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Brazil: When climate change meets cyber-activism

Diego Casaes · 20:25 · Americas

lingua → pt · it · fr · zhs · zht · es

On the Tuesday May 5th, Salvador, the original capital of Brazil, experienced moments of desperation with the strong rain that overran the whole city. Hundreds of incidents were reported to the Civil Defense, which had recorded 392 requests for emergency care by 7pm of the same day. In addition to collapsed houses, fallen trees and landslides, there were also massive traffic jams which brought chaos to drivers and commuters.

Deaths were reported in areas where houses are condemned due to lack of infrastructure and the imminent risk of collapse, three of them in the neighborhood of Pirajá. Also, a mother and a daughter fell into a canal and were dragged away by the strong current. The mother's body was found on Wednesday morning, the daughter's only one day after, on May 7th.

The event, which was considered a catastrophe by the population, is another case of the type of natural disaster that in the past used to hit the city with less magnitude. In addition to this, it reveals a lack of proper housing and urban planning in the biggest Brazilian cities, as local authorities neglect the unrestrained growth of houses and shanty towns on the slopes, further exposing residents to the risk of accidents and even death.

Photo by twitpic user @danielvbo

The North and Northeast regions of Brazil have been battered by heavy rain for some days. Thousands of people have been made homeless and many casualties have been reported. Wander Veroni, author of the blog Café com Notícias (Coffee with News), denounces [pt] the state of emergency. He says:

“Ao lembrarmos da tragédia das chuvas de Santa Catarina parece que a situação do Norte e Nordeste é ainda mais grave, principalmente no interior. Só no Ceará, centenas de famílias estão completamente ilhadas na zona rural e sem acesso à água potável, devido a adutora que foi destruída pela enxurrada. Já no Piauí, o governo estadual pediu ajuda ao Exército para socorrer a população atingida pela chuva.”

“On remembering the tragedy of the floods in Santa Catarina it seems that the situation in the North and Northeast areas is even worse, especially in the countryside. In the state of Ceará alone, hundreds of families have been completely isolated in rural areas with no access to fresh water because of the plumbing system's destruction caused by the runoff. In the state of Piauí, the government has asked the Army to help the population hit by the rain.”

Edigarde Rodrigues (Edigarde Rodrigue's Blog, pt) argues critically about the situation. After highlighting that the population and the government have paid no attention to the North and Northeast states, he says:

“As regiões Norte e Nordeste do Brasil, que estão sofrendo com as fortes chuvas nas últimas semanas contam com 20 mortos e mais de 700 mil desabrigadas. Dos dez estados atingidos pelas enchentes o Piauí é o mais afetado com 50 mil desabrigados e 40% do seu teritório comprometido pelas enchentes. O mais intrigante é a indiferença da população do resto do país que ao contrário do que aconteceu no ano passado com os estados do sul ainda não fizeram nenhum tipo de campanha pública para angariar fundos de auxílio aos desabrigados.”

“The North and Northeast regions of Brazil, which have been suffering strong rains for the last weeks, have already counted 20 deaths and more than 700,000 displaced people. Out of ten states hit by the floods, Piauí is the most affected with 50,000 displaced people and 40% of its territory damaged by flooding. The lack of interest of the population of the rest of the country is intriguing, and contrary to what happened last year in the southern states, there hasn't been any kind of fundraising campaign to help the displaced people yet.”

Photo by twitpic user @danielvbo

Liberdade Digital (Digital Freedom), on the other hand, wrote a post dedicated to the rains in the Northeast, calling for help from social network users to spread information about the situation and ask them to help those who were affected by the flooding:

“Esperando mais uma participação em massa da blogosfera brasileira, o L.D. faz um apelo: se você tem um blog, um site, uma lista de e-mail, participa de alguma rede social, ajude na divulgação desta informação. É fundamental que as empresas de transporte ajudem. É preciso sensibilizar também as companhias áreas e empresas de táxi aéreo para que emprestem helicópteros.”

“While waiting for another mass participation from the Brazilian blogosphere, D.F. blog requests: if you have a blog, a website, a mailing list or if you are a member of a social network, do pass this information on. It's fundamental that transportation companies help too. We also need to sensitize air lines and aero-taxi companies to lend their helicopters.”

During the floods in Santa Catarina, in the last months but especially in November 2008, Brazilian blogs had an important role in covering of the disaster. Reporting on the number of victims, floods, disappearances and how to assist those who needed help, news was updated constantly on many blogs. This time, the same kind of reaction has been scattered throughout the blogosphere and amongst Twitter and other social networks.

Journalist Sarita Bastos has recently published a map on Google Maps with information on the floods that includes ways to help the local population. The idea of the map consists in promoting collaboration among users of this technology and for each one to write testimonials of what they know about the events.

See the flood map in bigger size

Fundraising to help people has also started. “Balada Solidária” (Solidarity Party, pt), promoted by Cynthia Costa with the aim to direct part of the profit of bars and restaurants in the Piauí State's capital Teresina into the acquisition of food and donations is a highlight among the initiatives currently in place.

The Observatório do Clima blog (Climate Observatory, pt) has emphasized in a recent post the lack of infrastructure that makes cities unable to prevent disasters like this:

“[…] medidas concretas para um programa de adaptação consistente não existem no Brasil. No mês de abril, Ivone Maria Valente, diretora de Minimização de Desastres da Secretaria Nacional de Defesa Civil, afirmou em entrevista à Agência Brasil que o país não está preparado para lidar com fenômenos extremos ocasionados pelo clima. O máximo que se ouviu falar em repercussão sobre o assunto é que a Câmara dos Deputados voltou a discutir o estabelecimento de um Fundo de Catástrofes, mas sem grandes avanços e sem que esse esteja relacionado a uma Política Nacional de Mudanças Climáticas.”

“[…] appropriate measures for a solid adaptation do not exist in Brazil. In April, Ivone Maria Valente, director of the National Secretariat for the Minimization of Disasters said in an interview to Agência Brasil that the country is not ready to deal with extreme phenomena caused by the weather. The only thing we heard back in the repercussion about this issue is that the Chamber of Deputies has discussed again the establishment of a Fund for Catastrophes, but without much advance time and without a proper connection to a National Climate Change Policy.”

On the rebound, the state of Santa Catarina, in the south of the country, where the population suffered from the floods and landslides of last year, has now been hit by severe drought. James Pizarro, from the Antes que a Natureza Morra blog (Before Nature Dies, pt) adds to the information made public by Civil Defense agency. He says:

“A estiagem que castiga as regiões oeste e meio-oeste de Santa Catarina levou 31 municípios do Estado a decretarem situação de emergência, sendo que 11 deles em abril - Santa Helena, Maravilha, Princesa, Presidente Castello Branco, Seara, São José do Cedro, Descanso, Chapecó, Coronel Freitas, Sul Brasil e São João do Oeste. Todos esses municípios enfrentam problemas de seca desde o final do ano passado, mas a situação se agravou e as atividades agropecuárias estão bem prejudicadas, segundo informou a Defesa Civil.”

“The drought that has punished the west and mid-west regions of Santa Catarina has led the 31 counties of the state to declare a state of emergency, 11 of them alone in April. All of these counties have been facing drought problems since the end of last year but the situation has worsened and agricultural activities are badly damaged, as reported by the Civil Defense agency.”

Photo by twitpic user @kingars

Reader and blogger Catarino, from Blog do Catarino (Catarino's Blog, pt), in answer to the post from Café com Notícias [pt], describes his indignation at the losses caused by climate change happening now in Brazil. According to him:

“As variações climáticas estão causando mais prejuízos para a população do que a crise econômica, pois são cidades inteiras em calamidade. Aqui no Rio Grande do Sul é a seca que acaba com as plantações e com o gado. Nesse ritmo logo a vida vai se tornar muito difícil em nosso planeta.”

“Climate change is damaging the population more than the economic crisis, because whole cities are in a calamitous condition. Here in Rio Grande do Sul the drought has ruined the plantations and the cattle. At this rate, living will become very difficult on our planet.”

Twitter: Collaborative journalism and social networks

In Salvador, during the rains that flooded the city, Twitter had its chance to shine as a social network tool that would help to show a detailed perspective of what really happened on that day, followed by a few local radio stations. In the opposite direction, mainstream TV stations and news websites – babbled brief news to the designated TV schedule only.

Whilst the mainstream media dedicated attention to a superficial coverage of the daily issues, the twittersphere was quick to act [pt] drawing the news profile in a collaborative fashion. News on traffic jams, landslides, robbery of drivers who were stuck in the gridlock, alternative ways to avoid flooding, in addition to pictures of flooded areas all over the city were a sample of the cyber-activism provided by the social network Twitter.

André Lemos, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Communication and Coordinator of the Cyberculture Center at UFBA (Federal University of Bahia), reported the experience as an “alternative media show” and as a “sample of how mass media is losing influence” in his blog (Carnet de Notes, pt). He states:

“Fui ver alguns jornais online locais mas não achei nada muito…informativo, ou algo que me servisse imediatamente e localmente. Abandonei e voltei ao Twitter, muito mais intenso, rápido e detalhado. E não tinha mesmo como ser diferente. No Twitter, acompanhando a tag #chuva e #salvador eram inúmeras pessoas escrevendo em tempo real […]”

“I went to look for some news on local online newspapers but I didn't find anything very… informative. I gave up on it and came back to Twitter, much more deep, fast and detailed. And there was no reason to be otherwise. In Twitter, following the hashtags #chuva (rain) and #salvador there were many people writing in real time […]”

Ana F. (Ana's Blog, pt) commented in Jornalismo de Bolso (Pocket Journalism, pt) her first hand account in following the hashtags #chuva and #salvador on Twitter:

“[…] ilhada como fiquei em casa, pude acompanhar e participar da cobertura em tempo real proporcionada pelo Twitter. Como comentei em outro blog: hoje, sites e jornais de nada me serviram. As decisões tomadas o foram graças à interação no Twitter.”

Photo by twitpic user @ksuella

“[…] isolated at home, I could follow and participate in the real time coverage provided by Twitter. As I had previously commented in another blog: today, websites and newspapers didn't help me at all. The decisions I made were taken thanks to the interaction on Twitter.”

The speed of the information on Twitter has exceeded the mainstream media coverage. In a sample of Collaborative Journalism, social network users made the headlines that would be seen on the news on TV later. Yuri Almeida, who also participated in the discussions on Twitter, posted [pt] on his blog Herdeiro do Caos (Chaos' Heir, pt):

“[…] os tuiteros de Salvador conseguiram mapear os principais problemas de alagamento, engarrafamento, arrastão e outras informações sobre o problema da capital baiana. O melhor: de forma colaborativa (textos e imagens), dialógica e auto-organizada. A turma atendeu aos pedidos e os tweets marcados com as hashtag #chuva e #salvador, o que resultou em uma memória informacional do fato. Não há dúvida de que a cobertura via Twitter [pt] foi a melhor da tragédia da cidade do Salvador.”

“[…] twitterers from Salvador have achieved the mapping of the floods, traffic jams, robbery and other useful information about the problem of the Bahian capital. The best: in a collaborative fashion (texts and images), dialogical and self-organized. People attended to the demands and the tweets were marked under the hashtags #chuva and #salvador resulting in an informational recollection of the fact. There's no doubt that the coverage via Twitter was the best about the tragedy in the city of Salvador.”

The photos above illustrate the chaos that the rain has brought to Salvador, taken by Twitpic users and are a sample of what is going on in the North and Northeast regions of Brasil. In addition to the photos, some residents uploaded footage of the city after the rain to YouTube. EdTitoBa sent a piece of footage of the Itaigara neighborhood that shows how the water stream flooded one of the avenues in Salvador:

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The Gurkhas: Long History Of Discrimination

Bhumika Ghimire · 18:06 · South Asia , Western Europe

lingua → nl · fr · bn · es · zhs · zht

Gurkha soldiers in the remebrance day parade, image by Flickr user Rodderz

The Gurkhas, young men from Nepal who serve in the British military, have served the Queen and the United Kingdom for almost two centuries. Unfortunately, the British government has been less than fair when it comes to honoring their service and sacrifice.

Last week, British press and blogopshere were buzzing about the new government proposal that is prejudiced against the veterans of the Brigade of Gurkhas. Anna Raccoon writes about the proposal:

“To learn that five MPs, who represent the political wing of the IRA, have not even taken up their Parliamentary seats and yet have claimed £500,000 for second homes in the same breath as we are told that we ‘cannot afford’ to allow some 1500 Gurkhas, who have fought in every major theatre of war, from the first Afghan war through to Bosnia, the Falklands and more recently Iraq, on behalf of the British Army, to settle in the UK, and yet we can ‘resettle’ the old ‘soldiers’ of the IRA in London, complete with ‘Samson’ 28-inch wide televisions, and DVD Sony cinemas surround systems, in a £5,400 a month – a month! – house in London.

Truly, the Gurkhas must this morning be wondering whether they were aiming their guns at the wrong soldiers. Gordon Brown used a ‘fabric of falsehood and fantasy’ in claiming that it would cost taxpayers 1.4 billion pounds to let Gurkhas live in Britain, according to campaigners.”

Paul French from Shanghai is “disgusted with the British government's attitude to the Gurkhas”. He voices support for the ongoing campaign by actress Joanna Lumley for the Gurkhas:

“There is a campaign currently running to support Gurkhas and pressure the UK government into giving more help and equal treatment to Gurkhas, called Gurkha Justice that has caught the public’s imagination and widespread support. A motion was voted on in the House of Commons on the 29th April 2009 by the Liberal Democrats that all Gurkhas be offered an equal right of residence in the UK. This resulted in a defeat for the Government by 267 votes to 246, the first, first day motion defeat for a government since 1978. The Commons vote is not binding, but it represents an embarrassment for the government. Yet Phil Woolas, the immigration minister (and, as I well remember a nasty little self-centred careerist when he was head of the National Union Students in my college days - a real horrible little greasy pole climber who obviously hasn't changed one jot) continues to prevaricate and pettifog.”

While the right of Gurkha to settle in Britain and fair pension are the focus of discussion, the issue of race and racism is also being raised. At Spiked Brendan O’Neill writes:

“The Gurkhas have always been treated as second class, as loyal but peculiar, as a race apart, as less intelligent than the white leaders of the British Army but a bit more trustworthy than the everyday wogs of Nepal, Burma and India. Indeed, the Gurkhas have long been an institutional expression of inequality: they were made and sustained, not by British decency, but by British racism.

But not everyone is supporting the Gurkhas. At New Statesman Peter Wilby says that “the Gurkhas are mercenaries” and:

” They don’t fight “for love of Britain and Her Majesty” (to use a soundbite favoured by their supporters), any more than South African cricket mercenaries play for, say, Leicestershire for love of the county’s fox-hunting denizens and rolling countryside.The Gurkha regiment was formed two centuries ago when British troops invaded Nepal but found the fighters too much of a handful and therefore paid them to join our army. A 1947 agreement stated that a Gurkha soldier, if he joined the British army (many joined newly independent India’s army instead), “must be recruited as a Nepali citizen . . . serve as a Nepali citizen and [be] resettled as a Nepali citizen”. They were paid less than British-born soldiers – an obvious attraction to the Ministry of Defence – but the money was high by local standards.”

Some British citizens are voicing their opinion at You Tube too about the Gurkha issue. Here are some voices supporting the Gurkhas:

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Global: The polyglot internet and translation exchange

Ivan Sigal · 16:40 · About GVO , Announcements

lingua → fr · es

Global Voices has recently been awarded a grant by the Ford Foundation to support our work with Lingua, our translation project, and to research and develop a project to investigate how we might design and support an online translation exchange community.

We began discussing the implications of the polyglot internet several years ago, after translators spontaneously began translating the Global Voices site into Mandarin. Translators from other language communities got together to form Lingua after Global Voices' 2006 summit in Delhi. Lingua today translates Global Voices content into 15 languages, with another five languages in testing. For a thorough overview of the project, see Lingua co-Director Leonard Chien's timeline, and Chris Salzberg's excellent slideshow presentation and paper.

View Lingua translators around the world in a larger map

The Lingua initiative, driven almost entirely by the enthusiasm, creativity, and the efforts of volunteer translators, demonstrates the capacity for a community of like-minded translators and writers to bridge language barriers to share stories and information, based on a simple, nontechnical platform. Lingua points to the value of human effort and the importance of culture and community in choosing what to translate. It has also demonstrated the value of distributed human translation as a means of quickly translating a large quantity of current and topical information.

The idea for a translation exchange as a parallel and complimentary project to Lingua began in response to the larger challenge of the polyglot internet: that, with over 1.3 billion Internet users, any one of us is only seeing a small slice of existing content, based on our language capacities. The issue was addressed during our 2008 Summit in Budapest, both in presentations by members of the Lingua team (see http://globalvoices.blip.tv/file/1070249) and in numerous conversations on the side. Ethan Zuckerman captures the phenomenon in this post - and in its English translation.

We have at present notional ideas about how a translation exchange might work and how it would fit with the existing, loose and innovative community that is Lingua. Our first challenge is to ask a lot of knotty, interesting questions about translation communities and culture, the economics of distributed production, and the nature of demand for translated news and information for a variety of media sources, and then, to see if we can make something interesting out of the answers. Our hunch is that we'll be working mostly on building communities, rather than making tools.

We want to work on simple, participatory, web-based “translation memory” systems, that would allow us to do things such as store past translations of complex phrases and maintain a common translated vocabulary. There are some good tools out there to facilitate translation, such as World Wide Lexicon and dotSub, so we'll be asking how to integrate tools into communities of practice.

We also want to see whether an exchange platform can provide easier connections between the best of citizen media stories and media who might be interested in commissioning translations of specific subjects. For instance, whether the good folks at New America Media would find an exchange helpful in providing content for their 2000 ethnic media partner publications, to get them content from around the world in appropriate languages.

What's clear is that there is space for projects that work in the gap between existing information content providers in many languages, and the possibility of a translation exchange that could help open up a lot of content that was previously not accessible because of language barriers, and a lack of access to efficient and inexpensive translation. This includes information providers looking for new ways to get news from other language communities, development organizations seeking to ensure information about their issues are available in multiple languages, and probably lots of other uses we haven't considered because there's no platform like this at present.

We're at early stages with this initiative. Here's a link to an announcement for a project manager - some of you might be interested in applying! Our intention is to build a community of interest around the project - as with all GV projects, we recognize that the best ideas often come from practice and collaboration. Some of us will be gathering at Open Translation Tools 2009 in Amsterdam to kick off the discussion (registration open). We're also gathering initial ideas and inviting conversation on the Global Voices wiki - feel free to join in!

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Global Voices is seeking a Project Manager for Translation Exchange

Ivan Sigal · 16:02, May 11th, 2009 · About GVO , Announcements

lingua → ar · es · fr · bn

Global Voices is launching a new project! We're seeking a half-time project manager.

The project: Global Voices is launching a project to research, design, and build a translation exchange to facilitate the flow of information globally, with an emphasis on developing world, citizen media, and ethnic media content. The project seeks to match translation resources to the needs of media partners, for the purpose of facilitating the flow of news across multiple languages, and from local to global news contexts.

The goal of the project is to facilitate flows of news and information across multiple languages to support the polyglot Internet - read this post by Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman for background. The specific objectives are to research and develop a translation exchange mechanism to match supply and demand of translated news and information, and to pioneer a new mechanism for distributed translation of content and repurposing across a network of sites.

The Lingua translation exchange project will initially be a one-year initiative to identify opportunities and challenges, convene partners and interested parties, and determine feasibility. A second stage, to design a model for the exchange, and oversee its creation, may also occur in year one.

The job: The program manager for the Lingua Exchange initiative will manage the project, from inception to completion, including the following:
-oversee research on translation memory tools and work with the GV translation community to explore how to integrate these tools into GV projects.
-oversee research on technical, editorial, legal, and marketplace challenges of setting up a translation exchange for Global Voices and partners, as well as for a broader community.
-work closely with technical staff to identify technical solutions and challenges to integrate or link a translation exchange into existing Global Voices initiatives.
-manage collaboration with interested partners and the online translation community; represent this project and Global Voices at relevant forums.
-set up and work with an advisory board, members of which will include interested organizations and experts in translation communities.
-manage the workflow and communications with GV staff and community, and organize and run any meetings and work outputs that further the goals of this project.
-track the work flow against the stated goals of the project.

As Global Voices is a virtual organization, the project manager will not be expected to relocate. However, he or she needs regular access to high-speed internet connectivity and will be expected to travel. Salary and other compensation will depend on the candidate’s experience. Start date: as soon as possible.

Our ideal candidate will:
-have a combination of relevant expertise in online media, translation, and project management.
-have the ability to work independently, in an unstructured work environment, and to work with a virtual community.
-be computer literate, comfortable working with programmers and technical language. Programming/HTML knowledge not required but strong familiarity with the use of online social media tools (blogging platforms, aggregators, use of RSS feeds, and tagging) is important.
-speak and write English fluently, and be highly proficient in at least one other language; polyglot speakers highly desirable!

Interested candidates please send CV and Letter of Interest explaining why you'd be a good candidate for the job to: editor AT globalvoicesonline DOT org.

Update (June 18, 2009): Applications for this position are now closed.

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Iran: Ahmadinejad's supporters launch online grassroots campaign

Hamid Tehrani · 12:54 · Middle East & North Africa

lingua → fr · it · pt · zht · zhs · bn

logo_right Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has registered as a candidate for the June presidential election. Like his rivals, he now awaits official approval to run in the election from the Council of Guardians. Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad's supporters have launched a multi-media campaign called Dar Emtedad Mehr (meaning, “Following Kindness”) covering social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and other online media.

There is no “About” page on the site, so the true identity of the creator(s) is unknown, but the titles of 80 blogs that support Ahmadinejad are listed prominently. The website is very interactive and provides different opportunities for Ahmadinejad's supporters to be involved in the campaign and receive information.

The site offers news updates of Ahmadinejad's speeches and visits to different cities on YouTube via Twitter, Facebook, or SMS messages. So far less than 15 people have “followed” the Dar Emtedad Mehr campaign on Twitter.

Some of the videos on the site are very emotional with music, like one where Ahmadinejad visits a poor family in Ardebil. We learn that the father of the family is still suffering from injuries from the Iran-Iraq war.

Ahmadinejad supporters are invited to get involved with the campaign by sending SMS messages, making phone calls and attending physical campaign events.

Volunteers who wish to participate in grassroots activity can fill in a form choosing between 3 places where they plan to promote Ahmadinejad's candidacy: 1-schools, 2-mosques, 3-public places.

Bloggers are also invited to place Ahmadinejad's election logo in their blogs.

While Ahmadinejad's supporters have become active on different virtual fronts, the Iranian president has not updated his own blog for about a year.

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Paris court investigates three African leaders

Jennifer Brea · 02:35, May 11th, 2009 · Sub-Saharan Africa , Western Europe

lingua → fr · es · it · id

“In Africa, you never look Presidents in the mouth. They are, as it is said in popular language, groundnut roasters. And you don't look a groundnut roaster in his mouth. Because then he will definitely throw in some grains.” (Ivorian blogger Denis Zado)

Earlier this week, a Parisian judge ordered an inquiry into alleged corruption and embezzlement on the part of three African heads of state: Denis Sassou-Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville, Omar Bongo of Gabon, and Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea.

Teodoro Obiang has been president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea for thirty years. His luxury apartment and collection of cars are alleged to have been bought with misappropriated funds.

The investigation comes following a complaint filed by Transparency International in December accusing Sassou-Nguesso, Bongo and Obiang of “concealing misappropriated public funds.” Each keep several luxury residences in Paris, thought to have been purchased with money that rightly belongs to their people.

Bloggers from each of these countries, and francophone Africa more generally, have long criticized Françafrique, France's neocolonial legacy of cozy relations with resource-rich, African dictators. French president Nicholas Sarkozy has failed to end this legacy, despite early promises. (more…)

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