Global Voices » LANGUAGES

Mexico: PEN Protesta! International Writers Protest in Solidarity With Mexican Colleagues

Andrea Arzaba — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 02:16:44 +0000

On January 29, 2012, PEN International, the world’s oldest international literary and human rights organization, held an event in Mexico City called PEN Protesta! (”PEN protests”) to show solidarity with Mexican writers, poets and journalists, and to demand freedom of the press and of expression in Mexico.

PEN Protesta! was held at Casa Lamm, a cultural centre and gallery located in the legendary Colonia Roma district of Mexico City. On its official website, PEN International described the event as “a public demonstration of solidarity and a demand for accountability for the murders and disappearances of journalists in Mexico,” adding that:

As an international literary organization dedicated to the protection of writers and the defense of freedom of expression, PEN has condemned these killings and called for an end to impunity for those who carry out attacks on media workers in Mexico. At “PEN Protesta,” delegates representing PEN’s distinguished global membership of writers lend their voices to the growing national chorus demanding effective protections for members of the Mexican press.

On January 27, 2012, PEN published the following ad in Mexican newspaper El Universal:

To the journalists and writers of Mexico:

We, writers from around the world, stand with you and all Mexican citizens who are calling out for the killing, the impunity, the intimidation to stop.
These violations diminish us all and threaten the right of Mexican citizens to live lives both safe and free from censorship.
You have an absolute right to life and a guaranteed right to practice your profession free from fear.
We call on your government to apprehend and prosecute all who have silenced your colleagues and seek to silence you. This is its obligation – to respect and to protect citizens and their rights.
We honor your courage and demand this in the name of our common humanity.

The ad includes the signatures of 170 writers from all over the world, including J.M. Coetzee, Chinua Achebe, Daniel Alarcón, and Toni Morrison,

PEN International Delegation at PEN Protesta! in Mexico City on January 29, 2012. Photo by Alain Pescador, used with permission.

The event was mentioned [es] in the blog Geografia de Riesgos:

En México 56 periodistas fueron asesinados y 18 desaparecieron entre el 2000 y el 2011, según datos de la Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa. La ONU y la OEA consideran a México como el país más peligroso para el ejercicio periodístico en el continente americano.

En este contexto, una delegación compuesta por 12 personas de la asociación de escritores PEN Club Internacional visitó México bajo el lema PEN Protesta, para emitir “un mensaje de solidaridad de decenas de miles de escritores del mundo con el pueblo mexicano que tanto admiramos”, informó John Ralston Saul, escritor canadiense y presidente de PEN.

In Mexico, 56 journalists were killed and 18 disappeared between 2000 and 2011, according to the Inter American Press Association. The UN and the OAS consider Mexico as the most dangerous country for journalists in the Americas.

In this context, a delegation of 12 people from the writers' association PEN International visited Mexico under the slogan PEN Protesta to convey “a message of solidarity of tens of thousands of writers in the world with the Mexican people that we admire so much,” said John Ralston Saul, Canadian writer and president of PEN.

Journalist Renato Consuegra highlighted the words of poet Homero Aridjis [es] in the blog Cuba Nuestra:

La frase del poeta Homero Aridjis no podía ser más emotiva: “México es un país mágico, donde hay asesinados pero no asesinos”. Por ese motivo la delegación más grande de PEN viajó a México —los 7 de Norteamérica, Japón e Inglaterra y todo el Ejecutivo—, en muestra de solidaridad con los periodistas asesinados y con la exigencia a flor de labios, en la jornada de este medio día: PEN protesta.

The words of the poet Homero Aridjis could not be more emotional: “Mexico is a magical country where there are people killed but no murderers.” For this reason the largest PEN delegation traveled to Mexico —7 from North America, Japan and England and the entire Executive - to show solidarity with those killed and with the demands on their lips, during midday today: PEN protests.

Later in his post Renato quotes the powerful words [es] of renowned Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska:

La escritora Elena Poniatowska dijo que “en México decir la verdad es jugarse la vida; lo terrible es que el número (de asesinatos) aumente; hasta cuándo ejercer el periodismo será una sentencia de muerte; cuánto tiempo más debemos esperar para que las autoridades ofrezcan garantías reales que garanticen la vida y la profesión, cuánto tendrá que pasar para que México deje de ser el país más peligroso de América Latina para ejercer el periodismo”.

Writer Elena Poniatowska said that “in Mexico telling the truth means risking your life; the terrible thing is that the number (of killings) increases, to the point when practicing journalism will be a death sentence; how much longer must we wait for the authorities to provide real guarantees that guarantee life and the profession, how long will it take for Mexico to stop being the most dangerous country in Latin America for journalists. “

Read more bout PEN Protesta! in the organisation's official website.

Hungary: Another Environmental Catastrophe in the Making

Atlatszo.hu — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:20:13 +0000

Parts of this text were published on Atlatszo.hu.

In October 2010, a toxic spill from a red sludge reservoir in Kolontár caused the greatest environmental disaster in Hungary's recent history. Toxic water and mud flowed through the nearby villages, killing ten and injuring many inhabitants who had not been informed about the danger of getting close to the deluge.

Residents of the town of Devecser, about 150 km west of the capital Budapest, hit by a flood of toxic sludge from an alumina factory were struggling to recover their belongings from the mud. Photo by Y ATTILA "BOGART" P., copyright © Demotix (6/10/10).

Since the production of alumina stopped, some alumina production waste sludge reservoirs in Hungary – similar to those that caused the October 2010 catastrophe – were or are being used for dumping other types of hazardous materials. Hungarian aluminium factories were privatized after 1990 at conveniently low prices. In exchange, the buyers had to take over the reduction of the previous environmental damages.

One of these factories – in Almásfüzitő, a town by the Danube River in north-western Hungary – has long stopped producing alumina. Its waste sludge reservoirs, however, are being used for hazardous waste produced elsewhere.

According to a document published by Atlatszo.hu [.pdf, hu], a staff member of Tatai Környezetvédelmi Zrt. (Tata Environmental Protection cPlc., also known as TKV Zrt.) claimed this 15 years ago, in a university lecture about a technology used in “fixing” one of Hungary’s alumina production waste sludge reservoirs (at Almásfüzitő): “We are replacing an existing risk with another one.”

The lecturer added at the time: “The only way to sort out this area would be to remove the whole lot of 11,000 tons of waste from here.”

The document, which is a transcript of the lecture, proves that with the excuse of “reducing the damages,” these containers get infected with hazardous waste and even heavy metals that are dumped there by specialist companies. The consequences of this are unpredictable, but profits can be huge.

Olajos, a Hungarian blogger, wrote in a 2010 post [hu] that, according to documentation on hazardous waste, even in 2000 alumina production generated 14.45 percent of the industrial dioxin and furan:

[…] What is dioxin? Those who've been following the Ukrainian politics in the past few years have heard of it, since [Victor Yushchenko, one of the presidential candidates in the 2004 election] was poisoned with dioxin at the time.

The full name of dioxin is Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD). This compound doesn't exist in nature, it is a by-product of human, industrial activity, it disrupts the immune system and causes cancer, and has a DNA-damaging potential. The long and short of it: this is an insidious poison and it can't deplete from the body. Factories release into the environment by-products containing dioxin. In Hungary, dioxin got out from a waste reservoir in Garé, a place which also turned into a symbol of environmental damage.

Less has been heard about furan, this compound didn't get as famous as its companion, but the environment can be polluted with this by-product as well, deriving from the alumina production. […]

By the end of 2011, Greenpeace started a campaign in Hungary drawing attention to the reservoir in Almásfüzítő. Pacsker of Greenr blog shared a Greenpeace video titled “A Street of Cancer Patients in Almásfüzítő” [hu] and commented on it [hu]:

There must be a very serious case for ELTE University's Cooperative Research Center for Environmental Sciences (CRCES) to be talking in a Greenpeace video. The case of Almásfüzítő is like that.

Judit Molnár [the young woman talking in the video] is 24 years old and she has gone through two neoplasia diseases, her sister has 19 malignant lumps in her body.

1.5 meter deep it's already oil that is flowing in the soil.

Red sludge is bagatelle compared to other materials poured into the reservoir.

The frogs are red [because of the liquid leaking from the reservoir].

The reservoir leaks in many places. The low tide [of the Danube right next to the reservoir] has proved this perfectly. The whole Budapest is drinking these industrial poisons and carcinogenic by-products!

And, in addition to this, the Tata Environmental Protection (SIC!) cPlc. is able to call this simply “composting”… Man, how can you compost inorganic waste?!

This is pouring hazardous waste into a reservoir leaking like a sponge. In Germany and Austria it is forbidden to mix different types of hazardous waste and to deposit them together. [Meanwhile] we are intentionally creating an environmental powder keg…

Since the publication of the transcript of the 1996 lecture, TKV Zrt. has contacted atlatszo.hu to claim – among other things – that the documents mentioned above had been manipulated and that the red sludge reservoirs at Almásfüzitő are not at all dangerous to the environment. Yet, a study [hu, with a summary in English] published in 2004 by the Geographical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences supports the facts stated in the document published by Atlatszo.hu.

China: Online Protest Against the Bear Bile Business

Oiwan Lam — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 23:57:36 +0000

Since early 2011, Gui Zhentang, China's biggest bear bile medicine producer, has been trying to apply for stock market launch on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Last year, the application was turned down as a result of netizens' protests.

This year, the company tried to mobilize public support by securing the support of the Association of Chinese Traditional Medicine, which accused animal rights activists of conspiring to western imperialism. Currently, netizens continue to protest against bear bile harvest business and 96% of public opinion is against the further expansion of bear farming in China.

If Gui Zhentang manage to obtain new capital by being listed in the stock market, they will expand the number of bears living in torture from 400 to 1,200. China Bubble Watch has more background about bear farming industry in China:

Bear bile is considered a precious ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine. Despite the fact that there are already synthetic alternatives that prove to have the same medical effects as bear bile, companies like Gui Zhentang still kept moon bears (an endangered species in cages, cut a hole in their stomach and stick a tube into their gall bladder to drain bile from them everyday. NGOs like Animal Asia and End Bear Farm have detailed documentation of such cruel practices on their websites.

Bear farming is a huge and highly profitable industry in China, there are 68 registered bear farms, more than 20,000 caged bears, which provide ingredients to 153 kinds of traditional medicines that are being produced by 186 pharmaceutical companies (according to a report by China Business Network).

In order to counter public opinion against their cruel business, Gui Zhentang has secured support form the Association of Chinese Traditional Medicine, which on February 7, 2012, issued a letter asking media outlets to censor negative information about Chinese medicine:

The Chinese Traditional Medicine Association's letter to media outlets via Sina Weibo user Nancy

To oppose Western interests from promoting inappropriate competition behavior and continue the Traditional Chinese Medicine legacy by developing farming businesses so as to protect people's medical needs, the Association of Chinese Traditional Medicine urges the following:

1. Strengthen the objective and positive image of the Chinese medicine industry by promoting the achievement of Chinese Traditional Medicine and businesses, such as Moon Bear bile harvest. By means of technology intervention and active promotion, help the public to develop a sense of pride in Chinese Traditional Medicine and legacy.

2. Optimize information by deleting and screening out that which misleads and portrays a negative image of the Chinese Traditional Medicine industry. Attack those opinions that are misleading and untrue.

Sina Weibo user Nancy is outraged [zh] by the statement:

以此信函看来，这不是协会，完全是邪会呀！要用技术手段推广宣传活熊取胆的报道，这技术手段是什么？最不要脸的是要对活熊取胆的报道屏蔽，删除，我说邪会您真好意思，这么明目张胆光明正大的搞这些歪门邪道，这种不要脸的精神哪里来的，这跟归真堂说“反对我就等于反对国家”一个路子嘛！

This is not an association, this is a gangster group! Using technological means to promote the bear bile harvest business? Shamelessly asking the media to screen out and delete voices against the torturing of Moon Bears. To so publicly advocate such kinds of illegitimate means. Their attitude is the same as Gui Zhentang, which claims that whosoever opposes the company is against the nation.

Soon after the news about Gui Zhentang's IPO application came out, netizens launched a series of online and offline campaign against the application and expansion of such businesses. Blogger Don't eat friends has posted [zh] the protest photos in the Sina Weibo forum to raise public awareness.

Poster on the Sina Environmental Protection Poll

Sina Environmental Protection launched an online poll [zh] about Gui Zhentang's stock market application on February 9, which so far has gathered more than 12,081 participants, 96% against the company's expansion. Below are some typical responses to the the bear farming business under the poll's comment thread:

过冬河蟹：坚决反对。人性泯灭丧尽天良。凌迟处死也就一炷香的工夫。这样虐十年，tmd下手的人晚上怎么睡得着。(2月11日 4:06)

过冬河蟹：I strongly oppose. This is so inhumane. It only takes an hour to cut a living creature into pieces. The torturing of Moon Bears [for bile] lasts for 10 years. How can they even sleep at night? (Feb 11 4:06)

不想开学滴某丶西：怎么归真堂的高层领导们不也关在小笼子里每天和熊住在一块，熊抽一次胆汁可爱的领导们也抽一次，你们能挺多久公司就上市多久。多好，公平交易。(2月10日 20:10)

不想开学滴某丶西：Why not cage the leader of Gui Zhentang with the bears in the small cages. Whenever bile is extracted from the bears, let's extract the leader's bile as well. For how long you can stand such torture, for how long can the company be listed in the stock market. (Feb 10 20:10)

吉思教育：活取熊胆，惨无人道，这样的企业如果也能上市，中国的良心何在！(2月10日 14:16)

吉思教育：Extracting bile from living bears, this is the most inhumane practice in the world. If some kind of companies can be listed in stock market, China will lose its conscience totally. (Feb 10 14:16)

小荷恬恬：反对！！！我们不能因为一己之利而残杀无辜的动物！熊胆就像鱼翅，完全可以用别的东西代替，为什么还要破坏这个已经千疮百孔的大自然呢？！(2月10日 10:34)

小荷恬恬：I oppose!!! We cannot treat animals like that because of self-interest. Bear bile is like shark fins, you can substitute them with other substances. Why do we need to destroy our fragile nature? (Feb 10 10:34)

Sri Lanka: Lack Of Basic Convenience At The National Development Exhibition

Rezwan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:40:08 +0000

Serendipity reports that there are insufficient toilets planned at the annual Deyata Kirula (National Development Exhibition).

Madagascar : Crowdsourcing Information about Cyclone Giovanna

Lova Rakotomalala — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:36:03 +0000

Cyclone Giovanna was expected to make landfall on February 13th at 23h00 local time in Madagascar. Malagasy Bloggers have set up a citizen reporting platform to crowd source information during the storm. If you have any relevant information regarding the cyclone, you can share those with mutliple channels: via SMS at a local number 0326705819, send an email to cyclonegiovanna@gmail.com, fill out this form online or by posting on twitter with the hashtag #Giovanna.

Pakistan: Launch Of Hosh Media, A Citizen Journalism Portal

Rezwan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:33:49 +0000

Sonya Rehman reports about the advent of Hosh Media, a new citizen journalism portal, which epitomizes the growing popularity of locally-based, online portals for citizen journalism in Pakistan.

Bhutan: The Potentials Of Amateur Radios

Rezwan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:26:21 +0000

Tshering Tobgay writes about the Dx-pedition of a ham radio operator from England to Bhutan and the challenges and potentials of the amateur radio and its enthusiasts in his country.

India: Internet Companies Bow to Censorship Demands

Christine Mehta — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:30:47 +0000

India took a giant leap back in time when it demanded that 20 major Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter present plans to filter “anti-religious,” or “anti-social” material from the content available to Indian citizens.

Political leaders, including Sonia Gandhi, telecommunications minister Kapil Sibal, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh brought a case against the Internet companies demanding the pre-emptive removal of “objectionable” material, according to the government. “Objectionable” material includes blasphemous material and religious slurs, but much of the content also includes critical and unflattering content of many of India's leading politicians, including Sonia Gandhi, according to the Financial Times' blog, beyondbrics.

Cartoon by Bryant Arnold, CartoonADay.com. Used under a Creative Commons 2.5 license (BY-NC)

After initial resistance the Internet companies have finally bowed to India’s high-handed demands and conceded to present plans for filtering “offensive content,” by Feb. 21. The next hearing will be held by the courts on March 1. Authoritarian regimes such as China, Russia and Egypt have made similar demands but India is the first robust democracy, with a thriving domestic media scene, to make such sweeping demands.

Is India living up to its position as the world's largest democracy? Not according its citizens. Blogger AdityaT quotes a Google advocate in a blog post on igyaan.in:

The issue relates to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech and expression, and suppressing it was not possible as the right to the freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian regime like China.

What to do Baba thinks:

It is almost impossible to ban Google or Facebook in India. [..] I hope and believe, that the matter be settled both for the good of society as well as the web. Let us punish the guilty and not choose a scapegoat.

Citizen outrage may be too late. Google has already started to direct users away from the domain blogspot.com, and redirecting them to a censored blogspot.in, the Indian version of the blog site. Material censored on Indian sites and versions of search engines, will still be available outside of India. Yahoo and Facebook are refusing to consider censoring their material, as they claim they have nothing to do with the objectionable materials, according to blog, Jaipur.co.

Google has a long history of wading into a gray area when it comes to appeasing irate governments. Founded on the ideal of “don't be evil,” Google has stopped using that slogan in public, as the motto has occasionally been trashed in favor of profits rather than providing service that serves the public best.

Internet behemoths Google, Facebook and Twitter, have guidelines that require them to “adhere to domestic law,” meaning that they will remove content that violates local law. The three companies have pointed to this in self-defense from accusations hurled by human rights advocates countless times in recent years, first in China, then in Egypt, and now in India. However, those guidelines were not put in place to enable governments to choke the free flow of information. The reality is that the Internet is ungovernable forum, and the digital sphere has few laws. In India, Google is far from being a victim, it is allowing governments to censor material to avoid losing 121 million users if the government blocks Google completely, and a potential 900 million more as India's Internet users multiply every year.

Google isn’t bowing to government censorship to provide at least “some” ability to Indian citizens to access information, it’s too afraid to lose millions of users to its competition.

Google’s move is directly contradictory to its recent withdrawal from China. Although obviously not the best business move, one of the most significant measures Google could have taken to fight censorship was withdrawing from China. Timothy B. Lee wrote on the New York Times’ Room for Debate blog:

Google’s withdrawal from China has important symbolic value. Google has become one of the world’s most prestigious brands, and for the last four years it has lent undeserved legitimacy to the government’s censorship efforts.

It’s mind-boggling that Google would follow this huge achievement with submitting to India’s censorship demands.

So, we enter the First Digital War. It’s governments versus the Internet, and even worse, it’s the Internet companies versus each other in their quest for Internet dominance. Internet companies do an enormous disservice to their users, and to the fight against corruption in India, by succumbing to the government’s requirement that they censor or close up shop. Sure, Google might lose a significant portion of Internet users to a competitor’s social media site, so might Facebook, but in trying to beat each other out to reign supreme in the digital world, they seem to be slowly destroying the foundations on which they were built: freedom, empowerment, and an obligation to “don’t be evil.” Kevin Kelleher phrases it aptly on Reuters’ MediaFile blog when he writes that Google’s slogan, “’don’t be evil’ became ‘let’s all be evil.’”

Google has stopped using that slogan in public. It’s time they brought it back.

Greece: Parliament Votes in New Austerity Deal Amidst Riots

Veroniki Krikoni — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:38:38 +0000

As 200 out of 300 Greek deputies voted in favor of the new austerity deal “Memorandum 2″, these were some of the different scenes. Jimhellas provides his perspective [el] on yesterday's #12febgr huge citizen protest and massive police teargas repression in a post entitled “Mass murder attempt at #Syntagma, as I lived it”. Jenny Hauser made a Storyful collection of photos and tweets from clashes and fires in the center of Athens last night. NassosKappa shared on his Twitter a photo of the burning Attikon cinema in Stadiou Street. Vassilis Vlachos posted a photo on Facebook, depicting Greek MPs watching television at parliament cafe.

Iran: Internet Blackout Ahead of Protest Day

Fred Petrossian — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:51:12 +0000

Slow Internet and filtering is a daily reality in Iran, but in recent days reports from inside the country say that web email and secure Internet (https:) has become inaccessible, and that the Internet is so slow that anti-filtering software fails to open web pages. The partial blackout began on Thursday, February 9, 2012.

While Iranian authorities have been silent, some bloggers speculate that the reason for the blocking is a planned protest on February 14 (in the Iranian calendar, 25 Bahman). The Tuesday protests will mark the one year anniversary of demonstrations called by Iranian opposition leaders in 2011, in solidarity with the people's uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. The physical repression on this day was brutal and left at least two people dead in Tehran.

The blog Azadi-Esteqlal-Edalat (Freedom, Independence, Justice) writes [fa]:

Khamenei's regime is scared since the Green Movement has invited people to restart protests. According to some reports, in most parts of country from Tehran to Ardebil, people have no access to Gmail, Yahoo mail, Google or Google+. This blocking can be considered as the regime's attempt to stop Green activists from informing people to take part in demonstrations in the final days of February. The regime's action is useless because green activists have already informed their friends and family members, and developed creative means of passing on the message, such as writing slogans on bills of money.

Dara 1390 says [fa]:

Without any doubt the February 14th demonstrations are the reason why the government has interrupted the internet. They are afraid of any kind of demonstration in the streets. We do not know how people will react on February 14 but the regime is making itself ready for the day.

Another blogger, Mborjan writes [fa]:

Since Thursday any access to Gmail, Facebook and https sites has become impossible, at least in Isfahan. I heard this only happened in big cities. In small cities and villages things are as usual.

Yadasht Ha (means ‘notes') says [fa] with irony that if it becomes necessary, “We will use pigeons instead of national email.”

Bani Man also reports [fa] that as the protest day approaches, the regime blocked Gmail and Faceboook. The blogger quotes a Forbes report that as Iran cracks down online, the software Tor for anonymous online communication, is testing undetectable encrypted connections.

Trinidad & Tobago: The Job Letter

Janine Mendes-Franco — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:09:36 +0000

Perhaps the best (or worst!) recommendation letter ever - diaspora blogger CunningLinguist shares.

Singapore: Citizens Discuss Politician's Extramarital Scandal

Kirsten Han — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:06:51 +0000

One of Singapore's socio-political websites, Temasek Review Emeritus, posted an article alleging that Worker's Party (WP) member and Member of Parliament for Hougang SMC Yaw Shin Leong had an extramarital affair:

TR Emeritus (TRE) has received several tip-offs from reliable informants that a core member of a reputable opposition party is allegedly involved in an extramarital affair with a married woman who is also from the same party.

This article led to plenty of gossip and speculation amongst Singaporeans, both in the mainstream media and on social media. New reports of alleged affairs with other women began to surface, claiming that Yaw had had an affair with a woman from his church, as well as a Chinese tuition teacher who had helped him translate his speeches.

Both Yaw and WP chose to remain silent instead of addressing the rumours, but on 7 February 2012 the party put out a terse statement saying that Yaw had resigned from the party's Central Executive Committee (CEC):

The Workers’ Party wishes to inform the public that at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council on Tuesday, 7 February 2012, the Council accepted the resignation of Yaw Shin Leong from the party leadership. Yaw Shin Leong will cease to be Treasurer of the Party with immediate effect.

A photo Yaw posted on his Facebook page of himself working with colleagues over the Chinese New Year.

The party however assured the public, and especially the constituents of Hougang, that Yaw would continue to serve as Member of Parliament.

Many Singaporeans have been unhappy with the way the whole episode was handled by both Yaw and the Worker's Party, feeling that their silence indicated a lack of transparency and savvy in dealing with the media.

Ng E-Jay of SGPolitics feels that Yaw should either come clean or resign as MP:

In light of recent developments, I am forced to conclude that Mr Yaw’s alleged sexual behaviour has the potential to create conflicts of interests at both the party level as well as the constituency level.

As such, Mr Yaw should either come clean about the truth of his sexual indiscretions, whilst protecting the women involved from further embarrassment and harassment, or he should consider himself unfit for political office, and resign accordingly as MP of Hougang.

Some feel that Yaw's resignation from the WP CEC is an implicit admission of his guilt:

@jannajauhar: “WP member Yaw Shin Leong seems to have problem staying faithful. #men

@sailesh88: “This Yaw Shin Leong macam James Bond. Involved with a woman everywhere he goes”

Alex Au of Yawning Bread points out that WP's silence in this episode reflects the lack of openness shown by the ruling People's Action Party (for which they have often been criticised):

If the party hopes Hougang voters will overlook the allegations at the next general elections — they are hardly likely to forget them — why doesn’t the party trust that Singaporeans will be understanding now? Why not set an example of honesty and openness now?

Why is the Workers’ Party putting on the PAP’s (Singapore's ruling party) mask of sullen resistance?

However, Tan Kin Lian, who had contested in the Presidential Election 2011, supported Yaw and WP's handling of the matter:

“We have to respect the right as a citizen, including a public figure, to remain silent on private matters that do not affect the performance of their public duty.

There is no need to make further disclosures, as there is a need to protect the privacy of Mr Yaw's family.

The voters of Hougang will judge Mr Yaw at the next general election.”

Curacao: Elvio Carmela Dies Amidst Pension Reform Struggles

Janine Mendes-Franco — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:57:39 +0000

TRIUNFO DI SABLIKA pays tribute to the late Elvio Carmela, “a man who stood up for the unemployed, the welfare recipients and kept defending the rights of senior citizens as president of the pensioners association.”

Cuba: Different Pope, Different People

Janine Mendes-Franco — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:53:15 +0000

Generation Y adds her perspective to the issue of the upcoming papal visit: “At the end of the nineties Karol Wojtyla lit up our hearts – including those of agnostics like myself – saying the word ‘freedom' more than a dozens times in the Plaza of the Revolution. But now the apathy and discouragement will make it more difficult for the phrases of Ratzinger to inspire the same emotion. His visit will be but a pallid reflection of that other, because we are no longer the same, nor is it the same Pope.”

Jamaica: The Marley Brand

Janine Mendes-Franco — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:47:34 +0000

Active Voice blogs about a public talk that Damian ‘Junior Gong’ Marley gave at the University of the West Indies, while Jamaica Woman Tongue repors that “Jamaicans of all social classes” attended the 12th staging of the Bob Marley Tribute Concert, ‘Trench Town Rock’.