Democracy & Civics

Access Denied to Cable Viewers?

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Catching school board meetings or locally produced talk shows on cable access systems will be more difficult for channel surfers due to changes in laws in several states. Public, educational and government stations, also know as PEGs, are fixtures on basic cable packages, made available as a public service requirement of the Communications Act of 1934. PEG stations televise town hall meetings, school plays and run quirky, locally produced talk shows with “Wayne’s World”-style theatrics. Yet California and Illinois are among 20 states that enacted laws allowing cable companies to end their support for PEG studio facilities, equipment and staff, and giving control of programming to state agencies rather than local communities. When California’s Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act took effect Jan.

Democracy & Civics

Argentina: New Law Targets Violence Against Women

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A new law in Argentina broadens the definition of violence against women to include acts of aggression that go beyond the scope of the family setting. The legislation looks outside of the home by targeting sexual, psychological and even workplace degradation, reports Inter Press Service. Now, any act directed against a woman that causes “a loss of self-esteem” or tries to control a woman’s actions by “threats, harassment, bullying, manipulation, isolation” and more is illegal. Although the legislation looks good on the books, experts fear implementing it could be tough. Women’s advocates say the political will to overcome “machista” traditions, as well as adequate budgets for the institutions charged with enforcing the law, may be lacking.

Democracy & Civics

New Orleans May Lose Federal Housing Aid

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New Orleans has been sitting on nearly $34 million in federal housing aid it received since 1993, and needs to spend money soon if it wants to keep it The Times-Picayune reports. New Orleans officials have been directing the money to programs such as affordable housing, but have yet to actually spend any. A May 31 deadline has been set up for the city to spend $10 million in federal Housing and Urban Development money that has been unused for the past five years. Anthony Faciane, from the New Orleans Office of Recovery, said that he is confident that the deadline will be met, and implied that slow recovery from Hurricane Katrina was the problem. City council member Cynthia Willard-Lewis told the newspaper: “I agree it was a problem for six months to a year, but now we’re into four years since the storm.”

Democracy & Civics

Facebook Politics go Global

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U.S. President Barack Obama’s electoral success using social networking and the Internet is being mirrored in other parts of the world by candidates and nonpartisan democracy advocates. Mauricio Funes, front runner in El Salvador’s March 15 presidential elections, has a Facebook page where his friends can keep tabs on his campaign doings and post messages of support — and where Funes himself is said to write on his followers’ walls, urging them to “vote for change.” [Editor’s note: The Washington Post is reporting that Funes has won the Salvadoran election.]
In Chile, political candidates have sometimes had a hard time connecting with their supporters, in part because the country’s vast territory make on-the-ground campaigning difficult.
Now, The Santiago Times reports that the two major candidates for president in Chile both have Facebook pages, it is the center-right candidate, Sebastian Pinera, who is more effectively tapping into Facebook, Flickr, Fotolog, Twitter and YouTube. Meanwhile, his center-left opponent, former President Eduardo Frei, is stepping up his digital pace with a political Facebook page that features YouTube videos of his everyday activities. In India, however, it’s not the candidates but nonpartisan interest groups who are leading the technological charge to advance the democratic process.

Democracy & Civics

Afghan Women in Parliament, Yet Stifled

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A new political party for women’s rights will be on the ballot in Afghanistan in the next elections. Yet the party, National Need, faces an uphill battle in a male-dominated society where religious fundamentalists and former warlords hold the power in Parliament, and snub their female peers, reports Inter Press Service. In fact, a Human Rights Watch study that found three out of five members of the Afghan Parliament have a connection to warlords or war crimes. Party leader Fatima Nazari, currently a member of Parliament, told IPS that the warlords-turned-legislators stifle female parliamentarians by ignoring them or not giving them a chance to speak. However, the Afghan constitution mandates that women hold 25 percent of the Parliamentary seats — a measure that so far has not guaranteed that women’s voices are heard.

Democracy & Civics

Historically Black Schools: Change They can Believe in?

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Historically black colleges and universities face declining enrollment, with expenses rising and the historic culture changing. Only 13 percent of African Americans pursuing higher education are enrolled at a historically black college, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Mark Gamble, an African American who attends Georgia State University, where the population is 60 percent Caucasian, told the newspaper: “I like being around whites, blacks, Asians and all other minorities.” Indeed, students from some higher-income families are opting for a more diverse environment at schools such as Harvard, Vanderbilt and elsewhere. Those who choose historically black institutions find that they are getting a good education, but also a debt burden.

Democracy & Civics

El Salvador Amnesty Again Under Scrutiny

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A Spanish judge said he would prosecute 14 military officers from El Salvador for the 1989 massacre of eight Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter. The case challenges El Salvador’s amnesty law, reports the Chicago Tribune, and also is a new test for the “universal jurisdiction” principal, which Spain used in 1998 in its attempt to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for crimes against humanity. The soldiers involved in the killing were imprisoned for a few years, but have been free since the amnesty law was passed in 1993 after El Salvador’s 12-year civil war ended. Although human-rights campaigners are pushing for a change in the law, so far there is no drive inside the country to do so. Even the leftist front-runner in El Salvador’s upcoming presidential elections broke with his party’s position, saying that he would leave the amnesty law in place if he were to win the poll.

Democracy & Civics

Fiji Elections Still in Doubt

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Fiji’s military leaders have a plan for racial unity in the ethnically divided nation, but stymied elections are raising concerns of dictatorship. The 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum, whose members include Australia and New Zealand, are giving Fiji until the end of April to set a date for elections, which they say must be held by the end of this year. South Pacific leaders say if Fiji fails to comply, it will drop Fiji from its roster and suspend financial and technical assistance. The military has ruled Fiji since its December 2006 coup, the fourth in more than 20 years. Commodore Josaia Voreqe “Frank” Bainimarama, the coup leader, has advanced a vision of a more racially integrated nation, which is divided between native Fijians, and descendents of farm laborers from India imported by Britain during the colonial era.

Democracy & Civics

Bolivia: Property Rights vs. Land Reform

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Bolivia voted in a new constitution that, among other things, will limit the size of the largest rural properties, and potentially redistribute land to poorer communities. The BBC said more than 60 percent of voters approved the constitution, although Bolivia’s landowners rejected it. Morales, the country’s first indigenous president, originally wanted all “unused” land to be available for redistribution to the poor. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, according to Inter Press Service, a left-leaning news agency, with most of the country’s arable lands in the hands of the wealthiest, European-descended citizens. Strong opposition from this sector forced Morales to focus landholding limits on future land sales only.

Democracy & Civics

'Human Rights Prison' Opens in Australia

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Radio Netherlands reports that Australia’s first “human rights” prison is now open in Canberra. The prison, which can house up to 300 co-ed inmates, was designed with “restorative justice” principals in mind, to help prisoners maintain a sense of self-respect to enable their rehabilitation. It boasts bright color schemes, views of nature and reinforced plastic, instead of bars, for the windows. “Prisoners can’t leave the grounds but they don’t have to be treated like animals in a cage,” one official said. Half of the inmates will live in small groups in cottages, while traditional cellblocks for higher-risk prisoners will be somewhat larger, and feature individual toilets.