Archive for
June 25th, 2009
Stories
Colombia: Living with Flooding in Barranquilla
Image by Patton
Barranquilla in Colombia is the most important coastal city with a distinct characteristic: no rainwater drainage systems, so whenever it rains, the whole city floods with dangerous fast running rivers (called arroyos) replacing roads. On the following videos, taxis, cars and even buses float by on the streets as other citizens try to lend a helping hand to keep them from getting away.
The dangerous situations arising from the “arroyos”, are a result of bad city planning, no drainage systems, not enough clearance on the sides of creeks before building and the risky behaviour of those who try to brave the current. Following, some videos of these impressive forces of nature that take control over the most important city of the Caribbean coast.
Blogger Patton, who visited Barranquilla recently, did live streaming of the water covering the streets after a light rain. It was Maaria, travelling with him who narrates on the video and notified us about it on twitter. Patton also uploaded other videos of the flooding streets as well as pictures, such as the one used on this post, on his flickr account, pointing out on the accompanying notes how people have adapted to the situation.
Barranquilla native @allyfar also posted on twitter several pictures of the same storm right outside her house:
Although the flooding looks manageable from the previous videos, keep in mind it was a light rain which caused these arroyos. The following video, made by Telekinesishd, a production company based in Barranquilla, shows the water dragging away a full size pickup truck.
This next documentary, made by the regional government of Barranquilla and uploaded on YouTube by shchalel, explains why the city lacks rainwater drainage systems: it was thought they wouldn´t work since the city lies below the level of the Magdalena River, the largest river in Colombia and also Barranquilla's neighbor. The arroyos have claimed human lives in the past, and the damage to property and to the environment is quite extensive, particularly in the poorer communities, usually built too close to the margins of creeks and small tributaries.
The quantity of citizen videos reporting on the arroyos in Barranquilla is quite high. Almost all include a driver struggling to get their vehicle out of the arroyo's path. Some are lucky, others are dragged by the water and into the rivers. Some drivers are lucky and leave their car before its too late. The situation is made worse because it is just so common: drivers don't treat is a dangerous situation every time, they decide to risk it and hope for the best.
Sometimes the drivers ignore the danger and wait until it is too late to take their car into safety. This video by cafustar shows a taxi driver trying to pull into a parking garage, and as the water pulls the car away from the entrance, people start arriving to help pull it inside by brute force: at a time there are up to seven men, including the driver, fighting against the water. Finally, the arroyo is too strong and takes the taxi away.
Trightxu gives additional information about the following video featuring yet another taxi driver attempting to drive through an arroyo with his wife and a baby in the car when they get swept away by the water and struck by another car also floating along. Luckily they survived:
Here are even more videos of the arroyos, taken by ordinary citizens:
Reinaldo Pinilla (ReyPini):
Iran: Art for protest's sake
Bloggers and citizen artists online have been creating designs and cartoons to add a touch of art to the insistent Iranian protest movement that has risen in response the June 12 presidential election results.
As the protests in favor of an annulment continue, so does the repression by government against demonstrating citizens. Meanwhile, the world has been learning about both the slogans and the victims of the protests thanks to citizen media.
Lego Fish, blogger, designer and cartoonist, presents:
VoteFor Iran, a Netherlands-based website that publishes both citizen media and mainstream media news on the Iranian crisis, presents:
Nik Ahang Kosar, a leading online cartoonist and blogger portrayed Neda, the young woman who was shot and killed in a protest, as an angel after death, while the killer in this cartoon says, ‘It was your fault!'.
Here is a creation for Neda in FaceBook by Aslan:
The final example below, is an image that has reportedly also been distributed by citizens in Iran's streets, and says “God is Great - Lies are bad, rifles are bad, and bullets are bad”.
Paraguay: Referendum on Performance of Congress
President Fernando Lugo has certainly stirred a lot of controversy in his one year in government. Besides acknowledging that he had fathered one son while he was still a bishop, Lugo was recently accused of fathering two more children during the same time. Now a new debate is taking place after Lugo's comments led to speculation that he would like to dissolve the National Congress.
The controversy began when President Lugo announced that the executive branch was analyzing the possibility of holding a referendum to find out what citizens think about the parliament’s performance, arguing that “citizens are wise and critical,” and that the government should listen to them with humility.
Critics took that comment as a sign that Lugo would like to dissolve the Congress, especially considering that the majority of the Parliament opposes Lugo's left-wing ideology. Heated reactions from different sectors followed the executive branch's suggestion. Some supporters, such as the peasant movement leader Elvio Benitez, said that popular movements back the initiative. He went even further, saying that “it would be interesting to have a big broom to brush away those criminals from the parliament.”
Another supporter was Catholic Monsignor Mario Melanio Medina, who said: “Citizens have the right to demonstrate their disapproval of a Parliament that does nothing for the people, but against the people.” Catholic Church's representatives quickly clarified that Medina's remarks don't reflect the church's stand. Medina is also known for previously heading the national commission in charge of investigating the abuses of power committed during Alfredo Stroessner’s dictatorship (1954-89).
The negative reactions to the president's comments came mainly from the opposition Colorado party. A colorado senator, Martín Chiola, argued that the referendum would be an excuse for the executive branch’s incompetence .
Citizens also reacted to the controversial proposal. Blogger and journalist Viviana Benitez in her blog Panambi News [es] writes:
Lo de “no responder a los intereses del país” estoy más que de acuerdo con el Mons. Medina, porque en estos casi un año de haber jurado como representantes del pueblo no han rendido informes de sus gestiones. Ojo, no estoy de acuerdo bajo ningún concepto con la disolución del Congreso, pero sí en controlar más a nuestros representantes.
Blogger and journalist Susana Oviedo, provides another perspective in her blog Sobre el Punto [es]:
Is a referendum the best way to respond to the lack of cooperation that the executive branch finds in the Congress, and in light of its own inability to achieve a minimum consensus with the legislative branch?
It is pointless. This is a distracting element in a country where, if there is something that never changes, it is the terrible impression that Paraguayan citizens have of their National Congress. Several public opinion surveys during the transition period prove so.
Es un referéndum la mejor manera de responder a la falta de acompañamiento que halla el Ejecutivo en el Congreso y ante su propia debilidad para lograr un mínimo de consenso en el Legislativo?
En realidad es un despropósito. Es un elemento distractor, sobre todo, en un país donde si hay algo que no varía es la pésima impresión que tienen los ciudadanos paraguayos del Congreso Nacional. Diversos estudios de opinión pública a lo largo de la transición lo vienen demostrando.
It was Miguel López Perito, Lugo's chief of staff, who denied ever requesting a referendum but claimed they just “analyzed the possibility.” However, he did reiterate that “citizens always have the right to appeal in any way possible to express their critiques to their government representatives.”
The only clear consensus that Paraguayan citizens came to after this debate is that they are far from satisfied with their Parliament’s performance. A referendum to find that out would be just redundant.
Links for Thu, 2009-06
Owais Mughal at All Things Pakistan posts pictures of Pakistanis beating the heat by swimming and jumping in canals highlighting how popular this activity is in Pakistan.
Photos of Soviet children's toys - at LJ user varjag_2007's blog (RUS).
NGO Youth Educational Forum organized a “real life Facebook event” in Skopje as a creative reaction to the passivity and corruption of the official student organization at the largest state university in Macedonia. The Student Parliament of Sts. Cyril and Methodius University (SPUKM), formerly known as Student Union, was controlled by the Communist Party before the introduction of political pluralism, and has been used as a proxy by the ruling political parties ever since.
Maria Sonevytsky of My Simferopol Home writes on being a “lady ethnographer” in Ukraine and on xenophobia in Crimea: “Ukraine today is caught between two warring accounts of history, as it is caught between two different attitudes towards otherness, be it gendered, ethnic or raced otherness.”
Havana Times reports that U.S. President Barack Obama released a statement in which he said he hoped that all Cuban political prisoners would be released, but Uncommon Sense thinks that Cuban activists deserved better: “A busy schedule or confusion about the dates, is not enough of an excuse for President Barack Obama to not meet with representatives of five Cuban activisits, including three political prisoners.”
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