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Monday, 21 February 2011
African Head Charge album to kick of On-U Sound anniversary year
Formed in the early 80’s by On-U head honcho Adrian Sherwood and percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah, African Head Charge have established a unique reputation over the years for producing exceptionally beautiful and deeply strange music.
This is their first release since 2005’s Visions of a Psychedelic Africa and sees Bonjo once again joining forces with long time On-U stable-mates Skip McDonald, Crocodile and the Crispy Horns together with contributions from legendary bassist George Oban, Dancehall pioneer Jazzwad and electronic wizard Adamski. All the elements of a classic Head Charge album; a triumphant mix of dub, psychedelia, trance, afro and tribal rhythms that have given them their own unique place in contemporary music.
Voodoo of the Godsent will be followed in April by the re-release of 3 seminal On-U Sound albums: Creation Rebel’s “Starship Africa”, African Head Charge’s “Off the Beaten Track” and The New Age Steppers’ eponymous first album that was the first ever LP release on the On-U Sound label.
@'Adrian Sherwood'
PREVIEW
Egypt revolt becomes global case study
It seems naive to hope the fallout from cataclysmic events in the Middle East and North Africa can spill beyond the region and stir distant, repressed populations with no cultural or historical affinity. Yet successful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia have captivated dissidents and activists around the world who have campaigned in vain for radical change, in some cases for decades.
This week, South Korean activists even hoisted helium balloons into the air and watched them drift into North Korea with a message attached: discard your leaders, just as the Egyptians did.
"The Egyptian people rose up in a revolution to topple a 30-year dictatorship," said one of the leaflets coasting over the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.
"The North Koreans too must revolt against a 60-year-old dictatorship." The strain of poverty and inefficient government in North Korea, which has been targeted by international sanctions, matches or exceeds that of Arab autocracies currently buffeted by street protests. Its human rights record, along with those of Myanmar and Zimbabwe, is routinely condemned in international forums.
But there are no clear signs that these countries will face the same kind of upheaval sweeping Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere.
"Everything depends on local conditions," said Charles Ries, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based RAND Corp. who recently oversaw economic issues while stationed at the American Embassy in Baghdad.
North Korea, after all, has a cult-like leadership rooted in its World War II-era separation from the south; Myanmar brutally stamped out revolts in 1988 and 2007; and Zimbabwe has a shaky coalition government and plans elections later this year.
Dissidents and authoritarian governments on other continents are undoubtedly reviewing the playbook of their counterparts in the Middle East _ social media networking for the protesters, and hasty reform pledges and thugs in civilian clothes for the leaders. Unrest even spread to Djibouti, a city-state across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, where protesters reportedly clashed with security forces on Friday.
Fear of bloody retaliation, sharp curbs on information, tactical decisions to avoid a showdown and the lack of a trigger _ severe food shortages or a fuel price hike, for example _ are deterrents to popular revolt in repressive systems.
Protesters in Egypt and the region used Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to organize, and benefited from pan-Arab media outlets such as Al-Jazeera television that spread word of the uprisings.
But there is no sign of an organized opposition in North Korea, where most people do not have access to outside TV and radio, or the Internet. The leadership had long-standing ties to ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. On Jan. 23, two days before protests broke out in Egypt, ruler Kim Jong Il, who rarely meets foreigners, hosted the head of Cairo-based Orascom Telecom, which built a 3G telephone service network in North Korea.
Dissidents in military-ruled Myanmar, also known as Burma, want to know more about what happened in Egypt despite a state media blackout.
"Everyone is trying to find out information and is interested," said Mark Farmaner of the Burma Campaign UK, which is based in London. Dissidents are "talking about whether they can learn anything from this, and what examples there are," he said.
However, Farmaner said there no signs that anti-government groups want to try a revolt similar to the 18-day uprising in Egypt, where a military council took power and promised to oversee a democratic transition. The military sided with protesters in pushing out Mubarak.
In Myanmar, "the army has always been prepared to shoot when it's ordered to," Farmaner said. "There's no separation of president and military in any way." Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has called for dialogue with Myanmar's leaders, reflecting concern that a popular upheaval that could end in bloodshed.
"We are interested in the parallels in Egypt and the parallels with Burma but the institutions are not exactly the same. I think protests are one way of bringing about change but not necessarily the best way," she told the BBC in early February, before Mubarak was ousted.
There are plenty of precedents for politically potent ideas taking flight across continents. Ries, the former U.S. diplomat, said European thinkers provided some intellectual backbone for the American Revolution, which did the same for the French Revolution, which in turn inspired Haitian slaves in their revolt against French colonizers, all in the space of a few decades in the late 18th century.
"You look at other places where there are huge numbers of people who have little to lose by banding together and applying these new techniques," Ries said of today's uprisings. "It also exposes, in a sense, the impotence of repression against huge numbers." Some Arab countries, however, have not yielded to protests, responding instead with deadly force. Prof. Hurst Hannum, an international law expert at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, cautioned against predictions of a worldwide "outbreak of 'democracy."' In an e-mail, he recalled the "rather premature" thesis of Francis Fukuyama, a U.S. academic whose 1992 book, "The End of History and the Last Man," declared that Western-style democracy would prevail over other systems in the wake of communism's fall.
On Feb. 3, state-run radio in Zimbabwe accused Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a former opposition leader, of trying to spark anti-government uprisings similar to those in Tunisia and Egypt. Tsvangirai said before he joined the governing coalition that he would not lead his followers into danger and that he stood for peaceful change.
State radio is controlled by loyalists of President Robert Mugabe, who has been in power for three decades.
Political scientist John Makumbe wrote an essay titled "Is Egypt possible in Zimbabwe?" in which he speculated that the military would crack down on any revolt, but he drew inspiration from the uprisings to the north.
"Thank you, Tunisia and Egypt, for making us realize what is possible with people power," he wrote on the website of Nehanda Radio, an independent station.
The North Korean system, which survived a famine in the 1990s, has long defied predictions of collapse. Kim Jong Il, who inherited power from his father, has tightened his grip with perks for the military and a propaganda machine that seeks to rouse national pride by demonizing declared enemies.
North Korean state media have not reported events in Egypt, and it is doubtful that the leaflets of the South Korean activists, who also send short-wave radio broadcasts to the north, will reach or convince many people. But they draw a clear dynastic parallel _ some images show Mubarak and his son, Gamal, once thought to be his successor, and Kim Jong Il and his third son and heir, Kim Jong Un.
Paik Hak-soon, an analyst at the Sejong Institute research center near Seoul, speculated that top government and trade leaders in North Korea were "definitely aware" of what is happening in Egypt. But a similar uprising is unlikely, he said.
"There are so many differences in terms of ideology, in terms of power structure, in terms of domestic and external relationships," Paik said. "North Korea is basically an isolated, socialist regime, protected by a most reliable and most supportive big power, China." China itself portrayed the protests as the kind of chaos that comes with Western-style democracy, underscoring how wary it is of any potential source of unrest that might threaten its power. As Mubarak's hold slipped, Chinese censors blocked the ability to search the term "Egypt" on microblogging sites, and user comments that drew parallels to China were deleted from Internet forums.
In Myanmar, many people with access to satellite dishes followed the historic events in Egypt, quietly wishing for the same thing.
"Tears welled in my eyes when I watched the Egyptians, overjoyed after Mubarak left. I want to tell them that your fight has paid off but we don't know where our future lies," said a 53-year-old private tutor in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city. The tutor spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the authorities.
@'ahramonline'
This week, South Korean activists even hoisted helium balloons into the air and watched them drift into North Korea with a message attached: discard your leaders, just as the Egyptians did.
"The Egyptian people rose up in a revolution to topple a 30-year dictatorship," said one of the leaflets coasting over the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.
"The North Koreans too must revolt against a 60-year-old dictatorship." The strain of poverty and inefficient government in North Korea, which has been targeted by international sanctions, matches or exceeds that of Arab autocracies currently buffeted by street protests. Its human rights record, along with those of Myanmar and Zimbabwe, is routinely condemned in international forums.
But there are no clear signs that these countries will face the same kind of upheaval sweeping Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere.
"Everything depends on local conditions," said Charles Ries, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based RAND Corp. who recently oversaw economic issues while stationed at the American Embassy in Baghdad.
North Korea, after all, has a cult-like leadership rooted in its World War II-era separation from the south; Myanmar brutally stamped out revolts in 1988 and 2007; and Zimbabwe has a shaky coalition government and plans elections later this year.
Dissidents and authoritarian governments on other continents are undoubtedly reviewing the playbook of their counterparts in the Middle East _ social media networking for the protesters, and hasty reform pledges and thugs in civilian clothes for the leaders. Unrest even spread to Djibouti, a city-state across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, where protesters reportedly clashed with security forces on Friday.
Fear of bloody retaliation, sharp curbs on information, tactical decisions to avoid a showdown and the lack of a trigger _ severe food shortages or a fuel price hike, for example _ are deterrents to popular revolt in repressive systems.
Protesters in Egypt and the region used Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to organize, and benefited from pan-Arab media outlets such as Al-Jazeera television that spread word of the uprisings.
But there is no sign of an organized opposition in North Korea, where most people do not have access to outside TV and radio, or the Internet. The leadership had long-standing ties to ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. On Jan. 23, two days before protests broke out in Egypt, ruler Kim Jong Il, who rarely meets foreigners, hosted the head of Cairo-based Orascom Telecom, which built a 3G telephone service network in North Korea.
Dissidents in military-ruled Myanmar, also known as Burma, want to know more about what happened in Egypt despite a state media blackout.
"Everyone is trying to find out information and is interested," said Mark Farmaner of the Burma Campaign UK, which is based in London. Dissidents are "talking about whether they can learn anything from this, and what examples there are," he said.
However, Farmaner said there no signs that anti-government groups want to try a revolt similar to the 18-day uprising in Egypt, where a military council took power and promised to oversee a democratic transition. The military sided with protesters in pushing out Mubarak.
In Myanmar, "the army has always been prepared to shoot when it's ordered to," Farmaner said. "There's no separation of president and military in any way." Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has called for dialogue with Myanmar's leaders, reflecting concern that a popular upheaval that could end in bloodshed.
"We are interested in the parallels in Egypt and the parallels with Burma but the institutions are not exactly the same. I think protests are one way of bringing about change but not necessarily the best way," she told the BBC in early February, before Mubarak was ousted.
There are plenty of precedents for politically potent ideas taking flight across continents. Ries, the former U.S. diplomat, said European thinkers provided some intellectual backbone for the American Revolution, which did the same for the French Revolution, which in turn inspired Haitian slaves in their revolt against French colonizers, all in the space of a few decades in the late 18th century.
"You look at other places where there are huge numbers of people who have little to lose by banding together and applying these new techniques," Ries said of today's uprisings. "It also exposes, in a sense, the impotence of repression against huge numbers." Some Arab countries, however, have not yielded to protests, responding instead with deadly force. Prof. Hurst Hannum, an international law expert at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, cautioned against predictions of a worldwide "outbreak of 'democracy."' In an e-mail, he recalled the "rather premature" thesis of Francis Fukuyama, a U.S. academic whose 1992 book, "The End of History and the Last Man," declared that Western-style democracy would prevail over other systems in the wake of communism's fall.
On Feb. 3, state-run radio in Zimbabwe accused Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a former opposition leader, of trying to spark anti-government uprisings similar to those in Tunisia and Egypt. Tsvangirai said before he joined the governing coalition that he would not lead his followers into danger and that he stood for peaceful change.
State radio is controlled by loyalists of President Robert Mugabe, who has been in power for three decades.
Political scientist John Makumbe wrote an essay titled "Is Egypt possible in Zimbabwe?" in which he speculated that the military would crack down on any revolt, but he drew inspiration from the uprisings to the north.
"Thank you, Tunisia and Egypt, for making us realize what is possible with people power," he wrote on the website of Nehanda Radio, an independent station.
The North Korean system, which survived a famine in the 1990s, has long defied predictions of collapse. Kim Jong Il, who inherited power from his father, has tightened his grip with perks for the military and a propaganda machine that seeks to rouse national pride by demonizing declared enemies.
North Korean state media have not reported events in Egypt, and it is doubtful that the leaflets of the South Korean activists, who also send short-wave radio broadcasts to the north, will reach or convince many people. But they draw a clear dynastic parallel _ some images show Mubarak and his son, Gamal, once thought to be his successor, and Kim Jong Il and his third son and heir, Kim Jong Un.
Paik Hak-soon, an analyst at the Sejong Institute research center near Seoul, speculated that top government and trade leaders in North Korea were "definitely aware" of what is happening in Egypt. But a similar uprising is unlikely, he said.
"There are so many differences in terms of ideology, in terms of power structure, in terms of domestic and external relationships," Paik said. "North Korea is basically an isolated, socialist regime, protected by a most reliable and most supportive big power, China." China itself portrayed the protests as the kind of chaos that comes with Western-style democracy, underscoring how wary it is of any potential source of unrest that might threaten its power. As Mubarak's hold slipped, Chinese censors blocked the ability to search the term "Egypt" on microblogging sites, and user comments that drew parallels to China were deleted from Internet forums.
In Myanmar, many people with access to satellite dishes followed the historic events in Egypt, quietly wishing for the same thing.
"Tears welled in my eyes when I watched the Egyptians, overjoyed after Mubarak left. I want to tell them that your fight has paid off but we don't know where our future lies," said a 53-year-old private tutor in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city. The tutor spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the authorities.
@'ahramonline'
Govt. failures contributed to rise of neo-paramilitaries: Wikileaks
In November 2006, Sergio Caramagna, the director of the OAS Mission to Support the Peace Process (MAPP/OEA), visited Colombia and successfully identified 14 neo-paramilitary organizations with a possible eight more. These groups he said consisted largely of narcotraffickers and paramilitaries who had refused to demobilize despite benefits offered by the government. However, there was also a small percentage of criminals who had previously demobilized.
While this number wasn't high, Caramagna asserted that it would grow if the government failed to increase the breadth of the JPL to include incentive structures for former mid-level leaders of the AUC, not just its most prominent members. These mid-level commanders are now leading neo-paramilitary groups like "Los Urabeños," "Los Paisas," the "Oficina de Envigado" and ERPAC.
Additionally, the government, despite it's willingness, wasn't doing enough to combat these new groups according to Caramagna. Peace Commisioner Carlos Restrepo seconded this, adding that the police force weren't provided with the adequate resources to mitigate the rise of the neo-paramilitaries.
In another cable dated October 24, 2006, significant elements of the JPL - a law which the then interior minister described in another cable as being "difficult to understand, even for Colombians," - were shown to be deeply flawed, the most prominent being the reintegration efforts.
In the cable, Reintegration Commissioner Frank Pearl cites coordination and implementation problems within government due to divided and overlapping responsibilities
Furthermore, Pearl added that financial resources for reintegration were distributed poorly with 80% being spent on monthly stipends and administration. This left an insufficient amount for the actual rehabilitation of the ex-paramilitaries.
Based on these facts, Under Secretary Burns urged better action and communication from the Colombian government with the U.S., acknowledging the disastrous implications if the newly demobilized failed to reintegrate ino society and returned to crime.
These fears materialised the following month with Caramanga's findings.
On Thursday, another Wikileaks cable revealed that in 2004, former President Alvaro Uribe predicted the rise of neo-paramilitary organizations from the ashes of the AUC.
However, this speculation negated the factor of his own government's failures within the JPL to successfully rehabilitate former AUC members.
Since 2006, neo-paramilitary groups have posed an ongoing challenge to Colombia's security forces. Political supporters of Uribe blame current Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera for the violence, while the Liberal Party -- an opposition party during the two Uribe terms -- blames the violence on the past administration.
Colombia's justice and interior minister admitted Monday that the illegal armed groups now have increased control over large areas of the countryside and within dozens of cities and threaten to influence October's local elections.
@'Colombia Reports'
Tripolitanian Libyan
Full text of Saif Gaddafi's speech, as Transcribed and tweeted live by @SultanAlQassemi with screenshots from AlJazeera.
I saw that I had to speak to you. Many Libyans asked me to speak. I don't have a paper or a document to read from.I will not speak in classical Arabic, I will speak in Libyan, I don't have any papers, this is a talk from the heart & mind. We all know that the region is passing through an earthquake, a hurricane or change. If this change does not come from the govts it will come from the people, we have seen this in other Arab countries. Today I will tell you only truth only. We know that there are opposition figures living abroad who have support in Libya. There people try to use Facebook for a revolution to copy Egypt. These people want to bring Libya to what happened in Egypt & Tunisia. We saw this on facebook and on emails. The country did a pre-emptive move by arresting some people before the protests, shots were fired, people died. The anger was directed at the police in Benghazi. People wanted to storm the police stations, people died, funerals occurred. This is a summary of what happened in Bengazi, now there is a major Fitna and a threat to the unity of Libya. Of course there were many deaths, which angered many people in Benghazi, but why were there people killed? The army was under stress, it is not used to crowd control so they shot, but I called them. The army said that some protesters were drunk, others were on hallucinogens or drugs. The army has to defend its weapons. And the people were angry. So there were deaths, but in the end Libyans were killed.
There are thee parts behind this
1- Political Activists whom we agree with,
2- What happened in Bayda are Islamic elements. Bayda is my town, my mother is from there. People called me. They stole weapons and killed soldiers. They want to establish an Islamic Emirate in Bayda. Some people took drugs & were used by these protesters.
3. The third part are these children who took the drugs and were used. These are facts like it or not.
We have arrested tens of Arabs and Africans, poor people, millions were spent on them to use them by millionaire businessmen. There are people who want to establish a countries in parts of Libya to rule, Like the Islamic Emirate. One person said he is the Emir of Islamic Emirate of Darna. The Arabic Media is manipulating these events. This Arabic media is owned by Arabs who are distorting the facts but also our media failed to cover the events.
Then there are the Baltagiya who destroyed public property, they fled jails. There are our brothers who sit and drink coffee and watch TV and laugh at us when they see us burn our country.
t is no lie that the protesters are in control of the streets now. Libya is not Tunis or Egypt. Libya is different, if there was disturbance it will split to several states. It was three states before 60 years. Libya are Tribes not like Egypt. There are no political parties, it is made of tribes. Everyone knows each other. We will have a civil war like in 1936. American Oil Companies played a big part in unifying Libya. Who will manage this oil? How will we divide this oil amongst us? Who will spend on our hospitals? All this oil will be burnt by the Baltagiya (Thugs) they will burn it. There are no people there. 3/4s of our people live in the East in Benghazi, there is no oil there, who will spend on them? Your children will not go to schools or universities. There will be chaos, we will have to leave Libya if we can't share oil. Everyone wants to become a Sheikh and an Emir, we are not Egypt or Tunisia so we are in front of a major challenge.
We all now have arms. At this time drunks are driving tanks in central Benghazi. So we all now have weapons. The powers who want to destroy Libya have weapons. There will be a war & no future. All the firms will leave, we have 500 housing units being built, they won't be completed. Remember my words. 200 billion dollars of projects are now underway, they won't be finished.
You can say we want democracy & rights, we can talk about it, we should have talked about it before. It's this or war. Instead of crying over 200 deaths we will cry over 100,000s of deaths. You will all leave Libya, there will be nothing here. There will be no bread in Libya, it will be more expensive than gold.
Before we let weapons come between us, from tomorrow, in 48 hours, we will call or a new conference for new laws. We will call for new media laws, civil rights, lift the stupid punishments, we will have a constitution. Even the LEader Gaddafi said he wants a constitution. We can even have autonomous rule, with limited central govt powers. Brothers there are 200 billion dollars of projects at stake now. We will agree to all these issues immediately. We will then be able to keep our country, unlike our neighbors. We will do that without the problems of Egypt & Tunisia who are now suffering. There is no tourism there. We will have a new Libya, new flag, new anthem. Or else, be ready to start a civil war and chaos and forget oil and petrol.
What is happening in Bayda and Benghazi is very sad. How do you who live in Benghazi, will you visit Tripoli with a visa? The country will be divided like North and South Korea we will see each other through a fence. You will wait in line for months for a visa. If we don't do the first scenario be ready for the second scenario:
The British FM called me. Be ready for a new colonial period from American and Britain. ou think they will accept an Islamic Emirate here, 30 minutes from Crete? The West will come and occupy you. Europe & the West will not agree to chaos in Libya, to export chaos and drugs so they will occupy us.
In any case, I have spoken to you, we uncovered cells from Egypt and Tunisia and Arabs. The Libyans who live in Europe and USA, their children go to school and they want you to fight. They are comfortable. They then want to come and rule us and Libya. They want us to kill each other then come, like in Iraq. The Tunisians and Egyptians who are here also have weapons, they want to divide Libya and take over the country.
We are in front of two choices, we can reform now, this is an historic moment, without it there will be nothing for decades. You will see worse than Yugoslavia if we don't choose the first option. Gaddafi is not Mubarak or Ben Ali, a classical ruler, he is a leader of a people. 10,000s of Libyans are coming to defend him. Over coastline Libyans are coming to support Gaddafi. The army is also there, it will play a big part whatever the cost. The army will play a big role, it is not the army of Tunisia or Egypt. It will support Gaddafi to the last minute. Now in the Green Square people shoot so that they show the world that the army is shooting. We must be awake.
Now comes the role of the National Guard and the Army, we will not lose one inch of this land. 60 years ago they defended Libya from the colonialists, now they will defend it from drug addicts. Most of he Libyans are intelligent, they are not Baltagiya (thugs) Benghazi is a million and a half not the few thousands who are in the streets. We will flight to the last man and woman and bullet. We will not lose Libya. We will not let Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and BBC trick us.
We will live in Libya and die in Libya. (Ends)
BIG thanx @exiledsurfer!
themoornextdoor Kal
They cannot say: "These are bread riots, Twitter & Facebook revolutions"; as the Libyans show us: these are real, human uprisings.
Australian radio’s lowest hour
Here’s an audio track of 2GB’s Chris Smith last week on the eve of the asylum seeker funerals. I’ve never heard anything quite like it. In a word: disgusting.
Via
Shock jock Chris Smith slammed over asylum death quiz
UNFUGNBELIEVABLE!!!
Via
Shock jock Chris Smith slammed over asylum death quiz
UNFUGNBELIEVABLE!!!
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Under the U.S. Supreme Court: Using Twitter to build WikiLeaks case
As the United States tries to build its case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, prosecutors are seeking Twitter messages sent by supposed WikiLeaks supporters -- and possibly message information from Facebook, Skype and Google. At stake in the legal fight -- beyond placing criminal responsibility for thousands of classified U.S. documents being posted on the Internet -- is how much privacy Twitter and other social network users can expect or whether such messages are considered private at all.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation went to court in Alexandria, Va., last week to try to stop the government's acquisition of the Twitter messages.
An Assange lawyer said earlier an array of social networks, not just Twitter, was being mined by the government for information.
Ironically, the Alexandria hearing occurred on the same day President Barack Obama was publicly telling autocratic governments: "The world is changing … with a young, vibrant generation within the Middle East that is looking for greater opportunities. If you're governing these countries, you've got to get ahead of change; you can't get behind the curve."
Twitter and other forms of Internet social networking are given credit both for generating protests and keeping protesters in touch with each other. In Egypt and Tunisia, it led to regime change. Demonstrations inn Iran, Yemen, Bahrain and elsewhere are continuing.
On the same day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was giving a speech advocating the freedom of the Internet. She told a crowd at The George Washington University in Washington: "Egypt isn't inspiring people because they communicated using Twitter. It is inspiring because people came together and persisted in demanding a better future. Iran isn't awful because the authorities used Facebook to shadow and capture members of the opposition. Iran is awful because it is a government that routinely violates the rights of its people."...
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The girl who loves to levitate
Natsumi Hayashi
Via
China police break up 'protests' after online appeal
Police in China showed up in force in several major cities after an online call for a "jasmine revolution".
Calls for people to protest and shout "we want food, we want work, we want housing, we want fairness", were circulated on Chinese microblog sites.The message was first posted on a US-based Chinese-language website.
Several rights activists were detained beforehand and three people were arrested in Shanghai, but the call for mass protests was not well answered.
Reports from Shanghai and Beijing said there appeared to be many onlookers curious about the presence of so many police and journalists at the proposed protest sites, in busy city-centre shopping areas.
Police in the two cities dispersed small crowds who had gathered. There were no reports of protests in 11 other cities where people were urged to gather on Sunday.
The BBC's Chris Hogg in Shanghai says the men arrested there were roughly handled as they were dragged away shouting "why are you arresting me, I haven't done anything wrong".
Our correspondent says it was not clear what prompted the arrests and the men had not shouted any political slogans.
China's authorities blocked searches for the word jasmine on the internet.
Protesters in Tunisia who overthrew President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January called their movement the Jasmine Revolution.
On Saturday President Hu Jintao called for stricter controls on the internet "to guide public opinion" and "solve prominent problems which might harm the harmony and stability of the society".
@'BBC'
Middle East protests: Is it time for the west to come clean?
There are the people versus the regime; Islamists versus the secular; and autocratic, corrupt rulers pitted against a popular desire for democracy, human rights and economic inclusion. All of which contains some truths, but it remains a partial picture.
In our desire to create a joined-up narrative out of the unrest, from Yemen to Iraq and Bahrain, we have ignored the specifics. In the rush of politicians such as Hillary Clinton to support the new wave of "freedom", western governments seem to be replicating the same errors they made during the "colour" revolutions, mistaking the act of revolt for the outcome of a long period of revolution, and accepting the incomplete in the name of "stability".
For, like Tolstoy's unhappy families, each of the autocracies now embroiled in popular uprisings is autocratic in its own way. What can be said about the events in Tunisia is as inapplicable to Egypt as it is to Bahrain or Yemen.
In truth, there are some broad common strands: each country has a young population with a significant, well-educated segment and many people looking for work. In each, power has been monopolised by a small elite, either drawn from a royal family or from a figure backed by the military and business and the west. Corruption is often rife; a culture of repression is vigorous and deeply ingrained.
But that tends to be where the similarities end. Take, for instance, comparisons between Egypt and Bahrain. The former is a huge state with a massive urban hinterland centring on Cairo, one of the planet's megacities. Its recent history includes a "revolution" in 1952 that was in reality a coup. Its social conflicts have been defined by the notion of the threat – in substantial part manufactured by the old regime – of the Muslim Brotherhood and a corrupt system of patronage overseen by the military and the associated National Democratic Party which have enjoyed a monopoly on power and economic opportunity.
Bahrain, for all of the similarity of some of the chants at the Pearl roundabout – and the violence used in the attempts to break the protest movement – has a social conflict very differently defined. It has been underpinned by a long-festering sectarian conflict in a Shia-majority country where a Sunni royal family has ruled since the 18th century.
Preferment for jobs, including the military and police, has not been through party patronage but through sect, resulting in a situation where the capital is largely Sunni and the far poorer countryside is Shia. Which leaves a profound challenge for the west, whose interventions in the region have historically tended to support exactly those autocrats whose power is now being challenged, while promoting neo-liberal economic policies that have enriched the minority elites while making daily life more difficult for many in the region.
It is not good enough to talk, as Clinton, Barack Obama, William Hague and others have done, in feeble generalities about "stability", "freedom" and "restraint" in a networked world where the weakness and slowness of expression of those sentiments is so rapidly exposed.
If western diplomacy – and media commentary – has a function in these times, it should be to expose and focus on the precise dynamics of the awful inequalities in these societies and the routine violence and oppression that sustains them.
If the west has a contribution to make, it is in an honest and accurate audit of the nature of the states our governments have for so long been supporting, not prevarication. To describe reality, not vague ideals, and in describing it, reboot the policies that have for so long supported repression and corruption.
Peter Beaumont @'The Guardian'
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