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Technology for Transparency Review, Part II · Global Voices
David Sasaki

This is the second of a three-part series that aims to add more context to the case studies and project listings on the Technology for Transparency Network. You can find part one here.
Over at the Technology for Transparency Network we have already documented 30 technology projects that promote transparency, accountability, and civic engagement, but we still have yet to clearly define each of those concepts and explain in detail why they are valued in bringing about good governance and a healthy society.
When we discuss transparency, we are generally referring to published information about government processes, budgets, and elected officials. There are also other projects, such as CorpWatch, Publish What You Pay, and Sourcemap that aim to publish more private sector information that is also in the public's interest.
Sometimes this information is made available by governments themselves. For example, in June, 2002 then-President of Mexico, Vicente Fox, signed his country's first freedom of information law which requires government agencies to publish in a routine and accessible manner all information concerning their daily functions, budgets, operations, staff, salaries, internal reports, and the awarding of contracts and concessions. (A clear analysis of the law was published by Kate Doyle the day it was passed. John Ackerman has published a three-year evaluation of Mexico's implementation of the law in comparison to similar freedom of information initiatives around the world.)
Many times, however, governments don't want to publish information about their activities and budgets because it invites criticism and could expose corrupt behavior. In some of these countries citizens have begun publishing that information for themselves. Ory Okolloh, the co-founder of Mzalendo, tells us that the project began in 2006 when Kenyan MP's demanded that the Parliament website be shut down to prevent public access to their CV's. Concerned Kenyan citizens then began attending Parliament sessions in order to publish their observations and help build an online database of legislative information. Similarly, Mumbai Votes collects and publishes information about the criminal records of public officials and election candidates.
Often times we find that governments do in fact publish information about their activities and spending, but they do so in ways that are not easily accessible or comprehensible. For example, the municipal government of Tel Aviv publishes their budget each year as a long, detailed PDF document. All of the information is there, but it is published in a way so that citizens cannot easily understand, visualize, and analyze their government's spending decisions. The team behind “Our Budget“, therefore, used a combination of optical character recognition (OCR) technology and human verification to convert the data to spreadsheet format and use online tools to visualize and analyze the city's spending. In Argentina all political parties are required to publicly disclose the campaign contributions they received at least ten days prior to voting day. However, once again these parties publish the information in long PDF reports that obscure the relationships between money and politics in electoral campaigns. Dinero y Política is an attempt to present that same information using interactive visualizations that clearly compare and contrast campaign contributions by district, political party, and industry. In Kenya, Budget Tracking Tool takes the budgets of federally funded, local development projects, which are buried deep down in government web pages, and presents them in a single database where users can leave comments about the progress, impact, and efficiency of the projects. (So far, few have.)
Does transparency lead to accountability? If citizens have more information about the activities of their government, and more access to that information, then will public officials be compelled to perform their jobs more competently? Will citizens demand that their input be taken into consideration in the shaping and enforcement of policy decisions? Recently, some scholars and observers are casting doubt on that long-held assumption. “Transparency mobilizes the power of shame,” writes Jonathan Fox, “yet the shameless may not be vulnerable to public exposure. Truth often fails to lead to justice.” In a podcast interview earlier this year with Fabiano Angelico of Transparência Brasil, he echoes Fox's argument, claiming that Brazilian politicians who have been repeatedly outed as corrupt are still re-elected, often times because of their corruption. In such cases Angelico advocates that special, appointed judges with proven track records should bar repeatedly corrupt politicians from running for office. This challenges classical notions of liberal democracy: that citizens should ultimately hold their leaders accountable by supporting or removing them from office on election day. But Guillermo O'Donnell supports Angelico's proposal, noting that modern democracies require both “vertical accountability”, as in elections, and “horizontal accountability”, such as inter-governmental regulatory agencies that are empowered to sanction politicians that don't follow the law.
Another example of transparency failing to lead to accountability can be found in Liberia where President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 2005, modeled after a similar post-Apartheid truth commission in South Africa. The TRC is very much an agent of horizontal accountability, tasked with investigating and publishing information related to more than 20 years of civil conflict in the country, and sanctioning elected officials who were criminally involved. In June 2009 the TRC issued its final report, which named 50 individuals – including Johnson-Sirleaf – who should be barred from public office for 30 years because of their direct involvement in the country's civil war. President Johnson-Sirleaf, however, remains in power, ignoring the recommendations of the TRC while implementing her own transparency and anti-corruption legislation. Despite her controversial past, Johnson-Sirleaf is still seen by many as a strong leader with a strong international profile who can help Liberia return to peace and democracy.
Most researchers and observers do agree that greater transparency will not lead to increased accountability unless proactive civic engagement is shaped around the information that is published. Several of the projects we've documented aim to use social networks to bring about this engagement. #InterNetnecesario in Mexico, for example, used a combination of Twitter, blog posts, and media outreach to put pressure on Mexican legislators to eliminate a three percent tax on internet access that was passed without the the media or civil society's consultation. It is a classic example of transparency plus civic participation leading to accountability. Mexican Twitter user Alejandro Pisanty published information about the newly passed law that was not formerly available. A decentralized, online protest then took place using Twitter, blogs which acted as filters and added context, and email petitions to Mexican senators. The Mexican Chamber of Deputies soon realized the size and strength of the opposition to the tax and invited representatives of the online protest into the Chamber to make their arguments against the tax, which they had been rehearsing online over the previous few weeks. However, #InternetNecesario has also (so far) proved to be a temporary phenomenon that in no way builds systematic processes to continually promote transparency or to hold leaders accountable in the future. Cuidemos El Voto offers an example of a more sustained project that aims to prevent electoral misconduct – and specifically the buying of voters – during federal and local elections. By partnering with the Office of the Special Prosecutor, which was established in 2002 to document past human rights abuses, Cuidemos El Voto attracted official federal endorsement of the voter misconduct they documented. It is difficult, however, to measure the impact of making more visible the buying of votes by politicians and political parties and we have yet to see an example of a candidate or party who was barred from office for electoral misconduct that was reported on a website like Cuidemos el Voto.
Other project leaders were skeptical that increased civic discussion will ultimately lead toward improved governance. Vivek Gilani of Mumbai Votes says that online discussions tend to be rooted in personal opinion and gossip whereas his project aims to provide readers with crisp, clear assessment based on facts. He does not wish to provide users with a space to participate, but rather a resource to become better informed in order to vote for the most qualified candidates.
A number of websites we've reviewed function as portals where citizens can list their complaints – in general about their community, and specifically related to their government's administration of their community – to put pressure on the government to be more responsive to their needs. Examples include Ishki in Jordan, Kiirti in India, and Penang Watch in Malaysia. The varying goals and strategies of these projects point to a distinction that Andreas Schedler makes between two different dimensions of accountability: on the one hand, the capacity or the right to demand answers (“answerability”) and, on the other hand, the capacity to sanction. Of course, as grassroots projects, none of the websites we reviewed are empowered with any official capacity to sanction. But several projects do seek answerability in a variety of ways.
Ishki was started by four Jordanian technologists who were tired of hearing the same complaints muttered over and over again without any action or plan for action. They created a website to collect citizen complaints against the public and private sector as a way to better understand and visualize the most common complaints in Jordanian society. Their strategy is then to work with mainstream media organizations – newspapers and radio stations – to create stories about recurring complaints with the hope that increased coverage in the media will put pressure on public officials to respond. In this sense, Ishki serves as a community filter between internet users at large and mainstream media looking for interesting watchdog stories to report on. Users can also submit and sign petitions, though the most recent petition was posted two months ago. So far we have no examples of public officials responding to complaints or petitions that originated on the website.
In India, Kiirti takes a slightly different approach from Ishki. Rather than relying on print and broadcast media as an instrument to put pressure on public officials, they send emails directly to the relevant agencies in major Indian cities to ask them to follow up on the complaints submitted to Kiirti. Founder Selvam Velmurugan says that a streetlight was repaired and a mud path was paved because of complaints submitted to Kiirti. It might seem strange that submitting a complaint to a website which is then relayed to the proper agency is more effective than submitting the complaint directly to the agency itself in the first place. It certainly isn't more efficient. But perhaps the public visibility of such complaints – and the responses by officials to those complaints – is an incentive for public officials to react. They are therefore able to show not only the demand for their work, but also their responsiveness.
In northwestern Malaysia, Penang Watch takes the accountability agenda one step further with a series of steps to communicate with – and then harass – city officials until citizen complaints are answered. Complaints submitted to PenangWatch.net are first verified by a team of volunteers, and then forwarded to the relevant authority and/or individual to answer or resolve the complaint. If there is no response within a week or two then a reminder is sent out. If the complaint is still not dealt with after two more weeks then a profile of the complaint is featured on the website and the negligent agency/individual is “named and shamed” on the website, and via emails to all council departments and media organizations. Project coordinator Ong Boon Keong says that “roughly 300 complaints are submitted through Penang Watch per year” and that so far they have “been able to settle 50 percent of submitted complaints.” Illegal shop houses in Penang's UNESCO World Heritage site have been shut down because of complaints submitted to the website.
Penang Watch coordinator Ong Boon Keong is eager to point out that the website aims to improve the local government's performance by “providing it with both positive and negative feedback.” Some observers, such as Archon Fung, worry that that the adversarial nature of many transparency and accountability websites erodes trust in governments and institutions, and presents the government as more inefficient and wasteful than it really is. Others say that a constant barrage of reporting about scandals desensitizes people to actual instances of government corruption. There are even suggestions that in countries that are new democracies, watchdog reporting can lead to dissatisfaction with democracy itself and lead to riots and chaos.
The effect of governmental transparency that is about accountability may be simply to make that problem worse, to further de-legitimize government, because what the transparency system is doing is helping people catch government making mistakes. That's good. You do want to catch government making mistakes. But you want transparency and information systems that also highlight when government is doing a good job.
Much of the current activity around governmental transparency is like creating a big Amazon rating system for government that only allows one- or two-star ratings. But that's not necessarily the case. You could also construct governmental transparency systems that provide the full five-star range.
Indeed, we have found many websites that strive to highlight the worst actions of corrupt officials, but few if any that reward effective performance and clean track records. In the future it is recommended that transparency and accountability websites strike a balance between criticizing poor government performance and celebrating that which is worth duplicating.
The thirty case studies we have collected so far illustrate both the potential and the extreme difficulty in bringing about accountability (either answerability or sanctions) by shaping civic engagement about public information. But, then again, accountability isn't the only stated objective of several of the projects we've reviewed. In addition to demanding better performance from government, platforms like Cidade Democrática can also facilitate better community self-governance that does not rely on public officials or understaffed agencies. Like other complaint websites we have reviewed, Cidade Democrática enables Brazilian citizens to list problems related to their municipality. Other users are then encouraged to list potential solutions to the problems and draft strategies and action plans. So far successful solutions have depended on government involvement, but in the future one can envision that communal gardens, walking paths, and even recycling programs can all be coordinated by citizens without government involvement.
Similarly, we are told by Map Kibera co-founder Mikel Maron that a World Bank study found that Kibera residents pay on average ten times more for water than the average person in a wealthy Nairobi neighborhood with municipally supplied, metered water service. Voice of Kibera could be used as a platform to petition government and tribal leaders to enact measures that bring down the cost of water. However, it could also be used as a visualization of daily water costs as an incentive to bring new suppliers into the neighborhood which would increase competition and lower prices. In other words, these platforms can be used by citizens to put pressure on their governments, but they can also be used by citizens to directly improve their communities without depending on public officials.

author: David Sasaki


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Trinidad & Tobago: Bedtime Stories  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Tattoo couldn't care less about the domestic practices of the Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister's wife, saying that the talk on the election platforms has nothing to do with “any of the pressing issues that have been raised in the campaign thus far such as: governance, corruption and legal reform.”

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Ukraine: Chernobyl’s 24th Anniversary · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

April 26 marked the 24th anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Ukrainiana writes about a 1990 movie, “an irony-packed perestroika-era drama offers an X-ray of Soviet crisis mismanagement.” Chernobyl and Eastern Europe reviews three documentaries on the catastrophe. Michael Forster Rothbart‘s Chernobyl photography project is featured in zReportage online magazine and on NPR's The Picture Show blog.

author: Veronica Khokhlova


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Ukraine: Russian Black Sea Fleet Stays On in Crimea · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

236 Ukrainian MPs (UKR) have voted in favor of the ratification of an agreement allowing the Russian Black Sea Fleet to extend its stay in Crimea until 2042. Ukrainska Pravda posts a selection of photos and video (UKR) of fighting and egg-throwing inside the parliament building this morning. On Twitter, some reactions and updates on the situation (UKR, RUS) are posted by users @LesyaOrobets and @mari4ka_tsapok, as well as at #no_flot and #freeua hashtags.


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Africa: Driving With Fanon · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Driving with Fanon is a new film by a South African artist Kwena Mokwena. It is about violence, memory and the human condition in post-colonial Africa.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Africa: Good news for Internet users in East Africa · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Codrin Arsene has good news for Internet users in East Africa: “The second major fiber optic cable linking East Africa to the rest of the world, and specifically to Europe, known as the East African Submarine Cable System, was completed on Tuesday.”


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Bahrain: Mideast Tunes Launched  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Mideast Youth has launched a new project Mideast Tunes – which is dedicated to providing a platform for emerging musicians in the Middle East. “Our aim is to encourage, inspire and expose talented young artists across the region,” they write.

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Bahrain: Salman and Threatened Voices  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

From Bahrain, the Free Hasan Salman blog noted the inclusion of Salman in Global Voices Online's Threatened Voices. Salman was arrested on May 14, 2009, for allegedly leaking the names of security personnel to websites.


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Bermuda: Lack of Governance · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Vexed Bermoothes calls the extension of a hotel's lease to 120 years “stunning”, adding: “This is a failure in governance and in accountability.”


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Brazil: Arrest of Indigenous leader increases tension in Bahia · Global Voices
Paula Góes

There is an increasingly hostile climate in Buerarema, a town in the Brazilian state of Bahia, since on March 10th, when unidentified armed police invaded Serra do Padeiro, a Tupinambá indigenous village, and arrested their leader Rosivaldo Ferreira da Silva.
Locally known as Cacique Babau, Rosivaldo is a strong and sometimes contentious advocate of indigenous life style and self-sufficiency. A few days after his arrest and transfer to the capital Salvador, his brother Gil Ferreira was also arrested – again, as he had been allegedly tortured by Federal Police last year.
Both of them have now been transferred to the Federal Penitentiary in another state, Rio Grande do Norte, further away from their family and solicitors. Their detentions have increased the tension in the region, and Amnesty International fears that, as in the past, the Federal Police will use further excessive force.
In 2000, a year after the 500th anniversary of Brazil's “discovery” in Porto Seguro, the Tupinambá of Olivença, who live nearby, began to take direct action to reoccupy their ancestral lands. Conflict over the territory increased in April 2009, when the National Foundation of the Indian (FUNAI, a governmental protection agency for Indian interests and their culture) recognized an area of 47,000 hectares as indigenous property. The conflict continues unresolved in the courts, and as the federal government has not yet signed into law the creation of the Tupinambá demarcated indigenous land, the area remains a source of conflict and dispute.
In addition to a series of confrontations with the Federal Police, there has been also violent conflict with landowners in the past . According to reports, gunfire broke out again [pt] between the Federal Police and the Tupinambá in the end of March, during an attempt of repossession of a private farm occupied on February 19th. Anthropologist Mércio Gomes [pt] depicts the complicated background of the latest incidents:
O ex-ministro Tarso Genro assinou uma portaria de demarcação contendo cerca de 48.000 hectares de terras nos municípios ao sul de Ilhéus, incluindo fazendas e fazendolas de cacau e o complexo turístico da região. Muita confusão rola por lá, os fazendeiros não estão dispostos a abrir, os índios estão na esperança de conseguir algo e não querem negociação, e está se processando na mídia a satanização do principal líder tupinambá, Rosilvado, vulgo Babau, que está preso por acusações de invasão de propriedades e resistência a prisão.
Para resolver esse problema o governador do estado, Jaques Wagner, escalou o deputado Geraldo Simões, que tem interesse político na região para se reeleger. O referido deputado quer uma re-negociação do tamanho da proposta da Funai e a culpa por isso. Bem, se o deputado quiser ser justo nas acusações de praxe, tem que culpar o ex-ministro Tarso Genro, que acatou a proposta da Funai, mas aí são outros quinhentos.
To overcome this problem, the state Governor Jaques Wagner delegated it to local member of parliament Geraldo Simões, whose political interest in the region is to be reelected. Simões calls for a re-negotiation of FUNAI's proposed size [of the reservation] and blames FUNAI [for the confusion]. Well, if the deputy wants to be fair in his typical complaints, he has to blame former Minister Tarso Genro, who accepted FUNAI's proposal, but then it is another matter.
(Sean Hawkey/ACT)
On the other hand
According to Indigenous and human rights advocacy groups, Rosivaldo Ferreira da Silva's arrest was illegal, and the Federal Public Prosecutor is now filing a habeas corpus on his behalf, demanding that he is either brought before a court or released. Not everyone, however, is convinced of this version. Juarez Vicente de Carvalho [pt] does not even believe Babau deserves to be called an Indigenous person and calls for his punishment:
Essas mesmas entidades ignoram e apóiam as arbitrariedades cometidas por esse “índio” e a sua gang, invadindo e destruindo as propriedades alheias sem punição e desobedecendo as determinações judiciais.
Garantida a liberdade do cacique, o Grupo Tortura Nunca Mais (GTNM) deve entrar com pedido de inclusão de Babau no Programa de Proteção aos Defensores dos Direitos Humanos. Esse grupo deveria colocar sob proteção pessoas que há mais de 30 anos vivem em suas propriedades e são atingidas e ameaçadas por esse bandido que se diz índio e sua gang. No Brasil há essa inversão de valores. Bandidos fora da cadeia. Pessoas de bem presas.
If freedom is guaranteed for the chief, the human rights organization Torture Never Again (Tortura Nunca Mais) shall apply for an application for the inclusion of Babau into the Program to Protect Human Rights Defenders. This group should protect the people who for over 30 years live in their properties and are affected and threatened by this thug, who claims to be an Indian, and his gang. In Brazil, there is this inversion of values. Bandits get out of jail. Good people are trapped inside them.
José Augusto Halla de Sá [pt] blames FUNAI and foreign social movements for the long standing conflicts, and foresees even more violence:
Esse índio arruaceiro (será que é índio mesmo?) devia mofar na cadeia, assim como os guerrilheiros do MST, Via Campesina e outros movimentos criados com o fito de pertubar a ordem pública.
A permanecer essa desordem rural, o confronto será inevitável e os campos então verdejantes serão fatalmente tingidos de sangue.
Many more people in the south of Bahia were jubilant at the news of Babau's arrest. But according to Viola de Bolso [pt] blog, this is a sign of the population prejudice towards the native people:
Babau é a insignificância dos direitos coletivos no mundo de hoje, combatido pelas empresas do agro-negócio, pela mídia mercantil e pelos soldados de plantão, aqueles fazendeiros, falsos jornalistas, politiqueiros e suas instituições falidas.
[…] demonstra o grau de preconceito e desinformação que sofre os cidadãos comuns, distantes de sua história e de suas origens.
Enquanto isso, a cerca cresce como um lagarto imenso, a engolir territórios, devorar florestas, secar rios e reduzir futuros.
Character assassination campaigns
Cacique Babau, portraited by Sean Hawkey Serra do Padeiro in November 2009. Photo used with permission (Sean Hawkey/ACT)
Babau has been charged, amongst other crimes, with attempted homicide, threats, gross bodily harm and arson. Local human rights and indigenous groups have stated that this is part of an effort to assassinate his character and criminalise the Tupinambá of Olivença, jeopardizing their fight for their land and identity rights. Web Brasil Indígena [pt] publishes a motion of solidarity that explains how the Tupinambá of Olivença are being criminalised and “considered “invaders” of their own land”:
Assim como no passado, a atual campanha discriminatória e criminalizante em curso tem o claro objetivo de menosprezar os direitos dos Tupinambá. Incita a opinião pública contra as comunidades indígenas que lutam por seus direitos, utilizando os meios de comunicação local a serviço do poder político e econômico da região. Divulga-se uma série de mentiras e acusações contra as lideranças do povo Tupinambá de Olivença que estão mais a frente da luta.
Babau é considerado chefe de um bando, ou seja, ser liderança de uma comunidade indígena, ou quilombola é ser chefe de bando de bandidos? Se organizar em comunidade e luta por seus direitos se tornou perigoso, isto agora é considerado formação de quadrilha. Ocupar e retomar de volta suas terras, muitas delas totalmente devastadas pelo invasor, se tornou “invasão de fazendas”, e por ai vai às acusações imputadas às lideranças do Movimento Indígena, notando-se em todas elas uma total inversão de valores e uma forte carga de preconceito.
In recent months, Babau has made the headlines the national media, more often than not presented as an individual with great influence on the brewing conflict, but also an imbalanced, crazy and dangerous person. According to A Nova Democracia [pt] blog, this is no news:
A receita é a mesma: o monopólio da imprensa difama, provoca, açula as classes reacionárias e dá a senha para o massacre, perseguição e prisão de lideranças e lutadores populares.
Em 21 de novembro de 2009 a revista Época, propriedade do monopólio The Globe, publicou matéria provocadora sobre a luta dos tupinambás liderados pelo cacique Rosivaldo Ferreira da Silva, conhecido como cacique Babau, taxando-o de “Lampião tupinambá”.
Com essa denominação preconceituosa, Mariana Sanches, jornalista que assina o texto erra grosseiramente na denominação, mas acerta em cheio nas intensões do latifúndio e demais classes reacionárias: criminalizar a luta dos tupinambás pela terra.
With this prejudiced designation, journalist Mariana Sanchez, who wrote the text, makes a gross mistake by labeling him so, but hits the nail on the head in regards to the intentions of landlordism and other reactionary classes: to criminalize the Tupinambá's struggle for land.
Background
The Tupinambá were one of the various Tupi ethnic groups that natively inhabited almost all of the coast of Brazil when the Portuguese first arrived there. At the time, the Tupi people population was estimated at 1 million people, nearly the same population of Portugal back then. Like other indigenous people, in the 500 years since Europeans arrived in Brazil, the Tupinambá have experienced genocide and the loss of their land, and even of their indigenous status: the process of colonization and occupation of the South of Bahia had pulverized them as a people and denied them their own identity. This means that, in the eyes of the government, they had no right to claim an identity as indigenous tribe, and therefore the right to ancestral land, a situation that only changed in the year 2000.
In an article in Indios Online [pt], Cláudio Magalhães tells the history of his people:
Nós não tivemos descanso, são 500 anos de confronto, e sempre preservando, re-construindo.
Muito de nossos parentes não falam da história porque foram muito humilhados, hoje estão com a identidade bloqueada. Os índios daqui sempre foram muito reprimidos, perseguidos. Nos cercaram ideológicamente, sempre nos dizendo que não somos índios, que não temos direitos, que somos selvagens, brutais, que queremos que o país regrida. Mas o mundo dominante sempre nos explora, mesmo nas formas mais sutis, e Marcelino já entendia tudo isso.
Os índios de Olivença encantam por sua vontade de sobreviver. Hoje, depois de 502 anos, recebemos nosso reconhecimento oficial como índios que somos, depois de resistir a todas essas políticas de expropriação de nossas terras, sobrevivemos hoje como trabalhadores rurais em regime de escravidão, sem nenhum direito social, sem férias, sem carteira assinada, até sem documentos de identidade, trabalhando na diária a cinco reais, onde um dia de doença é descontado… Alguns índios não se assumem como índios, mas não por uma questão de covardia, e sim, de sobrevivência.
The Indians from Olivença are able to charm with their will to survive. Today, 502 years after, we have received our official recognition as the Indians. After resisting all these policies of expropriation of our lands, we survive today as enslaved rural workers, who have no social rights, no vacation, no formal contracts and who do not even have identity documents, working for five reais ($2) a day, with sick days discounted…  Some Indians do not identify themselves as Indians, but this is not as a matter of cowardice, but of survival.
Tupinamba people in Serra do Padeiro, Brazil. Photo used with permission (Sean Hawkey/ACT)
Also check Brazil: Suspense as indigenous land rulings in limbo, a 2008 article related to another Indigenous people from Bahia, the Pataxó Hã-Hã-Hãe. See more pictures of the Tupinambá people in the Flickr gallery of Sean Hawkey, who has kindly authorized Global Voices to use them. They were taken in November 2009 during the shooting of the video one rhythm, one world.

author: Paula Góes


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China: Hospital holds newborn hostage · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

DANWEI translated a frontpage story from Dongguan Times about a local hospital holding newborn hostage when the parent can't pay the bill.

author: Oiwan Lam


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China: New Avatar theme song inspired by forced evictions · Global Voices
John Kennedy

Building on what many Chinese viewers saw in the American film Avatar, “the spitting image of the violent demolition in our everyday life,” a group of video and song mashup artists, Zhou Hongtao, Gong Kaijie and singer Lizi, released online yesterday a spoof of the movie's theme song, an imagined Chinese version titled ‘Eviction in the Open‘. Despite the lyrics, there doesn't seem to be anything to suggest that anyone involved in the project has been forcibly evicted from their home.
(Note: This video loads very slowly outside China, which is why we have made a backup here)
‘Eviction in the Open‘:
拆掉我的家，被逼着离开
内心受到伤害的我死都不明白
明明是我财，要求不能开
只好看着强制拆迁令眼泪掉下来
保护百姓的“法律”法律不存在？
没有背景的人群自己买棺材
拆迁不是谁想拆，想拆就能拆
合理补偿给我理由不然请滚开
我那合法的财产不容你毁坏
中华民族的土地容不下腐败
拆迁不是谁想拆，想拆就能拆
给我公正给我公平，全给我公开
保护百姓的“法律”法律不存在？
没有背景的人群自己买棺材
拆迁不是谁想拆，想拆就能拆
合理补偿给我理由不然请滚开
Doesn't matter if you're willing to move, they'll tear your house down if they feel like it
Give me adequate compensation, give me a reason, or get the hell out
(repeat)
Commissions welcome
In between verses, this scrolls across the screen:
希望拆迁悲剧，不在地球上发生
And at the end of the clip, the message ‘the planet is in danger’ appears, along with a contact QQ number for the mashup artists: 261902385.

author: John Kennedy


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China: Reflection on bridge-blogging · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Kai Pan from China Divide reflects on the non-Chinese China blogs's bridging effort.


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Cuba: It’s the Economy · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“You can count on one hand the number of foreign investors who have kept their businesses in Cuba”: Iván's File Cabinet thinks that the Cuban economy is sinking.


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Egypt: Gearing up for May 2 Protests  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Egyptian blogger Zeinobia is urging her readers to mark May 2 on their calendars. A massive sit-in is being planned to call for a higher minimum wage in front of the Egyptian Cabinet. The official minimum wage has been LE35 ($6) for the last 26 years.


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Egypt: Saudi Arabia Blocks ElBaradei’s Site  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Bikya Masr quotes the Arabic Network of Human Rights information saying that Saudi Arabia has “blocked the Internet website promoting Egypt’s leading opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei’s National Coalition for Change.”


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France: Reactions over Niqab and Polygamy Controversy  · Global Voices
Anna Gueye

Lies Hebbadj is currently making  the headline news because his wife was fined for driving while wearing a niqab and because he said himself that he has three more households. His statement led him to be suspected of polygamy and therefore possiblyof French gaming welfare laws. Although  many bloggers, including Rokhaya Diallo in her blog post support Lies Hebbadj[fr],  blogger L’Arabe [fr] wrote a tongue-in-cheek note to Hebbadj: “Petite explication entre quatre yeux”  (Eye-to-Eye explanation) asking him to tone “it” down  (fr).

author: Anna Gueye


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Ghana: The Premier of Professor Azumah Nelson documentary · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Ghanaian blogger Mac Jordan attended the the premiere of Professor Azumah Nelson‘s documentary, “ZOOM ZOOM – The Career of Azumah Nelson.” The documentar is written and directed Sam Kessie; a Ghanaian film-maker based in Atlanta, USA.


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Honduras: Journalists Using Bullet-Proof Vests and Prayer · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

The Knight Center's Journalism in the Americas blog writes that Honduran journalists have been using bullet-proof vests and their faith in prayer [es] in light of the number of their colleagues that have been murdered in 2010.

author: Eduardo Avila


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India: Crowdsourcing Advertising Ideas From Consumers · Global Voices
Rezwan

Bhatnaturally discusses about a recent effort by a multinational brand in India to crowdsource advertising ideas from consumers and wonders whether it will really work or not.

author: Rezwan


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India, Pakistan: Please Discuss · Global Voices
Rezwan

Adil Najam at All Things Pakistan urges the prime ministers of India and Pakistan, who are in Bhutan to attend the SAARC Summit, to start bilateral talks and to keep talking.


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Japan: Remove the U.S. Marine Base From Ginowan · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Martin from Kurashi blogs about the recent protest in Tokyo calling for the Japanese Parliament to remove the U.S. marine air base from Futenma, Okinawa in the city of Ginowan.


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Jordan: The Nursing Profession · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Emi, an American in Amman, reflects on the nursing profession in Jordan in this post.


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Nigeria: Forced marriages and the age of consent · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Sokari discusses forced marriages and the age of consent after the former Governor of Zamfara State, Senator Sani Yerima marries a 13 year old Egyptian girl for whom he paid her family $100,000.


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Pakistan: Ashamed Of National Dress? · Global Voices
Rezwan

MB criticizes Pakistan Prime Minister for not wearing national dress and failing to promote national culture at international levels.


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Paraguay: Journalist Santiago Leguizamón Murdered 19 Years Ago · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Paraguay recently celebrated its annual Day of the Journalist on April 26, which commemorates the date in 1845 when the first newspaper, “El Paraguayo Independiente” was published in the country. However, the date is also important for Paraguayan journalists because on April 26, 1991, one of their colleagues was  shot and killed in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero.
Journalist Santiago Leguizamón was on his way to lunch with fellow journalists celebrating their profession's day, when he was gunned down by hired hitmen [es] in the border town with Brazil. Some speculate that he was targeted for his frequent criticism of corruption and drug trafficking [es] in the area.
Andrés Colmán is a Paraguayan journalist and writes a lengthy piece in his blog Ñangapiry News [es] about his time in Pedro Juan Caballero where he got to know Leguizamón in 1986. It was apparent to him that Leguizamón lived under constant pressure from being in the middle of such a tense region where the criminals were in charge. “Yes, he knew the mafia, but from the other side of the combat barricades that had been begun to be built with their steely works, defending with clear blows the hazy dream of democracy,” writes Colmán. He adds:
En principio se burlaba de las amenazas de muerte y los avisos que le hacían llegar los mafiosos. Aquella mañana, horas antes de su muerte, le dijo a Humberto Rubín: “Prefiero la muerte física a la muerte ética”. Llevaba un revólver en la guantera, más para tranquilizar a sus amigos que como verdadera medida de precaución.
(…)
La ultima vez que lo vi fue dos meses antes de su muerte, cuando pasó por la redacción del diario a dejarme los últimos ejemplares de su revista. Me contó que un conocido industrial yerbatero de Pedro Juan le había dicho: “Cuidate, porque te van a matar”.
Recuerdo que en esa ocasión le pregunté algo que ya varias veces le habíamos cuestionado con otros colegas: si valía la pena ese estilo de “periodismo kamikaze” que él ejercía con tanta audacia en esa región donde no hay policías ni jueces que te puedan proteger. Recuerdo que hubo un largo silencio, antes de que me respondiera con otra pregunta: “¿Y te parece que hay otra manera…?”.
At the beginning, he made light of the death threats and the warnings that the mafia sent him. That morning, hours before his death, he told Humberto Rubín, “I prefer physical death than the death of one's ethics.” He had a revolver in his glove compartment, it was more to calm his friends than it was for protection.
(…)
The last time I saw him was 2 months before his death, when he stopped by the newspaper news desk to drop off the latest issues of his magazine. He told me that he met an industrial yerba mate farmer in Pedro Juan, who told him, “Be careful, because they will kill you.”
I remember that at the time I asked him, just as other colleagues had before, whether his “kamikaze journalism” was worth it in a region where there are no police or no judges that could protect him. I remember that there was a long silence, before he responded with another question, “And do you think that there is another way….?”
His death resonated all across the country. Blogger and journalist Arturo Zarratea Herreros of the blog Vida de Perros [es] (Life of Dogs) was 11 years old at the time of hearing about Leguizamón's murder and recalls the organized silent march that took place on the streets of the capital.
Caminamos por el microcentro de Asunción con velas encendidas y algunos cantaban consignas contra el gobierno que en ese momento estaba en poder del Gral. Andrés Rodríguez. Nadie podía creer que tan impunemente se asesinara a un periodista en ese lejano paraje denominado Pedro Juan Caballero.
El pedido de todo un país en ese momento era “Justicia”, basta de impunidad a las mafias, encuentren a los asesinos del hombre de prensa, demuestren que llegó la democracia…
Han pasado 19 años desde entonces. En medio de ellos me hice periodista y descubrí que las marchas, la indignación, las velas y los llantos… no traen justicia.
We walked through the downtown of Asunción with lighted candles and some sang slogans against the government, which at the time was under the control of General Andrés Rodríguez. No one could believe that someone could murder a journalist with such impunity in that far-away place called Pedro Juan Caballero.
The demand from everyone in the country at the time was “Justice,” to stop the impunity for the mafias, find the killers of the journalist, to demonstrate that democracy had arrived…
Nineteen years have passed since then. During that time, I became a journalist and I discovered that marches, indignation, candles, and the cries… do not bring justice.
Now, 19 years later, journalists are taking time to commemorate their fallen fellow journalist and reflect on what that means for their profession today in Paraguay. The murder of Leguizamón remains unsolved to this day. Cáceres Encina reflects [es]:
El 26 de abril no es simplemente un día para recordar la labor del periodista. Es para enfatizar que desde antaños en nuestro país se luchó por la libertad de expresión. (…) Que la muerte de Santiago Leguizamón sea un mensaje a los corruptos y mafiosos de que la prensa nunca callará.


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Russia: Russian Authorities Want to Block 2,000 Web sites · Global Voices
Vadim Isakov

Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs plans to make addition to the law “On Information” allowing Russian authorities to block an access to around 2,000 Web sites with extremist, pirated and pornographic content, Russian information agency “New region” reported.

author: Vadim Isakov


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South Africa: The woes of a South African blogger · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Project Me blogs about the woes of a South African blogger: “I know, it’s nearly half way through the day and still ni blog. Well that’s because I’m a South African blogger who has days when I wake up to no electricity or no internet connection.”


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Sri Lanka: Google Transliteration In Sinhalese Language. · Global Voices
Rezwan

Mayu Online informs that  Google is supporting transliteration in Sinhalese language.


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Sudan: Using Ushahidi to monitor Sudanese elections · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Fareed Zein, the Project Leader for the Sudan VoteMonitor project Uswrites about using Ushahidi to monitor Sudanese elections: “The purpose of this initiative was to utilize the Ushahidi platform to support the independent monitoring and reporting of Sudan’s first multi-party election in 26 years.”


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Sudan: We will never know who won the election? · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Discussing the official results of election in Sudan Muawia Abdel Karim argues that nobody will ever know who really won the election: “The counting of votes has been so chaotic that it is simply impossible to find out the true number of votes cast for each candidate.”


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Tunisia: Killing the Web  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Tunisian Rafik describes censorship in Tunisia as “webcide.” He tweets: “what is happening in Tunisia with massive censorship these last days is webcide : kill the web.”


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Video: Three Latin American Viral Sensations Unite for Israel · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

Through the Latin American social networks there is a new video spreading like wildfire: it unites three of the most recognized viral video sensations in one. Peruvian La Tigresa del Oriente and Wendy Sulca with Ecuadorian Delfin Quishpe virtually united to sing “I'll dance in your lands”, a song about Israel. None of them have visited Israel, but that didn't stop them from singing about the beauty of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Delfin Quishpe is an indigenous Kichwa Ecuadorian who became famous after his blue-screen hit “The Twin Towers” was uploaded on Internet on 2006., in the video, he lamented the death of his girlfriend in 9-11, but his bad acting and dance moves gathered all the attention.  Next in the lineup is  Tigresa del Oriente. Her name is Judith Bustos, a make-up artist and home-maker from the Amazon region of Peru who decided to try her luck writing songs and singing them in 2006. Someone uploaded her videos and skyrocketed her to internet stardom; leopard clothing, press-on nails and jungle dancers included. Wendy Sulca is the youngest of the three. At the tender age of 8 she apparently hit on the recipe for viral video success with not one, but two videos: on one hand, her single “La Tetita” on the subject of breast feeding and on the other hand, “Cerveza, Cerveza” a song about how one beer is never enough.
The campy trio's video has already been picked up by media in foreign countries. According to Carlos Reyes of  ShoutCast music blog,
The three artists have transcended their 15 minutes of fame to become part of the Latino vernacular, at least on the Web. Many refer to them as characters, but the whole reason why they have exploded in popularity is because they're anything but; they're just too far away from pop music's standards.
That's not all.  In  Argentina's newspaper Panorama they quote Residente, who is the lead singer of Grammy winning band Calle 13,  as stating:
El mejor junte que he visto. Histórico. Es como si se juntaran Madonna, Lady GaGa y Michael Jackson
Roy Palomino for  collaborative online magazine LaMula.pe interviewed Judith Bustos, who says about Israel: It is, I believe, in the other side of the world. She thanks @Calle13oficial  and also rocker Juanes from Colombia who congratulated her, @tigresaoriente, through his twitter account @Juanestwiter.  However, what she doesn't say about the video is more revealing than what she does say. When asked about who is the mastermind behind this, she says it is a secret but that we'll soon find out who is the “important editor” who put together this viral video. Where they set up? And if so, would it be a bad thing?
The three artists apparently didn't need to travel to make their collaboration: each artist recorded in front of a blue screen and also in different local sites including a pen with camels, a boat in a lake with monkeys in the background and rustic houses. In some parts of the video their images are cut and superimposed in front of different stock videos or each other: from scuba diving scenes, windmills and lakes to images of what we assume they believe are beaches, parties and sights of Israel. The lyrics speak of how they would like to visit Israel to dance on their lands, and how beautiful it is. On Viral Video Chart they report the statistics as follows:
367,851 views
Discovered 20 Apr 2010
89 blog posts
0 duplicate videos
996 tweets
2,564 comments
30,828 Facebook shares
However, a quick search on YouTube shows us that there are now dozens of duplicates soaring through the web.
On Twitter, the stickyness of the song was expressed by @jdclarke00 of Costa Rica:
@FranPisca also had an earworm brought on by second-hand contagion:
Chilean @Natycronopia wasn't too pleased about her coworkers enthusiasm:
So with no further ado; here is the video for I'll Dance In Your Lands the song claimed by some to be the “We are the World” of Latin America:
And finally, as if any more proof of its popularity was needed, already several “tribute” videos and parodies have been uploaded. In the Official Tigresa del Oriente blog they selected a couple of them to share:

author: Juliana Rincón Parra


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Bahamas: Free Markets & the Environment  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Bahama Pundit‘s Larry Smith blogs about Earth Day and free market environmentalism.


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Brunei: Salaries of hospital doctors · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Brunei Doctors Mess Club writes about the salaries received by hospital doctors in Brunei.

author: Mong Palatino


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China: The 42th anniversary of Lin Zhao’s death · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Lin Zhao (林昭）, a Peking University student, was arrested in 1960 during the Anti-Rightist Campaign launched by Mao Zedong in 1957 and sentenced to death on 29 of April (today) in 1968, 42 years ago at the age of 35. She could have exchanged for her freedom and life by a writing a political confession, instead, she chose to write in the prison with her blood.
Lin was once a devoted supporter of the Chinese Communist Party and participated in the Land Reform. When she was studying in the Peking University, she sided with CCP leader Peng Dehuai's camp criticizing Mao Zedong's extremism in the Great Leap Forward and People's Commune Movement and was then labelled as an anti-revoluntionary rightist.
In 1981, the Shanghai Higher Court vindicated Lin Zhao's case but her file is still defined as state secret. Below is a portrait of Lin:
In 2003, independent film maker Hu Jie（胡杰）released documentary titled as “In Search of the Soul of Lin Zhao” (detailed report see Washington post). The documentary can be found in youtube.
Lin is now the icon of political dissidents and human rights activists in China. Ran Yunfei explains in bullogger:
林昭与人类有史以来，最为强暴的政权的对抗，不仅是中国人的精神资源，甚至可以说是人类 共同的精神遗产。但对她抗暴的相关努力，由于至今尚未解档，官方的遮蔽掩盖，致使她的行止丰仪语焉不详，不为外界大多数人所知。与此同时，一些与她有过联 络的人，或者同学们也由于这样或那样的顾虑，不愿接受采访，承担一点相应的作为朋友或者同学的责任，这岂止令人遗憾！虽然我尊重每个人的选择，但正是这样 的懦弱，造就了残暴的专制政权。再者，提篮桥监狱监管并虐待林昭的人，也不能完全用体制之罪来为自己的恶行推脱。只要档案不被毁，正义一定等得到审判邪恶 的那一天，虽然迟来的正义其价值已经减弱，但不忘记邪恶可以在一定程度上伸张正义。
Zhongshan University Professor and independent film maker Ai Xiaoming started an online event: “100 things you can do to remember Lin Zhao” and suggested various ways to remember Lin, such as
1. to learn about Lin's life history
2. to watch and share the documentary “In Search of the Soul of Lin Zhao”
3. to write about Lin Zhao, to visit Lin's tomb
4. to read Lin's writings, and etc.
You can join the event via facebook.
On 28 of April, a number of concerned citizens visited Lin's tomb in Jiangsu, Suzhou City, Mudu town and citizen journalist Tiger Temple recorded the activities:
In Beijing, artist Yen Zhenxue（嚴正學）who was sentenced to three year imprisonment on 18 of October 2006 under sedition charge and released on 17 of July 2009, completed Lin Zhao's sculpture in early April and planned an exhibition in 798 Art District on 10 of April. But he was assaulted by security guards and hospitalized on 3 of April. Below is Yen's finishing artwork:
Chinese netizens keep sharing Lin's writing via blogs, forums and twitter in the past few days. Below is one of the poems devoted to her prosecutor by Lin under the series “Roses devoted to the Prosecutor”:
将这一滴注入祖国的血液里，
将这一滴向挚爱的自由献祭。
揩吧!擦吧!洗吧!
这是血呢!
殉难者的血迹，
谁能抹得去?


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East Timor: Resignation through SMS · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

East Timor Foreign Minister Zacarias da Costa reportedly resigned his post through SMS.


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Global Voices Gets Redesigned: Welcome Back! · Global Voices
Jer Clarke

Global Voices 3.0 R.I.P (click for larger image)
As you may have noticed, a few things have changed here at Global Voices. Our old design, beloved as it was, has been replaced. I have been working for over a year with the Global Voices community on this massive overhaul of how our site looks and works, and we're excited to share it with you today.
For nostalgic readers the screenshot to the right shows the site as it looked just before the update.
Global Voices is one of the most multilingual online communities in the world. Our Lingua project, where people from around the world volunteer to translate Global Voices content into different languages, has experienced astounding growth since it began 3 years ago. We now have over 30,000 translations posted in a slew of different languages, some of which you've probably never even heard of. As a developer this growth was almost difficult to believe, and presented many challenges, but when you're in the business of spreading citizen media as far and wide as possible, growth like that is an amazing problem to have.
Redesign in Chinese and Arabic
That bit of rhetoric has been converted into code and is now a reality. This total redesign is being launched simultaneously on all of our Lingua sites, and its features apply to all equally. To cement this commitment the English version of Global Voices is now labeled as such in its own header, just like the other Lingua sites.
The translation system itself has been completely rewritten, allowing for translations to or from the English site, as well as chained translations between multiple sites. I've also simplified the process of translating posts immensely, from a 10-step nightmare begging for human error to the 1-step process that it should have been from the start.
It's never been easier or sexier to be a Global Voices translator, if you tried it before and thought it was too hard then give it another chance now! If you're a polyglot who's never translated for fun then get in touch with the Lingua site for your language and see what all the excitement is about.
In many ways the site is the same as always, just prettier, clearer and easier to use. This update wasn't about adding new features so much as making the existing ones more effective and available to all the Lingua sites.
One major change is that the whole site is now fluid-width, a web-design term that means it stretches based on your window size. This feature was chosen to make our site as accessible as possible to all our visitors regardless of their hardware. Try resizing your browser to see the effect. Global Voices should look great on on huge monitors,  tiny netbooks and that awful 15″ CRT at the internet café.
We also switched search tools from a basic Google site search to an integrated search that displays results more usefully to readers.
The site, theme and translation system are built entirely on top of the open-source WordPress platform using lots of custom theme and plugin code, as well as various awesome plugins from the WordPress community.
While coding the redesign and new Lingua system I've also taken time to give back to the community we depend on with several patches to fix problems and fill in missing features in the core of WordPress.
I'm proud to say that Global Voices supports open-source and my contributions back to the tools that make this site possible.
It's been years in the making and our entire community has pitched in to lay out the principles and work out the details of this redesign. We hope you, our readers, think it's as much of an improvement as we do and that it helps you enjoy the stories we share even more.

author: Jer Clarke


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Haiti: Getting it Wrong · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Haitianalysis.com points out all the ways in which a British newspaper columnist gets it wrong about Haiti.


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Hungary: Political and Economic News · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Commentary on the recent developments in the Hungarian politics and the economy – at Hungarian Spectrum, here and here, and at A Fistful of Euros.


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East Timor: Connecting Civil Society · Global Voices
Sara Moreira

Creative broadcasting systems at the top of coconut trees (photo from FONGTIL IT Division)
Providing internet access to civil society has been a key priority of the few information and communication technology (ICT) initiatives in East Timor (Timor Leste). High prices, poor infrastructure, and a telecoms monopoly has meant that there is still a long way to go before digital techologies can have a more widespread positive impact for access to knowledge, employment and economic development.
A new regulatory environment
A Global Voices article from February last year presented a timeline with a look on the deep digital gap occurring in East Timor: “9 Years of Internet, still one ISP and a huge Digital Gap“. The story began:
East Timor has lived through long periods of occupation and has had to fight tragically for independence. The post referendum violence devastated social and communication infrastructures. When the country became the first new nation of the 21st century, it had almost no technological environment.
World Bank Internet access numbers from 2008 in East Timor (taken from Abel Pires da Silva paper)
One year later, the ICT sector has slowly but positively evolved.
What appeared to represent one of the biggest hindrances, leading to very high prices of telecommunication services, is now expected to be softened. Tempo Semanal reports that a Timor Telecom monopoly agreement is finished:
In a meeting of the Council of Ministers last month (March) the monopoly in the TL telecommunications market was also ended just 8 years after the first government gave a 15 year exclusive right to Portugal Telecom and its friends. “This Wednesday (31/03) we approved a national telecommunications policy. This policy forsees the liberalisation of telecommunications. It also create conditions for us to prepare the law to accept companies that want to enter TL,” says Vice Prime Minister José Luis Guterres…
In a paper presented at a Transforming Timor Leste conference back in July 2009, Abel Pires da Silva, President of East Timor ICT Association (ICT TL), described the situation in East Timor as an “embryonic information society”, mainly due to what he claims to be a “limited understanding and recognition of how ICT can contribute to development shared amongst decision makers, regulators and public in general.”
A few East Timor initiatives highlighted below show the real possibilities of ICT for Development to add value, effectiveness and meaning.
ICT access for civil society
While the ICT landscape is still limited by the high prices of access to the internet, a few organisations have been working to assist with internet connections for non-profit organisations (NGOs).
FONGTIL IT Division: Making Internet accessible for NGO Blind Union
The East Timor NGO Forum (FONGTIL) is responsible for monitoring, coordination and training of more than 300 national NGOs in East Timor.
The IT division promotes capacity building by training NGO members around the country in use of computers and the internet. It has launched five IT centres for local NGOs in Oecusse, Same, Baucau, Viqueque and Dili.
Besides training and mainstream technical support, Fongtil's IT division also strives to provide affordable and alternative wifi internet access for civil society organizations in Dili as stated in the IT NGO Blog [id]:
Alternatif Antena Wireless NGO ETBU dengan Wajan Pemasak
Koneksi internet di Negara baru ini merupakan barang mewah, dimana untuk bisa akses internet di warnet saja dipatok satu jam pemakaian $2.00 USD. Ini merupakan harga rata-rata untuk warnet yang dapat kita temukan di kota Dili. Sedangkan koneksi internet di tempat-tempat penginapan dan Hotel rata-rata mematok harga $3-$6 per jam.
Untuk Civil Society
NGO di Timor-Leste sangat sulit untuk bisa membayar akses internet dengan harga yang telah disebutkan. Untuk itu NGO FORUM sebagai payung bagi NGO di Timor-Leste merasa perlu untuk membantu para NGO untuk bisa koneksi ke Internet. Saat ini FONGTIL sendiri terkoneksi ke Internet melalui INET under ISP Timor-Telecom sebuah perusahaan Sub ISP yang dimilik oleh orang Australia.(…)
Sedangkan NGO dan organisasi sosial di Timor-Leste tidak mampu untuk bisa membayar harga internet diatas, untuk itu FONGTIL melalui divisi IT berusaha untuk bisa membantu member NGOnya dengan cara mendirikan sebuah Base Station Sangat Sederhana di Kaikoli dengan alat apa adanya untuk bisa melayani Internet wireless ke member Fongtil yang ada di kota Dili.
While NGOs and social organizations in Timor-Leste can not afford to pay the prices above, FONGTIL through the IT division seeks to help member NGOs by establishing a very simple base station in Kaikoli with whatever tools that enable providing wireless Internet to FONGTIL members in the city of Dili.
Besides the enthusiasm, Guilherme Soares, who is responsible for the IT division of FONGTIL, says that there are still many problems with speed and strength of the signal for distribution and reports that the government could overcome the problem of the internet in the country, so that “hopefully NGOs can get a fair price for the internet”.
Technology.tl – The Info Timor enterprise has been developed to improve access to information technology in East Timor.
Info Timor is another not-for-profit social enterprise that focuses on using information communication technology to deliver skills development, education and employment while assisting in the reconstruction of the country. The project currently employs 20 people who work with a team of volunteers divided between two ICT resource centres in the district. Their work consists mainly of distribution of refurbished computers to schools, community centres, orphanages and government departments as well as training in ICT skills.
Looking towards the future, in May 2010 Kopernik, “an on-line store of innovative technologies designed for the developing world” will host an Appropriate Tech Fair in East Timor, hopefully opening the door for further awareness on technological solutions that may improve people's lives. For the moment, as long as internet costs are so prohibitive, it will be a while before ICT for development initiatives will become more widespread.

author: Sara Moreira


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Japan: Kabuki Theatre to be Rebuilt · Global Voices
Tomomi Sasaki

One of the most recognizable buildings in Japan, the grand, old Kabuki-za in Ginza is closing this month. It will be torn down and become a theater and office complex with direct connections to the subway station. Be sure to click this link to see a sketch of the planned exterior. It's the third image on the page, you can't miss it.
Kabuki-za at night by Ali San
The Kabuki-za opened in 1889. The current theater was built in 1951 after the previous building was burned down by U.S. Air Forces during World War II.
Shochiku Company, Limited, the landowner and operator of the theater started talks of rebuilding in 2005. The main reason given for the construction is that the building doesn't have sufficient protection against natural disasters, especially earthquakes.
The theater, a cultural landmark, is registered as a Tangible Cultural Property.
kabukiza*West Wing(3F) by tenugui
Shochiku ran a series of “farewell performances”. Yoko Ishikura lined up for one and remarks:
I thoroughly enjoyed watching both shows, and did not mind standing for over 3.5 hours altogether.  Beauty and art is so inspiring that you feel that the life is worth living.
An electronic countdown clock was set up in front of the theatre, where many people took photos. Yuzu says:
歌舞伎がずーっと後世へと引き継がれるには、今建て替えが必要なんですよね。
どのように生まれ変わるのか楽しみですね
L-Komachi:
私にとって、現在の歌舞伎座で観る、最後の歌舞伎になります。歌舞伎座前のカウントダウン時計の残り日数も一桁になっていました。歌舞伎座の前で、建物やカウントダウン時計を記念撮影している人も多かったです。[…] 「御名残四月大歌舞伎」を全3部を観て、改めて、歌舞伎の面白さを再認識しました。歌舞伎座は建て替えのためしばらく休場となりますが、歌舞伎は見続けることになると思います。
How will we feel in 2013 when the renovation is complete and we gaze up towards the 20+ office floors glittering right above our beloved Kabuki-za?
Blogger gohermes is reminded of  The Executive Centre Tokyo Bankers Club Building (東京銀行協会ビル) in the Marunouchi area. This building has the unfortunate moniker of “scab architecture” (かさぶた建築) and Kyo wonders:
The Executive Centre Tokyo Bankers Club Building
調べたところ、建物自体の問題で全面保存はできなかったようです。こんな形でも残ってよかったのか、跡形もなく消えてしまった方がよかったのか、難しいところです。
Again, here's the link of the new Kabuki-za.

author: Tomomi Sasaki


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Japan: Plastic duck race · Global Voices
Scilla Alecci

Photoreporter Damoncoulter uploaded original pictures of the duck race held at the second Ashigara River festival in Matsuda city (south of Tokyo).
Some hundred  yellow, plastic ducks are emptied into the river  and “the monies raised are plowed back into environmental organizations that clean up the river and Ashigara area.”

author: Scilla Alecci


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Laos: Rural food · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Rambling Spoon, who spent nine days in Phongsali province in Laos, kept a diary of what they ate in Laos.


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Russia: “Burnt By the Box Office” · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Vadim Nikitin of Foreign Policy Association's Russia blog reviews the reactions to Nikita Mikhalkov's Burnt by the Sun 2, “Russia’s most expensive movie.”


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Russia: More Commentary on Sex Video Scandal · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

A Good Treaty comments – here and here – on the sex video scandals involving members of the Russian opposition, notes an increase in blog traffic (“nothing brings visitors to a website like the promise of nudity”), and responds to Julia Ioffe‘s Foreign Policy piece on the scandal.


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Russia: The 2009 Killing of Umar Israilov · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Robert Amsterdam writes about Ramzan Kadyrov's alleged involvement in the 2009 murder of Umar Israilov in Vienna, and links to C.J. Chivers’ New York Times investigative piece, whose opening paragraph has reminded him of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, a collection of Vietnam War short stories.


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Southeast Asia: Good Governance Advocacy via Technology · Global Voices
Sopheap Chak

A glance at the root and concept of “governance”
In Southeast Asia, a well-known term associated with transparency, accountability and civic engagement is simply “governance,” which became a highly and hotly discussed topic during the 1997 Financial Crisis that demanded the region put into place new governmental regulation.
It is evident, for example, in 1999 when Thailand officially adopted six elements of good governance: rule of law, integrity, transparency, participation, accountability and value for money. Singapore has also endorsed the principles of governance based on an accountable and transparent government, long-term orientation and social justice. In Malaysia, the issue of good governance plays the role of a reformist discourse in challenging the ruling regime and the dominant political culture, as was illustrated in the case of Anwar Ibrahim’s arrest in the middle of the financial crisis. (Unfortunately, allegations of corruption by Ibrahim were overshadowed by sensationalist rumors of his homosexuality.) In Cambodia, good governance has become a cornerstone of the National “Rectangular Strategy” for Growth, Employment, Equity and Efficiency which aims to combat corruption, reform the legal system and civil service, and decentralize key areas of government.
Why governance?
Governance is generally defined as the “mechanisms and processes for citizens and groups to articulate their interests mediate their differences and exercise their legal rights and obligations.” Notwithstanding the varying definition of governance, transparency, accountability and participation are commonly attached as the key elements of governance. These elements function interdependently to ensure the sound development of a country.
Governance Issues:
While acknowledging the improvement of governance issues following the policy adoption of good governance after the financial criis, the problems of corruption, human rights violations, and restrictive freedom to expression still remain in the region. Governments have shown their efforts to improve the legal frameworks and institutional structure to promote transparency, accountability, and civic participation. The anti-corruption effort, for example, can be witnessed through the creation of Anti-Corruption Agency in Malaysia, and the  Anti-Corruption Commission in East Timor, the Office of the Ombudsman in the Philippines, the Corrupt Practices Investigation  Bureau in Singapore, the Corruption Eradication Commission in Indonesia, the National Anti-Corruption Commission in Thailand, and the Anti-Corruption Bureau in Brunei. It is also revealed in the recent development of the Anti-Corruption Law in Cambodia, and the Whistle Blower Law in Indonesia. However, Southeast Asian countries are still ranked mostly at the top of Transparency International's corruption perception index, with the exception of Singapore. Furthermore, Cambodia, Malaysia, East Timor,  Indonesia,  and Vietnam have been recorded as countries at critical crossroads based on  the Freedom House's 2010 quantitative analysis of government accountability, civil liberties, rule of law, and anticorruption and transparency efforts.
Corruption has been spectacularly and frequently demonstrated at high levels of government leadership. In 2001 alone, for instance, three Southeast Asia leaders faced major allegations of corruption: President Abdurrahman Wahid in Indonesia, President Joseph Estrada in the Philippines, and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in Thailand. Systematic corruption in most countries of the region has disrupted progress toward development and rule of law, where a culture of impunity has so far prevailed. In many case, rule of law has been corrupted in order to hinder civic participation's demand for open government and public accountability.
Movement for Better Governance
The globalization and development of technology has brought about better access to information and the advancement of civic participation despite the fact that governance issues are still challenging. The growth of civil society organizations whose roles are to advocate for the respect of human rights and open government have empowered citizens and promoted greater civic participation. While non-government organizations are traditionally key advocacy players, technological advances have changed this trend where citizen journalism network arises. However, the trend is still minimal and varies due to governance restriction in the region.
In the case of Cambodia, for example, the rise of citizen journalism is relatively low compared to other countries in the region. Though a notion of digital democracy is emerging, the participation from young bloggers in demanding their rights is far from the norm. The continuation of government restrictive measures via legal, judicial and police forces that usually targetedpoliticians, journalists, and activists who are critical to the government has hindered greater youth participation. Therefore, the governance advocacy movement is still mostly driven by civil society organizations, such as the case of Sithi, a Cambodian human rights portal that aims to crowdsource and curate  reports of human rights violations, or Saatsam, a virtual library that stores corruption-related information aiming at encouraging public participation to alleviate  corruption and promote transparency. This trend is probably shared by emerging countries like Timor-Leste where projects are run by NGOs such as Lalenok Ba Ema Hotu (“The Mirror for the People,”), aiming at raising awareness and campaigning  for transparency, accountability, good-governance, economic justice and  anti-corruption, and  Centru Jornalista Investigativu Timor Leste, a daily online publication that describes itself as “the Last Hope, when the court system doesn't work.”
Countries where technological advancement and rising voices of citizens are more tolerated have greater civic participation and a more vibrant civil society. Examples include Penang Watch and 15 Malaysia in Malaysia; blogwatch and VoteReportPH in the Philippines, and theOnlineCitizen in Singapore, where they are run by voluntary bloggers or citizen groups advocating for better governance.
Although there are differing degrees of grassroots initiatives, the region faces similar challenges in running their projects. Problems include a lack of volunteers who stay committed with the projects, a lack of advanced technological and reporting skills, and legal obstructions like the absence of freedom of information laws or the existence of oppressive publishing laws.
In Singapore, for example, there are reportedly three tiers of censorship:
“The 1st tier are the legislations passed by Parliament which restricts freedom of expression.  The 2nd tier of censorship are those imposed by government bodies which  are authorized by law to draw up guidelines and policies pertaining to  political expression. A key feature of this 2nd tier of censorship are  the non-transparency and the nebulous nature of its implementation,  which leads to a blurring of the the line of what is acceptable and  non-acceptable speech. This in turn creates a climate where writers,  bloggers, artists and politicians self-censor their speech in order that  they do not overstep boundaries. This climate of self-censorship forms  the 3rd tier of censorship in Singapore.”
In the case of the Philippines, on the other hand, activism is a dangerous field. “During  the stay of the  current administration, more than 1000 activists were  victims of extra  judicial killings. Unless the pattern of impunity is  addressed,  activists (online and offline) will always find it difficult  to work,” says Rick Bahague, VoteReportPH’s Project Leader.
In addition to slow and limited internet access in the region, internet censorship is apparently another challenges for technology initiatives, like in the case of Cambodia. There are concerns that the government is implementing a state-run exchange point to control all local internet service providers under the claim of strengthening internet security against  pornography, theft and cyber crime.
Notwithstanding these challenges, the persistent activism and engagement with relevant non-governmental and governmental agencies are a key approach to achieve their project goals. Among all documented projects, Penang Watch is attempting to work closely with government agencies to hold them accountable in solving residents’ complaints. In addition to insistently reminding agencies and/or individuals to respond to citizen complaints, they also adopt the “name and shame” approach as a last resort to push for complaint settlement. These approaches have proved successful in solving nearly half of all submitted complaints.
In a comment on the VoteReportPH case study David Sasaki notes that tying voter education to training workshops is a smart tactic. David has observed many instances of Ushahidi installations meant to crowdsource reports  of voting irregularities, but these projects mostly attract the participation of just a few dedicated volunteers or non-profit  staff.  In order for this project to truly bring about electoral  accountability and a verified electoral process, it is suggested that VoteReportPH should meet with leaders from the COMELEC, the Philippines Commission on Elections, to  develop a published  framework for how COMELEC will respond to reports of  voting  irregularities. (Speaking of processes, David recommends taking a look at how   Venezuela's National Election Council ensure voting transparency – despite instances of machine failures – in their 2007 referendum vote.) Learning form Penang Watch, VoteReportPH should engage closely with COMELEC in their investigation and resolution of reports of election fraud. Answerability to reported cases will be an incentive for greater participation from the public as well as to ensure that the elections are credible.
The Online Citizen: was founded in December, 2006 as a community aiming to tell  stories about Singapore and Singaporeans that are not being told in the  mainstream press. Their hope is to use advocacy journalism to stimulate  more civic participation, open government, and free media through the  use of online activist initiatives. TOC takes on a more critical role than mainstream media by   challenging the mindset of policy makers and creating a space for   average citizens whose concerns would not be echoed in mainstreamed   media. TOC has faced difficulties in registering as a Limited Liability   Partnership due to restrictive criteria. They are also still recruiting   more committed, contributing writers who are persistent in their   reporting. While acknowledging these challenges, Joint-Chief Editor  Ravi Philemon optimistically  believes that an expansion of civic participation  through the use of online tools will allow TOC to continue its mission.
An example of how this site has contributed to offline change would be the issue of foreign or migrant workers in  Singapore.  After a one-week campaign on TOC in 2009, the Ministry of  Manpower (MOM) took action – which include raiding various dormitory sites that house these workers in atrocious conditions. Also, the MOM has also been more answerable after these instances were first highlighted  by TOC and later by the mainstream media. It is thus recommended that the team keep persistent in their advocacy work by staying engaged with responsible agencies to take action on issues that are raised from citizen reporting. The team is exploring the use of technology to crowdsource ideas from the  citizens, modeled on initiatives like  Open Austin  and  Datagov , where people are  able to submit ideas, comment and build on ideas, vote ideas up and  down. This may help offer  visitors more user friendly navigation of key issues.
Key Lesson: Persistent Activism and Close Engagement
The project listings and case studies from Southeast Asia reveal that persistent activism and close engagement with a variety stakeholders – including government agencies with the power to sanction – will take these project from mere information to more accountability and increased civic participation. The more examples of concrete accountability that resulted from online information and participation that these projects can point to, the more successful they will be in generating interest and activism around their causes. However, this often requires broader changes political will and actual legislation to reduce the climate of fear that hinders broader participation in such projects.

author: Sopheap Chak


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Sudan: Checking in with Sudan Vote Monitor · Global Voices
Rebekah Heacock

On the eve of Sudan's 2010 presidential elections, I interviewed Fareed Zein, who heads the citizen election monitoring project Sudan Vote Monitor, for the Technology for Transparency Project.  Zein was hopeful that the project would bring greater transparency to the country's first democratic elections in more than two decades.  “There was basically no idea what was going on on the ground” during previous political events, Zein said at the time.  “What we're hoping to do is shine a light and give people access to events that are occurring at remote election centers.”  On Wednesday I checked in with Zein to get his thoughts on the project now that the elections have ended.
An official from Sudan's National Elections Commission (left) assists a voter at a polling station in Juba, Sudan.  Photo courtesy of United Nations Photo on Flickr.
Overall, how did things go?
It exceeded my expectations.  I had such doubt that we were going to be able to pull it off given all the hurdles and challenges, right to the last minute.  So to have everything worked out and to have the response that we received from the general public — and mind you we had no idea how the public was going to respond — it's just been great.
What were the biggest successes?
The quality of the reporting, the quality of the reports people were sending in, both in Arabic and in English, from all over the country.  It was just really fascinating to see how quickly the public picked up the technology and was able to embrace it.  They really were dying to have an avenue to express their views.
Were there any disappointments?
In terms of things that I wish had gone better, I would have liked to get more reporting from the south, as well as from Darfur.  We got some, but not as much as we were hoping to.  We got quite a bit from the central part of the country all the way up to the north and from the east as well, but from the west and from the south I wish we'd have gotten more.  That probably has to do with the access people have to be able to send reports over the Internet or via SMS.
Another thing is the fact that I was not able to be there physically on the ground with the team that was working heroically to upload and verify the reports.  It was my desire to be on the ground with them in Khartoum and in Juba, but I unfortunately wasn't able to join them.  We had to do this over Skype and over the phone.
If you had another shot at monitoring the elections, what would you do differently?
We probably would try to work out the technology on the ground sooner.  I would have wanted to be on the ground working out the SMS part of it, which took a lot of work.  Our partner organization did a fabulous job in terms of trying to represent us with the telecom companies, but that would be something that I would have wanted to do.
We had to work down to the wire, to the last minute to get the technical pieces working.  We got the short code running literally the night before, just enough time to do some basic testing.  That's one thing I would have wanted to work out earlier, to do some SMS reporting both in the north and the south, so those are some of the lessons we learned.
One of the biggest stories coming out about Sudan Vote Monitor is that the site was blocked for several days during the elections.  Was this a surprise, or was it something you were expecting?
I was expecting some disruption.  I wasn't expecting complete a shut down, but we knew there were risks going in, so I wasn't totally surprised.  I was pleased that it was allowed to operate after two days.  Even during those days where it was blocked we still continued to receive reports.  We were able to work, although in a reduced capacity.  We were determined to work and operate in spite of the challenges — we weren't totally unprepared.
As of April 28, your site has received 257 reports.  How many of these were you able to verify?
That number will probably go even higher if we add up the SMS reports.  We didn't completely finish because we didn't have a way to reach the people that are doing the reporting to verify that.  It's probably somewhere between 300 and 500 when you add it all together.  Most of the web-based ones we were able to verify, and I would say less than half of the SMS ones.
Was there any public response to the reports on your site?
It was more of an avenue for people to get more information, which is precisely what we wanted to do.  In previous elections it was all a closed door affair — nobody knew exactly what went on on the ground.  The intention of this was to be able to get the information out to the public, internally and externally, about what's going on.  Just being able to get the word out was enough for us.  We didn't set out to try to urge anybody to take any specific action.  Our mission was to get the information out and then let people judge and act for themselves.
Now that the elections are over, what's next for Sudan Vote Monitor?
We are evaluating several options.  We're definitely interested in leveraging the experience.  We're compiling a “lessons learned,” and we'll be publishing those.  We think we're onto something here, and we believe that there is a very strong case for doing the same thing for the referendum [on independence for Southern Sudan, scheduled for January 2011].  Between now and the referendum there is a lot of need to get the public engaged, and we feel this platform is a valid and strong platform to do that.  We're talking to some potential groups that are interested in collaborating with us, so definitely look for more.  We will be tabulating and bringing this phase to closure and then publishing our final findings for this event, then setting the next phase very shortly.

author: Rebekah Heacock


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Thailand: Online censorship amid protests  · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

As Red Shirt protesters continue to press their demand for the resignation of Thailand Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, the government is also doing everything to weaken the protests, including the use of emergency powers to block TV stations, community radio stations, and websites that broadcast “subversive” stories.
There are more than 16 million internet users in Thailand and both the pro and anti government forces are bringing their propaganda in the cyberspace to influence the opinion of online Thais.
To prevent the Red Shirts from succeeding in the cyber war, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban has authorized the blocking of 36 websites early this month. But press freedom advocates reported that thousands of websites have been blocked already. They claim the number has already reached 65,000. CJ Hinke reports:
April 9, third day of martial law, the Deputy PM’s CRES center authorised the ICT ministry to block further websites and Twitter if they were being ‘provocative’ in inciting disunity.  He stated that a further 9-10,000 websites (press reports vary) had been blocked since the start of Red rallies in March and that a list of 700 more will follow. Obviously this list had been prepared long beforehand to take advantage of the fact court orders were not necessary.
However, these new government figures bring the total number of websites blocked in Thailand near to 65,000.
NNT uploaded this April 10 brief statement from the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology
The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology has now been strictly curbing all defamatory internet contents that likely pose serious threat to national security with an aim of preventing further division in the society.
Meanwhile, the internet users have been warned to use the internet in the right way or with appropriate purpose and avoid disseminating information that could create misunderstanding or instigate violent actions among the public. Also, all popular websites and social networks such as facebook, twitter, hi5 and my space will be under thorough watch.
Violators will be prosecuted by law with no compromise.
The following day, the Ministry reported that they were able to detect 300 websites everyday that instigate violence
The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) has daily detected over 300 websites containing radical political views that instigated violent actions among the public.
MICT urged for public cooperation to report defamatory internet contents via Hotline 1212 or email them directly to 1212@mict.mail.go.th.
The Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation is recommending the closure of additional 190 “dangerous” websites
The Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation has ordered the MICT to close 190 websites, of which over 60% are claimed to be politically seditious.  Since the red shirt protests started, the MICT has ordered the blocking of about 500 URLs per day on average.
About 7-8 URLs of the YouTube website where seditious clips were posted have been ordered closed
Thai Journalists’ Association and the Thailand Cable TV Association issued this statement in response to the censorship activities of the state
The blockade of information like this definitely affected the people’s rights to free information. The people affected by the information blockade could come out to demonstrate in a bigger number and could cause the situation to be more complicated and lead to violence.
A group of former senators of Thailand made this demand
Stop all the obstruction of public information flows and news reports presented in print media, radio and TV stations, telecommunications, the Internet and all other kind of media, in order to return the constitutional rights to information and expression to the people.
FACT – – Freedom Against Censorship Thailand asks if the government secured a court order before it blocked the “seditious” websites
The new cebnsorship means that Thailand blocks nearly 65,000 websites. So we have a few questions for the ICT minister. Why are your blocklists not made public with the reasons for each block? Did you get court orders to block these 10,000 more websites as required by the Computer Crimes Act prior to martial law? Why won't you make these court orders public?
Reading the tweets from Bangkok in the past 24 hours, it seems censorship is still imposed on several websites, including Facebook
naruta_noo_mu: The URL you requested has been blocked. URL = www.facebook.com/
Nok_Kasama: RT @bangkokpundit If they start asking Abhisit hard Qs, will the govt censor BBC? (yes this is a joke) // and I laugh about it.
elgrodo: Wonder if one should refer to Internet censorship here as ‘The Great Tyrewall of Thailand’
MyselFlesyM: Facebook was blocked
bkkbase: Amazing Thailand. Never know which website blocked message will show up next.
VictorBurgundy: it seems like CNN has been blocked from the internet in BKK, maybe pitched battle is happening between UDD & soldiers on Vasapat soi
thaimythbuster: Reporters Without Borders is also surprised by a court ruling upholding the government’s censorship of PTV,
farangone: RT @pdouble0k: Springnews is blocked by the Gov
MB2MB: RT @vaitor: recent survey on political censorship at bangkok university: 68% angry with tv/internet censorship but only 27% would fight for free speech
Thailand is listed as one of the countries in the world which is accused of enforcing media censorship. Several journalists and individuals have been charged and jailed already for lese majeste.


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Trinidad & Tobago: Checking the Facts  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

KnowTnT.com‘s Edmund Gall thinks “it would be nice if a couple professional journalists in T&T could produce a weekly fact-check column for the duration of the elections.”

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Ukraine: Chaotic Ratification of the Gas-for-Fleet Deal · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

On April 27, 236 Ukrainian MPs (UKR) voted in favor of the ratification of an agreement allowing Russia to extend the lease on its Black Sea naval base until 2042. In exchange, Ukraine would get discounts on Russia's natural gas “worth $40 billion over 10 years.”
The ratification of the gas-for-fleet deal took place in a chaotic setting. Among other things, security guards were forced to employ two umbrellas to shelter parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn from the eggs hurled at him by opposition members. Here is footage from Channel 5's April 27 newscast (UKR):
Below is some of the Anglophone blog commentary on the deal and its disorderly ratification in Ukraine.
Ukrainiana posts available footage from inside the parliament building, as well as a couple videos of the protest that took place outside, and writes:
[…] The unconstitutional treaty that gives Ukraine’s oligarchs gas discounts and extends the presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet until 2042 gathered 236 votes.
That included absentee MPs Kivalov and Holovaty, members of the ruling Party of Regions.
Outside, thousands of people rallied against the treaty and wrestled with police.
Amid the struggle and mayhem inside, opposition leaders failed to communicate with the protesters outside. In the absence of live coverage, the protesters relied on cell phones and portable radios.
Thus, the protesters on the ground found themselves a little out of touch with the ones on the Rada [the Ukrainian parliament] floor. […]
Kyiv Scoop writes this:
Eggs, smoke bombs, sirens and fisticuffs  were not enough to stop Ukraine’s parliament from making a mockery of the democratic process on April 27. Without any debate or discussion, the legislature ratified an agreement that will allow Russian military maintain a presence in Ukraine until 2042 and adopted the state budget for 2010. […]
[…]
[…] In post-Soviet Ukraine, MPs do not have to be physically present in parliament to vote: it’s enough for their “voting cards” to be in the right hands under the dome on Hrushevsky Street. For example, where was Regions MP Serhiy Holovaty when he voted to ratify the Black Sea Fleet agreement? In Strasbourg, France. Ukrainian democracy allows for elected officials to perform their duties virtually.
Ask a Ukrainian who represents their community in parliament and they won’t know, because the current Rada was elected according to a proportional, closed list system. There is no direct representation. All a voter saw on the ballot when he/she voted in 2007 were the first ten names of every party of electoral bloc. Ukrainians not only do not know who represents them, they don’t even know who they voted for. As a result, a bunch of no names responsible to nobody except their party boss, who bought their way onto their party list are in parliament. This is the worst Rada ever, making some of the worst decisions – ever.
[…]
Leopolis writes this:
[…] In the years of national democracy (or democratic chaos), fisticuffs in the Rada was a common occurrence. After Yanukovych promised to take Ukraine along a pragmatic course, today's bar fight is more of the same. […] This time, eggs and tomatoes were launched and smoke bombs went off. AP picked it up. Ukraine is, once again, a laughing stock in the Western press. […]
In all seriousness, there is a trend emerging — the orangeists, now in opposition, appear to be employing the same tactics used by the blues during 2004-2009. […]
[…]
While many will see this fight as some new development (the orange opposition behaving badly), it is hardly new. If anything, this egg-battle in the Verkhovna Rada is a wonderful example of the approval of “pragmatic” politics.
Marina Starozhitskaya wrote this at OpenDemocracy.net:
[…] The fleet was not on the agenda, and in fact it was not supposed to be on the agenda for another five yeas. There was absolutely no need to extend the term of stationing of the Russian Black Sea fleet at all – this is simply the best chance for the first “test of compliancy” of the new Ukrainian president. […]
Streetwise Professor reviews some of the expert opinion on the issue and concludes:
[…] Remember the old Soviet joke: “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us”?  Well, I’d characterize this deal as “We pretend to give them a price break, and they pretend to extend our lease.”  All this deal does is create more promises to be broken.  And broken they will be.
Siberian Light comes up with a different conclusion:
[…] Well, actually, I think that today’s been a pretty good day for Ukraine. By extending the lease until 2042 in exchange for a 30% reduction in gas bills, Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych has negotiated a cracking deal.
In real terms, 30% translates to around $4 billion per year – and over $120 billion over the lifetime of the deal. And all for a naval base that (a) Ukraine probably doesn’t really mind Russia having and (b) if Russia left, Ukraine would have to pay to decommission. […]

author: Veronica Khokhlova


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Africa: Trivializing African football · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Is Coca Cola trivialiazing African football?: “Having stripped the Somalian singer K’Naan’s protest song, “Waving Flag” of any meaning, Coco Cola now sets about to trivialize African football history.”

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Azerbaijan: Dozens reported detained at anniversary commemoration · Global Voices
Onnik Krikorian

Twitter and Facebook users, as well as local news agencies, report that dozens of youth activists were today detained in Azerbaijan as they attempted to mark the first anniversary of shootings in Baku's Oil Academy which left 12 dead. Although not related to their online activity, among those detained were at least two bloggers, Nigar Fatali and Araz Oner. Until full details are known @leylanajafli is tweeting more information from various sources.

author: Onnik Krikorian


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Bangladesh: Media In Despair · Global Voices
Rezwan

Maskwaith Ahsan at Voice Of Bangladeshi Bloggers discusses about the shutting down of a private TV channel in Bangladesh by the government and issues relating to it.


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Benin: Iyanda’s diary in Benin · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Funmi's diary about her visit and filming experience in Benin: “After all the mystery and hushed tones l had experienced during the research about the holy Aruosa church, l had expected a much more impressive building but the church was pretty nondescript.”


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Bermuda: Campaign Finance  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“I agree that political funding in Bermuda needs reform but doubt that our politicians – in any of the three tribes – have the stomach to tackle it”: Vexed Bermoothes thinks it's “because the disclosure of campaign contributions is just scratching the surface…”


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China: Swiss army knife, meet the PLA super shovel · Global Voices
John Kennedy

It chops, saws, snips, rips through clay rock, helps you up cliffs and slices your potatoes: it's the People's Liberation Army multifunction shovel. Seen here in this limited speed viral video, order yours today by calling this number — FREE SHIPPING WHILE SUPPLIES LAST.

author: John Kennedy


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China: The un-natural death in the Chinese detention center · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Damon from interlocals published a video on the issue of un-natural death in the Chinese detention center.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Ghana: Best beaches in Ghana · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Gayle writes a post with photos discussing her favourite beaches in Ghana.


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Hong Kong: Vote in the coming election · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Joyceyland comments on government arrangement of the coming Legislative council by-election and urges people to vote in this de facto referendum to express their desire for democracy.


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India: Sacrificing Career Freedom For Marriage · Global Voices
Rezwan

Prerna at I Love Life.. So I Explore  shares a real life story from India about women, who are forced to sacrifice their career and other freedom to maintain balance in their marriages.


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India: Who Benefitted From IPL? · Global Voices
Rezwan

Lalit Modi, Chairman and Commissioner of the Indian Premier League (IPL) was recently sacked due to corruption charges. Devendra Sharma at Desicritics speaks up in Mr. Modi's defense citing his contributions and the list of beneficiaries who profited from IPL.


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Iran: A ‘Green’ Labor Day (At Least Online) · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

The Iranian Green Movement is planning to make International Workers Day on May 1 a “green” day. The opposition movement has not held any important demonstration in last the two months, since their last attempt to hold demonstrations in February on the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution were thwarted by the regime. The green movement is using the internet as a creative bridge to make the event a reality.
May 1 has never been officially-sanctioned as a holiday in Iran.
Green Wave Voice presents:
Another video presents graffiti on walls in Iran for May 1st. The written slogans say, “Celebrate student and worker solidarity”, “Down with the regime on workers’ day” and “Bread, housing and freedom.”
Here are more photos and posters published on pro green movement websites.
An invitation to demonstration in Shiraz:
Art talks:
Green Power:

author: Fred Petrossian