Archive for the 'International politics' Category

Draquila: Italy trembles

Published on 5/13/2010 in International politics and Personal-Fun-Unrelated. Closed Tags: .

Today I am happy: Draquila, the movie, was presented at Cannes festival: http://bit.ly/bKBTIg looking forward to seeing it.

Why do Italians vote Berlusconi? The violence of propaganda, the impotence of citizens, questions of the economy, illicit power relationships…

And a catastrophe: the city of L’Aquila devastated by an earthquake… all these combine to show how the young Italian democracy has been subdued. The caricature of Berlusconi – one of the director’s most celebrated impersonations – strolls through Aquila’s refugee camp and wanders the deserted town like an emperor at the end of his reign. A town devastated by an earthquake – the perfect location from which to recount Italy’s drift into authoritarianism, the mess of blackmail, scandal, swindles and inertia of the political classes, the media and the citizens, that have paralysed the country. Why do the Italians vote for Berlusconi? Why do they consider democracy an unsuitable system of government? Aquila – this magnificent city laid low by an earthquake – will give us the answers. Why did the proud people of Aquila exchange their most precious commodity – their community, a dynamic town full of students and works of art – for a little apartment in a dormitory town, furnished by Berlusconi? Why did they believe TV propaganda rather than the evidence of their own eyes? And how did it happen to others too, as quickly and as deceitfully? Who was leaning on them? The days of Berlusconi’s reign seem numbered: it’s time to search through the rubble and draw what conclusions we can. —Cannes Film Festival, 2010

draquila.jpg

Dutch city launches iPhone app for lodging civic complaints

Published on 5/4/2010 in Diary, International politics and Tech. Closed Tags: , , .

This reminds me of FixMyStreet a project I blogged about three years ago. As my fellow readers know I really much like these sorts of application to engage citizen in a more active engagement with local government.

Potholes, stray garbage, broken street lamps? Citizens of Eindhoven can now report local issues by iPhone, using the BuitenBeter app that was launched today. After spotting something that needs to be fixed, residents can use the app to take a picture, select an appropriate category and send their complaint directly through to the city council. A combination of GPS and maps lets users pinpoint the exact location of the problem, providing city workers with all the information they need to identify and resolve the problem.

Website: www.buitenbeter.nl

Related projects:

— In San Francisco, civic complaints via Twitter

— NYC challenges developers to create apps using city data

— Tagging repairs for local government

BuitenBeter_app.png

Tradenet: farmers using SMS to make business in Africa

Published on 2/11/2007 in International politics. Closed

While doing my blogroll I was attracted by this news on Africans farmers using SMSs to make business. Tradenet, is a website developed in Ghana with an 11 million-dollar USAID support. It is intended to enhance trans-border trade between farmers and traders in Africa. The services are completely free for users, except the normal sms messaging charges by the mobile phone service providers of each country.

The site is  a platform for sellers in agricultural business to display their profiles and information on their commodities, prices and locations on the Internet, with the view to attracting potential buyers through the net. It also offers individuals and traders associations the opportunity to establish their own website within the tradenet platform at no cost to constantly display their commodities and prices.

“Potential buyers looking for a specific commodity only need to compose SMS message on their mobile phones stating the code of the commodity in question and the country from which they want the results and send it to tradenet number ’1344′ for Areeba users or 024649999 from any other network and get instant results.”

Tradenet

Why SMS? This is a nice example of a service implementation that uses existing communication channels and infrastructure. The use of mobiles is pervasive and how explained by Jan Chipchase last week, the recent growth on the mobile market is coming from underdeveloped countries.

(via & via)

Copyright notice: the present content was taken from the following URL, the copyrights are reserved by the respective author/s.

Tags: , , , ,

Encouraging Participatory Democracy: A Study of 30 Government Websites

Published on 1/5/2007 in International politics and Personal-Fun-Unrelated. 1 Comment

Reading through the experientia web site I stumbled upon this article wrote by Michele Visciola and Mark Vanderbeeken on a broad evaluation of the usability of the e-government web sites. I find this extremely interesting but I still have to put my hands on the article itself. Here’s the abstract (my highlights).

For the first time in history, a wide distribution of technology allows citizens to get involved in public governance and participate in institutional life on a very regular basis. Yet websites of public authorities are barely taking advantage of the power of the participatory citizen. Two factors play a key role in this gap. First, the average citizen is not well informed about how basic democratic institutions function, which dramatically reduces the citizen’s capacity to influence the democratic process. Websites can help reduce the complexity of public institutions and get people to understand the way institutions and public administrations function and behave. Second, access to public services online is increasingly separated from institutional information. While online service sites are popular, the role of the institutional sites is not clear. The authors argue that these sites can and should take on the role of a two-way communications tool on topics of policy and politics, support knowledge sharing on areas covered by the authority, and create maximum transparency on what the public administration actually does. To better understand the opportunities, challenges, and evolutions that are affecting public institution websites, the authors studied the main sites of 30 public authorities and identified several innovative approaches. A first analysis shows that a lot remains to be improved. Almost all the sites analyzed share three characteristics: (1) policy priorities are not concisely communicated and easy to understand, (2) there is only limited innovation in how regional or municipal institutions present themselves; and (3) there are no tools for active participation.

However, some of the studied sites provide elements of innovation that can be used as models and inspirations. The authors conclude that to improve information access, better communication strategies are needed and to increase participation, better usability is of crucial importance.

Userexperience Egov

The publisher web site selected public services portals (not covered in the study):

Tags: , , , ,

Propose a law by SMS

Published on 10/12/2006 in International politics. Closed

A new initiative by Israel’s parliament will soon allow every Israeli citizen to share his or her proposal for new legislation by cellular phone text messaging. This seems to me an excellent idea to raise the citizenry involvement in the politics life of the country.

A couple of question arise:

1. Who is going to waive each proposals?

2. What is going to be the decision process to select the proposition that will take a broader audience?

3. What about conflicting propositions?

I think the basic question hinges in our definition of democracy. What do we mean by that?



Law Sms

Copyright notice: the present content was taken from the following URL, the copyrights are reserved by the respective author/s.

(via)

Tags: , , , ,

>node< new orientations for democracy in europe

Published on 9/20/2006 in International politics. Closed

An interesting research project from the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture:

The ongoing process of European integration and in particular the planned enlargement of the European Union present new challenges for the evolution of democracy in Europe. The research programme >node< of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture (bm:bwk) addresses the future of democracy in Europe. With >node<, we are inviting scientists to rethink democracy, to analyse political developments and processes and the mechanisms that guide and control them, and to come up with options and alternatives for the further development of democratic politics.

Research themes and research objectives of >node<:

The fundamental principle of the research programme is the scientific analysis and discussion of the European integration process, i.e., a critical examination in which Europe is understood as a “contested space.” The following major questions form the framework for projects within >node<:

  • Which models of democratic deliberation and participation characterise the political and social developments and the diverse players in these developments in Europe?
  • Which differing policies are predominant today?
  • What processes and development trends can be recognised?
  • How and by whom are they controlled and/or influenced?

Using this link is possible to provide your own definition of what democracy is. This is my preferred definition:

… when all people have an equal input on decission making based on true and independent information. (17. 11. 2005, Jarno Gieteling, Communicating European Research – CER 2005, Brüssel)

Bilder Upload 0230 02Table Children

Copyright notice: the present content was taken from the following URL, the copyrights are reserved by the respective author/s.

Tags: , , ,

What kind of peace do I mean?

Published on 7/18/2006 in International politics and Personal-Fun-Unrelated. Closed

The text below is an excerpt from the commencement address at the American University that the President John F. Kennedy gave on June 10th 1963 in Washington DC. I found it extremely inspiring and appropriate in regards to the recent developments of the international politic situation.

What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children–not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
…
So, let us not be blind to our differences–but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortals.

Geographic ubiquitous search: a connection of virtual and phisical

Published on 7/15/2006 in Diary and International politics. Closed

Geographic search is becoming an hot topic in the blogosphere and in research. One of the typical scenario:

If you stand on a street corner in Tokyo today, you can point a specialized cellphone at a hotel, a restaurant or a historical monument, and with the press of a button the phone will display information from the Internet describing the object you are looking at.

One of the companies behind this product is GeoVector.com. We will see …

Tags: , , , ,

Gutenkarte: a geographic text browser

Published on 7/15/2006 in Diary and International politics. Closed

Gutenkarte is a geographic text browser, intended to help readers explore the spatial component of classic works of literature. Gutenkarte downloads public domain texts from Project Gutenberg, and then feeds them to MetaCarta’s GeoParser API, which extracts and returns all the geographic locations it can find. Gutenkarte stores these locations in a database, along with citations into the text itself, and offers an interface where the book can be browsed by chapter, by place, or all at once on an interactive map. Ultimately, Gutenkarte will offer the ability to annotate and correct the places in the database, so that the community will be able construct and share rich geographic views of Project Gutenberg’s enormous body of literary classics.

Below, the mapping of “A Tale of Two Cities” of Charles Dickens. It is possible to spot some little problems in the parsing algorithm used. See the “us” flag in Croatia …

Gutenkarte Atale

Tags: , , ,

Metacarta: a geographic search web engine

Published on 7/15/2006 in Diary and International politics. Closed

This is something I was thinking about for quite some time. This portal allows the user to browse and search the content of several news feeds that are displayed attached to a world map. At a glance it is possible to have an understanding of how certain topics are discussed in the globe. Nice.

Metacarta

Tags: , , , ,

The ecological cost of the war

Published on 7/11/2006 in International politics. Closed

Paolo pointed me to this nice post (in Italian) that aims at outlining some costs sustained for the war in Iraq and how these money could have been spent for something different. Personally I buy the cause and I translate an interesting quote below:

“It is a theoretical reasoning but if the 200 billions of dollars ‘trashed’ for this war were used to buy solar cells, we could have installed 40 gigawatt of solar energy, able to produce 1000 terawatt/hour of electrical energy: 2,5 times the energy derived from Iraq’s crude oil.”

Below the text in Italian:

“E’ un discorso teorico, ma se i 200 miliardi di dollari buttati nella guerra (a cui ha dato il suo contributo servile anche l’Italia di Berlusconi) fossero stati utilizzati per comperare dei pannelli fotovoltaici, si sarebbero potuti installare 40 gigawatt di energia solare, capaci di produrre 1000 terawatt-ora di energia elettrica, 2,5 volte l’energia proveniente dal petrolio iracheno. La cosa più sconvolgente è che per via dell’economia di scala, una tale quantità di pannelli sarebbe sufficiente a ridurre il prezzo del kilowatt- ora fotovoltaico da 20 a 8 cents, rendendolo competitivo col petrolio nella generazione di potenza su larga scala. Addirittura, se questi 200 milardi di dollari fossero stati utilizzati per installare fattorie eoliche offshore, si sarebbero potuti produrre circa 5000 terawatt-ora di energia elettrica, come dire il 5% del fabbisogno energetico italiano primario corrente, per 50 anni. Le emissioni di CO2 verrebbero ridotte così di circa 3700 milioni di tonnellate, una quantità sufficiente a mantenere l’intera Unione Europea entro i limiti di Kyoto (-8% sui 4245 MMT di CO2E del 1990) per i prossimi 10 anni. ”

The relationship between money and politics explained

Published on 6/18/2006 in International politics and Personal-Fun-Unrelated. Closed

The Center for Responsive Politics is a non-partisan, non-profit research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks money in politics, and its effect on elections and public policy. The Center conducts computer-based research on campaign finance issues for the news media, academics, activists, and the public at large. The Center’s work is aimed at creating a more educated voter, an involved citizenry, and a more responsive government.

Opensecrets

Tags: ,

Italia in fumo: raising awareness through public displays

Published on 5/7/2006 in International politics. Closed

Fortunately there are Italians like Antonio Scarponi around. They represent the genius and the creativity of some of us against the barbarian disgrace that Italy is living in this period.

His latest project is called ‘Italia in fumo’ (Italy burned and transformed in smoke). The goal of the project is to raise the awareness around the italian constitution, a document that is largely unknown by most of the italians :-( .

Antonio proposes to use some common form of public display to spread the knowledge of the constitution articles. With the same graphic language of the european directive concerning the cigaret consumption, the project web site proposes a series of widgets that is possible to download and use to spread the constitution around. On the picture below, for instance, there is the model for building a cigaret box cover. I find it really neat and smart! Thanks Antonio!

Copri-Pacchetto

Tags: , , , , ,

Ministers back ‘terminator’ GM crops

Published on 3/8/2006 in International politics. Closed

Reading BeppeGrillo.it I realized of this plan to scrap prohibition on seeds that threaten Third World farmers with hunger:

Ministers are trying to scrap an international agreement banning the world’s most controversial genetic modification of crops, grimly nicknamed “terminator technology”, a move which threatens to increase hunger in the Third World.

Their plans, unveiled in a new official document buried in a government website, will cause outrage among environmentalists and hunger campaigners. Michael Meacher, who took a lead as environment minister in negotiating the ban six years ago, has written Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for the Environment, to object.

Please let’s send  thousands of hate-mail to the British government.

More on The Independent article (payant).

Tags: , ,

Vertical axes wind turbine

Published on 3/8/2006 in International politics. 3 Comments

An elegant vertical-axis wind turbine, quietrevolution has been designed and developed by XCO2, an established low-carbon energy consultancy and engineering practice. Virtually silent and vibration free, quietrevolution is ideally suited to both urban sites and exposed locations.

The simple and robust design (patent pending) has just one moving part, maximising reliability and minimising maintenance requirements.

Bristol

Tags: , ,