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Global Voices in Haiti: On Reconstruction · Global Voices
Georgia Popplewell

Global Voices has sent a two-person team to Port-au-Prince in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, to help support citizen media activity. Georgia Popplewell and Alice Backer are also contributing firsthand reporting to our coverage of recovery efforts. Find out more about their assignment here.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI, January 30, 2010
Having spent the last year doing a house renovation, and one that’s involved a fair amount of demolition, I’m naturally intrigued by the conversations around the rebuilding of Haiti post-earthquake. We heard yesterday that they’ve begun to tear down the damaged buildings in Port-au-Prince, even though an official demolition plan is yet to be announced. We’ve seen a fair amount of salvaging, do-it-yourself rubble-removal, and a backhoe or two on our trips around town: those who can and those who can afford to, such as private enterprises like Sogebank, are forging ahead with the cleanup process.
Men salvage furniture from an earthquake-damaged house in Port-au-Prince. Photo by Georgia Popplewell, posted at Flickr under a Creative Commons license
Jacqueline Charles writes in the Miami Herald that “government estimates that 25,000 government offices and businesses either toppled or need to be demolished. In addition, there are 225,000 residences that are no longer habitable. In all, some 2.1 billion cubic feet of concrete and rubble need to be hauled out of the city.” The article says that the United Nations Development Programme has hired 12,000 people to clean up debris and hope to have 50,000 clearing roads by next week. I'm assuming this information has come via the daily briefings the UN has been holding for journalists at their headquarters. A development agency contact who's been attending the briefings tells me he's yet to see a Haitian journalist there. He also says he rarely sees non-Haitians at the briefings hosted by the Haitian government.
There's been much discussion about the role played by building standards, or lack thereof, in intensifying the impact of the disaster. Marc Herman, writing a few days ago, reminds us that cultural practices are also part of the mix. “But Adolphe Saint-Louis, a 49-year-old quake survivor interviewed in Port au Prince by New American Media, describes something more complicated than iffy concrete,” Marc writes:
But even houses that don't appear to be designed with expansion in mind appear to favour concrete as a roofing material. Travelling around Port-au-Prince, I've seen gables and hip roofs made of concrete.
Then there's the critical matter of shelter for those who have lost their homes. Those who can manage it are already beginning to repair and rebuild for themselves. Those who can't have been evacuated to the country side or are living in increasingly fetid improvised tent cities — or rather “sheet cities”, as I heard someone remark, as genuine tents are few and far between.
There's talk of setting up official settlements with proper facilities, which one hopes won't replicate the old mistakes. In the meantime, the crowds camped out in Place St. Pierre in Pétionville — likely one of the better serviced settlements — make do with a handful of portable toilets, and the daily information bulletins ask people to refrain from defecating in the streets. You keep your fingers crossed that this will all be sorted out in time for the rainy season, which begins in three months’ time.
Several of the 19th-century gingerbread houses in Port-au-Prince managed to weather the January 12 earthquake. Photo by Georgia Popplewell, posted at Flickr under a Creative Commons license
Originally posted at Caribbean Free Radio.
Global Voices’ work in Haiti is supported by our general support donors and by a humanitarian information grant from Internews. Please visit the Global Voices Haiti Earthquake page for more coverage.


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Haiti: Where are the 15 missing children? · Global Voices
Fabienne Flessel

In the aftermath of the earthquake, the question of international adoption and its legitimacy has been on many mouths: Both  Espas Ayisyen  and Haiti Recto Verso weigh in by posting a UNICEF statement [Fr] announcing that 15 children are “missing” from Haitian hospitals and questioning the possibility of abduction.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Fabienne Flessel


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Haiti: Wired Money May Help Rebuild Before Aid · Global Voices
Marc Herman

With phone lines being restored in Haiti, money sent from families abroad “by wire” is again arriving, and helping reconstruction even where international aid has not arrived. Remittances from family members living abroad represented at least thirty percent of Haiti's Gross National Product before the January 12 earthquake.
The two largest Haitian communities outside Haiti are those in the Dominican Republic and the United States. Between 400 thousand and 600 thousand Haitian citizens call each of the neighboring nations home. Another 80-100 thousand live in other Caribbean nations or in France. This chart from the Inter-American Development bank, based on a 2006 study, claims that Haitians living in the United States sent nearly $1.9 billion home annually.
The collapse of telephone service and, in some cases the buildings that housed banks and remittance offices, had temporarily cut off that money. But this week long lines were visible outside money transfer offices, such as this CAM office in Carrefour, southeast of Port au Prince, photographed by GV's Georgia Poppelwell.
Though the capital has received the bulk of media attention, it's not necessarily where the money sent by family members abroad will arrive. The International Association of Money Transfer Networks, an industry association which represents companies that carry electronic money transfers, says that about half the funds wired to Haiti from the US, the largest source of remittances, is sent to rural areas. That's significant because those areas are also seeing an increase in population, as people displaced by the quake go to live with family and friends in hometowns and less-damaged areas.
Dilip Ratha, a World Bank economist, argues at the bank's blog that remittances could hold a more important role with the emergency extension of “temporary protected” immigration status (“TPS) to as many as 200 thousand Haitians living in the US.
If the TPS resulted in a 20 percent increase in the average remittance per migrant, we would expect an additional $360 million remittance flows to Haiti in 2010! What is more, if the TPS were to be extended once beyond the currently stipulated 18 months – the extension is almost certain to happen, judging by the history of extensions of the TPS for El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia and Sudan – additional fund flows to Haiti would exceed a billion dollar over three years. That would be a billion dollar of financial help coupled with goodwill and advice, tailored to the needs of the recipient. Financial help in the form of remittances from family members abroad is always the first to arrive in times of distress. Remittances to Haiti this year will surge, as they have done whenever and wherever there has been a crisis or natural disaster

author: Marc Herman


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Iran: A cleric blogger was arrested · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

According to some Iranian sites and blogs Ali Ashraf Fathi, a Qom based religious student and blogger was arrested  [fa] on Friday. He used to write [fa] in his blog Tourjan.

author: Fred Petrossian


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Iran: Iranian Cyber Army hacked Radio Zamaneh · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Iranian Cyber Army hacked Netherlands based Radio Zamaneh. The message on the hacked site says in Persian: “you who betray your country are not safe even when you are with your masters.” Iranian Cyber army recently hacked Twitter and Chinese Baidu but does not claim any direct link with Iranian government.


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Pakistan: Depleting Water Resources · Global Voices
Rezwan

Owais Mughal at All Things Pakistan discusses about the depleting water resources of Pakistan and urges the decision makers to “invest in Pakistan’s Water Resources for the stability of the country and the region.”

author: Rezwan


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Russia: Consumerism · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

St Petersblurb sees “the whole EU exactly through the eyes of a Russian” ex-girlfriend: “It’s just a retail chain with branches in different languages.”

author: Veronica Khokhlova


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Russia: Vladimir Vysotsky · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

St Petersblurb and Leopolis pay tribute to Vladimir Vysotsky, who would have turned 72 on January 25.


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Serbia: “No” to NATO · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Belgraded believes that “Serbia does not need to have a military at all, and therefore does not need to join NATO.”


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Sri Lanka: ‘Lanka E news’ Banned · Global Voices
Rezwan

Journalists For Democracy In Sri Lanka blog informs that “the office of the ‘Lanka e news’, a prominent news website operating from Sri Lanka, has been sealed off by the authorities. [..] Two days before the elections, another regular contributor to the website, Prageeth Eknalogoda, went missing.”


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Tunisia: Language Choices  · Global Voices
Lina Ben Mhenni

In this post entitled  Arabic, French or English: for “whom” the bell tolls?  the Third Ijtihad talks about the use of languages in speaking with others.

author: Lina Ben Mhenni


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Ukraine: “Bring Your Skates” · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Greetings from Kyiv posts an update on the situation on Kyiv's sidewalks: “This year, Kyiv City Services decided not to clean up the snow so the snow on the sidewalks turns into a very slippery ice rink. The fact that cars use the sidewalks as parking lots adds to the problem and makes it even slicker.”


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Ukraine: Involvement in Afghanistan · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Leigh Turner, UK Ambassador to Ukraine, writes about Ukraine's involvement in Afghanistan, now and then.


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Afghanistan: Behind the London Conference · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Dafydd watches the London international conference on Afghanistan and opines that the organisers’ new strategy for this country involves buying off low level Taliban fighters and cutting a deal with more senior figures via amnesty of relatively senior figures from the pre 2001 Taliban regime.

author: Adil Nurmakov


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Afghanistan: Fresh Data Sources · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Nick Fielding reviews new publication on negotiating with the Taliban and recommends a great source of stats on security, governance, socio-economic indicators and polling information.


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Belarus: LGBT Issues · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

BelarusDigest quotes from a chapter on Belarus that was included in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of LGBT Issues Worldwide earlier this year.


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Global Voices in Haiti: Talking to Volunteer Régine Zamor · Global Voices
Alice Backer

Global Voices has sent a two-person team to Port-au-Prince in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, to help support citizen media activity. Georgia Popplewell and Alice Backer are also contributing firsthand reporting to our coverage of recovery efforts. Find out more about their assignment here.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI, 30 January, 2010
Régine Zamor is a Haitian-American based in New Rochelle, New York, but raised in Brooklyn. Her Haitian family is from Martissant. She decided to come to Haiti after the 12 January earthquake and volunteer on her own, without signing up with a major NGO. She had contacts in Haiti and the Dominican Republic before arriving, having volunteered with Haitian indentured laborers in Batey Ocho, Barahona, in the Dominican Republic last summer. Her family and friends in the United States were supportive of her decision.
Régine is a film producer and writer who just finished a  documentary film on street children in Cap Haïtien, titled Bagay Dwòl. She has been blogging about the film and about her first-response volunteering at her blog, Bagay Dwol Journal.
When she initially arrived in Haiti, a couple of days after the quake, she researched where her help was needed and wound up volunteering in food distribution, information sharing — both in person and through her blog — and in  medical supplies distribution through various contacts at smaller NGOs such as SOIL, Wynn Farm, and COHEF.
Georgia Popplewell and I met with her at the Hotel Oloffson a couple of afternoons ago.
“I didn't want to wait”
When I told other Haitians living in the United States that I was traveling to Haiti with Global Voices, many who were on waiting lists with large well-known NGOs and US government agencies expressed dismay. For example, my friend Alex — who holds a masters degree in public health administration and has been working in the healthcare industry in the United States for years — was itching to be picked from a volunteer list. When Régine explained to Georgia and me  how she made it to Haiti shortly after the quake, I immediately thought of Alex and all the others waiting in the U.S.
Régine decided not to wait, and in this video she explains how she connected with the work she wound up doing:
(A version of this video with French subtitles is also available on dotSUB.)
Régine and other first-responders took food distribution in their own hands and at their own cost
I have only spotted one UN-run food distribution line since my arrival here a week ago. It was near the National Palace, and proved so chaotic that either tear gas or pepper spray was allegedly used on the crowd. A handful of UN officers seemed to be handling a crowd of thousands. A system for the distribution of the global influx of aid by either the UN or the Haitian government has yet to materialize. But in speaking to Régine, it became clear that many Haitians and others willing to help took matters into their own hands during the first-response period.
Here Régine explains how she coordinated with an NGO contact in the Dominican Republic to buy food, have it sent to Port-au-Prince, and distribute it to Orphelinat l'Amour du Bon Berger.
Volunteering with the Parc Antoine Izméry Clinic in Delmas 33
When we met Régine at the Oloffson, an American buddy from her hometown of New Rochelle, NY,  interrupted our meeting to introduce some doctors to her. Régine left Georgia and me to go and meet them, and eventually introduced us to one of them, an American doctor who has served Haitian patients in the Bahamas for the past 11 years. She turned to us and said: “He just agreed to come to the Sité Solèy Clinic with me tomorrow morning.”
That is precisely what Régine means by her role in “information sharing”. Via word of mouth and using all means available, she has connected tens of people to whatever service needs she has identified or become aware of.
Here Régine shares a bit about the work she has been doing at the medical clinic at Park Antoine Izméry in Delmas 33:
On her blog, she explains how she delivered  needed medical supplies to Kenscoff.
Régine's journey is far from over. Like many of the Haitian-Americans I have met in Port-au-Prince, she is planning on installing herself permanently here in the next few weeks. Here are her “Helpful Resources for Volunteering in NYC.”
Global Voices’ work in Haiti is supported by our general support donors and by a humanitarian information grant from Internews. Please visit the Global Voices Haiti Earthquake page for more coverage.

author: Alice Backer


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Haiti: The Homeless Situation · Global Voices
Fabienne Flessel

Potoprincipe expresses [Fr] bewilderment at Haitian president Preval's decision to live under a tent in front of the ravaged Presidential palace, in solidarity with his people, when solutions need to be found to relieve the homeless, who will soon have to cope with the coming hurricane season.


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Iran: Two Bloggers in Danger of Death · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Two bloggers and members of the “Committee of Human Rights” (Chrr), Mehrdad Rahimi and Kouhyar Goudarzi (photographed above: Goudarzi, left, and Rahimi, right) have been accused of wanting to wage “a war against God,” and charged as being “Mohareb” (enemies of God). Their charges are similar to those against the two men who were executed this week in Tehran. Reporters without Borders writes other bloggers who are members of the committee have also been arrested in recent weeks. They are Parisa Kakei, who was arrested on January 2; Shiva Nazar Ahari on December 24; and Said Kanaki and Said Jalali on December 1. They are all still being held in Section 209 of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison and are being subjected to considerable pressure to name other members of the committee and to call for it to be disbanded.
Chrr writes [fa] that Mehrdad Rahimi is under pressure to do a “television confession.”
This organization adds:
Koohyar Goodarzi, journalist and human rights activist, has reportedly been transferred from solitary confinement to a three-person cell in Ward 209 of Evin prison. Goodarzi has been detained since December 20, 2009.
It is not clear that how much their blogging activities played in their arrest but both of them used to blog on human rights issues.
Mehrdad Rahimi in his blog talked about diverse social, political and economic issues such as labour rights. He once wrote:
Many got arrested for months without any right to have access to any lawyer.
Koohyar Goodarzi in a long post asked for freedom for other members of the Committee of Human Rights.
Iranian authorities have jailed several bloggers such as Hossien Derakhshan in recent years. Omid Reza Mir Sayafi, a 29-year old Iranian blogger and journalist died in Evin Prison in Tehran on March 18, 2009.


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Kazakhstan: “Kelin” Shortlisted for Oscar · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Mursya writes that the Kazakh film “Kelin” (“The Daughter-in-Law,” directed by Ermek Tursunov) was shortlisted with 8 others for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.


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Kazakhstan: Glutting the Wheat Industry · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Joshua Foust reviews the situation in Kazakhstan's wheat industry, noting weak professionalism of the agriculture officials in managing market price fluctuations and food crisis risks.


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Kyrgyzstan: Sheeps to receive passports · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Noah reports on the striking decision of the Kyrgyz authorities to issue a passport and disaster insurance to every sheep and other livestock.


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Puerto Rico: Bloggers discuss Roe v. Wade  · Global Voices
Firuzeh Shokooh Valle

The 37th anniversary of the landmark United States Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade (January 22, 1973)  spurred bloggers in Puerto Rico to express their opinions about a ruling that still sparks controversy. The decision made abortion legal in the United States, and it was extended to Puerto Rico due to the Island's political relationship with the US (Puerto Rico is a US commonwealth). Feminist bloggers from Puerto Rico, all of them pro-choice, joined to voice their thoughts on occasion of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. We have also included the opinion of bloggers on the other side of the debate.
Feminist lawyer Verónica RT explains in her blog Mujeres en Puerto Rico [ES] that when it comes to abortion women's voices are still silenced:
Sin embargo, y a pesar de que ya van casi cuatro décadas desde el reconocimiento de tal derecho, el aborto continúa siendo un tabú, las historias de las mujeres que han abortado son silenciadas, y el espacio retórico ha sido casi completamente ocupado por las corrientes fundamentalistas que utilizan la religión como justificación para subordinar a las mujeres…Nos corresponde, entonces, a nosotras velar por ser las autoras de nuestras propias historias, sin intervención indebida del Estado ni de nuestras parejas, ni de una sociedad aún machista. Después de todo, la historia de nuestra emancipación la escribiremos nosotras. Nadie más.
Although more than four decades have passed since this right was recognized, abortion is still a taboo. Stories of women who have had an abortion are silenced, and the rhetoric space has been almost completely occupied by fundamentalists who use religion to justify the subordination of women…It is our task to be the writers of our own stories, without having the State or our partners’ intervening, nor a sexist society. After all, we are the ones who will write the story of our liberation. No one else.
Photo by Punkassphotos. Republished under a CC Licence.
Feminist blogger Nahomi Galindo also explains [ES] her position:
La experiencia de la maternidad varía de mujer en mujer. Defender el derecho al aborto no significa obligar a las mujeres a realizárselo; por el contrario, implica que las mujeres que lo necesiten tengan la libertad de elegir sin ser perseguidas ni exponerse a morir en el proceso. Por eso es importante recordar un lema feminista que dice: “Imagina que te prohibieran parir. Ahora imagina que te obligaran”. En esta frase invita a reflexionar sobre cuán macabro es ejercer el poder sobre el cuerpo de la mujer sin incluirla en la decisión.
Women experience motherhood in different ways. To defend the right of abortion does not mean to force women to have an abortion. On the contrary, it means that women who need an abortion should have the freedom to choose, without being persecuted nor exposing themselves to dying as part of the procedure.  This is why it’s important to remember the feminist slogan that says: “Imagine if you were prohibited to have children. Now imagine that you were forced to.” This phrase invites us to reflect on how terrible it is to exercise power over women’s bodies without including her in the decision.
Every woman should have the power to decide over her body and health. When we speak in public about abortion what we are asking is that women who need an abortion may have access to a free, safe and hygienic procedure, without being criminalized for it. We also claim for a responsible sexual education that includes information on pregnancy prevention not limited to the disastrous pro-abstinence campaign.
In her blog Promesa Política [ES], Mariana Iriarte expresses her thoughts:
Cuando me preguntan por qué, aún siendo madre, defiendo el derecho al aborto siempre contesto que lo defiendo porque tener un hijo fue mi decisión. El cuerpo de las mujeres debe estar en el ámbito de agencia de éstas, no en el Estado, la sociedad o la religión. Decidir qué hacer con tu cuerpo y controlar tu sistema reproductivo es un derecho fundamental que, de ninguna manera, debiera ser regulado por el Estado.
When I am asked why I defend the right of abortion, although I am a mother, I always say it is because I decided to have a child. Women should be able to exercise agency over their bodies, not the State, society or religion. To be able to decide what to do with your body, and control your reproductive system, is a fundamental right that should not be regulated by the State.
According to feminist blogger and Philosophy student Sahir Pujols [ES] people must first define when life begins:
Reflexiones sobre la limitación de la mujer ante un evento como el de reproducir una criatura. Estas limitaciones, si es que deben de existir, no pueden estar basadas en la concepción de un credo religioso fundamentalista, sino sobre las reflexiones de cuándo comienza la vida y el uso de la libertad.  Según las investigaciones de la neurobiología del feto, reseñadas por el bioeticista y neurocientífico Michael Gazzaniga, se puede concluir que podemos conceder una categoría ética al feto desde el sexto mes  de gestación.  ¿Cuál es el criterio para hacer este señalamiento? El desarrollo del sistema nervioso con el cual el feto comienza a experimentar estados de conciencia.
Reflections on the limits of a woman before an event such as the reproduction of a child. These limits, if they must exist, should not be based on the belief of a fundamentalist religious creed, but rather on a reflection on when life begins and the use of freedom. According to research by the neurobiologist Michael Gazzaniga, we can conclude that we can give an ethical category to the fetus beginning on the sixth month of gestation. What are the criteria used to reach this conclusion? This is when the nervous system develops, by which the fetus starts to experience states of consciousness.
Blogger Michael Castro has a different take [ES] on the abortion debate:
Como cristiano estoy en contra del aborto. Considero que es un crimen un asesinato de una inocente criatura que no tuvo culpa de ser concebido. Aún así entiendo a la mujer violada que quiera hacerse un aborto y no puedo decir que sea un crimen en aquellos casos donde la vida de la madre está en eminente riesgo. Leí Roe vs Wade y tampoco puedo estar en desacuerdo con el razonamiento de la Corte Suprema, cada mujer tiene pleno derecho a hacer con su cuerpo lo que desee y el Estado no puede coartar ese derecho…Como todo en la vida los derechos pueden ser abusados… Menores de edad usando el aborto como método para controlar la natalidad. ¿Qué pasó con la educación sexual? ¿Qué pasó con los contraceptivos? ¿Qué pasó con el respeto a la vida?
As a Christian I am against abortion. I believe that it is a crime to kill an innocent child who is not responsible for having been conceived. Having said that, I also understand that a raped woman might want an abortion, and I cannot say it is a crime when the mother’s life is in danger. I read Roe vs Wade, and I cannot be against the reasoning behind the Supreme Court’s opinion that every woman has the right to decide over her body, and that the State cannot intervene in this…As with everything in life, rights can also be abused…There are minors who are using abortion to control natality. What happened with sexual education? What happened with birth control methods? What happened with the respect for life?
The photo was taken from Fotopedia. Please visit PunkassPhotos photostream on Flickr.

author: Firuzeh Shokooh Valle


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Russia: Miss Virtual Yakutia 2010 · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

eYakutia posts an update on the ongoing Miss Virtual Yakutia 2010 contest.


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Serbia, Russia: Author Awarded for Book on Ratko Mladić · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

A Slice Of Serbian Politics reports on the award given by the Union of Russian Writers to Ljiljana Bulatović for her book “Report to the General”: “Ljiljana was awarded in the ‘Slav Fraternity’ category with the ‘Imperial Culture’ award for, as it is stated, ‘her courage, commitment, and unswerving dedication to the cause of the unity of the Orthodox Slav people’. The main character of the book for which Ljiljana has been awarded is Ratko Mladić […].”


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Tajikistan: Judges seek to silence press · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Alpharabius posts a story of the Tajik high-level judges, who conspired to punish three independent newspapers for publishing a sensational story about unlawful conviction practices at the courts.


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Tajikistan: Power Plant as a National Idea · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

TajikVoice posts (and Andrey translates) stories of real people in Tajikistan, telling how they are being forced to “voluntarily donate” money to the construction of the Rogun dam and hydroelectric power plant.


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The Balkans: “Six Reasons for Marrying a Balkan Man” · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Ruth Platt-Stavrik's “Six Reasons for Marrying a Balkan Man” – at MladiInfo.com (via Belgraded).


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Turkmenistan: Jesus saves Turkmenistan on TV · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Annasoltan says that Kanal Hayat (Channel Life), a satellite channel programming in Turkish about Christianity, has launched programs in Turkmen language that are broadcast in Turkmenistan.


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Ukraine: Salo · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

The Pickle Project writes about salo, “the adored raw pork fat enjoyed on its own and in many of timeless Ukrainian dishes.”


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Ukraine: UK Ambassador’s Ukrainian Vocabulary · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Leigh Turner, UK Ambassador to Ukraine, writes on how the Ukrainian phrases he is learning reflect the political, economic and social situation in the country.


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Barbados, Haiti: Do the Right Thing  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“If there is nothing as strong as an idea whose time has come, the notion of ‘debt forgiveness’ for Haiti has arrived in our time as a nine-point-five on whatever scale it is that measures compassion”: Blogging from Barbados, B.C. Pires thinks that CARICOM countries should be leading the charge when it comes to canceling Haiti's debt.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Bermuda: Budget Delay  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Bermudian bloggers have little faith in their Finance Minister's competence.


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Bhutan: The $200 Per Day Tour Package · Global Voices
Rezwan

Tshokey at Kuzu – Bhutan Weblog discusses the merits and demerits of the the US $ 200 per day govt. tour package fee imposed on every tourists in Bhutan, which includes accommodation, meals and different tour programs.


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China: Anti-peaceful evolution and information freedom · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Geremie R. Barmé from China Beat contextualizes the recent debate between China and U.S on Internet freedom around Google incident under the CCP's struggle against the peaceful evolution of its political system back in 1959 and 1989.

author: Oiwan Lam


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China: Survey on Chinese Twitter users · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Kenengba conducted a Chinese Twitter user survey on Jan 27 2010. Apart from mapping out the background of Chinese twitterers, the blogger wants to find out why Chinese netizens take all the trouble to get around the Great Fire Wall for getting access to Twitter. He received around 1,000 responses and posted the finding in his blog.
数据显示13%的受访者为女性，87%为男性。这与大多数人的预测基本吻合，中文Twitter圈子阳气过重，男性推友应该鼓励身边的女性朋友上Twitter，不然，按照这个比例，在Twitter上找到女朋友的几率不会很大。
数据显示大多数推友的年龄在21-29岁之间，这部分推友占了将近70%的比例。…在接受调查的推友里，年龄最小的是12岁，最大的为55岁。下面是年龄分布直方图，很明显地，推友的年龄呈正态分布…
持有或即将持有本科学历的占了中文Twitter用户的绝大部分，硕士学历的推友是Twitter中文圈的第二大群体，接下来是大专学历的推友。
同时我们也应该注意到，一群高中生正在向Web2.0拥抱。
若干年前，有着自由思想的大学生做了一件轰动的事。现在，掌权者怎么可能轻易让大学生上Twitter？
We should notice that a group of high school students is running towards Web 2.0.
Many years ago, liberal minded university students marked our history, the authority will never allow undergraduate using Twitter.
将近一半的受访推友来自北京、上海、广东三地，接下来分别是：浙江、江苏、福建。。。这6个地区的推友占了总数的67%。从地图上看，这6个地区都位于沿海地区，经济相对比较发达。
从数据里可以看到，学生推友占了将近30%，然后是“计算机软、硬件”行业15%、“互联网产品相关”12.5%。如果将后两者归类为IT行业，那学生和IT人士占了推友的50%以上，他们是Twitter的主力军。
As for the question on why they choose to take all the trouble for getting access to Twitter, here is a list of their answer:
1、了解真相，开拓视野
2、用微博客随时随地记录生活、分享生活
3、获取资讯，关注民主政治
4、因为饭否被关了
5、每周要给火星同事扫盲（误），把twitter作为各种八卦消息来源
6、开始是为了follow喜欢的球星，后来渐渐喜欢上twitter的一切！
7、觉得twitter的交流方式很有趣
8、在这里信息无审查，信息最原始的传递逻辑得以在twitter保留
9、打发时间
10、看腿叔（@kcome）
11、我从可能吧知道这个东西，我觉得作为一名党员应该尽可能的多了解世界。
12、在这儿我想说什么就说什么。而不用去考虑，这句话我该不该说，该怎么说。会不会说过了而触犯了什么“法律”。 这就是自由的味道，我喜欢这种味道。
13、在政治灌输很严重的军校，Twitter让我能保持独立的公民意识。
14、大学老师介绍
15、这里说谎的人少
16、工作需要
17、新闻系学生的必然选择
18、仅凭对新技术的热爱
19、最早是因为某暗恋的女生在上Twitter，所以我也…
20、为什么不上twitter？


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Cuba: Trudging On  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“I feel a terror that almost doesn’t let me type, but I want to tell those who today threatened me and my family, that when one reaches a certain level of panic, higher doses don’t make any difference. I will not stop writing, or Twittering; I have no plans to close my blog, nor abandon the practice of thinking with my own mind…”: Cuba's Generation Y holds fast to her beliefs.


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Global Voices in Haiti: The Grand Rue Artists, After the Earthquake · Global Voices
Georgia Popplewell

Global Voices has sent a two-person team to Port-au-Prince in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, to help support citizen media activity. Georgia Popplewell and Alice Backer are also contributing firsthand reporting to our coverage of recovery efforts. Find out more about their assignment here.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI, 29 January, 2010
Grand Rue in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is one of the city's most disadvantaged neighbourhoods, but also home to a vibrant community of artists who create works of art out of the discarded materials they find in their environment. The area was host to the first Ghetto Biennale in December 2009.
This video highlights the impact of the January 12 earthquake on the artists’ surroundings and their way of life. (A version with English subtitles is available at dotSUB.) It features an interview with Belle Williams, spokesperson for Ti Moun Rezistans, an arts programme for children of the Grand Rue area.
To offer direct support to the artists of Grand Rue, please donate to the Foundry Haiti Fund.
•••
Alice Backer has posted a video interview with Siméon Evans, another member of the Grand Rue creative community, in which he talks about a mural created for the 2009 Ghetto Biennale by British artist Bill Drummond. “Evans believes Bill Drummond's mural foresaw the earthquake. The mural contains the words ‘Imagine si demen pa gen mizik’. (‘Imagine there is no music tomorrow’.)”
A number of international artists and journalists have posted texts, photographs, and video recording the Ghetto Biennale online. Photographer Emily Troutman shared video footage of a musical procession in the Grand Rue at YouTube. There are photosets posted at Flickr by PRI's The World and John T. Unger. Brooklyn-based writer Richard Fleming posted several reports at his blog, and wrote a piece for the Miami Herald. Artist Tracey Moberly's account of the Biennale appears at Dazed Digital.
A version of this report was originally posted at Caribbean Free Radio.
Global Voices’ work in Haiti is supported by our general support donors and by a humanitarian information grant from Internews. Please visit the Global Voices Haiti Earthquake page for more coverage.

author: Georgia Popplewell


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Haiti: Making Magic  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The Haitian Blogger reports on Haitians helping one another: “A restaurant on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince is taking up the slack left by still-incomplete relief efforts and feeding 1,000 hungry and homeless Haitians a day—for free.”


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Haiti: News from Jacmel  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

how can they hear reports from Jacmel, Haiti: “There is certainly a shift taking place here in the last 2 days. Life seems to be getting back to normal… In no way do I want it to sound like life is peachy in Jacmel, because I’m sure that for many, it is not.  But the point is that life is resuming here… Food is available. Gas is available. Moto taxis are once again crowding the narrow streets.”


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Haiti: Running to Help  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Diaspora blogger Peggy Brunache is touched by the outpouring of support for Haiti: “I have always felt that Haiti was like that little kid who everyone tried to hit first and repeatedly during a dodgeball game. After getting pummelled, the little kid would get up, brush herself off and limp to her next class.  And yet this time, when something large, hard, and random fell out of the sky hitting this little girl in her head, knocking her down with a severe concussion, bleeding profusely, a bunch of kids ran over to help her.”


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Haiti, U.S.A.: Thoughts on a Take Over · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Repeating Islands links to a mainstream media report claiming that Haitians want the U.S. to take over, a concept which the blogger finds odd: “I have been wondering how long it would take before the US press began to report that the Haitian population wanted the Americans to take over. Given the widespread suspicion throughout Haiti of United States’ designs on the nation and the memory of historically-recent debacles associated with the US…it is hard to believe that this sentiment is as prevalent…”


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India: Tweetup In Lucknow · Global Voices
Rezwan

Anurag Kumar at Recalcitrance novel posts pictures and reports of the first meet up of Twitter users in Lucknow.


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Jamaica, Haiti: Like a Refugee · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Annie Paul tells a tale of a supposed Haitian earthquake refugee who turns out to be “a famished Jamaican fisherman or as the Observer put it, ‘a Jamaican mute from Windsor Castle, Portland.'”


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Maldives: Resist Terrorists · Global Voices
Rezwan

Hassan Ziyau discusses the recent rise of extremism inside Maldives and urges the government to take the issue seriously.


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Myanmar’s First Barcamp in Yangon · Global Voices
tan

Barcamp Yangon Logo
Barcamp Yangon 2010, the first barcamp to be held in Myanmar was a very successful event, with a turnout of more than 2700 people for the two day event.
Barcampers at the Opening Ceremony
The event was from January 23 to 24, and held at Myanmar Info-tech, a software park in Yangon.
According to planet.com.mm,
The number of people who have registered at the website to attend barcamp was over 3000. It has been said that this is the largest amount of attendees among barcamps convening around the world. One of the attendee commented that even though this was the first barcamp to be held in Myanmar, many professionals and enthusiasts has attended, making it a very successful event.
Wi-fi internet access was provided at the venue, so people were able to blog, update their Facebook status, and tweet about the events live.
List of Workshops for the First Day
A few bloggers who have attended barcamp wrote about their experience there. Such as Zaw Zaw, who posted up photos of the event.
Madyjune also wrote about her two-day experience at the barcamp volunteering as a translator.
During the barcamp, six rooms are provided for the barcampers and he/she is given an hour for the presentation and discussions. For the first period, I was sitting in Hall 1 listening to U Ye Myat Thu explaining about how to convert from Win Myanmar font to Unicode without losing format and the original English texts being changed into Myanmar words, but during the middle of the presentation, I had to go to Room 101 where a presentation was given about Podcasting. I had heard about Podcasting before, but I have never really tried it before since I thought it requires high speed internet connection. The presenter said that one of the best ways to look for podcasts is to use iTune software. Too bad I can’t install any software at cybercafés. Otherwise, I could check it out even thought the connection isn’t that good most of the times.
Also, rmlowe, a foreigner who had participated in the event wrote about his experience at the barcamp, and in Yangon, and his impression on Myanmar IT sector.
At one point I asked how many people were actively involved in creating or maintaining Web sites or Web-based applications. Only three people raised their hands. Later I asked how many knew what XML was, and only one hand was raised. In both cases I found the number of affirmative responses shockingly low. My impression was that there were a number of factors that make it hard for Burmese to get involved in Web development (at least on a personal level rather than as an employee of a company or government organisation), including unreliable and filtered Internet access, and difficulty in registering Internet domain names.
A couple of the examples in my presentation used examples that involved e-commerce (although there’s nothing in SAML that’s specific to e-commerce scenarios). Belatedly I realized how inappropriate those examples were. E-commerce doesn’t exist in Burma. Neither do credit cards.
Barcamp Yangon was organized by Myanmar Computer Association and barcamp organizers who are from IT field.

author: tan


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Nepal: What’s Maoists Got Up Their Sleeves · Global Voices
Rezwan

Shailesh at This Nepali Life discusses what the Maoists are going to do if they come to power again.


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Pakistan: Don’t Bite The Ball · Global Voices
Rezwan

Pakistani bloggers like Adil Najam and Teeth Maestro are condemning the ball tampering incident of the Pakistan cricket player Shahid Afridi.


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Peru: Aid and Rescue for Flood Victims in Cusco · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

The situation in Cusco, Peru remains difficult because the rains have not ceased. However, that is not the only problem the region faces. Amid allegations and rumors [es] that tourists [es] were charged money in order to be rescued, which is something that the authorities have denied [es], the Chilean government sent a Hercules aircraft [es] on January 21 to pick up Chilean citizens. There are photos of those rescued here.
A flooded street in Huacarpay photo by Zenobio Valencia and used with permission.
Other reports have surfaced in regards to rising food prices [es] in the area of Aguas Calientes, the gateway town to Machu Picchu. The Attorney General ordered an investigation [es] to verify and act if it finds price speculation in the restaurants and stores.
As expected, the news soon appeared about the complaints about a lack of transparency [es] in the distribution of aid to victims. Many are hoping that the government addresses this issue.
In addition, there are concerns about the tourists who were hiking the Inca Trail and in the Sacred Valley, when the landslides started. It is estimated that at the time, there were about 1,500 tourists in the area [es], but to date it is not known whether all are safe. The total number of tourists in and around Machu Picchu was estimated to be 2,000.
Twitterers have been posting information on what has been happening in and around Cusco. Some of the tweets show the two sides of humanity:
@harrygonzales:
Sigue llegando el agua para ayudar a nuestros hermanos en la plaza de Armas #cusco http://tweetphoto.com/9723290
@harrygonzales:
Los damnificados de Pisonay están en el centro recreacional de Calca http://tweetphoto.com/9742996 #Cusco
Lynn Mora @lynnmora:
En Cusco los scouts fueron enviados a las zonas de desastre para apoyar a damnificados.
@elcaminerito
Nos avisan que existen ladrones que están saqueando en Huacarpay y Pisac,por favor los voluntarios vayan identificados, para evitar problemas
Marco Moscoso has been regularly posting photos to his Twitpic account, and he has been one of the driving forces behind the interactive map that shows the emergency areas [es]:
In this post, the blog Cambiando el Mundo [es/en] (Changing the World), one can find a list (in English) of the needs for donated goods for the people of Huacarpay, a community that was drastically affected by the floods.
There is also a Facebook group to collect help for Cusco: A United Cusco Against the Misfortune!! [es]

author: Juan Arellano


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Russia: Blogger Posts Photos Of Anti-Kremlin Protests  · Global Voices
Vadim Isakov

LJ user zyalt posted a selection of photographs from the latest anti-Kremlin protests in the center of Moscow on January 31.

author: Vadim Isakov


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Spain: Indigenous Film Festival · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

Canal Solidario writes about the Indigenous Film Festival which will take place in Sevilla, Spain. During the screening, films from indigenous communities inside Nicaragua, Canada and Brazil will be shown and participants will also discuss the role of multimedia and internet tools in protecting cultural diversity.

author: Juliana Rincón Parra


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Vietnam: Dog meat restaurant · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Blogger hanoi scratchpad writes about his recent visit to a dog meat restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Dog eating has deep roots in Vietnam; it is a practice steeped in ritual, and associated with certain dates on the lunar calendar. Dog meat (thịt chó) may be eaten for various reasons aside from culinary pleasure, such as to increase male virility or bring about good luck.
The blogger learned that there are seven ways to cook dog in Vietnamese cuisine. These seven dishes are:
Rựa Mận – Steamed dog meat with shrimp paste, rice flour, and lemongrass
Giềng Me Mắm Tôm – Steamed dog in shrimp paste, galangal, and rice vinegar
Thịt Chó Hấp – Steamed dog meat
Thịt Chó Nướng – Grilled dog meat
Dồi Chó – Dog sausage
Chó Xào Sả Ớt – Fried dog in lemongrass and chili
Canh Xáo Măng Chó – Bamboo and dog meat soup
So how was the dog meat?
While flavorful – save for the dog sausage, which I didn't particularly care for – there was little to make dog, as a flavor experience, particularly unique. Whereas lamb has a distinct taste that shines through most recipes, dog disappears into its method of preparation. When prepared like pork, it could just as easily be pork; when prepared like beef, it could just as easily be beef.
This post generated some angry comments. Here is an anonymous commenter
It is inhumane and cruel to eat dog meat. Not all Vietnamese love it and I think only people in the north do as they were too poor and used to starve to death in the past. That's why they ate their own pets and thought it was lucky enough to stay alive for doing so.
Another angry commenter:
OMG! Dogs are our loyal pets. Hello???? You people are all nuts. Eat to live not live to eat. if one said there is no distinction between animals then you can eat human beings too since we are also animals. Eating dog is morally wrong.
This anonymous commenter writes that dog meat was non-existent in Saigon in the past
I grew up in Saigon and left Vietnam in 1981. Prior to the end of the war in 1975, dogmeat was hard to find in the South. There were no “dogmeat restaurants”, at least in Saigon.
After the war ended, a lot of Northern Vietnamese settled in the South, and one began to see dogmeat restaurants open up…. I did not find it particularly tasty.
hanoi scratchpad recognizes that there are legitimate reasons why eating dog meat should be prohibited but he dismisses the common arguments used by animal activists:
Consider that Vietnam consumes an estimated four to five million dogs per year. This is roughly the number of cats and dogs that are annually euthanized in U.S. animal shelters. So which country is the paragon of civilized virtues, the nation that incinerates the animals it murders, or the nation that eats them?
Dog meat is eaten in several countries including Vietnam’s neighboring countries in Southeast Asia. Vutha is shocked to see dog meat shops in Phnom Penh
There are small handfuls of Cambodian people like eating it.
Nowadays, there are small shops using dog meat as food for people who like it in Phnom Penh. Most of dogs have been stolen and sold to dog shop.
Gloria Esguerra Melencio is aware that eating dog meat has a cultural and historical basis in some indigenous groups in the Philippines but this practice has been abused already. The writer explains in detail how some Filipino men prepare dog meat:
1. Strangle the dog from behind by surprise. Do this swiftly to prevent the dog from biting. Gag its mouth. Throw the dog in a waiting jeepney, tricycle or van. Drive as fast to avoid apprehension. When accosted though, bribe the barangay tanod or police with your crispy Php 500 bill. Should you bought the dog from a nearby area from an owner who is in dire need of money, put the dog in a sack. Carry the sack on your back.
2. Remove the dog from the sack. Tie the dog in a post. Do not hear its barks, cries and howls for dear life. Hit its head with a two-by-two inch piece of lumber with a nail at the end. Do this several times until it is dead.
3. Hang the lifeless dog on a tree branch or post upside down. Slit its throat. Place a basin underneath to catch blood. Sprinkle rice and salt on blood until it solidifies. (Blood of black dogs is a potent medicine against tuberculosis, says a folk belief in Negros.)
4. Burn the dog coat with a flame thrower. Release the lifeless dog from the post. Shave until its smooth white skin shows.
5. Slice to pieces. Wash.
6. Put the dog meat in a kawa or a big pan. Boil in vinegar for an hour.
7. Add a little water and sprinkle salt. Do not mix yet. Let it stand for a few more minutes.
8. Cook again in low, cooking fire. Add potatoes, soy sauce and sprinkle with black pepper.
9. Pour tomato sauce, tomato paste, yellow and green peas and garnish with plenty of laurel leaves.
10. Serve with plenty of ice-cold beers or gin.

author: Mong Palatino


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Famous Researcher Talks About Internet in Russia · Global Voices
Gregory Asmolov

Dr. Alexander Voiskounsky at Psychology Department, MSU
A major part of Russian psychology is based on Vygotsky’s theory. It says that the human mind is developing due to signs systems which human beings acquire and develop. Vygotsky emphasized that human higher mental processes are of social origin, their development based on mediated forms of behavior. Mediation is fundamental since it includes acquiring and using instruments: material tools, signs, and semiotic systems. The information technologies, computers and the Internet belong to the most complicated signs systems and semiotic instruments. Thus, Russian psychology is very likely to include Internet related studies into the body of psychological research.
For how long have you been studying the Internet?
The origin of the studies was in the mid 80s when two groups have been analyzing the Internet. One was headed by Michael Cole who came from the United States and brought equipment and some funding. He concentrated on school children and scientists as two perspective groups that close to development of these technologies. The second group was headed by my teacher professor Tikhomirov. I was the first and, at least for a while, the only researcher and conducted some studies long before the Internet has been available in the Soviet Union. I was lucky to meet some researchers from the Academy of Science of Soviet Union that had access to new-born telecommunications. The word “Internet” was unknown at that time. They did not give me an access – it was forbidden – but they allowed me to study the listings of all communications and I have done some content analysis. After that, in 1991, I got a full access to the Internet.
At the outset, the psychologists were the most prepared team to do the study.  Later, other disciplines joined the Internet research field including sociologist, philologists, philosophers and educationalists.
What is the current state of the Internet research in Russia?
Internet studies in Russia have profound background and good history. But nowadays “good” studies are not sufficient at all. I wouldn’t say the research component in new technologists is big enough. There are some sporadic PhD studies or some small books published by small teams of enthusiasts and volunteers in the field.  I devote 90 percent of my time to this field of study. And when I go abroad, I am doing my best to pretend that in Russia has a well-developed field of cyber psychology or cyber-related studies.
Why do you think that the Internet in Russia is not researched enough?
Last year I got a letters from a young woman who worked on her PhD thesis at a university somewhere in western Siberia. She wrote that the research council dismissed her study because she used a methodology of online surveying and all the respondents were virtual persons and the council suspected that  the woman could have done all 500 responses. She asked me what to do. I have sent her a couple of methodological papers. Well, I was precautious enough that before doing online studies we wrote methodological papers that the new sort of methodology is worth in psychology. However,  many of those students who are interested in these studies don't want to have problems with research councils and they choose more stable research topics.
So what are the main topics of your research?
We studied the motivation of computer hackers. I guess it was the first psychological study of hackers in the world. The results were quiet interesting since we used the methodology of positive psychology or flow experience developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. We have found that the most experienced and the least experienced hackers have been experiencing the flow. The flow means that you are interested in the work you are good at. You work full time and you pay a great attention to your work. But it was different with the middle group of relatively experienced or relatively inexperienced hackers. They do not experience the flow. We have made a model saying that you can not keep being in the flow if you are developing .
Flow-based model of computer hackers’ motivation.
Russian hackers are very infamous. How you can apply this approach to help solve this problem?
I have given my paper to juridical authorities. The goal is not only to punish hackers but to prevent them from down the criminal path. It’s a good root for newbies hackers to be taught how to avoid becoming criminals. In a way, this is an educational challenge for educationalist. You should push the newbies  toward the route of acquiring and getting knowledge, not acquiring new hacking challenges. The devote experience show that many former hacker are not hackers now but experts for computer security and they have gone through this route by themselves.
So what actually should be done?
The solution is in moral development of adolescences. Teenagers know quite well the moral rules and moral imperatives. But I have asked many of them what they do when they have no real-life contact with a person, when your partner is a virtual partner. They hesitated: “Why not get money, get  free software or free music from someone who will pay for that.” They are not criminals. They will never steal a wallet from my pocket. But they might be criminals when they don’t treat a virtual person as a real one and this is the challenge of the Internet age. When they distantly break the system, they laugh and feel brave. So, there is a need for brief course of moral education to be developed worldwide. It should be a course for how to apply the moral rules in cyberspace.
Do you have any other fields of research?
Mostly, I do what my students like to do and they like gaming. We have conducted a lot of studies on online gaming. We have constructed a factor analytical model of implicit knowledge the gamers have about the psychological consequences of their gaming. There are eight factors, which gamers are aware of. To my surprise,  the research paper was called one of the 11 best papers among 1,500 papers on human computer interaction international conference last year in San Diego.
I also organized a symposium of psychiatrists and psychologists who are doing a study on the Internet addiction and published a book related to this issue.  Many people are convinced that the Internet addiction will be very soon officially treated as a psychiatric diagnosis. But the book included one or two papers saying that the Internet addiction was not a sort of sickness but it was a stage of development for human beings to have more profound knowledge and even get energy from the Internet to self development. But the majority of researchers wrote that the addicted had to be cured.
What kind of research your and other groups do on blogging and social networking in Russia?
My group hasn’t done studies on blogging or social networking. I know just one or two groups that are doing some  studies on blogging. One is at Psychology Department at St. Petersburg University and the other is probably at Journalism Department of the Moscow State University.
Do you see anything special about the role of Internet in Russia?
It was my general idea that the Internet is a way of departing from totalitarian rule that we came from. When there was only one correct opinion and no alternatives, people had very few possibilities to learn about other points of view. The Internet made it possible to learn about diverse ideas. There are billions of new networkers today who came from totalitarian countries. I always say that the Internet is a good school for departing from totalitarian ideas.
So do you believe that RuNet contributes to democratization in Russia?
I think this was true for those who came to the Internet in the 90's and at the beginning of a new century. And then the Internet became a sort of way back. I mean social networks like Odnoklassniki.ru . This is not a way to development. Psychologically it is quite interesting because it is an experiment in new identities. My students have done a lot of interviews with social networkers. All of them experience double,  triple or many identities. But I don’ t think  this is very interesting in their ideological or political growth because social networks are very well integrated into the existing political structures.
Why do you think so? It is very popular to consider social networks as a platform that can contribute to development of political activism.
About 15 or 20 years ago, at the time of newsgroup in Usenet, we had a lot of political groups among Russian speaking Internet users. It was just after the collapse of the Soviet Union and very hot discussions among those who supported and opposed it were ongoing. Gradually, it disappeared. When there are no major political events, politics is an issue for a very small group of people who are interested in it. When some important process emerges, the number of people who are interested in politics is increasing. Generally, artificial efforts to increase number of politically active people are not helpful not only in Russia but any other region. Moreover, there is very limited ability to increase a number people who are interested in politics. Policies that aim to increase number of people who involved in political discussion are very limited in their ability to achieve results. There is a limit for how many people you can attract with presents, lotteries and other “candies.” If you stop doing it, the people will leave, and you will have again the same small core of people who were interested in politics before. Therefore, social networks are not different from other spaces of life. Most of people are interested in meeting each other and other things, but not politics.
What are the most promising directions for research of the Internet in Russia?
I am mostly interested in cross-cultural research and for this purpose we need good cooperation with researchers from other countries, as well as common methodologies and budgets.
And how do you solve the situation when the importance of Internet research is not recognized enough in Russian academic community. May be establishing an Institute for Internet research could help?
There are some gradual improvements in regard to status of the Internet research in Russia. We are making some steps forward. As for the Research Center for the Internet, on the one hand it could be good if we had a place with budgets for Internet research. On the other hand, I am afraid that this center would acquire an ideological agenda. Therefore, my answer is that probably we don’t need this kind of center. It would be better if these projects will be grassroots projects that developed from bottom to the top rather than being managed by some “pundits” from the top.
Dr.Voiskounsky, thank you for your time and hospitality at the MSU Psychology Department.
For more information about Internet research in Russia read:
Alexander Voiskounsky, Cyberpsychology and Computer-mediated Communication in Russia: Past, Present and Future, Russian Journal of Communication, Winter 2008, first issues http://marquettejournals.org/images/RJC_Vol_1.pdf p.78
List of paper by Alexander Voiskounsky    http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/v/Voiskounsky:Alexander_E=.html

author: Gregory Asmolov


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Armenia-Azerbaijan: Twitter Diplomacy · Global Voices
Onnik Krikorian

This post is part of our special coverage Caucasus Conflict Voices.
[This entry is cross-posted from a project, Common Ground in the Caucasus, undertaken by Global Voices Online's Caucasus Editor for Transitions Online.]
With a peaceful resolution to the conflict over Nagorno Karabakh as elusive as ever, Armenians and Azerbaijanis are unable to visit each other’s country or communicate through traditional means such as telephone or mail.
However, as the local media usually self-censors or resorts to propaganda when it comes to relations between the two countries, can new and social media step in to fill the gap to break the information blockade?
A week before video blogging youth activists Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli were detained in Baku, Azerbaijan, an Armenian sitting hundreds of kilometers away in Yerevan, Armenia, posted a YouTube video on his Facebook page. The video, by Hajizade, introduced the now vacant Armenian Church in the Azerbaijan capital to subscribers to the youth activist’s online video channel. The message was simple. It was a virtual hand of friendship extended across a closed border and a ceasefire line still in place for over 15 years since the 1994 ceasefire.
For many Armenians with access to Facebook, this was the first time that they were presented with an alternative image of the ‘enemy,’ and one very different than that usually portrayed in the local media. For one Armenian opposition youth activist, however, such stereotypes were not easily changed. She left a comment saying that while Hajizade seemed to be tolerant and progressive beyond all expectations, she doubted that there were others like him in Azerbaijan. However, nothing could have been further from the truth.
Later, when Hajizade and Milli were detained for their other activities, more Armenians discovered a whole network of young activists in Azerbaijan who leapt to Hajizade and Milli’s defense on the popular social networking site. Through the skillful and exemplary use of Facebook, Twitter and blogs, it wasn’t long before the international media caught up and covered the case while activists in Armenia looked on with envy. A week earlier, a young opposition activist had been detained in Yerevan, but few covered the case at all.
Even so, progressive youth in Azerbaijan were also able to see through Facebook that some Armenians also supported the campaign for Hajizade and Milli’s release. More importantly, perhaps, they could see that they did so not for propaganda purposes in order to paint Azerbaijan in a bad light, but simply out of genuine concern. Such a development was in sharp contrast to the media in both Armenia and Azerbaijan where many journalists have effectively become ‘combatants’ in an information war of attrition.
“[A] negative context [is set] in the public consciousness, which hinders dialogue and mutual understanding,” said a report on Armenian-Azerbaijani media bias by the Caucasus Resource Research Center (CRRC) for the Eurasia Partnership Foundation (EPF) last year. “Without more accurate and unbiased information […] free of negative rhetoric and stereotypes, Armenians and Azerbaijanis will continue to see themselves as enemies without any common ground.”
On Facebook, blogs and Twitter, however, perceptions were changing, or at least to some extent. Moreover, for those youth in both countries who were already in contact with each other, albeit in secret, they now felt empowered and confident enough to do so openly. Others also joined their ranks.
“These new tools can be used to foment violence or to foster peace,” wrote Global Voices Online Executive Director Ivan Sigal in a paper, Digital media in conflict-prone societies, for the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) early last year. “[However] it is possible to build communication systems that encourage dialogue and nonviolent political solutions,” the former researcher on citizen media at the US Institute of Peace added.
Therefore, it perhaps came as no surprise when last year some civil society groups which regularly convening meetings between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in third countries, started to take notice of what was happening online. This author, for example, was approached by two such organizations for contacts given their own largely unsuccessful efforts to find suitable participants from Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, however, while the open nature of the Internet was vital in identifying new participants, their own activities remained as closed as ever.
Another recent report, Obstacles and opportunities for civil society development in the South Caucasus, also published by CRRC, highlighted the persistence of strong pre-transition social networks in the sector. “NGOs are “autocratic”, “top-down” and “donor-driven”, [and] maintain an “existence more closely related to the salaries of employees than the potential benefits for the target group”,” opined social media expert Dan McQuillan on his blog just days before a Civil Society Forum held in Bratislava, Slovakia, last year.
Moreover, an Armenian organizer of one civil society initiative to bring Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians together doubted that Hajizade and Milli were even genuinely arrested. An inherent lack of trust in the other side lead her to initially suspect that the new generation of activists in Azerbaijan were merely an ‘invention’ of their president to deceive the Council of Europe. Only after making contact with such people via my Facebook page before finally meeting them in Telavi, Georgia, was she convinced enough to change her mind.
But, had there been either the will or an understanding of the potential of using new media tools effectively, such a revelation could have occurred long before. And even then, two diplomatic sources speaking to Transitions Online not only considered that civil society has failed to achieve anything by way of a breakthrough in Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, but also risks not spreading their networks wide enough. Indeed, many working in the area of promoting the use of new online tools in conflict resolution and transformation remain unimpressed.
“A significant amount of civil society work within the South Caucasus reinforces status quo policies where governments profit from war and exacerbate cultural differences to their advantage,” says Micael Bogar, Projects Manager at the American University Center for Social Media. “Surprisingly, a notable portion of the non-profit sector plays a role in this corrupt practice. New media tools, with their powerful and cheap ability to communicate across borders, threaten [their] wasteful practices.”
As a result, the former Peace Corps Volunteer in the South Caucasus says, many civil society organizations remain reluctant to fully investigate their potential. However, while singling out the use of new and social media to campaign for Hajizade and Milli as well as an American project to bring Armenian and Azerbaijani teenagers together online as success stories, Bogar says another issue is access. Although Georgia and Azerbaijan have cheaper and faster Internet compared to Armenia, penetration and connection speeds remain low throughout the region.
“While there is an elite element within civil society with access, but no interest, there is an even larger pool of citizens within the South Caucasus who may have the desire to work towards peace but lack any real long term ability to use these tools towards that end,” she says.
Indeed, concluded the CRRC report, the Millennium Challenges Account (MCA), a U.S. government international assistance program, should consider investing in the creation of a regional high-speed Internet backbone as well as widespread use of Web 2.0 and mobile Internet technologies. Yet, even without that, existing tools and infrastructure offer a way to break the information blockade. If willing, journalists in both Armenia and Azerbaijan could use Skype or other Internet chat programs, for example, to communicate directly with each other.
IREX, for example, has identified the inability of journalists to check facts as a major obstacle to the development of the media in Armenia and Azerbaijan. This is particularly true in the case of coverage of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations where inaccurate information is often as common as propaganda.
For civil society, such tools also offer participants of confidence building initiatives to remain in touch long after short encounters held in countries such as Georgia end. As it is, the participants of such programs from Armenia and Azerbaijan do not make contact before physically meeting, and most do not remain in contact after they do. Yet, the viral nature of the Internet as well as the social networking aspect of blogs and sites such as Facebook could set examples of Armenians and Azerbaijanis openly being in normal contact with each other.
Spread on Twitter and Facebook as well as on established blogs such as Ianyan by Liana Aghajanyan, a prominent Armenian blogger, and Flying Carpets and Broken Pipelines by Arzu Geybullayeva, a regional analyst from Baku, TOL’s recent project in Georgia, also supported by the British Embassy in Yerevan, showed that the potential to succeed is there. True, it might represent just a drop in the ocean for now, but Internet penetration is increasing in the South Caucasus and connection speeds will increase as costs continue to come down.
Then, when alternative voices in the media and society can be heard through alternative methods of delivering information online, perhaps the traditional mainstream media in Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as civil society in general, might finally have no choice but to change their existing approach of spreading partisan propaganda and perpetuating negative stereotypes to slowly prepare the grounds for genuine dialogue and an exchange of reliable, factual information.
This post is part of our special coverage Caucasus Conflict Voices.

author: Onnik Krikorian


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Cambodia: Reviewing the anti-corruption law · Global Voices
Sopheap Chak

While there is a signal that anti-corruption law is likely to be passed this April, followed the long-awaited approval of the draft by the Council of Minister last December 2009, the anti-corruption theme gained momentum of discussion in the blogosphere by inquiring to walk the talk of anti-corruption.
Just recently Prime Minister Hun Sen, in his speech at a conference on military reform, warned of harsh sanctions for soldiers and military commanders involved in corruption. Reported in the Phnom Penh Post, the Prime Minister identified the names of several officials found to be guilty of illegal activities ranging from logging, land grabbing, smuggling and illegal fishing. With his acknowledgment, the Prime Minister firmly denounced:
“It is time to stop every activity involving illegal business or the support of illegal business. [I] don’t care how many stars or moons you have – I will fire you, and nobody will keep corrupt commanders in their seats[…] I declare my absolute order [to stop illegal businesses] — otherwise military reform will not move forward,” said Hun Sen.
This report was circulated among bloggers like Morn Vutha, the Cambodia Tonight, and the Son of Khmer Empire who regularly bring up corruption cases and updates on the anti-corruption campaign.
In his previous blog entries, Vutha has raised many relevant corruption issues in various sectors including education and traffic police. He also brought the current debate of the anti-corruption law that not only requires the disclosure of assets from government officials but also NGO workers.
“Why does the anti-corruption law require NGO workers to declare their assets?” asked Vutha.
The explanation by the spokesman of the Council of Ministers who argued that the provision is applied to NGO workers because they serve as public servants has not convinced to Vutha who insisted that these two agencies have different powers and responsibilities.
“Although NGO staff serve the public, they cannot be categorized in the same level with government officials because NGO workers have no power and authority. They are working to help the poor and vulnerable people who are living under the exploitation of the rich and the powerful. By the way, the government officials get paid from the government which has high responsibility for the people because all officials’ salaries are money collected from people through tax. In addition, the NGO workers also have no power to control or manage the national budget or make policy”
Vutha further pointed out that the NGOs already have their external audit authority namely their donors:
“NGO workers’ salaries are funded by charity donors so that all financial budgets have been or controlled and audited by donors carefully. If donors found irregularity or corruption in organizations, they really determine or withdraw their funding. Therefore, NGO staff salaries are not related to government’s budget. Why does the government demand NGO workers to declare their property?”
Similarly, in the blog post on “Fight against corruption, not anti-government” by the Son of Khmer Empire, expressed his support to the anti-corruption advocacy who urged that the issue of anti-corruption effort should not be confused with the anti-government campaign. Interestingly, this blogger pointed out four factors leading to the spread of corruption:
“(1) a weak political will of the government officials in eradicating corruption, (2)  a weak and incompetent head of the government in implementing the good governance,  (3)  the weak law enforcement, and (4) low salary.”
Unable to access the draft of the anti-corruption law, the Son of Khmer Empire suggests some lessons learned from Singapore by raising the role of anti-corruption legislative and executive bodies as well as the participation of the public in curbing corruption incidents.
More than this, a catchy article by Pou Sovachana, the Corruption Behind the Black Economy in Cambodia, also published on Cambodia Daily (February 02, 2010) and widely circulated among networks by e-mail, explicit many elements of old discussion but also a very comprehensive solution by stressing the role of qualified education, freedom of expression, and effective law enforcement. From his background as a vonlunteer teacher, he highlights that education is the medicine to the cycle of poverty and corruption:
“Schools, fire services, hospitals, the police, the army, the government officials, media reporters, the judiciary all began to demand bribes for their “supposed to be free” services. One can argue that poverty is the root cause of corruption while others say corruption the root cause of poverty. However one thing is certain that lack of education is the main cause of poverty. And quality education for ALL and the development of wisdom (law of karma) have been diagnosed as the best medicine of breaking the cycle of poverty and corruption.”
He adds that the zero tolerance through anti-corruption law enforcement is necessary:
“To become aid-independent and move the country forward in hope of beating the black economy to an open society of equality, justice, freedom, dignity, and progress, all kinds of corruption must be stopped and should be eliminated by adopting, implementing, and enforcing the anti-corruption law as soon as possible and to the fullest with zero tolerance from the highest to the lowest ranking.”
By conclusion, he insisted that the change can only take place when “people get more educated and learn to speak their own mind without fear of oppression. When the power of love (metta) overcomes the love of power, then real development will grow and last.”

author: Sopheap Chak


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China: Why cover up Weixian mining disaster · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

ESWN translated a China Youth Daily story about the rationality of local government officials who attempted to cover up a mining disaster.


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Cuba: Outside the Boxing Ring Photos · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Roberto Suárez of the blog Cuba en Fotos [es] posts some of his photographs of what happens outside of Cuban boxing rings.

author: Eduardo Avila


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Estonia: Distancing the past · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

Itching for Eestimaa reflects upon a not too distant soviet past, which still seems far away even to middle aged Estonians of today.

author: Vilhelm Konnander


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Eastern Europe: What purpose of Nabucco pipeline? · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

Eternal Remont comments on a Wall Street Journal interview with the Nabucco gas pipeline director, who claims that the Nabucco project will serve as merely a complement to Russian gas flow to the West, and not – as previously envisaged – a substitute for it.


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Global Voices and Google announce freedom of expression award jury · Global Voices
Ivan Sigal

The Breaking Borders Award is a new prize created by Google and Global Voices and supported by Thomson Reuters to honor outstanding web projects initiated by individuals or groups that demonstrate courage, energy and resourcefulness in using the Internet to promote freedom of expression.
We are proud to announce our jury members for the award. The jury is drawn from experts and leaders in the freedom of expression, journalism, digital activism, and technology sectors, and includes representatives from around the world. Members of the jury are:
Sheila Coronel, Director, Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Jose Roberto de Toledo, Projects and Training Coordinator, Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI); Director, PrimaPagina
Edetaen Ojo, Convenor, International Freedom of Expression Exchange, Executive Director, Media Rights Agenda
Dean Wright, Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards, Reuters
Rebecca MacKinnon, Co-Founder, Global Voices; Visiting Fellow, Princeton University Center for Information Technology
Robert Boorstin, Director, Public Policy, Google
The Breaking Borders Award is open to people of all nationalities. Winners will be selected by a panel of experts in the field of freedom of expression. A cash prize of $10,000 will be awarded in each of three areas:
1. Advocacy, given to an activist or group that has used online tools to promote free expression or encourage political change
2. Technology, given to an individual or group that has created an important tool that enables free expression and expands access to information
3. Policy, given to a policy maker, government official or NGO leader who has made a notable contribution in the field
Nominations for and additional information about the Breaking Borders Award can be submitted at http://breakingborders.net and close on February 15, 2010.
Global voices is very excited to be associated with this event. Contact us at nomination@breakingborders.net with any questions.

author: Ivan Sigal


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Haiti: Breast Not Best in Emergencies?  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Repeating Islands discovers that “the conditions [in Haiti] are still too precarious for reliable delivery of breast milk.”


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Haiti: Human Trafficking  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The Haitian Blogger gives an update on the story of American “missionaries” trying to take children out of Haiti without proper documentation: “A problem in Haiti which is heightened by the catastrophic earthquake is child trafficking.  Thankfully, the 10 Missionaries who attempted to move 33 orphans into the Dominican Republic in order to establish an “‘orphanage’ were apprehended.  The Missionaries are now behind bars in Haiti. Haitian officials have indicated that they believe these Missionairies are kidnappers.”


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Haiti: Marathon Man  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

As Haiti drops from being the lead story in the mainstream media, how can they hear stresses that “what Haiti needs most are those that are ready to run the marathon, not just run the 100 yard sprint.”


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Haiti: Measurable Map?  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The Life and Times of the Mangine Many republishes a map of the damage in Haiti from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, while The Livesay [Haiti] Weblog wonders “how anything like this can ever be quantified.”


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Hong Kong: Five District Referendum campaign · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

DM from Learning Cantonese blogs about his observations on the five district referendum campaign in Hong Kong.


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India: Bridging the information gap on sexuality  · Global Voices
John Liebhardt

Depending on how you measure the term “youth,” young people in India count for roughly a few million more people than the population of the United States. This generation dwarfs other age groups in its own country, too. The 315 million young people between the ages of 12-24 years makes up 30 percent of India’s population.
For the most part, India’s youth of today are completely different from the age groups of decades past. For one, the country these young people are growing up in is an emerging superpower, says BusinessWeek. Young people mirror that rising prominence. “This cohort is healthier, more urbanized, and better educated than earlier generations,” writes the US-based Population Council, a non-profit dealing with reproductive health issues.
India’s youth are also increasingly willing to make their own decisions. BusinessWeek reports that 76 percent of India’s single women claim it should be them who decides when they have a child. To researchers and groups like Population Council, however, this confidence may be masking deeper, more cultural reticence regarding reproductive health. “These young people face significant risks related to sexual and reproductive health, and many lack the knowledge and power they need to make informed sexual and reproductive health choices,” Population Council reports.
Information gap
This information gap Ishita Chaudhry has been trying to fill since she began the Youth Parliament in 2002, when she was just 17. Also known as the YP Foundation, the internally-acclaimed group designs and implements community-based youth projects, providing funds for people between the ages of 13 through 28 years to create projects working within socio-cultural, economic, legal and environmental issues. Some of the projects include voter ID registration drives, peer programs for street children and publishing an youth-oriented magazine.
One of the subjects the YP Foundation has naturally gravitated to, however, is reproductive rights and sexuality. Issues like AIDS is especially problematic for the world’s youth, reports UNAIDS. The Geneva-based organization says people worldwide between the ages of 12-24 years account for four of each ten new AIDS cases. Also, (mirroring findings from Population Council, above) this age group has very little knowledge about the disease and its transmission. That's not all. Young people are often “left to fend for themselves,” regarding all aspects of sexuality and reproduction, said Dr Robert Carr, the Associate Director of the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations.
Using technology
The internet is a natural choice to disseminate this information. “If you’re looking at issues of sexually reproductive rights and health,” says Ishita Chaudry, “then it becomes clear to provide a space where young people can continue conversations once they’ve finished community based interactions and workshops.” For the most part, that space is through technology, which works well because so many of India’s youth are online. But also, the internet is a good medium to provide this information because young people can read it on their own time and, if they want, anonymously.  In this video Ishita Sharma and Ishita Chaudry speak about the YP Foundation’s online work.
Project 19
The internet may be a fine organizing tool, but the YP Foundation thrives to create communities in the real world. One of the organization's major initiatives is Project 19, which trains young people in New Delhi to become peer facilitators to lead discussions and workshops on often hush-hush topics like gender, sexuality, reproductive rights and HIV/AIDS.
In a post on the YP Foundation blog, Ishita Chaudry sums up some reasons the initiative got underway.
Why as society, are we so scared to address any kind of sexuality education or rights cohesively? What stops us from giving people complete rather than half baked information that is critical and live saving and that can protect them from disease, empowers them to be informed individuals and that teach them to be respectful to their own needs and desires and to be respectful towards the rights of others as well?
…We have had too many years of awkward silences and far too many generations of people who have grown up not being given the opportunity to speak out about their thoughts, fears, expressions and questions.
In conjunction with Project 19, the YP Foundation also organizes (with a variety of other groups) the Project 19 Annual Festival, bringing over 600 at risk and marginalized group and urban youth from around India to Delhi. These young people, whose members range from truck drivers to sex workers, lobby and discuss how to tackle issues ranging from collective rights to sexual reproductive rights and health.
As the Daily Indian newspaper explains:
Using various mediums like art, music, theatre and dance, the festival will provide a platform to the young men and women as well as the vulnerable groups to bring forth their experience-based opinion on different issues and form a network so as to solve some of the problems together.

author: John Liebhardt


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India: The Zero Rupee Note · Global Voices
Rezwan

Priyanka Borpujari informs that 5th Pillar, an NGO based in Washington DC and with offices in India in Chennai and Delhi, “has developed zero currency notes that one could print and give to government officers, each time they ask for a bribe.” Fumiko Nagano at World Bank Blog has details.

author: Rezwan


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Jamaica: Last of the “Drumblairs” · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Geoffrey Philp acknowledges the passing of Albert Huie, the last survivor of the “Drumblair” group of intellectuals and artists that drove the national movement for Jamaican Independence.


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Japan: Tokyo underground · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Pink Tentacle blogs about the six major rumors / urban legends surrounding the huge underground subway under Tokyo city.


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Lithuania: Repeated refinery row? · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

Lituanica reports that the old Mazeikiu oil refinery may be up for sale again, and that Russian interests are among key prospective buyers. In 2006, the sale of Mazeikiu Nafta caused bilateral crisis between Lithuania and Russia.


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Maldives: Failures In Maldives Politics · Global Voices
Rezwan

Mohamed Naahii lists top 3 biggest failures in Maldives Politics according to his opinion.


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Morocco: Where Independent Media is No More · Global Voices
Hisham Almiraat

There have been mounting attacks on freedom of expression in Morocco lately, targeting journalists as well as bloggers as we consistently have been reporting on Global Voices Online recently. So constant are the attacks, that a reader might find the news coming out form the north African kingdom, a redundant rehash of the same old story. But what happened last week arguably marks a major turning point in the continuous campaign the Moroccan authorities are pursuing to silence independent media.
It took Morocco decades of struggle and the end of the cold war with an ailing dictator who, having lost his geo-strategic clout and sensing his death approaching, finally decided to relinquish power and open up the system in an effort to guaranty a smooth transfer of authority to his son, to see the emergence of a new breed of irreverent journalism. The French language weekly news magazine Le Journal Hebdomadaire, founded in the mid-90s thanks to an unusual alliance of benevolent capital and highly skilled western trained journalists, initiated a long line of privately owned independent newspapers critical of the government and the Moroccan establishment at large. Targeting the Moroccan cosmopolitan elite, “Le Journal Hebdo” rapidly became iconic, embarking on a decade long confrontational quest for factual truths, challenging the most powerful tenants of the local regime, revisiting official history, flirting with the red lines imposed by the government and exploring many taboos.
There was a time when Arab dictatorships used to extra-judicially clampdown on dissenting voices in a gross demonstration of authority. The popular rumor would have it that in every house and every street, in every newsroom of every publication government had its eyes and ears ready to report on anyone who wasn't in line with the prescribed official discourse. Today, repression of independent voices goes through a protracted but sophisticated process of harassment by a judiciary system under orders from the executive and boycott from advertisers keen to please the authorities. That's what happened to Le Journal Hebdo, which now faces closure after a commercial court in Casablanca declared the publishing group behind the magazine bankrupt, crippled by a series of libel fines, by taxes and an insurmountable debt – a development which many interpreted as the final and deadly blow to the publication.
The New York-based media watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the development and recaps the most recent judicial episode in a chain of condemnations and fines that eventually led to the administrative termination of the publication:
Le Journal Hebdomadaire was dealt a devastating financial blow in 2006 when a Moroccan court ordered that it pay 3 million dirhams (US$354,000) damages in a defamation case […] Jamaï (director and co-founder of the publication) left the country after the 2006 court decision and a series of government-inspired cases of harassment against the newsmagazine. Harassment of Le Journal Hebdomadaire appeared to ease for a time. But when Jamaï returned to Morocco in 2009 and resumed his critical journalism, he said, the government intensified its efforts to have advertisers boycott Le Journal Hebdomadaire. In September 2009, the Supreme Court upheld the damage award in the [defamation] case.
Issandr El Amrani writing on The Arabist blog says he received a message from Aboubakr Jamaï (Bou Bakr) announcing the official death of Le Journal Hebdomadaire. He writes:
I just received very sad news from Abou Bakr Jamai [Fr], the editor behind one of Morocco's most courageous publications and one that had been a symbol of the opening that began in the mid-1990s under King Hassan II and petered out under the rather aimless reign of his son, Muhammad VI. Bou Bakr wrote:
After all your prediction about the end of Le Journal has been proven on the money. Le Journal Hebdo has been shut down. Yesterday, 5, yes 5, bailiffs showed up armed with a court decision to take over Le Journal Hebdomadaire and the company behind it, Trimedia.. What is still unclear to us is the legal argument that led the judge from the receivership procedure of Mediatrust to act against trimedia. The only link is the title:”Le Journal Hebdomadaire” but the title is owned by the publisher himself not the company. Although we are waiting to get a clearer legal picture, we can already officially announce the death of Le Journal Hebdomaire.
El Amrani also wrote an op-ed about the issue on The Guardian/Observer British newspapers’ online blogging platform, Comment Is Free. He mourns Le Journal and warns about a worrying pattern of repression and authoritarianism:
Most of all, Le Journal tried to keep officials honest about the democratisation that they promised in speeches. It relentlessly campaigned for constitutional reform that would shift political power from the palace to parliament. For many of my generation of Moroccans, it provided a political education and an inspiring example of outspokenness.
[…]The most worrying thing is that its closure comes amid other signs of a renewed authoritarianism. The methods originally used against Le Journal have become a commonplace method of disciplining the press. Other critics of the monarchy, for instance in Morocco's vibrant blogosphere, are now dealt with severely. Political reform has hit a standstill, and the regime's human rights record has regressed.
Le Journal's sad demise is now only one of many signals that something is rotten in the kingdom of Morocco.
Blogger Jillian C. York adds to Al Amrani's comment saying:
[T]he closure of Le Journal does not alone indicate Morocco’s slide backwards. The arrests of bloggers Bashir Hazzem, Mohammed Erraji, and Boubaker Al-Yadib, of Facebooker Fouad Mourtada, of countless journalists, should speak for themselves. Yet, Morocco continues to maintain an appearance of moving forward, especially to the United States, which proudly touts Morocco’s Mudawana (or family code) and subsequent other new rights to women as evidence.
This is an issue that cannot, must not be ignored. Morocco, in case I don’t say it enough, is a beautiful place. I spent more than two wonderful years there, and would still happily go back, despite its faults. But in order for Morocco, for any country, to continue down the road of progress, free expression is non-negotiable.
Moroccan online news magazine Hesspress [Ar] deplores the deafening silence and lack of solidarity in face of mounting repression:
إن هذا الصمت المطبق إزاء عمليات تصفية المنابر الإعلامية الوطنية المستقلة، التي تدخل في خانة جرائم القتل التسلسلي، تفرض تلاحما تلقائيا بين المنابر المتبقية لإعمال مبدأ التضامن، كأضعف الإيمان، وبالتالي طمر الخوف والجبن ووضع التوافقات جانبا، لوقف هذا المسلسل الهتشكوكي الذي بات يقض مضجع “صاحبة الجلالة” في عز عنفوانها.
Many bloggers have been commenting on the development like Anas Alaoui [Fr] who bemoans the loss of a unique news outlet:
J’aimerais tout simplement remercier Le Journal et les personnes y ayant travaillé. Je les remercie pour l’effort engagé dans cette première marocaine quand on a cru à une ouverture, une certaine ouverture tout du moins. Je les remercie pour le courage et le dévouement dans leur tâche d’informer le public. Ils ont été les premiers à briser des tabous. Ils ont été les premiers à dire des choses vraies.  Nous pouvons être d’accord ou pas avec les éditos écrits dans ce magazine. Nous pouvons être d’accord ou pas avec les analyses qui y ont été publiées, mais nous ne pouvons nier le fait que le Journal Hebdo a changé la pratique journalistique marocaine. Désormais, il y a un avant Journal Hebdo et un après Journal Hebdo.
The end of Le Journal Hebdomadaire signals a dangerous setback for the state of freedoms in Morocco. It pulls a thorn out of the regime's side but it also sends a strong message to the remaining independent media still struggling to survive in an increasingly repressive environment. This leaves the question about whether the online media and citizen journalism will constitute a breathing space for voices of dissent in countries like Morocco to vent their grievances, convey the truth and hold their governments accountable.

author: Hisham Almiraat


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Nepal: Adventure In Entrepreneurship · Global Voices
Rezwan

Sandeep Giri describes how after confronting with energy problem while running a project in Kathmandu led an entrepreneur like him to commit to a solar energy project that provides solar electricity as a viable backup option for urban homes and businesses in Nepal.


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Russia: A lost year for the economy · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

Gabriela Ionita of Power&Politics World posts an interview with Russian economist Vladimir Inozemtsev, who characterizes 2010 as a lost year for Russian economy.


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Russia: Anti-Government Protest Covered By Bloggers, Ignored By Media · Global Voices
Vadim Isakov

At least 7,000 protesters gathered on the streets of Kaliningrad [ENG], the country's westernmost city, on January 30 to demand, among other things, the resignation of the regional governor Georgy Boos [ENG] and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. But don't count on the leading Russian media outlets to tell you about it.
The biggest and most popular TV channels keep their silence. Mainstream newspapers and radio stations ignore the rally and go about their business like nothing happened. But it only takes a quick glance at the most popular blog posts on RuNet (Russian Internet) to realize that the protest in Kaliningrad is the hottest topic of the day. Famous political leaders, journalists and regular netizens flooded the blogosphere with their takes on the protest.
Boris Nemtsov (a.k.a. LJ user b-nemtsov), a former Russian Deputy Prime Minister, wrote an inspiring post “Kaliningrad is the hope of free Russia” where he stressed the uniqueness of the protest in Kaliningrad [RUS]:
Такого грандиозного митинга я не видел лет так 10. На митинге четко и  ясно были выдвинуты политические требования: отставка Путина и  губернатора Бооса.
Исключительной особенностью калининградского  феномена стало участие всех оппозиционных сил области в протестной акции.
Blogger olegmakarov added [RUS] that, unlike in the past, the police forces in the city did not even try to prevent people from protesting. Nemtsov later talked about the unusual friendliness of the Kaliningrad police in a short video [RUS] shot during his detention in Moscow on January 31. Ilja Yashin (a.k.a. LJ user yashin), a political activist and columnist for an oppositional Russian newspaper “Novaya Gazeta,” explained [RUS] the friendly attitude of the police:
Совершенно спокойно вела себя милиция. Никакой агрессии, четкое  соблюдение законов, ОМОН мирно дремал в автозаках, припаркованных в  стороне. Причина очевидна: когда на площади собирается больше десяти  тысяч человек – милиция с народом. Потому что разогнать сто человек  легко. А 12 тысяч сами кого хочешь разгонят, если понадобится.
Many hundreds of comments to those blogs cover a wide range of feelings. Many people seem to believe that the protest will change the situation in the country for the better. The vast majority of bloggers agree with the claim that something like this was unimaginable several years ago when the approval rating of Vladimir Putin was through the roof. Many people see the protest as a sign of big changes in political landscape of the country.
But not everyone on the bogosphere shares the optimism. Nikolay Troitsky (a.k.a. LJ user _kutuzov), a political analyst for the Russian Information Agency, is not that exited [RUS] about the rally's results:
Много народу вышло протестовать в Калининграде, немало недвольных  выходили во Владивостоке, может выйти на улицы хоть весь Тамбов, Липецк,  Петропавловск-Камчатский – всё это неважно.
Ничего не сдвинется и не  изменится, пока на массовые акции протеста не начнут выходить в Москве.  И не 9-12 тысяч, это чепуха, это мало, а хотя бы тысяч 50 для начала.  Как это было в 1989-91 годах
LJ user clen_lj replied [RUS] to Troitsky:
Большое начинается с малого. Пару лет тому  назад трудно было представить выход десятка тысяч человек различных  политических взглядов в том числе и под лозунгом отставки Путина.
But Troitsky is still not convinced:
Так еще лет 10-15 будет начинаться с малого.
The posts on the lack of media coverage of the protest also occasionally emerge in the blogosphere. Blogger kt-withlove wrote [RUS]:
Почему митинг с 10 000 человек освещен только в Lenta.ru ?
rian  молчит vesti.ru молчит… Чувствуется цензурка то)))
But it looks like the mainstream media censorship is no match for an open information access online where Russians can easily practice free speech.  But as the Russian blogosphere is gradually becoming mainstream, the question is how long does it take for the government to start treating it the way it treats the mainstream media.