Schoolgirls outside Cairo’s Alabaster Mosque. Photo: Flickr user Ed Yourdon

The Arab world has over 350 million people and stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf. Unified by a common Arabic culture and history, these 25 countries are at varying levels of economic and political development.

But there seems to be a set of demographic issues that apply to many — if not all — of the nations in the Arab world. We take a deeper look at high birth rates and gender inequality and then compare them to other regions of the world.

Martin Savidge hosts Magda Abu-Fadil and Bernard Haykel to discuss these issues:

• Youth bulge: jobs for young people, emigration, political instability
• Gender gap: young women, variation across Arab states, political power
• Big picture: comparisons to other regions, replacement level, demographic transition

GUESTS:

Magda Abu-Fadil is director of the Journalism Training Program at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and has years of experience as a foreign correspondent and editor with international news organizations such as Agence France-Presse and United Press International.

Bernard Haykel is a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, where his research interests include contemporary politics, Arabian history and Islamic fundamentalism.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producer: Ben Piven
Associate Producer: Mohammad Al-Kassim

Just a few years ago, Iraqi women running for parliamentary seats didn’t show their pictures on any campaign signs because of Iraq’s conservatism. But that’s different now.

Al Arabiya also highlights the story of so-called “forgotten Iraqis” — desert Bedouins.

Worldfocus’ Mohammad Al-Kassim translated this report.

View a montage of Iraqi election advertisements compiled by Al Jazeera English.

The main pub in Stanley, Falkland Islands. Photo: Flickr user WoolieDales

With just over 3,000 inhabitants, this small island archipelago in the South Atlantic recently made it back into the headlines, as Argentina and the U.K. dispute sovereignty issues surrounding oil exploration by a British firm.

Known in English as the Falkland Islands and in Spanish as Las Malvinas, we want to look at why this little-known place brought two influential nations to war in 1982 — a conflict that now threatens to reignite.

Martin Savidge hosts Juanita Brock and Professor Maria Victoria Murillo to discuss:

• Falklands history: 1982 war, Argentinian claims, British control
• Current dispute: Nationalism, oil resources, trade relations
• U.S./Big Picture: Hillary’s visit, Latin American diplomacy, American intervention

GUESTS:

Maria Victoria Murillo is a professor of Latin American politics at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She has done fieldwork in Argentina, Chile and Venezuela.

Juanita Brock is bureau chief for the Falkland Islands News Network, which is a part of the South Atlantic Remote Territories Media Association. She resides in Stanley, the capital city.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producer: Ben Piven

A street in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum. Photo: Ben Piven

The government of India announced plans earlier this week to do comprehensive mapping of slums in the entire country.

In many of India’s big cities such as Mumbai, well over half the population reside in slums.

Using Geographical Information System mapping, the project aims to produce reliable numbers about slum populations — to further the government’s ambitious goal of making India slum-free within five years.

Officials say that the detailed geographic information will also make it easier for municipalities to provide basic services to slum dwellers, including water and electricity.

Yet some advocacy groups argue that the effort, hatched by Housing Minister Kumari Selja and reliant on technology used by the Indian Space Research Organisation, would merely facilitate redevelopment plans and the relocation of slum dwellers.

Worldfocus spoke with Pratima Joshi, director of housing NGO Shelter Associates, based in Pune, India, for more about the issue:

Worldfocus: Do you support the new slum mapping plan?

Pratima Joshi: Yes, we support the government’s slum mapping program. This is largely based on our model of poverty mapping. Shelter Associates pioneered the use of GIS for mapping poverty in India way back in 1999, and ever since we have been urging cities to have this kind of spatial data in place for effective, inclusive planning.

Worldfocus: What are the primary reasons why the government wants to gather this information?

Joshi: We have been able to demonstrate through some of our projects — especially Sangli — that such information helps to develop a citywide approach to developing the degraded areas in your city and helps achieve optimal utilization of scarce resources like land, instead of the usual piecemeal approach.

Worldfocus: How are slum dweller advocacy groups trying to stop the mapping effort?

Joshi: We have not encountered this problem with our work.

Worldfocus: Will Mumbai benefit from highly-detailed information about its slums, where the majority of Mumbaikars reside?

Joshi: Absolutely. In fact I believe that the need of the hour is to look at slums within the neighborhood and citywide perspectives, rather than just see places liked Dharavi as isolated slum pockets. There could be better solutions emerging if a holistic approach is adopted.

- Ben Piven

The president visits Ruhango. Photo: PaulKagame on Flickr

The East African nation of Rwanda has come a long way since a horrific genocide 16 years ago resulted in the death of around 800,000 Tutsis, as well as “moderate” Hutus who opposed the genocidaires.

President Paul Kagame’s Tutsi-dominated government has achieved economic, political, and military stability at a time when many surrounding governments face major crises. Many Western admirers look at the Rwandan president as a model leader in the developing world.

Martin Savidge hosts journalist and author Stephen Kinzer and human rights activist Noel Twagiramungu to discuss:

• Post-genocide politics: moving forward, justice & ethnic divisions
• Regional rivalries: security concerns, Rwandan alliances & Congo wars
• Big Picture/U.S.: Sarkozy visit, Clinton regrets & Obama policies

Guests:

Stephen Kinzer is a foreign correspondent who has covered more than 50 countries on five continents for The New York Times and Boston Globe. Kinzer’s most recent book is A Thousand Hills: Rwanda’s Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It.

Noel Twagiramungu, a PhD student at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, worked as a rights activist in Rwanda from 1991 until he fled in 2004. As general secretary of the Rwandan League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, Twagiramungu documented government abuses.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producer: Ben Piven
Associate Producer: Connie Kargbo

Worldfocus compares current marijuana policy throughout the U.S. to policy in Europe and the rest of the world.

The American decriminalization of marijuana has been a gradual process, with New Jersey becoming the 14th state to allow marijuana for medical use in January.

This map shows 15 states that allow medical marijuana, including Maryland — a state not often included because the law there only reduces penalties for medical marijuana use.

Map: Wikimedia Commons.

Following New Jersey’s change, Emily S. Rueb wrote in the New York Times‘ City Room about the potential for medical marijuana in New York:

But though 14 states have now legalized medical marijuana, New York, which has relatively liberal possession laws and actually passed a medical-marijuana law in 1980 but never put it to use, remains forbidden ground for those who seek to relieve their symptoms with cannabis. This year, however, supporters of medical marijuana in Albany and elsewhere hope to harness what they see as growing momentum.

In an October 2009 Gallup poll, 54 percent of Americans said they were opposed to legalizing marijuana, while 44 percent — a historical high — said they were in favor of legalization.

Across the Atlantic, countries such as the Netherlands are famous for allowing the personal use and sale of marijuana, while many other European nations have decriminalized the drug to varying levels.

The Czech Republic legalized the cultivation of up to five marijuana plants for personal use on January 1. Here’s a map showing the range of European marijuana restrictions:

The status of marijuana laws in Europe. (Iceland not to scale). Map: Wikimedia Commons

Europeans’ attitudes towards marijuana decriminalization are not as simple as some might assume. In his blog Travel as a Political Act,  travel writer Rick Steves discusses the real Dutch view of marijuana policy:

The Dutch are not necessarily “pro-marijuana.” In fact, most have never tried it or even set foot in a coffeeshop. They just don’t think the state has any business preventing the people who want it from getting it in a sensible way. To appease Dutch people who aren’t comfortable with marijuana, an integral component of the coffeeshop system is discretion. It’s bad form to smoke marijuana openly while walking down the street. Dutch people who don’t like pot don’t have to encounter or even smell it.  And towns that don’t want coffeeshops don’t have them. Occasionally a coffeeshop license will not be renewed in a particular neighborhood, as the city wants to keep a broad smattering of shops (away from schools) rather than a big concentration in any one area.

In Latin America too, drug laws have begun to loosen up, after decades of zero-tolerance policies. Mexico recently decriminalized the possession of up to 5 grams (0.18 oz.) of marijuana for personal use.

Global Voices blogger Issa Villarreal writes about the popular response to Mexico’s shift:

Reactions are mixed, but certainly two things always came up in discussions: the situation of violence and murder in several Mexican cities related to the narco and drug trafficking, and also the haste approval. It can be said that an important part of the distribution of the story was “hand to hand” through social networks and re-publishing in independent media, but not properly from newspapers, which also carries some critique. Among the discussions, the difference between legalization and decriminalization was a frequent one, considering that the latter holds specific limits of use.

Also from Global Voices, Juliana Rincón Parra writes about citizen groups around the world pushing for legalization:

There are groups of people advocating for the legalization of drugs, but what would that actually mean? From Hungary to Colombia, from youth to teachers, from cops and clergy, individuals and groups are taking to citizen media to put forth their arguments regarding this potentially controversial subject.

Monks protesting in Yangon in 2007. Photo: Racoles on Flickr

The country formerly known as Burma — now called Myanmar — has found itself on President Barack Obama’s long list of countries deserving of direct diplomatic engagement.

Many international observers are hopeful that the Southeast Asian nation of 48 million people will not only respond to overtures by the U.S. — but will also hold a free and fair parliamentary election in fall 2010. Yet, the date has not been announced, and critics aren’t holding their breath.

Joshua of BurmaVJ and Suzanne DiMaggio join Martin Savidge to explore these issues:

• Junta background: military rule, media crackdown, & ethnic oppression
• 2010 elections: fair vote, Constitution, & Aung Sang Suu Kyi
• U.S. interests: high-level talks, economic engagement, & policy shift

Guests:

Joshua is a Thailand-based journalist for Democratic Voice of Burma. He is also the main character in Burma VJ, an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Feature this year.

Suzanne DiMaggio is Project Director of the Asia Society’s Task Force on U.S. Policy toward Myanmar. As the Director of Policy Studies, she oversees the Society’s task forces, working groups, & Track II initiatives.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producer: Ben Piven
Assistant Producer: Gizem Yarbil

Influential al-Qaeda-linked Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Worldfocus takes a look at the evolution of al-Qaeda into a fragmented network of jihadi terrorist elements, often united more by philosophy than by concrete linkages between AfPak and cells in Iraq, Yemen, North Africa and beyond.

The escalated drone war in northwest Pakistan has brought attention to the attenuated al-Qaeda core that moved from Afghanistan in late 2001.

But two events in late December — a failed Christmas Day bombing and a suicide attack on CIA operatives in Afghanistan — have led analysts to re-assess al-Qaeda’s perceived decline in popularity and power.

The somewhat resurgent organization is highly decentralized and relies more on a brand name and local franchises than on ideological, communications and operations control by the group’s top leaders.

An Asia Times commentary article from 2004 addresses the al-Qaeda brand name:

Legitimized by President George W Bush’s administration’s declaration of war, al-Qaeda has now become a global phantom, plagued by its own reputation and in need of solid ground. Indeed, the post-September 11 security environment finds al-Qaeda lacking not only a physical safe haven as it had in Afghanistan, but also the critical manpower and expertise that it had in the moments prior to September 11.

This, by any means, is not the end of al-Qaeda, however. The ultimate power in such groups is not necessarily the leadership, but always the cause that defines the legitimacy of the group and the leadership that guides it. Bin Laden’s existence, perhaps as it always has been, is largely political and symbolic - but will nevertheless remain a powerful source of his straining influence on various members of the global umma. Thus the “war on terror”, although controversial in many minds, has undermined both the conventional and unconventional abilities of al-Qaeda and its global entities…

In sum, the power of the al-Qaeda cause, once inherited and customarily altered from the Muslim Brotherhood, has remained close to the political spirit of many radical variations of Islam. The twist here is that the elimination of the “physical” al-Qaeda nexus and the resulting decentralization of its regional elements into like-minded, local leadership groups may ultimately prove more of stratagem advantage versus US policy than a vulnerability.

Then a 2005 BBC article examined the terrorist organization as a global, corporate franchise:

Most newspaper reports encourage us to visualize al-Qaeda as an army, with a high command; or perhaps as a multinational organization, with bin Laden as its chief executive officer and men like Ayman al-Zawahri as his senior management.

We are told that the Bali bombings, like those in London, Madrid and half a dozen other places since the attacks of 11 September 2001, “bear all the hallmarks of” al-Qaeda - formulaic language that has not varied since the days when the violence of the IRA and ETA was at its peak.

The implication is that its senior figures order these attacks, and that local operatives carry them out…

Just as you can buy the franchise for, say, a Holiday Inn or an Intercontinental Hotel, so you can adopt the principles of Osama bin Laden and set up your own deadly group, murdering those you identify as the enemies of the faith - and anyone else, of course, who happens to be passing at the time.

And an AP article from July 2009 compares al-Qaeda’s expansion to fast food franchising:

The al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is perhaps the best example of how al-Qaeda is morphing and broadening its reach through loose relationships with local offshoots. The shadowy network of Algerian cells recruits Islamist radicals throughout northern and western Africa, trains them and sends them to fight in the region or Iraq, according to Western and North African intelligence officials who asked to remain anonymous because of the nature of their jobs. In turn, AQIM gets al-Qaeda’s brand name and some corporate know-how.

“The relationship with the al-Qaeda mother company works like in a multinational,” says Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France’s former top counterterrorism judge and an expert on North African networks. “There’s a strong ideological link, but the local subsidiary operates on its own.”

Another Western intelligence official compares AQIM to a local fast food franchise, “only for terrorism.”

The cover of The Guardian Weekly from September 11, 2009. Photo: Wikipedia

The Guardian published a piece in September 2009 — on the 8th anniversary of the September 11 attacks — about the organization’s perceived decline:

Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida is under heavy pressure in its strongholds in Pakistan’s remote tribal areas and is finding it difficult to attract recruits or carry out spectacular operations in Western countries, according to government and independent experts monitoring the organization…

Its activity is increasingly dispersed to “affiliates” or “franchises” in Yemen and North Africa, but the links of local or regional jihadi groups to the center are tenuous; they enjoy little popular support and successes have been limited.

Lethal strikes by CIA drones – including two this week alone – have combined with the monitoring and disruption of electronic communications, suspicion and low morale to take their toll on al-Qaeda’s Pakistani “core,” in the jargon of western intelligence agencies.

Interrogation documents seen by the Guardian show that European Muslim volunteers faced a chaotic reception, a low level of training, poor conditions and eventual disillusionment after arriving in Waziristan last year.

“Core” al-Qaida is now reduced to a senior leadership of six to eight men, including Bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to most informed estimates. Several other Egyptians, a Libyan and a Mauritanian occupy the other top positions. In all, there are perhaps 200 operatives who count.

Yet, after a failed Christmas Day bombing and a successful Khost attack on CIA operatives, The Economist ran a piece last month that refuted assumptions about al-Qaeda’s imminent demise:

ONLY a few months ago, intelligence experts were saying that al-Qaeda and its allies were in decline, both militarily and ideologically. But two bombs less than a week apart, one failed and the other successful, have put an end to such optimism.

The talk of al-Qaeda’s downfall did not come from thin air. In the view of many analysts, the network’s central leadership had been decimated through drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal belt; al-Qaeda’s Saudi branch was all but defeated; its brethren in Iraq were marginalized; and those in other regions could mount only local attacks. Al-Qaeda had failed to land a blow in the West since the London bombs of 2005. Funds were dwindling, and more Muslims were eschewing global terror.

Though still dangerous, “al-Qaeda is under more pressure, is facing more challenges and is a more vulnerable organisation than at any time since the attacks on 11 September 2001,” declared Mike Leiter, the director of America’s National Counterterrorism Center last September.

Such assessments are being hurriedly revised. Mr Leiter, Barack Obama’s favorite spook, is now among those having to explain why his newish organization, which is supposed to fuse all information on terrorist threats, failed to connect several partial warnings about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The Nigerian student, who moved from London to Yemen last year, tried to set off explosives sewn into his underpants on board a Northwest Airlines flight, carrying 290 people from Amsterdam, as it prepared to land in Detroit on Christmas Day.

For more on al-Qaeda in Yemen, listen to Worldfocus Radio: Yemen’s Multiple Wars.

- Ben Piven

A Predator armed with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. Photo: USAF

This week, the Pakistani Taliban finally confirmed what the Pakistani army had claimed many days ago — that Hakimullah Mehsud was killed last month in a missile strike by U.S. drones.

While there are conflicting reports about which strike dealt Mehsud the mortal blow, the Pakistani Taliban are left leaderless for the second time in six months.

As the late Mehsud’s faction — as well as various other Taliban-affiliated groups — scramble to defend themselves from unmanned aerial vehicles, some policymakers are wondering whether these assassinations are strategically sound.

Although many of President Barack Obama’s harshest critics at home have lavished praise on the administration for its escalation of the drone campaign, some naysayers now contend that the U.S. may be killing high-value targets before being able to extract information from them — in northwest Pakistan, as well as in other anti-terror arenas such as Yemen.

Marc Thiessen explains this problem in Foreign Policy:

The Predator has become for President Obama what the cruise missile was to President Bill Clinton — an easy way to appear like he is taking tough action against terrorists, when he is really shying away from the hard decisions needed to protect the United States.

To be sure, unmanned drones are critical in the struggle against al-Qaeda. They allow the United States to reach terrorists hiding in remote regions where it would be difficult for special operations forces to reach them, or to act on perishable intelligence when the only choice is to kill a terrorist or lose him. Constantly hovering Predator (or Reaper) drones also have a psychological effect on the enemy, forcing al-Qaeda leaders to live in fear and spend time focusing on self-preservation that would otherwise be used planning the next attack. All this is for the good.

The problem is that Obama is increasingly using drone strikes as a substitute for operations to bring terrorist leaders in alive for questioning — and that is putting the country at risk…

With every drone strike that vaporizes a senior al-Qaeda leader, actionable intelligence is vaporized along with him. Dead terrorists can’t tell you their plans to strike America.

Meanwhile, Dawn reports that the Obama administration’s recent budget proposal includes a 75 percent increase in funds for the drone campaign, which also includes new, more advanced crafts.

View our interactive map showing approximate locations of all U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan since 2004:

See larger map. [Yellow = pre-2008 strikes / Red = 2008 strikes / Green = Obama administration strikes]

In a Sydney Morning Herald analysis piece America’s Deadly Robots Rewrite the Rules, Paul McGeough writes:

The changed ground rules making extrajudicial killing more acceptable are a product of post-September 11 thinking. In 2001 Bush overturned President Gerald Ford’s 1976 prohibition on assassinations by US intelligence agencies - but there’s something else in the works, too…

But, as critics of the drone wars struggle to get traction in public debate, it is curious that in the absence of any negative reaction to Obama’s expansion of his remote killing program last year, the former Bush administration was under attack for revelations that it had considered dispatching more traditional hit-squads abroad to take out al-Qaeda operatives.

Forty-four countries now use unmanned aircraft for surveillance - only the US and Israel deploy them as killers.

In the first weeks of his presidency Obama reportedly wrestled with the moral and strategic implications of the program. But, as reported in The New York Times, he pointedly declared to one of his earliest Situation Room gatherings: “The CIA gets what it needs.”

The American Civil Liberties Union explained in a Freedom of Information application last month: “It appears … that lethal force is being exercised by individuals who are not in the military chain of command, are not subject to military rules and discipline; and do not operate under any other public system of accountability or oversight.”

A Democrat’s targeted killings, it seems, are not quite the same as those of a Republican.

The first drones flew before the September 11 attacks - searching for Osama bin Laden. Now the US Air Force estimates that about 15 per cent of its $US230 billion ($260 billion) arms-procurement program will be spent on robot equipment within five years.

Predators can fly [420 miles], then hover for 30 hours at a stretch, feeding real-time video and other data through 10 simultaneous streams to controllers in 10 locations. Priced at $4.5 million, Predators carry sensors that intercept electronic signals and listen in on phone conversations - and they carry missiles. The newer Reapers cost $17 million and can fly nearly [3600 miles].

The US Air Force now has more drone operators in training than fighter and bomber pilots.

A recent article from the Associated Press argues that two main factors have enabled the drone war to take off: the drawdown of troops and resources in Iraq and the Obama administration’s increased intelligence-sharing with the governments of Pakistan and Yemen:

Intelligence officials and analysts say the drawdown of troops in an increasingly stable Iraq is part of the reason for the increase in drone strikes. The military once relied on drones for around-the-clock surveillance to flush out insurgents, support troops in battle and help avoid roadside bombs.

With fewer of those missions required, the U.S. has moved many of those planes to Afghanistan, roughly doubling the size of the military and CIA fleet that can patrol the lawless border with Pakistan, officials said.

“These tools were not Obama creations, but he’s increased their use and he has shifted the U.S. attention full front to Afghanistan,” said Thomas Sanderson, a defense analyst and national security fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The article goes on to explain the second reason for the drone war’s escalation:

Obama has also abandoned terms like “radical Islam” and “Islamo-fascism,” rhetoric that was seen as anti-Muslim by many in the Arab world and which [Yemen's Ambassador to the UN] al-Saidi said made it harder for governments to openly cooperate with Washington.

View our original post: U.S. intensifies drone attacks on Pakistan’s tribal region

- Ben Piven

Solar panels in Shanghai. Photo: Flickr user jcrakow

China, the world’s largest producer of wind turbines and solar panels, is rapidly becoming the leading global manufacturer of clean energy.

According to the U.S. News and World Report, China also provides almost 97 percent of the world’s supply of rare-earth materials, which are used in many electronics and may be the future of clean technologies. China is also the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter.

Some critics are concerned that, as the the U.S. and other countries become less dependent on oil, they may become increasingly dependent on China for alternative energy technologies.

A New York Times article by Keith Bradsher analyzes these concerns and how this shift may be more positive for the Chinese economy than for the planet:

These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.

“Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’” said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy.

President Obama, in his State of the Union speech last [month], sounded an alarm that the United States was falling behind other countries, especially China, on energy. “I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders.”

Foreign Policy blogger Elizabeth Balkan writes how a Chinese solar company plans to build a U.S.-based manufacturing plant to take advantage of the market demand and government incentives. She explains what this could mean for China-U.S. green energy cooperation:

Suntech, the world’s largest solar energy company in terms of photovoltaic module production, said it could cut transport costs and emissions by building closer to its market. The cost of shipping heavy renewable units, combined with the fact that the U.S. and EU currently constitute the majority of clean tech demand, makes local manufacturing facilities a sensible strategy for long-term growth.

Political considerations were also not lost on the company. Appealing to both green jobs enthusiasts and those who perceive China as taking manufacturing jobs from the U.S., Shi said he is hopeful that “initiating manufacturing in the U.S. will drive further growth of green jobs.”

A study last year by the Georgia Tech Research Institute concluded that China would surpass the United States in technology and science by using demand for clean energy as a catalyst for economic growth:

The study’s indicators predict that China will soon pass the United States in the critical ability to develop basic science and technology, turn those developments into products and services – and then market them to the world. Though China is often seen as just a low-cost producer of manufactured goods, the new “High Tech Indicators” study done by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology clearly shows that the Asian powerhouse has much bigger aspirations.

“For the first time in nearly a century, we see leadership in basic research and the economic ability to pursue the benefits of that research – to create and market products based on research – in more than one place on the planet,” said Nils Newman, co-author of the National Science Foundation-funded study. “Since World War II, the United States has been the main driver of the global economy. Now we have a situation in which technology products are going to be appearing in the marketplace that were not developed or commercialized here. We won’t have had any involvement with them and may not even know they are coming.”

Blogger CC Huang at ResponsibleChina.com, writes citizen participation in China’s clean energy push:

Another way in which China could be an example to other countries is rooted in the habits of its citizens. The 2009 Greendex survey showed that China ranked third in terms of environmentally friendly consumer behavior. Chinese citizens drink boiled tap water instead of bottled water, use bikes for transportation more often than cars (China scoring highest overall in the transportation category), and practice energy-saving activities when it comes to housing.

Of course, China is still very much a coal-guzzling economy. Due to the massive amounts of coal found within China’s borders, this might not change anytime soon. Also, as China still has a ways to go before being fully “developed,” consumption is likely to increase.

For more on clean energy developments in China, check out our Worldfocus signature video on Chinese knockoff electric cars and multimedia features at the Asia Society’s China Green.

Also, The Green Leap Forward, by energy analyst Julian L. Wong, who appeared on Worldfocus Radio: Red China Goes Green, takes a look at the most recent solar power developments in China.

A U.S. soldier and 3 children in the Mashtal area of East Baghdad. Photo: USArmy on Flickr

Almost 7 years after the start of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the international community still struggles to help the 2 million refugees and almost 3 million internally displaced persons who have not been able to return home.

Under the U.S. Refugee Admission Program, 19,000 Iraqis were offered sanctuary and resettled in 2009 alone. Yet, critics allege that these refugees have not been afforded decent opportunities in their new home — and that resettling thousands may be just a drop in the bucket.

To explore the Iraqi refugee crisis in more depth, Martin Savidge hosts Aidan Goldsmith and Sawsan Al-Sayyab. The show addresses:

• Post-Invasion situation: refugee numbers, host countries, and NGOs
• Humanitarian progress: social challenges, educational uplift, and extremism
• Big picture/U.S.: future displacement, sectarian strife, and policy change

Guests:

Aidan Goldsmith is the country director for the International Rescue Committee in Baghdad, Iraq. Originally from Australia, he previously worked for the IRC in Nepal.

Sawsan Al-Sayyab is an Iraqi refugee who spent two years in Jordan before arriving in Baltimore, MD, in 2008. She is currently an advocate for the International Rescue Committee.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producer: Ben Piven
Researcher: Cari Machet

But some of our viewers commented that most of the electricity that these vehicles use is generated by coal, which increases air pollution and greenhouse gases.

We take a deeper look at China’s battle against air pollution and highlight more multimedia features produced by the Clearing the Air project by China Green at the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations.

To visualize the difference between a smoggy day and a clear day in Bejing, China Green created a photo slider where you can move your mouse across to see the contrast in one frame:

The project has also included a daily photo diary of Beijing’s air quality, listing the best and worst days for air pollution levels.

This project recently expanded to include a Twitter competition BeijingAirPix between photos of Beijing and New York. Beijing defintely does not always lose!

In addition to the visuals, the site explains how air pollution is measured:

Air pollution index (API), published by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, is derived from measurements of five pollutants: Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Dioxide, PM10, Carbon Monoxide and Ozone. The average concentration for each pollutant is calculated daily and the concentration of the pollutant with the highest API (0-500) will become that day’s major pollutant, recorded as that day’s API figure. In Beijing, PM10–particulate matter 10 microns or smaller–is the major pollutant most days.

And, there is an explanation of what the government has done thus far:

The Chinese have invested about 120 billion yuan ($17.3 billion) over the last 10 years to improve air quality in the capital. Although the levels of many major pollutants like Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Dioxide are now at target levels, the concentration of PM10, or inhalable particulate matter, remains above national targets. During the Olympic Games, Beijing shut down upwind factories, halted construction and imposed strict traffic controls to control emissions.

The site also offers a news feed of recent articles on China’s air quality.

Longing for Blue Skies explains the attempts by China’s government to rein in air pollution during a period of major economic growth:

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.

A statue of Dalit icon B.R. Ambedkar. Photo: Ben Piven

Caste has existed in India for over 3 millennia, and many people view caste - in addition to curry and the Taj Mahal - as one of India’s defining features.

With several thousand castes that each contain sub-castes and even smaller groups, the system varies according to geography and language.

Last week, India commemorated the 60th birthday of its Constitution, which banned untouchability.

The show focuses on:

• Cultural background: Upper/lower castes, Urban/rural differences, & discrimination

• Politics: reservation system, reverse casteism, & Dalit political party

• Big picture/U.S.: Dalit diaspora, parallels with black Americans, anti-racism movement

Joining Martin Savidge to discuss caste in India are Vivek Kumar and Corey Washington.

Guests:

Vivek Kumar is a sociologist at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. His areas of specialization are social stratification, Dalit movements and the Indian diaspora.

Corey Washington is a PhD student at Columbia University in New York. He is currently producing two documentaries about caste in rural areas of the Indian states of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

Worldfocus Signature stories reported by Martin Himel — India’s untouchables trudge through sewers and One woman fights for members of India’s lowest caste — explore the lives of Indians who perform degrading caste-based occupations.

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

Ushahidi’s Haiti site on 1/29/10.

Ushahidi, which is Swahili for “testimony,” is an innovative web platform that aggregates info from many sources — “crowd-sourcing.” Worldfocus spoke to Ushahidi about crisis-mapping in Haiti.

To give info to Ushahidi about events in Haiti: send a local text message to 4636 or int’l SMS to +44 7624802524 / e-mail Haiti@ushahidi.com / Twitter with #Haiti or #Haitiquake

Worldfocus: How does Ushahidi work?

Ushahidi: The Ushahidi platform, initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008, aggregates information received via email, SMS, twitter and web reports.

The information is then collated into a dashboard where the administrator of the instance or group of approved volunteers can approve the message (geo-locating it on a map) and thus making it display on the map front-end as a red dot and/or icon.

Each report includes location, date, time and description and allows users to posts additional information as comments. Reports are also flagged as “verified” or “unverified.” The team is working on adding another flag for “acted upon.” The platform is Free and Open Source Software that is continually being improved upon by programmers around the world.

[For the Haiti quake], we set up situation rooms at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Boston and in Washington, DC. As of Monday, 1/18/10, another situation room was set up in Geneva, Switzerland, and a training was held on Tuesday evening in Boston to recruit additional volunteers, a critical concern for sustainability of the project. Volunteers have mainly focused on “crowd-sourcing the filter” which includes combing news reports and Twitter feeds.

We’re also gathering photos and video footage. We’re mapping that information as quickly as we possibly can. We are processing hundreds of incoming text messages direct from Haiti in near real-time.

90% of incoming SMS are in Creole, and they are translated by a group of Haitian volunteers in the United States.

Worldfocus: How quickly did Ushahidi respond to the earthquake in Haiti?

Ushahidi: Patrick Meier found out about the earthquake around 7pm on 1/12/10. He immediately contacted David Kobia, our director of technology development and within half an hour we had a basic Ushahidi install for Haiti up and running.

We then collaborated with a number of our colleagues within the Ushahidi family, especially the International Network of Crisis Mappers, which Ushahidi co-founded and launched in October of 2009. It’s a group of about 500 people who are specialists in technology and humanitarian response.

Worldfocus: Who uses Ushahidi?

Ushahidi: Ushahidi is an open source project. The code is available for free download and as such is not a traditional for-profit-modeled competitive organization.

The more data that’s available, the better. It’s important that information is shared, not siloed. Data on the Ushahidi platform is available for anybody to take.

We’ve got RSS feeds, we’ve got an open API; people can just scrape that information right off and do whatever they need to do with it. We’re hoping that they also contribute information, so that we have at least one go-to place that people can visit to find what they need.

We simply need to get this information to as many people on the ground in Haiti as possible — that they know about Ushahidi, that they know the short code, that they know that humanitarian response teams are monitoring it in order to form their operational responses.

Currently, the following organizations are using Ushahidi to track incidents in Haiti: Red Cross, United Nations Foundation, Clinton Foundation, U.S. State Department, International Medical Corps, USAID, FEMA, U.S. Coast Guard Task Force, World Food Program and the UNDP Newsroom.

Worldfocus: What’s one example of your success in Haiti?

Ushahidi: Here’s the transcript of a 1/18 event from one of our translators in the Ushahidi chat room:

(18:27:24) Jennifer: “This is from the clinic that my friend is operating in on the ground: ‘Just received an email to put the diesel need on [the] map. Then I got a call from Hal Newman to see if the need was legit. He is an emergency manager supporting the Haiti response. He just sent the deisel [sic] request to Marcie Roth, the senior FEMA advisor, who will contact the State Department. They will contact the military and the diesel should be on its way.’”

(18:27:41) Jennifer: “They were desperate for fuel yesterday.”

(18:28:16) Jennifer: “And very grateful for the fast response they got back once entering their clinic location and need on the map.”

- Ben Piven

The Defense Department actually posts its drone attack footage on YouTube via DVidsHub. Some of the videos have caught the attention of millions, but critics ask whether the videos are newsworthy — or just lowbrow entertainment.

And while the drone strikes have undoubtedly taken out militants in many places that soldiers just can’t go, there is disagreement about whether UAVs are an effective anti-terror deterrent.

The military’s Predators and Reapers routinely strike Iraq, Afghanistan — and increasingly in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere. Additionally, the C.I.A. is using drones to hit al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in northwest Pakistan.

The most watched “drone porn” segments are from Iraq. This video of Baghdad has over 1 million views:

Blogger Keith Thomson writes on Alternet about drone porn’s impact on the news media.

“In researching remotely piloted aircraft, I visited the stretch of Southern Nevada desert that has become to UAVs what Silicon Valley is to the device on which you’re reading this column. In 2007, Creech Air Force Base was made the home of the 432d Air Expeditionary Wing, the first Air Force wing dedicated to unmanned aircraft systems. Its daily missions in Afghanistan and Iraq could provide the military version of a SportsCenter highlight reel.

With an aim of promoting UAVs domestically as well as “enlightening” our enemies, the Defense Department recently began placing the Predator and Reaper mission clips on YouTube. Ranging from relatively detached wide shots of bombings taken by onboard cameras to startlingly graphic close-ups, the so-called “drone porn” has been a smash hit, as it were, tallying over 10 million views.

Perhaps best explaining its popularity are the thousands of YouTube commenters. Some marvel at the new technology and discuss the resulting paradigm shift in warfare. Some raise questions, including whether it’s principled, dignified or otherwise in America’s best interest to post drone prone in the first place. Most comments are along the lines of, “Hell yeah HOOOAH BABY!”

This video shows footage of a drone that destroyed two rocket rails in the Sadr City section of Baghdad:

Now, I don’t want to launch into a “kids these days” diatribe about how the human race is de-evolving into a pack of bloodthirsty, warmongering savages. I don’t believe video games, or violent films, make kids any less human or more prone to attack each other. However, I do blame a disconnection from the consequences of battle for this kind of war fetishism.

The drone footage looks like a video game (admittedly a shitty one), and of course the footage doesn’t show the targets’ lives (if they had a family, what their favorite book is, when they had their first kiss, etc.) The clips don’t even really show their faces. They are anonymous targets. The US military tells us these are The Bad Guys, so they are guilty, and deserve to die. Trials: unnecessary. Evidence: superfluous…

But the drone aspects of war are also clearly appealing to young people. The “point and shoot” video games are all the rage right now, which is partly why drone porn exists. Yet, the moral hazards of such extrajudicial killings are never explored in video games, or drone attacks, and all the usual human safeguards against killing during a ground invasion (namely that you have to look your target in the eye while killing them with your bare hands) are no longer an obstacle. Long ago, hand-to-hand combat gave way to guns, which gave way to better guns, which gave way to human-navigated aerial assault that has now been replaced by robotic drones.

The next video shows an aerial weapons team, also in Sadr City:

Nick Turse, associate editor of TomDispatch.com, writes about drone attacks in AfPak and modern warfare:

What were once unacknowledged, relatively infrequent targeted killings of suspected militants or terrorists in the Bush years have become commonplace under the Obama administration. And since a devastating December 30th suicide attack by a Jordanian double agent on a CIA forward operating base in Afghanistan, unmanned aerial drones have been hunting humans in the Af-Pak war zone at a record pace. In Pakistan, an “unprecedented number” of strikes — which have killed armed guerrillas and civilians alike — have led to more fear, anger, and outrage in the tribal areas, as the CIA, with help from the U.S. Air Force, wages the most public “secret” war of modern times.

In neighboring Afghanistan, unmanned aircraft, for years in short supply and tasked primarily with surveillance missions, have increasingly been used to assassinate suspected militants as part of an aerial surge that has significantly outpaced the highly publicized “surge” of ground forces now underway. And yet, unprecedented as it may be in size and scope, the present ramping up of the drone war is only the opening salvo in a planned 40-year Pentagon surge to create fleets of ultra-advanced, heavily-armed, increasingly autonomous, all-seeing, hypersonic unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

See our Worldfocus map of U.S. drone attacks in northwest Pakistan.

Looking beyond the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula, Worldfocus Radio examines the economy of one of the most isolated countries on earth.

North Korea has a per capita income of around $1,800 and continues to be the poorest nation in East Asia. The country still relies on heavy industry and military spending — in addition to huge amounts of food and fuel aid.

But we know little about the country’s black markets. And we struggle to find accurate statistics on the nation’s true standard of living.

A propaganda poster in Pyongyang. Photo: Ben Piven

Martin Savidge hosts Barbara Demick of the LA Times and Leon Sigal of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project. They discuss:

• North Korea’s post-Cold War isolation
• recent currency devaluation
• impact of closing underground markets
• China’s strategy of engaging North Korea
• prospects of U.S. economic engagement
• other investments (such Egypt’s Orascom)

GUESTS:

Barbara Demick is the Beijing bureau chief for the LA Times and author of the new book Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. She has reported extensively on economic and social changes inside the country.

Leon Sigal is director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York. He has authored several books, including Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Ben Piven and Lisa Biagiotti

Visit Behind the Korean Curtain for our extended coverage and Inside the Hermit Kingdom for exclusive Worldfocus video from the inside.

When the quake struck, Kristensen was in his 3rd floor office preparing for a meeting. He considered trying to run out of the building but instead jumped under a desk. A bookcase fell against a filing cabinet in such a way that he had enough space in the rubble to stretch his arms and legs.

Kristensen, a citizen of Denmark, was without food or water for five days. Since he was largely unharmed, Kristensen chose to stay in Haiti to help with the rescue mission. Mohammad al-Kassim of Worldfocus spoke with him from Port-au-Prince.

Photos are courtesy of the United Nations on Flickr and United Nations television.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

In the aftermath of last week’s earthquake in Haiti, the Dominican Republic has expressed solidarity with its neighbor.

Though Haiti and the DR share the island of Hispaniola, their histories, cultures and economies greatly differ. Racial tensions, stateless children and immigrant violence have created tensions along the border.

Martin Savidge hosts Marselha Gonçalves Margerin of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights and Michele Wucker of the World Policy Institute to discuss these unequal neighbors.

Dominicans of Haitian descent.

The show explores:

• the intertwined but distinct histories
• Haitian migrants in the DR and Dominicans of Haitian descent
• migration and trade along the border
• the statelessness of children born in the Dominican Republic to Haitian migrants
• the role of the Dominican Republic, the U.S. and international community

GUESTS:

Marselha Gonçalves Margerin is the advocacy director at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights working with RFK Human Rights Award Laureates from Latin America and North Africa. She works directly with Sonia Pierre of the Dominican Republic on issues of race and discrimination facing Dominicans of Haitian descent. She has also worked with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, as well as other non-governmental, academic and international organizations.

Michele Wucker is the executive director of the World Policy Institute in New York City and the author of “Why Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians and the Struggle for Hispaniola.” She also was a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow working on evolving notions of citizenship, belonging and exclusion. Her work involves the politics and economics of immigration and integration, transnational political processes, the politics of culture, Latin America and the Caribbean and international finance.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti and Ben Piven

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.