Internet censorship

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As you can see in the map drawn with the data of the latest report by Reporters Without Borders, most countries promote some kind of cyber-censorship. Besides the 12 countries listed as the so-called “Internet enemies” by Reporters Without Borders (Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Uzbekistan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan and Vietnam), there are many other countries which advocate for freedom of speech against any kind of censorship but place restrictions on the access to the Net. Some of these countries, like Australia, are under surveillance by organisations against censorship, in fear of forthcoming laws to set up a filtering system.
Some Internet surfers manage to get around censorship and gain access to forbidden web sites or publish their own stuff thanks to the many existing tools and programmes to bypass Internet censorship. But penalties for this kind of offence are often too serious, so people do not risk it. Reporters Without Borders registered more than 70 cases of people imprisoned to publish some posts against their governments, specially in China, Vietnam and Iran. And the governments of these countries manage to discover cyber-dissidents thanks to the collaboration of large Internet corporations, which seem to have no problems informing on surfers’ activities, in exchange for being allowed to make good business in the country.

Sources:

1. Reporters Without Borders report on Internet censorship (from page 138 onwards) (in Spanish): http://files.reporterossinfronteras.webnode.es/200000189-ea364eb304/INFORME_2009_CASTELLANO.pdf
2. Reporters Without Borders web site, page devoted to Internet: http://en.rsf.org/internet.html
3. Web site on Internet censorship and advice on how to bypass it: http://en.cship.org/wiki/Main_Page

Earthquakes in Barcelona

When there is an earthquake somewhere in our planet, the first piece of information that we get is its magnitude, which can be measured on the Mercali Scale (measuring earthquake intensity in terms of material damages) or the Richter Scale (measuring released energy). Needless to say, the initial chaos after an earthquake makes it difficult to know exactly the number of casualties and the effects on the towns and villages around the epicentral area, so that’s why magnitude is such an important piece of information.
But magnitude is not always the most reliable information to know the degree of destructiveness of an earthquake. In early 2010 Chile suffered an earthquake reaching 9.2 magnitude on Richter Scale, becoming one of the most powerful earthquakes of our recent history. More than 700 people died and some parts of the country were destroyed. Just one month earlier, Haiti suffered from an earthquake measuring 7 on Richter Scale, but it caused 200,000 deaths and it destroyed most of the country. In order to better understand the difference in earthquake power, bear in mind that the Richter Scale is not linear so a difference in magnitude of 2.2 means that the earthquake in Chile was 65 times more powerful than the earthquake in Haiti.
Then, what makes an earthquake deadly? Besides magnitude, there are two factors to be taken into account. First, our response to emergencies: are there good hospitals, civil defence or other trained organisation to rescue and attend victims? Or can medical supplies, food and drinking water be soon provided on the affected site? And secondly, are buildings, roads and other infrastructures prepared? These two factors made the difference between Chile and Haiti.  Chileans are used to earthquakes: the largest earthquake that has ever been recorded reached 9.5 magnitude on Richter Scale and it was felt in Chile in 1960. Therefore, Chilean buildings are adapted to face earthquakes, whereas Haitian traditional buildings made of palm wood (lighter and more flexible) have been replaced by modern buildings made of poor materials. Some countries with high seismic activity like Chile, Japan or the West Coast of the United States are better prepared to face earthquakes.
But what about Barcelona? What would happen if such an earthquake occurred in Barcelona? Probably, our response would be quite efficient, but prevention is our weak point. Very few buildings in Barcelona are prepared to suffer a tremor and many of them lean on party walls of the building next door, especially in the case of old houses. An earthquake like the one in Chile could destroy most of Barcelona.  
Although Barcelona is not in a high-risk area, seismic safety is very poor. Not too long ago, in 1755, an earthquake measuring 9 on Richter Scale caused total destruction of Lisbon and 60,000 to 100,000 people died, resulting in one third of its population.
We often think that these things happen far from our home and that we are better prepared…

Sources:

1. Earthquakes happen every day. This web shows the most recent ones: http://www.iris.edu/seismon/
2. Richter scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale
3. Mercali scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercalli_intensity_scale
   

The largest city in the world

Cities already existed in Ancient times, but the lack of population census makes it difficult to calculate the number of inhabitants of the capital towns of the great empires. However, most historians agree that none of them accounted for one million inhabitants. Roma, at its very peak, was peopled with roughly 750,000 inhabitants; Alexandria had almost half million people; Bagdad, between the years 900 AD and 1500 AD, had a population of about 900,000; and in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, there were as many as half million inhabitants. The first city to reach one million inhabitants is probably Beijing, in 1750.
At the same time, the industrial revolution started in Europe: people would leave the countryside to look for a job in the factories, making cities grow to more than one million inhabitants. For 150 years, all great cities were found in the richest, industrialised countries: London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, New York, Chicago...
At the beginning of the 20th century there were a dozen cities with more than one million inhabitants, including a novelty: Calcutta, the first great city of the Third World. Soon, metropolis spread all around the world: in 1940 there were 51 cities with one million inhabitants and in 1980 the number amounted to 226. Today, there are so many cities with one million inhabitants that the measuring has changed: in 1990 there were 35 cities with more than five million inhabitants, and ten years later, this number was doubled. And it is growing and growing…
Some great cities have become so large that they have included neighbouring villages and towns, making up continuous urban areas expanding to hundreds of kilometres. Therefore, it is difficult to make a ranking with the largest or most populated cities in the world because it is difficult to check their boundaries. What should be taken into account: the metropolitan area, the urban agglomeration, the city in itself? If we take a look at several rankings of the world’s largest cities, we realise that not even experts agree: in some lists, Seoul is ranked the second largest city because its neighbouring town of Incheon is included as part of its urban agglomeration, whereas some other lists consider that these are two separate towns. Mexico City ranks number three in some lists, but in others it is ranked at the bottom of the top 5, just after New York, Mumbai, Delhi and Sao Paulo.
Nevertheless, all lists agree in two issues: first, the world’s largest city is Tokyo, with 35 millions inhabitants living within its metropolitan area, so it is the most populated town in the world; and secondly, most large towns are found in Third World countries, where population explosion is most obvious. Just to set an example: in the year 1900, Mexico City had only 340,000 inhabitants, which is the current population of Iceland.
Cities are likely to go on expanding, but this growth cannot be unlimited. Our current cities consume three-quarters of the global energy and cause three-quarters of the global pollution. This impact is unsustainable: either reducing the size of cities or reducing consumption and pollution, but there is no other solution.

Sources:

1. Emrys JONES. Metropolis: The World’s Great Cities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/sep/15/guardianobituaries.highereducation
2. Some rankings of the world’s largest cities by population:
   Citypopulation (Germany): http://www.citypopulation.de/world/Agglomerations.html
   UN: http://esa.un.org/wup2009/unup/index.asp?panel=2
   Demographia: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua2015.pdf 
3. Richard ROGERS. Cities for a Small Planet. London: Faber and Faber, 1997. http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/practice/team/richard_rogers
 

 

Journalists killed

According to the last annual report released by Reporters Without Borders, 76 journalists were murdered in 2009. This number of casualties includes only those cases in which the NGO has clearly established that the victim was killed because of his/her professional activity as a journalist. It is definitely a bad year, but not worse: in 2008 the number of journalists killed amounted to 60 and in 2007, the worst year in this decade, 86. Moreover, in 2009, 157 journalists were forced to leave their countries for fear of being attacked or imprisoned and 570 media were censured by governments. 
Except for Christian Poveda, a French-Spanish journalist who was shot dead in El Salvador, the rest of journalists have been killed in their own country. The main reason for murder is always the same: wars and elections. The list of the most dangerous places is also ranked by the same countries over the years (the Caucasus, the Gaza Strip, Somalia and Mexico), although in 2009 the Philippines ranks number one because in just one day, on November 23rd, more than 30 journalists were killed in Maguindanao, on the island of Mindanao, in the south of the Philippines. About fifty armed men, including two policemen and the mayor, who is the local governor’s son, attacked a convoy of vehicles carrying supporters of Esmael Mangudadatu’s candidacy, main opponent to the governor. There were 57 to 64 people killed, including 30 journalists (or 34, depending on the sources), Mangudadatu's wife, his two sisters and even some witnesses driving other vehicles. 

Sources:

1. Reporters Without Borders website: http://en.rsf.org/
2. 2008 Annual Report released by Reporters Without Borders: http://en.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/rapport_en-2.pdf
3. The English version of the annual report 2009 is not available yet, but you can check the Spanish version: http://files.reporterossinfronteras.webnode.es/200000189-ea364eb304/INFORME_2009_CASTELLANO.pdf
4. Christian Poveda obituary:
   http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/sep/06/christian-poveda-obituary
5. About Maguindanao massacre:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maguindanao_massacre