Andrei Khrapavitski: Belarusian Presidential Election 2010 Blog

Internet is becoming the dominant communication network in the developed countries, displacing ordinary telephones and catching up with television as a primary source of news. It will be really great for America if Congress approves the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to make broadband Internet access more widely available throughout the United States.

It is kind of fun to see how extraordinarily wired Estonia is even when you compare it with such countries as the U.S. This small Baltic country brands itself as E-stonia, bragging its advancements in information technologies. And it’s about to get wired even more. The Estonian Broadband Development Foundation will start the construction of a network of fiber-optic cables across the entire country in spring 2010 as part of its EstWin project (article in Russian).

Lithuania, which neighbors on Belarus, is also interested to advance its Internet connection. Since March, one of its Internet providers has begun offering fiber-optic connection at quite a remarkable speed of 200Mb/s for domestic traffic (within Lithuania) and up to 80Mg/s for international traffic. All this comes at a price tag of about $39 per month.

Now where is Belarus in the world of broadband Internet? The only true provider in Belarus is Beltelecom, a state-owned monopoly. Its broadband department going under the name of Byfly can offer a pitiful speed of 2Mb/s. You’ll have to pay a $50 monthly fee for that.

Ah, yes, of course, Beltelecom has no time to improve its broadband coverage since it has to comply with the new Internet legislation which is supposed to make our virtual existence even more subjected to governmental control and limitations.

While walking across a parking lot at one of Vilnius malls, close to where I live, I nearly bumped into a couple of Christmas tree merchants offering passersby all sorts of evergreens at pretty low prices. They have dozens of trees piled in a small truck parked near the store. Day in and day out, they are bringing more. I couldn’t help thinking of how many trees are chopped down every holiday season so as to make our Christmas ‘authentic’ and more enjoyable. (more…)

So sick and tired of so called “Climate-gate”. Can’t see why some bright LJ-friends feed into this climate-deniers’ tune. Yes, the leaked e-mails raise questions. Such things have to undergo scrutiny. But how can this dubious case outweigh years and years of climate studies which clearly indicate the climate change is happening? It is also obvious that we, humans, are causing it. Just think how much crap we pump into the atmosphere every minute.

It is also more than strange that this climate-gate pops up on the eve of the important climate summit. It prompts all this anti-green hooblah around the world. What a convenient timing, don’t you think?

Journalists do have to cover this stuff, they do have to raise questions and give word to all sides. It is the nature of our job. So The Washington Post has published a loony op-ed by Sarah Palin. Can’t link to it, as it is restricted to Washpost subscribers, but the Republican diva pretty much expressed it on her Facebook account:

“Policy decisions require real science and real solutions, not junk science and doomsday scare tactics pushed by an environmental priesthood that capitalizes on the public’s worry and makes them feel that owning an SUV is a ’sin’ against the planet.”

Yeah, right. That’s the lady who cheered with the crowds chanting “Drill, baby, drill.” Who the hell votes for these people?

Here’s an interesting take from TED Fellow and Belarusian journalist Evgeny Morozov on the ways the Internet can actually help oppressive regimes stifle dissent.

I agree with most of his points. Especially, I concur with him that support for NGOs, dissidents, intellectuals is very important. Simply relying on the spread of Internet per capita won’t do the job. However, we shouldn’t underestimate the role of the new media in democratization. What is basically flawed (not in Evgeny’s speech, but in general) is how the pace of Internetization in Belarus is measured by various statistical institutions. Yes, there are lots of people who have access to the Internet, but the availability of a computer connected to the Web does not necessarily presuppose quality usage. Still too few Belarusians buy stuff online, read news, work online, etc. Due to Internet expensiveness, far too many simply check their e-mail accounts or read anecdotes. This may change when Internet becomes more widely available and less expensive.

Evgeny is right to say that the authoritarian governments have learned to use the Net for their cause (I like the term Spinsternet he invented). In fact, it would be naive to hope that the regime would keep out of the Web while opposition used it so voraciously. Yes, it makes our job harder when government spin doctors infest the Belarusian segment of the Web with pro-Lukashenka propaganda (it is already happening). However, I wouldn’t look at this as at the online battle of opposition vs the dictatorship. The Web is an invaluable source for disseminating news. It our job (journalists, NGOs, intellectuals) to make our sites more attractive, more interesting, more regularly updated, more inventive, more user-friendly, more Web2.0, more next-gen. Yes, if we allow discussion, spin doctors might join. But so will others, those who can tell truth from lies and who can post counterarguments. We shouldn’t worry about them infiltrating our sites, we should work hard to make our online presence as high quality as possible.

VIRGINIA – on July 17, 2009 a federal judge sentenced Viktar Krus to 7 years in prison for creating and running an illegal ring that supplied cheap workers to the East Coast resorts and railroad yards. 22 other co-defendants have been convicted in the case.

(read on at Bielar.us blog)

A couple of years back on this very blog, I shared a little dream that I had. I dreamt that Hollywood would finally discover my homeland, Belarus that is. For some weird reason Belarus had remained a real terra incognito for film-makers. Today I had a chance to watch Defiance, a true-story Hollywood drama about the Bielski brothers who, during WWII, formed a partisan detachment to save lives of Jews hiding from the Nazis in the Belarusian forests. (more…)

It is scary to read Paul Krugman, the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics…

I believe not only that we’re living in a new era of depression economics, but also that John Maynard Keynes—the economist who made sense of the Great Depression—is now more relevant than ever. Keynes concluded his masterwork, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, with a famous disquisition on the importance of economic ideas: “Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.”

Why scary? Because I doubt that Krugman’s advice will be followed to full extent. In this intertwined global market, we all depend on one another, a unilateral problem solving does not work here. I also have a sense that “the Republican (Conservative) Way” of handling the economy is becoming obsolete these days. It will probably come back (transformed and rethought), but not quite soon.

No matter where we are all in this together.