Tunesia–Angry Connected Young People

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence, Reform

People power goes techie, ousts Tunisian dictator

Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 01:25:00 01/16/2011

Seeds of protest

The antigovernment protests began a month ago when a college-educated street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi in the small town of Sidi Bouzid burned himself to death in despair at the frustration and joblessness confronting many educated young people here. But the protests he inspired quickly evolved from bread-and-butter issues to demands for an assault on the perceived corruption and self-enrichment of the ruling family.

The protesters, led at first by unemployed college graduates like Bouazizi and later joined by workers and young professionals, found grist for the complaints in leaked cables from the US Embassy in Tunisia, released by WikiLeaks, which detailed the self-dealing and excess of the president’s family. And the protesters relied heavily on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter to circulate videos of each demonstration and issue calls for the next one.

Read full article….

Review: SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa

23 Worst Tyrants/Dictators (Yes, there’s more than 23) and Oops, there’s Saudi Arabia..

Review: Breaking the Real Axis of Evil–How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators by 2025

2011/01/152011/01/15

Food Chain Breaking at the Bottom

01 Agriculture, 06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Earth Intelligence, Key Players

Activists from India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) women's wing shout slogans against the Congress-led government during a protest against an increase in milk, vegetables and food prices in New Delhi on April 1, 2010. The BJP activists protested against the price hikes of essential commodities. Food inflation is still at 17 percent according to official figures.

Global food chain stretched to the limit

Soaring prices spark fears of social unrest in developing world

By John W. Schoen Senior producer

msnbc.com msnbc.com

Strained by rising demand and battered by bad weather, the global food supply chain is stretched to the limit, sending prices soaring and sparking concerns about a repeat of food riots last seen three years ago.

Signs of the strain can be found from Australia to Argentina, Canada to Russia

Read full story with links….

Phi Beta Iota: Absent a radical break-through in energy that enables water desalination and purification, the combined collapse of the global financial system and the global food system could mark the beginning of a quarter century of “tribulation.”

2011/01/132011/01/13

Journal: Defense Theatrics & One-Two Star Flag Agonizing?

02 China, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, History, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Policy, Strategy, Threats

Worth a look….coincides with what Chuck Spinney has been saying.

Defense Budget Debate:

SAME OLD GAME: JUST NEW PLAYERS

January 13, 2011 Harry C. Blaney III

Rethinking National Security

(Center for International Policy)

Among the first security issues of the year is the release of information about China’s military capabilities and the recent release of the U.S. defense budget request, which is not coincidental . Each year, when key decisions are made about the coming annual DOD budget, we see media reports about China’s new potential and physical military ambitions and weapons programs. They arise from statements by U.S. military commanders, anonymous Pentagon sources and conservative think tank pundits. The intent is to create a “boogeyman,” to depict the Chinese as nine feet tall and America as a “Lilliputian.”

I remember this same bizarre scenario took place during the Cold War. At that time, I had a bit of responsibility from time to time looking at these issues and especially the bureaucratic warfare between the military establishment and the intelligence community analysts who had to provide assessments about how far the Soviets were ahead of America and who in reality were behind us. The interagency fights were often fierce with billions of dollars at stake along with real command over new resources, programs and especially planes and ships – whether needed or not. There was the prospect of a nice rich job in the defense industry if your program won out.

Today, the kabuki is not much different but the reality of today’s security challenges is dramatically different in substantive ways.

Read rest of article….

Continue reading “Journal: Defense Theatrics & One-Two Star Flag Agonizing?”

2011/01/132011/01/13

Chinese View of Internet + Internet of Things = Wise Earth aka World Brain and Global Game

02 China, Advanced Cyber/IO, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, Geospatial, Key Players, Maps, Methods & Process, Policies, Real Time, Threats

GeoWeb and the “Internet of Things”

Written by shughes on Dec-3-09 4:51pm

From: galdosinc.com

In a recent trip to China, I discovered something of the direction of the national policy of that country towards the development of the Internet. In a speech in Wuxi, the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao spoke of the drive to build the “internet of things” and provided the interesting equation:

Internet + Internet of Things = Wisdom of the Earth

geoweb-and-the-internet-of-things

The parallels between this statement of policy and the GeoWeb are striking. The GeoWeb has been viewed from a vareity of perspectives, a few of these are:

As the integration of all business processes that deal with the physical world, i.e. that deal with our understanding of, and action in/on, the physical world.
As a Web of interconnected documents that describe the physical world.
As a Web of systems by which we control and manage our actions and interact with the physical world.
As a planetary accounting system that helps us all understand the “state of things” at the local, regional, and global level – whether that be the state of arctic polar bear habitat, or that of crowding in the city of Mumbai.
As a sort of Digital Nervous System for the planet that alerts us to changes in the state of our world.

Reducing Afghan Corruption Through Mobile Payments to National Police

08 Wild Cards, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Corruption, Ethics, microfinancing, Military, Mobile, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Non-Governmental, Open Government, Technologies, Waste (materials, food, etc)

M-Paisa: Ending Afghan Corruption, one Text at a Time

Monty Munford Oct 17, 2010

Afghanistan supplies 92% of the world’s opiates. According to the latest available figures, the country produced 8,200 tons of heroin in 2008, more than double the the amount three years earlier.

But even being the heroin capital of the world, bringing in more money than most Afghans can dream of, the on-going war and rampant corruption means the money goes to the wrong people and the country has no infrastructure. There are no decent roads, no railways… But they do have mobile phones.

Four months ago, the Afghan National Police began to pay salaries through mobiles (using a text and Interactive Voice Response system), rather than in cash. The platform used was based on the M-Pesa service that has become highly successful in Kenya. Branded M-Paisa in Afghanistan, it was introduced by the operator Roshan in partnership with the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) and had an immediate effect.

Full article

Thanks to Vinod Khosla via his Twitter feed.

Also see: Afghanistan War Wealth + Corruption Cycle (Opium, Hashish, Minerals, Past Pipeline Attempts)

2011/01/132011/01/13

Journal: Microcosm of US Failure in Afghan Development

01 Poverty, 02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Budgets & Funding, Cultural Intelligence, Gift Intelligence, Government, Methods & Process, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

More wasted money…..

Program to modernize Afghan justice system yields little so far

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Review: Losing the Golden Hour–An Insider’s View of Iraq’s Reconstruction

Worth a Look: The Golden Hour and Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power

2011/01/132011/01/13

Journal: Taliban Doubles US Casualties in Two Years…

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Military, Peace Intelligence

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Sounds Off....

January 12, 2011

Why Mine Warfare is Good for Protracted War

Surging Tit for Tat in Afghanistan

By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, Counterpunch

President Obama's ballyhooed surge of US forces in Afghanistan added 17,000 troops in early 2009 plus an additional 30,000 by 2010, in effect doubling the number of troops in Afghanistan (not to mention the concomitant surge in the camp-follower contractor force). The Taliban may not have doubled its troop strength, but as Tom Vanden Brook reports in the 10 January issue of USA Today, the insurgents have doubled the the total number of casualties inflicted by mines in just the last two years of the nine year war. [See graphic]

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