Global Voices

Spanish TV Offers Parents Tips on How to Dress Kids Appropriately

Victoria Robertson — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:18:25 +0000

[All links lead to Spanish-language pages, except where noted.]

Spain's main public television station channel 1, featured a workshop for parents on “how to teach their children to dress appropriately” in its daily afternoon update on May 14, 2013. Although the report was barely a minute and a half long, it featured soundbites such as “it seems we live in an era when everything must be shown” and “the big question: is my daughter dressing provocatively?” YouTube user ACTUALIDADenunTUIT uploaded the video:

A few days before, the same program had broadcast a brief report on the “sudden” rise in religious devotion among the unemployed, asserting that prayer and the lighting of candles for the saints had a calming affect on them. This is the video of the report, uploaded on YouTube by Kewban:

As expected, the story about how teenagers “should dress so as not to provoke” elicited significant dissent on the Internet. On Twitter, the Spanish words “decoro” (decorum) and “tve” (the TV station) were trending topics that very afternoon. Twitter users Andere, Nacho Grim, Alberto and Herráez, took issue with the anachronistic nature of the advice:

@SaintAndere: Entre el decoro en la vestimenta y las recomendaciones de orar para los parados, una no sabe en qué país vive, ni en qué siglo… @igotzi

@SaintAndere: Between dress and decorum and the recommendation to pray for the unemployed, one wonders in what country, and in what century we're living….@igotzi

@NachoGrim: http://www.publico.es/455359/tve-explica-como-vestir-a-las-hijas-con-decoro-para-que-no-provoquen … – La Falange y la Sección femenina vuelven, espero impaciente la llegada del NODO. [No-Do: Noticiarios y Documentales]

@NachoGrim: http://www.publico.es/455359/tve-explica-como-vestir-a-las-hijas-con-decoro-para-que-no-provoquen … The Falange and the Sección femenina are coming back; I eagerly await the arrival of the NODO. [No-Do: Noticiarios y Documentales] [Translation note: The Falange and its sister organization of women were Francoist groups. NODOs was a propaganda newsreel.]

@TANSOLO140: Al paso que va la burra, “Cuéntame” va a acabar siendo una serie futurista :(

@TANSOLO140: At this rate, ”Cuéntame” is going to end up being a futuristic series:(
[Translation note: Cuéntame is a popular TV series set in the final years of the Franco regime.]

@JHerraez: ¿He dormido hacia atrás y despertado en 1947? TVE explica cómo vestir a las hijas con decoro y que no provoquen

@JHerraez: Did I sleep backwards and wake up in 1947? TVE is explaining how to dress girls modestly so they don't provoke

In reality, this is simply the anecdotal part of a much more serious problem. Just a few months after winning an absolute majority in the November 2011 elections, the Council of Ministers of the ruling Partido Popular (PP) approved a decree that modified the way in which the board of RTVE, the public radio and television corporation, is chosen—until then it had required the consensus of two thirds of the legislature, but now a simple majority would suffice. This drew criticism from all parties, who accused the PP of converting a public broadcaster into state television.

Julio Somoano, news director of rtve. Web photo losgenoveses.net

Shortly afterwards, the new bosses assumed their positions; among them was news director Julio Somoano, formerly of the conservative television network Telemadrid and a figure closely associated with the Partido Popular. Somoano replaced Fran Llorente, under whose mandate TVE newscasts maintained the highest audience share and received more than 200 awards. Somoano's arrival had immediate repercussions on the broadcasting personnel. One of the first victims of the purge was journalist Ana Pastor, a well-regarded professional whose merits include securing the only interview given by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Western media. Anna Bosch was also let go just prior to receiving the Madariaga award.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad informs Ana Pastor that her veil has slipped during the interview. Screen capture from video by cartierchinoua on YouTube.

In November 2012, Carlos Alonso, producer of the flagship weekly program Informe Semanal, refused to sign off on a report on the death of five young people at at a Halloween mega-party. The CNT union of RTVE explained the reasons on their website:

El descenso por la cuesta de la credibilidad comenzó el año pasado, con motivo de la emisión de un programa sobre la tragedia del Madrid Arena. Un realizador fue fulminantemente expulsado del programa por negarse a firmar un reportaje que ha entrado en el top ten de la Historia universal de la infamia audiovisual y que se suponía que analizaba la tragedia, para llegar a la conclusión de que la culpa es de los padres actuales que no atan corto a sus hijas.

The decline in credibility started last year, with the broadcast of a program on the tragedy of the Madrid Arena. A producer was summarily ejected from the program for having refused to sign off on a report that has entered the top 10 of all time in audiovisual infamy and that was supposedly analyzing the tragedy, reaching the conclusion that the fault lay with the actual parents who did not reign in their daughters.

This case prompted the intervention of the Media Council, which declared:

Mediante la práctica de imposiciones, advertencias de sanción o el cambio de destino, la Dirección parece interesada en imponer una ‘ley del silencio’ que daría al traste con los derechos profesionales regulados en los últimos años

Through the practice of restrictions, warnings of potential suspension or transfer, management appears to be interested in imposing a ‘law of silence’ that would put an end to the rights of professionals as had been standardized in the last several years.

Alonso's supporters wrote a letter endorsed by 260 professionals at the network. The letter includes the following:

La dirección [ignora] el precepto legal de que TVE debe ser independiente, plural y rigurosa en sus contenidos. Se seleccionan temas de manera tendenciosa, se imponen enfoques concretos y (…) se veta de una manera clara y directa tanto a ciertas personas como aquellas noticias incómodas para la línea editorial de la dirección. (…) [La expulsión de Alonso] es injustificable en lo profesional y un paso más en una estrategia clara que quiere imponer el silencio, el miedo y la ausencia de debate periodístico en la elaboración de los contenidos.

Management [is ignorant] of the legal precept that TVE must be independent, pluralistic and rigorous in its content. Subjects are chosen with bias, specific approaches are imposed and (…) both certain people and news items inconvenient to management's editorial line are being vetoed in a clear and direct manner. (…) [The expulsion of Alonso] is professionally unjustifiable and one step further in an obvious strategy to ensure silence, fear, and the absence of journalistic debate in content production.

The program Informe Semanal has also been heavily criticized for its treatment of the Bárcenas case [en], a corruption case allegedly involving high level members of the PP. All this is taking its toll on TVE broadcasts: the dramatic drop in audience share has meant that the network has lost its status as news leader. Moreover, not one of TVE's programs has been nominated this year for the Television Academy awards. Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that the Council of Europe criticized the interference of the Spanish government in TVE in its resolution 1920 [en], of 24 January 2013:

La Asamblea advierte con preocupación recientes informes sobre presiones políticas en cadenas de servicio público en Hungría, Italia, Rumanía, Serbia, España y Ucrania (…). Recuerda a los estados miembros los (…) indicadores de medios en una democracia: «las cadenas públicas deben estar protegidas de injerencias políticas en su gestión diaria y su trabajo editorial; se deben negar los puestos de dirección a personas con claras afiliaciones políticas; las cadenas públicas deben establecer códigos de conducta internos para el trabajo periodístico y la independencia editorial de influencias políticas»

The Assembly notes with concern recent reports about political pressure on public service broadcasters in Hungary, Italy, Romania, Serbia, Spain and Ukraine (…). It reminds member States of (…) indicators for media in a democracy: “public service broadcasters must be protected against political interference in their daily management and their editorial work; senior management positions should be refused to people with clear party political affiliations; public service broadcasters should establish in-house codes of conduct for journalistic work and editorial independence from political influence.”

Peru: New Collectible Coin

Gabriela García Calderón — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:51:16 +0000

Temple of Kotosh, image by Flickr user madiko83 (CC BY 2.0).

The Central Reserve Bank of Peru released on May 22, 2013, the thirteenth collectible coin part of the numismatic series “Wealth and pride of Peru” . The coin has an image of the crossed hands from the Temple of Kotosh, located in the department of Huánuco.

Twin Suicide Car Bombings in Niger Kill 23

Rakotomalala — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:25:50 +0000

Benjamin Roger for Jeune Afrique reports [fr] that 18 soldiers, one civilian and four terrorists were killed early morning in an suicide car bombing in Agadez, Niger on May 23. He adds that military school students are currently being held hostages by another attacker following the bombing. Simultaneously, another car exploded in an uranium mine exploited by the Areva Group in Arlit, Niger. The militant group MOJWA has claimed responsibility for both terror attacks.

Second Segment of Fiber Optic Cable Connects to Cuba

Marianna Breytman — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:00:09 +0000

The fiber optic cable, which is expected to improve Cuba's connectivity to the Internet, is of utmost importance to the country, and every piece of information continues to clarify the current state of this technological infrastructure. In the past days, U.S. company Renesys announced on its blog that during this week they “observed a second non-satellite connection established for the Cuban state telecom, ETECSA [Cuban State Telecommunications Company]“.

In January of this year, Renesys stated that the ALBA-1 submarine cable had begun to bring Internet traffic in the segment that connects Cuba to Venezuela.

According to Doug Madory, a Renesys employee:

esta vez un segmento diferente del cable submarino ALBA-1 se utiliza para conectar Cuba a la isla vecina de Jamaica. A las 15:04 UTC del 13 de mayo de 2013, se observó que ETECSA comenzó a recibir el servicio internacional de Internet a través de Cable & Wireless Jamaica

this time a different segment from the ALBA-1 submarine cable is being used to connect Cuba to its neighboring island, Jamaica. At 15:04 UTC on May 13, 2013, it was observed that ETECSA began receiving international Internet service through Cable & Wireless Jamaica

Madory also confirmed that two weeks ago, during a presentation by LACNIC 19 [es] in Medellín, Colombia, ETECSA representatives confirmed the initial statements from Renesys. According to the employee, “it was a pleasure meeting some of the people involved in this historic activation.”

The description of the project [es] on the Cuba-Venezuela International Telecommunications Systems confirms that the Cuba-Jamaica segment will be used for “the purpose of restoration.” As a result, Renesys believes the activation could “help alleviate some minor connectivity problems recently experienced by ETECSA.”

Image of the connection between Cuba, Venezuela, and Jamaica through the ALBA 1 fiber optic cable. Taken from the Renesys blog.

Following the Cuban State Telecommunications Company's initial statements in January 2013 regarding the operational nature of the fiber optic cable and the start of several tests, a group of resident users on the island took to social networks to discuss computerization and increased Internet access in the country.

According to Daniel Salas [es], professor at the University of Havana:

Para irnos montando en el debate sobre cómo extender Internet en Cuba, podríamos empezar por ir teniendo claro cuál es la situación de la infraestructura nacional de comunicaciones, qué nodos enlaza la fibra óptica nacional, cuál es la saturación de las centrales telefónicas y los pares de cobre, qué tipos de soluciones tecnológicas estarían disponibles y sus costos, y no estaría de más saber un poquito de las cuentas de ETECSA.

In order to continue participating actively in the debate on how to extend Internet in Cuba, we could start by clarifying the current situation of the national communications infrastructure, which nodes the fiber optic cable links, the saturation of central operator exchanges and copper pairs, the types of technological solutions that would be available and their costs, and it would not hurt to know a bit about the ETECSA accounts.

Meanwhile, Cuban professor and researcher Milena Recio considered [es]:

Según la nota de ETECSA, se derivan dos posturas de política: 1) habrá que sacar divisas de algunos servicios para repartir gratuidad en otros. Dice: “aumentar los recursos en divisas, destinados a pagar el tráfico de Internet”. Es decir, se mantiene el esquema gratuidad; 2) se multiplicarán las posibilidades de acceso, aunque no “automáticamente”, pero se multiplicarán. Es decir, no solo mejorarán las actuales. Ahora bien, preguntas posibles ¿conectividad social, implica necesariamente gratuidad? ¿qué parte de la infraestructura interna de telecomunicaciones se priorizará en función de qué objetivos?

According to ETECSA's announcement, there are two political positions: 1) currency will have to be taken from certain services in order to deliver free services in others. It says: “increase foreign exchange resources, intended to pay for internet traffic.” This is to say that it maintains the free-of-charge scheme; 2) Access possibilities will multiply, though not “automatically,” but they will multiply. This is to say that not only will the current ones improve. Now, possible questions – does social connectivity necessarily imply a free-of-charge service? which part of the internal telecommunications infrastructure will be prioritized depending on which objectives?

The Cuban telecommunications company's late statement also motivated a number of criticisms among bloggers. Blog Fanal Cubano reflects it as follows [es]:

El sólo hecho de divulgar cuatro días antes esta propia nota, escueta, pero rotunda, habría despojado a ETECSA de la responsabilidad de darle un sesgo confirmativo al hecho, y nuestra entidad, cubana ciento por ciento, hubiese emergido como fuente portadora de una noticia de alcance mundial por su significado, en tanto victoria de la integración regional sobre la política de cerco económico, comercial y financiero practicada por los Estados Unidos contra Cuba desde hace más de medio siglo.

The mere fact of divulging this very brief yet emphatic announcement four days earlier, ETECSA would have been stripped of the responsibility of giving it a confirmatory bias, and our entity, one hundred percent Cuban, would had emerged as the source for news of global reach because of its significance, as much as it would have been a victory of regional integration over the economic, commercial and financial siege of the United States against Cuba for over half a century.

Cuba currently has a bandwidth of 323 Mbps (megabits per second) via satellite for the entire island. A website can take several minutes to open and even hours to see a video.

Locusts Invade Madagascar After Cyclone

Rakotomalala — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:52:48 +0000

Locust invasion in down town Fianaratsoa, Madagascar

Locust swarmed many regions of Madagascar and even a few of its cities. This disaster comes as a result of the humid conditions[fr] that remained after cyclone Haruna's landing. The FAO states that 60% of rice production will be affected by the invasion.

Peru: Is Junk Food Synonymous with Freedom?

Victoria Robertson — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:18:56 +0000

[Links are to Spanish-language pages, except where otherwise noted.]

Peruvian gastronomy [en] is a hot topic both in and outside the country. But lately, the culinary theme on everyone's lips has not been the quality of the dishes or the traditional ingredients—instead it is the recently adopted legislation of President Ollanta Humala, known as the Law for the Promotion of Healthy Eating by Boys, Girls, and Adolescents.

The law, whose wording was published on May 17, states that its objective is to “effectively promote and protect people's right to public health and proper growth and development through education, strengthening and fostering physical activity, establishing healthy food stands and lunchrooms in elementary and secondary educational institutions, as well as monitoring advertising, information, and any other practices related to food and non-alcoholic beverages targeted at children and adolescents.”

Once the law was adopted by Congress on May 2, congressman Luis Galarreta declared that it had a “completely interventionist vision that I think jeopardizes both the media and its financing.” At the same time, the former Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism, Alfredo Ferrero, argued that the ambiguities of the law could “affect broadcasting of the Brazil World Cup in 2014.”

Photo via Lokendra Nath Roychoudhury, lokenrc on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Peru's national association of industries (SNI in Spanish) has requested a repeal of the law because, by prohibiting the sale of packaged food in schools, it encourages the consumption of unregulated products to the detriment of the health of school children; and moreover, schools are not in a position to assume the task of feeding children.

On the other hand, Fernando Leanes, a representative from the Pan-American Health Organization (OPS in Spanish) and the World Health Organization (WHO) supports the law and declared that “(we are trying to avoid) silent diseases such as diabetes or hypertension that can contribute to children developing health problems when they are 40 or 50 years old.”

In social networks opinions are equally divided, and the debate is seasoned with pictures of succulent sandwiches and other fare usually labeled junk food. On Twitter Miguel Mellado (@miguelm1504) expressed an opinion apparently shared by many:

@miguelm1504: Ningún publicista o medio de comunicación va estar a favor de la ley sobre la comida chatarra.

@miguelm1504: No advertising professional or media outlet is going to be in favour of a law on junk food.

On Facebook, writer Sonia Luz Carrillo shared her feelings while watching a television interview on the subject:

La publicidad de los productos menos saludables y hasta francamente dañinos a la salud según los especialistas – nutricionistas debidamente acreditados, por ejemplo- es uno de los principales ‘alimentos’ de las empresas de comunicación, especialmente la televisión. Eso explica la campaña en contra de la Ley y cualquier otro dispositivo que coloque la necesidad de conocimiento conveniente para que el público pueda optar por una alimentación saludable.

The marketing of products that are less healthy and frankly almost harmful to our health according to experts—certified nutritionists for example—is one of the main sources of fodder for the communications companies, especially television. This explains the campaign against the law and whatever other measure there is that makes it possible for the public to find out how to make healthier food choices.

The controversy grew when Cardinal and Archbishop of Lima Juan Luis Cipriani [en], declared that it has been a while since he has eaten junk food and believes that much of it is harmful, but at the same time he is against legislating what people can or cannot eat.

In a widely discussed article shared on social networks, the advertising professional Robby Ralston wrote that in his view the law was poorly conceived, which “leaves so many grey areas that can invite criticism”, adding that “this leads inevitably down the road to advertising censorship and corruption”. Finally Ralston mentioned that “what really bothers me is that they are limiting my freedom to advertise and above all the freedom of Peruvians to see and enjoy advertising.”

The journalist Isabel Guerra commented on Facebook, echoing another of Ralston's arguments:

El Tribunal Constitucional ha despenalizado las relaciones sexuales presuntamente consentidas con menores de entre 14 y 17 años. Ahora tenemos una ley que supuestamente prohibirá que a esos mismos menores se les venda “comida chatarra”. Es decir, un adulto se puede llevar a la cama a una nena de 14 años, pero no le puede vender un pan con hot dog… :S #yodigonomás :S

The Constitutional Court has decriminalized presumably consensual sexual relations with minors of 14 to 17 years of age. Now we have a law that supposedly prohibits the sale of “junk food” to these same minors. In other words, an adult can bed a 14-year-old girl, but cannot sell her a hot dog on a bun…:S #yodigonomás (that's all I have to say) :S

The discussion reached a new low when a journalist tweeted a photo of Presidente Humala's daughters and commented that one of them seemed to be overweight. The tweet garnered a battery of criticism.

Given that the Ministry of Health has 60 days to issue the regulations for the Law for the Promotion of Healthy Eating, debate and pressure from various interest groups is expected to continue.

Original post published in Juan Arellano's blog Globalizado.

‘Discover Somalia’ Photo and Culture Blog

Ndesanjo Macha — Thu, 23 May 2013 10:09:54 +0000

Discover Somalia is a cultural and photography blog dedicated to Somalia. The blog aims at promoting a more accurate media image of Somalia and the potential of its people, beauty and natural resources.

Trinidad & Tobago: Invented E-mails or Political Demise?

Janine Mendes-Franco — Thu, 23 May 2013 01:26:22 +0000

Monday's sitting of Trinidad and Tobago's Parliament saw the Opposition Leader quoting from several e-mails, which, he alleged, implicate key government ministers, including the Prime Minister, in attempting to cover up her administration's actions surrounding the Section 34 controversy.

Netizens were taking notice. Twitter was unusually quiet, but many social media users who watched the No Confidence motion against the government play out, flooded their Facebook status updates with commentary about the goings-on. Some even posted notes, like this one by Christian Hume – its contents are reproduced in this post with the writer's permission:

The good thing about Emailgate is that the majority of people who would decide the next General Election understand e-mail. The Attorney General himself has publicly stated that he has had a particular e-mail address for the last 15 years, which means that he too would have been among the earliest people in this country to sign up for e-mail back in 1997. I am therefore amused at the comical defenses being put up by himself and Anil Roberts in trying to convince people who do not understant e-mail (and some who do) that there is no connection between the e-mails read out in Parliament yesterday and the high government officials that they are purported to have come from.

Soon, the discussion, both on and offline, turned to the authenticity of the e-mails. In this blog post, diaspora blogger Jumbie's Watch wrote:

This revealed email exchange over the Section 34 débâcle is a deal breaker if it turns out to be true. Why I find it amusing though, is that it is so obviously fake.

There are several clues which reveal right off, to those who are semi-literate in email technology, why said emails are fudged.

First of all, and most strongly telling is that Gmail, even since its inception in 2004 (when people were paying for invitations to Gmail) did not allow for 4-character usernames. Not even 5… and I know; I was there… back in 2004, you had to use 6 alpha-numeric characters or more.

Secondly…I have never seen such childish spelling and grammatical mistakes from Anand Ramlogan. Sure, one can argue that most people are far more informal in emails than in a commentary column… but even so some lineament of the writing style will continue to hold true. In other words, wolf cyah play sheep.

Thirdly, how improbable is it for public figures in high positions to use ‘free’ email accounts to contact each other, when they have ‘official’ government provided email?

What has me is a puzzled frame of mind is trying to fathom the reason Keith Rowley would bring this up in Parliament. Is he so naive that he would fall into the clutches of desperation? Malicious? Or is he merely dotish?

Hume addressed that very question in his Facebook note:

I'm hearing people saying that Dr. Rowley should have presented the technical verification of the authenticity of those e-mails in Parliament yesterday. Given that he read the contents of 31 e-mails, that would have been impractical, seeing that he only had 75 minutes in which to make his presentation. At any rate, the technical verfication of those e-mails would have been incomprehensible to the most of the national population, and I daresay, to almost all the members of the House of Representatives, including the Speaker himseslf. Instead, Dr.Rowley went one better. He took pains to explain the necessity for Parliamentary privilege, before using it to lay his case before House and country. In doing so, he is challenging Kamla, Anand, Suruj, and the PP machinery to deny the authenticity of the e-mails, and as most people in that situation would do, the PP spokespersons have already obliged bombastically. I am confident that the technical details that would verify the authenticity of those e-mails will start to emerge in the days to follow, and not necessarily from PNM quarters. Grab your pop corn, sit back and watch. Doh say ah didn't tell allyuh.

The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society contributed to the discussion by tackling the topic of hacking. The post explained the phishing phenomenon, adding:

The method of phishing emails pretending to be from a friend or organisation you know underscores the ease of faking emails. The from field in an email can have any text (e.g ‘lldjlkdladajdlk@sdkaldjal') that looks like an email address and not be from the ‘real’ sender.

In this context, one Facebook user, suggested that if the Prime Minister's e-mail was indeed hacked, she should have noticed irregularities in the use of her account. The TTCS post explained:

To detect hacking attempts, one should set up two factor authentication which improves the security of your email account. One common implementation of two factor authentication uses your cell phone. Whenever a new device or software is used to access your email account, the email provider prompts you to enter a second password that is sent to your cellphone via SMS. If you receive an SMS and you are not trying to access your email from a new device, then you are aware that someone else has your password and is attempting to access your account.

Detection of whether your email account is compromised without two factor authentication requires a regular review of your email account profile and/or settings.

The rest of the post detailed a step-by-step process through which to protect yourself and to determine if your account was compromised:

The complete, strange emails…should be kept for study by you or pertinent authorities to study for clues as to the IP address where the email was sent from.

This requires the preservation of the email headers which are typically not shown by email clients nor included in the email when emails are forwarded. However, all email messages have e-mail headers.

Meanwhile, Robin Montano, a former Senator with affiliations to the United National Congress (one of the political parties in the coalition People's Partnership government), addressed the Opposition Leader's allegations on his blog, calling them the political equivalent of a Hail Mary pass:

Dr. Keith Rowley's play in Parliament yesterday could be labelled such a pass because if what he said turns out to be not true he will have effectively sunk himself and his PNM team. That would be it! Finito! Kaput! On the other hand, if all that he has said is true the Government is sunk!

The e mails basically allege a criminal conspiracy between the Prime Minister, the Attorney General and the Prime Minister's special security adviser, Captain Gary Griffith over the section 34 issue. Further the e mails go further to suggest that the parties involved were planning serious harm to a journalist.

The problem here is that the e mails appear on their very face to be faked. For example, a lot of the e mails are supposed to have come from an e mail address: anan@ gmail.com. But it is not possible to create a g mail account with less than six characters. Then there is another e mail address that ends in “.coN “(I have high lighted and capitalised the ‘n’ for emphasis). There should be an ‘m’ where the ‘n’ is. Then there is an alleged exchange of e mails between Captain Griffith and Mr. Ramlogan starting with Mr. Ramlogan allegedly e mailing Captain Griffith at 1:33am on a Monday morning and Captain Griffith replying at 1:40am! So these men don't sleep and are sitting on their computers at that time?! Really?

The post then considered the potential political fallout:

The accusations that he has made are very, very serious. The Prime Minister has quite properly referred them to the Commissioner of Police. If they turn out to be true the Prime Minister and her Attorney General will have to resign. There is no question of that! But if the accusations turn out to be false then Dr. Rowley should be expelled from the Parliament.

In a follow-up post today, Montano declared:

I now believe beyond reasonable doubt that the e mails are fakes. Whether Dr. Rowley knew that the e mails were forgeries is another question.

He also challenged what the opposition knew and when they knew it:

You sent those e mails to the President? And by ‘you’ I mean the PNM. So that means that not only Dr. Rowley knew about those e mails but others in the PNM knew about them too? And therefore President Richards knew about them in December? And the Integrity Commission knew about it also in December?!

Mr. Ken Gordon, the Chairman of the Integrity Commission, is quoted in the press this morning as saying that if the e mails are true then that would be very serious. But I must ask Mr. Gordon directly, what if the e mails are forgeries? Fakes? Wouldn't that also be very serious?

To help determine whether the e-mails could indeed be fake, Global Voices contacted tech journalist and blogger Mark Lyndersay. We asked him, from a technical perspective, whether there were any red flags:

Mark Lyndersay: The first flag was that there only seem to be prints of these e-mails. It's hard to imagine that the Leader of the Opposition chose to stand before Parliament with no more evidence than some paper documents. His next logical step should have been an announcement that the electronic files would have been sent to the appropriate authorities for verification. That hasn't happened, though there is no reason to believe that it won't.

We then asked Lyndersay what he thought the next steps should be in order to determine the authenticity of the correspondence:

ML: First up would be the investigation of the e-mail transmissions to review the routing information that the messages took. Without that information, the argument is really about whether or not the printed information is convincing and that really shouldn't be a discussion at all.

Finally, we asked him about the impact that the technical aspects of this issue could have on its political aspects:

ML: Technology is absolute. It deals in verifiable bits that either are or are not. A message either has a proper transmission header or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it's unverifiable and useless as evidence, regardless of who offers it. This may be a confusing matter for politicians, who trade in mood, feelings and allegiances, none of which have any impact on bits. Information on the web may have mood and feeling, but its existence is trackable and verifiable every step of the way (unless people take the trouble to use anonymizers and other identity obscuring tools). E-mails can't just look right or wrong, they are either truly electronic transmissions and can be verified as such with a trackable footprint or they are not. It really is as simple as that. From a verification point of view, an unverifiable e-mail, whether it was invented out of whole cloth on a word processor or copied and pasted into a fresh transmission, simply can't be used as a tool of accusation.

In light of today's failed motion, in part thanks to the fact that the very opposition that raised it walked out of Parliament, political blog The Eternal Pantomime summed everything up this way:

Dr Rowley took a massive gamble accusing the government of conspiring against the office of the DPP and conspiring to harm a citizen of the country with just a pile of transcripts. To have pulled it off successfully what was required were digital files or actual screen shots of the e-mails so that the members of the doubting public would have irrefutable proof, create a significant hue and cry and catapult the powers into action.

Without those digital files it all boiled down to playing the blame game…yet again. It is a game the country has been caught up in for the past 3 years and it has gotten old and tired. Despite the numerous scandals and missteps this government has gotten itself embroiled in, this Motion of No Confidence had the potential to land a PM, an AG and a senior government Minister in jail had it been handled right.

Now, three days later, with Keith pointing fingers and Kamla sticking out her tongue and saying prove it, we have the country right back where it started…wondering who lying.

If Stephen Williams wasn’t such a compromised Commissioner of Police, if we had a serious cyber crimes unit here, if the Integrity Commission actually functioned and if the President had the power he thinks he has…there would be an independent investigation and the first thing to be done would be to confiscate the devices of these individuals and to ask their email hosts for transcripts on the dates Rowley gave…

But this was a rape trial. Rowley accused them of fucking us over…it was up to him to prove there was unwanted penetration…and before he managed to accomplish that in Parliament…he pulled out.

The thumbnail image used in this post is by RambergMediaImages, used under an Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license. Visit RambergMediaImages’ flickr photostream.

Well-Known Chinese Leftist Advocates Militarized Internet

Oiwan Lam — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:03:21 +0000

A prominent Chinese nationalist has called for China to take tighter control of the country's Internet in part by building an online army of civilians to monitor the Web.

Zhang Hongliang (張宏良), a Maoist opinion leader, put together [zh] an elaborate plan of action on his blog on May 17, 2013 soon after the “Seven Speak-Nots“ policy, a list of seven forbidden subjects for discussion in schools and online in China, was revealed. The post has since been deleted.

Political liberals in China have promoted the Internet as a platform for public deliberation and political negotiation since the landmark Sun Zhigang incident in 2003. That case saw the abolition of custody and repatriation in China, which allowed police to detain people without a proper permit and return them to where they legally could live and work, after the death of 27-year-old university graduate Sun Zhigang in an official detention center caused massive outrage online.

The Great Firewall of China. Image from Digital Trends.

Even extreme nationalists have made use of the Internet for political mobilization, such as a national anti-Japanese protest in September 2012.

But in the past few weeks, the government has undertaken a new censorship campaign that has removed the accounts of numerous political liberals from popular microblogging site Sina Weibo.

Below are the four main arguments Zhang makes in his 10,000-word article [zh]:

第一，新浪等各大门户网站为外资企业，有美国等西方国家垄断资本控制，在客观上与中国形成利益对立。

Firstly, Sina and other major portal sites are registered as foreign corporations and controlled by monopolized capital in the hands of the United States and other western countries. Their interests are thus in opposition to China.

第二，各大门户网站的把关编辑和关键岗位人员，都是南方报系这个当今传媒界“黄埔军校”培养出来的，是中国历史上规模最大的“网络伪军”。这是当今国内外反共反华势力最为自豪和自信的地方。

Secondly, most of the editors or content operators of major portals are coming from Nanfang Media Group, which is like a “military academy” for online media. Both domestic and overseas anti-communist and anti-Chinese forces are very proud of the base.

第三，[…]中国网管部门长期被推行西方政治制度和西方普世价值的领导人所控制，采取强制政策把反左和反对“文革余孽”作为主要任务，打着反左和反对“文革余孽”的旗号，妖魔化人民革命，妖魔化人民领袖，妖魔化社会主义，妖魔化民族文化和民族精神，支持汉奸文化，纵容反共反华势力、打压左翼爱国力量。

Thirdly, Internet authorities in China are under the control of those who advocate for western political systems and universal values. Their mission is to crackdown on those with left-leaning beliefs and Cultural Revolution believers by demonizing people's revolution, people's leaders, socialism, and national culture and spirit and by supporting traitor culture, indulging anti-communist and anti-Chinese forces, as well as repressing leftist patriot forces.

第四，“中美国”已从经济领域延伸到网络领域，形成了美国网军司令部统一操控中美两国网络舆论的危险状况。“中美国”是美国哈佛大学教授弗格森对“中国生产，美国消费”这种新型经济共同体的称谓，我们把它称之为“殖民经济循环圈”。“中美国”是新自由主义经济改革造成的，后来美国又试图通过中国政治体制改革，把“中美国”由经济领域推向政治领域，实现“中美共治”的新型政治共同体。目前在网络领域，由美国主导的“中美共治”已经形成。除了上述三个方面之外，形成“中美共治”的最主要力量，就是由“黑头发黑眼睛外国人”组成的庞大水军。

Fourthly, “Chimerica” has been extended from the economic domain to the Internet. The online opinion headquarters in the US is now manipulating both Chinese and US Internet opinion. “Chimerica” is a notion conceptualized by Harvard professor Niall Ferguson to describe the new economy of “made in China and consume in the US”. However, we call such a relationship “colonial economic cycle”. “Chimerica” is a result of the neoliberal economic reform, and the US later tries to extend such a relationship from the economic to the political domain to create a polity based on the “co-governance of China and the US”. Now in the Internet domain, the “co-governance of China and the US” led by the US has already been shaped. The major driving force is the large number of online opinion navy [meaning paid opinion leaders] formed by “foreigners who have black hair and black eyes”.

Based on his above analysis, Zhang put forward the following proposal:

第一，对各大门户网站实行本土化管理，或者国有化，或者中国化，收回网站控制权。此前我们多次指出，信息时代，网站是特殊企业，关乎国家安全和国防安全，绝不能像一般企业那样由外资控制或与外资合作经营。目前各大门户网站都在海外上市，可以采取获得控股权或控制权的办法，把各大门户网站变成中国控制的企业。获得控股权是指通过企业外部的股权并购来控制企业；获得控制权是指通过企业内部建立党团组织、工会组织以及员工持股会等，控制企业政治方向。总之，一定要像重视军队那样重视门户网站，把所有权牢牢控制在中国手中。军队不能由外资控制或者与外资合作经营，网站同样不能由外资控制或与外资合资经营。

Firstly, major portal websites have to be governed under domestic policy. Or we can regain the control by nationalization. We have pointed out many times in the past that in the information age, the Internet is a very distinctive business that affects our national and military security. It should not be controlled by foreign controlled capital or run by the foreign capital cooperation model. Now that major portal websites are listed in overseas stock market. We could regain China's holding through merger and acquisition. To regain China's control over the portal sites, we have to set up party branches, labour union branches, and worker stake-holding organizations within the corporations. We have to manage portal websites like our military. The military should not fall into the hands of foreign capital or be managed under the foreign capital-cooperation mode. The same principal should be applied to the Internet.

第二，调整网管队伍，保证网络管理权掌握在马克思主义者和爱国主义官员手中。[…] 此前中国网络舆论导向的问题，实际上是管理部门的问题，是管理部门推行西方普世价值的管理导向决定的，只要网络管理部门能够坚持十八大精神和习近平总书记系列讲话，中国网络就一定能够成为社会主义和爱国主义的舆论阵地。

Secondly, rearrange the Internet administrative team and make sure that the task of Internet governance should be in the hands of those officials who believe in Marxism and patriotism. […] The problem with Chinese online public opinion is caused by the Internet authorities whose decisions are based on western universal values. When Internet management authorities insist and act on Secretary Xi Jinping's speeches and the spirit of the Chinese Communist Party's 18 Congress, the Chinese Internet will gear public opinion towards socialism and patriotism.

第三，发挥中国共产党领导和人民群众监督相结合的政治优势，向各大门户网站派驻工作组和群众监督委员会，形成自上而下和自下而上的双重监督机制，保证网站的爱国主义方向和国家的政治安全、国防安全。

Thirdly, manifest political advantage by combining the communist party's leadership with mass monitoring by setting up working teams and people's monitoring committees in portal websites. So that the monitoring is both top-down and bottom-up. This is to ensure all the portal websites are in alignment with patriotism and serving national, political, and military security proposes.

第四，组建军民相结合的现代网军，形成网络社会的现代国防。网络时代是大众民主的时代，大众民主取代精英民主，是21世纪人类社会发展的根本潮流。[…] 而中国以往的全民皆兵时代和大众民主运动，是我们组建现代网军的天然优势，是新时代群众路线的主要内容，与此相联系的大众政治文明，也是中华民族崛起的历史依据。只要我们真正坚持群众路线，网军时代就是中华民族复兴的时代。

Fourthly, build a modern online army by bringing together the military force and people so as to form a modern defense system of the network society. The age of the Internet is an era of mass democracy and mass democracy should replace elite democracy. This is the developing trend of the 21 century human society. […] In China, the history of everyone being a solider and mass democratic movement has given us the advantage of building the modern online army, which is the substance of massive participation in the new era, towards a civilization of mass politics. This is the historical path of the rise of the Chinese nation. If we stick to the principle of the mass, the era of the online army is the era of the revival of the Chinese nation. [Note: the revival of the Chinese nation is the slogan or the "China dream" of President Xi Jinping's leadership.]

第五，借鉴去年美国和俄罗斯分别制订《爱国法案》和《叛国罪法》的经验，尽快制订与《反分裂法》相适应的《反汉奸法》，恢复宪法中“惩办卖国贼”的相关条款，把党要管网、群众管网与依法治网结合起来，建立保护爱国主义的法治基础。

Fifthly, borrow from the experience of the US and Russia with legislation of “Patriot Act” and “Treason Law“, we should legislate an “anti-Chinese traitor law” which is in the same spirit of the “anti-separation law”. We should restore the clause regarding “punishing the traitors” in our Constitution and set the patriotic legal ground for party, people, and legal governance of the Internet.

The central government's policy towards Internet government is under the so-called “dictator's dilemma”. On the one hand, an open Internet is the essential foundation of the information society and the central government has established its legitimacy by actively responding to online public opinion.

On the other hand, citizens have made use of the Internet to build a consensus for liberal political reform and by doing so, they have put the power of the one-party regime at risk.

'14 Million: Life, Family & Liberty’ Movement Sparks Controversy in Ecuador

Nicki Gorny — Wed, 22 May 2013 23:21:32 +0000

The citizen initiative “14 million- Life, family and liberty”” [es], which opposes the free distribution of the day-after pill and other forms of family planning policy, has caused controversy among Ecuadorians.

Those involved in this initiative say that parents’ right to choose education for their children according to their values and principles has been ignored. They also denounce the intention to introduce laws that threaten the definition of marriage between men and women, changing the word “sex” with “gender” in citizen identification cards.

The group names these and other points in a video [es] inviting citizens to participate in a “great gathering for family, life and liberty.” The gathering took place on May 19, 2013 in the cities of Quito, Santo Domingo y Guayaquil. The YouTube channel Fourteen million [es] shared the video:

On May 18, President Rafael Correa rejected the actions of the “14 million” movement. The newspaper El Tiempo [The Times] [es] published some of Correa's declarations:

“No es verdad, como pretenden hacer creer estos señores, que a un niño de doce años se le regalan anticonceptivos. Esa es una mentira monstruosa” y de “mala fe”, enfatizó Correa, un mandatario de izquierda que también se declara “católico practicante”.

Señaló que el grupo “14 millones”, que es la cifra redonda de habitantes en Ecuador, “no tiene personería (validez) jurídica” y dijo sospechar que detrás de ella “están todos los opositores al Gobierno”.

“It is not true, as these people want to make you believe, that a 12-year-old child will be given birth control. It is a monstrous lie” and in “bad faith,” emphasized Correa, a leftist who describes himself as a “practicing Catholic.”

He stated that the “14 million” group, which refers to the the approximate number of people in Ecuador, “does not have an official, valid status” and said he suspected that “those who oppose the government are behind it.”

Isabel Maria Salazar, national director of the “14 million” movement, said in an interview for the Ecuavisa channel [es] that they are not in favor of or opposed to any political party:

“Nosotros somos una auténtica iniciativa ciudadana donde estamos varones, mujeres, jóvenes. No queremos que esto se vea como una manifestación a favor o en contra de determinadas posiciones políticas, más bien estamos preocupados porque se le ha dejado a la familia de lado en varios proyectos de educación, y también en aquello que corresponde a la salud.”

“We are an authentic citizen initiative in which we are men, women and youth. We do not want to be seen as a manifestation in favor of or against determined political positions, but more so we are worried because family has been left to the side in various education projects and that also relates to health.”

Salazar further showed her rejection of the free distribution of the day-after pill [es] without parental consent, stressing that according to article 29 [es] of the constitution of Ecuador, parents have “the right to choose for their sons and daughters an education in line with their principles, beliefs and teaching methods.”

Days before the gathering, the group released a pamphlet featuring the stamps of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference [es], the Archbishop of Quito [es], the the Pro-Life Action Foundation [es] and others.

However a letter signed by Mateo López, deputy secretary general of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference, later clarified that “the use of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference stamp in '14 million’ movement materials has not been authorized by this conference and appears against its wishes, which were expressly communicated to the organizers.”

Silvia Buendía (@silvidabuendia) [es] shared the image on the “14 million” pamphlet:

@silvitabuendia: Lean todos pic.twitter.com/Um6TmNGYp1 esta es la carta de los 14Millones. Ojo católicos, la firma la Conferencia Episcopal Ecuatoriana

@silvitabuendia [es]: Everyone read pic.twitter.com/Um6TmNGYp1 this letter from 14 million. Look Catholics, the stamp of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference

Then she apologized and shared the letter from the Episcopal Conference:

@silvitabuendia: Me disculpo con la Conferencia Episcopal, ayer me escandalicé d q firmaran la carta d los @14Millones pic.twitter.com/9BPOUXF36j era mentira

@silvitabuendia [es]: Forgive me, Episcopal Conference. Yesterday I was scandalized that you had signed the letter from the @14Millones [14 million] pic.twitter.com/9BPOUXF36j It was a lie.

The citizens that support the initiative -@14millones [es] on Twitter- comment with the hashtags #14millones [14 million] and #19mporlafamilia [19 million for family].

Loli Andrade (@loliandradem) [es] stated her support for the May 19 gathering:

@loliandradem: @14millones HOY defiendo la vida mas q nunca con paz, alegria t amor x la vida y la familia! Soy de gquil pero stoy en Quito y aun asi voy!

@loliandradem [es]: @14millones [14 million] TODAY I defend life more than ever with peace, joy, love, life and family! I'm from Guayaquil but I'm in Quito and I still go!

While Jose D'María (@JoseMatamoros_) [es] wrote about the rights of children:

@JoseMatamoros_: Regresando a Cuenca a exigir los derechos de la familia y los niños #19mporlafamilia #14millones @14Millones

@JoseMatamoros_ [es]: Returning to Cuenca to demand the rights of family and children #19mporlafamilia [19 million for the family] #14millones [14 million] @14Millones [14 million]

Rafael Silva (@_RBSILVA) [es] also showed his support of “14 million:”

@_RBSILVA: Para eso hemos sido entrenados, defenderemos la verdad y no se nos arebatara el fuego q en nuestra sangre esta! @14Millones #19Mporlafamila

@_RBSILVA [es]: For that we have been trained, we will defend the truth and not lose the fire in our blood! @14Millones [14 million] #19Mporlafamila [19 million for family]

However, there also exists opposition to the movement, in part because they chose to call themselves “14 million,” the number of people in Ecuador, and many do not feel represented by the ideas of the group.

Under the hashtag #YoNoSoy14Millones [I am not 14 million] various users separate themselves from those that defend the movement. This includes Jaime Tamariz (@JaimeTamariz) [es]:

@JaimeTamariz: Somos 6.676.120.288 de personas distintas/diversas tratando de encontrar la felicidad en nuestra efímera vida #YoNoSoy14Millones

@JaimeTamariz [es]: We are 6,676,120.288 diverse and different people trying to find happiness in our ephemeral lives #YoNoSoy14Millones [I am not 14 million]

Majito Lasso (@majitolasso) [es], for his part, shared his opinion about being “pro-life:”

@majitolasso: Ojalá se escandalizaran de la violación y el femicidio, no de derechos sexuales y reproductivos. Eso sería provida #yonosoy14millones

@majitolasso [es]: I hope that they're scandalized by rape and female infanticide, not sexual and reproductive rights. That would be pro-life #yonosoy14millones [I am not 14 million]

In a similar manner, Mónica Pazmino (@justmonique1981) [es] wrote:

@justmonique1981: Cuando inculcen [sic] amor y tolerancia hablamos amigos fundamentalistas Provida #YoNoSoy14Millones

@justmonique1981 [es]: When they instill love and tolerance we talk, friends, of fundamental pro-life. #YoNoSoy14Millones [I am not 14 million]

How Big Is Alexey Navalny's Army?

Andrey Tselikov — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:46:33 +0000

Blogger and anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny is often considered the unofficial leader of the Russian opposition. While he has generally been coy about officially assuming such a role, he has indeed recently announced that he would be interested in running for President as an opposition candidate [ru]. But how many people would support him in such an endeavor? How large is the core of his followers? As Navalny's show-trial for lumber embezzlement [GV] continues, such questions are perhaps more important than ever. Here are some data-points which could be used to make a rough approximation:

Social network followers. Navalny is an active user of both LiveJournal [ru] and Tweeter [ru], not so much of Facebook or VKontakte (his Facebook page is essentially an RSS feed of his Livejournal account). On LiveJournal, Russia's most popular blogging platform, he has 73,500 “friends“ [ru] signed up to follow his account. This number can be misleading in two ways. First, it does not include people who do not have LiveJournal accounts but still read his page. Second, it includes a number of followers who do not necessarily agree with his politics or activism, and would not, therefore, actively support him. Other followers could be “bots”, or fake accounts.

Navalny, in the company of his chin. CC 2.0 by Mitya Aleshkovsky. 26 May 2012. Wikimedia Commons.

The same holds true for Twitter, where the proliferation of fake accounts has lead to services like Twitter Audit, which “audits” 5,000 random Twitter followers of an account and determines the likely percentage of these followers that are fake, or bots. In April, 2013 Twtter Audit approximated that out of @navalny's 344,000 total followers, only 134,000 were “real”. While this number is almost twice as high as the number of Navalny's LiveJournal friends, it is subject to similar caveats — these 134,000 aren't necessarily all “supporters.”

Active support: A better way to judge the number of Navalny's die-hard fans is to look at the number of people willing to do something for his anti-corruption causes. For example, according to the Wikipedia page of the RosPil project [ru], over 15,000 people have donated money to the fund tasked with identifying and exposing corrupt government procurement contracts. The number is small, but likely indicative of wider support — for example, only half of one percent of adult Americans donate more than $200 to political campaigns (although the percentage of total giving is presumably higher, $200 is the smallest amount that can be claimed for tax purposes).

Another of Navalny's anti-corruption-related projects is perhaps a more accurate indicator, since it does not involve contributing money. Last month Navalny sounded a call [ru] for people to sign an online petition [ru] he started on Russia's Public Initiative [GV] website. If the petition, which wants to make it illegal for government officials to buy expensive cars using public funds, reaches 100,000 signatures, the Russian parliament will have to review it. A month later, on May 14, Navalny wrote another post, lamenting the fact that the number of signatures had apparently reached an asymptote at 40,000:

Number of signatures (on the right axis) for Navalny's petition as of May 14, 2013. Screenshot.

Navalny blamed this on the difficulties involved in signing the petition (users have to register with the government run GosUslugi (State Services) website in order to vote. If they are registered, they have to know their registration number.) Of course, for the purposes of this exercise, a relatively low-effort barrier to entry is a good indicator of what one might call “active” support. In fact, Navalny himself seemed to be of a similar opinion [ru]:

В связи с этим, мне кажется, помочь собрать оставшиеся 60 тысяч голосов нам могут только 40 тысяч уже проголосовавших человек. [...] Вы зарегистрируете свою жену. Или мужа. Или маму с папой. А лучше жену, маму с папой и бабушку. [...] Короче, каждый из проголосовавших должен привести, как минимум, ещё одного человека и провести личную мини-агиткампанию.

In light of this, I think that only the 40 thousand who already voted can help collect the remaining 60 thousand votes. [...] You will register your wife. Or your husband. Or your mom and dad. And even better, your wife, mom and dad, and grandma. [...] To put it simply, each one of those who voted should bring at a minimum one more person, and hold a personal mini-PR-campaign.

To aid in collecting signatures Navalny's team started a website [ru] which tracks the votes and provides several easy to follow FAQs on what the petition is hoping to achieve, and how to register to vote. A week later, the campaign has added another 8,000 votes, breaking the 50,000 barrier, but appears to be suffering from the same loss of interest as before:

Petition signatures as of May 22, 2013. Screenshot.

It seems safe to say, then, that Alexey Navalny's active supporters number somewhere in the 40 to 50 thousand range. This estimate is particularly convincing when compared to the number of people who voted for him in the Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition elections last fall. There, participants were also faced with a somewhat daunting, but ultimately painless, registration process. The final tally for Navalny was 43,723 votes [ru].

Promises of Social Justice for India's Landless

Andrew Kowalczuk — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:32:18 +0000

As rapid industrialization and development in India snatches up land and livelihoods and the government grapples with a legal framework to deal with the displaced, activist groups such as Ekta Parishad have loudly campaigned on behalf of the landless and homeless.

The group, whose name means “forum of unity” in Hindi, met with Indian Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh on 15 April, 2013 to affirm an earlier agreement the two parties had made in October 2012 after Ekta Parishad staged a massive protest march.

That agreement promised to create a task force to shape reform that would ensure the agricultural land and homestead rights of the landless and the homeless and provide legal aid for the most vulnerable.

India is currently considering a bill that would “provide just and fair compensation to the affected families whose land has been acquired [..] and make adequate provisions for such affected persons,” but but Ekta Parishad is fighting for land rights for those people who do not traditionally own land but whose life and livelihood are highly dependent on it.

The transfer of India's important natural resources to industrial investors, both Indian and foreign, fueled rampant growth in recent years. Local populations, of whom 70 percent still live in rural areas today and who are dependent on natural resources for their survival, were often displaced by land grabs, made without any compensation.

The most impoverished people in India, the Dalits and Adivasis, especially women, are not only forgotten, but are also the main victims of this development.

In February 2013, the National Dalit and Adavasi Women's Congress was cited in a recent blog article by Sujatha Surepally, which also denounces this sad reality:

The hall is echoing with the furious voice of Dayamani Barla, veteran Adivasi activist from Jharkhand. She is trying to unite people against mining in Jharkhand, around 108 mining companies are waiting to destroy Adivasi life in the name of mining, first they come for coal, next they say power houses, it continues, we are pushed out and out further. How do we live without our land? Spectacular speech for an hour, pin drop silence all around, everyone is identifying with her pain and agony. At the end of it, what is she is trying to convey? Humko Jeene Do! Let us live our own life! If this is called development, we care a damn about it!

Marches for Justice

Given the 60 million people who were displaced without compensation between 1947 and 2004, and the 25 million hectares of land requisitioned, activists from Ekta Parishad organized Janadesh - the “people's verdict”, in 2007, which was a month-long march of 25,000 people from the city of Gwalior to the national capital, Delhi, to demand rights for the landless. These videos describe Janadesh [fr] and its Indian and international support [fr]:

These grievances were heard, and resulted in laws such as the “Forest Rights Act“. Subrat Kumar Sahu commented in an online article in April 2010 about the law :

The Bill stated: “For the first time in the history of Indian forests, the state formally admits that, for long, rights have been denied to forest-dwelling people, and the new forest law attempts not only to right that ‘historic injustice’ but also give forest communities’ role primacy in future forest management.” Forest-dependent communities that were being pushed deeper and deeper into what remained of the forests were pleasantly surprised by the passage of FRA 2006, although forest-rights activists were cynical about the state’s intentions. Many called the Bill “a paper tiger”, like so many other pieces of legislation in India.

Despite these progressive laws, few achievements have been effectively realized since they were passed. This led Ekta Parishad and more than 2,000 other organizations to organize in October 2012 the Jan Satyagraha, or the March for Justice, again from Gwalior to Delhi, which was attended by 50,000 people on its first day.

The video below, subtitled in French, “Act or Die,” summarizes the alternatives for these people:

According to the blog Rexistance Inde [fr]:

Difficile de dénombrer les marcheurs, mais il faut compter presque cinq heures pour voir défiler l'ensemble du cortège. (…) Nous traversons (…) quelques villages où les gens accueillent la Marche avec des colliers et des jets de pétales de fleurs jaunes et orange.

It was difficult to count the number of marchers, but it took almost five hours to watch the passing of the entire procession (…) We passed through (…) some villages where people welcomed the March with necklaces of yellow and orange flowers, and by throwing flower petals.

The Jan Satyagraha march passes over the river Chambal, on 6 October, 2012. Photo credit Goran Basic / Ekta Parishad with permission ( sent via email)

Promises to keep

The petitions of 2007, which had focused on landless rural people, were this time expanded to include the homeless, the effective application of laws against poverty, the technical means for such application, and finally, a precise timetable for the fulfillment of these promises. The summation of these demands was written in the 10-point agreement between the marchers and the Indian Government [fr] on 11 October, 2012, and was confirmed by a new meeting between the authorities and the marchers in April 2013.

The blog Rexistance Inde [fr] stated in an article on 31 December, 2012:

Le gouvernement fédéral s'engage à plancher sur une politique de réformes agraires et à faire pression auprès des gouvernements locaux – l'allocation de terres étant leur prérogative – pour permettre aux populations marginalisées de rester sur leurs terres, ou d'en obtenir de nouvelles pour y travailler. Et pour y vivre ! Car l'une des clauses centrales, et nouvelles, de l'engagement consiste à inclure le droit au logement pour chaque famille pauvre et sans terre. [...] Mais Ekta Parishad n'est pas naïf. Au contraire, fort de l'expérience de la Janadesh en 2007 dont le peu de promesses obtenues n'avait pas vraiment été tenues, le mouvement reste vigilant, à tel point qu'il lance dans la foulée de la signature de l'accord un appel à soutien international pour signifier au gouvernement que les “invisibles” ne le lâcheront pas d'une semelle, et que l'œil de la conscience citoyenne veille, partout dans le monde.

The federal government is starting a campaign of agrarian political reforms, and to put pressure on local governments – since the allocation of land is their prerogative – to allow marginalized populations to remain on their land, or to find new land where they can work. And where they can live ! Since one of the new, and central, clauses of the agreement consists of the inclusion of a right to housing for each poor and landless family [...] But Ekta Parishad is not naive. On the contrary, given the experience from Janadesh in 2007, from which few of the promises obtained have truly been kept, the movement remains vigilant. To the point that, in the wake of the signing of the agreement, it launched an appeal for international support, to signal to the government that the “invisibles” will not retreat an inch, and that the eyes of civic consciousness are watching, throughout the world.

The support initiatives, at the Indian, European and international levels, were also redoubled during recent months, to ensure that the agreement will be respected by the Indian government, as stated in a collective letter sent to Minister Jairam Ramesh, thanking him for his actions since the beginning of the year on behalf of the most impoverished, but also encouraging him not to turn back from such a promising path.

Hope and caution

The agreement reached between Ekta Parishad and the Indian government may well represent the promise of a new paradigm for development and distribution of natural resources within India and perhaps elsewhere. On the eve of general elections in India, it is time for mobilization and hope, but equally well for caution.

V. Rajagopal, President of Ekta Parishad, confirmed that the movement intends to make its voice heard clearly during the electoral campaign which is now beginning in India, in an online article on Firstpost India, on 12 April, 2013:

2014 is an election year, and all political parties are drafting their manifestos. And our effort is to make land reform figure prominently in their manifestos. We are talking to different political parties. And keeping the next election in mind, we have come up with a slogan – Aage zameen peeche vote, nahi zameen toh nahi vote (first land, then vote; no land, no vote).

Private Plane Trip Rocks Costa Rican Government

Gabriela García Calderón — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:56:32 +0000

The news [es] that an oil company provided a private plane for President Laura Chinchilla's trip to Peru has rocked the Costa Rican presidency and its structure of contributors.

Originally the purpose of the trip was to attend the wedding of Vice President Luis Liberman's son. However, to make the most out of the trip, an appointment with Peruvian President Ollanta Humala was set.

As communicated by the Presidency communications manager, the meeting with President Humala was scheduled before the trip to address Costa Rica's chances to join the Pacific Alliance and to talk about a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) ratified last April.

Later it was made public that President Chinchilla had also used that same plane to attend President Hugo Chávez's funeral in Venezuela.

Although many frowned upon the fact that a private company provided a plane for the President's trip to Peru, on May 15 another issue was added to the news: the company that lent the airplane [es] is connected to a businessman questioned for drug trafficking in Colombia. The businessman, Gabriel Morales Fallón, was part of the board of Thorneloe Energy, today known as THX.

According to publications on Semana [es] and El Tiempo [es] in Colombia, Morales has been investigated for his links with a drug dealer known as “Chupeta”.

Francisco Chacón, until then Costa Rican Minister of Communication, noted [es] that they believed that Gabriel Morales’ mother's last name was Olafán and not Fallón, and they alleged being misled. It was later confirmed that the businessman had changed his name.

The President didn't take long to issue a response. During a national broadcast she announced some of the government's corrective measures:

The President mentioned two important points during her televised speech: “The management and acceptance by the Presidency were careless, without all necessary procedures and controls to assure integrity and safety”, and goes on to say: “The omissions were particularly serious regarding national security and protection to the President of the Republic. Furthermore, it could endanger the country's solid international image, that has always fought drug trafficking and organized crime”.

“We shall never forget this lesson, it's a hard one”, said the President at the end of the national television broadcast.

As a result, two government officials resigned from their positions: Communication Minister Francisco Chacon, and the head of the Direction of Intelligence and Safety Mauricio Boraschi.

Cristian Cambronero (@cambronero) [es] said on his Twitter account:

@cambronero Vuelo de la presidenta Laura Chinchilla acaba con la caída de su hombre fuerte.

@cambronero [es] President Laura Chinchilla's flight ends up with the fall of her strongman.

The President's long time personal assistant, Ms. Irene Pacheco, has also left her position.

Laura Chinchilla said that Boraschi and Pacheco didn't do their duty [es] in verifying the origin of the plane.

President Chinchilla (@Laura_Ch) [es] added on her Twitter account:

@Laura_Ch He aceptado renuncia de 2 funcionarios, entre ellos Comisionado Antidrogas quien libró valiente lucha antidrogas pero descuidó mi seguridad.

@Laura_Ch [es]: I've accepted the resignation of two government officials, including the Anti-drugs Commissioner, who fought drugs bravely but neglected my security.

The government has been weakened and the President's circle of trusted officials has been reduced after this episode. Furthermore, the flaws in security have shown the deficiencies in the national security service.

The Republic's General Attorney and the public prosecutor have initiated separate investigations [es] about the trip in the private plane, about the government's relationship with the questioned company, and about the failure to comply with obligations.

Picture of Ollanta Humala and Laura Chinchilla by Flickr user Presidencia Perú, taken on May 13, 2013 (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Free Speech and South Korea's Child Porn Law

Lee Yoo Eun — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:48:05 +0000

A DeviantART website user wrote how South Korea's Children and Youth Protection law, that cracks down on child porn, can greatly undermine freedom of expression. Rough English translation appears in the latter half of the post. (There soon will be a detailed GV post on this issue)

Video: Mapping North Korea

Lee Yoo Eun — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:29:51 +0000

Several months earlier, Google debuted its new crowd-sourced map of one of the most reclusive countries in the world, North Korea. Martyn Williams shared a video on his Youtube channel where Google Maps’ vice president talks about mapping North Korea.