Juliana Rincon is video editor of Global Voices, which monitors citizen media in the developing world. Thomson Reuters is not responsible for the content of this post — the views are the author’s alone.

On May 2nd, 2008, Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar (Burma), generating massive damage and tens of thousands dead or missing. The situation would be considered critical for any country. However, the military government or “junta” has restricted the entrance of aid by requiring all donations to pass through them. The junta has also set up guidelines for journalists on how to report on the cyclone, restricting their communications, particularly on showing dead bodies or reporting about insufficient aid for victims, according to Burma News, a local online news source.

In spite of these restrictions on people carrying cameras and taking pictures, some have gone out to record the extent of the damage. There is anger over the failure of authorities to evacuate the affected villages, even when they were allegedly aware of the impending cyclone and the possible devastation it could cause. The following images, uploaded by YouTube user aungsayapyi may affect sensitive people: they are very graphic, include dead bodies and should be viewed with discretion and an adult’s consent:

YouTube user AfterNargisYgn has been uploading a multi-part series of videos featuring images of the effects of the Cyclone in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, previously known as Rangoon. People removing downed trees, wading through waters and drying their mattresses, clothing and in general trying to clean up and move on.

YouTube user Burma4u uploaded a video of the aftermath in Latbutta, with Cyclone Nargis’ victims crowded in refugee shelters, trying to sleep as they mull over what will happen to them in the future.

An insightful video about the Burmese people’s future has come from myochitmyanmar, another YouTube user who has uploaded a video with some English subtitles, interviewing Laputta survivors and refugees on their current situation. Meanwhile, a picture on Burma News shows what looks like Red Cross aid, which is supposed to be for Cyclone refugees, being sold on the streets.

The following video, also from aungsayapyi shows how people are experiencing life in the refugee camps with donations from private donations, and a Military General’s arrival, carrying promises instead of clothing, food or water. They proceed to tell refugees that the people who died, died because of bad karma, and that they should consider themselves lucky to be alive. They give some recommendations about grouping themselves according to villages and then leave. It has been subtitled in English for a better understanding of the events:

In the YouTube Blog they’ve also highlighted the video community’s efforts to help Myanmar and provide aid, and they highlight both news networks and private initiatives that are documenting the cyclone and letting the world know what is going on in this small Southeast Asian country. For example, Nightwatcher1982 of the Netherlands has promised that for every video response to his video he gets, he will donate $5 to the Red Cross, and if it’s a good video, he’ll donate $10:

Global Voices Online has been providing extensive coverage of the disaster, aggregating information from different citizen media sources in the region on what is happening with food aid, water and the refugee situation as death tolls continue to rise. Please don’t hesitate to go over to our Special Myanmar Cyclone Coverage page and read the posts that the team of volunteer authors have been writing with translations of Burmese blogs giving first-hand accounts of life in Myanmar right now. You can also follow our Myanmar feed on twitter.

There will also be a global blog action day on behalf of the Burmese victims on May 17th, when people are asked to tell others about the crisis in Myanmar, and some are already organizing fundraisers and events.

Are militants, or even hawks within the Pakistani establishment, trying to undermine the peace process with India, now that President Pervez Musharraf has removed his uniform and civilians are squabbling for power?

The dust has scarcely settled on another horrific bomb attack in India, and the investigation has only just begun into the synchronised blasts in Jaipur that killed around 60 people .

It is still far too early to be drawing any firm conclusions, but the timing of the blasts is already making some people wonder whether Pakistan was involved.

The explosions came a week before India's foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee was due to visit Islamabad to review the peace process, his first visit since a new, civilian government took over in Pakistan.

It also came just a few days after some of the worst violence this year in Kashmir . India was unhappy that its soldiers came under heavy fire from Pakistani last Thursday along the Line of Control as armed militants tried to sneak into Kashmir .

It was also ten years since India conducted five nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13, 1998.

Now that the army is no longer running Pakistan, is the powerful military intelligence agency, the ISI, flexing its muscles again and warning its new civilian "bosses" to abandon the cause of Kashmir at their peril?

South Asia has always been fertile ground for conspiracy theories, and I don't want to be drawn too far down the route of Machiavellian fantasies.

The relatively sophisticated and synchronised nature of Tuesday's attacks suggest the perpetrators could have received training abroad, perhaps in Bangladesh or Pakistan, security analysts tell me. But it was probably Indian nationals who carried out the attack, and there is no evidence of direct orders from abroad, they say. Nor does it have to be an ISI plot.

Islamist militant groups in both Pakistan and Bangladesh seem intent on fanning hatred between Muslims and Hindus in India, analysts and diplomats say, an effort which has largely been unsuccessful in recent years. They may be outside the control of the establishment in both countries, and there is evidence the militants have already turned on their former masters.

Nevertheless, the Indian establishment does see some worrying signals from across the border. Pakistan's army chief Ashfaq Kayani was quoted this month as reaffirming the commitment of the army to the cause of Kashmir.And Sayed Salahuddin , head of the biggest Kashmiri guerrilla group Hizbul Mujahideen, derided the Indo-Pak peace process last month and vowed to continue a holy war against India.

India security analysts allege that militants are now queueing up to cross the Line of Control in Kashmir, perhaps bent on disrupting elections there later this year.

I have lived on both sides of the border and would welcome thoughts from people in both countries.Is the ISI up to dirty tricks? Or should India solve its own problems without always blaming a foreign hand?

Juliana Rincon is video editor of Global Voices, which monitors citizen media in the developing world. Thomson Reuters is not responsible for the content of this post — the views are the author’s alone.

Pangea Day took place Saturday, and people from different parts of the world got together to watch movies and to be a part of a worldwide event in which movies, speakers and music showed us a bit of life on the other side of the globe, uniting people from all walks of life. It also included a mobile video contest with an international lineup of winners.

From Kigali in Rwanda, one of the 5 main screening locations, a slide-show of photographs from the event uploaded on OVI, the video and image platform used to promote PangeaDay content:

From Haifa in Israel, another slide-show of the gathering that watched the event near the Caesarea Port:

During the event, the friends of Pangea website had live streaming feeds from different places in the world including US, Colombia, Italy, Japan, New Zealand. Other sites, like the Colombian Medellín PangeaDay [es]  had their own website where liveblogging, streaming video and photographs were posted during the event. Nokia, a PangeaDay partner, hosted the 2008 Nokia Mobile Filmmaking Awards Contest and the five finalists were flown into one of the five different screening locations.

You can view the winning videos at this pangeaday OVI site. The finalists were: Rounds all around us by kayoom in India, smile by goofylopez in Indonesia, amazing rainbows! Shot and Edited with my Nokia 93 by ruperthowe in the United Kingdom, The Game -South African Children having fun in a Video Games Room by ecachucho and Clouds Running by pierba in Italy.

The Grand Prize winner on the Pangea/Nokia OVI website is ecachucho. For his video on South African children playing arcade games he won a trip to the Rwandan Gorilla Reserve, together with a full crew to help record his trip.

David Howell from David Howell Studios presented the winner of the 2008 Nokia Mobile Filmmaking Award with a Nokia N82 and accessories. 

The winner, Amazing Rainbows by Rupert, was chosen because it portrayed best the spirit of the mobile video: recording those once in a lifetime moments that  never repeat themselves.

By reaching the gates of Khartoum, Darfur rebels have dealt one of the heaviest blows to Sudan's traditionally Arab ruling elite since independence in 1956.
Early on Sunday, it looked as though government assertions that the army had beaten back the initial assault were true, but what is the attack going to mean for Africa's biggest country and the way it is run?
The peace deal with south Sudanese rebels in 2005 made clear Khartoum could no longer afford to rule by force over a mostly black African region where Christians and animists predominate.
Now rebels from Muslim, but largely non-Arab, Darfur have shown the ability of groups who feel neglected in the rest of Sudan to take the battle to Khartoum.
Will there be retaliation in Darfur? Sudan has oil money to buy weapons, but if the war could be won militarily then why has that not happened already?
Will it be a fight to the death between leaders in Sudan and Chad, who accuse each other - by many accounts fairly -- of backing each other's rebels? Or will they have to find a real accommodation?
Could the rebel assault in the longer term push Sudan and the fractious Darfur rebel factions into real peace talks?
And if that happened, would it lead to a more durable Sudan or towards the breakup of a state whose borders were drawn by British imperialists?
What do you think?

Mong Palatino is South East Asia editor of Global Voices, which monitors citizen media in the developing world. Thomson Reuters is not responsible for the content of this post — the views are the author’s alone.

Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar last weekend which devastated five regions. State-run media reported that more than 22,000 people are found dead with another 41,000 missing. Hundreds of thousands are now homeless. The following is a collection of quotes from regional bloggers about the devastation.

Bangkok Pundit comments on the soaring number of casualties:

“It was 351 then 4,000, then 10,000. Now, even state media are reporting 22,000 dead and 41,000 missing. By the time this is all over, a death toll of over 100,000 is not improbable. The Burmese government can’t handle the situation on their own.”

Indeed, the death toll could still rise. The Irrawaddy explains:

“Witnesses who have managed to get out of Laputta Township in the Irrawaddy Delta have told The Irrawaddy that 22 villages were completely destroyed and that the death toll could be much higher. A local source from Laputta Township estimated a total of 60,000 people could have been killed by the cyclone. This estimate could not be independently confirmed.”

Rule of Lords gathers eyewitness accounts of the disaster:

“Some were killed by flying trees, some from exposure to the cold, some died when they had gathered to shelter from the storms in monasteries and they collapsed.

“The sea rose by around 5 feet and swamped the town at the time of the storm, causing most of the damage and sweeping away small homes and buildings.

“There was water, rain and wind. The shore road was submerged and on the high ground the water was at knee level. The whole town was underwater. There were heavy waves all over, and water snakes. Some died from the snakes.

“Local people in Rangoon and monks have cleared roads themselves due to the lack of authorities. The clearing has been done by a system of “self reliance” according to one participant. People are also sharing small quantities of water and other essentials among themselves to get through this period.”

Myat Thura describes how his family and neighbors are coping with the tragedy:

“I tried to call my home in Yangon since Saturday morning. Until Friday evening, I could still call my home. My father told me that the wind was blowing heavily, but the situation was still OK. The next morning when I tried to call my home, the lines are already down. I tried the whole Saturday but I could not get through. Sunday morning, still no phone contact.

“My flat was in the top floor, so I was quite worried. There are two or three roofs blown away, and all the satellite dishes destroyed, but apart from that, the building is intact. Water was pouring into the house and my family had to move things into the rooms where it was dry.

“Electricity was cut off but, thanks to one of our neighbors who has an electric generator, we could pump water to our room. For those without any generator, water is a big problem. There is still no relief effort from the government agencies, and people are cleaning the roads by themselves.

“Prices of food had risen and the price of building materials has doubled. A few shops opened and many shoppers are trying to buy things. Some super markets opened today, and they have to limit the number of shoppers into the supermarket.

“My friend said it would be very difficult to restore the city into its previous condition, especially electricity and telecommunication as it will cost millions of dollars to repair the entire infrastructure.”

Fear from Freedom issues an appeal to the ruling Junta:

“Many now live in monasteries in cities in delta area since their villages are gone and their paddy fields are flooded. Who can help who when every family is struggling for survival. While the people in the city struggle with what they have to repair the roofs of their houses and store some water and rice for the expected shortage, the homeless villagers will become beggars till they can go back to their lands and rebuild their villages.

“The military has their soldiers to help the cities but they will not have cash nor goods and tools to help rebuild the victims. I hope they allow the international organization to help these people. They do not have any resources and expertise for this kind of disaster.”

The cyclone also destroyed a prison camp where many political prisoners are held. Assistance Association for Political Prisoners drafts this statement narrating how more than 30 prisoners were killed during a riot last weekend:

“The storm also hit Insein prison in Rangoon. As a result of strong winds, many zinc roofs atop of Insein prison were torn off, one after another.

“Due to the destruction in one area of the prison, over 1,500 prisoners were forced to congregate inside prison hall no. 1. No one was allowed to seek safety, and they were locked inside the hall until the next morning May 3, 2008. Prisoners were wet, cold and hungry as well as angry. Even though prisoners requested prison guards open the doors and move them to safety, the authorities ignored their request. Some prisoners started shouting demands, and some set fire to the prison hall. The fire burnt down the hall, and a riot situation ensued in the prison.

“In order to control the situation, prison guards opened fire on the prisoners. In addition, soldiers and riot police were called in. They opened fire on prisoners in the area. 36 prisoners were killed instantly and around 70 were injured.

“The authorities are to blame for this situation. As soon as the storm hit, they should have moved the prisoners to safety. Their mismanagement of the situation led to prisoners rioting. We condemn their violent response, which led to the needless deaths of 36 prisoners.”

KyiMayKaung uploads a letter from Sophie Lwin of the Burma Global Action Network:

“On Wednesday night NASA predicted that Typhoon Nargis would hit Burma, yet the regime did nothing…It is criminal that the regime didn’t warn the people that the typhoon was coming.”

Agam’s Gecko also condemns the military:

“The massive scale of the disaster has finally prompted the military regime to accept outside assistance, an about-face that alone demonstrates how dire the situation is. Very few soldiers have been spotted lately doing any of the recovery work, although state television did show a couple of uniforms pulling branches around. Monks and other citizens have organized themselves, and seem to be doing most of it.”

Myo Kyaw Htun gathers news reports about the disaster. Burmese Gold Bull and Singeo upload maps illustrating satellite-detected flood waters over the affected regions.

The Acorn on the difficulties of delivering aid to Myanmar:

“The tricky business of delivering aid to victims of a natural disaster who are also victims of a repressive regime. A closed regime. Media controls. A category 4 cyclone. Damaged infrastructure. Broken communication links. Death toll first in the hundreds, rapidly upped to the tens of thousands.

“It’s highly likely that the Burmese junta can’t cope with the disaster. Worse, its isolation is making a bad situation much worse. The international response is hobbled by the lack of communication channels, common frameworks and operating procedures.”

nofearSIngapore asserts it’s time for action, not politics:

“Fellow human beings are suffering in a fellow ASEAN country. Another father, brother, sister or child is now waiting for desperate aid from us. This is not the time for politics-it is the time for action.”

jg69 echoes the sentiments of many bloggers around the world:

“Not only do the people in Burma have to put up with a military dictatorship, they also have to contend with natural disasters like cyclone Nargis.

“To the Burmese people, even though it might seem a small and empty gesture, nevertheless, please accept my truly heartfelt condolences to what you have been going through for decades and what you’re going through now.”

Related article: Myanmar: The Perfect Storm

A version of this article was originally posted on Global Voices.

Ndesanjo Macha is Sub-Saharan Africa Editor of Global Voices, which monitors citizen media in the developing world. Thomson Reuters is not responsible for the content of this post — the views are the author’s alone.

In countries such as Zimbabwe where media and political freedom is extremely restricted, new technologies have become powerful tools for political campaigning, communication, advocacy and mobilisation. Bloggers and civic organisations have resorted to using new tools and applications such as Flickr, Facebook, SMS text messages, YouTube and mashups to fight for democracy, media freedom and good governance.

SMS Text Messages

If you are in Zimbabwe and your phone rings, you might be receiving news headlines from SW Radio, election updates from Kubatana.net or political jokes about Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Widespread mobile phone access in Africa has made SMS a powerful and useful tool for activists. Comrade Fatso, a Zimbabwean blogger, writes about the many political jokes circulating on SMS in his blog:

“… Another joke walking the streets of Harare is that the only difference between an election and an erection is that you can’t rig the latter.”

The UK-based SW Radio uses SMS to send news headlines to mobile phones:

“We now have an SMS news headline service sent to mobile phones.
If you have a friend or relative in Zimbabwe who would like to receive this service please email their mobile phone number to: talk@swradioafrica.com”

Kubatana, an online community of Zimbabwean activists, uses FrontlineSMS to send election news to their SMS subscribers and facilitate conversations. The organisation has also used this technology for its campaign, “What we want in Zimbabwe?” Amanda Atwood from Kubatana writes, “As announcements by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission have been trickling out, we’ve been forwarding them to our SMS subscribers, many of whom do not have access to television or radio, or who are hit by Zimbabwe’s persistent electricity shortage.”

FrontlineSMS, a service designed for non-profits, was also used by the Nigeria Mobile Election Monitors last year. Ken Banks, the creator of Frontline SMS, describes his work with Zimbabwean activists in his blog.

Electronic Postcards

Sokwanele-Zvakwana is another pro-democracy civic organisation using new media tools to fight for democracy and rule of law. Its website offers free satirical e-cards as part of its non-violent campaigns for change. The cards are organised around different themes, here is an example:

Economy e-cards:

Zimbabwe’s economy is in free-fall and it’s no laughing matter. Spread a bit of cheer by sending a humorous e-card, or send a card to alert someone of the reality of our country’s economic state.

They have posted a video of the e-cards on Jumpcut.

Mashups

Sokwanele has also created a Google map of election rigging using data from their Zimbabwean Election Watch series:

Explore the map and then consider whether elections held in this context can ever be considered ‘free and fair’. Information on how to use the map, the map data limitations, and the background to how we mapped the data is provided below the map. Please visit our Zimbabwe Election Watch section, and explore our database for a comprehensive look at the many ways the articles listed in the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections have been breached by the Zimbabwean government.

Videos and Pictures

Sokwanele has a channel on the popular video-sharing site, YouTube and a Flickr account. Visit their Album of Terror to see the extent of state brutality against the opposition. There is a also a Flickr account from another user with Zimbabwe Playing Cards:

On the outside this looks like an ordinary set of playing cards. But take them out, it is a fantastic political weapon - against the murderous, corrupt, hypocritical regime of ‘Robber Mugabe’.

Social networking

Various groups including Sokwanele have established their presence on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. There is a “Remove Robert Mugabe from Zimbabwe” group on Facebook. And a “Revive Zimbabwe” group. There is also a group supporting the presidential candidate, Dr. Simba Makoni.

A cultural activist network, Magamba!, has a MySpace page where they publish blog posts about the situation in Zimbabwe. The most visible member of the group is Comrade Fatso who also keeps a personal blog at Vox.

Mobile Phones

The South Africa-based election monitoring group, The Independent Result Center, set up a website to publish independent election results. During the elections, their trained monitors in Zimbabwe were sending information to South Africa via satellite and mobile phones.

This is how their monitors obtained information:

“ZimElectionResults.com obtained the results using polling agents who were specially trained to obtain data officially displayed. This information was transmitted to a results centre in South Africa using cell­phones and satellite phones to the centre which was manned by call centre operators.

Since election results were displayed publicly the agents were able to take photos of the actual results:

Polling agents were also equipped with a camera to photograph the actual official results posted by the ZEC. These will be archived on this web site later as forensic evidence. The polling agents also counted the number of people entering each polling station.”

Blogs

Immediately after the government started muzzling the media during the elections, Zimbabwean bloggers became one of the key sources of information and commentary on the political and economic situation in the country. Visit Global Voices’ Zimbabwe Elections 2008 page for links to posts written by Zimbabwean bloggers.

Online Political Jokes

According to one joke, Robert Mugabe is twittering! He joins the Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki, on the popular microblogging site, Twitter:

… meetings, meetings, meetings. very boring.
12:03 PM April 04, 2008
Ooooo, nervous morning. Sending the wife shopping. She is getting on my nerves. Thinking of shutting the electricity down for laughs.
09:21 AM April 01, 2008
Thinking of live blogging the election results. Good idea?
06:42 PM March 31, 2008
Forcing people to eat election posters. Hey, at least they get fed this week. 01:49 PM March 29, 2008
just voted. Guess who I voted for?
01:49 PM March 29, 2008

The website Zimbabwe Democracy Now also has a Humour page on its website.

A longer version of this article is posted on Global Voices.

Juliana Rincon is video editor of Global Voices, which monitors citizen media in the developing world. Thomson Reuters is not responsible for the content of this post — the views are the author’s alone.

Reasons not to Overeat by BreezeDebris

The international food shortage and crisis is doing its rounds on the blogosphere, and videos are no exception. From Haiti: people eating dirt to survive, and a plan to help feed hungry Haitian children. Haiti is the poorest country in the American continent, and hunger has been an important issue since before this crisis took to the headlines.

On YouTube toddgsapp shows us a video of the process by which a family makes mud cakes, not only to eat themselves, but also to sell. These dirt cookies or mud cakes are made out of dirt, shortening and salt, and are sometimes their only means of sustenance.

Food for thought, isn’t it?

lovinitwithhim uploaded a video on the Haitian Food crisis for Kids Against Hunger you can see here.

With the following video by mfkhaiti for Meds and Food for Kids (MFK) in Haiti we are given an insight into an NGO seeking and testing a possible solution for malnutrition in children, based on a high energy peanut butter product that is ready to use and to be given to the children. Said to contain peanuts, powdered milk, sugar, oil, vitamins and minerals, it is produced locally using Haitian peanuts harvested from local farmers and all the other ingredients are purchased locally, helping the economy. According to MFK, it costs $68 for a full dosage of the ready to use therapeutic food, or Medikal Mamba as it is known locally, to be given to a child and bring them back to life. Following, the first of three videos on their peanut butter product to help cure malnutrition in children.

(Luke Baker is with the U.S. army in eastern Afghanistan) 

The snows have largely melted in the Hindu Kush and the high trails over the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan are once again passable. What's more, Tehrik-e-Taliban's leader, Baitullah Mehsud, looks like he may secure a peace deal with Pakistan's new leadership, including the possibility of Pakistan's security forces backing off from attacking his hideouts in South Waziristan.

To many observers, those two developments lead to a conclusion: any spring offensive by the Taliban against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan could be that much more powerful this year, with Mehsud throwing his tactical weight behind the offensive without fear of being squeezed by Pakistan's forces from behind.
 
The argument has a fair amount of logic on its side, but how likely is the whole scenario really?

On the Afghanistan side of the border, U.S. commanders seem unconvinced, even if they are not dismissing the possibility of some sort of offensive in the coming months. First, they say many of the traditional infiltration routes over the mountains have now been closed off or are under watch by special forces. Even if much of the border is likely to remain passable -- there's no way 16,000 or so U.S. troops could seal every mountainous nook and cranny along hundreds of miles of frontier -- they are not expecting the overall rate of infiltration to change substantially from last year.

Secondly, rather than relations between U.S. forces and Pakistani troops breaking down in the wake of President Pervez Musharraf's sidelining and the murmurs of a peace deal with Mehsud, they say cooperation remains strong. Senior U.S. officers meet once a month, face-to-face for what they call "border flag" meetings with senior Pakistani officers, sharing intelligence and building relationships. Junior officers have even more contact -- they have exchanged mobile phone numbers with the other side and sometimes communicate by radio on a daily basis.

"I wouldn't say it's perfect all along the border, but generally relations are pretty good. Uneven but good," one senior U.S. officer said this week to describe the ties.

On occasion U.S. forces need to seek and have received permission to cross into Pakistan's territory to pursue militants, he said. American unmanned spy planes are not allowed to pass into Pakistan's air space, but otherwise, relations seem to be sound.

Perhaps most crucially, U.S. officers say they have seen no signs yet of Pakistani troops pulling back from the border area -- a demand Mehsud has made as part of any peace deal.

Those three factors alone may not rule out any spring offensive -- certainly the Taliban remains strong across southern Afghanistan and shows no signs of weakening -- but they hint that this year may not see the big spring offensive some have suggested.

After a month of withholdingZimbabwe's presidential poll results, electoral authorities on May 2 announced what was widely known to be the real outcome: President Robert Mugabe had lost the vote. The announcement gave opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai 47.9 percent of the vote but said he faces a runoff after failing to gain enough votes for an outright majority. Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change denounced the result as scandalous and maintained its stand that it had won more than 50 percent of the vote and that Mugabe's 28-year rule was over.

The MDC faces a huge dilemma. If it boycotts a runoff poll, it would hand victory to Mugabe by default. But in the view of the MDC, human rights groups and Western governments, no fair or credible runoff poll can be held in Zimbabwe under a current climate of violence and intimidation they say is orchestrated by Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF. The MDC and Mugabe's critics at home and abroad have also condemned the unprecedented delay in announcing the presidential result as part of the government's grand plan to rig the vote in favour of Mugabe.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement: "The ruling party's bloody crackdown on the opposition makes a free and fair runoff vote a tragic joke. The violence must stop and an impartial process be put in place before any new vote is held."

Mugabe was quick to declare his willingness to go for a runoff. The MDC said there were issues it needed to consider before deciding on whether or not to participate. Should Tsvangirai accept a runoff to avoid handing victory to Mugabe? Should there be international intervention in Zimbabwe to avert wider bloodshed and if so what form should this take? Have your say.

Juliana Rincon is video editor of Global Voices, which monitors citizen media in the developing world, Thomson Reuters is not responsible for the content — the views are the author’s alone.

On May 10th 2008 at 18:00 GMT, 24 films will be broadcast during a 4 hour event. What makes this different is that this event, PangeaDay will be broadcast from six locations worldwide in seven different languages to be viewed through internet, television or cellphones with one unique purpose: to make each other know about the lives of others and focus on what makes us similar, instead of what makes us different and let us work together towards peace. This initiative came from Egyptian filmmaker Jehane Noujaim’s wish. As a TED Prize winner she was granted a wish in addition to a $100 000 USD award. PangeaDay is her wish, to change the world and create a day in which people of the world could come together through film. Her 2006 acceptance speech can be found here.

Because PangeaDay is about bringing people together, an invitation was made for audiences to upload their own videos on the pangeaday video channel where you can view the 1037 videos people uploaded in reply.

As an example, one of the uploaded videos is about an Art student in Tanzania, telling the story of his day to day life and how he wants to teach homeless kids about art. Following, the story of Chado by jamesstephenbrown:

The logistics of PangeaDay are awe-inspiring: from Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro, films, live music and speakers will come together to inspire the whole world. The films chosen have been selected from more than 25000 films from over 100 hundred countries.These movies all share some characteristics such as being able to inspire, transform and enabling us to experience life through another’s eyes. Queen Noor of Jordan, will be one of the speakers, along with musician and activist Bob Geldorf, Christiane Amanpour from CNN and the Iranian rock group Hypernova. While at these locations people will be getting together, all around the world parties and groups of friends can sign up and show that they will be tuned in: you can attend an open event in your hometown or even host your own.

However, Pangea Day isn’t just about getting together during 4 hours. The idea is for the event to get people inspired, talking and making changes. It has also allowed others to participate not only as viewers. Through partner organization Nokia, aspiring filmmakers in different locations throughout the world have been given video enabled mobile devices to some people in rural areas, refugee camps, and film schools, so they too can portray their stories. People can also upload their own videos for a chance to win a Nokia N95 8GB mobile device. This partnership brings us a Myanmar refugee in India recording children’s laughter, an Iranian family in a refugee camp in Afghanistan recording their idea of Hope, and an Indian in Bangalore filming the cutting down of Banyan trees… and children planting new trees. You can view these and other videos on this page.

So there are many different ways to participate. Don’t miss the chance to be a part of this and make sure to tell others and spread the word.