Tumbling From The Cave

everydayafrica: A man breaks up a fight between a group of...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:56:09 -0400

A man breaks up a fight between a group of girls in Abidjan, Ivory Coast on January 13, 2013. He was passing by and rushed over to stop them. “It takes a village to raise a child.” Photo by Peter DiCampo @pdicampo #abidjan #ivorycoast #children #girls #fight #latergram

Depressing journalism chart of the day. bostonreview: Why the...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 08:32:35 -0400

Depressing journalism chart of the day.

bostonreview:

Why the Washington Post and other newspapers need pay walls. (Via The Atlantic)

buildingmarkets: We hope you had a restful and joyous New...

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 16:02:03 -0500

buildingmarkets:

We hope you had a restful and joyous New Year! Our project is going well and we’re excited – and to that end, here are some recent stories of Afghanistan, human rights, and markets in the news. Let us know of any interesting or relevant articles or pieces you see in your reading travels!

Shopkeepers and businesspeople affected by the fire at Kabul’s Mandawi (main commercial district) are exempt from tax for the next 4 years – Wadsam Afghan News Business Portal

What’s at stake for Afghan women – Gayle Tzemach Lemmon for CNN

Another Afghan Buddhist archeological site is threatened because it sits on top of a copper mine – NYT

Afghan government raising tariffs on imported fruit juices in a move to protect local production – Wadsam Afghan News Business Portal

A beautiful set of photos of Afghan landscapes – Warkadang on Tumblr

Bleak humanitarian outlook for 2013 in Afghanistan – IRIN

Afghan refugees living in Kabul battle deadly cold as winter sets in – NYT

Great photos from a press conference of the Afghanistan Forum for Electoral Reforms – Thru Afghan Eyes

Insight: Once a symbol of new Afghanistan, can policewomen survive? – Reuters

Energy Drinks Take Afghanistan By Storm – Radio Free Europe

Top Human Rights stories on Twitter in 2012 – HRW

Long road ahead for Afghan women – Heather Barr for HRW

(Photo credit to Frédéric Lagrange: “The grasslands that surround Lake Chaqmaqtin, Afghanistna, sustain herds of goat, sheep, and yak.”)

UN Officer Hired By Dyncorp To investigate Forced Prostitution Is Fired Once She Discovers That The Main Perpetrators Were UN Police (Must Read)

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:02:10 -0500

UN Officer Hired By Dyncorp To investigate Forced Prostitution Is Fired Once She Discovers That The Main Perpetrators Were UN Police (Must Read):

anarcho-queer:

A former United Nations police officer is suing a British security firm over claims that it covered up the involvement of her fellow officers in sex crimes and prostitution rackets in the Balkans.

Kathryn Bolkovac, an American policewoman, was hired by DynCorp Aerospace in Aldershot for a UN post aimed at cracking down on sexual abuse and forced prostitution in Bosnia.

She claims she was ‘appalled’ to find that many of her fellow officers were involved. She was fired by the British company after amassing evidence that UN police were taking part in the trafficking of young women from eastern Europe as sex slaves.

She said: ‘When I started collecting evidence from the victims of sex trafficking it was clear that a number of UN officers were involved from several countries, including quite a few from Britain. I was shocked, appalled and disgusted. They were supposed to be over there to help, but they were committing crimes themselves. When I told the supervisors they didn’t want to know.’

DynCorp sacked her, claiming she had falsified time sheets, a charge she denies. Last month she filed her case at Southampton employment tribunal alleging wrongful dismissal and sexual discrimination against DynCorp, the British subsidiary of the US company DynCorp Inc.

DynCorp has the contract to provide police officers for the 2,100-member UN international police task force in Bosnia which was created to help restore law and order after the civil war.

Bolkovac has also filed a case against DynCorp under Britain’s new Public Interest Disclosure Act designed to protect whistleblowers.

As well as reporting that her fellow officers regularly went to brothels, she also investigated allegations that an American police officer hired by DynCorp had bought a woman for $1,000.

Many of the hundreds of women working in Bosnia’s sex industry are lured from countries such as Romania and Ukraine with promises of jobs as waitresses but then delivered to brothel owners who confiscate their passports. Bolkovac claims that Dyncorp officers forged documents for trafficked women, aided their illegal transport through border checkpoints into Bosnia and tipped off sex club owners about raids.

In an email to more than 50 people - including Jacques Klein, the UN Secretary-General’s special representative in Bosnia - Bolkovac described the plight of trafficked women and noted that UN police, Nato troops and international humanitarian employees were regular customers. It was shortly after this email went out that Bolkovac was reassigned.

Related: The 15 Deadliest Corporations: #15 Dyncorp

Dyncorp is a privatized military company that is often hired by the U.S. government to protect American interests overseas — and so the government can claim no responsibility for Dyncorp’s actions.

Dyncorp is best known for its brutality in impoverished countries, for trafficking in child sex slaves, for slaughtering civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for training rebels in Haiti.

New Yorker covers from September and January side by side...

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 22:15:28 -0500

New Yorker covers from September and January side by side illustrate transition of parents from disconnected to worrisome following the Sandy Hook shooting.

Collection of favorite tracks from 2012. Could have put many...

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:56:51 -0500

Collection of favorite tracks from 2012. Could have put many more tracks from channel ORANGE and Coexist. I am still in the process of consuming all music that is 2012 thanks to the glut of lists that are now out. So expect a few more tracks to make their way onto this playlist.

On the Media: Can you help us, internet?

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 18:27:55 -0400

On the Media: Can you help us, internet?:

onthemedia:

As part of a top secret project that we can’t talk about yet, OTM is looking for examples of telltale phrases that suggest that you’re reading a not-so-great piece of journalism.

Like for instance, the phrase “Reliable numbers are hard to come by, but…” is a telltale not-great phrase because it…

iseeadifferentyou: Venda, Tshakuma, Ludanani South Africa

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 18:29:19 -0400

iseeadifferentyou:

Venda, Tshakuma, Ludanani

South Africa

afrographique: Infographic depicting the years that African...

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:04:16 -0400

afrographique:

Infographic depicting the years that African countries became independent. Happy Africa Day!

chartsnthings: Amanda Cox and countrymen chart the Facebook I.P.O.

Thu, 24 May 2012 18:32:43 -0400

chartsnthings: Amanda Cox and countrymen chart the Facebook I.P.O.:

chartsnthings:

On Thursday Facebook had the third-largest I.P.O. ever. In the week leading up it, my colleague Amanda Cox spent some time thinking how to best explain and contextualize this offering to readers. What follows is a series of sketches from Amanda, who shared her project folder with me for this…

Neat evolution of the infographic that was eventually used by the NYT for the Facebook IPO. Cool to see how the proverbial sausage is made.

Stunning photo: A man dives into a pond from atop a building to...

Mon, 21 May 2012 18:31:29 -0400

Stunning photo: A man dives into a pond from atop a building to cool himself on a hot afternoon in New Delhi, May 8, 2012. (Kevin Frayer/Associated Press)

Image from the latest FT piece featuring an interview with head...

Mon, 21 May 2012 14:03:30 -0400

Image from the latest FT piece featuring an interview with head Anthony Lake. What is worse: the image or the article declaring RCTs and shunning poverty porn equal smart aid? I say both are pretty bad.

Digging this photo.

Sun, 20 May 2012 22:47:47 -0400

Digging this photo.

everydayafrica: A manual laborer rests amidst sacks of cocoa at...

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:32:25 -0400

everydayafrica:

A manual laborer rests amidst sacks of cocoa at Saf Cacao, the largest nationally owned cocoa exporter in Ivory Coast, in San Pedro, Ivory Coast on March 5, 2012. Photo by Peter.

HT to @africasacountry for finding this great tumblr blog.

dynamicafrica: Senegalese singer, Baaba Maal, calls on the...

Tue, 15 May 2012 18:31:27 -0400

dynamicafrica:

Senegalese singer, Baaba Maal, calls on the world to respond to a looming food crisis in the Sahel region of Africa.

The unremarkable sour taste for an aid worker in Haiti

Mon, 14 May 2012 18:32:01 -0400

tatewatkins:

Yesterday, NPR interviewed Quinn Zimmerman, an “aid worker leav[ing] Haiti with a sour taste,” as the radio outlet put it. Zimmerman had recently written a blog post in which he outlined many of the frustrations—locals seeing his white skin as little more than dollar signs, locals giving him shit merely for being a foreigner in Haiti, locals expecting him to dole out cadeux all the time—that he’s felt while working for an NGO in Leogane over the past couple of years.

“I came down here with kind of rose-colored glasses,” Zimmerman told NPR, “and this belief that intention was enough, that my desire to want to help people was enough.” In the blog post, he noted, “I knew a bit about the idea of the white savior industrial complex, but didn’t know enough to realize I was playing right into it.”

The interview and post are a glimpse into what it’s like for someone to have his or her idealism chastened. Most Peace Corps Volunteers can probably relate, as I’m sure many aid workers can. While serving in Peace Corps Senegal I went through many of the things Zimmerman describes —similar frustrations, the gradual hardening—even if I limited my outlet to venting with fellow PCV friends when I was out of my village, rather than doing it online or in a national interview with NPR.

Historian Laurent Dubois commented on the Zimmerman interview yesterday on Twitter. Dubois’ Avengers of the New World is a fantastic if a little dense account of the Haitian Revolution, and his Haiti: The Aftershocks of History garnered oodles of praise when it came out in January and is possibly now recognized as the best broad overview of Haitian history, for a layman and English-speaking audience, at least.

A string of four tweets by Dubois about the Zimmerman interview read like this:

Post/interview is good in a way for honestly and openly saying what many aid workers in #Haiti feel and say privately. At the same time, there’s a great deal of confusion between the self-criticism and deeply patronizing vision of #Haiti. The lesson should be, I think, that that matrix of #Haiti volunteer/NGO structures clearly provides too little preparation for people. One wonders how different the experience would have been if he arrived with language/knowledge of #Haiti rather than just good intentions.

Zimmerman’s story isn’t remarkable; the remarkable thing is that so many people who ship off to Haiti or Senegal or wherever on do-good missions in the world of internet and Twitter and instantaneous communication have such warped expectations about the people they will find at their destinations, about the work they will be doing, and about the work of “saving” or “fixing” a place or people that they’ll never be able to do. Just look at a few quotes from people recently-returned from short-term volunteer or missions trips. (Most people, on Tumblr (on Tumblr!), do not seem to get the irony of the site.)

Read More

afrocentrico: NOLLYWOOD

Sun, 13 May 2012 18:31:44 -0400

afrocentrico:

NOLLYWOOD

africasacountry: A (very) young Yaya Toure surges through...

Sat, 12 May 2012 18:31:11 -0400

africasacountry:

A (very) young Yaya Toure surges through midfield while playing for first club ASEC Mimosas, of Abidjan #Colossus.

Tate Watkins: Why is it taking so long to rebuild Haiti?

Fri, 11 May 2012 18:31:35 -0400

Tate Watkins: Why is it taking so long to rebuild Haiti?:

tatewatkins:

Today a sort of big-picture Haiti reconstruction piece I wrote for The American Interest ran online. The headline it ran under is, “Rebuilding Haiti: Why is it taking so long?”. Two years-plus isn’t so long in the context of the enormous task of rebuilding much of Port-au-Prince and its…

Get Your Motor Running

Thu, 10 May 2012 18:30:34 -0400

Get Your Motor Running:

In Rwanda, where horses are few and motorcycles are abundant, a variation of polo known as moto-polo has sprung up, becoming a popular sport to watch and play among locals and foreigners.