Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Media Review
July 3 – 9, 2010
News Alert: Reports suggest release from prison of Dr. Igor Sutyagin
Scholars at Risk, 7/9
ACLU accused UW police of spying on action group
Casey McNerthney, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7/9
Oil-crisis research casts USF into political waters
Lindsay Peterson, Tampa Bay Online, 7/9
Adjunct Who Taught Catholicism at U. of Illinois Says Job Loss Violated Academic Freedom
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/9
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Tag Archives: Africa
Visualizing Empires Decline
Here’s an interesting visualization of the expansion and contraction of colonial powers from the 19th century through the present day. I assume the shapes include the actual countries of Britain, Spain, France and Portugal and that their size in the end reflects, in part, their land mass. The description accompanying the video notes, “The data refers to the evolution of the top 4 maritime empires of the XIX and XX centuries by extent.” But each of these countries still occupies some overseas territory that is in dispute. One is certainly aware of this living in the north of Morocco where there are two Spanish enclaves.
Visualizing empires decline from Pedro M Cruz on Vimeo.
Freedom of the Press in the Maghreb
Upon the death of his father, it looked as if Morocco might be on its way toward total freedom of expression. This post is too short to go into much detail, but tentatively at first, then progressively with more and more confidence the media and the arts began to confront previously taboo subjects including corruption in government and the private sector, human rights abuses, gender oppression, linguistic and cultural suppression of minorities, policies in the Western Sahara, homosexual rights, etc.
There was shock when the Moroccan magazine TelQuel was able to publish an investigative piece on “The Salary of the King,” and get away with it. Under his father Hassan the II such matters were kept as secret as nuclear launch codes. I don’t mean to say that the media totally ignored all that was wrong in Morocco until the liberalization, either. But when something was reported, it was done very carefully, with great care as to who was bore the blame. All of that changed in the years following the elevation to the throne of Mohammed VI.
Recently, however, there have been a number of setbacks and it has been hard to watch. Continue reading
Cable News Has Massive Information Resources, William Kamkwamba Has a Few Library Books. Who Makes Better Use?
I’m not one of those who get’s all his news from The Daily Show, I swear, but as Jon Stewart points out in this segment, it’s hard to get it anywhere else.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| CNN Leaves It There | ||||
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But at least they are making sure Saturday Night Live gets the facts straight.
And then there’s this guy. Look what he did with some scraps that, quite frankly, a junkyard owner wouldn’t have bothered to save.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| William Kamkwamba | ||||
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He did all that based on images in a library book? It took me hours to set up the surround sound in my family room, and I had diagrams and specific color coded cables! I’m calling William Kamkwamba next time. You know all those leaks in the Big Dig Tunnels Here in Boston where I live, they should have just told William Kamkwamba what they wanted done. Remember the Mars Climate Orbiter that NASA lost because they confused Metric and Imperial measurements? Maybe William Kamkwamba should have taken charge. I’m exaggerating, of course, but this kid’s story does make you wonder, if he can do that with what he had, what would he do with all the benefits I have. As he says in the interview, what if he had Google?
I've got an iPhone App!
Icon for Africas Islamic Experiences- History, Culture, and Politics
I’ve got an iPhone app! I don’t mean a new app on my iPhone. I’ve far too many of those already. I mean that is I have created an iPhone app…kind of…
What has really happened is that a book I helped edit has been turned into an application. The volume comes, in part, from a conference on Islam and Africa I helped organize as a graduate assistant under the direction of Ali A. Mazrui for his Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University. Before leaving the Institute when I began working for NITLE, my colleague and I had edited a number of the conference papers and begun initial steps toward assembling a volume on the topic. But as the book was not to be simply conference proceedings, but rather a truly cohesive collection of essays on the subject, the project wasn’t finished.
I wasn’t sure what happened to the project until Professor Mazrui sent me the book. I later discovered the app by accident when I was searching for applications that might be useful for the teaching of Arabic.
Though I am far from an impartial critic, I found it is an interesting and impressive volume, composed only in part of essays developed from papers delivered at the Islam and Africa conference. Because of this, I can’t take much credit for the book. It was, as Professor Mazrui so graciously acknowledges, a team effort, but it is definitely his vision, engagement and leadership that originated the project and saw it through to its completion.
Treaty of Peace and Friendship
Did you know:
Morocco is one of the first countries to recognize the independence of the United States as the Sultan Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdullah issued a declaration in 1777 allowing American ships access to Moroccan ports. In 1787 a Treaty of peace and friendship was signed in Marrakech and ratified in 1836. It is still in force making it the longest unbroken treaty in the U.S history.
The U.S had also its first consulate in Tangier in 1797 in a building given by the sultan Moulay Slimane. It is the oldest U.S diplomatic property in the world.
Below is the Treaty called the “Marrakech Treaty” in its original form as was written in 1786.
via Treaty of Peace and Friendship.
Project 10^100: Vote for the idea you believe will help the most people
Google says:
Project 10^100 is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.
You submitted more than 150,000 ideas.
We chose a handful of finalists.
Which ones should we make happen?
You tell us.
Here's Your Wake Up Call!
Unfortunately not enough people are hearing it, so click here to find out how you can continue to raise the alarm.
Homing pigeon faster than Internet? In S. Africa, the answer's yes.
If there ever was a story that laid bare the need for an improved information infrastructure for Africa, this is it.
This week, a South African call-center business, frustrated by persistently slow Internet speeds, decided to use a carrier pigeon named Winston to transfer 4 gigabytes of data between two of its offices, just 50 miles apart. At the same time, a computer geek pushed a button on his computer to send data the old-fashioned way, through the Internet.
Winston the pigeon won. It wasn’t even close.
“Winston arrived after two hours, six minutes, and 57 seconds,” says Kevin Rolfe, head of the information technology department at Unlimited Group, a call-center business based in Durban. As for the Internet data transfer, he says, “when we finally stopped the computer, about 100 megs had transferred, which is about 4 percent of the total.”
The incident was quite and embarrassment for South African ISPs and Winston the pidgeon became quite a celebrity with his own Facebook page, web site and Twitter account. As the article outlines, major efforts are underway to improve connectivity for Africa, and the importance cannot be underestimated. South Africa’s economy is developing, but it cannot do so without the proper 21st century infrastructure.
ActionAid UK: End poverty. Together.
This is a site worth having a look at: ActionAid UK: End poverty. Together.
ActionAid doesnt just tackle the effects of poverty.We also change what keeps people poor. ActionAid improves people’s lives every day. But we know that’s not enough. So we work relentlessly to change whatever is keeping them trapped in poverty. This means we have a better chance of ending poverty for good.
