I need a push

This is exactly how I feel.

NSA surveillance easily explained

A video by the Guardian explaining in a simple manner how online spying by Governments and private actors works.  

Need food and not football. #Brazil

Need FOOD and not football graffiti in Brazil. 

Thank you.

#WeDontRideCamels

I am in the process of exploring the Arab versions of well-known 'Western' websites & platforms.   
Souq.com is the Middle East's version of Amazon established in 2005. [Souq means market]

My favourite is Zoomaal. Zoomaal is a crowdfunding platform in the Arab world (like Kickstarter) - with an emphasis on artistic projects.

This is Zoomaal's twitter handle. Their motto is 'We Don't Ride Camels' pointing out that Arabs are creative too. I concur. 

lego people v people

via the magnificent xkcd
permanent link here

Doha - daily

3 reasons why India is a game changer in international affairs

1. Pharmaceutical companies & stupid patents over meds 
A few months ago the Indian Supreme Court refused to allow one of the world leading pharmaceutical companies to patent a new version of a cancer drug. Novartis lost a 6 year legal battle since the court decided that a few minor changes and improvements to the drug did not amount to innovation deserving a patent. Had the court asserted  that the drug is a new one, the manufacturer's (Novartis) control would extend over the new version of the drug. This judgment allows poor people to access medicines in cheaper and almost affordable to them prices. It also paves the way for similar rulings in the future in other countries as well. 

[Ironically enough this drug was manufactured in the first place in the US mostly due to public funding and now it is under Novartis intellectual property (see techdirt's brief but concise account and the NYTimes).]

2. Publishers & copyright
India will raise in December the issue of the copyright of textbooks in the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). India will ask for the modification of the strict copyright criteria when it comes to the educational use of academic textbooks and the students' right to photocopy them.  

3. Cyberspace & illegal interception of communications 
India with Brazil and South Africa - the so-called IBSA Grouping - openly pointed out that the unauthorised practice of illegal interception of communications and data is a serious violation of national sovereignty and individual rights. Even though I am not 100% on the same side with these countries regarding their motives or even the precise way that they frame their disagreements, I have to give them that they stand up.  

Go India! In the Queen's name.

Banksy in NY

Breakfast of the champions is strong coffee & new Banksy.

less details

Sometimes less details is better. 

I like this software program cos it reminds me of the moments I find sea shells on the beach. I pick up the old, broken and imperfect ones. Their imperfection reveals to you their fundamental structure and hence their beauty. 

A story of the seed and controlling & monopolising knowledge

This is an excellent 30' min documentary on the story of a seed. It is not only about biodiversity and traditional farming. It is about owning, controlling and monopolising knowledge. To my mind, companies creating genetically modified seeds and raising intellectual property rights to the expense of all farmers is incomprehensible and absurd. Fool stop.  

It is really worth watching it.  

pictures of justice

Ministry of Justice, The Hague 

Ministry of Justice, The Hague

Ministry of Justice, The Hague

The Hague

Atlas

Torture room, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

One of the leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodia

   

Victims of the Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodia

Bangkok

let's play cowboys & indians

The 9th of August has been marked as the international day of the world's indigenous peoples. 

Besides a United Nations rather unimaginative statement, Playmobil has a new play set. It is called Native Americans 2.0. 

I am not quite sure what is the message that they are trying to convey. I can only speculate. I also wonder whether this could be a long-term project, let's say whether Playmobil will promote internet literacy skills to other indigenous peoples too. 

I am confused though about how we are supposed to play cowboys and indians now.   

Native Americans 2.0 pic.twitter.com/nivU9IJytm
— PLAYMOBIL (@playmobil) August 8, 2013

Our coolness and humanity

In case you do not know Raoul Wallenberg, he was a remarkable person. He was a Swedish architect and diplomat who saved tens of thousands Jews in the Nazi-occupied Hungary during World War II by issuing them protective passports and providing them with shelter. He was eventually arrested in 1945 by KGB and found dead in Moscow. 

Wallenberg was also a cool guy. I was reading a bit about his life and during his stay at the USA studying architecture he wrote a letter to his grandfather appraising his new passion at the time, hitchhiking. He wrote: 

when you travel like a hobo, everything is different. You have to be on alert the whole time. You are in close contact with new people every day. Hitchhiking gives you training in diplomacy and tact.    

 

I 'met' Wallenberg in London at the Great Cumberland Place. A monument of him was right across my hotel. He says that we must retain our coolness and humanity. It seemed that someone had shared a drink with him. 

By air, sea, land ... and in cyberspace

'By air, sea, land', isn't this that we have been told when it comes to ensuring our security?

Now it is: 'by air, sea, land and in cyberspace', as per the screenshot of my Facebook page. 

Interesting. 

Ooops copyright. Seriously?

AlJazeera's Stream on the 30th of May 2013 had Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, speaking to the Stream about the future of online whistleblowing and the upcoming Bradley Manning trial. 

Assange would take questions from people all around the world. At least that was the plan. 

This is the screenshot from my laptop.

However, people in other countries would get this. 

via pic.twitter.com/iJgLuds0Yn

photos

First two photos were taken at Bath, UK and the third at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow.

Barbie dream house: A note of defence of the Barbie State

I suppose we all know Barbie. I was introduced to Barbie when I was 4ish but we were not a match at first sight. Barbie now has a life-size doll dream house in Berlin, down town at Alexanderplatz. 1,400 square meters of Barbie and Barbie and Barbie and Barbie. I just cant get enough.  

via barbie, barbie, barbie, barbie

Some people in Berlin don't like the Barbie dream house. So i drafted a brief note of defence. It could be also be read as a modest manifesto towards the creation of the Barbie State.

- Barbie is now 53 years of age and time stands still! *happy face* [still like a layer of concrete]

- Also, if I am not mistaken, Barbie is with Ken for such a long time. I call this good principles. I am a bit concerned though because I did not see any sign of Ken in the dream house. I would hate to make any kind of dreadful suggestions but only that he is on a business trip [who knows? maybe forever]

- Barbie rarely eats really and this is the reason that no food will be served at Barbie's cafe. Eat you greens people, or preferably eat nothing. 

- Barbie has such a superb lifestyle and clothes. You are just SO jealous cos you are a brunet.

- Everybody attacks Barbie, from Saudi Arabia to the FBI. She has even been accused of promoting child pornography - seriously. So unfair *sad face* 

- 'Thinking gives you wrinkles'. Damn right! [see Simpsons, 5th Season, 14th episode]

- Anti-barbie activists strongly protested against the dream house. They even have an Occupy group. Occupy barbie?? What is the problem with you people? 'Barbie wants women to do well', this is what the spokeswoman, Stephanie Wegener, stated. If you do not trust her, go and ask the feminists; for if it were not for Barbie, we would not know what a bikini is and how to eat gracefully. [Prunks] 

- What everybody misses here is the BIG PICTURE. In an ideal world Barbie would have created her own State: the Barbie State. In the Barbie State everybody would be happy. In the unlikely event that someone would not be happy, he/she would get deported. The Barbie State would be the utopian Kantian model of a State. We are not there yet. But the dream house is a start.  

#OpGTMO: hunger games & tweeter politics

Many prisoners in Guantanamo are on hunger strike for 100 days. That is more than 3 months. They are force-fed for some time now which is a painful process. This is where force-feeding takes place, a picture by Jason Leopold, an investigative journalist who has access to the premises of Guantanamo. 

via pic.twitter.com/T5z3rmIp6W

The hacktivist group Anonymous launched a new Op (eration) to mark the 100 days on hunger strike: #OpGTMO17 or #GTMO17 which stands for Operation Guantanamo 17th of May (2013). The plan was to create a twitter storm in order to raise awareness. It is a well-organised operation with an independent twitter handle @OpGTMO (Operation Guantanamo) and an Information Centre providing guidelines on the twitterstorm package (worldwide countdown, hashtags, things to tweet). Same thing happened for the 18th & 19th of May. The twitterstorm did happen since the hashtag trended No 1 in the US and at least No 3 worldwide which is good work. I suppose Eurovision had its fair piece of the cake too. 

What is all the more interesting however is the silence: not the RTs but the absence of RT's; not only who used the hashtag but those who did not; not those who talked about the twitterstorm but those who failed to report on this event.

The only large news agency on twitter that mentioned #GTMO17 is the @AJStream (AlJazeera Stream):    

Day 100 of #Guantanamo hunger strike marked by online twitterstorm #OpGTMO #GTMO17 aje.me/17GyFrVinstagram.com/p/Za9E9LjBp-/
— The Stream (@AJStream) May 17, 2013

@AJEnglish merely retweeted @AJStream:

Day 100 of #Guantanamo hunger strike marked by online twitterstorm #OpGTMO #GTMO17 aje.me/17GyFrV via @ajstream
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 17, 2013

Two differences between @AJEnglish and @AJStream. @AJEnglish has a bit more than 1,5 mil followers whereas @AJStream has almost 90,000 followers. Both are part of AlJazeera, but let's say that @AJEnglish reflects the official policy of the network whereas @AJStream is a 'web community and daily Television show powered by social media and citizen journalism'. 

CNN had nothing to say on twitter. Although they had a very instructive reportage on their website on the harsh conditions the GUARDS at Guantanamo Bay deal with everyday. God bless America. If you are up for it, here is the link.

Now turning to BBC. @BBCBreaking reported in detail: 

$1m (£650,000) worth of jewels due to be loaned to #Cannes film festival stars reportedly stolen from hotel room safe bbc.in/17Edbff
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) May 17, 2013

Of course, after 5 years in England I am in position to appreciate the priorities:

How to make the perfect mint tea gu.com/p/3fqth/tw via @guardianfood
— The Guardian (@guardian) May 18, 2013 

But what about @mediaguardian? Nope, nothing there either which makes you question what the Guardian means by media in the first place.

Another interesting note is that Amnesty International was inclined towards using the hashtags #Guantanamo and #CloseGitmo. Very reluctant towards using #GTMO17, although it did use the said hashtag once. 

Amnesty member, who lost sister during Sept 11, talks about justice and the need to #closegitmo owl.li/l9fQ8 #GTMO17
— AmnestyInternational (@amnesty) May 17, 2013

@ICRC, the International Committee of the Red Cross, which does give its battles for closing down Guantanamo, did not think that it is important to tweet on the twitterstorm or take part in the digital protest.  

You draw your own conclusions. 

Jason Leopold REPORTS:

:D MT @jasonleopold Just arriving in Fla from week at # GITMO. No wifi. Base commander ordered it shut down until Mon due to #OPGtmo threat.
— Operation Guantanamo (@OpGTMO) May 18, 2013

A lighthouse in land

This photo was taken at a remote place outside Leeds, UK. 

The British flag is obviously an eye-catcher. As Rob and Ruth walked away, I kept staring at this place because I had the feeling that I was missing something. 

It took me some time, but I now think that this is a tiny, tiny, semi-autonomous polis - the prototype of contemporary States. An one-man land. The presence of the flag is compelling. We use flags to include and unite but for the sole aim to exclude, to demarcate territory and to establish and assert authority. It gives you the impression that someone is waiting for something or rather guards. Like a coast guard lighthouse. Except that this is a lighthouse in land.

Simple living

I am not really into copyright law issues. I am however into freedom of expression and copyright gets into your way ALL the time. I do not have anything against copyright as such. Once upon a time copyright used to make sense: protecting to a certain extent creators' rights AND serving creators' interests. At the end of the day creators, authors, artists have to make a living somehow. I am not sure that copyright makes much sense nowadays though. When it comes to authors/academics they publish most of their work into research articles for which they get nothing whereas the publisher/journal makes a fortune out of it selling it at ridiculously high prices. Not to mention that knowledge remains confined to a certain elite who can actually afford the respective individual or institutional subscriptions. I do not think that copyright serves creativity anymore. There is an extraordinary lecture out there by Lawrence Lessing, a Professor at Harvard Law School on 'Aaron's Laws: Law and Justice in a Digital Age'. I can promise you that it is all worth watching it.      

Having said that, not only copyright gets into the way of freedom of expression all the time, but also the first trumps the second. This is the courts' practice at the moment - on the national and international level. There is however one case which proved otherwise. I recently came it across. 

Nadia Plesner is an artist living in the Netherlands. After a tragic accident and while going through two painful and distressing years, she came up with a very interesting idea. Nadia was concerned about the fact that mass media prioritises the wrong things. And she decided to do something about this. She created Simple Living. You can read more details on her website.

Credit to Nadia Plesner, http://www.nadiaplesner.com/simple-living--darfurnica1

You may have encountered Simple Living before. The picture depicts a little boy from Darfur. He holds a Chihuahua dressed in pink and a Louis Vuitton handbag. The picture and the accessories obviously point out to celebrities and Nadia Plesner had a specific one in mind. (It is not that difficult to take a guess). Simple Living became well-known and raised awareness. In fact Plesner says that she sold for the benefit of an organisation dedicated to helping people in Darfur. As expected, Louis Vuitton was not very happy with this. 

The story becomes predictable at this point. In 2011 Louis Vuitton goes to courts asking Plesner to stop using its community design. The specific handbag, which listens to the name 'Audra bag', involves a pattern of graphic symbols which is of course protected by industrial design, a particular type of intellectual property right. Thus, on one hand, Louis Vuitton invokes its right to the protection of its intellectual property and, on the other hand, Nadia Plesner argues for her right to freedom of expression (in this instance artistic form of expression). Typically, courts almost always accept that the intellectual property right is a legitimate and necessary restriction to the freedom of expression. But not this time!  

The Dutch appeal court (I will spare you with the details of the case, you can read an unofficial translation in english here) dismissed Louis Vuitton's claims. Instead it concluded that there is nothing unlawful in using Simple Living and the Audra bag as an eye-catcher for Plesner's exhibitions. Important considerations in  the court's assessment was that Plenser used these for a non-exclusively commercial purpose and for mainstreaming a critical message of contemporary societies. It gets better: Louis Vuitton was ordered to pay Plesner's legal expenses :) 

Win! Well-done to the Dutch court. As far as I know and from a quick search online, Louis Vuitton did not pursue this complaint  further. My guess is that Louis Vuitton would not take the risk to be implicated in a case which would attract more negative publicity.            

A little bit of creativity on the side, please

For a couple of months now I teach international human rights law in Doha. Although it is a course offered by the school of law, my students have many different educational backgrounds - from science and computer science to international affairs and law. This fact gives a challenging aspect to the course because on one hand you have to teach trained lawyers and at the same time you need to introduce  the basics to students who have no legal background. Someone would think that the level of the course is lower than expected which is only half-way through to the truth. 

Now that we are in the 10th week of the course and students are already familiar with the basic concepts and structure of international human rights law, I witness an unprecedented creativity on behalf of many of the students. The fact that they are 'outsiders' and they are not familiar with international law generally (this applies to lawyers too) puts them in a unique position. If you judge and assess this creativity according to typical (technical) standards only (i.e. is this the correct answer to my question?) it means that you are naive - at least in my view. Students have an extraordinary way to perceive the knowledge you are trying to convey to them and their questions reflect this. 

The other day I was trying to explain that an international court provides for a remedy to victims when a given human right is violated. I gave some examples of the concept of remedy, like financial compensation etc., and then I asked if this was clear to them. A student raised her hand and said 'so, this is a way to give the human right back to the victim, correct?'. A trained lawyer would think that this is a silly thing to say and that you can never 'give the right back'. However, her comment left me speechless for a moment. It took me some seconds to realise that one could not come up with a simpler and more accurate way to explain the meaning of remedy. 

Some days ago the students had for an assignment to identify positive and negative points of an international treaty on human rights. I gave to one of my students a 9/10 mark even though overall the content of the assignment was average. This is because he thought, wrote and suggested something that even lawyers would not think easily. He was criticising a specific provision of the treaty and he found natural to suggest that the various rights included in this provision should be broken down into two separate provisions, which by the way it was a very good suggestion. However, besides it being a good suggestion, it is not easy for anyone to re-arrange a given structure, which is the essence of creativity.

If you are not very careful, you can easily oversee this row, amorphous (yet) creativity. I, in my turn, there is not much I can do but keep challenging them and help them unfold their creativity on all levels. This is the video we watched couple of weeks ago :)

Operation 'Teddy Bear'

Speaking of Cold War last time I thought I should write something on the Teddy Bear incident. In July 2012 Belarus was invaded by parachuting teddy bears. This is not some kind of a metaphor or a joke; it is a fact. 

via OSCE & credit to Studio Total

A Swedish marketing and advertising agency, Studio Total, well-known for its creative ideas decided to take action against Belarus' authoritative regime which is led by Alexander Sukashanko, 'Europe's last dictator'. In an effort to raise awareness for the violations of the freedom of speech in Belarus and in order to show their support to human rights activists Studio Total planned and implemented the Operation TeddyBear Airdrop Minsk 2012 (documented on Wikipedia): they flew from Lithuania to Belarus in their own private plane and dropped 879 teddy bears in Belarusian territory. The teddy bears were holding pro-democracy slogans and messages. You can watch the Youtube video here. 

As expected Sukashenko did not really appreciate this tender gesture and he surely did not have a good laugh. Instead, he fired two generals and initiated criminal proceedings against a journalist who published online photos of the cute teddy bears (OSCE press release asking Belarusian authorities to drop charges) and against a Belarusian border guard. The guard was convicted recently  (February 2013) to two years imprisonment in a maximum security prison for failing to report the invasion (BBC news). But the teddy bear row did not end here. Belarus effectively expelled Sweden's ambassador even though no tangible evidence seemed to exist between Studio Total's stunt and Sweden. Sweden in its turn reacted by expelling the Belarusian diplomatic authorities from the country and the EU took an official position supporting Sweden in the teddy bear incident. Studio Total's activists were of course summoned by KGB - Belarus security agency - for questioning over illegal crossing into Belarus' airspace. I have no idea if they went to Belarus to testify; if I were in their shoes I would not. 

But I had a feeling that teddy bears' involvement in diplomatic affairs and international law extends well beyond the Belarus incident. Since google did not reveal anything of interest I took the initiative and searched Wikileaks online archives. Teddy bears are implicated in the black market in Saudi Arabia. A cable titled 'Roses are red and blacklisted: Saudi Arabia not feeling the love on Valentine's day' attests the USA preoccupation due to the fact that teddy bears are banned on Valentine's day. However, the cable continues, young lovers travel to other countries to find their teddy bears. The cable worth a read for more details.     
Also, it appears that diplomatic personnel are quite keen on teddy bear terminology. For example, back to 2008 the US states that Russia is a country which is 'more a teddy than an Angry bear'. Or the US embassy in Armenia thought that Turkey exploits its 'harmless, teddy-bear image'. 

There are even more interesting cables if you decide to do the same search providing strong evidence that teddy bear tender has developed invisible threads with international affairs. Last but not least 2 days ago it came to the surface that AA Milne, author of the Winnie the Pooh, was a secret propagandist during World War I working for MI7b, a not very well-known British secret intelligence agency.   

Nothing shall be the same anymore. I will stop here before I destroy everybody's nice childhood memories. Recommended Song: Elvis Presley, Let me be your teddy bear.

tweet pro quo v.2

♯1

Today in Stories: 'There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.' - Maya Angelou, born today in 1928.
— The Story Museum (@TheStoryMuseum) April 4, 2013 

♯2

Submit your application. Really?

Call for applications: Independent Expert on situation of #humanrights in #Mali & IE [...] in #Haiti: goo.gl/3AIQJ. #hrc
— HRC SECRETARIAT (@UN_HRC) April 4, 2013

♯3

I would discourage you from submitting your application here though

US offers reward for Uganda warlord Kony aje.me/YUi9PJ
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 4, 2013

♯4
Financial crisis is everywhere by now.

Video: Spanish princess accused of corruption aje.me/YTXmfj
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 4, 2013

♯5

Cuba ballet says seven dancers defected in Mexico last month reut.rs/12gzWnT
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) April 3, 2013

♯6

President @barackobama prepared to accept cuts to pensions in return for higher taxes on the rich, White House says bbc.in/Y2sohE
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) April 5, 2013

Yep, sounds like a bargain.


♯7

I bet that you will need to read this twice to realise what it says. It's payback time. 

On @ajstream : What impact will the influx of Europeans emigrating to #Africa for work have on local populations?aje.me/16ymLgK
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 5, 2013

♯8
Expertise

@timkarr iToilet apps can solve the problem
— Omar (@AllWeAskFor) March 26, 2013