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China: Clearing Urban Centers of ‘Unwanted’ People · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

This post is part of our special coverage Global Development 2011.
From early 2011, major cities in China have started cleaning up “dangerous” and “low-end” elements of their populations.
The proposal on “population control” was firstly introduced [zh] in the People's Congress held in Beijing in January 2011. It suggested that in the coming five years, the Chinese capital has to repress population growth; it has been estimated that more than 700,000 people living in the old city will be relocated to the city outskirts. Moreover, “unwanted” and “low-end population” elements of the urban population, such as rural migrants, will be squeezed out of the city altogether.
Panorama of Shenzhen City, China. Image by Flickr User yuan2003 (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Population cleansing
Similar population cleansing has also taken place in Shenzhen as part of the “One Hundred Days Movement” starting from April 11, 2011, through to July 31 2011. The city aims to meet its target to get rid of 80,000 “highly dangerous people” to prepare for the 2011 Universiade international university sporting event. As Mary Ann O'Donnell points out in her blog, Shenzhen Noted:
the Universiade clean-up reminds us that yes a hukou [house registration system] matters, not by its presence, but in its absence. Shenzhen is not simply putting in the infrastructure to improve public safety, but has built into that network a tendency to target those who are least able to protect themselves.
She also rightly points out that apart from the crackdown on dissidents, social control happens day-to-day, with door-to-door sweeps, for normal people:
I hope that as discussions of Ai Weiwei’s incarceration continue and as necessary attention is directed at the way the Chinese state surveils its white-collar populations of computer hackers and experimental artists, we also keep in mind Shenzhen’s 80,000 unnamed slackers / hooligans / drifters who are suddenly not here. Surveillance at this lowest of levels occurs through door-to-door sweeps that indiscriminately clean out the good, the bad, and the ugly. Indeed, the lack of documentation about three withouts’ lives, their collective lack of hukou, legal income, and fixed housing means that at the end of the movement, all that remains are traces of what may or may not have happened, which assuage white-collar anxiety, but do not make us safer.
Shenzhen and Beijing are not isolated cases; it is quite clear that the belief is that to impose better social control in urban areas, similar population cleansing would need take place in other major cities. Not-old-nor-spicy is rather pessimistic about the situation [zh]:
北京有“低端人口”，深圳有“高危人群”。知趣的人还是早点走吧，不要等别人来赶你。把漂亮的大都市留给“高端人口”和“高稳人群”吧。但老辣还是要说。在有钱的地方，穷人是“高危人群”；在我们这种穷地方，有钱人才是“高危人群”。
No-brother points out [zh] that such social control strategy is unlawful, wrong and will end up in creating more social conflict:
本人有以下疑问：1、“高危人口”在法律上是如何界定的？2、哪些被清理出来的“高危人口”被“安置”在何处了？3、清理出来后他们再回去怎么办？以我个人仅有的一点法律常识，总觉得深圳的这种做法欠妥，有侵犯人权之嫌！
[…] …其三，也是一个最重要的概念要厘清，这就是“高危人口”还是不是共和国的公民。有了这一条，大家就明白了深圳的做法到底是对是错了。
当前我国社会正处在转型期，各种社会矛盾、问题相对较多、较复杂。我们应当积极探索一些有效地社会管理方式和手段，变管制社会为管理社会，变人制为法制。如果全国各地都效仿深圳的做法，我们的社会将是个什么景象？我们总不能把“高危人口”全部清理出中国吧？深圳：住手吧！
I have the following questions: 1. How can one define “highly dangerous population” in our law? 2. For those who have been cleaned out, where should they be settled? 3. What if they returned to the city after they have been cleaned out? Based on my limited legal knowledge, the Shenzhen government has violated people's rights.
[…] …Thirdly, whether or not the “highly dangerous population” are citizens of PRC [People's Republic of China] is a fundamental concept to be addressed. With such basic understanding, we can understand if the Shenzhen government is right or wrong.
Our country is in a transformative stage, we have a lot of complicated social conflicts. We have to explore effective ways of social management, transforming “social control” into “social management”, “rule of people” into “rule of law”. If all cities follow Shenzhen's example, what would our society look like? We could not clean all the “highly dangerous population” out of China, right? Shenzhen, please stop doing this!
Creating enemies
Indeed, in an online poll [zh] on the website umiwi last year about Beijing policy against the “low-end population”, more than 85% (1,782 votes) of the respondents were against such kinds of population cleansing measures. Below are three of the most popular comments in the poll:
onghen778：去北京干嘛 实现梦想就一定要去那里？ 幼稚。 中国人就是喜欢跟风 另外什么叫做低端人口？ 没钱就叫低端 有钱就叫高端 人本不分贵贱 是北京人不等于你就是高人一等了 尊重和敬仰别人 不是看一个人的地域来的。 2010-08-08 12:33
小花兔转转杯：什么叫低端人口？北京本地人就是北京人口么，有那么多的人在为北京的建设做出了不可磨灭的贡献，北京人在享受的同时居然 将其化为低端人口，北京人就不是中国人么，北京就不是中国的领土么，那中国人在中国的领土上生存有什么不对？适者生存，不适应的人自然会离开，如果你感到 不适应了，也许应该你离开，而不是什么所谓的低端人口。2010-08-08 00:51
欧羊游离：我说“相对论”同志，您白叫“相对论”了。既然是相对论，话要分两头说。首先，您为什么对号入座？您是不文明的那一个吗？您 是到处丢垃圾，到处随地大小便的那一个吗？您低头看看您的脚下，黑斑点点那是什么？是不文明的人随地吐出的口香糖。如果您的家里来的客人或亲戚这样不文明 的糟蹋您的家，您又怎样？我相信您不是不文明的那一个吧，您没必要对号入座吧？第二，我们之间应该不是矛盾的，矛盾在上边，上边既然把人分成高中低，想必 他认为自己是高端一族了，高端的人竟然说出这么没水平的低端的词，姑且不说政策的正确与否，先说这话就是“树敌”的。其实北京的百姓和其他城市的百姓一 样，同样是在付出，就像家庭过日子，家长主持的好，儿女团结又孝顺，家长主持的不好，儿女四分五裂，甚至忤逆乱伦的都有。所以我们都是儿女，都希望在家长 的呵护下过太平日子。您说是吗？我们都是普通人。2010-08-09 10:07
The resentment of the policy has transformed into political parody against the privileged. Below is one of the most popular parodies of the cleansing policy started by [zh] prominent blogger Lianyue on Weibo:
深圳有8万高危人口，全中国高危人群有多少？一说全国13亿，不过我认为是8千来万——他们长期滞留中国，又无正当职业，拉帮结派，具有严密的组织性，长期诋毁中国人素质低，适应不了人类文明。
So far (April 14, 2011 11:37 am) this thread has received 498 comments, most of them are highly critical of the 80 million highly dangerous population judgement:
……捏造历史愚弄民众残害百姓……他们不是滞留中国，而是寄生中国的毒瘤。
长期有意诋毁中国人素质低，造就了很多恨铁不成钢的思维模式，洗了很多人的脑，以掩盖一切乱象来源于体制。
帮会成员八千万，世界最大最嚣张最不要脸的黑社会团体
他们靠向公民收保护费过日子，且手段越来越残暴。
…faking history to cheat people… they are not stuck in China, but they consume China like cancer.
They spread a negative image of the Chinese character, create rusty iron-clad mindsets, brainwash a large number of people to cover up chaotic phenomena originated from the political system.
They have 80 million members. It is the biggest, the most nasty and shameless triad society in the world.
They make their living through blackmailing Chinese citizens and they are getting more and more bloody in doing so.
This post is part of our special coverage Global Development 2011.

author: Oiwan Lam


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China: Dumping Meat · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Ministry of Tofu posts a series of photos showing how Shuanghui Group, China’s largest meat processor, dumped tons of meat products, including ham sausages, into a huge pit it excavated and fills it with chemicals to destroy them after the food security scandal.

source: news-globalvoices

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


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China: The Real Threat · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

C Custer from China Geeks points out that the real tension in China is between the privileged and the non-privileged classes.


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Hungary: A Medical Doctor on Twitter · Global Voices
Marietta Le

Debrecen-based Bertalan Meskó, a medical doctor who tweets under the name @Berci and has more than 6,000 followers, reported on his blog [en] that he was listed among the Top 10 Medical Tweeters on Project IVLine. He wrote this about his Twitter experience: “Whenever I have a question about my profession, PhD, or social media, generally I receive a valid and relevant answer in minutes. I don’t always know who might have the answer for my questions, that’s why it can be beneficial to put that into a large pot full of people with similar interests and wait for the answer.”

author: Marietta Le


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Iran:Persecuted blogger won Theodor Haecker prize · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Shiva Nazar-Ahari, a persecuted Iranian human rights activist and blogger, awarded Theodor Haecker prize.

author: Fred Petrossian


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Kyrgyzstan: Authorities ponder on confiscation of the mobile operator · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

It appears that Kyrgyzstan’s leading mobile operator MegaCom is about to be confiscated by the government, amidst an ongoing political and law enforcement scandal related to the company, Malika reports.

author: Adil Nurmakov


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Kyrgyzstan: Interview with shirin Aitmatova · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Sabina interviews Shirin Aitmatova, a Kyrgyz MP and an active online social media activist, discussing poetry and politics.


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Mexico: The Reality of Public Transportation in Mexico City · Global Voices
J. Tadeo

The Federal District (DF) of Mexico City is the capital city of the United States of Mexico and has a population of 8,851,080 inhabitants (the Mexico City Metropolitan Area has 20,137,152 inhabitants), according to the latest official census [es]. Most of them use the public transportation network daily to travel from their home to their place of work, education or entertainment.
The network includes various mediums of transportation such as light rail, the bus system, the Metro and Metrobus, among others. In 2010, the Metro alone transported more than 1,410 million users, according to official figures [es].
Mexico D.F. Metro passengers. Image from Flickr rafeforst (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
But what do its users think about the Metro and Metrobus in Mexico City? What is the perception of the real situation? In this regard, the citizen portal Transeúnte [es] reports:
La Ciudad de México cuenta con varias redes de transporte público que han demostrado ser eficientes y de gran importancia para la ciudad. De esta forma, el Metro, Metrobús, la Red de Transportes de Pasajeros y el Servicio de Transportes Eléctricos se han constituido como una alternativa de movilidad importante para los capitalinos.
Transeúnte, edited by Rocío Núñez, points out the advantages of the Metrobús in particular:
Por otro lado, una de las principales ventajas de los sistemas de transporte público del Distrito Federal, es la reducción de los tiempos de traslado, ya que de acuerdo con los datos del Centro de Transporte Sustentable, el Metrobús ha logrado disminuir el tiempo de viaje de sus usuarios, entre un 30 y 50 por ciento en las rutas que recorre.
Blogger Diana Medina [es] recounts her experience as a passenger with her daughter on the same medium:
Les cuento entonces que el domingo nos subimos al Metrobús. El primer enfrentamiento fue el torniquete, ella no paga por tener 3 años, entonces tuvo que pasar por abajo del torniquete para entrar. El policía fue el que le dio la indicación, pero ella lo veía detenidamente, hasta que se animó y pasó. Debo decir que la gente que trabaja en el Metrobús, nos tocó muy amable. Están los anfitriones que son los que te ayudan con recargar tu tarjeta y te dan la información que necesites.
After sharing her experience, the aforementioned blogger ends her post with the following:
Eso es el transporte público, el respirar y vivir la Ciudad. A horas pico y entre semana, entre empujones y gritos de vendedores ambulantes, el respirar es difícil, pero aún así el transporte público es algo que deben conocer nuestros hijos. Es parte de su realidad. Es parte de su Ciudad.
Metrobús traveling through México City. Image by J. Tadeo
Grehz, from the Blog de la Minoría [es] shares his appreciation of a different medium, the Metro:
A través de la ventana el DF (Ciudad de México) se mira gris y mudo. No es un silencio de coches, sino un silencio de voces. A esta hora miles de hombres y mujeres saturan calles, escaleras, andenes y pasillos en esa carrera desesperada por el medio de transporte que habrá de llevarlos al trabajo. Miles de pasos desgastan un poco más el suelo viejo de la ciudad; suben y bajan de prisa las escaleras del metro; entran y salen de esos túneles como ratones; suben el calor y cambian de color.
He continues telling a story about a sale by a street salesman inside a subway car:
Un hombre sube al vagón. En su mano lleva un DVD portátil abierto, tipo laptop, mostrando la pantalla a los pasajeros. Al hombro lleva una mochilita colgando de una correa que le cruza el pecho, como canana. En la mochilita, discos y el sonido: se observan las bocinas. “Te vale 10 pesos, DVD con 15 éxitos del New Age…”
The author of the blog Cachitos de Mi Vida (Bits of My Life) [es] addresses the issue of the Metro, questions its efficiency and reflects on the subsidy on the ticket:
Utilizo diariamente el metro porque estoy convencida que es el mejor sistema de transporte que el hombre ha creado: es (en teoría) rápido, eficiente y económico. Sin embargo en esta ciudad es, sí económico pero nada rápido ni mucho menos eficiente.
Y los carteles en las taquillas que nos recuerdan lo barato que es (Recuerda usuario, debería de costar 9 pesos) en realidad refleja la idea que tiene el gobierno (en este caso el de la ciudad) de los usuarios y la leyenda en realidad quiere decir: “Ey tú, pobretón, todavía que te dejamos regalado el metro ¿te quejas? Cállate, no tienes ningún derecho porque pagas una miseria”.
¿Por qué se piensa eso? Porque creen (y es cierto en parte) que el metro sólo lo usan los más pobres de la ciudad, los más mugrosos, los leprosos de la sociedad. Pues entonces ¡Qué leprosa ciudad! porque diariamente lo utilizan millones y millones, y efectivamente muchos de ellos, pobres.
I use the metro daily because I am convinced that it is the best system of transportation that man has created: It is (in theory) fast, efficient and inexpensive. However, in this city it is inexpensive, but not fast nor efficient.
And the signs at the desk that remind us how cheap it is (Remember passenger, it should cost 9 pesos) actually reflect the government's (in this case the city’s) view of the passengers, and the sign really means, “Hey you, penniless, even though we give you the metro you complain? Shut up, you have no right because you pay a pittance.”
Why do they think that? Because they believe (and it is partly true) that the Metro is used only by the poorest of the city, the most filthy, the lepers of society. Well then, what a leprous city! because every day millions use it, and indeed many of them are poor.
Urbanovision [es], from the UMX Blog, reports dissatisfaction among Metro passengers:
Las fallas mecánicas y el constante retraso en el servicio en las Líneas A y B del Sistema de Transporte (STC) Metro cada día provocan mayor malestar entre miles de usuarios, quienes en algunos casos deben esperar 10, 15 o hasta 20 minutos para abordar un tren en estaciones de transbordo, en hora pico, y todo porque la falta de mantenimiento y el insuficiente número de trenes en servicio son evidentes.
In the same manner, CTS (Centro de Transporte Sustentable) México  (Center for Sustainable Transportation)  [es] reviews the statements from the director of the Mexican Association of Transportation and Mobility of Mexico City, who pitched interesting adjectives for the capital's public transportation system:
Jesús Padilla, director de la Asociación Mexicana de Transporte y Movilidad del Distrito Federal reconoció que en la Ciudad de México se ofrece un servicio de transporte “inseguro, ineficiente, incómodo, con una tarifa inadecuada, un parque vehicular obsoleto, contaminante, y corrupto”.
Undoubtedly the opinions from the blogging community about the Metro and Metrobús in Mexico City are varied and interesting. The city is facing challenges of a diverse nature and is shaping up to be one of the most densely populated cities in Latin America.

author: J. Tadeo


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Nigeria: Hackers Wish · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Nigeria hackers wish: How I wish there is a place in Lagos, Nigeria where: 1. I can code without bothering about power cuts from the power company, my inverter running down, my generator running out of fuel or my laptop dying and also have REAL BROADBAND ACCESS. 2. I can harness the collective intelligence of fellow hackers, brainstorm on issues relating to coding/startups/funding/business models etc, get validation on ideas for web projects etc (Twitter/Facebook doesn’t just cut it).

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Nigeria: ReVoda Turns Voters Into Monitors · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

ReVoDa users in Nigeria give verdict on Nigeria’s Presidential Election. ReVoDa allows voters to report as independent citizen observers from their respective Polling Units across Nigeria using mobile phones.


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Romania: Literary renaissance · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

Richard Byrne of Balkans via Bohemia writes about the playwright Lucian Blaga and a renaissance for Romanian 20th century literature and drama.

author: Vilhelm Konnander


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Russia: Bloggers Stop FSB Initiative To Ban Skype · Global Voices
Marina Litvinovich

It was just a stroke of luck that on Friday, April 8, 2011, LiveJournal did actually work; before and after this date it would constantly “crash” or “die” due to hacker attacks for periods ranging from several hours to half a day. But on this particular Friday it worked, and it’s possible that this saved the Russian Internet and all its users from yet another prohibitive initiative from the FSB (Federal Security Service). At least for the time being.
This is no exaggeration. Had LiveJournal not worked that day, we would probably never have witnessed the many active public skirmishes between the different government departments and nor would we have found out about the latest rift between the Kremlin and the Russian White House, or in other words between Putin and Medvedev.
Saving Skype, and other services
News about the FSB perceiving the Internet voice and video calling service Skype, and Gmail and Hotmail email platforms to be a threat to national security, proposing a ban on them, appeared [ru] on the afternoon of Friday 8.
Friday is a day when media activity falls and news after lunch time can practically go unnoticed. This is a specific characteristic of media space: less news, less traffic, and people with Friday evening and the weekend ahead of them paying less attention to politics than usual.
But this time it was different. Right after this news appeared, it was as if the alarm bells had started to sound; a wave of indignant users on LiveJournal and Twitter rose up. The activity and popularity surrounding this topic exceeded that attained by the recent popular topic of Nikita Mikhalkov [a renowned Russian movie director, however, regulary criticised by the blogger community – GV] nicknamed Besogon (exorcist).
Yandex "Pulse of the Blogosphere," according to the queries "Mikhalkov" (green) and "FSB" (blue).
The news was first published [ru] by a journalist from radio station Ekho Moskvy, Vladimir Varfolomeev, on his blog and Twitter account. This was enough to ensure the news was picked up by all the political activists on LiveJournal.  The reaction followed straight away and it was tough; it manifested itself in one dominant thought “if the FSB wants to ban Skype and Gmail, then it might as well ban the FSB itself”.
maxim-taranov [ru]:
Граждане России хотят запретить ФСБ, так как не контролируют общение и переписку в данном государственном органе
The vote [ru] was organised across some blogs on the question, “What would you outlaw: Skype, Gmail, Hotmail or the FSB?” Currently, the winning response is the FSB with 93% of the vote.
Bloggers vote
Bloggers react
Ideally, continuing the idea that the FSB bans popular Internet services, users started to sarcastically advise the special services what they could turn their attention to:
grey-dolphin [ru]:
С точки зрения ФСБ идеальным решением было бы признание самого факта существования граждан в нашей стране угрозой национальной безопасности
oleg-kozyrev [ru]:
Не меньшую озабоченность ФСБ вызывает и способность граждан думать
@zw0rk [ru]:
Товарищи чекисты, вы какие-то недальновидные. Зачем запрещать gmail и skype, когда можно просто запретить простые числа. Сразу станет легче.
Clarifying the authorities’ stance
The Kremlin’s reaction followed swiftly. There were three main ideas in the rebuff [ru] from the Kremlin source: 1. The FSB representative was giving a personal opinion and not that of the government; 2. Skype and Gmail are not threats to Russia’s security; 3. Government policy vis-à-vis the Internet is not determined by special services.
For netizens, the reaction was sufficient to quieten the alarm bells and at any rate the most significant dangers for netizens were addressed. “Hurray! We’ve been saved” blue-olusha wrote [ru] on his Live Journal. However, this happiness was short-lived. Following the stern statement from one side of the double-act came some equally harsh comments from the other.
Dimitri Peskov, the prime minister’s press officer (secretary), made a statement [ru] that the initiative to outlaw Skype and Gmail is an official and heavily promoted position of the FSB, not the personal opinion of a single representative of the Special Services.
After this public “clarification of the relationship” between the Kremlin and the Russian White house, bloggers turned their attention to the hot topic of the past year: is there really a divide in the Putin-Medvedev double-act or is it just a sham? Opinions are split. Some bloggers think these disputes really do exist:
varfolomeev [ru]:
Хоть убейте, но не верю, что и это очередной “спектакль”. Очень похоже на реальные расхождения внутри тандема.
pronkou [ru]:
Можно, конечно, сказать, что многочленный дуумвират в очередной раз устроил «танцы нанайских мальчиков», но мне представляется, что это не так. Медведев смотрит вперед и понимает значение Интернета в развитии страны, Путин смотрит назад и для него Интернет – самый настоящий «дремучий лес».
Other bloggers consider these contradictions to be a facade performed in the “pre-electoral scheming”:
here-it-is-me [ru]:
“Товарищи” по тандему разыгрывают очередную пантомиму-пинг-понг: Я начальник – ты дурак…
zelik64 [ru]:
Крайне забавна эта комедия, которую ломают представители то Белого Дома, Кремля: то прокуратуру с СКП поссорят, то разные мнения Путина и Медведева выдадут, вот теперь – одни сказали – “Воспрещается!”, другие заявляют, мол спокойно, ничего не запретят.
ezhovs [ru]:
Думаю, никто скайп и gmail не запретит. Это означало бы поставить себя на одну доску с Китаем – Россия себе сегодня этого, к счастью, позволить не может. Объяснить инициативу конторы отсебятиной тоже нельзя – слишком высок уровень. Значит, имеет быть место спектакль.
As the topic of the duo’s rift was developed by bloggers, it didn’t appear to go down well with the Kremlin and the Russian White House, insofar as that after a while (just enough for them to discuss the issue and give an order), the representatives of the FSB released an altogether different statement [ru].
Никаких предложений или требований со стороны ФСБ об ограничении для граждан пользования этими сервисами не было», ФСБ лишь «высказала озабоченность» тем, что «ряд серверов оказывают услуги вне рамок правового поля, национального законодательства». Поэтому надо найти такое решение, чтобы «не создать никаких неудобств для простых граждан.
And a little later came yet another statement [ru] from the FSB. This time even more progressive and peaceful: “the development of cutting edge technology is a natural process that we need to facilitate”.
As they say: we started speaking with delight and finished with a sorry sight! First, they call for Skype and Gmail to be outlawed just to turn around and say it was just “a worry”. First, they say these services represent “a threat to security” and later they advocate the development of cutting-edge Internet technology!
Blogger Navalny heavily criticizes [ru] the FSB:
Угрозу безопасности России создаёт джимэйл и скайп, а не то, что сотрудники ФСБ РФ крышуют (и организовывают) всю контрабанду и обналичку в стране. Это ведь сотрудники джимэйла понапихали своих детей и племянников в каждый банк и нефтяную компанию, где им платят огромные зарплаты ни за что.( navalny)
It’s worth noting that the news about the possibility of blocking the popular services highly inflamed bloggers and some even pinpointed the appearance of their civic positions.
kamneejka [ru]:
Или все-таки осмелятся, а тогда остается два шага до официальной цензуры и воронков в ночи. Впервые что-то задело меня до такой степени, что я готова организовывать манифестацию и лезть под дубинки господ полицейских.
Many started to predict that if this happened, it could serve as a strong political mobilising factor for netizens:
matchgirl-ru:
Они наверно хотят таки добиться, чтобы народ наконец-то выключил компьютеры и вышел на улицы.
Other bloggers noted that this time the internet-community could assert their freedom:
Когда молчаливо (не все, конечно) согласились, что не должно быть выборов губернаторов. Когда РФ не взорвалась массовыми многотысячными протестами после начавшихся в 2006-м фактических этнических чисток, направленных против грузин. Когда спокойно смотрели на применение «административного ресурса» на выборах… Много было этих когда. А вот теперь “вертикаль” добралась до скайпа – и получила по рукам. Едва ли не в первый раз. Надеюсь, не в последний.
Bloggers’ findings
On the whole, looking at all these stories, bloggers explained some important things. First, they found out about the “officially sanctioned FSB” list of safe resources. The fact is that the security officers acknowledged that using Skype, Gmail and Hotmail with cryptographic features, does not allow the FSB to control correspondence and general users of these services.
At the same time, bloggers realised something unpleasant; Russian email services appear to be “transparent” for the FSB, a surprise for many. The third important thing was that bloggers realised that the freedom the Internet allows is not constant and everlasting and that it can be lost very easily if the FSB suddenly decides to limit Russian citizens’ rights to use international programmes and services “for the sake of the country’s security.”
Incidentally, comments from Google and Hotmail appeared later which demonstrated that, in theory, the FSB should not have any problem accessing correspondence when a request has been made, or, in other words, when it has received the court’s authorisation. Google press office told Gazeta.ru [ru] that “when receiving requests from foreign law-enforcement agencies in accordance with agreements for mutual legal assistance, Google Inc will grant the requested information.”
It’s interesting that on Google website, the information on how many requests were deemed satisfactory by the company can be found. According to this data, last year Google only received 10 requests from Russian special services  and none of them were successful (the low quality of preparing this type of documents by Russian special services is well known). However, from the United States for example, they received almost 5,000 requests of which 83% were successful.
Vladimir Mamikin, the director of the informational security of Microsoft’s Russia branch, said [ru]:
Microsoft [it provides access to the Hotmail service] is always open to cooperation with Russian departments of governmental power, especially the FSB. Microsoft’s products regularly bypass the FSB’s certification. Since 2002, in the framework of the Government Security Programme (GSP) Microsoft has represented organisations that are responsible for the improvement of protecting information systems, access to the source codes of their products.
And that’s the FSB’s problem, it appears that it is not the “foreign coding systems” but something different. I think their problem lies in the availability and active influence of the Internet; it is such an uncontrollable platform to exchange information and opinions with which it is impossible to do anything (just shut down).
That is why those stupid initiatives are created and they do not provoke anything but the sarcastic comments of bloggers:
@bilunov: 2017: Google намерен закрыть ФСБ
We wish you all the best, Google.

author: Marina Litvinovich


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Turkmenistan: Crackdown on Turkish schools · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

As Turkmenistan’s authorities quietly move to shut down the system of Turkish secondary schools, Annasoltan communicates with an alum of one of these schools to get an insider’s view.


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Turkmenistan: Rights activist isolated in psychiatric hospital · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Amangelen Shapudakov, an 80-year-old activist, has been forcibly confined to a pyschiatric hospital by Turkmen authorities after he accused a local official of corruption during an interview with RFE/RL, Schwartz writes.


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Ukraine: Kyiv Post Editorial Staff on Strike · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Democratist writes about the situation with Kyiv Post, an English-language newspaper whose staff went on strike last week to protest the publisher's decision to fire the editor-in-chief over the publication of an interview with the Ukrainian minister of agriculture.

author: Veronica Khokhlova


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Venezuela: Could the opposition benefit from a long primary? · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

Blogging by boz lists 5 ways the opposition (MUD) in Venezuela could benefit from a “long, tough primary”: “It's impossible to say for certain whether the late primary will benefit  or harm the MUD until after it happens. But if the MUD ends up winning  in 2012, I can guarantee that a long and ugly primary battle starting  now and ending in February will be a key contributor to that victory.”

author: Silvia Viñas


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Barbados: Hot Cross Buns · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

As Holy Week begins, Tastes Like Home offers up “a Cross Bun recipe that totally satisfies…”

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Bermuda: Doing Less With More  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“One of the many impacts of the PLP’s spend-a-thon over the past 10 years is that Government now  cannot afford to continue many of its basic services”: Vexed Bermoothes explains how public transportation is taking a hit.


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Bhutan: What’s Good With The Facebook Ban At Office? · Global Voices
Rezwan

“Wasting time on Facebook is Not the problem, it is a symptom of a greater problem,” opines Dipika while discussing about the efficacy of the Facebook ban at some offices.

author: Rezwan


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Bolivia: Sharing a Meal with Aymara Women · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

Pablo Andrés Rivero [es] blogs about a “collective, ritual meal of the Andean region” he shared with Aymara women in the Palca municipality, close to La Paz. When he was almost done eating, one of the women asked him “What do they eat in your country?” prompting Andrés to reflect on the nonphysical distance between the Aymara community and Bolivians like himself.


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Brazil: Satire of Middle Class Problems · Global Voices
Sara Moreira

The satirical blog Classe Média Sofre (Middle Class Suffers) [pt], takes advantage of humour to expose the complaints of Brazilian middle class cybernauts about minor problems via social media. It was inspired by the blog White Whine which features daily updates on “first world problems”.

author: Sara Moreira


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Brazil/Japan: Bridge Blogging Post-Earthquake News · Global Voices
Sara Moreira

“I read a post from a japanese blogger, I found it truly interesting and I decided to translate part of it”, said [pt] Satou Mihoko, who has decided to bridge japanese news to the portuguese speaking  community, following the earthquake. Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan, while Portuguese is the third most spoken foreign language in Japan.


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Colombia: Teen Produced Web Series about Gay Youth · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

Nineteen year old Jhoncito Arango's most recent web project has certainly caught the local media's eye in his native Colombia, where his web series “Yonkis” [es] has had a very good reception considering that it tackles a topic that is still considered highly sensitive in this Catholic country: homosexuality.
Yonkis: A teen gay world
Back in October 2010 [es], Jhoncito Arango wrote on his blog [es]about a future project he had in mind: he would take advantage of his passion in videoblogging [es] to do something bigger- the first LGBT webshow in Colombia. He wrote [es]:
Esto nos ayudará a dar una nueva imagen sobre nosotros, sobre la comunidad LGTB, lograremos tumbar estereotipos y quizás reafirmaremos algunos otros, pero siempre teniendo presente en dar lo mejor de nosotros y demostrar que como jóvenes podemos ser participes del cambio y ser activistas de forma pacifica y positiva para nuestro colectivo del que nos sentimos orgullosos.
Launch preparation
Through his weekly participation [es] on a collaborative videoblog “The 7 Superstars”, Arango also told his followers about his project, explaining that after 6 months absence, he was returning better and stronger than ever.
Having got back with his long-term boyfriend, started a university career in audiovisual arts, and commenced Yonkis, the series about gay teens in Medellin which he is responsible for creating, writing, acting, directing, producing and editing. With so much invested in the series he also kicked off a strong promotional campaign including teasers, trailers and character profiles, prepping the stage for the serie's premiere:
His fanbase, cultivated through years of publishing videos, has responded positively to his show, and the first episode has already more than 5700 views only a week after being released on April 11, 2011. Comments and ratings on the videos tend towards the positive side of the spectrum.
In the first episode [es], we follow Juan Pablo, who has left home after falling out with his homophobic father. Juan Pablo settles in Medellin and meets a new group of friends, the Yonkis, who will show him around the city and then he'll meet the group's rival gang, the Pink Boys:
Reactions from viewers
In a comment on the episode, JJcamachom wrote:
HEY!! Pelaos!! Bacano el proyecto la verdad… desde que vi los teaser me pareció bacano… solo espero que no se encacillen solamente en esos líos de loca callejera… Espero que de verdad muestren el otro lado… pienso personalmente que el mundo gay (y mas el paisa) está muy consumido por la calle, el alcohol, las drogas, la superficialidad… Espero que impregnen el programa con profundidad… van a tener muchos visitantes así que incentiven cosas bacanas también… fidelidad, respeto, etc.
But of course there have also been detractors, and Jhoncito addresses the feedback they've received in this post on the project's Tumblr page [es], thanking viewers for positive feedback and constructive criticism which will help them improve. He also replies to criticism and complaints about how the show's characters are swishy, queens and effeminate.
What Jhoncito gives them as an answer is that the characters are that way because they themselves are that way, and that for an LGBT community to fight homophobia they have to get rid of discrimination within their own diverse community.  He also sets up an invitation: any group which doesn't feel represented by the series should go ahead and do one of their own, showing how they live within the gay community and they'll have the Yonkis’ full support.
The second episode received more than 300 visits in less than one day. One of the Pink Boys steals a bracelet Juan Pablo received from his ex-girlfriend, and the Yonkis go to get it back, but they are challenged to a dance-off and they will need to beat the Pink Boys if they want the bracelet back. The two gangs meet in a park and as they prepare for the choreographed dance competition, they realize that reaching a common ground will be harder than they thought:
The Yonkis series has also been showcased in Colombian newspapers [es], radio and TV shows.  In this radio interview [es], Jhoncito candidly replies to the presenter's question regarding hurdles in producing a gay webshow, stating that technical issues are particularly hard and seems almost surprised when the presenter suggests that discrimination could be a hurdle as well, since according to Arango, people have been very supportive of this initiative.
They were also featured in Version Beta, a show on a regional network also available through streaming and fully online produced by Puntolink [es], who are very strong videobloggers themselves with experience running a webshow of their own. In this episode of VersionBeta [es], the presenter shows how the mentality towards sexual diversity might be changing for the better in Colombia. As she presents the Yonkis project and leads into showing parts of the first episode, she warns parents about the strong content they are about to watch: asking them not to cover their children's eyes or ears, but rather to take the opportunity to talk to them about sexual diversity.
You can follow Yonkis through Facebook, Twitter, tumblr and YouTube.

author: Juliana Rincón Parra


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Cuba: Reaching the Limit  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Cuban bloggers weigh in on Raul Castro's recent announcement of term limits for leadership of the country.


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Haiti: The Democratic Process  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Toussaint on Haiti suggests that the recent election “is a sign we still believe in democracy and that these elections might have breathed new life into to Haiti’s nascent and fragile democracy.”


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How China reports the Arab world  · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

David Bandurski from China Media Project has translated al-Jazeera‘s chief correspondent, Ezzat Shahrour's excellent blog post raising questions on Chinese media's reports on the Arab world.


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Hungary: New constitution passed by parliament · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

Eva Balogh of Hungarian Spectrum discusses the new Hungarian constitution, last-minute changes, and how major parties boycotted the parliamentary vote.


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India: Dr. Binayak Sen Is Free · Global Voices
Rezwan

Dheera Sujan at South Asia Wired reports that Indian Right to Information activist Dr. Binayak Sen has been freed and she requests Indians to keep protesting at the summary arrests of people like Dr Binayak Sen.


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India: Higher Education, An Opportunity Lost · Global Voices
Rezwan

“Higher Education in India, in particular, is a game of political privileges and cronyism; consequently, Indian institutions fail to make it to global top table and also fail to equip its 2.9 million graduates a year with basic employment skills,” comments Supriyo Chaudhuri at Sunday Posts.


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Jamaica: Patwa  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Jamaica Woman Tongue says that although “the Jamaican Constitution covertly acknowledges the fact that ‘patwa’ is, indeed, a national language…there are no ‘fair trial’ and ‘due process’ provisions in civil cases for citizens who speak only Jamaican.”


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Kenyans Continue to Dominate International Marathons · Global Voices
Richard Wanjohi

Kenyan marathon runners continue to take the world by storm. Traditionally,  Kenyans have dominated major marathons around the European and United States circuits, but this year has been a special one with two of the major marathons so far being won by a Kenyan male and female.
A guest blogger at Outside Blog reports:
When the men's lead pack of the 115th Boston Marathon finished the first half in 1:01:58, the crowds in Boston knew this was going to be a fast race. But the final eye-popping time of 2:03:02 by Kenya's Geoffrey Mutai, the fastest marathon ever recorded, was even more impressive on Boston's notoriously difficult and hilly course.
Kenya's Emmanuel Mutai wins the 2011 Virgin London Marathon. Image courtesy of Beaumont Enterprise.
Running in isolation helped Mutai:
Mutai, who is not related to London marathon champion Emmanuel Mutai, said he prepared for Boston by training almost exclusively in the hilly areas of his native Kenya. Mutai ran most of the race alone with Moses Mosop, and said that the isolation allowed him to push himself even further. “When I am alone I know how to control my pace, but when someone comes to me I don't know how to go,” he said after the race.
The Running Deo links to a story from International Association of Athletics Federations (IAFF) website where Mutai praises American Ryan Hall for helping set a fast pace:
Nonetheless, that a man could average 2:55 per kilometre (4:42 per mile), over the full Marathon distance of 42.195 km (26 miles, 385 yards) under any circumstances is astounding.
“It was at our back,” Mutai said matter of factly about the wind. “But it wasn't such a big wind.”
Instead, Mutai partially credited American Ryan Hall for his fast performance today. Hall, the USA Half-Marathon record holder, was the prime mover in the early kilometres and reinvigorated the pace nearly every time the race slowed on the hilly course from Hopkinton to Boston. Hall saw the lead pack through 5 km in 14:47, then 10 km in 29:05. By that time, the men had already banked a full minute against the 30:08 10-K split by course record holder Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot, the defending champion.
A day before two Kenyans had achieved a similar feat running in record time for the men’s marathon and personal best time for the women’s race in the London Marathon:
Emmanuel Mutai made it a Kenyan double after winning the Virgin London Marathon in a new course record.
Earlier, compatriot Mary Keitany smashed her personal best to claim a commanding victory in the women's race…. Keitany broke away after 15 miles and never looked like being caught as she clocked an unofficial time of two hours 19 minutes and 17 seconds, almost 10 minutes quicker than her debut in New York last year.
The 29-year-old began the year by setting a new world record of 1:05.50 for the half-marathon, becoming the first woman to run under 66 minutes.
Caroline Kilel completes another double for Kenya at the 2011 Boston Marathon. Image courtesy of www.runblogrun.com.
Last week, there was outrage when race organisers in the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands wanted to offer Kenyan runners 100 times less prize money than Dutch nationals because “Kenyans always win”:
There is outrage over a move by organisers of the Utrecht Marathon in The Netherlands discouraging Kenyan athletes from competing in – and winning – the annual 42-kilometre race. Organisers of the marathon are offering Kenyan runners 100 times less prize money than what is up for grabs by Dutch nationals who cross the line first, a move that has been subject to vitriolic attacks from sections of the Dutch public, media and equal rights activists.
Subsequently, Athletics Kenya has ordered all Kenyan athletes invited to compete in this year’s edition of the race on April 25 to withdraw their entries.
The Dutch City race controversy was also captured by BookerRising.net in a post titled “Dutch Marathon: “Y'all Negroes Keep Dusting Our White Runners, & Demoralizing Their Egos. We Gotta Rig Our Event In Order To Prop Up Our Mediocre Talent”:
Check this out this story about affirmative action in sport. 23 Kenyans and 1 Ethiopian have won 24 out of the 25 Dutch marathon events held in the past five years. I should add that just last weekend; Kenyans won the Rotterdam Marathon in the Netherlands. Enter the newly rigged setup: a foreign (translation: black African) winner of the Utrecht Marathon on April 25 — which, I should note is billed as an international event — only gets 100€ in prize money vs. 10,000€ (US$14,400) for a Dutch winner. On top of that, they only invited Dutch marathoners to the event (which they've renamed the “Dutch Battle”). The goal is to heavily discourage black Africans from running (and therefore winning) Dutch marathon events.
Finally, Dave Solomon questions the decision by the IAAF to deny Kenya's Geoffrey Mutai the distinction of running the world's fastest marathon (2:03.02) because he was supported by tail-wind:
The decision by the IAAF to deny Kenya's Geoffrey Mutai the distinction of running the world's fastest marathon (2:03.02) at Monday's Boston Marathon might be the singlemost objectionable ruling I've ever seen by a governing body in sports. You mean it's taken the IAAF 115 years to decree that the most venerable marathon in the world is too easy to be legitimate? And too subject to tailwinds to be legitimate?
Anyone ever hear them say any of that before Monday?
Out of nowhere, the IAAF simply dismisses the record for conditions over 26-plus miles on an internationally famed track. They may as well run it inside Fanueil Hall next year too take the elements out of the equation.

author: Richard Wanjohi


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Laos: Protest against Xayaburi dam · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Activists held a picket in front of the Laos Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand to protest against the planned Xayaburi dam in Mekong River in Laos. The big dam, according to protesters, would affect fish supply and inundate villages in the region.

author: Mong Palatino


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Macedonia: “Sewing” Video-Clip/Film · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

On his blog, Daniel Gjurchinovski presented his short film Sewing, “shot and edited in one day.”

author: Filip Stojanovski


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Malaysia: Residents to receive email account from the government · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

All Malaysian residents above 18 years old will get a 1Malaysiaemail account from the government.


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Malaysia: Ruling Coalition Tops Sarawak Elections · Global Voices
Jerrenn Lam

On Saturday 16 April, 2011, Malaysia’s ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition won the state election in Sarawak, winning 55 of the 71 seats contested to retain its control and two-thirds majority over the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) opposition alliance.
Blogger OutSyed The Box wrote on Sunday 17 April, that the BN successfully used blogs to counter misinformation, a similar strategy employed by the opposition in the federal general election in 2008:
Granted that the Pakatan folks have their legitimate grouses and the BN folks also have their legitimate grouses but the Pakatan folks were also using fake information and really dirty tricks to win the vote. The BN Bloggers were most useful to counter false news and dirty tricks like these at light speed. Within minutes the Blogs were updated and fighting back.
He also called for respect for everyone’s votes.
Looking at the voting patterns over the past few years we cannot ignore the consistent resoluteness among the Chinese to vote for the Opposition. This is my view: I do respect the Chinese voters who stood their ground most firmly and voted for the Opposition. Just like we all must respect all the people who voted for the BN. Malaysia is a democracy. Let us not forget that. Everyone has the right to vote their conscience. And we must always safeguard the peoples’ right to freely vote their conscience.
Turtleinvestor shared a similar opinion on the 16 April:
Yeah, BN won 2/3. Am I dissapointed? Yes, I'm but then I will have to respect the decision of people. There is no point to speculate whether the ruling party has used dirty tactics or not. If people have not been happy not matter how much they have been “bribed”, they will vote against people who do not work for them at the ballots — just like what they did in 2008. Blame it Sarawak is a big state, not that internet savvy yet or etc, the opposition will need to reflect what went wrong, accept accountability and responsibility. They need to fight again in another day.
Sarawak map from Wikipedia Commons
Richard Loh thinks that it is simply not good enough for the Opposition to claim that a ‘political tsunami’ has arrived in Malaysia (following the 2008 federal general election when the BN lost its two-thirds majority) without actually making progress.
For Pakatan Rakyat to make inroads into Sarawak and Sabah or rather to gain state power there are many challenges and obstacles that PR has to face and fend off and by just shouting and claiming that the tsunami has arrived is simply not good enough. The best bet is to work with the local leaders, members and political parties that are serious in wanting change as they are the ones who know better the in-things of their states. TALK less and WORK more. By talking too much you allow the media especially umno's to spin more.
It is hope that Pakatan Rakyat will not stay jubilant over the small gain for too long but start looking into what went wrong for their failure to deny Umno/BN/Taib the two third majority, if I am not wrong, this is their main objective.
Khoo Kay Peng, however, does not view the election result as an outright win by the BN:
The Sarawak outcome has effectively cancelled out the gains PM Najib had enjoyed in the last couple by-elections. The fact that the coalition has performed worse than 2006 is going to put additional pressure on his leadership of UMNO and Barisan Nasional which has a history of pushing out leaders who perform poorly at the polls. Abdullah Badawi regime lost just 8 seats in the 2006 state elections.
Najib cannot afford to call a GE without solving the issue of leadership transition and a leader overstaying his presence (Sarawak Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who has been in power since 1981). However, it is going to be very difficult to force down Taib. His party has just delivered a clean slate in the state elections.
General election which has been slated for mid-half of this year may be shelved temporarily until the coalition has digested the post-election analysis for Sarawak. According to UMNO Youth Chief Khairy Jamaluddin, the leadership transition promise in Sarawak must be fulfilled as soon as possible. The speed in which Taib installed himself as a Chief Minister of Sarawak is going to derail the promise.
Najib and the rest of BN component parties need to be able to reenergize their parties by recruiting young, credible, smart and energetic new members and candidates or risk suffering a worse defeat than 2008.
Popular Malaysian blogger Ahirudin Attan took a more neutral stance in his blog:
They said PR won seven more seats to bring the tally 55-15-1 (the one seat is won by an Independent candidate). I reminded them that PR went into the Sarawak election bragging that it was going to strip Taib Mahmud naked and end BN's reign.
This morning, Sarawak awakes to the same Chief Minister who has guided the state to where it is today for the last 3 decades. Taib has promised to step down after the election, and after finding the perfect successor. The Sarawak people have trusted him for 30 years, so they have no reason to doubt him now.
Taib will have to keep his word. No two ways about it.
Whether he leads the state into the next General Election does not matter. The Sarawak people have spoken. That's what matters most.

author: Jerrenn Lam


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Mexico: Felipe Calderon’s Cabinet on Twitter · Global Voices
Deborah Esch

In mid-April, the government headed by Felipe Calderon announced with much fanfare that every member of the cabinet was now registered on Twitter, and prepared to deal with the public more directly via social media.
Two reports in the Mexican mainstream media set the story in motion. Writing for CNNMexico [es] under the title “Mexico busca eficacia del gobierno electronico pese a la poca conectividad” (“Mexico looks for efficient e-government despite limited connectivity”), Hiroshi Takahashi reported on the presentation of the draft communique from the President, which features new language on the use of social networks including Twitter and Facebook, as well as a redesign of the website [es] associated with his office that now comprises nineteen blogs.
Mexican flag at the national palace by Flickr user Omar Omar (CC BY-NC 2.0).
Alejandra Sota, the President's Co-ordinator of Social Communication, pointed out [es] that Mexico leads Latin America in the use of Facebook, and occupies eighth place [es] in the region in its total of Twitter users. Ms. Sota elaborates on her blog [es], located on the revamped website:
El nuevo modelo de comunicacion digital de la Presidencia es un proyecto basado en el compromise con la innovacion pero, principalmente, con la transparencia; con el derecho de los mexicanos a saber, y con su obligacion de preguntar, de informarse, de debater y proponer….  A partir de hoy el gavbnete mexicano sera el primero completo en twitter en el mundo.
A report by Maria del Carmen Cortes for El Universal [es] entitled “Timidos, muchos secretarios para expresarse en Twitter” (“Many secretaries are timid about expressing themselves on Twitter”), distinguished between the handful of secretaries who already had active accounts and significant followings on Twitter, and another group of users entirely new to the platform.
Pero lo cierto es que muchos de ellos prefieren pasar inadvertidos, mantanerse en silencio, sin emitir comentarios en esta plataforma instantanea….
La initiativa forma parte de una nueva forma de comunicacion del gabinete presidencial, cuyo objetivo es mantener comunicacion directo con los ciudadenos.
But the truth is that many of them prefer to go unnoticed, to keep quiet, not to comment on this instantaneous platform….
The initiative is part of a new form of communication on the part of the presidential cabinet, whose objective is to maintain direct communication with citizens.
Javier Lozano, the secretary of Labour and Social Welfare (who has declared his own presidential aspirations), is thus far the most popular and prolific of the ministers on Twitter, with more than 37,000 followers and over 11,700 tweets to his credit (at the time of writing this post). The timeline for his Twitter account, @JLozanoA, yields the following tweet, indicative of a certain level of comfort with the medium.
@JLozanoA: Ya me voy a dormir, no sin antes reconocer que Chivas perdio bien con un golazo de ultimo segundo contra Santos (en Guadalajara). Saludos.
On the other end of the spectrum is the minister of Public Security, Genaro Garcia Luna, with 1,408 followers and, to date, a single, somewhat redundant, tweet at @GenaroGarciaL.
@GenaroGarciaL: La cuenta de twitter del Secretario de Seguridad Publica es @GenaroGarciaL
The secretary is, however, already on the receiving end of a number of tweets from his followers, including Ale (@aaleog), who directed the following messages to him:
@aaleog: @GenaroGarciaL el silencio informativo es la peor strategia
@aaleog: @GenaroGarciaL la mejor consigna es explicar en todo momento lo que se hace
@aaleog: @GenaroGarciaL informative silence is the worst strategy
@aaleog: @GenaroGarciaL the best slogan is to explain at every moment what is being done
The Secretary of Public Education, Alonso Lujambio, who can be reached @LujambioAlonso, is drawing a sometimes enthusiastic response from his followers. From Aguascalientes, Manuel Cortina (@manuelcortina) tweeted approvingly, appending the link to a twitpic of the minister:
@manuelcortina: Desayunando con @LujambioAlonso#AgsMx http://twitpic.com/4m2379 Buen ejercicio democrático.
The Attorney General, Marisela Morales, issued her first tweet from her account @MMoralesI, which took the form of a call for collective responsibility:
@MMoralesI: Solo con la participacion activa de la sociedad vamos a someter a la delincuencia
Her followers appear to be of mixed minds about Mexico's prospects. Guillermo Lozano A. D. (@glazanoad) wrote encouragingly from Leon, Guanajuato:
@glazanoad: Marisela, cuenta con todo nuestro apoyo como sociedad, confiamos en tu capacidad y conviccion para acabar con la delincuencia
Irma Zvelasco (@unpieenelcielo) was more equivocal:
@unpieenelcielo: @MMoralesI Esperamos que eso sea cierto, por q vamos muy mal
It is worth noting that in the same week that the Calderon government trumpeted its full-fledged entry into social media, the World Economic Forum issued its “Report on Global Information Technology 2009-2010“.
According to the study, Mexico ranks 78 out of 133 in the use of information technology –the same as the previous year. The report measures how likely countries are to take advantage of opportunities afforded by technology with regard to governance, business and public policy.
With the question of access to a range of technologies underlying the results of the WEF report, one user's response to the announcement that Mexican ministers are now on Twitter takes on a particular resonance. Ivan Trejo Molina (@ivan_trejom) admonishes,
@ivan_trejom: http://on.cnn.com/gqQSIHJ #Mexico / Sin embargo olvidan ke no todo Mexico esta en TW

author: Deborah Esch


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Myanmar: Petition campaign for peace and reconciliation · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

A petition campaign was initiated on the first day of the Burmese New Year at the headquarters of the Myanmar opposition party, the National league for Democracy, urging the President of the Union of Myanmar to take some concrete actions for national reconciliation and domestic peace of the country.


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Myanmar: Quake victims need water and zinc sheets · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

A relief worker reports that quake victims in Northeast Myanmar need drinking water and zinc sheets for shelter. A 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit Myanmar last month.


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Nicaragua: Holy Week in the Countryside · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

While most Nicaraguans and foreign tourists like to spend their holidays in the beach, Ronald Hill Alvarez in Sueños del Caribe [es] recommends spending the ‘Semana Santa’ (Holy Week) holidays in the countryside. He also describes how people from this region celebrate the religious holiday.


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North Korea: Biggest Magic Show Ever · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

North Korea staged its biggest magic show ever on April 18. It is believed to be a highlight in a week of festivities surrounding Kim Il Sung’s April 15 birthday, Robert Koehler commented about it in the Marmot’s Hole blog. The country's lavish spending on the show, rather than on tackling mass starvation, has drawn public criticisms.

author: Lee Yoo Eun


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North Korea: Starving People Welcome Big Forest Fires · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

A recent NASA satellite photo showed a number of forest fires in North Korea. Free North Korea Radio, an internet-based news media founded and runs by North Korean defectors, reported [ko] that starving North Koreans welcome the news since the fire will clear land for farming. (Read translation here)


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Pakistan: Deaf And Dumb Policy On Balochistan · Global Voices
Rezwan

Hamid Abbasi at Chowrangi criticizes the deaf and dumb policy of the Pakistan government regarding Balochistan.


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Pakistan: In Support Of The Burqa Ban · Global Voices
Rezwan

Kalsoom at CHUP! Changing Up Pakistan highlights Nabiha Meher Sheikh, a freelance writer based in Lahore, who explains why she supports the burqa (full face veil) ban in France.


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Philippines: Mosquito Press · Global Voices
Karlo Mongaya

The Mosquito Press is an online publication that satirizes Filipino public figures, government offices, mainstream press, commercial products, and media practitioners, among many others. Some of its victims include the Philippine President, a major broadsheet and a TV company.

author: Karlo Mongaya


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Philippines: Using social networks to promote local music · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

A photographer uses various social networks to promote original Filipino music.


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Russia: Play on the swansong of the Yeltsin era · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

British playwright Thomas Hirst guestblogs at Siberian Light, writing about his new play The 17, about the demise of the Yelstin era in Russian politics.


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Russia: Pullitzer prize for corruption coverage · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

Putin Watcher draws attention to two New York Times journalists winning the Pullitzer Prize for their coverage of Russian state corruption.


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Russia: Restricting racism · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

Sean's Russia Blog writes about increasing government intolerance with Russia's racist movements, signified by a court ruling to outlaw an organization against illegal immigration.


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Sri Lanka: UN Panel Report Causes An Uproar · Global Voices
Rezwan

A United Nations (UN) advisory panel, led by former Indonesian Atty. Gen. Marzuki Darusman, has submitted a report to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which finds credible evidence that the Sri Lankan military shelled civilians in no-fire zones and sought to silence critics in a brutal fashion, during the war against guerilla group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009.
The report was first leaked in The Island newspaper, a Sri Lankan daily, on Saturday, 16 April, 2011. Groundviews reports that:
the UN deeply regretted the leak to the mainstream media. It also noted that the UN would publish the report in full next week, along with a response from the Sri Lankan government.
Here are some key highlights from the leaked report as published in The Island:
Most civilian casualties in the final phases of the war were caused by Government shelling. […]
A number of credible sources have estimated that there could have been as many as 40,000 civilian deaths. Two years after the end of the war, there is still no reliable figure for civilian deaths, but multiple sources of information indicate that a range of up to 40,000 civilian deaths cannot be ruled out at this stage.
Tamils and UK political leaders gathered in Parliament Square, London to remember the 40,000 Tamils killed in 2009 in Sri Lanka. Image by Melpressman, copyright Demotix (18/05/2010).
The report also accuses the LTTE of forcibly recruiting ethnic Tamil citizens to fight for them; they also killed other Tamils who tried to flee as the Sri Lankan army surrounded them in the North of Sri Lanka during the war.
South Asian diaspora blog Pickled Politics reports:
The UN is also criticised in the reporting for failing “to take actions that might have protected civilians.” The panel says casualty figures collected by the UN should have been made public at the time.
The blog opines:
Releasing casualty figures isn’t enough. Why was the world happy to sit by and watch while this was going on, and ignore the pleas of Tamils everywhere to intervene?
The Sri Lankan government has condemned the 196 page report, dismissing it as flawed and biased.
Rajiva Wijesinha, a member of parliament belonging to the Liberal Party, writes in his blog:
This particular attack on us is not unexpected.
Rajiva in a detailed analysis questions the initial figures of the victims of shelling quoted by Chris du Toit, UN security officer accusing him of trying to build a case against Sri Lanka. He continues:
I should note too that there are strange discrepancies between the story told by Du Toit in the UN Report, the much more circumspect reports of allegations made in the US State Department Report of late 2009, and the allegations on Tamil Net made at the time of the supposed incident.
The Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has gone one step ahead in calling for turning May Day worker rallies into a massive “show of strength” against the UN panel's findings – reports JDS. The UN has warned Sri Lanka to protect its staff.
Last year Global Voices reported how the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon was the focus of a protest, as Sri Lankan Housing Minister Wimal Weerawansa began a hunger strike outside the UN office in Colombo to protest against the newly set up UN panel which submitted this report. This time around too, Ban Ki Moon was not spared on Sri Lankan websites like Lanka Rising.
National Freedom Front (NFF) party leader Wimal Weerawansa began his fast unto death in protest at a UN probe into allegations of war crimes. Image by Sanka Vidanagama, copyright Demotix (09/07/2010).
Groundviews posted the Tamil National Alliance's (TNA) response which welcomed the recommendations made by the panel and  hoped that they will be honestly implemented. They also urged the Sri Lankan government to “constructively engage in a process which would result in all the Peoples of Sri Lanka being the beneficiaries of genuine democracy, equality and justice.”
Sanjana Hattotuwa posted on social media storytelling platform Storify some Twitter reactions to this story and on the Facebook page of Groundviews a discussion is going on among its 6,000+ members.
Sanajana notes:
This is the same number that was flagged as the casualty figure over a year ago, only to be ridiculed by government. The difference now is that the UN Panel report is itself suggesting the accurate number of those killed is closer to 40,000.
Ratmale at Serendipity provides his opinion on the furor over the advisory panel's report to Ban Ki Moon:
We are back to this saga, which will not go away, as long as this issue is met with completely opposing views within the island. […]
For those who say this is only a Sinhala country, then I cannot have a rational discussion on this subject. For those who believe this is a country of all the races and creeds that live in it, then it is time we act in a UNITED voice and opinion. It is important therefore to address the grievances of the Tamil people, as represented by the TNA, In order to achieve this goal, so that we can have a hopeful and prosperous future for all who live in Sri Lanka.
I believe if we are to justify to the world that we can put behind this moment in history and move on, the victims of this conflict need closure, and this has not been addressed satisfactorily and I do not believe the Government is in any rush.


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St. Lucia: Cricket – Symbol of Wider Malaise?  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The poor state of West Indies cricket gets Sun Rain Or… wondering “where is it that we are supposed to find enough motivation day after day for us to achieve the greatness that lies stifled within?”


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Syria: Emergency Law Lifted as Protests Continue · Global Voices
Jillian C. York

This post is part of our special coverage Syria Protests 2011.
There were mixed feelings in Syria today as President Bashar Al-Assad announced an end to the emergency law that has been in place in the country since 1963.  The country has seen weeks of protests, many of which have been met with deadly force from security officials.
On Sunday 17 April, 2011, following a speech the day before in which President Assad promised an end to the law, a reported 14 demonstrators were killed in the city of Homs.
The end of the emergency law came alongside mixed messages, in which protesters were told to stop demonstrating, as Al Jazeera journalist Cal Perry (@calperryAJ) noted:
@calperryAJ: People in #Deraa tell us they are confused by mixed messages. State of emergency lifted but the Interior Minster told people not to protest.
Mixed feelings
Mixed feelings from Syrians on Twitter were in part a reaction to a protest earlier today, in which medical students at the University of Damascus were allegedly beaten after participating in a peaceful protest.  In the video below, uploaded to YouTube by DammySouri, the students can be seen waving flowers above their heads:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdqHHKd3vDA
On Twitter, Yazan Badran (@yazanbadran) noted the irony:
@yazanbadran: So, wait, wait, wait. The last thing they did before lifting the state of emergency was to beat up flower-holding med students today? #irony
Syrian flags
@Basma_ shared a similar reaction:
@Basma_: So now with Emergency law lifted: if#damascus students protested now instead of 2 hrs ago, they wouldn't have ended up in hospitals? #syria
Rime Allaf (@rallaf) sees the President's action as too little, too late:
@rallaf: Amazing: just 1 month ago, lifting martial law would have been so significant & people might have praised it. http://bit.ly/gCzlZt #Syria
Syrian student @Seleucid is unsettled by the situation:
@Seleucid: The sudden lurches of Syrian official policy are making me queasy.
But @Shantal7afana isn't convinced of the change, and clarifies the law for followers:
@Shantal7afana: Just to clarify: The state of emergency law has not been lifted as some of you may have understood.. a draft law has been signed to lift the state of emergency #Syria #Freedom
Meanwhile, despite the promise of change, protests continue, according to reports by Sky News.
Photo by Flickr user SamueleGhilardi  made available under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
This post is part of our special coverage Syria Protests 2011.

author: Jillian C. York


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Trinidad & Tobago: Autism Awareness · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“It wasn't until 1994 that Asperger's syndrome was officially recognized by the American Psychological Association. Fifty years. T&T's already behind the curve”: Blogging at Outlish, Nicole Greene “hope[s] it doesn't take us another 50 years before we're finally ready to properly support the autistic community among us.”


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Trinidad & Tobago: Problem or Solution?  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

When it comes to the country's social ills, aka_lol says: “An uncaring person is uncaring 24-7 and no amount of phony foreign accents, flowing local dialect, paper degrees, high or low society standing and police friends can make them anything but some of the scum that is helping to run our society into the ground.”


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Uganda: Government Attempts to Block Facebook, Twitter as Protests Continue · Global Voices
Rebekah Heacock

This post is part of our special coverage Uganda: Walk to Work Protests.
As opposition politicians and others angry over rising fuel and food prices in Uganda continue to stage “walk to work” protests against the current regime, the government is asking Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to shut down access to Facebook and Twitter.
According to the World Bank, a lengthy drought and a spike in fuel prices are wreaking havoc across East Africa.  In Uganda, Timothy Hatcher at aaralinuga describes the situation:
Inflation has pretty much doubled over the past month to 11.1 percent, and fuel prices have risen by over 50 percent; prices are approaching $7.00 per gallon. Major impact: prices of some staple foods have tripled since December.
Angela Kintu explains how higher prices are affecting families:
…this protest is about reality, frustration and desperate times. I am buying a litre of Ugandan made and grown cooking oil for sh6,500 [$2.73]. I am paying sh3,600 [$1.51] for a litre of fuel. A tomato has gone up to sh300 [$0.12] at the very least. I don’t know about you, but that is breaking my budget. No one is paying me any more money for my work – in fact, I am chasing debtors left, right and centre. In one short week, Easter and school holidays will be upon me. Three short weeks after that, I must rustle up school fees and requirements.
Forum for Democratic Change leader Kizza Besigye is arrested during a Walk to Work protest on April 18. Photo via “Walk to Work III” by Echwalu Photography.
Opposition foothold
These economic issues have provided a foothold for opposition leaders who have struggled to garner support since losing the February 2011 presidential election to long-time incumbent Yoweri Museveni.  Andrew Mwenda explains:
After a long period without any public issue around which to galvanise popular discontent in their favour, the opposition in Uganda has finally found one in the escalating food and transport costs. For the first time, the opposition is rallying the public on a grievance that touches the stomachs and wallets of millions and not one where it is merely fighting for power. Therefore the cat and mouse fight between them and the police has only begun and has potential to open the road to Tunisia and Egypt.
Opposition leaders from multiple parties, including Kizza Besigye (Museveni's former personal physician and Head of the Forum for Democratic Change); Nobert Mao, Head of the Democratic Party; and Olara Otunnu, Head of the Uganda Peoples Congress; have banded together to stage multiple “Walk To Work” protests over the past week and a half.
Besiye and Mao were arrested following the initial protest on April 11, 2011.  During a second protest on April 14, Besigye was shot in the hand with a rubber bullet.  Nearly 100 protesters were arrested at a third demonstration on April 18; another protest is planned for this Thursday, April 21.
Protests spread
The protests are also beginning to spread from the capital to other cities: 30 demonstrators were arrested in Gulu, in northern Uganda; police were also deployed in Mbale and Sironko, in eastern Uganda, to prevent demonstrations.
As the protests continue, police reactions have become more intense, with tear gas and rubber bullets making more frequent appearances.  Anne Mugisha, an official for the Forum for Democratic Change party who was detained for participating in the protests, notes:
I had intended to walk to Church with my two daughters until I witnessed police brutality in Kasangati. On Thursday I was at Kasangati as the Red Cross evacuated pregnant women and children from the tear-gas filled hospital. The scene was alarming and heartbreaking. If I had doubts about the decision to leave my girls at home, they were wiped away by my visit to victims of Thursday’s violence in 6A and 3C at Mulago hospital. The police does not hesitate to throw tear gas canisters into schools and hospitals or to open fire with live ammunition on unsuspecting civilians.
On Friday, blogs and newspapers began reporting that the Ugandan Communications Commission had issued a letter to several of the country's major telecoms, asking them to block access to Facebook and Twitter.  A copy of the letter was posted to Twitter by user @kasujja:
A copy of the Uganda Communications Commission letter demanding that ISPs block Facebook and Twitter was posted to Twitter.
The letter reads in part, “You are therefore required to block the use of Facebook and Tweeter [sic] for 24 hours as of now, that is: 14th April 2011 at 3.30 p.m. to eliminate the connection and sharing of information that incides the public.”
Reports vary as to whether the block was enforced. On April 15, Echwalu Edward of Echwalu Photography wrote:
Two giant mobile and Internet Service Providers, Warid Uganda Ltd and Uganda Telecom Ltd (UTL) have both blocked two of the world’s largest social networks- facebook and twitter…. Twitter is slowly coming back but facebook still remains blocked.
On April 15, he posted an update stating that access to both sites was back.
My Song in the Trench reported that the block was increasing access speeds for other websites:
So the Internet, even on my very slow connection, is going so much faster because nobody is surfing Facebook and Twitter right now.
MTN Uganda (@MTNUGANDACARE), one of the country's largest ISPs, announced on Twitter on April 15 that it would not enforce the block:
@MTNUGANDACARE: @StoneAtwine Our stand is clear. We are not closing down FB or Twitter. Thanks.
According to multiple media reports, the Uganda Communications Commission also issued a ban on live broadcasts concerning the protests.  Blogger Steven Youngblood responds:
Whether it's banning live coverage (proven) or blocking the Internet (rumored), this kind of censorship usually backfires. The Internet blackout in Egypt helped public opinion to coalesce against Mubarak's government. This is 2011, and even in Uganda, international media proliferate. If Ugandan media is muzzled, the population here will simply turn to radio stations from neighboring countries or from international sources like BBC radio or Voice of America. Heavy-handed attempts to control information do not reflect the reality of today's media rich world, but instead reveal desperation and antiquated Soviet-style notions about how to manipulate the public.
This post is part of our special coverage Uganda: Walk to Work Protests.

author: Rebekah Heacock


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Algeria: A Sit-In for Reporter Khaled Sid Mohand, Detained in Syria · Global Voices
Mohamed Benderouiche

A group of journalist, members of the MJIC and a few leaders of the FFS organised a protest in front of the Syrian embassy in Algiers in solidarity with reporter Khaled Sid Mohand currently detained in Syria (fr). The Embassy PR officer stated that the embassy : “.. did not have any information about the reporter. We do not even know whether he is imprisoned or not..”

author: Mohamed Benderouiche


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Azerbaijan: Protest to demand journalist’s release · Global Voices
Onnik Krikorian

Mark Grigorian [RU] posts photographs of today's protest demonstration outside the Azerbaijani Embassy in London in support of imprisoned journalist and Amnesty International prisoner of conscience Eynulla Fatullayev. Marking the forth anniversary since his arrest, the blog notes that when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that he was not guilty and demanded his immediate release, the authorities then found another to keep him in prison.

author: Onnik Krikorian


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Bahamas, U.S.A.: Economic Empowerment · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“The best way to address poverty and fairness in our society is through a radical overhaul of our failing education system”: Bahama Pundit sees some parallels with the U.S. regarding debt and income inequality.


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Belarus: Human Rights defenders arrested after Minsk bomb · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

LJ user anei_aka_kirian reports [RU] that authorities in Belarus have arrested a number of human rights defenders, among others prominent activist Pavel Levinov, accused of involvement in the recent bombing of a Minsk metro station.

author: Vilhelm Konnander


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Caribbean: The Cricket Captaincy  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“It’s very interesting to read old minutes from WICB meetings and seeing how directors scheme and hatch their plans”: WICB Expose suggests that plans for the Darren Sammy captaincy may have been “hatched since 2009″.


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Central Asia: Finalists of BarCamp Ideas Market · Global Voices
Ekaterina

Global Voices has already provided an overview of BarCamp Central Asia, which took place on 15-17 April, 2011 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
In this post we would like to give our readers a closer look at online projects, developed by young bloggers and IT specialists from Central Asia. BarCamp Ideas Market – a special section of the event was dedicated to new ideas and future Internet trends in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
The professional jury received 24 applications. 15 start-ups (13 from Kazakhstan and 2 from Kyrgyzstan) were pre-selected and 5 finalists got a chance to present themselves to all attendees of the conference.
Those were: the Portal for Business Education; a crowd-sourcing project aimed at mapping university teachers that are taking bribes, Vzyatochnik.info (Bribe-taker.info) [ru]; a Kyrgyz portal where Internet users can express their thanks to anyone who did something good for them, spasibo.kg (Thanks.kg) [ru]; a forum for IT specialists programmers.kz [ru]; and the CityIdentica project.
The list of finalists – especially vzyatochnik.info – shows that the tendency of watching the authorities and public servants is growing in Central Asia. The idea of vzyatochnik.info is similar to the Russian projects Roskomvzyatka.com [ru] (mapping the bribery in the spheres of education, traffic police, army, etc.) and Rospil.info [ru] (collecting information on possibly corrupt state procurement contracts). In case of vzyatochnik.info, the creator wants to blacklist university professors, who take and extort bribes from the students.
Screenshot of the site vzyatochnik.info
If students are forced to pay bribes to their faculty members, they can anonymously file a complaint with the site. This leads to the “suspect” being put in the “gray list”. The information is then monitored and evaluated by the site's experts and, if it proves to be true, the faculty member's name is being moved to the “black list”, where all complaints on this person are collected. Then, as the website developers say, they will send the collected information to the administration of universities and law enforcement bodies.
If complaints turn out to be false, the teacher’s name is sent to the “white list” and in one week period it is removed from the site. This website is probably the most promising project of those presented on BarCamp Ideas Market and might have a big social impact in Kazakhstan. Development of similar projects can be now expected also in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
There are also other projects, which did not enter the top five list, but still seem to be interesting. Social network medkarta.kz was created to bring together people who face heath problems and seek ways to solve those problems. The health sector is a big market in Central Asia and, due to low salaries, doctors are often interested in promotion of expensive medicines to their patients instead of recommending them cheaper versions. The site developers want to make it possible for people to consult with each other directly on the issue. Not much is happening on the site at the moment, but the idea seems to be good and, perhaps, the site will get a new impulse after the BarCamp.
The name of myschool.kz [ru] speaks for itself. Schools that are members of the portal become “e-schools”, with online classes schedule, student ratings, information on exams and everything that every school normally has on paper. Taking into account the spread of Internet and technologies in the world, especially in education, the site may face a lot of competitors in Central Asia.
Screenshot of the site top7.kz
Another start-up presented during the BarCamp was top7.kz [ru]. Its idea is to create a top seven rating of pretty much everything. For instance, one of the articles describes the top 7 methods of not getting bored while staying in a queue [ru].
There is not only fun, but also useful information on the site, for example: top 7 criteria for finding an apartment to rent, top 7 take-away drinks in Almaty, top 7 pieces of advice for choosing a bicycle.

author: Ekaterina


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China: College mistress “price list” exposed · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Chiafu Chen from Ministry of Tofu has translated a forum post from MOP about the exposure of college mistress “price list” and contract.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Colombia: Anti-Personnel Mines and the “Remángate” Campaign · Global Voices
Cati Restrepo

April 4, 2011, marked the celebration of the International Day of Awareness for Anti-Personnel Mines. In Colombia, the Presidential Program for Integral Action against Anti-personnel Mines (Paicma) [es] joined corporate groups [es] and social organizations to promote the “Remángate” (roll it up) campaign whose concept is explained on its website [es]:
El concepto de la campaña es “Por un día, pongámonos en su zapato” y la acción que esperamos es El 4 de abril TODOS ¡a remangarse! La campaña será divulgada a través de las redes sociales en las que todos los colombianos serán convocados a participar activamente en un acto simbólico que consiste en remangarse [subirse] una pierna del pantalón para manifestarse y así generar un impacto de opinión.
With respect to this reality in Colombia, that same website states [es]:
La problemática en nuestro país es tal, que después de Afganistán somos el país con mayor número de nuevas víctimas en el mundo; en el año 2010 tuvimos 512 víctimas de minas antipersonal; desde 1990 hasta febrero de 2011, 9.133 personas han sido víctimas de este flagelo, de las cuales 870 son menores de edad, 3.408 civiles y 5.725 militares; en lo que va corrido del año 71 personas han sido víctimas.
The campaign relies on a website [es], a Twitter account (@remangate) [es] and a hashtag [es] through which one could (and can) follow different opinions, such as that of Gustavo Gutiérrez (@Jahman2011), who asks:
Y tras la campaña de remangate… Qué se ha hecho por los territorios minados?
9000 shoes in the Plaza Bolívar – Bogotá, Colombia – April 4, 2011 (From Flickr user Airín under license CC by 2.0)
Nevertheless, “Remángate” does not represent the only time that anti-personnel mines have been tackled as an Internet trend. SinMinasColombia (Colombia without mines), for example, talks about the practice of scattering anti-personnel mines by illegally armed groups [es] and the difficulty that the unavailability of maps of the mined areas presents:
Los grupos armados ilegales hacen uso de las minas antipersonal. Algunos de estos grupos han fabricado armas-trampa aprovechando objetos aparentemente inofensivos como radios, latas de comida e incluso juguetes. (…) A lo anterior se suma la casi inexistente disponibilidad de mapas de las áreas minadas y la falta de señalización de las mismas, lo cual dificulta enormemente las actividades de prevención de accidentes y la remoción de estos artefactos, incrementando los riesgos para la población.
The same website publishes a section under the name “What To Do In Case You Are Affected By A Mine?” [es].
Remángate, April 4, 2011 – Photo by Flickr user CAUT (César Alejandro Uribe Tovar), used with permission
The blog Constitución y Ciudadanía links to [es] a UNICEF campaign called “No more anti-personnel mines,” whose informants affirm that in Colombia, every 12 hours someone is a victim of an anti-personnel mine [es].
On their website, Campaña Colombiana contra minas (The Campaign Against Mines) brings forth an explanation of what the GTO-14 is and does  [es] as a group of civil society organizations that work against the anti-personnel mines and participated a great deal in the organization of the “Remángate” campaign.
Hablando joven makes its contribution, giving reference at the start of March to the extension solicited by Colombia to complete the elimination of mines in their entirety [es]:
Para poder cumplir con la Convención sobre la Prohibición de Minas Antipersonales, que se firmó en 1998 en Ottawa, Colombia ha pedido una prórroga de 10 años, después de haber concluido la etapa de la eliminación de las minas sembradas por las propias Fuerzas Armadas para la defensa de las bases militares.
Finally, the video used to invite people to participate in “Remángate” can be seen here.
Links of Interest:
- PAICMA Twitter Account [es] (publishes statistics frequently)
- Photo Gallery for the Remángate campaign [es] (through the PAICMA website)

author: Cati Restrepo


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Costa Rica: Climate Change Affecting the Cloud Forest  · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

This post is part of our special coverage Forest Focus: Amazon and Global Development 2011.
The Monteverde Now project documents the stories of 11 members of the Monteverde Community through short video interviews where they explain how their life has been transformed and how they are adapting to sustaining their diverse and delicate ecosystem in the face of climate change.
The key players of Monteverde Now.
Monteverde in Costa Rica is located in the mountains in the Northwestern part of Costa Rica and is best known for the Cloud Forest Preserve that shares the same name.  Monteverde means green mountain and it is the name the Quaker settlers who founded the community gave the region almost 60 years ago. The Preserve is the result of the community's effort to save the water sheds and conserve the wildlife distinct to this biological zone.
Lucky and Wolf Guindon are a couple who were part of the pioneer group of Quakers who back in 1951 decided to make this mountain their home, and they tell about the early days and how this evolution into tourism is not something they expected or even encouraged:
Although the region was originally dedicated to dairy farming and the production of cheese, nowadays it is tourism which runs the community's economy as people travel to see species such as the resplendent quetzal, the three wattled bellbird as well as other animals and plants particular to the cold and wet climate atop the mist shrouded mountain range.  One of the interviews focuses on Maria Saenz,  a nature guide in the area as she explains how climate change is now affecting the type and number of animals found in the area as animals from the lower regions head up the mountain seeking cooler weather as the coastal areas heat up: but where will the animals of the cloud forest, already as high as they can get, go?
Change didn't come easily, people had to change their traditions and ideas about the role of nature in their lives. Eladio Cruz, who was born and raised in the area and is now part of the conservation efforts and member  of organizations protecting the Cloud Forest, confesses that he doesn't seem to be doing enough in conservation to pay back all the damage he used to do before he learned about conservation and decided to join the efforts to protect the area. In his own words: “Without a doubt, I was a great destroyer of nature.”.
Fortunately, people are increasingly making positive changes regarding the environment. Carlos Nyreen tells of how some school kids decided to turn some of the waste generated by the heavy tourism industry and turn it into energy. In Monteverde,  garbage has to be trucked off the mountain and its high cost was pushing people to dispose of waste, such as used cooking oil, in harmful ways in an attempt to cut corners. Now, instead of being dumped into the ground, the kids’ school project is turning cooking oil the restaurants and hotels send them into bio diesel which is used to power the school buses that take them to and from the school.
Other people interviewed for this project who speak about the changes that have slowly transformed Monteverde are: a dairy farmer, a biologist, a tour operator, a cowboy,  an educator, a researcher and a coffee grower.
Monteverde Now is a Master's Project thesis of the The United Nations Mandated University for Peace located in Costa Rica and The Monteverde Institute. On their site you can read more about the project and how to take action to protect the Cloud Forest and it is available (as are the videos) in  Spanish as well.
This post is part of our special coverage Forest Focus: Amazon and Global Development 2011.


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Cuba: Communist Party Ushers in Entrepreneurism and Term Limits   · Global Voices
Susannah Vila

For the minority of Cubans who are within it, the blogosphere provides a space to exchange ideas.  And there were plenty prompts for discussion this week, with the Castro brothers holding the first Congress of its Communist party since 1997 (it is supposed to be every five years) and announcing term limits for leadership on the island.
On Saturday 16 April, 2011, a parade was held to commemorate the Cuban victory over the United States (US) at the Bay of Pigs. Yoani Sanchez watched it from her roof [es]:
Me subo a la azotea para ver la coreografía de la guerra en toda su extensión. Mal van las cosas si el congreso del PCC comienza con esta procesión de bayonetas. Si realmente se quisiera dar una imagen de reformas, no serían estos uniformes de verde olivo los que se exhibirían en la jornada del sábado 16 de abril. ¡Cuánto desearíamos que ocurriera ese día una peregrinación de resultados, no de miedos!
El Yuma was also there, and wrote:
As is usual in these massive demonstrations of revolutionary and nationalistic pride, state workers were bussed into the city center starting well before dawn, with delegations representing many workplaces, municipalities, schools and universities. Turnout was extensive as Cubans from many walks of life demonstrated their commitment to the revolution, reaffirming its socialist orientation, even with (or perhaps because of) the looming implementation of massive layoffs in the state sector and concomitant fear of losing one's job.
Billboard propaganda, Cuba. Image by Flickr user STML (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
New leadership announced
The march transitioned into the party meeting, where speeches were made and new policies, including shifts in leadership, discussed. The biggest announcement at the Congress may have been that term limits are to be imposed on the Cuban political system.
But, as Uncommon Sense points out, term limits presuppose free and fair elections.  The blogger suggests that by announcing them, Raul Castro manages to imply that these are in store, when there's actually no reason to assume this to be the case. After all,
Raúl Castro's pronouncement today belies the fact that his term, and that of his brother, long ago expired.
Along with the term limits announcement came a shift in the leadership of the party, including an attempt to bring in some youth.  But, as Babalu Blog points out, the supposed “young guns” ushered into the party at this week's Congress aren't so young at all.
And Yoani Sanchez expressed [es] general skepticism of the Congress and any changes it may bring:
También desternillarse puede resultar una medicina preventiva para evitar las decepciones que sobrevendrán. Quizás por esa razón, cada vez que pregunto a alguien acerca de las posibles reformas que brotarán del sexto congreso del PCC, me responde con una risita, con un “jijiji” de tono irónico. Acto seguido se encojeencoge de hombros y suelta una frase como “bueno, no hay que hacerse ilusiones… va y a lo mejor autorizan comprar casas y autos
Moving employment from the public to the private sector
Just as much skepticism has been directed at shifts to the Cuban economy as at the more recent term limits announcment.  1 Click 2 Cuba writes:
Mr. Castro’s proposals may be the most significant changes here since businesses were nationalized in 1968, though it is clear that he and his aides are struggling to set a course that will not be seen as a failure of socialism.
That sentiment was in clear view at  Tomas Estrada Palma‘s blog (based in the US):
In summation amigos – please don't allow yourselves to be exploited by the globalista's in this manner. Raul is selling you out right now and I just want you to understand this. You will receive a bit more at first but in the long run this economic model is not sustainable. The more wealth you create the more that will be stolen from you. Wouldn't you rather be free and simply own your own time, body and the fruits of your own labor?
Even those who aren't on the defense of socialism seem wary.  An opinion piece in the online magazine Diario de Cuba [es] gets at the details of the tack towards encouraging entrepreneurship (the other big reform recently announced), and why it has rightfully elicited doubt:
Cifras oficiales pronostican que en 2015 el 50% de los cubanos trabajará en el sector privado. Esto significa que la mitad de la población activa se dedicará a los pocos oficios autorizados…Despreocupado de una amenaza así, el Partido Comunista de Cuba parece solamente interesado en la gobernabilidad de un país de lechugas y paladares.
Disillusionment sparks street protests?
Uncommon Sense notes that, in the wake of the Congress, people may be more emboldened and/or motivated to take to the streets.
Four Cuban women, using [Rosa Parks’]  name as their banner, took to the streets to demand their rights and to demand their freedom [es]…the women, members of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights — marched through Santa Clara shouting slogans like, “The streets belong to the people!” “Down with the Castros!” and “We don't want hunger, we want freedom!”…
Those women were reportedly followed by a mob of Castro supporters, while activist Sarah Martha Fonseca, was taken out of her home by a mob on Monday [es] allegedly for putting a sign up in front of her house which read “Down with the Communist Party.”

author: Susannah Vila


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Cuba: The More Things “Change”  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Uncommon Sense finds recent announcements about reform in Cuba ironic in the context of developments like these.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Cuba: Women as Soldiers?  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Octavo Cerco is irritated by a sign which suggests that “we Cuban women form a battalion for the defense of the fatherland”, saying: “It bothers me greatly that the multiple mass organizations which supposedly represent groups of Cubans feel like they have the right to speak for everyone, robbing individuals of their voices to make them into the single voice of the apparatus of control.”


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Estonia: Security police report hits documentary filmer · Global Voices
Vilhelm Konnander

Gedanken über Estland reports [GER] that the Estonian documentary filmer, Oleg Besedin, is accused of anti-Estonian propaganda in the 2010 annual report of Estonia's security police, KaPo.


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Gambia: Coalition for Change Distances Itself From Government’s Position · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

The Coalition for Change – The Gambia (CCG) dissociates itself from position of the Gambia Government regarding Cote d’Ivoire: “The most recent inconsequential state televised statement of President Jammeh calling for fresh elections and refusing to recognize President Alassane Ouattara in defiance of the international community…”

author: Ndesanjo Macha