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Russia’s Democratic Coalition Is On The Ropes · Global Voices
Will Wright

Russia's opposition Democratic Coalition has been dealt blow after blow in the run up to regional elections. Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot.
When a group of opposition parties joined forces this April, they knew their goal of introducing true political pluralism to modern Russia was a tall order. Nevertheless, the Democratic Coalition forged ahead with plans to back candidates in regional elections this fall, with an eye on the national parliamentary elections in 2016. In recent weeks, however, the Coalition's grand ambitions have collided full force with the harsh reality of politics in Putin's Russia.
On September 13, a number of regional and district elections will be held across Russia. In preparation, the Democratic Coalition organized primaries earlier this summer to chose local candidates, and opposition leaders from Moscow such as Alexey Navalny toured key regional cities to drum up support. As the election date draws near, however, many Coalition candidates have found themselves unable to make it onto the September ballot.
In Russia, signatures from a certain number of supporters must be collected in order for candidates to take part in regional parliamentary elections, and the signatures must be verified by the local Election Commission. The verification process involves cross-checking the signee's identity and address with the database of the regional branch of the Federal Migration Service, and any discrepancies result in disqualification. Signature collection has been the focus of the Democratic Coalition in recent weeks, but this hurdle has so far proven insurmountable for the new opposition alliance. Many of the signatures declared invalid by local officials have been scrapped for dubious reasons, the Coalition claims.
Novosibirsk
In Novosibirsk, Russia's third-largest city, the Coalition submitted about 11,700 signatures. Alexey Navalny wrote online that those selected were the most perfect from a total of 17,500 signatures the Coalition had collected, and “were double checked by a graphologist, entered in databases for compliance with passport data, and a call center had telephoned almost all the signees.” On July 24, however, the regional Election Commission working group ruled that only 10,187 of the signatures were valid, leaving a total falling 470 signatures short of the required number of 10,657. Leonid Volkov, the Democratic Coalition’s campaign manager in Novosibirsk, detailed the working group's findings in a post to his website:
Написал подробно о том, что означает решение рабочей группы избиркома, и что мы будем делать http://t.co/TfWWwN7Wsm pic.twitter.com/f61cct8Ztb
— Leonid Volkov (@leonidvolkov) July 25, 2015
I have posted details about what the Election Commission working group's decision means and what we will do next
After receiving the Election Commission's ruling, Volkov's campaign team in Novosibirsk undertook a 30-hour marathon session to review all the signatures that had been deemed invalid. They found that in many cases Election Commission employees had introduced typographical errors themselves when entering the signee's information into a computer so that it could be cross-checked with the Federal Migration Service database. They also asserted that the Federal Migration Service database contained outdated information, thus explaining the discrepancies that resulted in disqualification in many cases. The graphic below details the Coalition's findings:
“The Election Commission working group declared 1487 signatures to be invalid. The results after correcting their mistakes: 615 invalid signatures. 1065 valid signatures.” Graphic labels (top to bottom): “Mistakes in checking. Typographical entry errors. Out-of-date FMS data. Mistakes by FMS. Invalid signatures. Under question. Lack of information. Duplicates.”
Volkov's team then met with representatives of the Novosibirsk Election Commission on July 27 to present these findings. An official from the regional branch of the Federal Migration Service in attendance dismissed their claims, however, informing everyone that the FMS database was up-to-date and contained no mistakes, wrote Volkov on his blog. After being rebuffed, the Democratic Coalition representatives refused to leave the Election Commission building, and were briefly detained by police before being fined for disobeying police orders.
On July 28, Novosibirsk candidates Yegor Savin and Sergei Boyko and campaign manager Leonid Volkov began a hunger strike to demand that the ruling by the Election Commission to disqualify the Democratic Coalition's candidates be reconsidered. Three workers from campaign headquarters in Novosibirsk also joined the strike.
Новосибирск: третий день голодовки, три новых участника http://t.co/m4dvU97kKn pic.twitter.com/tWiCXcrhy9
— Leonid Volkov (@leonidvolkov) July 30, 2015
Novosibirsk: third day of the hunger strike, three new participants
On August 7, Democratic Coalition leaders including Alexey Navalny appeared before the Central Election Commission in Moscow as the group met to consider an appeal filed by the Coalition. Navalny complained that the Democratic Coalition is being unlawfully blocked from participating in this fall's regional elections, and asked the officials to reverse the rulings preventing Coalition candidates from appearing on the ballot in Novosibirsk and other regions.
Navalny also beseeched the Central Election Commission officials to support his efforts to peacefully participate in formal political processes. He explained that this position is becoming more and more difficult to justify when elections are so obviously rigged. On the radio station Echo Moskvy, Navalny had recently debated this very question with journalist Oleg Kashin. At that time, Kashin argued:
Мы знакомы 10 лет, и надеюсь, будем еще знакомы лет 100, и просто когда ты поймешь, что действительно, все это было зря. То есть, о'кей – Путину 90, умер Путин, пришел Медведев опять, снова выборы в Песковской или Пензенской области, вот, товарищи, друзья, давайте еще раз попробуем собрать подписи, давайте еще раз попробуем победить, что будет тем пределом, когда ты поймешь: наверное, надо делать что-то другое, — может быть, вилы брать, может быть, наоборот, придумывать новую религию и вести за собой людей.
We have known each other for 10 years, and I hope we will know each other 100 more, and only then will you realize that, indeed, this was all in vain. That is, okay – Putin turns 90, Putin dies, Medvedev returns again, and again there are elections in the regions of Peskovskaya or Penza, and, you will say: comrades and friends, let us once again try to collect signatures, let us once again try to win; and only at that point will you understand that something else must be done probably — maybe picking up a pitchfork, or maybe, on the contrary, inventing a new religion to unite people behind.
The Central Election Commission upheld the disqualification of the Democratic Coalition candidates in Novosibirsk, apparently unmoved by the Coalition's appeal, Navalny's arguments, and the hunger strike in Novosibirsk. In response to the Commission ruling, the Democratic Coalition issued a statement. It read, in part:
Сегодня стало очевидно, что именно наша Демократическая коалиция является реальным вызовом действующей власти и способна сформировать достойную альтернативу.
Демократическая коалиция рассматривает позорное беззаконие, ныне творимое властями, как наш успешный старт в подготовке к выборам в Государственную Думу. Мы обещаем нашим избирателям, что придем к этим выборам более консолидированными, закаленными и подготовленными к любым провокациям этого обреченного режима.
Today it became clear that our Democratic Coalition represents a real challenge to the current government and can generate a worthy alternative.
The Democratic Coalition considers the shameful lawlessness perpetrated by the authorities today to be a successful start in the preparations for the elections to the State Duma. We promise our voters that we will approach these elections more consolidated and hardened, and prepared for any provocation by this doomed regime.
Outside the Central Election Commission building in Moscow, activists have held pickets, flying black balloons marked with the words: “These are not elections, but a sham.”
Это не выборы, а надувательство pic.twitter.com/8kf5p24nEQ
— Николай Ляскин (@nlyaskin) August 7, 2015
These are not elections, but a sham
On August 8, Volkov announced that the twelfth day of the hunger strike in Novosibirsk would also be its last. While acknowledging that the strike's demand to allow Coalition candidates on the ballot remains unfulfilled, Volkov wrote that he still viewed the action as useful due to the publicity it had generated regarding the “lawlessness” of the local Election Commission. After Novosibirsk candidate Sergei Boyko was hospitalized on the night of August 7, Volkov said that the Coalition leadership had asked the hunger strikers to end their campaign because the continued health and strength of the strikers would be needed for other things.
Magadan and Kostroma
Beyond Novosibirsk, a similar story has been unfolding in the various other regions where the Democratic Coalition is also trying to run candidates in elections this September.
In Russia's remote northeastern region of Magadan, the Election Commission working group also recently barred Democratic Coalition candidates from the upcoming vote. Only 615 signatures were required to make it onto the ballot in Magadan, and Georgy Alburov, who heads the Coalition's candidate list there, personally led an effort to collect more than 1,000 signatures. However, the Magadan Election Commission ruled that over 10 percent of the signatures submitted by the Coalition were invalid, which automatically disqualified Democratic Coalition candidates from running this fall. Alburov elaborated on the developments on his blog:
Написал про наш отказ в регистрации и что мы будем делать http://t.co/tTivqKKadp
— Георгий Албуров (@alburov) August 1, 2015
I have written about the refusal of our registration and what we will do next
In Kostroma, a city several hundred miles northeast of Moscow, officials have also recommended against allowing Coalition candidates to take part in this fall's parliamentary race. Coalition efforts there are being led by Ilya Yashin. Yashin heads the Coalition's candidate list in Kostroma and is a deputy chairman of Parnas, a leading party of the Democratic Coalition which is formally sponsoring the regional candidates on the Сoalition ticket. Even after collecting over four thousand signatures, Yashin's team was initially ruled to have fallen short of the 2,738 valid signatures needed.
Ну вот, похоже, и нас в Костроме с выборов снимают. Рабочая группа избиркома забраковала 352 подписи ПАРНАСА, т.е. не хватает 78 подписей.
— Илья Яшин (@IlyaYashin) August 6, 2015
Well, it seems that we have been barred from elections in Kostroma. The Election Commission working group rejected 352 signatures from PARNAS, leaving us 78 signatures short.
The regional election commission in Kostroma will reportedly make a final decision on the matter by the end of August 8.
Earlier, on July 28, the Democratic Coalition's campaign manager in Kostroma, Andrey Pivovarov, was detained by police under suspicion of trying to buy a database of signatures from a police officer. Yashin wrote on Facebook that Pivovarov was detained when arriving at the local police station to check databases of signatures in order to prove that the signatures his volunteers had been gathering were valid.
National elections next year
The Democratic Coalition's efforts to field candidates in various regional elections this September in part represent a test run for 2016, when Russia's next round of national parliamentary elections is scheduled to be held. The Coalition plans to run candidates on the Parnas ticket for the elections to Russia's lower house of Parliament, the Duma, in September 2016, taking advantage of the fact that registered political parties will be able to bypass signature collection requirements in these elections due to a recent change in Russia's electoral law.
However, this does not necessarily mean that new hurdles will not be erected to derail opposition plans for 2016. On April 29, less than two weeks after the creation of the Democratic Coalition this spring, the Russian Justice Ministry canceled the legal registration of the Progress Party, the political party of Alexey Navalny that was a co-founder and leading member of the Democratic Coalition alongside the Parnas Party. The official reason given for the Justice Ministry's ruling was that the Progress Party had failed to register its regional branches within the required period of time. If the Parnas Party is also stripped of its legal status in the lead up to the national elections in 2016, the Democratic Coalition may find itself again unable to run any candidates.
The Democratic Coalition's efforts to participate in regional elections this fall have so far been foiled at every turn. While the administrative obstacle of signature collection requirements has been the favored tool of local officials in these cases, the Democratic Coalition has more generally run up against the limits to political competition informally imposed in Russia today.
As Coalition leader Alexey Navalny explained to the Central Election Commission, these developments make it more and more difficult to convince disenchanted opposition forces to participate in formal political processes instead of turning to more radical forms of resistance. The Democratic Coalition has announced plans for a mass protest in Moscow on September 13, the day that it had hoped to run candidates in various regional elections across Russia. Meanwhile, the Coalition's own future appears uncertain if it cannot pursue its main goal of participating in elections.

author: Will Wright


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The Right’s New Clothes: How Old Neoliberal Ideas Have Been Charming the Latinamerican Youth · Global Voices
Pública - Agência de jornalismo investigativo

Glória Álvarez, a star of the Latin American youth. Photo: Fernando Conrado / Divulgação
This story was written by Marina Amaral and originally published by Agência Pública. It will be republished by Global Voices in three parts via a content-sharing agreement.
“Our body is our first private property; only we may decide what to do with it”, says in Spanish the eloquent blonde, while moving gracefully on the Liberty Forum’s stage, draped with the brands of its official sponsors—Souza Cruz (cigarettes), Gerdau (steel), Ipiranga (oil), and RBS (a local TV station). The packed two-thousand-seat theatre of Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS), in Porto Alegre, explodes with laughter and applause for Glória Álvarez, a 30-year-old Guatemalan child of a Cuban father and Hungarian-descended mother.
Gloria, or @crazyglorita (who boasts 55,000 followers on Twitter and 120,000 subscribers on Facebook), rose to stardom among the Latin American right-wing youth in late 2014, when a YouTube video in which she attacks “populism” in Latin America during the Youth Iberoamerican Parliament in Zaragoza, Spain, went viral. In the Brazilian right’s main forum, Gloria and the ex-governor of South Carolina, Republican David Bensley, are the only ones among the 22 Brazilian and foreign panelists assigned to the keynotes—key panels that guide the debates in the three-day event, whose motto this year is “Paths of Liberty”.
A radio host with 10 years of experience, now presenting her own TV show, Gloria is a true show-woman. She resourcefully conducts her audience, made up mostly of students from PUC-RS—an elite school in Southern Brazil. “Who here declares themselves as liberals or libertarians raise their hands”, she asks the spectators, who reply with raised hands. “Ha, okay”, she relaxes. Her mission is to teach her ideological allies how to “charm and seduce the leftist crowd” and to beat “the bearded Che-Guevara-hatted troop”, explains the young leader of the National Civic Movement, a small organization created in Guatemala in 2009, in the wake of the movements that demanded—unsuccessfully—the impeachment of the Social-Democrat President Álvador Colom.
The first lesson is to make use on social media of a hashtag she created, “RepXPop” (Republic vs. Populism), which she believes outweighs the “obsolete division between left and right”. “An intellectually honest leftist must recognize that employment is the only way to create wealth, and a right-winger of the 21st century must acknowledge that sexuality, morals, and drugs are individual problems—they are not the moral authority of the universe”, she goes on, followed by a round of applause. No to guilt, neither moral nor social, she says. The message is individual freedom, youth “empowerment”, low taxes, a minimal state—the agenda of the liberal right (in economical terms), across the whole world: “Wealth isn’t transferred, ladies and gentlemen, wealth is created, starting with each one of your heads”, she says. Gloria also rebuffs social welfare programs for the poor, as well as affirmative policies for women, blacks, disabled, and even the mere existence of the concept of ‘minorities’: “There are no minorities; the smallest minority is the individual and for them meritocracy is what works best”.
“There is a truth to which every human being must reach to find peace, if they don’t want to live like a hypocrite. All of us, seven-and-a-half billion human beings living on this planet, are selfish. This is the truth, my dear Brazilian friends. Is this bad? Is this good? No, it’s just the reality”, she says, categorically. “Some people don’t accept this truth and say ‘no! [Gloria shouts, impersonating a man's voice], I will make the first non-selfish society!’ Watch out, Brazilians! Watch out, Latin America! Those people are like Stalin, in the Soviet Union, or Kim Jong-il, in North Korea, Fidel Castro in Cuba, or Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. And why do we keep following those hypocrites like sheep? Because [she says, now impersonating an old woman] they teach us that it’s wrong to be selfish and to think about ourselves is a sin. How many of you haven’t heard someone say ‘we need a good man, who doesn’t only think about himself’”? she says, bending over and then standing up again to regain her previous proud attitude. “Mira, señores, unless it’s an alien, this man doesn’t exist, never existed and will never exist”. Hysterical applause.
But she explains that the champions of freedom also have some responsibility. They don’t know how to communicate their ideas, or how to use technology to empower citizens and to free Latin America. “If you keep discussing macro-economics, GDP, and so on, we will lose the battle. We need to learn with the populists and speak what people understand, to make them identify with our cause”, she says. “And here I’ll give you another piece of advice, since they say that us, the liberals, are damned exploiters”, she says sarcastically. “I found a very nice way to define the concept of private property. And with this concept the leftists go like ‘woooow’”, she says, bending backwards, and continues: “Private property is what we amass in our lifetime starting with our first properties: body and mind. The past isn’t the same for everybody, this amassing is personal”, she says. “This makes us a little more human, it gives a little heart to us, disgraced liberals”, she laughs. Applause.
“Some people want the right to healthcare, to education, to employment, to a place to live. The UN now wants to provide universal right to the Internet”, she says scornfully, even though she had just said that technology is key to changing the world. “Imagine that, in this theatre right here, some of you want the right to education, others to healthcare, and others to a place to live. So, to give healthcare to some of you, I will make all of you here to pay taxes to fund it. But then they will be VIP citizens, no? And the others will be second-class citizens. If I give education to some of you, with everybody also paying for it, some will be VIPs and others also second-class. This isn’t social justice, this is inequality in face of the law”, she concludes, again through a round of applause.
“If each and every person in Latin America has the right to life, freedom, and private property, each and every person will go after the education, healthcare, and the house they want, with no need of super-Chávez, super-Morales, and super-Correa”. Ovation and whistles. Before she finishes her 40-minute presentation, Gloria invites the public to challenge the world view that sees Latin Americans as victims, the approach of “blame the Yankees”, which destroys self-esteem and the courage to take risks that the entrepreneur spirit demands. The audience applauses standing.
Gloria Alvarez doesn’t really embody anything new. Her main difference is the language she uses. The MCN movement (to which she belongs) receives “funds from some of the biggest companies in the traditional business elite”, according to journalist Martín Rodríguez Pellecer, director of the Guatemalan website Nómada, who’s a partner of Agência Pública. “Through close sources, I came to know that one of the companies that support their mass campaigns and lobbying activities in the Congress is Azúcar de Guatemala, a powerful cartel of 14 companies (Guatemala is the biggest sugar exporter in the world). The Guatemalan companies, by the way, have investments in Brazil”, he said.
The same could be said about her ideas. Despite the seductive title, the libertarians are “a minority segment among the strain of thoughts that gained influence in the post-War era, in opposition to the interventionist policies of Keynesian inspiration”, explains economist Luiz Carlos Prado, from Rio de Janeiro University.
After the 1970s oil crisis, pro-market economists such as Friedrich Hayek (Nobel Prize, 1974), monetarists from the Milton Friedman’s (Nobel Prize 1976) School of Chicago, and the new classics associated with Robert Lucas (Nobel Prize, 1995) began to dominate economical global thinking and became known to the public as “neoliberals”. Their concepts were brought to Latin America by the most conservative sectors of US society, represented mainly by think tanks connected to Ronald Reagan, who after losing the Republican primaries in 1968 and 1976, was elected president in 1980 with Friedman as a main adviser. They also dominated in the government of Margaret Thatcher (1979-1991) in the United Kingdom. “The defenders of classical liberalism were also defenders of political freedom, but this strain called ‘neoliberalism’ defended essentially the non-intervention of the state in the economy, without a particular preoccupation with political freedom and came shamelessly to support dictatorial governments like Pinochet’s in Chile”, says Prado.
Gloria Alvarez’ Guatemala is a good example of how libertarian ideas came into being in Latin America. In 1971, “a very representative part of the economical elite of Guatemala chose right-wing liberalism as its political project. That was when they founded University Francisco Marroquín (UFM)”, says Pellecer. “The University’s founder, Manuel Ayau, known as El Muso, in allusion to Mussolini, united himself with the fascist, anti-communism project of MLN [Movimiento de Liberación Nacional, or National Liberation Movement]. Since then, UFM has been forming political and academic cadres to discredit the state and social justice politics and to convert Guatemala into the country that collects less taxes in the whole Latin America (11 percent, in relation to GDP), and the one that least redistributes it”, he says. It was in this university that Gloria studied and “became a libertarian a little less conservative than her professors, who are a mix of neoliberals and Opus Dei. Álvarez declares herself to be an atheist and supporter of abortion rights. Although she’s a star of the Latin American right, she’s a minor reference in Guatemala. She doesn’t have a solid political base, and won't be a candidate. I see her more as a kind of libertarian enfant terrible”, he says.
Libertarians resurfaced with full force in the United States after the 2008 financial crisis—and the subsequent clamor for market regulation—and the election of Barack Obama. They preach the supremacy of the individual over the State, absolute market freedom, and the fierce defense of private property. They believe that the cause of the economic crisis that left 50 million people in poverty was not lack of regulations in the financial market, but rather the protection of specific sectors of the economy by the government. And they emphatically reject the social policies of the Obama Administration. However, a significant part of libertarians have started to distance themselves of the traditionalism associated with the right wing in personal conduct and to defend positions normally associated with the left, such as the legalization of drugs and tolerance of homosexuals, in the name of individual freedom. American senator Rand Paul, a hopeful presidential candidate, is one of this movement's best known representatives.
“The libertarians who are with Tea Party conservatives (the radical right wing strain of the Republican party in the United States) are also in think tanks such as the Cato Institute, and they make up the post-modern right, represented, for example, by Cameron in the UK, who modernized the welfare state agenda”, says Prado. He chuckles when I ask him about the Brazilian libertarians, followers of the Austrian school of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. “The Austrian school is a very minority strain even in academia”, he says. “Who are those libertarians? What we have in Brazil are sophisticated economists that follow currents like the new classics of Nobel Prize winner Robert Lucas, meek right wing politicians like Ronaldo Caiado (a senator for the state of Goiânia), and this conservative middle-class that reads Rodrigo Constantino [a liberal columnist] in Veja magazine”, he claims.
Both Caiado and Constatino are veteran participants in the Liberty Forum in Porto Alegre. What is new is that how the Tea Party’s libertarians have been capable of presenting themselves to Brazil's youth as the inviting new face of the right.

source: news-globalvoices

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


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Zambia Musician Gets Shoutout From President Obama for Highlighting Struggle Against HIV/Aids · Global Voices
Gershom Ndhlovu

The world is used to seeing the President of the United States, Barack Obama, mingle with music superstars such as Jay-Z and his wife Beyonce at the White House and other upmarket venues.
But it is not every day that the leader of the planet's most powerful country sounds out an up-and-coming musician from the developing world. That is precisely what Obama did during an address at the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) 2015 summit in Washington when he singled out Zambia's Brian Bwembya, better known by his stage name B Flow, and extolled his work in the fight against HIV/AIDS in his songs.
Last month the Zambian music scene was in the news for all the wrong reasons. At the same time one musician, Chama Fumba, got incarcerated for mocking Zambian President Edgar Lungu in one of his songs, another, Clifford Dimba, was pardoned with 16 years of an 18-year rape sentence still to serve after singing a song lauding Lungu in response.
President Obama's praise of Bwembya was a breath of fresh air for most Zambian citizens.
The following is part of the transcript of the US President's speech:
And I know you’ve been busy. Over the past few weeks, at schools and businesses all across America, you’ve been taking courses, developing the skills you’ll need to make your ideas a reality, so that you're able to continue the great work that you’re already doing, but take it to the next level.
That’s what Brian Bwembya of Zambia plans to do. Where’s Brian? Where is he? (Applause.) There he is right there. So Brian uses music to advocate against things like gender-based violence and to educate youth on HIV/AIDS. (Applause.) So while in the U.S., he’s learned about our health care system, met the founder of an American HIV/AIDS organization, and now he plans to start a record label for music about social change. So, Brian, we’re proud to be your partner. (Applause.)
The clip went viral and many people praised Bwembya on his Facebook page.
One of the posts read:
Wonderful News of all the 700 plus guests there!!! Barack Obama recognised Brian Bwembya B Flow..This is big my friend!!! No doubt, this is God's doing…Chapwa mwaya apatali ba guy [you are going places]!!#wekeepmoving #ZambiaStandup
A YALI Zambian chapter representative, Isaac Mwanza who was also in attendance at the summit, wrote:
Brian Bwembya B Flow so proud of you. I feel honoured to be part of that team that recognised talent in you and help to take it to a level where the 44th President of the United States of America could also have acknowledged during the Second Class of the Mandela Washington Fellowship. Know this that nothing is impossible until when it is done. I know you would have wished your mother to see but there always say it's darkest before dawn. However, God has a way of doing things and I believe God never closes one door without opening another one. He however does not lead us to that open door because he expects us to identify which door has been opened and walk right into it.
Now listen to Don Williams “Lord I Hope this Day Is Good”.
Your works speak for themselves. You that true Zambian celebrated musician and Radio Personality I know that's represented so well in the States.
#MusicForChange
After receiving President Obama's recognition, Bwembya posted on his Facebook wall:
Woops! Did 3 interviews today; Voice of America(VOA), US National Public Radio(NPR) and CSSI. What have you guys been up to? Let's chat…Chant it on #MusicForChange
He also tabulated his achievements in the United States:
Wait! It's not over yet. Last week I was awarded as a Wagner international Associate. I've just received another award from President Obama and the United States government; signed by the President himself. Zambia let's do this!! #YALI2015 #MusicForChange #ObamaForBFlow #WagnerInternationalAssociate
However, posting on the Facebook page of Mwebantu Media, one of the many sites that announced Obama's comments, Moono Acutely Smart, was not impressed:
Ata [gosh] so what? Obama aint God
I love b flow but I hate Obama coz he promotes gay rights
The question now is, having earned Obama's recognition, will Bwembya's message travel as far as President Lungu and the Zambian leadership?

author: Gershom Ndhlovu


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An Amazon Tribe’s 500-Page Traditional-Medicine Encyclopaedia · Global Voices
Global Voices Latin America

The Matsés peoples of Brazil and Peru—have created a 500-page encyclopedia of their traditional medicine! http://t.co/4t9hh6KIQr
— Moonching Wu (@SunMoonLake99) July 4, 2015
The Amazon Rainforest supports millions of plants that could be vital ingredients in still-undiscovered medications. For that reason, many pharmaceutical companies and even the US government are currently funding projects to study the indigenous plant knowledge of native shamans and healers in the area, and develop new drugs.
The Matsés people, who live in Peru and Brazil, have created a health encyclopedia more than 500 pages long cataloging their traditional medicinal practices, preserving ancestral knowledge for younger generations. The majority of the shamans are old and without apprentices. So when they die a vast knowledge also disappears.
But, in order to avoid bio-piracy, this information remains with the Matsés people; it is only accessible in the native tongue and is only distributed within the tribe’s villages. Protective measures also include: “no scientific names are used to identify local plant species, and no plants will be pictured in detail, so as not to be identifiable to outsiders.”
“The [Matsés Traditional Medicine Encyclopedia] marks the first time shamans of an Amazonian tribe have created a full and complete transcription of their medicinal knowledge written in their own language and words,” Christopher Herndon, president and co-founder of Acaté, told Mongabay in an interview.
According to Pachamama Alliance, a global community focused on creating a sustainable future, the health and wellbeing of the Western world, often comes at a high price for indigenous peoples. As pharmaceutical companies have realized that their research generates better outcomes if they co-operate with indigenous people and tap into their wisdom, rainforest tribes are at risk of losing control over their resources.
Once the pharmaceutical companies have developed the drug, they file patents claiming exclusive rights to the medical use of the plant – hence limiting or even denying access to the plants that indigenous peoples have relied upon for centuries.
That's why in 2010, the tenth Conference of Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing. It specifically addresses the issue of bioprospecting and the rights of indigenous peoples to access to forest resources, intellectual property, and adequate compensation.
Acaté, a San-Francisco-based non-profit, assisted the five shamans who compiled the encyclopaedia. In the encyclopaedia, each entry is categorized by a disease name and features explanations of how to recognise the disease according to symptoms, understand its root causes and know how to prepare medicine from specific plants to use as treatment. The entries also make readers aware of alternative therapeutic options.
The idea behind the project is to make the tribes less dependent on conventional doctors and western drugs, while maintaining their self-sufficiency.

author: Global Voices Latin America


text:
Canine Passports and the People Making Money Selling Dogs to Brazil from Venezuela · Global Voices
Morelia Morillo

Pug puppy, ash-grey in color, sells for 1000 reales (US$290) and is one of the most in demand canines on the border between Venezuela and Brazil. Photo: Morelia Morillo
The original version of this post was published in Spanish on the blog The Border Chronicles.
Santa Elena de Uairén is the capital of the land of the indigenous Pemon People in the municipality of Gran Sabana [The Great Savannah]. It is located on the Venezuelan border with Brazil and has recently emerged as a chaotic free port thronging with Brazilians who buy in bulk what little that can be found there.
In June 2015, at the time this article was written, the Brazilian Real went beyond the 100 bolivars threshold on the black market —  a stark contrast to the exchange rate set by the Venezuelan government of 2.19 bolivars to 1 real — and has continued to appreciate ever since. Venezuela, whose main export is crude oil, is in the throes of a serious economic crisis.
In 2003, Venezuela implemented rigorous and complex currency regulations. Currently, it has four different exchange rates, three of which are regulated by the state, which provides a social rate for purchases of food and medical imports.
On the black market $1 US can fetch over 670 bolivars.
Luis Rio Bueno, a vet from Gran Sabana, recounts that at least 100 Venezuelan puppies cross the border monthly into Brazil, where they have a growing resale value.
In Maturin or Valencia, more than 1,000 km from Santa Elena, a Golden Retriever costs the equivalent of US$2, while in Brazil it costs 200 reales (US$60). In Boa Vista (220 kilometres away) and Manaus (865 kilometres), the two closest Brazilian cities, the price is at least double in each instance.
At the intersection of streets located in the heart of Casco Central in Santa Elena are the so-called ‘Four Corners’ where barterers can be found changing reales for bolivars or vice versa. Or selling dogs.
During the third week of May at the transport terminal in Brisas de Uairen — one of the four trading hotspots — two girls offer ‘a promotion’ for a litter of Rottweiler puppies.
On any other day, a dog of this breed sells for 700 reales (US$200), they say, but today one will go for 650 reales or even 600 reales flat.
At the end of May, in front of the Great Savannah Hotel (Hotel Gran Sabana), a girl named Río exhibits a Pug puppy, ash-grey in colour, for which she is asking 1,000 reales.
“This is the one from [the film] Men in Black; it’s one of the most expensive that we sell.”
Monthly, she finds buyers for 32 dogs, all of which she manages to buy in Valencia or other central cities, she recounts.
Three weeks later on a Friday in June, a couple from Maturin are displaying nine puppies in a cage on the ground at the same transport terminal in Brisas de Uairen where the two girls were offering up their Rottweilers.
They have not been there more than 10 minutes and at least six possible clients — all Brazilian — have stopped.
Within a cage approximately 1 metre by 60 centimeters, they are showing off five Poodles: three mini toys and two conventional, which they value at 200 reales each, as well as one Siberian Husky, two Rottweilers and one Schnauzer, all valued at 700 reales each.
One of the men from the first group of customers is concerned about the appearance of one of the two small Rottweilers.
‘Are they mixed?’ he asks.
The seller assures him that they are ‘purebred’.
The girl accompanying the customer loves the Siberian Husky.
‘Look! He’s so beautiful’ she says and takes him under her chin into her bosom.
Nonetheless her friend encourages her to continue looking and bids the sellers goodbye, assuring them: “We’ll be back in a little while.”
Luis Rio Bueno, the local vet says:
There is a problem: many of those selling dogs do not care about the condition in which they are selling them […] The majority of the dogs are arriving with falsified documents that have not been certified by a vet´ he explains, while showing a stack of vaccination cards with inconsistencies regarding the professional’s identification number as well as information related to the vaccine.
Bueno adds that the dogs should be vaccinated before they leave the country, at least with the six combined vaccinations (Parvovirus, Coronavirus, distemper, hepatitis, leptospirosis and influenza) and of course they should be healthy with bright eyes and a healthy coat.
If not, “the day the authorities realise this is not the case, they will put a stop to the business.”
Furthermore, Bueno suggests that the animal’s breed be confirmed given that they are selling ‘mixed breed’ dogs, for example offspring of Cocker Spaniels and Poodles as if they were thoroughbred. Their teeth should also be checked.
“Go to the vet with the seller and check the dog, before paying for it,” he concludes.
The minimum wage in Brazil is 788 reales a month (U$230), the same as what you might pay for a Rottweiler in Santa Elena.
It is said that in Boa Vista a Rottweiler can cost around 1,500 reales. In Manaus, in the Amazon region, the price could go up even further.
The behaviour of the dog traders is a hot topic in Venezuela. So is the proliferation of thieves who, with little affection or food, coax dogs from their homes in Santa Elena in order to sell them on for precious reales.

author: Morelia Morillo


text:
Making the Culture and Language of Peru’s Nomatsigenga People Accessible and Enduring · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Member of the Nomatsigenga community. Image provided by the project.
The Nomatsigenga, pronounced [nomatsi'geŋa], are people that live in 33 native communities in the Pangoa Valley, at the center of the Peruvian Amazonia, whose language is endangered.
According to Alexandra Aikhenvald, a linguist specializing in Amazon languages, their language belongs to the Kampa ethnolinguistic branch, which in turn belongs to the Arawak family.
The Nomatsigenga's diverse base of traditional knowledge is also disappearing with time. To prevent that, an Archive of the Nomatsigenga Language and Culture has been created, as explained on the website Nomatsigenga:
[…] el primer repositorio digital creado de manera conjunta y participativa con el objetivo de registrar, visibilizar y hacer perdurable la lengua y cultura de nuestro pueblo. Esta iniciativa es el resultado de una colaboración entre el pueblo nomatsigenga, el Proyecto de Documentación de la Lengua Nomatsigenga (DLN); Organización KANUJA, Firebird Foundation y el Ministerio de Cultura.
[…] the first digital archive was created jointly with the aim of recording and making the language and culture of our people visible and enduring. This initiative is the result of a collaboration between the Nomatsigenga people, the Nomatsigenga Language Documentation project (DLN); the KANUJA Organization, the Firebird Foundation and the Ministry of Culture.
Global Voices talked to Gerardo Manuel García, the project director, about the initiative.
Global Voices (GV): How did the idea of creating the digital archive appear and what steps have been taken to make this project a reality?
Gerardo Manuel Garcia (GMG): Cuando los científicos realizan trabajo de investigación de campo y recopilan, registran la información en una lengua indígena. En el mejor de los casos, conservan la información en un acervo dirigido por instituciones ubicadas en el extranjero, como por ejemplo el Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America de la Universidad de Texas o el Archivo Dobes. La desventaja de este sistema es que la propia comunidad hablante de esa lengua no tiene acceso a los audios, videos y fotografías del investigador. Nuestra idea fue proponer un repositorio digital y de acceso libre, para que así los propios hablantes lo asuman como suyo y puedan actualizarlo con información de su pueblo y lengua. A inicios de 2015 surgió el Acervo Digital de la Cultura y Lengua Nomatsigenga.
Gerardo Manuel Garcia (GMG): When the scholars carry out field research and compile, they record information using indigenous language. At best, they preserve the information in an archive run by institutions based abroad, such as the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America at the University of Texas or the Dobes Archive. The disadvantage of this system is that the community who speaks that language itself doesn't have access to the audios, videos and images of the researcher. Our idea was to propose a free digital archive, so the speakers themselves might take it as theirs and be able to update it with information about their community and language. In early 2015 the Digital Archive of Nomatsigenga Culture and Language was created.
GV: What can you tell us about the Nomatsigenga language?
GMG: Para la UNESCO, el nomatsigenga está en peligro de extinción; apenas la usan unas 8,000 personas en la selva central del Perú, distrito de San Martín de Pangoa, provincia de Satipo, región Junín. Fue por eso que decidimos documentar la tradición oral de esta lengua recopilando mitos, leyendas, canciones, cuentos, discursos, autobiografías, para crear un acervo digital donde salvaguardar la información, comenzando por su tradición oral hasta medicina tradicional. El Acervo el Acervo Digital de la Cultura y Lengua Nomatsigenga es producto del trabajo realizado entre el Proyecto de Documentación de la Lengua Nomatsigenga, las comunidades nativas, la organización indígena KANUJA, el Ministerio de Cultura, la Municipalidad Distrital de San Martín de Pangoa y el apoyo financiero de la Firebird Foundation.
GMG: According to UNESCO, the Nomatsigenga language is endangered; it has only 8000 speakers in the central Amazon region of Peru, San Martín de Pangoa district, Satipo province, Junín region. That's why we decided to register this language and its oral tradition by compiling myths, legends, songs, tales, speeches, autobiographies to create a digital archive to preserve the information, starting from oral tradition and running all the way through traditional medicine. The Digital Archive of the Nomatsigenga Culture and Language is the result of the work carried out jointly by the Nomatsigenga Language Documentation Project, the native communities, the indigenous organization KANUJA, the Ministry of Culture, the San Martín de Pangoa district municipality and the financial support offered by Firebird Foundation.
GV: What role for Nomatsigenga youth in the project?
GMG: Los hablantes de las lenguas amazónicas son mayoritariamente jóvenes y la lengua nomatsigenga no es la excepción. En el Proyecto de Documentación de la Lengua Nomatsigenga están involucrados directamente jóvenes, María Manay Chimanga y Magadalena Chimanga Chanqueti. A partir de su participación en la recopilaciòn de información tradicional de su pueblo se han encontrado a sí mismas, pues como dicen “los sabios se están muriendo y todas la información y la lengua está muriendo con ellos. Es por eso que necesitamos recopilar y recuperar”. De la misma manera, las hermanas Guisenia y Herlinda Rodríguez de la comunidad de Mazaronquiari aportan al proyecto con discusiones y propuestas. Es muy importante la participación activa de los jóvenes, pues ellos serán el incentivo para más jóvenes documenten su lengua y cultura.
GMG: The speakers of the Amazon languages are mostly young people and Nomatsigenga language is no exception. At the Nomatsigenga Language Documentation Project the youth, such as María Manay Chimanga and Magadalena Chimanga Chanqueti, are directly involved. From their participation in compiling the traditional information of their community, they have found themselves “compiling and recovering”, since “wise men are dying and all information and language are dying with them.” Likewise, sisters Guisenia y Herlinda Rodríguez from the community of Mazaronquiari participate in the project with discussions and proposals. The active participation of the youth is very important. That will encourage more youth to document their language and culture.
GV: What is their main economic activity?
GMG: Los nomatsigenga son mayoritariamente agricultores y comercializan sobretodo el cacao y el maíz.
GMG: Nomatsigengas are mainly farmers and trade mostly cacao and corn.
GV: About the documentary — what stage of production is it at and how can we watch it?
GMG: El Documental Nomatsigenga, que se encuentra en proceso, ha sido ampliado. Mientras más se visitan las distintas comunidades nomatsigenga de Pangoa, cerca de 36 comunidades, se encuentran diferencias lingüísticas y culturales entre los pueblos. Es por eso que nuestro documental aún está en proceso. A pesar de que el documental se encuentra en elaboración se han producido materiales audiovisuales como nuestro reciente video sobre el V Encuentro de los Pueblos Nomatsigenga y Ashaninka.
GMG: The Nomatsigenga Documentary is in progress and [the production period] has been extended. The more you visit the various Nomatsigenga communities in Pangoa — about 36 communities in total — the more linguistic and cultural differences you find between the communities. That's why our documentary is still a project in progress. Although it's still at the production stage, there is some audiovisual footage [already available], as our recent video about the V Conference of Nomatsigenga and Ashaninka Communities shows.
GV: Thank you very much, Gerardo.
Below are some phrases in the Nomatsigenga language:

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


text:
Maldivians March to Mark Anniversary of Local Journalist’s Disappearance · Global Voices
Rezwan

Image via the Facebook page of Secular Democratic Maldives Movement
It has been 365 days since Maldivian journalist, blogger and human rights advocate Ahmed Rizwan Abdulla went missing. The 28-year-old, who works for online news site Minivan News, is an advocate of democracy and free speech and a prolific social media user.
There has been no real progress in the investigation and the people behind his abduction have not been identified. The Maldivian Police and the government have remained silent.
Rilwan's friend Yameen Rasheed describes what has happened in the space of a year:
To demand action and accountability from the state, Rilwan’s well-wishers started the #FindMoyameehaa campaign – the first of its kind in the Maldives. The campaign has organized rallies, petitions, public events, awareness programs on the streets, and also engages the public on social media. The #FindMoyameehaa campaign has drawn widespread attention and international press coverage, and also generated responses – including statements from IFJ, SAMSN, Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives, and various national and international bodies.
On July 8, 2015 Rilwan’s family called for an independent public inquiry into the disappearance and the lapses in the investigation.
On August 6, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urged Maldives to launch an independent investigation into Rilwan's case.
No new leads, no updates, no news, and no effort to investigate. Doesn't he matter? #FindMoyameehaa #SuvaaluMarch pic.twitter.com/9QAhUibp9w
— Hanaan Didi (@hanaandidi) August 8, 2015
It can't be more obvious that the state is complicit in the abduction of Rilwan. Which is why they will never help #findmoyameehaa
— Nora Nazeer (@NoraNazeer) August 8, 2015
Yameen Rasheed @yaamyn talks about disappearance of journalist & #findmoyameehaa campaign in @ifjasiapacific video https://t.co/ctjLxs3LU8
— Ujjwal Acharya (@UjjwalAcharya) August 7, 2015
To mark one year of his disappearance, the family has requested a public rally on August 8 to remind the state of its duty to protect journalists and enforce the law. The opposition Maldives Democratic party has endorsed the rally.
Maldivians are using hashtags #suvaalumarch and #findmoyameeha to spread word about the rally:
RT EasaDhari: RT MDPYouth: #Live #SuvaaluMarch #FindMoyameeha #HappenningNow pic.twitter.com/z4VafWxSz6
— Aneh Velidhoo MDP ® (@AnehVelidhoo) August 8, 2015
Rilwan's colleague @ZaheenaR says he was abducted to kill the hope for a better Maldives. #FindMoyameehaa pic.twitter.com/42o0A6SIdt
— Mickail Naseem (@MickailNaseem) August 8, 2015
#SuvaaluMarch was just concluded and @PoliceMv is back to inflict more pain on a suffering family and friends. pic.twitter.com/uDfDLr0oOq
— Mariyath Mohamed (@EhJu) August 8, 2015
Maldives’ police tried to stop a peaceful silent #suvaalumarch led by missing journo's family. Friends & family pepper sprayed & manhandled.
— MushfiqueMohamed (@mushfique_) August 8, 2015
Rogue police disrupting #FindMoyameehaa silent #SuvaaluMarch pic.twitter.com/ylPlvK40Z8
— Mickail Naseem (@MickailNaseem) August 8, 2015
Intimidating and attacking Rilwan's family members during the otherwise-peaceful #SuvaaluMarch? @PoliceMv don't know the meaning of shame…
— Ahmed Hazyl Hilmy (@hazylium) August 8, 2015
Usually don't lose my cool, but how @PoliceMv treated Rilwan's family today at #suvaalumarch was blood boiling. pic.twitter.com/yNa20kkczB
— Naif Naeem (@nAAYf) August 8, 2015
@PoliceMv said #SuvaaluMarch was obstructing traffic. What they have become is an obstruction to justice. #FindMoyameehaa
— Shauna Aminath (@anuahsa) August 8, 2015
Police manhandled members @moyameehaa ‘s family&friends to prevent them from continuing #suvaalumarch . Broke my shades with all the pushing
— Aeko Fathih (@aekofathih) August 8, 2015
And people still have hope:
Still Hope & Pray that Rilwan is Alive. #FindMoyameehaa pic.twitter.com/S92UfCKaHn
— Ali Waheed (@ali20waheed) August 8, 2015
Keep writing, drawing, singing, dancing, praying, continue to speak truth to power, tell the world of Ahmed Rilwan's story #FindMoyameehaa
— Zaheena Rasheed (@ZaheenaR) August 8, 2015

author: Rezwan


text:
Why Are Japanese Airsoft Fans Cosplaying the Ukrainian Military? · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Ukrainian military insignia, a flack jacket, and a airsoft rifle, accompanied by an anime drawing—a Japanese otaku's arsenal. Image from http://kumanori0108.militaryblog.jp/.
Japan and Ukraine are miles apart, but as it turns out, Japanese airsoft players are big fans of the Ukrainian military—so much so that they are now dressing as Ukrainians and modeling their game scenarios after anti-terrorist operations in eastern Ukraine.
Airsoft, a military simulation game in which participants seek to eliminate opponents by hitting each other with non-metallic pellets, originated in Japan. The game is often played using organized scenarios based on military simulations or historical reenactments. “Combat situations” in a particular scenario may involve the use of military tactics to achieve objectives set in each game, and participants often attempt to emulate the tactical equipment and accessories used by modern military or police organizations. Strikeball is a more serious variant of airsoft, with regulated safety guidelines, insured fields, detailed game scenarios, and promoters for legal events.
It's not surprising then, that as the creators of the game, Japanese airspoft players should be the most inventive about their game scenarios. But who would expect them to be self-professed fans of the Ukrainian military? A Ukrainian LiveJournal blogger, rastamandita, recently discovered a series of photo reports on a Japanese airsoft blog, full of players dressed in painstakingly recreated Ukrainian uniforms and military insignia, and armed with replica airsoft guns.
A Japanese airsoft/strikeball player dressed in meticulously recreated Ukrainian military costume. Image from http://kumanori0108.militaryblog.jp/.
В Японии, оказывается! целый культ нашей войны, там внимательно следят за ходом, покупают (в совместных закупках) униформу, шевроны, очки, обувь и проч. и устраивают костюмированные игры, где тщательно подбирают все детали. Фотки с их игр перемежаются оригинальными фотками Минобороны Украины, описаниями оружия, особенностей униформы и проч.
It turns out! in Japan our war has become a kind of cult, they follow the events carefully, buy (in cooperation) uniforms, chevrons, glasses, boots, etc. and stage costumed games, where all the details are carefully thought out. The photos from the games are mixed with the original photos of Ukraine's Defense Ministry, descriptions of the firearms, details of the uniforms, etc.
The blog discovered by rastamandita, “Українаに魅せられて。” (“Charmed by Ukraine”), is indeed chock full of images of Japanese airsoft players cosplaying Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers, as well as those of actual Ukrainians (one post showcases photos from the joint US-Ukraine Rapid Trident training exercises). Other content on the blog includes detailed studies of uniform detail, insignia of various Ukrainian army divisions and volunteer battalions, and the logos and gear of the Russian-supported militant formations in eastern Ukraine.
A recent post suggests one airsoft game in particular was devoted to the National Guard of Ukraine, while another meet-up saw players come dressed as members of various units of the Ukrainian military. The blog also suggests that many of the Ukrainian-themed games pay homage to the controversial Azov Battalion, although there is no mention of the Right Sector, another right-wing organization whose members participate in the anti-terrorist operation in eastern Ukraine. Ultimately, the players seem more interested in recreating the details of the costumes and gear, in order to be as authentic as possible when staging their airsoft/strikeball games between “opposing forces.”
The “Charmed by Ukraine” blogger and a fellow airsoft enthusiast dressed in combat gear to recreate the Ukrainian military style. Image from http://kumanori0108.militaryblog.jp/.
The author of the “Charmed by Ukraine” blog describes himself as “just a middle-aged dude interested in anything to do with Ukrainian military gear,” and lists among his particular interests groups such as Ukrainian paratrooper battalions, special forces, interior troops, Russian paratroopers, and the Red Army of 1918.  He emerges as a typical representative of the Japanese “otaku” culture, which unites individuals who are obsessed by all of the details and intricacies that make up a particular interest or cultural phenomenon—in this case, Ukrainian military gear and “military culture.”
The blogger says his interest is purely cultural, and that he doesn't wish to engage in the politics around the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.
※当方政治思想等とは全く関係なく軍装をやっていますので、ウクライナ、親露派どちらが悪いだとか、その手の話題には全く触れるつもりはありません
Since my blog has nothing to do with politics and is just about military gear, I am not going to say whether the Ukrainian side or the ethnic Russian side are right or wrong. I am not going to discuss that at all.
Japanese otakus (and otakus around the world, for that matter) are interested in all kinds of things, from sci-fi to anime and manga, but the fact that recent events in Ukraine have also drawn their attention is testament to the truly global communication and information flows, and the power of the Internet to enable people to learn about—and engage with—the history and culture of countries that, on a map, may seem very far apart.

author: Tanya Lokot


text:
232 Turkish Scholars Call for International Help Facilitating Kurdish Peace Process · Global Voices
Elia J. Ayoub

Supporters of the Leftist HDP party celebrate making it to the Turkish parliament. (Source: ROARmag)
Over 230 Turkish scholars from several universities have released a statement calling on the international community to press for the resumption of peace talks between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
In 2013, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan called for a ceasefire and an end to armed struggle, effectively ending a conflict which had lasted for nearly 30 years and cost the lives of up to 45,000 people. But recent developments in Turkish politics have threatened this fragile 2013 truce.
Turkey's official position towards the PKK went from working towards reconciliation to making a complete U-turn ahead of the June 7 elections that brought a pro-Kurdish party into the parliament for the first time.
Back in 2013, as Al Monitor's Zülfikar Doğan reported, Turkish president Erdogan's party, Justice and Development Party (AKP), undertook several initiatives to speed up the peace process following Öcalan's announcement.
Erdogan's government tried hard to sell the idea to the public by highlighting the supposed losses that the conflict brought to Turkey's economy, claimed them to be as high as $1.2 trillion between 1986 and 2012. They also employed the humane slogan: “Don't let the mothers cry anymore.”
But recently Ankara has found itself in the unusual position of launching an armed assault on one section of Kurdish fighters in neighbouring Syria, while also targeting ISIS, a radical group waging a brutal war against anyone and everyone in the Middle East, including Kurdish units close to Turkey's border.
Turkey had until recently remained neutral in the fight against ISIS, even facing accusations from some quarters of assisting the group in various ways with an eye on keeping a common enemy — Kurdish militants — sufficiently weak.
Although strongly opposed to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad from the outset, Turkey has seen Kurdish fighters in Syria grow bolder in the power vacuum brought on by the civil war there and fears that momentum could be growing towards an independent Kurdish state that might have designs on eastern Turkey. In this sense, ISIS was doing Ankara an unspoken favour by pinning them back.
That all changed on July 20 when 33 members of the Turkish Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) Youth Wing and the Socialist Youth Associations Federation (SGDF) were killed in an ISIS attack on the border town of Suruç. The youths — Turkish citizens mostly of Kurdish heritage — were on their way to provide aid to Kobane, the Kurdish-majority city in Northern Syria which had suffered extensive damage from the war between the Kurdish People's Protection Units and Women's Protection Units (YPG and YPJ) coalition and ISIS.
In response Turkey launched a series of attacks on ISIS targets — to the delight of its ally the United States — but soon after began targeting PKK ones, too. The situation is made even more complicated by the fact that while the US government officially considers the PKK a ‘terrorist organization’, it has been supporting the YPG, a group allied with the PKK, in the fight against ISIS in Syria.
Given that the PKK has been at the forefront of the fight against ISIS in Iraq, Turkey's targeting of PKK positions is being seen by many as counterproductive to the broader struggle against ISIS. Once criticised for adopting a passive stance towards the chaos on its southern border, Turkey is now under suspicion of using the fight against ISIS as a flimsy pretext to execute its ultimate aim: neutralising the Kurdish resistance.
It is in this context that 232 Turkish scholars have asked for the international community to put pressure on the Government of Turkey to resume peace talks with the PKK, highlighting that “the core message of the work we do will be that war budgets are compensated by our taxes and that it is the poor who lose their lives in a war.”
The statement is as follows:
Support Us ın Our Call!
Declaration to the Peoples of Turkey and the world,
Like many people in Turkey, we, as academics, were emboldened by the peace/solution process between the Turkish state and Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) officially initiated in January 2013, hoping for a new era that would end the conflicts continuing for over 30 years in Turkey. We have repeatedly stated, especially in our works on Turkey’s history, economy and social relations, that the conflict has affected every aspect of Turkey, turned people into enemies, and increased inequality, discrimination and violence. We have been of the opinion that Turkey was finally going to have a chance to face its truths, democratize and heal its wounds.
We have supported every stage of the solution process between 2013 and 2015. We have stated that the creation of a Wise People’s Committee [1], the Dolmabahçe Agreement [2] and that enactment of a new law by the Parliament regarding the solution process [3] were positive measures. However, the comparative studies we have undertaken on the ongoing peace processes across the world have shown us that these are not sufficient measures and that the process needs to be supported with various monitoring committees and, as in the case of Mandela, the isolation of Abdullah Öcalan [4], one of the leading actors of the process, should be lifted. We have noted that the process should not be exploited for the purposes of foreign or domestic policies. We have also stated that deep-seated hostility against the Kurds in Turkey could only end by establishing a Truth Commission and by revealing the tragedies of the past as well as those who are responsible of them [5].
At the current state of affairs, we regret to see that that the government did not make any arrangements to guarantee the stability of the peace process, and that there are no independent civil institutions to advise and evaluate the sides so that the public can be informed and transparency can be maintained. As of today, it is unfortunate for us to witness that the process is reduced to a tool regarding inter-party competition. The policies concerning Syria, Iraq and Iran have also created an environment where the war has resumed.
It is also unfortunate that despite the warnings of academics, NGOs, responsible politicians and reporters, no steps were taken to prevent the contagious civil war in the Middle East from affecting Turkey. On the contrary Turkey is being rapidly dragged to war.
Tens of peace processes across the world have shown us that the losses are much higher when people take up arms again and that the solution comes only if new democratic spheres are opened. In the last year, we have lost our students in Kobani and Suruç. Only in this past week, we have lost many other young people to the resumed conflict between the state and PKK.
It should be well-known that we will never sacrifice our children, our students and none of our youngsters for war. For us, not a single disagreement is more important than their lives and the future they will build.
We invite all parties to a consolidated ceasefire immediately. We ask the government to abandon the language that cause discrimination, hostility and conflict; the responsible reporters to disclose their colleagues that provoke the war; and the parliament to pass laws that will guarantee the continuation of the peace process immediately.
The truth does not develop under conditions of war and today Turkey needs the truth before anything else.
We are declaring to the public: There is only one lesson that the young people can derive from our writings, statements, and lectures and it is that their lives matter and the country will not survive unless they are alive. The core message of the work we do will be that war budgets are compensated by our taxes and that it is the poor who lose their lives in a war. Our philosophy as academics is that nobody has the right to oppress and insult others. Nobody can prevent others from exercising their right to free speech. Our work is concerned with teaching young people to protect themselves from the poisonous feeling of revenge, continue to seek their rights, defend truth against lies and never be discouraged from democratic discourses and actions.
We, as 232 academics who’ve undersigned this statement, invite all academics, teachers, producers and consumers of knowledge, women and men to raise their voice and be a part of democracy and truth.
Signatures:
Abdullah Sessiz, Prof, Dicle University
Ahmet Altınel, Assist Prof, Mimar Sinan University
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Ayşe Berkman, Prof, Marmara University
Ayşe Durakbaşa, Prof, Marmara University
Ayşe Erzan, Prof, İstanbul Teknik University
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Düzgün Çakırca, Assist Prof, Batman University
Elçin Aktoprak, Assist Prof, Ankara University
Ebru Aykut, Assist Prof. Dr, Mimar Sinan University
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Ertan Yılmaz, Prof, Akdeniz University
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Esra Mungan, Assist Prof, Boğaziçi University
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Ferhat Kentel, Prof, İstanbul Şehir University
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Ferruh Akay, Assoc Prof, İstanbul University
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Figen Binbay, Assist Prof, Dicle University
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H. Pınar Şenoğuz, Assist Prof, Gaziantep University
Hacer Ansal, Prof, Işık University
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Yahya Madra, Assoc Prof, Boğaziçi University
Yasemin Özgün, Assoc Prof, Anadolu University
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Yıldıray Ozan, Prof, Ortadoğu Teknik University
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Explanatory:
[1] Wise People’s Committee (Akil İnsanlar Heyeti), which was composed of 63 members, was constituted on April 4, 2013 to explain the process to people and to report their expectations from peace.
[2] Dolmabahçe Agreement was declared on February 28th, 2015 by members of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) and People’s Democracy Party (PDP) as the framework for peace negotiations. However, after the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared his disapproval of the agreement, it was disowned by JDP.
[3] On July 15th, 2015, the Law on ending terror and strengthening of social cohesion was passed that gave legal framework to peace negotiations.
[4] Abdullah Öcalan is the leader of PKK and remains in prison since 1999.
[5] Throughout the 1990s when the war between the Turkish state and the PKK was at its peak a number of human rights violations has been committed by the state against Kurds including disappearance, extra judicial murders, displacement, rape and harassment. To this day no one has been prosecuted for these crimes although confessions of former officials who committed these crimes are abound. During 2000s, Kurds living or working in cities of Turkey have been victims of numerous hate crimes.

author: Elia J. Ayoub


text:
Gülen Schools Get Flushed Out of Tajikistan · Global Voices
Censored Voice

In Istanbul a banner with Fethullah Gulen (left) and Erdogan's pictures reads “one is no better than the other”. Protesters rally to protest against corruption and planned construction projects. Demotix photo taken by Fulya Atalay. ID 3553279.
Impoverished Tajikistan will be ringing in the new academic year this September without seven well-regarded schools belonging to the controversial Turkish Islamic scholar and educator Muhammed Fethullah Gülen.
Seemingly encouraged by Gülen's enemies in the Turkish government and never needing too much of an excuse to shut something down, the Tajik government has closed the schools in favour of publicly-run “schools for gifted children”.
Tajikistan's education system is regarded by education specialists that work in the region as the worst in the former Soviet Union. Although the country is not part of the PISA rankings system run by the 34-member Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and based on evaluations of fifteen-year-old students, neighbouring Kyrgyzstan regularly finishes bottom of those rankings. Tajikistan's schools are even worse.
In a dim educational environment, the Gülen Schools — private schools that taught a secular curricula in English and Turkish and cost roughly $1,300 per year in tuition — were a flickering candle. Now Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has extinguished the flame, signing off last week on a government decision to take over the schools run by the Gülen-affiliated Shalola Educational Institution.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who accuses the influential Gülen of trying to set up a “parallel state” in Turkey, and who shut down his Turkish schools in 2013, almost certainly had something to do with the decision.
As the pro-government Turkish outlet the Daily Sabah reported in May:
[Erdoğan] has drawn attention to the alleged illegal activities carried out by the Gülen Movement, which range from conducting unlawful wiretapping to infiltrating key government institutions in an apparent attempt to oust the elected government … [Erdoğan] has been telling foreign leaders that the movement aims to topple the Turkish government and that Turkey no longer approves of its existence.
But as noted by Bakyt Beshimov, an educator and former lawmaker from Kyrgyzstan, the move may be counter-productive. Students of the region's so-called ‘Turkish lyceums’ tend to develop strong sympathies for Turkey and go on to have further dealings with the country:
Will Erdogan end up destroying the key component of the Turkish soft power in Central Asia?
— Bakyt Beshimov (@bakytbeshimov) 7 августа 2015
For Tajikistan, the damage will be more immediate. In 2013, Shalola paid close to $1 million in taxes. In their first decade of functioning in Tajikistan, students of Tajik-Turkish schools brought home 484 medals from the Turkish-language Olympiads held by the movement.
Meanwhile the Tajik state educational system prepares citizens for little besides seasonal migration to Russia.
Mixed feelings
Among commenters on Tajik news websites positions on the government's decision varied.
While few dispute that the schools were an improvement on Tajik state schools, many believed the schools encouraged Pan-Turkism, or the unification of Turkic peoples.
Ironically, this is a vision close to President Erdoğan's heart, but one Tajiks — a non-Turkic people that share a country with Turkic minorities such as Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and Uighurs — tend to be ambivalent about.
A reader of Asia-Plus, who calls himself Mr. declared:
давно пора закрыть эти рассадники пантюркизма
The closure of these seminaries of pan-Turkism is long overdue.
A dissatisfied parent shared her experience of applying to the Tajik-Turkish lyceums in one of the world's most corrupt countries:
…Короче говоря, бардак и коррупция с этими вступительными экзаменами в турецкий лицей. Есть конкретные факты когда дети с вообще не проходными баллами все равно проходили, а те у кого были баллы больше но не крутые родители оставались за бортом – тогда о какой прозрачности и честности вы говорите… Да еще когда подаешь апелляцию долго тянуть и не дают результаты сравнить с тестами… Короче манипуляция результатами тестов там всюду и везде… Позор этим лицеям пантуркистов!
Shortly speaking, admission exams to Turkish lyceums are messy and corrupt. There are concrete facts of children who did not receive a passing score getting admitted. And those who scored higher but did not have rich parents were left out… In short, manipulation of test results is rampant. Shame on these Pan-Turkic lyceums!
Dana, another commenter at Asia-Plus highlighted the quality of education available at the Gülen schools:
Ochen jal. Moi deti zakonchili atot litcei,poluchili horoshee obrazovanie ,ih druzay takje horosho obrazovany. U nih horoshie manery.Oni govoryat na tajik ,russian,turcish,english. Prichem na tajik govoryat namnogo luchshe chem nashi vysoko ….. postavlennye ludi. Drugie ne smogut bsego atogo poluchit . esli nashi zapustat svoi pravila.Moi deti uchilis i obsshalis s uchitelyami inteligentnymi,kulturnymi. V nashih shkolah u mnogih uchitelei nizkii uroven kultury,intelekta.
So unfortunate. My children graduated from one of these schools, received a good education — their friends are educated too. They have good manners. They speak Tajik, Russian, Turkish, and English languages. Besides, they speak Tajik a lot better than our high-level officials. Other children will not get this education, if [the schools] are run by local rules. My children studied and communicated with intelligent and civilized teachers. But in our local schools, most teachers have low intelligence levels.
While Azick, another supporter of the Gülen schools wrote:
Да жалко конечно, почти 90% выпускники этих школ не едут в Рф на гастарбайтерство а работают в хороших местах не только в РТ но и по всему миру. Опять политикой как-то пахнет
It is unfortunate, of course. Almost 90% of the graduates of these schools do not go to Russia as labour migrants but work in good places not only in Tajikistan but throughout the world. This smells of politics again.
According to some estimates there are Gülen-inspired educational institutions in over a hundred countries in the world. The schools typically allocate no more than 80 minutes of class time per week to religious instruction, adapt to education regulations in the countries where they operate and prioritise teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
Seemingly few governments have responded to Erdoğan's calls to shut the schools.
In Central Asia, Gülen's schools were kicked out of Uzbekistan in 2012 — even before the scholar's unseemly split with Erdoğan — and as of 2014 Turkmenistan only has two.
In Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, where there are roughly 15 and 30 respectively, Gülen is a significant force in the local market for education. There is even talk of emergent ‘clans’ within both governments consisting of Gülen-school graduates aged between 25 and 35.

author: Censored Voice


text:
London’s Social Housing is Falling Down · Global Voices
John Lubbock

An anti-gentrification protest in Brixton in 2013. PHOTO: John Lubbock
Between 2013 and 2014 I worked as a community organiser on a social housing estate in South London. If you’ve never seen “First World” poverty, you probably think it’s not that bad to be poor in the West. London is an expensive place to live, so if you have a low-paying job, along with the housework, your job and raising however many kids you have, you have to be incredibly organised and careful with your money to be able to make all your payments and claim all the benefits to which you’re entitled.
The old social housing of London is falling to pieces. Since the Thatcher government encouraged renters to buy their own council houses in the 80s, the stock of social housing has fallen, and the money the government received from council house purchases was not ploughed back into building more social housing units to replace the old stock. Since the 80s, governments have worked on the assumption that the private sector could meet this demand.
Except that it can’t. Private companies want to make a profit, and in the short term, the profit margins on social housing are tiny. Instead, the private rental sector has boomed, and the government’s housing benefit bill has shot up. Instead of housing these people themselves, as the government used to, it is now channeling money into the hands of landlords. Some of the politicians who have supported these policies are large private landlords themselves.
Across London, the cost of living is rising, especially for renters, and many are sinking beneath the poverty line, unable to keep up. This has been exacerbated by the Bedroom Tax, which cuts 25% of a social housing tenant’s housing benefit if they have two or more unoccupied rooms. At one public meeting I went to at Brixton Town Hall, one woman related that she had her benefits cut after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, all because her daughter left to go to university and she now had a spare room. Her housing association was offering her new accommodation in a city hours away from London.
This is happening all across London, in a move people are referring to as “social cleansing“. As money flows into areas close to central London, those on low incomes are pushed out as rich investors buy up properties in those districts—many as a kind of “international reserve currency” through which they launder illegal money. This problem is widely acknowledged, with dodgy foreign government officials from dictatorships across the world sinking their ill gotten gains into huge property portfolios, many of which sit empty.
The damp walls of a flat in Clapham Park Estate, South London. PHOTO: John Lubbock
Much of the anger at the consequences of gentrification is aimed at local councils. This has frustrated councillors I have spoken to who believe that this anger is misplaced. Cash-strapped councils must make tough choices, they say. And in the absence of any mechanism for rent controls, there is little that councillors can do when an area becomes desirable and private renting costs start to spiral.
It’s not surprising therefore, that the Trussel Trust, which helps manage a network of about 1,300 foodbanks across the UK (which they estimate to be around 40% of the UK’s food bank total) have seen a massive rise in the numbers of people using them. According to Trussel, the total number of uses of the foodbanks they support increased from 25,899 in 2008-9 to over 1 million in 2014-15.
Now, energy company nPower is working with the Trussel Trust to provide vouchers to people living in fuel poverty so they can heat their houses in the winter. Trials of fuel banks have so far helped around 750 people who have already been referred to foodbanks. NPower sees this initiative as part of its corporate responsibility and Energy Company Obligation, under which it spent £65 million last winter on improvements to insulation and boiler repair.
However, this assistance is only available to private renters or homeowners. I saw for myself how fuel poverty affects many living in social housing because of the high cost of heating apartments with no insulation. Often the private housing association wants to demolish old blocks to build new apartments, some of which could be sold as ‘buy-to-let’ in order to subsidise the low-cost units they are obligated to provide. Tenants are left for years not knowing if or when their houses will be demolished, or if they will be adequately re-housed. Housing, food, and fuel insecurity all go together, making the lives of those living in poverty unbearable.
Adrian Curtis, the Foodbank Network Director of the Trussel Trust says that his organisation’s goal is not “to replace the welfare system,” and that the Trust seeks to influence policy only through its publication of data on food bank usage. But whether the new Tory government is able to identify, let alone tackle the root causes of poverty is highly debatable. Their current policy is to continue selling off social housing and hope that private companies will build more “affordable housing”, which can cost up to 80% of market rate.
But this would not help a lot of people who live in poor-quality housing. Tony Blair’s New Labour government pledged a “Decent Homes” standard, which required local authorities to make sure all their social housing met minimum levels by 2010. This promise was never realised.
If successive governments had bothered to invest in low-cost housing, there wouldn’t be so many people on low incomes who are struggling to pay rent. London is now such an expensive place to live, it might as well be an amusement park for oligarchs with signs warning, “You must be this rich to enter”.

author: John Lubbock


text:
On the Seventieth Anniversary of the Bombing, Japan Remembers Nagasaki · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. Central pillar contains names of the 168, 767 victims of the Nagasaki bombing who have died so far since the war. Photo by Nevin Thompson.
On August 9, Japan marked the seventieth anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki. Although the 1945 destruction of Nagasaki has been traditionally observed each year, the 2015 commemoration was held as the remaining ageing hibakusha survivors who remember the day continue to die, and with them the memory of the horror of Japan's Pacific War.
The seventieth anniversary of the bombing of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki comes at a time of growing unease in Japan as the country's governing coalition is busy “reinterpreting” Japan's “Peace Constitution” to allow the country to legally go to war.
During the month of August, Japan remembers the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, and the end of a long and ferociously bloody “Pacific War” on August 15.
Traditionally, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima has overshadowed  the bombing of Nagasaki that occurred just a few days later.
Some of the reasons are logistical: compared to Hiroshima, which has its own stop on Japan's high-speed rail line, Nagasaki, located in the far west of Japan on the island of Kyushu, is isolated and hard to reach.
Nagasaki also has very few reminders of the bombing. While Hiroshima's distinctive Genbaku Dome has become both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a an iconic symbol of the horrors of nuclear war, Nagasaki has been rebuilt and most of the buildings and structures affected by the blast have vanished into history.
In Nagasaki, the bomb exploded directly above Urakami Cathedral, one of the largest Christian churches in Asia at the time. It represented Nagasaki's nearly 400-year connection to Christianity in 1945 (the original Urakami Cathedral itself dates back to 1895).
Urakami Tenshudo (Catholic Church) Jan.7, 1946.　　Photo by AIHARA,Hidetsugu. (1909-). Image is public domain.
Unlike the blasted remains of the Hiroshima Trade Hall (now known as the Genbaku Dome), which remain as they were on August 6, 1945, what little of Urakami Cathedral that survived the 1945 Nagasaki bombing was taken away.
All that remains of Urakami Cathedral are a few red brick columns, preserved at the hypocenter of the bomb.
Remains of Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki (hypocenter of explosion). Photo by Nevin Thompson.
Writing in the Japan Times, Tomoko Otake notes that remembering the victims of the bombing of Nagasaki is complicated by the location of the hypocenter itself.
While the bomber crew was intent of targeting the rail depot and busy shipyards located in the heart of Nagasaki proper, they mistakenly bombed the suburb of Urakami to the north of the city.
In 1945 Urakami was not yet considered part of Nagasaki, and, Otake writes, was home to both the Kakure Kirisitan religious minority and Japan's “untouchable” dowa social caste.
For her Japan Times piece, Otake interviews Nagasaki historian Shigeyuki Anan (阿南重幸) of the Nagasaki Human Rights Center:
Anan, who has viewed the atomic bombing of Nagasaki as a lens through which to look at wider issues of human rights and discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities, says some Nagasaki residents — who were faithful to the local Suwa Shrine — took the bombing of Urakami as a sign that non-Shinto believers were “punished.”
“They said the bomb fell in Urakami, not Nagasaki,” Anan said.
Such a sentiment among locals polarized Nagasaki, keeping them from uniting in an appeal for peace, experts say.
Nagasaki Bomb Hypocenter in March, 2015 – Urakami, Nagasaki. Photo by Nevin Thompson.
As in Hiroshima, the Nagasaki's memorial ceremony each year is led by the mayor of the city. Several thousand people gather in a large “peace park” located on a hill overlooking the epicenter of the bombing in the suburb of Urakami, to the north of Nagasaki's downtown core.
初めての参加でした。
A photo posted by @tmhrer on
This is the first time I have attended [the Nagasaki memorial service]
Hibakusha survivors are asked to speak, and politicians, including the Prime Minister of Japan, lay wreathes and make their own remarks on the bombing. The ceremony is typically broadcast live on television.
Nagasaki memorial service, August 9th, 2015
Just over 34,000 hibakusha (survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) remain in Nagasaki. On the seventieth anniversary of the bombing, their average age has topped 80 years old for the first time.
As people who actually experienced and suffered the aftermath of the horror of the bombings continue to die, there are worries that few people in Japan will remember the true, horrible nature of warfare in the nuclear age.
As part of his speech at the ceremony on Sunday, August 9, Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue directly addressed the need to remember the past, and for future generations to not forget to work for peace:
To the young generation, I ask that you do not push wartime experiences aside saying that they are stories of the past. Understand that the wartime generation tell you their stories because what they speak of could, in the future, happen to you as well. Therefore, please inherit their wish for peace. Please imagine what you would do in such circumstances, and ask yourself “What can I do for the sake of peace?” You, the young generation, have the power to transcend national borders and create new relationships.
A few days before the Nagasaki memorial ceremony on August 9, 2015, Prime Minister Shinzo raised eyebrows when he neglected to mention or make reference to Japan's “3 non-nuclear principles” (非核三原則 Hikaku San Gensoku) during his address at the Hiroshima memorial ceremony.
As Prime Minister Abe and his government have worked hard to set up a legal framework that will permit Japan to go war, discarding seventy years of post-war pacifism, there are also worries that Japan is in fact a covert nuclear-threshold state.
Abe's failure to recognize Japan's 3 non-nuclear principles during his Hiroshima address, critics say, is yet another example of his government's “incremental” approach to changing Japanese society, in this case carefully preparing the way for Japan to emerge as a nuclear state.
As if in response to these fears, Abe dutifully reiterated Japan's commitment to the country's 3 non-nuclear principles when he addressed attendees at the Nagasaki ceremony on August 9th.
平和への願いを灯籠に＝浦上川で万灯流し－長崎 http://t.co/WIDdz9qLPz pic.twitter.com/G2yDhFirdK
— Cubeニュース (@cube_news_site) August 9, 2015
Lanterns are released on the Urakami River with a prayer for peace.
Ceremonies commemorating the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the end of the war itself coincide with Japan's traditional O-Bon festival.
Observed in mid-August each year, O-Bon marks the time when ancestors return to visit the family home. At the end of the festival, many families send off their visiting ancestors aboard floating paper lanterns released onto a river or into the ocean.
In Hiroshima and Nagasaki this practice has special poignancy as the lanterns are accompanied with prayers for peace and a hope that no one else will ever experience the horrors of nuclear war.

author: Nevin Thompson