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Archive for International
Beijing 2008 Olympics: Freedom of Speech Promised then Denied
At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, a promise was made that demonstrations would be allowed to go ahead without hindrance.
This has not happened, as shown by this report from Channel 4 News.
You can read more about this - and about the Guardian’s failure to allow embedding of videos - at Paul Canning’s blog.
Today will be a relatively quiet blogging day, since I’m doing some building work on the site.
Olympic Games Interactive History: Beijing Olympic Games 2008
The New York Times has an interactive map of Olympic Medal History , which is really very nifty, however…
Hilariously, the New York Times table is done on Total Medal Count - which leaves the USA at the top of the medal table in Beijing 2008, while China’s (and the Rest of the World’s) is done in order of number of Gold Medals - the official system in use in the Olympic Games since before I can remember. I think we should cut the USA a bit of slack on this one, since the map application was posted on August 4th - before the US started getting beaten by China in the official table.
There has been some controversy about this in Beijing, Rupert Cornwall in the Indy is slightly Yank-bashing (”all the non-sporting, as well as the sporting, indicators are pointing south for the US”) and Andy Bull over that the Guardian has gone all puritanical and obsessed about it.
The People’s Daily is celebrating a “Long March Up the Medal Table“, but not mentioning the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games It’s a Human Rights Knockout.
Anyway, here is the Olympic Medal status this morning as a map:
Or a ranking of Olympic Medals:
The most interesting feature is that it is linked to a complete database of medal winners going back to 1896, so I can tell you that in 1920 Belgium dominated the Olympic Games medals for archery at “Fixed and Moving Bird Targets “. I daren’t try and describe what that entailed, since there are many versions - comments are welcome.
Sam Norton (Elizaphanian) - reply from J Mark Brewer
Sam Norton has had a reply to his latest correspondence from Mr Mark Brewer, which I reproduce below:
From: Mark Brewer
To: Sam Norton
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 8:56 PM
Subject: RE: your cease and desist request to me
Sir
Neither English nor American law permits you to engage in what you term “fair comment” with respect to a private company, nor with respect to a private individual - namely, me. Obviously the law does not allow one to cloak his conduct with such sophistry and then go about defaming someone.
Your unreasonableness in the face of my request that you stop defaming me is appalling. Your persistence in doing so without even seeking to know the truth, by talking to me for example, proves that you are in fact acting out of complete malice. Libel with malice, a malignancy of heart, is intolerable in civilized societies.
Mr. Walker is in no way a victim of anything done or not done, said or not said by me. I have no idea what you are on about in saying such a thing. I cannot fathom your judgmental presumptiveness in telling me to apologize to him.
I reiterate my demand that you stop your defamatory blogging and invasion of my privacy. If you do not, I will seek redress in the courts of the country where I live - the United States. As your solicitor will have told you, you are subject to jurisdiction here as you knowingly libeled me on the worldwide web, you know me to be a resident of the USA and you know and intend to injure me where I live in the USA.
Your solicitor also will have told you that you are subject to service of process for a suit in the United States under the Hague Convention. You will then have to answer for your conduct in the venue where you intentionally caused me harm. I hope you understand this.
Mark Brewer
Wrapping Up
At this point I am making no comment.
Although I find it interesting that neither Unity (who is number 2 on Google for “Mark Brewer) or myself (who is number 3) have had a Cease and Desist Notice.
Zimbabwe will be a country of Mathematical Geniuses
Robert Mugabe’s greatest achievement may well be to create a nation of heavily muscled Maths geniuses.
Nowhere else in the world does your average 6 or 8 year old sent out on an errand to buy a loaf of bread have to deal with numbers in the millions tens of millions without parental help, while carrying currency around by the bucketload.
This note is 10 million Zimbabwe dollars. As you can see from the date, it is now obsolete because the numbers are too small.
Use your Loaf. Remember.
Let’s go backwards through history to explain the Mathematical Genuises and look at the price of bread - remember that this staple is price-controlled by the government.
July 2008: Loaf of bread is one third of a teacher’s salary. 2,200,200% inflation.
From the Sidney Morning Herald:
ZIMBABWE’S official inflation rate has reached 2.2 million per cent, driving the cost of a loaf of bread to about a third of a teacher’s monthly salary.
Independent economists dismissed the Government’s figure, saying the true rate was several times higher and rising faster than ever.
On Wednesday the governor of the central bank, Gideon Gono, announced a near 13-fold increase since the last time he released an inflation rate, in February, when it was put at 165,000 per cent.
March 2008: Loaf of Bread is 10 million Zimbabwe dollars. 100,000% inflation.
In March 2008 this note would have bought you a loaf of bread in Zimbabwe. From the Christian Science Monitor:
Zimbabwe has the world’s highest inflation rate at 100,000 percent. A loaf of bread now costs 10 million Zimbabwe dollars.
Other food items were more expensive. In the first week of March 2008 a sack of potatoes (14kg) was $90,000,000. By the 25th that was $160,000,000.
G8: leaders call for Zimbabwe sanctions
The Group of 8 countries with large economies - representing perhaps 60% of world GDP, have supported stronger action against Zimbabwe.
The G8 leaders have agreed to push for UN trade sanctions against Zimbabwe, British officials have confirmed.
Italy and Russia have fallen into line with demands to extend existing sanctions, after initially opposing tougher action against the African country, whose veteran leader President Mugabe has just won re-election in a campaign marred by state-sponsored violence, intimidation and rape.
There’s an implicit acknowledge that Public Relations and Image is involved here as well:
Although agreed on the need for trade sanctions of some kind, the G8 leaders are now said to be concerned that they are not seen to be hurting ordinary Zimbabweans, who have already suffered from poverty, food shortages, mass unemployment and hyperinflation that has rendered their currency effectively worthless.
So - while it is important that “ordinary Zimbabweans” are not hurt - it also matters that they are not seen to be hurt. Bob Mugabe, presumably, will be wanting to be making sure that they are seen to be hurt, but that it is not him that is seen to be doing it.
Modern politics is a complicated business. Sometimes it’s a relief that I’m just a bloke with a blog.
Sokwanele, the Civic Action Support Group in Zimbabwe, is wondering what will happen at the UN Security Council, where China is also involved.
Tags: g8, socwanele, un security council, Zimbabwe
[tags]g8, socwanele, un security council, Zimbabwe[/tags]
Zimbabwe: Vote Rigging on Video
The Guardian has a video of vote-rigging in progress in the recent Zimbabwe election. The video shows the organisation of the rigging process.
As has been documented before, basically there is no such thing as a secret ballot in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. That means of course that there is no democracy.
The underground video also shows how the violence is organised, and footage of the Moverment for Democratic Change Deputy Leader Tendai Biti, and Jenny Williams (leader of Zimbabwe’s largest women’s organisation), in prison. Jenny Williams is leader of Women Of Zimbabwe Arise, and she - with others - lead a demonstration in support of democratic rights.
The video was shot by a police officer called Shepherd Yuda. Police were made to vote in front of ‘war veterans’. From the Guardian:
A film that graphically shows how Robert Mugabe’s supporters rigged Zimbabwe’s election has been smuggled out of the country by a prison officer. It is believed to be the first footage of actual ballot-rigging and comes as Zimbabwe’s president faces growing international pressure.
Shepherd Yuda, 36, fled the country this week with his wife and children. He said that he hoped the film, which was made for the Guardian, would help draw further attention to the violence and corruption in Zimbabwe.
Much of the footage was shot inside the country’s notorious jail system. Yuda, who has worked in the prison service for 13 years, was motivated by the intensifying violence directed towards the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and the murder, two months ago, of his uncle, a MDC activist.
Initially he intended to chronicle secretly what life was like inside Zimbabwe’s jails but he found himself present when a war veteran and Mugabe supporter organised the vote-rigging by getting prison officers to fill in their postal ballots in his presence.
Using a hidden camera, Yuda filmed for six days prior to last Friday’s run-off election in which Mugabe claimed victory with 90% of the vote. Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, had earlier said his party would not be participating in the run-off because of intimidation.
“I had never seen that kind of violence before,” said Yuda, of the run-up to the election. “How can a government that claimed to be democratically elected kill its people, murder its people, torture its people?”
The film, made for Guardian Films, shows how Yuda and his colleagues at Harare central jail had to fill in their ballots in front of Zanu-PF activists.
Watch the video at the Guardian website.
Via Paul Canning.
Half-baked, round, Americans…
I couldn’t resist this.
Send a message to Cookie Monster and other cookie lobbyists that cookies are not a “sometimes” food, they are an “always” food. Fight for your right to eat cookies any damn time you want.
I won’t be buying a lapel pin, however.
A Map of Mugabe Murders in Zimbabwe
via Sokwanele.
We have added the details for 66 murders to the political violence map. This figure falls short of the last confirmed figure we had last week, which was that 85 people have been killed in the violence so far.
We have more to add.
I have nothing add, either.
Tags: election violence, murders, sokwanele, this is zimbabwe, zimbabwe election
[tags]election violence, murders, sokwanele, this is zimbabwe, zimbabwe election[/tags]
