Dear Kitty. Some blog

From Al Jazeera:

Tunisian blogger detained

Riahi has reportedly not been released, nor granted access to her lawyer who is unaware of the charges

A Tunisian blogger and drama teacher, Fatma Riahi, known online as Arabicca, has been arrested by the country’s police, Al Jazeera has learned.

Riahi was summoned to appear before the Criminal Brigade of Gorjani in Tunis on Monday, where she was questioned about her online activities, sources said.

Riahi was then released in the evening, only to be summoned again the following day and escorted by police officers to her home in Monastir, 160km from the capital, Tunis, for a house-search, the sources said.

Police confiscated her computer as evidence, and gained access to her online social-network accounts.

Riahi has neither been released from custody in Gorjani police station, nor granted access to her lawyer, Laila Ben Debba, who has spoken to her only for a few minutes, Al Jazeera has learned.

…

If prosecuted, Riahi could face criminal defamation charges that potentially carry a prison term of to up to three years.

Political satire

Authorities are investigating whether Riahi is hiding behind the pen-name of Blog de Z, a controversial Tunisian cartoonist blogger whose political satire has enraged the government.

Blog de Z’s most recent post was published three days after Riahi was first taken into custody.

RSF said on Friday: “Since her arrest, Fatma’s rights have been violated. The Tunisian authorities are using the pretext of her arrest in an attempt to discover the identity of anonymous Tunisian bloggers.

“We demand the authorities drop the charges against Fatma Arabicca and release her immediately.”

Riaihi deleted her blog three days before her arrest and her Facebook account has been removed.

‘Free Arabicca’ campaign

Lina Ben Mhenni, a friend of Riahi, told the Los Angeles Times in an email on Friday: “We talked about the Criminal Brigade [summoning] her, her worries, but we were optimistic as we know that she didn’t do something wrong.”

A “Free Arabicca” campaign blog has been launched by fellow Tunisian bloggers in support for Riahi, as well as a facebook page.

Global Voices, a blogger advocacy website, ranks Tunisia just behind Iran as one of the most repressive countries towards bloggers and online activists.

Zouhair Yahyaoui, one of Tunisia’s most famous imprisoned former bloggers, was arrested in 2000 after inviting readers to vote on whether Tunisia was a “republic, a kingdom, a zoo or a prison”.

Yahyaoui died of a heart attack in 2003 after reportedly being severely tortured.

Journalist jailed

In another development, France voiced concern on Friday over the fate of a Tunisian journalist and vocal critic of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the Tunisian president, who was arrested last week for allegedly assaulting a woman and faces trial.

Taoufik Ben Brik was detained on October 29 and is being held in a town outside Tunis pending trial later this month.

RSF said in a statement last week that the charges were bogus and that Ben Brik was too ill to stand trial.

PLANET EARTH - Antarctic Penguins

This is a video about Adelie penguins.

Penguins of the Antarctic. An interactive map: Antarctic Penguin Habitats, is here.

This video from Britain is called Nick Griffin’s Downfall …. Parody - Nick Griffin on Question Time………… Satire; based on the German film Der Untergang, about Adolf Hitler’s downfall.

The BBC and the BNP: here. And here.

Slap Nick Griffin Internet game: here.

The National Union of Journalists has called for “tough and urgent” police action in response to the physical violence, intimidation and death threats members covering far-right demonstrations endure: here.

This is a video from Uruguay, about the Frente Amplio election victory in 2004.

By Laurie Fachaux, from French daily L’Humanité:

The Frente Amplio on the March Toward a Second Term

Translated Sunday 25 October 2009, by Henry Crapo and reviewed by Henry Crapo

After five years in power, the left coalition of La Frente Amplio [The Broad Front] has marked up a positive social record. Former guerilla and great favorite in Sunday’s presidential election, their candidate, Pepe Mujica, hopes to continue the policies of the present government.

Montevideo, Uruguay, by correspondance

The Frente Amplio, which gathered a crowd of 300,000 to 400,000 persons in Montevideo on Wednesday, is betting on continuity at the head of state on the eve of Sunday’s elections. Pepe Mujica, former guerilla and candidate of the coalition of the Left, now in power, in Sunday’s presidential election, emphasizes the advances in social policy made by the present government, and counts on being able to continue.

Many Uruguayans have escaped from poverty

Social measures and aid plans have been put in place these last four years. Le Panes, a social emergency plan, has permitted many Uruguayans to emerge from poverty. Between 2005 and 2007, more than 80,000 households received 46 euros a month as “citizen’s income”, according to the minister of social development. In the same period, hundreds of jobs were created thanks to the program “Work for Uruguay”. Among the beneficiaries, 10137 persons received dental care — for free.

Because to get care in Uruguay, it is expensive. Between 2000 and 3000 dollars for a cataract operation. In June 2008 the government inaugurated an “eye hospital” in the San Jose department. It is in that hospital that, henceforth, persons with income less than 580 euros a month can benefit from that operation without spending a cent.

Another objective of “Pepe” Mujica, started by the present government, consists of redistributing the wealth. A modification of the fiscal regime has already brought about an increase in income for the most modest households.

Another Priority of the Former Guerillas: Education

The average income per household has increased from 15,871 pesos (517€) per month in the beginning of the year 2006 to 23,296 pesos (760€), end of the year 2008. Another priority for the former guerillas, education. The candidate of the Frente Amplio, well ahead in the final polls (40% of intentions to vote) has no small pride in the plan Ceibal, which he describes as a “small miracle”. All the students in primary school have received a portable computer equipped with internet connection. Almost 175,000 have been distributed in all. A first, worldwide!

The referendum asking for the annulment of the law of amnesty did not obtain the required majority. Can the Frente Amplio, having a majority in both houses, correct this affront? Here.

From the Georgian International Media Centre:

The state directed media censor reports about other countries too

One of the biggest stories to come out of the Caucasus this year has been the trial to two bloggers, Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli, in Azerbaijan for making a satirical video about official press conferences and the attitudes of the state controlled media in that country.

It is a story that has been reported all over the world.

But it seems it is just too hot to handle for the state directed media in Georgia: we can find no record that they have covered it at all.

To be honest, I had not heard from the Western corporate media about the Azeri bloggers being censored. Maybe because the government of oil rich Azerbaijan, like the Saakashvili regime in Georgia, still has reasonable good relations to many NATO governments?

This video is called VideoPetition for Adnan Hacizade and Emin Milli.

Internet use in Georgia is growing, rapidly, if from a very low base. But outside Tbilisi it hardly exists at all: here.

Officials from Saakashvili’s government are harassing and intimidating teachers, according to school principals from the Gurjaani region of Georgia, east of the capital Tbilisi: here.

According to RFE/RL, which covered the summit, “EU officials make it clear that Georgia no longer enjoys front-runner status in the region. All three governments have serious problems with democratic standards, harbor prisoners of conscience, and harass free media in their countries: here.

This video from the USA is called: My Tweet Spot: Torture Probe- Aired July 17, 2009.

From Democracy NOW! in the USA:

CIA Invests in Software Firm Monitoring Blogs, Twitter

Wired Magazine has revealed the investment arm of the Central Intelligence Agency has invested in a software firm called Visible Technologies that specializes in monitoring social media sites including blogs, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. Wired reporter Noah Schactman writes: “America’s spy agencies want to read your blog posts, keep track of your Twitter updates — even check out your book reviews on Amazon.”

In remarks Monday to a conference on Asia and the global economic crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke called for austerity policies to rein in US budget deficits and the ballooning national debt: here.

Sun Microsystems, maker of servers and database software, announced plans Tuesday to lay off 3,000 people ahead of its merger with Oracle Corp: here.

A new study reveals sharp college tuition increases across the US in the 2009-2010 academic year: here.

This video from the USA is called “Balloon Boy” Falcon Henne [sic; Heene] Admits: “We Did This For The Show”.

The “Balloon Boy” hoax has been the subject of wall-to-wall coverage by the major US news networks. Yet another episode in which an unhealthy celebrity culture and media sensationalism have revealed themselves: here. See also here.

Balloon Boy internet game: here.

Animation by Mark Fiore about the balloon boy and Goldman Sachs bank: here.

From British daily The Guardian:

BNP membership list appears on Wikileaks

List of thousands of names of BNP members, along with addresses and phone numbers, published on Wikileaks

…

A detailed membership list of the British National party containing names, addresses and telephone numbers was published on the internet this morning.

The list, which contains thousands of names, was published on Wikileaks, a website that purports to be a clearing house allowing leaks for information to be published anonymously.

A Guardian analysis of the data suggests the BNP had 11,560 members as of April this year, including one peer and several doctors and military personnel. The party appears to have benefited from a surge in female recruits, with one in eight party members now women.

See also here. And here.

1970s anti-fascism: here.

This is a video about dancing Sandhill cranes.

From Scientific American:

Bird Moves: Dancing with the Starlings

Birds’ rhythmic abilities offer clues to the origins of dance

By Nicole Branan

Researchers have long assumed that humans were the only animals that could dance—even our close primate relatives cannot keep a steady beat or be taught to move to a rhythm. But new evidence shows that birds can dance, revealing that the mysterious ability could be a by-product of vocal learning.

Aniruddh Patel of the Neurosciences Institute, Adena Schachner of Harvard University and their colleagues studied several birds, among them a cockatoo that dances to the Backstreet Boys’ “Everybody.” When Patel sped up or slowed down the song, the bird adjusted its moves to match the tempo, eliminating the possibility that it was in sync with the music by chance. Intrigued, Schachner and her colleagues started search­ing YouTube for videos of other dancing animals. They found 15 bopping species (14 parrot and one elephant) that also share an additional trait: the capability to imitate sounds. That correla­tion suggests our musical ability grew out of the vocal learning system instead of being “a special-purpose ability,” Patel says.

The findings could help advance research on movement disorders, he adds. Hearing music helps Parkinson’s patients to walk, for example. So far scientists do not understand the underlying mechanisms, but if bird brains share certain key circuits with humans, then scientists may find answers by studying them.