Report:
Rhett Butler explains that a team effort was needed to not only collect the evidence but also get the words out in the news and on social media platform:
Jeremy Hance, Rowan Gerety and the local anonymous tippers were instrumental in collecting and organizing the information. Tipsters took pictures with mobile phones and basic digital cameras, sent reports via email and text.  Tipsters would monitor shipments at the port and passing tracks and report via mobile. The Missouri Botanical Garden financed the acquisition of high resolution imagery that was used to document where rosewood logs were being stored.  This information was conveyed to local authorities (who did little), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (to investigate under the Lacey Act), the French delegation in Copenhagen, and media (which mostly ignored the story) [..] Satellite imagery from what I understand  is expensive and  Google Earth imagery is not good enough (resolution and frequency) in this case.  Mongabay itself did not have a set budget and mostly relied on voluntary and collaborative work.
Reiner Tegtmeyer also emphasized that many people ( from Global Witness and outside) were involved in the investigation and the production of reports. He breaks down the cost of conducting the investigation as follows:
a) the investigation’s scope (geographical, thematic), b) the target country’s transport conditions and flight fares to that country, c) number of stakeholders and persons/organisations affected by the investigation’s subject that need to be consulted, and d) whether local experts (technical experts, guides, translators) need to be contracted. The costs for a 4-week field investigation like the one in Madagascar would be of about USD $50- 80,000, including expenditures for backup and administrative support, insurance and production and publication of reports.
Sattelite image of rosewood containers courtesy of the Missouri Botanical Gardens
The Challenges in Protecting  the Environment
Madagascar is a remote place for the rest of the world and the rain forest is remote even for Malagasy people in the capital city. Yet Reiner Tegtmeyer does not think distance was the main issue but rather the lack of political will  to prevent more illegal logging:
The main challenge is to break the complicity of government official, in particular reportedly the Prime Minister, and the timber barons in the SAVA Region. Consequently, the Government issued again and again “exceptional” exportation authorizations for the timber barons operating in SAVA Region of precious wood officially recognized as being of illegal origin. But there are also the financial constraints the Interim Government is facing due to punitive sanctions against the country that makes it desperately searching for funds. A further challenge is insufficient staffing and provision of technical and logistics equipment of the National Parks management and the regional forest and environment administration which results in limited and inefficient control operations. Collaboration with law enforcement agencies can partly mitigate these problems but cannot be seen as a definite solution. Furthermore, reported and observed complicity of certain elements of the Gendarmerie jeopardizes effective law enforcement efforts.
Rhett Butler  agrees that political will is critical. A task force was set up by the current government months ago but it ended with little impact and the members recently complained publicly that they never received their overdue salaries [fr].   Butler also mentions that cyber-attacks were launched against his site and that he received  the death threats  trying to expose the lucrative trafficking:
I'm still not confident however that illegal logging or shipments of rosewood will not resume again soon.  It's going to take political commitment to end the trade.  From my perspective, the situation is now at a point where engagement of other parties is going to be more useful in advancing the issue. It's also a problem that the press doesn't care that much about such issues and that most Americans don't know anything about Madagascar [..] I don't engage with politicians in Madagascar.  Both the Rajoelina camp and the Ravalomanana camp contacted me but I didn't respond because neither camp offered concrete solutions to end the trafficking.  In March 2010,  a cyber-attack was launched against my sites that corresponded with the peak of the activity around the Delmas shipment.  The attacks–which used two very different tactics, one fairly blunt, the other more nuanced–appeared to originate in China, although it's hard to say. I also got some threatening emails from people whom I assume were associated with the loggers (wanting to kill me and in some cases my family). But they never knew where I was and I also always made sure I protected the identity and anonymity of my sources and colleagues.
Manambolo River in Madagascar courtesy of Benja R. on wildmadagascar.org
Solutions for more Effective Environmental Policies
Rhett Butler refers to his article here:
An absolute moratorium on logging combined with amnesty from prosecution for traders and a reforestation program funded by sales of illegally logged timber. The moratorium would be effective immediately with violations punishable by a long prison sentence. Any rosewood logs currently awaiting shipment in Vohemar, Tamatave, and other specified towns would be marked with a counterfeit-proof code (required for export clearance) and recorded in a digital tracking system. The logs would be auctioned via a transparent market system — the price and the log code would be recorded and publicly available.
Reiner Tegtmeyer emphasizes the need for better trained policy makers that can overcome corruption, the legal recognition of tenure and usage rights of local populations and a combination of leverage with aid money with stringent penalties and sanctions:
Pressure in international media won’t have a big impact on states/governments that already have a bad/weak reputation (see Cambodia and Burma). Yet, there is a bit leverage through conditionalities (to be) attached to aid money. With respect to tenure and usage rights of local populations, studies have shown that traditional farming methods and small-holder farming has the least negative impact on forests; if land rights are acknowledged, farmers show a high interest in maintaining their environment for future benefits.[..] the fight against illegal logging, in combination with good governance, is high on the agenda of national and international political bodies and the international donor community: Lacey Act from the US Congress and  the “Due Diligence obligation” from the European Parliament. The suspension of aid as a sanction against pariah states is a tricky issue. Not only has it left the Malagasy government without funds to curb illegal activities through regular and targeted control activities but has also caused mass unemployment and a huge surge in child labour. This fact is one of the reasons the greedy timber barons can so easily get needy people to do the dirty and very hard work to cut and transport ebony, rosewood and pallisander for making a living. The international community (IC) should support, with financial and technical aid, semi-autonomous organisations such as Madagascar National Parks (MNP) to quell the illegal activities and book the responsible parties. [..] The Malagasy Government should generate funds to effectively control activities in the forests through the overdue confiscation and sale of the stocks of illegal precious wood. In addition to the official December 2008 inventory in the SAVA main towns,  all precious wood stored elsewhere must immediately be inventoried. However, all wood not being inventoried must be destroyed as the only effective deterrent for the continuation of cutting down trees.
Final thoughts:
Reth Butler
I've been warned that I cannot return to Madagascar under the current regime.  It's sad because Madagascar is my favorite country (in fact the name Mongabay originates from Nosy Mangabe in Madagascar) but a small price to pay for helping interrupt the destruction of the island's wonderful forests.
Reiner Tegtmeyer:
At Global Witness, our work in exposing corrupt exploitation of natural resources and international trade systems, resource-linked conflict, and human rights and environmental abuses does not so much address the broad public but rather national and international policy decision makers and the international community at large who are concerned with, or somehow involved in the policies or support of natural resources extraction.
Additional resources:
National Geographic article on the depletion of Madagascar's natural resources: ” Madagascar’s Pierced Heart“
Interview in French with Hery Randriamalala, one of the lead researcher for the MWC and JGI  report.
Mongabay in Madagascar
Global Witness