Weekly Roundup: Internet Censorship and Occupy’s Hurdles

December 9th, 2011 12:45 PMBy Esha Chhabra

This originally appeared in Dowser.org.

The World’s Largest Democracy Tries to Curb the Internet

#KapilSabil became one of the most popular hashtags this week on Twitter.  Ironic, considering that Kapil Sabil, India’s Communication and IT minister, called for Internet giants like Facebook and Google to remove “unacceptable” online content.  For a country with over a 100 million web users, Sabil’s comments created a fury as Indians took to Facebook and Twitter to express their frustration with the government.  In fact by the end of the week, #IdiotKapilSabil was just as circulated as the original hashtag.

London-based Tripathi writes in depth on India’s request to curb content, explaining that it’s not just about “unacceptable” images or provocative content: “While Mr. Sibal cloaks his censorship threat in terms of social harmony, political reputation may be more the point. In the first half of 2011, India made 358 requests to Google to remove content from the Internet, of which 255 dealt with criticism of the government. Significantly, India is now one of only four countries to ask to remove content critical of the government.”

Avaaz.org is calling on people to sign a petition to prevent governments from censoring the Internet.   Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton and other international leaders convened at a conference in the Hague on digital freedom.

Clinton said: “When ideas are blocked, information deleted, conversations stifled and people constrained in their choices, the Internet is diminished for all of us. There isn’t an economic Internet and a social Internet and a political Internet. There’s just the Internet.”

In the same week, one of Russia’s most noted anti-corruption bloggers was arrested.  Earlier this month, South Korea suggested that they’d like to consider removing offensive, immoral content as well from the web and mobile applications.

Occupy Movement Faces More Hurdles

More arrests this week at Occupy DC and Occupy Portland. While protesters cite a peaceful movement, local authorities are calling it a “hostile environment.”  A US District Judge ruled in favor of protesters, stating protesters in DC’s McPherson Square have to get a 24-hour notice before eviction.  Given that in recent weeks, countless Occupy movements have been evicted from their sites without notice and with force, this move came as a welcome surprise.

Representative Nadler of NY called for an investigation of the police’s violent behavior towards protesters; but Bloomberg dismissed it, referring to it as “ridiculous.”

And next semester, OWS goes to the classroom.  NYU is adding a course that’ll look at the movement not just in America but also its offspring elsewhere around the world.

 

Weekend Reads:

• World’s leaders have been discussing the environment, but what are they missing?  WSJ says the answers lie in micro-level solutions for farming.
• An LA Times OpEd calls for more support for unemployed Americans, by extending unemployment benefits to more people.
• Could we see the end to malaria soon?  TIME profiles a new malaria vaccine that’s shown promise.
• Working on a business for the BoP?  Might be interested in the new G20 Challenge on Inclusive Business Innovation – a call for new enterprising business models for the poor.
• While we’re all familiar with social enterprise, what about cultural entrepreneurship? Stanford’sSocial Innovation Review explains the difference between the two, depicting a new movement towards cultural entrepreneurship.
• Cathy Clark of Duke’s CASE talks with WEF about the need for more data in social enterprise.

Weekly Roundup: Busan, Durban, LA OWS, and Forbes

December 2nd, 2011 12:14 PM

By Esha Chhabra

This originally appeared in Dowser

More big meetings, more empty promises?

Photo Courtesy of Guardian:  Jeon Heon-Kyun/EPA

• Busan: The Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.

The aim: a partnership for global development and aid effectiveness that has big players like China and India on board. The hope: that the forum could establish a set of unifying principles for aid based on effectiveness, transparency and accountability. Early on the UK tried to pull the  Chinese into the agreement, given their economic interests and activity in Africa.  But, China refused. At the last minute the delegates came to an agreement – but on very wishy-washy terms that don’t hold the Chinese and Indians to the same terms as other countries.  As the  Guardian  reported, the document read: “The principles, commitments and actions agreed in the outcome document in Busan shall be the reference for south-south partnerships on a voluntary basis…”

One of the other big problems the forum wanted to address is the fragmentation of aid that has made delivering and using aid effectively a big challenge.  Rwanda, for example, called for an end to tied aid, aid that must be spent in the donor country. They’d rather have full ownership of the funds to be disbursed as efficiently as possible.  Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

Villagers shelter as floodwaters submerge houses and fields in Assam, where nearly a million people were displaced by extraordinary floods in 2010. Photograph: Str/EPA

• Durban: The UN Convention on Climate Change

As Durban, the next climate change negotiation conference, gets going, frustration  is already building with a group of developed nations, including the US, Canada, and Japan, who are not interested in new legal negotiations before 2015 when the current round of negotiations will expire.  The US, and now Canada, are staying away from the Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And new players like China and India are only adding to the headache by delaying hopes of a global consensus. At the Guardian Amy Goodman writes passionately about why Durban may be the last chance for Kyoto and why change must start happening now.

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Photo Courtesy of LA Times: (Al Seib, Los Angeles Times / November 30, 2011

Occupy Wall Street Loses Ground in LA

The LAPD wiped out remaining protesters in one quick sweep in the middle of the night.  The LATimes  reports that with an “overwhelming use of force” the protesters stationed outside LA City Hall for the last two months were circled and pressured into fleeing, a move that had been in the works for several weeks now.  The breaking up LA’s OWS base happened the same night as a similar scenario played out in Philadelphia.  But does the shut down of these physical camps mean dwindling support for OWS?  The LATimes explores, signaling that yes, numbers may have decreased somewhat.

Charlie Rose analyzed the movement, asking two New York journalists if OWS still has steam, if they can fight the naysayers who called them a leaderless, mission-less group, and how technology has fueled this movement.  Watch the interview here.

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FORBES ranks Social Innovation

Known for its lists on millionaires, FORBES created its first Top 30 Social Entrepreneurs List  with a special feature on the new trend of investing in social ventures.  Does the list do justice to the field? Check it out and let us know in the comments.

Photo Courtesy of Forbes

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More Interesting Reads

• Time’s Martha White writes about the weakening of the American Dream – can it make a comeback in a more modest form?
• And Inc. asks why many young entrepreneurs are going elsewhere, especially back home with their ideas.  Is this the beginning of a brain drain for the US?
• FT’s Sarah Murray looks at social enterprise in Latin America, a part of the world that’s finally getting more resources, attention, and the expertise it needs to deliver on more “good” projects.
• Duke University is richer this week.  The Gates Foundation granted the University $37 million for its projects on HIV/AIDS.
• Guardian’s Sarah Boseley writes on World AIDS Day about the implications of the collapse of the Global Fund.
• The Telegraph writes about converting non-givers to givers in the UK.  Read how the richest of the UK are learning about the new ways of giving; this isn’t your grandpa’s philanthropy.

Weekly Roundup: Global Fund Takes a Hit And Occupy Protests Face Serious Challenges

Photo Courtesy of Global Fund

November 28th, 2011 10:08 AM

By Esha Chhabra

This originally ran on Dowser.org

Every week, we roundup the conversation surrounding the news in the world of social innovation.

Global Fund Takes a Hit

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS,  Tuberculosis, and Malaria will not be funding grants till 2014 due to limited resources.  The Guardian reports the Global Fund has been looking at a “black hole” for some time, not having been able to procure the right amount of funding last year in New York where it requested $20 billion from donors but got about $12 billion.

Responses from the global health community reflect frustration and worry about the treatment of those who rely on the Global Fund for access to medicines in developing nations:

 

 

“The dramatic resource shortfall comes at a time when the latest HIV science shows that HIV treatment itself not only saves lives, but is also a critical form of preventing the spread of the virus, and governments are making overtures that there could be an end to the AIDS epidemic. – MSF

 

Donors are “betraying” poor people and pushing the Global Fund “to the edge of a cliff.”  – Health Global Access Project

Simon Reid–Henry writes in the New Statesmen that the “precarity of the global 99%” is on the line, comparing the remaining money needed by the Global Fund to meet its budget (an approximate of $10 billion) to the bonuses that banks are shelling out this year for their staff.

 

“Ten billion dollars sounds like peanuts in comparison to the bank bailouts we have gotten used to in recent years — it’s about the same amount that Goldman Sachs has cheerfully set aside in bonuses again this year.”

 

This news has also raised questions about the disparity of funding between countries.  While the US has been one of the largest contributors and is considering reducing its commitments during a period of austerity, others such as Denmark and Holland haven’t contributed to the Fund. So, the question is: how do we get everyone on board to take a fair share of the pie? Furthermore, questions have been raised about the distribution of the funds, whether they actually reachedthe beneficiaries or were extracted by officials in the process.

Occupy Protests Face Serious Challenges

 

“Arrest one of us; two more appear. You can’t arrest an idea!” said the sign held by a man in a Guy Fawkes mask in reoccupied Zuccotti Park on Thursday. — RebeccaSolnit

The LATimes features an OpEd, arguing that the basic fundamentals of the Occupy movement are very much real.  The inequality between the rich and the poor is certainly become more and more evident.  And it’s on display in California where more than one-third of income gains in the last 23 years have gone to the top 1% in California.  Today, more than 6 million Californians are in poverty, and the NYTimes states that almost 100 million Americans are in poverty or dangling close to it nationwide.

Yet, Occupy movements continue to face challenges as they persist through the holiday season with the campaign.  This week, city officials presented LA Occupiers with a concession that would get them off the streets and public parks and into free work spaces and free gardens.   Protesters haven’t agreed to the proposal but it’s another attempt at ending the movement, what some have referred to as a “buy out.”

In Northern California, the situation was far more tense as a police officer was caught using pepper spray on students in protests at UC Davis.   Former LA Police Chief William Bratton will be now heading the investigation on the Davis incident.  One explanation for this use of force in deterring protests – in Oakland, Davis, New York, and more, connects the brutality to safety concerns in a post 9/11 world.

Bob Ostertag, a professor at UCDavis, wrote a provocative piece in the HuffPost, outlining how university officials, including Chancellor Katehi, could have turned the protest into a teach-in or showed support to students who were protesting respectfully.   In fact, he went on to note that most of the students who were attacked with pepper spray were not only some of his top performing students but were sitting passively at the time of the incident.

Random Weekend Readings Pieces with a bit more heft to help you ease back into the work week…

An OpEd in the Boston Globe argues for Boston-area nurses who ought to be able to travel overseas in medical missions, just as doctors do.

NYTimes’ editorial reports on high rates of poverty in America, “a chilling reality,” that estimates one out of three Americans are poor or “perilously” close to being so.

New deal with Walmart brings more stores into DC, where access to fresh foods and produce has been scarce in certain neighborhoods.  One WashPost editorial highlights the benefits of this new partnership.

Know where your turkey comes from? If you’re buying Butterball, it’s probably from Ozark.

Fair Trade USA angers many as it branches off from its international partners and waters down regulations, making it easier to sell products from large farms with a smaller percentage of fair-trade products in each package.