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Western media criticizied for planting surveillance cameras for when Nelson Mandela dies

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:05:47 -0800

Public Radio International - By PRI's The World - Jan. 30 - In the small village of Qunu in South Africa, surveillance cameras belonging to Western media agencies have been found outside the retirement home of Nelson Mandela, the much-loved former president and South African freedom fighter. Locals are outraged, accusing the agencies of offending their culture and acting like vultures around a dying lion. In Qunu, photographer Charlie Shoemaker takes pictures of children performing a traditional song and dance at a coming of age ceremony. Shoemaker, a freelance photographer from the U.S. sells his pictures to American and British publications through the Corbis Agency. He’s here because of the village’s famous inhabitant: Nelson Mandela. “The reasons I’ve chosen to be in South Africa (is to) prepare and be here for when Mandela passes,” Shoemaker said. “Because it’ll be one of the largest global stories of our time and that means there’ll be a lot of work.” Like Shoemaker, dozens of other western journalists have visited Qunu for the same reason, interviewing people in the community and photographing Mandela’s boyhood hangouts. Some media agencies even installed cameras in the house opposite Mandela’s, owned by the village chieftainess. Residents say they weren’t told exactly what the cameras were for. “When the equipment was first installed, before the 2010 World Cup, we were told there would be a fun park basically where residents could go and watch the soccer on big screens,” one man said said. “They were surprised that there was no fun park. We were actually very surprised to hear they were media cameras now, as we didn’t know what exactly they were there for.” Both Reuters and the Associated Press admitted to installing cameras, but have since removed them. Meanwhile the police have launched a criminal investigation. Many locals are glad. “I don’t like the fact people are capitalising on Mandela’s ill health. I don’t know about others in the village but I don’t like what was done by AP and Reuters. I don’t like or appreciate the installation of those cameras there,” the man said. Residents say aside from the media’s invasion of privacy, talking openly about death goes against the Sosa culture, in which children rarely attend funerals and some women are not even allowed to see dead bodies. Western journalists like Shoemaker say they respect the local culture, but there’s also “the news.” “I don’t think it’s disrespectful for publications to prepare for death of someone on Mandela’s scale,” Shoemaker said. “We can all agree Nelson Mandela is an important person. We all agree that when he passes it’ll be a big global piece. So then why is it disrespectful for me to be here to tell that story?” He said he would never go so far as bribing neighbors or hiding cameras and that his work is not problematic. But being respectful can mean different things for Western and African journalists, said Siya Boya. She’s a local journalist with the Daily Dispatch. And while she admited she’s also preparing a supplement for Mandela’s death, she keeps it low key. “I think the newspapers and the broadcasters are prepared, but we’re not saying it. We’re not putting it out there like, ‘Oh I’m just preparing for Nelson Mandela’s death, what are you doing today?’" Boya said. "We don’t do that. It’s un-African, it is totally un-African to be treating death like that. The way western news agencies are pre-empting it is a bit too much for the South African community. We know he’s going to die, just like you or I are going to die. But setting it up like that I don’t think is right." Boya hopes the camera incident will force western media to treat death with the decorum and respect it commands in Mandela’s native Xhosa culture. Meanwhile journalists in both Africa and the west continue to plan for the day Mandela passes away.

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South Sudan Massacres Follow Independence

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Jeffrey Jettleman - Jan. 13 (News Report) - The trail of corpses begins about 300 yards from the corrugated metal gate of the United Nations compound and stretches for miles into the bush. There is an old man on his back, a young woman with her legs splayed and skirt bunched up around her hips, and a whole family — man, woman, two children — all facedown in the swamp grass, executed together. How many hundreds are scattered across the savannah, nobody really knows.

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Nicholas D. Kristof Blog: Melinda Gates Shares Insights From Her Recent Trip to Bangladesh.

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By By THE EDITORS - Jan. 12 (Opinion) - Melinda Gates, just back from a trip to Bangladesh, along with Nicholas Kristof, answer readers' questions about the developing world.

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Oil Slick From Massive Spill in Nigeria Threatens Coastline, May Be Largest Spill in a Decade

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 27 (News Report) - Communities along Nigeria’s Niger Delta have been put on alert following a major oil spill from the oil giant, Shell. The massive oil slick is making its way to the Nigerian coast, threatening local wildlife and massive pollution along the shore. Much of the available information about the spill comes from the company responsible for it, Royal Dutch Shell, which says less than 40,000 barrels have leaked so far. But Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency says the spill could be three times as large. It comes just four months after the United Nations said it would take 30 years and around $1 billion for a small section of the delta to recover from environmental damage caused by Shell and other companies.

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"Get It Done": Urging Climate Justice, Youth Delegate Anjali Appadurai Mic Checks U.N. Summit

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 09 (News Report) - A number of protests are being held today at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban to protest the failure of world leaders to agree to immediately agree to a deal of binding emissions cuts. Anjali Appadurai, a student at the College of the Atlantic in Maine, addressed the conference on behalf of youth delegates. Just after her speech, she led a mic check from the stage -- a move inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests. "It always seems impossible until it's done," Appadurai said. "So, distinguished delegates and governments around the world, governments of the developed world: Deep [emissions] cuts now. Get it done." [includes rush transcript]

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At Durban Summit, Leading African Activist Calls U.S. Emissions Stance "A Death Sentence for Africa"

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 06 (News Report) - We continue our week-long coverage from the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP 17 in Durban, where negotiators from more than 190 nations are in their final week of key talks on fighting climate change. The future of the Kyoto Protocol is in doubt as is the formation of a new Green Climate Fund. With the talks taking place in South Africa, special interest is being paid to how the continent of Africa is already being heavily impacted by the climate crisis. We speak to Nigerian environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria and Chair of Friends of the Earth International. He is author of the new book, "To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and Climate Crisis in Africa." “We are still in a situation where the negotiations are being carried out on a big platform of hypocrisy, a lack of seriousness, a lack of recognition of the fact that Africa is so heavily impacted,” Bassey says. “For every one degree Celsius change in temperature, Africa is impacted at a heightened level. This is very much to be condemned.”

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Greenpeace Director Kumi Naidoo, From Anti-Apartheid Activist to Leading Voice for Climate Justice

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 05 (Interview) - We speak to Naidoo about the climate summit and the link between his anti-apartheid activism in the 1980s and his environmental work today. "The problem is, the level of ambition and the level of urgency being exhibited in these talks do not match what the science is telling us to do," says Naidoo. "We are seeing in Africa—in the Horn of Africa with the drought, the conflict in Darfur, the devastation that African women farmers are facing all over our continent—that climate change impacts are taking lives right now. So in that context, we feel that there has to be a much greater sense of urgency to move the agenda forward."

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The Road to Durban: Tracking Global Warming's Devastating Impact Across the African Continent

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 05 (Special Report) - For more on the impact of climate change on the African continent and an update on the U.N. Climate Change Conference COP 17 talks, we're joined in Durban by John Vidal, environment editor for The Guardian. Vidal has just returned from a journey between Africa's two most industrialized countries — Egypt and South Africa. His route included one of Africa's poorest nations, Malawi — its newest, Southern Sudan — and its hungriest, Ethiopia. He visited some of the continent's most remote tribes in Uganda and Kenya, and coastal areas here in South Africa. For all of these countries, the stakes of what comes out of COP 17 are high. "It was a terrifying journey of reality," says Vidal. "Very little science has been done, but there is absolutely no doubt about the consequences — which are going to be very much hotter temperatures, making it almost impossible to live in many areas, huge effects on the poor people." [Rush transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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In Congo election, outcome is all but certain and violence is likely

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Robyn Dixon - Nov. 28 (News Report) - President Joseph Kabila is expected to win an election that is widely seen as rigged. With his security forces cracking down and his chief rival calling for revolt, the scene is set for bloodshed.

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Rural Peru gets connected | Mattia Cabitza

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Mattia Cabitza - Nov. 28 - More than 100 communities in rural Peru now have renewable energy and internet access, thanks to an aid programme that is being rolled out across the eight poorest nations in Latin America The connection was not of crisp video quality, but the chorus of schoolchildren from San José de Huamaní, near Ica in the south, could be heard loud and clear: "Good morning," they chanted. Hundreds of kilometres away, they were greeted with applause, through video link, by a brightly lit conference room full of Peruvian and European Union officials. They were meeting in Lima to announce the completion of an aid programme that is taking renewable energy and the internet to 130 rural communities in Peru. With funding from the EU, the Euro-Solar programme is being rolled out across the eight poorest nations of Latin America, such as Peru, at a cost of €36m ($47.6m/£30.9m). The aim is to benefit more than 300,000 people whose communities are not connected to the electricity grid. Via satellite ...

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The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By George Monbiot - Nov. 08 (Opinion) - Our common treasury in the last 30 years has been captured by industrial psychopaths. That's why we're nearly bankrupt If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren't responsible. Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes. The findings of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel economics prize , are devastating to the beliefs that financial high-fliers entertain about themselves. He discovered that their ...

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France, Islam and the banlieues: a debate on the place of Islam and class in the suburbs

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Michèle Tribalat, Gérard Mauger - Nov. 01 (Opinion) - In an effort to allay concerns about Islam in France, policymakers and analysts have either tried to play down its importance or sought to blend it into the landscape. Islam is often portrayed as an integral part of French history: its presence simply follows on from ancient history. The basis for this argument is shaky, for it refers to an era when Christendom – not yet referred to as the west – was in retreat, driven back by the force of Islamic arms.

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Colbert Nails Rush Limbaugh Over Obama Christian Killing Accusations (VIDEO)

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Stephen Colbert - Oct. 20 (Comedy News) - On Wednesday night's "Report," Stephen Colbert featured a segment on the inflammatory radio host's recent on-air claim that Obama is sending troops to Uganda for the purpose of "wiping out Christians." Explaining that the "Christian" group Lord's Resistance Army promotes an objective "to remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people," Limbaugh left out that the LRA has terrorized the people of Uganda and other countries for over 25 years by abducting children, brainwashing them and forcing them to become sex slaves as well as torturers and executioners.

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Occupy the Classroom

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Nicholas Kristof - Oct. 19 (Opinion) - The single step that would do the most to reduce inequality has nothing to do with finance at all. It's an expansion of early childhood education.

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Court refuses extradition of suspect in genocide

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Scotsman - By Pierre-Antoine Souchard - Sep. 29 (News Report) - France cannot extradite Rwanda's former first lady to her homeland, where she is sought in connection with the African country's 1994 genocide, a Paris appeals court has ruled.

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South Africa may block Dalai Lama visit to Tutu

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - Sep. 26 - South Africa officials may block the Dalai Lama from celebrating the 80th birthday of his friend and fellow Nobel Peace Laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, amid fears that Chinese pressure is trumping the country's much-vaunted policies on freedom of speech and human rights.

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Somalia denies CIA detention base

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Sep. 09 (News Report) - The centre is alleged to be under the presidential palace in Mogadishu Somalia has dismissed reports that the US runs an underground detention centre where the CIA helps interrogate terror suspects in the capital

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In Africa, U.S. Watches China's Rise

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Peter Wonacott - Sep. 02 (News Report) - China is expanding its economic and political ties with countries across Africa, resulting in a rapid rise in influence here that has sparked concern from the U.S. government

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Foreign policy: intervention after Libya

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - Aug. 24 (Opinion) - It can be said that in narrow military terms the west's action over Libya has worked, and that politically there was justification It is too early to claim that the Nato intervention in Libya has been a success in the full meaning of that word. It will be weeks before we have a sense of where Libya is heading, months before there is any certainty about its future, and years before we can properly assess the impact of the decision to use force to aid the rebels. But it can now reasonably be said that in narrow military terms it worked, and that politically there was some retrospective justification for its advocates as the crowds poured into the streets of Tripoli to welcome the rebel convoys earlier this week. The argument that we had foolishly gone in on one side in a civil war must be weakened by such scenes, which suggest that the picture of a majority wishing to see the back of Gaddafi is closer to the truth than the alternative picture of a people more or less evenly divided between ...

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Qaddafi's many hideouts help him elude rebels

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

CBS News - Aug. 24 (News Report) - Even after rebels stormed into the capital and overwhelmed his residence, Libya's Muammar Qaddafi has plenty of places to hide. Underground, for example. The man who ruled Libya for 42 years is known to have deep bunkers under his Bab al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli, which rebel fighters seized Tuesday. Some former officials say the compound is connected by long tunnels to far-flung parts of Tripoli in a hidden network that would provide a quick escape route.

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Live blog: Rebels fighting pockets of resistance; journalists escape hotel

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - Aug. 24 (Breaking News) - With reported pockets of fighting remaining in Tripoli on Wednesday, the whereabouts of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi were still not known. Rebels seized Gadhafi’s vast compound on Tuesday. Celebratory gunfire was virtually nonstop as rebels streamed in and out of the compound, many leaving with weapons and ammunition seized from the complex. A senior NATO official warned that the war "is not over yet, although it's close."

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Kadafi 'delusional,' wants to reclaim power, ex-confidante says

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Molly Hennessy-Fiske - Aug. 24 (News Report) - Libya's fugitive leader thinks he can return to power when NATO ends its air campaign, his former right-hand man told Al Jazeera television. “Kadafi is delusional because he thinks he can disappear in Libya and, when NATO leaves, he believes he can gather his supporters,” said Abdel Salam Jalloud, who defected before rebels captured most of the capital this week.

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Pockets of resistance as rebels claim Tripoli

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - By Zeina Khodr - Aug. 22 (Breaking News) - The head of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) has announced the end of the Gaddafi era, while sporadic fighting continued across the capital, Tripoli. Fighting and gun battles erupted in parts of Tripoli on Monday after tanks left Bab al-Azizyah, Muammar Gaddafi's compound, to confront the rebel assault that gained control of much of the capital in a battle overnight. Many of the streets in the centre of the city - where anti-government supporters had celebrated hours earlier - were abandoned as pockets of pro-Gaddafi resistance and the presence of snipers and artillery fire made the area dangerous. Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, who entered the city with rebel fighters who advanced overnight, said the security situation in the city was "tenuous," despite there being celebrations in the streets. "There are some Gaddafi forces still putting up a fight," our correspondent said. "And rebels still have one last push to make towards Bab al-Azizyah," Khodr added, saying that it was unclear when this advance would take place.

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Ethiopia plans ambitious resettlement of people buffeted by East Africa drought

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By William Davison - Aug. 02 (Special Report) - In Ethiopia's rain-starved eastern badlands, livestock is the sole asset for most. Swaddled in robes, pastoralist families traverse huge tracts searching for water and pasture for their herds, uprooting camps as they go. When seasonal rains fail, life becomes a battle for survival.

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How the U.S. Government uses its media servants to attack real journalism

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Jul. 17 (News Analysis) - Earlier this week, the truly intrepid investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill published in The Nation one of the most significant political exposés of the year. Entitled "the CIA's Secret Sites in Somalia," the article documented that the CIA uses and effectively controls a secret prison in Mogadishu, where foreign nationals who are rendered off the streets of their countries (at the direction of the U.S.) are taken (along with Somali nationals) to be imprisoned with no due process and interrogated (by U.S. agents). Although Somali government agents technically operate the facility, that is an obvious ruse: "US intelligence personnel pay the salaries of intelligence agents and also directly interrogate prisoners" and are "there full-time," Scahill reported.

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