Youth Voter Apathy Threatening 'Breakdown' in Japanese Democracy

 
 

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An Indian Dilemma: The Choice Between Internet Freedom and Public Safety

 
 

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Backstory: MBC Journalists Strike in South Korea

 
 

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Global Sprit Premieres Dreams, Visions & Realities and Live Web Chat January 22

Is the world out of balance because we do not understand the dreaming?

 

When I watched the new show, Dreams, Visions and Realities I was struck by how important it is that these two worlds come together... The dream time and the waking... the inner and the outer. It seems this conversation shows how it can be done... it shows us possibility of another way of being. One connected to the other, seamlessly.

As Dr. Stephen Aizenstat says in the show, dreams are important because they connect us to our essential nature and help us to navigate towards our true direction. It is a space we need to respect for there is an intelligence at work. What if every human was navigated by their true nature? How different would our relationships, sense of belonging, and the dynamics of our world, be?

 

One of the reasons we created GLOBAL SPIRIT is to engage you, our community, in a lively discussion -- and through the miracles of technology, this is possible. So please participate by watching the show on January 22, 9pm ET/6pm PT on Link TV or online, and engaging in the live chat with Dr. Stephen Aizenstat to follow. It's easy! Just go here.

 

You can post questions in advance here below, or on Facebook. Please invite your friends. We look forward to being with you on January 22. You never know... asking the right question of a dream specialist might just change your life.

 
 

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Chernobyl 25 Years Later: Screw Up or Cover Up?

Today, on the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl, Link TV's original production Earth Focus released a detailed exposé about the possibility of a massive cover up surrounding the 1986 nuclear disaster. According to the report, international agencies, the nuclear industry, and governments all ignore critical scientific data about the real impact of the fateful accident at Chernobyl.

Authors of a new book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment say that almost a million people worldwide have died since Chernobyl-- not 4,000 as officially claimed by theInternational Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organization. Watch the following report for an indepth look at the real consequences of the fallout from Chernobyl -- including birth defects, mental handicaps, and diminished human intelligence -- and for how long these effects will last:

 

 

Watch more episodes of Earth Focus.

 
 

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Libyan Rape Victim Refuses To Be Silenced

(Mosaic Video Alert: March 28, 2011) NBN reports on a new crime committed by Muammar Gaddafi and his regime: the rape of Iman al-Obeidi. The victim is a "lawyer who embodies the model Libyan woman, but bothered the regime for being a free woman.” Iman was detained and raped by 15 of Gaddafi's mercenaries. The regime first accused al-Obeidi of being drunk and mentally ill, then offered to bribe the rape victim in exchange for her silence, a request that was rejected. Benghazi residents held a solidarity rally with Iman and online activists rallied behind her with a Facebook page entitled "We are all Iman al-Obeidi."

 

 
 

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Palestinians Rally for National Unity as Syrians Demand Political Reform

(Mosaic Video Alert: March 15, 2011) The BBC reports on pro-democracy protests in Syria in which hundreds of Syrians took to the streets of the capital Damascus, chanting slogans and demanding political reforms. Protestors marched from the Hamadiyah Market to the area of Hariqa calling for freedom. This unprecedented mobilization in Syria was organized on Facebook. In the West Bank city of Ramallah, hundreds of protestors gathered in response to a call made by youth groups on Facebook. Dubai TV reports that demonstrators called for an end to internal Palestinian division between Fatah and Hamas. They chanted slogans demanding national unity and appealed to both Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

 

 
 

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Tonight on Mosaic: Libya's violence extends to Az-Zawiyah

Al Jazeera's Arabic language channel reports that Gaddafi's forces violently attacked protestors in the Libyan cities of Misurata and Az-Zawiyah this morning. Eyewitnesses say that Gaddafi's troops were armed with machine guns and that dozens of people were injured and killed.

 

Reporters from Dubai TV stationed at the Egyptian-Libyan border state that Egyptian workers are pouring across the Salum border crossing. Thousands of buses wait on the Egyptian side of the border to transport people returning from Libya. Of the 1.5 million Egyptians residing and working in Libya, nearly 20,000 have returned to Egypt in the past few days with haunting stories of the atrocities they witnessed in Libya.

 

In Yemen, BBC Arabic reports that President Ali Abdullah Saleh ordered security forces to protect protestors and prevent confrontations between pro- and anti-government demonstrators. This came after two people were killed and eleven were injured in clashes that erupted two days ago near Sana'a University.

 

Protests also persist in Bahrain, where demonstrators have filled Pearl Roundabout to mark the one-week anniversary of "Bloody Thursday." The tens of thousands who continue to protest in Pearl Square say they will not withdraw before their goals of constitutional and political reform are met.

 

New TV reports that in Beirut, many Lebanese youths were disappointed at the poor attendance at an anti-Libyan regime rally organized on Facebook. While many expressed enthusiasm for the rally, only a small number of people attended. A Lebanese Gaddafi impersonator provided extra flair to the protest.

 

NBN also reports on Muammar al-Gaddafi, describing his madness as "laughable and tragic." The Libyan dictator depicted himself as a Greek god and said that he is the one who created Libya and will also be the one to save it. The report includes an interview in which Gaddafi gives his own unique definition of democracy.

 

 

 
 

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Gaddafi's Sanity in Question

NBN reports on Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, describing his madness as "laughable and tragic." The Libyan dictator reached a new low when he described himself as a Greek god and said that he is the one who created Libya and will also be the one to save it. The report includes an interview with Gaddafi in which he gives his own unique definition of democracy.

 

 

 

Lebanese Impersonator Ridicules Gaddafi

New TV reports that in Beirut, many Lebanese youths were disappointed at the poor attendance at an anti-Libyan regime rally which was organized on Facebook. While many expressed enthusiasm for the rally online, only a small number of people actually attended. However, their deprecation and ridicule of the Libyan leader and regime was made evident by a Gaddafi impersonator.

 

 
 

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Tunisia: Social Justice or Social Media?

I arrived in Tunis on January 1, only a few days after a wave of rallies had erupted due to the suicide of an unemployed college graduate, who torched himself after police confiscated his fruit cart, cutting off his only source of income. Mohammed Bouazizi, 26, sold fruit and vegetables without the necessary vendor's permit in the town of Sidi Bouzid, located 160 miles from the country's capital Tunis.

At the time, Tunisians had been protesting for a couple of weeks over poor living conditions, high unemployment, government corruption and repression. Three people had been killed in the protests by the time of my arrival. The atmosphere was tense, public protests were rare in Tunisia where dissent was usually repressed; however, no one I spoke to in Tunis believed then that these demonstrations would lead to the ouster of President Zein El Abidine Ben Ali who eventually fled the country to Saudi Arabia after ruling Tunisia for 23 years.

The Jasmine Revolution, as it is dubbed now, was not televised on Tunisia's main television station, Tunisie7, nor did it make headlines in the local press, but the news spread like wildfire on Facebook, YouTube, mobile phone, and to a lesser extent on Twitter (most of the tweets were from outside Tunisia).

Prior to my arrival to Tunis, I had spent the past five weeks in the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Territories debating social media, its impact on youth, and its relationship with journalism in the Arab world with my interlocutors.

It is very easy, but over-simplistic and naive to decide on a social media interpretation for the Jasmine Revolution, as we have been witnessing by many bloggers and self-appointed Middle East experts, many of whom neither speak Arabic nor have spent an extended period of time in the Middle East. They desperately want to convince us that Tunisians needed an external technological Western invention in order to succeed. A Twitter revolution of some sorts, as they previously labeled the Iranian Velvet Revolution, as though Arab masses were not capable on their own of saying "enough is enough."

Certainly social media was used as a communication tool for Tunisians to air their frustrations with the economy, unemployment, censorship, and corruption. But many factors lead to its success, such as a well organized trade unions movement, and the most potent weapon in the Arab world, the youth.

Population ageing is widespread across the world, but most Arab countries have been experiencing a youth explosion. More than one third of them are now unemployed. Tunisia is a bit different since it is one of the few Arab countries that opted for a family planning policy initiated during the rule of its first president, Habib Bourguiba. Tunisia, however, has also adopted a development plan with a focus on higher education, leaving a large number of young college graduates unemployed.

When I was driving around in Tunis, posters of President Zein El Abidine Ben Ali were sprinkled throughout the city with the slogan, "Together We Meet Challenges," a slogan meant to tout his plan of development by focusing on job creation, increasing revenue and enhancing Tunisia's positioning and influence on the regional and international scales. This obviously has failed, leaving a country of over- educated youth, many of whom are unemployed or doing menial jobs. Mohammed Bouazizi was the catalyst for their revolution.

Today, millions of Arab youth are disenchanted with politics and live a dramatic rupture with the state. Restrictions on freedom of expression, though improving in several countries, dominate the mass media in the Arab world. Social media has in many instances opened the door for them not only to share ideas, but also to take action. We've seen a vivid example of this during the Jeddah floods when the Saudi government tried to suppress the news about the devastation caused by nature due to poor infrastructure in the Arab world's richest country, but the news quickly spread on Facebook and the internet by concerned young Saudis. We've witnessed a bread revolution in Egypt, also driven by high unemployment and poverty; again initially transmitted to the outside world by young bloggers before it became international headlines.

Throughout history, when social discontent can no longer be contained, people have taken to the street to demand change. Having the most rudimentary technology, or none at all have not prevented these movements, a case in point being hand printed pamphlets distributed prior to the French Revolution, Gandhi's ability to inspire and mobilize through the exponential power of word of mouth, and the leaflets and tape recordings of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini speeches that were smuggled into the country prior to the Iranian Revolution.

Mohammed Bouazizi's self immolation was the expression not only of his despair, but that of youth throughout Tunisia ready to explode. Although they are an educated tech-savvy generation who were able to use social media as a tool, the underlying force was not a byproduct of this and the current situation would have come to pass with or without it.

Crediting social media with these revolutions however, trivializes them and does a disservice to the deep rooted issues that cause them.

As I was leaving Tunis on January 4, news spread again like wildfire of Mohammed Bouazizi's death at a hospital in the town of Ben Arous. Today, Mohsen Bouterfif died. Mohsen doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire on Thursday after a meeting with the mayor of the small city of Boukhadra who was unable to provide him with a job and housing. Boukhadra is in Algeria.

 

Article first published on the Huffington Post

 
 

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