I agree - there should be more posts here on the war preparations, alternative views etc

The only place I've found info about resistance to the warprep is here. I'd like more info, more info to use/post on other IMCs.

If one should believe the mainstream media, everyone in pakistan and india are longing for war. That's not true!

Antiwar activists in India and Pakistan: help us spread the word about the resistance to war and violence

Peace

iago from Norway

> Why arent more people writing in ? Why arent the headlines
> being updated by the hour ?

Indymedia is a volunteer collective. You want hourly news
reports? Well, nothing is stopping you from spending twelve
months in India, learning about the local culture, local
activists, and local internet possibilities, and providing
your labour, knowledge and maybe a bit of converted hard
currency to help out the South Asians.

It takes time and effort to build up Indymedia. In the
immediate urgent situation, what you *could* do
electronically is to browse through the many, many existing
South Asian electronic resources (look through the archives
of this site and you'll find many, many, many good sites), and
cut and paste and cross-link "independent" articles which
otherwise would be hard to find. Use your judgment.

> Antiwar activists in India and Pakistan: help us spread the
> word about the resistance to war and violence

Here is one example of what anti-war activists did during
the last flare-up of the conflict:

 http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/Kargil/Kargilindex.html

Feel free to volunteer some effort in contacting people and
asking them if you can help them to prepare a new site (if
you are willing and able to help), or telling them why you
think it would be useful for the efficiency of their
actions for them to file news reports on the existing site!

Or you could join the "South Asians for Peace" mailing list
and repost public information to Indymedia:

 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sap/

so if the guy wants reports, all he has to do is go all the way to india (for a year) and donate his 'hard currency'. !!!
ok, tell me its a sarcastic joke. volunteers you may be, but if you undertake a project like this one, be prepared to do it properly. take a look at IMC ISRAEL for a quick guide on how to do it .

an afterthought on the hard currency bit. surely the whole dilemma of the third world crisis is precisely that they're depending on western hard currency via WB, and IMF ???

> so if the guy wants reports, all he has to do is go all
> the way to india (for a year) and donate his 'hard
> currency'. !!!

Please read again. You seem to have missed the first bit:

"learning about the local culture, local activists, and
local internet possibilities, and providing your labour,
knowledge and maybe"

Note the word "maybe".

Nothing about 'hard currency' being *all* that is needed.
It's just a one-off option to be considered.

> ok, tell me its a sarcastic joke. volunteers you may be,
> but if you undertake a project like this one, be
> prepared to do it properly. take a look at IMC ISRAEL
> for a quick guide on how to do it .

The choice of what methods of activism - and media
activism - should be used in South Asia are ultimately for
South Asians to decide. The fact is that South Asians
*are* extremely active, but are still in the beginning
stages of learning about Indymedia technology. There are
many activists and many internet users, but the
intersection is small, and it's taking time to build up.

It is also an undeniable fact that the ratio of computer
costs to median salary in India is much, much higher than
in Israel.

If you want South Asians to speed up in developing
Indymedia, it *might* (stress "might") be useful to
provide some converted hard currency for initial start
up costs. But better still, as I said above, anyone using
words like "disappointing" and "neglected" ought to be
willing to come over and learn how to be supportive rather
than making unconstructive criticisms.

> an afterthought on the hard currency bit. surely the whole
> dilemma of the third world crisis is precisely that
> they're depending on western hard currency via WB, and IMF
> ???

I'm definitely not advocating creating any dependence on a
western cash flow. Normal "aid" money gets about a 500%
return (vague recollection of Chomsky's figures). But a
bit of once-off 0% return "investment" couldn't hurt,
particularly in the context of a trust relationship built
up over 12 months, focussed on a high-technology activity.
This is nothing to do with WB/IMF style
relationships, which are based on blackmail, etc.

I am given to understand that Der Neues Reichs Minister Tony Blair will be heading to both Karachi and Dehli on a diplomatic mission. Perhaps youll be covering it ?