How to get the latest humanitarian information on the earthquake in Haiti

Tuesday afternoon, January 12th, the worst earthquake in 200 years - 7.0 in magnitude - struck less than ten miles from the Caribbean city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The initial quake was later followed by twelve aftershocks greater than magnitude 5.0.

Structures of all kinds were damaged or collapsed, from shantytown homes to national landmarks. It is still very early in the recovery effort, but millions are likely displaced, and thousands are feared dead as rescue teams from all over the world are now descending on Haiti to help where they are able.

If you are a humanitarian aid worker, or just generally interested in the situation in Haiti:

1. You can find the latest updates via a search on Humanitarian News
   
2. If you'd rather use an RSS feed, the same updates can be automatically delivered to you via this customized newsfeed
   
3. If you want the updates delivered via email, use the xFruits RSS-to-mail tool. Where you need to fill in the URL, use:
   http://humanitariannews.org/opensearch/node/Haiti%20earthquake
   

Picture courtesy Thony Belizaire/AFP/Getty Images

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The relativity of poverty

If you monitor aid-related articles, just like I do on Humanitarian News, it is so easy to pull out the crap.

And I tell you, there is a lot of crap and make-believe in the aid world.

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Neda is the "Times person of the Year"

Back in June, violent protests erupted all over Iran to contest the obvious election fraud. During the time, I reported on the influence of social media in the street fights, and had one article about "Neda", a 26 year old girl who was shot in the heart while in a traffic jam near the protests.

Someone caught the killing on a mobile phone and posted it on YouTube. I predicted then that Neda would become the face of the 2nd Iranian revolution, and it seems Time magazine helped a bit (politically inspired or not): Neda is now the Time Magazine Person of the Year.

Picture courtesy The Times

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Security amiss: Firecrackers on plane and pope attacked

Further to my post about how security all boils down to "the people who implement it", rather that to "the systems themselves":

The pope was attacked at the start of the midnight Christmas mass, and someone set off firecrackers aboard a US transatlantic plane..

Lunatics in both cases, I am sure. But what if the intent was more serious?

Update:
It seems the fire cracker guy was serious, and it was an attempt to blow up the plane. To make everyone feel comfortable: US officials confirmed he was on a terrorist watchlist.

Cartoon courtesy Bob Englehart/The Hartford Courant (via The Moderate Voice)

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The US plan for Afghanistan. Page 22

It's officially called "COIN" abbreviation for "COunter INtelligence".

Should probably be called WIN: "Without INtelligence".
Or HOTOSOFET: "HOw TO Stimulate Our Failing Economy Through foreign wars".

According to a recent figures, one gallon oil costs the invading troops $400. The annual expenditure of one soldier is almost one million US dollar. Yearly, the presence of US troops in Afghanistan costs $103 bn, including the troop surge recently announced by Obama.

According to the Sept 21 2009 Congressional Research Service Report, there are 73,968 private contractors working for the US military in Afghanistan. (Full)

Picture courtesy Incredimazing, discovered via Aidwatchers

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Security... Much blabla, little boumboum.

Case #1:
Yesterday, Italian prime minister Berlusconi was hit by a guy hurling a statuette at him. He was taken away with blood all over his face. The hospital later confirmed he broke his nose and two teeth.

Berlusconi was amidst a crowd handing out autographs. Only last weekend tens of thousands marched in Rome to demand Berlusconi's resignation, accusing him of conflicts of interest and of tailoring laws to protect him from prosecution in cases involving his media, real estate and sports empire, and links to the mafia.


Case #2:
"EU leaders must show leadership!" shouted one while two others waved yellow flags reading "EU Save Copenhagen" and another started reading out a statement on the red carpet meant for the EU top officials: A bus load of Greenpeace activists stunned security officials at last Thursday's EU-summit in Brussels.

Eleven people dressed in suits, driving hired limousines, displaying look-alike security badges - displaying the Greenpeace logo and their real name -, were waved through at both a police and a private security firm's roadblock, before arriving at the red carpet amidst top politicians.

The reaction from the Belgian officials flabbergasted me: "If we would have thought anyone would be stupid enough to do this kind of dangerous stuff, then probably this would not have happened", said Christian De Coninck, the Brussels police spokesperson. "If people use heavy material like faked police cars, and ditto badges, than of course anyone can get in". He stressed the police had not made a single mistake and "there are no holes in the security system at the EU summit."

Securitas, the private security firm which staffed the last road block before entering the red carpet zone, stated: "It is our duty to check all delegate cars. For security reasons, none of these cars should stand still, so we can only do a superficial check." According to Paul Schoolmeesters, spokesman from Securitas, "we only did what the client asked of us".

My case:
Having worked for years in security constrained humanitarian operations, the comments in the last case have me rolling over in (cynical) laughter.

Both cases prove three things:

1. If anyone wants to 'hit' anything or anyone, they can do so. Easily. It only takes some guts, creativity and very few means.
   
2. Any security system has flows, flows which we don't see because we don't want to see them.
   
3. Any security system is only as strong as the weakest link. The weakest links are often the people who implement the security checks.

These instances made me think of the security apparatus in the humanitarian world, where a man dressed up in a police uniform walked into our Islamabad office and blew himself up killing five staff and where gunmen shot the guards at the entrance and blew up truck wih 500kgs of explosives destroying a hotel full of aidworkers, etc....

No matter how good we think our security system are, there are always flaws. For as far as I know, no humanitarian organisation employs a "dirty Bob": a person with the sole task to try and break existing security systems, exposing their weaknesses. The results would be astonishing.

Pictures courtesy BBC and De Redactie

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Security these days

From The Morning Tribune May 9, 1903.
Courtesy The Tribune News.

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Volunteering for the planet

We have featured UNV (UN Volunteers) before on The Road. I don't think there is anyone amongst us, aidworkers, who have not come across "a UNV" in the field. Volunteering in a UN organisation via UNV is an excellent way to get started in the humanitarian world. Whilst you get a taste of the aid or development work, they also pay you for your living expenses.

Equally interesting is their online volunteering section, an "market place" linking people who want to volunteer and organisations who need volunteers.

On the occasion of the Copenhagen climate summit, they are totalling the amount of hours people have volunteered "for a better planet" in the past half year. They are almost up to a remarkable 1.5 million hours. Not bad...

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News Feed: Somalia Fighting

News feed courtesy Humanitarian News.
Create your own RSS feed based on your search criteria for the latest humanitarian news.

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Asia typhoons: Curing is more costly than preparing

In 2008, the world spent US$12 billion on humanitarian responses to disasters. 99% of those killed by natural phenomena were in the Asia Pacific region, according to John Holmes, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator.

Holmes said 10% of what we spend on response or even on development should go into disaster risk reduction to limit the consequences of natural disasters, especially given the impact of climate change. (Full)

In the past weeks, two deadly storms struck the Philippines killing more than 700 people. The flooding disaster affected more than 7 million people. (Source)

While the humanitarian community's response is in full swing, tropical storm Lupit is forming in the Pacific, having all the potential to turn into the a super typhoon. Lupit is predicted to hit the same areas previously affected by typhoons Parma and Ketsana. (Source).

One good example of disaster mitigation is Bangladesh, where over a 100-year period, 508 cyclones have hit the Bay of Bengal region. After the disastrous effect of Cyclone Sidr in 2007, the government planted 100 million trees as a natural coastal barrier for floods and cyclones. They extended their weather watch centres, expanded the network of volunteers to warn people of upcoming threats and increased their shelters in high risk areas.

Meanwhile, Humanitarian News monitors the latest news updates on the Philippines flooding. You can use this RSS feed with the latest updates.

Picture courtesy Jay Directo (AFP/Getty Images)

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The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka

Tens of thousands of detained refugees from the war in Sri Lanka are threatened by the imminent arrival of monsoon rains in the north of the country, according to an internal United Nations document.

The UN believes that about 66,000 people held in the vast Menik Farm internment camp since May face a humanitarian disaster when the rains start, bringing the spectre of disease. Officials have urged the government to move those whose tents are most likely to be flooded by a mixture of rain and sewage. (Full)

Something in that picture hit me in the face. These are not refugees, but Internally Displaced People (IDPs). Refugees are people driven from their homes to cross a border, "hosted" on foreign soil.

The ethnic Tamil population locked up behind barbed wire and sharpened sticks as fences, are Sri Lankan civilians, on Sri Lanka soil. They were first held as human shields by the LTTE (the "Tamil Tigers") during the last weeks of the civil war, and are now kept as prisoners by the government.

What kind of government locks up tens of thousands of their own civilians in inhumane circumstances? Maybe this video explains what government we are dealing with here...



And when one UN official spoke up in the press about the condition of children in the camps, he was expelled from the country.

According to the latest OCHA humanitarian report, "253,567 people are accommodated in temporary camps" across Northern Sri Lanka. Since the conflict only "7,835 people have been released from temporary camps"...

Picture courtesy David Gray/Reuters. Video discovered via Stop Genocide.

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Picture of the day: Suicide bomb in Peshawar

A huge and lethal blast rocked a crowded market in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Friday, in what appeared to be a warning about the government’s plans to launch a military offensive against militants in the frontier region of South Waziristan.

The blast, which police and security officials suspected was caused by a suicide car bomb containing more than 100 pounds of explosives, was the biggest in Pakistan in months, killing at least 48 people, including seven children and one woman, and wounding 148 others. (Full)

A car bomb, in a public market place, on a Friday... Clearly aimed to kill as many innocent people as possible. Civilians. People like you and me, who have nothing to do with the so-called war.
Killing children has nothing to do with religion anymore. This has nothing to do with faith anymore. Not even with politics. This is about power, and money, and control. At any cost, in any way possible.

I can not imagine how vicious a mind can be to plan and execute something like this. It is a spiral that seems to be impossible control, leave alone to be stopped. Anyone can strap explosives around his waste or stuff it in the trunk of his car and blow himself up in the most crowded places, trying to kill as many innocent people as possible.

More Pictures of the Day on The Road.

Picture courtesy European Pressphoto Agency

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We lost five colleagues in Islamabad today

Today, it is my birthday. But not much reason to celebrate. This morning, someone got into our office in Islamabad, Pakistan, and blew himself up.

He took the lives away from Botan, Farzana, Abid, GulRukh and Mohammad. Our colleagues and friends.

Botan Al-Hayawi (41) was Iraqi. He leaves behind a wife, two sons and a daughter. Botan was on mission in Peshawar when suicide bombers blew up the Pearl Continental Hotel in June. I met Botan several times back in 2002 and 2003 when I worked in Iraq.

Yesterday, Botan posted something on the Interagency ICT discussion forum:

I arrived to Islamabad last Monday morning with a busy day planned. I had just returned to Islamabad after recovering from the Peshawar blast on June 9th, 2009, which left me with some minor injuries but did not break my spirit.

He wrote this less than 24 hours before someone took his life away.

Farzana Barkat (22) was an office assistant. She worked in our logistics office, right next to where the suicide bomber blew himself up. A young woman at the start of her life.

Abid Rehman (41) was our senior finance assistant. He leaves a wife, two daughters and two sons. I worked with Abid when I was based in Islamabad from 2000 to 2002. We always exchanged friendly and teasing jokes as I stretched the finance unit with my urgent requests.

GulRukh Tahir (40) was our receptionist. She leaves behind a husband.

Mohammad Wahab (44) was our finance assistant. He leaves a wife, two daughters and two sons.

I am a bit numb at this moment. I think back of all the people I have known, and who lost their lives in the line of duty. Abby, Saskia, Pero, M.....

I think how it is possible to be close to those we want to serve, without having to isolate ourselves with barbed wire and sand bags. I think how we can still work in places we are still needed, but know we are at risk. Algeria, where our offices were bombed in 2007. Somalia, where we lost two colleagues earlier this year. Sudan, where we lost several drivers over the past years... Only to name a few.

It is strange.. It is only after the hours go by that the cruelty and the reality of the act today really seeps through... And the consciousness that if we are to work in a higher risk environment, there actually is not one place, where one is totally safe. Where would that be? In the office? They drive a truck through the gates and blow it up. In the guesthouse or the hotel? Same thing...
You can restrict the movements of staff and reduce field visits to minimize the risk, you can drive armoured cars - as we do in some operations - but then again, what holds them from blowing up an anti-tank mine underneath your vehicle as you stop in front of the traffic lights? What holds anyone from gunning you down when you get out of the car. Even when you think you are safe in the office compound.

Security for humanitarian workers has been more and more restrictive on what and how we can do our work. "Protecting ourselves" is a must. But how far does that conflict with being able to do our work, which entails having direct contact with those we serve? Should we all pack and go home?

I do not know the answers. I know one thing. This is not a happy birthday for me...

This song keeps on playing in my mind...

Picture courtesy The Nation

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Copenhagen Climate Summit Heat: from business to condoms.

The more the December Copenhagen Climate Change Summit comes closer, it is interesting just watching the headlines flashing by. It seems everyone and his dog is starting to claim their stake, and to put their own spin onto climate change trying to ensure they "profit" from whatever comes out. Financially, politically or visibility wise.

If you do "Copenhagen summit, climate change", "business, climate change" or "climate engineering" searches on Humanitarian News, you will see the blogosphere and news heating up:

Politics were first:
US and Europe clash over Copenhagen deal
India will be key player at Copenhagen conference
Maldives too broke to attend climate summit
Chinese adviser: 2C target unrealistic
US climate change bill faces fresh delays
If Obama Can't Defeat the Republican Headbangers, Our Planet is Doomed
E.U. calls on U.S. to do more to tackle climate change
Emissions per person in parts of China above rich nations
Merkel and Sarkozy want carbon tax on imports

The business hook:
Climate Change: Big Business Now, and Fixing to Get a Whole Lot Bigger
Carbon-Capturing Cement Worth as Much As GE’s Power Plant Business
India not to succumb to pressure on carbon emission pact: Govt - Business Standard India

The humanitarian angle:
Doctors Urge Climate Pact To Avert ‘Global Health Catastrophe’
Development v Climate Change: a new UN report tries to square the circle
Global Warming Is A Medical Emergency
UN: Rich Countries Will Suffer Unless They Help Poor on Climate Change
Europe's €15bn climate aid price tag
Diverting Aid for Climate Change Threatens Children
But of course: U.S. Climate Envoy Says Some Calls for Aid 'Wildly' Off Mark (Bloomberg)

And there is the cash factor:
Poor countries need “hundreds of billions” to fight climate change
Scientists Find Net Present Value of Climate Change Impacts of $1240 TRILLION on Current Emissions Path
Africa: Continent Puts Price On Climate Adaptation Aid

When researchers join hands with big business:
(for as far as they are not already owned by the business)
Engineering better than tax climate: economists
Influential U.K. Panel Outlines Possible Geo-engineering Ideas
I won't quote more climate engineering stuff, as it makes me depressive. "Let's not treat the cause of the problem, but engineer a workaround"...
From massive solar panels in the sky, fake carbon sucking trees to spraying sea water in the atmosphere: "Climate engineering" puts dollar signs in everybody's eyes. Companies start drooling and pseudo-researchers get wet dreams.

My all time favourite, though, is:
Condoms could combat climate change
Or how we should encourage the use of condoms in the developing world. Slowing down their population growth will slow down the heating of the planet. I think that is a very sustainable solution, clearly tacking the root cause of the problem. Dah.
Maybe we can arm up both sides from any conflict in the world: the Chad rebels and Sudanese army, Ethiopia and the Somali insurgents, the Taliban and Afghan government troops, India and Pakistan, Taiwan and China, DRC and Rwanda, Japan and North-Korea, Israel and Iran. We encourage wars in the vicinity of the world's largest populations. That should kill a few billions. Voila, problem solved: a few billion less and the carbon offset is no longer relevant. Ozone holes will close, and the world will be green.
It would also generate a lot of business in the arms trade, mega bucks in rebuilding economies. We would all feel good as we would donate to thousands of charities helping the affected population. It certainly stop the upcoming economies from catching up so fast with the Western industries: we let them bomb each other.
Eureka!

Picture courtesy Zazzle

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Climate change: The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes

With the media heating up for the December Climate Change Summit in Denmark, it is time to for some reflection.

Does the name "Severn Cullis-Suzuki" mean anything to you? Severn was 12 when in 1992, she raised money to attend the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. She spoke to the summit members in a speech which became famous. A speech which -sadly enough- could have been given today. It makes one wonder what progress really happened in the past 17 year.



Do we actually make progress on protecting our planet for the sake of our children, and their children? In an age where Green Goes Commercial, where corrupt companies like Monsanto and Cargill start dominating our food chain, and chase the food prices up so the poor no longer have access to food. A world where Western companies buy up fertile land in Africa to grow biofuel crops so less land becomes available for food agriculture?

Did we make progress, or are we still sliding downhill?

Check out the most recent news and blogposts about the Climate Change summit in Copenhagen on Humanitarian News.

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World Hunger: Disaster in the making (again)...

Just watching the articles on AidNews flowing by, it looks like hunger in the world is still here, and it is not getting better. The alarm bells are ringing everywhere:

Kenya drought worsens hunger risk
Number of Kenyans in need of food aid jumps by over 50%
Hunger on the rise in Mexico as recession bites
Cameroon ups maize output to avert food crisis
Uganda faces a food shortage crisis
Nigeria may face food crisis
Water crisis to hit Asian food
India to import food amid drought
Hunger warning for South Sudan now at pre-famine condition.
Drought looming in Syria, 250,000 people at risk
Millions in Nepal facing hunger.

And that is just in the past days, not including those affected by violence or conflicts.
We are in for a rough couple of months to come...

Picture courtesy A.Chicheri (WFP)

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World Humanitarian Day: August 19

OCHA (the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) launches the "World Humanitarian Day". It is dedicated to "thousands of aid workers who have devoted their lives to humanitarian work, matching idealism with action, and principles with practice. Their selfless and non-political endeavours are vital for the necessary acceptance by all concerned that assistance to the needy should be provided impartially and neutrally, without reference to religion, gender, or race."

In short, it is a day dedicated to us, aidworkers. Why August 19th, you may ask? On August 19 2003, "Canal Hotel", the UN office and living compound in Baghdad was hit by a massive terrorist attack, leaving 22 UN staff dead and dozens wounded, as you can read in my Ebook shortstory A Requiem for Baghdad.

August 19 2003 was a turning point after which attacks on aidworkers became more frequent and equally violent. 2008 had the highest amount of security incidents involving humanitarian aid workers: 260 humanitarians were victims of security incidents. 122 aidworkers were killed, and 62 were kidnapped. (Source)

Despite all these efforts and human sacrifices, the world is still in a sad state:

• According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), world hunger is projected to reach a historic high in 2009, with just over a billion people going hungry every day.
• Violence and war forced 15.2 million people to flee their own country while at least 26 million have been displaced within their own countries.
• In 2008 more than 9 million children died before their fifth birthday. Most of these children lived in developing countries and died from a disease or a combination of diseases that could easily have been prevented or treated.
• Every year, 1.8 million people die from diarrhoeal diseases
• An average of 211 million people are directly affected each year by natural disasters.
• Millions of the world's most vulnerable are expected to be affected by climate change, increasing prolonged droughts, repeated floods and more frequent cyclones and hurricanes.
• While humanitarian needs are increasing because of the economic crisis and other global challenges such as population pressure, global health pandemics, and price spikes, the global economic crisis puts pressure on the aid budgets of all donor governments.

More on The Road about aidworkers

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British children's authors considered potential child sex offenders

How weird a well-intended legislation sometimes goes...

The UK Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) is managed by the Independent Safeguarding Authority, set up after the 2002 murders of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells by Ian Huntley, a janitor at their school.

All individuals working with children will be required to register with a national database for a fee of £64. And that includes authors of children's books who give presentations at schools.

The new scheme has every individual working in a field that requires more than a tiny amount of contact with children and/or vulnerable adults to be vetted. If they are passed, they will be placed on a register that says they are allowed to work in a regulated field. If they are barred, they will go on a separate register and it will be a criminal offence for them to try and obtain work in a regulated field, carrying a penalty of up to five years in prison. It will also be illegal for anyone to employ them. (Full)

Picture courtesy Matt's Notepad

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Children in the US are worse off than 30 years ago

The FCD Child Well-Being Index (CWI) is an annual comprehensive measure of how children are faring in the United States. It is based on 28 key indicators of well-being.

This year's CWI is an updated measure of trends over the 32-year period from 1975 to 2007, with projections for 2008. Progress in American children's quality of life has fluctuated since 2002, and began to decline in 2008.

A recent report, "Anticipating the Impacts of a 2008-2010 Recession", measures the impact of the current recession on the overall health, well-being and quality of life of America's children. It finds that the downturn will virtually undo all progress made in children's economic well-being since 1975. The significant decrease in this domain will also drag down the other domains of the CWI. The impact will be especially severe for low-income children of color.

Other key findings from the report show a decline in social connectedness, declines in health, safety, education and family income, and a rise in poverty. (Full)

Picture courtesy Old Picture of the Day

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Is the US already at war with Iran?

Support to fractions at war in a country where a third country has a political, or economical interest is not new. We have seen it throughout the Cold War, we witnessed it in Afghanistan and Iraq throughout the past decennia. We have seen it in South and Central America. We still see it in Africa every day: support coming from Europe, China and more often than not, from the US makes its way through different channels and ends up with "proxies", military opposition fractions as if those were "fighting a war on behalf of"...

This video questions in how far the US is already engaging in a war with Iran, through its proxies, operating out of Iraq's Kurdish region, at the Iran/Iraq/Turkey border.



Video courtesy current.com

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#CNNfail: CNN versus Twitter on the Iran protests

Since the onset of the post-election violence in Teheran on Saturday, Iranian Twitter-ers have been using two main tags to identify their updates: #iranelection and #CNNfail.

The latter was to protest the lack of coverage of the protests by the mainstream traditional media, of which CNN took the brunt. The #CNNfail tag became so popular that US broadcaster found it necessary to take a defensive stand (or was it a justification?) on the air:



Did he just say 'we should be transparent'? He actually said this on CNN? Wooohahahaha. The words "transparent" and "CNN" should never be used within the same sentence.

I find it hilarious CNN is pushed into a corner and actually finds it useful to prove "we have covered this as of F-R-I-D-A-Y. And here is the video clip to prove it!"

By the way, Twitter scheduled a 90 minutes maintenance on Monday, which upset all the Twitter-ers in the Iran protests and beyond, making #nomaintenance the 3rd most used tag for a while...
Update: It worked! Twitter has rescheduled its planned downtime for tonight.

Related posts:
Who is on Twitter from Iran?
Social media buzzing after elections in Iran

Video discovered via The Huffington Post

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Who is on Twitter from Iran?

Updated June 22 2009



Here is the updated list of Twitter-ers on the ground in Iran:

Full Post +/-

@4myppl @abzole @adoostdar @alirezasha @anonymousiniran @avahedi @azarnoush @bahadorn @Bahram81 @bta_f @Change_for_Iran @duckdaotsu @fafamx @farnamb @Ghattavi @gita (protected) @hamednz @huti_421 @iran09 @iranbaan @IranElection09 @IranPishi @IranRiggedElect @IranUltimatum @jadi @jimsciuttoABC (left?) @jubinahdi @knv @LaraABCNews @madyar @mahdi (protected) @mehri912 @mhrshd @MiladRevolution @mohamadreza (protected) @mohandesalireza @monshi @mousavi1388 @Mynumberone1988 @mtux (protected) @openiran @parastoo @parhamdoustdar @persiankiwi @pleasesaveiran @PouyanA @ralavi @ramezanpour (protected) @SadeqEn (protected) @sasan_j @Shahrzadmo @smileofcrash @StopAhmadi @TehranBureau @tehranelection @VoiceofIran @willyong @WhereIsMyVoteIr @zahrahb

For a good real-time overview of the latest Twitter updates and news overview on the post-election protests, check Twazzup.

Update: June 19
There has been an active debate on other blogs and websites whether or not we should publish this list. See also the comments on this post.
Do we put people's lives in danger? I asked some of the Twitterers in Iran, but did not get an answer.
My view is: Nobody in Iran will come onto a public medium unless they consciously choose to do so. All of them hide their real identity, and actively request people to re-broadcast the information they are giving from the ground, especially as the traditional media have been put on restraint.
An interesting post on this subject, you find on the Traveller Within.

Update: June 20
On my own initiative, I deleted those who did not seem to take enough precautions in hiding their identity.

Update: June 22
On the same topic, this tweet came out today: "@shahrzadmo: State TV: Send your videos to Police so they recognise the "rioters" and arrest them!"... Does this also mean bloggers around the world should not republish YouTube videos from the protests, so people don't get identified?

For an overview of the role of social media in "post-election Iran", check this post.

Input thanks to h3x.no, reddit.com, Mohamed, Simon, Daily Dish and fellow twitter users.

Picture courtesy Madyar

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Social media buzzing after the Iran elections

Updated June 20 2009



Something is brewing in Iran. And the people are reporting.

Thousands of angry protesters have clashed with police in several cities in Iran after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of Iran's presidential poll. He claims victory over his rival Mir Hossein Mousavi, who called the results a "charade". (Full)

As violence broke out, the mobile phone network was switched off for hours and Internet connectivity was either interrupted or slow at least. Still, in what seems to become a school example of crowdsourced reporting at its best, individuals got their messages out through different social media channels.

Twitter is abuzz with on-the-ground reports directly from Iran by @madyar, @mohamadreza and @IranRiggedElect to name a few. Many of the tweets contain direct updates, local news, eyewitness reports, and pictures directly posted on Twitpic way before the mainstream media picked up. (The up to date list of all Twitterers in Iran, you find in this post)
New "special occasion" Twitter accounts like @Change_for_Iran got 4,000 followers in the first 12 hours.

Even foreign correspondents like @thomas_erdbrink (deleted his account), ABC correspondents Jim Sciutto and @LaraABCNews resort to Twitter when they can not get their official messages out, and to assemble information.



Tweets about the elections are tagged "#iranelection" so they can easily be searched and followed. #iranelection quickly shot to the most popular tag on Twitter.

The blogosphere is on a high run too. Iran News, Teheran bureau and Revolutionary Road are some examples of the bloggers active from different places in Iran, giving "liveblogging" a whole new meaning.

Other Iranian bloggers seem to be as active on the streets as in the Blogosphere. IranElections even features a picture of the imprints of police battons on his back and arms. Tehran Live posts excellent pictures.

Online blog coverage is available via blog giants Huffington Post and The Daily Dish. Global Voices does an excellent job in translating Tweets and blogs covering the post-elections'turmoil from Farsi to English, while expat Iranian bloggers are using their in-country connections to keep up. - check out NiacINsight.

There is a flood of pictures coming in on Flickr (look at Iran Streets After Elections) and plenty of videos taken from mobile phones posted on YouTube.



Facebook has been trying to keep up, even though access to the most popular social media resource was said to be blocked in Iran after the elections. There is the opposition leader Mousavi's Facebook page, with comments mostly in Farsi and page of the student movement. For English exchanges, check Where is my vote?

Meanwhile, social bookmarking sites start what they do best: spreading the links to the actual news resources. This thread on Reddit even contains tips on how to access Facebook from inside Iran, bypassing the government firewall.

As we get into the second day of protests, aggregators like Twazzup present an overview of the incoming flow of crowdsourced information. Check this out: Twazzup's Iran page. (Tnx for the tip, Uli!)

While foreign reporters and camera crews have their equipment confiscated, it looks like the authorities are trying to take a grip on the country again.

I wonder with the proliferation of social media if crowdsourced reporting will be or can be muffled. Short of disconnecting Iran from the international telephone network and pulling the plug on the Internet completely, it seems there is no stopping.

As the Daily Dish puts it in The Revolution will be Twittered:

That a new information technology could be improvised for this purpose so swiftly is a sign of the times. It reveals in Iran what the Obama campaign revealed in the United States. You cannot stop people any longer. You cannot control them any longer. They can bypass your established media; they can broadcast to one another; they can organize as never before.

Picture courtesy Revolutionary Road

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Peshawar bombing hits the aid community

Last night, a suicide bomb attack on a luxury hotel in the north-west Pakistani city of Peshawar, has killed 15 people and injured at least 60.

Gunmen stormed the outer security barrier at the Pearl Continental Hotel before blowing up a vehicle containing 500kg of explosives.

Two aidworkers, a Serbian UNHCR staff and a UNICEF employee from the Philippines were killed and several others were injured. (Full)

This was the last in a long series of bombings in Pakistan, the second targeting a prominent hotel. Nine months ago, the Marriott hotel in Islamabad was virtually destroyed in a similar attack.
The Pearl Continental was obviously chosen as a target for maximum impact: due to the obvious security constraints in Peshawar, it was the only hotel approved for UN aid workers, by UN Department for Safety and Security (UNDSS).

Picture courtesy Mohammad Sajjad/Associated Press

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Worrying events...

There is always something going on, somewhere in the world, that keeps us, aidworkers, busy. Here is what is on our mind these days:

• 8,000 Somalis are displaced in one day of fighting around Mogadishu (Full)
• A rebellion seems to be on the raise in Nigeria (Full) and Niger (Full)
• Relief agencies still don't have full access to the displaced civilians after the Tamil was defeated in Sri Lanka. (Full)
• Southern Sudan seems to fall back into violence (Full)
• ...while in Darfur, the war is flaring up again (Full)
• Pakistan's offensive in the Swat valley displaced 2.3 million people, with aid agencies scrambling to cope. (Full)
  

Items discovered via International Aid Workers Today and AidNews.

Picture courtesy Reuters

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The UN in the news today. Spot the politics.

On Aid Topics page of NewsFeeds, I keep track of news articles in which the UN are mentioned.

Today's selection gives a good overview of what the world body is tackling.

• U.N. Health Aid Plan Unites Air Travelers and Bill Clinton: Clinton, ex-president, and now husband-of is being appointed as the UN's special envoy in Haiti, and suggests to fundraise for good causes by asking air travellers to pay a few dollars extra for their tickets.
• Japan girls with swine flu attended mock UN meet: Two Japanese girls who attended a "UN Assembly Meeting for the Young" in New York, returned with more than just enthusiasm.
• Sexual-Harassment Cases Plague U.N.: UN workers who have made or faced accusations of sexual harassment say the current system for handling complaints is arbitrary, unfair and mired in bureaucracy.
• Harvard Report Calls for UN Investigation Into Burma Rights Abuses: A report from the Harvard Law School cries foul over Burma's military-ruled government.
• UN should impose Somalia air, sea blockade: regional bloc: An African group, meeting in Addis urged the United Nations to slap an air and maritime blockade on Somalia, saying an Islamist-led offensive there is a risk to regional security.
• UN study advises caution over dams: A dam-building spree in China poses the greatest threat to the future of the already beleaguered Mekong, one of the world's major rivers and a key source of water for the region.
• Lebanon complains to UN on Israel's alleged spying: Lebanon complained to the United Nations about alleged spying by Israel, accusing its archenemy of violating a 2006 truce and the country's sovereignty.
  

... From politics to internal problems, human rights, environmental stuff and back to politics. And no matter what issue, there is always a political taste to the problem, it seems. Can you spot some of them?

Picture courtesy National Army Museum Te Mata Toa (NZ)

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The Red Cross is 150 years young.

A counselor listens to a rape victim at an ICRC-supported "listening house" one of numerous such sanctuaries near the fighting in the DRC where victims can receive medical support and emotional support.

On 24 June 1859, during the War of Italian Unification, Franco-Sardinian forces clashed with Austrian troops near the small town of Solferino in northern Italy. More than nine thousand wounded took refuge in the village of Castiglione, lying dispersed and unattended.

On that day, a gentleman by the name of Henry Dunant, a citizen of Geneva, Switzerland, was travelling in the area. He was shaken by the human suffering, resulting from the war. He mobilized a small army himself. An army of local volunteers, mostly women to care for the wounded, wash and dress their wounds, and to provide shelter and basic food.

In 1862 he published a book entitled "A Memory of Solferino", in which he described the battle and the wounded of the Chiesa Maggiore, concluding with a question:

"Would it not be possible, in time of peace and quiet, to form relief societies for the purpose of having care given to the wounded in wartime by zealous, devoted and thoroughly qualified volunteers?"

That question would set the basic principle of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, which is now to the largest humanitarian network in the world.

Dunant also asked the military authorities of various countries another basic question:

..whether they could formulate "(...) some international principle, sanctioned by a convention and inviolate in character, which, once agreed upon and ratified, might constitute the basis for societies for the relief of the wounded in the different European countries?".

This second question was the basis for The Geneva Conventions.

2009 marks 150th anniversary of the battle of Solferino and the 60th anniversary of the four Geneva Conventions. To put these anniversaries into the spotlight, the Red Cross Movement has launched a campaign, Our World. Your Move, to remind everyone of our individual responsibility to lessen human suffering.

The photography exhibition "Our World at War," scheduled to tour 41 countries, is one of the events of this campaign. Life magazine features several of the pictures.

Picture courtesy Ron Haviv (ICRC - VII)

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The Gaza War Crimes Saga continued.

The Gaza Saga on human rights abuses seems to get a nasty tail. A UN inquiry just published their findings.

A United Nations inquiry into the Gaza conflict earlier this year concluded that Israel intentionally struck a U.N.-run elementary school, killing three young men seeking shelter from the fighting, according to a summary released Tuesday.

The incident was one of eight in which the Israel Defense Forces fired on U.N. personnel or facilities that drew scrutiny from a three-member U.N. board of inquiry. The board found that Israel had repeatedly breached the inviolability of U.N. premises and that, in attacking another elementary school, it exhibited "reckless disregard for the lives and safety" of civilians. Two children were killed and 13 others injured in that attack.

The board also accused Hamas or another Palestinian faction of firing a Qassam-type rocket at an unoccupied World Food Program warehouse on the eastern edge of the Gaza Strip.

There was no evidence, the board said, that Palestinian militants had used U.N. facilities to launch military attacks against Israeli troops. (Full)

Update:While the 184 paged report remains confidential to protect witnesses etc.. you can find the 27 page summary of the UN inquiry report here, which goes into sufficient gruesome details, to understand the extend of the issue. The summary also includes a cover letter by the UN Secretary General.

To no surprise, Israel rejected the report’s findings and its Foreign Ministry says the inquiry board “has preferred the claims of Hamas, a murderous terror organisation, and by doing so has misled the world”. Defence Secretary Ehud Barak repeated that Israel has “the most moral army in the world” and laid full responsibility for casualties on Hamas.

The good news is that the report recommends further investigation of other both UN and non-UN related civilian deaths which have given rise to allegations of breaches of international humanitarian law by both the IDF and Hamas.

The bad news is that in his covering letter, the UN chief says he is “carefully considering” what actions “if any” to take on the 11 recommendations by the inquiry team. Mr Ban goes out of his way to thank Israel for its co-operation in the inquiry. He makes a point – urged on him by Israeli ministers and officials – of speaking out against “continued and indiscriminate” attacks by Hamas. As a conclusion: "I do not plan any further enquiries." (Full)

In short: This report concludes that it looks most probable both Hamas and Israel have committed either war crimes and/or stepped on the international humanitarian laws with excessive civilian casualties as a result. But.. let's all have a drink and forget about it...

Picture courtesy The Guardian

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How many people die of flu every year? How many died of A(H1N1) swine flu?

Updated Dec 31, 2009



According to CDC (the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention):

Each flu season is unique, but it is estimated that, on average, approximately 5% to 20% of U.S. residents get the flu, and more than 200,000 persons are hospitalized for flu-related complications each year. About 36,000 Americans die on average per year from the complications of flu. (Full)

According to the BBC:

It is worth remembering that seasonal flu often poses a serious threat to public health: each year it kills 250,000 - 500,000 around the world. (Full)

To put this in perspective with A(H1N1) swine flu, WHO (The World Health Organisation) states in their latest update:

As of 27 December 2009, worldwide more than 208 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including at least 12,220 deaths. (Full)

And in a broader perspective:

An average of 195,000 people in the USA died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, according to a study of 37 million patient records released in 2004. (Full)

Check out the A(H1N1) swine flu casualty maps I collected.
If you are a bit sarcastic about it all, check The Dos and Donts to avoid swine flu infection.

Picture courtesy Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images

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Bad PR: Airforce One flying low over Manhattan

Someone thought it would be a good idea for a photo shoot today: fly AirForce One, escorted with military planes, low over Manhattan.

Why does this footage give me the creeps?

Update:
It seems someone at the White House was not happy about the whole event... (Thanks, Jonathan)

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Pigs, Flu and greed.

You might think I am a moralizing doomsday prophet, but I can not help but thinking how greed linked most events impacting the world in the past years.

Was the food crisis last year not merely the hiking of food commodity prices by creating an artificial unbalance between supply and demand through a hijacking of the food futures market and diverting more and more crops to biofuel production? (remember this post)

Is the current global economic crisis not triggered by the inflation of a financial bubble, a consciously constructed artificial pyramid scheme, based on unhealthy mortgage loans. Loans based on zero collateral. And loans based on these loans, induced into the investment market like hormones in a pig. (remember this post)

Talking about pigs. And greed. Swine flu. An interesting reading by Jane on the Trackernews Blog:

Confined Animal Feeding Operations, a.k.a CAFOs, a.k.a factory farms have revolutionized agriculture over the past 20 years. This is agriculture on steroids. Sometimes literally. Poultry, cattle and pigs are raised in such ferocious, relentless quantity, the animals require a battery of drugs and chemicals simply to live long enough to be slaughtered. The waste streams and accompanying stench are a nightmare for anyone and anything down wind or down stream. Stats defy comprehension.
According to a 2006 Rolling Stone’s Jeff Tietz’ tour de force expose on hog CAFO king, Smithfield Farms (of which Granjas Caroll, the CAFO in Vera Cruz, is a subsidiary):

"Hogs produce three times more excrement than human beings do. The 500,000 pigs at a single Smithfield subsidiary in Utah generate more fecal matter each year than the 1.5 million inhabitants of Manhattan.” (..)

“The immobility, poisonous air and terror of confinement badly damage the pigs’ immune systems. They become susceptible to infection, and in such dense quarters microbes or parasites or fungi, once established in one pig, will rush spritelike through the whole population. Accordingly, factory pigs are infused with a huge range of antibiotics and vaccines, and are doused with insecticides. Without these compounds — oxytetracycline, draxxin, ceftiofur, tiamulin — diseases would likely kill them. Thus factory-farm pigs remain in a state of dying until they’re slaughtered. When a pig nearly ready to be slaughtered grows ill, workers sometimes shoot it up with as many drugs as necessary to get it to the slaughterhouse under its own power. As long as the pig remains ambulatory, it can be legally killed and sold as meat.”

“Industrial pig waste also contains a host of other toxic substances: ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosphorous, nitrates and heavy metals. In addition, the waste nurses more than 100 microbial pathogens that can cause illness in humans, including salmonella, cryptosporidium, streptocolli and girardia. Each gram of hog shit can contain as much as 100 million fecal coliform bacteria.” (Full)

Surprised something bad came out of all of that, are we?

Interesting note of interest: in the past three days, my news clip about the Avian Flu virus which was incidentally shipped around the world, got more hits than ever before.

More on The Road about Swineflu

Picture courtesy Parris Whittingham

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Cases of swine flu - the A(H1N1) casualty maps

Updated October 17 2009:

Since I started collecting these maps in April, several are discontinued. It seems the most up to date maps on A(H1N1) are source 3, 6 and 7...

Source 1:


View 2009 swine Flu (H1N1) Outbreak Map in a larger map

Black: Confirmed death
Black with "?": Unconfirmed Death
Red: Confirmed infection
Red with "?": Probable infection
Green: Influenza-like illness
Purple: Suspected case

Source 2:
It Ushahidi is now tracking swineflu.
Update: this map is discontinued

Source 3:
Healthmap is also tracking.
Update: seems to be one of the most up to date maps

Source 4:
The mainstream media are catching on: BBC..
Update: BBC's map is discontinued

Source 5:
WHO's A(H1N1) page mapped with the outbreak timeline also.
Update: This map is was discontinued end May.. :(

Source 6:
You can also try this flu tracker
Update: seems to be one of the most up to date maps

Source 7:
Here are the maps by AirDB

Source 8:
And of course, there are the Wikipedia pages on A(H1N1), though for the latest confirmed figures, I would still refer to the WHO epidemy pages I discused in this post.

Which reminds me... you need to put everything into perspective: how many people die of flu every year, and how many died of swine flu?


Discovered via LifeHacker, UNDispatch and Aid Worker Daily

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Facebook wins the rights to .nl and .be domains

The World Intelectual Property Organisation (WIPO) decided Mike Kolart, a Dutch entrepreneur, has to release his domains Facebook.nl and Facebook.be to the social network giant Facebook.

According to WIPO both domains were registered with the purpose to attract traffic from Facebook.com, and served the registrar to no legitimate purpose. Kolart claimed he had registered both domains in July 2005, while the domain Facebook.com was only purchased in Augustus 2005. Further investigations showed Kolart only registered his .be and .nl Facebook domains in 2007.

At this moment, both domains still point to Kolart's discussion forums, but within ten days, they will point to the official Facebook site.

Kolart does not agree with WIPO's verdict and claims financial losses. Originally Facebook had him offered 10,000 Euro for the Dutch and Belgian domains. The only thing Kolart is now left with, is a hefty bill from his lawyers.

Recently, also the Spanish facebook.es and Australian Facebook.com.au had to be turned over to the One and Only facebook.com. (Source - in Dutch)

[Ed: what do you think? A David and Goliath story, or just another opportunist trying to piggy back on a well known Internet domain?]

Cartoon courtesy Geek and Poke

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The Dalai Lama and the power of China in Africa

In a previous post, we talked about the economic powers China is deploying in Africa. But with that comes also the expansion of its political power.

Some of it has well known. The best example is China's documented circumvention of the UN Security council's arms embargo against Sudan on one hand, and on the other hand Big Red's veto power leashing the Council's ability to lash out against Sudan.

But this week, it went a little more undercover. Earlier this week, the South African government denied issuing the Dalai Lama a visa to attend a peace conference. As a result several other key figures pulled back in a sign of protest, and in the end the whole conference was cancelled.

Today, the South African government admitted it decided to bar the Dalai Lama from attending, to avoid undermining relations with China.

A cabinet statement said that while South Africa had not acted on a specific demand from Beijing, it was not prepared to "jeopardise" ties nor allow itself to be used as a political platform in the run-up to the hosting of next year's football World Cup. (Full)

Picture courtsey From Sandton to Shanghai

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The end of the US Dollar as we know it.

The New York Times published an interesting overview of the programs the US government is financing to support the struggling economy.
Beyond the $700 billion bailout known as TARP, which has been used to prop up banks and car companies, the government has made commitments of $9.9 trillion. $9.9 t-r-i-l-l-i-o-n. (If you want to have an idea what one trillion dollars looks like, check here this post).

• The Government as Investor: $5.4 trillion
  Includes direct investments in financial institutions, purchases of high-grade corporate debt and purchases of mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae.
• The Government as Lender: $2.3 trillion
  A significant expansion of the government's traditional overnight lending to banks, including extending terms to as many as 90 days and allowing borrowing by other financial institutions.
• The Government as Insurer: $2.1 trillion
  Includes insuring debt issued by financial institutions and guaranteeing poorly performing assets owned by banks and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.(Full)

There seems no end to the money pit left after 8 years of mismanagement in the US. So no wonder that a UN panel recommends the world to ditch the US dollar as its reserve currency in favor of a shared basket of currencies.

The proposal is to create something like the old Ecu, or European currency unit: a hard-traded, weighted basket. (Full)

My suggestion is to ditch the US dollar not only as a world reserve currency, but also as the main currency used within the UN system, where all the accounting is done in the greenback.

Cartoon courtesy Analytical Wealth

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Why aid workers put their lives on the line

If you want a glimpse of what goes on in the heart and mind of aid workers, this article written by an MSF colleague and published in The Globe and Mail, gives an insight:

Imagine in your home country a collapse of all systems and structures of authority and governance. Imagine violence chasing you and your family out of your homes to walk 100 kilometres to a safer, but desolate area. Imagine carrying some clothes, some food and a cooking pot. Imagine food running out. Imagine drinking water from a dirty river. Imagine children dying from diarrhea. Imagine simple infections leading to amputations or death. Imagine women dying in childbirth. Imagine that all of this is happening while people with the power to do something hold meetings and decide not to intervene.

People shouldn't die from the lack of a 50-cent medication or vaccine. People shouldn't die from the lack of clean water or soap. People shouldn't die from the lack of a proper shelter. But they do.

Over the years, I have seen that a medical and logistics team of just five people supplied with basic medicines, and materials can save the lives of thousands of people. (Full)

Ever read this short story of how I got to be an aid worker?

More on The Road about being an aid worker

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Holy Condoms!

His Holiness is at it again. On his tour to Africa, he stated Aids " cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems." (Full)

Health workers beg to differ with the pontiff.

The UN rather explicitely rebroadcasted their stand: "Condom use is a critical element in a comprehensive, effective and sustainable approach to HIV prevention and treatment. Prevention is the mainstay of the response to AIDS. Condoms are an integral and essential part of comprehensive prevention and care programmes, and their promotion must be accelerated."



Sub-Saharan Africa is the world's most heavily affected by HIV, accounting for 67% of all people living with HIV and for 72% of AIDS deaths in 2007.

Update: AVAAZ is running an online petition asking the pope to exercise due care in his leadership on this issue. (Thanks Becks - who runs this health project in Madagascar!)

Map and statistics from the latest UNAIDS report on the AIDS epidemic.

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Grass-mud horses and Chinese censorship

A YouTube children’s song about "a grass-mud horse" has drawn nearly 1.4 million viewers. A "grass-mud horse" cartoon has logged a quarter million more views. A nature documentary on its habits attracted 180,000 more. Stores are selling "grass-mud horse" dolls. Chinese intellectuals are writing treatises on the "grass-mud horse’s" social importance. The story of the "grass-mud horse’s" struggle against the evil "river crab" has spread far and wide across the Chinese online community.

Why?

Well "The Grass-Mud Horse" is a mythical creature whose name in Chinese sounds like "f*** your mother". Its relative "the invading river crabs" sounds like "harmony", which in China's cyberspace has become a synonym for censorship.

(warning: the video contains explicit language!)
Censored bloggers often say their posts have been "harmonized" — a term directly derived from President Hu Jintaos regular exhortations for Chinese citizens to create a harmonious society.

So, in short, a children's song and two mythical animal characters have become a collective attempt to criticize Chinese censorship, and are now treated as such in China. BLOCKED! (Full)

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Mystery at the EU: why the coffee machines broke

The 21 super deluxe espresso machines, costing several thousands of dollars each, at the EU headquarters in Brussels broke in less than a year. It was a mystery which resulted in a legal action against the supplier of the machines.

A settlement has now been reached: The machines will be replaced, and the staff will be properly trained on how to properly brew an espresso, a latte, and a macchiato.

While there is still a debate whether the quality of the Brussels' water is good enough to brew a decent cup, the coffee emergency has officially be declared as "over". The coffee alert level went back to "green". (Full)

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Canadians face prosecution because they helped a Canadian national in a Canadian embassy.

Over 100 Canadians are facing prosecution for chipping in to buy a plane ticket for a Canadian who has taken refuge inside the Canadian Embassy in Sudan.

Abousfian Abdelrazik is a Canadian citizen from Sudanese descent, visiting his mother in Sudan when he was arrested for alleged terror ties. He claims to have been tortured, but was not charged. He was released from prison because Sudanese investigators found no evidence to support criminal activity.

As he is a Canadian national, he took refuge inside the Canadian Embassy in Sudan, but lacked the funds to pay for his return fair. Over 100 Canadians chipped in for him.

According to Canadian law, these benefactors can be charged, and could spend up to 10 years behind bars, as Abdelrazik is still on a UN terrorist blacklist.

Oh, and he is on the international no-fly list also. (Full).

Go figure.

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Good news: The UN Does More Good Than Harm

According to a recent poll by Harris Interactive, amongst the 7,000 people surveyed, the majority believes the "United Nations Does More Good Than Harm".

But many confess they don't really know all that much about the UN. Just one-quarter of Germans (25%) and French adults (28%) say they are familiar compared to a plurality of British adults (40%), half of Spaniards (48%), a majority of Italians (55%) and almost two-thirds of Americans (64%).

People in these six countries all believe that the UN does good work. Three–quarters of French adults (75%), two-thirds of Italians (69%), Germans (67%) and Britons (65%) and at least three in five Spaniards (63%) and Americans (60%) all say the UN does more good than harm. (Full)

[Ed: The cynic in me would say: "Are the ones who believe the UN does more good than harm, the same that don't know the UN?". Seriously, the survey has some good data. Read it!]

Cartoon courtesy SpainVia

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