text:
Conflict in Yemen Takes Heavy Toll on Country’s Children · Global Voices
Viridiana Lopez

Screenshot from the MSF USA documentary ‘War in Aden: Surviving the Everyday’ showing a malnourished child in Yemen. Source: Youtube.
“Hunger is the most dominant thought on Yemenis minds during this period”, Yasser Rayes, an author at the Yemen Times, recently wrote.
Over the past few months, several humanitarian groups have launched appeals to tackle the issue of hunger in Yemen, largely aggravated by the Saudi-led coalition's bombing of the country. As is often the case, children are the most severely affected by the crisis.
In August of 2016, Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders’ (MSF) foreign correspondent Sophie McNeill called it a ‘war on children‘. This ‘war on children’ includes the many reported attacked on hospitals by the Saudi-led coalition, including hospitals run by MSF, since the start of the civil war, most notably the bombing of a MSF-run hospital in Abs, Northern Yemen, on August 15, 2016, that left 11 dead.
In September of 2016, MSF released the results of its investigations into airstrikes on the hospital in Abs and on a clinic in Taiz, a city in south western Yemen, in December of 2015. The investigation, according to CNN, revealed that:
The neutrality and impartiality of the facilities had not been compromised before the attacks and therefore there was no legitimate reason to attack them […] The details of the incidents documented in these two reports are unambiguous indicators of how war is being waged in Yemen, where there is an utter disregard for civilian life by all warring parties.
The attacks lead to the withdrawal of MSF from the northern part of the country, making the desperate situation there even more desperate.
The apparent targeting of hospitals has deepened the humanitarian crisis already occurring in the country. According to humanosphere:
Some 18 million people need assistance. When the government collapsed, basic services like trash pick-up stopped. And with food supplies cut off, millions are going hungry. The World Food Program projects that the number of food-insecure people could rise from 14 million to 21 million if the situation does not improve. Not only can hunger lead to death, but for those who survive, there are long-term consequences such as stunted growth and irreversible brain damage.
The Yemeni section of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported that cholera cases have increased.
31 confirmed cases of #Cholera in #Yemen, mainly in #Sanaa (12) and #Aden (9). 644 suspected cases reported. Humanitarian orgs. scaling-up. pic.twitter.com/Pd3iruTzvF
— OCHA Yemen (@OCHAYemen) October 24, 2016
According to UNICEF, at least one child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen because preventable diseases such as diarrhoea, malnutrition & respiratory infections.
At least one child dies every 10 minutes in #Yemen because of preventable diseases such as diarrhoea, malnutrition & respiratory infections. pic.twitter.com/k56a1SmVGd
— UNICEF Yemen (@UNICEF_Yemen) December 12, 2016
In an accompanying report, UNICEF's Yemen office stated:
The conflict in Yemen has taken a devastating toll, particularly on the most vulnerable members of society: children.
Even before the outbreak of conflict in March 2015, Yemen faced challenges from widespread poverty, food insecurity and lack of health services. But now, with more than 3.2 million people displaced, food and fuel imports cut short and livelihoods destroyed, more than four in five Yemenis are in need of some kind of humanitarian assistance.
During the first year of the conflict, more than 900 children were killed, constituting one third of all civilian deaths. Thousands more are wasting away because of deprivations caused by the conflict. UNICEF estimates that 370,000 children in Yemen face severe malnutrition, while 2.2 million children need urgent humanitarian assistance to prevent a further deterioration in their nutritional status. Even after the conflict ends, the effects of malnutrition – stunted growth and delayed cognitive development – may linger. In the worst cases, it is fatal.
The number of out-of-school children – already high before the conflict – has ballooned to 2 million as more than 350,000 additional children have been unable to attend school because of closures. Education for these children cannot wait.
The country’s water and sanitation infrastructure has also been ravaged, posing serious health risks. Restrictions on the importation of fuel have disrupted the delivery of water to millions of people in one of the most water-scarce countries on Earth. Fuel shortages have also curtailed access to health care, as hospitals are unable to power the generators they need to function.
On 6 October 2016, health authorities in Yemen confirmed a cholera outbreak, posing an increased health risk to the population – especially children – given the crumbling health system in the country.
In order to tackle the issue, UNICEF Yemen is requesting US$235,248,126 for 2017.
Screenshot of the report showing the scale of the humanitarian crisis. Source: UNICEF Yemen.
In response to UNICEF and others’ appeals, several humanitarian groups have launched their own appeals.
The World Food Program is delivering emergency food assistance and has called for urgent support to aid the humanitarian response, emphasizing Yemeni children:
Save the Children sent out an ‘Emergency Alert’ about the situation in Yemen, saying:
War has ripped through what was already the poorest country in the Arab world. A staggering 18 million people are now in dire need of aid. One in three of Yemen’s young children are severely malnourished. And a staggering 7 million children go to bed hungry every night.
Erin Hutchinson, Yemen director for the aid agency Action Against Hunger, said: “We’re seeing a worsening situation as the conflict continues, and it’s not stabilizing. The needs are only deepening at the moment.”
Relief International has several programs in Yemen. CARE, on its part, focuses on “Water, sanitation and hygiene services and reproductive health services to needy populations in Yemen.”
In recent days, meanwhile, social media users have been trying to catch the world's attention in order to fight child hunger using the hashtag #SOS_YemenGenocide on Twitter.
Dr. RS Karim, co-founder of the ‘Mona Relief Yemen’ NGO, tweeted:
#Yemen Children starving Due to the blockade by #Saudi coalition @theresa_may#SOS_YemenGenocidepic.twitter.com/u1YluNS3RE
— Dr. RS Karim (@RSKarim1) January 1, 2017

author: Viridiana Lopez


text:
Introducing ‘Vovinam’, a Vietnamese Martial Art Steeped in Political History · Global Voices
Loa

Vovinam Club from Belegny, Belgium visits Saigon to practice with young practitioners. Photo from Loa.
This article by Chí-Linh Đinh is from Loa, an independent news website and podcast that broadcasts stories about Vietnam. It is republished by Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
It’s a cold Sunday afternoon in a community center in Toronto. The floorboards creak. The whole room is full of activity. A martial arts class is in session. One of the thầy, or instructors, dressed in a light blue uniform and a yellow belt, calls out each đòn, or technique.
As he calls out each technique, every student in formation diligently follows his directions. The students are all practitioners of Vovinam.
Thầy Lưu Đức Tiến explains that
Vovinam was founded by master Nguyễn Lộc. The founding master named it Vovinam, short for Võ Vietnam, or Vietnam martial arts. But the pronunciation is Vovinam so foreigners can easily read and remember it.
Thầy Tiến surveys the class quietly, observing the different sections of students. He doesn’t teach anymore, having retired, but every time he visits the whole class stops what they are doing and bows with respect.
Thầy Tiến says founder Nguyễn Lộc started teaching Vovinam in the 1930s, and “its first class [began] at Siu Phạm school, Hà Nội and developed there until 1954.”
According to Thầy Tiến, political changes in 1954 pushed “[Master] Lộc, who was born in 1912 in a village called Hữu Bằng just west of Hà Nội [to migrate] to South Vietnam, following the Geneva Accords that split the country in two.” It was in South Vietnam that Master Lộc continued to “spread the practice here until his death in 1960.”
Thầy Tiến further explains:
After 1966, Vovinam expanded widely and was introduced to the public education system in South Vietnam. After 1975, Vovinam was outlawed by the Communist government. All the students and the masters continued under the radar, underground, until December of 1978, when Vovinam was again legalized.
Vovinam was created as a response to the French occupation of Vietnam. It is effectively a hybrid of older practices found in different regions of the country. Master Lộc had wanted to create a unifying force that could instil hope and patriotism among his countrymen. Vovinam was to be used, in his opinion, not only to better oneself, but to also help serve the country.
Practitioners and instructors practicing Vovinam. Photo from Loa
The uniforms, to this day, reflect that hope.
Unlike many other martial arts, the Vovinam uniform is sky blue,” says Thầy Tiến, and “the blue color symbolizes hope for change in our country and change within each Vietnamese person according to the philosophy of reforming your mental state.
Each belt color, besides denoting rank, has a symbolic meaning as well. Beginners wear the same light blue belt as their uniforms. As they go up in rank, their belt colors change from light to dark blue, to yellow, to red. This progression of colors represents the students’ closeness to their goal of mastering Vovinam. Light blue represents the sky, and dark blue is like the sea. As practitioners advance, yellow symbolizes their skin deep mastery, with red standing for blood.
As grandmaster, founder Lộc was allowed the white belt–his mastery had seeped into his bones. Only one other person has obtained the white belt, grandmaster Lê Sáng, the successor to Nguyễn Lộc.
Masters are awarded the red belt, signifying a mastery of Vovinam at the blood level. Photo from Loa
The fact that Vovinam was created as a reaction to colonialism might explain why it has such explosive attack moves compared to other martial arts. Many of the blows are brutal and quick. They rely more on power and speed rather than finesse or elegance.
Explaining one of the signature takedowns that has made Vovinam famous, Thầy Tiến states that “as far as the martial art techniques are concerned, Vovinam has perhaps some of the most unique types, very different from other martial arts, and that’s the flying scissors takedown. This is when the fighter uses his legs flying into the air to grapple the opponent’s neck and tackles him to the ground. That’s a specialty of Vovinam.”
Vovinam is uniquely Vietnamese not just in its acrobatic forms. Students are tested not just on the physical, but also on their understanding of Vovinam’s philosophy. And regardless of where it’s taught, the language of instruction is always Vietnamese and classes are always free.
The practice is almost finished here at the Toronto community center. There are two new students today; both looking nervous. Thầy Tiến patiently shows them how to put their belts on for the very first time. The rest of the class bows to the instructor, right fist over their heart. Then they shout their final salvo, a traditional end to a Vovinam class.
Learn more about Vovinam by listening to this podcast:

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Loa


text:
Singapore’s Prime Minister Leads Netizens in Expressing Gratitude for Foreign Workers · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Photo from the official Facebook page of Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong’s Facebook post praising foreign workers has gone viral and inspired many netizens to reflect on the valuable role foreigners play in their society.
Lee posted a photo of a foreign worker he saw in Changi Beach during the New Year weekend.
The photo has this caption:
As we enjoy the festive days with friends and family, let us spare a thought for the foreign workers who have left their families behind to work in a distant land. They build our HDB [housing] flats and MRT [train] lines, keep our roads clean and parks green, and take care of our young and elderly. They slog and save to support loved ones, but at least with the internet and cellphones they can keep in touch, and feel not quite so far away.
As of this writing the post has received 37,000 Facebook likes, 3,500 shares, and more than a thousand comments.
Singapore is home to 1.3 million registered foreign workers. More than 200,000 of these are maids or other types of domestic workers, mainly from neighboring countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar, and India. In recent years, reports have surfaced about domestic workers experiencing maltreatment at the hands of their employers. Cases of abuse are rising, despite new laws designed to their rights.
The housing conditions of some of Singapore's migrant workers. Photo from the Flickr page of Rob O'Brien, CC License.
Many praised Lee for recognizing the contribution of migrant workers in Singapore. One of those who appreciated the message of Lee was Selina Xu, who wrote this comment on Facebook:
Thank you PM Lee! I'm really glad you called attention to a group of people often ignored or unseen by our society – our migrant workers are the ones who toil tirelessly to build Singapore's landscape. But sometimes their plight and voices go unheard and the true extent of their contributions to our sprawling metropolis become under-appreciated.
Angel Ting shared Lee’s photo and urged greater compassion for migrant workers in real life and not just on social media:
…touched beyond words to have such a loving PM. even more touched by the comments, Singaporeans and foreigners alike. A country flooded with ties of kinship, but just hope that more could be shown in real life than just on social media…
Activist Jolovan Wham noted that despite the previous similar pronouncements of Lee about caring for migrant workers, “promotion of justice for migrant workers continues to be marginalized activities” in Singapore.
This is not the first time the PM has feted the contributions of migrant workers — and he should, because if all of them went on strike, our economy collapses. However, appreciation cannot stop at warm and fuzzy fb posts but should translate into concrete policies to make a difference in their lives, which his government is capable of doing but lacks the political will.
The NGO leader also admonished the opposition parties for failing to prioritize the welfare of migrant workers:
Even opposition parties aren't keen because caring about migrant workers doesn't get votes. Many fear being seen as “pro foreigner”, but do not realize that universal labor rights benefit voters too.

author: Mong Palatino


text:
Spicy, Delicious, and Not So Cheap: Bhutan’s Chili Ban Raises Cost of National Dish · Global Voices
Rezwan

Chili harvest in Bhutan. Image from Flickr by Thomas Wanhoff. CC BY-SA
In Bhutan, chilies are highly regarded as a vegetable rather than a mere spice. The national dish is Ema Datshi, a curry made from hot chili pepper and cheese. It's no mystery why Bhutan has made chilies an important part of its cuisine: the place is cold, and spicy food is a delicious way to warm up. Recently, however, a controversial import ban has skyrocketed prices on this staple food.
In Bhutan, a landlocked country in the Himalayas, chilies are considered something transcendent — they're a way of life. Writing online, Kinley Tshering describes this powerful obsession:
It is hard to imagine Bhutanese dish without chillies. Bhutanese eat chillies whether raw or cooked, minced or roasted, fresh or dried, but no Bhutanese dish is complete without it. It isn't just another vegetable – or fruit if you want to get real scientific – we eat everyday; it is an integral part of our culture and life.
Ema Datshi – the national dish of #Bhutan made with potatoes, chili & cheese, eaten with rice. It's #ComfortFood pic.twitter.com/zW6llG260c
— sucheta rawal (@SuchetaRawal) February 15, 2016
For this very reason, sourcing of chilies is very important. Chilies do not grow everywhere in Bhutan, mainly because of the country's climate. As a landlocked country, Bhutan depends on regular imports from its neighbor, India, which supplies the particularly small and spicy varieties that are hard to cultivate in Bhutan.
In July 2016, the Bhutan Agriculture and Food Regulatory Authority slapped a temporary ban on the import of chillies from India, claiming that pesticides were found in some imported shipments from India. Bhutan regulates the use of pesticide as it plans to become a 100-percent organic-produce country by 2020.
Writing on Facebook, Dorji Wangchuk welcomed the ban:
This is good chance for Bhutanese farmer to produce more chili and do marketing.
One unwelcome side effect of the new regulations, unfortunately, has been rising prices nationwide on smaller and spicier fresh green chilies. A slump in domestic production due to a heavy monsoon season has only aggravated the market. By this winter, chili prices were twice as high as they were before the ban. The timing is lousy, too: two-thirds of Bhutan's imported chilis — nearly 2.3 metric tons — are sold in the winter.
MeBhutan, a Facebook community, commented:
Ema Datsi, the national dish will just be a distant dream, if the price goes even higher.
Facebook user Desup Nim Dorji, meanwhile, shared a video describing some of the problems with vegetables imported from India, writing:
There has been wide spread of anger and frustration on the price of Chilli. I just wonder why people are not educated enough to look at other side of imported Chilli we have consumed.
In an effort to normalize the situation, the Bhutanese government started importing pesticide-free chillies from India.
Inside Bhutan, a guide on Bhutan, wrote on Facebook:
Importing CHILI via Chartered Flight is NOTHING but the failure of Ministry of Agriculture (and Forestry)!
The well trained agriculturist and extension officers (in Gewogs) should have collaborated with farmers and cultivated ‘winter chili’ rather than watching Bhutan import emergency chili via air. This was a good chance to encourage winter farming and promote organic farming in Bhutan.
Blogger Yeshey Dorji, meanwhile, wrote:
The question is: given this humongous captive market, why isn't the Bhutanese people growing more chilies?

author: Rezwan


text:
A Life Outside Work for Hong Kong’s Filipino Domestic Helpers · Global Voices
Varsity

Video interview screenshot.
This story was written by Avery Tsui, Li Sunpin, Minnie Wong, Vivienne Tsang and Achlys Xi and originally published on Varsity, a magazine run by students from the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
The number of foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong has been steadily climbing, reaching 340,380 last year, a 24 per cent increase compared with five years ago. Although they are a part of the lives of many working families in Hong Kong, many people still stereotype domestic workers as poor and uneducated. When they are in the news, it is often in negative context – either it is about them cheating or stealing from their employers and abusing their wards, or it is about their employers mistreating them.
However, domestic helpers aren't any different than anyone else. They have friends and families, and enjoy a rich social life on their days off.
Michelle Saluta, 37, came to Hong Kong a year ago. She started a dance society and practices with her team every Sunday.
She’s been dancing for more than 10 years, starting when she was at university in the Philippines. She thinks dancing can provide a release from work pressure and help her bond with her friends. Saluta likes to make the most of her single day off every week:
We have to enjoy it rather than sitting down [and being] sad.
Lee Ann Hidalgo, another domestic worker, takes part in photography workshops. Lee Ann got into photography because it gives her positive energy. Through photography, she would like to show the talents of domestic helpers:
I don't like domestic helpers just saying that we are just domestic helpers. We may have the lowest salary here in Hong Kong, but in some ways we are helping Hong Kong. Instead of focusing on the negative sides, like being sad or being homesick, photography helps me to be positive. With the use of my photos, I want them to see we are not just cleaners, we can do other good things.
Beyond their daily household chores, Filipino domestic helpers in Hong Kong enjoy communal life with their compatriots. Leo Selomenio, a domestic helper who came to Hong Kong in 1996 and 10 years later founded Global Alliance, a group dedicated to helping the overseas Filipino community, spends her weekends organizing activities for her fellow domestic helpers. Although she faces many difficulties such as the lack of time and financial support, her employer supports her endeavour by letting her have two days off on weekends:
Wherever I go, I may be back to Philippines for good, I will never be able to forget my employer because they have already become a part of my life.

author: Varsity


text:
How Many Cows Does It Take To Get A University Degree? · Global Voices
Kurtural

Eudelia Franco. Photograph by Kurtural. Used with permission.
Below is a condensed version of a report written by Fátima Rodriguez for Kurtural and republished on Global Voices with permission. The article is part of the series “Cows That Fly, Schools That Crumble,” which will be edited and republished on Global Voices Latin America. The original version includes longer testimonials about life in indigenous towns of the area and also includes an in depth historical background of the diverse communities in the area of Paraguay where Cayin ô Clim can be found.
Eudelio Franco finished high school the same year that Paraguay sent cows to Ecuador by plane. In 2015, she was the first woman to graduate from high school in the urban indigenous community of Cayin ô Clim or White Hummingbird in the Nivaclé language, in the Paraguayan Chaco, but she doesn't know if she will finish university. It all depends on the decision of the community about whether or not to sell the communally owned cows to help her pay for school.
Eudelia returns to Cayin ô Clim one cold morning in July after four months of studying Business Administration at the Autonomous University of Asunción, one of the 54 private universities that exist in the country. The community was founded by a religious mission in 1954 on the outskirts of the Mennonite city of Neuland in the north east of the country.
However, Neuland was founded on land where the Nivaclé have always lived. The government ceded land to the German refugees to populate the Paraguayan Chaco. The Germans took care of cows and industrialized milk production. They also formed a cooperative which is the main provider of beef and industrialized milk products in Paraguay.
After a seven hour trip from the capital, Eudelia is received in Neuland by Juan Franco, her father. Starting at 3 a.m. he prepares the dough for the German bakery where he works. His salary is 2,000,000 guaraníes (about $360 a month), little more than the legal minimum wage which isn´t enough to cover his daughter´s expenses in Asunción.
Eudelia lives in Asunción, in a small apartment furnished with a borrowed mattress and chairs. From home, she brought a pot, a spoon and an electric stove that she borrowed from her aunt. Since February 2016 she has learned many things while living in the capital: how to take the bus, how to make full sentences in Spanish, street names and how to spend entire days without eating.
Eudielia goes to class from Monday to Thursday, from 8:00 to 10:50. She takes morning classes because the monthly fee of 578,000 guaraníes goes up to 778,000 for evening classes (from $100 to $140).
On Thursday, she knows she has a meal secured. Noelia, a classmate from her Thursday course, normally invites her to eat during the break. Other days, her classmate Diego gives her some food. Sometimes, for weeks on end, she only eats what is given to her by her classmates.
When she finished high school, many people from the community celebrated and congratulated her. She remembers how the community radio station dedicated music to her and recorded special greetings. On graduation day, there was a party with dancing and food. There were 12 graduates, only one of them was indigenous: Eudelia.
Nélida Sandoval remembers her daughter when she was a chubby, smiling girl, going to school by bicycle with her sister. Having enough time to study and to do homework meant they could no longer do housework, like going to the mountain to look for firewood.
Eudelia passes by the medical center, the soccer field, the school, the radio station. She needs to take advantage of her time because she will only be in the town for 3 days. As she is walking, she says hi to her friend Sunny Lady, who almost cries when she sees Eudelia. They touch hands. The nivachei, women of the community in the Nivaclé language, are not much used to hugging. Eudelia and Sunny Lady say hi: “Lhom!”. “Hello!”.
Sunny Lady López is 21 years old. She shows affection for her friend but she takes any opportunity to point out that Eudelia is privileged because her dad is a baker and because he keeps quiet. Sunny López's father works in communication and is used to being an outspoken defender of indigenous rights. She also dreamed of going to university.
In the beginning of 2015, Sunny López posted on Facebook that the teachers at her high school discriminated against indigenous students. According to her, it was necessary for them to make reservations to use something from the library or the computers but it wasn't necessary for the other students to do the same. This criticism almost got her expelled from school. An NGO stepped in and managed to get the high school to take Sunny back, but afterwards it wasn't the same.
“They never let me speak again,” recalls Sunny López. During the high school Olympics, they told her that it would be better if she stayed quiet. They asked her, sarcastically, if she was the secretary of all indigenous people. Months later, due to a lack of money, she dropped out of high school.
“Eudelia´s situation is different, her dad is a baker, he has a secure job,” she says.
The Nivaclé don't present themselves as Paraguayans, even though their Paraguayan state documents say otherwise. In Cayin ô Clim there are three groups: Mennonites, German settlers or children of German settlers; Paraguayans, non-indigenous and non-Germans. And then there are the Indigenous people.
There are no Mennonites that go to the Nuevo Amanecer high school, and latino children don't go to the Mennonite schools because of the high cost and demanding requirements. For example, Jorgelina, Eudelia's best friend from high school, is Paraguayan and daughter of two latino parents who moved to Neuland from Asunción. There were a number of indigenous classmates in her grade at the beginning of the year, but all of the dropped out because they had to work, because it was too expensive or because the girls got pregnant.
The 28 hectares where Cayin ô Clim was initially settled, was too small for the children and grandchildren of the first settlers. As a result, the Mennonite settlers helped them to found other communities a little farther from the city, like Campo Alegre, Nicha Toyish and Paraíso.
Almost everybody living in Cayin ô Clim is an employee or a day worker for Mennonite businesses, but when it was no longer possible to economically sustain the new communities, the state committed itself to buying new land where they could raise cows and remedy the situation. This is the land where the indigenous community built the ranch.
The first cows were donated by the Mennonite cooperative. Today, they have 386 head of cattle that allow them to raise and sell weaned calves – calves ready for the fattening process – which helps pay any fees for the community truck and pay for any emergencies. Every weaned calf is sold for anywhere between 1,400,000 to 1,800,000 guaraníes ($250-330). There are also 145 goats, chickens and other domestic animals on the ranch.
The community is in danger of losing the ranch. This year, the government handed over deeds to the land acquired in 1997 by the Paraguayan Indigenous Institute (INDI). In those days, the state paid almost 3 billion guaraníes ($540,000) for 19,000 hectares from landowner, Gregorio Presentado Benegas. But an ex-military member, Humberto Peralta, and a rancher, Ramón Esteche, appeared and claimed that they had deeds to the same land. An expert from the Supreme Court needs to evaluate the validity of the documents and who “invested in the property”. For this reason, the indigenous group was obligated to take out a loan to clean the land and plant grass. According to their logic, the courts will have no doubt that the land belongs to the community, since they invested in the property.
Supposing that the weaned calves are sold at the best price and the university fees don't go up – as they tend to do in private universities- nor the price of rent, Eudelia would need 58 cows to finish her Administration degree in 4 years. Supposing that everything goes well in her Written and Oral Communication class, her most difficult course so far.
Eudelia returns to Asunción with promises from her community that they will help, but nothing so concrete. The sale of the cows could be the solution, but only as a last resort. Even with all the aide that the government could give her, she is in the red. INDI requires the presence of a community leader in Asunción to corroborate that she is a member of an indigenous community. The trip costs more than a month of benefits: 350 thousand guaraníes.
In the meantime, she is looking for a job as a cleaner.

author: Kurtural


text:
On Aleppo: A Letter to a Historian in the Future · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

“To the girl who shared the siege with me: I love you”. Eastern Aleppo, December 15, 2016. Photo by Salih Abo Qusay. Used with Permission.
By Samer Frangie
You might receive an invitation to a conference exploring the root causes of the collapse of the Middle East. Or perhaps you are simply interested in studying this region, home to your people before the collapse that prompted their exile and migration. Or maybe you are just curious about events that took place half a century ago. I do not know, but in any case you will one day return to this pivotal year in order to understand your present, a present that has been forged out of this collapse. You will visit a library and find hundreds of books about the causes of the collapse: the rise of ethnic identities, the economic recessions, the collapse of the “illusion” that we once called the ‘center’.
Your present may have reconciled itself to the rule of the extreme right and normalized its racist ideology. I do not know. It is also possible that this wave has already passed, following the wars and the destruction it caused, and your research has led you to hold previous generations accountable for the rise of that wave. I do not know.
In any case, you will only be able to revisit this period through the bookshelves that separate your present from your past, or our present. You will find numerous studies written about the “Arab Spring” and many more next to them about the “Arab Fall.” You can simply ignore them. They were hastily written and exclusively meant to secure some fame for intellectuals whose only breakthrough was the play on the notions of spring and fall.
You may also ignore another bookshelf, the one with the books in black covers about a group we called “Daesh,” of which you may not have heard. This fundamentalist group constituted the fabric of all of our obsessions before we discovered that the wars we waged against it endured for decades after its demise, and even after it faded from our memories. Back then, we produced loads of books to frighten ourselves because we were slightly bored and we found something that could both terrify and exhilarate us.
On the other hand, you will not find many books about Syria, that country that was at the roots of what you now might be calling “Useful Syria.” The few books that you will find talk of a revolution that started in 2011 before it “deviated” from its noble course. You will not find many studies on this topic for the years 2011-2016, because it was a “complicated” period for the intellectuals of our time who could not understand what was going on. And so they preferred to remain silent – the only time they chose to halt the endless mill of speech. Following this period of silence, you will find a torrent of studies about the need for dialogue, reconciliation, and the reconstruction of Aleppo, the city that was inaugurated after its reconstruction by the son of the late president Bashar Al-Assad. You may think there is little of research interest here, nothing more than the garden variety disputes of a country ruled by a ‘progressive’ tyrant. Once, there existed backward tribes that staged a rural revolt against the urban centers, co-opting the mosques to eliminate pluralism, all because of the drought. This is what the Arabic language teacher at the University of Damascus will tell you when you visit this city where tradition and modernity meet, as the billboard in the airport proudly indicates. This is also what your dissertation supervisor will confirm as he steers you to more important research questions such as the orientalist discourse in car advertisements, or the role the west played in the Arab revolutions. In most likelihood, Russian imperialism would not yet have been elevated to the status of a research topic.
The scenario could be different. You might have heard of Aleppo and its destruction. Perhaps, this city, or one of its neighborhoods, would have gone down in history alongside Guernica, Dresden, or Deir Yassin as icons of destruction and murder, only serving as harbingers of the dark times lying ahead. You may find some oil sketches here or some verses of poetry there speaking of this city. You might stumble upon such verses in your search for some imagery to use in the introduction of your dissertation. And the question you never asked your parents, but which has haunted you, will come back: “How did you consent to such destruction, killing and displacement?” Therein lies the advice of this letter: Stop at this question, at Aleppo and at the Syrian revolution. For this is where the story began. From the vantage point of your present, you might not be able to see the pivotal importance of the Syrian Revolution, for the silence of which I spoke earlier would have squandered it. You may find numerous writings accusing those who used the word “revolution” of appealing to an ideology that contradicted reality, and from your perspective, this accusation may seem valid. But today, 50 years before you read this letter, Aleppo is burning. And the term “revolution” is all we have left so that we do not participate in this murder. So forgive us our misuse of these concepts.
Go back to Aleppo and ask us why we acquiesced. Do not waste your time searching for a connection between the price of oil and the massacres, or the growth of the Russian empire and the destruction, or even on metaphysical analyses of discourse and its inherent complexities. Do not delve deep and simply ask us how we acquiesced. Do not hold us responsible because you too could have accepted the destruction as we did. But do not forgive us either. Stay at the surface where you will find everything you need. If a text or a book tells you that we did not know, be sure that is falsehood. Do not feel that your distance from the events disqualifies you from being certain of that. We knew. We understood. We all knew the names of the dead. We have photos of every martyred infant and videos of every wounded who fell. And we have farewell letters written moment before the fall. You are not likely to find them in your library, but they were available to us. The people of Aleppo tried to communicate with us by letters, by photos, by videos, by prayers, by jokes and by screams. But for some reason, we did not respond. We knew, so do not abandon your question: How did you let it happen?
Stay at the surface, for Aleppo’s moment was the moment that the world decided to compress and release all that was below the surface. Perhaps you have not lived through moments like these, and you are fortunate, for these were dark moments. Aleppo was the moment the world decided it had tired of even going through the motions. It was the moment a clown was elected President, a tyrant became the free world’s champion, and world leaders competed to abet a criminal. You might not understand how we hit rock bottom. We did not understand either. But we knew. After this moment, all shame was lost when the institutions had already collapsed and violence had become the norm. If you are interested in the collapse, do not go far or deep, stay at Aleppo’s ravaged surface and you will understand how all can be lost in a single moment.
I cannot predict what will have taken place between this letter and your present. Perhaps the world will have learned from Aleppo and awoken from this madness. Perhaps this madness will have led to wars which compelled the world to face its moment of abandonment. But perhaps all of this will not have happened, and you will still be living in a world which thinks the Assads are the best this region can offer. I do not know. What is certain, in any of these cases, is that this region has collapsed. And if there is still one thing that we can pass on to you from all this rubble, it is this: Remember Aleppo, not as an icon of impossible heroisms or the necessary price for an ideological revolution, but as a moment, a moment when the world decided in full awareness and in cold blood to give up on itself.
Samer Frangie is Director of the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies (CAMES) and Associate Professor at the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration (PSPA), both at the American University of Beirut. His research and teaching interest includes the intellectual and political histories of the modern Middle East and contemporary social theory. He has published a number of articles on the intellectual history of the Arab Left and is currently working on a book manuscript on the memory of the left. Aside from his academic work, he has published extensively in the Arab press.
This article was originally published in Arabic in Al-Hayat, and translated into English by Reem Harb, Roa Harb, and Siba Harb. The translation was originally published on ‘AUB Political‘ and republished here with permission.

author: Guest Contributor


text:
Remembering David Bowie’s Birthday and His ‘Mythical Walk’ Through Warsaw · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

Screenshot from a video of Bowie's performance of the song “Warszawa” in Japan (see video bellow).
Culture.pl, an online magazine devoted to promoting Polish culture, marked David Bowie's January 8 birthday by recalling a short online documentary linking him with Polish capital Warsaw.
The documentary was released July 2016 and traces Bowie's impromptu visit to Żoliborz, a peripheral Warsaw neighborhood during a train stopover in 1973 or 1976.
More than any other influential Western musician, Bowie spent time in Eastern Europe and passed twice through Warsaw by train, on his way to or back from Moscow. During one passing, Bowie allegedly took a walk around the train station and bought some Polish records from a nearby bookstore. The six-minute documentary reconstructs the walk and hypothesizes that it led to producing of the song “Warszawa” on his album Low which came out several months later.
The following video presents Bowie's performance of “Warszawa” at the opening of his concert in Tokyo, Japan, on December 12, 1978.
The song is co-written with Brian Eno, and shows influences from Polish folk music. The documentary alleges that one such influence might have come from the record of the folk ensemble Śląsk.
This LP presents the song “Helokanie” composed by Stanisław Hadyna, based on a tune performed by cow herders.
In March 2016, a mural commemorating the recently deceased Bowie and his character Ziggy Stardust was painted in the district of Żoliborz.
We love #Bowie, so we're happy & proud to have a huge mural dedicated to #ZiggyStardust in #Warsaw! https://t.co/c4m1ReRcdH @DavidBowieReal pic.twitter.com/KkKwpKeXBW
— Culture.pl (@culture_pl) January 8, 2017
In 2016, Global Voices covered global reactions to Bowie's death including lamentations from the Caribbean and the unveiling of a giant mural dedicated to him in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

author: Filip Stojanovski


text:
A Conference in Copenhagen Seeks to Build Bridges in Areas of Conflict · Global Voices
Rim Hayat Chaif

Speakers from the Israeli-Palestinian movement “Combatants for peace” (CFP) in Copenhagen, Denmark. Photo by Rim Hayat Chaif.
“Being able to see the light in the darkness.” This was the sentence that launched the two-day-long conference entitled ‘Stories of Hope‘, organized by Livia Foundation in Copenhagen, Denmark. Global Voices’ Rim Hayat Chaif went to that conference.
Also among the participants were activists dedicated to conflict resolution. Orit Dekel, an Israeli activist and and member of the non-governmental organization (NGO) ‘Machsom Watch‘ (Checkpoints Watch), itself a part of ‘Women for Human Rights and Against the Occupation’, spoke to Global Voices and shared her reasons for joining WAO:
I was involved in politics, and I recognized how much the occupation is making the life of Palestinians miserable. One day, I decided to go and see how the checkpoint works, it is obvious to notice how we are treated differently; the Palestinians cannot pass it easily, they are humiliated, kept there for many hours to finally pass or be sent back. I could, one time, help a woman to pass, but I cannot be there every day. My hope is that the occupation will be over and we can live in peace one day.
Two young activists, Yigal Elhanan and Arab Aramin, Israeli and Palestinian respectively, are members of the NGO ‘The Parents Circle‘. They both had siblings killed. Aramin's sister was killed by an Israeli soldier, while Elhanan's sister was killed by a Palestinian. Aramin said:
My young sister got killed by an Israeli soldier when she was going to school. I got so angry and I wanted revenge, to avenge my sister's death using the same arm. But then, I realized that it is not the appropriate way — by killing, we will have more people killed and it will never stop. This is how I ended up in this organization; I want to make peace and the hope for me is us — we have to work to let it be one day.
As for Elhanan:
My sister got killed by a Palestinian young man in the street; I was thinking always that the other part is the enemy and I have to avenge my sister's death. The time passed and I realized that this is not going to bring my sister back. And the best solution is to maintain hope and work for peace; this is what leads me to this NGO and [to] start working hand in hand with the Palestinians. Dialogue is important and we have to see the other part as human, like us, and not the enemy.
You can see them both speaking at the 11th Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony on May 17, 2016:
Global Voices spoke with Carol Mann, the director of the ‘Women in War‘ think tank. She shared an interesting story about her activism during the Bosnian war:
When I was there, I realized that women's stories were not told; we mostly hear about men doing great things, but very rarely about a woman, especially back in that time. I also noticed that makeup was a kind of resistance that the Bosnian woman used to look prettier and prestigious, to avoid being killed by the soldiers.
Steinar Bryn, the dialogue facilitator at the conference, considers dialogue work a neglected tool in international conflict resolution. According to Mr. Bryn, it is an essential key during the conflict resolution process, to change each side's perceptions of the other.
When you start to invest time, you will see the result. We are all dependent on each other's existence.
He explains how Serbs and Albanians from Kosovo have established an understanding and acceptance of each other after spending several days together at the Dialogue Center in Lillehammer. They start seeing each other as human beings, sharing and doing the same things.
Finally, Garba Diallo, director of the NGO ‘Crossing Borders‘, said:
When I brought the participants to the training, I put one of each in the same room, on purpose. That the same day, one Israeli guy came to ask to change rooms, saying that he can’t share the room with a Palestinian — he was afraid of and frustrated about his roommate just because he is what he is. I explained to him that the purpose of coming to this training is to get out of this [mindset] and change the perceptions. At the end of the day, the same guy came to me to thank me and they are close friends now.

author: Rim Hayat Chaif


text:
All the President’s Fishermen: Who’s Standing Behind Vladimir Putin? · Global Voices
Isaac Webb

Source: Kremlin.ru
In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev took a trip to Ilmen Lake in Novgorod Oblast, about 500 kilometers northwest of Moscow, where they “accidentally” met and ate soup by the fire with a group of “local fishermen.” The trip, which was clearly staged, was supposed to highlight Putin and Medvedev's connection to Russia's “simple people,” and was reported on widely in state media.
RuNet users had a good laugh about the idea of Putin and Medvedev stumbling across a group of fishermen in the course of their daily work, but it wasn't until Orthodox Christmas last week that the fun really got started: on January 7, bloggers noticed the same “fishermen” in pictures from the President's Christmas celebration in Veliky Novgorod, on the banks of Ilmen Lake.
Когда забыли поменять декорации pic.twitter.com/d8QhULZl69
— Сталингулаг (@StalinGulag) January 7, 2017
When they forgot to change the decorations.
Вот так выглядят рыбаки с озера Ильмень, пока они случайно не повстречают президента… pic.twitter.com/QXN3kWU7dY
— Доктор Хаос (@leib_medic) January 7, 2017
How fishermen from Ilmen lake actually look when they're not accidentally being visited by the president.
Есть такая профессия – рыбаки Путина.
— Мысли Перзидента (@VVP2_0) January 8, 2017
It's a kind of profession – Putin's fishermen.
But some, including the blogger Rustem Adagamov, didn't see what the big deal was.
А объясните в чем тут подвох? Путин приехал к тем же рыбакам, с которыми встречался в сентябре на Ильмене. И чё? pic.twitter.com/7HdE7STKBF
— Рустем Адагамов (@adagamov) January 7, 2017
Explain to me what the catch is. The same fishermen whom Putin visited in September on Ilmen visited him. So what?
Many RuNet users speculated that the people standing behind Putin were officers from the Federal Protective Service (FSO), the state body tasked with protecting the president and other officials.
Особенности национальной рыбалки pic.twitter.com/uOql0uENyJ
— Усы Пескова (@Sandy_mustache) January 7, 2017
Peculiarities of the nation's fishermen.
Особенности национальной рыбалки -2 pic.twitter.com/p6klRbcZfK
— Усы Пескова (@Sandy_mustache) January 7, 2017
Peculiarities of the nation's fishermen, 2.
Офицер ФСО видит офицера ФСО издалека.
Без офицера ФСО не выловишь и рыбку из пруда
— Рогозин-на-орбите (@LyapunovS) January 7, 2017
An FSO officer recognizes an FSO officer from far away. Without an FSO officer you can't catch a fish from a pond.
Blogger Leonid Volkov, however, concluded that the “fishermen” in fact were activists from Novgorod. Volkov wrote on his Facebook page on the evening of January 7 that he had identified the woman in both photos as Larisa Sergukhina, an entrepreneur and activist from Novgorod.
Transcripts from the Christmas celebration show that Putin spent a good deal of time talking to her.
This post has been updated.

author: Isaac Webb


text:
Chinese Wonder If Smog Is Blackening Their Lungs Like It Is High-Speed Trains · Global Voices
Jack Hu

High-speed train from Shanghai to Beijing covered with dirt from smog. Collage from Weibo.
China welcomed 2017 with a thick, lasting smog, souring many people's mood for the new year. Public discontent over the severe pollution hanging over northern China for nearly two weeks has been building, and the lack of solution has led some to question the efficacy of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule on social media.
A particularly shocking illustration of just how bad the situation is came in the form of photographs showing high-speed trains in Beijing covered in a thick layer of grime after passing through the severe smog areas. The shots went viral and spurred hot discussion on popular Chinese platform Weibo. A selection of comments in reaction to the photos are below:
我觉得自己活不到80岁了，都能粘在车上，别提我们的肺了。我姥爷，舅母，姑父都是肺癌
I don't think I will live as long as 80. Look at the train and see what happens to our lungs. My grandpa, aunt and uncle all have lung cancer.
太可怕，吸到肺里洗不掉。
This is so terrible. [Grime on the train can be washed away] but we can't wash our lungs.
感谢党和政府，霾里营养特别丰富，富含维生素ABCDEFG
Thanks to the party and the government, smog is very nutritious with vitamins ABCDEFG.
Some domestic media outlets picked up the story and confirmed that the photos were taken on January 2 after a high-speed train traveled through Shanghai to Beijing. The railway authority also responded to the news report stating that it is not unusual to see trains covered in dirt when air quality is low.
Air pollution readings in northern Chinese cities have been many times above the World Health Organization-designated safe level of 25 micrograms per cubic meter of PM 2.5 pollutant, and the year 2017 began with red alerts in 24 cities where the levels of PM 2.5 have been above 300 for more than 72 hours.
A post from well-known Chinese film director Lu Chuan, which quotes a doctor’s remarks on the potential harmful effects of smog, has been forwarded over a thousand times:
[…]我们中国人普遍对雾霾缺乏认知，都不注意防护，如不带防雾霾口罩，不戴帽子，围脖，手套等等[…]，吸入身体和肺里的雾霾永远排不出去，而且侵蚀身体和肺，一般10或20多年才发病（得肺癌，肺气肿，肺大泡，气管疾病，哮喘……，身体弱的很快得肺癌）。大夫说：尤其她看到街上有大人带着孩子出来时，她特心疼孩子，因孩子气管短，呼入肺里的雾霾比大人多，永远在里边侵蚀着肺。
[…] We Chinese people generally lack knowledge of smog and seldom take precautions, such as wearing anti-smog masks, hats, scarfs and gloves […] Smog inhaled into the body and lungs will never be released and end up hurting our health. Generally, people will start to get sick a decade or two later (lung cancer, emphysema, tracheal diseases, asthma……, those who are weaker could suffer lung cancer quickly). The doctor says whenever she sees adults bringing children outdoors, her heart hurts. As children's tracheae are shorter, they inhale more smog than adults……
Zhong Nanshan, a prominent academic, has warned that smog could cause severe diseases including cancer. Nonprofit group Berkeley Earth in California has estimated that smog has led to 1.6 million premature deaths per year in China.
Yet many comments online have labeled criticism of the smog as anti-China. Even Wang Zhanyang, a professor at the Chinese Communist Party’s subsidiary Central Socialist College, could not bear to see such extreme patriotism and voiced out against the political labeling on Weibo:
【雾霾与政治正确】某些人的意思是，面对严重的雾霾，不能揭露雾霾，不能批评雾霾，不能对雾霾表示不满，更不能揭露雾霾严重的根源，否则你就是反华、汉奸、卖国贼了。呵呵，毫无怨言地呼吸雾霾，进而为雾霾辩护，这才是政治正确吗？这种政治正确符合人性、人道原则[…]那还叫政治正确吗？还有，不是还说一切要以人民群众满意不满意为标准吗？那么，把人民群众的不满意扣上一顶政治不正确的大帽子，那是什么意思呢
Smog and political correctness: Some people argue that when facing severe smog, we can’t disclose, can’t criticize, can’t complain, can’t expose the root causes, otherwise you are anti-China, traitors and collaborators. Is it politically correct that people should breathe in smog without making any complaints, and even defend it? If political correctness is against human nature and humanity […] can that be correct? Moreover, [the party line] states that we have to address public discontent, but now you label public discontent with such a political accusation, what's the intention behind this?
Primary school students having physical education class in a huge canopy inflated with purified air. Image from state-owned Xinhua news agency.
Meanwhile, state media continues to highlight efforts in dealing with smog. People's Daily reported that a primary school in Shijiazhuang, one of the most polluted cities in Hebei province, held physical education class for students in a huge inflatable building filled with purified air. The school's measure has attracted both positive comments and mockery:
该赞赏还是悲哀
Should we feel happy or sad about this?
今后人就跟蔬菜一样，在大棚里成长……
In the future, humans will be like vegetables, growing up under a canopy…
所以，你幸福么？
So, you are happy?
Despite the thick smog, many Chinese still chose to gather in Tiananmen Square early on New Year's Day to watch the raising national flag:
The patriotic crowd attracted sarcastic comments online that called them “human-flesh air purifiers”.
As the world's biggest carbon emitter, China depends on coal for more than 60 percent of its electricity. The government has announced its intention to reduce hazardous emissions from coal-fired power plants by 60 percent over the next five years, but its overall emissions will peak by about 2030 before starting to decline during the Paris Climate deal in 2015.

author: Jack Hu


text:
Is Insecurity Threatening Cultural Growth in Mali? · Global Voices
Boukary Konaté

Young Peuls entering the village during the Yaaral ceremony – photo used with the author's permission
The 2016 Yaaral celebrations, commonly referred to as the Crossing of the Cattle, which were planned for November 21, 2016, were cancelled due to security risks in the area.
Since 2012, the Mali War refers to armed conflicts that started from January 2012 between the northern and southern parts of Mali. Even though the conflict has died down a bit since 2012, the region is still marred by local, sporadic conflicts.
Flocks of people visit from around the world to discover the cultural talent of the young people of Diafarabé village; yet, the spectacle could not take place this year. Lovers of Malian culture, tourists to the area, and the local people who take part in this large annual festival have all been disappointed by the cancellation.
According to Wikipedia, the Yaaral and Degal are traditional festivities held in the pastoral land of the Peul people of the inner Niger Delta. These celebrations mark the herds of cattle crossing the river at the time of transhumance. With origins dating back to the 14th century, the festivities have been regulated by a code that was established by the Peul Emperor, Macina Sékou Amadou, in 1821. The Yaaral ceremony opens the festivities in Diafarabé. The herds are then led towards Dialloubé, where the Degal ceremony ends the festivities.
The celebrations are a combination of different forms of cultural expression, including dance and music, as well as competitions for the most beautifully decorated herd.
Proclaimed a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005, the cultural sites of the Yaaral and Degal were inscribed on the World Heritage List by decree of the Council of Ministers on September 3, 2008.
Young Peuls cross the river with their cattle – photo used with the author's permission
Beyond their economic benefits and the spectacle's boost to tourism, this traditional festival is a valuable opportunity for social integration amongst local communities and also serves as a learning platform, educating young people to the ancient traditional and cultural practices. The celebrations also represent a yearly opportunity for populations of different lands to congregate, to get to know each other and to exchange and share their knowledge and experiences. The festival allows young Peuls, returning to the grasslands, to show their resistance against climate hazards and to demonstrate their ability to feed and raise their animals, to protect them from ferocious predators living in the forest, and to bring the cattle back safe and sound to the village. It is also a joyous occasion for parents, wives and friends to see the people that they love and from whom they have been separated for many dangerous months during their stay in the forest. The joy of seeing their loved ones well, of seeing their herd grow and be well nourished, of seeing their child or husband successfully complete a task entrusted to them, are the emotions that the population feel throughout this period. It is a great responsibility for young people and there is tremendous shame should one of them fail at the task.
A happy and emotional time for the local populations, the cattle crossing in Diafarabé, from its beginnings to today, contributes to lifelong traditional activities such as the braiding of hair, young Peul women making clubs and using traditional musical instruments, as well as sharing songs and dances with younger generations. In short, the Yaaral represents a cultural anchor for young people in terms of preserving, valuing and promoting traditional and cultural practices in communities, all whilst reinforcing peace, social cohesion and stability.
A musical dance evening enjoyed by young Peuls
Forbidding groups of young Peuls to congregate is depriving young people and populations to delight in their traditional, cultural and social values, the only major opportunity for them to display their talents to the whole world. This cancellation has put an end to the joy, the emotion, the sharing — with the wider public — of knowledge and experiences of this unique cultural practice which has existed for many years. Each young shepherd is now forced to cross alone and in secret to save his life and the lives of his animals. Whilst crossing alone, he will reflect on previous years, those crossings and the talents that he should be able to display to the public. He will think of the fear for his safety that stops him from doing so.
We should spend this year guarding the memory of this venerable cultural event; on no account should we give up. We will go together and united, use our abilities to forever maintain this cultural practice in our country and to give back to the affected areas’ young people the opportunity to express their talents.
May Mali become stable and peace reign in the country.

author: Boukary Konaté


text:
Meet the Tireless Elderly Women from Tepoztlán Fighting to Save the Environment · Global Voices
Elizabeth Rivera

Karitina Ortiz Ortiz. Screenshot of the documentary “Batalla de las Cacerolas” (Battle of the Saucepans)
This post is a re-edited version of the original text published by Witness and is reproduced on Global Voices with the permission of the author, Laura Salas.
The so-called “Batalla de las Cacerolas” (Battle of the Saucepans) is a documentary which tells of the women of Tepoztlán, a village located in the central-southern region of Mexico, who have campaigned throughout history against the megaprojects that continually prey on their communities. The audivisual work starts with a demonstration led by various women from the region — now elderly — whose main weapon was the sound of protest of their saucepans.
The directors used the photographic archive the village has safeguarded for years, which highlighted the leading role of the women in the fight. The women were there, present in each and every photo: preparing food, organising marches, protesting.
In the documentary the protagonists tell of how, since the 1960s, other leaders and community advocates were threatened, or even killed, by corporations looking to encroach on the region, guided by a sense of progress that was not shared by the locals. Karitina Ortiz Ortiz, one of the protagonists of the documentary, explains:
Yo empecé a darme cuenta de todo porque ya desde 1960 escuché sobre la muerte de un profesor que lo habían asesinado por defender las tierras de Monte Castillo. Seguramente por el lugar tan bonito que es que quisieron instalar acá un teleférico, luego un periférico, luego un tren escénico y luego al final ya, un club de golf.
I began to realise what was going on because in 1960 I heard about the death of a teacher who had been killed for defending the land around Monte Castillo. Perhaps it was the beauty of the scenery here that made them want to install a cable car, then a bypass, a scenic train, and finally a golf club.
Gerard Becerra, who was a presidential candidate in Cuernavaca, the capital city of the state of Morelos where Tepoztlán is situated, explains some of the sticking points of the confrontation. In his post “Tepoztlán, la crisis que viene” (Tepoztlán, the crisis on the horizon), Becerra analyses the background of the conflicts described in the documentary, which have taken place between government organisations, corporations and communities due to the implementation of projects without proper consultation:
[Durante la gestión de Antonio Rivapalacio] Ingenieros Civiles Asociados -ICA-, andaba con la intención de aprovechar la vía férrea que venía desde Cuautla, y entonces construir un ‘Tren Escénico’, con fines turísticos y algo más, sin embargo el mismo no llego a concretarse. En la parte alta de Tepoztlán, cerca de San Juan Tlacotenco, la poderosa constructora había instalado ya, sendos campamentos desde donde preveía construir algunos túneles que hacían falta para ello. ¿El error? no consultar a la población.
[Under the leadership of Antonio Rivapalacio] the construction firm Ingenieros Civiles Asociados (ICA) intended to take advantage of the railroad from Cuautla, to construct a ‘Scenic Train’ for touristic and other purposes. However, this did not materialise. In the most elevated part of Tepoztlán, near to San Juan Tlacotenco, the influential construction firm had already set up camps from which they anticipated constructing various tunnels which were required for the train. What was their error? Not consulting the locals.
Concerning the conflict over the golf course, Becerra explains:
Y ni que decir del Club de Golf de Tepoztlán, ahí la intolerancia, la soberbia de los gobernantes y la insaciable posición de los empresarios, dio al traste con un proyecto que podría haber sido bueno para la comunidad si no se hubiera proyectado en la forma en que se hizo. Una vez más el poder ejecutivo dio muestras de represión y el pueblo de Tepoztlán se unió como nunca en su historia moderna. Transitar por Tepoz en la época del conflicto del campo de golf, era como transitar en un pueblo de los Balcanes en la guerra civil. Barricadas por todos lados y la tensión de la gente en contra de sus gobernantes se respiraba a flor de piel.
Needless to say that, regarding the Tepoztlán Golf Club, the intolerance and arrogance of the leaders and the insatiable position of the businessmen halted a project that could have been good for the community, had it not been planned in such a way. Once more, the Executive Power displayed elements of repression and the community of Tepoztlán united like never before in its modern history. Travelling through Tepoztlán during the time of the golf course conflict was like travelling through a village in the Balkans during the civil war. Barricades everywhere and tensions were running high between the people and their leaders.
The documentary and other testimonies of the protests can be seen on YouTube:
Un día dijeron “va a haber una marcha [solamente con mujeres, que] cada quien que traiga su sartén”. No siente uno miedo, siente uno satisfacción, gusto de poder estar ahí.
One day they said, ‘There is going to be a march [with women only, to which] each person must bring their pan.’ You don’t feel scared, you feel satisfaction, pleased to be able to be there.
Osbelia Quiroz. Screenshot of the documentary “Batalla de las Cacerolas” (Battle of the Saucepans)
Laura Salas from Witness interviewed Carolina Corral who, as co-director with Itandehuy Castaneda, produced the short film which recently won third place in the Ecofilm film festival. In the interview, Corral talks about the documentary, the importance of these women telling their stories about the communities, and the different ways in which technology can empower and break down missunderstanding myths between older women and technology.
Laura Salas (LS): How did you come up with the idea of making this documentary?
Carolina Corral (CC): No hubiera contado la historia de las mujeres Tepoztecas si no hubiera sido por la iniciativa que tuvo Social Tic, Luchadoras, La Sandía Digital y Subversiones de convocar a varias mujeres del país a contar la historia de las mujeres de nuestras comunidades. Yo iba llegando a vivir a Tepoztlán y me estaba acercando al Frente en Defensa de Tepoztlán. El video, pensé, sería una manera de conocer más al pueblo e interiorizarme en la lucha de Tepoz. Una lucha por demás histórica. Conocer esa historia a través del rol de las mujeres fue muy enriquecedor para mí y luego para el pueblo. Había muchas mujeres, demasiadas abuelas de quienes contar su historia, pero solo nos centramos en tres.
Carolina Corral (CC): The story of the women of Tepoztlán wouldn’t have been told had it not been for the initiative of Social Tic, Luchadoras (Fighters), La Sandía Digital (Digital Watermelon) and Subersiones (Subversions) to convene various women from around the country to talk about the women in our communities. I was going to go and live in Tepoztlán and I was taking an interest in the group Frente en Defensa de Tepoztlán (Front in Defense of Tepoztlán). I thought that the video would be a way of getting to know more of the community and become more familiar with the fight in Tepoztlán. A fight which is incidentally historical. Getting to know this story through the role of the women was very enriching for me and also for the community. There were many women, too many elderly women who could tell their story, but we concentrated on only three.
LS: Why is it important for these women to tell stories?
CC: Porque las narrativas desde abajo contadas por mujeres y sobre las historias de mujeres producen un relato diferente, nuevo, no siempre contado.
CC: Because grassroots stories told by women and stories about women’s lives produce alternative, new and sometimes untold accounts.
LS: Why is it important that the women embrace technology?
CC: Porque esas miradas se pueden visibilizar a través de los nuevos formatos para contar historias (foto, video, radio, internet, etc). Además porque hacen que las mujeres rompan el tabú de que las mujeres y la tecnología no se llevan bien.
CC: Because these perspectives can be given visibility through new story-telling channels (photo, video, radio, internet, etc.). Moreover, because it breaks away from the taboo that women and technology don’t get along.
LS: Why are workshops such as “Voces de Mujeres” (“Women's Voices”, a training programme supported by Witness on communication tools for women’s campaigns) important?
CC: ‘Voces de Mujeres’ lo contenía todo: un encuentro de mujeres creando en sororidad y de manera horizontal. Estar allí, conocer a las compañeras y sus historias, nos hacía darnos cuenta de la importancia de nuestros propios relatos. ‘Voces’ fue un entrenamiento técnico, pero también el pretexto para empoderarnos como mujeres, creer en nuestras historias, y por ello empoderar a las mujeres de nuestras comunidades. De allí surgieron muchas historias contadas desde abajo sobre mujeres indígenas, lesbianas, madres luchadoras, prostitutas, luchadoras sociales.
CC: ‘Voces de Mujeres’ offered everything: a meeting for women who believe in sisterhood and everyone being in equal standing. Being there, getting to know the other participants and their stories, made us realise the importance of our own. ‘Voces de Mujeres’ was a form of technical training, but also the pretext to empower ourselves as women, to believe in our stories and so to empower women in our communities. From this, many grassroots stories emerged about indigenous women, lesbians, mothers who were campaigners, prostitutes, social campaigners.
LS: In summary, what impact has the documentary had on the fight for the protection of land in Tepoztlán?
CC: El video quedó seleccionado en Ecofilm, un festival por el medio ambiente. En ese festival ganó el tercer lugar. Esto repercutió positivamente en varios aspectos de la lucha de Tepoztlán:
CC: The video was chosen in Ecofilm, a festival focusing on the environment. The film won third place in the festival. This had positive repercussions on various aspects of the campaign in Tepoztlán:

author: Elizabeth Rivera


text:
‘The Richest Political Party in Europe’ Gets Its Wealth From Corruption, According to Macedonian Journalists · Global Voices
Marko Angelov

Headquarters of VMRO-DPMNE, the ruling right-wing party in Macedonia. Photo by GV, CC BY.
Investigative journalists in Macedonia say the country's ruling party VMRO-DPMNE owns properties that by law it shouldn't, and that party officials in government positions have abused their power to benefit the party.
The Center for Investigative Journalism SCOOP earlier revealed that Macedonia's main ruling party VMRO-DPMNE is possibly the richest in Europe thanks to a vast portfolio of officially owned real-estate, with an estimated market value of around 60 million euros (66 million US dollars). Now, SCOOP teamed up with another independent outlet called Nova TV and produced a short documentary about the sources of the party's wealth.
The eight-minute documentary had been published online in Macedonian with English subtitles, making it available to wider audiences.
The documentary states that in addition to its luxurious eight-story headquarters in the center of Skopje, the party owns pastures and apartments. Macedonian law prohibits real-estate ownership by political parties, with the exception of office space. For some of its 15 agricultural properties, VMRO-DPMNE shares the ownership with private individuals and the state.
According to Article 6 from the Law on Financing of Political Parties, they “have the right to ownership of office space, equipment, office supplies, vehicles, and other movable property necessary for achieving their objectives and performing the activities determined by the party statute and the law.” If the parties receive any other kind of property as a gift, they must promptly sell it via court-administered auction.
The journalists’ research found that many of these properties were acquired after 2011, and most of them during 2014. VMRO-DPMNE had been continuously in power in Macedonia since 2006.
Ex-Prime Minister Georgievski quoted in the video saying it's a “large corruption scheme” (голема корупциска шема). This sentence is not translated in the subtitles.
The documentary quotes former VMRO-DPMNE President (1990-2003) and former Prime Minister (1998-2002) Ljubčo Georgievski who openly admits that the source is a “large corruption scheme” (although his quote, “Toa e edna golema korupciska shema,” is not translated into English in the subtitles). He alleged that all parties have been receiving cash. However, no other party owns so much wealth, and no other party owns properties forbidden by law with full impunity.
Leaked wiretaps published by the opposition in 2015, containing hundreds of conversations among government officials, journalists, foreign diplomats and human rights defenders that were secretly recorded reportedly on the order of prime minister, offer an indication of what he means by “cash.”
For instance, in one of the leaked conversations, VMRO-DPMNE party boss Nikola Gruevski talks to then-member of parliament Silvana Boneva who complains to him that his underlings had done too much racketeering ahead of elections. The following video provides a subtitled excerpt in which Gruevski explains that it's only blackmail if one threatens to close down the business — otherwise it's a simple “donation” to the party. Boneva later became a member of the State Election Commission.
Ex-PM Nikola #Gruevski and Silvana Boneva, MP (current SEC member) discussed differences between racket and sponsorship in 2013. #Macedonia pic.twitter.com/uRExXbg0Mj
— Macedonia in English (@Macedonia_en) December 12, 2016
After its establishment in the early 1990s, VMRO-DPMNE was headquartered in a modest three-story yellow house in the center of Skopje. The new headquarters, named Palace “Dr. Hristo Tatarchev” after a historic revolutionary, covers that original plot of land of 200 square meters, plus much of the surrounding area. The new HQ occupies 1,200 square meters in total.
A separate investigative project, Prizma, revealed that in 2009, at the time that the party held power at local level in the municipality of Centar, local officials changed the zoning laws to allow a towering structure. Party-appointed officials in the Ministry of Transport and Communications sold the surrounding state-owned land to the party.
For this property, the ruling party paid the government it itself was administering 110 euros (117 dollars) per square meter through a direct contract, at a cost 26 times lower than market price. In comparison, other plots of state-owned land in the area sold via public auction reached the price of 3,000 euros (3,170 dollars) per square meter.
In order to ensure that the process would be completed and kept under wraps by local officials, the party allegedly attempted to rig the 2013 local elections, as heard in a leaked wiretap  about the municipality of Centar.
In the beginning of December 2016, several photographs surfaced, providing a peek of the inside of the VMRO-DPMNE party headquarters and fueling the speculation about its opulent interior in baroque, neo-classicist and socialist realism style.
ЕКСКЛУЗИВНО:
Странски служби во луксузниот дворец на #ВМРО-ДПМНЕ
– најбогатата партија, со најсиромашни гласачи во Европа. pic.twitter.com/F8dZd5xAO6
— Странски (@Sluzbi) December 6, 2016
EXCLUSIVE:
Foreign Secret Services in the luxurious castle of VMRO-DPMNE, the richest party with poorest voters in Europe.
During the parliamentary election night of December 11, 2016, journalists were allowed to enter the party headquarters for the first time for a press conference. One of them, Vlado Apostolov, tweeted some photos from the room, which seemingly confirmed that some of the leaked photos indeed showed the building's interior.
@LalahTootoot pic.twitter.com/YYpb1LahBa
— Владо Апостолов (@apostolov80) December 11, 2016
@LalahTootoot’ tweet: @apostolov80 walk around a little, tweet some photos? Esp. from the hockey room.
At this point, VMRO-DPMNE still runs the government of the Republic of Macedonia. Having won the most votes during the elections, its chief and former prime minister Nikola Gruevski received a mandate from the president to try to form a new government. It's uncertain whether they will manage to bring together a majority coalition. If they fail, the mandate will go to the biggest opposition party, SDSM (Social Democratic Union of Macedonia).

author: Marko Angelov


text:
Will 2017 Be a Better Year for Turkey’s Media? · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

Istanbul, Turkey. 28 November 2015: Protesters run for cover from tear gas fired by Turkish riot police during a demonstration on Istiklal avenue in Istanbul after a top Kurdish lawyer was killed in Diyarbakir. Demotix image by Avni Kantan. ID: 9171320.
With just two weeks of 2016 remaining, long-time TV journalist Ayşenur Arslan resigned on air. Speaking in a December 16 broadcast of Halk TV's Medya Mahallesi, or Neighborhood Media, she explained why the daily political news programme was shutting down:
“Sometimes silence is the biggest cry. We have come to the end at Medya Mahallesi,” she said in quotes relayed by the English-language web portal Turkish minute. “I cannot pretend like it is all normal in Turkey where there are 146 journalists in jail. I speak out in silence!”
2016 was without a doubt an annus horribilis for Turkish journalism. Shortly after Aslan's resignation, the country's leading investigative journalist Ahmet Şık was arrested for “propaganda for a terrorist organization” and “denigrating the Turkish Republic and its institutions” in his tweets, articles and public comments. Just a few days after that, six other journalists were arrested.
#ETHA Sorumlu Müdürü Derya Okatan ve 5 gazeteci dört gündür gözaltında. #GazetecilikSuçDeğildir pic.twitter.com/qWxKbZVXQC
— ETHA (@etkinhaberajans) December 28, 2016
Acting director for #ETHA Derya Okatan and five other journalists have been detained for four days. #JournalismNotACrime
Attacks on the media have escalated massively since what the government deemed a coup attempt took place on July 15, with at least 270 people killed in the violence. But independent media was already in trouble before then.
In Reporters Without Borders 2016 profile on the country (based on data from 2015), the Paris-based media advocacy group wrote:
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has embarked on an offensive against Turkey’s media. Journalists are harassed, many have been accused of “insulting the president” and the Internet is systematically censored. The regional context – the war in Syria and Turkey’s offensive against the PKK Kurds – is exacerbating the pressure on the media, which are also accused of “terrorism.” The media and civil society are nonetheless resisting Erdogan’s growing authoritarianism.
The main tool at the government's disposal is accusing journalists of supporting the cause of the Fethullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO), the name Ankara uses for followers of the Hizmet movement (inspired by US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen) which it says organised the putsch.
The government has also clamped down hard on journalists covering events in the Kurdish-populated southeast of the country, where government troops have been accused of systematic human rights abuses.
In one example, after police detained leaders Selahhatin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag along with nine other lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish HDP party, there were raids on the offices of newspapers and government orders to shut down media platforms. The media outlets affected were those that covered this politically sensitive subject.
The escalation in Ankara's war on the media was foreshadowed months before the botched coup, in a March 2016 speech in which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called to broaden the definition of terrorism, to include not just terrorists but “their supporters”. This terminology has since been subject to overly broad interpretation.
The speech came in the same month that a group of academics were jailed on terrorism propaganda charges, for calling for an end to government security operations in the southeast.
Earlier in March, the government seized the Zaman newspaper that was Turkey's largest, and known for its affiliation with Gulen, a former ally of the ruling AKP (Justice and Development) party, whose covert but widely-cited control over top-ranking judges, prosecutors and policemen put him at odds with Erdogan, the most powerful Turkish politician in decades.
Media gag orders also have become an ingrained government practice even before the July violence, and were most recently enforced following the New Year's Eve attack on an Istanbul nightclub that claimed 39 lives, and the December 19 assassination of Russia's ambassador to Turkey.
According to Engelli Web, an independent website that tracks blocked websites in Turkey, over 115,000 websites have been blocked in Turkey, up from 105,958 at the the end of last year.
In just one recent instance, social media platforms were blocked when the same ISIS militant group that claimed responsibility for the horrific nightclub massacre released a video in which men it claimed were Turkish soldiers were killed on camera.
Confirmed: Twitter, Facebook and YouTube blocked in #Turkey after #IS uploads soldier videohttps://t.co/xeOXVf8tP2 pic.twitter.com/XZ9kWCpiF7
— Turkey Blocks (@TurkeyBlocks) December 22, 2016
Turkey restricted access to social media websites for several hours after release of Islamic State group video. https://t.co/a2BKZPoBVR
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 23, 2016
Authorities have also increasingly taken to blocking online anonymization tools that can be used to evade the blocks.
Turkey blocks access to Tor anonymising network https://t.co/dnwhJDS3Qm
— BBC Technology (@BBCTech) December 19, 2016
Unsurprisingly, Washington DC-based Freedom House ranked Turkey “Not Free” on its “Freedom on the Net” report for 2016. In 2015 and 2014, the same group said the Turkish Internet was “partly free”.
But Erdogan has brushed off international criticism, and recently announced he has no regard for Europe’s “red line” on press freedom, suggesting there may be even more arrests and repressions this year.

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


text:
A Young Russian Governor’s Fascist Chic · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Acting Kaliningrad Governor Anton Alikhanov. Photo: Novyi Kaliningrad
The acting governor of Kaliningrad, 30-year-old Anton Alikhanov, has a winter coat with some unusual arm patches. In a puff piece gone awry, a local news website revealed on Tuesday that Alikhanov wears a coat with patches depicting the flag of the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, as well as a particularly nasty nationalist icon.
Governor Alikhanov has denied that the flag is actually that of the Nazi puppet state, claiming that it’s merely a Russian flag faded in the sunlight. The protectorate’s flag is identical to the Russian Federation’s flag, except the order of the red and blue bars is reversed.
If he’s telling the truth, Alikhanov might be forgiven for confusing the flags. He wouldn’t be the first to make the mistake.
In 2013, federal anti-drug officials accidentally displayed the Russian flag’s colors in the same wrong order on a billboard in Moscow. Two years earlier, Kaliningrad’s own branch of United Russia, the country’s ruling political party, accidentally campaigned with tricolor flags depicting Bohemia and Moravia, not Russia. In 2010, Google itself screwed up its depiction of the Russian flag — on the Google homepage, no less — when congratulating Moscow on winning the right to host the 2018 World Cup.
The other patch, featuring the outline of a man holding a firearm and the slogan “NO TOLERANCE,” is more worrisome. The image is based on an infamous hate crime that took place in the Moscow metro in November 2013, when Dmitry Parshin and his son, Andrei, attacked an ethnic Dagestani man without provocation. The father shot the man twice with an air pistol, and his son pointed a gun at the victim, too, but never fired.
Read RuNet Echo’s report on the incident from November 2013: Russian Nationalists Find Themselves a ‘Saint’
When video surveillance from the train car leaked to the media, Russian nationalists made a meme of a still image from the footage, showing Andrei Parshin aiming his pistol. The vigilante crime-fighter motif (never mind that it was without basis) soon exploded online, where edited images morphing the Parshins into the “Boondock Saints” gained enormous popularity. Soon, nationalists were calling the duo Russia’s “Subway Saints.”
Andrei Parshin patch.
Governor Alikhanov’s responses to the revelations about his coat have been contradictory and implausible. First, he told the tabloid Life.ru that the patches were gifts from his friends roughly ten years ago, denying that the gunman patch depicts Parshin. Instead, Alikhanov claims it is from a shooting club.
The patch is clearly Andrei Parshin’s outline, however, which didn’t exist a decade ago.
Later, when speaking to the website Meduza, Alikhanov changed his story, now saying that he’d received the coat from a store as a bonus reward for several purchases. He said he didn’t know the image’s nationalist overtones. The governor also told Meduza that this was the first time he’d ever worn the coat, weakening his earlier claim that the flag patch had been bleached by sunlight.
The first outlet to draw attention to Governor Alikhanov’s controversial clothing was the Telegram channel “Metodichka,” which has published political news since August 2016, often with bitingly satirical commentary.
“We thank acting Governor Alikhanov for his quick response. It’s good that he went with this version, and not ‘The coat doesn’t belong to me, but to my spouse, who’s a successful businesswoman and an accomplished marksman,” the people behind Metodichka wrote on Tuesday, mocking Russian officials’ tendency to deflect damaging allegations by citing the achievements of their partners.
Anton Alikhanov became acting governor of Kaliningrad in October 2016, after Evgeny Zinichev’s brief two-month tenure in office. Zinichev, who now serves as the deputy director of Russia’s Federal Security Service, formerly worked as Vladimir Putin’s personal body guard. Zinichev left his position as Kaliningrad’s acting governor quite suddenly, apparently overwhelmed and poorly suited to political life, paving the way for Alikhanov, who turned 30 just a few weeks before inheriting the governorship.

author: Kevin Rothrock


text:
As Trash Piles Up in Russian Town, Mayor’s Spokesperson Says Locals Are a Bunch of ‘Pigs’ · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Photo: Pixabay
There’s a quiet little place in Russia called Yugorsk. Located inside the Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Yugorsk is a flat, forested, relatively affluent town. In Yugorsk, the people are as dirty as pigs.
That part about the pigs, at any rate, is what a spokesperson for the city told reporters this week, after a city councilman criticized the mayor’s office for paralyzing the municipal trash pickup services, which have reportedly failed to collect any garbage since late December.
This Monday, city councilman Anton Pantin complained on Facebook that the outfit responsible for trash pickup, municipal unitary enterprise “Yugorskenergogaz,” hasn’t collected any garbage for two weeks.
“This is insane! The locals here aren’t to blame for their bad luck with the mayor’s ‘relatives,’” Pantin wrote, referring to Mayor Rais Salakhov’s decision in November to appoint his own former brother-in-law as director of the enterprise. Pantin says Yugorskenergogaz has long been a “black hole” in the city’s budget, despite the fact that it collects fees from individual customers, in addition to its support from the government.
Speaking for the city, Guzel Aristova vehemently denied that trash pickup halted for more than two consecutive days, when temperatures dipped too low to reach dumpsters, she said. “Really what you need to do is talk to the people who pile up their garbage anywhere, instead of taking it to special dumpster containers. People are acting like pigs,” she told the regional news website Ura.ru.
In response, Anton Pantin — who also serves as an expert for the All-Russia People's Front (a pro-Putin political movement) — has addressed an “ultimatum” to Mayor Salakhov, demanding that he fire Aristova for her insensitive comments. Pantin has also appealed to Natalya Komarova, the region’s governor, asking the government to issue a public apology.
Online, Pantin has shared a video showing trash heaps scattered throughout Yugorsk, piled above the snow.
Guzel Aristova, meanwhile, has refused to respond to Pantin’s ultimatum, saying she prefers not to comment on “the words of a person who’s just trying to promote himself.”


text:
Users Boycott Lebanon’s Mobile Phone Operators, Alfa and touch · Global Voices
Lara Bitar

Beirut, Lebanon's capital. Photo by Magnus Halsnes shared on Flickr under a creative commons license.
The original version of this article, written by Lara Bitar, was first published on the website of Social Media Exchange Association (SMEX), a registered Lebanese NGO that works to advance self-regulating information societies in the Middle East and North Africa.
A self-described independent youth movement is waging what it is referring to as a “polite struggle” (الكفاح_المهذب#) against state corruption in Lebanon, taking particular aim at the Telecommunications Ministry.
Fed up with the high cost of cell phone services, online activists staged a one-day boycott of the two state-owned mobile phone operators, Alfa and touch, on 8 January. The organizers of the campaign, run under the two hashtags “switch off your line” (سكر_خطك#) and  “I will switch off my line” (رح_سكر_خطي#), called on smartphone users to switch their phones to airplane mode on the day of protest, urging them instead to use IP-based instant messaging apps over Wi-Fi to text and make calls.
The online campaigners have two stated goals. The first is to reduce the cost of domestic and international calls and the second is to eliminate monthly “recharging”  fees required to keep a phone line active. They say they are motivated solely by “patriotism”.
The Arab Advisors Group, a Jordan-based research and consulting firm, compared the mobile phone service rates of 39 mobile phone operators across 16 Arab countries, classifying the latter on the basis of their relative pricing status. They found that Lebanon has the highest prepaid cellular package rate in the Arab world, as reported by Byblos Bank’s economic research publication Lebanon This Week.
The research group surveyed three types of users and compared the average fee each paid per month for “light usage” (between 250 and 300 local minutes and 300MB of data), “medium usage” (500 local minutes and 500MB), and “large usage” (1000 local minutes and 1GB). The researchers revealed that all user types buying a prepaid package in Lebanon are paying the highest fees among the surveyed Arab countries.
Research findings by Arab Advisors Group: Monthly mobile service rates
Light Usage
MENA Regional Average: $32.13
Lebanon: $83.5
Medium Usage
MENA Regional Average: $56.72
Lebanon: $135.5
Large Usage
MENA Regional: $111.27
Lebanon: $270.45
Lebanon’s minimum wage stands at $450 per month, making these costs a significant burden on the 32 percent of the population that lives in poverty.
Taking on their second grievance, the validity period of prepaid mobile lines, online activists have been recording calls with Alfa and touch representatives. In one audio recording, a mobile subscriber makes the point that cell phone lines are paid for and bought, not rented, asking the call center employee to explain why users must repay an additional fee each month.
The two mobile phone operators require prepaid cards to be recharged every 30 days, penalizing those who miss the deadline by seizing their remaining credit and then completely taking over their line, forcing them to buy a new one. Lebanon again takes first place in terms of cost of service, offering subscribers the shortest validity for prepaid cards. In contrast, according to the same Arab Advisors Group study, Arab countries surveyed averaged a validity of 279 days with the exception of the UAE and Algeria, which offer their customers an unlimited period of use.
It remains unclear how the one-day boycott impacted the two operators, but the campaign's organizers said that participation was successful and even exceeded their expectations. Touch, operated by the private Kuwaiti telecom provider Zain, had 2,299 million subscribers as of September 2016. Alfa, operated by Egypt’s Orascom Telecom Holdings, states on its website that it currently serves close to two million subscribers While both operators have been mum on any losses they may have incurred, unconfirmed figures have been circulating online. In an interview with the Lebanese TV station Al-Jadeed, lawyer and activist Hassan Adel Bazzi hinted that figures have been leaked to him from within the telecom companies. He claims that the number of lines shut off on the day of the boycott reached a peak of 30 percent participation rate at noon, estimating that 1.3 million individuals participated in the campaign.
In response to the boycott, Telecommunications Minister Jamal al-Jarrah first reprimanded the activists for not appealing to him before launching such a campaign, but later vowed to meet with some of its organizers to discuss what he considered to be rightful demands. In the meantime, the campaign's hashtags continue to be widely in use, with some agitating for a continuous boycott every Sunday until the growing list of demands is met.
In addition to the exorbitant mobile rates highlighted by this campaign, cell phone operators in Lebanon also engage in unethical practices. In June 2015, SMEX reported on a paid ringtone service that was not only being added to subscribers without their consent, but also required them to pay a fee to opt out of it. While SMEX, in coordination with the Ministry of Telecommunications, pressured the mobile phone operators to make a modest concession by eliminating the opt-out fee, many mobile users are still paying for a service they never signed up for and may not even be aware of its monthly charges.
The Middle East and North Africa, like other parts of the world, have repeatedly witnessed similar citizen-led efforts to make demands from mobile and internet providers. In January 2016, Morocco’s decision to block Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls resulted in a widespread boycott campaign to protect access to communications services. In October 2016, Omanis, also frustrated with the high prices charged by their own service providers, staged a week-long boycott of their local telecom companies. During the same month, Saudis boycotted their wireless network operators to protest bad service and bans on VoIP apps. The month-long protest also included performed displays of anger with Saudis filming their modems set on fire.
In Lebanon, the telecom industry generates the government’s second largest revenue after taxes, amounting to $1.43 billion in  2013. In 2014, telecom revenues went up by 41 percent, according to a May 2015 report by BLOMINVEST Bank, amounting to $2.01 billion. So any disruption to this flow of capital, used in part to pay off public debt, is bound to have an impact on the way mobile service providers treat, or mistreat, their customers.

author: Lara Bitar


text:
For Telegram Users, Iran’s Registration Requirement Boosts State Snooping Powers · Global Voices
Center for Human Rights in Iran

Requiring Telegram channel owners to register on a governmental website enhances state agencies’ abilities to monitor online user activity. Image from ICHRI and use with permission.
A version of this post originally appeared on iranhumanrights.org and is published here in collaboration with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
In the latest attempt by Iran’s security and intelligence agencies to censor and control the Internet in Iran, administrators of popular Iranian-owned channels on messaging app Telegram are now being required to register with the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance or face prosecution.
Telegram is an instant messaging application that allows users to create membership-based online content channels and groups.
“These popular channels can be identified with a series of algorithms and [their admins] can be identified and prosecuted, so we don’t need cooperation from Telegram,” said Mehrdad Sijani, the head of the cyberspace division of the Tehran Computer Sellers Guild, on January 5, 2017. The Iranian government announced in July 2015 that they would not censor Telegram despite the existence of immoral content on the platform, but would instead work with Telegram to regulate it. This was an accusation the company's founder and CEO denied vehemently. Since then, Iran’s government has long tried to convince the Berlin-based company to move its servers onto Iranian soil so state agencies could directly access its database, but Telegram has consistently denied any form of cooperation.
The online registration system was created to assist state agencies, including the Cyber Police (FATA), in monitoring the activities of Telegram channel owners and their followers by producing a detailed map of users and their affiliations, thereby further enhancing their ability to censor information and prosecute people for their online activity.
In early December 2016, the government’s primary Internet policy maker, the Supreme Cyberspace Council, announced that Iranian-owned Telegram channels with more than 5,000 followers must obtain a permit before February 25, 2017. As of January 5, some 700 channel admins have sought permits, according to council member Reza Taghipour.
With some 20 million users, Telegram is Iran’s most popular messaging application and host to some 170,000 Iranian-owned channels. More than 11,000 of those channels have at least 5,000 members, according to cyberspace expert Alireza Talebpour.
To apply for permits, channel owners must provide their channel name, full legal name, home address and national identification number on the website, www.samandehi.ir. Applicants must also add the automated internet “bot” “iransamandehibot” as a “temporary” co-administrator, ostensibly until the Ministry verifies the channel.
Among their other functions, bots can enable wide-ranging surveillance abilities by quickly and efficiently searching databases for specific users and monitoring their online activity in an automated fashion.
In August 2016, Iranian hackers obtained the phone numbers of more than 15 million Iranian Telegram users by hacking more than a dozen accounts on the app in what Reuters described as “the largest known breach of the encrypted communications system.” Telegram confirmed the security breach, but claimed only publicly available data was collected and accounts were not directly accessed, adding that they had rectified the issue: “Such mass checks are no longer possible since we introduced some limitations into our API (application program interface) this year.”

author: Center for Human Rights in Iran