South Korea has just leased half of all the arable land in Madagascar according to the Financial Times. This has stirred quite a debate in the Malagasy blogosphere about land sovereignty and economic development. It is still unclear whether the land deal has actually been signed by both parties. Meanwhile, bloggers are arguing whether this sort of deal should be considered “neo-colonialism”.

Here is an overview of what is know so far.

On November 19, the Financial Times reported on the deal between South Korean company Daewoo Logistics and the Malagasy government.

On the Global Dashboard blog, Alex Evans summarizes the findings:

South Korea has just struck a 99 year deal with Madagascar to lease an area half the size of Belgium to grow palm oil and no less than half of South Korea’s corn demands [..] Carl Atkins, of consultants Bidwells Agribusiness, said Daewoo Logistics' investment in Madagascar was the largest it had seen. “The project does not surprise me, as countries are looking to improve food security but its size it does surprise me.”

A few hours later, a follow-up article in the Financial Times added that Daewoo Logistics would not have to pay fees for the lease, but would instead provide the means to allow exploitation and development of the land.

Alex Evans, quoting from the second article, says it's even worse news than he thought:

A few hours later, a truly astonishing new angle on the story emerged. Guess how much South Korea had paid for its 99 year lease? Answer: Zip. Zero. Nada. Not a cent. The sum total of the benefits for Madagascar, according to a Daewoo spokesman? “We will provide jobs for them by farming it, which is good for Madagascar.” This in a country where 3.5% of people are on WFP food aid...
The benefits for South Korea, on the other hand:
“We want to plant corn there to ensure our food security. Food can be a weapon in this world,” said Hong Jong-wan, a manager at Daewoo. “We can either export the harvests to other countries or ship them back to Korea in case of a food crisis.”

Photo by Foko-Madagascar

The Malagasy government has yet to release an official statement on the issue. Reuters reports that the deal is far from being finalized. Daewoo Logistics, however, has issued several statements that contest the veracity of the articles.

Robert Koelher, blogging from Seoul at The Marmot’s Hole, explains the points of contentions from the South Korean company:

In another report, the Maeil Gyeongje said experts believe the FT report, with its provocative talk of “neo-colonialism” and “pirates,” was intended as a warning against an increased Asian presence in Africa, long considered Europe’s backyard. The piece did include a quote from a Daewoo Logistics official, however, who said Madagascar was quite sensitive about this issue because when China invests, it only goes after its own profits [..]
The JoongAng Ilbo, meanwhile, released an editorial blasting the FT, asking why the paper was turning a blind eye to British Jatropha farms in Madagascar (used for biodiesel fuel) and French plantations on the island while going after a Korean company only. And besides, the land Daewoo is acquiring is undeveloped, the new farms will provide employment, and the Madagascar government will be taking a 30% cut of the farm profits in taxes.”

Reactions to news of the land deal were heated and diverse in the Malagasy blogosphere:

The Malagasy diaspora website Sobika reported on the deal (Fr) moments after the Financial Times and asked their readers to react. Over 100 comments were posted on the articles within a few days. In a follow-up article, Sokiba speculates that the outrage expressed on the internet has led the company deny the conditions of the deal [Fr].

The outrage is far from being unanimous though. Some bloggers feel that the land deal could benefit Madagascar by increasing productivity on parts of the land. Aiky on the community blog Malagasy Miray adds [Mg]:

Ny tombontsoa indray kosa raha jerena amin’ny saina tsy miangatra dia :
- ny fanomezana asa ireo tantsaha eny ambanivohitra ka miteraka fidiram-bola maharitra ho azy ireo izany.
- ny fanajariana ireo tany izay tsy noeritreretina fa afaka ambolena na ihany koa tany ngazana ka rahatrizay vita ny fifanarahana izany hoe afaka zato taona dia mba ho moramora ho an’ireo taranaka fara aman-dimby ny hampiasa sy hamboly azy (raha tsy lasa fanan’olom-bitsy indray avy eo)
- raha misy fidiram-bola maharitra ireo tantsaha dia mety ho hita ihany koa ny fiatraikan’izany ka mahasoa ho an’ny manodidina na “effet d’entraînement”. […]
-Asa na tafiditra ao anaty fifanarahana fa mety hihatsara ihany koa ireo lalana sy tambanjotra misy any amin’ireo faritra.
- afaka mifehy ny fiakarana an-tanandehibe ny mpitondra raha misy asa eny ambanivohitra (maîtrise de l’exode rural)

The advantages as seen from a less emotional perspective:
- The new employment prospects for the farmers which in turn would lead to additional source of revenues.
- The exploitation of lands that were thought to be of little value and that could be still exploited after the lease.
- the chain reaction from such increase in revenues [..]
- the potential improvement in the status of the national roads and other facilities in that part of the country.
- A possible incentive to stop the exodus from the rural areas

On The Cyber Observer, a lawyer and blogger in Antananarivo, Andrydago, had the the amazing foresight to raise the legal issue of the sovereignty of land and foreign investment in October, a full month before this controversy. It is striking that the laws that make this lease permissible were amended earlier this year:

Recently, the new Malagasy investment law: act 2007-036 of January 14th, 2008, has brought a very key change concerning the possibility for foreigners to own their land in Madagascar. This law provided that foreign companies or foreign investors (individuals who have been granted with investor visa), can buy Malagasy land under the following conditions:

1. the land has to be used exclusively for professional exploitation. Any personal use and exploitation which is different from the nature of exploitation he “promised” to the Malagasy governement, are forbidden. If there is a breach of such condition, the governement can legally withdraw its title of land ownership;

2. the foreign company or investor has to submit its business plan (investment planning in Madagascar) to a public body named EDBM (Economic Development Board Madagascar). Such plan has to describe and detail its intended business and its pertaining investment in Madagascar;

3. the foreign company or investor has to apply for a formal approval named “authorization for land acquisition” before the EDBM in order to be allowed to purchase legally a Malagasy land. Such authorization if granted, gives to the foreign company or investor the same rights as for a Malagasy entity to purchase and to own land in Madagascar.

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/80620?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+First+comes+a+school.+Next+stop%2C+a+puppy+and+a+cabinetch=World+newsc3=The+Observerc4=Obama+White+House+%28News%29%2CBarack+Obama+%28News%29%2CUS+news%2CObserver%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CUS+Electionsc6=Suzanne+Goldenbergc7=2008_11_23c8=1122563c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Obama+White+Housec13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FObama+White+House" width="1" height="1" //divpAt last it's official. One of the gravest and most consequential decisions Barack Obama will ever make in his presidency - as least as far as a small and highly privileged segment of Washington is concerned - has been taken. Obama and his wife, Michelle, have decided where their two girls will go to school./ppIn a city where social status is conferred by proximity to political power, the Obamas' decision on where to educate their two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, had assumed outsize importance - in no small part because of the potential social opportunities it offers to Washington's elite and wealthy parents./ppWashingtonians are used to the quadrennial changing of the political guard, but there is a special excitement this time around about the incoming First Family. It has been decades since there were children this young in the White House, and of course there has never been an African-American family there at all. The decision on schools is the first in a trail of clues as to what sort of town Obama's Washington will be, to be followed in due course by solemn announcements of the family's choice of puppy, chef and sport of choice at the White House, as well as what church the family will attend. /ppOn schools, the Obamas have made the predictable choice: Sidwell Friends School. The Quaker-founded school is liberal with a strong green orientation, and has an excellent academic reputation. The population, which is divided on two campuses, is about 1,000, and 39 per cent of pupils describe themselves as being of colour./pp'A number of great schools were considered,' said Michelle Obama's spokesman, Katie McCormick Lelyveld. 'In the end, the Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need right now.' /ppSo that's one key element of the transition decided. Obama's cabinet also took on greater shape yesterday. Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is to be Treasury Secretary. Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico who served as energy secretary under Bill Clinton, is to take commerce and Hillary Clinton is expected to be formally confirmed as secretary of state following the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday./ppThe Obamas' deliberations on schooling had been closely followed in Washington, where there was keen appreciation for the potential benefits of a presidential connection. The morning after his election, Obama had been photographed dropping his children off at school in Chicago - fuelling anticipation about the possibility of befriending the president or first lady on the school run when the family move to the capital./ppThere are other potential points of connection; Michelle Obama has been on the board of the girls' school in Chicago, fuelling hopes she may repeat the activity in Washington. And then there are the girls themselves, and the possibility they might invite their new friends to the White House./ppSidwell has a long connection with money and the political elite. It is the alma mater of Tricia Nixon Cox, Chelsea Clinton and Al Gore III. The three granddaughters of the vice-president-elect, Joe Biden, are at the school. A number of former Hillary Clinton aides send their children there, including her pollster, Mark Penn. The journalist Bob Woodward sends his child there. And some were not shy of using those connections./ppOne leading Democratic fundraiser and hostess in Washington had her granddaughter, who is at Sidwell and is about the age of the Obamas' eldest daughter, write a letter to Malia talking up the school - which Malia then passed to her mother. Unlike a parallel situation in Britain, there had been little debate about whether the Obamas would choose a private or a state school, and they are unlikely to face much criticism for choosing a fee-paying school. Tuition starts at more than $28,000 a year. The city's mayor, Adrian Fenty, had urged the Obamas to consider sending their children to a public school because of the message it would send other parents in Washington. The mayor sends his own twin sons to a private school./ppWith that decision out of the way, the conversation in Washington yesterday turned to the Obamas' choice of church. Here they have to navigate not only class but race because the choice could also revisit the controversy over Obama's former pastor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright, at his old church in Chicago, Trinity United. Several churches near the White House have been courting the Obamas, since even before he won the election. /ppSally Quinn, the self-appointed arbiter of the capital's social scene, has also weighed in on the subject, with a piece in yesterday's Washington Post recomending the National Cathedral, which is Episcopalian. The Obamas might want to listen to Quinn, wife of the former Washington Post editor, Ben Bradlee. Quinn famously felt snubbed by the Clintons when they first arrived in Washington, and Hillary did not jump at an invitation to be introduced to her social set. Quinn spent the next eight years cavilling about how the Clintons lacked class./ppNow, where will the Obama girls do ballet?/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-white-house"Obama White House/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/barackobama"Barack Obama/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/li/ul/divdiv class="guRssAdvert"a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yessite=Newscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227399527273112300260553996"img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yessite=Newscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227399527273112300260553996" border="0" //a/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/5930?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Vegas+bids+to+cash+in+with+plan+for+%2450m+Mob+museumch=World+newsc3=The+Observerc4=US+news%2CWorld+news%2CObserverc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Kevin+Mitchellc7=2008_11_23c8=1122543c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=United+Statesc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FUnited+States" width="1" height="1" //divpLas Vegas, the desert city with an insatiable thirst for reinvention, is turning to some old friends to reboot its faltering economy: the Mob./ppBuilding projects have stalled up and down the Strip, unheard of in a town where the sound of explosions on worn-out casino sites was as commonplace as gunfire, when the old constantly made way for the new. Now, as credit and the gambling nerve of the hotel bosses dry up simultaneously, the town invented by Bugsy Siegel in the Forties is going back to its dubious past for inspiration./ppWork has started on a $50m museum that will open in the spring of 2010 celebrating the Mafia's links with the gambling capital of the world. It is an initiative that excites the mayor, Oscar Goodman, but dismays others weary of the city's historical association with organised crime./ppGoodman is more than a mayor. He is a celebrity in a city that lives and dies on fame. He knew Frank Sinatra. He knew John F Kennedy. He knew Marilyn Monroe. This is a town and a civic administration that was as comfortable with the Mob and its attendant guest list as it was with the certainty of another sunny day./ppGoodman told The Observer the project was 'as cool as it gets', dismissing suggestions that it might not be universally popular, given the nature of the Mob's activities./ppThe museum has been the subject of controversy since it was announced in October. 'The Mob museum and media try to romanticise these monsters for money,' wrote a blogger on the Las Vegas Review Journal's website. 'These romantic characters are really just lunatics and degenerates who preyed off society. If Las Vegas wants a museum, build one to commemorate the victims, not the criminals.' There is no denying, though, that exploiting the fascination with gangsters here is a profitable exercise. On a two-and-half-hour, $70 'Mob Tour of Las Vegas' last week, Vinny the guide said that even real-life hoodlums come to have a look. /pp'Three weeks ago,' he said, 'we had Henry Hill, who is in and out of witness protection, and was played by Ray Liotta in Goodfellas. He was pretty stewed. But he loved it.'/ppGoodman said: 'Nobody's given me an opinion other than they like it. You want a watercolour museum? You want a porcelain museum?' A robust populist who mines his colourful past as a prop in his political shtick, Goodman is in his third and final term, a Democrat approved by eight out of 10 voters in a city that is an unashamed cathedral to capitalism./ppGoodman is no ordinary civic leader. As he is occasionally reminded, over three decades he acted as counsel for some of the country's most notorious mobsters, men who built and ran Las Vegas. His clients included Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal and Anthony 'Tony the Ant' Spilotro, whose barely disguised doppelgangers were portrayed by Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci in the eerily accurate 1995 movie Casino (in which Goodman had a walk-on part)./ppAnd, no, he did not find his own 'Mob history' an embarrassment. 'What? To defend people, and protect their constitutional rights, and make sure that the government doesn't take advantage of them? You find that offensive? That's the reason we left England. OK?/pp'I don't care whether it is or it isn't [popular]. I care that there are people going in there and spending a lot of money and the city of Las Vegas is getting the fees and the concession money and making a fortune. It's going to be phenomenal. It's going to bring hundreds of thousands of people into our downtown.' /ppIt might be stretching it to say Goodman 'knows where the bodies are buried' in anything other than a metaphorical sense, but he does know how to generate money. And the city that has been his home since he moved to Nevada from Philadelphia in the Sixties as a public defender has rarely needed his entrepreneurial instincts more than now. /ppStatistics released last week make grim reading: visitor numbers are down 10 per cent, year on year, to 2.9 million in September; room rates have been slashed by 21 per cent as tou6rist numbers dwindle; hotel occupancy is 84.3 per cent, down 7 per cent; across Nevada, gambling revenue dropped 5.4 per cent to just over $1bn; and on the Strip the take was a mere $525.5m for the month, down 5.17 per cent./ppThose are numbers of dollars lost by Mr and Mrs Wisconsin at the slot machines, as well as the high-rollers at the baccarat tables. Las Vegas wins because it is full of losers. 'Life is a risk,' said Goodman. 'When I have my drink tonight, I'm risking it may be my last.'/ppThe Mob Museum has been his pet project since he was elected in 1999. He got the idea from an unusual source: the old Post Office down the street from City Hall. It was in that building in 1950 that Senator Estes Kefauver conducted the Nevada leg of his famous inquiry into organised crime, butting up against the intransigence of witnesses unbothered by official scrutiny./pp'We hired the folks who are doing the Spy Museum in Washington DC,' Goodman said. 'When you go in there you're going to be mugged, you're going to be booked, you're going to have your Miranda rights [the 'right to remain silent' legislation] given to you. And who knows if you'll ever get out? Because we're going to have machine-guns there, which will be provided by the FBI.'/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/li/ul/divdiv class="guRssAdvert"a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yessite=Newscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227399527309112300260553996"img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yessite=Newscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227399527309112300260553996" border="0" //a/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a

The escalation of conflict between government troops and Muslim separatist rebels in several areas of Mindanao Island has affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Mindanao is located in south Philippines.

The intensified fighting began after a peace agreement was rejected by many politicians, and finally by the Philippine Supreme Court. Critics believe the agreement was unconstitutional since it would compromise the sovereignty of the Republic of the Philippines. They added that the agreement would pave the way for the establishment of a separate Moro-controlled state within the territories of the country.

Angered by the rejection of the agreement, a rebel commander attacked military posts which produced civilian casualties. The government retaliated by launching offensives against the territories controlled by the rebels.

The fighting has not stopped. More than 610,000 people have been displaced already. The non-stop fighting has created several “ghost towns” in some provinces of Mindanao. The situation of refugees is deteriorating. Children are among those who are suffering the most.

Volunteer Sarah Matalam posts pictures of evacuation centers in Cotabato province:

Muslim groups want the government to stop the indiscriminate air strikes by the military. Like a Rolling Store uploads a report by a humanitarian mission which visited several evacuation sites in Mindanao:

“The offensives have led to mass evacuations. In the evacuation centers, the displaced persons suffer from inadequate facilities. Most of them have set up tents in whatever public place available. With heavy rains and flooding now common at this time of year, many child evacuees are sick with cough, cold, fever, and diarrhea. A number of evacuees have died of disease. There is also the trauma experienced by the evacuees, particularly the children.”

Dr. Carol Araullo, a member of the humanitarian mission, emphasizes that more help is needed:

“The hunger, sickness and generalized misery; the listlessness, the yearning to go back to their farms and homes safely; the appeal for a return to normalcy, for an end to the military restrictions over their comings and goings – these images and plaints became etched in our minds and hearts as we went from one evacuation center to another.

“Scores of victims of human rights abuses were interviewed: those wrongfully arrested, those beaten up because they were rebel suspects or so that they would point to the rebels/rebel sympathizers; those whose relatives had been killed or were injured in the course of the government’s drive to flush out the “rogue elements” of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front; those whose houses and other properties had been destroyed.

“After the teams had tallied the numbers of patients treated, families given relief goods and victims of human rights violations attended to, we came to the sobering conclusion that what the Mission had achieved was a mere drop in the bucket compared to the overwhelming needs.”

Journalist Edwin Espejo was affected by what he witnessed:

“Deep into the heart of the conflict, trails of destruction – burnt houses, abandoned homes and ubiquitous presence of checkpoints and war materiel – are eerie testaments of the war.

“Of course, we are living in troubled times and disturbing scenes are fast numbing one’s senses. Many would argue that journalists covering the conflict in Mindanao cannot afford to be emotionally attached to events unfolding before their very eyes.

“Yet one cannot totally dissociate his or her self from realizing that the war is affecting not only the combatants from both sides of the conflicts. It is also sublimely creating different levels of consciousness and commitment on journalists covering the war and affecting the quality of their reportage.”

Reckons of Spring writes that while Manila politicians are debating, the people of Mindanao are suffering:

“While many of the politicians and top government officials based in Manila are busy in expressing their contrasting opinions about the issues related to the “ancestral domain”, I wonder how the displaced locales of North Cotabato and neighboring provinces are faring. Do they have any food to ease their hunger? Do they have any medicine or medical attention to ease their pains? Can they ever sleep amidst the horror of the ongoing circumstances, or to simplify my question, can they find a shelter, no matter how temporary it is- for a night's sleep?”

The fighting is turning uglier everyday. An Al Jazeera team has learned that the government has been recruiting vigilantes to fight the rebels:

“Civilians are being given jobs normally the preserve of the police and army at an alarming rate across Mindanao. In North Cotabato Al Jazeera met some new recruits being put through their paces in a military-backed militia programme that normally takes three months. This training programme has been accelerated to just six weeks in order to fill what the authorities regard as a security vacuum.”

Watch the report of Al Jazeera:

And Part II of the report:

The rebel commander who is probably the most wanted man in the Philippines today insists in a video interview that it was government troops who first attacked the rebels.

Another controversy is the alleged involvement of US troops in the fighting. Himagsik Kayumanggi reports:

“US Special Forces were sighted inside the 64th Infantry Battalion Camp in Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Maguindanao. Bai Ali Indayla of the Moro human rights group Kawagip testified that the soldiers were engaged in covert operations, such as the supervision of drones or spy planes and predator missile strikes. This was confimed by Major Gen. Eugenio Cedo, then commander of the Western Mindanao Command. As usual, the US Embassy denied that the soldiers were involved in actual combat; they were only responding to the military request for aerial surveillance to determine conditions of the terrain and visibility, for “future civil-military projects,” to quote Rebecca Thompson, US Embassy Information Officer.”

Peace advocates want both parties – the government and Muslim rebels – to call for a ceasefire. There is an online petition asking the government to cease its military operations in Mindanao. A letter was sent to the Holy Pope to intervene. The Philippines is a Catholic-dominated country:

“We hope that Your Holiness could help us bring peace and justice to our brothers and sisters in Mindanao by expressing concern about the unfolding humanitarian crisis and appeal for restraint for the protection of all civilians, as well as for the opening of access for the provision of speedy humanitarian assistance to the affected population.”

Mindanao bloggers have vowed to blog for peace. Journalist Walter Balane has a message for bloggers:

“Blogging might not only be limited to blogging about Mindanao and its peoples but also helping the “voiceless” learn to blog so they, too, can blog about themselves.

“Of course it would be extremely difficult for existing Mindanao bloggers to access many of the areas safely and for the people in communities to approach which local bloggers can help them.

But bloggers must continue to try linking them and engaging them for mutual respect and understanding in an effort to connect more and more people.

Many of us who are already blogging about the voiceless must continue doing it and infect others to do the same.

We can focus on a Mindanao consciousness that is more inclusive, not exclusive.”

An anonymous reader writes "The Register reports that BT, the UK's dominant telecom and internet service provider, has 'banned all future discussion of Phorm and its "WebWise" targeted advertising product on its customer forums, and deleted all past threads about the controversy dating back to February.' Phorm is a controversial opt-out system for delivering targeted advertising that intercepts traffic passing through an ISP in order to profile subscribers via an assigned unique ID based on their online activities. Subscribers can opt-out at the Webwise website but are opted-in again if the Phorm cookie is cleared. Firefox users can install Melvin Sage's Firephorm add-on to manage their interaction with Phorm and Webwise."pa href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/22/0221226amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/22/0221226"/a/ppa href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/22/0221226amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/xc31N1Q_aA6agrKtDtQT_Cvqf0Q/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/xc31N1Q_aA6agrKtDtQT_Cvqf0Q/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/f9phBCD0SVc" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/40701?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Outrage+in+Venice+as+giant+ads+smother+cultural+jewelsch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Italy+%28News%29%2CVenice+in+Italy+%28Travel%29%2CAdvertising+%28media%29%2CMedia%2CTravel%2CWorld+newsc5=European+Travel%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CMedia+Weekly%2CAdvertising+Mediac6=John+Hooperc7=2008_11_22c8=1122179c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Italyc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FItaly" width="1" height="1" //divpFrancesco da Mosto was spitting with fury. "Venice," he said, "has put its dignity up for sale." The architect-turned-presenter of a string of popular TV series was commenting on the giant hoardings put up in some of the most aesthetically sensitive parts of his native city./ppSince the end of August, a vast Lancia car has been parked on the front of the Palazzo Ducale in Venice. A giant Rolex watch has been draped over the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, also in St Mark's Square. And, by the Grand Canal, the facade of the Ca' Rezzonico palazzo has been smothered with an advert for jeans. "We have reached the point at which there is a naked woman - covered only by a bag - on the front of a church," raged Da Mosto./ppWhat makes him especially irate is that 10 years ago he asked officials if money could be raised for one restoration project by giving a sponsor a small amount of space on a discreet depiction of the building used to mask scaffolding. "The sponsor would not have had more than 2% of the surface of the hoarding, but they said no," he recalled./ppWhat has changed since is that cash has been bled from the management of Italy's arts and heritage as politicians have struggled to keep public spending within the limits imposed by membership of the euro. Disputes over lucre have poisoned the atmosphere in some of the most refined settings, including La Scala in Milan./ppThe latest cuts were ordered after Silvio Berlusconi returned to office in April - euro;922m (pound;766m) off the culture budget over three years. Cultural administrators have been ravenous for funding, and less choosy about how to get it. /ppRenata Codello, the central government's heritage administrator in Venice, said her budget was down by a quarter. "If the geniuses who criticise us give me the money for the restorations, I'll do away with [the giant ads] at once," she said. "Otherwise, they should keep quiet. We don't have alternatives." /ppJust one of the hoardings in St Mark's Square will yield a reported euro;3.6m./ppFears of even more jarring initiatives were this week rife after Italy's culture minister, Sandro Bondi, unveiled his own response to the crisis - the appointment of the former head of McDonald's in Italy to be overall chief of museums and archaeological sites./ppBondi's predecessor, Francesco Rutelli, said 63-year-old Mario Resca was "wholly unqualified" and the government's top advisory body, the National Heritage Council, appealed for his appointment to be suspended. Resca himself dismissed warnings of the "burgerisation" of Italy's rich heritage, telling Corriere della Sera this week that it needed to be "valued and certainly not ruined". /ppHe noted that not one Italian museum was among the world's 10 most visited; even the Galleria degli Uffizi, in Florence, packed with Renaissance treasures, draws barely 60% of the figure for the Prado in Madrid. Resca said he intended negotiating with the unions for seven-day opening, so creating "thousands of new jobs"./ppSome of his other ideas, though, will do nothing to quell the controversy surrounding him. He said he would be happy to see the Colosseum used as a film set, arguing it would make "the cultural message more popular"./ppAmong those who welcomed his appointment was Michele Trimarchi, professor of cultural economics at Bologna University. He said Resca could administer an "injection of new perspectives and visions". /ppAs it was, museums and other cultural institutions in Italy were not autonomous bodies but government departments, so directors lacked "incentives to carry out projects of any sort". Funding was "unconnected to any sort of performance criteria". And there was no overall national strategy that could provide guidelines in cases such as the Venice hoardings. "We love our culture," said Trimarchi. "But we don't know why we manage it the way we do."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/italy"Italy/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/venice"Venice/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/advertising"Advertising/a/li/ul/divdiv class="guRssAdvert"a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yessite=Newscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227317660307112201400459684"img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yessite=Newscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227317660307112201400459684" border="0" //a/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a

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We are back after some server problems and there are few new releases from group VoMiT: one of them is a Portugese movie Tropa De Elite. This is a pretty decent movie awarded by many film prizes also knows as “Elite Squad” in English, from the writer of another touching flick City of God. The audio is obviously Brazilian Portugese, but there are English and Spanish subtitles included in the release. The proper reason is wrong subtitles/audio in previous releases. Enjoy one of the best known movies in Brazil!

Though José Padilha’s action-packed crime drama won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival, a steady stream of controversy and acclaim has followed in its wake. Some critics have even accused the director of promoting fascism, while Padilha (Bus 174) contends that Elite Squad argues against police brutality. Like Vic Mackey, who heads up The Shield’s LA strike force, narrator Captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura) heads up Rio de Janeiro’s Police Special Operations Battalion (BOPE). It’s 1997, the Pope arrives for a visit in six months, and BOPE will stop at nothing to reduce crime in the favelas. The way they see it, drug traffickers have them outmanned and outgunned, so there’s no point in playing by the rules. With their black uniforms and berets, the Skulls certainly cut an imposing figure.

Tropa.De.Elite.2007.PROPER.DVDRip.XviD-VoMiT

2 CD, 1.4 GB, vmt-elites-xvid
115 min, 672 x 368, 1240 kbps, 125 kbps mp3
IMDB (8.1), Amazon, NFO, Torrent

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