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Why Students Think Reforms Fall Short of Fixing Chile’s ‘Educational Apartheid’ · Global Voices
NACLA

Student Protests in Chile (Ben Achtenberg)
This article by Emily Achtenberg is a joint publication of NACLA and The Indypendent. It was originally published on March 3, 2015, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
A new Chilean law bans profits, tuition, and selective admissions in private primary and secondary schools that receive state subsidies—but students say much more is needed to dismantle the most commodified education system in the world.
Last month, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet signed into law the most significant educational reform the country has seen in 30 years. Enacted after an eight-month legislative battle, the new law will gradually ban profits, tuition fees, and selective admissions practices in privately owned primary and secondary schools that receive state subsidies.
The long-awaited education reform—preceded by a corporate tax increase that will raise $8 billion annually for education and other social programs—addresses a key promise made by Bachelet and her center-left New Majority coalition during the 2013 electoral campaign. It has been widely hailed as a major step towards dismantling the market-based and socio-economically segregated education system, a legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973–1990). According to the Chilean NGO Educación 2020, a key actor in developing the reform package, “This law changes the Chilean education system, the most commodified in the world, by transforming education from a consumer good to a social right.”
As anticipated, the protracted legislative battle over the New Majority’s education reform galvanized strong opposition from conservative sectors. But dissent has also come from less expected quarters: the highly organized Chilean student movement. “This is not the reform we mobilized for,” proclaimed the University of Chile Student Federation (FECH), which spearheaded the massive 2011-13 demonstrations that catalyzed popular demands for education reform and paved the way for the New Majority’s electoral victory. “We have wasted a historic opportunity for educational reform, and also deeply damaged our democracy,” said Gabriel Boric, one of four student leaders elected to Congress in 2013 (who, nevertheless, voted for the reform).
To appreciate these surprisingly dissident perspectives, the new education reforms must be viewed in a broader historical context. The wholesale conversion of Chile’s system of universal, free, public education to a privatized, deregulated, demand-driven scheme, which began under Pinochet, was consolidated by subsequent democratic regimes. At the primary and secondary level, public schools have been systematically undermined by a municipalization strategy that generates widely disparate funding levels between jurisdictions, and by the creation of private schools that compete with public ones for state voucher subsidies.
Today, as resource-starved public schools continue to decline in quality, only 37% of Chilean students are enrolled in them (down from 80% in 1980). Private schools with state subsidies (like US charter schools) are the fastest growing sector, representing 56% of enrollment. Of these, one-third are non-profit (primarily owned by religious institutions) and two-thirds are for-profit. The remaining 7% are private with no state subsidies.
Most for-profit subsidized schools also charge tuition, and select (and retain) students based on their socio-economic status, test scores, and performance. As a result, each student buys the education that he or she can afford, and 44% of students—largely from poor neighborhoods and villages—do not complete high school. Still, even in the most selective institutions, students test well below average for the 34 developed nations that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), due to the lack of quality control of schools, teachers, and teacher training.
At the higher education level, 80% of Chilean students now attend private universities or technical institutes. These schools are the most expensive in the world, relative to per capita income. Students pay tuition at public universities, too, a situation relatively unique for Latin America.
While Chilean universities are technically required to operate on a non-profit basis, recent investigations have documented illegal strategies used to divert funds for private gain, including service contracts and land or infrastructure leases with related for-profit entities. Universities are also highly segregated, with admission exams disadvantaging poor students from lower quality high schools and channeling them to “storefront” institutes, where roughly half drop out with high debt burdens. Top-ranked schools, including state-subsidized public universities, are available only to elite students.
The result, according to Educación 2020, is a system of “educational apartheid” that is among the worst in the world. It reinforces and reproduces inequality in a country which has the most unequal income distribution among OECD member states (as well as the highest per capita income in Latin America).
Bachelet’s reforms, which seek to decommodify privatized primary and secondary education, are aimed at one portion of this repressive system. They will require owners of for-profit elementary and high schools to convert to non-profit status, and to admit students by lottery instead of discriminatory selection. Tuition fees will gradually be replaced by increased state subsidies.
Students say the reforms don’t go far enough, and may fall short even in meeting their stated objective. They point to loopholes that will allow “flagship” schools to maintain selective admissions for up to 30% of their enrollment. Non-profit schools can also retain transitional leasing arrangements with for-profit landlords, legitimizing continuing profits within the primary and secondary education system through the same subterfuges used by private universities.
The law, students note, also authorizes new forms of profit-taking, through state-guaranteed loans to finance the sale of for-profit schools to non-profit operators at their subsidized market value. (An earlier proposal allowing the state to purchase these properties was scrapped, due to pressure from the Catholic Church which owns a significant number of schools.) The provision responds, in part, to a scare campaign mounted by the bill’s conservative opponents, who incited parents by raising the specter of massive private school closings in response to the ban on profits. (One newspaper ad posted in December read, in part: “Private subsidized school for sale: 2,000 students, excellent infrastructure, good parents, good teachers…”)
Students also criticize Bachelet’s program for failing to restructure the decimated municipal public school system, improve teacher training, salaries, and quality control of schools, or address their key demand for free, universal higher education. Bachelet has promised additional legislation this year to deal with these issues, including free university education by 2020, although few details are forthcoming as of yet.
More fundamentally, the FECH and Gabriel Boric argue that the reforms passed and contemplated to date do not break with the logic of the neoliberal education system, and may even serve to reinforce it. By enshrining the voucher system, they contend, the reforms will continue the competition for enrollment and resources between public and private schools that has destroyed quality public education. Indeed, Bachelet has marketed the current education reform, in part, as a project to enhance “school choice” by removing cost and selectivity barriers—even though the public sector, under current conditions, can’t provide a competitive alternative.
What’s needed, according to the FECH, is a complete re-nationalization and return of education to the public sector, with funding based on institutional need rather than demand. This contrasts sharply with the views of Bachelet and Educación 2020, who envision the end result of Chile’s reforms more as a mixed public-private non-profit system, similar to the Netherlands or Belgium, that remains demand-driven.
Ex-student leader-turned-legislator Camila Vallejo has taken a more pragmatic stance, endorsing Bachelet’s gradualist program as the most practical way to eliminate profits in education without a massive expenditure of state resources. Vallejo, who will chair the education commission in the Chamber of Deputies this year, will be in a key position to shape the New Majority’s future education agenda.
The upcoming legislative battle over higher education is expected to be much more contentious than last year’s struggle. Its outcome will be strongly influenced by the  student movement’s continuing ability to articulate and link popular demands to a broader structural analysis, using the creative tactics (from school takeovers to “kiss-ins”) that have mobilized hundreds of thousands in the past.
Currently, the student movement appears to be at a crossroads. While massive demonstrations continued last year after Bachelet’s proposed reforms were announced, the passage of the bill has demobilized some sectors and created new organizational challenges.
The movement encompasses diverse political tendencies, and continually struggles to define its complex relationship to electoral politics. Recent elections have split the student leadership between left- (FECH) and right-wing (Catholic University) factions, with the latter opposed to nationalization of all universities. On the other hand, FECH, the largest student organization, has successfully united its three major political constituencies and is well positioned to lead the upcoming battles of 2015 (dubbed by FECH as the “Year of Higher Education”).
While Chilean students may be loath to claim Bachelet’s reforms as a partial victory, their experience is teaching the world how mass popular movements can transform state policy—even if they can’t win everything at once—and how difficult it is to truly dismantle the entrenched neoliberal educational model.
Emily Achtenberg is an urban planner and the author of NACLA’s blog Rebel Currents, covering Latin American social movements and progressive governments.

author: NACLA


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A Crowdsourced Project to Map the Amazon · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Image taken from the project's website.
Covering 5.5 million square kilometers (about 1.4 billion acres), and stretching across eight different countries (Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, and Surinam), the Amazon is both enormous and enormously important. With much of its flora and fauna currently threatened by deforestation and intensive farming, the exploitation of the Amazon by non-renewable and so-called renewable “resource” industries is only making matters worse.
In remote areas like the Amazon, maps and charts for navigation are virtually essential. That's where Mapazonia comes in: an “open project for crowdsource mapping the Amazon region on OpenStreetMap.” With long rivers, a rough landscape, dense vegetation, high temperatures that can reach up to 43°C (109°F), and a host of other spectacles and obstacles, the Amazon can be a very inaccessible place.
Mapazonia highlights just these challenges on its website:
El proyecto nace como iniciativa de la comunidad latinoamericana de OpenStreetMap con el objetivo de llevar adelante mapeos colaborativos sobre terrenos y problemáticas comunes a la región.
The project comes up as an initiative of the OpenStreetMap Latin American community with the aim of carrying out crowdsourced mappings about lands and problems common in the region.
Mapazonia explains:
Nuestro principal objetivo es mejorar el mapa con las geometrías de todos los ríos y carreteras.
Our main purpose is to improve the map with the geometries of every river and roads.
Mapazonia contributes to OpenStreetMap, a collaborative project to create an open and free editable map of the world. Currently, Mapazonia is working on three crowdsource mapping tasks: Acre River sub-basin in Bolivia (81 percent completed), Xingu River basin in Brazil (53 percent completed), and various basins in Colombia (99 percent completed).
Global Voices spoke with Marco Antonio Frías, a member of OpenStreetMap and the Bolivia Mapazonia project. He says the initiative started in early October 2014, during the II Regional Conference of OpenData AbreLatAm and ConDatos, in Mexico City. That was the first meeting of OpenStreetMap communities from Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Chile, and Argentina. In the meeting, activists came to focus on reactive activities carried out during humanity emergencies like flooding, earthquakes, and fires.
Later, at the Eighth Annual Conference “State of The Map” OpenStreetMap”,” in Buenos Aires, in early November 2014, the group discussed mapping the river, roads, and bodies of water that make up the Amazon region.
The project would be decentralized and rely on a diverse, self-managed, open and participative world community. Volunteers communicate using a mailing list and an IRC chat channel, and there is an official Twitter account to collect news stories and to celebrate milestones. The community is completely open to everyone—any willing contributor can co-create a map of part of the planet. There are no exclusions made based on language, nationality, location, education level, or anything. And the project is ever trying to expand its pool of contributors.
Map of the river Xingu basin in Brazil. Image used with permisssion from Mapazonia project.
Mapazonia uses the open tool Task Manager, developed and led by HOT project, which simplifies the decentralized coordination of mapping tasks.
If you want to contact the project, it's accessible at Twitter and at its own WIki, where it coordinates tasks and resources. More information is available at this blog post.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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In Caracas I Found Tehran · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

Bikinis vs Chadors in Venezuela and Iran: “After acclimatizing to Venezuela, even some of the Iranian women would adopt the more revealing dress style of their Venezuelan peers.” Shiraz street scene photo by Flickr user Gabriel White (CC BY-SA 2.0). Images remixed by Georgia Popplewell.
I wonder how much most Venezuelans knew about Iran when presidents Chavéz and Ahmadinejad began to get politically cozy, and Venezuelan and Iranian workers started flowing back and forth between Caracas and Tehran.
Iran first entered my own imagination through a world map my mother loved playing with when we were children. The map—a traditional Mercator projection of the kind that shaped the idea of the world we all had back then—covered almost half the wall of my brothers’ bedroom, and showed a country called Iran, with the word “Persia” in brackets just below. To me, at age 8, Persia was where one of my favorite games, Prince of Persia, took place.
As the years went by I encountered more Persian references in my mathematics textbooks, and Persian poets in my parents’ library. And also in movies set in that “faraway” land. Hollywood films, of course. One of them was the tragic story of an American woman who marries an Iranian and whose world falls apart when they visit his country of origin and she finds herself trapped by her husband’s deception and Iran’s repressive mores. Against the odds, she manages to escape with her young daughter, and knows she’s finally back home when she glimpses the good old Stars and Stripes….
This was a radically different image from the one I held of Persia. To me, Iran was part of the Middle East we all used to think was practically all Arab, an image shaped by the stories in The Arabian Nights. On the latter I wasn’t wrong, but I discovered this only much later, when both Iran and Persia turned up quite unexpectedly in Caracas.
In 2007 I was working at the Ministry of Popular Economy, the ministry that administered the finances for what became the Chávez administration’s backbone strategy at the time: financial support for cooperatives and training in entrepreneurship for disadvantaged communities, among other things. Most of my work involved editing and translating the documents that flowed down from management to the rest of the ministry. I would also copyedit manuals and presentations, and transcriptions involving sums of money so large that were hard to read in number form.
Among the documents that came across my desk were letters and invitations, and one of them captured my attention: a memo assigning places for a Persian-language course targeted at technicians and department heads. It seemed like a difficult and extravagant strategy, but I asked to be admitted to the course.
The classes were led by Iranians with degrees in Spanish translation and literature. Young people in their late 20s, some of them outside of Iran for the first time. For me, the classes were the gateway to a fascinating world, not only of language and grammar, but also of personal interactions. Two-thirds of the class would be spent on questions about Iran: “Why do women have to cover their hair?” “How come some of them don’t?” “Why do you have so many wives?” “In my religion, God is everywhere. Why do you people pray facing Mecca?” What began as a language class had become a class in Iranian Studies.
I advanced slowly in my language studies, but became an avid consumer of all things Iranian. The language teachers became dear friends, especially one in particular, who walked me through classical Persian music, cinema, poetry, and contemporary history. I read and listened to different accounts of the 1979 revolution, and about life in contemporary Iran. I discovered a long list of words that came from Persian to Arabic, and finally into Spanish. It was then that I found out that many of the Arabian Nights stories, including the tale that binds them all together, had strong ties with Persian traditional folk tales.
Observing how these new friends reacted to Caracas was a special experience, and hanging out with them in the spaces they lived and frequented felt like being in a tiny Tehran in Caracas. The women seemed happy not to have to wear the veil, and to enjoy buying the kind of clothes that were difficult to find back home. I got into the major experience that is waxing, Iranian style, together their ways of doing hair and make up. We exchanged Latin American rhythms with Persian ones.
The people I encountered through this exchange were a mix of language professionals, technicians, engineers and embassy employees. Some of them came with their families. Others had left families and loved ones behind.
During traditional observances, the Iranians’ political leanings became visible. Supporters of the government, for instance, would celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year, at the Embassy with prayers and a traditional meal. Opposition supporters would celebrate it dancing at home or at one of their favorite Iranian restaurants in Caracas.
In terms of freedom of speech, I was struck by an Iranian friend’s views on the newspaper I worked for after leaving the Ministry, a strong opposition paper created to critique the Government's moves and to challenge Chávez in any way possible (these days it’s in deep trouble due to the fierce backlash from the government and lack of resources). Visiting me at the office, he would stare in awe at the front pages displayed in the hallway and whisper: “In Iran this would be just impossible!”.
But most of all, we had heated conversations on Iran, Ahmadinejad, Chávez and Venezuela. Some of them liked Chávez and disliked Ahmadinejad. Some of them disliked them both. Some of them understood the popularity of both presidents, and some of them just didn’t get any of it and merely wanted a change of air. These conversations offered me a glimpse into the differences in class and approaches to religion, an insight that deepened with the arrival of new Iranian translators who had graduated from public universities, or who came from regions outside the Iranian capital.
Most of my Iranian friends were middle- or upper-class; they were more open to Western ways and more critical of the government and the idea of an Islamic Republic. To me they seemed similar to privileged young middle- and upper-class Venezuelans, but with a greater maturity that seemed to come from not having received everything they wanted.
The new arrivals were noticeably more conservative. One of the women ended up sharing an apartment with the Iranian friend who later became my boyfriend. She had a radically different attitude towards the veil from most of my friends, and would ask my boyfriend to stay in his room while she combed her hair, something he had a hard time understanding. I wonder if she disapproved of my visiting him, and even staying overnight, though if she did she never let on.
It's difficult not to imagine how shocked the more conservative and religious Iranians, like those who worked for the Embassy, must have been on first encountering Caracas. The skylines of Venezuela’s main cities bristle with huge billboards showing women in provocative bikinis, beers in hand, their open mouths beckoning sensually. The overheated rhythms of reggaeton and erotic salsa spill out of buses, and in the clubs people dance suggestively in the dark, chest to chest. It’s practically a requirement for TV stars to show lots of skin.
I know, of course, that such activities aren't entirely unknown in Iran. There’s Persian reggaeton and wild parties are reported to take place in certain sectors of Iranian society. But much of what I describe above could hardly be experienced so openly in Iran. I recall seeing a group of Iranian Embassy staff dining at a popular Persian restaurant, looking down at the table, visibly embarrassed, as a Shakira-impersonation contest degenerated into a pole dancing session on the restaurant’s TV set.
My male Iranian friends say that when they first arrived it was hard not to stare at Venezuelan women in shock, but they adapted quickly to the laid-back atmosphere, despite long hours working under the sun on projects in the countryside, translating for Iranian technicians that needed them to continue working with them, often with no compensation for the many hours of overtime. Despite, too, the wretched housing conditions they often had to endure, and the odd selection process under which they were rarely told the exact dates or conditions of their departure from Iran. After acclimatizing to Venezuela, even some of the Iranian women would adopt the more revealing dress style of their Venezuelan peers.
It was not uncommon for the work contacts the Iranians made to turn romantic, as happened in my own case, or even to evolve into marriage.Romance bloomed in spite of language barriers, and at the construction plant in Guarico state where my Iranian translator boyfriend was posted, one heard stories of Iranian technicians disappearing with female co-workers during the work day. The bus that brought the work teams to and from the plant was full of couples who could barely communicate with each other, and the Iranian translators were sometimes called upon by their male compatriots to translate love declarations for prospective Venezuelan girlfriends.
Venezuela’s relationship with Iran hasn’t been free of controversy. Opposition leaders fear the country’s becoming an active player in the politics of the Middle East. In 2009 Chávez reported that Iran was helping Venezuela explore for uranium, and online political commentators (es) and others have spoken of an alleged influx of Hizbollah fighters into the country.
Meanwhile, other kinds of exchanges have taken place on both sides: Iranian streets named after Chávez and Bolivar; Venezuelan bands making music videos featuring Tehran. A new television and online channel proposed by the Iranian government is targeted at a Latin American audience, while in Venezuela Iranian cooking workshops and Persian language courses proliferate, something that would have been impossible to find ten years ago.
Cultural exchange? Propaganda? A bit of both? It is difficult not to worry about the direction certain alliances can take, but what fascinates me are the cultural and personal encounters that take place outside the sphere of government interference. Omitting these would leave the picture incomplete.
The political alliance continues. We do not know how long it will last, despite the ardent declarations made by leaders, who say it will last forever. Like some of the love affairs I saw blooming back at the plant in Guárico state, the relationship between Venezuela and Iran may be passionate today, but it is also tumultuous and uncertain. What will happen to the relationship if oil prices keep going down, and if Venezuela's social and economic situation continues to deteriorate?
But beyond these fears, I know that many invisible bridges have been built for good. All of my female Iranian friends married Venezuelans, and will surely raise a new generation of Perso-Venezuelans that few would have thought possible a decade ago. A special group of Iranians is still discovering Latin America in different ways. My own romantic attachment may have not lasted, but the one I forged with the cultures of Iran is unbreakable.
I still turn my head when I hear somebody speaking Persian, I still try to memorize poems in the language, and in moments of doubt I look for answers in Hafiz’s ghazals. I’ve chose Iranian subjects for academic papers, and I suffered deeply when people dear to me were caught up in the protests and the repression that followed the Iranian elections in 2009, particularly when one of them was jailed and wounded morally and physically in prison. I still wonder if, after that experience, he managed to keep alive the fine and sensitive spirit that had so attracted me when I met him back in Venezuela.
Cultures exchanged, but through human interactions. Cultural horizons opened, comfortably or uncomfortably, for better or worse. The intercultural is the interpersonal. As I dust off these memories I remember the words of a dear friend, a writer and a longtime Venezuelan activist, who, like me, became quite enchanted with Iran through its people. He was once married to an exceptional Iranian woman, an activist before and after Khomeini’s times. He once told me: “Once an Iranian crosses your path, you will never be able to escape their charm.”
Years later, even now that I'm living in France, his words still resonate. Whatever Iran or Venezuela were, or will become, the thing that will last are the new cultures built by people out of the need to open oneself to new worlds. My encounter with Iran is the proof that cultures are in reality an almost ungraspable universe, difficult to define in a decent number of words. History, class, politics, religion and literature draw so many different pictures of this country, that one is always shocked by attempts to oversimplify the reality.
It feels right, then, to draw inspiration from the words of a beloved writer to explain what Iran was, is, or can be, at least for me: Only with the greatest simplification, and looking for convenience, we talk about one Iran. In reality, except for the geographical appellation, the Iran we think we see might not even exist.

author: Laura Vidal


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Firing of Mexican Journalist Carmen Aristegui Unleashes Heated Comments on Twitter · Global Voices
Patricia Carolina Saucedo Añez

At the launching of MéxicoLeaks, a platform that collects leaked information about possible corruption, journalist Carmen Aristegui and her research team declared that they would back the project. This lead MVS Radio, their employer, to fire Aristegui's collaborators, Daniel Lizarraga and Iriving Huerta, for supposedly compromising the company name. In response, Aristegui demanded that the radio station rehire Lizarraga and Huerta, after which the company let her go as well.
This led to an outcry of support from followers on Twitter, who openly displayed their indignation for MVS News with the hashtags #EnDefensaDeAristegui (Defending Aristegui), #EnDefenesaDeAristegui2, and #AristeguiSeQueda (Aristegui stays). Users also discussed the state of freedom of expression in Mexico.
Mi apoyo para Aristegui, #AristeguiSeQueda pic.twitter.com/RbQIDk81aj
— Katarina Marsal (@KatarinaMarsal) marzo 16, 2015
I support Aristegui.
The Power of a Woman's Voice
“By censuring Carmen Aristegui, we all lose, as does Mexico's democratic process. We cannot help but think that her forced removal is connected to the critical attitude that this brave and magnificent journalist has demonstrated throughout her successful carrer.
México #NoTeCalles No perdamos la dignidad! #EnDefensaDeAristegui
— Diana E. González (@dianaegzz) marzo 16, 2015
Mexico, #NoTeCalles [don't be silent]. Let's not lose our dignity!
¿Despiden a Aristegui? Nosotros los mexicanos despedimos a MVS #EndefensadeAristegui2 #endefensadearistegui http://t.co/QnCtzoKzYJ
— @ngie ❥๏̯͡๏Ƹ̵̡ (@angieeus) marzo 16, 2015
They fired Aristegui? We Mexicans fire MVS.
MVS is accused of being linked to the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI in Spanish).
Será?? Qué opinan? #endefensadearistegui #EndefensadeAristegui2 pic.twitter.com/oJaDS95ZE5
— IrreverenteMente (@hectorghs) marzo 16, 2015
Could it be?? What do you think?
Se te invita a bloquear a @NoticiasMVS Unfollow masivo !! Si se nota el apoyo muchas gracias. #EndefensadeAristegui2 pic.twitter.com/4xN4zKM6fk
— Anonymous México (@AnonymousMex_) marzo 16, 2015
You're invited to block @NoticiasMVS through a massive unfollowing! The support is truly felt, thank you so much.
“Due to a lack of integrity, ethics, and balls to create real journalism, participate in the massive unfollowing of @NoticiasMVS”
On the flip side, the hashtag #LárgateAristegui (Get out Aristegui) spewed criticism and verbal attacks at the Mexican journalist:
A Carmen le encanta ser el centro de atención y hacerse la víctima. Tiene complejo de mártir. #LárgateAristegui
— Alguien. (@cuasimod0) marzo 16, 2015
Carmen loves being the center of attention and playing the vicitim. She has a martyr complex.
Que bueno no queremos lesbianas asquerosas #LárgateAristegui
— carlitos (@carlito7777777) marzo 16, 2015
Good, we don't want any nasty lesbians.
The governing party, PRI, is accused of creating this hashtag:
“PRI paga a peñabots para hacer TT #LárgateAristegui, como forma de represión a la libertad de expresión” -AristeguiOnline 989,876,565 likes
— SoyBienPedote™ (@SoyBienPedote) marzo 16, 2015
The PRI pays its peñabots* to create the trending topic #LárgateAristegui as a way of repressing freedom of expression.
Peñabots are presumed to be fake accounts set up by President Peña Nieto's administration in order to counteract any opposition towards the government.

author: Patricia Carolina Saucedo Añez


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Google Art Project Now Features Ukrainian Street Art · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Street art by Ukrainian collective Dobrye Ludi. Image from respublicafest.com.
Ukrainian graffiti and street art, previously visible mostly to Ukrainians and tourists walking the streets of Ukrainian cities, is now available to Internet users across the globe. Google Art Project, an extensive online collection of works of art of different genres and periods, curated by the Google Cultural Institute, now features a collection of Ukrainian street art.
Art by M-97.
Street art first appeared on Google Art Project in June 2014, and today the website features over 10 000 high resolution works of street art from 86 artistic collectives in 34 countries. The newly added Ukrainian works come from participants of “Respublica,” an international street art festival, and add to an extensive collection of captured images in an attempt to archive graffiti and murals before they disappear.
Стріт-арт перетворює вулиці міст у відкриті галереї. На жаль, ця форма мистецтва є дуже ефемерною – вона може існувати сьогодні, а вже завтра зникне назавжди. За допомогою Google Art Project ми намагаємось зберегти вуличні шедеври та зробити їх доступними для всіх.
Street art turns the city streets into open galleries. Unfortunately, this art form is rather ephemeral—it can exist today, and be gone forever tomorrow. With Google Art Project, we try to preserve the street masterpieces and make them accessible to everyone.
Art by Kislow.

author: Tanya Lokot


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Liberia77: Liberia’s History Through Photos · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

“Imagine life without photos. No smiling faces. No family snapshots. No record of your past,” says Liberia77, a project that documents Liberia's history through photos:
When Canadian brothers Jeff and Andrew Topham returned to the war torn West African country of their childhood to re-shoot their father’s photos for a documentary, they also found a nation whose own photographic memory was destroyed by war.
Since 2011, over 2000 images of pre-war Liberia have been uploaded to this site.
In November 2012, the team returned to Liberia to mount an exhibition of some of the best.
Liberia ’77 is still gathering images from pre-war Liberia.  Help us restore the photographic history of a nation.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Looking Beyond Boko Haram: Rediscovering the Ténéré Desert in Niger · Global Voices
Rakotomalala

Tree of Ténéré in 1961. CC-BY-SA 2.0.
The conflict with Boko Haram in southwest Niger currently monopolizes the country's news. On March 3, Boko Haram killed 19 civilians in an attack on two villages, Kiu Keleha and Toubu Buka, situated on the Nigerien banks of Lake Chad. In response, Nigerien armed forces have joined neighboring military groups to collaborate a counterattack on Boko Haram.
Despite these efforts, however, Niger's southwest remains isolated and vulnerable. A new initiative by Nigerien bloggers, Mapping for Niger, is helping to increase national awareness by mapping the country’s towns, revealing a side of Niger that many living there didn't know existed.
Just like the Tree of Ténéré (which was for a long time the most isolated tree in the world, until it was destroyed by a negligent driver), east Niger is partially isolated from the rest of the country. This isolation makes it more difficult to coordinate efforts to combat Boko Haram, exposing it to assaults by the rebels.
The history of the region, and more specifically the Tree of Ténéré, however, is quite unique.
The legendary Tree of Ténéré was an acacia, isolated in the middle of the desert, the only tree for 400 kilometers (250 miles) around. It was the only tree in the world to be so isolated, serving as a landmark for the caravan routes crossing the Sahel, but also inspired many poets, who fell in love with the desert, as shown in these videos by A. Décotte:
and B. Hofmans:
On Google Maps and Google Earth, the location of the Tree of Ténéré is marked by a stunning photo of the tree overlaid with a phrase from “The Little Prince” (shared by Pierre Destruel):
“The Little Prince is Back: What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” Photo composition by Pierre Destruel.
P. Destruel has added the following caption to explain the image he has made between the tree and The Little Prince, quoting a passage from the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:
Look at it carefully so that you will be sure to recognise it in case you travel some day to the African desert. And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry on. Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back.
The Mapping for Niger project, helped by a grant from Rising Voices, aims to enrich the country’s maps with information that will enable the identification of various establishments and main roads throughout the country. This project is being run collectively by the geography department of  the Abdou Moumouni University in Niamey, its students, Open Street Map, and Rising Voices. The project trains students and the rest of the team in the skills they need to participate in a collaborative open-source mapping project.
Armed with these news skills in mapping and citizen journalism, participants have been going out into the surrounding rural villages to map key sites, such as schools, roads, and hospitals. They have also used their skills to link the maps created directly with the needs of the local communities. On International Women’s Day, for example, the contribution of female participants was recognised and celebrated at a training workshop with the organisations ITECH CENTER, Fada Tech, and Femmes & Tic Niger (an association created by Fatima Alher, a member of the Mapping for Niger project):
OpenStreetMap Mapping workshop with Femmes & TIC Niger (created by Fatima Alher), via Mapping for Niger on Facebook.
So far, the project has helped improve and enrich maps of Madaoua, Niamey, Dosso, Zinder, Kolmane, and Guidan Toudo. The project will also expand gradually to other regions of Niger. Other organisations, such as Search for Common Ground, will collaborate with these initiatives to strengthen the communities in vulnerable areas. Although this is still an informal collaboration, Search for Common Ground is involved in several other important projects, including efforts to strengthen social cohesion and advance the peace process, particularly among young people of Zinder:
We succeeded in training 172 youth, including more than 40 young women. Participants came from various socioeconomic backgrounds, ranging from university students to illiterate gang members, and were of different ethnicities, ages, and institutional affiliations. Another 806 young people, 10% of them women, shared their thoughts on new concepts and discovered how to apply them in their own context. After our training, a reformed gang leader requested an extra restitution session for the students of a vocational school in Zinder.

author: Rakotomalala


text:
New Iranian Bank Note Replaces Nuclear Symbols with University Gates · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

The Central Bank of Iran revealed a new 50,000 Rial bank note to depict the gates of the University of Tehran on the back. The image replaces a map of Iran with a nuclear symbol.
The Central Bank of Iran unveiled a new 50,000 Rial bank note on March 2, in what has been deemed a “political move” by some observers. The new note, which was unveiled with members of the University of Tehran's faculty on March 4, 2015, replaces the nuclear symbols that covered a map of Iran with the gates of the University of Tehran.
At the moment, the Iranian government is in negotiations over its nuclear program with the P5+1 in Lausanne, Switzerland. The deadline for the negotiations are set for the end of March. A nuclear deal will determine the level of Iran's nuclear enrichment in addition to how sanctions will be lifted from Iran.
Sociologist and Associate Director of Princeton University's Iran Center, Kevan Harris, posted the news on his Twitter page:
Iran's Central Bank issues new 50K rial note. Old one had nuclear symbol, new one has Tehran University gates: http://t.co/AM8aN0yhX7
— Kevan Harris (@kevankharris) March 16, 2015
Yes it is political. The previous 50K bill: http://t.co/pOl2IXB5ZZ
— Kevan Harris (@kevankharris) March 16, 2015
Also replaces a quote from Muhamad with one from Ferdowsi, but I won't go there because the Muhamad quote was pure Iranian nationalism too.
— Kevan Harris (@kevankharris) March 16, 2015
In conversation with Global Voices, Harris explained the change is a reference back to an older bill printed soon after the 1979 revolution:
An old 500 Rial bill printed following the 1979 Islamic Revolution first depicted the University of Tehran gates. Images from Wikipedia.
The tehran gates were on the 500 rial bill issued in 1981 or later. So it is a reminder of that bill, but also a reminder of the importance of higher academia and education in the making of the revolutionary order and all the associations that go along with it. But, of course, nuclear energy and its association with science and progress are a similar tactic.

author: Mahsa Alimardani


text:
Nineteen People Killed in Museum Attack in Tunisia  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Anti-terror protests in Habib Bourguiba Avenue in the capital Tunis. Photograph shared by @noussa_tunisie on Twitter
At least 19 people, among them 17 foreigners, were killed when gunmen attacked the National Bardo Museum, in the capital Tunis.
German, Italian, Spanish and Polish tourists were among the dead, in addition to two Tunisians. Another 22 people were injured in the attack. Two gunmen were later killed by security forces.
The quick moving story was covered by journalists and netizens online, as more details emerged. According to news reports, the attack happened at around 12.30pm, during peak visiting hours, when the first gun shots were heard. Eight people were first killed as they got off a bus to visit the museum and another 10 were killed after being taken hostage, said an Interior Ministry spokesman.
The attack left Tunisians in shock.
Cairo-based journalist Tamer El-Ghobashy says the initial target of the attack was the parliament building, a few metres away. He tweets:
Security sources say initial target of attack was Parliament in Tunis. Gunmen attacked tourist buses as guards thwarted them at Assembly
— Tamer El-Ghobashy (@TamerELG) March 18, 2015
The parliament was locked down, while in session in a parliamentary hearing about an anti-terrorism law. On Facebook, Christine Patre shares this video showing the MPs singing the Tunisian national anthem during the lock down:
Petre writes:
Tunisian MPs sing the national anthem during parliament lock down. [Screen shot of the video as Facebook's video embed feature messes up the post]
Words can’t express how sad this is. This was a symbolic attack against democracy (the Parliament) and the economy (the touristic hotspot that is Bardo). But here’s a snippet from today to show you the Tunisia I know, the Tunisians, I know.
After the attack on the Bardo museum, which is situated next door to the Parliament, some of the Parliamentarians at the assembly, who were under an hour long lock-down before being evacuated, began to sing the national anthem and held a speech in defiance to terrorism. The sentiment was clear: “We will continue to fight terrorism!”
A parliamentary hearing about the anti-terrorism law was due to be held today, whether this was linked or not..
Tunisian Rabii Kalboussi describes the attack as the worst to grip the country in recent years.
The attack is the worst in #Tunisia modern history after the 2002 attack on the Ghriba synagogue in the touristy island of Djerba
— Rabiî Kalboussi (@Rabii_K) March 18, 2015
He adds:
Apparently #Tunisia ‘s lone wolves have waken up shifting tactics from targeting security forces to civilians and the vital tourism sector — Rabiî Kalboussi (@Rabii_K) March 18, 2015
And El-Ghobashy dishes out some praise to the Tunisian authorities:
The Tunisia attack news is moving quickly, but confirmation of facts by highest level of government there is impressive. — Tamer El-Ghobashy (@TamerELG) March 18, 2015
As night fell on the shocked Tunisian capital, thousands of people converged to Habib Bourguiba Avenue to protest the attack.
Protesters are here chanting “Tunisia is free.” In another video, the protesters are chanting: “With our souls, with our blood, we sacrifice for the martyrs.”
And while no group is yet to claim responsibility for the attack, supporters of the ISIS are claiming it as their own. J. M. Berger tweets to his 21.1K followers:
ISIS Twitter buzzing over Tunisia, but note they have lately adopted an explicitly articulated strategy of “when in doubt, assume it's us”
— J.M. Berger (@intelwire) March 18, 2015

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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The Campaign to #SaveShafqat, the Pakistani Sentenced to Death at Age 14 · Global Voices
Sahar Habib Ghazi

Updated at 19:50 GMT
What were you like when you were 14? A powerful video plea asks this question, while imploring the Pakistan government to halt the Thursday execution of Shafqat Hussain, sentenced to death when he was only 14 for being involved in the kidnapping and murder of a 7-year-old.
Right before midnight on Wednesday, TV channels in Pakistan started reporting that the President of Pakistan had postponed Shafqat's execution indefinitely.
The video was released on the morning of Wednesday on popular activist Jibran Nasir‘s official Facebook page, and is being widely shared. On Twitter, the hashtag #SaveShafqat has been used 6,000 times in last 24 hours and 13,000 times in the last 30 days.
By the evening dozens of activists gathered in Islamabad to deliver a mercy petition to the President. They were blocked by police.
Officials from Presidency tell us to return coz nothing will be done to #SaveShafqat. He says it is ‘illogical’ to intervene at this stage …
— #SaveShafqat (@SaveShafqat) March 18, 2015
Shafqat's sentence was based off a confession that his lawyers say the police got after nine days of torture.
Tortured. Raped. Nails pulled off. He was 14. And that's the state in which he confessed to a murder. Shafqat deserves justice #SaveShafqat
— Mehr Tarar (@MehrTarar) March 14, 2015
Reprieve, a UK-based human right organization that opposes the death penalty, has been working on Shafqat's case for years:
The police told him they would not stop until he confessed. He was blindfolded, kept in solitary confinement, beaten, electrocuted and burned with cigarette butts. He was just 14 years of age at the time. Shafqat said he would have admitted “that a deer was an elephant” by the time his torture was over.
But the police recorded his age as 23 when they arrested him. That record has never been corrected. Shafqat was not given access to a lawyer when he was first charged in 2004 in Karachi.
Here is the birth certificate of #ShafqatHussain soon to be hanged-minor at the time of alleged crime’ #SaveShafqat pic.twitter.com/b5xasK43Sa — Raza Rumi (@Razarumi) March 17, 2015
Justice Project Pakistan, a non-profit that defends Pakistanis on death row pro bono, has been leading the effort to prove Shafqat's innocence. Soon after the video was released, Pakistan's Federal Interior Minister Chaudhary Nisar said the Sindh government, responsible for carrying out the execution, has refused his request to conduct a DNA test to determine Shafqat's age.
Fed Govt passing the buck to Sindh Govt, Sindh Govt passing it back. No one knows who has authority to #SaveShafqat and suspend sentence
— Jibran Nasir (@MJibranNasir) March 18, 2015
The #SafeShafqat video in Urdu, produced by Tazeen Bari runs just over three minutes and features four people, including activist Jibran Nasir, answering Tazeen's question, “What were you like when you were 14 years old?” Here's an English translation of their answers by Rai Azlan:
I was really small.
I was really short and a lot fatter than this.
One second, if I want to say insecure, can I say that in English?
You can say I was an extreme introvert.
I was really insecure.
It was the first time I fell in love.
I used to play a lot of cricket.
I felt like maybe I had fallen love.
My favorite thing was music.
I loved to cook and my father used to say that I shouldn't become a cook.
I used to have a small radio. I'd lock myself in my room and listen to songs.
Whenever my teacher asked I replied that I would become Superman when I grew up.
I would do bowling like Paul Adams, what is called chinaman style. I had a strange action.
At the age of 14, at times I think that if at that time someone asked me what is right and
what is wrong I would not have been able to answer it.
I was a scared, scared like anything. Also I had no older brother back then.
I had no clue what life is.
I was still capable of doing terrible things but yes I was innocent.
Jibran Nasir then continues:
A 14-year-old child cannot get a driving license, a 14-year-old child cannot own land according to the law of this country, according to the law a 14-year-old cannot get married, a 14-year-old child cannot vote in this country, in this country a 14-year-old cannot get an identity card because he or she is a minor, is innocent, and is a child. However, the government of Pakistan gave a death sentence to a 14-year-old child. Regardless of whether Shafqat committed the crime or not, he was given a death sentence when he was only 14. Now you try to recall what you were like when you were 14 years old, and what were your ambitions back then, and what plans you had for life. And think if Shafqat should get that right or not. Should his death sentence be altered to a life sentence or should he be given a chance at rehabilitation? Shafqat's case is a trial of our whole criminal justice system of how evidence is not collected properly, how statements are recorded forcefully, and how a sentence is granted, which he does not even deserve. Save a child. Save humanity. Save Shafqat.
Citizens marching towards Presidency to submit mercy petition. Police not letting them go. #SaveShafqat pic.twitter.com/hHYxXdYUXU
— Marvi Sirmed (@marvisirmed) March 18, 2015
.@QuatrinaHosain plants herself before police cordon, refuses to budge. #SaveShafqat pic.twitter.com/ys52ysViYh
— Mighty (@mightyobvious) March 18, 2015
#SaveShafqat protesters being stalled till arrival of women police. pic.twitter.com/ducBBGKhuQ
— Mighty (@mightyobvious) March 18, 2015
Shafqat's family was hundreds of miles away in northern Pakistan when he was sentenced. Shafqat left his family in Kashmir to earn a living in the southern port city of Karachi at the age of 13.
1) Shafqat left school after grade IV. Extreme poverty made him into a child worker. Went to megapolis Karachi for work. #SaveShafqat
— Raza Rumi (@Razarumi) March 18, 2015
Shafqat's parents holding his picture. His mother hasn't seen her son in 11 years. Picture uploaded onto Twitter by @PYCAPk.
Those who were up praying in the night to #SaveShafqat weren't just praying to save one life,they were praying to save the whole of mankind.
— Jamila Hanan (@JamilaHanan) March 18, 2015
Two months ago, Pakistan lifted its moratorium on the death penalty after seven years, following the horrific attack on a Peshawar school which killed dozens of children in December 2014. Shafqat's execution date was soon set. Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan stayed his execution when he heard that Shafqat was wrongly sentenced at 14, but Pakistan’s courts recently threw out his petition and issued a fresh execution order for March 19.
Since the moratorium has been lifted, 39 people have been executed. Another 1,000 prisoners have exhausted their appeals and are set to be hanged. Currently more than 8,000 people are on death row in Pakistan, more than anywhere in the world.
Sign the petition to #SaveShafqat.

author: Sahar Habib Ghazi


text:
The Ebola Epidemic Isn’t Only Threatening Guineans’ Health · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

Scientists wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) testing samples for the Ebola virus – Public Domain
In its latest report dated March 11, the World Health Organisation (WHO) notes that since the Ebola epidemic began ravaging Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia 14 months ago, there have been more than 24,000 confirmed cases of the disease. This has caused the deaths of nearly 10,000 people (many cases are still undetected because of a lack of infrastructure).
This epidemic is well on its way to impoverishing the economies of these three countries. The World Bank estimates that the cumulative growth losses due to the epidemic will amount to $1.6 billion in 2015 for the three countries. In 2014, Liberia and Sierra Leone registered GDP growth of 2.2% and 4% respectively, compared to the forecast 5.9% and 11.3% before the epidemic.
in Sierra Leone, victory against the virus is near, with a decrease in number of infections being observed thanks to international aid, especially the US army and a proactive and assertive national policy that imposed quarantines throughout Sierra Leone's regions, accompanied by campaigns to inform and educate the population.
But the situation remains particularly worrisome in Guinea. Already with a weaker economy than the other two in 2014, Guinea's growth rate fell to 0.5% against the 4.5% estimated before the epidemic, according to World Bank. All sectors of the economy have slowed considerably. This ebb in growth increases food insecurity issues and poses an even greater threat to the over 230,000 poor and the vulnerable in Guinea. There are warnings that the number might reach 470,000 by the end of March 2015 if nothing is done. All agricultural production significantly dropped, rice production fell by 20%, wheat by 25%, coffee by half and cocoa production by a third.
Fourteen months after the death of the first Ebola victim, the local population continues to clash with security forces over the stigma that comes with infected districts, resulting in deaths and property destruction. Thus, in a note published on February 12, the International Red Cross condemned the violence that has victimized many of its volunteers:
Depuis juillet 2014, les volontaires de la Croix-Rouge en Guinée ont subi une dizaine d’attaques par mois, qui vont des agressions verbales à des actes de violence physique. L’incident le plus récent est survenu dimanche 8 février à Forécariah, dans l’ouest de la Guinée. Deux volontaires de la Croix-Rouge guinéenne ont été battus alors qu’ils étaient venus dans la ville pour organiser un enterrement digne et sécurisé d’un membre de la communauté.
Since July 2014, the Red Cross volunteers in Guinea have suffered a dozen attacks per month, ranging from verbal abuse to physical violence. One of the recent incidents occurred Sunday, 8 February at Forécariah, Western Guinea. Two volunteers from the Guinea Red Cross were beaten when they reached a village with the purpose to organise a dignified and secure burial for a community member.
Earlier in February, the arrest of an imam accused of having led the funeral rites of a person suspected to have died of Ebola has caused clashes. Bandjou Keith, a Guinean blogger at Guinee Univers, reminded readers that:
Ce n’est pas la première fois que les jeunes de yimbaya [un quartier de la banlieue de Conakry] expriment leur réticence face à l’épidémie d’Ebola dans leur quartier. On se rappelle il y a quelques mois, ils ont manifesté contre les autorités gouvernementales et communales de Matoto, les responsables de la coordination de lutte contre Ebola, les Ambassadeurs des Etats-Unis d’Amérique et de la France et les agents de médecins sans frontières (MSF) venus pour procéder à la réunion d’une sensibilisation en vue de la construction d’un centre de traitement Ebola dans ledit quartier.
It isn't the first occasion that the youth of Yimbaya (a Conakry suburb) expresses their anger about the epidemic in their neighbourhood. A few months ago, they marched against the Matoto government, local authorities, those in charge of the fight against Ebola, the ambassadors of US and France and the Doctors Without Borders team in order to get a meeting about the planned construction of an Ebola treatment centre.
Sidy BAH, a Conakry-based blogger at VisionGuinee.Info, reports of an incident at Faranah, about 450 km from Conakry:
Le virus des rumeurs semble se propager plus vite qu’Ebola. De Conakry à Coyah en passant par Dabola et Faranah, les colporteurs des rumeurs gagnent du terrain. Vendredi, la tension était vive à Faranah où des élèves affolés s’en sont pris au centre de Transit Ebola de la localité
Another epidemic, one made of wild rumours, seems to spread faster than Ebola. From Conakry to Coyah through Dabola and Faranah, the buzz dealers (or rumours hawkers) has gained ground. Friday, there was high suspense in the district of Faranah because panicked students attacked the only Transit Ebola Center located in the village.
According to Sidy Bah, rumours of Ebola being a foreign-driven disease started from schools in the urban district of Faranah following the arrival of a health team to immunise school children. The spreading of these rumors has triggered further violence. In his post, Bah gives more details on the causes of the unrest:
Le Centre de Transit Ebola, encore non achevé, situé à proximité de la cité Niger a été saccagé par des écoliers survoltés. Une équipe de Médecins sans frontières chargée d’opérationnaliser le Centre a échappé de peu à un lynchage.
Leur véhicule a été incendié par une foule furax. A l’allure où vont les choses la stratégie ‘’zéro Ebola en 60 jours‘’ se dirige tout droit vers l’échec si rien n’est fait pour arrêter les rumeurs.
The Ebola Transit Centre is still incomplete but the center that is located near the city of Niger has been ransacked by enraged students. A team of Doctors Without Borders barely escaped but their vehicle was torched by an enraged mob. The way the events are moving, the objective “Zero Ebola in 60 days” is heading straight towards failure if nothing is done to stop such hearsay.
“Zero Ebola in 60 days” is a goal that the head of states of the three countries most affected have committed to work towards starting February 15. Currently, due to lack of information and awareness, the situation is far from improving in Guinea.
Alas, these are only a few examples of the violence that has been directed against health professionals throughout the country. During the week that ended February 15, the WHO reported that 13 counties had reported at least on security incident.
Whilst announcing the beginning of withdrawal of US troops from the region, US President Barack Obama hailed the progress made in the fight against the epidemic in the three countries, but he also emphasized that in Guinea, the road ahead is still long. Analyzing the recent reports in a post published on guineenews.org, Amadou Tham Camara, a Guinean expatriate in France, noted:
Depuis le début de l’épidémie, la coordination nationale de lutte contre Ebola est éberluée, toujours avec une longueur… de  retard. Les stratégies subrepticement concoctées par Dr Sakoba, pour vaincre le Mal en Six mois, en 90 jours et maintenant en 60 jours, se sont toutes révélées inefficaces, les unes plus que les autres.
Incapable de rompre les chaînes de contamination, la coordination s’est résolue, en désespoir de cause,  de faire de l’omertà, depuis plusieurs mois, sur les chiffres des sujets “contacts” (les malades potentiels) dans ses communications hebdomadaires. Sans doute, pour ne pas heurter les sensibilités.
Mais, à ce train, tout porte à croire qu’à l’instar du patient zéro, le dernier patient d’Ebola sera…..un guinéen.
Since the beginning of the epidemic, the national coordination of the efforts to control Ebola is always stalled, always slow and often too late. Strategies surreptitiously concocted by Dr. Sakoba to defeat the evil within six months, in 90 days and now in 60 days have all failed.
Unable to break the contamination chain, the coordination effort has been reduced to silence in regards to the potential patient population, probably, in order not to offend the authorities’ feelings. It is very likely that the last Ebola patient in the region will be from Guinea.
In addition to the conflicts with security forces and the clashes with the nursing staff, cases have been registered in areas where there have been no known contamination previously. For example, the website InternationalSOS reports that during the week ended February 8, only 18% of new cases were recorded in already declared infected areas, while in an ideal case this amount should have been equivalent to 100%.
The WHO explains the risks to the community when someone is declared dead from Ebola. It's not only that they have not received treatment, but also other members have been exposed to the virus. More than 30 dangerous cases were found and 21 deaths occurred in the communities rather than in the treatment centres.
This is proof that despite official discourse, the situation is far from under control. The population is not to blame, rather it is the authorities who did not adequately and effectively communicate about how to eradicate it.

author: Abdoulaye Bah


text:
Wife of a Former World Champion Speaks Out in Bahrain: ‘He Was Arrested for Buying Cigarettes and Milk’ · Global Voices
Mohamed Hassan

A man paints a picture in support of the detainees in Bahrain during a rally in Mogsha in April 2013. Photograph by bahrain14feb bilad. Copyright: Demotix
For one young mother from Bahrain, the previous four years have been one long nightmare with no end in sight. One day, her husband ventured off to buy cigarettes and milk. The next, he is serving a 15-year sentence on what she describes as trumped up charges. And she is not alone. Hundreds of families across the country have been living this recurring nightmare since pro-democracy protests, inspired by the so-called Arab Spring, erupted in the country.
Bahrain witnessed a popular uprising in 2011, which was followed by a crackdown that is still hitting hard on the small kingdom. Four years ago, the crackdown started and a sweeping round of arrests has continued.
Bahraini activists are campaigning to stop the crackdown. A Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BCIC) that was hired by the King found that systematic torture and arbitrary arrests, along with excessive use of violence, were the norm with those arrested in the sweep. And Bahrain's justice system is still receiving strong and clear criticism from international organizations.
Among those arrested on the 16 March 2011 is the former gold medal holder in Brazilian jujitsu Mohamed Mirza. On the fourth anniversary of his arrest, Mohamed's wife, Masooma Mahdi, tweeted the story of her imprisoned husband, who went out to buy cigarettes and milk and never returned home.
She chronicles her story in 28 tweets, a story which is being repeated in countless homes across the country. Up to 4,000 people are still detained in Bahrain following the crackdown, which started on 16 March 2011, signalling the beginning of the National Safety period, which saw untold horror as the story below demonstrates.
Former gold medal holder in Brazilian jujitsu Mohamed Mirza holding his baby Jibrael before he was sentenced to 15 years in prison “for going out to buy cigarettes and milk.”
This Brazilian jujitsu champion is one of many athletes targeted by the state and framed for crimes, as part of a crackdown on Shia sportsmen. Among the other athletes arrested and tortured during this period are Bahrain's top football goal scorer of all times Ala'a Hubail and his brother Mohamed Hubail.
In this video, from the Thailand championship, held in 2008, Mirza is seen in the semi-final match in which he won his title:
Mirza's ordeal started on 16 March 2011. That was the last night his wife saw him a free man. She tweets:
“المساء الأخير”..16 مارس #بحرين#سجن_جو_المركزي #الاسرى_في_خطر يتبع
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
The last afternoon.. 16 March.
For Mrs. Mahdi, that is day to remember:
مساء 16 مارس من العام 2011، كان المساء الأخير الذي يقضيه الرياضي محمد ميرزا (أبو جبرائيل) بين أهله، زوجته وطفله وكذلك والدته وأشقاءه
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
المساء الأخير الذي ينام فيه تحت سقف بيته! لتبدأ معه فصول من حكاية كتبت حروفها من مساءات ألف ليلة وليلة
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
The afternoon of 16 March 2011 was the last afternoon the athlete Mohamed Mirza has spent with his family, the last afternoon he was able to sleep under the roof of his house, what followed was a chapter of a story fit to go within the chapters of Arabian nights.
The long hours that followed turned her life upside down. She tweets:
يوم 16 مارس، كان فاصلا، مأساويا.. وجنونيا، ففي لحظة ما ستبدأ القصة التي لازالت فصولها تكتب لغاية اليوم، وبحروف من الألم والقسوة!#بحرين
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
27 نوفمبر 2008 تزوج محمد ميرزا، وبعد سنة وسبعة أشهر رزق بولده (جبرائيل)..يتبع#البحرين #سجن_جو#الاسرى_في_خطر
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
فتكون الحسبة الدقيقة لعمر وجوده مع زوجته سنتان وأربعة أشهر ومع ولده ثمانية أشهر فقط.. وبعدها تغير كل شيء..!#Bahrain يتبع
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
16 March was pivotal, tragic and hectic. Somewhere on that day will start a story that is still being written, a story of pain and agony.
On 27 November 2008, Mohamed Mirza got married. Nineteen months later he had his first boy Jibrael. This means that the total time he spent with his wife is two years and four months, and only eight months with his child. After that, everything changed.
On that eventful day, Mr. Mirza left his house to buy cigarettes and milk for his son.
يوم 16 مارس 2011، خرج من منزله ليشتري علبة سجائر لنفسه وعلبة حليب لجبرائيل،#Bahrain يتبع
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
فتوقف الزمن حوله عند نقطة تفتيش انتزعته في لحظة فارقة من حياته لتودعه في غيابة المجهول! #Bahrain #الاسرى_في_خطر
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
ماذا لو لم يقرر محمد ميرزا في تلك اللحظة من ذلك اليوم البائس أن يخرج من بيته لشراء علبة سجائر، وعلبة حليب؟ #Bahrain #الاسرى_في_خطر
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
أكانت نقطة التفتيش ستختاره ليكون ضحيتها في واحدة من أغرب القضايا..!#Bahrain #14Feb #سجن_جو
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
On 16 March, Mohamed went out of his house to buy a pack of cigarettes for himself and milk for Jibrael. At a police checkpoint, time stopped for him. He was removed from the life he knew and thrown into the abyss.
What if he didn't decide to go out on that ominous day to get those cigarettes and milk? Would he have escaped the checkpoint that led him to be the victim of one of the most ambiguous cases?
Mrs. Mahdi then describes the ordeal that followed:
في 16 مارس 2011، اختفى محمد ميرزا، لا أحد يعلم أين تنقل بعد حاجز نقطة التفتيش؟ #Bahrain #الاسرى_في_خطر #14Feb #سجن_جو يتبع
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
كان خارجا لمشوار قصير، لكنه تأخر كثيرا..لتشتغل محركات الخوف والهلع في محيط أسرته.. #بحرين#14Feb #الاسرى_في_خطر #سجن_جو يتبع
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
لتشتغل محركات الخوف والهلع في محيط أسرته.. لم تفلح كل الاتصالات التي أجريت بحثا عنه في بيان إجابة لسؤال مُر..أين محمد ميرزا؟ #bahraim
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
On 16 March 2011, Mohamed disappeared. Nobody knew where he was taken after that checkpoint. He went out to run a short errand. When it took longer than usual, his family panicked. We tried to contact everyone we could to get an answer to the bitter question:”Where is Mohamed Mirza”?
During the National Safety days, such disappearances were a common occurrence in Bahrain. She continues:
وكعادة تلك الأيام، ليس فيها إلا قصص الاختفاء الغامضة.. والإحجام الوقح عن البيان..!#سجن_جو #14Feb #Bahrain
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
تحرك أهله في كل اتجاه، قصدوا كل زاوية يمكن أن تضعهم أمام صورة واضحة..أين محمد؟ #سجن_جو #14Feb #Bahrain
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
في تلك الإثناء، كان أبو جبرائيل يُنقل من مركز توقيف لآخر، ويتحول جسده إلى لعبة تستقبل بصمات الجلادين.#سجن_جو #14Feb #Bahrain
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
كتب على محمد ميرزا سيرة الكعب الدائر من مركز شرطة الخميس لمركز شرطة النعيم،لمركز شرطة دوار 17 في مدينة حمد، للحوض الجاف، #Bahrain يتبع
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
إلى معتقل القرين قبل بدء محاكمته العسكرية.. ليستقر أخيرا في سجن جو المركزي#Bahrain #14Feb #سجن_جو #الاسرى_في_خطر يتبع
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
رحلة شاقة، لرجل خرج من منزله في اللحظة الخاطئة فقط ليشتري علبة سجائر.. وعلبة حليب!#البحرين #سجن_جو#14feb يتبع
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
During those days, it wasn't unusual for someone to vanish. If you tried to ask about the fate of someone, you'd be faced with the insolent disregard. We tried everything. We went to every possible place that could lead us to know.. Where is Mohamed?
Meanwhile, Mohamed was being moved from one detention to the other, from one torturer to the other, leaving their marks on his body. Mohamed was destined to be paraded between detention centres, from Alkhamis detention, to Nuaim detention, to Madinat Hamad detention, to the Dry Dock, and finally to Qurain military detention before his military trial which led him to Jaaw prison. A very long trip for someone who's only crime is: he went to get cigarettes and milk at the wrong time!
Mrs. Mahdi then describes the trial saga her husband and family had to endure:
وما بين مارس 2011 لغاية مايو 2011، أعدت مسرحيات المحاكمات العسكرية، ولفقت لمحمد ميرزا وشباب آخرين تهمة مثيرة للسخرية (اختطاف رجل أمن مسلح)
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
في جلسة الثانية من مهزلة المحاكمة العسكرية، حكم على محمد ومن معه في القضية بالسجن 20 سنة، ثم خُفض الحكم إلى 15 سنة في الإستئناف#14feb يتبع
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
كانت أحكام قضائية عبثية، لا تستند على دليل واحد، سوى الاعترافات المنتزعة تحت وطأة التعذيب#14feb #Bahrain #سجن_جو الاسرى_في_خطر
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
ومع قدوم لجنة تقصي الحقائق، وتحويل ملفات القضايا للقضاء المدني#bahrain #14feb #الاسرى_في_خطر #سجن_جو يتبع
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
اعتمدت كل المراحل السابقة للتقاضي برغم أن أهم ما شككت فيه لجنة تقصي الحقائق #bahrain #الاسرى_في_خطر #14feb يتبع
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
في القضاء المدني، تم تبرئة جميع المتهمين في قضية الخطف، بإستثناء رجل واحد، هو محمد ميرزا، فتم الحكم عليه بالسجن 10 أعوام#bahrain
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
The period between March and May 2011 witnessed the theatricals of the military trials. Mohamed and several others were charged with a ridiculous offense — taking an armed trained member of the security forces as a hostage. At the second session of the theatrical military trial, Mohamed and his co-defendants were sentenced to 20 years each. It was commuted to 15 years in the judicial appeal. The sentences were random and chaotic and depended on one evidence: confessions extracted by torture.
When the BICI commenced its work, retrials were held. Cases were transferred to civilian courts, but the procedures leading to the first trials were not revoked, despite the fact the the commission found that those procedures lacked the basics of fairness. All the defendants were acquitted, except for one man, Mohamed Mirza was sentenced to 10 years!
Mrs. Mahdi concludes:
مضى على كل ذلك أربعة أعوام كاملة، هي أطول من عمر حياته الزوجية الفعلية التي لم تزد على عامين وأربعة أشهر#bahrain #الاسرى_في_خطر
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
وكل ذلك كتب، في لحظة فاصلة حين قرر أن يخرج من منزله ليشتري علبتين فقط، احداهما علبة سجائر.. والأخرى علبة حليب#Bahrain #14feb
— msmahdi (@masoomamahdi) March 15, 2015
Four years passed, that's longer than the two years and four months he spent with his wife. All of this happened when his path crossed a checkpoint he had to pass when he needed two boxes, a box of cigarettes and a box of milk.

author: Mohamed Hassan


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Will the Largest Financial Prize in the World Improve Governance in Africa? · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Namibia's outgoing president Hifikepunye Pohamba. Photo released under Creative Commons by Agência Brasil.
After 2011, it took almost four years for the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to find a suitable next recipient for its Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. In late 2014, the Prize Committee selected Namibian president Hifikepunye Pohamba.
Hifikepunye Pohamba has been Namibia's president since 2005. His second terms ends on March 21, 2014.
The Ibrahim Prize, which recognises and celebrates African leaders who have developed their countries, lifted people out of poverty, and paved the way for sustainable and equitable prosperity has been awarded only four times in eight years. Past recipients are Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique in 2007, Festus Mogae of Botswana in 2008, and Pedro Rodrigues Pires of Cape Verde in 2011.
The recipient receives US$500,000 a year for ten years, and US$200,000 a year thereafter.
The Foundation explained the reasons for choosing president Pohamba:
This award from an African foundation is a celebration of achievement in African leadership on the African continent.
The Prize Committee has decided to award the 2014 Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership to President Hifikepunye Pohamba of Namibia.
President Pohamba’s focus in forging national cohesion and reconciliation at a key stage of Namibia's consolidation of democracy and social and economic development impressed the Prize Committee. His ability to command the confidence and the trust of his people is exemplary. During the decade of his Presidential mandate, he demonstrated sound and wise leadership. At the same time, he maintained his humility throughout his Presidency.
He was deeply committed to the rule of law and to respect for the constitution, in particular on the issue of term limit. The Prize Committee also commends his respect for political opposition. His particular emphasis on issues of gender equality led to the notable achievement that 48% of Namibia's parliamentarians are female.
Opinions about the merits and relevance of the award have always been sharply divided. In 2009, Ory Okolloh said she did not see how the prize enhances governance and leadership in Africa:
I don’t get how the prize enhances governance and leadership in Africa – the problem is that most African leaders today are thieving, corrupt, buffoons who spend their time in office lining up their pockets so deep that the Ibrahim prize is chump change and that issues of legacy are irrelevant (see e.g. “I have no regrets”Moi), but I do get the part that decent leaders need a plan B – post retirement…although the fact is that most of them are voting themselves very nice “exit” packages anyway (see Mozambique, Ghana) . But, rather than rewarding African leaders for doing what they should be doing as a matter of course, why not set up a fund where e.g. if they want to build a library, or write a book, or set up a business – they have to apply for the money. So they have a plan B, it’s just not automatic.
Better still. Just shift the foundation’s focus away from things that have a minimal impact on the future of African leadership…I mean the index and the prize are just as about as impractical you can get if you are serious about changing the face of African leadership…if you ask me.
What should you be doing then you ask?
Well, any organization that is trying to do any serious work around leadership in Africa has make young people the core of any programming. Otherwise you haven’t looked the demographics of Africa yet and seriously thought about the implications. Convincing the Mugabe’s of the world to step down, is only part of the problem – you have to ask who is replacing the old guard? Is there a pipeline? Are the replacements different? Or are they just a younger, hungrier, more cynical version of the same (see Kenya’s parliament today).
I see that your foundation does offer scholarships to rising leaders, that’s a good start. But if the intention is to grow leaders at home, I would offer scholarships to enable students to attend local institutions as well.
And scholarships are so inside the box.
How about a fund for young Africans who are running for office – they have to come up with a plan, sign a commitment to good governance, and commit to being open with their campaign and if they get elected with their voting records in Parliament, public declarations etc….sound a bit crazy? Maybe. But in comparison to a index of democracy…hhhm.
Or if that’s too political – a travel fund/scholarship for young Africans to travel within Africa and spend a month or 6 months or a year – living in a different country, doing community service, writing a book, taking pictures…whatever – the underlying idea being that they would have the opportunity to get to know their own continent, to expand their worldview in a different way, to network with their fellow Africans, and to start building cross-border relationships which are critical to the future of the continent (think trade, ease of travel, etc.).
Discussing the Foundation's choice for 2014, Robert I. Rotberg, a fellow at Woodrow Wilson International Center, asked, “Did the Ibrahim foundation make the right choice?” He pointed out that most of the accomplishments the prize committee noticed where not of his own doing but his predecessor's, the first president of Namibia, Sam Nujoma:
The extent, however, to which Pohamba can take credit for these favorable results is questionable. He has been a very lackluster president of his country, and much of the progress which the ranking systems and the prize committee has noticed is largely either Nujoma’s doing or the product of other effective hands within the SWAPO ruling party. Human rights advances have been made despite official opposition. Having a free media has been achieved, too, by strenuous local efforts, certainly not thanks to a benign government. No one within Namibia would have imagined a leadership prize going to someone of Pohamba’s limited accomplishments and relatively low profile.
Indeed, if anything, Pohamba should be acclaimed for what he chose not to do, not for what he did. SWAPO has now transformed itself, thanks in part to Pohamba’s refusal to oppose change, into southern Africa’s first democratized liberation political party. Unlike the African National Congress in South Africa or the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front in Zimbabwe, over the course of 2014 SWAPO underwent a quiet internal revolution. No longer were Ovambo, the dominant ethnic group, guaranteed the top spots. Nujoma’s son, a potential heir to Pohamba, was pushed aside. In fact, SWAPO decided at two consecutive party congresses to be guided by the wishes and votes of members, not by an outgoing president.
As a result, Hage Geingob, 74. assumes Namibia’s presidency on March 21, after serving as prime minister and being exiled briefly by Nujoma. Geingob is a Damara, one of the smaller ethnic entities in Namibia, and received a British Ph. D. in 2004 for a thesis on how to promote good governance in Namibia. He was one of the founders in 2004 of the African Leadership Council.
Professor Calestous Juma, Faculty Chair of the Mason Fellows Program at Harvard Kennedy School, has a different take. He argued that Africa needs more governance prizes, not less:
Much of the debate has focused on the relevance of rewarding presidents with funds they probably do not need. Others question the criteria used for selecting the winners and argue that judgment on leadership performance should be a national matter.
These while these arguments are valid, they miss the critical role that prizes perform is benchmarking excellence. The size of the prize is an indication of the premium placed on good leadership. If good leadership was so abundant in Africa such a prize would possibly not be needed.
The prize and the media attention it generates inspires leaders and their followers to think about the value of excellence in public service. The existence of a benchmark for governance makes leaders reflect on their contributions irrespective of whether they will win the prize or not.
Unlike other prizes where winners are based on public expectations, the decision is based an elaborate research effort that uses a wide range of metrics to recommend candidates to the section committee. One can disagree with the criteria but cannot question the commitment to rigorous review.
It is true that some countries are more difficult to govern than others. This is not a reason to question the relevance of the prize. It is in fact an argument for more prizes, not less. There are many other African entrepreneurs who could help to broaden the base for excellence in public service by supporting other prizes.
Professfor Makau Mutua, a distinguished Professor of Law at the State University of New York, disagreed with Calestous Juma in a tweet that sparked a Twitter debate between the two:
@calestous @MarthaKarua Yes, but awards should be for far less money to already wealthy presidents. More should go to the needy.
— Prof Makau Mutua (@makaumutua) March 5, 2015
@makaumutua The winners can choose to give it away as they wish @MarthaKarua
— Calestous Juma (@calestous) March 5, 2015
@calestous @MarthaKarua No. It shouldn't be left up to them. A huge prize looks like a bribe to forestall corruption.
— Prof Makau Mutua (@makaumutua) March 5, 2015
@makaumutua There are many types of prizes serving different purposes. This is just one type. That's my point. @MarthaKarua
— Calestous Juma (@calestous) March 5, 2015
@calestous @MarthaKarua There aren't “many” prizes of this size, and not by Africans, or others. This was groundbreaking.
— Prof Makau Mutua (@makaumutua) March 5, 2015
The Ibrahim Prize is the largest individual prize in the world.
.@makaumutua In patronage cultures prizes are seen as gifts and not incentives. That's why the #MIFPrize is misunderstood @MarthaKarua
— Calestous Juma (@calestous) March 5, 2015
Two other Twitter users briefly debated the award's merits:
@Daniel_Finnan maybe you don't know the meaning of that prize? In recent times amidst corrupt African rulers, they found one worthy.
— Peter Akin Babayemi (@PBabayemi) March 3, 2015
@PBabayemi Hi Peter, I know the prize well. Did you know that #Pohamba‘s daughter's company last year secured a govt housing contract.
— Daniel Finnan (@Daniel_Finnan) March 3, 2015
Daniel Finnan refers to a scandal involving Pohamba's daughter, whose company was awarded a multi-million construction contract.
Calestous Juma, meanwhile, pointed out why prizes for excellence such as this one are deeply resented:
Prizes for excellence prizes are deeply resented when they threaten entitlement, patronage and mediocrity @Mo_IbrahimFdn #MIFPrize
— Calestous Juma (@calestous) March 10, 2015


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Can Artists Earn a Living in the Age of Social Media? · Global Voices
Patricia Carolina Saucedo Añez

Not only can artists live off their work, but the Internet can actually be a lifeline for them in today's increasingly competitive marketplace. The blog RamGon looks into opportunities for painters in social media and, more importantly, into how the medium can help artists to publicize and market their work.
Social Media and Painting, image from RamGon, used with permission.
In an interview with RamGon, the artist known as Goloviarte — Gregorio Lopez Vicente —  explains the risks and benefits that social media offers today's artists:
Para la publicación en esos canales, a grandes rasgos, ¿qué estrategia de publicación de contenidos sigues? ¿qué herramientas y criterios usas para llevar a cabo determinadas acciones?
Roughly speaking, in order to publish in these channels, what content publishing strategy to you follow? What tools and criteria do you use to complete specific tasks?
El único criterio que sigo es ser visto, por tanto, participo en todas aquellas redes sociales en momentos en los que veo que la gente esta participando más, como puede ser un evento, o un post con muchos comentarios en facebook, etc. Los hashtags en Twitter son muy importantes para tener visibilidad, y en cuanto a herramientas no uso ninguna, lo hago todo controlando manualmente todo desde el navegador.
The only criterion I follow is to be seen, so I take part in all those social networks in which I see people getting more involved, like when there is a particular event or a post that has lots of comments on Facebook, etc. Hashtags on Twitter are very important for visibility, but as for tools I don't use any—I do everything manually from the browser.
Here are a few examples of how Goloviarte takes advantage of social networking to market his work:
¿Quieres un mural en tu hotel ? ¿en tu oficina ? Habla conmigo #arte pic.twitter.com/7GZkv5Y6U9
— goloviarte (@goloviarte) March 7, 2015
How about a mural for your hotel? or office? Talk to me
Mis cuadros a disposición de todos mis seguidores en mi web http://t.co/kaC52HBNnvpic.twitter.com/3ftScx7XDU
— goloviarte (@goloviarte) diciembre 31, 2014
Mi paintings are available to all my followers
You can follow the artist at RamGon and Goloviarte on Twitter.


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Empty Shelves: Venezuela’s Economic Shortage Explained · Global Voices
Belinda Milazzo

One of the many memes circulating on social networks about the shortages in Venezuela.
Despite the promise of a new year, Venezuelans haven't begun 2015 in the happiest of ways, however, enduring one of the worst economic shortages in recent memory. Long lines for basic products, like food staples, shampoo, diapers, and so on, have become a feature of everyday life. These problems started in the regions, but the crisis has now reached Caracas, where food has always been abundant in the past.
As Venezuelans’ patience wears thin, argument and fights in the streets are becoming more common.
Images uploaded to social networks in January 2015 revealed empty shelves and long queues during, until supermarket chains suddenly started loading their shelves with identical products (to maintain the appearance of full stocks), while also prohibiting the use of cameras on their premises. Meanwhile, government spokespeople warned of provocateurs seeking to spread chaos, recognized as “daddy's little children.”
With or without photos, the shortages seem to be here to stay:
Sin producción ni estabilidad ni divisas…sólo puede haber escasez.
— Luis Vicente Leon (@luisvicenteleon) marzo 2, 2015
Without production or stability or currencies … there can be only shortages.
The government has attributed the shortage to the “economic war waged by the country's right-wing forces using hoarding, speculation, and smuggling.” Officials have pledged to defend the public from a war waged on Venezuela by big business and the American empire. Some in the government want to install fingerprint scanners in supermarkets as a solution.
Nuestro .@NicolasMaduro anuncia la instalación de 20mil captahuellas en supermercados,para continuar luchando contra la guerra económica — Sup. Precios Justos (@sundde_ve) marzo 7, 2015
Our @NicolasMaduro announces the installation of 20K fingerprint scanners in supermarkets, to continue fighting the economic war.
Un captahuellas en el medio de una economía de gran escasez es equivalente a una tarjeta de racionamiento, sea o no diseñado para eso.
— Luis Vicente Leon (@luisvicenteleon) marzo 9, 2015
A fingerprint scanner in the midst of a severe economic shortage is the same as a ration card, whether or not it's designed for that.
Supermarkets across the country has instituted a series of measures designed to manage the allocation of available goods during the shortage, including fingerprint scanners, selling only according to the last number of one's identity card. or requesting the birth certificate to mothers to buy diapers for their children. Venezuelans now find themselves asking endlessly, “What did you get?” “What do you need?”
Economist José Guerra writes:
Con una tasa de inflación entorno al 11% mensual en enero la tasa anualizada se colocaría en 81%. Por eso @BCV_ORG_VE esconde las cifras — Jose Guerra (@JoseAGuerra) marzo 4, 2015
With a monthly inflation rate of about 11 percent in January, the annualized rate is 81 percent. For that reason @BCV_ORG_VE hides the figures
A massive black market has emerged during the crisis to accommodate people without the time or fearlessness to brave the long liens. Known as “bachaqueros,” these people buy scare products at regulated prices and resell them at 5-10 times the cost, turning enormous profits, and making it impossible for many ordinary people to buy ordinary household goods.
CÁRCEL A LOS BUHONEROS BACHAQUEROS Y A LOS POLICÍAS QUE SE PRESTAN..¡¡ #ChavezMaestroXSiempre #VzlaEnMarchaProductiva pic.twitter.com/INdBmE6GEy
— Jorgellanda (@ChavistaGanador) marzo 9, 2015
JAIL FOR PEDDLERS BACHAQUEROS AND FOR THE POLICEMEN THAT ALLOW IT..!!
via @_vivianalizet: Buen día, Por favor donde podre conseguir pañales q los bachaqueros piden 550 y 600Bs por paquete. Abusadores. #Valencia — traffic VALENCIA (@trafficVALENCIA) febrero 28, 2015
via @_vivianalizet: Good day, Please where can I get diapers because the bachaqueros ask 550 and 600 bolivars per package. Opportunists.
When the minimum wage in Venezuela fell to 5,622.48 bolivars (about $885) per month, it became easier for the poor to queue for a few hours and earn 3,000 bolivars ($472) in one day, selling their place in line.
Los negocios de las colas. 3 mil bolívares cuesta un número para comprar electrodomésticos en Daka http://t.co/uXIMRZF2yz
— Efecto Cocuyo (@EfectoCocuyo) marzo 7, 2015
The business of queues. A place in a queue to buy appliances in Daka costs 3,000 bolivars.
But the underlying problem, according to economists, it is not the smuggler or the businessman but the exchange rate policy that holds back a wider supply of cash. The shortage is noticeable in different sectors of the economy. Recently, auto parts and food industries reported that they've not received any dollars this year, which they need to purchase to import any raw materials, slowing production.
caricatura EDO: nos dejaste un gran vacío #ADosAnosDeTuSiembra pic.twitter.com/ASTKw2OLtc
— Eduardo EDO Sanabria (@edoilustrado) March 7, 2015
EDO cartoon: you left us a great void.

author: Belinda Milazzo


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Film Documents Alleged Human Rights Crimes by Peru’s Military in the 80s · Global Voices
Patricia Carolina Saucedo Añez

Recovering Latin American historical memory and raising awareness of the atrocities committed in the past are crucial steps to take in order to ensure they are never repeated and that, instead, we continue to work towards strengthening our democracies. To that end, film can play a crucial role in compiling testimonies that constitute our collective memory, in this case the history of Peru.
Spanish filmmaker Luis Cintora unveiled his new documentary at the Latin American Film Festival and the Melbourne International Film Festival. It recounts the alleged crimes committed by the Peruvian army in their fight against the militant group Shining Path from 1983-84 in the Ayacucho region. The documentary “Wecome to Los Cabitos” features testimony from survivors, relatives of missing persons, academics and soldiers, who provide moving testimony about the alleged crimes against humanity perpetrated on the former military base.
Documentalista revela que los jóvenes de #Ayacucho desconocen la época del terror http://t.co/1Ux7BAyXAg
— Jorge Weston (@JorgeMWeston) March 13, 2015
Documentary filmmaker reveals that young people in #Ayacucho are unaware of the era of terror.
It is not the first time that the Spanish filmmaker has focused on this dark period in Peru's history. In 2012 he made “The footprints of the Shining Path“, which explores the shadow cast by this violent organization on the country's collective memory, one which not surprisingly elicits conflicting emotions.
#sinperos a filomena sanchez desaparecida en huanta en 1988, la encontraron en el cuartel los cabitos cuando desenterraron los cadaveres
— jose edwin velasquez (@joseedwin69) March 1, 2015
Filomena Sanchez disappeared in Huanta in 1988; they found her body among the cadavers uncovered in the Los Cabitos barracks.
Otra mas de los PROTERRORISTAS, basándose en el informe de la CVR. http://t.co/Z50AMjgyZ6
— El Majin (@Majindice) March 13, 2015
One more from the PROTERRORISTS, based on the CVR [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] report.


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How Guatemalan Group ‘Las Poderosas’ Uses Theater to Confront Violence Against Women · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

“Naciendo” (Emerging) is a new theater production from Las Poderosas. Image provided by the group and published with permission.
With performances that are equal parts therapeutic and empowering, Guatemalan theater group Las Poderosas (Powerful Women) is sending a powerful message for gender equality and against gender-based violence from the stage. Since 2008, their work has expanded across social media and the region. For these women, theater is a means to heal, condemn, communicate, and raise awareness within a country where, according to information from UN Women, “two women a day are killed on average.
The group formed after participating in a theater experiment in Marco Canale’s documentary “Hoy puedo ser” (Today I can be). The experience lead these women to devote themselves fully to exploring the power of testimony and the world of emotions. Their main focus is writing and performing plays that reveal the various forms of violence, from the most evident to the most subtle, that go undetected in everyday life, only to be noticed when collectively observed.
The blog Heroínas (Heroines), recounts Las Poderosas’ story:
El gusanito del teatro invadió las entrañas de estas siete mujeres y sus hijos, que decidieron continuar con el montaje escénico y hacer presentaciones a lo largo y ancho de Guatemala. […] De las vueltas del destino y de un sueño que tuvo Lesbia Téllez [una de las participantes] en el cual, estas supervivientes se veían sobre el escenario vestidas de luchadoras, nace “Las Poderosas”. Una compañía de teatro sin parangón que tiene como propósito, sanar a aquellas personas que han sido objeto de la violencia mediante la catarsis y el espacio creativo que ofrece el teatro. […] Cuando se les pregunta qué significa para ellas el teatro, esta “Liga de la Justicia” de siete heroínas […] no dudan en asegurar que ha sido su salvación y el motor de cambio de sus vidas.
These seven women and their children were bitten by the theater bug, so they decided to continue with the production and perform across the length and breadth of Guatemala. […] Through a twist of fate and a dream held by one of the participants, Lesbia Téllez, Las Poderosas was born; the survivors appeared on the stage dressed as luchadoras [wrestlers]. This unparalleled theater company's mission is to heal those who have been subjected to violence through catharsis and the creative space that the stage offers. […] When asked what the theater means to them, this seven-woman “Justice League” […] doesn’t hesitate to assure that it has been their salvation and a driving force for change in their lives.
The group’s “trailer” gives a better idea of their style and approach. The video shows members of Las Poderosas sharing their own experiences:
Mi marido me mandó matar. Me dispararon al corazón. Perdí mi brazo, pero hice justicia.
My husband ordered me killed. I was shot in the heart. I lost my arm; but I got justice.
Las Poderosas also participate in community work with women from different regions, both inside and outside of Guatemala. They encourage women to share their experiences in order to draw attention to the problem of violence and provide solutions for it. An example of their efforts is their involvement in International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women with “close to 60 women from 8 municipalities within the Sololá Department of Guatemala; some of them being leaders and violence survivors.”
Their most recent performance, “Naciendo” (Emerging), delves into the many facets of violence, including its presence in Guatemala’s mixed heritage and the country's painful civil war, which left more than 250,000 dead. More profoundly, however, this new production initiates conversations about the body, sex, and most importantly, soul-searching:
Scene from Naciendo. Published with permission.
[“Naciendo”] nace de una investigación sobre nuestra sexualidad, nuestro origen y la guerra. Hablamos con nuestras madres, con nuestras hijas, con nuestras nietas y con mujeres sobrevivientes del conflicto armado, buscando las huellas de nuestra historia, de nuestro país, la historia de nuestros cuerpos.¿Qué es lo que vivimos? ¿Qué estamos por vivir?
Hacer esta obra, recordar, tratar de entender las sombras y la luz, nombrar, cantar o hablar sobre cómo hacemos el amor, fue una forma de mirar a los ojos ese camino tan ancho que cada una de nosotras guarda adentro.
Mirarlo como si fuera un río.
Es el lugar desde el que estamos naciendo.
[“Naciendo”] emerges from an investigation of our sexuality, our origins, and the war. We speak to our mothers, daughters, granddaughters, and women who have survived armed conflict, searching for traces of our history, country, and bodies. What is it that we are living? What are we about to live?
Doing this production, remembering, trying to understand the darkness and the light, naming, singing, or speaking about how we make love was a way of gazing into the eyes of that ever-so-wide path that each one of us keeps inside.
Gaze at it as if it were a river.
It is the place from where we are emerging.