The Gulf Spill?

Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake?

Eyjafjallajokull?

Football?

Landmark decision making?

The Chilean miners?

Freedom for Aung San Suu Kyi?

Or…

The announcement of a Royal wedding?

The end of the world as we know it?

New gadgets?

Students uprising?

Or…

Josh and Zac Farro quitting Paramore (meh)?

Check out the Boston Big Picture for more: parts one, two and three.

I was particularly interested in hearing more about his ideas for the future of Higher Education funding but unfortunately I wasn’t brave enough to stick my hand up. The £600 million cuts to the sector translates into a 20-25% budget reduction over the next four years and I really wanted to know where he stands on the future investment of universities, colleges and research. He was (quite rightly) unsupportive of top-up fees and the cost of tuition in general proposing instead the introduction of fixed rate graduate taxes. Yet at 1-2% how does this even compare to the current cost of education? He’s not wrong when he says ‘decisions about education turn into decisions about what you can afford’ but if the government isn’t prepared to stump up the cost I don’t know how else it can work.

So because I was too scared to stand up in front of about two hundred people and ask, what did I do? Well, I tweeted it of course! I’ll let you know what his 140 character answer is… if I ever get one.

After the death of his brother, Basil in 1994 (first in line for Presidency), Bashar left the UK and his studies in ophthalmology to assume the mantle of President in waiting. Six years later his father Hafez al-Assad (in office 1971-2000) died and the new President arose.

Unlike Hafez, Bashar is a believer in the democraticisation of Syria and the liberalisation of its people, but to change a stagnant old-fashioned dictatorship is no easy task and with little (if any) leadership training is Bashar even capable of such a thing? Look at Barack Obama for example, has he actually met his promise of change yet? Hardly, to change anything means changing a system of doing things and we all know how bureaucratic these things can be. Change is difficult – even trying to change information on a webpage at work is complex enough for me. Changing the whole mentality of a nation is big and it’s probably why after a decade of Bashar we haven’t seen much happen.

It’s quite ironic that even the Internet, which Bashar himself introduced, is heavily restricted and is in itself an example of how to ‘deliberalise’ the people, limiting their freedom of expression. Learning about the decision making processes of Syrian politics came from reading his father’s meeting notes. And it was here where he learnt that ’unlike performing eye surgery, running a country like Syria requires a certain comfort with ambiguity’.

November’s edition of the National Geographic magazine featured an awesome piece about Syria and the Assads and is definitely worth taking the time to read.

Syria really is a beautiful country and the BEST place in the world to eat falafel… seriously. Aleppo’s citadel is breathtaking and if you happen to find this dude (on the left) in Damascus stop and have a chat, eat his patties – they’re awesome.

Have a look through this photo gallery too, the images are stunning.

It was during the run up to dissertation proposals that I was becoming increasingly aware of Internet censorship in Iran and the growth of the Iranian blogosphere and decided that I’d like to explore this academically with the hope of encouraging further research or laying the foundations for a PhD later in life. I don’t necessarily think I ever achieved that or ever will, purely because I ran out of steam. It was my own doing. You know when you wrap yourself up in something so intensely for a long period of time that once it’s done you never want to look at it again? It was like that. I got my distinction and that was enough. But I’m beginning to realise that it wasn’t the end, it was only the beginning. The story continues and maybe I should be trying to tell it, in my own words?

I started with the concept of Internet censorship – how it was being censored, who was censoring it and why – and wanted to explore strategies being developed to smash down the system, to stick it to the man, to carry on regardless. But this was before Google Translate (although limited it seems to be serving a basic purpose right now) and with no Persian translator I was forced to restrict my exploration to a minority of weblogs written by Iranians in English. I specifically looked at weblogs because they were accessible and easy to document and analyse. All the data collection would be my own doing and analysed with my own criteria. But what exactly was I trying to find out? How would I use weblogs as an example of anti-censorship or more over a strategy to bypass censorship?

Having an idea about what you want your outcome to be always seems to cloud what you need to do to get there, to prove it let’s say. I wanted to look at the writing styles across a sample of Iranian weblogs to assess how people were saying things without really saying them – to look at the poetic metaphors Iranians so often use to describe all manners of life, love, feelings and even politics. To see whether the deep-rooted cultural norm of separating the private and public spheres applied to anonymous weblogs. But what would I compare these writing styles to? I decided that in order to assess how Internet filtering effects Iranian weblogs written inside Iran I’d need to sample Iranian weblogs written in the diaspora. Those written by the displaced, the deposed or even the die-hards who might be more likely to evade self-censorship given the lack of Internet filtering in the more moderate west.

And so I did and if you’re interested in actually reading the thing it’s available online. It’s called Looking for Freedom: An Exploration of the Iranian Blogosphere (and it’s also available in Google Scholar with a couple of spelling errors – doh). I also kept a wiki going whilst doing my research but I’m afraid my updates have lapsed a little. Some of the work I did here has come spilling back to me this week and become ever more relevant. given how Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, proxy services and weblogs are currently being used in the aftermath of Iran’s distuted election.

Twitter has in fact been so useful to Iranians tweeting the ‘revolution’ that scheduled maintenance was put back a day to keep communication open. My only criticism over the last couple of days is the difficulty to sieve through the millions of uninformative re-tweets and misinformation to actually get to the heart of what I want to know – what is happening right now!

Below are some links I’ve found useful over the last couple of days:

• For some great Twitter feeds see: persiankiwi/StopAhmadi/mousavi1388 and Change for Iran;
• For good Twitter round-up tools see: Twazzup and PicFog for images;
• For a round up of the larger context of the Iranian elections see: Revolutionary Flowerpot;
• For a collection of some amazing photographs see: Mousavi1388/TheStyx/Boston’s Big Picture and The Guardian;
• For some general Fisking see: Iran Erupts/Ahamdinejad whips crowd/Iran’s day of destiny and Fear has gone;
• For a bit about elections and democracy see: Christopher Hitchens;
• For some rally footage the best place was always going to be YouTube: BBC Persian/a brave female Iranian kicks police and 15th June crowds;
• For some Guardian Analysis see: election statistics and shots fired;
• For some live tweeting I kept up with Andrew Sullivan’s commentary at: The Daily Dish;
• For some expert analysis from Gary Sick and Karim Sadjadpour see: PBS;
• As always Channel 4 News have been right on! See: Lindsey Hilsum’s blog (she is the international editor for Channel 4 News and is currently reporting from Iran) esp. ‘A day in Iran.‘;
• Good blogs include: For a democratic secular Iran (he was also on Channel 4 News and the BBC)/The Huffington Post and The Lede blog;
• And also see the Channel 4 news broadcasts including nation in turmoil and violence at protest.

More than 90,000 are believed to have been killed during conflict with a further 200,000 thought to have died from conflict related causes (estimates of the total death toll thus far ranges between 300,000 – 450,000);

A further 2.7 million people are said to be displaced living in camps for refugees or internally displaced people (IDPs), squatting in shacks, living with relatives or sheltering in the bush. Few others have fled further afield claiming asylum;

90% of Darfur’s villages have been destroyed;

3.6 million people are dependent on international humanitarian aid.

The Cause:

Low-level conflict has simmered in Darfur for years, characterised primarily by disputes between nomadic and sedentary groups, because of increased competition for resources – grazing grounds for cattle and livestock.

Nomads were accustomed to move south during the dry season after the harvest to graze their herds on the fields of sedentary farmers; this provided food for the animals of the nomads and manured the fields of the farmers. This system, which was always delicately balanced, began to break down as a result of increased population, desertification and changes in lifestyle.

Farming groups began to herd their own animals and wanted to stop nomads from grazing on their lands. At the same time, nomads tended to leave part of their group farming during the rainy season and increasingly wanted land to farm on.

Clashes between farming groups and nomads were regular, as was the use of traditional reconciliation mechanisms. If someone was killed, for example, it was customary for the group or family which had caused the killing to pay diya (blood money) to the group or family of the person killed.

Timeline:

February 2003: Angry at what they perceived to be a lack in government protection against village attacks and the marginalisation of Darfur the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) take up arms. The government of Sudan responded by exploting the existing tensions in the region, supporting the militias from largely Arabic-speaking nomadic groups;

July 2003: Janjaweed militia with support from the government begin offensive attacks murdering, raping and driving people out of their homes;

March 2004: Mukesh Kapila (the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan) called Darfur the “world’s greatest humanitarian crisis”;

April 2004: An African Union-brokered ceasefire is signed in N’Djamena (Chad’s capital) but later repeatedly violated by all sides;

July 2004: UN Security Council gives Khartoum 20 days to disarm the Janjaweed, bring its leaders to justice and allow humanitarian assistance. but with no enforcement the conflict continues;

September 2004: George W Bush declares the Darfur crisis ‘genocide’;

October 2004: The AU expands its mandate to protect civilians and sends in a peacekeeping force of 7,000 troops;

January 2005: Government attacks on civilians decrease, partly due to the majority of targeted villages already being destroyed and their inhabitants displaced;

31 January 2005: The UN releases a 176-page report saying that while there were mass murders and rapes of Darfurian civilians, they could not label the atrocities as “genocide” because “genocidal intent appears to be missing”;

March 2005: The UN Security Council refers the war crimes committed in Darfur to the International Criminal Court for investigation;

December 2005: Chad declares itself ‘in a state of war’ with Sudan following violent clashes along the Darfur-Chad border;

May 2006: The Darfur Peace Agreement, brokered by the AU is signed by the Government of Sudan and a faction of the SLA rebel group. All the other rebel leaders including the JEM reject the deal, claiming it doesn’t address key issues such as power sharing and disarmament of the Janjaweed. Fighting continues on all sides;

August 2006: UN Security Council passes resolution 1706, calling for a 23,000-strong UN-led peacekeeping force in Darfur by January 2007. But the resolution ‘invites the consent’ of the government, and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir states ‘there will not be any international military intervention in Darfur as long as I’m in power’;

September 2006: The first ‘Global Day for Darfur’ is held by campaigners around the world;

November 2006: The government agrees in principle to allow a ‘hybrid’ force into Darfur with enhanced UN support for AU forces. The government subsequently adds many restrictions to delay the hybrid force becoming operational;

December 2006: The conflict is increasingly spilling over into Chad, as Chadian rebels supported by the government of Sudan clash with Darfurian rebels supported by the government of Chad. Tens of thousands of Chadians are displaced. Militia attacks on refugee camps in Chad increase, displacing some Darfurians for the third time;

February 2007: The International Criminal Court (ICC) indicts two people – Sudanese Minister for Humanitartian Affairs, Ahmad Muhammad Harun, and Janjaweed commander Ali Kushayb – for crimes against humanity in Darfur. This is the first time someone who is currently in government has been indicted by the ICC. Khartoum declares that it will not co-operate and instead will try Kushayb in its own ’special criminal court’ – a clear attempt to pre-empt independent prosecution. Some Jajaweed leaders, concerned they may also be tried by the government, start switching allegiance to the rebels;

April 2007: Under pressure from China, Khartoum removes its opposition to 3,000 UN peacekeepers entering Darfur as part of the ‘hybrid’ force;

September 2007: 12 African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) peacekeepers, whose mandate is to protect civilians, were killed in Haskanita, apparently by forces from armed opposition groups;

May 2008: Unprecedented assault by the JEM on Khartoum;

14 July 2008: The ICC serves a warrant (issued March 4 2009) for the arrest of Omar al-Bashir outlining five counts of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes in Darfur (a further three for genocide were dropped due to insufficient evidence of a specific intent to destroy ethnic groups in Darfur);

November 2008: President Bashir announces a ceasefire;

November 2008: The ICC calls for arrest of three rebel commanders;

February 2009: A ceasefire is agreed by the JEM with a committment to end conflict with the Sudan Government in three months;

March 2009: The ICC’s arrest warrant for Bashir is filed but is unlikely to make any difference as the ICC does not have a police force and the warrant will be delivered to Sudan’s government, who are not likely to execute it.

Sources: Amnesty International, New Internationalist, BBC etc.

This is not the end.

The United States of America’s 44th President.

I like George but this is just the most absurb thing I’ve ever read and after the disappointingly ignorant and slightly arrogant answers to readers questions in the Independent last week, I’m beginning to wonder whether the man really has lost his marbles. He wouldn’t really say something so stupid would he? Why is his answer to everything always ‘I didn’t. Check the thousands of statements I’ve made on this?’

UPDATE 26/05/06:

Read what the BBC has to say.

Gone are the days when right meant right, center meant sitting on the fence and left meant left. To be a leftist these days is no longer so simple. It seems to me that the root cause of the much dramatised divide in the leftist camp would be the war on Iraq. One is either pro-war or anti-war and this stance will be the sole definition of ones’ leftist ideals. Now as the anti-war mob have proven themselves to be right all those pro-war types can admit they were wrong and we can unite in plans to pull troops from Iraq, kill Bush and make peace in the middle east, right? WRONG. The arrogance of Nick Cohen and Norman Geras has led to something much worse. a new manifesto and a load of pro-war excuses. Andrew Murray notes their ‘non position taken on the Iraq war’ in the Euston Manifesto to be an ‘embarrassing silence’. Although I enjoy reading his Independent comments I’m no great fan of Johan Hari but to openly admit that he was wrong about supporting the war three years on has got to take some doing especially when I’m sure he was well aware of those ready to snap the olive branch.

So what is it about the E-Team that I struggle with? In all honesty I’m not actually that sure (aside from the war thing). After reading its statements I’ve gotta admit that yeah I believe in a lot of it: the support it lends to equality, its belief in human rights and the freedom of speech, principles of democratic elections, a two-state solution, embracing plurality and opposing anti-Americanism (it’s not all bad is it?) But then again I’m not one for sugar-coated imperialism and neo-conservatism or a rejection of the social left. I’m one for the removal of dictatorships like the Saddam Hussein regime but I’m certainly no pro-war type and have never lent support for an illegal war on terror and its rumors of WMDs. I’m for Leninology (because he’s a right on dude) so does that mean I should automatically disagree with Harry’s Place types? I’m for the liberation of Palestine so does that make me an anti-Semite who as John Lloyd suggests is forming ‘close alliances with fundamentalist Islamic groups’? I like George Galloway so does that mean I’m a [insert smear campaign here] believer? So please help me, what camp do I fit into? The real left, the progressive left, the new left, the internationalist left, the red left, the neo-con left, the Blair left, the right left, the center left or the ‘what are all you middle-aged blogosphere men arguing about’ left?

The concept of choosing whether to have a baby based upon the knowledge of its sex however is more like common practice in certain parts of India. Yesterday’s Independent featured an article linking the high abortion rates of female foetuses to its modern day slavery.

Indian parents want boys because girls are seen as a heavy financial burden: the parents have to provide expensive dowry for their weddings, while sons will bring money into the family when they marry, and have better job prospects.

With only 861 women for every 1,000 men there are just not enough women to marry. This severe shortage of women has therefore led to a growing market of trade in which women are brought and sold as a commodity. Many of the women are brought as ’sexual brides’ from the poorer villages and later sold on at a profit. While abortion in India is legal, testing the gender is not and as strict laws come into force in order to prevent this practice doctors are becoming increasingly more inventive in notifying parents of the foetuses sex.

To get around police, doctors have started using codes to tell the people the sex of the baby: if the ultrasound report is written in blue ink, it’s a boy; if it’s in red ink, it’s a girl. If the report is delivered on Monday, it’s a boy, if it’s a Friday, it’s a girl.

Last week the BBC reported on the first sex selector doctor to be jailed for revealing the sex of an unborn baby and agreeing to abort it. It seems however that the damage to gender ratios has already been done with an estimated ten million aborted female foetuses in the last twenty years! Dominic Lawson goes on to comment that ‘the women’s movement saw this one coming a long time ago’. He refers to the publication of Mary Anne Warren’s Gendercide: The Implications of Sex Science in 1985 as a prediction of ‘the deliberate extermination of persons of a particular sex (or gender)’.

Having asked if ‘gendercide’ would be ‘no less an atrocity than genocide, Warren’s conclusion was that choosing the sex of one’s child was wrong only if its intent was discrimination against women. Or in other words, the act is neither right nor wrong – it is the thought behind it that counts. With the concluding part of Family Man coming up on Thursday I would therefore suggest (using Warren’s model) that in fact the act of identifying the sex of an embryo is neither right nor wrong it’s actual irrelevant when you see that the families need for a male embryo is far from any kind of gender discrimination. However as the family are still in mourning over little Nick and quite clearly suffering psychologically with blame and guilt would it be right to help them if their inability to come to terms with their loss would be detrimental to their new son’s development?