Zhou Yang. Photo: CCTV

Hsin-Yin Lee, a former associate producer at Worldfocus, is a news editor at the “China Times” in Taipei.

China’s 18-year-old Olympic champion has recently learned something — it’s OK to thank your parents for your success, but always remember to first thank your country.

Zhou Yang, who won a gold medal in the women’s 1,500 meters short-track speed skating during the Vancouver Winter Olympic, has come under fire — and been complimented — for mentioning her parents but failing to thank the country after the award ceremony.

When asked “What does this prize mean to you?” by the Chinese media, Zhou said, “The gold medal might bring a lot of changes. I will be more confident, and Dad and Mom’s life will be improved.”

Sports officials, however, have found Zhou’s candid words lacking. During a group discussion of the annual meeting of China’s legislature last Sunday, Yu Zaiqing, deputy director of the National Sports Bureau, expressed doubt about Zhou’s patriotism.

“It’s fine to thank your mom and dad, but you should still thank your country first and foremost,” he said. Yu also said the authorities should enhance the “moral education” for China’s athletes.

“While the Western way of expression is very good, there were things in (Zhou’s) heart that the kid didn’t fully express,” Yu said. “Don’t just talk about your parents.”

To fix her previous remarks, Zhou said in another interview on Monday that she is of course grateful for her country. “I thank the country for making us good enough to compete in the Olympic. I thank our supporters, thank my coach, thank the staff, and thank my parents.”

Chinese netizens have weighed in on the controversy.  “Zhou should say ‘I thank my country — I thank my country because it allows me to thank my parents after thanking it,’” wrote one commentator,

China’s athlete training programs have long been criticized as both inhumane and ineffective. Zhou’s story reminds me of the Australian Open earlier this year, when two Chinese players, Zheng Jie and Li Na, marched to the women’s semifinals. It was the first time the world’s most populous nation had advanced so far in a Grand Slam.

While the head of the Women’s Tennis Association lauded this as an example of  Chinese tennis coming of age, critics said a more flexible national athlete training system, in place since 2008,  played a key factor. Zheng and Li were among the four top tennis players in China who were granted unprecedented freedom in managing their careers. In other words, they are free to select their own schedules, coaches and teams. With less obligation to China’s national athletic development system, they are also able to pocket more prize money and give less to the Chinese Tennis Association — which surely raises the motivation to compete.

An article in Tennis magazine may have summed up many people’s feelings. Since the reform, it noted,  “(China’s tennis players) are no longer just Chinese players; they are professional tennis players from China.”

Should the current athletic system in China be further modified so that people like Zhou Yang can be both a happy player and a happy person? I think so. After all, sport is all about humanity, and only when a person’s mind is set free can he or she pursue greater physical strength.

- Hsin-Yin Lee

Gay Pride Flag. Photo: Flickr user Stefan

Worldfocus partner World Pulse is a media enterprise covering global issues through the eyes of women. This post, written by Zimbabwean blogger Gertrude Pswarayi, is excerpted from their Action Blogging Campaign around LGBT Rights.

This story was written by a lesbian (name witheld for protection) living in Zimbabwe during a digital storytelling workshop. I have not edited the story because i wanted you, the reader to hear what she has to say. Here is her story:

My fears started when I was getting to know myself. My family and people around me said I acted like a boy. Although I was afraid I did what came naturally to me.

At school it was worse, I was afraid again because when the girls in my class were busy with the boys, I had feelings for some of the girls in my school. My fear grew, I could not control it since all the ladies around me were getting boyfriends and even my sisters were getting into troubles at home because of boys.

At that time I was not completely sure what was happening to me and why I was not interested in men, I was confused.

That made my fears grow stronger. I was afraid of what my family and friends would think or say if I told them what I was feeling. At that time I feared what the future would hold for me because I was told that I was a lady and that I have to get married to a man and have children and so on. Yet I knew that was not the life I wanted for myself.

Although my friends, my true friends are aware of my sexuality, I am still afraid that my family will find out one day and reject me. The fear is always there as I listen to comments made about homosexuality at home and in public places.

I listen hoping that no one will notice how silent I am or see the raw fear in my eyes.

Not being able to open up to my family about who I am, what I am, and the kind of feelings I carry inside me pushed me to join a group. It was in this group where I was able to share my story with other people. My fears disappeared as I got more answers for the question of my identity. I met people who seemed to hold a mirror in front of me, showing me who I was and letting me know that it was ok to be … who I am.

The Ushahidi-Chile project map on March 2.

The Ushahidi crisis mapping site, which recently collated information from Haitian earthquake victims, has set up a sister site to aggregate similar data from Chile, a country recovering from a devastating 8.8-magnitude quake.

Ushahidi-Chile collects, filters and then maps information submitted by citizens via email, text message and Twitter feeds. This Ushahidi project is coordinated by students at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and its goal is to guide the relief effort and identify immediate needs.

“The idea behind the site is to provide as much information as possible to organizations in the field and to people in Chile,” said Anahi Ayala Iacucci, co-director of the SIPA team for Ushahidi-Chile. “We put available information onto a map that anyone can access.”

An advantage of the site, she says, is that it combines individual nuggets of information in one place and can help establish an overview of the situation on the ground.

Messages currently on the site include information on medical emergencies, trapped survivors and structural damage. For example, from Santa Cruz: “No Electricity, Buildings Down in Santa Cruz”. Another message from Santiago reads “Plz Help: im stuck under a building with my child”. According to Ayala Iacucci, information on missing people is passed on to Google’s Missing Person Finder site.

“Our major source of information is from Twitter feeds, the web and from monitoring local media,” said Ayala Iacucci, adding that there is still reasonable access to the internet in Chile. In Haiti, by contrast, most information that Ushahidi received was by text message. Around 50 student volunteers at SIPA - many of them from Latin America - translate the collected information and then input the data onto the interactive map.

The project will continue at SIPA until the operation is handed over to Chilean volunteers. “In this sense it is a full circle,” said Ayala Iacucci. “We receive information from the field, and put it back into field.”

Ushahidi means “testimony” in Swahili and was initially founded in early 2008 to monitor and map post-election violence in Kenya.

To send Ushahidi information about the aftermath of Chile’s earthquake: International text message +44 7624802524/e-mail chile@ushahidi.com/Twitter #chile or #terremotochile. Information can also be submitted via the web.

- James Matthews

Listen to an audio interview with freelance journalist Annie Murphy in Concepción.

Photo: US Mission Canada

Inuit are the indigenous inhabitants of an Arctic region that crosses Canada, Alaska, Russia and Greenland. In April 2009, Inuit came together from across the Arctic Circle and issued a declaration establishing their rights to self-determination.

In a leap forward for indigenous self-rule, in 1999 the Canadian government created an Inuit majority territory, Nunavut, meaning “our land” in the Inuit language. Covering 1.9 million square kilometers and home to 29,000 residents, most of them Indigenous, its decentralized government allows Inuit to take control of their own affairs.

Worldfocus spoke with Stephen Hendrie, the Director of Communications at Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Canada’s national Inuit organization based in Ottawa, about the issue.

Worldfocus: What has been the impact of the creation of the territory of Nunavut?

Hendrie: The creation of the Nunavut territory — the biggest jurisdiction in the Americas with an aboriginal majority — remains an inspiration.

The territory garnered international headlines when it changed the map of Canada on April 1, 1999 for the first time since 1949. People always look to the Nunavut territory as the place where most Inuit live in Canada. In fact less than 50% of Inuit live in Nunavut. The three other Inuit regions in Canada– Inuvialuit, Nunavik, and Nunatsiavut– have either established a regional government (Nunatsiavut), are on the verge of doing so (Nunavik), or continue to work on a form of one (Inuvialuit).

The 53 Inuit communities located in “Inuit Nunangat” (the region Inuit in Canada describe as the Inuit homeland located in the Inuvialuit Region of the NorthWest Territories, Nunavut, Nunavik in Northern Quebec and Nunatsiavut in Labrador) enjoy unique forms of power-sharing within Canada through the provisions of comprehensive land claim agreements (modern ‘treaties’). These agreements, which define power-sharing arrangements governing public administration and the ownership, use and management of natural resources, have Constitutional protection.

When you look at the picture overall, Inuit have achieved extraordinary advances within the Canadian political landscape, and that has been done in a peaceful manner over the course of the past 35-40 years.

The push for further advances continues, with key issues being economic development, overcoming a legacy of problems in relation to the core social services of health, education and housing, and the preservation of the Inuit language.

Worldfocus: How much is the traditional Inuit way of life changing in response to modern pressures?

Hendrie: What if this question were turned around? What if “Westerners” were surprised to learn that the Inuit perspective to this question is that the “Western” way of life is being adapted by Inuit in the service of preserving the traditional Inuit way of life? Inuit didn’t stop hunting when ski-doos were introduced. Inuit simply hunted more efficiently. Inuit don’t see an Internet dominated by English as merely a threat. Inuit are using the Internet to preserve language and culture. See isumatv.ca for an example of the internet in use as a tool for the preservation of Inuit language and culture.

Worldfocus: How would you compare the condition of Inuit in Canada with those in Alaska?

Hendrie: Inuit in Canada and Alaska face many similar challenges, such as the need to ensure adequate Inuit control over major non-renewable resource development projects, the need to overcome gaps in basic living conditions, the challenge of preserving language and culture, and combating the efforts by internationally organized animal rights extremists to undermine the livelihoods of hunting peoples everywhere.

Inuit in Canada and Alaska do live in larger societies with different Constitutions and political traditions, and these differences color Inuit realities and priorities in the two countries. For example, Canadian Inuit have access to universal public health insurance and a history of much greater access to public housing; Alaskan Inuit have demonstrated the high level of entrepreneurial initiative characteristic of American society in general.

- Jamie Macfarlane

An Aboriginal Australian dancer. Photo: PaddyNapper on Flickr

Worldfocus intern Jamie Macfarlane writes about the Australian government’s attempts to make amends for historical injustice to Aboriginal people.

“We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians…”

In February 2008, newly elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a historic move in offering a full and unreserved apology for Australia’s historic treatment of Aborigines.

But many Western countries have a deep unease about such apologies. Rudd’s predecessor, Prime Minister John Howard, would only describe his “regret,” and in the United States, no president has ever come close to publicly addressing the totality crimes inflicted on Native Americans.

Apologies are hard to give when the historical narrative of a nation’s ascendancy entirely sidesteps what happened to its indigenous inhabitants.

When Rudd spoke two years ago outside the halls of parliament, a crowd of Aborigines listened — many in tears — displaying what it meant to be recognized.

At the time, skeptics argued that Rudd — who refused to make any financial reparations — had made a meaningless apology. Australian prime ministers, like presidents of the United States, have long been promising that their government would finally reverse ill treatment of the indigenous population.

However, time and time again, these new dawns have quickly faded.

Prime Minister Rudd returned to parliament last week to report on the “next chapter in the history of this great country.” The prime minister reported that progress was slow because “generations of indigenous disadvantage cannot be turned around overnight.”

Rudd’s new chapter rests upon a $4.8 billion Close the Gap program, targeting Aboriginal disadvantages from high infant mortality to poor education levels.

By almost every socioeconomic indicator, Aboriginal poverty is reminiscent of sub-Saharan Africa. The life expectancy of indigenous people in Australia is 17 years lower than the rest of the population; the rate of infant mortality is twice as high; and, an ethnic group that makes up 2% of the population accounts for 24% of the incarcerated.

“Lady, I pay rent to the government for sleeping on a mattress in the desert. I have no home, I don’t have a voice, no one is listening to me or my family,” said a 90 year old Aboriginal elder to Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

Rudd’s assessment of his Aboriginal policies two years on largely ignored the second great Indigenous issue: native sovereignty.

Unlike in America, where a library of treaties sets out the parameters of tribal sovereignty, Australia has historically made little pretense at recognizing Aboriginal land rights. Australia had legally been a terra nullis, and thus, the first property rights belonged to the settlers.

It was not until 1992 that the Supreme Court finally overruled the concept of terra nullis, leaving in its wake a persistent ambiguity over when Aboriginals can claim back land.

This is the fundamental problem for indigenous sovereignty the world over. Nations like Australia and the United States were built upon the seizure of indigenous land based upon a legality that cannot be justified in the modern day. Today, with any new chapter for indigenous people invariably involving the return of their lands, how can modern nations redress past injustice — whilst protecting the property interests of the dominant group?

There is also little consensus on the issue of whether to follow the American Indian model of communal land ownership or to allow Aboriginals to assume private land rights. The former keeps indigenous community lands together, whilst the latter gives Aborigines that cornerstone of Western society: individual property rights.

Another big problem with Prime Minister Rudd’s understanding of indigenous sovereignty is an ongoing Intervention in the Northern Territory, where Aborigines make up 32.5% of the population. Rudd has continued his predecessor’s policy of suspending indigenous rights of self-government in the Northern Territory with the help of a police and military presence.

Aborigine communities are banned from having alcohol; the federal government dictates where natives can spend their welfare payments; and parents are heavily punished if their children fail to attend school.

This controversial policy was precipitated by a shocking report concerning widespread child abuse among indigenous communities in 2007.

Indigenous politicians are outraged, but Rudd faces a dilemma that displays the fundamental paradox of his position. The government feels that it must interfere to deal with desperate problems in indigenous communities, whilst needing to respect Aboriginal sovereignty.

Many argue that this is the problem with the entire “Close the Gap” program, as Rudd tries to deliver change from Canberra — as opposed to empowering native communities.

The issue with Rudd’s apology is that it is far from clear how Australia can make amends. The daunting task of closing the gap is met with an equally challenging question of how to give Aboriginal governments control of their own lands.

- Jamie Macfarlane

Aafia Siddiqui.

Worldfocus contributing blogger Sana Saleem writes about the Pakistani reaction to the trial of Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist convicted of trying to kill American soldiers while in custody in Afghanistan.

Of all the stories about alleged Al Qaeda members, perhaps none has been more peculiar than that of Aafia Siddiqui. Due to its peculiar nature, I would like to go back to where it all began.

Here’s a summary of incidents as they were reported in chronological order, for better understanding:

The US-educated Pakistani neuroscientist first appeared on the news radar in March 2003. According to her family, Aafia left her home on March 30 with her three children in a Metro-Cab to catch a flight to Rawalpindi. She then disappeared, and her family alleges that she was kidnapped by Pakistani agencies and subsequently handed over to American agencies.

Despite the Siddiqui family’s accusations, the FBI continued to deny reports of Aafia’s abduction. Meanwhile, a story in Newsweek described Aafia as “reportedly arrested.” By this time, Aafia had been linked with Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

Aafia’s family continued to demand attention to her disappearance, For instance, a letter from her uncle published in Dawn in March 2004 provides a chronology of Aafia’s disappearance. Another letter, published in May 2004, states that Aafia’s mother and sister have been put under house arrest and are not being allowed to contact anyone – the arrest was seen as retaliation for the previous letter.

In May 2004, the Interior Minister confirmed speculations regarding Aafia by confirming that she was arrested from Karachi and handed over to the US authorities for allegedly being involved in terrorist activities.

Meanwhile, more information was gathered about these alleged terrorist activities. Reports surfaced that Aafia and her husband purchased night-vision goggles and body armour from an online military store; that she opened a post office box for Majid Khan, a Pakistani who was held at Guantanamo on suspicion that he planned attacks on American gas stations; and, most importantly, that she traveled to Monrovia to buy diamonds which were then used to fund Al Qaeda operations.

The authorities were unable to provide evidence for these allegations, which is why Aafia has not faced terror charges.

For the next two years, Aafia’s case remained shrouded in mystery until her name appeared in Amnesty International’s list of disappeared suspects in the war on terror. More reports poured in suggesting she was detained in a secret U.S. prison.

However, it wasn’t until August 2008 that Aafia’s case was brought to the forefront. A crackdown on the media by General Pervez Musharraf’s government caused journalists to take up Aafia’s case as part of a campaign exposing the general’s heinous crimes.

During a press conference organized by the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf, British journalist Yvonne Ridley claimed that an anonymous woman sometimes referred to as “Prisoner 650” being tortured at Bagram Airbase may have been Aafia.

Ridley claimed that she was told that a female prisoner had been held for years and, after sexual abuse and confinement, had deteriorated physically and mentally. Ridley’s speculation that the woman could be Aafia stirred the issue in the media.

That day marked the beginning of the campaign vowing to bring justice to Aafia. She was portrayed as ‘Pakistan’s daughter’ who had been sold to the U.S. for money. As the issue of the missing people of Pakistan reached a turning point, Aafia came to symbolise the atrocities linked to the U.S.-led the war on terror, and her case exposed the collaboration between Pakistani and U.S. authorities.

Aafia also attracted international attention as the first woman to be sought by the FBI in connection with its pursuit of al-Qaeda. Last week, she was found guilty on charges of the attempted murder of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

Aafia’s conviction has provoked many emotional responses that show little regard for the judicial process.

“The jury couldn’t handle the truth because that would have meant that the defendant really had been kidnapped, abused, tortured and held in dark, secret prisons by the US before being shot and put on a rendition flight to New York,” remarked journalist Ridley when I asked her opinion on the verdict.

“It would have meant that her three children – two of them US citizens – would also have been kidnapped, abused and tortured by the US. They couldn’t handle the truth; it is as simple as that.”

Arif Rafiq, president of Vizier Consulting, LLC, also raises some valid points regarding the verdict:

Before us, it seems, are two competing narratives. But I would not rule out other alternatives. The actual details, of Siddiqui’s arrest — whether it occurred five years ago or two weeks ago — is unclear. The initial claims made against her years ago are cause for concern. But it is puzzling as to why, if they were true, there was no legal followup. Even now, those claims go unmentioned in the present legal action against her. Siddiqui is not being treated as an enemy combatant; rather, she’s being prosecuted in conventional U.S. courts, albeit in a more closed anti-terrorism context. And so Siddiqui’s arrest provides not answers, but more questions.

Indeed, the majority in Pakistan echo the same sentiment of dismay and anger. Aafia’s case highlights the underlying mistrust amongst the Pakistani people for the United States, as many have openly criticised the judgement, and termed it biased.

Some claim they never expected a different verdict because U.S. courts can’t be trusted to uphold the truth. Such statements are far more worrying then the verdict itself. The growing rift between the masses in Pakistan and U.S. authorities is distressful.

If anything, Aafia’s case should turn the nation’s attention towards Pakistan’s ‘missing persons’ issue. Aafia’s trial has not been able to yield satisfactory answers about where she was, who picked her up and why, or even who she really is. If anything, her outbursts in court make her appear delusional, depressive and possibly psychotic.

The only outcome of Aafia’s verdict has been a surge of even more questions. But her misery has given a face to hundreds of Pakistan’s disappeared victims awaiting justice.

- Sana Saleem

Watch Al Jazeera English’s David Chater report on Siddiqui’s “lost years.”

A street in Baalbeq, Lebanon, where Hezbollah’s headquarters is located. Photo: Ben Piven

Cari Machet, who has lived and worked as a multimedia producer throughout the Middle East, writes about a new House bill that could sanction satellite operators if they contract their services to TV stations classified as terrorist entities by Congress. She argues it may prove to be counterproductive.

Last month Congress passed H.R. 2278, which would label certain Middle Eastern satellite providers of incendiary television programming as terrorist organizations — in an effort to prevent radical anti-Americanism from hitting the airwaves.

Representative Gus Bilirakis (R-Florida) introduced the legislation that would label satellite TV channels and content providers as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” or SDGTs.

The wording of the bill seems too broad to enact and as yet has not been pushed through the Senate.

This bill is almost a carbon copy of a bill passed by Congress in 2008, H.Res.1069, which condemned the use of television programming by Hamas to indoctrinate hatred, violence and Antisemitism.

The earlier bill mainly focused on al-Aqsa TV, the channel run by Palestinian militant organization Hamas. The bill particularly targeted children’s program Tomorrow’s Pioneers, which depicts a Bugs Bunny-like character declaring that he “will finish off the Jews and eat them.”

The station recently launched a new cartoon satirizing a Fatah soldier named Bahlul (Buffoon) and a “blood-drinking Jew.” The network also operates its own film studio where they shoot movies they call the “cinema of resistance.”

Al-Aqsa TV is currently transmitted by satellites owned by the French-based, privately owned Eutelsat and by the Saudi-based, Arab League-owned Arabsat.

The new bill mainly targets Lebanese Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV channel. The station is telecast throughout the Arab world via Arabsat and the Egyptian-based, state-owned Nilesat.

Hezbollah is a Shi’a Islamist political and paramilitary organization that provides social services and operates schools, hospitals and agricultural services for Lebanese Shiites. They hold 11 seats in the Lebanese parliament.

The United States designates Hezbollah a terrorist group, and its militant wing has been linked to several major terrorist attacks. But the E.U. has resisted the terrorist label, with some countries arguing that engagement is a better policy.

Some Lebanese object strenuously to the bill. Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri sent a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi stating, “This bill represents bypassing the sovereign national laws of the targeted countries, among them Lebanon which is a free ‘Hyde Park’ for the Lebanese and Arab satellite ‘public opinion’ media channels.”

The passing of the bill prompted an Arab League meeting in Cairo on Jan 24th. The Arab information ministers released a statement after that meeting that censured the bill and called it “an interference in the internal affairs of Arab states who regulate their media affairs according to national legislation.”

“We insist on media freedom and reject any restrictions on it,” said Lebanese Information Minister Tareq Mitri.

During that meeting, participants discussed another proposal supported by the Egyptian and Saudi governments for the creation of a regional office to supervise Arab satellite TV stations — which might even impact the BBC Arabic (and BBC World) channels, or even the U.S.- government owned news channel Alhurra.

But the Lebanese government is against the idea of a pan-Arab media commission. Reporters Without Borders concurs: “The danger is that this super-police could be used to censor all TV stations that criticize the region’s governments. It could eventually be turned into a formidable weapon against freedom of information.”

Throughout the Mideast, mainstream American media saturates free satellite airwaves. Some is censored for content, but not always news content. There is a lack of knowledge among the bill’s supporters of the breadth and power of American culture, which blasts on radios, beams out of flat screen televisions and flashes on computers everywhere.

As President Obama said in his State of the Union speech: “Abroad, America’s greatest source of strength has always been our ideals.”

Of course the Senate is a far different body than the House. Also, the president would have to sign H.R. 2278 into law, but so far there is no comment from the White House regarding the bill.

Marc Lynch writes about the bill on Foreign Policy:

In short, H.R. 2278 is a deeply irresponsible bill which sharply contradicts American support for media freedom and could not be implemented in the Middle East today as crafted without causing great damage. Even Arab governments who despise Hamas and Hezbollah and Qaradawi and al-Jazeera could not sign on to it…The last thing the Arab world needs right now is more state power of censorship over the media — whether the Arab League over satellite TV or the Jordanian government over the internet. Hillary Clinton just laid out a vision of an America committed to internet freedom, and that should be embraced as part of a broader commitment to free and open media. Nobody should be keen on restoring the power of authoritarian governments over one of the few zones of relative freedom which have evolved over the last decade.

- Cari Machet

Photo by Ben Piven for Worldfocus

North Korea is one of the most closed-off societies in the world. Information from inside the country is notoriously difficult to gather.

Radio signals are jammed, internet connections blocked and cell phones monitored. To combat this lack of information some news organizations pay informants to smuggle news out.

These sources, often cultivated by South Korean news agencies as “underground stringers,” risk their lives for little pay. But as many as half of their reports are false, according to a recent New York Times article by Choe Sang-hun:

The reports are sketchy at best, covering small pockets of North Korea society. Many prove wrong, contradict each other or remain unconfirmed. But they have also produced important scoops, like the currency devaluation and a recent outbreak of swine flu in North Korea. The mainstream media in South Korea now regularly quote these cottage-industry news services.

“Technology made this possible,” said Sohn Kwang-joo, the chief editor of Daily NK. “We infiltrate the wall of North Korea with cellphones.”

Over the past decade, the North’s border with China has grown more porous as famine drove many North Koreans out in search of food and an increasing traffic in goods — and information — developed. A new tribe of North Korean merchants negotiates smuggling deals with Chinese partners, using Chinese cellphones that pick up signals inside the North Korean border.

Worldfocus also spoke with Barbara Demick, Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, about North Korean informants:

Regarding the underground news agencies, I’ve found that their reports are plausible, but a little exaggerated. For example, Good Friends’ NK Today was the first to report the famine in the 90s, but I think their claims of the death toll were overstated. These agencies have on occasion given vague reports of protests that I think have a kernel of truth — but are also exaggerated.

For example, I have never interviewed a defector who personally witnessed any kind of public protest in North Korea, although I think there have been localized incidents at the markets where vendors complained to market management or resisted arrest by the police. There have also been a fair number of incidents in which security officials were murdered.

On the ethics of the agencies paying informants, I think it would be unethical for them not to pay — in that these people are risking their lives. According to Choe Sang-hun’s recent piece [above], some of the informants are actually considered to be reporters who are working. But there is no doubt just the same that paying taints the quality of information. It creates an incentive for them to tell you what they think you would want to hear. We don’t pay for interviews with defectors, although when I interview them I am usually with a missionary who might be providing food and clothing.

Worldfocus put together a list of English-language news agencies and blogs that cover North Korea. These sites try to gather information from within North Korea:

• Daily NK was created by activists from the Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights. As the world’s first dedicated North Korean online news site, The Daily NK reports in real time.
• NK Today is produced by Good Friends USA to help the North Korean people from a humanistic point of view and describe the way North Korean people live as accurately as possible.
• North Korean Economy Watch is intended for business people, policy makers, academics and journalists but does not generally focus on human rights or the nuclear issue.

• DPRK Studies promotes awareness of North Korean security, social, political and historical issues. It is a portal to news, research, opinion, and organizations on North Korea.

• The Hankyoreh is a progressive newspaper decisively committed to journalistic freedom, democracy, peaceful coexistence and national reconciliation between South and North Korea.

• Kyodo News is distributed to almost all newspapers and radio-TV networks in Japan. Kyodo has a special English-language section dedicated to North Korea.

• Yonhap News Agency is based in Seoul and is the largest news-gathering network in Korea. There is a monthly magazine and a weekly e-newsletter dedicated to covering news from North Korea.

And these sites serve as North Korea’s official media, propagating pro-government news and information.

• Korean Central News Agency is the Pyongyang-based state-run news agency of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. News is transmitted to other countries in English, Russian, and Spanish.

• Korean Friendship Association was founded on November of the year 2000 with the purpose of building international ties with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

For more Worldfocus coverage of North Korea, visit our extended coverage page: Behind the Korean Curtain.

The magazine cover from January 16-22.

Aida Alami is a Moroccan freelance journalist who wrote for Le Journal Hebdomadaire until the magazine was closed.

Worldfocus interviewed her about why the Moroccan government shut down the independent news outlet last week.

Worldfocus: What happened to Le Journal Hebdomadaire?

Aida Alami: The police came Wednesday to take control of our newsroom and change the locks. By Thursday, we were completely finished. This came after we lost a trial and had to pay huge amounts of money to several people. Money we didn’t have.

Actually, we had already been dropped by 80% of our advertisers over the past few years. I heard that the king’s right-hand men got together last year with the advertisers and asked them to boycott us.

This wasn’t a surprise or a shock to me. I knew it would eventually happen. I haven’t been taking my laptop to work because I knew they would come, and I didn’t want them to take it!

We’re giving a press conference tomorrow to discuss the issue. I am not sure if they will let us go through with it — or interrupt it and kick everybody out.

Worldfocus: Will founder Aboubakr Jamai start a new magazine?

Alami: Aboubakr could start a new one. He did it once before, but I doubt there is money to do so today.

Worldfocus: What will you do now that you’re jobless?

Alami: It’s really discouraging. Everyone I know outside of Morocco has been emailing me, but here, no one cares. People I’ve known for 20 years haven’t even contacted me.

I am sure that if something similar had happened in France people would be camping outside of the president’s residence to protest. I don’t think they see it as something important. It’s hopeless.

I won’t be looking for work in Morocco. We were really the only independent news outlet here. I don’t see myself working anywhere else.

Worldfocus: Do most Moroccans value independent media?

Alami: In the Reporters Without Borders 2009 Press Freedom Index, Morocco ranks 127th.

The public doesn’t want to hear the truth about issues. The magazine had no friends. Even people who are high-income just saw us as anti-patriotic — too critical and undermining the country. Personally, I’m not political. I am just doing my job.

We drove people away for several reasons. Many people considered us elitist because of the language — French and too eloquent. As opposed to other magazines, we didn’t have covers with sex and stuff that sells. We were too serious and dealt with real issues that people were not necessarily interested in reading about.

I think that the public doesn’t really care. If they did, they’d be writing letters now. But they aren’t. My personal feeling is: why fight for people like that? The upper class has its own interests — to be close to power. Of course they’re not going to want to criticize our government or king.

Then, you have the small middle class who sympathize and are intellectual. Then there are the barely literate masses. Our readership was not that important. It was around 40,000.

However, our impact was a lot more important. Stories told in that magazine were told nowhere else.

Worldfocus: What was the trigger issue that motivated the government to close you down?

Alami: We often covered [Western Sahara indepedence activist] Aminatou Haidar, who was on hunger strike in Spain after having been kicked out of Morocco. They had taken her passport.

The entire country had extreme and very one-sided coverage and called her a spy, traitor, etc. During her hunger strike, we interviewed her every week and we even sent a reporter to Laayoune, her hometown, to interview her family. We were the only ones to give full coverage of the story. The coverage was terrific, and I am very proud of what we did.

Our editor, Aboubakr, wrote editorials arguing that Morocco was was making a huge mistake diplomatically. And that we [Moroccans] would end up looking like fools. TelQuel, our biggest competitor, never interviewed her.

I think that’s when the government decided, “We need to shut them up forever.”

As I said in my article published in the Huffington Post:

Many people have called us traitors because we were too critical. I think it’s the opposite, we are all people who loved their country enough to never sell out. We gave our readers the best we could and kept them informed like no other news team. The legacy left by Le Journal Hebdomadaire will stay with all of us no matter what, and the fight for freedom cannot stop here. I hope that reporters of the new generation will not compromise and will take on the fight Aboubakr Jamai started 13 years ago.

- Ben Piven

Mohammad watches the football game.

The news of the football match between Egypt and Algeria is dominating the front page headlines in both Egypt and Algeria Thursday. The rhetoric is high, and the war drum beat is getting louder.

The Algerian newspaper Al-Fajr devoted a portion of its web site page to the coverage of the match. The same was for true for Egypt’s leading newspaper Al Ahram, whose website greets viewers with a large colorful picture of Egyptian fans waving the red, white and black flag of their country at a stadium.

Meanwhile, the Algerian government is helping to shuttle at least a thousand of its citizens to watch the match in Angola.

For the Egyptians, this match is an opportunity to settle scores and regain its wounded national pride after its loss to Algeria in a playoff match in Khartoum, Sudan last November.

Fans of both teams were involved in violent clashes and accusations of mistreatment flew. Whether similiar passions will be ignited after this game remains to be seen.

- Mohammad Al-Kassim

A karaoke bar in Yangoon. Photo: Michael Lwin

Worldfocus blogger Michael Lwin, who recently returned from Myanmar, writes about the urban Burmese social scene.

Four young couples are in a 250-square-foot room with bright pink wallpaper and a modest entertainment system. The two most extroverted stand in front of a television set, striking over-the-top dance poses as the liquid tones of Akon’s “Smack That” roll out of the speakers.

The clown jester of the group, a short, tan fellow with a dark-brown pompadour and oval-framed glasses, carries his porcelain-skinned girlfriend in his arms and twirls her around, some of her black hair sticking against the sweat on her face.

She giggles with glee and waves. She bumps her petite body against his; he jolts and rubs his bottom in feigned indignation.

I could be describing young people anywhere in the world, but this particular group happens to be Burmese living in Myanmar.

The young men are using their hard-earned salaries for a night out on the town. The young women are not exactly their girlfriends.

Rather, most are the daughters of poor families, making a living in Yangoon by agreeing to be something like comfort girls — not prostitutes — but affectionate company for the evening.

Such young women are commonplace at karaoke bars in Myanmar. They sit on couches with the men, put their arms around them, and hold hands. They let the men touch their shoulders, legs, the small of their backs, nuzzle their necks, brush their cheeks with kisses.

The men claim to be sexually experienced, but further discussions reveal that many remain virgins until marriage. For women, there is even more pressure to be chaste.

A karaoke bar in Yangoon. Photo: Michael Lwin

For young Burmese, dating is very formal. Cohabitation and sexual activity before marriage are taboo, and it is expected that men and women date briefly en route to marriage.

Though there are couples that violate these taboos, I observed that most Burmese adhere to custom.

Respectable young women do not go to karaoke bars.

The young women who work at karaoke bars usually serve a significantly older clientele. Karaoke bars are popular entertainment for middle-aged men, who sing classic Burmese songs like Mee Bon Pwe, Sein Choo Kyar Nyaung, and Shay Yay Sett over chicken wings, rice, and vegetables provided by the in-house kitchen.

I noticed that in contrast to the playfulness displayed with the young men, the women seem ill at ease among their older clients. Often they grimace, subtly remove an aggressively placed hand and assume a vacant, distant look.

I am not sure whether the difference in behavior is a function of the age difference — or whether the younger men I observe are simply a friendlier, inoffensive lot.

The short funny male of the group is charming. He dramatically reenacts choreographed dances from Bollywood movies when Indian songs play; he throws his arms around the neck of his much taller friend, who is wearing a black imitation Armani Exchange shirt, and they bellow out songs together.

The young woman demands the young man pick her up and spin her around the room again, and he obliges.

For that moment, they look like a happy couple anywhere in the world.

- Michael Lwin

David Cameron  Photo: Conservative Party

The 2010 British General Election, which must be held by June 3, pits embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the Labour Party against David Cameron of the Conservatives. Worldfocus contributing blogger Jamie Macfarlane writes about the perennial issue of class as a potential factor in the race.

The Bullingdon Club is Oxford University’s most exclusive dining society. Restricted to the most privileged undergraduates since its founding in 1780, the club is notorious for its destructive binges at unsuspecting restaurants, which are trashed from top to bottom at the end of the meal in the society’s signature ritual. The members escape trouble with the police by leaving a blank check behind to cover the devastation.

As depicted by Evelyn Waugh in Decline and Fall, The Bullingdon also helped to popularize the Oxford expression “debagging”, whereby an individual that irritated the club had his trousers pulled down in the street. Although the advent of tighter trousers has largely put a stop to this pastime, many other Bullingdon traditions persevere -the initiation ritual for example, where a new member discovers his invitation to join the club when he returns to his bedroom to find that the society has broken in and destroyed his possessions.

The 2010 general election could see the three most powerful positions in Britain all being occupied by “Buller” boys. The Conservative candidate for Prime Minister David Cameron, George Osborne, his prospective chancellor, and the current Conservative Mayor of London Boris Johnson were all in the society.

In a nation historically fixated with class, the prospective aristocratic takeover of government could turn this year’s election campaign into what the media are styling a “class war.”  Journalists were quick to jump on Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s declaration to Parliament that Conservative policies seemed to have been “dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton,” the $50,000 a year private school attended by Cameron and several senior members of his party.

Gordon Brown  Photo: Labour Party

Gordon Brown has since backpedaled from the statement, claiming that he had just made an innocent joke. But some pundits think that Brown, who trails Cameron by around 10 points in the opinion polls, should get nasty. Tony Blair’s former adviser Alistair Campbell writes:

It was evident from Cameron’s face that he hated it. It was clear from the faces behind that they shared the hurt. Inflicting political pain on your opponents is part of the job of politicians.

Cameron’s detractors have always been keen to point out that his Eton schooling, his Bullingdon membership and a lineage that traces back to King William IV undermines his attempts at styling himself as an “ordinary bloke.” In comparison Brown is the publicly educated son of a Church of Scotland minister.

So why is Brown holding back from trying to politically debag Cameron?

Firstly, British elections tend to lack the same degree of personal attack as in the U.S. The British public was scandalized when Gordon Brown’s former special adviser Damian McBride was discovered formulating rumors about Cameron and other members of his team in 2009. Brown is still tainted by an episode that left his administration looking nasty.

The second reason for Brown’s reluctance is explained by George Pitcher’s blog for the Daily Telegraph.

Socio-economic status isn’t what it was when class really was the divisive issue in British society. Today you can be a successful PR flak or some ghastly (my dear, look at their suits) hedge-fund manager and buy your way into Royal Enclosures, or even the House of Lords if you’re subtle enough with the payments.

The Bullingdon club’s notoriety at Oxford University is partly because it is a relic of a bygone Britain, in which aristocracy was the law of the land. Similarly diminishing is the socialist reaction to this privilege that saw the rise of an embittered working class that formed the core Labour Party vote for decades.

Gordon Brown’s predecessor Tony Blair enjoyed his unparalleled success as Labour leader by shifting his party towards the center, as he embraced Britain’s ever expanding middle class. Tony Blair’s “New Labour” promised to govern a “Modern Britain.” Gordon Brown risks undoing this reinvention by pulling the trigger on a class war.

The dates of British elections are only announced a month in advance, so Britons must keep guessing about whether they are about to be caught up in “class warfare.” Brown, for now, has stuck to the softer language of Cameron being “out of touch with middle class families.” However if Brown continues to falter in the polls, he will become increasingly tempted to go for broke. After all, he would not want to see a blank check left in the rubble of Parliament’s restaurant.

Tension was under the surface as we negotiated with the contractor, trying to chip away another $10,000 from his bid. The price to build a school in South Sudan, I have learned, is exorbitantly high.

I am here with Gabriel Bol Deng, who is featured in my new documentary film, Rebuilding Hope. Gabriel Bol, one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” has been raising money for three years to build a school in Ariang, his native village. We were not prepared for just how costly such a venture is.

South Sudan came out of decades of devastating civil war only five years ago. Infrastructure was nearly non-existent when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in 2005, and now, five years later, its improvement has been creeping at best.

Students in front of the collapsing tukul that had served as the office of the former Ariang school, which met under trees. Photo: Gabriel Bol Deng

Nearly all the raw materials needed for construction is either imported from Uganda or brought in from Khartoum in the North. The price of the materials reflects the distance it had to travel to reach South Sudan. Located in Warrap state, Ariang’s isolation increases the cost as well.

Transportation to get all the building materials on site will cost almost $70,000. Cutting corners to get the price down is not recommended.

Three years ago, the NGO World Vision built four schools in Warrap State. The iron-sheeting roofs of all four blew off during last year’s rainy season. The climate is harsh and unforgiving in South Sudan.

Perhaps this explains why, as Lino Anyak Kuec, the director general of the Ministry of Education for Warrap state pointed out in our meeting last week, 90 percent of the 344 primary schools are still functioning under trees.

It is difficult to ascertain the exact population of Warrap state that these 344 primary schools serve. According to the 2008 census, there are close to 1 million people. Southerners, however, contest the census results and in fact, Kuec told us, the numbers of people who registered to vote in the 2010 elections surpassed the census results.

Warrap is a “new” state, born out of the signing of the CPA. Kuajok, the capital of Warrap state, was created in 2006. The problems faced by all states in South Sudan are intensified in Warrap, which had no previous experience or even minimal infrastructure to draw on.

The lack of constructed schools is one indicator of the challenges that the state faces. In Kuajok, the state capital, there are 5,220 students divided among only three primary schools, averaging 217.5 students in each classroom.

There are only eight secondary schools in all of Warrap State, which is about 220 miles in length, and only two of them have their own facility. The others use rooms in six of thirty-odd constructed primary schools. This arrangement will end soon; the primary schools are desperate for all their classroom space.

They are asking the secondary school classes to vacate their premises. There are only 2,000 secondary students in all of Warrap state—an indication of the drop-out rate, especially high for girls, as well as a commentary on the lack of education during the war and the subsequent need for Southern Sudanese to catch up. Many of the students studying in primary school are teenagers or adults.

Clearing straw from future Ariang School site. Photo: Gabriel Bol Deng

A school building, of course, is only one step towards a functioning school. Every school needs basic supplies, which schools in South Sudan are sorely lacking, whether they are housed in a building or under trees. Currently, only one-third of the classes in Warrap state have chalkboards.

Last year, UNICEF provided 1 chalkboard for each school. Each school had to decide—which class would be the lucky one to receive the chalkboard?

The quality of teaching in Warrap state is also a grave concern. During the war, there were a handful of scattered “bush schools”, so-called because they operated “in the bush.” The teachers were primarily untrained rebel fighters who gathered children during lulls in the violence to teach them whatever they knew from their own schooling. When fighting resumed, the bush schools stopped.

Many of these former rebel/bush teachers are now teaching in the primary schools. “We cannot ask them to stop teaching,” Kuec said. He suggested two reasons why. One is connected to the Government of South Sudan’s loyalty to those who fought and served with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army during the war. And, Kuec pointed out, there are not teachers with more adequate training to replace them.

The lack of trained teachers is perhaps the greatest challenge to providing an adequate education to children in South Sudan. Teachers lack not only methodology, but basic, general knowledge. Often, those with a sixth grade education level are teaching grade 4.

There are many qualified teachers among Southerners, but a large percentage of them received their schooling in Khartoum, following an Arabic language curriculum. The Government of South Sudan (GoSS) has determined that the language of instruction is English.

Educated Southerners fluent in Arabic cannot teach an English language curriculum. GoSS, strapped with budget deficits all around, pays teachers approximately $100/month. Subsequently, teachers often take second jobs to supplement this income. It is not uncommon for a teacher to send a friend to take over his class a few days a week while he is busy working as a driver.

Despite the constant uphill struggle, improvement has been made. 150 out of Warrap’s 3,000 teachers are currently in a training course and in February, 240 more will begin a three-month course.

Gabriel Bol teaches children in the Ariang school, which continues to meet under trees until he constructs their school building. Photo courtesy of Rebuilding Hope

In 2007, teachers complained that their salaries arrived months late if they came at all, and teachers had to travel to Kuajok to receive them, sometimes closing school for a week each month or two in order to make the journey on foot and return.

The salaries in 2010, though inadequate, are at least paid regularly. Teachers receive payment in their own district rather than having to travel to Kuajok. The system is computerized, enabling much better record keeping. Baby steps, but important ones.

Gabriel Bol continued to negotiate with the contractor, trying to convince him to reduce the cost of building the school without reducing the quality.

Even after the contractor agreed to shave off the $10,000, Gabriel Bol will have to raise an additional $50,000 when he returns to the U.S. in order for the construction to be completed. And he is well-aware, even as he negotiates the transport for gravel, cement, and iron sheeting, that building this school is only the first step. Gabriel Bol’s goal is not only that the children of his village have a school building, it’s that they have an education.

There is much work to be done.

- Jen Marlowe

A young boy in Addis Ababa. Photo: Tesfaye Negussie

Tesfaye Negussie is an American journalist whose parents emigrated from Ethiopia. Last month, Tesfaye traveled to Ethiopia to visit family and friends.

He writes how the desire to emigrate to America is common in the Ethiopian psyche — along with an equally strong desire to return to the homeland.

It was an elaborate scam: a beautiful bride, a dashing groom, a smiling best man and bridesmaids draped in matching gowns.

The photo was taken to bamboozle American immigration officials. Apparently, the bride was already living in America, and the groom, living in Ethiopia, just wanted to further his education in the U.S. So, he paid her a couple thousand dollars to marry him.

I’ve been told that some Ethiopian men living in America return to Ethiopia for a few weeks just to find a wife and bring her back to the U.S., even though they barely know each other. The man gets a young pretty woman who shares his culture, and the woman gets to come to America.

This is similar to what I used to hear of the young teenage women who lived in rural parts of Ethiopia. They would be married off to wealthy landowners who could afford to pay big dowries to the girl’s parents.

Still others come to America through diversity visa lotteries — a program that gives visas to countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

The Ethiopian dream is just like the American dream — but with a twist. Ethiopians come to the U.S. to make a living yet often return to Ethiopia to retire.

The dream also casts its fairy dust on Ethiopian pop culture. Ethiopian TV, films and music often depict the experiences of Ethiopian-American immigrants.

Men’s Affairs is a comedic film that follows the antics of a poor Ethiopian carpenter who lies that he lives in America and is just visiting Ethiopia, so that he can get the girl that he desires. For my Father is a drama about a girl who breaks up with her boyfriend to marry a rich man from the U.S.

Ethiopians in America remit about $1.2 billion per year to their families back home. This amount is second only to the total that Ethiopia receives from exports. For the most part, Ethiopians go abroad to make a better life for themselves and give back to their families in Ethiopia, but most dream of returning again.

I grew up in the Washington, D.C. area, which has an estimated 200,000 people of Ethiopian descent — the highest concentration of Ethiopians outside of Ethiopia. As a teenager, I remember learning that Ethiopians owned many of the big nightclubs in the city. As soon as they made enough money, they sold their clubs, and returned to Ethiopia to rejoin their families and invest in their country.

My parents and many of their Ethiopian friends who live in America have lived in the U.S. for about three decades. But they still talk about how they will return to Ethiopia once they retire.

There is a sense of pride that links most Ethiopians to their country. We feel the joy of being with family and a yearning to stay close to our rich history and culture.

We also have a tacit amour-propre, as children of an ancient civilization and the vanquishers of the menacing evil of colonization. Moreover, we are the gatekeepers to an array of ethnicities, languages and religions that have coexisted for centuries.

And even though Ethiopia is now poor, most Ethiopian emigrants dream of the day they will return. Many of them will visit several times before permanently returning — coming back to a country that changes in the blink of an eye.

Ethiopia is the fourth fastest growing economy in the world, according to The Economist. Even though so much has changed, the love is the same, and it feels like they never left.

Many Ethiopian-Americans born in America will stay and raise kids here.  We, unlike our parents, have grown with American culture and taken it as our own. But our pride for Ethiopia burns strong. Many of us speak broken Amharic, Oromo, Tigrinya, Gurage — or the language of whatever region our parents are from.  We will dress in green, yellow and red patterns.  Or wear shirts with pictures of Halie Selassie, as to say, “I am Ethiopian.”

Because the Italians, Jamaicans, Mexicans, Chinese and others who settled in America share a similar journey as the Ethiopians, the Ethiopian-American story is the American story.

Tesfaye Negussie and his grandmother.

So, that is also my story.

My grandmother, who lived with us in America for 10 years, is now back in Ethiopia.

I visited her for several days in Addis Ababa. Since she is very old, it may have been my last time seeing her.

The day I was leaving, I had a terrible stomach ache from something I ate. My grandmother pulled out the one thing she knew would cure me: an old dingy plastic bottle filled with holy water.

It was refreshing as she poured the cool water on my aching belly and head. As she recited prayers under her breath, I remembered those days that I would go to her room to wake her up for breakfast, when she would already be awake thumbing her rosary beads.

And when my sister and I would return from school, she’d hand us huge chunks of ambasha bread that she had prayed over.  And we’d have to finish it. Even though our stomachs were full from whatever junk we had picked up at the ice cream truck, we obediently finished every crumb.

Afterward, we would sometimes take Grandma for a walk because she had been inside all day, and this was her only chance to spend some alone time with her grandchildren before Mom and Dad came home.

The water gradually warmed on my skin, and I felt the touch of my grandmother’s fragile hand on my forehead as she prayed. And then my stomach didn’t hurt anymore.

It was good to be home.

- Tesfaye Negussie

For more Worldfocus coverage of Ethiopia, visit our extended coverage page: Ethiopia Past and Present.

A South Korean honor guard in Yongsan. Photo: Flickr user ImComKorea

Worldfocus contributing blogger Jamblichus analyzes the leadership style of the conservative South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, which he likens to that of a CEO, and his controversial plan to dredge Korea’s major waterways.

If you were a shareholder in the Republic of Korea, plc., you’d probably be quite content and thinking about buying more stock: Lee has clinched a huge project to sell locally developed nuclear reactors to the United Arab Emirates, a first for the country and as a result making South Korea only the sixth place in the world to export nuclear reactors.

He has launched an ambitious $19.2 billion program to dredge and “clean up” the nation’s four major rivers, pledging the project will generate thousands of jobs, improve water supply and quality, and prevent flooding, while also boosting the nation’s “aquatic tourism.” Sounds good, does it not?

Except that most people who know anything about it are united in their opposition. Take Hong Jong-ho, an economist at Hanyang University, for example, who argues that the project would create an “environmental disaster” that would worsen flooding and pollute the two rivers that supply drinking water for two-thirds of the nation’s 49 million people and that costs would run as high $50 billion.

(Lee claimed that 60 percent to 70 percent of it would be recovered by selling sand and gravel scraped from the riverbeds — hardly likely to have a positive environmental impact surely? — and that the rest would come from private investment. )

And opposition party chairman Chung Sye-kyun claims the administration has not conducted a proper feasibility study and its environmental impact assessment on the 634-kilometer area, completed in just four months, was slap-dash and troubling. Plans to place the project in the hands of project in the hands of the Korea Water Resources Corporation, which is not subject to National Assembly budget reviews, have also raised concerns, according to local paper the Hankyoreh.

Yet Lee is highly unlikely to pay much attention to their fretting; you see, Mr Lee’s silvery lining as leader has a cloud attached and it hovers above everything he touches like a possible ratings downgrade from a credit agency or a sell recommendation from an influential analyst. The cloud, which is a towering cumulonimbus, rather than your wispy cirrus is this: President Lee runs the nation like a company.

He is no democrat, for a CEO with a penchant for collaborative leadership or one who recognizes the value of dissent is generally a weak CEO. To Lee, those who disagree with his position are renegade shareholders who may damage the stock value. They must be brought on side or silenced before the international markets notice.

The president is equally aware of who the majority shareholders are in his enterprise. They are the conglomerates, the establishment academics whose intellectual prostitution allows for their recruitment as technocratic advisers, they are the fund managers and construction companies.

“We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still,” wrote British philosopher John Stuart Mill, but that is the mindset of a philosopher, not a businessman.

So as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission gets its funding shut off and its offices closed down; as the National Human Rights Commission gets its funding reduced and its independence threatened; as the judiciary faces an almighty assault on its integrity, it is a little disconcerting to read that CEO Lee’s government is to invest $1.5 billion, yes, billion, in building marinas and subsidizing the construction of yacht clubs.

Whether this seems like an appropriate priority for a nation’s government dear reader, led by a businessman or otherwise, I leave to your impartial assessment.

Photo: Flickr user Rxau

Hsin-Yin Lee, a former associate producer at Worldfocus, is a news editor at the “China Times” in Taipei.

”You have watched the movie ‘Avatar,’ haven’t you?” a colleague asked me the other day. “I sure have,” I answered, ready to show off my knowledge of war on terror and how the movie director, James Cameron, parallels America’s invasion of Iraq with his work.

“Then you’ll probably be interested in this,” she said, passing me along a piece from a reader in mainland China. I thought I had interpreted Avatar from all kinds of perspectives, but it was not until reading the piece that I realized my ignorance (of which I am ashamed.)

For those who haven’t seen the movie, the film is set on the planet of Pandora, a resource-rich paradise that draws the greedy eyes of human beings. It is a story about how the blue-skinned aboriginals of the planet, the Na’vi, tried to protect their woodland home from armed developers who plan to seize a valuable mineral buried there.

Apparently, it’s the scene of the violent tear-down of the tree that resonated among the Chinese people. In an op-ed piece titled,  “Real estate developers and law makers should all go to see Avatar,” the writer furiously attacks the large number of forced demolitions in China in recent years.

“Like the story in Avatar,” he argues, ” poor, helpless people, when facing the injustice of forced demolition, can only take extreme measures to make themselves heard or simply accept it and weep.”

He’s talking about the so-called “nail house problem” in modern China. As the name suggests, “nail houses” belong to people who defiantly resist eviction in the face of development and whose homes thus stick out like nails amid a field of debris.

A Chinese “nailhouse” in Nanjing. Photo: Flickr user GraemeNicol

While such demolition might seem common in most countries, the violent measures taken by both the authorities and the residents in China have made the confrontations painful.

Last November, a Chengdu woman doused herself in petrol and set fire to herself in protest against the government because she learned that her house is in the way of a highway project and will be torn down. The tragedy echos an earlier case. In June, 2008, a Shanghai woman threw petrol bombs at a demolition crew planning to tear down her home to build a transportation site for the 2010 Shanghai Expo.

Both cases reflect the tip of the iceberg. Although last month authorities agreed to further look into the issue of housing demolition, from the attitudes of the government officials, one can tell reform will not happen soon. When a 66-year-old villager threatened recently to jump off a building to protest his home from demolition, an official told him: “Go straight to the top floor. Don’t choose the first or second.” In fact, his words have been chosen by editors at the China Daily as one of the “Top ten quotes of the year 2009.”

Besides the corruption of government-business relations and the abuse of administrative power, the lack of “privatization” in the Chinese system is a key factor of the nail house problem. Unlike Americans or Canadians, Chinese people don’t really own their lands. In fact, they are granted 70 years of use of their house–which, in a legal sense, means that in China, ownership of the land is separated from the right to the use of the land. According to law, the State may withdraw such right anytime by offering compensation.

Since my colleague is from mainland China and can work in Taiwan only because she married to a Taiwanese, I asked her what she thinks about the issue.

“The only thing people can hope for is to get some compensation,” she said, “but really, who would want to leave home?”

Yeah. Who would want to leave home? That’s what I feel, too.

- Hsin-Yin Lee

An American soldier in Kandahar. Photo: Flickr user

Ambassador S. Azmat Hassan is a former Ambassador of Pakistan to Malaysia, Syria and Morocco and Deputy Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations. He is currently an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University and is a contributing Worldfocus blogger.

Mankind has engaged in violent extremism since Biblical times. Cain became the world’s first terrorist by slaying his brother Abel. Voltaire pessimistically characterized human history as nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

In a sense, America lost its innocence on 9/11. The international community sympathized with Washington but it also said, “Welcome to the real world!”

The Bush administration with its Manichean world view exploited a fearful populace to execute its agenda of “full spectrum dominance” and preemptive war. It invaded two countries — Afghanistan and Iraq — and openly threatened military action against a third: Iran. In the desire to exact retribution, the motivations driving such terrorist attacks were largely ignored. The lives lost and financial resources squandered have been enormous.

More than 8 years have elapsed since the 9/11 atrocity, but it is a moot point if the U.S. is any safer today. That no further attacks on the U,.S. mainland have taken place, suggests that the revamped security structure despite its flaws, is keeping American citizens safe.

What should be clearly understood is that there is no foolproof security system that can prevent committed terrorists from carrying out violent acts against the citizens of another country.

For years, Armenian terrorists were killing Turkish citizens as revenge for the alleged genocide perpetrated by Ottoman Turks on its Armenian subjects during World War I. Israelis and Palestinians have been killing each other since the founding of Israel in 1948. Kashmiris and Indians are doing the same in Indian-administered Kashmir. The list goes on.

The Nigerian underwear bomber’s recent failed attempt to blow up an American airliner, which the media played up, has once again brought a wave of fear to our shores. I wish some senior official of the Obama administration had calmed the public by recalling Roosevelt’s sage advice to his countrymen: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Terrorism is propaganda by deed, since terrorism is theater. Al-Qaeda succeeds every time it plants fear and uncertainty in our hearts and minds. We should get over being overly obsessed about our security. Our despondency comes close to pusillanimity, which runs against the America tradition of courage and fortitude.

Capturing or killing bin Laden and his deputy al-Zawahiri should remain a U.S. objective, but without the media hype. Because by doing this, we are in a sense helping to resurrect them for their dwindling band of followers. The less heed we pay them publicly, the more quickly they will fade away into obscurity.

In concentrating on bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, we may be focusing on the symptoms rather than the disease. Let us be clear: if one or both of them are eliminated tomorrow, al-Qaeda, which has become a transnational enterprise, will not fold. It is not even known how much influence these two fugitives continue to exercise on al-Qaeda’s global reach.

Violent extremism is like a chronic disease. It cannot be eradicated but its effects can be considerably mitigated by a combination of soft power and hard power, with soft power being the predominant element in the mix. The U.S. and the West should focus on winning hearts and minds of the people in whose midst violent extremists operate.

Once we empower these people by making them stakeholders in peaceful economic development, violent extremists will be marginalized. Right now the U.S. seems to be relying much more on hard power in Afghanistan and Iraq. Such an approach — far from being crowned with success — is likely to put the U.S. on the slippery path to ultimate failure.

- S. Azmat Hassan

A UN peacekeeping armored personnel carrier patrols the roads. Rutshuru, North Kivu, 2008. Photo: Michael J. Kavanagh

Contributor Michael J. Kavanagh reported for Worldfocus last year on the crisis in eastern Congo. He’s currently based in the DR Congo’s capital, Kinshasa.

He discusses the controversy surrounding the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission, the problems with integration of rebels into Congolese Army ranks and the economic future of this resource-rich, war-torn country.

Q: Why has the UN’s peacekeeping mission come under such intense criticism in eastern Congo?

Michael J. Kavanagh: For the past year, the Congolese army has been fighting a group of Rwandan rebels known as the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) who’ve lived in eastern Congo for around 15 years.

They’re mostly Hutu and some of their leaders are implicated in the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. This military mission began in concert with the Rwandan army in January and February 2009. Since March, it’s been supported by the UN peacekeepers.

This has been hugely controversial because the military operations have caused the deaths of well over a thousand civilians, the rape of several thousand and the displacement of around a million people. Rwandan rebels and the Congolese army are both accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Peacekeepers were put in a difficult position as the operations progressed because their mandate essentially became contradictory: They’re supposed to protect civilians while at the same time support a Congolese army that’s often killing civilians.

A former CNDP rebel holds a rocket propelled grenade at a ceremony for rebel integration into the Congolese army. Masisi, North Kivu, 2009. Photo: Michael J. Kavanagh

Q: Earlier this year, as part of a deal between Rwanda and Congo, the Rwandan-backed CNDP rebel group was integrated into the ranks of the Congolese army. How has this impacted the conflict in eastern Congo?

Michael J. Kavanagh: A year ago the UN released a report saying that Rwanda was supporting a rebel group in eastern Congo known as the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP. The international community pressured Rwanda to stop this and now after nearly 15 years of fighting each other, Rwanda and Congo are nominally allies.

The CNDP has been integrating into the Congolese army over the past year as part of a peace deal, but they are still committing massive atrocities in eastern Congo, they’re just now wearing Congolese Army uniforms. Their leader, Bosco Ntaganda, is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

Various human rights groups and even the UN itself have documented these atrocities by ex-CNDP forces, but the Congolese government has been hesitant to complain because they don’t want to upset their new (peaceful) relationship with Rwanda.

Meanwhile, tiny-but-powerful Rwanda benefits from the illegal trade in natural resources in eastern Congo, as do other neighboring countries like Uganda and Burundi and Tanzania. So this is still a regional problem that requires a regional, political solution as much as a military one.

Displaced families finding shelter in a school. Kiwanja, North Kivu, 2008. Photo: Michael J. Kavanagh

Q: The peacekeeping mission in Congo is the UN’s largest. How relevant is the UN’s mission there? What will happen when the mandate expires in five months?

Michael J. Kavanagh: The UN mission in Congo is huge - its budget is more than $1.4 billion a year and over 20,000 soldiers and civilians work for it. But you need to remember how big Congo is - it’s the size of western Europe with 60+ million people.

We’re asking a lot of these peacekeepers — probably more than they can provide given their resources and the difficulty of operating in Congo. Besides basic logistical issues, the Congolese government and army have not always been partners in good faith, nor have other regional partners like Rwanda and Uganda.

Over the last 10 years, the results of the peacekeeping mission have been mixed. So on December 23, the UN renewed its mandate for only five months instead of the usual 12, to send a sign that they were rethinking how the mission would do business.

They’re attaching conditionality to the support of the Congolese army — no civilian protection, no support. The UN is also asking for mechanisms to regulate the flow of illegal natural resources that are being used to enrich elements in various armed groups as well as some international companies.

Congo will celebrate 50 years of independence in June, and the government wants the UN to start drawing down its troops, but with major security issues in the east and other problems in the northeast (with the Lord’s Resistance Army) and center (a new insurgency) of the country, it’s hard to see how the Congo can afford to let UN peacekeepers leave.

For all its problems, the UN mission still provides essential services in Congo - perhaps too many, some argue - and the new mandate says another year will be added to the mandate in June.

Rwandan Defense Forces march through Pinga, North Kivu, a former FDLR stronghold, in 2009. Photo: Michael J. Kavanagh

Q: How do Congo’s rich natural resources play into the conflict?

Michael J. Kavanagh: In December, the annual UN group of experts report on Congo outlined how armed groups were exploiting minerals like gold and tin ore to support their fighting. Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda were all implicated in the trafficking, as were a number of international companies.

Non-governmental armed groups control some mines and they tax transport routes in eastern Congo. The Congolese army - in particular ex-CNDP elements - also control mines and transport routes. The illegal trafficking is worth tens of millions of dollars, if not more.

The UN, EU, and U.S., among others, are all working on mechanisms to regulate the exploitation of minerals - something Congo needs for development - and hold individuals and companies accountable for illegal trafficking.

Q: Recently the IMF gave Congo a new loan of more than $500 million for showing signs of economic progress. What do you make of this?

Michael J. Kavanagh: It’s a big deal. The IMF will be giving Congo well over half a billion dollars in loans over the next three years through a program intended to increase growth and reduce poverty.

The loan program is an explicit signal to international donors that in spite of ongoing conflict in the east, Congo is making macroeconomic progress, and if that progress continues, Congo could be eligible for debt relief under a World Bank and IMF program called the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, or HIPC.

You have to remember that after 15 years of war, years of dictatorship and rapacious colonialism before that, Congo is one of the poorest countries in the world.

Even with vast natural resources, the government is struggling to fix its infrastructure and pay its army, police and civil servants. IMF and World Bank loans and debt forgiveness are critical for the country to rebuild itself.

Forgiveness of most of Congo’s old debt (much of which was accumulated during years of dictatorship and war) would allow Congo to take on new debt to pay for new development and services.

A construction worker at a refugee camp takes a break during a rainstorm. Goma, North Kivu, 2009. Photo: Michael J. Kavanagh

Q: Are foreign investors optimistic about investing in Congo?

Michael J. Kavanagh: A few months ago, Congo completed a two and a half year review of international mining contracts, which was necessary but has been highly controversial.

At the moment, Congo is still renegotiating its mining contract with Phoenix-based Freeport McMoRan over one of the biggest copper and cobalt deposits in the world and it canceled a huge copper and cobalt contract with Canadian mining giant First Quantum last Fall.

This has created uncertainty regarding foreign investment in Congo.

On the one hand, many of these contracts were negotiated during the war and even if they’re legal, they’re not necessarily fair and needed to be renegotiated.

On the other hand, the mining review was far from transparent. It’s created an uneasy environment for potential and existing investors.

Growing and regulating its mining sector is probably the most important thing Congo can do to extricate itself from poverty; it’s also the sector most vulnerable to corruption.

One final prediction for the coming year: Angola and Congo have been allies for years, but there’s now a dispute over huge oil deposits off the coast of the two countries. It looks like Angola has been exploiting oil belonging to Congo, and the case has been sent to an international arbiter.

Angola is quietly furious, and this could seriously damage the relationship between the two countries and be a source of conflict over the next year. Something to think about, because Angola has always been the Congo’s ally of last resort when it’s faced serious security challenges.

- Lisa Biagiotti and Christine Kiernan

For more of Michael’s reporting, visit Worldfocus’ Crisis in Congo extended coverage page.

Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson

Ayo Johnson is a contributing blogger for Worldfocus. He writes about how West African presidents are taking the lead in the fight against corruption.

The presidents of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ghana are raising the bar for the continent by declaring publicly their commitment to fight corruption.

The Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma became the first head of state to declare his assets to the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia went one step further,  offering financial incentives for whistleblowers to expose corrupt officials. The Ghanaian President John Atta-Mills has refused to accept gifts from anyone.

All three presidents have sent the vitally important message: corruption will not be accepted in any form.

The issue of corruption has long been a cancer and a shameful scourge on the African continent. It is estimated that corruption cost the African continent over $150 billion a year. That is money that could have been spent on health education and building up the rural economy.

As awareness of issues surrounding corruption has intensified in the world, some African nations like Sierra Leone are now beginning to change their laws to make it harder for corrupt officials to stash stolen money in foreign banks.

The presidents of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ghana have shown great courage and exemplary leadership by leading the fight against corruption for the rest of Africa to follow.

Developed nations in the West now have a positive role to play, in promoting good governance and monitoring poorer economies.

- Ayo Johnson

An editorial in Sierra Leone’s Daily Mail echos that sentiment.

‘Cor­rup­tion in Africa ranges from high-level polit­i­cal graft on the scale of mil­lions of dol­lars to low-level bribes to police offi­cers or cus­toms offi­cials. In as much as polit­i­cal graft imposes the largest direct finan­cial cost on coun­try, petty bribes have a cor­ro­sive effect on basic insti­tu­tions and under­mine pub­lic trust in the gov­ern­ment…. Africans must demand trans­parency and account­abil­ity in gov­ern­ment. Inde­pen­dent Cor­rup­tion watch­dogs free from gov­ern­ment con­trol and influ­ence must be estab­lished to inves­ti­gate, pros­e­cute and severely pun­ish offi­cials who engage in cor­rupt prac­tices. The peo­ple should be given access to state rev­enue sta­tis­tics in all its form through pub­li­ca­tion in local media. We must take con­trol of our country’s finances and end this era of cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment of our wealth and resources.

With the recent discovery of oil in Sierra Leone, investors are pouring into the country looking to get a piece of the liquid gold. This article from the Daily Nation reports on the oil discovery and its link to corruption.

Sierra Leone’s anti-corruption commissioner has a simple message for foreign investors coming to his country for its mines and oil — offer bribes and you could find yourself in prison….The former human rights and insurance lawyer said his commission would have no compunction about prosecuting corrupt foreign investors in court in the capital Freetown, and that could land them in a Sierra Leonean prison.

Still, anti-corruption efforts face serious challenges in Africa.  Among them, as Forbes columnist John Hooker argues, are traditional practices that worked well in different settings in many non-Western countries.

In a traditional village context, African leaders earned respect by judiciously bestowing gifts and favors on their subjects. That wasn’t simply a patronage system; it was also a form of rational redistribution. The chief channeled wealth where it was most needed, increasing the community’s survival advantage. With the coming of colonialism and Western-style institutions, men frequently left villages to take government jobs in the capital. They continued to use gifts to obtain influence, but they left behind the social context that had structured and guided the practice. Responsible generosity became irresponsible influence peddling.

Business executives operating in Africa today should try to earn the influence they need through responsible generosity. They might build infrastructure or schools instead of paying off officials or political parties. There–and in general–the key to avoiding corruption is to understand what makes the local business culture work, and to stick to practices that reinforce the system, not ones that tear it apart.

- Stephanie Savage

The funeral for the Jordanian “handler” killed in the bomb attack. Photo: Al Jazeera

Jordanian blogger Naseem Tarawnah writes about the Jordanian double agent who killed seven C.I.A. members in Afghanistan this week — and the event’s impact on Jordanians.

It took less than 48 hours later for more information to emerge that the suicide bomber was Jordanian. In Amman, everyone seemed to have seen this piece of information scrawl across the screen of an Al Jazeera news ticker. Al Jazeera’s information was coming from a Taliban spokesperson, and this news was, naturally, quickly denied by the Jordanian government, which, naturally, spoke too soon…

Apparently, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, was a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa…

Interestingly enough, Balawi was “turned” after being arrested in 2007 for his activities on an extremist website that was being monitored by authorities. Balawi became an administrator of the site where he operated under the screen name of Abu Dujana al-Khorasani. Moreover, he was also a Jordanian blogger who according to sources, had a Maktoob-hosted blog that seems to still be accessible but seems to have had its archives flushed.

According to sources, Balawi was a trusted informant despite his extremist tendencies, which were probably the same tendencies the CIA and Jordan’s General Intelligence Department (GID) were using to their advantage when they used him as an informant with Al Qaeda’s circles. It is however astonishing that both the CIA and GID, despite the notoriety of both intelligence entities in their field, were duped by this one man they had working for them, who turns out was a triple agent.

It is very likely that Jordan will be given its share of the blame for its responsibility in arresting, turning and bringing Balawi to the attention of the CIA in the first place. But, even more embarrassing for Jordan is its CIA connection, which while relatively well-known before, has now been put out in the public sphere for all to see - especially the Arab street.

The Jordanian government will likely go on as if nothing ever happened, believing that Jordanians have no access to information, but being that we live in the information age where practically every Jordanian household has Al Jazeera and a million other channels, this is one piece of information that isn’t going to be kept quiet.

This is, of course, a subject that the state considers to be the very definition of a “red line.” I assume most journalists will be avoiding the issue like the plague, lest they be charged with the notoriously overused “attempting to harm the state’s relations” charge. However, the problem with such a charge, at least this time around, is that it seems the GID has done a pretty good job of doing the “harming” all by itself. It is the very definition of shooting oneself in the foot.

The repercussions are akin to opening Pandora’s Box. Jordan has lost tremendous face and what little political capital it had in a region where pretty much every country has a CIA connection they keep quiet. Moreover, they have given both Al Qaeda as well as Jordanians with extremist tendencies, a hero - a martyr to admire.

- Naseem Tarawnah