Nonviolent action around the world – 5 February 2010 (Part 2)

Power vacuum leaves Nigeria on life support
By: Lauren Gelfand, WPR, February 4, 2010
When Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua left the country in November 2009 to seek treatment for a heart ailment, few anticipated that both he and Africa’s most populous country would end up on life support.
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Malawi man arrested for posters on gay rights
By: AP, February 3, 2010
A man has been arrested for putting up posters championing gay rights, police said on Tuesday, adding they were searching for other Malawians they believe are working with foreigners in the campaign.
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Morocco, Polisario to resume informal Western Sahara talks
By: Patrick Worsnip, Reuters, February 3, 2010
Morocco and Western Sahara’s independence movement will resume talks next week to try to make headway in the 35-year dispute over the Northwest African territory, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
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Human Rights Watch report draws fire in Morocco
By: Sarah Touahri, Magharebia, February 2, 2010
Morocco has strongly criticised a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, and the response to the document in Moroccan civil society has been divided.
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Zimbabwe: Mining giant hails Zim operating environment
By: Andrew Moyo, ZimOnline, February 2, 2010
Zimbabwe’s biggest platinum miner, Zimplats, has hailed the calm operating environment in the country since formation of a unity government between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai but noted that the September 2008 power-sharing agreement had not been fully implemented.
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After massacre, Guinea sees hope of lifted chains
By: Adam Nossiter, NY Times, February 2, 2010
Something rare has happened in a region often given to brutal autocracy: power has been peacefully transferred to a civilian, just four months after an army massacre that recalled the worst of Africa’s past.
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Guinea: Nation’s road to democracy
By: All Africa, February 1, 2010
Recent moves to return Guinea to democracy are commendable and should be supported by all. The West African state has been in a state of limbo since December 3, 2009 when the leader of the military junta, Capt Moussa Dadis Camara, was wounded in an assassination attempt by a former aide.
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US: Obama condemns Uganda anti-gay bill as ‘odious’
By: BBC News, February 4, 2010
US President Barack Obama has criticised as “odious” proposed anti-homosexuality legislation in Uganda. The bill calls for long jail terms or the death penalty in some cases of homosexual intercourse.
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US: Clinton says no to swapping U.S. hikers for Iranians
By: Jill Dougherty, CNN, February 3, 2010
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday “there are no negotiations taking place” between Washington and Iran on the idea of exchanging three U.S. hikers held in Iran for Iranians being held in the U.S.
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‘Partner, not enemy’: Depoliticising civic space in Nicaragua
By: Mark Nowottny and Adam Nord, CIVICUS, February 2010
Daniel Ortega remains an unavoidably contentious figure in Latin American politics. Known most widely outside of the region as leader of the armed struggle which brought about the end of the Somoza dictatorship in July 1979, his political reincarnation as a democratically elected leader in 2006, for many at the time, pointed to the latest shift towards the left in Latin America. What, in such a politically charged environment, are the prospects for cooperation and collaboration between government and civil society?
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Cuba’s internet revolution edges forward, with limits
By: Isabel Sanchez, AFP, February 3, 2010
Yoan used to earn 25 dollars a month working as a computer technician for a state company — and an extra 500 dollars selling Internet access on Cuba’s vast and varied black market. The 31-year-old managed 10 accounts for government employees who had authorized email access and would rent out their passwords to trusted clients under certain rules: they could only connect at night or in the early hours, and had to avoid political references.
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Canadian mining and popular resistance in Honduras
By: Todd Gordon and Jeffery R. Webber, The Bullet, February 2, 2010
Todd Gordon and Jeffery R. Webber interview Carlos Danilo Amador, General Secretary of the Regional Environmental Committee of the Valle de Siria, about Canadian Mining and resistance in Honduras.
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Argentina: Tomas Eloy Martinez, author of novels about the Perons, dies
By: Emma Brown, Washington Post, February 4, 2010
Tomás Eloy Martínez, 75, an Argentine journalist and novelist who wrote two international bestsellers about former Argentine president Juan Domingo Perón and his glamorous, beloved-by-the-masses wife, Eva Perón, died Jan. 31 at his home in Buenos Aires. He had a brain tumor.
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Belarusian journalist jailed for hooliganism
By: RFE, February 4, 2010
Independent Belarusian journalist Ivan Shulha was convicted today of petty hooliganism and sentenced to 10 days in jail, RFE/RL’s Belarus Service reports.
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Belarus: Opposition activists expelled from universities
By: Charter 97, February 3, 2010
Professors of the Belarusian National technical University were forced to low grades to an opposition activist to expel him from university. He was a first year student of instrument-making faculty of the BNTU.
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Britons get a Western Sahara moment
By: Cathrin Lemoine, PR Fire, February 3, 2010
The increase of reports of violence and human rights abuses against Saharawis in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara has alarmed human rights organisations and activists all over the world. Gordon Brown’s Western Sahara moment during Prime Ministers Questions session (January 13th) highlighted the general lack of awareness in Britain about the grave human rights problems afflicting the former Spanish colony.
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Russia: Kremlin shocked as Kaliningrad stages huge anti-government protest
By: Luke Harding, The Guardian, February 2, 2010
Dmitry Medvedev sent his special envoy to the western outpost of Kaliningrad – today after thousands of Russians took to the streets in the largest rally since the fall of the Soviet Union. The protest, staged at the weekend, saw between 10,000 and 12,000 people gather in Kaliningrad’s main square to demand the resignation of the governor and shout slogans against the ruling United Russia party.
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Ten questions to people-power your activist campaign
By: Brian Fitzgerald’s Blog, February 4, 2010
Over the weekend, a few of us who’ve been doing public engagement and movement building work gathered with some of our campaigners to talk about what works and what doesn’t when creating campaigns that are intended to draw on the power of the public. We came up with what I think is a pretty good list of questions that an issue expert or campaigner can ask if they want to win their campaign with people power.
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Protestors gather at Tiffany stores worldwide
By: Survival International, February 3, 2010
Survival supporters demonstrated today outside Tiffany stores in London, San Francisco, Madrid, Paris and Berlin to protest at the company funding water boreholes for game animals on Bushman land where the people are forbidden access to their own borehole.
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Iran: Ouverture d’une nouvelle série de procès staliniens
By: RSF, February 3, 2010
Le 30 janvier 2010, s’est ouverte – devant la 15e chambre du tribunal révolutionnaire de Téhéran – la nouvelle audience du procès chargé de juger les opposants à la réélection de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Seize personnes comparaîtront pour avoir participé aux récentes manifestations, notamment celles du 27 décembre 2009.
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Guinée: Nuages sur la transition
By: Jean-Claude Kongo, Courrier International, February 2, 2010
A moins de six mois de l’élection présidentielle, la transition démocratique tarde à se mettre en place. Le nouveau gouvernement n’est toujours pas formé, et l’arrestation, pendant vingt-quatre heures, du colonel Moussa Keita a semé encore un peu plus le trouble.
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