Archive for
February 28th, 2008
Stories
Cameroon: Will the widespread unrest bring political change?
Cameroon was besieged this week by the worst violence in fifteen years, as a transportation strike, formally ended by unions on Wednesday, expanded into a more general protest against rising food and oil prices and President Biya's attempts to alter the constitution and extend his 25-year rule.
Korea: Companies that check how many times you go to the toilet
Companies that check how many times you go to the toilet … What do you think? The post has received interesting responses.
화장실가는걸 체크하는 회사.
이렇게 까지 하면 회사 어떻게 다니나요 ;;;;;;;
Companies that check how many times you go to the toilet
Do I have to stay at this company?
돈준만큼 확실히 부려먹어야죠. 그게 자본주의 유능한 사업가죠. 그렇게 해야만 세계일류기업이 되겠죠? 1원이라도 낭비하지 않고….그리고, 일하는 사람 입장에서 싫으면 다니지 말고 나가라는 것인데 어쩌겠습니까? 회사 만들 능력없고 채용해준 것만으로도 고마워하는 입장에서 인권을 어떻게 찾겠어요? 업주를 위해 목숨을 바쳐야죠.
인간로봇입니다.인간성이 자꾸만 상실하는 사회에 살고 있습니다.
저건 분명히 지탄 받아야 할 억압이지만 근무 중에 수시로 들락 거리는것도 고쳐야 할 태도중 하나라고 봅니다. 괜히 주변 분위귀까지 들썩이죠.
뭔지 잘은 모르지만, 위와 같은 상황이 발생한 원인을 요약하면 두가지로 압축될수 있습니다. -> 첫째 : 너무나 잦은 근무지 이탈로 인하여, 윗선에서의 지적상황이 많았던 불가피한 상황. -> 둘째 : 근로자와 사용자와의 관계는 근로계약을 체결한 계약상의 관계일뿐, 타인의 인권을 제약할수 없는 동등한 인격체라는 사실을 무시하고, 근로자들를 마치 자기들의 노예(?)인양 부려먹으로는 윗선의 이상성격.
담배는 꿈도 못꾸겠군.ㅡ,.ㅡ
솔직히 오죽하면 저러겠냐..화장실간다하고 계속 땡땡이치니 사장도 오죽하면 저러겠나 싶다. 주로 여자들 많은 회사가 저런문제가 많이 발생하는듯
왜 여기서 여자를 걸고 넘어지시는지 ?
당연하지..당신이 일 안하고 화장실에 앉아 시간 때울지 누가 알겠냐고..당신은 하수인이고 사장은 당신을 먹여살리는 주인이야..
아니지요. 직원이 일을 열심히 해서 사장을 먹여살리는 거지요. 사장 및 경영팀의 역활은 직원이 하는 일을 최대한 효울적일수 있도록 서포트해주는거구요 ^^
너무한다
일열심히 하는사람에겐 별로 신경쓸필요가 없는규제라고 생각합니다..회사를위해서 열심히 일하는길이 곧 나자신이 잘되는길인데도 불구하고 많은 사람들의 마인드는 회사의 눈치를 보면서 생활하다니…쩝~이러니 위와같은 규제가 있다고 생각됩니다..회사입장에서는 이렇게 까지 하는이유는 닭이먼저냐 달걀이먼저냐를 따지기 이전에 본인스스로 나를위해서 열심히 일하는 자세와 마인드를 갖는다면 당장 내인생이 하루하루가 바뀔것입니다…
저렇게 하는 회사도 문제지만…왜 저렇게까지 할까?에 대해서 의문을 가지는 분은 아무도 없군요……여러분 자신도 한번 돌아보시길……
Iran and Israel: foes forever or future friends?
The online video posted by the Century Foundation regarding the relations between Israel and Iran and the geo.political forces that are behind this situation has several bloggers discussing their ideas on who is really pulling the strings.
The discussion, Iran and Israel: An Irreversible Enmity?, is held by Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council and author of Treacherous Alliance - The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States (Yale University Press 2007); Khaled Dawoud, New York correspondent for Al-Jazeera; and Daniel Levy, Senior Fellow and Director of the Prospects for Peace Initiative at The Century Foundation. The following video with Highlights of the talk can also be seen on YouTube, uploaded by the Century Foundation
Ali Eteraz posts the video and says:
I think one comment of note is from Riyad Mansour, a Palestinian expert, who reminds that the US runs the show, not Israel.
But pay attention, very close attention, at 3:30, at the geo-political game Iran is playing.
You can also see the video on video aggregator and discussion site FORA.tv
FORA.tv enables a new, global media opportunity by aggregating a daily range of events, produced and electronically shipped by institutions or freelance producers, from around the world.
On Fora.tv you can see the different sections of the talk, or see it as a whole. There are also links to background information on the speakers, the possibility of having transcripts and download capabilities.
The interest in discussing the possibility of mending relations between Iran and Israel is reflected in the blogosphere as well: Lisa Goldman translates Notes from the Underground: Iranians and Israelis connect online from Hebrew to English. The article, written by Ido Hartogsohn for Nana, an Israeli entertainment portal, speaks about the role blogs have taken in bridging the gaps in communication and information, providing a more humane connection between people of these two different nations. From the article:
Goldman, too, sees blogs as a tool for creating understanding between peoples. “We must find a way to get past the pre-conceived notions and one-dimensional portraits presented by the mainstream media,” she says. “They just perpetuate conflicts. I think that if you hear a human voice from the other side, that’s the beginning of the way.”
However, there is still a bit of apprehension:
As a means of illustrating the extent to which Iranian bloggers must be careful to avoid contact with Israelis, Kamangir offered an amusing-yet-sad anecdote about an incident that occurred last summer. This incident also shows how ordinary people who are citizens of enemy states find themselves making contact - albeit of a hesitant, groping kind.
The rest of the story can be read here.
Patriotic Shadow photo by said&done
Africa: Is Chinese influence eroding press freedom?
The BBC posted an interview with head of Reporters Without Borders Leonard Vincent commenting on the decline of press freedom in Africa over the past year.
Ugandan Insomniac was the first to discuss it:
Vincent’s response, in my opinion, was typical of the misunderstanding of African statehood, international affairs and democracy.
She quoted some of the interview, with special emphasis on parts she found especially difficult to swallow:
VINCENT: Two major factors for me is that first of all, is the fact that there is this sort of African pride in the culture, in the political culture, that has been renewed this year and more and more over the years makes it difficult for western countries to intervene in internal affairs of their former colonies.
Meanwhile, AfricaFlack offered another angle:
RSF Secretary-General Robert Menard knows the cure. The leaders of the so-called league of democracies and international institutions must stand up for common values. One underlying reason for this reluctance – at least for the “democracies” – is business, Menard argues. Who wants to offend China’s leaders about imprisoning cyber journalists when their market is so big? Who wants to offend Russian President Vladimir Putin when oil is so important?
Let’s get back to Africa and its dark year of 2007. One reason so many African countries became so brazen in their repression of the media: the rise of Chinese power on the continent along with the corresponding loss of legitimacy of the continent’s former colonial powers.
But back on the Insomniac's blog, tempers - and comments - flared.
@God: Why did you make the West? Why, why, why, why? Why did you make them people who turn I into an incoherent burn-dem-downer? (27th Comrade)
…
The voyeuristic nature of western media thrives when there is trouble in nations they consider to be less civilized than their own. It reinforces their opinion that they are somehow superior to these rabid uncultured people babbling in some weird sounding language that they will never learn. (imnxtac)
…
Vincent is saying it wrong, especially up there about African pride. He also thinks wrong, putting the blame on China for instance. Even in countries where Western governments are all over the place the same thing does happen. It’s a matter of who is playing who. Eg, while Rwanda has been putting off France, they’ve been dancing with American and British money. But the media in Rwanda is one of the most repressed in the Great Lakes region, and it is only a few years from now that RWB of this world will be noticing. (Minty)
…
I think the biggest flaw of places like Reporters Without Borders is they don’t take into consideration the difficulty of local media to operate within their own countries.
IGG anyone?? (Scarlett Lion)
Discussions of media freedom - and more so what is reported about Africa - never fail to incite a plethora of opinions, though it is doubtful the RWB will respond to the voices all over the blogosphere.
Kenya: Dear Kofi Annan…
Kofi Annan is an undisputed mediator and a peace maker. When the party leaders in Kenya started hiding behind the constitution to derail the talks, Annan declared that the constititution will not be used to deny Kenyans peace.
Yes, the contentious post of Prime Minister was agreed on, but the hardliners have taken their positions and none wants to compromise. Annan has threatened to quit, and has suspended talks until President Mwai Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga meet and soften the positions.
Upon receiving the quit threats, wheremadnessresides decided to write a letter to Annan:
“Dear Kofi Annan:
There's a rumour that you're thinking of leaving Kenya. That you're fed up with our leaders and their madness. That you're up to here and beyond with all this nonsense.
I can certainly understand why you would be sorely tempted. But please please please don't. Leave Kenya that is. You can't anyway. You promised, remember?
Last Friday but one you looked straight through the camera and right at me and said you weren't going to go anywhere until a comprehensive solution had been arrived at. You said that anyone who thought they could frustrate you into leaving was deluded.
Remember that?”
Kumekucha thinks Kenya's solution lies in power sharing:
In order to achieve normalcy in Kenya, Annan and the international community are in agreement with the ODM in its quest for an immediate political settlement arising out of the disputed December 2007 election before deeper negotiations and agreements can be reached on the issue of constitution review. That immediate political settlement is: POWER SHARING.
…..A power-sharing deal has been imminent for the last two weeks but it appears the antagonist cannot reach an agreement on the extent of powers of the proposed office of the Prime Minister. ODM has announced it will accept nothing short of an executive prime minister and that whatever deal is agreed upon, it must be entrenched into the constitution.
Kenya Imagine has published a lengthy post, giving the recipe for constitutional change and power sharing. The article goes into great detail, giving historical perspectives and comparing with American politics and how they have handled such issues:
The threat of violence works in strange ways, its wonders to perform. Assuming that the ODM is not going to wear a balaclava and walk into the boardroom of government with a shotgun, I propose that certain exceptions be made for them, as follows: First, the president should allow the ODM to nominate their own people to the government. If they want to nominate Raila Odinga, William Ole Ntimama, or William Ruto, that is fine. Ministers appointed should be subject to some kind of enforceable doctrine of collective responsibility to forestall the impunity witnessed when some the ODM members were incorporated in the last government.
While they should not condone illegalities, they should be supportive of the government in a functional, visible way. They should also be subject to the performance contracts like everyone else. Given that some cabinet positions have already been taken, the ODM should be allowed to nominate CEOs and Chairmen for some state corporations, subject to qualifications of said applicants. Once appointed, they should be subject to the performance contracts already in place. The ODM has complained of marginalization. Appointing CEOs is spreading the bread, distribution of resources, and is in the national interest.
Kenyan Pundit had predicted that the current sent up of talks is not meant to go far and that Kenyans had a choice of wrestling their fate from the two leaders:
It is increasingly seeming like my worst fears will be confirmed, and the Annan mediation talks will become a long road to nowhere.
Frustrated as we are, I think it is important for us as Kenyans to keep trying to find ways to wrest the fate of our country from these two power-hungry individuals. You can play your part by doing what you can to support the peace building initiatives and aid effortsthat I have listed below. These efforts are more tangible than signing petitions, wearing bands, etc.
Lets demonstrate that there is a better way to do things and that unlike our leaders, we as Kenyans are ready to do the HARD work necessary to rebuild our country…talk is cheap. I also encourage you to circulate this list widely, especially to people in Kenya who are in position to do something but might not necessarily access my blog…some of these initiatives just need a show of support.
Mwananchi Mkenya has taken issues seriously and is now evaluating the concept of democracy within the party and wondering whether democracy is being undercut:
While PNU never, and ODM-K now offers me no hope, I continue to wrestle with my relationship to ODM. On one hand they are making amazing contributions to democracy in the country. PNU needs strong opponents and to be challenged on their crap. They have shown remarkable resolve in standing up to PNU oligarchs, have built a truly impressive national machinery, and provided Kenyans with a much needed space to articulate the need for true democracy.
But on the other hand ODM is seriously undercutting the future of democracy in the country. My frustrations with them are in not working hard enough to avoid targeting one ethnic group. In my view ODM has been too comfortable framing the issues plaguing the country as those of ethnicity and not those of class.
While considering the happenings in Kenya, Ken Opalo feels that the political class has let Africa down:
The political class has failed Africa. The political class has failed Kenya. The political class has failed me, personally. Why haven’t we produced more Mandelas and less Mobutus? Why do we keep churning out leaders who do not have any sense of what true leadership is about? Leaders who are willing to do whatever they can to improve the situation of Africans? When will they know that politics should never be an end in itself? That political competition is a means to an end and that politics should be used to serve the interest of the African people and not to enrich a few people?
As Achebe put it in the early 1980s, [replacing Nigeria with Africa] The trouble with Africa is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the African character. There is nothing wrong with the African land or climate or water or air or anything else. The African problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.
Regarding the regional and international influence, Morgan writes about the threat by the US to intevene as well as actions taken by regional leaders' whose countries depend partly on Kenya for economic prospertity:
The Longer the situation is in flux then the problems could not only escalate but even spread. There have been persistent reports of Ugandan Troops along the border with Kenya and keeping a wary eye on its Neighbor. 25% of Uganda’s GDP moves through Kenya. Rwanda has about the same number and for Burundi it rises to 33%. So its not only Kenyans that are suffering.
For Several Years the US has Praised Kenya for being a beacon of Stability in a region where Fighting seems to be a daily norm. Tensions in the Horn of Africa are rising again. Somalia still remains in a perpetual state of anarchy as well. So there was considerable pleasure when Kenya had a Peaceful Change of Government several years ago.
South Africa: Racist Black Journalists?
The president of the ANC, Jacob Zuma, was back in the news last Friday… this time for supporting a move by the Forum of Black Journalists (FBJ) to exclude White journalists from covering an off-the-record briefing by Jacob Zuma.
The blogosphere has erupted with all sorts of positions on this matter, here are a few…
From Guy Berger
The Forum of Black Journalists is welcome to choose whoever it likes to attend its meetings. Black, white or blue. It’s a free country.
But no journalists, of whatever hue, should be in the business of organising off-the-record briefings with political leaders.
Wasn’t anything learnt from the infamous 2003 Bulelani Ngcuka briefing that caused enormous damage to the image of journalists as politically independent players beyond manipulation? And that was an occasion not even initiated by the media.
And anyway, why would any journalist act to encourage secret information flows as a first-choice engagement with a source? Especially in regard to a public politician who may be the next South African president.
Shame also goes to Jacob Zuma for speaking to the FBJ on confidential terms of engagement; he could have as easily advised that he had nothing to hide, and that anyone present was free to report his remarks.
Just what was the point of the FBJ tying the hands of the journalists who attended? A bad bid to try to “sex-up” the character of the event?
My issue is that I think the white journalists that were expelled showed a brilliant example to us whites as to how to deal with these “forums”. A lot of people have spoken out about these forums but nothing to date has been done about them, until now. Good on the journalist that were expelled and even better on the black journalist that left the meeting with them. There really should be no place for this type of organization in this country. Let’s call a spade a spade what happened there was nothing less than racism in action!
When you hear of these things, these corruptions of democracy one is left to ask who is running this country? When there are so many clever, able, educated and passionate young black leaders, why is it that the dof, cruel and incompetent have wrestled power away from the minds of rationalism in the ANC.
A part of me wants to blame Mbeki for his paranoia and centralisation, and when I think about it deeply this truly seems the greatest cause.
But which Irvin Khoza, the man in charge of running soccer in this country, using the word kaffir without shame, we have definitely entered a dark day in the racial politics of our country; where men and women are excluded from an address because of the colour of their skin, and a leader of the country’s largest sports program can chide a black man with the word kaffir.
The editor's forum said in their statement that such exclusion has no place in South Africa today and certainly not in a forum that represents journalists.
Sanef said it respects the FBJ’s right to organise and associate as it sees fit, provided this does not undermine the open society and democratic values of our constitution and country.
“Our democracy came after a hard-fought struggle at several levels including the media and every effort should be made to protect it,” Sanef stated.
Yesterday newsrooms across the country received the invite from FBJ stating that black journalists are invited to an inaugural luncheon discussion (imbizo) with the ANC president.
The invite further stated it was important to note that all the imbizo’s are “strictly closed discussions not for publication”. But they offer an opportunity for black journalists “to engage on a variety of burning issues with the guests”.
The media was instrumental is getting this country to where it is today. There were white journalists who risked their lives and even paid the ultimate price to give this country its democracy. What were these black journalists discussing, closeted together with Zuma, that they didn’t want white journalists to hear???
“Racists are the last people who should be judging the morality of others. The conduct of these journalists was reprehensible and, in my opinion, they have waived the right to report on anything political. In order to assist those who did not arrange the function or its racist composition, I would merely ask whether they walked out once they had learned of its racist nature.
By accepting that there is a place for racism in South Africa you are, by your disgusting conduct, confirming that whites-only schools, Afrikaans-only clubs and any other exclusivity is appropriate. Far worse, your conduct itself is all the proof that separatists need for a new whites-only state.”
Zuma’s attendance is slightly more complex. On the face of it, his presence endorses racial exclusivity.
But Zuma has been willing to talk to journalists of all races — and has even turned down interview request by certain black journalists.
Zuma has publicly expressed an open reconciliatory and non-racist attitude to social issues and he should be taken at face value on this.
He went so far as to grant an interview to a highly critical “white” reporter from the BBC recently in which he was subjected to the harshest possible questioning.
What is totally unacceptable is that a professional working journalist be prevented from executing their craft because of their race.
My take on this is slightly different. Yes, the FBJ is indeed racist and bad. But its members are also exercising an important freedom that is, and should be, constitutionally protected: the freedom to associate. I’m one of those people who thinks that freedom of association (like freedom of speech) is sufficiently important that it should be protected even when it is used by bad people to promote bad ideas. I even think that explicit hate groups should be legally protected, provided they don’t engage in acts of violence.
It seems racism is poking it's ugly head up again in the media world of South Africa… this time, however, it's in reverse. Let's hope we can resolve this issue or at least learn from it in future.
Links for Thu, 2008-02
“It is music that must be heard live to be appreciated, as much of it is literally felt in the body…”: Jamaican Francis Wade blogs about Panorama, Trinidad and Tobago's premier steel band competition.
Belgrade 2.0 posts a selection of photoshopped Kosovo-related parodies and writes: “If there’s one thing I always appreciated about Serbia and it’s turbulent times, it’s the people’s strenght to find something humorous in all that, no matter how bad the times are. It was like that during the sanctions, during the protests, during the bombing, during the Milosevic – there are probably hundreds of (mostly intern and untranslatable) jokes on these subjects.”
In October, Du Cabiau Kinshasa wrote about an Antonov plane which went down in Kinshasa, killing three dozen people. This week, he posts a photograph of part of the wreckage, which casually sits somewhere along the road to the airport. “No one is interested in it anymore. The urban jungle has swallowed it up.”
White African discusses “applying the long-tail to the African mobile space”: “What Ken is getting at is an important concept, one that too many of us forget as we generally have access to the more powerful phones. Whether it’s dealing with NGO-related initiatives, or traditional business projects, we need to be reminded that creating platforms for the lowest common denominator will have the greatest impact in the shortest amount of time.”
Royale Somali blogs about Somali elders supporting Obama in Ohio: “I heard that a lot of Somali elders in Ohio who are also American citizens would be going to caucus for Obama , dressed like that notorious photo. Ohio has a large Somali community around 20 Thousand.”
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