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Ecuador: Stabbing Spree at President’s Rally in Quinindé · Global Voices
Daniela Gallardo

On the night of Monday, February 4, 2013, in Quinindé, in Esmeraldas province, a man stabbed several people at a political rally by President Rafael Correa, causing the death of two citizens and injuring another four.
Through its Twitter account, the Ministry of Interior (@MinInteriorEC) posted the news:
@MinInteriorEC: ATENCIÓN. Lamentable incidente en Quinindé durante recorrido de Rafael Correa. Hay varios heridos y posibles fallecidos.
@MinInteriorEC: ATTENTION. Terrible incident in Quinindé during Rafael Correa visit. There are several injured and possibly casualties.
On thar same account, @MinInteriorEC, fueron publicados datos importantes sobre la tragedia:
@MinInteriorEC: ATENCIÓN. La @PoliciaEcuador ha detenido al sospechoso de perpetrar puñaladas a simpatizantes de Rafael Correa en Quinindé. En desarrollo
@MinInteriorEC: ATTENTION: @PoliciaEcuador [Police of Ecuador] holds in custody suspect of stabbing supporters of [President] Rafael Correa in Quinindé. Developing news.
President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa. Image by Presidencia de la República de Ecuador from Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
President Rafael Correa (@MashiRafael) informed he would return to Esmeraldas after the stabbing:
@MashiRafael: Tragedia en Quinindé! Desquiciado apuñala a 7 personas de AP mientras esperaban al Presidente. Dos fallecidos. Regresamos a Esmeraldas!
@MashiRafael: Tragedy in Quinindé! Driven mad man stabs seven citizens of [Alianza PAIS] AP as they were waiting for the President. Two casualties. We go back to Esmeraldas!
Local mainstream media, such as El Comercio [es], El Telégrafo [es] and El Universo [es] published the news; on La República [es] and La Hora [es] we can find a video by an amateur filmmaker on the attack citizens who where attending the rally. Actualidad RT [es] also echoed the news.
Rafael Correa (@MashiRafael) expressed his solidarity to the relatives:
@MashiRafael: Un abrazo solidario a las familias de las víctimas en Quinindé. El video del incidente es realmente escalofriante!
@MashiRafael: Supportive regards to the families of the Quinindé victims. The video from the incident is really outrageous!
Citizens expressed their concern after the event.
Miguel Chancay (@Miguicho34) asked to respect the victims of the stabbing:
@Miguicho34: Que pena ver o leer a tanta gente que aprovechen lo sucedido en Quíninde eso no es política, tengan un poquito de respeto a las victimas
@Miguicho34: So sorry to see or read about too many people that take advantage of what happened in Quíninde, that's not politics, a litte respect for the victims.
Arturo Barriga (@arturobarriga) criticizes the political manipulation of the tragedy:
@arturobarriga: No puedo creer que haya gente tan ruin que se aproveche del trágico hecho ocurrido n Quinindé para promocionar una candidatura o culpar a otra
@arturobarriga: I can't believe there are people so mean that take advantage of the tragic event that took place in Quinindé in order to promote a candidacy or blame another one.
Shirley Borja (@ShirleyBorja7) asks to be aware of the violence in the country:
@ShirleyBorja7: Frente al hecho de violencia en Quinindé no debemos dejarnos llevar por quienes provocan o incitan a la violencia verbal o física.
@ShirleyBorja7: After this violent action in Quinindé, we must not get swept up in by those who provoke or incite verbal or physic violence.
Ecuadorian citizens are concerned about civil security, and they expect that justice might be served after this terrible event.

author: Daniela Gallardo


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Escaping Russia’s “Vulgar, Primitive” Secularism · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Vladimir Putin has given another speech [ru] in defense of Russian Orthodox values, this time calling on the Church to study the lessons of the twentieth century. (One imagines that Putin has in mind Bolshevik religious oppression, which he seems to blame for the Russian Civil War.) “We must avoid a vulgar, primitive understanding of secularism,” he told the Bishops’ Council, a massive gathering of Orthodox clergy. Putin's comments are hard to divorce from several legislative efforts in the last year, which include Internet censorship and anti-gay initiatives that shield children from supposedly immoral influences.
Some activists argue that the Kremlin's recent cultural conservatism is intended to bait the liberal opposition into taking unpopular stances on issues that often stoke religious sentiments in the country's regions. The harsh prosecution of the Pussy Riot members, some say, was a Kremlin gambit to mobilize liberal protesters in support of artists too radical for Russia's political mainstream.
Vladimir Putin meets the participants of the Bishop's Council. 1 February 2103, Russian Presidential Service, CC 3.0.
The draft law to ban “homosexual propaganda” is a case in point. In late January, blogger Oleg Kozyrev described [ru] the anti-gay law as an attempt to distract the “Bolotnaia” protester crowd from the real issues of election fraud, political prisoners, and so on. He wants activists to holster their rage and live to fight another day:
А поэтому я очень надеюсь, что мы по минимуму позволим себя втянуть в этот законодательный троллинг. По возможности надо не вестись на эти законы – все они будут отменены со временем по признакам маразма и бессмысленности.
And that's why I really hope that we keep our involvement to a minimum in this legislative trolling. To the extent possible, we don't need to buy into these laws. They'll all be cancelled in time, on the grounds of lunacy and inanity.
Writer Boris Akunin came to the opposite conclusion, calling [ru] on liberal oppositionists to stay true to their values, though he, too, acknowledged that the Kremlin's conservative legislative campaign is intended to reduce scrutiny on “electorally disadvantageous” topics like healthcare.
Putin's speech also recycled key fragments from remarks his chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, delivered to another audience of Orthodox figures in October 2012. Posting to the LiveJournal forum “ru_politics,” blogger Yuri Shtengel appears to be the first one to have noticed [ru] the similarities between Putin's and Ivanov's statements.
Several Russian newspapers reported Shtengel's finding, though many exaggerated both the size and scope of the controversy, claiming that a whole group of bloggers had discovered Putin's “plagiarism.” Orthodox activist and strong critic of the liberal opposition Boris Yakemenko took aim [ru] at news websites for this embellishment, adding that Putin's comments about secularism were merely “a statement of the obvious”—not a contentious “revelation.” Also annoyed by the hyperbole, Shtengel published an update to his LiveJournal denying any plagiarism accusations, and clarifying that his objections relate to the content of Putin's speech.
Ultra-popular blogger Artemy Lebedev weighed in on Russia's need to avoid “vulgar, primitive secularism,” writing [ru] with intentional vulgarity:
А я вот, блять, не собираюсь уходить от вульгарного, примитивного понимания светскости. Я на хую вертел всю религиозную хуетень, в гробу видал всех попов, и срать хотел на все чувства всех верующих.
Оставьте мне вульгарную, примитивную светскость и валите нахуй.
Now listen, s**t, I'm not gonna avoid any vulgar, primitive understanding of secularism. I'd f**kin’ like to throw the whole religious s**tfest and all priests into a grave, and I'd gladly s**t on all the [religious] feelings of all believers.
Leave me my vulgar, primitive secularism and f**k off.
Lebedev's response is a good demonstration of the challenge that faces Russian oppositionists generally and secularists specifically. On the one hand, Lebedev's antics are doomed to appeal only to a narrow audience. The same uncompromising sense of humor, however, is an important ingredient in the glue that keeps together Russia's “creative class,” which is widely credited with generating the country's political turmoil last winter. Committed religious conservatives—on and offline—are free to respond to Putin's “moral erosion” worries with earnest sympathy. For firebrand secularists, gay rights activists, and others, there seems to be an almost irresistible need for irreverence. Whether it's Lebedev's obscenities or Nadezhda Tolokonnikova's cathedral gyrations, the opposition's compulsion to offend has been both a blessing and a curse.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Kevin Rothrock


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“Hands up! This is a robbery!”: Protests Continue in Spain · Global Voices
Anna Williams

This article is part of our special news coverage Europe in Crisis.
This past weekend Madrileños took to the streets in droves to show their fury with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy over new corruption allegations. On Thursay, the national newspaper El País published [es] images of ledgers in which Rajoy and other top Partido Popular members appear as receiving illegal payments (#lospapelesdebarcenas [es]). Protests concentrated outside the Party's headquarters lasted all weekend.
On Monday, Spain's opposition Socialist Party called for Rajoy's resignation. Rajoy has maintained that the claims are “totally false” and denies receiving such payments. He rejected calls for his resignation and claims his party is best suited to see the country through its current economic difficulty.
Here, a photo gallery of the weekend's events taken by the author.
Presidente Delincuente
Our President the Crook
Photo by Anna Williams
Por un Jaguar, Yo “mato”
I'd “kill” for a Jaguar – a reference to Health Minister Ana Mato, who is alleged to be part of the scandal.
Photo by Anna Wiliams
¡No falta dinero sobran ladrones!
There's not a lack of money, there are too many thieves!
Photo by Anna Williams
¡Chorizo!
Thief!
Photo by Anna Williams
¡Manos arriba esto es un atraco!
Hands up! This is a robbery!
Photo by Anna Williams.
This article is part of our special news coverage Europe in Crisis.

author: Anna Williams


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Historic ‘Tanka’ Poem Rises from Japan’s Nuclear Ashes · Global Voices
Mari Wakimoto

[All links lead to Japanese language pages, except when otherwise noted.]
Striking a match / momentarily / I see the foggy ocean – / is there a motherland / I can dedicate myself to?
[ The translation of above quote is by Ms. Kozue Uzawa and Ms. Amelia Fielden cited from Kaleidoscope [en]: Selected Tanka of Shūji Terayama.]
This famous tanka [en], a type of Japanese poetry, is from “Wareni Gogatsu wo,” the first anthology from Shūji Terayama [en], a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director and photographer.
It was published in 1957 right after World War II [en], a period of high economic growth. Kenshiro55 [jp], a blogger who reviews Japanese poetry, explains the historical context of this tanka:
霧に閉ざされた海のイメージは、当時の社会に広がり始めた不安や虚しさを象徴している。
また、「身捨つるほどの祖国はありや」という切迫した問いかけに、国家ばかりか、命をかけて信じるほどのものは、自分には何も無い、という宙吊り状態の不安定な気分を聞き取ることができる。
The image of a foggy ocean symbolizes the uncertainty or emptiness that was spreading in Japanese society at that time. “is there a motherland / I can dedicate myself to?” : the tone of this question sounds tense, I see the author's feelings of insecurity: there is nothing to believe for his life, including his own country.
Image by Flickr user JR_Paris under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
On November 4, 2012, Blogger kmirua adapted the poem to express his feelings towards recent issues in Japanese society. He included a list of words and terms like – evacuation, radiation, shutdown and rumors – which have become contemporary jargon in Japan following the 2011 nuclear disaster:
Striking a match / momentarily / Moldy air fills the garden
In the British east coast,
I forgot where it was
damp
cool
humid
Gently I open the door
Silently step out of the kitchen
A dark cloud stagnates the air even more.
The air supposed to be cold
I feel a damp shirt clinging.
feel a humid air on my chest.
Or better yet if I put off my shirt
The air somehow cool,
squatting there,
smelling the salty breeze like sediment,
wet bricks,
mold,
garbage next door,
and that scent beyond bearing,
I murmur that song.
Striking a match
momentarily I see the foggy ocean
is there a motherland I can dedicate myself to?
Explosive phenomenon [1]
Planned evacuation[en] [2]
Cold shutdown [en]
Radiation controlled area [3]
Harmful rumors [en]
Fukushima Health Management Survey [en]
The Secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority [en]
Democracy
Kenka no Iroha [the ABC of the fighting] [4]
Reconstruction budget [en]
empty words filled the freight train
Sitting in a cool drizzling German autumn,
I catch a fleeting whiff of that moldy air in the Britain
Are there words I can dedicate myself to?
On her death, I would turn the cardiac monitor off
Without saying so, the doctor reached up
trying to turn it off
Please don't.
The doctor put his hand down in surprise and turned to me,
and said in a low voice,
You wouldn't look at such a machine
I shook my head
I am accustomed to numbers
I treat lives with numbers
That's my job
please don't stop it
Even lives don't have reality.
Are there words I can dedicate myself to?
[note: The hyperlinks in the poem have been added by the author of this post, not by Kmiura.]
What do you see in this modern piece created more than half a century after the original?
When we contacted the Poet to ask permission to place his piece on Global Voices, he asked us to include references to two of his other posts to add context to the poem. One is “Discontinuity and deception” (June 1, 2012) which takes a doubtful look towards the operations of a nuclear power plant. The other is “She passed away” (April 7, 2009) on the bereavement of his wife.
[1] The “explosive phenomenon” is a phrase used by Yukio Edano , Chief Cabinet Secretary at a press conference[ja] on March 12, 2011, when nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi power plant underwent a hydrogen explosion after the Tohoku Tohoku Earthquake.
[2] After the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster in March 2011, the Japanese government asked people to evacuate dangerous areas [ja], which is defined as a region where residents are at a risk of being exposed to 20mSv of radiation in a year, (an internationally standard set by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.) Though the government named this area a “planned” evacuation zone, it has been unclear what was actually planned with the gradual extension of the area afterwards.
[3] Radiation controlled area [ja] is defined by laws in order to keep people from unnecessary exposure to radiation, where people may not enter. In Japanese, the words sound as if the radioactive emission itself is under control in the area.
[4] Kenka no Iroha: Meaning the basic fighting skills. This word was used in a provocative remark by Naoki Inose , the former vice Governor of Tokyo ( he is now Governor), who commented on Twitter in response to the illegal action of members of the Hong Kong Baodiao movement committee[zh] who landed in the disputed Senkaku Island (note  China refers to the island as Diaoyu, Taiwan as Tiaoyutai ). His remark referred that the basic fighting skills we should be using is to drown swimming people from above the shore.

author: Mari Wakimoto


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Iran: Will Thieving Officials Also Have Their Hands Chopped Off? · Global Voices
Farid

Cartoonist Mana Neyestani shows Ali Khamenei, Iran's Leader, in the middle of a fight between Ahmadinejad and Larijani (Via Mardomak)
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once again proved his talent for making surprising headlines when he played a video for the parliament on February 3, 2013 implicating his political rivals, some of the country's leading officials, in a corruption scandal.
Addressing the parliament to defend his labor minister against impeachment, Ahmadinejad went on the attack, playing lawmakers a surreptitious recording of Fazel Larijani, the brother of Ali Larijani, chairman of the parliament and Sadegh Larijani, head of the judiciary, that he said implicated the whole family in corruption.
In the video shown by Ahmadinejad, Fazel Larijani allegedly tells Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran's former general prosecutor, that he will get his brothers Ali and Sadegh on board for lucrative secret deals in the petrochemical sector and other businesses.
Revealing Videos
Mortazavi who was responsible for the arrests of many people, including journalists, was arrested himself on February 4 after Ahmadinejad's revelation, while Ali Larijani so far countered the allegations.
But it seems a faction of regime found (the otherwise blocked) YouTube in Iran a blessing and anonymously uploaded the video of Fazel Larijani's meeting with Mortazavi. In total, four related films were published on YouTube after Mortazavi's arrest.
Who is Mr.Z?
Users of Balatarin, a popular Iranian link-sharing site, focused on the presence of a “business man”, Babak Zanjani, in the videos related to the corruption scandal. EU sanctions documents describe Zanjani as “a key facilitator for Iranian oil deals and transferring oil related money”. Several sites called him Mr. Z but Baztab, an Iran based (banned) website describes Babak Zanjani in detail, with photos, as someone who became a billionaire overnight thanks to “oil business.”
Justice for Who?
Faryad22 writes in his blog [fa]:
Sadegh Larijani, head of the judiciary, for years put into practice Islamic sharia and ordered many young men's hands and feet amputated [for theft]. You only need to make a simple search in Google to see the number of people whose hands and feet were amputated. Will Sadegh Larijani punish his brother in the same way with all the evidence available? Will his fingers be amputated in Azadi Stadium? Or may Islam forbid punishment for people who steal billions and only punish petty thieves?
Anadrbab has published five photos of the Larijani brothers and compared them with The Dalton brothers, the fictional outlaws of the Lucky Luke comics. The blogger asked the same question
Will Fazel Larijani be punished and his fingers be amputated like those of others, or is punishment only for petty thieves?

author: Farid


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One Joke Too Many? Bhutanomics Satire Blog is Suddenly Blocked · Global Voices
Rezwan

Rousing suspicions that Bhutan's government does not appreciate the humor of political satire blog Bhutanomics, the website was blocked on January 12, 2013 from a major internet service provider with no explanation or warning.
In less than one year of existence since launching in March 2012, the group blog has created ripples in Bhutan's political sphere with a series of satirical report cards for politicians and government officials, and as a popular open platform for anonymous government criticism and political analysis.
Bhutanomics has also been criticized for slander and lack of editorial oversight. According to its about page, it's a non-partisan website sustained only via donations.
On January 12, the following was reported through the blog's Facebook page:
Some very powerful people in Bhutan dont like us. Our website (http://bhutanomics.com/) is no longer accessible from Bhutan.
From Bhutanomic's Facebook Page
Minjur Dorji reports at The Bhutanese:
Bhutanomics.com, a satirical website has been blocked by Druknet, one of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the country. This was confirmed by a Druknet employee though he and his colleagues did not share who gave the instructions to do so.
Nobody is really sure whether the website is operated within the country or the webmaster resides outside Bhutan.
Suspicions of censorship are heightened because Bhutanomics is only inaccessible on Druknet, the main ISP operated by state-owned Bhutan Telecom. It is still accessible through private ISPs like Tashi Cell and Samden. The site is also accessible through proxy websites, via social media and by users abroad.
According to news reports, both the Druknet General Manager, Tshering Norbu, and Media Officer of Bhutan InfoComm and Media Authority, Lakshuman Chhetri, have denied blocking the site.
Screen shot of Bhutanomics.com on February 5, 2013
Rinzin comments on the above mentioned article:
The blocking of Bhutannomics will push Bhutan into an elite club of countries like North Korea, China, Iran and Syria where the internet is actively controlled by the government to block critical websites.
The Bhutanomics blog posts an open letter to the Bhutanese Prime Minister that was originally posted by Jamyang Y. S. as a comment on the site.
If a government cannot uphold itself to the criticism by its subjects, then how will the government function? I believe it is the criticism that can be used as a check and balance to see how your party is doing, and the true health of your governing system. I believe that when you take on to become a politician, it is only natural that there will be criticism – both critical and cynical, but it is up to you how you hold on to it.
Blogger Peldhen Sonam Nima wonders whether the ban will do any good for the country:
Bhutanomics entertained me. Its been a source of so many interesting happenings. I liked the satire part which has link especially to Bhutanese Political setting. [..]
I think it has updates on all the famous Bhutanese personalities. Its understandable why my fellas in Bhutan will miss the Banned blog. [..]
They are all people who have the potential to either make or break Bhutan! I think any Bhutanese deserve to know both plus points and minus points of those individuals.
Monu GhishYing Tamang opines that:
Bhutan is a young democracy which requires adequate criticism to grow strong. Criticism should not be taken in a wrong way, it must be the correction fluid to erase our follies.
However the blogger also thinks that a number of writers and contributors of Bhutanomics need to reveal their identity for the sake of credibility.

author: Rezwan


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Paraguay After Presidential Candidate Lino Oviedo’s Sudden Death  · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Lino César Oviedo, the Paraguayan retired general and polítician who overthrew dictator Alfredo Stroessner, died on Saturday, February 2, 2013 when the helicopter he was traveling in crashed in northern Asunción. His pilot and his bodyguard died too.
Lino Oviedo and Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo. Pohto taken on 2012, by Flickr user Fernando Lugo Mendez (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
The blog La Oveja 100 reported [es] on Monday, February 4:
El helicóptero en el que viajaba Lino César Oviedo fue ubicado hoy (03.02.2013) en una zona rural de Paraguay, al norte de Asunción, con los cuerpos de sus ocupantes “calcinados”, informó la radio 780 am de Asunción. “Una persona del círculo más cercano al entorno del candidato presidencial confirmó la muerte”, dijo esa emisora.
The helicopter where Lino César Oviedo was traveling was located today (February 3, 2013) in a rural area in Paraguay, north of Asunción, with the bodies of its passengers “burnt to ashes”, reported Radio 780 am from Asunción. “Someone from the most intimate group of the presidential candidate confirmed his death”, stated the radio station.
Oviedo led the National Union of Ethical Citizens (UNACE, by its Spanish name), and was running for president for the general elections to be held on April 21, 2013. This will be the sixth election in the country since the coup that ended  the dictatorship in February 1989.
About this, the blog E'a Periódico de Interpretación y Análisis makes a brief analysis [es] of the Paraguayan political stage after Oviedo's death:
Sin duda, Oviedo jugó un rol importante en el golpe del 2 y 3 de febrero de 1989, […] pero un momento de valor no convierte a nadie en héroe, menos cuando en vez de valentía lo que probablemente había era temeridad o cuando el momento podría haber reflejado estrictas desavenencias por intereses espurios en el seno del poder dictatorial.
El heroísmo implica conductas sostenidas que marcan historias positivas; intentar convertir en héroe a quien no las ha tenido sólo puede sonar a oportunismo de quienes, como aves de rapiña, sobrevuelan sobre los restos… Vergonzoso intento de algunos sectores políticos de quedarse con los votos de Oviedo para el 21 de abril.
Without a doubt, Oviedo played an important role in the February 2 and 3, 1989 coup, […] but a moment of courage doesn't make a hero out of anyone, let alone when instead of courage what was there was probably recklessness, or when the moment could have reflected strict disagreements due to false interests within the dictatorial power.
Heroism means sustained conducts that mark positive stories; trying to make a hero out of someone who hasn't had those positive stories may just sound as opportunism by those who, as birds of prey, fly over the remains… Shameful effort of some political sectors to take Oviedo's votes for April 21.
Meanwhile, the blog InterParaguay republishes the announcement made by the government and the three days to mourn [es] Mr Oviedo's passing away:
El ministro del Interior Carmelo Caballero, en conferencia de prensa en Mburuvicha Roga, anunció la determinación del gobierno de declarar tres días de duelo en las actividades oficiales. Además aseguró que se harán las investigaciones correspondientes para constatar el motivo del accidente del helicóptero Robinson 44 que trasladaba a Oviedo y dos personas más.
The Minister of Interior, Carmelo Caballero, on press conference in Mburuvicha Roga, announced the decision of the government of declaring a three-day period of mourning on official activities. Besides that, he claimed investigations will be carried out in order to confirm the causes of the accident of the Robinson 44 helicopter that was transporting Mr Oviedo and two more passengers.
Also, Twitter users have been expressing themselves using the microbloggind site.
Fátima Garay (@fatimagaray) mentions the remains of the victims of the accident:
@fatimagaray: Equipo medico hace el mayor esfuerzo para entregar HOY restos de fallecidos entragedia aerea a sus familires entre ellos Lino Oviedo
@fatimagaray: Medical team is making all efforts to hand over TODAY remains of victims of air tragedy to their famiies, among them Lino Oviedo.
And Anahí Tortorello (@anahitorto) asks her:
@anahitorto: @fatimagaray para hoy si o si la entrega de loa [sic] restos?
@anahitorto: @fatimagaray today, without fail, will they hand over the remains?
User Klaus Hiebert (@KhaosXI) foresees:
@KhaosXI: No se sorprendan si en uno de estos nuevos billetes de 200.000 o 500.000 nos encontremos con la cara de Lino Oviedo impresa en uno de ellos.
@KhaosXI: Don't be surprised if we see the face of Lino Oviedo printed on one of those 200.000 or 500.000 checknotes.
Radio and TV anchorman Ismael Cala (@CALACNN) expresses his awe:
@CALACNN: Mis condolencias a familiares y simpatizantes de #Lino Oviedo, a quien entrevisté hace solo seis días en @CALACNN. Este lunes va al aire.
@CALACNN: My sympathy goes to family members and supporters of #Lino Oviedo, I interviewed him just six days ago on @CALACNN. It will be aired on Monday.
And then he announces:
@CALACNN: Urgente: Mañana n @CALACNN la entrevista inédita grabada el lunes con Lino Oviedo. Falleció en accid. aéreo el candidato presd. #Paraguay
@CALACNN: Urgent: Tomorrow on @CALACNN the unpublished interview recorded on Monday with Lino Oviedo. The presidential candidate died in helicopter crash. #Paraguay
Lastly, Fernanda Bogado (@FernandaAzuaga) said point-blank:
@FernandaAzuaga: Con lo de la muerte de Lino Oviedo no se juega!
@FernandaAzuaga: Don't play with Lino Oviedo's death!
Twitter hashtag #LinoOviedo is constantly updated.

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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Peru: Lima’s Electors Caught Between Yes and No · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

[Links are to Spanish-language pages, unless otherwise indicated.]
In Lima these days, it isn't just summer temperatures that are heating up the electorate, it's also the political climate. On March 17, the city will hold a recall referendum on municipal officials in the metropolitan area, and the YES and NO campaigns are all ready in full swing.
Photo by Flickr user Manuel (Imanol), licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0).
In this case, the NO and YES refer respectively to current Mayoress Susana Villarán [en] and whether she keeps or loses her job. The Mayoress is finishing up the second year of the four-year term for which she was elected, and without embarking on an assessment of her tenure, events such as the riots that broke out during the relocation of the La Parada market [en], which resulted in two deaths, and the flooding of the Via Parque Rimac construction site [en], have undermined her image among limeños, as the city's residents are known. Recent opinion polls put her approval rating at only 29%, and more worrisome still are the 60% of limeños who favour her recall.
Renatto, of the blog Perú Académico, commented on these numbers and the confusion between the YES and NO sides:
Un 8% de limeños aún no sabe cómo votará, y es ahí que comienza lo realmente asqueroso: mienten, engañan, confunden a la gente con tal de ganarse esos ocho puntos que quizá decidan la revocatoria. Nos quedamos cortos si hablamos de un 8% de limeños indecisos, pues si bien un contundente 60% votaría por revocar a Susana Villarán, estos no saben qué marcar: o el NO o el SÍ. Frases como “yo votaré para que NO siga Susana Villarán”, “Marquen el NO, para que no siga Susana en la alcaldía”, solo buscan confundir a la mayor cantidad posible de electores.
Some 8% of limeños still don't know how they are going to vote, and this is where it gets really sickening: there is lying, cheating, misleading of people in order to capture those eight points that could decide the recall. It is an understatement to say 8% of limeños are undecided: even if a resounding 60% would vote to recall Susana Villarán, they don't know whether to tick YES or NO. Lines like “I will vote NO more Susan Villarán” or “Tick NO, to make sure Susana leaves city hall” are just trying to confuse as many voters as possible.
Javier Diez Canseco, a leftwing congressman, points out that “the recall started the day Susana Villarán took office”, implying that this is not a response to bad municipal management, rather that it is the slogan of her political opponents, and that ex-president Alan García and former mayor of Lima Luis Castañeda are behind the recall.
It seems this premature decision to secure the recall of Mayoress Villarán could bear fruit. In his blog Percepciones y Realidades, Alfredo Torres, CEO of the market research firm Ipsos Perú, describes the paradox of the working classes fingering a social crusader who has tried to make a “Lima for all”:
Un aspecto de su gestión valorado por las élites es que Susana Villarán se ha atrevido a enfrentar el desorden del tránsito vehicular y clausurar el caótico mercado de La Parada. Sin embargo, es probable que esas mismas medidas la hayan alejado de un amplio sector de la población que vive en la informalidad y que desconfía de las autoridades que quieren formalizar actividades porque supone que eso implicará pagar impuestos y mayores precios para el consumidor. Lamentablemente la cultura cívica es minoritaria en nuestra población.
One aspect of Susana Villarán's management appreciated by the elites is the way she has dared to confront traffic congestion and close the chaotic La Parada market. However, it is likely that these same measures alienated a wide section of the population that relies on an informal economy, suspicious of authorities who want to formalize activities because it means they will have to pay taxes and higher consumer prices. Unfortunately civic culture is scarce in our city.
But those who have prompted the recall, commonly known as the “recallers”, do not enjoy a good reputation. They are linked to alleged corruption, in particular Marco Tulio Gutiérrez, the main instigator of the process, whom the Mayoress's defenders have nicknamed “Murky Marco”. In his eponymous blog, Jinre, provides a list of some of those who support the recall along with their biographical “gems”. And in another post he voices his support for the Mayoress and Fuerza Social, her political party:
Yo apoyo a Susana Villarán […] porque ningún alcalde anterior de Lima hasta la fecha se atrevió a enfrentar los problemas más difíciles de esta ciudad (¿será porque recibían “algo” a cambio de no hacer nada?), sin embargo, Susana Villarán los está afrontando con valentía, asumiendo con dignidad incluso posibles errores en el camino (lo cual la dignifica aún más) y sobretodo “sin arreglos bajo la mesa”; su decencia y conducta incorruptible parece que ha desubicado a los que estaban acostumbrados a “aceitar” a ciertas autoridades para seguir sacando provecho de lo que está mal […] Yo no apoyo la cochinada política. Fuerza Susana !!
I support Susana Villarán […] because no previous mayor of Lima has ever dared tackle the city's most difficult problems. (Is it because they received ‘something’ in return for doing nothing?) Despite that, Susana Villarán is confronting them with courage and dignity, even admitting possible mistakes made along the way (a fact that further dignifies her), and most of all ‘without back room dealings’. Her decency and honest conduct seem to have disoriented those who are used to greasing the wheels of power in order to continue taking advantage of a bad situation […] I don't support political filth. More power to you, Susana!
Nevertheless, transparency is not the highlight of the campaign: both the YES and NO sides have failed to adequately disclose their finances. Still, because this is a referendum and not an election per se, it is not sanctionable by Peru's National Electoral Committee. Diego Macera, of the blog A Chicago voy, weighs in on the relevance of this aspect:
¿Qué relación guarda que Marco Tulio Gutiérrez genere poca confianza y haya recogido las firmas usando financiamiento desconocido con que algún ciudadano de Surco se sienta decepcionado por la inacción de la municipalidad respecto del tráfico en su distrito u otro ciudadano se sienta estafado por las cifras poco claras de escaleras construidas por la municipalidad? La verdad es que ninguna. El desmerecer la campaña por el Sí con el argumento de que su financiamiento es irregular es intentar tapar el sol con un dedo. Los fondos del Sí pueden ser cuestionables, es cierto, pero eso no tiene por qué cambiar la opinión ciudadana sobre la labor que Susana Villarán y su equipo llevan a cabo al frente de Lima, y es de eso de lo que trata la consulta popular.
What does the fact that Marco Tulio Gutiérrez generates little confidence and obtained signatures using undisclosed financing have to do with a resident of Surco being disappointed by the lack of municipal initiative on traffic in his district or another feeling swindled because of the unclear figures on municipal stairway construction? In truth nothing. Discrediting the YES campaign by claiming its financing is irregular is like trying to block out the sun with one finger. Funding of the YES side may indeed be questionable, but this should not alter the public's opinion of the work Susana Villarán and her team have undertaken at the city's helm, and that is what the referendum is about.
Still the referendum process, as indicated above, is itself a little complicated. In addition to confusion over the use of YES and NO, there is the matter of the ballot, which features 80 options because the referendum is not just on the record of the Mayoress but the 40-member Council as well. In that regard, Fernando Tuesta, former head of the National Office of Electoral Processes, published on his blog what he believes are the four possible outcomes of the referendum:
1. Susana Villarán es mellada en su mandato. Este escenario se produciría si la alcaldesa NO es revocada, pero sí varios regidores, indistintamente de cualquier partido, pero un máximo de 13 regidores.
2. Susana Villarán pierde la mayoría del Concejo. Este escenario se produciría si la alcaldesa NO es revocada, pero sí 14 regidores o más de cualquier partido […] los regidores revocados son reemplazados por los accesitarios, pero de manera provisional, hasta la realización de Nuevas Elecciones Municipales
3. Lima tiene un alcalde que nadie eligió. Este escenario se produciría si la alcaldesa SÍ es revocada y, además un máximo de 12 regidores. No hay, sin embargo, nuevas elecciones municipales. La alcaldesa es reemplazada por el primer regidor de Fuerza Social no revocado.
4. Un nuevo alcalde, sin mayoría. Este escenario se produciría si la alcaldesa SÍ es revocada, así como 13 regidores o más. La alcaldesa y los regidores revocados son reemplazados por los accesitarios […]  hasta que se elija un nuevo alcalde y regidores.
1. Susana Villarán's mandate is damaged. This would occur in a scenario where NO, the Mayoress is not recalled but several councillors are, from either party, up to a maximum of 13.
2. Susana Villarán loses a majority of the Council. This would occur if NO, the Mayoress is not recalled, but 14 or more councillors from either party are […] the recalled councillors would be provisionally replaced until new municipal elections were held.
3. Lima has a mayor that nobody elected. This would happen if YES, the Mayoress were recalled, along with a maximum of 12 councillors. However new municipal elections are not held. The Mayoress is replaced by the first councillor of Fuerza Social not to have been recalled.
4. A new mayor, without a majority.  This would occur if YES, the Mayoress is recalled, along with 13 or more councillors. The mayoress and recalled councillors are provisionally replaced […] until the election of a new mayor and councillors.
Facebook user René Galarreta disagrees with some of the outcomes outlined above:
Lo que no explica Tuesta es que para revocar un regidor, es necesario 1/3 de votos válidos, una vez que vayan a votar más del 50% del número de electores limeños. O sea que si van a votar al menos 3,179,158 electores y hay un voto más del SI contra el NO en la casilla 39, y hasta 2/3 del resto de votos nulos o en blanco, ese regidor es revocado (si hay más de 2/3 de votos nulos o en blanco, el regidor se quedaría). Cada regidor sería revocado de manera independiente, así como la alcaldesa. Eso explica el “40 veces NO”, donde para salvar el pellejo cada regidor tiene que rezar para que los votos del No superen al Si, o haya menos de 1/3 de votos válidos.
What Tuesta does not explain is that to recall a councillor requires 1/3 of valid votes, once more than 50% of eligible voters have participated. In other words, if at least 3,179,158 constituents vote and there is one vote more for YES than NO in box 39, and up to 2/3 of the rest are null or blank ballots, that councillor is recalled (if more than 2/3 of ballots are null or blank, the councillor stays). Each councillor would be recalled independently, just like the Mayoress. This explains the “40 times NO”, where in order to save their skin, every councillor has to pray that the NO votes trump the YES, or that less than 1/3 of ballots are declared valid.
The referendum is less than two months away, and although Lima's newspapers provide daily campaign updates, until now there has been little information on how constituents can properly exercise their vote in accordance with their opinion. As the journalist Martín Hidalgo mentions in Sesión de Control, the political parties see this campaign as a warmup to the presidential elections of 2016, and:
Mientras tanto, Susana Villarán juega su propio partido entre frases desafortunadas, cifras falsas y encuestas que le anticipan un futuro nada alentador. La campaña recién empieza.
Meanwhile, Susana Villarán is risking her own party amid unfortunate catchphrases, inaccurate figures, and polls that point to a less than encouraging future. The campaign has just begun.

author: Juan Arellano


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Somyot Case Ignites Lese Majeste Debate in Thailand · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

After being detained for 21 months and denied bail 12 times, activist Somyot Prueksakasemsuk was found guilty by the Bangkok Criminal Court of violating the Lese Majeste (anti-royal insult) law. As editor of the Voice of Taksin magazine (banned in 2010), Somyot was slapped with a 10-year jail sentence for publishing articles that ‘insulted’ the monarchy. Piangtawan Phanprasit made an unofficial English translation of the summary verdict:
The contents of the articles are thus acts of defaming, insulting and threatening His Majesty the King. That the defendant published, distributed and disseminated the articles is hence indicative of the intent to defame, insult and threaten His Majesty in violation of Section 112 of the Penal Code. The publication of two issues at different times constitutes two different offences.
The verdict stunned human rights organizations and global media groups which immediately condemned the court's ruling as an attack on free speech.
Bangkok Pundit links to an article which noted that the Somyot case was the third Lese Majeste conviction in the past month:
Well, despite the fewer cases and last year being a relatively “good” year in regards to the number of people receiving custodial sentences for lese majeste offences, this is the 3rd conviction in the last month. Lese majeste is back on the agenda for now (at least). This is a lese majeste conviction for an insult or defamatory statement and not a threat
There have been changing attitudes towards lese majeste over the past five years. However, as seen with another delay to constitutional reform, the government is sidelining all issues that could lead to confrontation.
Students call for Somyot's release during a university football match. Photo from @anuthee
Saksith Saiyasombut recognized the significance of the student protest against the controversial law:
This is quite remarkable, since students (or young people in general) are not really publicly perceived as being politically interested and active (unlike in the past). And Thammasat University struggling with itself over their stance towards Lese Majeste
While the chances for an actual legal change of the lèse majesté law are still unlikely thanks to an unwilling government – despite their red shirt voter base – all these stories show that the public discourse over lèse majesté is very much still alive and ongoing.
Ratch, writing for the Red Shirts blog, hints that Somyot might be eligible to receive an amnesty from the government:
Considering the political nature of  Somyot’s case, the UDD hopes that the proposed draft amnesty decree would be applicable to him. The draft decree stipulates that “all persons who have been charged of committing any crime stemming from the political conflict between 1 January 2006 to 31 December 2012″ should be freed immediately.
Cross Cultural Foundation recommends the reform of Article 112 which is often described as the world’s harshest Lese Majeste measure:
The government should make an attempt to have the Penal Code’s Article 112 amended making it become more appropriate and proportionate to a democratic system and in compliance with Thailand’s international obligation regarding Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In particular, the penalties should be adjusted to make them reflect genuine severity of the offence. The preservation of the monarchy cannot be made possible by the enforcement of draconian and undemocratic law.
Students protest against the controversial Lese Majeste law. Photo from Flickr page of Prachatai
Holger Grafen makes an unofficial translation of the speech of Dr. Tul Sittisomwong who is supportive of Thailand’s Lese Majeste law:
In Thai society we think that if someone who defame, insult, threaten the king is not acceptable in this society. And we state something that the imprisonment is higher than the past, 3 up to 15 years, to tell is high penalty, please not to do it.
So, that's the point. It's not only Somyot case. It is everybody who defame, insult or threaten the king, the queen.
Why, why the Thai people or Thai society accept that is not about the human right, is not about freedom of expression.
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, describes the ruling as a blow to free expression rights:
The courts seem to have adopted the role of chief protector of the monarchy at the expense of free expression rights
The court’s ruling appears to be more about Somyot’s strong support for amending the lese majeste law than about any harm incurred by the monarchy.

author: Mong Palatino


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“Christian” Zambia: Blessing or Curse? · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Mr. Ndhlovu explains the purpose of his book in the last pages. He states that he was motivated to write this book because pastors and politicians who had been abusing the Christian faith to advance their personal agendas had disillusioned him.
Munshya wa Munshya reviews Gershom Ndhlovu's new book titled The Declaration of Zambia as a Christian Nation: Blessing or Curse?.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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U.S. President Barack Obama Supports Immigration Reform · Global Voices
Robert Valencia

A week into his second term, President Barack Obama promised an overhaul of the immigration system. On 29 January from Las Vegas, Obama announced his support for a bipartisan agreement (Republican and Democrat) that will start the citizenship proceedings for the nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the US, a process that has posed a more than welcomed reception across party lines also includes dispositions that might be potentially costly for immigrants.
Senator Charles Schumer, joined by John McCain (left) and Bob Menéndez (right), takes the podium to introduce a framework for overhauling the immigration system. Taken from YouTube.
The President's announcement comes a day after eight senators- four from each party, including Republicans John McCain and Marco Rubio and Democrats Bob Menéndez and Charles Schumer- announced a proposal that aims to strengthen the country's borders, verify workers’ legal statuses, and allow students to continue university studies. While sectors of the Republican Party maintain their skepticism, the proposal to re-write immigration law is unprecedented in light of the in-fighting between parties that has stagnated reform in recent years.
Novel as it may be, the proposal still lacks specific – and necessary- details about the reforms it promises. How will border security be strengthened? What is the journey to citizenship for an undocumented worker that is already in the United States? The path to citizenship still requires extensive deliberation as Senators need to reach a compromise regarding Senator Rubio's proposal, which would not increase the number of available visas to permanent residents, commonly referred to as green cards.
While immigration overhaul includes all individuals regardless of race or nationality, it will have the largest impact on the hispanic community. One clear example stems from the sheer location from which Obama chose to make his supporting address: a predominately Latino school. During his speech, he called upon his famous “Yes We Can” slogan to rally support. The Latino community has felt the brunt of the United States’ anti-immigration sentiments such as S.B. 1070 in Arizona and HB56 in Alabama. In spite of this, it must be noted that it is this very community that has been the most vocal in its desire for changes to current law. Take for example DREAMERs, a proposed path for citizenship for students of upstanding moral character that currently lack proper documentation. This fight won an important victory with the deferred action plan.
In response to the address, Twitter users expressed their optimism:
@GuilleCanoFdez: Cambian las condiciones de inmigración en estados unidos (facilidades para estudiantes) se ve la luz!!
@GuilleCanoFdez: They're changing immigration in the U.S. (good news for students!)! There's a light at the end of the tunnel!
@CamiloDeGuzman: En la fibra de EEUU hay un legado de inmigrantes buscando una promesa de vida, libertad y la búsqueda de la felicidad #ReformaMigratoriaEEUU
@CamiloDeGuzman: The legacy of immigration to the US lives on: the quest for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness #ReformaMigratoriaEEUU[immigration reform]
@CeciliaRamirezH: Presidente Obama en su discurso parece estar muy determinado y decidido a resolver los problemas de inmigracion de los Estados Unidos!
@CeciliaRamirezH: Based on his address, President Obama seems to be very determined and resolved to changing the problem of immigration in the US!
@hapinto2: Senadores dan a conocer plan de reforma migratoria bipartidista -Confiemos q el proyecto esta vez sí vaya adelante http://uni.vi/1RBzwt  #USA
@hapinto2: Senators propose a bipartisan plan for immigration reform – We're confident the project will move forward this time http://uni.vi/1RBzwt  #USA
@ElPrimoQueBuena: Una luz de esperanza :) http://ow.ly/hcGEB
@ElPrimoQueBuena: The light of hope! :) http://ow.ly/hcGEB
@preatyligthia: Un logro muy importante para todos los latinos que residen en los Estados Unidos el acuerdo de Migración que llego el Senado de dicho país.!
@preatyligthia: An important achievement for all Latinos in the US is the agreement Senators just reached on immigration reform.
Others remained more skeptical, like Juan Manuel Benítez (@JuanMaBenitez):
@JuanMaBenitez: Si la #reformamigratoriaEEUU llega, el número de personas regularizadas será mucho menor a 11 millones. Se esperan requisitos duros.
@JuanMaBenitez: If #reformamigratoriaEEUU [immigration reform] actually passes, the number of legalized people will be a lot less than 11 million. Expect tough requirements.
Eduardo del Río reminds us that reform isn't just considered within the borders of the US (@E_del_Rio):
@E_del_Rio: México da la bienvenida al debate sobre una reforma integral al sistema de inmigración de Estados Unidos. http://ow.ly/hfbLT
@E_del_Rio: Mexico welcomes the debate for comprehensive immigration reform in the United States. http://ow.ly/hfbLT
Human Rights Watch in Spanish (@hrw_espanol) warns that if Congress doesn't act quickly in rewriting immigration law, they run the risk of violating basic human rights:
@hrw_espanol: Si el Congreso no se enfoca en proteger derechos fundamentales, abusos podrían quedarse sin resolver #inmigracion http://tinyurl.com/9wnxs96
@hrw_espanol: If Congress doesn't act to protect fundamental human rights, abuses would remain unresolved. #immigration http://tinyurl.com/9wnxs96
While Eduardo Suárez (@eduardosuarez) emphasizes points made in the Senators’ address:
@eduardosuarez: Rubio recuerda que el control de la frontera no es sólo un problema de inmigración sino de criminalidad. #reformamigratoriaEEUU
@eduardosuarez: Rubio reminded us that border control isn't just an immigration problem, but a criminal problem. #reformamigratoriaEEUU [immigration reform]

author: Robert Valencia


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African Union Panel of the “Not-So-Wise” · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Collins Mbalo wonders whether the African Union Panel of the Wise and the COMESA/IGAD committee of elders was unwise in their assessment of whether Kenya is ready for peaceful elections #choice2013.


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Brazil’s Comic Book Artists Break the Industry Mold · Global Voices
Luis Henrique

After delving into the world of comics throughout Latin America in our previous post, we return to Brazil to explore Brazilian comicdom just as the country comes off its celebration of National Comic Book Day (Dia do Quadrinho Nacional) [pt] on January 30.
First celebrated in 1984 by the São Paulo Cartoonists Association, the date pays homage to the first time “As aventuras de Nhô Quim” [pt] (“The Adventures of Mr. Quim), considered to be Brazil's first comic strip, was published in 1869.
To mark the holiday, let's take a look at latest trends and innovations arising from the comic book community in Brazil.
Self-publishing and crowdfunding
A comic strip by Pablo Carranza. The cartoon plays with the fate of a cartoonist in his worst nightmare. “(1) Mister, would you draw me? (2) You won't end up at a child's party drawing caricatures of a girl named Evelyn… It was just a nightmare…”. Used with permission.
Faced with a comic book market centered for the most part in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, artists from other regions find it difficult to publicize their work. Although the core remains located in those larger metropolitan areas, nowadays there are more options available to artists, such as Vitor Batista, to reach a larger audience with their artwork. Batista, who is from the northeastern Brazilian state of Ceará, decided to publish his work on his own blog Território Marginal [pt], from which he also sells his books.
“The man with a pain” by Vitor Batista, published in Território Marginal under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 BR license. (1) The biggest issue with repression in the today's society is its invisibility. (2) Ooops. (3) See? I have just been arrested and indicted.
The production and publishing of comic books in Brazil has changed a lot over the years. As comic book artist Bira noted in an interview [pt,en] with a Polish blog:
We used to buy Comics in the Newspapers’ stands in the streets. Nowadays this is the last place to find Comics magazines, when you look for them. Of course you’ll find Marvel, DC, Disney and MSP (the only Brazilian) comics there. As the publishers have preferred the book or graphic novel format, the best place to find them is the Bookstore. But also we have had a fantastic boom in the comics production (alternative line) with fanzines, independent or small publishers, since 2006. The fanzine was an important cultural happening in Brazil in the 70’s, but they appeared again.
Self-publishing is a type of strategy that could impact the comic book world not only locally, but also nationally, promoting more geographic diversity within its market.
But it isn't always easy. In an interview [pt] with the Itiban Comic Shop blog, José Aguiar, an artist and curator for the comic book convention Gibicon [pt] talked about the pros and cons of publishing your own work:
A autopublicação impede que o autor fique parado. E que fique à mercê dos interesses de editores que não estão abertos a propostas diferentes. Isso lhe dá liberdade criativa total (…)
Já o tempo e a energia dispendidos na distribuição e no retorno por parte dos pontos de venda é uma desvantagem nesse processo. Não há organização, nem muito respeito com o editor independente (…)
Crowdfunding has proved successful for some initiatives, including this campaign from Quadrinhos Rasos, a duo of artists who adapt popular songs into illustrated situations that are generally different from the more obvious interpretations of their lyrics.
A comic strip by Quadrinhos Rasos, a project that presents other interpretations of lyrics of Brazilian pop songs. “(1) Go go go go go go (2) time, my friend (3) be nice to me (4) I count on you (5) all over the night (6) just drop me down (7) in the end”. Based on the song “Sobre o tempo” by Pato Fu. Published under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.
And more and more artists are adopting crowdfunding as an alternative way to finance their projects. This page [pt] on the crowdfunding website Catarse shows examples of comic book projects that have followed such a strategy, some of which have already succeeded.
Brazilian comic book influence abroad
Comic book writer Timothy Callahan noted in a column for Comic Book Resources in 2010 that a significant percentage of mainstream comic books in the United States were “actually made in Brazil. Or at least drawn in Brazil. It's a huge percentage, comparatively”. It seems the majority of Brazilian comic book artists who find success in the American market are part of the same talent agency.
In “The Boys from Brazil” column, he wrote:
I just find it interesting that so much of the look of mainstream comics is dependent on a single talent agency in Brazil. And I also find it interesting that some of the best artists working in comics today are also from Brazil, even if the existence of the former does not necessarily relate to the latter.
So. Brazil. Goldmine of talent? Fertile ground for comic book artists? Or machinery of the mainstream? You can decide that.
A big change from a few decades ago, when making it big within the mainstream comic book industry was not very common for Brazilians.
Not only for boys
The comic book industry is one that historically has been male-dominated, and many authors and collectives in Brazil are trying to change that. For starters, blogs such as Lady's Comics [pt] offer a different point of view, talking about female “characters, authors and pencillers”.
Mulheres nos Quadrinhos (Women in Comics) [pt], a community on Facebook asks: “who said only boys know everything about comics?”. The page features comic strips from various sources, all written with women in mind.
Projects such as Inverna [pt] aim at individual or collective productions among women in the field of graphic arts. In a partnership with a Canadian magazine, they are promoting Defrosting Women [pt], a contest meant to encourage works by women in that field.
Illustration in the timeline of Mulheres nos Quadrinhos [Women in Comics]. (1) Step by step for women's self defense. (2) adopt an attentive position (3) demonstrate you are interested in a more serious commitment – I love you, I want to be forever by your side and have many children (4) watch him run away in panic.
Me, you, them, we… collectives and collaboration!
Collaborative arrangements are becoming more common. Artists join forces with publishers, videographers, editors, and other creative types to work together, fostering the creation of unusual products and bringing more variety to the market, as well as making the business of comic books more viable.
Distribution chains are still an issue for print materials. And reaching a wider and global audience online is easier than ever. As a result, artists such as Pablo Mayer, Fernando Medeiros, and Diogo César have taken the digital approach and publish their comics together on their website Pocotomics [pt], updated weekly.
Another example is the independent publishing house Beleléu [pt]. Based in Rio de Janeiro, the publishing house presents collaborations from various artists, publishing a calendar made by many hands, called Pindura [pt]. In addition to print, they offer online material, even in English (check out Beleléu Magazine!).
The future of Brazilian comics
The National Comic Book Day in Brazil was marked by many celebrations, such as this one [pt] in Fortaleza and this one [pt] in Salvador. The 2013 edition has come and gone. What's next for comic books in Brazil?
In a 2005 post, blogger Ubiratan Araújo wondered about the future of Brazilian comics:
“Maybe the future of the Comics in Brasil will depend on if we, foreign artists, publish or not in USA…”.
Was this ever true? You will not find an answer to that question in this post, simply because there isn't one formula for success in the Brazilian comic book world. What can be said is that as long as Brazilian artists continue to experiment, the future holds in store many alternative and varied approaches to comic book production.

author: Luis Henrique


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Chile: Controversial Campaign of a Presidential Candidate · Global Voices
Francisco Lemaitre

The launch of the campaign of Laurence Golborne in representation of the Independent Democratic Union, which is for some the most right-wing party in Chilean politics, has created rejection within the county, both with his political peers and in public opinion, but particularly within the residents of Maipú, one of the biggest neighborhoods of Santiago and the community in which Golborne grew up.
Laurence Golborne, photo courtesy of Flickr user El Canciller, used with Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
Golborne became well-known for heading the rescue mission for the 33 miners that were trapped in the San José mine in 2010.
The reasons for his general rejection are attributed to many factors, but those that stand out the most are his lack of a political past, the little weight behind his claims and his low credibility generated by his words and his permanent smile whenever he speaks. Without a doubt, what has most provoked the population is his new video “It is possible.” In this video, Golborne boasts of being the strong man of Maipú with a humble past, who with effort and rigor can come to be a successful businessman, a government minister or even the president of the nation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBs6znyQqPc [es]
The Clinic Online refers to a letter sent [es] by the lawyer Fernando Atria, published [es] in La Tercera:
“¿Es posible que un niño nacido en Maipú pueda superar todo tipo de barreras y salir adelante? Es posible” comienza.
El abogado interpreta la campaña diciendo que si otros niños de Maipú no lograron lo que hizo Golborne es porque son flojos o son tontos. [….] “Quien ha sido exitoso muestra su inhumanidad al decirles esto a sus propios compañeros de curso. Más grave aún es que Chile sea un país en el cual alguien, vanagloriándose de este modo de su inhumanidad, crea que puede llegar a ser presidente”.
“Is it possible that a child born in Maipú can overcome every type of barrier and come out ahead? It's possible,” he starts.
The lawyer interprets the campaign saying that if other children from Maipú didn't achieve what Golborne did, it is because they were lazy or foolish. […] “Those who have been successful show their inhumanity in saying that to their own classmates. More serious still is that Chile is a country in which any person, boasting about themselves in this form of inhumanity, believes that he or she can become president.”
In the opinion column on the University of Adolfo Ibáñez's website Aldo Mascareño Lara [es] tells Golborne directly, “you know the only grace that I find in your path is that you did what you had to do with the opportunities given to you,” and formulates a series of questions abour your ideas and plans.
On Twitter, the voices have also been left to lament, for example Claudio Palavecino (@PalavecinoCL) [es], who says:
@PalavecinoCL: Cómo le pica a la izquierda la biografía de #Golborne Especialmente a la izquierda caviar.
@PalavecinoCL [es]: How the biography of #Golborne itches the left. Especially the caviar left.
El Twitter user Guillermo Saavedra (@guillesaavedraj) [es] makes a comparison:
@guillesaavedraj: La situación de Carla Ochoa representa a la política de llevar candidatos sin contenidos y que solo sumen votos y no ideología #Golborne
@guillesaavedraj [es]: Carla Ochoa's situation represents the politics of carrying candidates without content and that only get votes and no ideology #Golborne
Álvaro Muñoz Ferrer (@alvmunozf) [es] explains his opinion using a colloquial tone:
@alvmunozf No soy, en lo absoluto, experto en política, pero la candidatura de #Golborne no tiene peso, es un chiste … y un chiste fome [aburrido], además.
@alvmunozf [es] I am absolutely not a political expert, but the candidacy of #Golborne has no weight. It's a joke… and a bad joke, moreover.
On his part, Vacuna709Clandestino (@vacuna709) [es] brings light to the strangeness of the tone of Golborne's campaign:
@vacuna709: Si como apoyo de campaña #Golborne usa a alguien que se hiso [sic] famosa porque le pegaba a sus niños.. de verdad lo está asesorando @aallamand
@vacuna709 [es]: If I support the campaign of #Golborne, it uses someone that became famous because he hit his children… the truth is being assessed by @aallamand
Teasingly, Luis Contreras (@lcontreras32) [es] recommends:
@lcontreras32: Nuevo video de campaña de #Golborne: http://youtu.be/UB8foXMEJKE  ADVERTENCIA: si le parece un discurso convincente, vaya a un psiquiatra
@lcontreras32 [es]: New campaign video from #Golborne [es]: http://youtu.be/UB8foXMEJKE  WARNING: if it seems like a convincing argument, go to a psychiatrist
Also in The Clinic Online, Natalia Villanueva [es] criticizes Golborne:
No votaría por Laurence Golborne porque no me siento representada ni le creo nada. Esa sonrisa pintada en la cara me enferma. Lo veo cero como futuro presidente, me daría vergüenza que seamos cuatro años más gobernados por otro payaso. Es más, el asunto de los mineros lo lanzó a la fama. Antes nadie lo conocía, quedó como un líder a seguir y más encima cercano a la gente. Un show para que él y el gobierno quedaran como los grandes héroes del “pueblo chileno.
Como si Maipú fuera Etiopía, que fuera lo peor nacer aquí. Somos una comuna de gente de clase media, que estudiamos y todos salimos adelante. Yo tengo 22 años y estudio veterinaria y no ando por la vida diciendo… ¡HEY!, yo nací en Maipú y soy más sacrificada que todos ustedes. Es un payaso, nada de lo que haga lo acercará a la clase media, a la gente hueona [estúpida] puede ser, pero al chileno clase media que intenta superarse y ser cada día mejor, creo que no.
De llegar a La Moneda dudo que nos represente. Él ahora tiene amigos diferentes, los empresarios, que siempre serán más entretenidos que la gente común. Tenerlos contentos a ellos será su mayor felicidad.
I would not vote for Laurence Golborne because I do not feel represented and I don't believe him. That smile painted on his face makes me sick. I do not see him as the future president, and it woud embarass me to have four more years governed by another clown. What's more, the issue of the miners brought him fame. Before anyone knew it, he was like a leader to follow and approachable to the people. It's a show for him and the government to remain the great heroes of the “Chilean village.”
It's as if Maipú were Ethiopia, as if the worst were born here. We are a community of middle class people that study and all come out ahead. I'm 22 years old and I study veterinary science and I don't go through life saying, “HEY!, I was born in Maipú and I am more self-sacrificing than you.” He's a clown, and nothing he does will bring him closer to the middle class. To the stupid people, maybe, but to the Chilean middle class that tries to overcome and be better each day, I don't think so.
I doubt that he would represent us from La Moneda [Chilean seat of government]. Now he has different friends, the businessmen, that will always be more fun than the average people. To make them happy will be his greatest happiness.
The Chilean election campaign is starting to heat up.

author: Francisco Lemaitre


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China Wonders Who’s Behind New President’s Mystery Fan Blog · Global Voices
Owen Guo

A mystery blogger who has chronicled the comings and goings of incoming Chinese President Xi Jinping with remarkable candidness on the popular Chinese micro-blogging website Sina Weibo has many in the communist country wondering who he or she is.
The fan of Xi, who has some 480,000 followers and growing, posts photos of the politician and nearly live blogs every step he takes with a surprising knowledge of the leader's itinerary.
This Internet-savvy user, in a likely attempt to bypass the heavy-handed Weibo censors, refers to the president with the nicknames Boss Xi and Xi Dada, which means “Big Xi”, or “Uncle Xi” in Shannxi dialect:
@学习粉丝团 习总上午去了菜市场和养老院，从煤炭局后的养老远出来， 车队顺天水路经过了金城宾馆，貌似回家吃饭去了
A screenshot of the homepage of Xi's fan called “Study Xi Fans Club”
Censorship is commonplace in the world of Weibo, a social networking site that resembles Twitter. Searching a state leader's name usually yields nothing more than terse media headlines. Wen Jiabao, China’s outgoing premier who recently came under scrutiny after The New York Times published a lengthy article about the tremendous wealth his family has amassed, is a blocked phrase on Weibo.
So it is rare for personal comments concerning such a high-ranking official to gain momentum and attract retweet after retweet.
And in a country where the government keeps information about its leadership under tight control,it's rarer that this mysterious Weibo user has been able to post the up-to-date whereabouts of Xi, even before state media CCTV:
@央视新闻：神马情况？@学习粉丝团 比我们快，比我们近！
@CCTVNews: What is happening? @XuexiFensiTuan is faster and closer [to Xi] than us!
Many are questioning the user's real identity. The user's account profile reveals that he or she is a graduate of Xidian University, located in China’s northwestern Shannxi province, where incoming President Xi is originally from. “This is a community where [we] show our support and liking for Xi. Loving Xi non-stop, welcome to the group everyone,” reads a message at the top of the Weibo page.
In a move to fend off mounting curiosity of media and netizens, the user denied in a January 5 post [zh] being a member of the Communist Party of China and rejected allegations that he or she is close to Xi. The user added that the pictures of Xi were from online sources or were provided by local Xi fans.
In the end, the user wrote: “Thank you everyone, everything is changing, tomorrow will be better”.
The account's first Weibo post was published a few days after the closing of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China late last year in which Xi was named head of the party. It reads like a welcome message: “This is the community where we support Boss Xi, you are welcome to join the big family of Xi fans”.
The editor-in-chief of one local newspaper believes the mystery surrounding the Weibo user is proof positive that the public's interest in the lives of high-ranking officials is growing.
@我是朝日：解开“学习粉丝团”身份谜底的人们，这时候一定不反对网络实名认证。至少对这个账号的实名不会反对。其实这个一口一个“习大大”的博主，人们探究她的真实身份，表面上看是网民对这个博主的好奇，其实是对中央最高领导层政治生活面貌的好奇。
Those who want to unlock the mystery of “Xuexi Fensi Tuan” perhaps will not oppose real-name registration this time around. At least, they will not oppose the real identity registration for this account. On the surface, people are curious about the user who writes about “Xi Dada” [to refer to Xi], in essence, it all comes down to a curiosity toward the supreme leadership’s political life.

author: Owen Guo


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Dancing to the Beat of History with Marrabenta in Mozambique · Global Voices
Sandra Quiroz

This post was first published on Afribuku [es], a blog on contemporary African culture
It is often said that Mozambicans start the year “a marrabentar.” That's because every year, early February, the most representative festival of the country, the Festival of the Marrabenta, takes place. Wherever you go, you hear “teka, teka!”,  the expression used while dancing to marrabenta, which has a contagious rhythm that makes it difficult not to get carried away.
But in Mozambique, talking about marrabenta music is also serious, because in every hypnotic beat, the country's colonial history and identity resonates.
The Festival of Marrabenta Music
This time, from 1 to 3 February, 2013, the famous Congolese composer and singer Sam Mangwana and other Mozambicans musicians Dilon Djindji, Radio Marrabenta, Xidimingwana, Orquesta Djambo o Cheny Wa Gune, performed at the 6th edition of this festival held in the city of Maputo and in the towns of Marracuene and Matalene.
As every year, a train with live music departed from Maputo and took musicians and audiences to the village of Marracuene for free. An hour and a half trip into the “Train of marrabenta“,  people also joined the Gwaza Muthini celebration which coincides with the event.
Marrabenta Train. Photo by Litho Paulo David Sithoe on Facebook
Music of Resistance
The Gwaza Muthini ceremony commemorates the famous battle of Marracuene which took place on February 2, 1895. In this battle, the warriors of the Gaza Empire, under the command of Ngumgunhane, resisted the Portuguese colonial army.
The men of Ngumgunhane lost the battle and this was the beginning of the end of the Empire of Gaza. In the past, a hippopotamus was hunted and its meat was distributed among the population to commemorate the event. Today, hippopotamus meat has been replaced by goat meat which is often enjoyed with a local moonshine called “canhu” – consumed while dancing to the sound of the marrabenta.
The history and evolution of the marrabenta was not smooth. It emerged in the south of Mozambique at the end of the 1930s, but it wasn't until the 1960s that it became more popular. Multiracial and multicultural policies within the Portuguese colonies in Africa, facilitated its expansion in Mozambique and in its metropolis. The arrival of the first gramophones from South Africa and the emergence of local music broadcasts also contributed to its diffusion.
The legendary Dilon Djindji during his performance at the I Festival of the Marrabenta. Photo Sandra Quiroz | afribuku.
Music of Struggle
The Portuguese regime in Mozambique demanded that they sing and dance only Portuguese music during most of the colonial period. To defend their cultural identity, various organisations were born, such as the African Association (AA) and the associative Center of Blacks from the Province of Mozambique (CANPM), which ended up playing a fundamental role in the promotion of Mozambican culture. In this way, marrabenta became a music of struggle whose themes are inspired by the experiences of everyday life, love, social criticism and important events that took place in Mozambique.
Marrabenta at the African African Association (AA). Photo from Elarne and Fredo Cariano personal archive.
Evolution of Marrabenta
This rhythm was first played with homemade four-string guitars made from empty cans and pieces of wood. The mixture of the magikay and zukuta rhythms from the South of the country and the assimilation of western rhythms such as the American and South African black music coming to the former Lourenço Marques (today Maputo), enriched this new genre. It had no name until 1930 but finally adopted the name of the marrabenta.
Some authors claim that the term is derived from the Portuguese verb “rebentar” which means break, in this case “break the strings” by the force when they played the guitar; other authors argue that it comes from the idea of “dance until you break” because of the energy required when it is danced, as considered the Mozambican marrabenta musician Dilon Djindji. But for a large majority the marrabenta represents the cultural expression of a people who in the words of the ethnomusicologist Luka Mucavel “it is a product of society, experiences and coexistence between various Mozambicans ethnic groups with influence from outside”.
Sam Mangwana from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, (formerly Zaire, when he was born) came to the festival for the first time this year.
Marrabenta's Festival, 2013. Poster shared on afribuku.
His father was Zimbabwean and his mother was Angolan, and he grew up listening to Cuban, French, Spanish, Italian and American music. He is considered one of the main singers and promoters of the Congolese rumba and his artistic production is based on sounds from Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and Congo. During the 1980s and 90s, Sam popularized the marrabenta themes, “Vamos para o campo (Marracuene)”, “Tio António” or “Moçambique Oyé” which are now considered classics.
It's been five years since the first edition of the Festival of the Marrabenta, thanks to the initiative of Litho Sithoe. And five years later, the festival continues through the determination and perseverance of its organizer. On February 3 the festival ended with a concert at the Cultural Center of the town of Matalane. This day is celebrated the “Day of the Mozambicans Heroes”, a national holiday that commemorates the lives of the fallen soldiers who fought bravely for the country's independence in 1975. The finishing touch to end a weekend breathing, living and feeling the marrabenta.
No one can predict the future of the marrabenta nor can they decipher how the style will evolve in modern times, if it will take paths towards more commercial sound. But what is clear is that in this 6th edition, entertainment was guaranteed.

author: Sandra Quiroz


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Death Knell for Trinidad and Tobago Carnival?  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The moon is rising over the hills and the air is alive with the sound of sweet pan music.
Tillah Willah‘s account of Trinidad and Tobago's 2013 Panorama semi-finals certainly starts off idyllically.  But it soon degenerates:
Police are stalking the perimeter of the stage like a flock of belligerent cobo. Guarding the stage like a La Basse carcass. I start to wonder if this stage is where our culture comes to die.
Her post goes on to provide examples of her belief that “pan and other people-centred elements of the Carnival have continued to die slow painful deaths”; helping the musicians push their steel pans onto the stage, she gets the feeling that the police officers are oblivious to the “community effort” that goes into the making of Panorama.  It feels like an us against them situation:
Earlier in the evening, my neck craning over a barricade looking for a friend, a police officer told me I couldn’t stand where I was, although I was causing no obstruction. I ignored him and continued to look. The officer’s voice gets more insistent and as he makes as if to physically remove me, I walk away, feeling the mad blood rising. Not wishing to end up in an unnecessary altercation.
‘Family,’ the man on the track addressed me. ‘Family, he doh know who is you or what?’ Who is me? A Trinidadian. A Carnival lover. A panatic. It’s hard to keep a sense of humour. It’s hard not to want to pelt a bottle just to see what they will do. Start a riot just out of curiousity to find if they would really use those assault rifles in a crowd.
You shout stupidness at the officers. You know the arrangement your band is playing so you sing it back, you pam pam pa da the song into the officers’ faces. Officer Screw Face is properly scowling at us. Looking damn vex that we were still having a good time. He stretches his arms out to his sides to meet the batons of his fellow Corporal Stupidees.
He pushes us back more. We resist. We do a Hafizool on them. Except that we have more moral authority to stay on the stage. We are qualified to be here.
“Panorama”, image by adpowers, used under a Creative Commons license.
In short, Attillah Springer's Panorama experience leads her to the conclusion that “Carnival is a battle that the people are losing more and more every year.”  She may not be the only blogger who fels this way.  Mark Lyndersay, a photographer who has filmed various aspects of the festival over the years, blogs about the exorbitant fees that are being charged for documenting the country's annual festival:
I’ve been advised, by a source with no reason to lie about such things, that some quite draconian fees have been instituted for the coverage of Carnival in 2013.
These fees break out as follows in T&T cash money as the unsuited thugs say…
NCC Fees: Personal use – $600.00, Commercial use – $800.00
Additional National Carnival Bandleader’s Association (NCBA) fees for coverage of costumed bands and individuals: personal use – $5,900.00, commercial use – $10,000.00 (permits two years of local usage). For international commercial usage for U.K. and Europe add $3,500.00. for international commercial usage for the US, add $3,000.00.
He continues:
It’s unclear what rights ‘commercial usage’ covers. That’s very specific terminology in photographic licensing and these terms would, if the NCBA understands what they are talking about here, allow a photographer to cover Carnival and sell it to, say, Prada for an advertising campaign in the US and Europe.
If that’s the case, $16,500 is a steal of a deal.
I suspect, however, that this isn’t what this Axis of Copyright has in mind.The NCC/NCBA/TUCO/Pan Trinbago coalition of shortsightedness has tended to see ‘commercial usage’ as magazines offered for sale and prints sold in a photographic outlet, neither of which is particularly commercial or profitable and those fees applied to magazines could stand some testing in court.
“Blue Devil 2″ by nicholaslaughlin, used under a Creative Commons license.
Lyndersay makes the point that “the absurdity of charging for the documentation of a national festival isn’t something that photographers have been railing out only recently”.  He recounts the experience of the late photographer Noel Norton, who “lament[ed] the fees charged more than 20 years ago which he paid every year in order to continue his work recording the national festival”:
I witnessed begging expeditions by these same Carnival stakeholders to Norton’s studio to get access to images for one project or another, requests that the normally stern Mary Norton would always try to accommodate. Both of the Nortons photographed Carnival because they really loved this country and wanted to do their part to participate in its development.
In 2005, when they really began to struggle with the yearly trek to the Savannah, I wrote this letter to the NCC. A good friend of mine was present when it was read to the leadership of the NCC and it earned a single response: “What did Noel Norton ever do for Carnival?”
Not a single person spoke up for his years of service and the access they had offered to their archives. If anyone has ever wondered why I have been so biliously venal in my contempt for the NCC and everything it stands for, this is one outstanding reason why.
Now Carnival's Axis of copyright seems to want to limit or at the very least, severely tax the recording of Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival. This is such a stunningly myopic notion that I cannot speak to it at all…
This post does it pretty well, though.  Lyndersay ends on a defiant note:
I’m very tempted to walk away from this mountain of crap. But here’s the truth. Carnival is bigger and more important than the stupidity of the people who are appointed to run it. There will come a day when we look back on these decisions and lament the chilling effect they had on serious coverage and documentation, but that won’t bring those lost events and personalities back.
Hundreds of hours of Carnival coverage have been either lost or are steadily deteriorating in what remains of TTT’s video archives. This year’s Panorama Semi-Finals went unrecorded while negotiations over rights dithered on. The Norton Archive of Carnival, captured through love and preserved with dedication, remains our most complete record of the last fifty years of Carnival and it is now, justifiably, the inheritance of Mary and Noel’s family.
Instead of acknowledging that there is a small but important tradition of documenting Carnival in this country and finding ways to seek mutual reward in the recording for posterity and future leverage of our country’s creative patrimony, the Axis of copyright has chosen taxation as its only tactic of negotiation and discussion.
Pay us or go away, they say to us. They don’t see what commercialising Carnival coverage has done to this country’s understanding of the festival. How decades of jam and wine photos have redefined the event using its most common and vulgar visual language.
He adds:
Art doesn’t sell like hotcakes, but hotties do, so instead of a Carnival of creativity, documented and analysed, we get page after page of abs and boobs draped in feathers and spattered with glitter.
If Carnival is a golden goose, being paraded for the pleasure of the punters, this Axis of copyright is four fat fingers that are pressing steadily into its throat.
“ARI_2232″ by ariane_hunter, used under a Creative Commons license.
Plain Talk agrees:
Easily the most brazen lie ever told to the people of this country stripped down and devoid of any statistics to support it is that our Carnival is the greatest show on  earth. Far from being unique, first, biggest, most watched, or any of the other superlative adjectives that have been attached to that untruth over the years, the cold reality is that our Carnival is dying, slowly, collapsing on itself in a writhing orgy of drunken stupor while others around the world and in our hemisphere (contradicting our Tourism Minister) have been experiencing exponential and explosive growth in visitor arrivals and tourism dollars.
The blogger, Phillip Edward Alexander, cites a few examples – Brazil and New Orleans, to name a couple.  He continues:
Cultural activists, mas men and patriotic others have been ringing the alarm bells and publicly lamenting the death of carnival for years to no avail simply because we have never elected to Office men and women of sufficient vision to understand both the qualitative and quantitative value of our culture. Think those arrival and revenue statements are startling? What about the impact on the society of cohesion and community, the unifying, crime defeating value of the culture itself?
I have compared what our Carnival has become in the past to a wedding reception without the wedding, a celebration of ‘nothing’ where everyone shows up for the drinks and dancing. Surely there is something more of us, something rooted ‘deep within our Caribbean belly’ that wants to cry against this, isn't there?  When it finally dawns on those busily gyrating their wares for all to see that no one is watching anymore, the absurdity of what our carnival has become might dawn on us all.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Every Weekend is a Long Weekend in Gambia · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

“Unlike in the rest of the world, employees in a tiny nation on Africa’s west coast can now enjoy an extended weekend of three days, beginning Friday. The reform introduced in the public-sector by Gambian President Yahya Jammeh came into force on February 1 ignoring Opposition protest”
Blog SeyiSanchez reports.


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Jamaica: Bob’s Birthday  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Today is the anniversary of reggae icon Bob Marley's birth; a couple of Jamaican bloggers pay him tribute.


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Jamaica: Superpower! · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Don’t mind the IMF.  Thanks to Volkswagen of America, Inc., we’ve been reminded yet again that Jamaica is a cultural superpower.
Jamaica Woman Tongue reminds us that “the Jamaican presence at the Super Bowl wasn’t just the VW ad.  It was Beyoncé doing the dutty wine, to the invigorating beat of Sean Paul.  And to makes things even more like home, there was that nicely orchestrated power cut!  Jamaica is a superpower. Be happy about it. Yeah, mon!”


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Levitating Around Singapore · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Jayden Tan and Jeff Cheong have been ‘levitating’ around Singapore and they are even teaching students about the secrets of levitation photography. Their project has been gaining attention in Singapore and many people have already noted the creativity of their photos.
We take this levitating photography seriously. Its all done without any cables, its all sweat and passion. No photoshop no touch ups. We only colour correct the photo to create a certain mood okies :-)
Jayden and Jeff have given us the permission to share their wonderful photos to the readers of Global Voices. Below is an email interview which we conducted with them.
What inspired you to start this project? When did you begin this project?
Natsumi Hayashi made levitation photography famous with her gravity-defying shots. And since then many people from Asia to the world joined in the craze and started sharing cool photos of themselves ‘floating’ whilst going about in their daily (mundane) activities. We started the Facebook page sometime in July last year.
What are the reactions you received from the local community?
There were several groups in Singapore shooting levitation photos. We are all connected by the same passion and it was great that the local papers did a coverage of this special interest group on front page!
What are your favorite photos from the project?
We like the latest album for last year's Christmas. We collaborated with dancers, food bloggers and some of our friends. It was an epic shoot with such a large group. The theme was Christmas in tropics and we think its got the magic to spread the Christmas cheer.
The other one we like is the album shot at Singapore Changi Airport. We were lucky to get permission to shoot at the transit area. The airport has a beautiful setting and very interesting backdrop like the butterfly garden, kinetic rain sculpture and a roof top swimming pool.
Plans for this year with regard to the Levitation project
We will continue the fun and creative new stories and challenge ourselves to outdo the previous album.
Of late we found the opportunity to share our work with young students. And it fun side of things do have some light-hearted life skills to impart.
Levitation photography requires alot of hardwork to capture the perfect shot.
Lessons of perseverance, tenacity and perfection comes through and we share these in ad hoc engagement. The session ends with hands-on lesson where they get a sense of the work.
But when they see the result, the pride and awe kicks in and it gives these kids a sense of achievement to see themselves doing the impossible.


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US Congressman Vows to Help Gambians · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison and his Staff had a fruitful discussion on Gambia’s ailing democracy with the civil society group based in Minneapolis last Monday.
Congressman Keith Ellison in the United States House of Representative has promised to help Gambians in their fight for democracy.


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Open Access and the Complexity of Digital Rights · Global Voices
Barbara Auger

How do ways of thinking change through time and space?
British anthropologist Jack Goody posed this question in ‘The Domestication of the Savage Mind’, his 1997 publication covering new forms of communication within society. According to his study a culture which transmits its knowledge orally does not think in the same way as a writing-based culture.
Today, this is compounded by a new method of knowledge transmission – digital technology. We communicate on the internet by combining oral and written forms. Thanks to this technology, still new on the scale of human history, the transmission of knowledge – that is, data – is continually expanding as in a interconnected matrix. If this space was constructed by each of us, then there is a fundamental question to be answered. How should we use the internet? This question covers many issues. Should the sharing of all types of data be authorised? Who can access which data and under which conditions? Who should have oversight and control over it ?
Labyrinth made with 2500 burning tealights, Wikimedia Commons – License CC-BY-SA
Freedom of information versus exclusivity
According to modern thinking, knowledge has its roots in research. Scientists and academics, the thinkers of society, set up this culture and record in the cultural memory notions of official truth. This knowledge is communicated through the bias of institutional and governmental publications. Sarah Kendzior, specialist researcher based in Central Asia, commented on this:
Academic publishing is structured on exclusivity. (…) publishing in prestigious venues was once an indication of one’s value as a scholar. (…) Today, it all but ensures that your writing will go unread.
Digital thinking does not seem to work this way, however. On the internet, official knowledge is mixed up with the flux of global data and treated like any other information. Freedom is overcoming exclusivity.
Most of the scientific journals are now available online. However, they exist purely as landing screens for purchase, and do not utilise extra functionalities of the internet such as discussion forums, links and direct access. It is also common practice for scientific commercial editors to give the location of PDF articles and ask for a large payment to access them. For example a six page article was offered for $39.95 in a journal edited by Elsevier.
Dan Cohen explained the reasons for such a barrier on his blog:
What we did not anticipate was another kind of resistance to the web, based not on an unfamiliarity with the digital realm or on Luddism but on the remarkable inertia of traditional academic methods and genres—the more subtle and widespread biases that hinder the academy’s adoption of new media.
Open Access
In the face of this academic resistance a group of researchers, mostly made up of those working on or with the internet, called for free availability to digital publications from publicly-funded scientific research. They called this the Open Access project. This was the background behind the guilty verdict handed down to Aaron Swartz by the American government in 2011. He was found guilty of downloading nearly 4.8 million scientific articles via an MIT server, articles which were being sold by editor JSTOR, and which Swartz could have put online to be available to anyone.
Aaron Swartz at Boston Wikipedia Meetup, Sage Ross on Wikimedia Commons – License CC-BY-SA
However, the general public were only made aware of his actions to promote freedom of information following his suicide on January 11, 2013. This unleashed a wave of solidarity from many academics who have since freely distributed their scientific articles in PDF format. The initiative took hold with Redditthis proposal from Micah Allen, a Danish neuroscientist, on Twitter with hashtag #PDFTribute started by Eva Vivalt and Jessica Richman.
Nevertheless, the Open Access movement is not so recent on a digital time scale. Started in 2001 by the Budapest Open Access Initiative, it grew at the heart of a global desire to open up cyberspace. Although the concept reached the United Kingdom and certain universities in Ireland and even Kenya, as well as the core of the European Commission who made it one of its priorities for 2020, the bulwarks of American research refused, with a few exceptions, to adapt:
@sarahkendzior : Academic paywalls are part of a culture of fear. Fear of engaging with the world instead of insulating oneself from it. #pdftribute
According to digital thinking, a scientific article is written to be shared and debated over. By reproducing the traditional model, the commercial editor refuses a free access model, perpetuating a method unadapted to cyberspace. A method whereby information remains restricted to certain populations, a method with strict rules denying all communication between the researcher and the public. A method running the risk, in the first instance, of non-recognition by peers, of marginalisation at the core of their community or even legal proceedings.
The free availability of scientific data is forged from inspiring examples. Free access allows wider circulation of information between scientists from different disciplines and different regions, as noted by Sean Guillory, an historian specialising in Russia:
A very wide gap of communication, access, and dialogue exists between the knowledge scholars in the “west” produce about Eurasia, and what scholars “over there” produce.
Free access also benefits non-scientific people, to return to the example of Sarah Kendzior:
With one paper uploaded on Academia.edu, Sarah Kendzior helped Uzbek refugees find a safe haven abroad. With another upload she brought the world of contemporary Uzbek literature into the lives of Midwestern teens.
According to the Finch report, published June 19, 2012, the barriers posed by the old commercial model restrict innovation, growth and other benefits which can follow on from research. The digital world, complicated though it is, differentiates itself from its predecessor by its egalitarian nature, the idea that everyone should be free to access the information they seek. This is the democratic freedom behind the Public Domain Manifesto:
In a period of rapid technological and social change the Public Domain fulfills an essential role in cultural participation and digital innovation, and therefore needs to be actively maintained.
France's Digital Cultural Heritage for Sale
In France announcement of a signing of agreements between the Bibliothèque Nationale and private companies was made on January 18, 2012. This played into the same debate over access to knowledge for all, a cause supported by many French groups and associations, as in this appeal on Framablog states [Fr]:
Ces partenariats prévoient une exclusivité de 10 ans accordée à ces firmes privées, pour commercialiser ces corpus sous forme de base de données, à l’issue de laquelle ils seront mis en ligne dans Gallica, la bibliothèque numérique de la BnF. Les principaux acheteurs des licences d’accès à ces contenus seront des organismes publics de recherche ou des bibliothèques universitaires, situation absurde dans laquelle les acteurs du service public se retrouveront contraints et forcés, faute d’alternative à acheter des contenus numérisés qui font partie du patrimoine culturel commun.
These partnerships see 10-year exclusivity granted to these private companies, for the commercialisation of this bodies of work in database form, from which they can have online access to Gallic, the digital library of the BNF. The principal buyers of access licences for this content will be public research organisations or university libraries, an absurd situation in which public servants find themselves constricted and forced, due to lack of alternatives, to buy digitised content which forms part of our shared cultural heritage.
The agreements behind this private digitisation restrict access to knowledge which, because of its history, ought to belong to us all. This archival process and digital re-appropriation of cultural data, financed by rich institutions, transposes and imposes a way of exploiting the human mind on the public space that is the internet. It is not a matter here of misunderstanding the nature of the internet, but rather of a commercial stranglehold on part of our heritage. In other words, these privatised digitisations are actually taking control of a part of cyberspace and occupying an intellectual space that belongs to all mankind.
The development of a digital way of thinking – with a strong emphasis on the public space – is challenged by the lack of imagination for innovation from both modern and traditional thinkers. However, something has changed since the dawn of the digital age. Today, it is the democratic intelligence that own the technological tools which give us access to human knowledge until now cloistered by an elite.

author: Barbara Auger