Archive for
June 29th, 2009
Stories
Ecuador: State Contracts With President's Brother Raise Concerns
Multi-million dollar contracts between the state petroleum company Petroecuador and several private companies raised some eyebrows when it was discovered that the brother of current president Rafael Correa was a member of some of the private enterprises. Fabricio Correa has been part of private companies that had been awarded contracts to provide public works services [es]. Even though Fabricio Correa has been emphatic that the contracts were won legally through a competitive bidding process, many do not believe these claims and believe that it has more to do with the fact that his brother is the country's leader causing the government to look bad in the process.
Aluminum sculpture of the Virgen of Quito at the cuspid of El Panecillo. Photo used under Creative Commons license by http://www.flickr.com/photos/tacvbo/
Fabricio Correa has defended himself by saying that he has been a businessman for 30 years and his brother has only been a politician for only 3 years. However, there are some who saw something suspicious from the beginning, as Santhros tweeted, “New season of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' first contestant: Fabricio Correa.”
Many see the problem in Ecuador directly related to the new Constitution and the role being taken by the state. The increase in regulations make things difficult for Ecuadorians to understand. Ecuador Sin Censura [es] comments on a recent speech given by Rafael Correa, where he defended his brother and accused the media for distorting the information about the business relationship between the state and his brother. However, it was a comment made by Juan Montalvo who also points to the system as allowing something like this happen:
Mi crítica no es personal, sino ideológica. Los escándalos de Fabricio son la punta de un iceberg inevitable. No es culpa total de Correa, es el sistema. Cuanto más interviene el Estado, cuanto más grande se hace el botín político, más corrupción se produce. Tan exacto como las matemáticas. El Sr. Correa podrá tener todas las buenas intenciones del mundo, pero el sistema que propone siempre derivará en corrupción, quiebra económica, clientelismo y frustración social. Solo un negacionista de la historia se empeñaría en seguir defendiendo lo contrario. Lástima que haya tantos.
The organic law for the public procurement system prohibits any business between the the government and relatives of government officials, as it is established by law in the Official Record No. 395 of August 4th, 2008. Manuel Ignacio Gómez Lecaro of Hoy y Ahora [es] wonders why Correa had not criticized these large contracts:
¿Se imaginan cómo hubiese saltado Rafael Correa en sus épocas de ciudadano común si todo esto hubiese sucedido en uno de los gobiernos de quienes él ahora llama “cadáveres políticos”? ¿Se imaginan el escándalo que hubiesen armado los hoy asambleístas y funcionarios del Gobierno? Pero en estos tiempos socialistas parece que no existe la corrupción, solo la mala fe de los medios empeñados en atacar al Gobierno.
(…)
Hasta eso, no hay una sola voz con fuerza en la oposición que diga las cosas como son. Las cortinas y los manteles verdes huelen a podrido, pero pronto se irán olvidando. Correa quedará algo lesionado, pero seguirá avanzando, acaparando poderes, insultando.
Imagine how Rafael Correa would have reacted when he was a ordinary citizen, if all of this would have happened in one of the governments that he now calls “political cadavers.” Imagine the scandal that would have taken place by the members of the Assembly and the government officials? But in these socialist times it appears that there is no corruption, only the bad faith from the media determined to attack the government.
(…)
Until then, there is not a single strong voice in opposition that says things like it is. The curtains and green tablecloths smell rotten, but they soon will be forgotten. Correa will be somewhat hurt (by the revelation), but he will continue moving forward, gaining power, insulting.
Yet, some bloggers see the criticism should fall on the brother for not realizing how the situation might be perceived. Andres Contilde of Modestamente Humano [es] writes that such a move gives opposition to his brother much more ammunition for criticism:
Fabricio Correa: este man sí es la auténtica falla. Cómo va a meterse a concursar siquiera en proyectos para el Estado aunque sea legal la figura con la que entró a participar.
(…)
Sea lo que sea que sea, así haya sido totalmente transparente la contratación, totalmente legal, sin ningún favoritismo y sin mano negra o palanca ya deja para pensar mal. Deja mucha tela para que alguien malintencionado la corte a diestra y siniestra. Ahora se planea reformar la ley, en teoría Rafael Correa solicitará la nulidad de esos contratos para que se vayan quitando las sombras de duda, pero con el solo hecho de que las sombras hayan aparecido ya se hizo un gran daño
Fabricio Correa: this man is the one truly at fault. How could he get involved in the bidding process for projects with the State even if when he was legally able to participate.
(…)
In any case, when the contracts had been totally transparent, totally legal, without any case of favoritism, and with any dark hand or assistance, it still looks bad. It leaves a lot of room for those with bad intentions to cut it both ways. Now there are plans to reform the law, in theory Rafael Correa will solicit the nullity of those contracts in order to remove the shadow of doubt, but with the fact that the shadows have already appeared, it already caused great damage.
After public debate, President Correa has announced that the government will unilaterally cancel the contracts [es] made with companies in which his brother is a participating member. At the same time, he criticized Fabricio for the business indicating that he may not have violated the letter of the law, but he did violate the “spirit” of the law that prohibits this kinds of business. However, as Contilde mentioned, the damage has already been done.
Ghana: New Media in the Hands of Young Ghanaians
I had an opportunity to interview Mr Michael Boampong, the Executive Director of Young People We Care, based in Kumasi, Ghana. YPWC is no ordinary NGO and Michael is no ordinary young man, by anyone's standards. Operated by young people, for young people, YPWC exploits new media to create links with like-minded individuals and organisations around the world to enhance opportunities for young people here in Ghana.
Welcome Michael, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
I’m the founder of and currently work as the Executive Director of Young People We Care (YPWC). I completed a four-year undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Coast, majoring in Economics and Geography, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Sciences. I’m passionate about youth empowerment and believe that youth must be empowered now to ensure a brighter tomorrow for everyone.
I am also an advisory board member of the Bangladesh Youth Parliament, and the Country Representative of UNICEF Rural Voices of Youth. I am currently doing national service with the United Nations Development Programme, Ghana.
YPWC, founded in 2005, is a youth-led and -focused organisation that is headquartered in Ghana, with satellite offices in the United Kingdom and Canada. The organisation is operated by young people aged ten to thirty-five years and adult partners working on youth-and development-related issues worldwide.
Basically, we aim to educate, inform and inspire youth participation in global issues, to build sustainable partnerships aimed at youth development, and to provide young people with the tools and resources to take action themselves.
We believe that through informing and engaging youth, they will be inspired to get involved and take action to improve their local communities. For example, we have held workshops on communication skills and report writing for youth in far-flung regions of Ghana with sponsorship from Disney, which might seem surprising but it’s brilliant to see the youth in those areas organizing themselves and responding to these inputs.
And we believe that this is how we can change the world. So, we try to create a platform for youth to translate what they have learnt into action and involve them in decision making on key developmental and global issues.
The online volunteering programme provides opportunities for volunteers to provide support and assistance “virtually”, in other words, they volunteer via the internet. The virtual volunteer programme is innovative and, of course, cost effective for all involved. Volunteers can work from anywhere and don’t have to travel all the way to Ghana just to help out; they can volunteer in their pyjamas in their rooms anywhere in the world.
Our online volunteering programme started through the UN Online Volunteering system in 2006. You can see that the site is divided into two parts: one for the volunteers and the other for the organizations.
When I started YPWC, it was hard for partners to trust the capability of our team because we had no record of successful project management to go on. Realizing that it would be hard to mobilize funding to get the organisation started, I decided to search for assistance from experts online for things like the design of a website and the brochure. These would normally cost a significant amount of money. That’s when I came across UN Online Volunteering and it has proved very helpful for YPWC. Currently the monthly newsletters and the YPWC website updates are carried out by UN Online Volunteers. Acknowledging the impact of UN Online Volunteers assistance to YPWC, in August 2008 the UNV featured YPWC in their newsletter. Honestly, the assistance and expertise given by virtual volunteers has changed the face of YPWC. It has provided greater opportunities and benefits for us and those we work with, despite the limited funding we received from donor organizations and individuals. We’re still working with online volunteers today.
Occasionally we post volunteer opportunities online through the official YPWC website or the UN Online Volunteer website. Interested volunteers who meet our criteria for a particular project or assignment are contacted and given a final work schedule and details about any support they might need. The great thing is that they can sit in a small or big town anywhere across the globe and help. You can work as a virtual volunteer without stepping outside your home; you only need to have a reliable internet access on your computer. We have an online group that volunteers join and that’s where we do a lot of chatting, cross-checking, and planning.
In the past months, our online volunteers have helped to create bi-monthly newsletters, moderate online discussions on the theme of migration, proof-read documents, and assist with website construction and management. Currently they are helping in the creation of a Youth Action Guide as well.
If anyone wishes to know more, they can contract Shimrit Janes, one of our lead volunteers, at Janes@ypwc.org.
We communicate via email and also through social networks. On urgent matters we use SKYPE phone calls or have instant chats.
I work with our YPWC staff to create opportunities for online volunteers. I assist online volunteers if they need more details about volunteer opportunities. I provide input to ensure that the tools or materials being created will actually meet the objectives of the project for which they are being designed.
They come from all over the world: United Kingdom, Canada, Cameroon, Philippines, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Bulgaria, India, and USA.
We know that blogging is very effective in sharing and spreading knowledge and ideas, especially for those who traditionally do not have a “voice”—and that usually means youth. As such, the YPWC Blog has been created to meet one of our main objectives: to provide a “youthful voice” for the leaders of tomorrow.
We’re encouraging YPWC’s staff, volunteers and friends to write and engage in discussions concerning the thematic areas of YPWC’s work like youth and migration. We hope it will provide an ongoing platform to showcase YPWC’s work and that of those connected with YPWC, too.
We are now inviting writers to come and post. If you are interested, please visit our info page for more details.
How will it work? Who’s managing it? What do you hope to achieve from it?
We are looking for original content. We do have guidelines about posting that will be provided upon acceptance to post, including obtaining permission from copyright owners before posting copyrighted materials, and verifying facts before posting–all the usual conditions. We're OK with posts on our blog being posted elsewhere, provided YPWC is credited and the actual blog post is linked to.
The Blog is being managed by YPWC’s Online Community Manager who can be reached at Oluwakorede.Asuni@ypwc.org
For now we are not connected with any Ghanaian bloggers, which we hope to change. We have received applications from Nigerian bloggers, which is excellent.
Currently, our most active social media network is Facebook. You can check out our page here.
I hope to specialize in migration issues in future and continue to connect with youth everywhere to take action for change.
Thank you very much for taking the time to share your fantastic experiences working with young people in Ghana and telling us how you are making the most of new media.
Israel: would Israeli grassroots support harm the Iranian uprising?
In the past two weeks Israelis were following the tweets coming out of Iran with excitement, but were divided on the issue of participation in the “Twitter revolution.” Blogger Esther Yerushalmi, who was banned from Iran as a child during the Islamic revolution, writes [HE]:
“As I watch the news coming from Iran a wave of memories takes me back to 1979: my little brother and I cuddled in bed listening to the frightening gun shots and screams from the streets: “death to the Shah, death to America, death to Israel”. Overnight we became unwanted and had to run away from Iran. At the time I was busy with the ties in my hair and being in love with the neighbor's son, so losing my childhood innocence and the comfort of my little world so abruptly shocked me too much to even feel the pain.
The Iranian people are now closing that cycle for me: the young people, whose parents drove me away from my home, are identifying with my pain now. When I talk to the people there now, they're so warm and sympathetic, ashamed of Ahmadinejad, apologizing for his crazy remarks, remembering the time our countries lived in peace and they too want to be a free nation now, united with the world. They reach out to me and talk to me like a sister, dreaming of the day I can come visit and their words make me cry.
What happened to these young people that made them open their hearts and see clearly? They were oppressed. When you're oppressed for a long time you either die out or become stronger. And they chose the strength because the aspiration for freedom is in the Iranian DNA and unity is in the Islam DNA, not the ayatollah Islam, but the real original Islam. And when these two aspirations don’t materialize, they [Iranians] are ready to die for it.
Regardless of other interests, so many people online support the fight for these aspirations but only a few hundreds of Israelis are among them. Could we leave the distrust behind and support these people as people, who want and deserve exactly what we want? They cry out for our support. Yes, ours too. They want to join us and want us to join them. Can we be generous now?”
Elad Rosen, an Israeli art student, forwarded an email stating ways to help the Iranian people online and his email appeared on many blogs and was quoted in the Israeli press. He writes:
“At this pivotal historical moment, the notion of a global village is becoming most relevant. For the first time we can do more than just watch the events, we can actively and almost effortlessly help people fighting for their freedom and democracy under an oppressive cruel government”.
Some of his suggestions included:
• Setting up safe international proxy web addresses for Iranians
• Seeding torrents of Iranian videos and re distributing videos and images to help decentralize the information flow and make it hard on the Iranian censorship
• Changing our twitter location to Tehran to confuse Iranian government officials trying to locate and close twitter accounts
Indeed, many Israelis changed their Twitter location to Tehran and some haven't changed it back yet. That phenomenon resulted in a conspiracy theory that the revolution tweets are ALL coming from Tel Aviv as part of the efforts to deny the magnitude of the Iranian uprising or blame Israel for it.
As Iranian freedom demonstrations were organized all over the world, a local group of Web activists and Iranian Jews tried to organize such a demonstration at Rabin square in Tel Aviv on 27/6/09. Over 600 people registered as ‘attending' or ‘maybe attending' at the Facebook event, however less than 20 people showed up. The organizers were disappointed by the small number of protesters.
Some of the Twitter and Facebook conversations in Hebrew may shed a light on the reasons Israelis hesitate to engage. This short twitter conversation took place on June 18th between llana Tamir, the community manager of Israblog, the biggest Israeli blog hosting platform, and Gal Mor, a famous technology blogger and until recently the content manager of Ynet website: (translated from Hebrew)
@ilanatam: I'm not sure Israeli participation in the online campaign is the right thing to do. The revolution shouldn’t seem like an Israeli intervention.
@galm: I think there's a difference between an action initiated by Israel as a country and an action of Israeli people, as citizens to citizens, not identifying ourselves as Israelis
@ilanatam: there is a difference all right but does it exist for the average citizen of Tehran who sees that Israelis are interfering with his internal affairs? They have an issue with Persian independence, you know
A different voice was expressed by Shachar Laudon on the wall of the Facebook event created for the Israeli protest:
“It's a futile protest. Iran was and will be Israel's enemy. Only if the ayatollah's rule will fall things might change but meanwhile I don’t want to support Mousavi (which is an Ahmadinejad dressed as a lamb). I think we should stand behind the IDF, which will protect us from Iranian imperialism”.
According to Yair Lapid, a popular Israeli columnist on Yedioth Acharonot newspaper, the IDF almost prevented the Iranian uprising. In the weekend print edition (26/6/09), he writes:
“what is happening in the past two weeks in ‘freedom square' in Tehran – the wonderful accumulation of young people, internet culture and women power- wouldn’t have happened if two months ago we would have listened to our regular bunch of boisterous hysterical voices trying to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities. If that were to happen, the Iranian people would have done what we do in times of crisis: stand behind their government washed with patriotic anger, so Ahmadinejad wouldn't have needed fraud to get reelected. We would have lost this one time chance to see a real internal change bringing about the collapse of an evil empire and we wouldn't have even known we lost it”.
Grimaces of education in Kazakhstan
From June 01 to June 10 school graduates in Kazakhstan were undergoing Unified National Test (UNT) - the first and one of the most important tests in their lives. As Zara, one of our bloggers, writes, the average test result has been 74.9 points, which is 7 points higher than the one for the last year. The number of graduates with excellent marks, who confirmed their knowledge, has increased from 36% in the last year to 54.5%.
“On the whole, the situation with UNT results over the country is more optimistic comparing to the previous years”, she notes [ru].
Sadenova gives her own calculations, based on the officially stated figures, and her conclusions are far less optimistic [ru]:
Analisys of UNT-2009 results shows that every 7th school graduate hasn’t scored the threshold of 45 points, every 9th school graduate scored over 100 points, and only 1 school graduate out of 13,500 scored the maximum of 125 points.
And lord-fame tells about rumored violations during the test. Crib notes and mobile telephones used by the graduates are nothing, comparing to what is described below [ru]:
$ 300 - is the price fixed by local level some education officials and their cronies for not noticing a mobile telephone in the hands of a graduate passing the test. This price is valid for the provinces, and it's more expensive in Almaty and Astana. By paying $1000 you can be sure that your child will get teacher’s help in case of a difficult question.
Also posted on neweurasia.
Morocco: Celebrating the First Female Mayor of Marrakesh
The Moroccan elections of two weeks ago brought surprising results and were received with mixed reactions, as Hisham pointed out in this post. One such result was the election of a woman to the position of mayor in Marrakesh for the very first time. Fatima Zahra Mansouri, who studied law, is only the second woman to ever hold the position in Morocco (Asma Chaâbi, mayor of Essaouira since 2003, was the first).
Bloggers were mostly excited for Mansouri. Popular blogger The View From Fez announced the news:
A 33-year-old lawyer on Monday became the first woman to be elected mayor of Marrakech, one of Morocco's biggest cities and a key tourist destination.
Fatima Zahra Mansouri outpolled veteran outgoing Mayor Omar Jazouli by 54 votes to 35 in Monday's municipal council vote, becoming the second woman to take a mayoral position in Morocco after Asmaa Chaâbi, mayor of Essaouira.
Maghreb Blog commented as well:
Just some breaking news from Marrakech: The first woman city mayor in Morocco has been voted in the red city's city council meeting today. Fatema Zahra al-Mansouri, a 33 year-old lawyer from the Party of Authenticity and Modernity, will assume the new responsibilities for the next six years, replacing Omar Jazouli who has been at the helm in Marrakech for 12 years. al-Arabiya reports what Sheikh Biyadellah, SG of PAM said: “reflects the image of a modern Morocco.”
The Twittersphere shared reactions to Mansouri's election and the election of a number of other women to council positions. From Jerusalem:
Moroccan “tweep” Abdelilah Boukili pointed out that although there have only been two female Moroccan mayors, there are a number of Moroccan women holding lead positions in small towns, by noting:
Honduras: Zelaya Arrested and Removed as President
The day started across Honduras with news that President Mel Zelaya was arrested in his home by armed soldiers. A referendum vote was scheduled for the same day, which was one that was opposed by the Supreme Court, the Armed Forces and the Honduran legislature. Days earlier, Zelaya had removed the head of the Armed Forces, General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, which was followed by the resignation by other top military officials because they would not support the vote.
It was soon learned that Zelaya had been taken to Costa Rica, where he continued to call himself as the legal head of state. There was also a rumor that Zelaya had resigned. However, the alleged letter turned out to be false notes Juan Carlos Rivera of Miradas de Halcón [es]. The reaction from the blogosphere and twittosphere ranged from calling the situation a coup d'état to those who saw the move as the only way to stop Zelaya's controversial move.
Photo by Roberto Brevé and used under a Creative Commons license. http://www.flickr.com/photos/breve/3668996322/
There have been power outages in the capital city, as reported by Honduras Daily News, which speculates that it is an “attempt to limit the passing of information.” However, information is currently being passed through social networking sites like Twitter and Blipea, which were very active throughout the day.
A supporter of Zelaya, Hibueras [es] wrote:
Manuel Zelaya fue detenido y sometido por la furza bruta de la jauria criminal de nuestra historia esclavista para evitar que el pueblo hondureño posea el poder de inclusion y de construccion de su patria, los responsables de tan ignomioso acto son todos conocidos y pagaran caro su abuso.
Llegó la hora de buscar por otros medios, lo que se nos niega por la paz, y los responsables seran jusgados por sus actos de traicion a la patria.
Manuel Zelaya was arrested and subjected to brute force by a criminal element that has enslaved the Honduran people, in order to prevent the people from obtaining power for the sake of inclusion and the construction of their homeland, those responsible for such a disgraceful act are well-known and they will pay for their abuses.
It is time to search by other means, those things which we are denied through peaceful means, and those responsible for their acts of treason will be judged.
Supporter of President Mel Zelaya by Roberto Brevé and used under a Creative Commons license. http://www.flickr.com/photos/breve/3668437385/
Later in the day, Congress voted to remove Zelaya as president and installed Roberto Micheletti, who had been president of the legislative body. Soon after, he announced that new elections would be held as scheduled in November. However, the installation of Micheletti as acting president has drawn the criticism from many of Honduras' closest allies, especially from Venezuela, who has threatened military action if any of its diplomats in Honduras are kidnapped or killed. In addition, President Hugo Chávez has said that the new government led by Micheletti would be defeated.
Some twitterers like Hugo Chinchilla is worried about the statements made by Chávez and take it as a sign that there may be involvement from these allies. He was told “unofficially” that the military is preparing for a possible intervention by Venezuelan and Nicaraguan troops [es].
There are others like Jorge Garcia, who is supporting the military new government and is urging his Twitter followers to provide support to soldiers with food and drink [es]. He also states:
En #honduras no hubo golpe de estado, el estado de derecho continúa, la constitución sigue vigente.
Now that much of the world's attention is on Honduras, Wilmer Murillo is worried about being isolated by the international community. He pleads:
que devuelvan a Mel! estamos quedando como retrogradas ante los ojos del mundo.
Links for Mon, 2009-06
Kalsoom at CHUP! – Changing Up Pakistan highlights the bond between the India-Pakistan Tennis duo Aisam ul-Haq Qureshi and Prakash Armitraj who are playing together in the Wimbledon. They are one of the finest examples of citizen diplomacy in promoting goodwill and improving perceptions between the two nations.
Unheard Voice blog discusses the sacking of seven army officers in Bangladesh and comments: “If army is not kept above political partisanship or at the least not perceived to be above partisanship, we will have a high price to pay in future — just like we have a paid a high price for destroying some of our other institutions in the past.”
LJ user Vaziani tells about [RUS] how the local Voronezh communists have wallpapered the city with huge pictures of Joseph Stalin in commemoration of the 22 June 1941 attack on the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany.
Andrew from Feast Meets West interviewed Rose Huang, the most-followed twitterer in Taiwan, in his radio show on RTI.
Albanian Blogger comments on the 2009 general elections in Albania.
China elections and governance has a series of article on the China's economic stimulus package and its effect. Part one is An introduction to China's stimulus package. Part two is The green dragon soars on the wind: Chinese stimulus and the environment. Part three is Migrant workers and social unrest. The last part is China's Stimulus Package and its Effect on China's SOES: Bad for the Economy and Bad for the Prospect of Democracy.
This site is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
Please read our attribution policy.
Syafique Shuib3 posts 
Julius Rocas1 posts 
Sadiq Alam2 posts 
Mario Blanco3 posts 
Amira Al Hussaini4132 posts 
Chhunny Chhean15 posts 
Clara Onofre24 posts 
Steve Sharra21 posts 
Jakub Gornicki2 posts 
Anas Alaoui8 posts 
Vadim Isakov1 posts