Global Voices Online » 2007 » August

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Japan: Living With the Heat

Chris Salzberg · 23:19

lingua → zht · zhs · pt

As Japan suffers through what likely will become its hottest summer on record, with temperatures in some places topping 40 degrees and humidity at all-time highs, and even as business owners happily celebrate skyrocketing sales of air conditioners, fans, and ice cream [Ja], worries of an energy crisis loom on the horizon. And while the Cool Biz campaign initiated by the Koizumi administration has gone some way to reducing the demand for artificial cooling and dehumidification, active participation in the campaign nationwide remains relatively low [Ja]. Add to this that inventions such as the recently released USB necktie allow salarymen to stay cool and keep their suits on, and the future of energy conservation in Japan looks less than promising.

August 16: Japan's Hottest Day On Record

One Japanese blogger, however, has taken matters into his own hands and done the unthinkable. Blogger Kenchan writes in his post of August 10th, entitled “The ultimate environmental measure, carried out in the middle of a scorching heat wave” (究極の環境対策。猛暑の中で実践中):

うちはエアコンを猛暑にかけません。車もそうです。毎日大汗かいています。とても暑い思いはしますが、新陳代謝が盛んになるので、体の調子は良くなりました。ダイエットにもなりますし。

We don't use the air conditioner during the heat wave. Don't use it in the car either. Every day sweating like crazy. Every day I think about the heat, but because my body metabolism picks up energy, my body condition has improved. It's become a kind of diet.

[…]

うちは事務所の窓を全開にしています。朝晩は植木に水をやります。涼しくなります。ゴーヤも大きくなればもっと日陰効果も出るというものです。たまにスーツ姿のセールスの人が来ますが、「暑いですね」と言われてすぐに退散します。客商売でないのでそれでいいのでは・・。パソコンも喘いでいるのｲで、時々消します。

We open all the windows in our office. In the morning and evening, we water the plants. And it cools down. If the goya [bitter gourd] tree gets bigger, there will be more shade. Sometimes these sales people come by wearing suits, but then they say: “Wow, it's hot, isn't it?” and leave right away. This is not a service business, so it's fine [that they leave]… The computers also gasp for air [because of the heat], so sometimes we turn them off.

暑いと言いつつエアコンをかけているのは人間だけ。蝉もトンボもカエルも犬も猫もエアコンの中にはいません。

Saying it's hot and then putting on the air conditioner — it's only humans that do this. Cicada, dragonflies, frogs, dogs, cats, none of them live with air conditioning.

涼しい早朝に活動し、お昼はほんのすこし昼寝を昼休みにします。就寝は板の間で寝ます。夏場はお陰で体脂肪が減ります。暑い中ではビールも飲めませんね。よけいに大汗かきますから。

I get going early in the morning, when it's cool. At noon I take a lunch break and have a little nap. I sleep on the hardwood floor. Thanks to the summertime, I lose body fat. And you know, I don't drink beer during the summer, because it makes me sweat even more.

よさこいと高校野球が終われもれば、しのぎやすくはなります。それまでの我慢くらべが続いています。世間様がお盆休みの間も会社は休みなし。少し効率を落として暑さをやり過ごすしかありませんね。

Once the Yosakoi festival and high-school baseball finishes, it will become easier to bear [the heat]. Up until then, the patience contest continues. Even while the world celebrates the Bon holiday, companies go without a vacation. There is no option but to let efficiency drop a little bit in order to withstand this heat.

とにかくビルのなかでエアコンに浸りながら環境問題を語るのは偽者。屋外へ出て猛暑の中で考えてみるべき。指導者はそうあるべきですね。

Anyway, people who stay inside their building soaked in air conditioning while talking about environmental problems are nothing but imposters. They should go outside into the scorching heat and then think about it. The leaders should do this.

2 comments · »»

Medellín, Colombia: The Recipe

David Sasaki · 19:15

lingua → bn · pt · es

‘La Receta' (”The Recipe”) - a video production by the participants of the Rising Voices' project, HiperBarrio, in Medellín, Colombia. To watch the video with English subtitles click on the arrows on the lower-right-hand side of the video player.

In the last podcast introducing the HiperBarrio project in Medellín, Colombia, Jorge Montoya [ES] described the workshop he gave to young people in the working class neighborhood of La Loma San Javier as part of Medellín's 16th annual Seminario de Comunicación Juvenil [ES], or “Youth Communication Seminar.” The goal of the week-long seminar, according to its website, is to “continue reflection of diversity and its manifestation as a form of inclusion of the persons that make up the city.” Jorge led the workshop on new media and at the end of the week each young participant had his or her own weblog. They also collaborated on a group weblog [ES]. And, most impressive, they produced the incredibly creative video clip above about their experience in the workshop.

The clip of the young participants - produced using Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker - shows them explaining the ‘recipe' of how to improve city-wide communication using participatory tools like blogs. At the end of the clip we are shown screenshots of the participants' weblogs (linked to at the right-hand side of the workshop website).

I asked Jorge to describe the process of making the video clip.

Cuando estuvo planeado el asunto, ellos se dieron a la tarea de hacer una ambientación mínimamente de acuerdo con un programa de cocina, grabamos en cuestión de una hora y luego nos dimos a la tarea de editar entre todos con Movie maker, agregándole algunas de las fotos y cerrando con la invitación a que leyeran cada uno de los blogs nuevos.

Todos disfrutamos mucho la experiencia, nos reímos bastante y creo que lo fundamental fue la reflexión sobre la importancia de informar e informarnos, lo que era nuestro objetivo antes que pretender mostrar detalles técnicos sobre la apertura de blogs pues sobre eso ya hay bastante info. Se quiso realizar algo más fresco, más del lenguaje de todos, con cierto sentido de invitación y para generar inquietudes.

Once everything was planned, they took to the task of putting together a set similar to a cooking program on TV. We recorded it in about an hour and soon we all started the task of editing with Movie Maker, adding some photos, and concluding the clip with the invitation to read each of the participants' new blogs.

We all enjoyed the experience. We laughed a lot and I believe that the fundamental thing was the reflection of the importance of informing and of being informed, which was our main objective before trying to teach the technical details of how to open a blog. There is already plenty of info about how to do that. We wanted to make something more fresh, in a language more easily understood by everyone, with a certain sense of welcome, and to generate interest.

Although all the posts are written in Spanish, many of the HiperBarrio participants included photographs of their city. Some examples include:

De lo urbano a lo Rural, by Tifany Henao
Historias de Caminantes, by Catalina Restrepo
La Loma ¿rural o urbano?, by Mitchel Restrepo
Seminario de Comunicación: Las mejores fotos, by Johana Camargo
En el cielo de Medellín, by Marcela Arias
Bitácora personal de viaje, by Alexander

Like all of us, I am sure that these new bloggers would appreciate comments of encouragement and even just simple greetings from around the world.

Using dotSUB, you can also help make their video clip available in more languages by translating the brief transcript. Simply register for an account and choose the language you wish to translate the clip to on the far right of the video page. I have made a brief screencast describing how to translate and subtitle video on dotSUB.

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From Nasser to Mubarak and On, the State of Modern Egypt.

D B Shobrawy · 13:28

lingua → bn · zht · zhs

The face of Egypt has changed greatly after the revolution that brought independence from foreign occupiers. From the Egypt created by Gamal Abdel Nasser to the Egypt to be inherited by Gamal Mubarak, the Egyptian Blogosphere is recalling their personal experiences, objections, predictions and experiences with blogger imprisonment.

When Nasser became president, shortly after the Egyptian revolution, life changed for many Egyptians and a massive exodus to all corners of the globe followed for those affected, as recounted by Maryanne Stroud Gabbani…

The period of Nasser's socialisation of Egypt was horrific for many Egyptians of European and Jewish backgrounds and also for many Egyptians who simply had been too successful in their enterprises in Egypt. The young state of Israel had high hopes that some of the Egyptian Jews would head there from Egypt and were happy to stir the pot to encourage emigration. Unfortunately, Tel Aviv simply was no match for Cairo (and probably still isn't), so the emigrants were far more likely to go to Paris, London, Geneva, New York, or Montreal. Canada is full of Egyptians who left Egypt during the 50's and 60's and I often get emails from their offspring who are now intensely curious about the fascinating country their parents left behind.

Since those days the role of government has not changed much, Egyptian laws regarding women certainly haven't with few exceptions as documented by Canadian educated, Egyptian lawyer, Forsoothsayer…

…the Egyptian constitution states: “The State undertakes to provide equality of opportunity for all citizens”. A tough requirement – it’s left over socialist stuff. Luckily the constitution goes by the wayside more often than not. Also, I should state at the outset that Egypt applies shariah quite narrowly and, it is held by mainstream scholars, incorrectly. For example, shariah does not attempt equality between men and women in the area of family law; few legal systems have succeeded in doing so. The man is heavily disadvantaged, if shariah were to be correctly applied, notwithstanding appearances. However, not all of the rights and obligations of both the husband and wife have made their way into Egyptian law..

The most recent years in the presidency of Hosni Mubarak have been some of the most domestically controversial since the Egyptian Revolution, thanks mostly to the clash of Government and opposition voices on Egyptian Blogs. The largest casualty of war in this clash is Egyptian Blogger Kareem Amer who was sentenced to four years in jail for comments written on his blog. FreeKareem.org tells of school children raising money and protesting on Kareem's behalf…

Julia said the campaign was about shutting down repression and rebooting human rights. This year’s theme was internet repression and working to end the restriction of freedom of expression on the internet. She said it was based on Kareem Amer, who was imprisoned for blogging his thoughts on the government…

Many fear for the future of Egypt and what will change, possibly for the worse. As John F. Kennedy once said, “Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” So what changes does the future hold for Egypt? Zeinobia gives us her prediction…

It seems that very soon we are going to have very important political changes in Egypt , these expected political changes are predicted to be the big last moves in the inheritance process from the father to the son , of course here I mean father Hosni Mubarak to the Son Gamal Mubarak , this is what expected by all political analysts .

There are two changes that are going to happen very soon, the first change is the Nazif Cabinet and the second change is the elections of the leadership in the NDP.

The opposition by Egyptian bloggers against the government is progressive and will only grow as we move closer to an imminent transition, whether that be to Gamal Mubarak or a government controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. In any event the Egyptian Blogosphere only promises to get more interesting, so check in with me for next weeks round up and see what they're saying.

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Hossein Derakhshan’s blog is suspended

Sami Ben Gharbia · 13:20

Hossein Derakhshan’s blog is suspended

The blog of the Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan (aka Hoder) has been suspended by the U.S. based hosting company, Hosting Matters, after a complaint filed by lawyers representing Mehdi Khalaji, Next Generation fellow at The Washington Institute. The complaint -not filed to the court- centered on allegedly defamatory content published on Derakhshan's blogs. Hosting Matters requested that Hossein remove a specific post related to Mehdi Khalaji:

regarding the material and commentary you have posted, we have found that the material and commentary fall into a grey area regarding the allegations made by the complainant. The most prudent course of action, whether the allegations of defamation are valid or not in this instance, is to remove the material from the site

(…)

While we do not agree with the assessment as it relates to the latest post you have made, we do not have the time, interest, or resources to invest in continually dealing with his complaints and to review your site. Please remove that post and refrain from mentioning this person in any form on the site you host within this network.

“This is incredibly disturbing,” wrote Sepideh Saremi, “the host recognized that Khalaji/Khalaji’s lawyers were wrong but still allowed Khalaji’s bullying to force their hand.”

After removing the post in question, the hosting company made a new request, this time asking Hossein to remove anything he has written mentioning Mehdi Khalaji “in any language in which it is posted” and “to refrain from mentioning this person in any form on the site.”

In an email sent to friends, and posted later on his temporary blog, alerting them about what he described as a “new blow to online free speech”, Hossein Derakhshan wrote:

Last Friday, I was kicked out of my hosting company (Florida-based Hosting Matters), as a result of a legal notice sent by Mehdi Khalaji, an Iranian fellow at a neo-conservative think-tank (Washington Institute for the Near East Policy with Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and James Woolsey on its advisory board).

Mhedi Khalaji's lawyer has sent a notice to my hosting company and also my domain registrar, Go Daddy, asking them to a) remove any ‘defamatory' material about him, b) make me publish an apology, and c) pay $10,000 for the claimed damages. (…) Then last Friday, I noticed that the hosting company had actually removed, from my web serve and even my blogging software's database, any post where Mehdi Khalaji was named in English. After threatening me not to disclose what the hosting company did, and after a few email exchanges, they terminated my account.

Mehdi Khalaji's lawyers were also requesting that the hosting company provide them “with any information in their possession” that indicates the Internel protocol addresses (IP) of the visitors of Derakhshan's web sites since their creation. “I feel that this presents a grave privacy concern,” noted Nart Villeneuve, technical research director at CitizenLab. “Handing over the IP addresses of the visitors to Hossein’s blog? I fail to see how that is related to the alleged defamatory claims.” Villeneuve warned that “the legal notice that resulted in the deletion of some of Hossein Derakhshan’s blog posts by his hosting company and lead to the termination of his blog’s hosting service should raise red flags within the Anti-Censorship community.” In another post “Censored in Iran, Deleted in USA“, Villeneuve, who is also documenting Internet content filtering and surveillance practices worldwide with the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) noticed that “Threatening ISP’s with “take down” requests is one of the most undocumented methods of censoring Internet content.”

Nima Milaninia, the editor of the blog Iranian Truth, submitted numerous legal arguments contesting Hosting Matters’ decision to suspend Hossein Derakhshan blogs:

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) says that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” This federal law preempts any state laws to the contrary: “[n]o cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.” Adding that “Shutting down a blog and seeking to control its contents, even though it is legally permissible, is not an action ANY service provider should be committing. Its enough that all bloggers and activists take notice and petition against their action.”

And while some Iranian bloggers are trying to find the right solution to the Derakhshan/ Khalaji dispute, Jahanshah Javid, who knows “Hossein and Mehdi personally and have enjoyed their company” thinks that:

Hossein has not been found guilty in a court of law. He has fallen victim to an aggressive lawyer and an internet hosting company that's trying to cover its ass. If Hossein had a lawyer and there was a trial, I am sure the court would not have ordered his site be shut down. And it would not have forced him to remove ALL references to Mehdi Khalaji in his blog either.

“What Next” asked Iranian Woman:

In a democracy you don't selectively give voice to one group of people and shut others down because they don’t speak to your liking. It is disturbing to see that some so called Iranian human rights, women rights, and god knows what rights activists actually are happy and cheerful for Hossein Derakhshan’s blog being off the map! I don’t think there was another blogger who questioned Derakhshan’s motives and wrote her opinion of him before anyone else as much as I have but I stand for his right. This is despite the fact that we stand on two opposite poles! Derakhshan has the right to express his opinion, and to write.

Aside from the political and ideological issues that can legally be addressed and discussed by those for and against Hossein Derakhshan's rights to express himself on his blog, the most important questions raised by this case are relevant to all of us: Are our personal blogs safe with commercial hosting companies, especially when our writing may be deemed controversial? What if hosting companies edit our posts, deleting whatever they want? Given how easily content was forced off the internet in Derakhshan's case, by claims of defamation untested in a court of law, maybe the answer is to find alternative hosting companies and ISPs which do not cave in to lawyers’ intimidation or remove content in response to unproven claims.

In his speech at the annual awards dinner (2007) held by the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA), Amnesty International's campaigns director, Tim Hancock, called on internet service providers (ISPs) to protect online freedom of expression:

Web users and service providers alike have a responsibility to keep alive the things that have made the internet great — its democracy, its freedom and the way it gives people access to knowledge and the opportunity to participate and be heard, in a way that was unthinkable 45 years ago.

13 comments · »»

Kazakhstan: Crisis and Elections

Adil Nurmakov · 12:56

lingua → pt

Elections
Elections are scheduled for August 18 and the campaign is drawing to its end this week. Megakhuimyak comments (RUS) on the constitutional novelty according to which almost 10% of the parliament's lower chamber is elected (de-facto appointed) by the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan, a consultative body subordinate to the president. The novelty is meant to ensure representation of ethnic minorities. The blogger says that the principle of formation of the Assembly's list is non-transparent and controversial:

Why they put a Kazakh there is unclear. Why they chose Balkars (North Caucasus ethnicity) among all other small nations is also hardly understandable. Others are totally unknown people. Either the presidential administration is working badly, or it is their politics to stuff up the Majilis with dull deputies?

Adam of neweurasia also provides (RUS) an overview of media coverage surrounding the Assemly's nomination.

Adam also reports on the legalization of property and money that the opposition regards as an officially approved money-laundering campaign, in which higher state officials (that form the core of the ruling “Nur-Otan's” party list) and their relatives have benefited the most (ENG).

This opinion is shared (RUS) by Irene of cj.kz:

All official media are very praiseful about legalization. I'm sorry, maybe I don't understand something, but is it true that we are lauding the fact that people effectively used the chance to confirm their rights for luckily stolen property and money, simultaneously escaping trials and jails?

Meanwhile milis-kz believes (RUS) that the Kazakh opposition today “is not a bunch of small factions any more; they are now a real political force, judging by the platform of the All-National Social Democratic Party”. However, he admits: “Most likely, neither debates nor the vote itself play any role, as the “proper” figures are already getting prepared on the top.” Probably, this is one of the reasons why the youth in Kazakhstan is apolitical, as Vitaliy Mantrov writes (RUS) on neweurasia.

Financial crisis?
America's mortgage crisis, the downfall of stock markets, the raise of the dollar in Kazakhstan (which many believe to be a consequence of the abovementioned legalization - and the subsequent flight of capital abroad) and longstanding rumors of a banking system collapse (based on excessive external borrowings of the Kazakhstani banks, which they spend by giving away consumer credits) made bloggers think:

Count-asylum says (RUS) that “crisis in the banking sphere is becoming the main issue in the blogosphere, pushing the parliamentary elections off the radar, partly also because their results are quite predictable”.

Megakhuimyak was radical enough to declare the start of crisis after an article (RUS) got published in the Russian major daily “Kommersant”:

Stock prices of Kazakh Alliance Bank and Kazkommertzbank decreased in London, other banks' stocks fell at the Kazakhstani stock exchange. If you say this is not a crisis, then what is it?

Gorisvet says (RUS) that all top Kazakh banks dramatically increased the amount of initial installments for credits and mortgages, while two of them totally suspended giving away credits until September. Ehot wonders (RUS) which bank will be the first to fall next Monday.

Meanwhile, most financial experts, governmental officials and banks' top managers say that the crisis is not a precise word for the situation. They say that the economy on the whole and the banking sector in particular will not collapse because of sizeable stabilization instruments (gold-and-currency fund and the National Fund, which is aggregating petrodollars) and stable world prices for oil.

In this respect, Steve LeVine on his personal blog oilandglory comments on the Kazakh government's decision to press harder for broader control over the country's oil wealth.

Besides
Saken Tauzhanov, an independent journalist, blogger on KUB and a critic of the regime, was hit by a truck and died in Almaty.

Wondernews says (RUS):

It is necessary to investigate whether this was an accident or not, although there is no reason to trust the official investigations. The country goes down the hill.

Weathercock agrees (RUS):

A journalist, who dared to publicly and critically evaluate the reality perished. I have no doubts that this was murder. Every time an opposition journalist or politician dies, I can hardly escape the feeling of disgust towards the country of Kazakhstan.

Georgian comments (RUS) on the so-called “Aliyev Affair“, in which the Kazakhstani authorities are trying to prosecute former presidential son-in-law and diplomat Rakhat Aliev for alleged affiliation with mafia and kidnappings.

The court in Vienna refused to extradite him, saying that he can't get fair trial in Kazakhstan. Georgian alludes to the long-rumored suspicion that Aliyev's plans was to inherit the president's post after Nazarbayev and says:

It seems like “Papa [president Nazarbayev] had promised sweet candy to Rakhat, but later ate it himself. Now Aliyev feels offended and complains about Papa to other relatives.

2 comments · »»

Brazil: Ad campaign compares bloggers with monkeys

Jose Murilo Junior · 06:50

lingua → bn · pt · es

A traditional Brazilian newspaper launched an advertising campaign to promote its new website, and the core message of all video and visual pieces was based on a humorous approach of blogs as bad sources of information. One video piece went far enough as comparing bloggers with monkeys. As expected, the local blogosphere took it personally.

(more…)

17 comments · »»