Alejandro@Oxford

Amazing videos from Tehran. Though some people are reporting that the first video was taken when the demonstrators were being shot by the police, it seems to me that it happened when a group of people tried to take an office of the Basiji (second video). In any case, they are impressive videos. In the [...]

The expenses of the MPs have been made public on the Internet. Well, public is an euphemism, because there are so many things blacked out that it is often difficult to see in what the MP spent the money. In any case, this is much more than what one could get until the Daily Telegraph [...]

I’ve just got news that Mohammad Reza Jalaeipour, a doctoral student at my college in Oxford, St Antony’s, was arrested this morning in Tehran’s airport. He is an official and spokesman for the pro- Khatami and Mousavi movement Third Wave. St Antony’s Warden (something like the Dean of the College), has sent a general email [...]

In Iran, the Internet is playing a major role for spreading information on the events, including videos of the demonstrations, for communication between people inside and outside the country and for coordinating action.  It is believed so important the use of the Interner by Iranians, that Twitter delayed its planned maintenance to the early hours [...]

At this moment, the inquiry on UK MPs’ expenses is going on (you can watch it on BBC News). The leader of the Commons, Harriet Harman, is being grilled at this very moment. In her intervention she has said, that in the new system there won’t be a culture but a system that monitors the [...]

Iran’s reformist have adopted green as their colour, the colour of Islam. As in many other places, colour has been an amazing rallying element for political change.
In Wikipedia, the colour revolutions. It might need some updating regarding Iran.

http://blog.twitter.com/2009/06/down-time-rescheduled.html

Before the Internet, dictatorships could aspire to a comfortable control of the communications in and out the country. Now, one single person can wreak havoc on any system to control information. Look at the example of Antonio, the 40-year old son of Cuba long-time dictator Fidel Castro. He’s been fooled by a man in Miami [...]

The Swedish Pirate Party has managed to get a seat in the new EP elected last week. Though EP business is not particularly exciting, following the Pirate MEP may be fun. This achievement with the good results of the green parties in many countries may signal a brewing political change. A change towards more open [...]

The Constitutional Council in France has ruled that the Creative and Internet bill, the three strikes law, that gives power to officials to cut web access if a user downloads copyright content without permission, is against the constitution in its attempt to allow the executive to affect the liberty of citizens to connect to the [...]