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Madagascar: A New Hope and Weighing in on the “Aid for Africa” Debate

Lova Rakotomalala · 21:43 · Sub-Saharan Africa

lingua → pt · fr

The hope generated from the TED conference in Arusha that Africa is on its way up has inspired the Malagasy blogosphere.
Aiky reports that Malagasy senator Christian Razafimbahiny wrote a manual for success in which he asks the Malagasy youth to reach for their dreams. . Aiky himself wonders:

« La jeunesse malgache (de 7 à 77ans) possède-t-elle un rêve? entretient-elle un désir enfoui qui lui permettra d’enlever toute inhibition qui le freine actuellement? Chacun doit rêver. Il est permis de rêver… il est conseiller de rêver car sans rêve on manquera de vision »

Do Malagasy youth (from 7 to 77 years old) have a dream? Do Malagasy youngsters hold a secret ambition that would help them get rid of any inhibitions that currently hold them back ? Everyone must dream. Dreaming is allowed… we should dream because without dreams, one will lack vision.

Harinjaka got to visualize his dream of helping his homeland by attending the TED conference: “Africa the next chapter”.
He explains that he drew inspiration from the discussion in Arusha and he plans on leaving France and going back home to contribute to the turn around.

« En côtoyant ces gars, pendant mon séjour en afrique , la question du retour au pays me trotte plus que jamais.Qu’est ce qui fait l’Afrique si ce n’est ses fils ? Qu’est ce qui fait un pays si ce n’est son élite ? Mais pourquoi les élites en questions ne rentrent-elles pas ?Est-ce qu’il faut rester convaincu qu’il n’y a pas d’avenir au pays ? »

As I was rubbing elbows with these guys during my stay in Africa, more than ever the idea of returning to my country was growing on me. What is Africa if not its sons? What is a country made of if not its elite? However, why is it that the elites in question do not return home? Are we still to remain convinced that there is no future at home ?

At TED, Harinjaka witnessed the ongoing debate about improving the efficiency of aid for Africa and he wished that more francophone Africans were present.

The conversation was continued by Randiana who wrote:

« How aid can become detrimental to sustainable development, and paradoxically trigger the opposite of its goals? […]

“The very recent complain deposited by a French NGO againt President Bongo of Gabon and President Sassou N’Guesso of Congo is illustrating this exasperation (western tax payers’ fatigue in paying for development, yet not seeing tangible results of their efforts.)

If the allegation proves right, then international aid would have financed the purchase of luxury “hotels particuliers” in fancy residential Paris for the personal use of these two presidents.»

Shadow Gasy explains that one of the requirements for more accountability with international aid lays in three intertwined concepts: responsible governance, the “State of Law” and foreign intervention.

« L'Etat de droit est également un thème privilégié par les bailleurs de fonds multilatéraux (exemple) et bilatéraux (exemple).
Le concept d'Etat de droit peut trouver de multiples interprétations. Pourtant, malgré cette polysémie, il semble que contrairement aux autres juristes africains et aux juristes africanistes, peu de juristes Malagasy définissent l'Etat et le droit.
[…]
La première idée fausse que nous évoquerons est celle qui consiste à dire que les étrangers ne doivent pas intervenir dans des questions qui relèvent des affaires nationales du pays qui les accueille».

The State of Law is an important topic to multilateral and bilateral stakeholders. The concept of State of Law can be subject to multiple interpretations. However, in spite of the potential confusion arising from its many meanings, it seems that, contrary to the other African lawyers and the lawyers dealing with Africa, very few Malagasy lawyers have defined the State and the Law.[..] The first false concept that we will discuss is that foreigners should not intervene in matters that concern domestic affairs of the country that hosts them.

It should be noted that international aid is not always a one-way street. There are instances of African aid directed towards Europe and even the most powerful countries need a little help sometimes.

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Guatemala: An Open Internet - Anyone Can Blog

Renata Avila · 17:41 · Americas

lingua → bn · de · pt · zht · zhs

Once upon a time in Guatemala, there was a political chaos, Serrano Elías was the President, and he censored the press. It was the early nineties and few Guatemalans were lucky enough to have access to internet. It was an amazing tool to spread the news abroad. It was the way to let the world know what was happening inside the country. It was one done by the privileged, those with access to the internet. Then, telecommunications were privatized, and the services were improved and spread. Nowadays many people jump from silence to a cellphone, onto a computer, and they are starting to learn more about saying what they think on the web.

The Guatemalan Blogsphere has controversial blogs: some involving political views, and others related with complex issues, either by the message or the messenger. Here you can find some examples!

Ten years before, no word about the Guatemalan Army was heard - not in the news, not even in colloquial chats. That´s why it is really interesting to find a military blogger, in Perspectiva Militar [ES], you can learn more about the training and adventures of a kaibil, a member of a quite controversial unit of the soldiers. There you can learn more about a view not often shared by media.

U.S. nationals do not have a favourable public opinion in Guatemala, however, two North Americans on GRINGOLOGUE are sharing their experiences about volunteering in Guatemala, and is nice to discover the different perspectives of someone coming from abroad.

That you can contrast with Homo homini lupus [ES], a blogger doing an exchange program in Chile, and elcharakotel [ES], a blogger who migrated to Europe, both of whom offer different views of situations of Guatemalan bloggers who started blogging at home and now are blogging from different societies and experiences.

Elections will take place on September, and now it is the first time that blogs are used as tools not only for campaigners but for watchers, you can see it at Elecciones Guatemala [ES] . Small parties with poor funding found the way to spread their plans, such as Encuentro por Guatemala [ES]

Also, forgotten local organizations, even of the official party, have found their place in the blogsphere as the one used by GANACHINAUTLA [ES]

Guatemalans have discovered the virtues of spreading ideas on the internet. Blogs arrived! Guatemalan bloggers often write about topics before journalists, and they are starting to use their spaces to promote ideas, points of view, and open it to discussion. However, it is important to stress that tolerance of divergent opinions, even among bloggers, and it is still a problem. Blogs are tools, can be used in different ways but respect to differences and freedom of speech must be a common goal for bloggers.

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CIA facility in Tunisia?

Sami Ben Gharbia · 17:22 · Middle East & North Africa

lingua → fr · es

From his prison cell in Bizerte (65km north of Tunis), The Tunisian prisoner Ramzi Bettibi managed to smuggle a very alarming letter that found its way on to the Internet (available in French). Ramzi is serving a four-year sentence at Bizerte for copying, onto a forum board he moderated, an online statement from a group threatening terror attacks if former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon attended the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) that was held in Tunisia in 2005. Ramzi Bettibi was arrested on 15 March 2005 at the internet café where he worked. In prison he is frequently subjected to torture, which the authorities hope will make him collaborate with the State Security services. “Bettibi should be freed because the government never proved that he had a criminal intent to threaten others or to incite violence,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch in a statement published last year. “Under these circumstances, cutting and pasting on the Internet should not be a crime,” she added.

In his letter, Ramzi describes a secret detention facility near Bizerte city, where he has been interrogated by CIA and French-speaking agents about his alleged ties to Jihadist groups in Iraq and online activities. According to the letter, the prisoners are being interrogated and held in containers in a secret location around 15 minutes drive from Bizerte prison.
(more…)

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Serbia: A Special Case of Blog Plagiarism

Ljubisa Bojic · 13:17 · East Asia , Eastern & Central Europe

lingua → pt

Does a Creative Commons License help protect your blog from plagiarism? Is it a crime if a person from China copies your blog to overcome the so-called Great Firewall of China, trying to get some money along the way. How to protect yourself from web infringement?

Danica Radovanovic is a well-known blogger from Belgrade, who cares very much about her intellectual property and is eager to solve the problem she described at a Creative Commons listserv on May 30:

[…]

some guy mirrored and stole entire blog of mine, the guy copied entire blog, my intellectual property under CC license (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License) plus he added AdSense to earn money on my account - I never ever had commercial usage or benefit from my blog.

[…]

To cut story short, you saw the link of my latest post, I won't post anymore as everything comes up from mine blog to this stealer's blog who earns on my intellectual work (placed in China I assume). You will find all info in this post and from comments of IT and software engineers. Also science blogger Bora Zivkovic from Science Blogs gave alert at his web site and we are looking for legal help asap.

At her blog, Danica has posted a step-by-step instruction to help others dealing with the same issue:

Let this be loud shame for those thieves. It is detected where the stealer comes from, as well as I reported abuse email on their host, and to the Google removals.

Yan responds:

[…] What he did is setting up a proxy for people in mainland China to access wikipedia, technorati, and wordpress. You know the GFW block these websites. […] So blame him for the ads, and blame GFW at the same time.

Bernarda gives another example, introducing mysterious “302 redirects”:

Here is another serious blogger who has problems. Jim Zwick’s very informative site on Mark Twain and other stuff has basically been shut down.

“ […] The removal of the materials from the site is the result of the site being banned from both Google and the Microsoft Live search engine, which I believe is the result of their inability to deal with a well-documented problem with page hijacking using 302 redirects. A 302 redirect is supposed to be used to tell a web browser that a page has been temporarily moved to a new location. The browser is supposed to automatically go to that URL instead of generating a “page not found” error. Google and other search engines (except Yahoo) interpret these links to mean that the page linked to really belongs at the linking site, and it lists it under that domain instead of the domain where the page is housed. […]”

Mark McCrohon writes:

I have developed a plagiarism detection tool called DOC Cop that helps bloggers determine if their site has been posted elsewhere on the web. DOC Cop is on the web here - DOC Cop does not take copyright or ownership of material submitted for investigation and processing is free of charge (donations appreciated).

Then Danicar considers two ways of fighting cybercrime:

[…] 1. to submit a formal notification of claimed infringement as described in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (512(c)(3)(A)(i-vi)) to the Host (big company where this criminal holds all domains), so they would: ”Upon receipt of a valid DMCA Notification, we will commence with the removal of such content in an expeditious manner.”

vague…

and the other way, which includes real Digital Guru’s

2. to process my request of infringement here (”the file a notice of infringement with us - read: Google, you must provide a written communication”):

and this way has a much much heavier and broader notice.[…]

Raincoaster writes:

This particular case has been discussed in the forum quite extensively and the general consensus is that it’s a workaround to make sure that the contents of our blogs are made available to people in China and other countries where Wordpress is banned, rather than a targeted attempt at piracy or theft of intellectual property.

You’re right, though, Adsense is very bad form. VERY bad, and it shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

At this point you get to make a choice: if you see this as a creative way to get your blog past the censorship hurdles that China puts up, then you would leave things. It’s posting my blog too, and I’m just going to leave it because it’s important to me that my blog be read all over the world, even in countries where the governments try to block it.

If you still want to pursue this, the only real choice is the way that Dreamhost, the company you’re dealing with, has requested, which is your choice #1 in that list you’ve just posted.

It’s entirely up to you.

[…]

What I mean is, you need to HIRE a lawyer. The EFF is a great resource, but they’re not a legal aid group; they’re lobbyists and activists.

Remember, too, that it’s US Copyright that you’re operating under, because you published it on a Wordpress.com blog and that’s the terms of service. But the blog you’re fighting may or may not be hosted in a country that recognizes that law. China certainly doesn’t.

Michele writes:

I feel your pain!

I’ve been having similar issues with a well known industry news site stealing my articles and reposting them verbatim as their own

I didn’t want to name and shame at first, but I eventually did, as their response was so pathetic.

In her post titled “Goodbye, Wikipedia.jaylee.cn!”, Danica closes the case:

You may feel sorry that the whole wikipedia mirror is gone, as the guy who did the same with my blog was also circumventing Chinese content restrictions, as earlier said that citizens of China are not allowed to read Wikipedia. His web site was shut down by his ISP due to supposed threats from government.

At this time, the case rests, but the amount of stress, time and effort Danica has invested to solve the issue are enormous. This is a small contribution to the examination of the ethical questions of blogging. The conversation will go on.

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Turkey is Typing…Favorite Posts of the Week

Deborah Ann Dilley · 01:43 · Middle East & North Africa

Today feels like a random day, so you will get a random posting with all of the Turkish posts this week that tickled my fancy.

The Cause of the Holocaust

Me and Others writes this week about how the fabled quote from Hitler “After all, who remembers the Armenians” is used over and over as a justification of the Jewish Holocaust during World War II, and how it has been used by Armenian activists to vilify the Turks. Of course, there could be other causes…such as a Jewish prostitute:

but i have some bad news for those who want to blame the bad turks for the nazi crimes. here is an article for you which says “hitlers holocaust might have stemmed from syphillis from a jewish prostitute.” so it must be not the turks but a jewish prostitude who is behind the most evil crimes of the modern times.

honestly, i dont believe either of the theories have anything to do with the realities. such a big evildoing cannot be simply explained by one single culprit reason. there are library full of documents trying to investigate and fully understand the holocaust, and just simply blaming the turks or a misfortunate jewish girl, or even hitler himself will not do it.

Curse of the Turk

Two more posts this week about Turkishness. One from Hans at Internations Musings detailing the Curse of Turan:

The Curse of Turan (Hungarian: Turáni átok) is a popular belief that Hungarians have been under the influence of a malicious spell for many centuries. The “curse” manifests itself as inner strife, pessimism, misfortune and several historic catastrophes. The first disaster was the invasion by the Mongols, and the second the invasion by the Ottomans, Battle of Mohács in 1526.

The second post is more about the curse of fame….or rather how to obtain it as Talk Turkey illustrates:

I write this post as a response to the Turkish girl who keeps emailing me about becoming a star in Hollywood. You don't become a star, you start out as one, unless of course your 'star' alignment happens to be in the right place at the right time. Try the Turkish market first. I am sure they'll eat you alive as an American Turk discovering her roots. Great story line as the gullible gal falling victim to the preying men and her battle to overcome the emotions of girl meets boy, boy marries girl, and girl finds out he is a Kurd? Some ethnic intricacies played out.

Clash of Culture

Spooky Sense by Garfucius writes of the treatment by Turkish officials of archaeological finds:

culturicide? just a couple days ago, an ancient harbor was reported discovered during the construction of a tunnel for the subterranean train in yenikapı, with remains of byzantine boats and other archaeological artifacts. true to type, the finds will be collected and taken to the museum and the construction of the tunnel will continue as planned, apparently, over the ruins of the antique harbor.

Carpetblogger writes about the trials of Turkish bureaucracy-a wonderful primer for trying to survive it in Turkey- and about the trials of getting your carpets cleaned:

The likelihood an elective activity like carpetwashing gets done is inversely proportional to the number of linguistic and logistical obstacles that stand in its way. Not only must I identify a qualified carpet cleaning professional, that person has to come get the carpets. Furthermore, moving stinky carpets around is a royal pain in the ass any time of the year, more so when it is 100 degrees and you are on your own. These are all significant obstacles.

On the other hand, I have carpetdogs, so my carpets are pretty damn dirty. Smelly too. That workhorse 6′ x 5′ Dagestan sumac that was in the dining room in Baku and Kyiv absorbed prodigious amounts of food and alcohol from Sunday dinners and parties. These factors make carpetwashing less elective and more imperative.

Most importantly, however, if you're moving into a new apartment with Ottoman-era wood floors that appear to be designed for your favorite carpets (or, looking at it another way, if you made your second real estate purchase based on how good your carpets will look), you cannot have dirty carpets.

So what to do?

One thing you'll notice about Istanbul is that there are a lot of carwashes. Because Turks are enterprising, rare is the carwash that is only used for washing cars. For example, because they can be hosed down, carwashes are ideal places for a bayram sacrifice — a ritual slaughter of sheep and cows and a right bloody mess. More frequently, however, carwash guys are as likely to be aiming their high pressure hoses and soap brushes at carpets hanging from wires as Anadolu sedans.

Guide to Turkish Blogs

Dear Murat from Amerikan Turk has given another guide to the Turkish blogs…I recommend just following the link over there and seeing it for yourself. He does a much better job than I.

And Lastly, My Newest Addiction

Chronicles of a Turkish Girl is my newest soap opera and it should be yours too (in fact it might outweigh my addiction to Lonelygirl15…it's that good). This month she confesses to being interested in Christianity just to date her “smoking hot” abs instructor:

Yup, pretty soon I was going to church with him where I looked like a fish out of water. I couldn't follow which page they were on in the Bible during the sermons, but it didn't matter; I was sitting next to this hot guy. Shallow would be the perfect word to describe me. As I sat in a house of worship with him, my mind was having the most impure thoughts you can possibly imagine.

It wasn't long before I realized that his sole interest in me was to convert me. After awhile, I got tired of hearing about how much Jesus loves me. He also went onto to say that he could never be with a woman who did not not accept Jesus as the son of God. This “relationship” was going nowhere fast. I needed to end it and tell him that I would not convert AND that I do not subscribe to any organized religion.

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