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World Water Day Ripples Across Videos.

Juliana Rincón Parra · 22:42, March 24th, 2008 · Americas

lingua → mk · mg

Every year since the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, on March 22nd has been the World Water Day. In addition, this year it is the United Nation´s International Year of Sanitation and people from all over have started taking action through their video cameras, raising awareness at the importance of this finite resource.

First, the issue of providing clean water: we have the Amman Imman: Water is Life program which strives to bring permanent sources of water to one of the most impoverished regions in the world. Their work is focused on the Azawak Valley in West Africa, where water is unavailable 9 months out of the year, and with people dying of thirst, unable to find enough water to drink. In the next video in English, Amman Imman founder Ariane Kirtley talks about her experience in the Azawak region of Niger, of why she founded the program and how she has gotten students to join her cause.

Then, from Witnesses´The HUB special segment on World Water Day: VideoVolunteers in Mumbai show a segment on a water privatization project in the slums and which after being screened to the community had an important impact on the viewers, who then flocked to the government´s meetings of water to demand transparency in the process of privatization and costs, and which resulted in an improvement of the water distribution. The following video is in Hindi with English subtitles.

Last, from Mexico, many users from Jalisco have taken to posting videos denouncing the contamination of the Lerma Santiago river in El Salto and Juanacatlan in Jalisco, Mexico. The audio which accompanies the Buitron2611 video [es] of foamy waters and dead greenery is of people speaking out publicly about the government selling plots of land right beside the polluted river which has been connected to cancer cases, even though the government denies the health hazards. Imdecagua´s video [es] has interviews with cancer patients and family members of those diseased, and they all blame the polluted river for the cancer cases and other systemic diseases. It is known that factories and the city of Guadalajara dump their unprocessed wastes on this river, yet nothing has been done to regulate this. The foam that is churned at the waterfall that is right in the middle of the city is impressive, flying up in clumps that cover cars and illustrate how just living near the river can be hazardous to health. Even high school students [es] have ventured to produce their own example, where they show how people are using this foul smelling and oily water to irrigate crops and for consumption in spite of it´s polluted state. Following, the short video uploaded by aletapatio[es] where you can see the thick layer of foam that covers the river.

If you want to read more about water issues and see more videos on possible solutions to this issue, at 1h2o.org you can see the aquaduct, a human powered vehicle which doubles as a water container and purifier and the lifestraw, a product which filters water as it is sucked, solutions that reminded me of the inventiveness that I had previously seen on the Playpump, a children´s toy which pumps up water to a reservoir as children play.

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Tunisia: relentless campaign against imprisoned blogger and journalist Slim Boukhdhir

Sami Ben Gharbia · 22:36 · Middle East & North Africa

lingua → fr · pt · es

In the last few weeks, Slim Boukhdhir, the 39-year old imprisoned blogger and journalist, is reported to have been subjected to an unusual level of harassment by prison authorities in the Sfax prison where he is serving the one-year sentence imposed by a Tunisian court on December 4th, 2007. Boukdhir was charged with “aggression against a public employee” and “affront to public decency”.

His wife, Dalenda Boukhdhir, told Global Voices that the prison authorities placed Slim in “dry cell” for three days, from 20-23 March, 2008, turning off the water in his cell so he couldn't wash. These measures have further aggravated the already serious health condition of her husband, she said. Mme Boukdhir has complained to the Red Cross about prison conditions and is hoping the Red Cross staff will visit Slim at the prison.

Slim Boukhdhir has staged several hunger strikes to protest the inhumane conditions under which he is being detained. His most recent hunger strike was called off on February 22, 2008, on the urging of his wife.

“Preventing a prisoner from seeing his family or having a clean cell is a flagrant violation of human rights,” Reporters Without Borders has said, “the injustice of sentencing this journalist to a year in prison is being compounded by his conditions of detention and staging a hunger strike has become his only way of making himself heard.”

We include below an alert from Luiza Toscane, a Human right activist, posted on the forum section of the Tunisian website Nawaat. (The English translation was done by Jennifer Brea, Global Voices' French Language editor):

Lors de la visite qu'elle a rendu jeudi 13 mars à son mari, Slim Boukhdhir, journaliste incarcéré à la prison de Sfax, Dalenda Boukhdhir a pu constater que l'acharnement des autorités pénitentiaires à l'endroit de son mari ne connaissait pas de répit : ce dernier lui a dit que non seulement il vivait toujours dans sa cellule infecte et exiguë, mais aussi que depuis trois jours, il n'avait plus accès à un point d'eau. Les autorités pénitentiaires ont fait couper l'eau, et à la différence de ses co détenus, il ne peut sortir pour se laver ailleurs.

During her March 13th visit to her husband, Slim Boukhdir, a journalist incarcerated in Sfax prison, Dalenda Boukhdhir saw that the prison authorities' relentlessness knew no bounds: Slim told her that not only he still confined to a foul and cramped cell, but for the last three days, he had no access to a water source. The prison authorities cut off the water, and unlike his fellow prisoners, he could not leave his cell to wash himself elsewhere.

Slim Boukhdhir a alors envisagé une nouvelle grève de la faim pour protester contre cette nouvelle atteinte à ses droits élémentaires, projet que ses proches lui ont proposé d'abandonner. Et aujourd'hui, le couffin de nourriture qui lui a été apporté par sa mère a été accepté par l'administration pénitentiaire, signe que le détenu aurait consenti à renoncer à sa grève, signe aussi que Slim Boukhdhir renvoie la balle dans le camp des défenseurs des droits de l'homme : à nous d'exiger que soit mis un terme à ses conditions infra humaines d'incarcération, à nous de tout mettre en oeuvre pour sa libération.

So Slim Boukhdhir planned a new hunger strike to protest against this new affront to his basic rights, a project his family and friends urged him to abandon. And today, the prison authorities allowed him the food basket his mother brought, a sign that the prisoner agreed to renounce his strike, and also a sign that Slim Boukhdhir is tossing the ball back to the human rights defenders, into their court. It is up to us to demand an end to the inhuman conditions of incarceration. It is up us to do all we can to secure his freedom.

Slim Boukhdir was arrested on November 26 and charged with “aggression against a public employee” and “affront to public decency”. He started blogging on the Arabic Blog Service: Maktoob Blogs after losing his job as journalist at the Tunisian “Akhbar Al-Joumhurya” (News of the Republic) newspaper on August 2004. In July 2007, his blog was hacked into and deleted. Until his arrest on November 26, 2007, Slim Boukhdhir continued his work as correspondent for the Al-Arabiya TV Website, the London-based pan-Arab daily Al Quds Al Arabi and the German Qantara web portal.

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Japan: The New Era of Video

Chris Salzberg · 14:10 · East Asia

lingua → jp

The days of traditional television are approaching an end. The monopoly on video production and editing once held by TV stations is over, and the age of YouTube — an age in which any individual with a camera and a computer can create a video and upload it onto the net — is upon us. Changes are coming that will shake the foundation of mass media.

Or so was the message of NHK, Japan's national broadcaster, who last Friday aired a special on the “New Era of Video” [ja] in celebration of “Broadcast Day“. The program painted a gloomy picture of the future of television, emphasizing a growing generation gap in media use and re-iterating the dangers posed by online file sharing.

But why would a TV station air a program that goes against its own interests? If the age of YouTube is upon us, would that not spell the end for NHK itself? One blogger who watched the show delved deeper into the motivations behind NHK's dire predictions. Kobayashi Akihito, who blogs at Shirokuma Nippo and at the Polar Bear Blog, explained in a blog entry posted on Saturday:

昨夜、NHKスペシャルで「放送記念日特集～新動画時代　メディアが変わる」という番組が放映されました。先ほど録画しておいたのを見たのですが、NHKが感じているもどかしさというか、悔しさがにじみ出ているなーというのが最大の印象。

Last night, a program was aired on NHK Special called “(Broadcast Day Special) The New Era of Video: The Changing Media“. I just watched a recording I made of the show earlier, and the greatest impression I had was of the bitterness being exuded, the irritation perhaps that NHK is feeling.　

番組はいきなり、「YouTube の方が断然面白い、もうTVなんて見ないよ！」と子供が言い放つところから始まります。これだけでも十分自虐的なのですが、ある日本の家庭（同じ部屋）でおばあさんはテレビ・お孫さんはネットを見ているシーンを写して、「テレビの前にいるのは、祖母のカツコさんだけです」というナレーションをのせるという場面まで。他にも20代の人々のテレビ視聴時間が急速に減っていることを示すなど、よっぽどNHKはテレビが嫌いなんだろうなぁというのが感じられました（笑）

The program started all of a sudden with a scene with a kid declaring that: “YouTube is way more interesting, I'm not watching TV anymore!” As if that wasn't enough self-torture, they went as far as to shoot a scene of the home of a Japanese family (all in the same room) in which a grandmother is watching television and her grandchildren are on the Internet, superimposed with narration explaining that: “The only one in front of the TV is Katsuko, the grandmother.” When in addition they also pointed out other things like the fact that TV viewing time has been dropping rapidly, I got the feeling that NHK must really dislike television (LOL)

その後は違法動画の問題や、暴力的な映像に潜む危険性なども言及されていたのですが、全体的には「これからはネットの時代だよね！」という空気。海外のテレビ局の取り組みがふんだんに紹介され、さらにNHK自身の計画もちゃっかりと宣伝されていたりして。しかし『テレビはインターネットがなぜ嫌いなのか』を読まれたことがある方なら、この展開は読めていたかもしれません：

There were references after that to things like the problem of illegal video and to the danger lurking in violent images, but as a whole the atmosphere [of the show] was something like: “The era of the Internet is coming!” Efforts by foreign television stations were on showcase, as well as shrewd publicity for projects of NHK itself. However, people who have read “Why does television hate the Internet?” may have been able to predict the plot [of the show]:

He then quotes the following passage from the book “Why does television hate the Internet?” (see this review [ja] by blogger Ikeda Nobuo, and for the original quote in Japanese see Kobayashi's blog entry [ja]):

As I have written so far, television stations do not like the Internet. However, the truth is that there is one unusual television station that is lying in wait for a serious advance into the Internet. This is NHK, Japan's largest television station.

A fifteen minute jolting bus ride from JR Kawaguchi station in Saitama Prefecture, and the facility they call the “NHK Archives” comes into view. Opened in 2003, this is largest video storage institution in Asia. Stored here are tens of thousands of programs, and millions of news clips, broadcast by NHK in the past.

(…)

Nothing could be more enjoyable than having all these movies filled with emotion projected through the Internet one by one onto computers, mobile phones and TV screens. The NHK Archives were established under determined NHK president Ebisawa [Katsuji] in order to introduce people to this possibility of distribution over the Internet.

[The problem is that] NHK is systematically prohibited from having a genuine Internet enterprise. In order to get the government to change this system, users or other concerned people who say that: “NHK should distribute its older programs over the Internet” become very important. Because if these demands increase, then NHK is granted a legitimate reason to “advance toward becoming an Internet enterprise for the sake of the users”. It is for this reason that an enormous quantity of programs are presented as hoarded away in the NHK Archives, in order to fabricate a public sentiment that: “This is a waste. These should be distributed over the Internet.”

Kobayashi then continues:

番組内では、当然この「NHKアーカイブス」も紹介され、NHKが大量のコンテンツを持っていることがさりげなく触れられていました。さらに英BBCが設立時に国王から行動の自由を許されているのに対し、NHKが放送法で「がんじがらめにされている」という対比まで行われるなど、まさに「BBCウラヤマシス」じゃなくて「俺たちもネット進出してー！」という声が聞こえてくるかのよう。

Naturally these “NHK Archives” were introduced in the program, and casual reference was made to the fact that NHK holds huge amounts of contents. On top of this, the show went as far as to criticize the fact that, in contrast to the freedom of activity granted by the King to the BBC when it was established, the NHK is “tied down” by the Broadcast Law; it seemed even that you could hear voices expressing not “envy for the BBC” but rather that “we must also take the step forward!”

恐らく NHKは、過去の映像のアーカイブ、それに自身の番組制作能力をもってすれば、ネット時代も怖くない――いや逆に大きなビジネスチャンスだと考えているのでしょう。実際、番組内ではプロアマ問わず、「おもしろいコンテンツを作った人/会社」「人々が望む形でコンテンツを配信した人/会社」が特をする/特をする可能性がある、という例も登場していました。「自分たちもチャレンジしたい」と感じてもおかしくありません。

Perhaps the NHK is thinking that if it has the archives, as well as its own capacity to produce programs, the Internet would not be so scary — on the contrary, it would be a business opportunity. In fact, [in the program] examples were introduced demonstrating the possibility for people and companies who make interesting contents, and for people and companies who distribute contents in ways that people want, to profit, regardless of whether these people are professionals or amateurs. It felt like they were saying: “We will take on this challenge as well.”

しかしNHKが新しいことを始めれば、NHKが嫌いな人々、特に民放各局から相当な反発をくらうでしょう。それがネットへの進出ならなおさら。であれば、『テレビはインターネットがなぜ嫌いなのか』で指摘されていたように「世論を誘導する」という目的で、あるいは「死なばもろとも」でネットの可能性を宣伝する番組を作ったのではないか……という穿った見方をしてしまいました。

However when the NHK starts something new, they face a considerable backlash from people who dislike NHK, in particular commercial broadcasting stations. All the more so if they make advances into the Internet. It seems to me, then, that they made this program to publicize the potential of the Internet, with the aim of “directing public opinion” in the way that is indicated in “Why does television hate the Internet?”, with the idea that if NHK is going to go down, then everybody will go down with them… that's what I managed to dredge up about it.

番組の終わり近く、こんなエピソードが紹介されていました：

Toward the end of the program, they introduced this episode:

He then quotes again from “Why does television hate the Internet?”:

When NHK tried to connect a radio relay to sumo wrestling, the Japan Sumo Association opposed it, saying that: “People to come to the Sumo hall and pay the entrance fee, that's the business model.” However if you look deeper, you see that Sumo took off thanks to the relay, and the number of people coming to the Sumo hall increased.

And concludes finally:

だからNHKがネットに進出するのを許してもらえば、得をする人が増えるはずだよ……とまでは言っていませんでしたが、恐らくそのメッセージを感じ取って欲しいというのが、この番組の最大の目的だったのではないかなぁと感じた次第です。

So if the NHK is allowed to advance into the Internet, the number of people who will profit will increase… The show didn't go as far as to say that, but I did gradually get the feeling that the main purpose of this program may well have been to get people to sense this message.

For more commentary on the NHK special, see an additional post by Kobayashi at the Polar Bear Blog [ja].

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China: Bloggers declare war on Western media's Tibet coverage

John Kennedy · 10:43, March 24th, 2008 · East Asia

lingua → zht · zhs · mg · pt · sq

Once the news of Tibetans slicing children's ears off and burning people alive sunk in, Chinese netizens worldwide seized onto initial misreported details from the situation in Tibet and don't seem willing to let this one go. In fact, they've declared cyberwar on major western media outlets, and anti-CNN.com is campaign headquarters.

As words like Tibet and Lhasa moved to the top of the GFW keyword list following the outbreak of violence and unrest in southwestern China earlier this month, a lot of attention to root causes to the Tibet situation simply stopped at anti-CNN.com's collection of photos, screenshots, furious accusations and non-sequiturs, most of which might hold up under scrutiny, as the collection made for convenient paste-and-copy blogging.

For bloggers trapped between two sides in a ruthless propaganda battle that has seen lives lost and a large part of China placed under military lock-down, there's of course a lot of frustration being felt about how to even begin blogging the situation. Then there are facts such as that young Tibetan militants in exile fully intended to created a disturbance in Lhasa for this year's Tibetan National Uprising Day and have talked openly about doing so for the past several months.

So how does one start addressing this now unfortunately prevalent attitude among Chinese bloggers seen in the intro on anti-CNN.com?

认清西方媒体卑鄙无耻的真面目

See the true despicable and shameless face of western media

长期以来，以CNN、BBC为代表的西方某些媒体借新闻自由之名
对广大发展中国家进行了肆无忌惮的污蔑和诋毁
为了达到他们不可告人的目的
他们栽赃陷害、颠倒黑白、混淆是非、无中生有……真是无所不用其极

For a long time now, certain western media best represented by CNN and BBC, in the name of press freedom
have been unscrupulously slandering and defaming developing nations
In order to achieve their unspoken goal
They mislead and they ensnare, switching black for white, confusing right and wrong, fabricating…willing to go to any length

在对2008年3月西藏骚乱的报道中
西方媒体的表演再一次向世人展示了他们丑恶的真实面目

本网站旨在收集、整理并发布西方主流媒体作恶的证据

如果您看到任何西方媒体作恶的证据，请千万不要轻易放过他们
把它们保存起来并寄给我们
多收集一份他们的罪证，就是为我们争取到了多一点的空间

我们关注所有西方媒体（不只是CNN），不限语言、内容（文本或图片）和国家

In their reports on the riots in Tibet
Western media's performance once again shows to the world their repulsive true face

This website seeks to collect, organize and publish the proof of the evil of western mainstream media

If you see any proof of Western media's evil, please do not whatsoever let them get off easily
Please save it and send it to us
The more evidence of their crimes we collect, the more space we'll have fought and won for ourselves

We are concerned with all western media (not only CNN), and not limited by language, content (text or photos) or country

这将是一场反抗西方话语霸权的斗争
我们应该充分认识到这场斗争的长期性、艰巨性和复杂性
但无论怎样，我们都坚信：

西方国家妄图通过几个破媒体就一张臭嘴遮天的日子将一去不返了！

This is a struggle of resistance against western hegemonic discourse
We need to fully recognize that this will be a long-term, difficult and complex battle
But regardless of the outcome, we all firmly believe:

Western nations' days of using several of their crap media in an absurd attempt to fool people with their rotten words will soon be over for good!

Please see Global Voices Online's ongoing collection of related links at our special feature Tibet Protests 2008.

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Paraguay: Candidates Using Blogs to Reach Voters

Muna Annahas · 03:06 · Americas

lingua → sq · mg · pt · mk · zhs · zht · es

Photo taken by Muna Annahas

Paraguay’s Presidential elections will be held on April 20, 2008. Many of the top presidential candidates are using blogs as a way to communicate with potential voters as they transmit their thoughts about a specific topic or explain their government plan in case they are elected. These blogs are written and published in one of Paraguay’s mains newspapers called Diario ABC.

To date, some of the candidate have more than 43,000 visits and some even 500 comments on a single post, which indicates a high degree of interest for this election. Few would have thought that there would be such a direct communication from a presidential candidate with a potential voter, who could express an opinion or a concern, debate or even scrutinize their platform.

Two of the major candidates that each have their own blogs are:

Fernando Lugo is a Roman Catholic bishop and is running for president with the Christian Democratic Party. He writes about what he had to do in order to run for the highest office in Paraguay [es].

Después de 30 años de disciplinado sacerdocio he renunciado a mis condiciones formales de obispo sin dejar de ser cristiano y paraguayo para dedicarme a la política, trabajar por un proyecto y buscar convertirme en Presidente de la República del Paraguay para servir a mis queridos sufridos hermanos de este hermoso y bendito país.

After 30 years of being ordained, I have formally resigned my duties as bishop without resigning being a Christian and Paraguayan in order to dedicate myself to politics, work on a project and serach to become president of Paraguay to serve my dear suffering brothers of this beautiful and blessed country.

Blanca Ovelar is the candidate for the current ruling party, the Colorado Party, and she is backed by the current Paraguayan president Nicanor Duarte. One of her major issues is fighting corruption, and she writes [es]:

Quien niegue que hay corrupción en el Paraguay, estaría cerrando los ojos a la realidad. La corrupción existe, y ha logrado instalarse en todos los sectores de la sociedad. Tanto en el sector público como en el sector privado; en el partido de gobierno como en los de oposición; en las empresas como en los sindicatos.

Whoever denies that there is corruption in Paraguay is closing their eyes to reality. Corruption exists and it has become part of all sectors of society. It is not only in the public sector, but also in the private sector, in the government's party, as well as the opposition party; in businesses, as well as the unions.

The presence of these blogs may be a result of the internet becoming more and more popular in Paraguay. New cyber cafes are opening around almost every corner in the capital city of Asuncion and more wireless and broadband providers are available compared to more than a few years ago. Most people see internet as a commodity, and not as a luxury, which is allowing for more access for more people. During the last elections of 2003, this type of virtual interaction between blogger (presidential candidate) and reader (potential voter) was almost inconceivable, and it is amazing to see how things have changed in the past five years.

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Some additions to the Global Voices home page

Georgia Popplewell · 00:06 · Announcements

lingua → bn · mg · es · sq

Over the course of the four-plus years the project has been in existence, Global Voices has grown into much more than the summaries of global blog commentary which take up most of the space on our home page. In case you haven't already noticed, we recently made a few changes to the Global Voices home page which give greater prominence and allow easier access to the various components of the project.

Our Lingua translation sites, which translate Global Voices' English-language content into over thirteen languages (and counting) are now more prominently linked from a box at the top right-hand side of the home page.

The main page for our Special Coverage sections, which attempt to aggregate the massive volume of citizen media commentary on topics like the 2007 Burmese Protests, Benazir Bhutto's assassination, Kenya's post-election crisis and, most recently, the protests in Tibet, is now linked from the navigation bar just below the Global Voices logo, and links to individual Special Coverage pages are highlighted just below the featured posts.

And last but not least, prominent links to our outreach section, Rising Voices, Global Voices Advocacy and our special US elections project Voices without Votes, are now displayed just before the short links on the right-hand side of the home page.