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Qatar: NYT’s article draws fire from locals and residents alike  · Global Voices
Shabina Khatri

Some complain that too many Qataris are sitting on the sidelines while expats build their country (photo courtesy of Mohamed Nanabhay)
Pride swelled and well wishes rang out across Qatar over the weekend as it became the first country in the Middle East to submit a bid for the World Cup.
But it was a bittersweet victory for the tiny, image-conscious Gulf country, which also on Friday was the subject of another less than favorable New York Times article.
The story, Affluent Qataris Seek What Money Cannot Buy, opens with:
Citizens of Qatar appear to have it made. They tend to drive big cars, live in big houses and get big loans to pay for big watches and an outsize lifestyle. They have an army of laborers from the developing world to build a sparkling skyline and to work whatever jobs they feel are beneath them. And their nation has enough oil and gas to keep the good times rolling for decades.
So why do so many people here seem so angry?
It goes on to outline the blame game played by expats and the minority local population, both of whom feel victimized by the other.
The piece, written by Michael Slackman, who a few weeks earlier reported on rising obesity rates in Qatar, has drawn fire from Qatar residents for what they called unsubstantiated assertions and shallow reporting.
On Twitter, @glcarlstrom, who runs a commentary and analysis blog about the Middle East called The Majlis, says:
Slackman's Doha piece is like a caricature of foreign reporting: Visit for a week, interview 10 people, BOOM! Trend story
@NazQatar says:
RT W@G_E: what does the #nytimes have against #Qatar? Last week they were fat, this week they're lazy?
Bloggers also weighed in.
In a post titled “New York Times Ridicules Qatar,” Marjorie in Qatar blogs:
So it's nice to see the New York Times addressing something that I think IS a hot issue here… but the way they go about it makes me cringe a little. I think it'd be more interesting for them to have dug deeper into Qatarization and its effects, or the role of nationality in expats’ experience of Qatar, rather than just making mocking digs about people's restaurant etiquette.
On her blog, Qatari Derhamiya takes issue with the article’s description of a local woman mistreating her maid, saying that she is not a representative example.
All I have to say in the end is that not all people are good and not all people are bad, and if Moza Al-Malki will be the one representing “the bad” side of Qatari Women to the world on the New York Times, then I’ll be the one setting “the good” side of Qatari women on my blog, the Filipino woman that works at my house is well treated and respected by my sisters and I, she sits on the table with us during meals, and the smallest example for us respecting her is the fact that we call her “Ate” and Ate is a Filipino word used for Respect, which means Big Sister.
Despite its shortcomings, the article has struck a nerve here for highlighting the invisible line that divides many expats and locals. It’s a reality that has both sides blaming the other.
On the popular online forum Qatar Living, commentator Happy Happy says:
It's so funny how when I sit with my Qatari friends they complain that “Qatar is not for Qataris, we've become second best”.
Then my expat friends badmouth “the Qatari slackers are getting all the benefits for doing nothing!”
Wallahi (I swear by God) unbelievable!
As is often the case, when this common conversation hits a wall, the discussion always turns to the Qatari government and its role in resolving the problem.
On Qatar Living, commentator Linc says:
Qataris seem much like the poor people who win a giant cash lottery in the West.
Most winners immediately start living a lifestyle of along the lines of what they had always imagined wealthy people to enjoy–i.e. what they see on TV. This means lots of excess, waste, leisure, and feeling superior to everyone else because of the size of their wallets. Only a minority of the winners work hard, better themselves and their family through education, remember that they were once poor and treat other poor people with dignity, and never forget that their wealth came from luck rather than skill.
Not surprisingly all but a handful of these winners waste all of their money and ultimately die lonely and poor. That is what the government leadership is trying hard to avoid for Qatar when the oil and natural gas run out. Good luck to them. Judging from the article and the majority of Qataris whom I know and work with, it will be an uphill battle. And the next generation just seems to have a much greater sense of entitlement and more likely to believe all the hype about their “superiority” (but then who could blame them if they grew up in this sheltered, censored environment; one would think, reading the press here, that Qatar was the globally acknowledged center of the universe populated by the most industrious, high-achieving people on the planet).
This article just confirms it all in a humorous way.
But local Qatarisun counters by asking for an understanding of context:
Qatar is developing for very short period of time. 1-2 generations ago education was not a part of the local culture at all… so it is simply not in qataris’ blood to study hard and to achieve any goals.. That’s what Qatar government is doing, is pushing Qataris hard to accustom them to study and to accustom them to work.. well.. it needs another at least 1-2 generations (or even more, depends on how correct the current path is) to change their mentality… Government is doing great job, but something else should be done, some other instruments and incentives should be brought up, rather than excessive unjustified salaries for qataris.. Some image of working Qatari should be created, so that it would become prestigious for Qatari to study and to work.. much more prestigious than flying on Land Cruisers..
Indeed, Qatar has invested a great deal in education, pouring billions of dollars into higher education and revamping its secondary education program to prepare its residents for competition on a global scale.
But it is still a conservative Islamic country, and co-ed education does not sit well with everyone. As test scores rise and time passes, however, some are confident that reform will happen.
On QL, commentator John Of Arc calls for patience:
Don't get me wrong. I think qatar has great potential, but is a potential that will be met in time with hard work, good education and proper training. It isn't something you can force to happen successfully overnight in my opinion.
Photo Credit:
Mohamed Nanabhay

author: Shabina Khatri


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Russia: Coal Miners Block the Railroad · Global Voices
Alexey Sidorenko

Desperate coal miners in Mezhdurechensk [EN] (Kemerovo region, Siberia) blocked the Transsiberian Railroad and were suppressed by the police (video here [RUS] and here [RUS]). Miners claim that the official data on the casualties in the May 9 Raspadskaya mine explosion [EN] were underestimated. Their official appeal is here [RUS]. The Vkontakte group covering the event was allegedly closed [RUS] by FSB.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Alexey Sidorenko


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Russia: Driving News · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Russian driving news: Keith Gessen posts a Tver resident's video of a ride across a recently reconstructed bridge over the Volga river – which, supposedly, “is now fully open to traffic in both directions”; Julia Ioffe writes at True/Slant about an impatient Russian MP who kept trying to get past a “huge column of tanks, armored vehicles, and missiles” – “some 3 km long” – that were moving along Minsk highway back to their base after the May 9 Victory Day parade on Red Square.

author: Veronica Khokhlova


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Russia: Pictures of Zombie Mob · Global Voices
Alexey Sidorenko

Tons of fake blood, zombies, undead and other scary creatures invaded the main street of Moscow. Photos from the event called “Zombie Mob” can be found here, here and here.


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Russia: Russian Women & the Future of the US · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Mark Adomanis stumbles upon an atypical “women seeking men” ad on moscow.craigslist.org and writes on True/Slant about “the apparent inability of many Russians to distinguish between plans (or other future activity) and reality.”


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Sri Lanka: Drainage Problem In Colombo · Global Voices
Rezwan

Kanishka Ratnapriya at GroundViews posts some pictures showing the inundations in different parts of Colombo after two hours of rain, and questions the faulty drainage system of the capital of Sri Lanka.

author: Rezwan


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Africa: International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia comes to Africa · Global Voices
Haute Haiku

International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO)) is a day is recognized by people joining together to speak out against homophobia, its effects and results focusing on ways to change how people perceive homosexuality and promote equality; ways in which LGBTs are accepted and respected and have  same  rights and peaceful existence with other citizens to roam free and not be harmed. The day is held on May 17 every year.
IDAHO highlights places where homophobia is on the rise. This year the focus is on three Africa countries: Kenya, Uganda and Malawi:
May 17th — International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) — is a day when people of good will bring the spotlight of world attention to the problem of anti-gay discrimination and violence and highlight those places where Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people are suffering the most egregious human rights violations.
This year's IDAHO focus is three countries in Africa – Uganda, Kenya and Malawi. Africa may seem far away to most Americans, but purveyors of hate against gays in the United States have played a key, behind-the-scenes role promoting anti-gay legislation in at least one country, Uganda. Moreover, the anti-gay hate pumped out by American evangelicals here and missionaries abroad is simply a more “respectable” version of the hate which is at the root of anti-gay mob violence in Africa.
A portion of the blame goes to the religious clerics, where the church has been accused of funding, promoting and spreading homophobia. Rev Rowland Jide, a Nigerian pastor of House of Rainbow says:
All over the world, transphobic and homophobic violence is often perpetrated by conservative people who use religion to justify their acts. This is not the privilege of any specific religion and it would be only too easy to find examples related to outburst of violence in Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, animist, etc… contexts. Leading to a climate of violence, exclusion, hate and discrimination within the faith groups and believers, these expressions of violence also indirectly influence many non-believers or atheist people, and lead them to opinions and acts that attack the dignity, safety and sometimes the very lives of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) people. Far from being a phenomenon of the past, this religious violence is a persistent, and sometimes an increasing reality in many countries. The conservative religious right is also mandating its theology of violence and exclusion into the political realms as well.
The recent occurrences that puts Kenya, Uganda and Malawi at the center stage are:
Kenya
A post originally written by a gay activist in Kenya Denis Nzioka on the colourful life of a gay Kenyan talks about mobs attacking gay men in Mombasa, Kenya:
The Ugandan anti gay bill has been tabled in parliament and now it awaits the president Yoweri Museveni to sign and make homosexuality officially illegal. The previous code was not clear but now the bill called “The anti homosexuality Bill 2009” tabled by a member of parliament David Bahati which states that any homosexuality act or tendencies might face the death penalty or face life imprisonment.
Malawi
A gay couple were arrested after holding an engagement ceremony.
A Malawi court will sentence Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza next month of charges of “gross indecency.” Chimbalanga, who identifies as a woman, and Monjeza were arrested last December after holding a traditional engagement ceremony. The couple face a maximum sentece of 14 years at hard labor.
Rev Jide writes on the aims of the International Day against homophobia as:
Arguments for the added value that the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia brings to advocacy strategies:
– It gets good media attention and provides an interesting moment to go public and talk to the media.
– It is a good opportunity to request political attention from policy makers.
– It generates mainstream social attention and allows getting messages out to constituencies that are outside of the “usual” LGBTI/Human Rights circles. It may therefore increase the public campaigning potential around LGBT issues, including through the mobilisation of social networks.
– Through the common focus on one Day, it allows joint initiatives to take place. It helps build perennial alliances around a cause.
It is proposed that the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia in both 2010 and 2011 are used as campaigning moments over this issue.

author: Haute Haiku


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Bangladesh: Tulip Tweets · Global Voices
Rezwan

Maskwaith Ahsan at E-Bangladesh highlights Tulip Siddiq, who along with few others have pioneered the political presence of Bangladeshi women in the UK; and she tweets too!


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Barbados: PM Unwell  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Bajan Global Report links to a report on the ill-health of the nation's Prime Minister, while Barbados Free Press blogs about an upcoming national day of prayer in his name.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Bermuda: Approaching Hurricane Season  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

21 Square is bracing for “a very active hurricane season, potentially one of the most active on record.”


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Bulgaria: AC/DC Sofia Concert Videos · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Some 60,000 fans attended AC/DC's concert in Sofia, Bulgaria, on May 14, and Ipolitan (BUL) has posted 23 videos from the event.


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Chile: The Rebirth After the Earthquake Tragedy · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Editor's Note: The following republished post was the grand prize winner in the Global Voices blogging competition held in conjunction with OCD Iberoamérica. The other finalists were featured in an earlier post.
Post written by: Isidora Barroso “The Rebirth After the Tragedy“
February 27 was an abrupt wake-up call for Chile in her early morning hours, the earth shook and roared prisoner to a sadist eroticism that radically changed the life of her inhabitants.
This would only be the start of the tragedy caused by the 8.8 Richter-scale earthquake that lowered the “flag with the solitary star” in absolute mourning.
The orgasmic movement of the fields, would follow the scourge of the angry, devouring sea, the darkness in which we were immersed in tragedy for at least the next 48 hours, in my opinion … the worst and most degrading part of the day, seeing how a band of criminals took advantage of the state of disaster in Concepción, to plunder everything in their path, and thereby the dignity of an entire country.
Today, nearly 3 months after the incident, Chile once again is waking up…this time embracing the memory of its dead and with the fervent conviction that we will be up on our feet once again, because we have never knelt in front of a conflict, and this won't be the exception. This is Chile’ strength, the blood of the warrior and fighter that runs through the body of each one of its inhabitants.
To get up, does not mean only the will, but also the creation of concrete ideas and projects oriented to the reconstruction of houses and fallen buildings, just like the spirit of the Chileans. It must be understood that this long and wide stretch of land is prone to telluric movements and worse yet, shelter dozens and dozens of geographic faults. Assuming this reality is indispensable to begin the reconstruction and this way I think, is what the least what we stopped reflected upon, tripping time and again on the same rock.
It is important to know that if Chile has around 6,500 kilometers of coastline, then we are a clear target for the anger of the ocean and its tsunamis. Therefore, it is time to decree regulations that prohibit the construction of houses and schools in coastal areas susceptible to being dragged into the sea in the event of an earthquake, distinguishing the insecure areas, with signals of a particular color that alerts the people that they are located in a danger zone. As I heard around there, the areas close to the sea should only be used for touristic and entertainment purposes, close to the coastal area with restaurants, casinos, bars, discos or businesses. This should accompany a governmental plan towards education for the populace regarding how to act and react in case of an earthquake.
Regarding the construction of schools, I think that the governments have been concerned with “constructing” in order to satisfy the people and remain with the label “in our government we have been concerned with education because we constructed 800 schools.” Unfortunately, now we are paying the price of all those who “constructed” their egos and their reputations, leaving thousands of students out of school up until last April. We understand that we should work for Chile, but not for political ends of reelection. If we are to build, let us do so with dignity and materials that assure the survival of the structure and the security of our children and teachers.
Finally, and most importantly, let us be concerned with education the populace from infancy with concepts of civil education and respect, because the more important than first learning to add or subtract, it is to learn how to act in a society and not
It pains me to witness the pain of my people caused by the earthquake, my heart shrinks with each of their stories, but what hurts the most is to see a Chilean trampling the dignity of others.

author: Eduardo Avila


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China: Do Officials Really Fear the Internet? · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Chinageeks picks up a local media debate on whether or not Chinese officials are afraid of Internet public opinion.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Ecuador: Science and Technology Fair in Catacocha · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

The 5th Science and Technology Fair recently took place in Catacocha in the Ecuadorian province of Loja, writes Voces Lojanas [es].


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Ethiopia: Activists use new media to ensure free and fair election · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

As Ethiopians are preparing themselves for parliamentary election scheduled for May 23, 2010, two organisations are using new media to ensure free and fair elections. Ethiopia CommonBorders, a community-based organisation, uses social networking site, Facebook, as part of its campaign while Ethiopia Vote Monitor, a pilot project by Ethiopian civil society organisations uses a web-based platform to collect and visualise election information on a map.
CommonBorders Facebook page is called, “Support a Free and Fair Election in Ethiopia.” Its page already has 2,904 members and 23 topics for discussion have been posted so far.
This is how the organisation describes its mission on its official website:
Ethiopia CommonBorders is a community-based, non-partisan, non-profit society that coordinates electoral observer delegations. Ethiopia CommonBorders provides its members with the unique opportunity to experience and learn about democratic processes and the political environment in Ethiopia while serving as electoral observers.
Do you expect free and fair election with existing poletical system and channel?, the group asks its Facebook members.
A sample of responses from its members:
True indeed, we are under the control of a stalinist tribal junta with no tolerance for the will and wish of the people – here is a link regarding the 2010 “elections”
there's a clear definition of democracy and the concept is simple! The TPLF version instilled in Ethiopia is a fascism – nothin like democracy.
There won't be a free and fair election for a bit long time, and there wasn't any. The miracle is one- we have to push all oppositions to go participate and show us what they dreamed for us, with all the fraudulent vote count they get. then after our question will begin– we will tell them to fuck off. but till then it is not time for us to side to any of them. For example, OLF had around 60% of the paliament's seats in 93, but when “One nation One Army” was signed they left the parliament hence they wanted their military unit to be active and that was not allowed. Just telling you– this illusion that they brought in the past 4 decades has to be analyzed before we react to ideas.
But in Ethiopia particularly, the current regime continues to be buttressed by the support of the US in their war against an ideology so to see a change in government isn't likely right now. It's going to take the people fighting against this establishment.
I look at this Ethiopian government in disgust personally, dismantling the ICU in Somalia and justifying it with fear mongering propaganda when it was a fear of conflict over Ogaden. Bottomline is that there can't possibly be free and fair elections if this system isn't even inclusive to all it's people.
Ethiopia Vote Monitor intends to use citizens reporting for a more transparent and accountable democracy:
Its About Us page reads in part:
Thanks to the power of free and open source technology we can gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map and timeline.
Ethiopia Vote Monitor is a pilot project led by Ethiopian civil society organizations, with technical support from Digital Democracy utilizing the Ushahidi.com system.
The project intends to disseminate key information and messages to field workers, facilitate communication between groups, collect data that can be mapped on a public site, rapidly spread news of violence and abuses to the international community, advocacy groups, and key actors on the ground through new media.
Ethiopia Vote Monitor uses Ushahidi platform. Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, is a website that was initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. The platform is free for any person or organization who want to collect and visualize information.
Citizens can report election related incidents to Ethiopia Vote Monitor by sending an email to ethiopia@digital-democracy.org, by sending a tweet with the hashtag/s ethiopia or ethiopiavotereport or by filling a form at the website.
The project is also on the popular microblogging site, Twitter.
The last elections in 2005 were followed by bloody clashes between riot police and opposition supporters and arbitrary arrest of opposition politicians. There are fears that the situation might be even worse this year. An opposition candidate, Gebru Asrat, was stabbed to death in March this year. Opposition politicians claimed that his killing was part of politics of intimidation and harassment before election day.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Global: The Green Wave 2010 · Global Voices
Diego Casaes

Esse tal Meio Ambiente blogs [pt] on The Green Wave Campaign 2010, to take place on May 21-22 in parallel with the International Day for Biodiversity. The multi-year global campaign promotes the discussion of biodiversity by children and youth and the planting of trees.

author: Diego Casaes


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How to Follow the World Cup in South Africa Online · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

J.L. Orihuela in Blog eCuaderno has published quite a [es]  handy list of resources for anyone wishing to follow the 2010 World Cup of soccer in South Africa online.  Videos, blogs, twitter, mass media and aggregators make the list a must-have for soccer fans.

author: Juliana Rincón Parra


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Hungary: “UEFA Threatens to Bring Euro 2012 Matches to Hungary” · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Pestiside.hu reports that UEFA “has threatened to take away the four [Euro 2012] sites from Ukraine, and move two to Poland and two to Germany or yes, Hungary.”


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Iran:Deal between Iran and France · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Tahe Khand writes that France decided Monday to send home an Iranian agent it had jailed for murdering the Shah's last prime minister, two days after Tehran freed a young French academic accused of spying. The blogger with irony says  [fa] why you do not want to believe french government when it says there was no agreement between Iran and France and all is just a coincidence.

author: Fred Petrossian


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Jamaica: Feeling It · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Active Voice empathizes with her Prime Minister, “because this turn of events has nothing to do with him personally, or the Jamaica Labour Party for that matter. It's just the way the cookie crumbles in countries that are well on their way to being narco-democracies.”


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Japan: 100 Japanese Books with Global Appeal · Global Voices
Tomomi Sasaki

Tomo Akiyama links to Yurindo's book fair, which lists 100 Japanese Books with Global Appeal in English.

author: Tomomi Sasaki


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Pakistan: The Journey Of A Muslim Youth · Global Voices
Rezwan

Omar K at Pak Tea House tells the story of a bizarre journey of soul searching as he embraced the practices of Islam and slowly distanced himself from them.


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Puerto Rico: In Solidarity  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Repeating Islands reports that “public figures including musicians, singers, and sports personalities from Latin America and Spain” have sent messages of support to the students who are on strike at the University of Puerto Rico.


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Russia: “Novaya Gazeta” Down · Global Voices
Alexey Sidorenko

The Web site of Russia's independent newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” seems to be down. As the newspaper's blog states, it's not a DDOS-attack but a hosting provider's issue due to the yesterday's rainstorm. However, the sudden blackout might be connected with the events in Kemerovo region.


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Russia: Photos Flood in Moscow · Global Voices
Alexey Sidorenko

Alexey Yushenkov posts pictures of the flood on one of the central streets in Moscow. He also gives pictures of the same situation in 2006. Other pictures of the flood available here and here.


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Russia: Pictures of Forest Fire · Global Voices
Alexey Sidorenko

Photoblogger Igor Podgorny posts convincing pictures of the aftermath of the forest fire that is denied by Russian authorities.


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Russia: The Andrei Kolesnikov Mystery · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Poemless discovers that the English-language Wikipedia article on Russian journalist Andrey Kolesnikov is misleading, and that there are actually two Russian journalists named Andrey/Andrei Kolesnikov, and both “cover high profile politicos and contribute to widely-read newspapers and other media outlets” – and “[t]hese Andrei Kolesnikovs are like good/evil twins or something.”


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South Korea: How to be a Power Blogger · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Ask a Korean! translated an article by Mr. Joo Seong-Ha on how to becom a power blogger.


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Taiwan: Prix ARS Electronica Give “Puncar Action” Honorary mention  · Global Voices
Portnoy Zheng

ARS Electronica just announced the winners of 2010 Prix ARS Electronica. Puncar Action, a Taiwanese digital inclusion project, gets honorary mention in the category of Digital Community along with  another 11 distinctive projects. See our past report on Puncar.

author: Portnoy Zheng


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

Throughout our mapping and analysis of the 36 case studies on the Technology for Transparency Network  we have tended to group projects by their geographic region. This is in large part because our team of researchers and research reviewers were hired explicitly to map and evaluate technology projects that promote transparency and accountability in the regions were they are based. However, when one steps back to take in all of the projects from a global perspective, it becomes readily apparent that there are thematic and strategic categories which apply across regions. This week's posts aim to tease out some of those trends and offer constructive criticism and concrete recommendations to funders, project leads, and researchers as to how such projects can become more effective, efficient, and sustainable.
On the Technology for Transparency Network platform we have organized case studies and project listings into ten different categories: budget monitoring, civic complaints, election monitoring, parliament informatics, extractive industries, private sector transparency, advocacy, crime, local government, and aid transparency. You can sort through each of the ten categories by clicking on the filters beneath our map interface. If you have suggestions for other categories that we should be tracking, please leave a comment below.
Today's post will focus on two of the largest categories we reviewed – budget and election monitoring.
Monitoring the budgets of local and national governments is a key instrument in the toolkit of any accountability activist. Active budget monitoring can both prevent and expose corruption. As an example, despite protests from privacy activists, the Mexican government decided to publish the salaries of elected officials. (At the time, Mexican governors were among the highest paid in the world.) The reasoning is that any elected official who is clearly spending more than his/her salary permits should be scrutinized closely to determine where that money is coming from, and whether it is linked to political misbehavior.
Budget monitoring can also lead to improved public services and infrastructure. For example, in the United States the government recently passed the largest economic stimulus program in the country's history. To track how that money was spent the government created Recovery.gov while ProPublica created Eye on the Stimulus, which also tracks how the money is spent. Kenya had its own stimulus program, called the Constituency Development Fund, which started in 2003 as a way to fund local governments to improve their infrastructure and services. Budget Tracking Tool is a way to see how that money is being spent and to leave comments to report on the progress of those projects. However, so far few people seem to use the tool, and even fewer comment on the progress of the development projects in their constituency.
In order to effectively monitor and evaluate any budget, the data must be available in a format which allows for analysis in a spreadsheet or database program. The information should be both granular, in order to evaluate as many variables as possible, and timely, in order to expose corruption and inefficiencies before it is too late. Unfortunately, most governments that do publicly release their budget information do so using Adobe's PDF format, which doesn't allow for data analysis. As Noam Hoffstater and Alon Padan of Our Budget pointed out in our interview, the accounting offices of governments obviously have their budget information in spreadsheet format, but they purposely publish it as a PDF document in order to discourage closer scrutiny.
Our Budget uses OCR technology to create an Excel spreadsheet version of the Tel Aviv municipal budget. Volunteers go over and check every entry, and then they make visualizations and graphs of how the municipality is spending taxpayers’ money. Importantly, while they have done this for two years running, in the end they decided that litigation (demanding that the municipality release the budget in spreadsheet format) was a better strategy than time-consuming, technological solutions.
Dinero y Politica uses a similar strategy to create more information about campaign financing in Argentinian elections so that voters can make fully informed choices. In Argentina, political parties must disclose all of the campaign contributions they received at least ten days before the election. But, once again, they only have to disclose those numbers in a PDF report, which, doesn't allow citizens analyze the data to see relationships between political interests and politicians. So the Dinery y Politica team has created an interactive database which maps donations and creates visualizations of which parties receive donations from which groups, unions, and companies.
Recommendations:
Both Our Budget and Dinero y Política use Many Eyes to visualize the data they collect. We recommend that other budget monitoring activists learn how to use Many Eyes and Many Eyes Wikified in order to dynamically visualize budget information. Google's Fusion Tables is another powerful online tool to both store and visualize complex information related to public budgets.
The information collected and analyzed from all three projects does not seem to be exploited well by civil society organizations, journalists, or bloggers in the countries where they are based. We recommend to project leaders that they do more outreach to train journalists, activists, and bloggers how to use the tools they have developed. A sample gallery of effective ways their information has been used could help inspire others to build on that work.
A number of traditional civil society organizations have been working in the realm of budget monitoring and open budgets for quite some time. The International Budget Partnership has a very useful world map which links to country profiles with related information and organizations working on budget monitoring. We recommend to donors that they support an international event that brings together technologists and budget monitoring activists to share best practices and strategies regarding the use of modern technology and information management systems to improve the efficiency of budget monitoring. This event should be followed by a three-day intense “book sprint” which leads to a open licensed, freely accessible book that explains the technical steps in order to: 1) extract financial information from PDF documents using OCR technology, 2) store budget information in structured, public databases, 3) verify and cross-reference information, 4) analyze and evaluate data using Many Eyes and Google Fusion Tables, and 5) use resulting findings and conclusions to partner with media, bloggers, civil society and government to seek greater accountability.
Following the publication of such a book – and its translation into relevant languages – we recommend that donors support barcamp-style events at the national level that bring together technologists, civil society organizations, government officials, investigative journalists, and bloggers to focus specifically on budget monitoring.
Finally, we recommend that budget monitoring platforms partner with accounting, statistics, and computer science professors at local universities so that the students of their classes can help improve the governance of their country while learning new skills and techniques.
Like budget monitoring, election observation is an activity of government accountability and transparency with a long history. According to Wikipedia, it dates back to at least to the 1866 plebiscite of Moldavia and Wallachia, which led to modern Romania. In more recent times, election monitoring has tended to focus on countries with weak democracies or democracies in transition, and has been organized by international organizations such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Union, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Council of Europe and the African Union. Major international NGOs like the Carter Center, the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, the National Democratic Institute, and the European Network for Election Monitoring have also become increasingly active, and often partner with local NGO's to take advantage of established national networks.
As if all of those many players weren't enough, a new generation of election monitoring websites now ask ordinary citizens to also become election observers by using their cell phones to report any voting irregularities they may encounter. If all goes to plan, such reports are then verified, categorized, and placed on a publicly accessible map.
One such project that we did not document because we felt that it has been discussed sufficiently in both mainstream and citizen media is Vote Report India. In fact, co-founder Gaurav Mishra has joked that perhaps there were more articles about the project than reports submitted to the platform. Mishra has also written an excellent and candid evaluation of the project, which lists successes, failures, and – most importantly – lessons learned for the next incarnation of the platform for the 2014 Indian elections.
Last month saw the first multiparty election to take place in Sudan in over 20 years. Sudan Vote Monitor is one of many Ushahidi-based websites we reviewed that allow voters to report irregularities by submitting text messages which are then verified by a partner NGO and placed on a map. To understand the context behind Sudan Vote Monitor and the difficulty in implementing a technology project in Sudan, I highly recommend Rebekah Heacock's post, “Sudan: Is ICT all it's cracked up to be?” Most of the attention given to the initiative during the election itself focused on the fact that the site was temporarily blocked by the government. Less reported was the website's impact on ensuring credible elections. According to the website itself, 257 reports of voting irregularities were received. In a followup interview with Heacock, project coordinator Fareed Zein says that number is probably somewhere between 300 – 500 if you count all SMS reports, which have yet to be added to the system. But few, if any, of these reports have been verified, and there has been no official response to any of the reports. Still, Zein suggests that the objective of this first implementation was simply to create more information, rather than necessarily holding anyone accountable:
In previous elections it was all a closed door affair — nobody knew exactly what went on on the ground. The intention of this was to be able to get the information out to the public, internally and externally, about what's going on. Just being able to get the word out was enough for us. We didn't set out to try to urge anybody to take any specific action. Our mission was to get the information out and then let people judge and act for themselves.
Zein says it is likely that Sudan Vote Monitor will be used again during the January 2011 Southern Sudanese independence referendum.
Like Vote Report India and Sudan Vote Monitor, Cuidemos el Voto is another national election monitoring platform that uses Ushahidi. Co-founder Oscar Salazar notes that, while Mexico transitioned to multiparty democracy in 2000 with the election of Vicente Fox, vote buying and conditional cash transfer programs are still corrupting the democratic process. Cuidemos el Voto managed to achieve something important that other, similar projects lacked: support and endorsement from an official government body, in this case, Mexico's Special Prosecutor's Office. Still, that endorsement did not apparently lead to any sort of accountability. For example, on July 5, 2009 someone reported that in Puebla they were offering 500 pesos to vote for the PAN party. But this report wasn't verified and we don't see any kind of followup. For such election monitoring projects to make an impact in terms of accountability, they need the staff and resources to verify all reports and ensure that the proper government body responds. Or, perhaps more appropriately, they must partner with other organizations who can invest in the long haul of followup work. It could even be the perfect semester-length project for a political science graduate-level class.
The African Elections Project differs slightly from other election monitoring projects we reviewed in that 1) it doesn't use Ushahidi and 2) it focuses on multiple countries throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. The project, funded by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, uses new media tools to produce and disseminate more information about elections in ten African countries including Malawi, Namibia, Botswana, Niger, Guinea, Mozambique, Mauritania and Togo. Their hope is that more watchful eyes reporting on the electoral process will help prevent and expose vote fraud, and encourage clean elections. However, most of the countries where they work have broadband penetration levels between five and ten percent. Until there is greater connectivity, the impact of an online project like African Elections Project is inherently circumscribed, despite its relatively large budget.
VoteReport PH is the last Ushahidi-based election monitoring initiative we reviewed. Most of these projects were only attract the participation of very few users because there was not broad awareness that the websites exist at all. VoteReport PH is different in that its team spent six months prior to the election going around the country and giving voter education classes about how to use automated voting machines (which were used for the first time), and simultaneously, how to submit reports to VoteReporter PH by sending text messages. Such on-the-ground outreach work is necessary in order to create more awareness about citizen election monitoring platforms. In all, 654 reports of voting irregularities were submitted. For example, at 1 p.m. on May 10 “massive vote buying” was reported by an anonymous contributor via text message. We are told that the report was verified, but there is no further detail on what constitutes verification, or if anything was done to follow up on the report. One very useful strategy by the VoteReportPH team was to write a separate blog post highlighting the most urgent reports of vote fraud. They also published a helpful blog post summarizing some of their early experiences and conclusions. I recommend Mong Palatino's overview, “Monitoring Philippine Elections through Social Media“, to get a better idea of how Twitter and blogging played a distributed role in monitoring the Philippine elections.
Though Ushahidi was created to map reports of violence that occurred after Kenya's 2007 election, it was quickly adapted to monitor elections themselves. In addition to the above-mentioned case studies, Ushahidi was also used to map voting irregularities in Afghanistan and Lebanon.
Ushahidi implementations have already been set up for Colombia's presidential election later this month, the Puebla municipal elections in July, and Brazil's general election in October.
Recommendations:
We recommend to project implementers that they plan at least one year ahead of the elections they will monitor. In addition to the technical challenges of implementing and localizing the Ushahidi platform, they must also concentrate on outreach efforts to 1) establish an SMS shortcode, 2) hold on-the-ground training workshops, 3) partner with relevant civil society organizations, and 4) partner with media organizations to spread awareness. Such projects should also seek funding to cover the expenses of marketing the project via billboards, radio commercials, posters, and leaflets. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, election monitoring platforms should establish strong relationships with the governing electoral commission in order to agree upon a protocol for verifying and acting on reports of vote fraud. Without a signed agreement in place, the project is unlikely to make a concrete impact toward greater accountability and credibility of elections.
We recommend that online election monitoring projects partner with students at universities to verify and follow up on all submitted reports, similar to how Tufts University students worked to verify reports submitted to the Ushahidi implementation for the Haiti earthquake.
We recommend to funders that they fund specific election-related plugins that make Ushahidi a more functional platform for election monitoring. Oscar Salazar of Cuidemos el Voto has noted that Ushahidi lacks certain features for election monitoring:
Ushahidi's main design was to provide a common pool of reports. So if I started giving administrative access to everyone, everyone will see the same pools . What happen's if two NGOs that are associated with two different political parties get access to the same pool and start approving or disapproving the reports? I don't want everyone to have access to the same pool. i want to give special accounts to different NGOs, where they see only their own reports plus the citizen reports. Ushahidi wasnt designed for a lot of NGOs working together. So we are tweaking it for these local elections to make it work in this way.
The tweaks by the Cuidemos el Voto team should be packaged into a plugin that can be shared with other election monitoring initiatives.
We recommend to the Ushahidi team and to their funders, that increased emphasis be placed on documentation, especially in regard to best practices regarding election monitoring. Patrick Meier has written an introductory primer and Erik Hersman has made a forum posting to compare common election-related categories, but there is still a lack of needed documentation for any activist wanting to use Ushahidi to monitor elections. We suggest that Ushahidi aspire to a documentation resource as thorough and easily accessible as WordPress’ Codex.
We recommend that researchers do both more longitudinal and comparative research in order to better understand the impact and methodology of online, citizen election monitoring websites. How does verification compare across projects? What strategies bring about accountability? How do you increase the signal to noise ratio for submitted reports? How do you best visualize reports to inspire action? What are obstacles to collaboration with traditional election monitoring organizations? What are the pros and cons of anonymity in citizen election reporting? These are just a few open-ended questions that require more research.
Finally, we recommend that multilateral and civil society organizations focused on election monitoring organize an international event to bring together the coordinators and technologists behind the various online election monitoring websites we have listed above to share experiences and prepare improved documentation for future implementations. This has already happened at the regional level in East Africa, which led to calls for a “Tech Election Monitoring Toolbox”, but it should also happen at the international level to share skills, techniques, resources, and future plans across distinct tech communities.
In the next post we will summarize and offer our recommendations related to more categories of case studies from the Technology for Transparency Network.

author: David Sasaki


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Trinidad & Tobago: Social Media Interaction  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“This general election has seen the most social media usage in the history of Trinidad and Tobago”: KnowTnT.com says that while this is a positive development, “something is missing. Interaction.”


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White American pop singers marketed in Japan · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Adamu from Mutantfrog travelogue comments on the localized marketing of American pop-singers EastWest Boys.


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Africa: On Africa’s Tech Entrepreneurs · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

“A Rising Tide: Africa’s Tech Entrepreneurs,” is Erik's post about technology entrepreneurs in Africa based on his talk at NetProphet 2010 in Cape Town, South Africa.


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Barbados: Paying for Corruption  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Allegiance blogs about “the Auditor General’s report that highlights the depth to which corruption has reached in Barbados.”


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Belarus: Lukashenko grants Bakiyev sanctuary · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

Yaraslau Kryvoi of Belarus Digest comments on the sanctuary given to ex Kyrgyz president Bakiyev by Belarus president Lukashenko, and the implications this might have in relations between Minsk and Moscow.

author: Vilhelm Konnander


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Belarus: State sanctioned homophobia · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

Andrei Khrapavitsky of Belarusan American Blog compares homophobia in Belarus with that in Lithuania after an LGBT-march was quashed in Minsk last weekend while being allowed in Vilnius.


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Brazil: Ants Protest Insecticide · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

Ants protest is an artistic video made and posted by attaspp in Vimeo and features a group of ants carrying placards reading “Stop the killing” and crossed out Baygon logos, the brand name for an insecticide. Wish to know how it was done? The Brazilian director has also posted a How-to video.


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China: Blogger interrogated after criticizing Shanghai EXPO 2010 · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A blogger, A Bad Friend, was summoned by security police for interrogation over tea upon writing an article, 10 sins of EXPO 2010, on his blog. After the tea session, he wrote another article, “La Dernière Classe”, recording the conversation between the security police and himself. The exchange reflects the ideological conflict between a party-state nation represented by the security police and a people-orientated nation represented by the student blogger. The two original posts were deleted but still circulated widely online.
Long before the EXPO 2010 started, the Propaganda Department has issued notice to newspapers and major web portals for positive reports. Despite all the chaos during the opening, most of the official reports remained positive and there were very few negative comments online. The 10 sins listed by A Bad Friend were so far the most elaborated criticism of the EXPO from a local resident's perspective and that's probably the reason behind the tea session. Let's look at the  EXPO 10 sins first:
EXPO 10 sins
世博难民――因为筹办世博会，黄浦江附近许多居民曾被迫迁移，更有许多居民遭到强行迁移，以至流离失所。
侵犯人权――上海世界博览会逼近，上海当局为严控在当地工作的逾十万名外国人，要求他们每晚必须11时前返回住处，引发部分外国人不满，认为严重侵犯人身自由和个人隐私。…就在最近，上海维权人士冯正虎宣布举办“冤案博览会”后，表示遭到警方登门“抄家”，带走了电脑、上网数据机等器材。此外上海世博会不设示威区，而在中国又无法自由的游行、抗议，也就是说世博会期间禁止示威游行…
好大喜功的面子工程――由国家主办上海承办的世博会的花销为4000亿，成为史上最昂贵的世博会，与勤俭办博的理念背道而驰。再看看，西南五省大旱，6000万人受灾，损失200多亿, 中央拨付旱灾救灾资金1.5亿元；“两会”期间，有官员指出: 中国实现全民免费医疗每年需花费1600亿元,目前中国不具备这个经济实力!对比一下，民生工程在面子工程面前显得多么的脆弱…
不透明的财务预算和闭门决策――上海世博会的开支明细至今未向社会公开，决策习惯闭门决策…
文化损毁和房价畸高――上海当局为筹办世博会，使得一片片有上海特色的老城区被推土机和大铲车夷为平地。建成后的绝大部分场馆将在世博会后拆掉，不全拆是为了保留“世博板块”用于带动房价的飙升…
扰民会――…当局以改善市容保障安全为由，除了限制民众晒衫，又劝阻民众穿睡衣上街，买菜刀也要实名制… 上海当局近日又宣布，居民购买老鼠药及含剧毒成份的农药物品，也要凭身份证…
礼仪小姐变态培训―― …来自各地高校的数名美丽可爱的姑娘们经过层层选拔，接受形体、外事礼仪、世博会知识、外语等方面的培训，最终确定为礼仪人员。但如此训练方式，真是让人不免心生怜惜。礼仪不是这样练成的！这么练是叫这些女孩子去卖笑么？我就不明白了？就不能像其他国家的女孩子一样？发自内心的微笑么？
世博歌曲抄袭事件――…未开幕，先丢人，这个估计动用了一千万人民币制作费的世博曲 现在看来成了上海世博会的烫手山芋，也实为一大国耻。…
城市，让生活更糟糕―― 上海世博会的口号“城市，让生活更美好”…中国的大城市就是这样，毁灭100万个理想，用这100万个理想诞 生出1到2个新富。…
“太平盛世”下被掩盖的罪恶
“La Dernière Classe”
On May 11, the blogger was summoned by security police. The main purpose of the exchange, apart from delivering a warning to the blogger, is also an examination of his thought with an attempt to identify the source of his idea and whether or not there is a social network behind the scene. The blogger called the tea session “La Dernière Classe”:
國\保：你在哪裡開的博客？是不是寫過世博會的文章，什麼文章?
我：新\浪。寫了世博的十宗罪。可能是因為我不是名人，我不是韓寒，所以你們才會來找我。確實我也受了韓寒較大的影響，他的很多小說我都看過（國寶插話“三重門”）。是的，還有其他小說和博客，我也一直很喜歡他，今天對我來說很不幸。
Me: Sinablog and I wrote about the 10 sins of Expo. Probably because I am not famous, I am not HanHan, that's why you come after me. Actually I am under the influence of HanHan, I read many of his novels and I like him a lot. Today is a misfortune to me.
國\保：韓寒是韓寒。你對世博會有什麼看法？
我：我不反對世博會本身，但是反對世博會被政治化。世博會作為一個文化和科技方面的展覽會在中國舉辦，可以使參觀者受到啟蒙，擴大視野，也是一個增進世界各國瞭解和交流的平臺。但是沒有必要進行這樣大規模的宣傳造勢以及對市民生活的過多限制，它不應該被當做一個政治任務來抓。去年芝加哥申辦2016奧運會時支援率很低，而除此之外它的很多方面都是最優秀的，我並沒有因此看到美國的有些部門去上門給芝加哥民眾“做工作”甚至進行威脅叫他們支持申奧。我也沒有看到上海世博會自我標榜的一些理念付諸實踐，諸如什麼“低碳世博”、“綠色出行”、“勤儉辦博”、“廉潔辦博”、“和諧世博”等等。我也去過浦東，它不像日本等其他國家的世博會是在郊區的森林附近舉辦的，而且黃浦江兩岸燃放的煙花比北京奧運還多。現在世博會在很多國家都是雞肋，在民眾連基本的醫療保障和失業救濟都沒有的時候，我不知道花這麼多錢舉辦這樣一個東西對民眾有什麼意義。尤其是有那麼多的人的房屋因為世博被強制拆遷，而得到的補貼又很少，他們許多人選擇忍氣吞聲，還有少數人走上維\權之路卻處處遭到打\壓，一些人甚至流離失所，難道這些不都是政府的責任嗎？到世博會結束，政府再通過賣土地賺錢，很多人要遭受二次剝\削。
Me: I am not against Expo as an event, but against its politicization. The Expo, as an exhibition of culture and science development, can be an Enlightening event in China. It is a platform for us to understand the world more. However, it is not necessary to turn it into a propaganda and post so many restriction on people's life. It should not be organized as a political mission. Last year when Chicago applied for 2016 Olympic, not so many Chicago residents supported the city government, but the government would not “educate” the mass and threaten the people to support the Olympic application. The Shanghai Expo has not followed the principles and ideas that it advocated, such as “Low carbon Expo”, “Green”, “Hardwork and Thriftiness” etc. I travelled to Cambodia once, unlike other countries, their Expo took place near the forest. Our firework in Huangpu river is more than the Beijing Olympic. Many countries do not want to hold EXPO nowadays. When our people do not enjoy basic health care and unemployment support, I don't see the value in spending so much money on this. Moreover, so many people were forced to move with little compensation, most of them chose to keep silent, a few decided to defend their rights but repressed, some had lost their home. The government should be responsible for these. When the Expo comes to an end, the government will sell the land and many will be exploited again.
國\保：世博會是我們國家崛起的一個巨大的標誌，我們應該感到驕傲。你剛才所說的這些是從哪裡知道的？
我：海外的新聞媒體吧,BBC、VOA、RFI、DW、RFA、《紐約時報》什麼的，還有像國內可以打得開的中文網站，如新加坡《聯合早報》。我從來都不信任國內的媒體，畢竟來說，西方的媒體至少是獨立的，這可以保證它的公信力，這也是西方媒體能成為有很多受眾的全球性媒體的很重要的原因。
Me: Overseas news media, like BBC, VOA, RFI, DW, RFA, New York Times. Also, unblocked Chinese news websites such as zaobao.com. I don't trust mainland media, western media are more independent and therefore trustworthy, that's probably why they have a global audience.
國\保：你英文不錯吧？我也經常看海外的一些新聞網站，他們寫的許多東西都不可信，很喜歡寫些中國的陰暗面，我們應該更多看到我們國家強大積極的一面。
我：我英文一般一般，也只能說是在瞭解有關背景的基礎上看懂大概的意思而已。新聞媒體本身就應是獨立的，它的本質是對社會起監督作用，不是說像中國一樣用來宣傳的。我們的社會需要進步，要進步就應該去正視和揭露這個社會的陰暗面，而不是去掩蓋它，營造一種虛假的和諧。當然西方的媒體是比較客觀的，他們有的時候也會對中國表示讚美，比喻對北京奧運的盛大開幕式，這也是中國政府樂於聽到的東西。
Me: My English is so-so, but I managed to understand the basic content. News media should be independent in order to monitor the society. They should not become propaganda tools. Our society needs progress, that's why we have to confront the dark side, not cover it up and create a false harmony. Of course western media are more objective, they also praise China, for example the reports on the opening of Beijing Olympic is very positive.
國\保：他們的媒體也有自己的立場，並不是很客觀。
我：任何人都會有自己在一些問題上的立場和價值觀，這並不帶表就不就客觀了。我認為言論足夠的自由就可以保證新聞媒體的客觀性。
Me: Everyone has their own stand and value, but it does not negate objectivity. When we have free speech, the news media will be more objective.
國\保：我們國家也有言論自由，但是不能說有絕對的言論自由，你不能造謠誹謗別人，不能侵害他人的自由，不可以洩露國家機密。
我：我從來不認為有什麼絕對的自由，自由是指憲政基礎上的自由，你當然不能侵犯別人的自由，不可以針對有人格行為的主體進行攻擊和辱駡。而政府和總統是不具備主體人格的，也就是說我可以在白宮外面大聲的罵美國政府，在電視上公開的批評這個政府，即便是對政府的不實攻擊，那麼也不應該承擔任何法律上的責任。至於洩露國家機密，除非我是某個單位的，我和政府簽訂了保密協定，那麼我洩露了我才會承擔法律責任。洩露國家機密應該有一個具體的程式，它不是一個非常寬泛的概念，普通公民無從去知道國家機密，即便知道了，那就一定是政府或者簽訂了保密協定的人和單位給洩露了，那麼簽訂了協定的人應該被追責，政府應該為失責行為對民眾承擔責任，普通公民沒有所謂的保守國家秘密的義務，更不應該以此為手段對普通公民進行莫須有的打\壓。
Me: I don't thing there is anything called absolute freedom. Freedom is based on a country's constitution. One cannot attack other people's character and infringe other's right. However, the president and the government should not be counted as individual, which means I can curse the U.S government outside the White House or criticize the government in front of T.V. Even though my criticism is invalid, I should not have legal responsibility. As for leaking national secret, unless I worked in certain institution and signed an agreement, I should be responsible for the leak. National secret should be defined with an official procedure, ordinary people don't know what a national secret is. If they know about it, it is leaked by those who had signed the confidential document, they are the ones to be blamed. The government should be accountable for their mistake, and ordinary citizens do not have the responsibility to keep the secret. It should not become a pretext to suppress ordinary citizens.
國\保：你沒看到我們國家這些年的言論已經很進步了，相比十年前，很多東西媒體上都會寫，像你說的暴力拆\遷，互聯網也是開放的。
我：現在媒體上會寫這些東西，很大程度上是因為有互聯網的競爭，而且有些有責任的媒體也是在試探底線，同事要考慮到市場，因為人們不喜歡聽過多的吹噓的聲音。很多東西因為是首先在互聯網上曝光了，傳統媒體然後去進行輿\論導向，相比以前這也算是一種不得已的進步了。政府它不可能完全去關閉互聯網，因為它必須去兼顧商業利益，既要完全封住人們的嘴，又想兼顧商業利益，這不可能做到，二者不可兼得。就像之前的這個穀歌事件的發酵就是一個很好的例子。
Me: The media reports on negative news is because of the competition from the Internet. Some responsible media are testing the baseline. They also care about the market, people do not like propaganda. Many incidents are disclosed on the Internet and the media stepped in to channel the public opinion. They are compelled to make progress. The government cannot shut down the Internet because of business interest. They cannot shut people up and gain business interest at the same time; Google is an example.
國\保：這個穀歌是怎麼回事？
我：它是因為不堪忍受中國繁瑣和不透明的網路審\查制度。導火線只是因為一些維\權人士的Gmail郵箱遭到黑\客攻\擊和穀歌的密碼系統被侵\入。穀歌中國本身就背理了穀歌的價值觀。
Me: Google cannot stand the non-transparent censorship system anymore. The flash point is the hacking of human rights activists’ Gmail accounts, and Google considers it a violation of its values.
國\保：你說的這些是穀歌說的吧，你怎麼就信他們說的？
我：我覺得有些事實擺在眼前，我也不可能去進行調查，相比國內的一些網路企業，我始終相信穀歌，欣賞它提供的服務，沒有足夠的信譽它是不可能成為全球性企業的。
Me: The picture is clear to me. I cannot do the investigation. When compared with other Internet companies, I believe Google more and like its service. They cannot become a global corporation without reputation.
我：這個我還真不確定，雖然我看過有些國內的媒體有這方面的報導，但是國內媒體的公信力有多少呢？我在其他媒體上從未聽到過說美國人的生活全部被監\控，國內的一些人去了美國也沒有這方面的說法。美國本身是一個很開放的法治國家，即便有監\聽，我相信只是在不侵犯合法公\民的權益的基礎上，比喻說對待恐怖分子。
Me: I cannot be sure about this. I read reports from local media about this, but doubt if they are trustworthy. I have not heard from other media that American people's lives are under monitoring. People who returned from the U.S did not say anything on this. The U.S is a very open nation governed by law, if they monitor the phone, I believe it only targets terrorists and won't violate citizens’ rights.
國\保：你聽說過美國最近的廣場炸彈襲擊的事情嗎？那他們是怎麼發現的？
我：這個事情我知道。那是時報廣場的一個小販發現可疑車輛然後報警的。
Me: Yes, I have heard about that. A hawker in the square noticed a suspicious vehicle and reported it to the police.
國\保：那美國怎麼那麼快就把那個人逮捕了呢？美國現在是2億多人吧（我插話“三億多”），美國人的資訊都被國家所掌控了。
我：那個巴基斯坦裔美國人是在去機場搭機前往迪拜進行安檢時被逮捕的，這說明了美國行政、司法等的高效，美國公民的資訊記錄在冊並不代表美國人的隱私受侵犯，那是美國人的尊嚴的體現，國家有保密的義務，安全問題同樣重要，而對於嫌疑犯美國也是表示充分的尊重。
Me: The Pakistani American was arrested in the airport during security check to Dubai. It reflects the effectiveness of their administration and judiciary. The fact that the U.S government has citizens’ identity on record does not mean that their privacy was violated. It is the government's duty to protect citizens’ information, at the same time, security is a very important issue, but the government also respects the suspect's right.
國\保：美國發達是因為美國的多元，而你只看海外的東西，偏聽則暗，我們在說的時候，你有的時候插嘴，不喜歡聽別人的意見，你太一元化了。而且我們國家人口多，這是一個國情。
我：確實，美國發達是因為有多遠的體系，而中國則是一元體制，所以我今天才會來到這裡。我不是一元化，我有我基本的是非觀念，而中國往往是沒有是非觀念，我希望任何問題都可以公開討論，我充分尊重每一個人表達的權利，不管他們持什麼立場和思想觀念。我接受的資訊也是多元的，我並非聽到的都是批評的聲音，我也比較喜歡溫\家\寶吧，但我不喜歡胡\錦\濤。
Me: I agree that the U.S has a very diverse system, while China is very homogeneous, that's why I am here. I am not homogeneous, I have a sense of right and wrong, in China, many don't have such concept. I wish we can openly discuss all issues and I respect all individuals’ rights in expression, regardless of their position and thought. The information that I receive is very diverse, I also hear positive voices. I like Wen Jiabao, but I don't like Hu Jintao.
國\保：你也喜歡溫總理。
我：我認為溫\家\寶在共\產\黨內面是一個異數，不搞拉\幫結\派，講了很多啟發人的智慧的話語，先不論他的家族，在共\產\黨這樣的生態裡面，這些已經足夠了。
Me: Wen Jiabao is a very distinctive person in the CCP, he does not have a clan and says words of wisdom. Regardless of his family background, such kind of character is very remarkable within the CCP.
國\保：你要知道網上的言論有很多不真實的。前不久網上流傳說，武漢的東湖說要部分填了修建酒店，這個東西不斷傳，造成了很不好的影響。
我：這個事情我聽說過。如果是這樣，那這裡政府是不是有很大的責任?中國的政\府都習慣於暗\香操\作，政務不公開，有的時候當然會有流言。如果政務公開了，即便有流言了，也是不堪一擊。
Me: I heard about it too. If it is really the case, the government is responsible for such a rumor. The Chinese government likes to operate in the dark, of course there are rumors. If it is more transparent, rumors will stop spreading.
國\保：你身邊的人像你這樣的思想的多嗎？
我：幾乎沒有吧。可能是大家從小接受這樣一種教育的原因吧，像什麼標\注答案，作文要有正確的思想導\向這些東西，它扼殺\人的思想和獨立思考能力。我很反對中國現行的教育體\制，我希望能有真真的公民教育，不要再有這樣的黨\化教育和大學的行\政主導一切。
Me: No. Probably people receive the same kind of education here and train for the standard answer. Even our composition needs to be politically correct and it kills independent thinking. I oppose the present education system and wish we will have genuine civic education. No more party education.
國\保：你說公民教育啊，你應該看到我們國家這個良好的政治制度是關鍵，這個不能改。
我：我覺得中國的許多問題恰恰就根源於這個政治制度。我知道美國也有貪\汙腐\敗的問題，這是人性方面的原因，但是它和中國的貪\腐很不相同，美國有一個制約機制，而中國的官\員幾乎是人人都貪而且數額巨大。
Me: I believe many problem in this country is result of this political system. I know that in the U.S, they also have a corruption problem, this is part of human nature. However, in the U.S, there is a control mechanism, while in China, almost all government officials are corrupted and the amount is huge.
國\保：我們不說這個貪\汙的問題。你應該看到我們國家現在在不斷的強大，而你思想太過於陰暗，只盯住那些不好的方面，偏聽則暗，你應該多看看我們國家的主流。
我：我不認為我所關注的是這個國家的支流。我們的報刊媒體上到處都是一些把政府讚美得天花亂墜的東西，這個社會需要更多批評的聲音來推動社會的進步，我希望我們的國家是一個自由和開放的國度，像美國一樣，可以容納各種不同的聲音。
Me: I don't think my concern is the branch stream of this country. Our media are full of stories that praise the government. We need more criticism to transform our society and make it better. I wish our country could be a free and open society that can contain different voices, like the U.S.
國\保：我們國家這些年來在不斷的進步，這就是主流。你感覺到我們國家這些年來進步了嗎？
我：沒有明顯的感覺，我更多的感覺是退步了。
Me: I don't have that feeling, on the other hand, I feel the regression.
國\保：那你覺得是那些方面的問題?
我：這些年來不斷上演的暴力拆\遷的問題，政府為了賣地賺\錢利用權\力配合黑\社會來搶\劫民\宅，只有低價的補\償，很多人上\訪卻要被關\押。還有環境污染和各種安全事\故愈演愈烈。基本的社會保障欠缺，很多人生病了可能不得不等死。勞工的權益得不到保障。物價飛漲，工資卻不見上漲。官\商勾\結，壓\榨私\營企業，然後企業又把這些壓力轉\嫁給勞工，也就是國進民退的問題。總之，很多很多問題。
Me: All these years the forced demolition problem keeps recurring. In order to make profit, the government works with triad to rob people. People only receive little compensation and many visit petitioners are arrested. Pollution and different security problems are elevated. People don't have basic social security protection, many sick people can only wait for death to come. Workers are not protected. Prices keep rising while wages remain the same. Government officials and business people are colluded and corporate displace their pressure on the workers. The country has progress but not its people. There are many many such kind of problems.
國\保：你說的這些是民生問題，這些確實存在，但我們不也在進步嗎？比喻這個拆\遷的問題就在進行重新立法來阻止暴\力拆\遷。
我：我不認為這個問題重新立法了就可以解決這個問題，只要政府性\質不變，那麼這樣的問題就難以解決。
Me: I don't think legislation would solve the problem if the government nature remains unchanged.
國\保：那你說說我們國家在哪些方面有進步？
我：進步還是有的吧，比喻說獲得了這個奧運會和世博會的主辦權，北京的空氣品質有改善，經濟在不斷增長，還有就是在國際上建立了那麼多孔子學院進行文化輸出。總之，在經濟文化方面取得了一些進步。（不知道這是否算進步，他們問，我也只能這麼回答。）
Me: We have some progress, for example we have Olympic and Expo, the air condition is Beijing has improved and the economy has grown. Moreover, we have Confucian Institutes all over the world to export our culture. In terms of economy and culture, there are some progress. (Not sure whether they can be counted as progress, just to answer their question.)
國\保：你說的這些還不夠準確。我們的進步更多的體現在我們國家的政治越來越優化，黨和國家解決了許多問題。我們獲得了國際上越來越多的讚美，地位更高了。
我：我可真的沒有像你們這麼明顯的感覺。可能因為我只是游走於體制外的社會底層的人士，不像你們生活在體制內，可以親自去體會那種“進步”。當然我知道你們今天來也是奉上。
Me: I don't share your feeling. Probably because I belong to the lower class outside the system while you are within the system and you can feel the “progress”.
國\保：這不是體制的問題，你看問題太過於陰暗。看問題要堅持客觀和理性。
我：我覺得我一直都很客觀理性，我並不會為了批評某些東西而去造謠什麼的，我熱愛真理。也許我以後該更加的客觀理性。
Me: I am objective and rational.  I don't create rumors in order to criticize something. I love truth. Maybe I should be more objective and rational in the future.
國\保：我向你提出三點要求，希望你記住：1、不要再寫那些文章了；2、要堅持客觀、理性、準確、全面的看問題；3、希望你找到一個好工作，現在先要謀取生存，有些東西不需要你操心。
我：我記住了。
Me: Got it.
國\保：進入社會後，你會發現還有很多個人問題要去解決，你的思想也會慢慢改變和成熟。
我：進入社會後，我一定會發現中國社會比校園還要黑暗得多。怎麼變得更成熟？也就是更世俗化吧，我不知道是否還要堅持原則和價值理念。
Me: After I enter society, I will find out that  society is darker than the school. How to become mature? To be more secular. I am not sure whether I would still continue my principle and value.
國\保：我也經歷過你這個階段，當時我比你還激進。就像小時候做的某些事，在現在看來是多麼的幼稚。不要總是舉著民主、人權的大旗，就以為站在了制高點，聽不進去他人的話。
我：每個人的經歷和價值觀念有差異，我並沒有這麼深的感受。也許我會改變吧，但我始終希望我們的社會越來越自由和開放並願意為此付出努力，我更希望我作為一個個體能夠得到平等的尊重。
Me: Everyone's experiences and values are different, I don't have very intense feeling. Maybe I will change, but I wish our society will become freer and opener. I also wish that every individual can be equally respected.
國\保：以後有問題可以多和這位書記交流一下。
我：我在學校的時間不會很長了，應該沒有這個必要了。
Me: My time in the school won't be long, it won't be necessary.
國\保：記住我們的話，你可以走了。
我：謝謝。
Me: Thank you.
Special thanks to Marta Cooper for language editing.


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Côte d’Ivoire – Ghana: Friends and Foes at World Cup 2010  · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

Côte d'Ivoire  and Ghana will be the two nations representing the West African region at the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. For the first time, the World Cup will be hosted on African soil and therefore will provide tremendous incentives for African nations to excel on the brightest of stages.
For better or for worse,   the World Cup has indeed become one of the most anticipated global events and the epitome of an increasingly globally connected world.
At the World Cup, football players wear their patriotism  on their sleeve and sometimes, for famed photographer Annie Leibowitz, on their underwear.
Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana's two brightest stars, Dider Drogba and Michael Essien (featured in the aforementioned photo spread) are teamates for  Chelsea Football Club in the English Premier League. The two stars have also joined forces in the past  in producing a rap single against racism and are often seen celebrating together with humorous dance moves.  The obvious affinity between the two players is not always reflected in the relations between the two countries that had seen some ups and downs throughout history and the relations  are again being tested lately because of a disagreement over ownership of offshore oil fields.
A complex neighborly relationship
Blogger Nana Akyea Mensah explains that the two countries need to clear out some of the border dispute that were raised over the offshore oil region:
We need a clear border agreement, which we still do not have. As a South African friend of mine once said: “Trust is good, but control is necessary!” [..] I want to see all this political goodwill expressed clearly and transparently in a deal within these three months! Whilst all well-meaning Ivorians and Ghanaians must join in this spirit of camaraderie we must all insist on concrete issues
Ivoirediaspo blog also highlights that the tension between Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire is mostly over offshore oil (fr):
Pourquoi la Côte d’Ivoire n’aurait-elle pas sa part de gâteau pétrolier? Et tant pis si ça perturbe momentanément les relations de bon voisinage avec le Ghana [..] Problème : la frontière maritime entre les deux voisins n’a jamais été formellement établie, même si ceux-ci respectent depuis les indépendances une « ligne médiane »
An epic final match at the 1992 African Cup of Nations
The rivalry on the pitch is also growing in intensity. The apex of the grudge was probably reached at a memorable African Cup final in 1992 when the final verdict in favor of the Ivorians came after a historical 11-10 penalty shot-out:
Solidarity with Togo  during the  2010 African Cup of Nations tragedy.
The strong ties between the two teams and neighbor Togo  were on display at the African Cup of Nations in 2010 in Angola when both teams considered withdrawing from the competition after the Togolese team bus came under fire in Cabinda. They eventually  carried on after the Togolese team, who were eventually  disqualified in a controversial decision,  asked them to keep on playing.
Togo has now been reinserted in the African Cup of Nations.  Ghanasoccernet points out that Ghana deserve some credits for this development:
This is a resounding victory for Ghana president John Evans Atta Mills and his deputy John Mahama who had had confronted Hayatou over the issue two months ago.
Socially Conscious Players
The reality that football is sometimes “much more than football”, especially for the African Continent, is not lost on the Ivorian and Ghanaian players. Players from both teams have used their unique positions of public figures to advance important social issues. beside the aforementioned song against racism, players can be seen in these videos using social media platforms to increase awareness against Malaria and lack of education:
Côte d'Ivoire Players vs No Education
Ghanaian players vs Malaria
The expectation will be sky-high  for both countries back home as representatives of the West African Region.  If they both can advance far enough to face each other in the knock-out round, we might have the making of another formidable football drama, just like in the 1992 match.

author: Lova Rakotomalala


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Egypt: A day in Alexandria · Global Voices
Eman AbdElRahman

Andrew Heiss, American student doing his Middle East Studies at the American University of Cairo, described his day trip to Alexandria with his family. He also shared pictures of the places they visited.

author: Eman AbdElRahman


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Ghana: China colonises Ghana · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Why does Ghana import unskilled Chinese workers?: “You had to ask yourself why on earth there would be a need to import unskilled Chinese labourers to do grunt work in a developing country where the unemployment rate hovers around 71%!!!”


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Ghana: Getting used to slow internet in Accra · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Wanjiku writes about her experience with internet in Accra, Ghana: Long before Kenya was connected via fiber optic, we were used to the slow internet. We were used to waiting 10 minutes before attaching a file, and we were ok with that.”


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Ghana: New Two Ghana Cedis Notes Unveiled · Global Voices
Mac-Jordan

The wait for the new GHc2.00 [Two Ghana Cedis] note is over as the Central Bank of Ghana officially commissioned the note into circulation last Friday; 14th June, 2010.
According to the Bank of Ghana, the new note is meant to lessen the burden on the GHc1.00 [One Ghana Cedi] note which hitherto was the next lower denominator below the GHc5.00 [Five Ghana Cedis] note. Change arising from the use of the GHc5.00 [Five Ghana Cedis] note has regularly posed challenges.
The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Kwesi Bekoe Amissah Arthur said;
“The introduction of the new note will ease the immense pressure on the GHc1.00 note. He also said the excessive use of the One Cedi note reduced its quality thereby defeating the Clean Note Policy of the Bank of Ghana.”
Front of the new GHC2.00 note
The new Two Cedis note has the portrait of Ghana's first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and a commemorative text inscribed as “CENTENARY OF THE BIRTH OF DR. KWAME NKRUMAH” to celebrate the year-long anniversary of Ghana's visionary leader. The new note, which is also believed to serve as a bridge currency note between the GHc1.00 and GHc5.00, is already out in the public domain.
Kwesi Bekoe Amissah Arthur; implored Ghanaians and all those going to handle the new note to do so with absolute care in order to prolong its lifespan. He also urged particularly the men to put the money in wallets and not in their pockets and advised people not to squeeze the notes at church offering sessions.
He also stated that henceforth;
“The country’s currencies will be used to honour its heroes, explaining the rationale for putting an imposing picture of Ghana’s first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah on the new note.”
Back of the new GHC2.00 note. Photo by Mac-Jordan Holdbrookes Disu-Degadjor
The reverse of the banknote depicts the old and new Parliament buildings, signifying Ghana’s deepening democracy.
In a related article by Thomas Dickens; “A Better Ghana: the New Two-Cedi Note“, he magnanimously described the placing of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah on the new GHc2.00 notes as;
“the loss of focus of the current political administration and a perfect example of political bigotry.”
In summing up his article, Thomas Dickens shared this in-sight about Ghana which is really worth taking a closer look;
“I do not mind how many invectives are poured on me. I must also point out that I do not mind who is in power. All that I care about is that Ghana—a country which once could only be compared to South Korea and Malaysia—becomes a middle income country in about twenty years’ time. It thus behoves on the ever-fumbling Professor Mills whose pronunciation of Economy (ecomini) is as doubtful as his management of it to begin to listen to the constructive criticisms of Ghanaians and the anger-ridden ranting Rawlings. In opposition, the NDC promised to listen if they won the elections. It is about time they listened to the ceaseless wailings of Ghanaians which have been drowned in the howling of lying radio commentators who are no better than stooges, bootlickers and political sycophants whose express intentions are to please for the sake of filling their pockets and their pot-bellies.”
A reader, Calamity Mills shared a comment on Thomas Dickens article;
“The new Ghana cedis notes which feature the “Big Six” were printed to honor also Dr.Kwame Nkrumah.What more honor will it do to him to print Dr. Nkrumah alone on the Two cedis notes? Somehow, the toppling of Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People's Party [CPP] has become an alibi and an excuse for our past and present failures. It seems we are lost without him. A brilliant article.”
Traders have received the new notes with joy as Tetteh reports:
Nana Kwame, an onion seller at the same market, commended the government for introducing the new note, saying it would facilitate transactions.
A taxi driver, Osei Agyemang, who plies between Accra High Street and Osu, said the introduction of the new note would make it easier for him to give out change, pointing out that sometimes it became very difficult when he did not have enough GH¢1 notes on him.
He, however, called on the government to encourage more people to use coins, saying that sometimes some of his passengers refused coins as change.
Readers at PeaceFMOnline had this to say:
Alfred Roma Cala:
it is a very nice currency but what about our coins as it is now not valid but some of us still have it.we need something about that too
Fred:
the new note isn't bad bt letz also fight 4 the survival of the coins
Kamasah:
I can`t wait to start giving my wife chop money with the Ghana new two(2) cedi note … I think i love it and is very very good to have this two(2) cedi ..
K. A. Asante:
Sometimes we need to put aside party affiliation and think positively. I FULLY agree with the Governor on varying the portraits on our currency notes to, as he put it, frustrate counterfeiting and also recognise other graet heros. Not only Kwame Nkrumah and the big six did a lot for Ghana, my father also.

author: Mac-Jordan


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Guatemala: One Year After Death of Rodrigo Rosenberg · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

One year after the death of Guatemalan lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg and his post-humous video that accused President Álvaro Colom of being behind his death, but which was later found to be a false accusation, Luis Figueroa of the blog Carpe Diem [es] still has a lot of unanswered questions about the case.


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Hungary: Reluctant government handover · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

Eva Balogh of Hungarian Spectrum reflects upon the reluctance of opposing sides in Hungarian politics to deal with each other in the handover of power after the recent parliamentary elections.


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India: Opting Out Of Facebook · Global Voices
Rezwan

Indian diaspora blogger Selvakumar Ganesan, who blogs at The Scientific Indian, has completely and permanently deleted his data from Facebook. Learn how and why.


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India: Twitter Fan Frenzy · Global Voices
Rezwan

Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar recently created a fan frenzy by joining Twitter. “Within the first 24 hours, he got almost 80,000 followers,”  reports Gauravonomics. Sachin has more than 300,000 fans now.


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Iran: “Panahi, Iranian filmmaker started hunger strike” · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Several bloggers such as Rahe Sabze Omid says  [fa] that Iranian famous filmmaker, Jafar Panahi, started his hunger strike in prison in Tehran on Sunday.


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Iran: Students challenge Ahmadinejad again · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Hundreds of students from Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran protested against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to their own university on May 10th. They chanted slogans against him such as “dictator have shame” and “let the university be free.”
The students were attacked by security and Basij forces:
It seems that each time the Iranian president visits a university, hundreds of students march against him. Last week, we witnessed the same story in Tehran:


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Iran’s Kurdish cities in strike in protest against executions · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Life came to a standstill in several Kurdish cities in Iran's Kurditsan and other provinces as businesses and shops went on strike on Thursday, May 13th, to protest against the execution of four Kurdish prisoners – Farzad Kamangar, Ali Heidarian, Farhad Vakili, and Shirin Alam Holi – on the morning of May 9, 2010. Several human rights organizations accused Iran of torturing dissidents to confess their involvement with terrorist organisations.
While Iran-based media did not report any news from Kurdistan, Kurdish citizens provided information as they took photographs and videos from shutdown cities.
Here is Sanandaj, the center of Iran's Kuridstan, filmed on Thursday:
Saman Rasoulpour has published several photos from Sanandaj on the day of the strike:
And here we can watch shops closed in Mehabad, another Kurdish city.
Havayeh Tazeh writes [fa] saying:
The strike has paralysed cities in Kurdistan. Another 12 Kurdish prisoners may face execution soon. They do not have any access to lawyers and their only hope is us.
Dulatmeli adds that Thursday marked another day of bravery in Kurdish history.


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Jamaica: Extradition to go forward  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Jamaican bloggers are keeping a close eye on developments surrounding the extradition of Christopher “Dudus” Coke to the United States.


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Japan: The Strength of Soft Power · Global Voices
Tomomi Sasaki

“If Japan is cool now, can it possibly stay that way?” Roland Kelts explains Why ‘Cool Japan’ is over.


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Jordan: Israel denies Noam Chomsky entry · Global Voices
Eman AbdElRahman

American professor Noam Chomsky has been denied entry in to the West Bank by Israeli authorities – Black iris of Jordan comments.


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Kenya: Elderly women taking self defence lessons · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Elderly women in Kenya are taking self defence lessons: “Elderly women in Korogocho, Kenya  are sick and tired of the numerous stories of rape against their peers. So these feisty mamas have decided to take matters into their own hands. To combat the violence, an elderly Kenyan woman has decided to teach willing women techniques of how to combat a rapist in case of an attack.”


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Kenya: Nairobi BarCamp is back · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

Nairobi BarCamp is back: “After giving it a miss in 2009, the Nairobi BarCamp's back this year. This time around, the venue of the event's what is easily becoming the hot-bed of mobile-based, IT and other solutions developers ‘joint’- the aptly named, iHub.”

author: Abdoulaye Bah


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Kenya: New book by Kenyan blogger available online · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Kenyan poet and blogger, Njeri Wangari, reports that her new book is available on Amazon: “Some good news for all those with Amazon accounts, my book is now available on Amazon for only $12. For Kenyan buyers, I  will update you immediately the book hits the shelves.”


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Levant: Bloggers start warming up for World Cup 2010 · Global Voices
Anas Qtiesh

The World Cup will kick off in about three weeks and bloggers across the Levant have already been busy using their keyboards and camera shutters trying to capture the hysteria that engulfs the world once every four years.
Syrian and Lebanese national teams have never qualified to the World Cup finals, yet that does not stop people from being hardcore fans and showing their admiration to their favorite teams in any way possible. While Lebanese blogger Rami from the +961 blog was content with certain aspects of the football fever, he was not impressed by some of what his compatriots are doing. He says:
people are getting those mini flags for their cars and balconies, it  might seem silly but it’s cool as long as it makes people deviate a bit  from the political discussions.
Still, it really is pathetic when you get a flag that is more than 1  meter in width or length! I’m pretty sure you could have put that spent  money for a better use!
Photo courtesy of +961 blog
From Syria, Nasdaq on the other hand was occupied with analyzing the different reasons people get behind a certain team, highlighting religion as a factor[ar]:
And he goes on to comment on the “resourcefulness” of the Syrian youth who can't afford to pay for premium channels so they decode them and watch the games for free instead:
Lolitto comments by saying that she's cheering for the Italian team and the reply comes swiftly from Nasdaq:
You're a girl, so it's only normal that you're cheering for Italy. When my nana (grandmother) was young, she also cheered for the Italian team and they were even more handsome than they are now according to her.
And Independence '05 blog , from Lebanon, publishes more photos of the “flag industry” that flourishes due to World Cup:
Flags for sale in Beirut – Courtesy of Independence '05
Courtesy of Independence '05
And like the others, she dwells a little on the reasons of the somewhat excessive expressions of excitement for world cup, but reaches the same conclusion:
the result? It's FUN FUN FUN.

author: Anas Qtiesh


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Malawi: Barefoot Solar Engineers Win Best African Electrification Award · Global Voices
Victor Kaonga

In Malawi, the use of paraffin lamps is very common. However due to costs of the paraffin oil, use of such lamps is limited to the most crucial services in the evenings and at night forcing some learners not to study at all and do their homework at night. But the solar project which has electrified Chimonjo village in the central Malawi district of Salima has brought a new dimension to the rural villagers’ lives.
Japan-based Malawian blogger Clement Nthambazale writes about a Solar Engineers Project which has won Africa’s biggest Rural Electrification Award. Understandably, the awards are considered the most important power and electricity awards in Africa.
Malawian Children enjoying Solar generated light in Salima
In his post, he outlines the advantages of the solar project which has electrified Chimonjo village in the central district of Salima:
The installation of solar electricity in these households has contributed greatly to the improvement of people’s livelihoods. The day for most of these households no longer ends at dusk, but like all of us privileged to have electricity, they now have a choice. School-going children are now able to study and do their homework even at night.
Availability of solar electricity has also enabled the households to save money, which they used to spend on buying other sources of lighting e.g. paraffin, candles. The money thus saved will go a long way in enabling the households to access the various other important needs for their households.
According to Nthambazale, there is excitement in the village and the area as this Solar Project will also mean the women become “a source of inspiration for many young Malawian women who are engaging in career paths that traditionally associated with men.”
Mrs Medina from Chimonjo village from Salima district accepted the Award on behalf of her rural Malawi Women Engineers at the Sandton Hotel in South Africa.
What is more interesting about the women is that despite being semi-illiterate they were trained as solar engineers in India for six months:
CCODE selected seven semi-literate women from Chimonjo and Chitala villages in Salima district; Kaphuka village in Dedza district; and Makunganya village in in Zomba district, and sent them to Barefoot College in India, where they were trained as “solar engineers” for six months. They were equipped with skills to install, fabricate and maintain solar home lighting in their villages.
Here are some interesting comments left by his readers:
Nicole Price said,
Clement, I always say that the future of mankind depends entirely on women. In every less developed country, with Self Help Groups, it has been women who have come to the forefront to get out of poverty and misery. Your story is a classic example and I hope that all the other villages too get solar powered lamps soon.
Clement Nyirenda said:
I agree with you. Longing to see more and more women empowerment initiatives.
Glyn said:
Thank you so much for sharing this enlightening story.
And thank to CCODE who saw the talent and promise of these women and what their contribution would mean to their villages.
Siku said:
Thanks Clement for this Blog, i will definately send in more photos on this as the project is developing further. As you know the bigger challenge is with cooking so we will be supporting the same villages to make fuel saving (mbaula)stoves so as to reduce the amount of time women spend looking for firewood and increase the amount of time the same firewood lasts once cooking starts. Once again thanks for the highlight.
Clement Nyirenda said:
Looking forward to more developments and I hope this little publicity will bring in more co-workers.
Ashley said,
This is great to see women across the globe participating in these challenging environments. Especially the fact that they are helping with installation and even continued technical support afterwords. Way to go!
William Hayes said:
I’m wondering:
(1) These solar panels are expensive. Who is paying for them?
(2) And what about windmills? Has someone done a study to determine that solar power is a better source of non-renewable than wind power?
Jenny said:
As to what William above has said, I don’t think wind power is more reliable in those villages since we are talking about Africa here, with more than 10 hours a day of sunshine and heat.
Those women above have done a great job helping themselves and their villages. I can only hope that more will be able to learn the necessary skills to improve their own lives.
William Hayes said:
es, Jenny, I agree with you.
I asked about windmills because of all the publicity being given to William Kamkwamba and his windmill. His story and his success are, so far, largely personal, whereas–as you say–the stories of these women and their successes are larger, affecting villages.
Yet William Kamkwamba gets the lion’s share of the publicity–he is called Malawi’s “genius” in today’s Nyasa Times–and these women get….
I’m still wondering who pays for the solar panels. My son, an electrician, says they are not cheap!
sunu mariam said:
I am really happy to see such women empowerment activities.Let many more come out with initiatives like this…Kiddos to all those who are involved..
Jenny said:
@ William Hayes,
Yeah, I know about “the boy who harnessed the wind”… He is an example of self-help. As these women are. I don’t see any major difference between his achievements and the ones made by these women. Except he got a book written about him. I mean, sure he did a great job for his age (the same age as me). But these women also deserve some publicity.
About the solar panels, I really don’t know, maybe it’s more lucrative for the villages to have a solar panel attached to each house. If each village had only one windmill, less women would have the chance to learn a skill. Or if the windmill broke down, the entire village would be affected. There are a lot of factors to be considered.

author: Victor Kaonga


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Pakistan: Rising Up · Global Voices
Rezwan

Pakistani blogger Azface at Lahore Metblogs wonders what it will take for the common Pakistanis to rise up against the establishment: “It seems the vicious cycle of ignorance, religious dogma and fear of the unknown has dulled our minds and seriously weakened our resolve.”

author: Rezwan


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Pakistan: The Draw Mohammed Day Controversy · Global Voices
Teeth Maestro

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day Facebook Page
On April 25 a Seattle Cartoonist Molly Norris came on a radio show to announce that she was organizing a cartoon drawing event called Muhammad day in response to Comedy Central’s decision to censor an episode of South Park which had depictions of Prophet Muhammad [PBUH].
In the interview she said:
“as a cartoonist, I just felt so much passion about what had happened.. it’s a cartoonist’s job to be non-PC.”
This resulted in Jon Wellington creating a Facebook fan page on this issue labeling it as “Everybody Draw Muhammed Day”, he introduces the group as:
As a snarky response to Muslim bloggers who “warned” Comedy Central about an episode of South Park showing the Prophet Mohammed wearing a bear suit, one Seattle cartoonist, who calls laughter her form of “prayer,” is asking artists all over the world to create depictions of Mohammed on May 20, then submit the images to a Facebook page she set up. Speaking on a Seattle radio show on Friday, cartoonist Molly Norris said she announced her idea as a way of countering the fear exhibited by Comedy Central in censoring episode 201 of South Park.
The Pakistani blogosphere is in an uproar over the issue, Aamir Attaa at ProPakistani says:
Despite thousands of complaints, Facebook administration is not banning the page; unlike they usually do even for very minor violation of Facebook Terms of Services. This page is clearly violating the terms, by spreading hatred and disrespecting Muslims and their values.
Sana Saleem at Dawn blog writes:
Laughably, the campaign website also claims that the point is not  to promote certain “personal/political/religious” messages, but to show  the world that “we’re not afraid to depict Muhammad.” But, the question remains, who is the target audience for such a  campaign? And what is the purpose of a mass campaign that has the  potential to target and offend people of a certain religion?
….. Let’s act rationally once and for all, and help change the trend of the  freedom-of-speech excuse being used to justify discriminatory campaigns.
Mani Pro at MANI's Fragasss reacts to say:
The Facebook fan page has been created to hurt our hearts, our souls, our emaan, our love for the prophet (SAW), the prophet for which his real followers faced all the pain in the world. Now when it's up to us, what pain are we willing to suffer?
Expressing her frustration Sahar Rabbani responds at Chowrangi:
They prove by their actions that they are the extremists, not we, and still they call us extremists and terrorists. It seems as if our whole life revolves around Facebook, we’re just so used to all this derogatory stuff that no one really bothers, we’re a dead nation who doesn’t take any action on such events which is really depressing. What we should do is to deactivate our Facebook accounts.
My response to the Molly Norris's interview at Teeth Maestro's blog was to question her hypocrisy on where she chooses to draw the line of Freedom of Expression when questioned about drawing on the holocaust:
Its interesting if you hear her Interview, when asked if she would make fun of the Holocaust – she responds “No, there is nothing funny about it”  what a hypocritical statement exposing her idiotic position on Freedom of Expression:
This has generally lead to an uproar across the Facebook with many opposing groups cropping up against this initiative, but the most interesting and the neutral way of opposing this event was presented by some peaceful Muslims to launch a group called Honour The Prophet Muhammad Campaign, which is explained in this YouTube video:
Rabab Khan at Cacoethes Scribendi suggest restraint in going all out condemning the issue:
While I do agree with condemning Draw Muhammad Day, reporting it and insisting Facebook  remove it, I also believe that we should look within for the inspiration  required to battle such attacks. When we abuse, slander and increase  the hatred, we are not helping the cause. We are only adding insult to  the injury.
The uproar continued but in all the pressure Molly Norris may have withdrawn from her earlier position to regret to have gone to the show in the first place:
I regret going on a local radio show on April 25th; my ego took me there, it was a mistake. I meant for this to remain a fictional CARTOON, an artistic IDEA, never to catch fire as an actual ‘event’
Facebook or the group URL might be banned in Pakistan
With all the hue and cry about the event it seems that Ministry of Information and Technology in Pakistan may have instructed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to block the Facebook or the Facebook page according to the sources close to Aamir Attaa of ProPakistani:
A reliable source, who is in direct contact with Secretary MoIT, told ProPakistani that ministry has issued the directive to PTA to ban said blasphemous content in the country. Ministry of Information Technology directs PTA for banning any URL or whole of website in case of any inappropriate content available on it. It is yet to be ascertained if the whole Facebook will be banned or just a single URL will be filtered. In both the situations, step is inline with thousands of Facebook users and according to their urge of boycotting Facebook on May 20th.
While Imran Jafri at Mabo0t comments on the pending Facebook ban:
It is not yet clear If the directive was issued to ban the entire  Facebook or the Facebook fan page in question. We will of course update  this post as more details become available to us.
As of filing of this report neither the facebook fan page nor the main domain was blocked in Pakistan.

author: Teeth Maestro


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Peru: Lima Electric Train Project Resumes · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

The Lima electric train project has resumed, and as a result, 26 cement pillars have been demolished because of a new project design writes Living in Peru.

author: Eduardo Avila


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Philippines: Linguistic Roots of Ancient Pot · Global Voices
Karlo Mongaya

Filipino academics retrace the linguistic roots of inscriptions etched in the rim of an ancient pot of high archeological value excavated in the Philippines.

author: Karlo Mongaya


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Philippines: Tagalog and Filipino · Global Voices
Karlo Mongaya

Cribke muses on the difference between the Tagalog and Filipino languages.