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Brazil: Key player at COP 16 but bad example at home? · Global Voices
João Miguel Lima

This post is part of our special coverage Forest Focus: Amazon.
In Cancún, there was great deal of expectation towards the Brazilian delegation. The South American country was regarded by COP 16 president Patricia Espinosa as one of the key players paving the way of a positive outcome.
Meanwhile, back in Brazil, the new Forestry Code proposal had suddenly made its way back to the National Congress end of year voting agenda. The blog Eco [pt], a daily insider on the COP 16 negotiations run by the Climate Action Network (CAN), stated that “Brazil seems to be its worst enemy” and analyzed the new Forestry Code:
[…] Brazilian House of Representatives is ready to approve a new forest [sic] code that will be the most shameful endorsement of anthropogenic global warming in recent history. And it seems that some 370 of the 513 Representatives are ready to approve this leap backwards.
The bill provides amnesty to illegal deforestation and degradation, it reduces the preservation area along rivers, and eliminates the need for legal reserves for rural properties of a certain size and a discount for larger properties.
Rise in deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest – The Brazilian Amazon rainforest had 5.850 km2 of its legal area deforested from August 2009 to April 2010, according to INPE- Instituto de Pesquisas Espaciais. Brazil. Photo by Roni Luis Leite, copyright Demotix (23/08/2010)
The proposal had raised concerned discussions months ago (read Global Voices’ coverage), when approved by a Special Committee on Forestry Law Changes. But it was postponed to 2011 on the request of President Lula. Two of the new Forestry Code's most controversial aspects are the granting of deforestation amnesty to farmers, and the permission for state governments to have different rules of river bank vegetation.
The issue had almost disappeared until December 7, when about 370 federal representatives supported a request for the new Code to be brought as an urgent matter into the House's agenda next year. Leaders of 10 political parties gave their supporting signature, thus committing 364 representatives from their parties.
Nonetheless, they were unable to approve the request, as Juliana Russar, a Brazilian Negotiator Tracker from Global Campaign for Climate Action at COP 16 registered on her blog [pt]:
P.S.: Lembro também que ontem houve a tentativa felizmente frustrada dos ruralistas de votar com urgência as alterações  do Código Florestal no Congresso, o que gerou uma intensa mobilização  da sociedade civil tanto em Brasília quanto aqui em Cancún […]
The Brazilian branch of the NGO Greenpeace soon made public [pt] the list of the new Code supporters through their Twitter profile:
GreenpeaceBR: Veja a lista dos 374 deputados que empunharam a motosserra e colocaram o Código Florestal no rol de votações neste ano. http://bit.ly/eAhH1G
Despite President Lula‘s decision, congressman Cândido Vaccarezza, leader of the Lula administration in the House of Representatives, supported the initiative of the ruralistas to add the proposal of Code amendments into next year's voting agenda. It is worth mentioning that Vaccarezza is currently running for Presidency of the House.
News travelled fast and took Brazilians at COP 16 aback. Marina Silva, a member of Senate, former Minister of Environment and Presidential candidate in the 2010 elections, was in Cancún when she tweeted about the Forestry Code [pt]:
marina_silva: O alcance dos compromissos do Brasil em Copenhague para reduzir emissão de CO2 depende da manutenção dos avanços da legislação ambiental.
Minutes later, she had a message to Vaccarezza:
marina_silva: Os avanços ambientais não podem ser moeda de troca para conquistar a presidência da Câmara. O Código Florestal não pode servir à barganha
Golden Chainsaw Award for efforts towards deforestation
In Cancún, also on December 8, Greenpeace Brazil members awarded ruralist senator Kátia Abreu [pt] with the Golden Chainsaw [pt], for, as they call it, “her efforts towards deforestation”. She angrily refused the award, which was delivered by a Brazilian indigenous woman. Senator Abreu, who owns a farm in the state of Tocantins and since 2008 is president of the Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA), travelled to Cancún to spread the word about CNA's vision of environmental protection and agricultural development as a viable combination in Brazil.
Brazilian indigenous woman delivering the Golden Chainsaw Award to Senator Kátia Abreu, in Cancún. Photo by Greenpeace Brazil.
In order to promote itself during the COP 16, the CNA launched the online coverage “CNA @ COP16″, with versions in English and Portuguese. The CNA also presented the product of a partnership with Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural and Livestock Research Company) and the Biomes Project related to food supply and environment:
The world population will increase to nine billion people as of 2050, demanding an expansion of 70% in food production. The great challenge of our times is to supply this demand, which is the product of a population that only grows, and preserve the environment at the same time.
With audio in English and subtitles in Spanish, a video specially made for COP 16 promotes a system where the CNA says it recognizes the importance of keeping forests standing and of protecting Brazil's ecosystems.
The project's content is quite impressive and promising, but journalist and blogger Leonardo Sakamoto linked it [pt] to the Forestry Code and believes Brazil is better off without either:
[…] os danos que serão causados pelas mudanças no Código não serão bem maiores que os R$ 40 milhões que serão aplicados no programa? Uma coisa não exclui a outra, é claro. Mas se tivermos que fazer um acordo, que tal deixar tudo como está, sem projeto e sem mudança no Código?
Até para que a CNA não seja acusada de greenwashing, lá fora, e lavagem de imagem aqui dentro, não é mesmo?
Amazon jungle, rivers and islands, copyright by Flickr user Rosadosventos22 (used with permission)
The announcement [pt] of the lowest deforestation rate in the Amazon since 1988 (when government started keeping track of it) is definitely good news, at 6.451 km2 of the rainforest destroyed. The website O Eco Amazonia points out for what this number really means: it signifies an area bigger than 10 Brazilian capital cities altogether. It is as if São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, Belém, Fortaleza, Porto Alegre, Recife, Salvador, Curitiba and João Pessoa had all been cut down in 2010. In order to give a detailed view on deforestation, the website maps in red the area of rainforest destroyed through 2008.
As the new Forestry Code still awaits a vote, it seems the debate of environment and agriculture in Brazil will come up again and again, especially with the scenario of climate change.
This post is part of our special coverage Forest Focus: Amazon.

author: João Miguel Lima


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Brazil: Literature and Prejudice against the poor · Global Voices
Raphael Tsavkko Garcia

Paulo Lopes comments [pt] on controversial statements by Brazilian actress  and former sex-symbol Vera Fischer. In an interview to Folha newspaper, a few days before launching the latest of ten books she has written in a year (according to blog Acerto de Contas [pt]), Fischer said she does not write for “poor people”.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Raphael Tsavkko Garcia


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Brazil: WikiLeaks and the Pre-Salt Oil Exploration · Global Voices
Raphael Tsavkko Garcia

A WikiLeaks cable revealed that the former Brazilian presidential opposition candidate, José Serra, held  talks with the Director of Business Development and Government Relations of Chevron, Patrícia Pradal, to benefit the foreign oil industry at the expense of national Petrobras, concerning the pre-salt exploration contracts, says [pt] André Raboni, at the blog Acerto de Contas.


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China: Ghost cities · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Chandni Rathod and Gus Lubin from Business Insider presents satellite pictures of ghost cities in China. Ghost cities refer to newly built empty cities with very few residents. They one of the sources of China's GDP and economic bubbles.

author: Oiwan Lam


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China: The World of Guarantee · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

You have to guarantee that the content of your website be clean, or else you will be penalized by “DNS suspension” or “web-maintenance”. Lee Chi-leung from interlocals.net translates an excerpt of a local investigative report on the “Guarantee system” adopted by the Chinese government.


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Côte d’Ivoire: Citizens Marching towards another “Orange Revolution”? · Global Voices
Julie Owono

This post is part of our special coverage Côte d'Ivoire Unrest 2011.
Although the atmosphere was already quite worrisome in Côte d'Ivoire, the tension level climbed up a few notches  in the past few days.  After a skirmish on December 12 between the two opposite camps and the prolongation of the cease-fire by Laurent Gbagbo,  Alassane Ouattara and his partisans are now calling on the population to “engage in a pacific and democratic mass protest in order to install the legitimate and legal administration“.
One of the most active (@bzkdjc) twitterer on  #civ2010, the main twitter feed for the Ivorian Elections,  named the upcoming protest the “Naked hands Protesters”:
“Mon 2010è tweet pour #civ2010: MARCHEURS AUX MAINS NUES nous serons ce jeudi. Sans violence, ns ne ferons que marcher.”
The protest itself  has been spread trough the country by telephone and by the local Daily Newspapers. FM 105.1 ( Radio Liberté ), a pirate radio launched from the Hôtel du Golf, the current residence of Ouattara's government  informs residents of Abidjan about the route of the demonstration.  Yesterday, when a member of the Government Media Authority of Côte d'Ivoire (CNCA)  came to  national TV and announced that the promoters of the radio will be prosecuted and named the Radio by it's exact FM tune number, a local twitterer (@Sanders225) ironically remarked (fr):
” Sans le savoir,  la #RTI    et   le   CNCA   donnent des auditeurs à la radio RHDP sur les105.1 FM #civ2010 “
“They don't even notice that they are pushing  more Radio listeners  towards RHDP (Ouattara's party) by giving on the air the 105.1 FM wavelength #civ2010″
The demonstration will begin at the Hôtel du Golf, and will end at the Ivorian Radio Television (RTI) office, the only broadcasted national TV in Côte d'Ivoire which is considered a pro Gbagbo media.
Claudius Richmond, an Ivorian twitterer based in South Africa (@cjrichie007 ) wrote this morning on his timeline:
” #NowPlaying Sors De Ma Télé @TIKENJAHFAKOLY dédié à Brou Amessan rdv dm1 à la maison “bleue”#civ2010“
Peace as a Leitmotiv
On the  #civ2010 feed more than ever, “Peace” seems to be the leitmotiv.
Like fellow twitteter @bzkdjc, twitter user @toustoutes invites all Ivorians on Twitter to post statuses on #civ2010 using the expression “Marcheurs aux mains nues” so that the media would spread the word that the protest is non violent. The aim of this is also to prevent Gbagbo's military forces to use their weapons against demonstrators :
#civ2010 Utilisez largement les termes “MARCHEURS AUX MAINS NUES”, ça interdit aux FDS le recours à la violence.
Referring to the early International Criminal Court (ICC) announcement on Kenya, @PaixCIV (litterally Peace Côte d'Ivoire) says :
“#civ2010 Pas d'appel à violence, Souvenez-vous TPI vous surveille. Personne ne tirera sur personne sur ce fil. Ni ailleurs non plus j'espère.”
Although considerable efforts were made to ensure a peaceful atmosphere on the Twittosphere, some express fear that things may go wrong on Thursday. One could say that a self-imposed moderation of tweets  has been put in place on the #Civ2010 feed to prevent the spreading of rumors : Replying to @Ivoirevox, who tweeted that the protest would be infiltrated by armed mercenaries who would shoot on the FDS, @Koneissa writes:
“@ivoirevox : Stp idiot, ta propagande communiste tu peux la faire ailleurs.Ici, on dévéloppe des arguments.#civ2010“
This didn't prevent people from fearing that things could get out of control. A twitterer and an earlier pro-Gbagbo @dogothetrue warns on his feed:
“#civ2010 que Dieu ns donne de voir lundi 20. Qui vivra Vera. Pitié pour toutes ces âmes qui risquent de disparaitre .”
To counter the potential effects of a reaction by the FDS,  @gabnorev posted a long tweet where pieces of advice are given to demonstrators :
“Pour les lacrymogènes, un foulard imbibé de citron ou vinaigre permet de mieux respirer.”
“
All this pushed some Twitter users to organise the monitoring of the demonstration.
Citizen Monitoring of the Demonstration
Some like Diaby Mohamed, a local blogger and one of the promoters of the feed #civ2010 asks what could be implemented to cover the demonstration, a french activist,  Emmanuel Letourneux,  suggests :
“Twitter depuis des telephones portables et des photos et films pour identifier les fauteurs de troubles éventuels #civ2010“
This brings on the scene wonzomai, the Ushahidi platform deployed to monitor the two rounds of the presidential ballot. The tool will be used to monitor the event of tomorrow, as (@jpehouman) one of it's promoters invites his Ivorian fellow citizens to do :
“pour reporter tt incident lié à la marche d demain en #civ2010 n'hésitez pas à utiliser @wonzomai http://bit.ly/f1U6xepr 1e large diffusion”
Reactions on Gbagbo's side
Abidjan.net is the top  news website by it's number of visits. The site hosts a political forum where many, anonymous or not, come to discuss.
Seplou (a nickname of Gbagbo wich litteraly means the lighthouse-bird in Bété), an anonymous forumer writes:
“La RTI est toujours à cocody elle vous attends à bras ouvert. Tous les candidats à la mort sont la bienvenue. Mais ne pleurnichez pas après hein! Soyez digne dans la douleurs car vous aurez la réponse des FDS!  A bon entendeur salut !  (…) Chair à canon de Allase Ouattara, réfléchissez dêh!” “
Another anonymous forumer Nyty prevents:
“venez c'est la que votre petit gros devenu ministre de golf dougou va savoir que votre dramane est indesirable,on vous attends venez”
This post is part of our special coverage Côte d'Ivoire Unrest 2011.

author: Julie Owono


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Czech Republic: Present and Future of the Far-Right · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Dr. Sean's Diary analyzes the present and the future of the Czech far-right.

author: Veronica Khokhlova


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Demotix and Global Voices join forces · Global Voices
Solana Larsen

This week we're announcing a new partnership between Global Voices and Demotix – the award-winning citizen photojournalism platform. Wherever it makes sense, we will use their images, and they will use our text.
Like Global Voices, Demotix was founded at the cross-roads of grassroots activism and journalism, with two principles in mind – freedom of speech and freedom of information. Our top stories often overlap.
Since Demotix first began recruiting independent photographers in 2009, they have built an impressive archive of over 400,000 photos from 190 countries by 3,500 photographers. Their business model is to sell the photos to newspapers, broadcasters and online news sites like ours and split the (small or large) fees 50:50 with the photographers. If you have a camera, join them.
In the case of Global Voices it will be very small fees, but we hope that we can help exercise parts of the Demotix photo archive that may be less attractive to commercial media. Our emphasis is always on people and places other media ignore. A picture really does a lot for helping people understand life and ideas from faraway.
We are hoping to encourage even more interaction between readers and contributors to both our websites by embedding Global Voices RSS feeds on Demotix continent and country pages.
As much as the internet is challenging old media models, only a few organizations are innovating in the realm of international news in the way that we are. We are very happy to try working together more closely in the months ahead!
Here's a link to the Demotix announcement.

author: Solana Larsen


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Ghana: Let oil flow, let it flow, let it flow · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Oil production started today in Ghana: “Today oil in large commercial quantities starts to flow for the first time in Ghana. There's a big ceremony  full of pomp and pageantry underway off the shores of Takoradi.”

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Guinea:  « WikiLeaks » Revelation on the Discussions between Burkina Faso, the United States, France and Morocco about Dadis  · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

The website Guinée Inter published an article from Jeune Afrique which reveals [fr] that: “A series of American diplomatic cables, published by WikiLeaks on Saturday, details the four-way discussions which took place between the President of Burkina Faso Blaise Compaoré, the United States, France and Morocco between the end of 2009 and early 2010. These discussions centred around the fate of deposed Guinean President Moussa Dadis Camara, as well as the future of Guinea.”

author: Abdoulaye Bah


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Guinea: Clarification from Reporters Without Borders · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

The blog banabananews.org published [fr] a press release from Paris by the NGO Reporters Without Borders, dated 8th December 2010 in which it states:
“‘Reporter Sans Frontière Section Guinée’ has absolutely nothing to do with the campaign for freedom of the press, has no link whatsoever with our organisation, and is not a local section of our organisation.”


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Guyana: Time for Snow?  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Guyana-Gyal thinks that snow is beautiful, but according to her best friend, “There is only one place from which to view snow. The tropics.”

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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India: On Eve Teasing · Global Voices
Rezwan

Maesy Angelina at Blank Noise comments: “eve teasing is an issue that nobody talks about. It seems like a monumental thing to try and change it.”

author: Rezwan


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Israel: The Land of Fire and Ice · Global Voices
Nicole Hyman

Severe winter storms hit most of Israel this week with strong winds, rain and snowstorms causing country-wide havoc. In the North, the Hermon Mountain was blanketed with more snow than the country has seen in 20 years. This happened days after the Carmel region was devastated by forest fires which left 43 dead and caused damage estimated at between 100-120 million Shekels.
For many, these storms provide welcome relief from the drought the country has been experiencing. The Sea of Galilee, Israel’s main water reservoir, has risen five centimetres as a result of the storms.
This sentiment is echoed by many in the Israeli twitosphere. @Tekhelet said:
I am glad Israel has storm/rain and snow now. Baruch HaShem. Thank you Father!
Despite the havoc, disruption and inconvenience caused many were simply grateful for the rain. @MaozIsrael added:
Snow and rain in #Israel! God is answering our prayers!
But these storms weren't the answer to everyone's prayers. Although in desperate need of rain, the storms also caused country-wide damage.
The Maoz Israel blog published some pictures of the destruction caused by the storms:
Tel Aviv's beach battered by gale force winds and heavy storms
Alone in Holy Land, a Romanian blogger living in Ashdod, described what it was like to get caught in the storm while driving with her family to Eilat:
In was absolutely hellish! First, it was the wind, very strong and then the sand…When we reached Mitzpe Ramon it was so cold and windy … I was terrified. The gales of wind kept hitting the car from one side, then the other and I was panic stricken. Not even able to utter one word. My stomach was the size of a pea and the throat constricted… Unbelievable…while I was muttering prayers under my breath and pretending I was somewhere else. At the end of our trip, some 30 km before Eilat, the sand storm stopped abruptly, the sky became clear and the sun was back on the sky.
And then there were those who threw caution to the wind and took advantage of the stormy conditions. Shahar Zubari, an Israeli windsurfer, braved the weather and headed for the waves.

author: Nicole Hyman


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Jamaica: Kartel & Cake Soap  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“I never understood Bleaching, I can't understand how this is an actual phenomena in the same place that gave birth to Marcus Garvey”: The Phoenix in a Gas House explains.


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Kenya: Vote to save your favourite ICC suspect · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Collins urges his followers to vote to save their favourite suspect by texting Ocampo @ Projct Hague. The International Criminal Court named six Kenyan leaders Wednesday suspected of organizing violence after the disputed 2007 election.


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Kuwait: Should the Kuwaiti Amir Join Twitter? · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

On Twitter, @kuwaiti (Ar) asks the Kuwaiti Ruler to join Twitter “to get closer to his people and understand their opinions.”

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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@MedvedevRussia, Are You Listening? A Story of 6 Months on Twitter · Global Voices
Yelena Osipova

It all started with a tweet.
“Hello everyone! I'm on Twitter, and this is my first tweet,” wrote Dmitry Medvedev during a visit to Twitter headquarters in Silicon Valley on June 23, 2010. The Russian president created two official Twitter accounts – one in Russian and one in English – in a publicity tour that made headlines around the world. With 2010 coming to a close, we take a look back on some of the highlights of the president's first six months on Twitter.
It was a brilliant public relations play that complemented the President's other efforts to capture opportunities offered by social networking and new media. Within minutes, Medvedev's Twitter account attracted some 1000+ followers. People on RuNet (the Russian internet) responded with intense interest and a flurry of comments and reactions. In the six months that followed, Medvedev successfully managed to engage 147,295 followers on his Russian Twitter account by posting photos, links to news, and even some personal commentary.
View of San Francisco from Medvedev's hotel room. Shared on Twitpic on June 23, 2010. Photo by Dmitry Medvedev
The presidential Twitpic profile deserves special mention as Medvedev often demonstrates his tech-savviness by sharing pictures he takes with his iPhone. Apple should almost be paying him for the publicity.
President Medvedev's fondness of Apple products is obvious, pictured here with an iPad at G8 Summit in Canada in June, 2010.
It was also a great public diplomacy effort, as Medvedev's English-language Twitter account – aimed at foreign audiences – attracted 61,451 followers and provided for quite some discussions over the coming months in the global public sphere that is Twitter. As noted in June by a popular Russian television host and blogger, Tina Kandelaki [RU]:
“If he continues putting up such photos, like the ones after his Twitter registration, the Russian authorities will have a real chance of becoming authorities of which their people are proud. […] If he continues being as active as he was at the beginning, the emergence of “New” Russia will become apparent not only in Russia, but also in the West.”
The President vs. The Kremlin
The fact that the President was initially using @KremlinRussia and @KremlinRussia_E (E for English) as his personal Twitter profiles raised some controversy on the blurring of the lines between Medvedev and the official Kremlin. So on November 19, 2010 two new Twitter profiles were created, also called @KremlinRussia and @KremlinRussia_E while the original ones were renamed @MedvedevRussia and @MedvedevRussiaE.
According to RIA Novosti, the president is tweeting himself on the new account. Apparently, he wished to enjoy more informal communication with his followers. Meanwhile, @KremlinRussia and @KremlinRussia_E represent “official Kremlin news,” as stated in the new profile descriptions. Ironically, @KremlinRussia now only has 10,731 followers and @KremlinRussia_E only 2,193 because the followers remained on the old accounts.
Another rival in this space is the mock Kremlin tweeter @KermlinRussia (note the spelling error) who has close to 52,500 followers and ranks 4th among the most followed Russian tweeters (funnily enough, according to the latest stats from Twirus, @MedvedevRussia is the top “RU Popular Tweep”, as of December 14). The mock tweeter, identifies himself as the “Perzident” of made-up country “Roissya”.
Unfortunately, no translation can capture the brilliant play of words in the profile description. Intentional misspellings that would otherwise mean “Russia, Forward!” and “Official Twitter account of the Russian President” evoke negative associations. For instance, “Russia, Forward!” is a nod to a notorious article by Medvedev in September 2009 calling for modernization and innovation in Russia. Yet, the way it is misspelled (Роисся вперде), it sounds more like “Roissya is screwed.” When Medvedev's Twitter account was renamed, @KermlinRussia did not pass on the opportunity to comment in a series of tweets on the same day [RU]:
Good bye to all who are now with @MedvedevRussia. Hello to all who would never confuse our profiles in the first place.
And later:
Best business practices: Just a while ago 122,000 followers were transferred from an official state account to a private one. Doesn't this remind you of anything?
@KermlinRussia is just one among the increasingly prolific mock tweeters in the Russian Tweet-o-sphere, which features mock feeds @PremierRussia (fake Vladimir Putin) and @Kremlins_wife, but also by the great Russian poet @Alex_Pushkin (1799-1837) and @NikolayII, the last Russian Czar Nicholas II (1868-1918). (My personal favorite is the “Kremlin worm” – @KremlinCherv – who gained prominence after an embarrassing incident in October).
While the Twitter humor is prolific, the satire has also affected wider public political discourse. The misspelled phrase Роисся вперде (“Roissya is screwed”) has become the title of an upcoming book by Oleg Kashin, a reporter for Kommersant who was badly beaten in November. The book, which is expected to be released at the end of December, is a fictional story about the land of “Roissya” and is an anti-Utopian account of a society with modernization as its ideology. You can find excerpts from the book in Russian here.
@MedvedevRussia are you listening?
Burger diplomacy. Medvedev has lunch with Obama on June 24, 2010 at Ray
Early in his tweeting days, President Medvedev was mostly self-referential. Although he established a presence on Twitter, Medvedev (and his PR team) did not seem to grasp the two-way nature of social networking. On the contrary, the presidential Twitpic profile, for instance, was heavily moderated within a day of being launched. After a few controversial remarks and questions, all the comments beneath the photos suddenly disappeared. As Gregory Asmolov remarked on Global Voices, “The era of the Russian unmoderated online democracy lasted less than 24 hours.”
Things improved a bit later in fall, when the president (or at least the people behind his profile) apparently noticed the “@Mentions” and “Reply” buttons on Twitter, and started being more responsive. On September 14, Medvedev celebrated his 45th birthday, and congratulations via Twitter poured in by the hundreds. The president duly acknowledged all those who wrote in, and thanked them for their wishes.
Several more interactions followed that made it to domestic and foreign news reports, including one on October 2, which asked whether @KremlinRussia was “real”, and received a personal response from the President. Some were birthday-related, while others – more recently – focused on the Belarusian elections. On November 24, venting his frustration over various issues in the country, @garipov_radik tweeted:
@MedvedevRussia Dm. Anatolievich! Are you reading our tweets at all? Or are we talking to the hand, here? We are, after all, discussing subjects that are important to us. Respond now.
And the response came:
@garipov_radik I am reading. Thanks for all the suggestions to all of you who write to @MedvedevRussia. I am thinking of using some of these ideas in my address to the Fed. Assembly.
Did he? Here's a tweet from @garipov_radik from November 30, the day of the annual speech at the Russian Federal Assembly:
@MedvedevRussia Watched the address with the whole family. Were happy to hear my suggestion about the FREE provision of land to families with (many) children. Great!
I was unable to find any other tweets to suggest that more ideas from Twitter have been adopted in this speech or others. However, the example above does show that beyond gaining purely technical skills, Medvedev is also improving his communication strategy as a whole.
On November 30,  an Armenian news website picked up a story on how a woman with an Armenian-sounding surname had received a response from the Russian president on Twittter.
@inna_smbatyan tweeted:
Dreamt of @MedvedevRussia today. were having dinner in some dark castle. were talking about Twitter. yeah right…
Medvedev responded:
@inna_smbatyan I did not have dinner at all yesterday. Was preparing the address :)
The president's new responsiveness to citizens shows the potential for major transformation in communication for both public relations and public diplomacy purposes. After all, if Holywood actor Ashton Kutcher can, why can't he? (Twitter has been embraced by many politicians and officials in Russia, as well as around the world. According to the Wall Street Journal, there are 62 international leaders officially on Twitter, perhaps most notorious among them Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and North Korea's Kim Jong Il.)
Medvedev, who now has four Twitter accounts, is obviously good with iPhone and Twitpic sharing, and even learned how to use the “Reply” button. A good start for the first six months on Twitter? Perhaps. We will have to wait to see whether any substantive action follows his virtual words. At the end of the day, that is what really matters.
On recent violent clashes in central Moscow, where thousands of nationalist soccer hooligans shouted racist epithets, Medvedev tweeted warnings to the perpetrators:
И последнее – на сегодня. По Манежной. В стране и в Москве – все под контролем. Со всеми, кто гадил, разберемся. Со всеми. Не сомневайтесь.
He also retweeted two posts from the official @KremlinRussia feed with links to official statements from Kremlin, highlighting the need for discipline and calling for the punishment of  those who incited “criminal acts”. The racist responses on Twitter have been fierce.
Will each of the thousands of perpetrators really be prosecuted? Yet, on Twitter, Medvedev seems to appear more like any other citizen, voicing frustration at something he perhaps has limited power to change for the better.

author: Yelena Osipova


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Mexico: Drug Gang Mobilizes Unlikely Supporters · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

“Following two days of intense unrest last week, which included the torching of dozens of vehicles and gunfire in city streets, the drug gang known as La Familia Michoacana (LFM) mobilized masses of people to take to the streets […] in which innocent-looking women and children carried placards voicing support for the sociopathic activities of La Familia:” Tim Johnson writes in Mexico Unmasked.

author: Silvia Viñas


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Mexico: Mapping the Heroes of Ciudad Juárez · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

Vivir México [es] reports that the initiative Cronicas de Heroes [es] (Hero Chronicles) –inspired by Hero Reports New York– aims to document and report the good deeds of the people of Ciudad Juárez. Starting December 17, users will be able to map good deeds they witness in the city.


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Nepal: Former Crown Prince Arrested · Global Voices
Rezwan

Former crown prince of Nepal Paras Shah was recently arrested by police on charges of illegal possession of a gun and Ujjwal Acharya opines that “it symbolically indicates the ‘real’ end of the monarchic power and is also a step towards the no-tolerance towards criminal activities under political hood.”


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Nigeria: Nigerian Foremost Nationalist Feared Dead · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Nigeria's leading nationalist, Anthony Enahoro is feared dead: “chidi opara reports have just received a citizen report on phone that Nigerian foremost Nationalist, Pa Anthonty Enahoro is dead, no details were provided.”


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Poland: 29th Anniversary of the 1981 Martial Law · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

On the 29th anniversary of introducing martial law in Poland, Tasting Poland Blog shares “bitter memories” by posting a selection of photos and video from 1981-83.


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Puerto Rico: Second Student Strike · Global Voices
Firuzeh Shokooh Valle

Students of the University of Puerto Rico have started the second strike in less than a year, this time in protest against a special tuition fee to be charged in January. Follow the hashtag #huelgaUPR in Twitter, the student blog Desde Adentro [es], and the digital magazine 80 grados [es] for the latest updates, news and analysis on the strike.

author: Firuzeh Shokooh Valle


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Qatar: Beware of Car Thefts · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Geo warns readers to beware of car thefts at Qatar Living.


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Qatra: Museum of Modern Art Opens · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

The Museum of Modern Art has opened its doors in Qatar, writes jane01 at Qatar Living.


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Russia: Commentary on Dec. 11 Moscow Rioting · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Reactions to the Dec. 11 xenophobic riots in downtown Moscow – by Vadim Nikitin, Miriam Elder, Natalia Antonova, Robert Amsterdam's blog, and The Power Vertical.


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Russia: Kashin on Spartak Fans and Nov. 6 Beating, in English · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Russian journalist Oleg Kashin writes for OpenDemocracy.net about the authorities’ inadequate response to a rally by Spartak football fans, and, for the New York Times, about the Nov. 6 attack on him in Moscow (both texts are in English).


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Russia: Photos and a Testimony of the Clashes in Moscow · Global Voices
Alexey Sidorenko

Photo-blogger Ilya Varlamov (@varlamov) and bb-mos tweet and share photos of the current events in the center of Moscow. Tujana-jx reports a story of a skinhead assaulting an older woman in metro.

author: Alexey Sidorenko


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Russia: Police Intensifies Surveillance ‘to Prevent Calls to Violence’ · Global Voices
Alexey Sidorenko

Special services are monitoring social networks and track IP-addresses of those who spread calls to violence, rian.ru reports [RUS]. Vkontakte.ru, Russian social network, increased removal of the groups with xenophobia content after the events at Manezh square. “600 moderators work on removal of groups inciting hate-crime”, rian.ru adds [RUS].


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Russia: Studying Online Mobilization of the Manezh Riots · Global Voices
Alexey Sidorenko

Recent riots on Manezhnaya Square next to the Kremlin showed that Russian soccer fans have become a powerful community who can mobilize thousands very quickly around an event. Last week, that  event was the commemoration of Yegor Sviridov, a fan of the Moscow soccer club “Spartak” who was murdered in during a brawl among soccer fans on December 6. The memorial turned riot, and the crowd attacked people from North Caucasian and Central Asian republics, with many injured and one killed [RUS]. This was the third memorial for Sviridov, and all were characterized by their xenophobia and dissatisfaction with a system of justice that failed to prosecute Sviridov's killers.
Blogosphere documents riots
Yegor Sviridov [RUS], a member of the fan group “Union”, was murdered according to witnesses [RUS] friendly with him by a group of eight men from the Caucasus. The witnesses assert that the men approached Sviridov and his friends, and after a short quarrel began shooting an automatic weapon, robbed them, and fled. One attacker, named Cherkesov, allegedly shot 12 times, one of which struck Sviridov in the head. He was quickly caught by the police. Police caught five other alleged attackers, but released them, reportedly due pressure from their relatives. RusNovosti provides their photos.
Earlier this year, a similar case provoked a peaceful protest. Yuri Volkov, a member of the fan group “Fratria” was killed in a street fight. His alleged killers were released and the case was closed.
The first rally for Sviridov took place on Kronshtadt boulevard in Moscow, where Sviridov was killed, and ended up blocking Leningradskiy prospect, a major thoroughfare. User ВАХНОВ shot a video of a crowd shouting “Russians, forward” and “Hey, get the f…k out of here”:
The second rally was peaceful, and held at the same place on the morning of December 11. Fans came with flowers and later  dispersed. Ilya Varlamov (aka LJ-user Zyalt) captured the moment:
Soccer fans commemorating Yegor Sviridov, photo by Ilya Varlamov
The third rally, just several hours later, turned into an a mass manifestation followed by assaults on people with non-Slavic appearance and clashes with police. User pakea2 uploaded a video of the clashes and assaults on single people with dark complexions:
Online mobilization
The riot has undoubtedly been the most discussed topic on RuNet in recent weeks. Besides the many political and ethnic implications of the riots, an important question is: how did such a large group of protesters mobilize?
Analysis of the largest soccer fan websites, such as fratria.ru, fanat1k.ru, and spartak.msk.ru, using available online data, shows that all increased in popularity. The figure below reveals that the main beneficiary was fanat1k.ru, meaning “fanatic”, a website linked to “Spartak” hooligans.
Popularity of the main "Spartak" fan websites
A forum message on fanat1k.ru was an early source of news about Sviridov's murder. It gathered almost 1,500 comments and nearly 200 pageviews. The language of this discussion was plainly racist and seemingly impelled a direct response rather than a discussion. User Zoidberg was one of the only commenters to propose at least investigate the case [RUS]. The following language comes from a view responding to him:
Какие на ху_й разбирательства могут быть?! Русский убит чеченцами, этим всё сказано!
Zoidberg received about 20 comments calling him Russophobic or stupid. Most of the other 1,500 comments were also laced with hatred and disappointment.
The statistical data of site attendance is important because it reveals that sites such as fanat1k.ru create environments that incite mass anger.
Commenters shared many links to neo-Nazi websites, suggesting that neo-Nazis might be behind the memorials. According to site data, however, the most vocal neo-Nazi websites did not compare to activity on the soccer fan websites. Eduard Limonov, leader of a radical leftist group, wrote that at the Manezh riot [RUS], the most active provocateurs weren't numerous, only about 50.
Various Vkontakte groups were created, many of them closed or invitation-only, including groups with five- to ten-thousand participants. They distributed anti-Caucasian posters and slogans. Examples can be found here [RUS] and here [RUS]. At the same time, Fratria, one of the largest fan groups, tried to stop the violence by denouncing support [RUS] for the memorial at Manezhnaya Square and calling on fans to stay out of the center of Moscow.
Several bloggers noted that the fan groups are connected to the Kremlin and often take sides against opposition political groups including an attack on environmentalists in summer 2010. Tacit support from the elite could explain the mobilization, though more documentation is needed. Oleg Kashin in his blog pointed out [RUS] that one of the organizers of the mob was a member of the pro-Kremlin youth movement “Nashi”. Blogger palmoliveprotiv noticed that one of the provocateurs was a former member of a pro-Kremlin regional movement. User anticompromat commented that at the end of the day, the main benificiary of the story was Vladimir Putin, since the riots showed everyone that Russia needed strong hand and “it was too early to give Russians full political rights”.
Conclusions
In 2008, Floriana Fossato, a renowned scholar of Russian media, wrote:
Nationalists simply did not want to seriously popularize their cause, even at a time of heightened political awareness and mobilisation, beyond their own circles. […] A well-planned internet presence could do much to promulgate these views and launch propaganda campaigns across a much broader spectrum. But their world remains self-enclosed.
Now, ethno-nationalists have found a way to extend and merge their online and offline presence. Likewise, a merger between soccer fans and neo-Nazis is a global trend and exists in Italy, Germany and other countries. Alexander Tarasov, scholar of Russian nationalism, wrote [RUS] that the first steps for this merger in the Russian context began in 2001 and have been increasing. Economic crisis and recent unsolved murders influence that process and have contributed to the spreading of nationalist ideas to the online environment of soccer fans. The result: advocates for justice, responsible investigation, and legal reform have been drowned out by a simpler, more vicious, and ultimately dehumanizing rhetoric that neatly pairs with street violence.
“The leap from the murky online world of soccer fan and neo-Nazi forums that few outsiders were reading right into the spotlight”, as Veronika Khokhlova puts it, has taken place and is in danger of spreading. A subculture of mass fighting as a form of entertainment, in which “Caucasian” is synonymous with enemy, has emerged onto Russia's central square. Not even Russia's neutered and cowed television channels can ignore it, or misinterpret the message of its participants.


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Russia: the Blogosphere Boils As Ethnic Clashes Flood Moscow · Global Voices
Alexey Sidorenko

Interfax.ru, Russian news portal moved to manual update mode due to the overload caused by numerous ethnic clashes (so far 1200 arrested and 30 injured) in different places of Moscow, news2.ru reported. Fanat1k.ru, largest soccer fan media outlet, has been inaccessible throughout the day, many smaller fan forums don't load for the same reasons.


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Russia: Too Warm in the World’s Coldest Place · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

eYakutia reports on the abnormally “warm weather” in Oymyakon, “the world’s coldest inhabited place”: just -20 ºC/-4 ºF, “the heat record of the Siberian winter.”


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Russia: “WikiFakes” · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

FP's Passport writes about the possibly fake WikiLeaks’ “scoops” published by Russkiy Reporter magazine.


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Slovenia: Referendum Results · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Sleeping With Pengovsky writes about the “disastrous” results and the implications of the referendum on Slovenia's public TV law: “The law was nixed with 72.64 percent votes against and only 27.36 percent in favour, with a criminally low voter turnout.”


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South Africa: An evening with FW De Klerk · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

An evening with FW De Klerk, the last State President of apartheid-era South Africa: “Last Friday, December 10, 2010, I had the privilege of listening to a talk by former South African President Frederick W De Klerk about the transformative power of change.”


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St. Vincent & the Grenadines: Gonsalves Re-Elected · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Bloggers from St. Vincent and the Grenadines comment on the outcome of the country's general election.


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Sudan: Hip hop star Emmanuel Ja raps for peace · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

A former child soldier in Sudan Emmanuel Ja raps for peace in Sudan: “On the eve of South Sudan’s independence referendum, international hip hop star Emmanuel Jal is calling out to the world to say, “We want peace,” with the help of friends like Alicia Keys, Peter Gabriel, and George Clooney.”


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Sudan: Low turnout for female voters · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

What is the reason behind a low female turnout to register for the January 9 referendum?: “At the Dr. John Garang Mausoleum in the heart of Juba, under a baking morning sun, two dozen or so men wait patiently in line to be registered to vote. A separate line for women lies woefully empty.”


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Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados: Duprey & CL Financial  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

B.C. Pires learns from a Trinidad news report that the CEO at the helm of the CL Financial collapse is willing to come back to the country to “set things right”, saying: “You don’t know whether to laugh or slit your wrists.”


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Trinidad & Tobago: Gun Control  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Diaspora blogger Jumbie's Watch says that for Trinidad and Tobago to see a dent in crime, “we must first change the attitude of the people, not arm them with guns.”


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Ukraine: Chernobyl Tourism · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Chernobyl and Eastern Europe posts a list of errors in the AP story on Chernobyl tourism, supplied by Michael Forster Rothbart, and quotes “a friend in Kyiv who operates one of the companies that offer Chernobyl tours”: “He stated that it looks like the new government has decided to ‘monopolize Chernobyl business’.”


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Azerbaijan: Hijab ban · Global Voices
Aygun Janmammadova

Aaron in Azerbaijan [Eng] also comments on the recent law introduced in Azerbaijan prohibiting hijabs in schools. The blog wonders if the move is an attempt by the government to stop the further spread of  radical Islam in the secular country.

author: Aygun Janmammadova


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Bermuda: By-Election Results  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Bermudian bloggers are not in the least bit surprised at the results of the country's by-election.


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Bhutan: Debating Drayangs and Discotheques · Global Voices
Aparna Ray

Blogger Tandin Pem at As I Like It discusses the recent debate over drayangs and discotheques that took place in the National Assembly.

author: Aparna Ray


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Brazil: Police brutality during building evacuation in Rio de Janeiro · Global Voices
Raphael Tsavkko Garcia

Lucas Duarte, writing for the blog Nota de Rodapé [Footnote, pt], denounces “Brazilian police truculence” in the city of Rio de Janeiro during the  evacuation  of a building, on December 13, which had been invaded by 25 homeless families. The post has also a 6 minutes long video depicting the police brutality against the population.

author: Raphael Tsavkko Garcia


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Brazil: The vote for human rights · Global Voices
Raphael Tsavkko Garcia

Marcelo Salles, writing [pt] for the blog Escrevinhador (Scribbler, pt), balances out votes in the state of Rio de Janeiro won by elected politicians concerned with human rights, against those opposed. The results are 547,492 and 278,425 respectively.


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Brazil: WikiLeaks and doubts over technology transfer in French fighters · Global Voices
Thiana Biondo

The WikiLeaks website has released a document that raises doubts about the main reason behind the Brazilian interest to buy French fighter aircraft: the possibility of transferring the technology of construction. According to a dispatch that Counselor Minister Lisa Kubiske sent to Brasilia in November 2009, many components of the French aircrafts are manufactured in the USA, as indicated by one of the last cables published by Wikileaks in Portuguese [pt]:
Para Lisa, a campanha francesa é mentirosa: ‘Nos últimos meses, o esforço francês de vendas vem se baseando em alegações enganosas, se não fraudulentas, de que seu caça envolve apenas conteúdo francês (o que o isentaria dos incômodos controles de exportação dos Estados Unidos). Mas isso não procede. Uma análise da Administração de Segurança da Tecnologia de Defesa encontrou alta presença de conteúdo norte-americano, o que inclui sistemas de mira, componentes de radar e sistemas de segurança que requererão licenças norte-americanas”.
Ricardo Stuckert/Ag. Brasil /Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Brazil
Until now, the fighter Rafale, made by the French company Dassault, has been the favourite to win the bid against the Gripen NG made by Sweden's Saab and the F-18 Super Hornet made by the American company Boeing. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged to share the entire manufacturing technology with Brazil, which would be difficult with the U.S., who would need the approval of the US Congress, or with Swedes who also use technology from the United States. It is considered vital to know if the French depends on Americas, as the blog dedicated to aviation Poder Aéreo questions:
Se for verdade essa informação do WikiLeaks, a suposta independência dos EUA, ao adquirir o Rafale, não passa de uma ilusão. Ficaremos, no mínimo, duplamente dependentes: dos EUA e da França e sabe-se lá de quem mais.
Qual seria a porcentagem de tecnologia americana, supostamente utilizada pelo Rafale, que depende de autorização dos EUA, para a comercialização desse avião francês?
Basta, apenas, um único item crítico, tangível ou não, que necessite dos EUA, para ficar na dependência indesejada.  O WikiLeaks faz referência ao uso de componentes no plural, portanto o Rafale não utiliza um único item de domínio americano. Se pudessem, salvo melhor juízo, os franceses não utilizariam nenhum item, ou tecnologia, que os colocassem perante a sujeição americana.”
If the information from WikiLeaks is true, the supposed independence on the USA, by means of buying the Rafale, is nothing but an illusion. We will be at least doubly dependent: on U.S. and on France, and who knows on who else.
What would be the supposedly percentage of American technology used by the Rafale, one which will depend on U.S. approval to put the French aircraft to the market ?
One important single item, tangible or not, requiring U.S. approval is just enough to leave us on an unwanted dependency. The WikiLeaks refers to components in plural so that the Rafale does not use only one item from the American domain. If they could, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the French would not use any item or technology that would leave them to be subject to the USA.
Whether the France can pass the software codes on to Brazil or not is still unknown. The French have been Brazilian partners in the National Defense Plan – a program which includes the Armed Forces equipment upgrade. Lula signed an agreement with Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009 estimated to be worth R$24 billion (USD 13 billion) to assemble 50 helicopters and five submarines in Brazil using French technology. For many bloggers, the United States are jealous of the relationship between France and Brazil as highlighted by O Informante [pt] in the post, ‘Lula and Sarkozy, ‘a love affair’ that annoys some':
(…) o governo americano vê com preocupação a proximidade cada vez maior do presidente da França, Nicolas Sarkozy, com o Brasil. Em duas mensagens para Washington, o embaixador dos Estados Unidos em Paris, Charles Rivkin, analisa a aliança franco-brasileira como uma estratégia de Sarkozy para ampliar a influência da França no mundo e, sobretudo, na América Latina.
(…) o embaixador americano faz um comentário polêmico, alegando que Sarkozy usa sua mulher, a ex-modelo Carla Bruni, para atrair os brasileiros. Em seu relato, ele destaca que “o público brasileiro ficou decepcionado” com o fato de Sarkozy não ter levado a primeira-dama em sua última viagem ao país.(…)
Sempre em tom alarmista, o embaixador avisa a Washington que o próprio Lula tem repetido a intenção do Brasil em tornar-se uma potência mundial e vê na autonomia militar e tecnológica o caminho para isso.
Sugerindo alguma familiaridade com a negociação, ele destaca, entre as promessas da França, “dar aos Rafale brasileiros os códigos dos softwares que representam o coração digital do avião, passo que outros concorrentes relutavam em fornecer.”
(…) the U.S. government is concerned about the increasing proximity of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Brazil. In two messages to Washington, the U.S. ambassador in Paris, Charles Rivkin, analyzes the Franco-Brazilian alliance as Sarkozy's strategy to expand France influence in the world and especially in Latin America.
(…) The American ambassador makes a controversial comment, saying that Sarkozy uses his wife, former model Carla Bruni, to attract Brazilians. In his report, he notes that “the Brazilian public was disappointed” with the fact that Sarkozy did not take the first lady on his last trip to the country . (…)
Using always an alarmist tone, the ambassador warns Washington that Lula himself has repeated many times his intention to turn Brazil into a world power, and sees the military and the technological autonomy as a way to it.
Indicating some familiarity with the negotiation, he points out some of France's promises, such as “giving the Brazilian the Rafale software codes that represent the heart of the digital plane, while other competitors were reluctant to provide.”
The 36 Jet Fighters’ billion dollar deal is at stake, and Minister Kubiske urged  Washington to have a more aggressive position in the bidding process, as WikiLeaks reveal:
Mas desde maio de 2009, a embaixada americana em Brasília tenta fazer com que o governo dos EUA se engaje mais na disputa. Em um telegrama do dia 19, (CLIQUE AQUI), a Ministra Conselheira Lisa Kubiske pediu que Washington faça um lobby mais intenso, pois alguns contatos brasileiros “dizem não acreditar que o governo dos Estados Unidos esteja apoiando a venda fortemente”, enquanto o presidente francês Nicholas Sarcozy estaria envolvido diretamente e os suecos estariam atuando “em nível ministerial”.
In Blog da Cidadania's [pt] opinion, the Brazilian press have lobbied in favor of the U.S.:
O Brasil firmou há anos um acordo de cooperação estratégico-militar-financeira-cultural com a França, o que desagrada aos americanos porque querem ter o controle não só do seu “quintal” (as três Américas), mas do mundo inteiro – ou queriam ter, mas vão descobrindo que não podem. Esse acordo nos permitirá dominar o ciclo de produção cem por cento autônoma de aviões de guerra, sobretudo em situações de conflito.(…)
Enfim, o fato é que toda a comunidade internacional sabe que a imprensa brasileira está fazendo o jogo dos americanos. E, para que isso não fique muito evidente, essa imprensa – Folha, Estadão, Globo e Veja, sobretudo – diz que o avião americano é o “melhor”, mas que o avião sueco seria a solução de consenso por o negócio oferecer maior transferência de tecnologia, apesar de o Gripen ser inferior ao avião americano, mas superior ao francês.
Brazil signed a military-financial-cultural strategic cooperation agreement with France years ago, which annoyed the Americans because they want to control not only their “backyard ” (the three Americas), but also the whole world – or would want to, as they have discovered they cannot. This agreement will allow us to dominate  one hundred percent of the cycle production of Jet Fighters, especially in conflicts .(…)
In fact, the entire international community knows that the Brazilian press is playing on the American side. And, for it not become too obvious, that press – Folha, Estadão, Globo and Veja, in particular – say the American Jet is the “best”, even though the Swedish Jet would be a consensus solution, as it offers more independence in the transfer of technology, despite the fact the Gripen is inferior to the American Jet, and superior to the French.
Ag.Brasil/Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Brazil
The position of the Defense Minister Nelson Jobim [pt] and the Brazilian Air Force Commander Juniti Saito before the US government has been disapproved by Brazilians. Both were the targets of the U.S. lobby, and Commander Saito signalled to the Washington officials that he would prefer the American Jet. Backing the voice of the critics,  Laerte Braga recalls on blog  Jornal do Autodromo [pt] that the decision about from whom will Brazil the buy jet fighter is now with president-elect Dilma Rousseff, due to take office next January:
Dilma Rousseff vive um dilema antes de sua posse. Mantém o ministro da Defesa, Nelson Jobim, notório agente norte-americano  e o comandante da Força Aérea Brasileira-FAB (bate continência para Washington) brigadeiro Juniti Saito, ou espanta essas duas figuras que em tempos passados seriam chamados de traidores? (…)
A batata quente está nas mãos da presidente eleita Dilma Rousseff. Lula poderia até facilitar o caminho pedindo a Jobim e Saito que saiam antes do término de seu mandato. (…)
Dilma Rousseff has a dilemma before her inauguration. To keep the Defense Minister Nelson Jobim, a notorious American agent and the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) Commander (who salutes to Washington) Brigadier Juniti Saito, or ward off these two figures, who in the past would be called traitors? (…)
The problem is in the hands of elected president Rousseff. Lula could even ease her way asking Jobim and Saito to leave before the end of his own term.
This post was proofread by Marta Cooper.

author: Thiana Biondo


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China: A Cold Winter Night with the Petitioners · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The suffering of Beijing's petitioners, including one who has spent 52 years waiting for his voice to be heard, came to life when one lawyer stepped out of his office to relive their misery.
Beijing has been a hot spot for visiting petitioners, who travel across the country from different provinces to file administrative or legal appeals to the State Bureau for Letters and Calls. Since most of the petitioners’ cases are related to local corruption, the Central Petition Bureau has become their only hope. However, their hope is usually in vain. Apart from the fact that the government bureau does not have the capacity to handle so many cases, many of the petitioners do not know how to present their cases and there is no one to help them. As a result, they are stuck in Beijing, with no money and no home. To add to their misery, the cold Beijing winter makes them even more vulnerable but not many seem to care.
In order to raise public awareness towards their cause, Zhang Kai, a human rights lawyer decided to swap the comfort of his home to spend a night with them inside a pedestrian subway, near Beijing South railway station. He live-casted what he witnessed at around midnight on December 14, when the temperatures dropped to -7°C, on his microblog.
Through photographs and tweets, Zhang puts us face to face with the misery of petitioners, who continue to call for their rights.
He writes:
今晚来到北京南站，在桥洞里看望访民，你无法想像在繁华的北京桥洞下，路边居住着大量的上访者，最多一个上访五十二年，今晚我要与他们同住桥洞。
His first interview is with a woman, whose tears have not dried since losing her husband more than two years ago:
这里的上访者，你可以停下来问几句话，很快有很多人走来给你递材料，以为你是领导，一个老年人睡在路边，我问她情况，很快她泪流满面诉说她的冤情
这是我第一个访问者，她相信上帝，她说如果不是上帝，她早就死了，她的丈夫几年前被公安告知车祸死了，但在几天的时间里就火化了，她都没有看到丈夫尸体。车祸现场报告都没有。她不相信丈夫是这样死的，她怀疑丈夫器官被卖。她被人追杀只能上访，她和我说时很快痛哭流涕。
And the second is with a woman seeking treatment for a medical aliment:
这个住在桥洞陪妈妈上访的女孩得了怪病，需要花很多钱才能救治，但她们不可能承担，只能等待
Away from their homes, Zhang gives us an insight to the daily misery they face in getting by:
这些上访者捡菜叶子为生，路边自建火炉。有时可以捡到骨头做一个汤
He further adds:
今晚，我要和这些访民住在这个桥洞，据说这是今年最冷的一夜。然而，更让我感到寒冷的是每个人身上的苦难
And gives us a reality check:
天气寒冷，当你在这个桥洞醒来时，可能己经有人悄悄的离开了这个世界。如此冷的天，有人只有一个单被
Helpless, Zhang admits:
每个人都会拉住你向你讲述他们的故事，把你当救星，然而我知道自己无能为力
Through his experience, he comes to a rude awakening:
与访民睡在这桥洞里，我突然感到好平安，这是中国司法的现状与悲剧，一个法律人有必要走入这种真实，或许才会理解法律的精神！
He continues:
他们不是乞讨者，而是上访者。谁说他们对中国的法治没有贡献呢？用生命去寻求公义，他们是法治的殉葬品，但愿早一天，这一切成为历史
To add insult to their misery, Zhang says the petitioners have both the weather and law enforcement officers to battle against this winter:
我的脚已冻僵，朋友给我拿了两床被。但她们只有单薄的被子，她们告诉我，他们的被子常被城管和警察抢走。
Stories of life and death continue to pour in:
上访了五十二年的老伯，只因当时说了一句话被劳教三年，之后开除公职，一生上访未结婚。他说不想活了，多次绝食自杀
And even the young are not immune:
一个二十五岁的学生也在上访，家里房屋被拆。在桥洞口安静的看书，不知他的一生是否也是上访的一生。
这是我遇到最年青的独立上访者，二十五岁，他不善言谈，不和我说话，或者是因为这种处境，我流露出了优越感，我顿感惭愧。据说他今年年初来，家被强拆，父亲被打残。
And for some, the trauma begins even earlier:
这个孩子一直在哭泣，是被冻醒，还是做了恶梦我不知道。大概五六岁，她的一生会怎么样呢？
As night turns into day, hope dwindles:
己经深夜，上访者还会拿着材料过来。告诉我他们的冤情，很多案件根本没有希望，但我无法劝他们回去。
But Zhang won't give up and will continue to follow their cause:
我的手已冻僵，无法继续发微博。明早四点就有人去排队上访。我会和他们走一程。最后发一张，愿上帝祝福我们这个国家和这片土地。晚安。

author: Oiwan Lam


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Côte d’Ivoire: Shots Fired and at Least 3 Killed during March in Abidjan    · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

The citizen media platform Womzomai and its facebook page posted photos from the violence that broke out today in Abidjan during the march. BBC Africa reports that at least 3 people were shot and killed.

author: Lova Rakotomalala


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Cuba: Economic Segregation  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Laritza's Laws says that “at no point” do the draft guidelines for economic and social policy “give respect to the rights of Cubans”.


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D. R of Congo: AK47 versus education · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

AK47 versus education in the Democratic Republic of Congo: “In 2008 at the age of 16 Mark together with about 12 boys from his village were  abducted by the unsympathetic rebels and they were cow marched into the jungle where they were taught how to operate the deadly AK47 and tactics used by rebels to terrorize villager…”


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Ghana: Ghana’s First Oil: A Blessing or Curse? · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Is oil a blessing or curse for Ghana?: “Do you see the first Oil as a blessing or a curse to Ghana? Do you think, Ghana is fortunate in terms of this first oil?  Which areas do you think, the oil revenue be used in developing Ghana? What are your general views on this subject?”


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Ghana: Ghana’s first oil production on Twitter · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Ghana has started its first oil production. Will oil benefit the people of Ghana? Follow the conversation about this topic on Twitter using the hashtag #GhanaOil.


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Ghana: President suspects drug traffickers in his own government? · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

WikiLeaks cables on Ghana: “President John Evans Atta Mills is also quoted as expressing fears persons in his own entourage could be engaged in smuggling drugs through the presidential lounge of the Kotoka airport…”


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Haiti: update on unrest after elections · Global Voices
Bernardo Parrella

While back in Haiti to finish shooting a Web documentary project on the unheard voices of reconstruction, web-reporter Giordano Cossu provides a personal account on the on-going unrest after the controversial elections: “Much of this is in the hands of the Electoral Committee now. The population has already decided what they need, after one year under tarps, defenseless against storms and cholera: no more of the same.”

author: Bernardo Parrella


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Kenya: ICC Prosecutor Names 2008 Post Election Violence Suspects  · Global Voices
Collins Mbalo

The International Criminal Court (ICC)Chief Prosecutor Louis Moreno Ocampo on Wednesday 15 December, 2010 named 6 top Kenyan personalities believed to bear the most responsibility for the violence witnessed in Kenya in 2008 following a botched election marked by massive irregularities. According to a press release at the ICC website the individuals cited include:
And in the second Prosecution case, by:
Discussion about Ocampo's list of six dominated both Twitter and the Kenyan blogosphere for the better part of the day with sharp reactions being witnessed. Twitter Hash tags #Ocampo6 and #Hague6 were trending in Kenya with respect to the issue, a sample of the tweets include :
Sewe Mulamba of Mombasa who “feels betrayed“.  He states:
What happened to Raila and Kibaki? #Ocampo #Ocampo6 I thot that they bore greatest responsibility! That was anti-climax
Joseph Obonyo of Nairobi takes a swipe at Kenyan Members of Parliament opposed to the development:
Why are MP…s insisting its a sad day for Kenya? Unless it is in parliament and just exactly what is Ocampo's political party?
Popular Blogger Marvin Tumbo of SocialiteMediaKenya.com makes the observation:
I have not seen one politician supporting the ICC!
Ory Okolloh , Kenyan Ted Fellow and blogger observes:
Listening to Kenyan politicians respond to #hague6 and they are so disconnected from Kenyan people…time for us to disconnect from them.
Alykhan Satchu tweets:
“Kenya is now a  volatile country. The politics are bubbling. A lot of change is  happening at the same time. Anything is possible.”
Mzalendo: Eye on Kenyan Parliament looks at the possibility of Kenyan MP's establishing a local tribunal to stem the ICC process:
Today the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, filed two applications for summons to appear for the six persons that the Prosecutor’s Office believes are most responsible for Kenya’s 2007/2008 post election violence.There had been progressively spirited attempts to stop the application as well as the case at the ICC.This included a last ditch attempt by the government to set up a local tribunal to try the suspects after numerous attempts had failed.
“Irrespective of what transpires at the ICC on Wednesday 15 December, 2010 and in view of the fact that ICC is only a court of last resort, the Government will establish a local judicial mechanism in accordance with the Rome Statute within the framework of the new Constitution. The only reason that the post-election violence cases are being investigated by the ICC is because there is no appropriate local judicial mechanism which could carry out investigations, prosecutions and determination of the post-election violence cases for international crimes,”
The establishment of a local tribunal is welcome. The ICC will only be dealing with the 6 deemed most responsible for the violence. For comprehensive justice a national mechanism will be needed to try perpetrators that do not fall within this category. The ICC is meant to complement a national process not replace it.
Many of the people I have spoken to are sceptical of the reason behind the sudden willingness to set up a local tribunal. Some have gone as far as to say that the establishment of a local tribunal is not only intended to halt the ICC process, but to create a local mechanism that can be manipulated to protect certain persons.
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Sue, blogging at Jamii Kenya Blog, believes that the Chairman of the then Kenyan Electoral Commission Mr Samuel Kivuitu should have been cited:
But Mr. Ocampo you forgot one person called Mr. kivutu. The man confused the whole country when he said that he did not know the winner. That alone fueled more violence
The country has remained relatively calm and peaceful despite fears that perhaps violence would rock certain parts of the country upon the announcement of the ICC's list of suspects responsible for Kenya's 2008 post election violence.There have been no known incidents associated with the ICC prosecutor Louis Moreno's announcement.

author: Collins Mbalo


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India: A Bengali Recipe for Indulgence · Global Voices
Aparna Ray

Every Bengali worth his or her salt knows the pleasures of having stuffed kochuris or parathas for breakfast, especially on a winter morning. Don't know how to make them? Take heart. Bong Mom shares the recipe at her very own Bong Mom's Cookbook.


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India: Capturing Images in the Fog · Global Voices
Aparna Ray

Arun at India Travel Blog shares some useful tips about how best to capture landscapes, when taking photographs in foggy weather.


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Iran: A Bride in photos · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Iranian citizen media does not talk only politics and protest but also life and love. Zohre Sadrynejad, an Iranian female photo blogger shared with us artistic images from a marriage where a barefoot bride smokes a cigarette in all her beauty

author: Fred Petrossian


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Iran: Heavy security forces in Tehran · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

A video film shows heavy security forces in Tehran today, in the day of Ashura. Last year thousands of protesters poured into streets in Ashura and chanted anti regime slogans.


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Oprah Down Under: Not Everybody’s Cup of McCafe · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Oprah Winfrey’s fans seem to have lapped up her Australian tour which finished with taping of her show at the Sydney Opera House. However her trip also has had its fair share of criticism.
She has admirers for a range of reasons. Dodge Taylor, who blogs as Roger’s blog at Capital Reservations’ travel and accommodation service, gives Oprah a big tick:
I'm not ashamed to say I'm an Oprah fan. Not so much for her TV show (although I do find myself watching it during lunch), but for where she has come from and the empire she has created over the last decade or so. She's now the most powerful woman in the world and does so much good for so many people in this world. Its impressive and inspiring.
The Oprah House
There was much discussion about whether Australian taxpayers should have paid her for the tourism publicity. Crikey gave a financial assessment of the Oprah phenomenon:
Thousands of Oprah fans were screaming for their idol (and celebrity guests including Jay-Z, Jon Bon Jovi and Russell Crowe) at the renamed “Oprah House” in Sydney this morning. So just how big is the American multi-media gigastar? Crikey runs the numbers…
$US2,300,000,000 net worth.
Australian Oprahmania: by the numbers
Sarah Baker summed up the visit for online magazine upstart, a site ‘for emerging journalists’ in Australia:
So was ‘Project O’ worth the $4 million taxpayers spent on the TV talk show queen? That’s debatable, but I will say one thing in her defence: she’s approachable. She doesn’t shy away from the media, she answers questions, she stops to talk and takes photos with guests, even winding down the window of a passing vehicle to wave and chat to media and passersby as she left Sydney airport last week. She may be powerful, but she’s not a total snob.
The Oprah bonanza
At Independent Australia, David Donovan has a detailed critique:
The tour has been declared an enormous success.
In pure marketing terms, it is difficult to disagree.
He reflects on Aussie culture and identity, especially our need to embrace foreign celebrities:
I am left with questions. Like, are we so starved of A-list celebrities in this country that we roll out the red-carpet, wear funny hats and costumes and shout ourselves hoarse no matter which famous person walks through the arrival gates? And, is it really necessary for commercial media to break from regular scheduled programming to cross to a celebrity petting a koala? Also, should our Prime Minister possess enough gravitas to not look for a photo opportunity with every visiting A-list celebrity?
Oprah Winfrey and Australian neediness
We’d never hear the f-word on Oprah’s show but it does happen on Oz TV. Jess McGuire of Defamer attacked local television and radio presenter, Carrie Bickmore, for promoting fast food chain McDonald’s as part of a crash course on Aussie culture. Maccas were apparently a sponsor of the tour:
But the fact that Oprah – via Carrie Bickmore – is telling her viewers that there’s nothing we backwater fucking hicks like more than congregating at McDonalds and supping on McLattes while we act in ways that fit our gender (Men have business meetings! Women just like to talk to each other, probably about Cosmo’s latest article “Ten ways to blow him away in bed!”) is actually so gross and commercial and sad, I find it hard to believe that anyone involved is able to wander the streets without looking absolutely ashamed of themselves.
Oprah’s Version Of Australia Is Our Version Of Hell.
From the ‘profane’ to the religious. At Eureka Street, the website of Jesuit Communications Australia, Susan Biggar links Hugh Jackman’s  Sydney Opera House stunt accident and the US Health system. Susan is an American but currently resides permanently in Australia.
If she — friend of President Obama and host of the highest-rated talk show in US history — were to find herself a customer on the doorstep of Australia's excellent and equitable healthcare system, America's best-known mouth might go home peddling a message that could change the foundations of her society.
Oprah and Australia's ‘socialist’ health care
The tired journalistic fallback when trying to fill out a story is to quote a taxi driver. At Cablog, Sydney cabbie Adrian Neylan does his own reporting and posted this exchange with passengers:
My suggestion of tourism returns was smartly batted away. “Bullshit. The American economy is stuffed so there’s not going to be any rush from them.”
Actually, it’s a very good reason why well-heeled citizens would consider a flight to safety.
I joked how the exposure from Oprah will see hordes of wealthy American gays flooding his charming inner-city neighbourhood. He let out a shriek, and the hubby swooned…or that’s what it sounded like from the front seat.
Oprah
Finally an indigenous woman has sent a video message to Oprah:
…a video prepared for Oprah Winfrey by Chairwoman of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council, Bev Manton, …shines a light on the living conditions of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, in particular those living under the NT intervention, an Australian Government program which the United Nations has branded racially discriminatory.
YouTube: A PERSONAL JOURNEY by Bev Manton
Oprah is a huge drawcard. Concerns in the Oz blogosphere about our modern fixation with personalities have been balanced by those who would like to tap into her potential power to improve society.

author: Kevin Rennie


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Pakistan: What Leaders could Learn from Venezuela · Global Voices
Aparna Ray

Jalal HB at The Fire Within feels that leaders in Pakistan ought to learn from the Venezuelan President, how to swiftly and effectively tackle flood relief in the country.


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Philippines: Court Decision on Vizconde Massacre Shocks Public · Global Voices
Julius Rocas

It has been 19 years since the gruesome murders and rape of the Vizconde women: Estrellita(47 y.o.) had suffered thirteen stab wounds; her two daughters Carmela(18 y.o.), seventeen stab wounds and had been raped before she was killed; and Jennifer(7 y.o.), nineteen stab wounds, took place and grabbed headlines. Since yesterday, the case has grabbed headlines once more after the Supreme Court has acquitted the accused suspects for the prosecution's failure to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
Long thought of as a settled case with the suspects, Hubert Webb, scion of a political and wealthy family and his friends, having been in jail for the last 15 years, it's now back to square one as the High Court's decision underscores one crucial question: who are the real culprits behind the Vizconde massacre.
The Court's decision and almost-instant release of Webb, et al. from prison has left the Filipino public shocked, dismayed and wondering if justice could really be found in the country.
WillyJ writing at Random Thoughts and Musings is puzzled by the 7-4-4 decision of the Court:
What strikes me is the fact that some of the most educated, most intelligent people in the land see the case differently, and come up with contrasting conclusions. Same evidence, varying appreciations, contrasting conclusions. It doesn't give me any comfort in the fact that a majority decision prevails. I am more concerned that a decision was promulgated in a lower court; that decision was challenged yet was affirmed by the appeals court by the slimmest of margins (3-2); all of which was eventually overturned (after 15 long, long years) by a vote of 7 to 4. In essence, the 7 Supreme Court Justices say that the trial court judge was wrong, the appeals court was wrong, and the 4 dissenting Supreme Court Justices are wrong, and all those topnotch lawyers in one way or another, are all wrong. Grievously wrong. How come all these people under those circumstances, with the same hard facts before them, with the same rules of procedure, experience and jurisprudence behind them… disagree mightily in an epic manner? It is a horrible miscarriage of justice, regardless of whether one is for or against the decision.
Dine Racoma laments on The D Spot about how truth and justice remains elusive dreams due to its problem-ridden justice system:
In the end, it all boils down to the Philippine Judicial System. Like other countries, especially in the third world, the Philippines has immense problems in the criminal justice systems and in the law-implementing institutions like the police, prosecutors and courts. Had the police-officer Gerardo Biong not tampered the evidences in the crime scene, had the semen sample from Carmela Vizconde’s autopsied body still been in the custody of the National Bureau of Investigation and not lost, had the Philippine Judicial System been a little bit more dependable, justice to the Vizcondes could have been served.
JCC writing at Filipino Voices sums up the lessons learned from the Vizconde massacre:
1) that justice in the country runs so slow, 2) investigating officers are blundering fools,  3) the judges are corrupt, 4) and unlike the poor who rot in jail forever,  the rich can always seek justice though how late that justice might be, 5) that we never ask the right questions on the acquittal of H. Webb and company.
Ilda at AntiPinoy writes that the Philippine mainstream media has been of little help as well:
The Philippine media for their part, never fail to sensationalize the news and conduct a trial-by-media just to fatten the bottom line of their CEO’s report. Whether it is about Hubert Webb or former President Gloria Arroyo, you cannot rely on the Philippine media to give a balanced view. Where else but in the Philippines is a movie made out of a case while the trial is still on-going? It’s safe to assume that most Filipinos who were old enough to care in 1991 know more about the details of the Vizconde massacre from the movie The Vizconde Massacre Story (God Help Us!). I wouldn’t even be surprised if the judge in Hubert Webb’s case based her decision on the movie. Hello! The crime was committed in 1991, the movie made in 1993, and star witness Jessica Alfaro emerged in 1995!
Aside from blogs, ordinary folks, particularly the younger ones Tweeted their response:
eeedsel IDK the whole thing that happened on that Vizconde massacre but I know that Vizconde family were the victims and I'm not into the result.
NokieVillanueva Re-Inbestigation of Vizconde Massacre Case? WTF? its 20yrs case, who your goin to investigate? Can they still remember what really happened?
oeeehreyes De Lima to order Vizconde massacre reinvestigation http://bit.ly/i2IdmA #news -UH OH BACK TO ZERO.
daynelov A WHOLE NEW WORLD: FIFTEEN YEARS after he and six others were imprisoned for the massacre of three Vizconde fami… http://bit.ly/grOkJI
With Department of Justice ordering a reinvestigation of the Vizconde case, lawyer Connie Veneracion writes on House on a Hill about the implications of the Court's decision to acquit Webb, et al. and the rule on double jeopardy:
The rule on double jeopardy states that no man may be tried for the same crime more than once. And it applies whether he has been previously acquitted or convicted. In the case of a previous conviction, he cannot be punished more than once for the same crime.
But it is also true than if a case is dismissed, meaning there is no ruling on the merits (no final judgment) and no clear acquittal, an accused can be tried again for the same crime. Hence, the term dismissed without prejudice which really means the People is not precluded from filing a new case. Double jeopardy does not apply.
In the case of Webb, et al., was there an acquittal which bars another trial? The decision says “ACQUITS” but it isn’t synonymous with a NOT GUILTY verdict. In fact, the decision says, “In our criminal justice system, what is important is, not whether the court entertains doubts about the innocence of the accused since an open mind is willing to explore all possibilities, but whether it entertains a reasonable, lingering doubt as to his guilt.”
Besides the reopening of the Vizconde case, lawyers for the acquitted suspects have started their legal moves at retribution of sorts, filing administrative cases against the then trial judge that handled the case and the prosecution's ‘star witness’ whose credibility was assailed in the Supreme Court decision.
At the current state of things, after two decades, the Vizconde case has just opened a new chapter and it seems that it will be far from being over.

author: Julius Rocas


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Serbia: No More Military Conscription · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Belgraded.com reports that “from January 1st 2011 there will be no more military conscription for Serbian citizens”: “Reaction of the general public is, as the case often is around here, mixed.”

author: Veronica Khokhlova


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Slovenia: Pension Reform · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Sleeping With Pengovsky posts an update on the pension reform in Slovenia.


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St. Lucia: Technology & Publishing  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Caribbean Book Blog says that “two major technology ventures are underway in the Caribbean and Africa and they have the potential to radically transform the book trade and knowledge transfer in both regions.”

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Trinidad & Tobago: Street Vendor Controversy · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

KnowTnT.com attempts to debunk some of the perceived inaccuracies “about the Charlotte Street riot involving street vendors.”


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Tweet Photos of South Korea on Cold Snap · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

A cold snap has lingered in South Korea for several days now, marking the lowest temperatures of this winter. Twitterer @Ssanmart, in line with other Twitterers, shared how cold the weather is by posting his photo of a jean frozen at a standing position.

author: Lee Yoo Eun


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Africa: Banana leaf packaging for street food · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Banana leaf packaging for street food in Africa: “…banana leaves are a packaging solution that has existed for thousands of years, still exists today, and that could benefit the environment by simply expanding their use to new areas”

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Africa: Corrective rape testimonies from around Africa · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Rose highlights corrective rape testimonies from around Africa: “it’s really important to point out how the increasing incidences of violence against gay people in Africa include the grotesque practice of corrective rape, where women are raped, and in some cases, infected with HIV and/or made pregnant.”


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Africa: The African immigrant experience in New York City · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Short videos from students at The New School, USA, about the African immigrant experiences in New York City.


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Bangladesh: Marginalizing the Benarasi Weavers · Global Voices
Aparna Ray

Tithe Farhana, in a guest post in Pickled Politics, highlights the problems of the Benarasi weaving industry in Bangladesh and points out that the Benarasi Weavers continue to be seen as stranded Pakistanis.


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Brazil: Newspaper Folha de São Paulo censors satirical blog · Global Voices
Raphael Tsavkko Garcia

Photomontage of Folha de São Paulo's cover where you read Only the Folha must define what democracy is – Used under CC 2.0
In late September, the  satirical website Falha de São Paulo was removed from the web by  an  injunction  in  the Brazilian courts.
The site's  purpose was to satirize newspaper  Folha  de São Paulo – the biggest in Brazil. It posted mocking montages [pt] of the newspaper, fake and ironic  headlines, and set up  a  “generator  of  headlines” [pt] using the Folha layout  [The  current  generator  is  not authored by the creators of the Falha de São Paulo website, but made by  anonymous  –  GV note].
The authors of the  blog, brothers Lino and Mario Bocchini, explain the case:
The blog was a parody of Brazil’s biggest newspaper company, Folha de S.  Paulo. In Portuguese, “Folha” is similar to the English word for  “Journal”. And “Folha” sounds almost like “Falha”, which in Portuguese  means “failure”. (…) It  hardly took a month for Folha de S. Paulo to go to court  demanding the censorship of the satirical blog. (…) And it got worse: the newspaper also began an 88-page lawsuit against the creators of blog, asking for a financial  compensation for moral damages.
Falha's "Generator  of   headlines" – Used under CC 2.0
Fausto Salvadori, of the blog Boteco Sujo [Dirty Bar], clarifies [pt]:
Em 30 de setembro, o jornal conseguiu uma liminar que obrigava os irmãos  Lino e Mario Bocchini a tirar do ar o conteúdo da Falha de S. Paulo,  um site de humor que tirava um barato do indisfarçável viés pró-tucano  que aterrissou com mais força do que nunca na Barão de Limeira dos  últimos tempos. Os dois foram obrigados a remover do ar todo o conteúdo  do site, sob pena de pagar multa diária de R$ 1.000. Segundo Lino, a  empresa nem chegou a enviar uma notificação extrajudicial ou um pedido  por e-mail: já foi logo apelando para o processo.
On September  30, the  newspaper  [Folha] won  a court order that forced the  brothers  Lino and  Mario  Bocchini  to  shut  down the contents of the Falha de São Paulo, a humorous  site that  unabashedly mock the  pro-toucano [a term referring to Brazil's largest opposition party, PSDB] bias that  landed  harder  than  ever in the Barão de Limeira [Folha de São Paulo's address] in recent  times.  The  two  were  forced to remove the  entire contents of the site from the air, otherwise they would have had to  pay a daily fine of R$1,000 [about 588 USD]. According  to Lino, the company did not even send  an  extra  judicial notification or a request by e-mail: they  immediately  appealed  to the process.
Dozens  of blogs, newspapers and magazines came out in defense [pt] of the website and its authors to freedom of expression. Folha is known for the censoring its critics  in the blogosphere, and this is not the first time that Brazilian bloggers showed unity against such practices.
Meanwhile, the journalists’ union in São Paulo condemned the censoring [pt] of Falha, citing other recent cases of censorship promoted by mainstream media.
Forced to remove the site's content, the Bocchini brothers, in the same  ironic tone used during the time the project was online, posted a  copy [pt] of the injunction signed by the judge alongside the  e-mail from Registro.br legal counsel, the company responsible for  registering Internet domain names in Brazil. The brothers added a message criticizing the “violent act of censorship”
The musician and former Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil has also spoken about the case, saying that the expression Falha  de São Paulo was firstly used by the famous musician and political activist Caetano Veloso [vídeo with English subtitles]
Gio Mendes, from the blog Mondo Cane, comments [pt] on the hypocrisy of the newspaper in criticising bloggers for allegedly misusing its trademark, while its own columnists are allowed to satirise freely:
A advogada da Folha, Taís Gasparian, alegou que o jornal não queria  censurar o site, mas apenas impedir o uso indevido da marca Folha de  S.Paulo. Uso indevido? Os caras apenas satirizaram uma marca, coisa que o  colunista José Simão tem liberdade para fazer no jornalão da família  Frias. Aliás, como bem lembrou o mano Fausto, do blog Boteco  Sujo, quando o Simão foi vítima da mesma censura judicial por conta  de uma piada que ele fez com a atriz Juliana Paes, a mesma advogada  disse que a decisão do juiz tratava “o humor como ilícito e, no fim das  contas, é a mesma coisa que censura”.
Folha's attorney , Taís Gasparian, claimed that the newspaper did not want  to censor the site but only to prevent misuse of Folha de S.  Paulo trademark. Misuse? The  guys just skittered a brand, something the columnist José Simão has  the freedom to do at the Frias family's big newspaper [the Frias family owns Folha]. Moreover,  as reminded my brother Fausto, from the blog Boteco Sujo [Dirty Bar], when Simão was a victim  of the same judicial censorship on behalf of a joke he made with  the [Brazilian TV] actress Juliana Paes, the same lawyer said the judge's decision treated  “humor as illegal and, ultimately, is the  same as censorship. “
The Bocchini brothers explain the reason behind being censored, claiming it is the first of its kind in Brazil:
This is the reason why the brothers have decided to spread news beyond  the borders of their own country:  In Brazil, less than 10 families run  the most influential means of communication […]. For corporate  reasons, those families’ means of communication never highlight stories  that may affect one another. It ‘s become a tradition in Brazil.  This  is the first time a blog has been censored and sued in Brazil for this  reason.
Rodrigo Vianna, from the blog Escrevinhador, gives his opinion [pt] on the trademark question raised by the  newspaper:
A questão da marca foi só a brecha que eles encontraram; o fato é que a  Folha mostrou como é contraditória – defende a liberdade de expressão  pra ela, mas quando passa a ser vítima de crítica, aí o jornal se  transforma em censor de fato.
The trademark question was the only gap they found; the  fact is that Folha showed how contradictory it is – it defends freedom of  expression for itself, but when comes to being the victim of criticism, the  paper then turns into a real censor.
And adds:
É preciso dizer duas coisas ao diretor do jornal:
- Todo poder tem limite;
- Fique advertido, seu tempo de falar sozinho acabou!
It is necessary to say two  things to the director of the newspaper:
– All power has its limits;
– Be warned, your time to talk alone is over!
Lua Barbosa, from the blog blog Molho de Pimenta [Pepper Sauce] says [pt]:
A liberdade de expressão existe (ou deveria existir!) para que as  pessoas possam dizer o que pensam. Porém, isso é o que menos tem  ocorrido.
Example of good-humored photomontage: the face of Otavio Frias Filho – the owner of the newspaper – over the body of Darth Vader. Used under a Creative Commons 2.0 License
A Tumblr account was created [pt] at the time by anonymous bloggers to  rescue Falha's posts. The blog Desculpe a Nossa Falha [Forgive our Failure, pt] was also created by the Bocchini brothers to update readers on, and garner support for their international campaign promoting freedom of expression. The brothers translated explanatory texts in various languages in search of support and visibility amongst bloggers and the international media against the censorship imposed on them.
Most recently, on  December  15, a justice court of the state of São Paulo denied [pt] the  application for suspension of the injunction against Falha, with the  statement  of  one  of the judges present at the trial resembling that of the newspaper, in which the website was labelled a “blatant case of parasitic competition”.
In a video-interview [pt] conducted by students of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUCSP), Lino Bocchini also talks about the repercussions of the case.


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Cambodia: Prince Ranariddh returns to politics · Global Voices
Sopheap Chak

Cambodia's Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who was a former Prime Minister and royalist party leader of the country, has vowed to be politically active once more. He left the country two years ago after the split in his party and his conviction in absentia of embezzlement. Netizens and political pundits are assessing the impact of Prince Ranariddh's statement on Cambodian politics.
Retiring from politics in 2008, Prince Ranariddh surprised everybody in Cambodia when he recently announced that he will return to politics in order to strengthen the royalist movement. Speaking in Kampong Cham province early this month before a crowd of about 500 supporters, the prince emphasized that his return is a response to the petitions asking him to regain leadership in Cambodia. Via the Phnom Penh Post, he explains further:
“I am preparing  myself to lead the Norodom Ranariddh Party,…Doing politics is  the same as being addicted to opium, but what is important is that  there have been a lot of petitions inviting me to lead the Norodom  Ranariddh Party.”
In the same article, the prince asserted his centrist approach by neither supporting nor criticizing the government. With this stance, the Prince hopes to merge with royalist groups and other willing parities like Human Rights Party. However, this political plan is difficult to accomplish as there are denial and unresolved conflicts among the groups. There is also a question about whether he is affiliated with the democrats or communists.
Reacting to the reported return of the prince, Prime Minster Hun Sen warned that this will link the monarchy with politics and this will require the prince's resignation as a royal adviser to his brother, King Norodom Sihamoni. Hun Sen explains why the prince should resign as the king's adviser:
“If you want to do politics, you have to quit the Supreme Council as  adviser to the King, otherwise the King will lose neutrality on the  matter of politics.  The name of the King will be used for propaganda,  saying I am a brother of the King, I am the son of former King, and it  will link the King with politics.”
This reaction probably has been expected beforehand that is why the prince said during the gathering at Kompong Cham province that his return to politics is not intended to provoke conflict with the Prime Minster. Later, after the King Father, Norodom Sihanouk, wrote on his website to show his complete support for Hun Sen as leader of Cambodia, Prince Ranariddh clarified that he is open to forming a coalition government with the premier’s Cambodian People’s Party.
Such stance has been criticized by the Son of the Khmer Empire who wrote that the prince has no clear political vision and this scenario could be a plot between the prince and the Prime Minister.
While the return of the prince has attracted considerable attention from prominent political parties and traditional media, it seems there has been no significant reaction from local netizens who often exchange ideas and news commentaries via online social networks tools such as blogs, facebook and twitter. Evidently, only the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, a local non-political NGO has initiated a poll about the issue via facebook that is now generating maybe less than 10 respondents:
Is the return of Norodom Ranaridh a good thing for Cambodian politics?
This may answer partly the question on whether the return of the prince would have a huge impact on Cambodian politics.

author: Sopheap Chak


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