Tenía puestos mis zapatos negros, vamos, todos saben que cuando los llevo es porque romperé alguna puerta. Ese día sería para rescatar a una niña de once años y a su hermana de quince de uno de los más grandes prostíbulos de la ciudad.

He shares his day's plans with some of his fellow law-enforcing colleagues:

A los hombres les gustan tiernas, dice uno de los policías. Me cuenta que el otro día fue hacia Retalhuleu una ciudad del interior del país. Allí entró a un sitio donde fue a rescatar a mujeres encadenadas en las camas, donde las obligaban a coger con los clientes. Estaban todas flacas, me dice. Me daban tanta tristeza, no comían, amarradas, con sus trajes típicos a los camastros. Pero qué se puede esperar de esos lugares, si hay algunos donde subastan vírgenes los primeros viernes de cada mes.

In order to get the search warrant, Prado needs to get in line to see the judge to explain the situation. While standing in line, he observes some of the unfortunate circumstances of victims:

Al llegar, una enorme fila de gente me espera. Me dispongo a aguardar por mi turno, para hablar con el juez y explicarle que necesitamos entrar al bar. Delante de mí, una señora luce todavía golpeada. Reparte su tiempo entre llorar y mecer a su hijo de brazos, mientras otra niña pequeña se prende de su pierna. Quisiera fumar. Quisiera encender un cigarro y apagármelo en el brazo izquierdo y despertar de una maldita vez.

Oigo que la mujer ha sido golpeada por su marido. Atrás siguen una muchacha con sus padres. La abusaron. Recuerdo que es fin de mes. Que acaba de pasar un fin de semana largo.

These stories have taken a toll on the lawyer:

Permanezco sin hablar. Cuando trabajas con el dolor ajeno, te empiezas a vaciar por dentro. Le dejas espacio al dolor, le permites habitarte. A mí me llena el dolor de doce niños abusados y veintidós niñas prostituidas. Son los casos que llevo investigados con solución. Los otros no me habitan, me succionan.

When he finally reaches the judge to request the search warrant, he is granted the order. However, he is disgusted by the comments made by the judge:

Me dice que me permitirá entrar.

Ya de pie, me despido y abro la puerta. Antes de salir, el juez me dice: “ese lugar es lindo, hay buenas muchachas allí. Si encuentra algún amigo mío dentro, ahí se lo encargo”. Se ríe.

Trato de sonreír pero más bien me sale una mueca de asco.

As he leaves, he is reminded of the stark reality of these types of cases:

Afuera, la señora golpeada, calma a su hijo de brazos y la muchacha abusada llora con su madre.

Es su turno de hablar con el juez. Les toca explicarle su dolor. Mientras que para mí, al salir a la calle, una invasión de aire, humo y ruido me recuerdan que es lunes. Un día cualquiera, que se repetirá hasta la saciedad.

Subo al auto y voy por las niñas. Sé que hoy tampoco podré dormir.

On December 2, the Russian bloggers actively discussed allegations that a large population of Saratov had been infected with H1N1 virus. The rumors said that authorities concealed many fatalities caused by the swine flu and the whole city was about to be closed for quarantine [RUS]. Later, people started talking about alleged cases of pneumonic plague blaming them on a local “anti-plague” research institute.  The situation became so serious that Saratov Governor Pavel Ipatov [ENG] interrupted his visit to Belarus and returned to the city to deal with public outcry.

Citing a post from a Russian social news Web site, Ivan Peregorodiev, aka lj-user iperegorodiev (his account is currently suspended), challenged an official statement that dismissed any possibility of pneumonic plague:

Turns out we may have a plague. “The results of the autopsy of people that died of swine flu - that became publicly available - caused panic. According to witnesses, the results of lung destruction resembled the cases of pneumonic plague described in medical literature.” (http://smi2.ru/saratoff/c243648) [RUS] Do our authorities tell the truth when they dismiss this information? Today they plan to spray disinfectant solution against pneumonic plague from helicopters… P.S. And here is another one http://www.epidemiolog.ru/prof/index.php?SECTION_ID=&ELEMENT_ID=3868 [RUS]

He followed up with another post just hours after the first one:

What is going on?

Gentlemen, here is the latest news from an epidemic station: helicopters are loaded with disinfectant solution. P.S. Plots of American movies about the Apocalypse become reality.

The city officials denied any rumors about the plague but confirmed 17 fatal cases of swine flu. The authorities also admitted that city hospitals were overcrowded and Saratov's budget did not have enough money to purchase H1N1 vaccine.

Some bloggers [RUS] found Peregorodiev's message similar to the one that escalated the swine flu panic in Ukraine a month ago. Like in the case with Saratov, the rumors in Ukraine also had “helicopters spraying disinfectant solution.”

The Saratov Prosecutor's Office quickly announced [RUS] its plans to find disseminators of the rumors and Ivan Peregorodiev became the first to be arrested. He was accused of transmitting a “deliberately false information related to an act of terrorism” (Article 207 of the Russian Criminal Code). The Prosecutor's Office did not explain how the information in Peregorodiev's blog posts and the pneumonic plague rumors were related to any act of terrorism.

The Institute for Collective Action, a Russian non-profit organization, started a campaign [RUS]  to free Peregorodiev. Activists argue that, by questioning an official statement of Saratov officials,  the blogger was exercising his right to the freedom of speech.

According to climate change skeptics, the emails supposedly offer evidence that scientists manipulated data to match predictions of temperature changes made by computers. The scandal has already become popularly known as “Climategate” although many scientists and bloggers insist it appears to be a case of attempted political manipulation.

Documents hacked

The emails and documents have been posted on a Russian server, and continue to be shared on many websites and over the P2P networks.

Robert Graham, a specialist in computer security, issued, on his website Errata Security, attempted a few assumptions about the hacker:

The data is oddly specific. Only Phil Jones e-mails were copied, and a lot of the data that was hacked is specific to certain climate controversies. If it was not an insider, it was certainly somebody familiar with the central debate about reproducibility of climate reconstructions. The fact that they posted the data to an anonymous FTP site in Russia also points to somebody who is active in the hacking community. This narrows things down. I suspect that at the end of the data, they'll find some sort of computer administrator working for CRU.

The CRU quickly acknowledged the theft and the authenticity of documents, through the voice of its director Phil Jones, one of the main participants in the scandal.

“Mike's Nature trick”

The climate change skeptics have seized on Climategate as evidence that there is room for doubt about the reality of global warming. Several blogs and news websites have linked to the “suspicious” emails. An email from Phil Jones got the full treatment on several blogs and news websites for mentioning something called “Mike's Nature trick” that refers to a “trick” used by Michael Mann to “mask a decline” (instead of an expected rise) in temperature. “Did they invent the numbers?” asks Sophie Verney-Caillat on Rue89.com [fr].

Skeptics have their answer. Jean S, on the website ClimateAudit, shows graphs from several different sources that help illustrate claims of data manipulation.

A coordinated manipulation

Lubos Motl Pilsen, who describes himself as a “conservative physicist” on his blog The Reference Frame, says he read through the files and emails thoroughly. He sees evidence that scientist not only invented data, but also manipulated stakeholders. He found a file “explaining 20 recommendations for a good propagandist”, on how to “use emotions”, the necessity to “connect alarm with ‘home' not with ‘faraway regions', and so on”. Additionally, he writes, “the climate scientists also synchronize their efforts to block certain papers from being published, or even eliminate a journal (Climate Research) from a de facto list of peer-reviewed journals”.

This plot to discredit climate change science has been enabled by mainstream media, according to bloggers who reprimand their stance. Vincent Bénard, on his blog Objectif Liberté (Destination Freedom), describes [fr] how (french) media failed to follow-up:

Par contre, il est tout à fait regrettable que les médias, et notamment les médias hexagonaux, adoptent sur ces questions, de façon quasi pavlovienne, la thèse des chercheurs du GIEC. Ils adoptent de ce fait une posture purement idéologique et oublient toutes les bases du journalisme sérieux: vérification de l'authenticité (faite par le New York Times et ses pairs anglo-américains), analyse, recoupements, et conclusions. Nos journalistes environnementaux écrivent d'abord la conclusion, puis l'habillent d'analyses à l'emporte pièce, en tenant pour acquis un seul point de vue et en dénigrant par avance toute opposition.

Image from vadlo.com

“Much Ado About Nothing”?

UEA and CRU have refuted the charges that any of their data is false. In an article posted on the website of the university, they state that 95% of climatic data collected has been published. According to them, “… there is nothing in the material stolen which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation.”

According to ClimateChange, a group blog by American and European scientists, the plot the skeptics claim to have unveiled is nowhere to be found:

There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP', no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders' from our socialist / communist / vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Concerning the Mike's Nature trick, they state that's all about vocabulary :

Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all.

The Newtongate

The blog Carbon Fixated, dedicated to photosynthesis and climate change, dismissed the plot with humour. He imagined what would happen if letters from Newton to other scientists had been made public:

If you own any shares in companies that produce reflecting telescopes, use differential and integral calculus, or rely on the laws of motion, [you] should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the calculus myth has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after volumes of Newton’s private correspondence were compiled and published.

Transparency

It is unclear what impact Climategate will have on the Copenhagen summit, but we can hope it may at least have had a positive effect of encouraging transparent debate, as suggested by the famous American physicist Richard Feynman in 1974:

It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty – a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid–not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked – to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.”

In this post, we will examine some more ICT based tools and applications in the arena of early warning systems to help reduce damage to life and property in natural disasters across the globe.

Esther Nakkazi, writes in her Ugandan ScieGirl blog:

Research done with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has proven that an investment of [every] $1 in ICTs used for disaster management through monitoring and response could save $14- $22 for rehabilitation after the disaster.

Some of the key challenges in the path of early disaster prediction and warning are that of data collection, analysis and dissemination. Remote sensing and GIS capabilities through seismographic networks, deep ocean sensors, and satellite based systems, are being focused on by governments to meet these challenges and develop effective early warning systems as in the case of the various Tsunami Warning Systems across the globe.

Wilbur K. Ottichilo writes in Agritech Kenya about Africa's use of satellite based technology in the area of disaster warning:

In the last six years, RCMRD (Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development) has been at the forefront of promoting remote sensing and GIS in Africa, collaborating with NASA to establish a satellite-based disaster early warning system known as SERVIR for Africa. SERVIR provides real-time information on many disasters, including droughts. The information is made freely available on the Internet.

Many other organisations and institutions in Africa are now also providing satellite data and information for drought and disaster management, including the InterGovernmental Authority on Development’s Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC), in East Africa, the Southern African Development Community, and AGRIMET in West Africa.

Chanuka Wattegama writes in an e-primer for the United Nations Development Programme “ICT and disaster management” [pdf]:

The first important steps towards reducing disaster impact are to correctly analyse the potential risk and identify measures that can prevent, mitigate or prepare for emergencies. ICT can play a significant role in highlighting risk areas, vulnerabilities and potentially affected populations by producing geographically referenced analysis through, for example, a geographic information system (GIS). The importance of timely disaster warning in mitigating negative impacts can never be underestimated.

Navigation and mapping tools such as GPS, Google Earth, and Google Maps are therefore increasingly becoming indispensable in designing effective Disaster Management Systems. According to John Hanke, the Director of Google Earth and Maps, these applications proved their mettle during the days of Hurricane Katrina:

Over several long nights, the teams from Google Earth and Google Maps created satellite imagery overlays of the devastation in the affected region, which showed more accurately the scope of the disaster. Soon after, we were told that rescue workers and the U.S. Air Force were using Google Earth to find people who were stranded.

Given the high penetration of mobile phones across the globe, use of mobile alerts through bulk SMS cell broadcasting, to send out early warnings to the communities at risk, is increasingly becoming a mainstay of an effective disaster management system. Growing importance of open-source applications such as FrontlineSMS, RapidSMS is likely in the near future.

Governments of various countries too are now including mobile alerts in their kitty of early public warning systems. For example, the Bangladeshi authorities are currently trialling a text message disaster alert service which will enable them to warn the public (mobile phone subscribers) of impending natural disasters, such as floods and cyclones. SMS based services are also coming in handy for aid organisations in the arena of disaster response and/or mitigation. For example, post-tsunami, the Sri Lankan government used SMS services to inform people of locations from where aid was being distributed.

In her article “Mobile Cell Broadcasting for Commercial Use and Public Warning in the Maldives” Natasha Udu-Gama explains the benefits of cell broadcasting in the context of the disaster-prone Maldives [pdf]:

The use of cell broadcasting for public warning in the Maldives has gained more attention, since the unique characteristics of the country appear to complement this technology. An island nation composed of groups of 26 atolls of about 1,192 islets of which 250 islands are inhabited, it is crucial that a public warning system be able to reach all of the inhabited islands scattered within the Maldives.

In the following video by MobileActive08, Robert Kirkpatrick of inSTEDD.org, Erik Hersman of Ushahidi, and Christopher Fabian of UNICEF discuss the role of mobile media in crisis and disaster relief.

“Can Telecenters become Disaster Early Warning Centers?” asks Sameera Wijerathna, an ICT4D Activist in Sri Lanka, in this post. His answer - both yes and no.

Yes, it can be. Telecentre is a place rich with ICT.
No, it is too much to expect from a Telecentre.
Most of the telecentres are located in rural areas; most of those areas are prone to disasters, natural or man-maid. Telecentres located in those areas but still with ICT facilities telephone, internet, fax, etc. can receive a message from a central disaster early warning centre. So if we have a simple mechanism to disseminate that information, maybe using megaphones we can convert a Telecentre to Early Warning Centre in the village. Even after the disaster occurred, that Telecentre can continue a play a role of coordinating the relief work, impact assessment, finding missing people

Updates on Social Networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter can also act as warning systems. Twitter has already proved its utility in the arena of breaking news, including early information on natural disasters. Yet, there are some concerns regarding the reliability of tweets as a formal early warning system by government authorities.

Mark Prutsalis at Living Prepared Blog in New York expresses his concern over government agencies using Twitter as an emergency notification service.

No government agency should be using Twitter as an emergency notification service. That would be irresponsible… Twitter is not reliable enough for any government agency to use as an “emergency notification service” (or for an individual to use the sole means to be notified). Those government agencies who choose to tweet emergency event information should only be doing so in addition to a formal alert & warning system that they control the infrastructure for – or is under the control of a commercial company who has been contracted to provide such services with a guaranteed service level agreement in place.

On Conflict Early Warning and Early Response, Patrick Meier discusses an ecosystem based approach to effective early disaster warning and response that will allow for self-organized “P2P capacity building”. Moving on to a global perspective of this very ecosystem, he wonders about the possibilities of connecting the various early warning platforms and information sources available today to form a super-system GSS (Global System of Systems) as depicted below:

Global System of Systems (GSS)

Could this indeed be the future path for global early warning systems? Meier offers some food for thought:

What if we connected these various organisms to catalyze a super organism? A Global System of Systems (GSS)? Would the whole—a global system of systems for crisis mapping and early warning—be greater than the sum of its parts?
[…]
Can such a global Info Web be catalyzed? The question hinges on several factors the most important of which are probably awareness and impact. The more these individual organisms know about each other, the better picture they will have of the potential synergies between their efforts and then find incentives to collaborate.

Dubbed now as the Maguindanao or Ampatuan Massacre, (after the town where the mass graves were found), it has gained so much international attention, it now has its own page on WikiPedia:

It occurred on the morning of November 23, 2009, in the town of Ampatuan in Maguindanao province, on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. The victims were about to file a certificate of candidacy for Esmael Mangudadatu, vice mayor of Buluan town. Mangudadatu was challenging Datu Unsay mayor Andal Ampatuan, Jr., son of the incumbent Maguindanao governor Datu Andal Ampatuan Sr., in the forthcoming Maguindanao gubernatorial election,[1] part of the national elections in 2010. Those killed included Mangudadatu's wife, his two sisters, lawyers, aides, and motorists who were witnesses or were mistakenly identified as part of the convoy.

Bloggers and netizens, primarily from the Philippines were quick to express their reactions, most of which are condemnations and protests, through the various social networking sites. Here's a quick sampling first from bloggers;

Ms Noemi writes at BlogWatch, condemns the brutal massacre but remains hopeful that justice will be served:

It is my hope that our government has the political will to arrest and punish the perpetuators of this massacre. This should not happen again. The people responsible for the massacre must be held accountable. The Arroyo administration must not protect nor tolerate this even if they are allies. All presidential candidates should make it their platform to implement the justice system in these areas of Mindanao so rido is not resorted to anymore.

Dine Racoma laments that Christmas this year will be unlike the other ones, thanks to this tragedy:

It was only last Thursday that the main perpetrator was arrested (and he continues to claim that he turned himself in—not arrested), without handcuffs as what policemen do to an ordinary citizen who is accused of robbery. What is robbery compared to a carnage of innocent men and women.

And now, look at the effect of this to my family. Everyday since that day, when we watch the news, read the papers, and get updates from the Internet or from text messages, we all feel the heaviness of heart, the sadness and cry in between.

Now, my children don’t look forward to celebrating Christmas the happy way. Yes, we will celebrate Christmas, going to Church, thanking the good Lord for the blessings that have come our way, the challenges, too, and those that will come our way.

This year is different—there have been calamities the past years in the country and many parts of the world, which have claimed lives and properties, but not this way.

Once more, Twitter has played host to a whole new body of reactions to the Maguindanao massacre:

rvmitra The #Maguindanaomassacre showed us that the election, which we have fought to restore, has now become a game that cn b won by power & money.

yolynne The gov't. shld be given an ultimatum, what kind of fact finding body do they have? The week should not end like this! #maguindanaomassacre

acquaeouslove I hope all the murderers burn not just in hell but also literally! The magnitude of their sins has ensured them hell~! #maguindanaomassacre
5 days ago from web

acquaeouslove #maguindanaomassacre just shows the filth in politics and the greed of the human psyche~ it's always money that gets them..

Aside from grabbing the local news headlines, the Maguindanao Massacre has picked up the attention of the international media, various foreign governments and international groups representing human rights, lawyers and journalists. Tonyo Cruz has a comprehensive list of their reactions and statements with more to come.

Jovir recounts that this act of barbarism is proof that indeed, the Philippines has become the most dangerous place for journalists:

This blow to Press Freedom in the country brings the tally to 134 deaths of media men murdered since the tug of war for democracy in 1986 with a lot of cases still unsolved with deaths blamed on political warlords who control the police and the justice arm within their realms- all hell bent to preserve their seats and are useful for political patrons as they bring in “the votes” for political parties. In the Arroyo administration alone, the number is already 74 and rising…?

When news broke out of the massacre- the whole world was virtually shocked and a lot of protests and condemnations issued, candles lit and protest rallies staged in honor of the lives lost in what's been dubbed as the worst attack in the world against media practitioners.

Unprecedented as it may seem, this reputation is a stern reflection that needs immediate action not only for the ones in power but for everyone… unless of course everyone is contented to live with shame…

Lastly, here's an interesting analogy put forward by Ryan Ericson Canlas which he opines that the Maguindanao Massacre is a repeat of the Escalante Massacre which took place on September 20, 1985 in Escalante City, Negros Occidental, Philippines where para-military forces of the government gunned down civilians engaged in a protest-rally in commemoration of the 13th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law.

Whether history repeats itself or we repeat history is a matter for a different debate. For now, the talk is about getting justice for the victims and peace for Mindanao. A debate in which once more, social media is helping to facilitate.

Brazilian society has started to engage in debate. The discussion of the bill is informally open to the public on a web-based text annotation website. There is also the Brazilian Forum for the Right of Access to Public Information, and the Information is Your Right! campaign, whose aim is to spread the right of access to public information and mobilize people and organizations to lobby legislators to approve the bill. This campaign has invited the population to write to members of parliament suggesting ways to improve the bill. There are still some issues that must be addressed to bring the law fully into line with international standards, according to Article 19.

The blogosphere has joined forces. Pedro Valente [pt] translates into Portuguese the eight Open Government Data Principles, a set of fundamental principles for open government data by the US Open Government Working Group, and believes that, in Brazil, these principles should be enforced:

Toda entidade pública que gera dados de interesse público deveria liberá-los seguindo os princípios acima. Simples assim. Não importa de onde elas são.

And people have started to hack their way towards enforcing long awaited transparency: a collaborative task force has been created to develop small applications based on open technologies, government information and public data. The first Transparência [Transparency] Hackday, “two days for hacking into Brazilian politics”, was launched in São Paulo at the beginning of October, and the last camp took place this week, on December 1st  and 2nd, in the capital Brasília [pt]. Organized by journalists Daniela Silva and Pedro Markun [both pt], the event has free entry and is an opportunity for software developers, journalists and researchers to gather together to find ways to “scrape” data from official websites and create applications that bring transparency and participation to the political processes. From the first meeting, a small but important victory may be celebrated [pt]:

Na trilha de discussões do Transparência HackDay, o Grupo de Apoio Técnico à Inovação da Secretaria de Gestão Pública do Estado de São Paulo apresentou o projeto Governo Aberto, um portal de acesso a algumas bases de dados públicos do governo do estado, que serão disponibilizadas em formatos abertos e processáveis por máquina. O objetivo é permitir que a sociedade use essas bases em mashups, criando novas formas de participação política na web.

Por conta de uma demanda apresentada pelos participantes do evento, o Gati agora está abrindo as regras de acesso ao site Governo Aberto para serem discutidas na rede. Além delas, também a minuta de um decreto (que deverá assinado pelo governador José Serra, legitimando e dando mais sustentabilidade à iniciativa) foi colocada em discussão.

Essa é uma chance muito importante de influenciarmos a maneira que o governo de São Paulo vai passar a liberar suas informações na rede – num projeto que é pioneiro e que tem potencial para ser referência para outros governos no Brasil.

Transparency HackDay in São Paulo, photo by Alexandre Fugita used under a Creative Commons license.

The fight has just started, after years of advocacy work by the civil society and pro-freedom of expression, and free access to public information, organizations, among which is Transparencia Brasil [pt]. The director of the organization Claudio Weber Abramo [pt] argues that despite the great importance of monitoring the government, the proceedings at the National Congress will not be an easy task, due to the  interests of various politicians to suppress information. He reports on a recent public hearing:

Ninguém se opôs à necessidade da regulamentação.

Isso não significa que não haja oposição. A questão é que, num assunto como esse, ninguém que se oponha vem a público para exprimir a opinião. Pegaria muito mal.

Conforme este que escreve frisou, a oposição à regulamentação será significativa no plenário das duas Casas do Congresso, e incidirá sobre a sua abrangência.

Explico: o projeto abrange os três poderes e as três esferas.

Os parlamentares provavelmente não se oporão a regulamentar o acesso a informação na esfera federal. Raciocinarão que o governo, o Jucidiário e o legislativo federais já estão bem lançados no sentido de abrir informações que detêm e que, de toda maneira, o problema não é com eles, deputados e senadores.

A coisa muda de figura quando se trata das esferas estadual e municipal.

Os últimos interessados em abrir informações sobre o gerenciamento do poder público nos estados e municípios são os deputados e senadores. Os interesses políticos de todos eles estão nos estados e nos municípios. Não é descabido imaginar que a grande maioria tem interesse em esconder informações em suas bases eleitorais, e não abri-las.

Essa é a principal pedra no caminho da tramitação desse projeto.

"Information is a right of yours. You need to know". Information is Your Right! campaign logo.

The Right to Information is more than just an administrative governance reform. It is a fundamental human right. There is no democracy without a  right to information – not just freedom of information, but the right to it. It is paramount that “Brazilian citizens are convinced that they have the right to information and officials are convinced that they have the obligation [to provide it]”, as noted by Maria Marvan during the Public Debate on the Proposed Law last April.

For more detail on the South American context, also check: The Right to Information in Latin America: A Comparative Legal Survey, by UNESCO.

According to the Center for Bhutan Studies, the aim of the fifth GNH conference was to bring together policy makers, civil society, intellectuals and academics and explore issues pertaining to development.

Happy Faces From Bhutan. Image by Flickr user laihiu and used under a creative commons license

Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the 4th King of Bhutan first coined the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) when he was barely in his 20’s. As King of a small and poor country, he sought the unconventional path to development by focusing on the quality and happiness of his people rather than GDP/GNP as the ultimate goal.

The first conference was held in Bhutan in 2004, the second one in Nova Scotia, Canada in 2005, the third in Thailand in 2007, and the fourth was in Bhutan in 2008.

The 4 pillars of GNH include socio-economic development, preservation of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment and establishment of good governance. And these include many indicators like psychological well being, health, education, living standards etc.

The premise of such a philosophy is more or less embedded in E. F Schumacher’s 1973 revolutionary book, “Small is Beautiful; Economics as if People Mattered,” and something he called “Buddhist Economics.”

But as the world tries to grasp onto the idea of whether GNH can work or whether it is just a fuzzy notion, Bhutan – the country where the concept first originated – has been asking whether GNH has run ahead of itself.

The debate started when the Bhutanese Prime Minister returned from the conference last week and said that GNH has spread so fast that it is being taken more seriously in places other than Bhutan, its country of origin, and that the country is falling behind.

The leader of the opposition in Bhutanese parliament, Tshering Tobgay, avidly retorted on his blog:

“Very good. Our government now understands what the common man has long known: namely that, to increase happiness levels, we need is less talk and more action.”

Invisible, a reader, commented on his post:

“I strongly disagree with our Lyonchhen and say that, “Bhutan is not lagging behind in GNH.” Bhutanese Society is GNH Society. GNH is in our “values” and in our “thinking.”

And Tangba, another reader, commented:

“The fact is GNH was there since long time back and all the civilized nations had been implementing it for centuries. The only difference is that they didn’t call it GNH as we do. They called it by other collective names: quality education, good health care, clean environment, nature and wildlife conservation, preservation of culture and traditions, strong economy, freedom of speech, corruption free administration, human rights and so on. Then why are we making a big fuss about it?”

Meanwhile Rubiks at Kuzu-Bhutan Weblog begged to differ:

Some people may ask, “why all this fuss against GNH now?” Well! I say this – it has become incredibly difficult to have a meaningful debate about anything without someone dragging the term “GNH” into it…I am tired of this cliché.

…I know I am living in a real world and not some fairy tale world. In order to measure happiness, we need to have a very clear understanding about happiness. Happiness is a state of mind, which is not constant. Philosophers have been trying to define “mind” for centuries, yet they are still left with the same fundamental question – what is mind? Happiness is a subjective entity hence to measure it objectively is just a fallacy.

Awakened fellow, a commenter on the above post, countered:

“Nobody says that Bhutan has achieved GNH. We all accept that there is much to strive for even to reach near GNH. But that doesn't mean that GNH is crap.

GNH is a broad idea. It is a guide and inspiration - not a rule, solution or a prescription. Yes, we have many problems and we are far from GNH. But, even just having GNH as our guide, and striving for it is a big thing.”

But Unagi agreed in another post on Kuzu-Bhutan Weblog:

“GNH does not mean having a Land Cruiser and living in a comfortable Duplex and getting a degree from the U.S. BUT what is GNH is the fact that every one is happy because they have the basic NEEDS.

GNH is a mutual benefit philosophy and you should share the unhappiness of those fellow citizens who are apparently NOT happy because their children are walking for hours to get to school, because they don't have enough food to survive and they definitely cannot worry about a Land Cruiser, believe me.
GNH is beautiful, I accept that but what I'm saying is…for GNH money is essential and for GNH to be ACHIEVED, resources need to be SHARED equally among everyone. Not some owning Land Cruisers and other not even being able to afford taxis. That is when MONEY comes into play for happiness.”

Some bloggers like Sonam Tshering argued that giving GNH a formal threshold had, instead, made it worse for the commoner:

“In 2004, the Centre for Bhutan Studies for the first time organized an international conference on Operationalizing of Gross National Happiness. Subsequently, the centre organized similar international conferences in Canada, Thailand and this year is Brazil. Since then, the concept of GNH has grown beyond the comprehension of the common people.

Now the question that remains is how it can be applied in the ground realities of the common people. The concept has grown too high, most common people today feel that GNH is only for the experts and high level officials.”

The Bhutanese Prime Minister put the onus on the individuals to make it happen:

“It [a government] must try to create the right conditions, but the individual himself and herself must pursue happiness.”

As the debate rages on, it seems – at least – that they inadvertently agreed one thing: that Bhutan needed to work on GNH at home, rather than letting international academics seek definition and run away with the idea. So far, however, Bhutan has been pretty successful in selling it. This summer the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy also wanted to measure his country’s economic progress through GNH (the proposal was later rejected). Now the challenge remains to bring the concept home to roost.

Political parties and non-governmental organisations used a number of social media tools to campaign, monitor and report on Namibia Elections 2009.

The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) used Ushahidi to monitor the elections. Ushahidi, which means testimony in Kiswahili, was a tool created in the aftermath of disputed Kenya's elections in 2007. Ushahidi collected eyewitness reports of violence placed them on a map.

NSHR used Ushahidi to collect reports about fraud, undue influence, intimidation, violence, etc. Reports were sent in three ways: SMS, email and filling a form on the website.

Pre-election violence reported on Ushahidi:

Last Friday evening between 20hoo and 21hoo in Eveline Street in the Goreangab suburb of Windhoek, fighting started between a group of 15 Swapo party and 7 RDP supporters after the former singing ‘We are Nujoma's soldiers' removed a RDP poster from a municipal light pole. Members of the Wanaheda Police precinct rapidly intervened and no further incident occured that evening.

The African Elections Project uses new media to monitor and report on elections in African countries. The project set up a Namibia page, a blog and Twitter page to keep track of elections news and results.

From African Elections Twitter page:

This is day 3 of verification process, The Electoral Commission has received 40% of results and 30% have been verified #namibiaelections2009
about 12 hours ago from web
Retweeted by 1 person

Elections results on its blog:

Below are confirmed results of Namibia Elections 2009 (Presidential and National Assembly) from different constituncies:

Confirmed constituency result for Tsumeb, in Oshikoto:
Beukes
9
Garoeb
352
Goagose
9
Hamutenya
1131
….

Election Watch is a project of the Institute for Public Policy Research. Election Watch has a blog of live election results.

Claims of irregularities:

The RDP and several other opposition parties held a press conference on Saturday afternoon alleging a string of irregularities including indelible ink that didn't work, ballot papers that did not have the official stamp, and the ever-changing voters register (of which there is a new version with yet another figure for the number of registered voters).

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) also used social networks such as Facebook to allow people from all over the world to express their views and opinions about Namibian elections.

The ruling party, SWAPO, has a channel on YouTube, a blog and an SMS service, which will enables members to keep in touch with the party. The number for the SMS line is 79276.

The opposition DTA of Namibia has a Youtube channel and a page of Facebook.

The main opposition party, RDP, is also on YouTube

Social media has not become popular in Namibia as in other African countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Tanzania. We will keep our eyes on Namibia to see the future of social media in the country.

What is so special about these protests is the fact that they have not been centrally coordinated by student unions but have been organized entirely bottom-up, with the help of online social media.

It all started in Vienna, Austria on October 22, when a small group of students met for a flashmob in the city center to protest, and then headed to University of Vienna where they spontaneously occupied the Auditorium Maximum. By the time police arrived, the news of the occupation had already circulated on Twitter, mobilizing so many supporters it was impossible to clear the hall.

Unsereuni website

A 24h webcast from the Auditorium Maximum was put in place. Organizational tasks from cooking to cleaning were structured via a wiki, and a website communicated with the public. Twitter, blogs and Facebook (32,400 fans so far) were used to spread the word.

This had two effects:

- For the first time protests of this scale did not need the support of mass media for mobilization. Within less than a week after the beginning of the protests more than 20,000 demonstrators roamed the streets of Vienna, preceding any mass media coverage. Media contacts were limited to a bare minimum (which produced much confusion). Students simply didn‘t need the media and since the protests lacked hierarchy, there was a shortage of spokespersons.

- Second, because everyone could follow what was going on inside the Auditorium Maximum (the webcast produced half a million views within one month) it kept the tabloid press from labeling the protesters as rioters or extremists. Too many people knew it wasn‘t true. The power of opinion-making had shifted.

Soon the protests infected other university cities in Austria and abroad: Today, less than a month and a half after the first protests, almost 100 universities in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Albania, Serbia, France, Italy, Croatia and the Netherlands are occupied or have seen other forms of mass protest.

On Wissen belastet, Max Kossatz, a blogger and media observer from Austria, has analyzed [de] the Twitter stream: 66,379 tweets by 6,780 different usernames have been published on the subject in the last month. 1,043 pictures were posted on Twitpic and produced 125,612 views - see this Twitpic photo mashup on Youtube. And especially interesting, is the following map of tweets that illustrates how the protests spread over time (watch in HD and fullscreen to get the full experience):

Gerald Bäck of Bäck Blog, who works in the media observation business, found out that the gross reach of the tweets, i.e. the unique number of followers exposed to them, was 386,860. His analysis [de] shows who the key influencers were, what URLs were most linked to and what hashtags were used most.

In his blog, smime, Michael Schuster who is specialist in semantic analysis, contributed an overview [de] of the “old media” covering the events. He counted 2,700 articles and identified four trends lasting roughly one week each: “Protests take place”, “protests continue”, “protests widen”, and recently, “ok, enough now.”

Luca Hammer of 2-Blog, a student and technical mastermind behind the Viennese web activities, has published a field report [de] of how wikis, Twitter and webcast were used to get things rolling.

It looks like the case of #unibrennt may become an early milestone in the transformation of Austrian politics by the use of online social media. It has created wide attention - and confusion - among established media and political structures, and created a spirit of empowerment among students and digital leaders.

There has been progress in combating the disease since it was first identified in the early 80s, but HIV/AIDS remains a major public health issue. Over 33 million people are currently living with HIV worldwide, almost 70 percent of who live in sub-Saharan Africa. People with HIV are living longer though, in part because of the beneficial effects of antiretroviral therapy. To highlight the need for universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment, care and prevention, the theme of this year's World AIDS Day is ‘Universal Access and Human Rights.'

Bloggers globally have used World AIDS Day as an opportunity to share their thoughts on not only this disease, but the significance of this day. Many of these blogs are included on Global Voices Google map of HIV-positive bloggers and groups who blog about the disease, which has been updated for World AIDS Day. Charlie Dale, blogging on My Journey with Judy… from the United States, reflects on the significance of World AIDS Day.

“Somehow over the years I guess I have grown complacent to what this day really means, if in all honesty anything to the masses. In the beginning it was in all the news stories, papers and events that this day was approaching and awareness and attention was brought to this monster killer.

Over the years though the media like the rest of us I guess has grown overly weary of a problem that is still fairly rampant and in the minds of the media VERY old news sadly to say…Long term survivors like myself I guess have grown weary, worn and tired. Many of us are just trying to survive day to day and make something of ourselves and our lives.”

But Claire Keeton, blogging for South Africa’s Sunday Times, says there is still an important role for World AIDS Day.

“It’s that time of year when Christmas decorations flood the shops and red AIDS ribbons come out. Tuesday is World AIDS Day.

Some people with HIV/AIDS and activists object to World AIDS Day – essentially saying it allows people to ignore the epidemic the rest of the year, as long as they remember it for a single day.

Paying lip service. Window dressing. Look at the Onion cover in that light.

From my side, World AIDS Day does have advantages. It’s the one time of the year that all media make space for HIV/AIDS stories.”

Many bloggers have done just that, made space on their blogs to share their experiences about this disease. Aderyn Verwood from Germany, blogging on Vintage Verwood, says that until her good friend was diagnosed with HIV, she didn’t pay much attention to it:

“Like most people, I knew about HIV, but the role it played in my life was too insignificant to ever become more than a distant, abstract threat that seemingly did not belong to my environment. Now, no day goes past that I don’t think of it consciously, that I don’t hope for improvement of already existing therapies or for a breakthrough in scientific research, so that a cure might be found…To my friend, I’d just like to say: I hope that many decades from now, we will sit together, old and wrinkly, laughing about the times when we were young. I love you.”

Others took a less personal approach and blogged to raise awareness and spread the facts. Jessica Joseph, blogging on Alien in The Caribbean from Trinidad and Tobago, wrote a three-part exploration of sex and sexuality in the Caribbean in the days leading up to World AIDS Day. In this first part, she looks at where the shame and secrets regarding sex come from:

“Some of the questions I would like to investigate are: Where exactly did our prudery and hypocrisy come from? What are the elements of sexual attraction? What are the dynamics of gender and sexual orientation? Some of the resolutions I would to make are: Sexuality and spirituality are not mutually exclusive. Good sex is also safe sex. HIV/Aids is a viral representation of a deeper syndrome and its cure lies in a holistic approach to sexuality even it means the painful re-breaking and re-setting of a bone (no pun intended) that was badly cast for a very long time.”

Some bloggers used art to express how they feel on World AIDS Day. Last year Richard Kearns, blogging on HAVVACC, wrote this poem in honor of the day and says he plans to write a new poem this year. Sinthalunda, a poet in Malawi, posts this poem:

“Here from this musty village
Come golden stars
Who dance the same rhythm
From far beyond the horizon;
Their light sound gets louder
As they walk to school
For the beat of lessons
Round the circle of subjects.

From this forgotten compound
Come complex joys
From children whose nose-dust
Has been cleaned by wind's awareness.
For now, the way of knowledge
In the world of education
Has taught them to sense
The voice of silenced victims.”

To encourage more bloggers to write about HIV/AIDS on all 365 days of the year, not just World AIDS Day, this past summer Rising Voices released “Blogging Positively,” a collection of case studies, interviews and best practices about citizen media related to HIV/AIDS. The guide highlights leaders in the HIV-positive community, contains tips for workshop facilitators and teachers and provides resources to help new bloggers get started.

In October, Lu Guang, a Chinese photographer, was awarded the Eugene Smith grant, an international award for Humanistic Photography for his pictures documenting pollution in China. For foreigners, these pictures might be just another warning of the world of the environmental degradation happening in China. But for most Chinese, it was shocking in the extreme to see those familiar places, often seen on books and maps or heard from families and friends, now as dead zones unfit for human habitation.

So, what then will be the determining factors in the fight against the deteriorating environment of China?

Not necessarily the government. Compared to environment improvement, it has a stronger incentive in economic development and political achievement. As example, last week was difficult for people living in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province and one of the richest areas in China. People were appalled to find they were almost blinded by haze and fog, generated by car exhausts, construction site activity and power plant emissions. Highways were shut down because drivers could not see cars over 5 meters away. It is the most serious atmospheric pollution day in the last 10 years.

GV Blogger John Kennedy living in Guangzhou described the city as being ‘just like a huge construction site full of traffic jams.’

There is a reason for this huge burst of activity. To prepare for the 2010 Asian games, Guangzhou is being fully mobilized to build simultaneously 8 subway routes and a satellite city of stadiums and residences for the sportsmen, This political imperative takes precedence over all else.

Last Monday, again in Guangzhou, hundreds of residents waited anxiously outside a newly established office which processes complaints and appeals about plans to build several garbage incinerators which may be as close as 1000 meters to their homes. They fear that the resultant pollution will inevitably result in cancers and other diseases

Initially it was peaceful and people followed the procedure to fill in forms and line up but they finally became impatient when only 10 of the hundreds of complaints were received in a 2 hour period. Bloggers twittered about what happened there next.

@wenyunchao 来了辆警车停路边,一分钟后开走了。见到几个本地记者。陆续有人赶来,不过看似丽江的居多。有个人举着标语站到了解放路边,直接向民众诉求。 #pylj

@LEMONed
粗略点算，还在门外排队的就有超过两百人，还不断有人加入。但城管委已经不让再领表了！有来自南国奥园的业主高呼「吕秘书长下台！」 #pylj

“广州未来将走垃圾焚烧为主的路子，肯定要建垃圾焚烧发电厂，建几个，政府正在规划” 。

The remarks were seen as blind ignorance of the public opposition when in fact, residents had voiced their objections on the internet for months. The plan was revealed as early as 2006 but only in 2009 were the sites confirmed and land use permits issued. People were shocked to find that the view out of their windows in the future would be dominated by the incinerators. Property values soon slumped.

Back to the scene.

@wenyunchao 现场人士举起标语走向旁边的市政府,接访演变成游行及集会,我们将继续为大家直播。 #pylj

wenyunchao 人群已经聚焦在市政府门口,头顶上A4纸复印的标语白花花一片,有个81岁的会江村婆婆也为了,现场口号”市长出来”。 #pylj

@wenyunchao 群情比较激愤,一位会江村民说:我少活二十年也就忍了,可子孙们怎么办?吉祥路这一侧停了六部警车,不过秩序尚好。 #pylj

@LEMONed 喇叭广播说让这里几百人选5名代表进去见领导，这是想把我们先打乱！广州人民这么容易上当？我们随即齐声回应：「选5名领导出来」！警察顿时傻了 #pylj

Weng YunChao, on twitter and also a well-known blogger, comments on the scene:

@wenyunchao 这是未来国内群体运动很有代表性的问题,政府要对话,必须得有民众代表,但民众代表往往成为打击对象,政府往往找不到对话对象。事情往往因此而走向僵局。 #pylj

The indifference of the government and reluctance to talk with people is even a more serious problem than the pollution itself. An article by by Xinkuan Paper states:-

从省情调研中心发布的民调数据来看，超过98%的民众对“涉及众多民众利益，但有关部门垄断行政决策，未能及时通报消息”最为不满———这一对周边环境及 民众生活可能产生重大影响的项目，从2004年确定地址、2006年通过审批、2009年开始征地，5年中没有情况通报，没有听证，甚至电厂所在的会江村 村民也大多不知道有该项目的存在，直至它突兀地被民众关注。

There has been much controversy on the issue. Is incineration the best method to dispose of the mountains of trash? If the incinerators are not built at these places, where then should they be built? Again, John Kennedy has a coverage on the debate.

The government has made (9) two clear points. First, if the project gets stuck in an environmental assessment, it won’t be carried out. Second, if the majority opposes it, it will also be stopped. But it is left to doubt that it would.

However, distrust of ‘expert assessment’ prevails as experts are losing their creditability as people think they are puppets of power and money. Second, people see little sincerity on the part of the government to consider public opinion as in the past four years it made no attempt at a dialogue. Moreover, the residents have no idea whether they can keep fighting the authority if attention on the issue dies down. Luckily, the demonstration on Monday ended peacefully although no one knows if there will be any act of reprisal or whether their complaints will have any effect.

On YouTube albaraa1994 posted this video showing the flooding:

Saad Al Dosari says:

If anybody wishes to write a management book about project management failures, he will find plenty of examples in this aged bride of the red sea; Jeddah. Project management failures, this is my only explanation to what happened in Jeddah this past week. Millions and millions of riyals have been spent on projects that promised state of the art infrastructure to the long time forgotten city and guess what; those projects could not stand four hours of rain!

Ahmed Al Omran says:

This would not have happened if the people of Jeddah had a say in how their city is run. This would not have happened if there was transparency and accountability in how our country is governed. I’m beyond angry and disgusted.

According to MuSe:

Ironically most of the dead were non-Saudis and the poor, even death know how to discriminate. lots of head should be rolling the following days , lots of unfaithful and corrupted officials, but i am not optimistic about that, they keep gambling on our forgetting nature.

Najla is outraged:

Zuhair Alghamdi has an idea:

Eman Al Nafjan makes a suggestion:

Heavy rains led to flooding because of how the city is managed. Millions go into its infrastructure for digging sewers and putting in pipelines and paving roads but by the time the money finally trickles down to the purchase of material and hiring contractors, it doesn’t cover the costs anymore. For the past few years the people of Jeddah have been complaining and grumbling about it. […] I propose that the king hand over the Jeddah municipality to ARAMCO as he did with KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) when it became apparent that officials were skimming the budget.

KAUST is near Jeddah, and some students have written about how the rain affected the KAUST campus. Eric says:

This morning, after a rather romantic thunderstorm, all hell broke loose; along with a handful of houses. […] After blocking out the sirens and the impressive filing of emergency crew workers lining the streets I was able to soak in the damage of this otherwise harmless rain storm. The roads were flooded two feet deep in water, the entire female population had been evacuated from their housing (sent to Jeddah for at least the next week), and ten male students were relocated because the conditions in their homes were “uninhabitable” (in other words, they didn’t just have leaks, they had entire ceilings collapse in the middle of the night as a result of water build up). In short, KAUST had become a refugee camp in a matter of hours.

Another KAUST student, Nathan, writes:

Heavy rain is something like a natural disaster because the infrastructure here is not designed to handle water. Homes flooded, streets flooded, and the mobile phone network was knocked out for a while. The rain was pretty incredible, we must have got three inches in just under an hour (about 7.5 cm). The weather network says that Jeddah only gets 54 mm of Rain every year - we've exceeded our limit for the next 1.5 years in one night!

Ibrahim Hudaif asks:

Do they have at least a disaster recovery plan for the Shaheen the supercomputer center at KAUST?

Finally, Ahmad Qushmaq points out what makes these floods a little different:

Since the tragedy happened far from any major populated area, it took several hours for reporters to arrive on the spot. Only then the first photographs and videos started to appear everywhere. But what happened to social media platforms that actively reported on the plane crash in Perm [ENG] in September 2008?

The only passenger who immediately reported about the crash of “Nevsky Express” was a Twitter user Lazy Frog. She tweeted 12 times about the crash before she arrived home. Here is what she wrote:

I am alive. But I should tell about it later. If someone tells anything in news, please write me.  They don't tell us anything here.

Later, many passengers from first cars - only last cars were derailed - said they were clueless for the whole hour after the crash. Lazy Frog posted few additional updates:

We boarded another train. I did whatever I could to help.

We are now at SAPSAN (new train that evacuated passengers to St. Petersburg - G.A.). I wish it would go slower.

They announced now that specially trained people would meet us at the train station.

The day after the tragedy, Lazy Frog summarized her experience:

I felt the first emotions about what happened when we got closer to Piter (St. Petersburg - G.A.). I wasn't worried at the place of the crash. I was a little concerned about my shoes - it was so muddy around and sharp stones.

Saturday revealed more first-hand information when passengers started blogging about their experiences. The most popular blog post related to the topic was written by LJ user paltus_mk [RUS] who was in one of the last cars heavily damaged by an explosion. He wrote [RUS]:

All that happens within 10 seconds when you understand what is about to occur. I had enough time to prepare my body. But nothing can help against the Newton's laws when dozens of tons of metal suddenly stop at high speed - just luck … …therefore I was just lucky. My brother was lucky, too, despite the fact that his wounds were more serious than mine.

[…]

Everything from something that went wrong till the full stop took about 30 seconds. It was dark and silent. Then wounded people started to cry. I was on the floor, smashed by other bodies. I moved the bodies. I saw that I was covered with blood but it wasn't mine. I saw that I am ok and my hand\legs work. I had a bleeding wound in my head. I had to get up and waited for some time before men with less serious injuries cleaned the way out.

[…]

Suffering was all around. We were sitting at the end of the train car and all the bags flied toward us. A lot of wounded people around. Durng the first minutes after the crash, the car was just a buch of bodies, chairs and parts of the train that were equally distributed around.

Paltus_mk tells the story of evacuation from the first minutes after the crash with many details but, at the same time, avoids description that may disturb readers. He writes that passengers started providing the first aid to each other heroically and without panic. He says it was impossible to count how many people died. The rescuers arrived only an hour and a half after the crash. Paltus_mk and his brother were finally evacuated to a local hospital and he later arrived to St. Petersburg.

Another survival story was published by a blogger pancakyes on another Russian blogging service Ya.ru . Her train car was not damaged by the explosion. She published her first post at 22:11 - a half an hour after the crash - right from the place of the tragedy. She wrote that the train stopped because of some accident, few cars were derailed and she would come home later than expected. Almost an hour later, she added that there were victims in the last two cars. On Saturday,  pancakyes published the whole story of the crash [RUS] as she witnessed it:

We felt few shakes that were getting stronger and stronger. Things started to fall down from the table. It was not clear what happened. No announcements. First, we were thinking that it wasn't serious. Maybe someone stopped the train by accident. But conductors with pale faces started running around collecting mattresses, tablecloths and water. They asked us not to leave our seats unless we are doctors. We heard some bad things from their radios. Some rumors started to go around. We didn't believe that two cars were disconnected and they were so far. Later, we fund out that it was true.

We went out and wanted to help. Went up untill the third car. […] We didn't want to be just gawkers and make a crowd without any opportunity to help. We also didn't want to see what people who came from there told  us.

Immediately after the crash, social media platforms became the first place where Russian journalist were looking for information. A reporter from a Russian news agency RIA-Novosty left a comment on the pancakyes‘ blog and asked her to call him immediately. Tatyana Landa (LJ user Elada) wrote on her blog [RUS] about a friend who was on the train but survived. Two reporters immediately left comments asking her to contact them. Tatyana later published  an angry  post [RUS] where she told that a journalist from “Komsomolskaya pravda” (Russian tabloid newspaper) was trying to call her several times during that night. The post turned to a place were people started to discuss if journalists can use bloggers as sources of information about the train crash. Reporters also tried to contact  a blogger who wrote [RUS] that she had decided not to take the “Nevsky Express” at the last minute.

Some bloggers expressed their frustration [RUS] with the fact that so few people from the train used social media to report about what was happening. And, apparently, there are several explanations why social media didn't play major role in the coverage of the “Nevsky express” tragedy.

Twitter, the most convenient platform for live blogging, is relatively unpopular in Russia. According to twitRU [RUS], there are only 2,700 Twitter users who write in Russian language. At the same time, popular Russian blogging platforms as Livejournal.com or ya.ru could have been used for live reporting but, as discussed above, there is only a couple of examples of this use.

The second explanation is related to the role of mobile devices and connectivity. The number of portable devices in the country is growing. More and more Russians can use Internet and various Web-applications on the go. This trend is especially strong in the area of Moscow and St. Petersburg. But the crash happened far from any metropolitan area where, as witnesses reported, the cell phone coverage was limited. A blogger pancakyes recollects the connectivity problem:

The phone connection was very bad. Everyone probably tried to make a call at the same time and the net was overloaded. I started to get SMSs only when I was on the second train (the one that took passengers to Saint-Petersburg - G.A.). I could use the Internet occasionally, but it was very difficult.

In contrast, the plane crash in Perm last year provided many opportunities for citizen reporting:

1. The plane crashed within the city borders where  many people could see what happened right from their windows. The “Nevsky express” crash, as noted earlier, happened the rural area.

2. The  social media coverage in Perm was based on the accounts of those who witnessed the crash but were not part of it (unfortunately, there were no survivors on the plane). All the witnesses of the “Nevsky Express” incident were passengers on the train.

3. Most people posted their updates on the plane crash in Perm using their home computers. The “Nevsky Express” survivors had to rely on their mobile devices.

These differences explain why social media reporting was prevalent in the case of the plane crash and almost absent in the situation with “Nevsky Express.”

It is also possible to claim that Russia has not yet developed the tradition of social media reporting. That is why only two passengers were motivated enough to go online and assume the role of citizen reporters. It may also explain the hostility of passengers and bloggers toward journalists who were looking for information on the crash in social media.

It looks like the Russian blogosphere is still far from being a major source for breaking news. It still remains as a place for distribution of information and broad discussions about what has happened.

An artwork of her Nyota Ndogo's Cover Album - Mpenzi

Born in 1981 in the Kenyan Coastal province of Mombasa, Nyota Ndogo has come from a very humble background. She dropped out of school at a young age and for quite some time, worked as a house help until she was discovered by Andrew Burchell as a talented singer.

Now she has 3 cd's released under her name, CHEREKO, NATOKA MBALI NA WEWE and MPENZI. She has also featured on 3 international compilations WORLD 2003, THE ROUGH GUIDE TO KENYA and OFF THE BEATEN TRACK. She is also holder of two Kenya Kisima Music Awards: Best Taraab Singer 2003 and Best Female Singer 2005.

Her songs which are mostly in Kiswahili with a few in English are sang in the Taarab genre heard mostly in the East African Coast as well as in Kapuka and Genge, music genres heard mainly within the Kenyan mainland.

So how does one with such a background learn to harness the internet to her advantage as a growing Kenyan based Artist? This is the question that comes to mind when you visit her blog.

In it, she shares everything about herself as an artist from a personal perspective as opposed to the edited media stories and information that one will find in the entertainment section of a newspaper or magazine.

From music videos of her songs to lyrics to photos of her performing with fellow artists and fans, one can feel a more intimate connection with Nyota Ndogo through her blog.

Blogging has not been an easy experience for her as she confessed in her blog post on 27th July, 2006 at 1.43pm

wow I’d nearly given up with the blog as it was proving difficult to get a new post up .it turned out to be me using an incompatible browser. So am back with good old internet explorer. If this works expect some pix up soon so much has happend.x

Looking at her current blog posts, one can indeed see that Nyota has known quite well how to use the blogging tool. This unfortunately cannot be said of many other East African Artists as I could not find any other artist blog.

It seems, one need not be learned to know how to blog, it is after all, a tool.

Charles Crawford, at Blogoir, commented on a piece written by Craig Murray  analyzing the cause and effect of Ghana’s oil find. He wrote this about Murray’s article:

At the same time, revenue must urgently be directed to rural infrastructure, to increasing farm prices and developing agro-processing industry, on a scale not previously attempted. Ghana already has a major problem keeping young people in farming. Think how much this will worsen when oil starts to flow.

Why should young people stay on farms now that the country is going to get rich? Ghana as the anti-Nigeria, ie a new hi-tech Singapore-style place rather than a typical agriculture exporting African country?

Is not the point of acquiring such largesse that it gives a country the chance to look at quite different options, not merely ways to impose top-down solutions based on old ideas?

A comment posted in response to the blogger’s statement by someone named Craig Murray read:

Because William Cobbett Was Right! 

Crawford’s remark about the youth still working on farms, despite the country’s apparent road to riches, has been on the minds of Ghanaians. Ghana Pundit   posted a piece by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) which addressed similar concerns:

Dr. Edward Omane Buamah, Deputy Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, has observed that the oil and gas find in the Western Region, has made unemployment among the youth in the area a big issue.  

Speaking at a special hearing on the Environmental Impact Assessment for the development of the first phase of the Jubilee Oil Fields, organised for the Western Region House of Chiefs in Sekondi, he said the region had not benefited from natural endowments like the sea, gold, bauxite, timber and other minerals.

Dr. Buamah said it was therefore normal for the youth to expect better employment prospects from Ghana's oil find.

He said direct employment into the upstream oil industry required high level of professional competence and qualification, hence the need for the youth to improve themselves to be able to take full advantage of the numerous ancillary job opportunities, which would be generated by the emerging industry.

Ghana Pundit posted another article  that touched upon a new area of concern:

Ghana’s oil find if not properly managed could spell crisis comparable to what is happening in Nigeria’s restive Niger Delta region.

A respected legal practitioner and lecturer at the University of Ghana, Law Faculty, Dr. Raymond Atuguba has chillingly revealed that militants in the Niger Delta region, notorious for blowing up oil pipes, kidnapping and demanding huge ransoms and causing unrest in the oil rich Nigerian region have started tripping to Ghana in droves.

Dr. Atuguba in an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday said the essence of militants' interest in Ghana is to mentor folks in the Western Region of Ghana, on whose offshore, the country will be drilling oil to be protective of their interest.

A blog entry posted on President Atta Mills’  official campaign site stated:

President John Evans Atta Mills on Thursday reminded Kosmos Energy, one of the companies involved in the nation’s oil find in the Jubilee Fields of Cape Three Points, to be mindful of social, legal and corporate responsibilities so that local people would be part of the process and feel its benefits.

He urged the company to make use of available Ghanaian expertise as well as insulate the people against any challenges that would emanate from the drilling of oil.

A comment, in response to this post, by Ofori Amooako Elijah read:

The drilling of the oil must benefit the people of Ghana more especially, it should [be] a step in creating employment.