Afghan Radio Wars

At dusk last Friday, four Taliban mortars crashed to the ground near the district center in Miri, a small town in eastern Ghazni province where a U.S. Army company is based. Shrapnel from one of the blasts injured two children in a residential area, a 12-year-old girl and one-year-old boy, who later died of his injuries. It was the second time in as many months that militants had killed local civilians, and U.S. forces were not going to let it be forgotten.

Within two hours of the attack, a message was drafted by the battalion's "information operations" team to be broadcast by its new on-base radio station. In the cramped confines of a steel shipping container-turned-studio, Karimullah, the Afghan announcer, broke the news that both children were taken to an area hospital by American soldiers "for the best possible care, but the little boy was too badly hurt. The insurgents," he lamented, "continue to harm their fellow Afghans and kill your children needlessly."

Words are now weapons in the fight for Afghan hearts and minds — but they must be deployed faster than ever to be effective. In recent years, the Taliban-led insurgency has evolved a vast propaganda machine with a full range of tools to spread their message. The once anti-media movement now operates websites featuring updated battlefield reports; it also mass-produces DVDs with raw video of attacks against coalition forces. Meanwhile, the Taliban's regional spokesmen communicate with domestic and foreign press in real time via cell phone.

But no medium is as powerful as radio in this poor, largely illiterate country with limited access to TV and the internet. On both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, Taliban-sponsored FM stations drive home the insurgents' messaging campaign, with the threat of physical punishment or worse reserved for those who don't tune in. Mobile clandestine radio stations and portable transmitters enable militants to tap and commandeer local airwaves almost at will.

Recognizing the Taliban's head-start on this critical front, NATO military officials have ramped up the spin cycle in the Afghan backcountry. Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, recently issued operational guidelines stressing that the "information war" must be fought aggressively to ensure insurgent propaganda is not just promptly challenged but also beaten to the punch. "Turn our enemies' extremist ideologies, oppressive practices and indiscriminate violence against them. Hang their barbaric actions like millstones around their necks," the guidelines say. "Be first with the truth."

U.S. forces in Ghazni have tapped into alternative funding streams to support the wider radio effort. Ever-popular hand-cranked radios are being distributed in larger numbers at the village-level to expand the audience.

The push has struck a chord. In some districts the Taliban has responded by collecting hundreds of radios and destroying them. Elsewhere, they've targeted radio towers. The Americans, in turn, have started jamming Taliban radio frequencies and going door-to-door with "reverse night information papers," their own version of the Taliban's notorious "night letters", turning an intimidation tactic on its head. The battalion commander, Lieut. Col. David Fivecoat, calls it a necessary measure to stay a step ahead of the militants, and the Afghan news cycle. "We are working hard to make sure the insurgents don't have the opportunity to blame us," he says. Indeed, as the fighting season winds down, the information war is still in overdrive.

Yet given the insurgency's long-standing chokehold over areas like Ghazni, old fears are proving difficult to shake. A day after the errant Taliban mortars claimed two innocent casualties, soldiers stationed in Miri went to assess the damage in a nearby neighborhood. According to Lieut. Philip Divinski, most people had already heard the Taliban was responsible from word-of-mouth or the radio. They could also assume as much, based on the previous militant mortar attack in October that killed two people and injured at least 10 more in the bazaar. Despite the deadly reprise, he was struck at how indifference exceeded anger among the victims' families and friends. "Sadly, it seems people have gotten used to this kind of thing," says the officer. "They understand who's at fault, but they're just too afraid to turn against them."

Telecom Fraud

Telecommunication is the biggest industry in Afghanistan; creating billions of dollars for the economy and millions in taxation benefit the government. However the conduct of the industry and the relationship between ATRA, the regulatory body and GSM companies haven’t been scrutinized. One of the things I have noticed lately is the revenue from international calls. Telephone companies in different countries use a variety of international telecoms routes to send traffic to each other. These can be legal routes or other arrangements the industry calls grey routes, a euphemisms.

Grey routes are arrangements that fall outside the regular course of business between the licensed telecoms companies in each country. The grey part of the route is usually at the far end where the call is terminated. Up to that point, there are normal arrangements to deliver the call from the subscriber to the sending carrier and between the sending carrier and the satellite or cable operator for the trunk part of the call. The grey-ness arises because at the far end the call is made to appear as if it originates locally, as a domestic call, rather than a more expensive international call.

By terminated the calls through grey channels telecoms and other organizations make millions of dollars. I just did an assessment of how much money is made by GSM operators and other agencies and calculated how much is therefore lost in taxes. According to CIA, world factbook, there are 15 million cell operators in Afghanistan. Data on the volume of international calls terminated in Afghanistan is unavailable. Instead I used data available from similar least developed countries (LDC) taking into consideration the volume of diaspora and the heavy presence of international community. I then multiplied that figure with the 15 million users estimated by various sources, but deducting 13 percent which is the normal rate for dual simcard ownership in other LDCs. My calculation estimates that the government is losing 17.5 million every month in revenue due to fraudulent termination of international calls coming into Afghanistan.

The situation where international calls are being terminated on mobile phones as local cell phone numbers is a fraud.

ATRA, the communications regulator, should ensure a uniform tariff of $0.19 per minute on all in-bound international calls. This would safeguard government's revenue earnings of about $210 million a year from in-bound international calls.

International calls to Afghanistan usually terminate on the receiver's phone as either 'Private Number', 'Unknown' or '000000', but lately some international calls terminate with local cell phone numbers, as if they are local calls.

the technology for terminating international calls is real simple and I know a few of the “operators”. All needed is a small satellite dish on the roof and a little capacity on a transponder, a company can become a small-scale international carrier. A device GSM gateway is needed to hack into mobile networks and route international calls to local mobile or landline numbers within the same network the call was to terminate, then re-route the call from that local number to the number the international call was originally intended for.

the telcos and whoever is in the business make it look like the call originated and terminated within the same network so the payment of international interconnectivity fee is avoided and government loses in terms of taxes on such calls.

I suspect that some of the telecom operators have their own grey routes for terminating international calls or are conniving with external contractors. it would be repetitive to talk about the old song of corruption in Afghan government but the the telecom regulator, ATRA, i suspect is deep in it to the neck. i happen to know that member of ATRA board are regularly greased up by the cash rich GSM operators.

I also suspect some of the telcos are not here to operate a GSM network but terminate international calls. MTN for instance has 7 Afs (14cent) rate for internetwork connection. This is extremely high to any standard; moreover they do little advertising to expand and diversify their products. One can’t help not to wonder why they are here.

i am not saying this to point to obvious corruption in telco but the potential of the industry and how little any player knows about it. the government has little idea and the proof of that is lack of time and money invest ment in regulation; as a result most of the profit is swept away by a few players.

What do you think about wikileaks?

 

Wikileaks is publishing new content from the leaked US classified cables each day on the Internet. The documents published through Wikileaks so far have no doubt answered people's need for information. As the rhythm of life and the dissemination of information accelerates with explosive speed, documents that were not meant for publication must now be published quicker than bureaucrats are accustomed to it being the case so as not to warp or distort people's view of the world. As long as truthful information on society is considered dangerous because it contradicts false information spread by governments, information leaks will always be more than welcome.

This method of publication restores some freedom to readers and creates a global public sphere. Democracy can only function on the basis of transparency - yet at the same time it requires the option of secrecy. We are now moving within this tense relationship. It is fascinating to see how these opposing needs are now being balanced as readers watch. Journalists and all online readers are naturally watching closely what the competition reveals. Wikileaks is showing once more that what we read in the press is what was thought and known at a particular point in time. To what extent this corresponds to reality must be subject to continual re-examination.

Here is a point for you to ponder:

The notion of the informed reader is dangerous populism, one could say. True. But without it there can be no democracy.

Pakistan in US diplomat secret cables

Confidential cables to Washington from the American embassy in Islamabad, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations, illustrate deep clashes over strategic goals on issues like Pakistan's support for the Afghan Taliban and tolerance of Al Qaeda, and Washington's warmer relations with India, Pakistan's archenemy.

One cable, sent less than a month after President Obama assured reporters that Pakistan's nuclear materials "will remain out of militant hands," expressed concern that a stockpile of highly enriched uranium, stored for years near an aging research reactor in Pakistan , could be used by militants to build several "dirty bombs" or perhaps an actual nuclear bomb.

That cable is among the most unnerving evidence of the complex relationship -- sometimes cooperative, often confrontational, always wary -- between America and Pakistan nearly 10 years into the American-led war in Afghanistan.

Over all, though, the cables portray deep skepticism that Pakistan will ever cooperate fully in fighting the full panoply of extremist groups. This is partly because Pakistan sees some of the strongest militant groups as insurance for the inevitable day that the United States military withdraws from Afghanistan — and Pakistan wants to exert maximum influence inside Afghanistan and against Indian intervention.

In one cable, Ms. Patterson, a veteran diplomat who left Islamabad in October after a three-year stint as ambassador, said more money and military assistance would not be persuasive. “There is no chance that Pakistan will view enhanced assistance levels in any field as sufficient compensation for abandoning support for these groups, which it sees as an important part of its national security apparatus against India.”

In a rare tone of dissent with Washington, she said Pakistan would only dig in deeper if America continued to improve ties with India, which she said “feeds Pakistani establishment paranoia and pushes them closer to both Afghan and Kashmir focused terrorist groups.”

Celebrating the “enabling environment”

Unreasonable TV: Episode 4 - Sierra Leone and the Heart of Community from Unreasonable Institute on Vimeo.

using sms to organise kite festival

using sms to organise kite festival

Revelation of the War

 

After the publishing of more than 90,000 obviously compromising documents on the wikileak one would wonder what else can be done in Afghanistan. No matter what strategies the US, Brussels and Kabul come up with their credibility has been severely damaged. There was already much distrist between the three parties especially between Kabul and Brussel and Washington; this takes it to a new level. It will help undermine the trust between the coalition partners fighting in Afghanistan - as well as increasing public anxiety.

I have been monitoring some media today to see the response and I think they got it wrong again. Instead of dealing with what has been leaked they are only blaming the whistleblowers. Children or Generals? Here are my questions: How are they supposed to explain that a special task force has been hunting down the Taliban for years now without success? How can they justify publicly praising cooperation with the Pakistani authorities when it turns out that the Pakistani secret service is 'probably the Taliban's most important non-Afghan helper'? … Governments should start reading them. This also shows how risky this operation is no matter what NATO is trying to do about it. For Nato, which since the end of the Cold War has seen it's role as that of the global policeman, this raises the question of its legitimacy.

The parallels with Vietnam are becoming obvious: In 1971 a US court forced the publishing of secret documents on the situation in Vietnam, nowadays the Internet ensures transparency. Is the same fate waiting for the US? many has argued 'Yes' but I disagree. The war in Afghanistan is winnable; only if Washington, Brussels and Kabul stop making mistakes; only if Washington and Brussels could stifle corruption in Kabul administration. These documents show how widespread corruption in Afghanistan is and how far it goes behind the crippled Kabul administration.

SMS government: District Government registers client via cellphone

We are trying to promote the idea that district level government in Afghanistan need to engage population more proactively in the face of general disillusionment.

We work with a few district governments in southern Afghanistan to facilitate constituencies who are visiting the district offices to use government services. We have recruited and trained a few constituency caseworkers in the provinces of Wardak, Paktika, Nangarhar and Kunar; we are placing them inside the district governor offices. The candidate was briefed that the role is not to initiate a broad array of actions resulting in a speedy, favourable outcome. When performing casework, the scribe cannot force an agency to expedite a case or act in favour of a client. Scribe role is to intervene to facilitate the appropriate administrative processes. The scribes have a form which they fill out with details of each client/constituent visiting district government office. The form has three copies and one goes to the client.

Local governments (both district and provincial) should try to stay engaged with the public. Keeping continuous and systematic communication with them is a tool to gauge their mood and needs. The challenge in Afghanistan is lack of security, geographically dispersed villages, corruption and public reluctance to engage with the government; under such circumstances it is impossible for local governments to remained informed about public need and raise awareness of government efforts.

Using cellphone local governments can easily gather citizen input via voice platforms and SMS, grouping constituent interests by keywords. Then, based on those keywords, informing them of government actions in their interests.

we are working to use frontline sms to automate the system. this idea came to me when working with telephone operators; there is alot of neglect on the part of staff in a place like Afghanistan. they are not serious about details and cannot be bothered to be accurate.

Project Description and Technical Workflow

The idea is to make the inprocess form available via cellphone, so scribe can use client – or his cellphone when they don’t have – to directly input their detail into the database. we can automate the process this way. Client will be promoted to give regular feedback. District governor and related staff will be reminded about client status and scribe will be tasked to follow up on issues when hitting a barrier. The digitization of bureaucracy on an easy to use medium not only streamlines process but also makes up for lack of physical interaction as a result of worsening security situation.

We can make the form for data entry available via phones without using java enabled features. That we it can be available on all phones. The telephone which receives the form can send a simple hand-written SMS and our dB sms software can receive it. the data is not interpreted, validated or written in a database by FrontlineSMS. For this purpose we can develop a MySQL or MS Access database system to host the SMS data and to provide validation on the data received and to send an automatic reply to follow up with the sender, relate the problem to other stakeholders. For instance a client sends in form with a petition for Tazkira (birth certificate), the sender will receive an sms back, giving him the contact information for the Tazkira manager and working hours of the dept. the dB will also send a message to Tazkira manager informing him about the petition and any unusual notes.

For the functioning of the system we need two dBs, one at the front end and another at the back. The front-end database is the system that performs the validation and the queries would require adaptation for porting to another system.

We have received some money and currently working on a short-codes to toll-free SMS lines, to lower the barrier to entry for ordinary citizens who may not be able to afford a multiple SMS ‘conversation’ based on a menu tree.

There are a few other features that we could add to the casket: I am interested to look into geo-tagging, to give additional geographic context and trends analysis of citizen feedback and information requests.

So far we are only building this text based but we would like to bring in the voice; by using text to speech technology we can trigger recorded audio call-backs for those instances where audio is more appropriate than text.

good luck dying

I grew up at a time when most people had to confine themselves to closed spaces or there was serious risk of getting shot. This give people a good chance to make an income from by doing labour extensive handcrafts. People would spend ten hours a day working on a piece of embroidery or weaving carpet. The amount of money they were making was closer to nothing. Most women would severely lose eye sight in their mid thirties and the job general deteriorate worker health condition. this is the story of my uncle http://sanjar.blogspot.com/2006/05/i-am-terrorist.html. I had turned out to be against handcraft labour as a mean of income.

I was particularly pissed off by the international community and all other fancy people who would stand around and say how pretty certain carpet or embroidery was. If you google for Afghan handcraft, carpet, embroidery or etc you will see millions of dollars had been spent to revive or build such a niche where vulnerable people such as children and women labour so some fancy guy could show off. I always thought the way out is not through creating menial labour extensive camps but economic prosperity. My argument had a logic that is common sense - unless sweatshop workers are literally slaves, they are presumably working long hours in horrible conditions for low pay only because the alternative ways of making a living are worse or none existent.

When you take away iconic handcraft labour from a woman or child the obvious risk is that they lose whatever financial power they have, they will be out on the street begging or resorting to worst activities often with criminal inclination. This is surely not the aim. The only alternative is economic growth: while it may be frustratingly slow, it finishes off Afghan handcraft by producing far more attractive jobs. There is also a psychological element to the persistence of “afghan handcraft”. Many labours, traders and international buyers and sponsors see this work as the only way some afghan can make a living. In the head of the labourer it has resonated that he or she is not good for anything else but this repetitive task. This kills imagination and a will to life. The traders and international sponsors reinforces the belief by supporting the interprise.

While the economic logic is straightforward enough, it is not watertight. But I am starting to believe that economic development is not alleviating this particular problem. Economic growth itself can increase the demand for child labour as well as reducing the supply. While luxury customers are willing to pay a dime more for well established carpet brand, increasing the chances of handcraft labouror income. So I was intrigued to discover two new pieces of research addressing these questions. One is an article in March’s American Economic Review, written by Ann Harrison of the University of California, Berkeley, and Jason Scorse of the Monterey Institute. Harrison and Scorse study data from Indonesia. Harrison and Scorse look at the footwear, textile and clothing sectors with brand names for handmade products. After US boycott of such products profits did fall, and so does investment. Some small plants closed. But few, if any, jobs seem to have been lost. The minimum wage in Indonesia more than doubled between 1989 and 1996, after inflation, and this did depress employment. But there seemed to be no additional effect in the districts with lots of high street handcraft suppliers, despite the fact that wages in those regions outpaced wage increases elsewhere by almost a third.

The second paper was presented in draft form at the Royal Economic Society meeting in Guildford in 2010. This research, by Nigar Hashimzade and Uma Kambhampati of the University of Reading, shows that economic growth – at least in the short-term – is not enough to reduce child labour. Complementary policies to strengthen schools and the incentive to attend them seem to be necessary.

Neither piece of research is the last word, and neither discounts the long-term effectiveness of economic growth in improving working conditions. But I am thinking about women and children who work 15 hours to waving carpet and inhale the dust from the wool. There is no quick solution for them and it seems like they have to keep doing it for another few decades.

Information via mobile phone

Tamas is a project intended to provide crops and market prices to farmers. I was earlier talking with a few of people about it. It is a brilliant idea but they are not doing it right; I am not impressed by the people who had designed the project there is not much enthusiasm on their side – not a good attitude to start with. I was surprised by a predominant attitude that expects it to fail…

Tamas have a few sever shortcomes – apart from crappy attitude. They don't have a good user/client base. The number of people who use tamas falls in 0.000X figure of the people who need the information. The number of people with technical capacity to extract such information is between 15-20 % of those in need; given cellphone ownership. this line of thinking is valid for planning the user base but the project should be based on specifics; the inflow of user numbers within the first quarter and subsequent timeframes. I don't know what they originally planned but they can't readjust that to the reality and revise the figures. Reality for Tamas managers is more like we are not sure. The key to success of this enterprise is creating a user base and the inflow of users. I am a big fun of anthropological theory of innovation diffusion in this regard. It explains who and how the user base will expand. Many e-commerce enterprises used the concept, for instance paypal was giving free credit to attract experimenters when it first started.

 

Second problem with Tamas is the marketing approach they have. Mass advertising is not efficient for promoting technological innovation in communication chain. We need to provide knowledge to bridge the understanding gap. Projects such as cellphone innovations need education for end users. The efficient way to do this is through direct marketing,1.  it gives a virtual product a living face 2. Interactive information for user and step by step guide. 3. Targeted . Moreover technological innovation need to focus marketing effort on previous customers; to keep them engaged – so they are not there for a one time shop. This is all I have learned with a similar project I am working on. The radio advertising and print campaign didn't work out for us. Our marketers on the ground are drawing clients by dozens; with this inflow we are creating the customer base we need in a quarter.

 

The third problem with Tamas is the availability of price index. I texted for banana and apple price in Kabul and they didn't have it while now is the season for both. This is like having a radio station but it is not on air.

 

The failure of tamas doesn't mean text or voice based cell application doesn't work. For the starter it means that USAID and its partner did a lousy job in doing it. they need to have people who believe in texting and have entrepreneurial spirit , not the type experimenting on Afghanistan. "Tamas doesn't work" or "mPaisa doesn't work" are the common type of arguments I hear on daily basis when people want to oppose mobile phone applications. All of the above arguments also apply to mPaisa but I have to say they are getting better at it and will have a larger user base especially if the could successful enroll the entire police force for salary transfers.

Explosion on darullaman road at 8:10

I just heard a big explosion near our house; it is around 8:10am. The explosion happened on darullaman road toward the ministry of rural development. The smoke is mushrooming in the sky and i can hear sirens. Trucks are rushing toward the scene. This part of town was quiet recently and not many explosion had happened in the last few years.

Rationality and Taliban and how can we rationally handle them

Here is a daunting question; are Taliban rational? i say terrorism is the only rational thing Taliban are capable to do. Taliban as individuals are not rational. they lack control over basic human instincts such as anger, joy, jealousy… etc. that is why they decided to be Taliban as a result of foreign occupation, corruption or anything that is happening in Afghanistan which made them angry. Taliban movement is the only framework that helps the lunatics behave rationally and have a sense of fulfillment.

Mullah Rockety, Waheed Mozhda and Abdul Salam for instance were all Taliban but they are not any more. They are in the government or have something going that is engaging and provides that rationality which they once enjoyed from being a Talib. No longer these men have nothing to lose.

There has been many theories to reconstruct a rational theory of terrorism an one of the best is Eli Berman's. Reverse the story of mullah rockety or abdul salam and you get a sense of Berman's argument: effective terrorist groups are effective only because their members are cut off from the outside world and have little to gain from quitting the group. This could be caused by many things such as poor education and etc but the core reason for the majority of a nation is bad governance and in Afghanistan failed state for decades.

Of course, the world is not short of terrorists, but there are many grievances, many disaffected young men and hundreds of thousands of murders or deaths on the battlefield. Given what an impact terrorist violence can have, and how low-tech it can be, Berman is probably right to suggest that the rarity of effective terrorists, however welcome, is a puzzle.

Lets pursue rational terrorism and the answer is in former Taliban. A single defector can jeopardise a terrorist network, and defections do happen. Sudanese militant Jamal al-Fadl quit al-Qaeda in the mid 1990s and jumped ship to the US, reportedly for huge sums of money. Abu Musab alZarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, died when his safe house was bombed in June 2006 – it has been reported that an associate betrayed him for the $25m bounty on his head.

The higher the stakes, the more tempting it will be for a half-hearted terrorist to defect. Berman argues that radical religious groups are well-equipped to ensure that there is no such thing as a half-hearted terrorist. It is not the theology of such groups – martyrdom, for instance – that makes the difference, but their ability to cut off outside options and create very strong ties between group members. there was not a single thing that we didn't fear not to do without fearing Taliban reprisal, from flying kite to the colour of cloths and even genital hair. Everything was Taliban business. The aim is to reinforce a group identity and make everyone part of the circle.

At the core of Taliban is a set of rules that makes it unattractive for adherents to leave, and attractive for them to stay. If they stay, they enjoy the membership of a group that provides substantial social services to members. If they leave – having been cut off from education, work and isolated from real life – their options will be limited, even if they do run off with a truck full of smuggled goods or a pay-off from the Americans.

Berman's theory is puzzling in some ways. He devotes very little attention to the fact that the violent religious groups he studies – the Taliban, Hamas, Hizbollah and the Mahdi Army – are all Islamic. But the focus on the way some radical religious groups are able to control defection does seem very fruitful. It points to clear solutions, too: give potential terrorists attractive outside options, offer effective social services and try to cut off their sources of funding. Not at all easy, and not altogether new. but, what is?

SMS in Afghan media

SMS text messages are a natural part of local radio stations; SMS messages are inexpensive and easy-to-use and in recent years the mobile phones that are needed for sending and receiving them have become ubiquitous. In most stations SMS use is informal. Only tolo tv and a few other high profile stations make complex use of SMS. These are good examples of experiences of complex uses of SMS by afghan media but this cannot be duplicated in local media without external funding and technical support, even though the financial and technical resources required are minimal.

A local radio station, catering to a district of 50000 people receives on average 150 letters a day. these letters are general in origin and most of them are not being used by the radio station. The point here is, a culture of participation in local radio station already exist. Now the next step is to use technology in order to transfer letters into SMS. Once this takes place there are many other creative ways to build programmes with participatory themes. Technologies such as frontline SMS can be used to segregate incoming text and create programmes with real time polling and etc. As mobile phones become increasingly common, SMS messages are being used by community media in a variety of ways. At its simplest, announcers and journalists announce their phone numbers over the air and invite listeners to send messages with comments on the news, questions, greetings, song requests… Some of these are then used on-air.

Desktop software and web-based services allow stations to do more. However, local radio stations in Afghanistan don't know much about them, even though they offer a low-cost and relatively simple way of stimulating participation and interaction. There are various software and service packages available. Among them is FrontlineSMS, a programme that runs on a computer connected by a cable to an ordinary mobile phone. Unlike most other programs and services, FrontlineSMS does not require a connection to the internet – messages are composed, stored and processed on the computer and sent and received on the mobile. There are a variety of tools available with different capabilities and pricing. Basic services useful for community media include:

1. Broadcast messages to dozens or even thousands of mobiles advising them of a special programme or an important community activity
   
2. Keyword response – when a listener sends the letter "A" the station replies with a text message listing activities while "B" is answered with current headlines and "C" is answered with the weather forcast.
   
3. Encourage the public to take part in content production for instance send news, views and reports.
   

We have just entered into an agreement with three of the largest telcos where they provide us a premium number with toll free feature; this means that stations can generate feedback via mobiles without the listeners having to pay even the cost of SMS message. The cost of the SMS can be a barrier to some; by removing it we can have a larger poll of participation in the radio station.

I am trying to incorporate SMS polling into local radio programming. This feature is particularly useful for getting the public talk about large political issues. The upcoming parliamentary elections represent us with a good opportunity to use SMS feature in local media. We are planning to use SMS to poll listeners on a number of questions. We can do a program around question; the same question will be put to a panel of guests in the studio and to audience to respond via SMS. The questions are designed to provoke debate about democracy rather than to measure public opinion. Examples included: "Have politicians done enough to fight corruption and mismanagement of public resources?", "Do you think special seats should be created for women in parliament?", "Does party politics foster national unity?" and "Do you feel your vote has the power to make a difference?". I think they did the same thing in Kenya; and they had a website where they posted the results. We can do a similar website too; http://mfoa.africanews.com/site/page/sms_campaign

FSMS can also be used to create a network of citizen journalists for a website or radio station. This is particularly useful to do in a place like Kabul where you have a sway of folks interested for instance journalists students; they can get some training which is useful and some hands on journalistic experiences. They can send their news and views via SMS messages. A selection of the messages will be published /aired while others will be redistributed via SMS to community members. It is quite difficult to fit the news into the 160 characters that an SMS message can have, but there are ways to overcome the problem.

Similarly a radio station can use SMS to encourage audiences and the general public to send breaking news. it can also be used for specific campaigns for instance people report police corruption.

 

Karzai: a psycho or an April fool joker

I thought karzai is pulling a Prank yesterday, it was funnier than his usual notes - after all it can be an April fool joke. Then I realized that he was dead serious. This government is a joke if he was not kidding yesterday. I had a bad day yesterday, I had to look for a place for half an hour to park my car and then the guards outside some house called after I parked and left; saying we will crush your windows and tear down your doors. Literally all streets are impounded by someone and blocked. This whole city feels like a psycho house and Karzai just complete the organogram as the head of nutters.

Karzai accused all foreigner of blackmail, fraud, bribery, threat and vast misconduct during presidentially election he singled out Peter Galbraith and the EU mission head Gen Phillippe Morillon of being involved in a plot to put a puppet government in power. He mentioned foreign embassy, MPs and congressmen trying to bribe Mr. Najafi and Lodin to swing votes.

Karzai talked about an organised plot by foreigners to rule Afghanistan. in this conspiracy he added, their military, industry, finance and media play central roles. he added "foreigners tried to bribe IEC staff with money, used threats and their New York times printed hostile article at their order, so they can change the fate of Afghans".

He said 'a foreign embassy called Mr. Najafi with directions… they also said if he fail to follow he will make his way toward his grave.' Then Najafi presented his resignation which karzai refused. The question is: Why are you the president of a country whose highest electoral officials are being threaten, harassed and forced by some embassy. Why did you keep it quiet for four and a half months? As a leader I think you have to do something about it and what are you going to do about it. Leadership comes with the responsibility to be constructive and refrain from cultural urge for whinging. Karzai needs to evaluate presidential election and ensure integrity of parliamentary elections. This is not even close to how this clown thinks. He made absurd claims to sensationalize public opinions and this is a power game. Mr Karzai is currently locked in a power struggle with parliament over his attempt to appoint all the monitors in Afghanistan's election process. Karzai's comments come a day after the Afghan parliament rejected his attempt to have an all-Afghan body monitoring elections.

Karzai's suggestion that foreigners would organise electoral fraud was "absurd"; especially after what he did; mass fraud which is well proven by many sources. It is even more absurd to see karzai stamp on next election being funded by the same foreigners. It was a few weeks ago he asked the UN to provide technical assistance in general area of organization. His regime is incapable of funding, planning and undertaking the election. Why is the international community playing along with this baby? He once again shows how reliable he could be as a ally.

Offsetting Bribery

It has been three weeks since I decided to pay electricity, yet unsuccessful. it took me a week to find out how exactly to pay electricity bill; this is my first time, my bad is telling me that the payment mechanism has improved tremendously. Bribery has changed the culture of state sector but also people in general; people have become less helpful even in comparison with five years ago. On an upside note it is interesting to see how such changes can be deeply rooted over a short period of time. I had to go to the right meter box and then the right power junction and after that to the right electrician for my street, etc. Finding all this in a new neighborhood is hard and traditionally you rely on peoples' good manner and attitude to help you out. But these days people just wouldn't bother much to help out a stranger. They want to see what is their personal benefit in it. Life has become as dull as everyone is so concerned about how they could monetarily benefit from something. Monetary income has also become a determinant of statue. There is the public obsession at different tiers to worry about financial status of others; starting from a brother at family tier to politician at the government tier. People have lost interest in doing things because it is fun, nice or interesting.

Corruption breaks down social fabrics and functioning of the society. I was getting help because there was no recognized reason for them to take money from me; just giving information is not good enough to get bribed. But also I didn't know any of the guy at the power station. Another negative effect of corruption on state sector has been strengthen tribalism. You have to know somebody even to be allowed in the office. It is already a compounded problem – *corrupted tribalism* and it is only getting worst. People bundle up in blood relationships, interest groups, mates, gangs, mafia and etc to suck money out of the society. The believe is, you can only make money if you do it the wrong way and this belief is reinforced by living proofs. People who make money don't usually have good reputation and doing things the right way seem to be reserved predominantly for suckers. The belief is that there is a lot of money around at the hand of people who don't know what to do with it. Which is absolutely true. Now everybody is getting creative to get some of this money. The idea of doing something useful with the money is as strange as questioning God. An old mate who has a big business was telling me people of minister and MP level visits him for a bonus from a large project when he gets one. Bribery is now history and the fashion of the day is extortion. People in power are more creative in corruption than the rest, as usual.

I am now thinking what could be possibly done countermeasure the negative social consequences of bribery. I believe there is nothing wrong with the mania to get rich. However, the glorification of status material such as car, house and money to the extent that nothing is now considered bogus to gain them, is the problem. Changing the way people think about bribery is important in changing perception of corruption. I thought the concept of carbon offsetting can also be altered to bribe offsetting, carbon offsetting is well rehearsed in the west and at its root is also changing populous perception about a social demon.

Bribe offsetting is when individuals take bribe because they are in a position to facilitate, block, delay or hinder a public; they add to national corruption and social evils. bribeoffset offsets bribe takers (and bribe givers) by funding someone else to be clean and NOT take bribe. This neutralises the harm and unfairness that could happen when lower level staff try to extort from the most unfortunate, and leaves the bribe taker (and bribe giver) with a clear conscience.

Can officials offset all their bribery?

First officials should look at ways of reducing their bribery. Once they've done this they can use bribeoffset to offset the remaining, unavoidable bribery.

A bribe offset is a financial instrument aimed at a reduction in administrative corruption and subsequently all the social evil it causes. There are two markets for bribe offsets. In the larger, compliance market, companies, governments, international organisations or other entities buy bribe offsets in order to comply with caps on the total amount of bribe they can allow to happen due to organizational failure to detect. There is also much smaller, voluntary market, individuals purchase bribe offsets to mitigate their own contribution from bribe taking or bribe giving. For example, an individual might purchase bribe offsets to compensate for the bribery action caused by be in a position to take bribe or induced to give bribe. We will also offer companies, government, international organization and other entities with the option to offset bribery as an up-sell during the work process so that employees, clients and other stakeholders can mitigate the bribery related with their work or service (such as offsetting bribery related to a car taxation, electricity bill, police checkpoint, employment etc.) for example an international organization contracted by USAID to build 40 hospitals up-sell 40 bribe offsetting certificate related to 40 hospitals. The organization then reduces a small sum from all staff salary to finance upsell bribe certificate. Alternatively the organization can charge a premium to Afghan subcontractors who receive the contract to do the field work.

Offset is achieved through financial support of projects that reduce bribe taking. Officials and staff who are in a position to take bribe but think they can resist will be sponsor by a bribe offset.

The idea is based on carbon offsetting that is a well rehearsed approached and that has gained some appeal and momentum among the public who have become aware and concerned about the potentially negative environmental effects of energy-intensive lifestyles and economies. The Kyoto Protocol has sanctioned offsets as a way for governments and private companies to earn carbon credits which can be traded on a marketplace. The protocol established the clean development mechanism (CDM), which validates and measures projects to ensure they produce authentic benefits and are genuinely "additional" activities that would not otherwise have been undertaken. Organizations that are unable to meet their emissions quota can offset their emissions by buying CDM-approved Certified Emissions Reductions. However, some critics object to carbon offsets, and question the benefits of certain types of offsets. Offsets are viewed as an important policy tool to maintain stable economies. One of the hidden dangers of climate change policy is unequal prices of carbon in the economy, which can cause economic collateral damage if production flows to regions or industries that have a lower price of carbon - unless carbon can be purchased from that area, which offsets effectively permit, equalizing the price.

Bribe offsetting may be more feasible and convenient alternatives to reducing one's own bribery affect.

The key problem for the approach is openness. Bribe giver offsetting certificate is more important than the takers. How can we get them to sign up. Any thoughts?

Here are some:

The rational is openness should start with high ranking officials to set open precedence.

Getting as much as possible evidence on dealings, asset and property prior to sign up high ranking official can be useful.

There has got to be some way to deal with the officials who hide corruption for instance they can remain anonymous.

In addition to bribe takers bribe giver can also offset.

We find match for bribe offset projects. The certificate holder can choose person in which sector should receive the money, police, judge. etc.

more random thoughts on cellphone project

Last couple of months I have been working on using cellphone in media and business communication. Most of the people I put the idea to is going, "but is this going to work in Afghanistan?" which basically means I don't like what you are saying but I find no way to hand you a bunch of better refutations. I have met with senior staff in charge of private sector support initiatives and they are so clueless about their job that they can't offer anything substantiating and constructive.

However, market uncertainty is a valid concern; so far in building Afghanistan and its private sector the players had dodged it. Aid agencies and NGOs just like to give goats or dig wells or drainage for Afghans. You think more than cattle as an afghan and your sanity is questioned. They look at you as though you suffer concussion; I spent half an hour the other day to practice turning my saliva into foam. Not doing good yet but I don't think I need it if I could get people to take the project seriously.  I think one way I could do that is to do a market assessment. Nonetheless, I have a big concern, I am all for doing market assessment for a new brand of tea but when you are combining two sectors, i.e. market connection and cellphone then using classic market assessment methodology will not prove a thing and wrongly disprove ideas such as iBazar (I mentioned it in my previous post). Moreover, the perceived level of complexity required by iBazar sellers and buyers might also foster unfavorable response. iBazar do present new market channels but the response to such a new phenomena in business especially when it is brought by technology is negative. Six years ago when I was telling people to do radio they were mocking me. Not even a handful of Afghans believed it will work. They could never believe that radio could be done without gigantic infrastructure or content could be produced without president decree or advertisement could bring revenue or … etc.

In the process of pitching cellphone related project ideas some aspects of Afghanhood seem sharper than ever before; and how it is niggling into the newly created business cramp. We are brought up to be conformative to the social and individual regime imposed on us but at the same time we are dreadfully egoistic. The roots for the problem can be traced to our early childhood. Most fathers ignore, disrespect and beat their children from the age of only a few months old and then their mothers console them. Children grow to be suppressed on the one hand but overcomforted on the other by their own mothers. Mothers tightly grip to children because they have no man to show affection, husbands pay no heed to their feelings.

Most Afghans do not have an in-depth understanding of their surrounding but comprehend from a single dimension. They are not fun because they cannot get to change perspective and look from different perspectives because they fanatically cling to certain values of their existing paradigm. The egoist and conformative individual understand and perceive the world from his perspective. The past is about what he did and how he did it. The present is what he thinks. He gives monologues; shows little willingness to hear and evaluate new ideas; communication is confrontational. Things are changing in the last few years people get to learn the social skills to communicate with others easier and they develop curiosity or copy cut curiosity to make their character more attractive. They shine better and function more successfully but at the end their understanding of the issues change little to the initial doctrines inserted by the society. Below the surface of communication and social interaction they remain the same people. In the business world they are easier to deal with but you cannot put a lot of trust in them because they are no better than the ME, ME, ME guy. They are slicker and can pretend better which are phony qualities added to the initial ignorance. But there is something very important to know about socially easy conformists who don't act and function like the rest of their compatriots. There are actually people who have understanding of the realities or are sincere and truthful in their views and self recognition.