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symone008

Online Support Groups For Alcoholism - Sober Nation - 0 views

    • symone008
       
      - AA now have online forums - Are online forums the first step to finding face to face groups?
  • he “12 step program” designed by Alcoholics Anonymous has proven to be a tangible tool for recovery from alcohol addiction and can now be accessed and followed online with feedback from members of the online support group community. Online alcoholism rehab may not ever completely replace face-to-face counseling, including group therapy, as encountered in A.A. meetings.  However, to those who are taking an initial step toward their recovery, the flow of support and strength to be gained from coming in touch with real people at online support groups for alcoholism can be enough of a stimulus to help one make it through one more day.
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    Main article about abuse of alcohol. AA has online forums. 
abdulrahmanabdo

Stem Cell Research at the Crossroads of Religion and Politics | Pew Research Center's R... - 0 views

  • For patients and their families, embryonic stem cell research offers the hope of cures for chronic and debilitating conditions, such as juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injuries and blindness. For scientists, it represents a revolutionary path to discovering the causes and cures for many more human maladies. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, that is, they have the unique ability to develop into any of the 220 cell types in the human body. In addition to their versatility, embryonic stem cells are easier to grow in the laboratory than adult stem cells.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      Very interesting perspectives and can to used to either bolster or discredit an argument about stem cell research in America.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      Very interesting perspectives and can to used to either bolster or discredit an argument about stem cell research in America.
  • But many opponents, including some religious leaders, believe that stem cell research raises the same moral issues as abortion. Furthermore, opponents maintain that scientists have other promising ways of reaching the same goals, including non-controversial adult stem cell research.
  • But many opponents, including some religious leaders, believe that stem cell research raises the same moral issues as abortion. Furthermore, opponents maintain that scientists have other promising ways of reaching the same goals, including non-controversial adult stem cell research.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      The other side of the argument to stem cell research in America. This still contains a substantial part of the population in America and is useful in an argumentative inquiry research paper.  
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      The other side of the argument to stem cell research in America. This still contains a substantial part of the population in America and is useful in an argumentative inquiry research paper.
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  • For the Catholic Church and many other Christian groups, life begins at conception, making the research tantamount to homicide because it results in the destruction of human embryos. “Human embryos obtained in vitro are human beings and are subjects with rights; their dignity and right to life must be respected from the first moment of their existence,” the late Pope John Paul II wrote in his 1995 encyclical, The Gospel of Life.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      Interesting outlook on stem cell research and since the majority of Americans today identify as christian. This should be accounted for when writing an argumentative research inquiry paper.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      Interesting outlook on stem cell research and since the majority of Americans today identify as christian. This should be accounted for when writing an argumentative research inquiry paper.
  • National polls indicate that a slim majority of Americans support the research. According to a 2007 national poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 51 percent say it is more important to conduct stem cell research that could result in new medical cures than to avoid destroying the potential life of human embryos. The same poll found that 35 percent say it is more important not to destroy embryos.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      This is very important data about Americans support of stem cell research. The previous highlighted region in this article said that many Christians aren't in favor of stem cell research, yet the national polls indicate otherwise. So it can be inferred that some Christians are in favor of stem cell research, to the point of where there is a slim majority of Americans in support of the research. This may proof to be a definite curve ball in an argumentative research inquiry paper.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      This is very important data about Americans support of stem cell research. The previous highlighted region in this article said that many Christians aren't in favor of stem cell research, yet the national polls indicate otherwise. So it can be inferred that some Christians are in favor of stem cell research, to the point of where there is a slim majority of Americans in support of the research. This may proof to be a definite curve ball in an argumentative research inquiry paper.
  • As the pace of the cutting-edge research quickens and the prospect for cures moves closer to reality, advocates on both sides of the debate see the possibility that, within a few years, scientists will find a way to harvest stem cells without destroying embryos.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      Very interesting and may provide some sort of middle ground in which everyone is satisfied, and an happy ending does occur for everyone.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      Very interesting and may provide some sort of middle ground in which everyone is satisfied, and an happy ending does occur for everyone.
  • History of the Debate
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      This can provide useful history and background on this heavily debated discussion that has been with Americans for quite some time now.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      This can provide useful history and background on this heavily debated discussion that has been with Americans for quite some time now.
  • While these states have taken action to move forward on stem cell research, the issue is unsettled in much of the country. Because the U.S. government allows the research as long as no federal money is spent, state universities and private, nonprofit and corporate laboratories are free to pursue it, except in states that prohibit it.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      This presents yet another interesting perspective to use in the argumentative research inquiry paper, and perfectly describes the stand of the American government politically has on this issue and can be incorporated into the argumentative research inquiry paper.  
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      This presents yet another interesting perspective to use in the argumentative research inquiry paper, and perfectly describes the stand of the American government politically has on this issue and can be incorporated into the argumentative research inquiry paper.
  •  
    Very good article that will help me pave the way for a good argumentative research inquiry paper, in my opinion.
  •  
    Very good article that will help me pave the way for a good argumentative research inquiry paper, in my opinion.
marikejp

Why Are We Still on Facebook? : The New Yorker - 0 views

  • While the reasons for joining and using Facebook were not entirely homogenous, one factor kept emerging as the strongest motivation for use: the desire to keep in touch with friends.
  • it’s not just the connection itself that matters. It’s easy enough to support someone in private but far harder to voice that same support publicly—and the public support is a much stronger sign of actual support
  • Not only are we affirming our connections in a way that sends a strong public signal, we are doing it with a lot of people at once. “We’re being allowed to essentially scale up and maintain our social networks and connections,” Gosling said. “That’s one of the reasons people become so obsessed with it—and freaked out by it.”
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  • why people decide to leave Facebook. They have found three broad themes: people see Facebook as pointless and unnecessary, they see it as a problematic distraction, and they are worried about privacy.
Mirna Shaban

The Revolution Will Be Tweeted - 1 views

  • Much of the organization and mobilization occurred through the Internet, particularly on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. But social media also played a vital role as a democratic model. Its inclusive space indirectly taught lessons in democracy to a wide sector of Egyptian youth that was not necessarily politically inclined. When the right moment arrived, they were ready to join the revolt.
  • What happened in January 2011 in Egypt did not start in January 2011. It began at least ten years earlier, and it’s not over yet
  • The main catalyst for the January 25 revolution was the Internet, so it may be accurate to describe this as an Internet-based revolution. Not that the Internet was the only factor involved, or that Internet users were the only ones protesting. But the Internet was the tool that showed every dissident voice in Egypt that he or she is not alone, and is indeed joined by at least hundreds of thousands who seek change.
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  • Facebook did not go to Tahrir Square. The people did. Twitter did not go to Al-Qaied Ibrahim Square. The people did.
  • More than one-third of Egypt’s population of eighty million remains illiterate, and just 25 percent of Egyptians use the Internet. However, Facebook and Twitter were instrumental in organizing, motivating, and directing these crowds as to where to go and what to do. Egypt’s revolution was created as an event on Facebook eleven days in advance. People clicked “I’m attending.” Certainly, this was a people’s revolution, yet one based on and accelerated in many ways by the Internet. What happened in Tahrir and every square in Egypt was the accumulation of years and years of activism, including Internet activism. Social media prepared Egyptians for the revolution and enabled them to capitalize on an opportunity for change when the time came.
  • The Internet, by definition, is a democratic medium, at least in the sense that anyone with Internet access is a potential publisher of information.
  • The mere presence of the Internet as a source of information helps open up a freer space for public debate, and makes it much more difficult for governments to censor information.
  • Internet activism started in Egypt with the appearance of Web 2.0 technology in the country around 2003
  • Blogging was the first valuable brainchild of Web 2.0 technologies.
  • The phenomenon exploded in the Arab world, with Egyptian bloggers pioneering and leading the scene. Blogger numbers in the region approached half a million by the beginning of 2009, the great majority of them coming from Egypt.
  • Political blogging in particular became more popular, as users felt that they could remain anonymous if they so wished
  • Nevertheless, most Egyptian political bloggers choose to blog under their real names, which frequently got them in trouble with the regime. The state security crackdown on bloggers was testimony to their potential impact.
  • Undoubtedly, blogging created a space for the voiceless in Egypt.
  • It was the first time individuals felt they could make themselves heard. That in itself was important, whether or not the content was political, and whether or not anyone was reading the blogs. The phenomenon created a venting space for people who had long gone unheard.
  • Early on, Alaa Abdel Fattah and Manal Hassan were awarded the Special Award from Reporters Without Borders in the international Deutsche Welle’s 2005 Weblog Awards (Best of Blogs) contest, where their blog was cited as an instrumental information source for the country’s human rights and democratic reform movement. The husband-and-wife team had created one of Egypt’s earliest blogs, “Manal and Alaa’s Bit Bucket,” where they documented their off-line activism and posted credible information on protests and political movements, election monitoring and rigging, and police brutality.
  • Another award-winning blogger was Wael Abbas. He received several honors, including the 2007 Knight International Journalism Award of the International Center for Journalists for “raising the standards of media excellence” in his country. This was the first time that a blogger, rather than a traditional journalist, won the prestigious journalism award, a testament to the important work such bloggers were doing. In the same year, CNN named Abbas Middle East Person of the Year. He has been instrumental in bringing to light videos of police brutality in Egypt, a topic that was taboo before he and other bloggers ventured into it. As a result of these efforts, the Egyptian government at one point brought three police officers to justice on charges of police brutality for the first time in Egypt’s history; they were convicted and sentenced to three years in jail.
  • As blogging was becoming a phenomenon in Egypt, some political movements started having a strong on-line presence, and taking to the streets based on their on-line organization. The most important was probably the Kefaya movement, whose formal name is The Egyptian Movement for Change. The movement was established in 2004 by a coalition of political forces, and became better known by its Arabic slogan. The word kefaya is Arabic for ‘enough,’ and as the name implies, the movement called for an end to the decades-old Mubarak regime, and for guarantees that his son would not succeed him as president. Kefaya was instrumental in taking people to the streets, thus bridging the gap between the on-line and the off-line worlds. Many of its supporters were bloggers, and many of the street protesters started blogging. So, increasingly, reports on the demonstrations found their way into blogs and were provided media coverage even when the traditional media ignored them or were afraid to cover them. One result was that many more Egyptians gained the courage to write blogs that openly criticized the authoritarian system and crossed the ‘red line’ of challenging their president.
  • nternet applications such as the video-sharing platform YouTube, which appeared in 2005, took blogging to a higher level.
  • hey were also capable of videotaping street protests and uploading the clips on YouTube. Watching people chanting “Down with Hosni Mubarak” in the mid-2000s was a totally new, riveting experience, which led many other brave Egyptians to join these demonstrations. Internet activists and blogger stars such as Wael Abbas, Alaa Abdel Fattah, Manal Hassan, Hossam El-Hamalawy, Malek Mostafa, and others uploaded hundreds of videos of police brutality, election rigging, and different violations of human and civic rights.
  • media, the platforms that allow for wider user discussions and user-generated content such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter
  • he next important development came with the introduction of what is typically known as social
  • The structure of social media taught Egyptians that space exists that you can call your own, your space, where you can speak your mind. To many in the West, this is probably no big deal. There are countless venues where they can express their opinions relatively freely. But for people in Egypt, and in the Arab world in general, this was a new phenomenon, and one I believe to be of profound importance.
  • horizontal communication.’ Before social networks, Egyptian youth were accustomed to being talked at, rather than talked to or spoken with. Communication was mostly vertical, coming from the regime down to everyone else
  • Authoritarian patterns of communication do not allow for much horizontal interaction. But social networks do, and eventually their existence on the Internet taught Egyptian youths a few lessons in democratic communication, even if the essence of the conversations carried out was not necessarily political in nature.
  • The bulk of those that I believe were affected by these lessons in democratic expression were clusters of the population that were not previously politically oriented. These form a good sector of those who took to the streets on January 25, and were joined by millions who held their ground in Tahrir Square and in every square in Egypt until Mubarak was toppled. The majority of these millions, including myself, were people who had never participated in a demonstration before. They were not political activists before January 25, but they saw or heard the call for action, and it touched a nerve as they found safety in numbers
  • another function that social networks served: making you realize that you’re not alone.
  • Perhaps the first time Egyptians learned about the power of social networks was on April 6, 2008. Workers in the Egyptian city of Al-Mahalla Al-Kobra planned a demonstration to demand higher wages. Esraa Abdel Fattah, an activist then twenty eight years old, felt for the workers and wanted to help them. She formed a group on Facebook and called it ‘April 6 Strike’ to rally support for the workers.
  • he knew it was too much to ask people to join in the protest, so she simply asked them to participate in spirit by staying home that day, not going to work, and not engaging in any monetary transactions such as buying or selling. The group was brought to the attention of the traditional media and was featured on one of Egypt’s popular talk shows, thus getting more exposure. What ensued surpassed all expectations. To Abdel Fattah’s own surprise (and everyone else’s), the Facebook group immediately attracted some seventy three thousand members. Many of these, and others who got the message through traditional media, decided to stay home in solidarity with the workers. Others were encouraged to stay home by a bad sandstorm that swept across parts of Egypt that day, and yet others stayed home for fear of the strong police presence on the streets.
  • The overall outcome made political activists realize that social networks could be a vital tool in generating support for a political cause, and in encouraging people to join a call for action.
  • The April 6 event was meaningful because it provided a sense that people were actually willing to take an action, to do something beyond clicking a mouse
  • three months before the January 25 revolution, Malcolm Gladwell argued in a much-discussed article in The New Yorker under the title “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted” that social media can’t provide what social change has always required. He said that social media is good when you’re asking people for small-scale, low-risk action, but not for anything more. “Facebook activism succeeds,” he wrote, “not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice.” He explained that this is because high-risk activism is a “strong-tie phenomenon,” meaning that those who carry out such acts of activism have to personally know each other well and develop strong personal ties before they would risk their lives for each other or for a common cause. Since Facebook and Twitter provide mostly “weak-tie” connections, since users typically have a strong off-line social tie with only a small percentage of their ‘friends’ or ‘followers,’ these social networks were therefore not capable of motivating people for a high-risk cause. He therefore concluded that a social network “makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact.”
  • nowing that you are in the company of many who share your utter belief in the same cause. That is something that social networks delivered
  • ne of the Facebook pages that played a major role in this regard was the Khaled Said page. Khaled Said was a young Egyptian who was brutally beaten to death by police informants outside an Internet café in Alexandria in June 2010. He had an innocent face that everyone could identify with. He could be anyone, and anyone could’ve been him. The Facebook page “We Are All Khaled Said” appeared shortly thereafter. It started asking its members, whose numbers increased steadily, to go out on silent standing protests in black shirts with their back to the streets. The demonstrations started in Alexandria and soon spread to every governorate in Egypt. Numbers increased with every protest. More and more people gained a little more courage and tasted the freedom of dissent.
  • One of the main advantages of the Khaled Said page was how well organized the events were. Protesters were provided with exact times and locations, and given exact instructions on what to wear, what to do, as well as who to contact in the case of any problems with security forces.
  • t was the Khaled Said page that eventually posted the ‘event’ for a massive demonstration on January 25, Egypt’s Police Day.
  • The administrators usually polled their users, asking them to vote for their place or time of preference for the next protest. The responses would be in the thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, and the administrators would read them all, and give a breakdown, with exact numbers and percentages, of the votes.
  • The January 25 demonstration was motivated and aided by an important intervening variable, the revolt in Tunisia. When Tunisian protesters succeeded in ousting President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, Egyptians felt that toppling a dictator through demonstrations was finally possible.
  • he Khaled Said page, which by then had about six hundred thousand followers, demonstrated its strong ability to organize. They listed all the major squares in every Egyptian governorate where they expected people to gather, and again gave specific instructions on what to wear, what to take with you, and who to contact in times of trouble. They then alerted the users that the listed venues for demonstration would change at midnight on January 24 to give police forces a lesser chance of mobilizing against them the next day. On the morning of January 25, there were close to half a million people who had clicked “I’m attending” the revolution. Today, the Khaled Said page has more than 1.7 million users, by far more than any other Egyptian Facebook page.
  • nd indeed that was what happened. We witnessed another key moment illustrating the power of the interaction between social media, traditional media, and interpersonal communication. Newspapers, broadcasters, and on-line outlets had been discussing the potential ‘Facebook demonstration’ for a few days prior to January 25. As groups of demonstrators marched through the streets enroute to main squares chanting “Ya ahalina endamo lina,” (“Friends and family, come join us”), people watching from their balconies and windows heeded the calls and enabled the protests to snowball to unprecedented numbers. People were galvanized by the sight. The core activists, who attended every demonstration for years, were suddenly seeing new faces on January 25, mostly mobilized by the Internet. They came by the thousands, and then by the hundreds of thousands, numbers larger than anyone had expected.
  • Twitter played an important though slightly different role. Crucial messages relayed in short bursts of one hundred and forty characters or less made protesters ‘cut to the chase.’ Most activists tweeted events live rather than posting them on Facebook. Twitter was mainly used to let people know what was happening on the ground, and alert them to any potential danger. It usually was ahead of Facebook in such efforts. Twitter also enabled activists to keep an eye on each other. Some managed to tweet ‘arrested’ or ‘taken by police’ before their mobile phones were confiscated. Those words were incredibly important in determining what happened to them and in trying to help them. Most activists are, to this day, in the habit of tweeting their whereabouts constantly, even before they go to sleep, because they know that fellow activists worry if they disappear from the Twittersphere.
  • When the Egyptian regime belatedly realized on January 25 how dangerous social networks could be to its survival, the first thing it did was block Twitter. Internet censorship is a ridiculously ineffective strategy, though. Users were tech-savvy enough to find their way onto proxy servers within minutes, and to post on Facebook how to gain access to Twitter and how to remain on Facebook if the regime blocks it, which indeed happened later. The government felt it didn’t have any other option but to block all Internet access in the country for five days starting January 27 (as well as mobile telephone communications for one day). By then it was too late. People had already found their way to Tahrir and nearly every square in Egypt. Ironically, some were partly motivated by the Internet and communication blockage to take to the streets to find out what was happening and be part of it. And they were joined by workers’ movements in many governorates that expanded the protester numbers into the millions. The major squares of Egypt were full of people of every age, gender, religion, creed, and socio-economic status
  • Gladwell, it turned out, was wrong. These people didn’t know each other personally, but the “weak” personal ties had not proved a barrier to high-risk activism. Egyptians discovered the strong tie of belonging to the common cause of ousting a dictator
  • ocial network users were not the only ones revolting, and social networks were not the only reason or motivation for revolt. However, the role that social media have played over the years in indirectly preparing sectors of Egyptian youths for this moment, and in enabling them to capitalize on an opportunity for change when the time came, cannot be understated.  It can also be said that the role of social networks in Egypt has hardly ended. The revolution is not yet complete. 
Mirna Shaban

Egypt's Spring: Causes of the Revolution | Middle East Policy Council - 0 views

  • eemed that nearly all of the 90,000 people who had responded to the Facebook request to demonstrate on Police Day had filled the square, crowded into central Alexandria, and confronted the security forces in Suez City
  • An accidental president, who came to power because of Anwar Sadat's assassination on October 6, 1981, Mubarak initially calmed the public, stressed the rule of law, released political prisoners and encouraged parliamentary elections. However, as soon as he began his second term, in 1987, he refused to reform the constitution, extended the state of emergency, promulgated laws to exclude opposition parties from local councils and tightened the grip of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) over parliament. He denounced opposition groups for criticizing his policies and asserted, threateningly, "I am in charge, and I have the authority to adopt measures…. I have all the pieces of the puzzle, while you do not."1
  • after the Islamist groups renounced violence in 1997, emergency and military courts continued to operate. They prosecuted civilians charged with nonviolent infractions, such as Muslim Brothers who met to prepare for professional syndicate elections or journalists who "slandered" regime figures. Police increasingly harassed people on the street, demanding bribes from shop owners and minivan drivers and free food from vendors and restaurants. They seized and beat people in order to coerce false confessions or to pressure them to become informers. They harassed people who came to the police station to get IDs or other routine documents, and they nabbed those who "talked back" to them. Amnesty International concluded that torture was "systematic in police stations, prisons and [State Security Investigations] SSI detention centers and, for the most part, committed with impunity…. [Security and plainclothes police assault people] openly and in public as if unconcerned about possible consequences."
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  • 3 Even the government-appointed National Council on Human Rights, in its first annual report (2004), expressed deep concern about the 74 cases of "blatant" torture and 34 persons who had died in police or SSI detention that year.4 A U.S. diplomat cabled in 2009 to Washington that Omar Suleiman, director of the Ge
  • neral Intelligence Directorate, and Interior Minister Habib al-Adly "keep the domestic beasts at bay, and Mubarak is not one to lose sleep over their tactics."5
  • All aspects of public life were controlled, ranging from censorship of cultural and media production to the operation of labor unions.
  • Workers were banned from striking and, since the change in the labor law in 2003, were often hired on short-term contracts, under which they had no medical — or social — insurance benefits. The monthly minimum wage had not been raised since 1984, when it was set at LE 35 (in 2011 the equivalent of $6).6 The ETUF enforced government policy rather than represented its millions of members.
  • Private-sector workers suffered even more, as the 2003 labor law failed to provide any protection to employees negotiating length of contract, salary level, hours at work, overtime compensation, vacation or lunch breaks. Workers often lacked health and injury insurance. Many private-sector firms forced new hires to sign, along with the contract, Form No. 6, which allowed the employer to fire them without warning, cause or severance pay.
  • The exclusion of opposition forces from the political arena in fall 2010 was accompanied by systematic crackdowns on the media, cultural expression and university life. The regime wanted to prevent critical commentary from being aired in independent newspapers and on private satellite stations. The government closed down 19 TV and satellite channels, hacked or blocked several websites, and pressured private businessmen to cancel outspoken critics' positions as editors, opinion writers and talk-show hosts. The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) concluded: "The Ministry of Mass Media and Communication has tightened its fist over all media channels to markedly reduce the space for freedom of expression, especially [during and] after the last parliamentary elections."13
  • Already, press and cultural output were managed through myriad control boards. Journalists were beaten, jailed and/or fined if they investigated corruption or police brutality and were charged with incitement or libel when they criticized government policies or political leaders. AFTE also reported heavy-handed censorship of movies, plays and books.
  • The crackdown on university life accelerated after the 1979 student charter was amended in 2007 to give administrative bodies — and, behind them, the SSI — the right to bar students from running in university elections. By th
  • en, the SSI was interfering deeply in university operations: approving the appointment of rectors and deans, exercising a veto over teaching-staff employment and promotions, vetting graduate teaching assistants, determining the eligibility of students to live in dormitories, and interfering in scientific research, textbooks choices, and faculty permissions to travel abroad to participate in conferences.14 The SSI presence was overtly threatening; guards stood at the gates and at each building. Plainclothes SSI officers quelled demonstrations as well as threatening and arresting student activists. Then, in October 2010, the government refused to implement the Supreme Administrative Court ruling that banned SSI guards from the campuses and also blocked anti-regime candidates from contesting seats in the student-union elections.15
  • They sold significant portions of the public sector for their personal benefit and decreased public investment in agriculture, land reclamation, housing, education and health
  • Nearly half the residents of Cairo lived in unplanned areas that lacked basic utilities, sometimes living in wooden shacks
  • the World Bank reported that, by 2006, 62 percent of Egyptians were struggling to subsist on less than $2 a day
  • Given the overwhelming power of the state, the severe restrictions imposed by the State of Emergency on public gatherings, and the unchecked violence by police and security forces, people were fearful of protesting in the streets. Nonetheless, there were many efforts to expose the conditions. Novels and films highlighted corruption, police brutality, urban poverty and sexual harassment.29 Some art exhibits displayed in-your-face paintings depicting torture and military repression. Human-rights groups reported on poverty in the countryside and cities, deteriorating environmental conditions, harassment of women and activists, restrictions on the press, police coercion, and thuggery during elections.
  • There was public outrage at the very public beating-to-death just before midnight on June 6, 2010, of 28-year-old Khaled Said, seized as he entered an internet café in Alexandria.35 Late that night 70 young men and women gathered across from the police station, demanding that the police be brought to justice. They received the usual response: beaten, dragged along the street, attacked by police dogs, and arrested. Protests continued throughout the summer: funeral prayers at Sidi Gaber mosque, attended by 600 mourners who spilled out into the street afterwards; a vigil outside the Ministry of Interior headquarters in Cairo; a silent protest along waterfronts and bridges throughout Egypt; and numerous violently suppressed protests in downtown areas not only involving well-known politicians and protest groups but also people who felt that Khaled Said could have been themselves, their son, or their grandson. A teenager reflected this perspective, saying: "This is an extraordinary case. This guy was tortured and killed on the street. I did not know him but I cannot shut up forever."36 "For the sake of Khaled! For the sake of Egypt!" (ashan Khalid, ashan masr) became a rallying cry, voiced in fear as well as in the determination to restore individual and collective dignity (karama). On the fortieth day commemorating his death, people shouted outside the High Court: "Our voices will not be silenced… We've waited for 25 years, but our condition has not improved. Tomorrow the revolution will come."37
  • Dozens of Facebook groups supported the cause, of which "We Are All Khaled Said" became the most famous. They circulated reports about poli
  • ce brutality, many of which had been posted in the past but had not received such intense scrutiny. These included the video of police sodomizing a 21-year-old minivan driver in January 2006. Filmed by police officers in Boulaq al-Dakrour station, the police mailed it to the cell phones of other van drivers to intimidate them. "Everybody in the parking lot will see this tomorrow," they boasted.38 Hafez Abu Saeda, head of the Egyptian Organization of Human Rights, noted: "Police brutality is systematic and widespread… The humiliation of the simple citizen has become so widespread that people are fed up."39 Their anger, he warned, could spark a rebellion.
  • Nonetheless, the protesters themselves agree that it took the swift removal of Ben Ali to make them think that, if sudden change was possible in Tunisia, it might be possible in Egypt.
  • Even when people broke the barrier of fear on January 25, played cat-and-mouse with security forces on downtown streets on January 26 and 27, and withstood the onslaught all day and night on January 28, they faced a formidable regime, supported by the security forces and the entrenched NDP. The revolution would have been much bloodier if the armed forces had stood by the president. President Mubarak and Interior Minister Habib al-Adly hastened their own demise by unleashing extreme violence on January 28, followed by Adly's abrupt withdrawal of all police forces that night. Enraged, the public created neighborhood watches to ensure the safety of their communities.
  • Mubarak miscalculated by ordering the armed forces into the streets, even though their loyalty was to the nation — not to the person. He further miscalculated that he could offer minor concessions — such as appointing a vice president, changing the prime minister, and saying that he would not seek another term — on January 28 and again on February 1 and yet follow those placating words by unleashing fierce attacks on February 2. Over the next week, protesters held their ground, thousands of people flooded to city squares to call for dignity and freedom, labor strikes spread, employees in public institutions joined the movement, and lawyers, doctors, and professors marched in their professional garb. Finally, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces ended its silent watch and forced Mubarak's hand. When Mubarak resisted leaving, the generals compelled the newly-appointed vice president to inform the president that, if he didn't step down, he would face charges of high treason.
  • Suddenly on Friday, February 11 — as millions of people surged angrily through the streets — Mubarak vanished. Anger transformed into tears of joy and celebration. And the next morning, young people cleaned up the public spaces, symbolically starting the huge task of cleansing Egypt of the corrupt regime and rebuilding the country. How they would rebuild Egypt remained uncertain, but their mobilization instilled a new and powerful pride, coupled with determination to take control over their future and not be cowed again by any authoritarian ruler.
wstrahan

China and Nigeria: Neo-Colonialism, South-South Solidarity, or Both? | Daniel Wagner - 0 views

  • Bilateral relations between China and Nigeria will likely take one of two paths in the long term: either China will remain the overwhelmingly dominant actor or Nigeria will become a regional superpower, evening out the playing field. If China remains the stronger player it will shape Nigeria in its own interests (commonly referred to as "Chinese Imperialism").
  • During the first eleven years of its independence, Nigeria and China had no diplomatic relations. The Nigerian government's view of China grew especially sour after Mao officially supported the secessionist state in Biafra by supplying the Biafran administration with weapons.
  • During the period of General Abacha's military rule (1993-1998), Beijing's no-strings-attached development projects were increasingly well received. Nigeria's leaders grew resentful of Western conditions for aid and investment, and many Nigerians began to question what a generation of economic dependence on the West achieved for Nigeria.
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  • Abuja subsequently adopted a new approach to international trade, balancing traditional Western partners and China.
  • The evolution of Nigerian-Chinese relations mirrors that of China's relationship with other African states (such as Angola, Sudan, and Zimbabwe) that sought alternative forms of aid and development packages following the imposition of sanctions by Western nations based on alleged human rights violations.
  • Today, more than 200 Chinese firms operate in Nigeria.
  • China agreed to provide Nigeria with a soft loan of $1.1 billion loan in exchange for Nigeria agreeing to increase its daily supply of oil to China ten-fold (from 20,000 barrels per day to 200,000) by 2015.
  • China recently embraced a new foreign policy in West Africa that contrasts with its traditionally passive approach to the spread of Islamic terrorism and extremism in Africa. Last year a Chinese diplomat in Mali pledged support for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)'s military campaign to dislodge Al Qaeda-affiliate groups in northern Mali.
  • China's number one concern in West Africa is access to natural resources and new consumer markets
  • While many Nigerians consider China's growing presence to be nothing short of a God send, others have raised concerns about Nigerian sovereignty, bearing in mind the impact Chinese trade and investment has had on other African countries.
  • The Chinese model of importing its own workers to build infrastructure projects, for example, does not sit well with many Nigerians.
  • A number of Nigerians have also voiced objections to the "slave-like" labor conditions in Chinese-operated factories across Nigeria. Attention was first brought to these conditions when 37 Nigerian workers died after being trapped inside a locked Chinese-owned factory that caught fire in 2002
  • Western powers that claim a desire to help Nigeria develop are often perceived as insincere, with their own aid being viewed as an infringement on Nigeria's sovereignty, since it often comes with strings attached.
anonymous

Supporting augmented reality based children's play with pro-cam robot - 0 views

  • The study has found that robot-assisted AR based play showed improved learning effects, compared to the conventional play, in language and creativity and this is attributed to the operational flexibility, novelty, robotic mediation and capturing the attention of the children. The result was also made possible in part by designing an effective interface for the teachers to control the robots and manage the simultaneously occurring tasks.
Kathleen Hancock

Save The Whales - Adopt A Whale - 0 views

  • Proceeds from the sale of merchandise will help support Save The Whales' educational programs.
  • Through Save The Whales' symbolic adoption program you will learn about orcas (killer whales) in the wild and in captivity.
  • Proceeds from the kits support Save The Whales education and outreach programs to schools, Whales On Wheels (WOW™)
  •  
    proceeds from the online Adopt-a-Whale program
Kathleen Hancock

Whale poop fights global warming - 0 views

  • The iron is a terrific food for phytoplankton - marine plants that live near the ocean surface and which suck up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.
  • As a result of faecal fertilisation, the whales remove 400,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, twice as much as the 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide they contribute through respiration
  • By way of comparison, 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide is equal to the emissions of almost 40,000 cars, according to an equation on the website of the US Environmental Protection Agency
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The whales' faeces are so effective because they are emitted in liquid form and close to the surface, before the mammals dive,
  • Industrialised whaling not only gravely threatened Southern Ocean sperm whales, it also damaged a major carbon "sink", the scientific term for something that removes more greenhouse gases than it produces
  • The Southern Ocean is rich in nitrogen but poor in iron, which is essential for phytoplankton.
  •  
    Whale support of iron and carbon dioxide
Kathleen Hancock

The Power Of Poop: A Whale Story : Krulwich Wonders... : NPR - 0 views

  • with an enormous population of plankton, a few whales and a few krill, and slowly but surely the whales will multiply, pooping more iron into the ocean to produce more krill, which produces more whales, then more krill, then more whales, then more krill, until you could support an ocean teeming with whales
  • He found that on average whale faeces had 10 million times as much iron as Antarctic seawater
  • ." Basically, that's iron concentrate. And strategically emitted — which would have to be up near the ocean surface, where the sun shines — that extra iron would create blooms of phytoplankton, which would then be eaten by krill, leading to a boost in the krill population, leading to ... yes ... bigger whale dinners!
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • baleen whales prowl the seas consuming immense quantities of krill, they might, during digestion, concentrate their food into iron-rich deposits which, when the time comes, they eject back into the ocean.
  • Krill need iron to grow and multiply.
  • there's not enough iron in the southern ocean water to support that many krill. So either the whales had smaller meals a century ago, or somehow the oceans got an extra kick or boost of iron to create more krill.
  •  
    Food pyramid
abdulrahmanabdo

Researchers split over NSA hacking : Nature News & Comment - 0 views

  • Furthermore, the NSA has designated more than 150 colleges and universities as centres of excellence, which qualifies students and faculty members for extra support. It can also fund research indirectly through other agencies, and so the total amount of support may be much higher. A leaked budget document says that the NSA spends more than $400 million a year on research and technology — although only a fraction of this money might go to research outside the agency itself.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      Shows the sort of investing the NSA goes through in order to receive its top-level of intelligence gathering that it does yearly.
  • Many US researchers, especially those towards the basic-research end of the spectrum, are comfortable with the NSA’s need for their expertise.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      Shows that some are okay with what the NSA is conducting and shows the partnership the US researches have with the NSA. The researches are among many of the processes that paints the full picture of how NSA incorporates their domestic surveillance by using their PRISM program, which is the main focus of this inquiry project.
  • “I understand what’s in the newspapers,” he says, “but the NSA is funding serious long-term fundamental research and I’m happy they’re doing it.”
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      A new view on the NSA issue that Snowden revealed.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • also wants to maintain the relationship.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      It almost seems as if they both need each other. This could be used in the article to illustrate how the NSA is partnered with US researches and need them to function. Another issue that would be covered in the inquiry paper to argue one of the many pieces that the NSA uses to accomplish its goal.
  • When it was revealed that the NSA had inserted a ‘back door’ into the NIST standards to allow snooping, some of them felt betrayed. “We certainly had no idea that they were tampering with products or standards,” says Green.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      A feeling of betrayal from the NSA to a researcher at Johns Hopkins (Mr. Green), can prove to be damaging as more researchers from all over the US find out about this betrayal and start to rethink their partnership with the NSA which then hinders the NSA advancement in intelligence gathering. It would seem that the NSA is hurting itself rather than helping itself at this moment, an interesting view to point out in the inquiry paper.
  • “There was a sense of certain lines that NSA wouldn’t cross,” says Felten, “and now we’re not so sure about that.”
    • abdulrahmanabdo
       
      More proof of the annotation that was done directly above this one.
  •  
    Source #2 for my Research Nugget #1.
anonymous

Ambient intelligence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  •  
    "In computing, ambient intelligence (AmI) refers to electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. Ambient intelligence is a vision on the future of consumer electronics, telecommunications and computing that was originally developed in the late 1990s for the time frame 2010-2020. In an ambient intelligence world, devices work in concert to support people in carrying out their everyday life activities, tasks and rituals in an easy, natural way using information and intelligence that is hidden in the network connecting these devices (see Internet of Things). As these devices grow smaller, more connected and more integrated into our environment, the technology disappears into our surroundings until only the user interface remains perceivable by users."
wstrahan

"Spotify Was Designed from the Ground Up to Combat Piracy" | TorrentFreak - 0 views

  • “Spotify was designed from the ground up to combat piracy,” the company confirms. “Founded in Sweden, the home of The Pirate Bay, we believed that if we could build a service which was better
  • than piracy, then we could convince people to stop illegal file-sharing, and start
  • consuming music legally again.”
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Right from the beginning Spotify founder Daniel Ek held a solid belief that if his service offered a better experience and superior convenience than that being offered by The Pirate Bay, people would jump on board.
  • And they have. Earlier this year the service confirmed it had amassed a total of 24 million users worldwide, 18 million on their ad-supported service and 6 million paying a subscription.
  • The notion, that “it’s impossible to compete with free”, sat well with lawmakers and governments, who looked at offerings coming out of The Pirate Bay and thousands of other similar sites and widely agreed that no-one will pay for something if they can get it for nothing.
  • “A key part of this [success] has been in ensuring that Spotify has a free [ad supported] tier. By offering this free tier, Spotify is able to compete with piracy on cost and bring music consumers into the legal framework,” the company notes.
  • In Sweden, a market that should be the most difficult to turn around if file-sharing traditions are any barometer, Spotify says that the number of people who pirated music fell by 25 percent between 2009 and 2011.
  • In Denmark the IFPI reports that 48% of users using streaming services had previously been illegal downloaders. An impressive 8 out of 10 of those have now stopped completely.
  • Norway, a success story documented earlier this year, has seen its piracy rates drop to just one-fifth of their levels four years earlier, with streaming services taking most of the credit.
  • There can be little doubt that torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay will always have a following, but when services such as Spotify offer their basic services for free, one has to question why people wouldn’t at least try them
morganaletarg

"Xenasubtexttalk": The Impact on the Lesbian Fan Community - 0 views

  •  
    "This article examines how some lesbian fans of the television adventure fantasy series Xena: Warrior Princess (X:WP) (1995-2001) became visible through the development of online fandom and the production of explicit lesbian Internet fan fiction. The self-identity of lesbian fans who are part of the "xenasubtextalk" (XSTT) fan group is explored and celebrated through social networks of lesbian fandom through the "Xenaverse." Lesbian fans have written copious amounts of fan fiction online enabling a form of lesbian political discourse and activism as well as social and cultural discourses shared throughout the platform of the Internet. Many lesbian fans have been supported to create and write Xena lesbian fan fiction by engaging with various lesbian fan writers from the Xenaverse who offer their advice to develop lesbian fan fiction services for free to "newbie" writers. Their explicit lesbian fan fiction narratives are reproduced and distributed as lesbian stories about the two main characters Xena and Gabrielle from the original television series. I interviewed three women from "xenasubtextalk" who gain pleasure exploring their lesbian identities and fandom through the fan group."
braxtondn

Instagram and self-esteem: Why the photo-sharing network is even more depressing than F... - 0 views

  • t’s a truism that Facebook is the many-headed frenemy, the great underminer. We know this because science tells us so. The Human–Computer Institute at Carnegie Mellon has found that your “passive consumption” of your friends’ feeds and your own “broadcasts to wider audiences” on Facebook correlate with feelings of loneliness and even depression
  • Even the positive effects of Facebook can be double-edged: Viewing your profile can increase your self-esteem, but it also lowers your ability to ace a serial subtraction task.
  • A closer look at Facebook studies also supports an untested but tantalizing hypothesis: that, despite all the evidence, Facebook is actually not the greatest underminer at the social-media cocktail party (that you probably weren’t invited to, but you saw the pictures and it looked incredible). Facebook is not the frenemy with the most heads. That title, in fact, goes to Instagram
    • braxtondn
       
      The wording of this paragraph is interesting. I was curious as to where she was going with this
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • he three things that correlate most strongly with a self-loathing screen hangover are basically the three things that Instagram is currently for: loitering around others’ photos, perfunctory like-ing, and “broadcasting” to a relatively amorphous group
  • “I would venture to say that photographs, likes, and comments are the aspects of the Facebook experience that are most important in driving the self-esteem effects, and that photos are maybe the biggest driver of those effects,”
    • braxtondn
       
      The new use of Facebook/ social medias in general
  • Instagram is exclusively image-driven, and images will crack your mirror
  • “A photo can very powerfully provoke immediate social comparison, and that can trigger feelings of inferiority. You don’t envy a news story.”
  • “If you see beautiful photos of your friend on Instagram,” she says, “one way to compensate is to self-present with even better photos, and then your friend sees your photos and posts even better photos, and so on. Self-promotion triggers more self-promotion, and the world on social media gets further and further from reality.
    • braxtondn
       
      THis is extremely intereting and true. I, personally, find myself doing this. BUt the idea couldn't haven been any better stated.
  • “You spend so much time creating flattering, idealized images of yourself, sorting through hundreds of images for that one perfect picture, but you don’t necessarily grasp that everybody else is spending a lot of time doing the same thing.”
    • braxtondn
       
      Everybody wants to upload a picture that they thick will get them the most likes and comments. People like the attention
  • Again, this happens all the time on Facebook, but because Instagram is image-based, it creates a purer reality-distortion field.
    • braxtondn
       
      The difference between Facebook and Instagram
  •  
    It’s a truism that Facebook is the many-headed frenemy, the great underminer. We know this because science tells us so. The Human–Computer Institute at Carnegie Mellon has found that your “passive consumption” of your friends’ feeds and your own “broadcasts to wider audiences” on Facebook correlate with feelings of loneliness...
  •  
    It’s a truism that Facebook is the many-headed frenemy, the great underminer. We know this because science tells us so. The Human–Computer Institute at Carnegie Mellon has found that your “passive consumption” of your friends’ feeds and your own “broadcasts to wider audiences” on Facebook correlate with feelings of loneliness...
jdinhhh

IRIN Asia | Analysis: Southeast Asia's human trafficking conundrum | Indonesia | Cambod... - 0 views

    • jdinhhh
       
      Reading the story told by this women just tells me how cruel the world can be and how you can't really trust anyone but yourself. She just wanted to work and support her family, and she is played by a man and is sold into forced labor. This shows inequality and does not help the poverty problem in third world countries. 
kinseyem

Health Education Center - General Health - 1 views

  •  
    Unfortunately, college students can easily become addicted to the internet because of free access and lots of unstructured time. The internet allows students to easily find the most up to date resources as well as offer a great way to take a break from studies or keep in touch with friends and family.
Virinchi Tadikonda

NASA - NASA Policy on the Release of Information to News and Information Media - 0 views

  • public information, which is defined as information in any form provided to news and information media, especially information that has the potential to generate significant media, or public interest or inquiry. Examples include, but are not limited to, press releases, media advisories, news features, and web postings.
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
       
      It seems that NASA only releases material to media that generates high interest. Any small things such as regular mission launches seem to be not released as frequently. 
  • this policy shall govern and supersede any previous issuance or directive.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • In keeping with the desire for a culture of openness, NASA employees may, consistent with this policy, speak to the press and the public about their work.
  • ) This policy does not authorize or require disclosure of information that is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. § 552) or otherwise restricted by statute, regulation, Executive Order, or other Executive Branch policy or NASA policy (e.g., OMB Circulars, NASA Policy Directives).
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
       
      It seems that even thought NASA policy says you can speak openly about what you do, you can't say everything because otherwise it is a breach of NASA policy. 
  • NASA's Mission Directorate Associate Administrators and Mission Support Office heads have ultimate responsibility for the technical, scientific, and programmatic accuracy of all information that is related to their respective programs and released by NASA.
  • Center Directors have ultimate responsibility for the accuracy of public information that does not require the concurrence of Headquarters.
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
       
      Policy states that NASA holds high executives for accuracy of information. I see a small conflict in what employees may say, and what executives might say. It seems that employees may say one thing, and executives another.  
  • officers are required to coordinate to obtain review and clearance by appropriate officials, keep each other informed of changes, delays, or cancellation of releases, and provide advance notification of the actual release.
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
       
      There is a hierarchy of how material is released. There is also an important and quick way to release information with precision and accuracy.  
  • Release of classified information in any form (e.g., documents, through interviews, audio/visual, etc.) to the news media is prohibited. The disclosure of classified information to unauthorized individuals may be cause for prosecution and/or disciplinary action against the NASA employee involved. Ignorance of NASA policy and procedures regarding classified information does not release a NASA employee from responsibility for preventing any unauthorized release.
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
       
      This seems to be the regular because NASA definitely has a lot of classified material that to this date since the moon landing has not been shared or released. 
  •  
    Media Policy 
Virinchi Tadikonda

Future of Human Space Exploration Could See Humans on Mars, Alien Planets - 0 views

  • Closer to home, private industries like Mars One seek to establish a permanent settlement on the Red Planet. At the Smithsonian Magazine's "The Future is Here Festival" in Washington, D.C. this month, former astronaut Mae Jemison and NASA engineer Adam Steltzner spoke optimistically about the future of manned space exploration
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
       
      The way that planet Earth and our Solar System is operating is that the sun expands everyday, and planets revolving around the sun. The sun will eventually grow and expand with the future being sucking in all the planets, killing all life. Future expansion of other planets is necessary. 
  • Although the idea that bacteria — and life — could hitch a ride on traveling rocks to spread life to other planets is not new, Steltzner suggested a deliberate program that sounds more like science fiction than science fact. Such bacteria could carry our genome and the instructions to reassemble it after landing on a planet (and, one assumes, after the planet has been terraformed to support such life). Steltzner described the process as "printing human beings organically over time."
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
       
      Life in other planets is not at all impossible. There are many scientific methods to start life, the only question is how to do it, and will the life survive? 
  • In addition to curiosity-motivated exploration, Steltzner pointed out that as long as humans remain on a single planet, we are at risk of extinction when disaster strikes. "Our real estate portfolio suffers from a concentration of risk," he said.
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
       
      An important note is that we have limited resources on planet Earth. Once those resources are extinct, there must be exploration elsewhere from either Space, or deep in the unexplored regions of the oceans. 
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • "Technology didn't slow us down getting to the moon," Steltzner said. "Technology won't slow us down getting to Mars."
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
       
      The problem with this technology is that all the information that was used for getting to the moon was lost. The old computers got replaced and the people who worked to get astronauts to the moon retired. The key this time around is to not lose the information. In Kennedy's presidency, it took a long time to get all the components together. Now that technology is more advanced, it should take less time to get to the moon, and should be a straight shot to Mars. 
  • Mars may be one of the closest planets humans want to colonize, but it certainly isn't the only one. Mae Jemison described the 100-Year Starship project to an interested audience. Funded by NASA's Ames Research Center and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the 100-Year Starship project aims to develop the tools and technology necessary to build and fly a spaceship to another planetary system within the next 100 years. The program isn't necessarily concerned with building the ship itself as much as it seeks to foster innovation and enthusiasm for interstellar travel.
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
       
      The method of transportation is going to be very difficult. The researching that is in progress and takes a while to accomplish, obviously. Maybe this is NASA's plan to not release to the public yet? 
  • Though many people object to funding the space program when there are humanitarian needs that have to be met on Earth, Jemison points out that such exploration often leads to innovation and unexpected technology that make an impact on Earth-based programs. "I believe that pursuing an extraordinary tomorrow will create a better world today," she said.
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
       
      The original space launches did not revolve around trying to put up satellites, rather to explore space. Since then, satellites have been launched, telescopes have also been put up. Who knows what other technological aspects can be added once funding is no longer cut and innovation is big again?
wstrahan

In Africa, Li Keqiang Refutes Charge of Chinese 'Neo-Colonialism' | The Diplomat - 0 views

  • Chinese Premier Li Keqiang finished his four country tour of Africa, making stops in Ethiopia (including the African Union headquarters), Nigeria, Angola, and Kenya. China’s activities in Africa are increasingly gaining media attention around the world, particularly as speculation heats up about a competition for the continent between China and the U.S. (or even China and Japan).
  • Li promised to devote “more than half of its foreign aid to Africa,” with no conditions attached to the funding. Li pledged China’s friendship to Africa, and reiterated Chinese support for Africa playing a larger role in world politics as it continues to develop. Li also stressed that China “will never attach political conditions to its assistance to Africa and will never use its aid programs to interfere in the internal affairs of African countries,” a tacit criticism of Western countries who often refuse to provide funding to countries seen as human rights violators.
  • Li Keqiang also acknowledged in a speech that China-Africa relations have encountered some “growing pains,” a nod to tensions in some African countries over issues such as illegal Chinese mining operations and resentment against local Chinese traders. But Xinhua was quick to emphasize that these “growing pains” are “problems that inevitably occur during the development of relations” — meaning no one (especially not China) is to blame.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Like Xinhua, Li was at pains to combat perceptions of China acting as a “neo-colonial” power in Africa. His tour largely ignored the question of resource exploitation, and instead emphasized China-Africa cooperation in fields such as infrastructure, training and education, poverty reduction, environmental protection, and cultural exchange.
  • Li promised that China will help develop high-speed railways, highways, and regional airports in Africa, citing infrastructure construction as a top priority for Africa’s continued development.
  • These assurances will help counter Western criticisms that even China’s infrastructure development in Africa provides little benefit to the continent, as construction is often done by imported Chinese work crews.
  • coverage of Li’s stop in Angola, a major oil supplier, barely mentioned China’s oil deals. Instead Li focused on more general Chinese investment in the country, including plans to expand cooperation in infrastructure and agriculture.
  • Starting with Mao Zedong, China forged a strong bond with Africa based on their common identities as victims of colonial exploitation.
  • China wanted to emphasize its altruism, playing up the unconditional nature of its aid money, and emphasizing the real-world benefits its investment and technology transfers would bring to African people
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