Tibet photos from a pal we linked with in Lhasa

Esteemed Hollywood pyro guru and all-around swell guy Robert Hutchins, aka Hutch, has posted photographs he took in Lhasa. This incredible nighttime shot of the Barkhor square, just outside the Jokhang temple, is my favorite. Our travel trajectories crossed in Lhasa earlier this year, and we shared some adventures which Hutch details here: Link.

And here's from a page of snaps documenting travelers he met with along the road -- including me.

No words I might post here could describe what altitude sickness at 12,000 feet feels like more precisely than this self-portrait with oxygen can shot by Hutch in his room at Lhasa's Yak Hotel.

UN report calls for developing nation backbones

Professor Larry Press says,

UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, has published a report documenting the deepening digital divide between developed and developing nations. Conventional policies focused on privatization, competition and independent regulation are not closing this gap, so the report calls for publicly funded, neutral-access backbone networks with points of presence in every rural village -- a similar strategy to that used by the US National Science Foundation in connecting universities in the late 1980s.

Summary:

1. A decade of pilot studies and projects has shown that Internet applications can improve the quality of life in rural villages which, as a side effect, would slow the growth of urban slums. There are many success stories in commerce, medicine, education, news and entertainment, etc.

2. During the last two decades, we have encouraged a policy of telecommunication privatization, competition, and independent regulation (PCR), but the digital divide persists. PCR policy has been beneficial, but has run its course, and will not raise the capital to bring the Internet to rural areas of developing nations.

3. Therefore, we should build and operate neutral-access backbone networks (not access networks) providing high-speed Internet connection points in every village at public expense. The Internet is a general purpose communication technology that encourages substantial private investment, innovation, content creation and the sharing of knowledge by users and service providers.

4. Building these backbone networks would be a daunting challenge involving research and development as well as procurement, but we have faced such grand challenges before in other fields. We can follow the policies that guided construction of the US National Science Foundation backbone in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Links: Report highlights, and Full report.

Tibetan human rights NGO sues China for genocide

The Spanish national courts recently accepted a case brought by a Tibetan support group charging Chinese authorities with genocide in Tibet. A few months ago, the first Tibetan witness in that case testified of suffering and loss experienced in his homeland and in exile. Snip from an interview at openDemocracy with Tenzin Tsundue, one of the Tibetan witnesses testifying in the case, and the Spanish-based NGO that launched the proceedings:

Q. What is the purpose of the lawsuit?

The purpose of the lawsuit is to seek justice for fifty years of impunity and suffering that the Tibetan people have faced. We wish the full hand of justice to be dealt, we want there to be a fair, open and honest trial, and for those people who are found to be guilty for them to be sentenced and imprisoned for the crimes they have found to have committed.

Q. Who are those people?

There are seven Chinese officials in total. The leading two are Jiang Zemin, the former president of China, and Li Peng, the former prime minister.

Q. Do you have any realistic expectations that this case would result in the arrest and imprisonment of what are extremely powerful, prominent people?

There is a saying in Spanish that says the last thing you lose is hope, and on behalf of the Tibetan people and ourselves we believe that justice and truth to prevail at the end. We expect there to be a long road ahead but we go along that road with a firm conviction that justice will eventually be done and impunity against Chinese officials will be ended.

Q. And what would change if that were the case?

I think what will change is that the Tibetan victims who suffered themselves, either personally or through having to live in exile, will have a sense of justice. They will have felt for the first time in the history of exile the suffering that they've gone through has been recognised in a court procedure which they've yet to have experienced, and it's important for those victims to go through that process. Also we do believe that this could open up the truth of what's happened and possibly lead to better relations and understanding between ordinary Chinese and Tibetan people.

Link (Thanks, Oxblood Ruffin)