Archive for
August 5th, 2008
Stories
China: Tibetan protesters raise flag outside Olympic stadium
Still waiting (updating below) for more details, but Qik.com vlogger Noel Hidalgo is at the scene and giving updates via Twitter. Here's a video he took just a few minutes ago not far from the Olympic bird's nest:
Noel has just finished uploading a second video, in which he reports that Chinese firemen have taken down one protester and one appears to be coming down the other pole; no sign of the third protester who was stationed on the ground as seen in the clip above:
Tweet timeline (Beijing time):
6:38am @noneck:
Shoeed west away from tibetan protesters climbing polls outside of nest
6:42am @noneck:
There is now a tibetan protester climbing a western poll. Moving to att pim for qik
7:14am @noneck:
Wow! The locals are hot and bothered. Heading back to the hotel.
7:28am @noneck:
Now i'm being followed by a little old lady who told the last cab driver to kick me out. On foot looking for other followers.
7:33 @noneck:
Found a cab and now i'm heading for some coffee to chill for a bit.
Arabeyes: Are Arab-American Men Losers?
“Are Arab-American men really losers?” wonders Asoom, a young Arab-American woman - or are the parents of potential brides out of touch with reality when it comes to selecting a suitable son-in-law?
According to Asoom:
Many adults take the handful of guys in my small tiny community as representative of Arab Americans all over the US and have decided that there are just no eligible guys for their daughters. They’ll say it's unfortunate their daughters are going to marry someone who grew up in different country and doesn't speak fluent English but there's just no other option because Arab American males are losers. It's hard to find someone who’s a practicing Muslim, educated, good career, and raised in the US. The cultural barrier will be a small compromise she’ll quickly get over.
Such a situation, says the blogger, is unfortunate as it reflects how out of touch with reality such mothers are.
It's like “lady have you been to the Middle East lately???” It's not exactly a land of young prince charmings piling degrees, accumulating assets, and observing the 5 pillars of Islam all while waiting for your daughter to make her appearance and complete his life.
She reasons that the problem for the lack of eligible suitors for Muslim American-Arab women is because girls are more ambitious and qualified than men - arguing that the trend is not restricted to the US only but includes the Arab world.
Guys are generally less ambitious than they were a generation ago, and girls are more. If anything, I would say this is more pronounced in the Middle East than it is in the US. In Jordan, I used to joke around with my cousin whose in her last year studying engineering that she better pull together and secure a classmate before she graduates, or else she’ll end up with someone in the military who chain smokes and curses a lot.
Asoom also narrates an experience with an Arab mother, she has come across, who has actually sent her daughter packing back to the Middle East to land an appropriate suitor.
I was frustratingly trying to explain this to an acquaintance of my mom's at a ladies lunch who kept going on and on about how she's been trying to convince her daughter (whose not even 20) to look in the Middle East because in the whole US of A there's “no one”. She’s even admitted to sending her daughter to spend this summer in Jordan and Dubai with relatives with the main purpose of introducing her to some “qualified” guys.
The blogger stands up for the defence of Arab-American men. She goes on to describe Arab-American men as follows:
There are a lot of great things about American culture and society that's not as much of a common denominator in the Middle East and other Eastern countries. Guys that grew up in the US, as a result of being exposed to a diversity of lifestyles and norms, tend to be more calm, patient, and balanced. The struggles involved in growing up as a minority breed men that are open-minded and sensitive. Those that choose to practice Islam will even have a deeper level of faith and understanding than those that grew up in a largely Muslim environment.
Arab-American girls too get a share in Asoom's post, when she writes about why an Arab man raised in the Middle East would find it difficult to deal with them.
A common denominator amongst girls that grew up in the US compared to girls that grew up in the East is they’re more sensitive, spoiled, and curious. We like to ask “why?” a lot and sometimes rebel just for the sake of rebelling. Girls with such qualities can encounter much difficulty with a guy that grew up in the East who was exposed to a narrower set of experiences and lifestyles growing up. Western raised guys are NOT BETTER than Eastern raised girls, but they are generally better for Western raised girls.
Croatia: Anniversary of Operation Storm
On the 4th of August 1995 the largest European land offensive since World War II started in Central Croatia, in the area of Krajina. Until then Croatian Serbs were the majority population there, but a few days later there were no Serbian families left in this area. For that reason it was called Operation Storm (Operacija Oluja). Ante Gotovina, a General in the Croatian Army, led the operation and the International Criminal Tribunal for The Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indicted him for war crimes.
The news portal about the Balkans BalkanInsight published an article last June titled “Ex - US Envoy: Croatia expelled Serbs” that stated:
Up to 800 ethnic Serb civilians were killed and some 250 000 fled Croatia when in 1995 Croat forces crushed the rebel Serb breakaway state that occupied up to a quarter of the country’s territory since it declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
Drago Kovačević, one of the bloggers at the Serbian news portal B92, who at the time was the mayor of Knin, the main town in the Krajina region, reposted an extensive text he wrote in 1996 on the occasion of the anniversary of Operation Storm. He detailed the political circumstances in Krajina at the time and also described the beginning of the offensive:
[…] [Krajina] was assaulted at the crack of dawn on August 4, 1995. Knin was showered with very many rockets. In the hospital there were tens of people dying. The lights have gone out. Radio Knin has become silent. There was smoke and fire around. Columns of civilians have already started to leave Knin early in the morning towards the only remaining direction, towards [Lika]. The bombing lasted almost non-stop. There was no pause. In particular around the nearby TV station, the Police station and the northern barracks were fired systematically […]
According to the aforementioned article from BalkanInsight, Peter Galbraith, former U.S. ambassador to Croatia, accused Zagreb last June of plotting and sanctioning the exodus of Croatian Serbs in 1995 to create an “ethnically clean” country. Speaking at The Hague war crimes trial of three Croatian generals (Ante Gotovina, Ivan Čermak and Mladen Markac), he said that the leadership headed by late President Franjo Tuđman used ‘Operation Storm’ to ‘cleanse’ Croatia of Serbs. His testimony came as a surprise, since when he testified at the trial of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milošević in 2003 Galbraith had said Croatia was not responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Serbs.
Jasmina Tešanović, Women in Black activist, reposted in her B92 blog a Women in Black's statement (SRP), issued under the title “Anniversary of one more mass war crime”:
Thirteen years have passed since the Storm, the military-police action that caused the mass expulsion of the Serbian population from [Republika Srpska Krajina] region. During this action and immediately after it, members of the Croatian military and para-military formations killed many hundreds of civilians, mainly older people. The Storm is one of the biggest war crimes on the space of former Yugoslavia.
The protagonists of this operation, that were apparently directed to carry out ethnic cleansing, did not live to face justice. Today in The Hague there are trials that arise from command responsibility for some of them who are still alive such as Ante Gotovina. We are hoping that these trials will not end like some others and will not additionally discredit the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as a deliverer of justice, we are warning that the International Community was also responsible for war crimes committed during the Storm, whose representatives were passively watching the killing of people, the burning of houses and the looting of property of the residents.
Holding all innocent victims in esteem, we have to mention Slobodan Milošević's regime and his satellites from Republika Srpska Krajina as well as Serbia's intellectual elite who were spreading propaganda for years about Serbs not being able to live with others nationalities and then, shortly before the Storm, they hypocritically renounced the project named Republika Srpska Krajina and left their people to be victims of ethnic cleansing. And then their false patriotism was shown. We, Women in Black, were meeting columns of refugees on the borders and were giving basic assistance (food, clothes and medicines) to them. Later we were visiting them in the refugee camps. The big usurper patriots were not to be seen anywhere. They showed up only when refugee men were to be arrested and transfered into the [Arkan]'s military camp in Erdut or some other similar places.
Let the Storm be one more warning for us about how terrible the consequences of false patriotism based on financial and political interests can be in spreading hatred that leads regular people into tragedy, while at the same time making the criminal and intellectual elite wealthy.
Belgrade, August 4, 2008
Women in black, Belgrade
Serbia's network of Women in black
In his post titled “Which war crimes get prosecuted?”, Paul D'Amato analyzed the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. He wrote:
While it is true that the conflict in the region developed out of the ambitions of Slobodan Milosevic for a greater Serbia, uniting the Serbs of Serbia with those living in Bosnia and Croatia, Croatia’s nationalists under Franjo Tudjman were no less ruthless in their efforts to create a “greater Croatia,” based on the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from the Krajina and Serbs and Muslims from parts of Bosnia.
Paul D'Amato continued:
[…] From the start, there was the complicity of the Western powers in creating the conditions that made war and ethnic cleansing inevitable. As Phil Gasper wrote:
“In the end, Germany’s recognition of Croatia’s independence–without any guarantees of the Serb minority’s national rights in Croatia–made the outbreak of war and the disintegration of Yugoslavia inevitable. The same holds true for Bosnia. Germany and the U.S. recognized Bosnian independence even though the majority of Bosnian Serbs and Croats–about 51 percent of the republic–had rejected it. By doing so, they put their seal of approval on Bosnia’s descent into war.” […]
He added:
[…] There is the direct complicity of the United States in the greatest single act of ethnic cleansing that took place during the war–Operation Storm in August 1995. […]
Jonathan of the web site Belgrade Foreign Visitors Club looked back on Peter Galbraith's testimony at the trial of Ante Gotovina:
[…] Galbraith then addressed one of his previous testimonies, where he said the expulsion of some 250,000 Croatian Serbs did not qualify for ethnic cleansing, “although there had been crimes, committed either on the orders or with the tacit approval of the Croatian leadership, in the presence and with the participation of the military”. […] Galbraith […] said that he and other American officials had information months before Operation Storm that there would be a military attack on the Serb Krajina. […] But the U.S. never green-lighted the operation, he contended. However, since the U.S. administration knew the assault might be launched, “it expressly warned the Croatian authorities and president Tuđman of their obligation to protect the Serb civilians and prisoners of war. The atrocities like those committed in the [Medak Pocket] in 1993 were not to be repeated.”
In the first days after the arrival of the Croatian Army in Knin, Galbraith recounted, the reports of the U.S. embassy personnel indicated there were widespread killings of Serb civilians and destruction of their houses, “thus confirming that the situation in the field was exactly what the U.S. administration wanted to prevent.”
In Galbraith’s opinion, this happened “on the orders or with the tacit approval of the Croatian leadership, in the presence and with the participation of the military”. […]
India: Abortion, Parents and the Indian Law
A recent court case has brought focus on the abortion laws in India. According to the current laws in India, abortions are not permitted after 20 weeks of pregnancy, unless the pregnancy is determined to be dangerous to the woman's health. In this particular case, a couple, whose foetus was diagnosed with a congenital heart block, missed the 20 week deadline, and appealed to a court in India to allow an abortion. The court however did not allow for the abortion procedure. The case has sparked a debate on abortion.
an orange cat questions the ethics behind the court's decision.
If abortion can be allowed upto 20 weeks, why not beyond it? …
Abortion beyond 20 weeks is allowed when the mother's life is in danger. But regardless of how seriously defective a foetus is, aborting it after 20 weeks is illegal. Is it really ethical to give birth to a baby, knowing that it will never have a normal life?Every parent wants his/her child to grow up healthy. Who would want to see their kid on pacemaker and life support from the moment of birth, dependant on them for everything?
At an MSN forum, the question of abortion as a parental choice provokes a lot of responses. One commenter compares abortion to murder and says
In this case it is mercy killing. Just a point think, would one approve abandoning a life if such a defect was known later after birth? If we can trust the medical report why can't we trust the medical science for the cure too?
Another commenter responds
Aborting a child is a painful decision for any woman (and her partner) to take. If the mother-to-be is not emotionally and financially able to handle the needs of her child-to-be, it would be better to abort than to bring forth an un-wanted child.
Sameer Agarwal asks what the consequences will be on the child who will later find out that he or she was not wanted in the first place. Maami's Weblog has a post that has a lot of commenters expressing sympathy for the parents, and for the child who might be born with a severe disability. Chennai Television explores the idea of science and religion playing a role in abortion laws.
The other aspect to this issue is that the couple did not opt for an illegal abortion, and instead sought permission from the courts. Mumbai Metblogs says
First it is not that we have hundreds of Nikita’s walking in every day asking for court’s help to abort a child. Secondly the one person who has faith in the laws and wanted to go about the right way has been bowled out. After this I don’t think that people will have any hopes of receiving the justice to any issue. The moral of the story is such incidents will make the people loose faith in law and justice.
The other issue that emerges is the potential misuse of a law that allows abortions beyond 20 weeks, which might increase the already existing problem of sex-selective abortions. However, the court does not seem prepared to make any exceptions to the law, which hasn't been changed in years.
As Dr. Datar later said, this legal battle shall help in increasing awareness about the lacunae that exist in the present laws and the need for making amendments to Section 5 of the MTP Act, 1971. The issue of the quality of life after birth, still rages on. The law needs amendment, and the legislators need to get their act together quickly.
Cambodia: Blogging on Genocide
Elena Lesley, a Phnom Penh Post reporter and Fulbright scholar, jots her ideas on The Tribunal Report.
After graduating from Brown University in 2004, the articulate, cunning Elena Lesley was awarded a Henry Luce Scholarship to Cambodia to write for The Phnom Penh Post. With a long-time interest in Asia, it seemed like a good match. But knee-deep in a society scourged by years of civil war and gut-wrenching poverty, the experience quickly proved eye-opening.
She vowed to return.
Elena then spent three years in the U.S. reporting for St. Petersburg Times in Florida, but found herself frustrated at the lack of news coverage of Cambodia outside the country. Hearing that Cambodia's genocide tribunal was underway, she returned to Phnom Penh on the ultra-prestigious Fulbright grant to blog for the Post.
Now, she speaks with Global Voices author Geoffrey Cain about her blog, the tribunal, and the challenges it faces.
From your personal observations as a journalist-blogger, what challenges does the Khmer Rouge Tribunal face in bringing the perpetrators to justice?
Of course, there’s the issue everyone keeps raising: age. Since most of the defendants are in their 70s and 80s and not in particularly good health, there is a great deal of concern that some could die before trials begin. This is probably what worries most of the Cambodians I have discussed the tribunal with. While a trial for torture chief “Comrade Duch” could begin as early as September, any predictions for the other defendants are somewhat uncertain at this point.
Part of the ambiguity stems from the relatively complicated nature of the cases against the four other defendants. I’m certainly no expert on the minutiae of each case, but Duch’s is apparently more straightforward – after all, he has cooperated with the court to a certain extent.
There is another issue at play in “bringing perpetrators to justice,” and it involves the scope of the prosecutions. When the United Nations and Cambodian government were negotiating the tribunal’s creation, Prime Minister Hun Sen (himself a former member of the Khmer Rouge) insisted that only a handful of the most senior leaders be tried. Critics of the Prime Minister have claimed that he intentionally narrowed the scope of prosecutions so as not to implicate any former Khmers Rouge who now hold high positions in his government.
When you think about all the people who were involved in planning and implementing Khmer Rouge policies, five defendants seems like a very small number.
Is the tribunal addressing these challenges effectively, or is complete justice a lost cause 28 years after the atrocities concluded?
Well, what do you mean by “complete justice?” Or even “justice” for that matter? I don’t think the tribunal is a lost cause, but I do believe it is somewhat symbolic and abstract.
If you look at it for what it is, literally, the tribunal is a punitive process for a very small group of people. However, there are many organizations that are using these legal proceedings as a jumping off point for discussion and education, both of which are sorely needed in Cambodia.
Supporters of the tribunal often argue that it can set a new standard for the Cambodian judiciary and help end the country’s “culture of impunity.” Both are very ambitious goals, and while I hope the tribunal helps move Cambodia toward a more just and accountable society, it’s impossible to predict how much impact it will have in these areas.
Which is why I believe educational and outreach efforts related to the tribunal are of primary importance. Many Cambodians have never truly come to terms with their experiences under the Khmer Rouge. At the same time, around 60 percent of Cambodians were born after the Pol Pot era and have little knowledge about the period. While younger generations may not realize it, the legacy of that disastrous social experiment is still very much alive in their country.
The court, along with various other organizations, has been coordinating outreach efforts, but it’s a tall order. Accessibility, both practically and theoretically, is problematic. The location of the court itself is hugely inconvenient. At least a 40-minute drive from central Phnom Penh, the judicial complex’s remote location is no doubt a deterrent for many who would otherwise attend proceedings. In terms of the substance of the court’s work, concepts and arguments are highly abstract and during this phase, the “investigative” portion, little information is made available to the public. Trying to engage a largely agrarian population – many of whom are just struggling to survive – under these conditions is, to say the least, difficult. Which is why, in my opinion, more resources should be devoted to such efforts.
In addition to what the tribunal can do for Cambodia, there’s also the issue of setting a precedent for the international community. As one Khmer Rouge survivor told me: “It is very, very important to put these people on trial as an example to other dictators. You cannot abuse people this way and get away with it – even 30 years later.”
How do you tread the line so tactfully between blogging and journalism? Do you blog about the tribunal differently than, say, writing for a traditional newspaper?
Writing for the blog is definitely different from writing for a newspaper. The tone can be a lot more casual and each entry doesn’t require a traditional “news hook,” as an article might. So there’s much more flexibility and posts can range from pretty standard news updates to anything international-justice related that I find interesting.
Of course, in the blog I’m also able to inject some of my own thoughts and opinions. To be honest though, I try to keep this to a minimum. My main goal is to convey tribunal developments and issues surrounding the court to an international audience – not necessarily to weigh in on all of them.
Some say professional journalists and bloggers operate in separate worlds. Do you think journalists should embrace blogs more enthusiastically for reporting? Can blogging enhance traditional journalism?
Definitely. It’s silly to say professional journalists and bloggers operate in separate worlds because, really, a blog can be whatever you want it to be. It’s just a question of format. Many people seem to be under the impression that blogging is somehow inherently different from mainstream journalism and that blogs are synonymous with personal musings and ranting.
They can be used for these purposes, and that’s totally legitimate. However, they can also be used simply to report news or to supplement what appears in a publication’s print version.
Do you think blogging has potential as a “new face” of interactive journalism, in our age of Web 2.0, interactivity, and social networking websites?
I certainly think blogs are a convenient format for conveying news and ideas. Whether they will serve as spaces for valuable online interactivity and analysis, I’m not sure. We’ll have to wait and see how much substantive discussion they can foster.
Elena's musings can be read at The Tribunal Report.
Latvia: Failed Referendum
As blogger Julian Frisch said, “there are still referenda in the European Union that are not EU-related”. 
On the 2nd of August a referendum took place in Latvia, on amendments to the Satversme -Latvia's Constitution- that would make it possible for the people to initiate the dissolution of the Saeima -Latvia's Parliament. This referendum is the result of a long process that was put into motion a few months ago for the first time in Latvian history. Asier Blas, a Spaniard living in Riga, explains it in his blog Cartas del Este [Spanish]:
El primero es reunir unas 10.000 firmas. Posteriormente, estas son comprobadas por Comité Central Electoral, y si estas son verificadas de forma satisfactoria, el Gobierno letón pasa a hacerse cargo de la recogida de firmas habilitando lugares de recogida de firmas en todos los pueblos y ciudades del país para que la gente pueda firmar a favor de la propuesta del referéndum. Si en un mes, el 10% del censo electoral firma, el referéndum se celebra. Al respecto, no está de más recordar que en Letonia hay aproximadamente 500.000 personas de origen ruso o descendientes de rusos que no tienen ciudadanía letona y por lo tanto, no tienen derecho a voto en ningún tipo de elección.
Those 10,000 signatures were collected during the fall and winter of 2007, during the demonstrations against corruption. The blog All About Latvia described one of those protests in a post from October last year titled “We've forgotten we're a democracy”:
Foreigners here observed that to make Latvians come out in such large numbers, you have to really piss them off.
And people are pissed.
When the government played political intrigues in the run-up to presidential elections and people protested outside the parliament and their calls fell on deaf ears, the people patiently took that in.
When the government have ignored signs of overheating economy from the Latvian Central Bank, international credit agencies and local macroeconomic experts, the people patiently took that in.
When the government decided to deal with the Loskutovs factor, attempting to circumvent the law regulating the anti-corruption agency that have been successfully fighting corruption, they’re pissed and they want blood.
Pēteris Cedriņš of the blog Marginalia was one of the 213 000 persons that signed in favor of amendments to the Constitution last April during the one-month signature gathering by the Electoral Commission. He justified it with the following words:
I signed… because I trust our people — our nation — a lot more than I trust our so-called elite. When the Government threatens us with “chaos” — the only response can be that the Government has long been dragging us into a half-light oozing lies and sinister lucre. As Laila Pakalniņa suggested, we — the people — could at least have an instrument with which to respond in extremity.
However, he expressed his concerns about such amendments to the Constitution:
… the proposed changes are risky. As experts in the law and politics have pointed out, rallying the people to “throw the bums out” will probably always be pretty easy. The next time we choose from our 60-odd parties in a flurry of kompromat, slick advertising and shady financing, assuming that the people are given this power, it's possible that someone can fund a “throw the bums out” campaign the next day. In this country, smaller than many a city, “political technologies” can be employed like shots in the dark, from guns without serial numbers.
A few days ago Veiko Spolitis of the Baltic blog wrote a post about the pros and cons on the referendum, from a newspaper article that asked several politicians to give their views on the matter. He concluded by saying:
…so called political elite in this country with rather few exceptions really think that their voters are stupid, and thus the politicians are locked into their imaginary power bubble.
However, in spite of the general excitement about the referendum and the hopes that many Latvians had put into the positive change in the political scene of their country that it was supposed to bring, it ended up being declared invalid because of an insufficient turnout. For a referendum to have validity in Latvia, no less than 756,000 registered voters must take part in it, while only 627,530 voters came to the polls on Saturday. Vitaliy Voznyak of the blog The 8th Circle commented on the disappointing results:
The low turnout, around 40%, doomed the grassroots effort.
Nevertheless in a country with 1.5 million eligible voters when 607,901 of its citizens so directly register their discontent with political behavior of their politicians, those in Saeima better straighten out.
Even if they did not succeed, Latvians have laid out an example for others in the Baltic region and beyond on participatory democracy, an example that hopefully will be followed elsewhere.
Pēteris Cedriņš of Marginalia attributed the low turnout to the sunny weather:
Summer in Latvia is short and sweet, not conducive to traipsing to polling stations — many people head for the countryside on the limited number of balmy weekends. Still, with 995 of 998 precincts reporting, 608 202 persons voted in favor of the amendments, 18 831 against.
That means, however, that the “servants of the people,” as our Members of Parliament so love to describe themselves, can relax and return to misrule unhindered
A few weeks ago All about Latvia had already predicted the turnout dilemma:
…the August 2 referendum, when Latvians decide for what they care more – their country or their summer holidays. For holiday-loving Latvians, it’ll be a tough choice to make.
For Baltic Features, the sun helped avoid the worst case scenario for the government:
Thank god it was a sunny day on Saturday, which persuaded enough people to have a day at the beach instead of a day kicking the administration out.
Why? Because whoever is at the helm for the next few months is going to preside over the most painful period in Latvian history since independence was won back in 1991. Unemployment will soar, homes will be repossessed, prices will continue to rise and it’s now too late to do anything about it thanks to the government’s dithering.
[…]
It’s not pleasant to want the worst case scenario to unfold - real people will experience real pain - but unless it happens there’s a nasty chance the usual suspects may have been able to rehabilitate themselves by the time the next general elections come around.
Photo of the Latvian Parliament by khoogheem
Links for Tue, 2008-08
Balkanikum [French] posted an interview with Croatian writer Dubravka Ugrešić, published by H-Alter on the occasion of the publication of her latest novel in French, Baba Yaga a pondu de oeufs (not yet published in English).
Dzutsev's Weblog reports that one of the few websites presenting independent news on Ingushetia, ingushetiya.ru, probably will have to be closed because its editor has had to seek refuge in Western Europe due to political persecution.
Duarte Figueiredo [pt] echoes the piece of news that the President of Guinea-Bissau, Joao Bernardo “Nino” Vieira, decided on the dissolution of the National Parliament today, “given the serious institutional crisis” that the country faces. Elections take place on November 16.
The electoral campaign in Angola starts officially today and Wanderley Ribeiro [pt] is motivated: “Angolan brothers, let us all be prepared and united to choose the party that we will help in the development of Angola”. The first parliamentary poll since 1992 takes place next Sept 05. Presidential elections are scheduled for 2009.
video showing an Arkhos Biotech campaign to give international investors control over the Amazon rainforest. “It is impressive how the viewer's intelligence is underestimated in the name of personal wealth.” Visit the blog to see the video in English.
Désiré Elisée [pt] on Guinea-Bissau's economic, socio and political situation, which, according to him, doesn't get any better. “There are no good fairies, or magic wands, but there must be good will, technical competence and sense of state not to be up a “gum-three”.
Daniel Florêncio [pt] comments on the rallies demanding investigations into Gilmar Mendes, the president of the Brazilian Supreme Court, over allegations of corruption. “If you take part, take photos, make movies, talk to people who went there and write in your blog on the issue. Publish all the material and send the link to your contact list. Don't expect TV Globo or any shity-paper to show what is going on. Echoe it yourself through your network”.
Sérgio Amadeu [pt] argues that the cybercrime bill proposed for Brazil will put DHCP protocol networks at risk because it enables free and anonymous surfing, the same for wireless networks which allow free public access. “(Senator) Azeredo will create a new cost for Brazil: the cost of digital communication”. Meanwhile this online petition against the bill has gathered over 100,000 signatures so far.
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