· March, 2008

Stories about Humanitarian Response from March, 2008

Tajikistan: Politicized Navruz

  27 March 2008

Navruz is one of the main celebrations for Tajiks. This time — more than ever — it means end of one of the harshest winter in several decades. People could hardly wait for these warm days that have come with the beginning of spring. Navruz has been celebrated throughout the...

China: Vlogger helped Child Labor back to School

  27 March 2008

Xu Alun, a vlogger hammering away at a point that "truth is power", exposed a moving story of three child coal haulers in Biji, a small city in the south of China, and with an effective advocacy of QQ groups, the story tended to circulate immediately, arousing great public concern.

Brazil: Let us be courteous in the blogosphere

  26 March 2008

Pedro Dória [pt] is aghast with the increasingly aggressive comments in his blog and with no time to moderate them, he proposes the readers help him keeping courteous. “We're not barbarians, we are civilized. This is a democracy. Everyone is welcome no matter their creed, colour, belief, age, sex. In...

Afghanistan: Why Grow Poppy

  25 March 2008

Joshua Foust analyzes approaches to the problem of opium production in Afghanistan, and says that addressing opium requires a vast, multi-dimensional approach, combining anti-corruption efforts, a massive influx of money, subsidization of food or other cash crops.

China: Patriotism triggered, though under censorship

  19 March 2008

A brief record of the Chinese public opinion on Tibet unrest. Attention: they are all found inside the Great Firewall. But I believe they stand for a considerable part of us Chinese. Their information sources on which they judge and think might be filtered, but don’t laugh at that---- before the time tells what’s true, you might also be manipulated!

Armenia: Volunteerism

  19 March 2008

My Stay in Armenia recounts a recent visit to a school where the International Red Cross educated children on humanitarian work and volunteerism. The blog says that the latter in particular remains something “foreign” for most people in the country.

Japan: Support for Tibet

  17 March 2008

As fires rage on in the streets of Lhasa, bloggers in another part of the world have been anxiously following developments in Tibet with open eyes and open ears. Over the weekend, as mainstream media in Japan presented what many criticized as toned-down coverage of ongoing events in Lhasa, the word "Tibet" climbed to number one on Japanese blog search engines with thousands of entries largely in support of the uprising.

Afghanistan: Women Under Taliban and Now

  17 March 2008

Hadi1121 says that women in Afghanistan continue to suffer under the blessings of the Taliban, the tribal militias, religious fundamentalists and the government of Afghanistan. She offers a set of HRW's statistical data for 2006, and doubts that the stats for 2007 will be better.

Geospatial Technology and Human Rights

  15 March 2008

Varena at PingMag interviews Lars Bromley, director of the Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), who talks about how his group uses geospatial technology to digitally capture atrocities against civilians in Darfur, Zimbabwe, North Korea, the Gaza Strip and Burma.

Syria: Silence Over the “Bigger Holocaust”

On February 29th, Israel's Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai warned of "a bigger Holocaust" for the Palestinians. Syrian blogger Ayman, from the Damascene Blog, compares between the world's silence to that comment and the fuss made over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's alleged call to "wipe Israel off the map."

Tajikistan: Hunger to Replace Cold and Darkness

  13 March 2008

Tajikistan is a small country with big problems. The nation, particularly the rural population, is still suffering from energy crisis, but yet another crisis is going to embrace it very soon. This time it's about food. Neweurasia reports that Barki Tojik – the country's electricity monopolist – promises to solve...