#UgandaSpeaks: Al-Jazeera uses Ushahidi to Amplify Local Voices in Response to #Kony2012
Invisible Children’s #Kony2012 campaign has set off a massive firestorm of criticism with the debate likely to continue raging for many more weeks and months. In the meantime, our colleagues at Al-Jazeera have repurposed our previous #SomaliaSpeaks project to amplify Ugandan voices responding to the Kony campaign: #UgandaSpeaks.
Together with GlobalVoices, this Al-Jazeera initiative is one of the very few seeking to amplify local reactions to the Kony campaign. Over 70 local voices have been shared and mapped on Al-Jazeera’s Ushahidi platform in the first few hours since the launch. The majority of reactions submitted thus far are critical of the campaign but a few are positive.
Syria: For the record. President al-Asad announced parliamentary elections will be held on 7 May.
Comment: Despite the violence, Asad is undeterred from following the political reform plan he outlined last year, which will include multi-party elections.
The Syrian Opposition. Former judge, attorney and prominent opposition figure Haithem al-Maleh withdrew from the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) because of the party's lack of transparency, clarity and organization, al-Maleh said on 13 March. Al-Maleh added that the group has not been successful in arming the rebels.
Comment: al-Maleh is a long time, well-respected critic of the Asad's and known as a human rights activist and member of Amnesty International. He has served two terms in prison for his political activism, as a prisoner of conscience, most recently between 2009 and 2011. He was released last March under one of President Asad's amnesty decrees, one for political prisoners over 70 years of age.
Al Maleh once predicted that Asad will face the same fate as Qadhafi, but apparently the Syrian National Council will not be the instrument of his justice.
The details of al-Maleh's split with the SNC are not readily available, but his statement contains serious charges that imply he found the council acting in some ways like the Syrian government. His comments about a lack of clarity and organization suggest fundamental shortcomings, plus unwillingness to accept counsel from one of the oldest and most respected foes of the Asad family.
This is the first high-level defection from the SNC.
Syria-Russia: Russia has no intention of curtailing military cooperation with Syria. Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Russia will abide by existing contracts to deliver weapons to Syria.
Comment: The Russians continue to back the government in power. They support a peace plan, but it requires the opposition to stop shooting as well as the government.
The threat of an imminent attack on Iran by Israel or the US seems to be receding, perhaps because Obama stepped back and let the warmongers overplay their hand. No doubt, the White House narrative will trumpet its success in avoiding another war if the reduction in war hysteria continues. But who really took the cape — the warmongers in Israel (and their wholly-owned agents of influence in the US) or Obama?
There is a competing interpretation to this apparent reduction in tensions — the one provided below by Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery is a highly regarded Israeli writer and peace activist. He grew up in Israel and understands both the Israeli and Arab cultures. He is an Israeli patriot who believes Israel must make a fair accommodation with the Palestinians, if Israel is to survive and prosper. His credentials include being a hero of the 1948 war, a past member of the Israeli Knesset, and one of Israel's leading peace activists. Viewed thru Avnery's lens, the recent escalation of Israeli attacks on Gaza and the threats of another Gaza invasion, together with the unending settlement expansion in the West Bank and E. Jerusalem, all taking place while Israel threatens to bomb Iran, makes sense — as unfortunately becomes clear in has last paragraph.
With thanks for the vibrant response of the “eight tribes” as a foundation for reconstructing education to be relevant to the real world, I would add that on the basis of that discussion I have been inspired to conceptualize Preceptors of Practice, much as the more enlightened universities now have Professors of Practice.
What our students are missing is the real-world real-time perspectives of everyone that lives in the real-world. If innovation is our objective, then students must be both representative of the full diversity that humanity offers, and also exposed to the full diversity of condition and perception that humanity offers.
Princeton got it right, because a great university, and was then shut down by the dark forces of a conventional faculty, risk-averse and devoid of imagination. A similar story can be told about the University of Chicago. When a university suffers both a stale faculty and a timid leadership, all is lost.
In the face of a recalcitrant faculty, but given a strong leadership, Preceptors of Practice and a School of Future-Oriented Hybrid Governance can show the way and over time, “bring along” the rest of the university — the spike theory of change.
About 300 of Rite-Aid’s 4700 drug stores are starting to direct customers to what they want – wellness without dependence upon problematic and over-priced prescription drugs. But that practice has obviously upset Big Pharma. These white-coated ambassadors are allegedly pretending they are pharmacists and directing patients to diet supplements – heaven’s to Betsy!
At least that is what two US Senators allege in their letter to Rite-Aid, which has GNC nutrition centers inside many of its stores. A letter from the senators to Rite-Aid says they are concerned these ambassadors “could be making false and misleading claims by marketing dietary supplements as treatments for health conditions.”
Wait a minute – I thought the Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) gave the right to market dietary supplements as long as they strictly support health, not as cures, treatments or prevention for any disease. Drugs do not promote wellness, and few are an appropriate cure for anything.
A grave problem (the word grave being used in its true meaning) is that that DSHEA didn’t go far enough. Dietary supplements do in fact prevent, treat and cure diseases, many of them. The Food & Drug Administration mandates censorship of the truth. Doesn’t vitamin D prevent rickets, vitamin C prevent scurvy, vitamin B1 prevent beri beri, etc?
Andrea Rossi, an Italian inventor has developed and is now commercializing a cold fusion reactor that produces heat at a very high power density, roughly comparable to today's nuclear fission plants.
The reaction uses nickel and hydrogen, which fuse to produce copper. This energy rich but extremely clean process is used to heat water. The resulting steam can be used directly as a carrier of heat or be converted to electricity.
There is much development work to be done still but the technology has shown its potential and is being offered in containered 1 megawatt plants.
10 kW home units are planned but not yet available.
As long ago as the Gerald Ford Administration, the National Security Agency was directed to help secure non-governmental communications networks against intrusion and interception by foreign — or domestic — entities, according to a recently declassified presidential directive.
“The President is concerned about possible damage to the national security and the economy from continuing Soviet intercept of critical non-government communications, including government defense contractors and certain other key institutions in the private sector,” wrote National Security Advisor Gen. Brent Scowcroft in National Security Decision Memorandum (NSDM) 338 of September 1, 1976.
“The President further recognizes that U.S. citizens and institutions should have a reasonable expectation of privacy from foreign or domestic intercept when using the public telephone system. The President has therefore decided that communication security should be extended to government defense contractors dealing in classified or sensitive information at the earliest possible time. He has also directed that planning be undertaken to meet the longer-term need to protect other key institutions in the private sector, and, ultimately, to provide a reasonable expectation of privacy for all users of public telecommunications.”
The directive ordered that “in confirmed threat areas,” existing communications networks involving classified information should be transitioned from microwave circuits to secure cable “as soon as possible.” A broader plan to protect non-governmental communications was also to be prepared.
“The President further directs the Director of the Office of Telecommunications Policy, with the participation and assistance of DOD and NSA, to prepare a detailed Action Plan setting forth the actions and schedule milestones necessary to achieve a wide degree of protection for private sector microwave communications. The Plan should identify needed policy and regulatory decisions, describe in detail the roles of industry and government, including management and funding considerations, and integrate the schedule for these actions with the technical development milestones.”
“The Action Plan should be based on the fundamental objective of protecting the privacy of all users of public telecommunications, as well as satisfying specific needs of the government,” the directive stated.
The 1976 directive was originally marked TOP SECRET / SENSITIVE (XGDS), where XGDS stood for “exempt from general declassification schedule.” It was declassified on September 13, 2011. The document had been requested through the mandatory declassification review process by Dr. John Laprise of Northwestern University.
The directive prefigures an ongoing controversy over the proper role, and the actual extent, of National Security Agency involvement in securing public communications.
In response to a FOIA lawsuit brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the NSA said (and a court affirmed) that it could “neither confirm or deny” a relationship between the Agency and Google. NSA has also refused to release the 2008 National Security Presidential Directive 54, which reportedly tasks the Agency with certain cybersecurity functions.
Phi Beta Iota: This would be an excellent case study for the retrospective court martial, conviction, and demotion by two grades in retirement (affects pension) of every NSA director since then, with special attention to those serving after the alarm was sounded again in 1994. NSA today does not have the public interest in mind and could care less about presidential directives. It exists to create millionaires among NSA senior executives jumping to sweetheart “soft landings.” NSA and the Cyber-Command are an ideal candidate for the first joint GSA-OMB deep audit of secret spending since 2001.
